Tag: palestine

Prolonging Genocide as a Smokescreen: On Israel’s Other War in the West Bank

Promises of “absolute victory” in Gaza are nothing but “gibberish”, according to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Gallant’s comments were not meant to be public, but somehow were leaked and published by Israeli media on August 12.

The explanation of why Netanyahu is pursuing a losing war in Gaza has been largely confined to the prime minister’s personal interests: avoiding the outcome of his corruption trials, preserving his extremist government coalition and avoiding early elections.

Still, none of these rationales explain the absurdity of continuing with a war, which, in the words of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak is “the worst failure in Israel’s history”.

What else could explain Netanyahu’s motive behind the war? And why are his most crucial government allies, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich determined to prolong it?

The answer may not lie in Gaza, but in the West Bank.

While Israel is extending its failed military campaign in the Strip with no clear strategic objectives, its war on the West Bank is driven by clear strategic motives: the annexation of the West Bank and the ethnic cleansing of large sectors of the Palestinian population.

This is not only obvious through Israel’s daily actions in the West Bank but also because of the clear statements made by Israel’s extremist government officials.

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Israeli Forces Target Houses, Tents – Scores of Civilians Killed in Gaza

Israeli airstrikes claimed the lives of scores of Palestinian civilians on day 321 of the genocidal war the occupation army is launching on the Gaza Strip.

The airstrikes targeted houses and tents in various areas in the besieged Strip namely Beit Lahia, Tal al-Zaatar in Jabaliya, Khan Yunis, Nuseirat camp, Al-Maghraqa, Tal Al-Hawa, Al-Zeitoun, and Al-Sabra and Deir Al-Balah.

Eleven people were killed and several others injured at dawn Thursday in an Israeli shelling that targeted the Hamouda family’s house, in Beit Lahia, north of Gaza.

The victims, mostly women and children, were taken to Kamal Adwan Hospital badly burnt while others were still under the rubble.

Also in the north of Gaza namely in the Tal al-Zaatar area in Jabaliya, the Israeli occupation army targeted the Salman family’s residential apartment killing three Palestinians and injuring others.

In Khan Yunis, south of Gaza, Abu Daqqa’s house in al-Fakhari area, east of the city was shelled by Israel’s occupation army killing a woman and a child.  

In parallel, the Israeli occupation opened fire on the tents of displaced Palestinians in Mawasi al-Qarara, northwest of Khan Yunis.

Israel’s occupation forces targeted the house of the Al-Judaili family in the Nuseirat camp in the center of Gaza, injuring several Palestinians.

In the meantime, Israel’s occupation’s artillery shelled the Al-Maghraqa area northwest of the Nuseirat refugee camp.

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Countries fueling Israel’s Gaza war may be complicit in war crimes, experts warn

Israeli tanks, jets and bulldozers bombarding Gaza and razing homes in the occupied West Bank are being fueled by a growing number of countries signed up to the genocide and Geneva conventions, new research suggests, which legal experts warn could make them complicit in serious crimes against the Palestinian people.

Four tankers of American jet fuel primarily used for military aircraft have been shipped to Israel since the start of its aerial bombardment of Gaza in October.

Three shipments departed from Texas after the landmark international court of justice (ICJ) ruling on 26 January ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza. The ruling reminded states that under the genocide convention they have a “common interest to ensure the prevention, suppression and punishment of genocide”.

Overall, almost 80% of the jet fuel, diesel and other refined petroleum products supplied to Israel by the US over the past nine months was shipped after the January ruling, according to the new research commissioned by the non-profit Oil Change International and shared exclusively with the Guardian.

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Partners in Genocide: Israel Is Slaughtering Palestinians With Western Arms

While many are earnestly pointing at the devastation of war, the rampant human rights violations and the deliberate relegation of international and humanitarian law, there are those who see war from an entirely different perspective: profits.

For the merchants of war, the collective pain and misery of whole nations is dwarfed by the lucrative deals of billions of dollars generated from weapons sales.

The great irony is that some of the loudest advocates of human rights are, in fact, the ones who are facilitating the global arms trade. Without it, human rights would not be violated with such impunity.

The Geneva Academy, a legal research organization, says that it currently monitors about 110 active armed conflicts worldwide. Most of these conflicts are taking place in the Global South, though many of these cases are either exacerbated, funded or managed by western powers or western multinational corporations.

Of the 110, 45 armed conflicts are taking place in the Middle East and North Africa region, 35 in the rest of Africa, 21 in Asia and six in Latin America, according to the Academy.

The worst and bloodiest of these armed conflicts is currently taking place in Gaza, one of the poorest and most isolated regions in the world.

To estimate the future death toll resulting from the war in Gaza, one of the world’s most respected medical journals, the Lancet, undertook a thorough research entitled “Counting the dead in Gaza: Difficult but essential”.

The approximation was based on the death toll figure produced as of June 19, when Israel had then reportedly killed 37,396 Palestinians.

Lancet’s new number was horrifying, even though the medical journal said that its conclusions were based on conservative estimates of indirect deaths vs direct deaths that often result from such wars.

Should the war end today, meaning June 19, 7.9% of the population of the Gaza Strip will die because of the war and its aftermath. That’s “up to 186,000 or even more deaths”, according to the Lancet.

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Biden’s Convention Speech Made Absurd Claims About His Gaza Policy

An observation from George Orwell – “those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future” – is acutely relevant to how President Biden talked about Gaza during his speech at the Democratic convention Monday night. His words fit into a messaging template now in its eleventh month, depicting the U.S. government as tirelessly seeking peace, while supplying the weapons and bombs that have enabled Israel’s continual slaughter of civilians.

“We’ll keep working, to bring hostages home, and end the war in Gaza, and bring peace and security to the Middle East,” Biden told the cheering delegates. “As you know, I wrote a peace treaty for Gaza. A few days ago I put forward a proposal that brought us closer to doing that than we’ve done since October 7th.”

It was a journey into an alternative universe of political guile from a president who just six days earlier had approved sending $20 billion worth of more weapons to Israel. Yet the Biden delegates in the convention hall responded with a crescendo of roaring admiration.

Applause swelled as Biden continued: “We’re working around-the-clock, my secretary of state, to prevent a wider war and reunite hostages with their families, and surge humanitarian health and food assistance into Gaza now, to end the civilian suffering of the Palestinian people and finally, finally, finally deliver a ceasefire and end this war.”

In Chicago’s United Center, the president basked in adulation while claiming to be a peacemaker despite a record of literally making possible the methodical massacres of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.

Orwell would have understood. A political reflex has been in motion from top U.S. leaders, claiming to be peace seekers while aiding and abetting the slaughter. Normalizing deception about the past sets a pattern for perpetrating such deception in the future.

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First Case of Polio Detected in Gaza, UN Urges Ceasefire to Vaccinate Children

Health officials diagnosed the first case of polio in Gaza in 25 years after 10 months of U.S.-backed Israeli genocide in the enclave, which was predicted because of the humanitarian blockade and collapse of the healthcare infrastructure.

A 10-month-old from the central part of the enclave was diagnosed with the disease, prompting António Guterres, the UN head, to call for a pause in the fighting so there can be a widespread vaccination campaign.

“Preventing and containing the spread of polio will take a massive, coordinated and urgent effort,” Guterres said in New York, according to The Guardian. “I am appealing to all parties to provide concrete assurances right away guaranteeing humanitarian pauses for the campaign.”

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“The Party of Joy” Marches in Chicago with Giant “Killer Kamala” Banner – Chant “How Many Kids Did You Kill Today?”

“Killer Kamala what do you say? – How many kids did you kill today.”

The ‘Party of Joy’ took to the streets of Chicago on Sunday night prior to the official launch of the DNC Convention this week in the Windy City.

Protesters carried banners reading, “Killer Kamala!” in Navy Pier.

George Behizy posted this photo from Sunday night’s protest at Navy Pier.

And the radical mob was chanting, “Killer Kamala what do you say – How many kids did you kill today?”
Independent journalist Bo from DittleTV posted video of the angry leftists marching Sunday in Chicao.

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Israeli Strikes in Gaza Kill 10-Year-Old Quintuplets

Israeli strikes on Gaza on Sunday killed a total of 29 people, including 10-year-old quintuplets, The Associated Press has reported.

The quintuplets were killed alongside their mother and 18-month-old sibling in a strike that targeted a home in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. An AP reporter counted the bodies at the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

Mohammed Awad Khatab, the children’s grandfather, told reporters: “The six children have become body parts. They were placed in a single bag. What did they do? Did they kill any of the Jews? … Will this provide security to Israel?”

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‘Pure terrorism’: World reacts to Israeli settler attack in West Bank

Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are reeling after Israeli settlers ravaged a village overnight, killing a 23-year-old man and injuring several others in the latest incident of deadly violence against Palestinians in the area.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said on Friday that Mahmoud Abdel Qader Sadda was fatally shot in the attack on Jit, in the northern West Bank about 10km (six miles) west of Nablus.

Dozens of masked Israeli settlers descended on the village, opening fire on residents, setting cars ablaze and destroying homes and other property, according to witnesses and video footage from the assault.

The attack came amid a surge in Israeli military and settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, which has unfolded in the shadow of Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip.

Nearly 600 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank between the start of the Gaza war on October 7 and August 12, according to the latest figures from the United Nations humanitarian affairs office (OCHA).

Rights groups also have criticised Israel for allowing its forces as well as settlers to operate with “endemic impunity” in their attacks against Palestinians.

The assault on Jit drew widespread condemnation from Palestinians as well as foreign leaders, including those from countries that continue to provide military and diplomatic support for Israel amid the Gaza war.

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Resistance ops nearly doubled ‘all over Israel’ in two years

Resistance operations against Israelis, particularly in the occupied West Bank, have surged dramatically since the start of the year, Hebrew media reported on 16 August. 

According to Israeli news outlet Channel 12, hundreds of operations have been carried out since the start of 2024. Despite most of them being in the West Bank, the operations have targeted “every point in Israel.” 

Israel’s Channel 10 correspondent Noam Cohen also noted a surge in resistance operations across Israel and the occupied West Bank over the past 10 months. 

Between 7 October and the current month, 338 resistance operations were carried out against Israelis, Cohen said, adding that this marks an 82 percent surge compared to 2022 and around a nine percent jump since last year. 

Commenting on the increase in the average number of operations per month, Cohen said the average was five in 2020, 10 in 2021, and 17 in 2022. Since 7 October, it has become an average of 31 per month, the correspondent added. 

The majority of the over 300 operations since October have been in the West Bank. Ten were in occupied Jerusalem and 28 took place in the territories occupied in 1948. 

The operations have killed 28 settlers and wounded over 250.

Two Israelis were killed in a stabbing operation in Holon, near Tel Aviv, on 4 August.

An Israeli prison guard was found dead in his home in the occupied West Bank in early July. It was discovered later that month that he was killed by a member of Hamas’ Qassam Brigades, Ibrahim Mansour, who was detained by Israeli forces on 22 July. 

One soldier was killed and others injured in a stabbing operation in the Karmiel settlement on 3 July. These are just a few examples.

The surge in operations comes as there has also been a massive spike in settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since 7 October.

Around 100 armed Israeli settlers invaded the Palestinian town of Jit in the occupied West Bank on 15 August, firing bullets at residents and setting homes, cars, and other property on fire. 

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