Tag: palestine

Blinken buried reports indicating Israel blocked aid to Gaza so U.S. would keep sending them weapons

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken received an assessment from a pair of prominent authorities on humanitarian assistance showing that Israel purposely blocked deliveries of food and medicine to Gaza but rejected the finding so the U.S. could continue sending weapons to Israel.

The report by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) reached this disturbing conclusion, and it was corroborated by a separate report from the State Department’s Bureau Of Population, Refugees And Migration. The latter also determined that the Foreign Assistance Act needed to be enacted to freeze more than $800 million worth of taxpayer dollars that had been set aside for weapons and bombs for Israel.

However, Blinken and the Biden administration rejected the findings of both authorities. Shortly thereafter, Blinken saw fit to tell Congress: “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.”

It’s a shocking stance to take when you consider the fact that USAID’s 17-page memo detailed some of the most blatant examples of Israeli interference with aid efforts, such as bombing hospitals and ambulances, turning away trucks that were full of medicine and food, razing agricultural structures, sitting on supply depots and most appallingly, killing aid workers.

The memo noted that while the population of Gaza grappled with famine and countless children starved to death, food that could have potentially saved people’s lives was stockpiled just miles across the border at a port in Israel, where it is believed there was enough flour on hand to feed 1.5 million Palestinians for a span of five months. The Israeli government would not let the flour be transferred because they claimed that the UN Palestinian branch it was destined for had ties to Hamas.

U.S. law requires the government to stop shipping weapons to countries that have been found to be preventing the delivery of American-backed humanitarian aid, and USAID officials said that America should stop selling arms to Israel. They stated that the famine in Gaza was caused by Israel’s “arbitrary denial, restriction, and impediments of U.S. humanitarian assistance” and called it “one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in the world.”

The situation was so bad that a senior State Department official resigned over it. Stacy Gilbert, a senior civil military adviser for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, claims that the State Department falsified her report. The 20-year State Department veteran said that when the report was ultimately published, she couldn’t believe it when she saw its conclusion that Israel was not blocking humanitarian assistance given the fact that the experts who wrote it reached the opposite conclusion.

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A War Criminal Comes to New York

The war criminal leader of a dangerous rogue state is coming to speak to the UN General Assembly this week. The AP reports:

But Netanyahu arrives at the United Nations this week at a time when his own diplomatic capital and legitimacy, as well as that of the country he represents, are at a low. Critics say that aside from a moment in the spotlight, it’s not clear what Netanyahu will achieve with the visit.

“He is a great believer in speechmaking,” said Tal Schneider, an Israeli political commentator. “He thinks that if he delivers a speech in English, he can convince people in the justness of his ways,” she said, adding that that demonstrated he was “disconnected from reality.”

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Report from humanitarian groups proves Israel is deliberately blocking essential aid from entering Gaza

Israel has been preventing the majority of essential aid from entering the Gaza Strip since the Israel-Hamas conflict began on Oct. 7.

A report conducted by 15 humanitarian aid organizations recently revealed that essential aid – including food, medicine, fuel and shelter – has been systematically blocked from entering Gaza for almost a year. (Related: UN investigator accuses Israel of “deliberately starving” Palestinians in Gaza; Netanyahu denies allegation.)

“Agencies have detailed six main ways their life-saving aid is systematically obstructed on a daily basis,” the report stated. “These include the denial of safety, with more than 40,000 Palestinians and nearly 300 aid workers killed since last October; the sharp tightening of a 17-year blockade to a full siege, which prevents aid from entering Gaza; delays and denials which restrict the movement of aid around Gaza; tightly restrictive and unpredictable control of imports; the destruction of public infrastructure such as schools and hospitals; and the displacement of civilians and humanitarian workers (witnessed again in recent displacement orders from the so-called “humanitarian zone” in Deir el-Balah.)”

This obstruction has driven the people of Gaza into a worsening state of desperation, with nearly half a million now facing starvation and the entire population suffering from hunger and disease.

For instance, 83 percent of the necessary food aid is being blocked from entering the area, up sharply from 34 percent in 2023. In turn, residents, who previously had access to two meals a day, now face the grim reality of surviving on just one meal every other day. It is estimated that by the end of 2024, around 50,000 children between the ages of six and 59 months will require urgent treatment for malnutrition.

Aside from the food crisis, 65 percent of the required insulin and half of the necessary blood supply are unavailable in Gaza. Meanwhile, the availability of hygiene items has dropped to just 15 percent of what was accessible in September 2023. This has left one million women without essential hygiene supplies.

The healthcare system, which was already strained before the war, is now in a state of collapse. Only 1,500 hospital beds remain operational, down from 3,500 in 2023 and far below the needs of Gaza’s more than two million residents.

As of January, 60 percent of homes in Gaza have been destroyed, leaving 1.87 million people in need of shelter, but tents have been supplied for only 25,000 people since May. In August, an average of 69 aid trucks per day entered Gaza, compared to 500 trucks per working day in 2023, leaving more than one million people without food rations in central and southern Gaza.

Moreover, the destruction of critical infrastructure such as water networks, sanitation facilities and bread mills has compounded the situation. To date, only 17 out of the 36 hospitals in Gaza remain partially functional, while large-scale destruction of schools and public facilities continues.

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Israel’s True Objectives in Gaza, and Why It Will Fail

Never in its history of war, and military occupation has Israel been so incapable of developing a coherent plan for its future, and the future of its victims.

Even a quick glance at headlines in international media reveals the depth of the Israeli dilemma. While Tel Aviv continues to carry out a genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza, it seems to have no idea what to do beyond simply destroying the Strip and its people.

Even the country’s Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, who could soon be officially wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), indicated on multiple occasions that Israel has no post-war plan in Gaza.

“Since October, I have been raising this issue consistently in the Cabinet, and have received no response,” Gallant said in the clearest possible language last May.

Others suggest that Netanyahu and his far-right government might have a plan but, in the language of the Washington Post, it is a ‘no workable plan’ or, according to Vox, “is no plan at all”.

Netanyahu’s ‘not workable’ plan, or ‘no plan’ at all, is inconsistent with the wishes of the US administration.

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US Soldier Who Burned Himself to Death Over Gaza Wins Sam Adams Associates Award for Integrity in Intelligence

The Sam Adams Associates are pleased to announce United States Air Force Senior Airman Aaron Bushnell as the recipient of the 2024 Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence.

Bushnell was a cyber defense operations specialist with the 531st Intelligence Squadron at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. He was assigned to the 70th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing at Fort Meade in Maryland.

Senior Airman (SRA) Bushnell martyred himself when he walked up to the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 25, 2024, while streaming himself as he approached, and then self-immolated in protest of what Israel is doing to Palestinians, the most extreme form of protest. He was 25 years old and had been on active duty since May 2020, according to the service.

He had stated as he approached the embassy:

“My name is Aaron Bushnell, and I am an active duty member of the United States Air Force. I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest but, compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”

In an earlier on-line post, later identified as from SRA Bushnell, he’d written: “I have been complicit in the violent domination of the world and I will never get the blood off my hands.”

In advance of his burning, Bushnell posted this message on his Facebook page:

“Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide? The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”

As he was consumed by flames, SRA Bushnell’s last words were, “Free Palestine,” said repeatedly.

This was not an act of suicide, as some would have us believe, though SRA Bushnell acted out of despair of any other means of protest having an effect in stopping Israeli genocide and U.S. complicity in that. He obviously suffered the moral injury that so many U.S. service members suffer from when they come to realize their role in, as SRA Bushnell put it: “I have been complicit in the violent domination of the world and I will never get the blood off my hands.”

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Israel Mulls Plan To Indefinitely Expel 300,000 Palestinians From North Gaza

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told lawmakers that he is considering the so-called “generals’ plan” to lay total siege to northern Gaza and expel all its Palestinian residents, the Times of Israel reported Monday.

When retired major general Giora Eiland presented the plan last week, he claimed it would “change the reality” on the ground in Gaza. “We have to tell the residents of north Gaza that they have one week to evacuate the territory, which then becomes a military zone, [a zone] in which every figure is a target and, most importantly, no supplies enter this territory.” The remaining Hamas fighters would then be forced to surrender or starve, according to the plan.

Eiland was the former director of the National Security Council and former head of the Planning Department of the Israel Defense Forces.

Israeli national broadcaster Kan reported on Sunday that Netanyahu, in a closed-door meeting with the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said that the plan “makes a lot of sense.”

Eiland claimed that the ethnic cleansing and siege of the north of the strip, where some 300,000 Palestinians still live, is not only an effective military tactic but is also compliant with international law.

“What matters to [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar is land and dignity, and with this maneuver, you take away both land and dignity,” he said.

Eiland has been critical of Israel’s current strategy in the war against Hamas’s military wing and Palestinian civilians in Gaza, saying it has not been harsh enough against the Palestinian population.

“You can’t win a war while this is the situation in Gaza,” he said. “The slogan that ‘only military pressure will bring victory’ has no basis whatsoever. The wars of the 21st century are based on something else. The most important parameter is the population, and those who can control the population win the war.”

In November, Eiland said that the spread of disease in Gaza is good for Israel. “After all, severe epidemics in the southern strip will bring victory closer and reduce fatalities among IDF soldiers,” he wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth.

Likud MK Amit Halevi, a member of the committee, said the Eiland plan marked “the right direction” for Israeli policy in Gaza. “In order to defeat Hamas, we must control the land and the population. There is no other way to victory,” he told the Times of Israel.

The plan does not reveal whether Palestinians could ever return to northern Gaza, one of its backers told CNN.

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Israeli Army Raids, Shuts Down Al Jazeera’s West Bank News Room

Back in May, Israel’s Knesset voted unanimously to ban the Al Jazeera broadcast network. The Israeli order effectively shut down all Al Jazeera broadcasts in Israel.

Authorities soon after raided its offices and confiscated equipment at the channel’s Jerusalem HQ inside the Ambassador Hotel. The Qatar-based news network has said it was unfairly targeted for the ‘crime’ of mere journalism, as it tends to given in-depth coverage to the plight of Palestinians. But West Bank offices remained open, until this weekend.

Israeli officials have long accused the channel of showing sympathies with and support for Hamas and Palestinian militants. Al Jazeera correspondents have remained among the few in the world to continue reporting from on the ground in war-ravaged Gaza, despite the extreme dangers. And some have been killed during their live coverage.

The Israel vs. Al Jazeera rivalry has continued as on Sunday the network confirmed that Israeli soldiers (IDF) raided its offices in the central West Bank city of Ramallah. 

The bureau chief Walid Omary and other staff members were reportedly briefly detained while live on air while a military court order was presented to them. The IDF action appears to be part of the ongoing enforcement of the Al Jazeera ban by Israel which began in May.

CNN writes, “During the video broadcast by Al Jazeera, a soldier can be heard informing Omar of a military order to close Al Jazeera’s office for 45 days.”

“Reading the military order given to him on air, Omary said staff members had only ten minutes to take their personal belongings and cameras and vacate the office,” the report continues.

The Ramallah office has been in operation for decades, and had since the spring become a focal point of Al Jazeera’s regional operations and coverage following the May closure of its Jerusalem HQ. Much equipment had also been moved there.

Al Jazeera has long had offices in the West Bank and Gaza, and has provided 24-hour news coverage in English and Arabic of the Gaza war going back to Oct.7. The network’s website also carries frequent, round-the-clock updates of regional developments. Its camera crews have also been capturing Israeli air raids on the Gaza Strip in real time, sometimes with buildings coming down in the very moments live shots are rolling.

Watch the moment Israeli soldiers enter AJ’s Ramallah newsroom while live on the air…

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How Israel Turned Hezbollah’s Pagers Into Exploding Trojan Horses

Details are starting to come to light about how Israel apparently orchestrated two days of coordinated explosions targeting thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah in Lebanon. You can read our reporting of the first wave of explosions here, and the second wave here.

At this point, it’s worth remembering that Israel has not admitted responsibility for the blasts, but it is now widely acknowledged that was behind them. Moreover, as we have discussed before, it would be entirely in keeping with what appears to be a developing plan for a full-scale military operation launched against Hezbollah.

Addressing the first wave of explosions, on Tuesday, this targeted pagers used by Hezbollah.

At 3:30 p.m. local time, it seems the pagers were triggered simultaneously, by a specific message. The message was one that looks, at least, as if it was sent by Hezbollah leadership.

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Israel Admits It Probably Killed Israeli Hostages in Gaza Airstrike in November

The Israeli military has admitted that one of its own airstrikes is likely responsible for killing three Israeli captives whose bodies were recovered from Gaza last year, confirming what Hamas officials had said about the hostages’ deaths at the time.

In a release on Sunday, the Israeli military said that an investigation into the deaths of the three captives found there was a “high probability” that they were killed by an Israeli strike carried out on November 10. This finding is based on the location of their bodies in relation to that of the strike and analysis of the strike itself. The military claims the strike targeted and killed a Hamas commander.

Two of the captives were soldiers, Corporal Nick Beiser and Sergeant Ron Sherman. The military also recovered the body of Eliya Toledano. They were all captured amid the October 7 attack, and their bodies were recovered in December.

At the time, Israeli forces told the captives’ families that they were killed by Hamas. But the results of the investigation confirms Hamas’s assertion that they were killed by the Israeli military.

Israeli forces have killed numerous hostages amid their genocide in Gaza, and released hostages have said that their top fear while in captivity was that they would be killed by Israeli strikes.

In December, Israeli forces shot and killed three Israeli captives who were traveling together in northern Gaza. Though the captives were shirtless and waving a white flag, Israeli soldiers opened fire on them. The military later claimed that the soldiers acted correctly to the best of their understanding, as they interpreted the captives’ cries for help as a ruse.

These captives could have been alive today if Israel had agreed to ceasefire agreements early on. Just days after Israel’s genocidal assault of Gaza commenced, Hamas had offered to release all of the captives if the Israeli military didn’t enter Gaza, former political adviser and leader of an advocacy organization for the captives’ families Haim Rubinstein told Times of Israel earlier this year.

Since then, Israel has rejected ceasefire deal after ceasefire deal, with Israeli leaders openly expressing their contempt for the very idea of stopping their genocide in Gaza at any point. There is widespread unrest among Israelis for the government’s failure to secure a hostage release, but Israeli leaders’ actions in the ceasefire negotiations have made it clear that a hostage release is not a top priority for them.

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‘One Meal Every Other Day’ – Aid Agencies Say Israel Blocking 83% of Gaza Food Aid

People in Gaza are only eating one meal every other day as 83 percent of required food aid does not make it into the besieged enclave due to Israel’s blockade, aid organizations have said.

“While Israeli military attacks on Gaza intensify, lifesaving food, medicine, medical supplies, fuel, and tents have been systematically blocked from entering for almost a year,” a statement signed by 15 organizations including CARE International, Oxfam, Islamic Relief, the Norwegian Refugee Council and KinderUSA, said.

This is “driving a humanitarian disaster, with the entire population of Gaza facing hunger and disease, and almost half a million at risk of starvation.”

The organizations said “83% of required food aid does not make it into Gaza, up from 34% in 2023,” emphasizing that this “reduction means people in Gaza have gone from having an average of two meals a day to just one meal every other day.”

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