Tag: palestine

Under the slogan ‘Gaza is Ours, Forever’, a large number of Israeli extremists and right-wing politicians met in the settlement of Be’eri, near the Gaza border region, on October 20-21.

The group represented the who’s who in the Israeli right, far right and ultranationalists. They included Israeli Ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir, May Golan and Bezalel Smotrich, as well as ten MKs of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.

The event, entitled “Preparing to Resettle Gaza”, was organized by one of Israel’s most extreme settler movements, Nachala, led by the notorious Daniella Weiss.

To appreciate how extremist this 79-year-old settler is, consider this: on June 27, the Canadian government, though one of the most stalwart supporters of Netanyahu and his wars, imposed sanctions on her, due to her “role in facilitating (…) acts of violence by Israeli extremist settlers against Palestinian civilians.”

The hate-filled conference, however, was but a culmination of a year-long effort to build a case of why Israel should ethnically cleanse Palestinians in the Strip and re-establish illegal settlements.

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A United Nations report, published on Monday, lays out in chilling detail the advances made by Israel in Gaza as it seeks to eradicate “the very existence of the Palestinian people in Palestine.” This genocidal project, the report ominously warns, “is now metastasizing to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.” 

The Nakba or “catastrophe,” which in 1948 saw Zionist militias drive 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, carry out more than 70 massacres and seize 78 percent of historic Palestine, has returned on steroids. It is the next and, perhaps, final chapter in “a long-term intentional, systematic, State-organized forced displacement and replacement of the Palestinians.”

Francesca Albanese, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, who issued the report, titled “Genocide as colonial erasure,” makes an urgent appeal to the international community to impose a full arms embargo and sanctions on Israel until the genocide of Palestinians is halted. She calls on Israel to accept a permanent ceasefire. She demands that Israel, as required by international law and U.N. resolutions, withdraw its military and colonists from Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. 

At the very least, Israel, unchecked, should be formally recognized as an apartheid state and persistent violator of international law, Albanese states. The U.N. should reactivate the Special Committee Against Apartheid to address the situation in Palestine, and Israel’s membership in the U.N. should be suspended. Short of these interventions, Israel’s goal, Albanese warns, will likely come into fruition.

You can see my interview with Albanese here.

“This ongoing genocide is doubtlessly the consequence of the exceptional status and protracted impunity that has been afforded to Israel.” she writes. “Israel has systematically and flagrantly violated international law, including Security Council resolutions and [International Criminal Court] ICJ orders. This has emboldened the hubris of Israel and its defiance of international law. As the ICC Prosecutor has warned, ‘if we do not demonstrate our willingness to apply the law equally, if it is seen as applied selectively, we will be creating the conditions of its complete collapse. This is the true risk we face at this perilous moment.’”

The U.N. report comes amid an Israeli blockade of northern Gaza where over 400,000 Palestinians are enduring a starvation siege and constant airstrikes in an attempt to depopulate the north. Israeli forces have killed 1,250 Palestinians in the assault, launched on October 5, a medical source told Al Jazeera. Reports from northern Gaza are difficult to obtain as internet and phone services have been cut and the few journalists on the ground continue to be killed. Israel’s ground and aerial assaults are centered on Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun. Civil defense units say they have been barred by Israeli forces from reaching the sites of recent strikes and their crews have been attacked. 

Israel has ordered Palestinians to flee to designated “safe zones,” but once in these “safe zones” they have been attacked and ordered to move to new “safe zones.” 

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Israel is in its third week of ethnically cleansing northern Gaza, particularly around the Jabalia refugee camp. And according to reports, about half of all the Palestinians there have been removed as Israeli soldiers burn down schools and kidnap people.

At the same time that Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are launching airstrikes on the region, ground forces are going door to door looking for starving, unarmed Palestinians to forcibly remove from their homes and send elsewhere.

Heavy airstrikes and artillery shelling are destroying entire homes and buildings where the Palestinians are sheltering. Increasingly more displaced families have nowhere to go while IDF soldiers knock down schools, homes and other facilities to prevent the Palestinians from returning.

After burning down or leveling the structures, the IDF is forcing whoever is still alive to head south. Many of the refugees who obey end up dead anyway as Israel then proceeds to shoot and kill them for no apparent reason while they are fleeing.

Some of the refugees are disobeying the orders and heading west of Jabalia instead of south to a place called Beit Lahia. Others are trying to flee to Gaza City. No matter where they try to go, the Palestinians are being killed left and right.

“This is a genocide,” said a resident of north Gaza named Hasan. “They’re starving people, blockading people. There are still tens of thousands of people here in Jabalia.”

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