Tag: palestine

Israeli soldiers suspected of raping Palestinian prisoner arrested, sparking far-right riot

Nine Israeli soldiers in the notorious Sde Teiman detention centre were arrested on Monday on suspicion of raping a Palestinian detainee, sparking a riot where far-right activists and MPs stormed the facility.

Israeli military police raided Sde Teiman but were met with resistance by soldiers, who reportedly barricaded themselves into the facility and used pepper spray to defend themselves before eventually being taken into custody.

The soldiers were suspected of abusing a Palestinian detainee, who according to Arab48 is suffering from “a serious wound in his rectum area”.

The prisoner had been transferred from Sde Teiman in the Negev desert to a hospital in Beersheba, which is also in southern Israel. Haaretz said the prisoner is unable to walk.

The Israeli army said an investigation is underway.

Keep reading

Israeli army probe covered up “friendly fire” killings on 7 October

The Israeli army’s first published report about the events of 7 October 2023 praises the general who led Israeli forces in battle at Kibbutz Be’eri on that day for ordering tank fire at a home killing up to 10 civilian captives.

The shelling killed almost everyone in and around the house, including dozens of Palestinian resistance fighters.

The report amounts to a shoddy cover-up, inconsistent with known facts, and an intentional rewriting of what happened to exonerate Israeli forces of killing their own citizens that day.

Although the report was supposed to have been written by officers with no connection to those who fought in the battle, one of its authors was Lieutenant Colonel Elihai Bin Nun who fought at Be’eri on 7 October under Brigadier General Barak Hiram, the commander of Israeli forces at the kibbutz on that day, The New York Times revealed.

When Bin Nun’s participation in the battle was revealed, the army removed from the report any mention of his role as an author, the Israeli outlet Ynet noted.

The army’s full account of what happened at Kibutz Be’eri has not been made public, but the Israeli military published official summaries of its report in Hebrew and English on 11 July.

As a result of its inquiry, the army commends Hiram for acting in a “professional and ethical manner” by ordering the fatal tank fire. It whitewashes the civilian deaths the shelling caused, only accepting responsibility for one of the 13 captives killed at the home of kibbutz resident Pessi Cohen.

The army only admits to killing one civilian, Adi Dagan, as his death was directly witnessed by the only captive to survive the tank shelling, Adi’s wife Hadas Dagan.

The couple and four other Israeli civilians, including Pessi herself, spent the battle on the grassy lawn outside the home, lying low to avoid the hailstorm of bullets that whistled over their heads for hours.

While the army’s full account of the battle has not been made public, a detailed six-page synopsis of the report published by Israel Army Radio military correspondent Doron Kadosh sheds further light on the events. It acknowledges that the number of civilians inside the house was seven.

In its first public explanation of the incident one week after the 7 October attack, the army asserted that not seven civilians had died in the house but 15 – and that eight of them were babies.

Keep reading

US delivers over 20,000 ‘dumb bombs’ to Israel since 7 Oct

The US has sent tens of thousands of bombs to Israel since the start of its genocide in Gaza, the New York Times (NYT) reported on 25 July, citing data compiled this week by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. 

The data shows that Washington has sent over 20,000 unguided bombs, around 2,600 guided bombs, and 3,000 precision missiles. 

Unguided bombs, also known as “dumb bombs,” are typically less precise and kill larger numbers of civilians, especially in densely populated areas like Gaza. 

Aircraft, air defense systems, and ammunition have also been shipped to Israel since the start of the war in Gaza. 

Many of these shipments have been classified or kept under the table. What had been delivered by March this year already constitutes “an enormous number and variety of weapons,” according to an analysis by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. 

The report came as Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on a visit to Washington, where he met with Joe Biden and his vice president on 25 July and gave a speech in front of the US Congress a day earlier. 

It also coincided with a report by Politico, which said, “Israel is privately ramping up pressure on the Biden administration and lawmakers on Capitol Hill to greenlight weapons it says it needs to protect itself from an increasingly aggressive Iran and its proxies.” 

Netanyahu’s delegation is circulating a list of weapons systems to US lawmakers that it wants to be delivered faster, according to an informed source. The source added that Israeli representatives gave the list to members of Congress after Netanyahu’s speech on 24 July. 

Israel “needs the weapons to bolster its stockpiles,” the source said. “The fact that Israel is pushing for the weapons now indicates that it is attempting to solidify the transfers and bolster its stockpiles before the US election in November,” the Politico report adds. 

According to the source, the weapons on the Israeli list being sent around differ from those held up by Biden’s government in May over “concerns” about the situation in Rafah, which Israel invaded that month in defiance of months of international warnings. 

Keep reading

‘Terrorist Organization’? What’s Behind the Israeli War on UNRWA

Targeting a school during a war could be justified or, at least, argued to have been a mistake. But striking over 120 schools, killing and wounding thousands of civilians sheltered inside, can only be intentional and horrific war crimes.

Between October 7 and July 18, Israel has done precisely that, targeting with total impunity, United Nations infrastructure in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The price has been horrific. According to UNRWA estimates, at least 561 internally displaced people in UNRWA shelters have been killed and 1,768 injured since the start of the war.

In fact, within a period of ten days, between July 8 and July 18, at least six UN-run schools which have served as makeshift shelters for displaced Palestinians have been targeted by the Israeli army, resulting in the killing and wounding of hundreds.

Historically, UN-linked organizations seemed to be somewhat immune from the impact of war on local populations. The privilege of being neutral outsiders to the conflict, allowed those affiliated with such organizations to carry out their duties largely unhindered.

The Israeli war on Gaza, however, is the primary exception among all modern conflicts. According to UN sources, 274 aid workers and over 500 healthcare workers have been killed.

These figures are consistent with all other numbers produced by the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. Indeed, not a single category of people has been spared: neither doctors nor civil defense workers, nor mayors or even traffic police.

It was obvious from the very start of the war that Israel wanted to criminalize all Palestinians, not only those affiliated with Hamas or other groups, but the very civilian population and any international organization that came to their aid.

Blaming and dehumanizing all of Gaza was and remains part of an Israeli strategy that would allow the Israeli army to operate without any restraints, and without even the most minimal threshold of morality or respect for international law.

But the Israeli attacks on the UN, all its institutions, but particularly the UN agency responsible for the welfare of Gaza’s refugees (UNRWA), serve a different purpose than that of mere ‘collective punishment’.

Israel does not attempt to mask or justify its attacks on the organization as it did during previous Gaza wars. This time around, the Israeli war was accompanied, from the very start, with the outlandish accusation that UNRWA members had participated in the October 7 assault by Hamas and other Palestinian groups.

Without providing any evidence, Tel Aviv launched an international campaign of vilification against the UN organization which has, for decades, provided educational, medical and humanitarian services to millions of Palestinian refugees.

Keep reading

Leaks reveal Israel killed 366 UN staffers, family members in Gaza: Report

Hundreds of UN staff members and their family members have been killed by the Israeli army in Gaza, according to an unreleased UN report obtained by the Drop Site news outlet on 24 July. 

At least 195 UN staff and 172 of their dependents had been killed by Israeli forces by the end of June, the unreleased UN report states. The UN defines dependents as persons belonging to a staff member’s family who are formally recognized as financially reliant on that staff member.

The UN Crisis Coordination Centre found that five UN Development Program dependents, four UNICEF dependents, three World Food Programme (WFP) dependents, two World Health Organization (WHO) dependents, and 158 UNRWA dependents have been killed by Israeli forces. 

It had been reported in May that Israel had killed 188 members of UNRWA. UNRWA regularly releases situation reports detailing Tel Aviv’s targeting of staff members and facilities. 

UNRWA facilities have been the sites of numerous massacres committed by Israeli troops. 

However, these are the first numbers indicating the extent to which Israel has targeted the families of UN staff members. 

According to Drop Site, the report was circulated internally at the start of this month. The UN did not respond to a request for comment.

Over the weekend, on 21 July, a UN convoy came under heavy fire by Israeli forces despite prior coordination with the army. 

An Israeli airstrike on the UNRWA-run Abu Oreiban school in central Gaza’s Nuseirat Camp a week earlier, on 14 July, killed at least 15 people, just a day after the strike on southern Gaza’s Al-Mawasi that killed at least 90 and injured hundreds on 13 July. 

Tel Aviv has accused UNRWA members of involvement in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October but has yet to provide evidence for its claims. 

Keep reading

Netanyahu Commands, US Obeys

The world-historical crisis in Gaza might in the long-term bring about radical change in both the U.S. and Israel, but in the interim the greatest crimes the two nations have jointly taken part in has stiffened their defenses against unprecedented criticism.

The fear of blasting Israel has been breached. The taboo broken. Tel Aviv and Washington have never faced this before.  As both are settler nations, having wiped out natives across the land, they are circling their wagons on a new frontier. They can only respond with the most profound denial and viciousness. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who addresses a joint-session of Congress on Wednesday the subject of a requested arrest warrant at the International Criminal Court, has demanded the United States shield Israel from criticism while continuing to arm and support its genocide — and the U.S. has answered his call. 

When the Biden administration withheld a symbolic shipment of weapons to Israel, Netanyahu counted on Congress to draft a law that would withhold funding for the State Dept. and the Pentagon if Biden did not give Netanyahu the weapons he needs to “finish the job” in Gaza. 

Biden’s withholding of the shipment was designed to fool U.S. voters critical of his  Gaza policy.  But the assault on Rafah — despite Biden’s supposed red line — continues, and so will unconditional U.S. support for Israel. The question is why. 

Why will U.S. politicians risk losing elections to continue supporting the most unimaginable crimes? The answer lies beyond elections and individual politicians.

Continued support for Israel in the midst of genocide threatens the very legitimacy of U.S. post-war rule as the world turns increasingly against the U.S. and Israel. 

Despite this, what makes U.S. leaders so enthralled to a foreign nation and leader who has angered several U.S. presidents? 

For instance, why did U.S. leaders, essentially on the say-so of that foreign leader, turn against their own university students on U.S. soil peacefully protesting both Israel’s genocide and Washington’s complicity in it?

Keep reading

Facebook Ramps Up Censorship Amid Israeli Pressure

On July 10, it was announced that social media giant Meta would broaden the scope of its censorship and suppression of content related to the Gaza genocide. Under the new policy, Facebook and Instagram posts containing “derogatory or threatening references to ‘Zionists’ in cases where the term is used to refer to Jews or Israelis” will be proscribed. Unsurprisingly, a welter of Zionist lobby organizations – many of which aggressively lobbied Meta to adopt these changes – cheered the move. Emboldened, the same entities are now calling for all social media platforms to follow suit.

The Times of Israel noted that “nearly 150 advocacy groups and experts provided input that led to Meta’s policy update.” This prominently included Tel Aviv-based CyberWell, mundanely described by the outlet as “a nonprofit that has been documenting the swell of online antisemitism and Holocaust denial since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.” These malign activities have had a devastating impact on what Western audiences see and hear about the Gaza genocide on their social media feeds.

In January, CyberWell published an extensive report on how it was seeking to censor many prominent X accounts that expressed doubts about the official narrative of October 7, including the widely disseminated, proven-to-be-false libel that Hamas fighters beheaded dozens of infants. Users in the firing line included popular anonymous Zei Squirrel, Al Jazeera, The Grayzone chief Max Blumenthal, and famous rapper Lowkey, of MintPress News. CyberWell claimed such legitimate skepticism was comparable to Holocaust denial.

The impact of these lobbying efforts isn’t clear, although almost simultaneously, Zei Squirrel was abruptly suspended from X without warning or explanation, sparking widespread outrage. It was only due to relentless backlash that the account was reinstated. More recently, CyberWell submitted formal guidance to Meta on censoring the Palestine solidarity phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which Zionists falsely claim is a clarion call for the genocide of Jews.

Keep reading

Biden Claims He’s Done More for the ‘Palestinian Community’ Than Anyone Else

President Biden claimed in an interview published on Monday that he has done more for the “Palestinian community” than anyone else, comments that come after over nine months of his administration supporting Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza.

“I’m the guy that did more for the Palestinian community than anybody,” he said on the YouTube show 360 With Speedy.

As an example of what he’s done for the “Palestinian community,” Biden said, ” I’m the guy that opened up all the assets, I’m the guy that made sure that I got the Egyptians to open the border to let goods and medicine and food through.”

However, Biden also backed the Israeli operation to capture the Rafah border crossing on the Egypt-Gaza border, and it’s been closed ever since.

Biden also appeared to suggest in the interview that he has only provided “defensive weapons” to Israel even though his administration has shipped tens of thousands of bombs and other types of munitions.

“I sent defensive weapons,” Biden claimed. “I denied them offensive weapons that they were using 2,000lb bombs and the rest because I made it real clear they cannot use weapons that we provide them to, in fact, use in civilian areas.”

The president appeared to be referring to his administration pausing a shipment of 500-pound and 2,000-pound bombs to Israel. However, the 500-pound bombs have been approved to be delivered despite Israel continuing to drop heavy munitions on civilians.

Keep reading

Israel minister demands West Bank annexation if UN court rules against it

Hardline Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called on the prime minister to annex the occupied West Bank if the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rules Israeli settlements are illegal this week.

Smotrich told reporters, “no one will move the people of Israel from their land”, the Times of Israel quoted him as saying on Monday.

The UN’s top court is expected to deliver a non-binding ruling on the legal ramifications of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories on Friday.

“I hereby call on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – if the International Court of Justice in The Hague does decide that the settlement enterprise is illegal – respond to them with a historic decision of applying sovereignty to the territories of the homeland,” said Smotrich.

The far-right minister also promised to “thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state through massive construction, regulating settlements, building roads and other measures in the field” – all moves illegal under international law.

Fifty-two countries presented arguments at the ICJ, also known as the World Court, about the legal consequences of Israel’s actions in the occupied territories in February, after the UN General Assembly asked it in 2022 for an advisory opinion.

Keep reading

Biden campaign to blame ‘climate of violence’ on pro-Palestine protests after Trump shooting: Report

The re-election campaign of US President Joe Biden is shifting focus away from attacking former president Donald Trump for the climate of violence in the country and instead placing the blame on pro-Palestinian protesters.

According to senior US officials who spoke with Reuters on 14 July, the campaign will “draw on the president’s history of condemning all sorts of political violence including his sharp criticism of the ‘disorder’ created by campus protests over the Israel–Gaza conflict.”

The shift came in response to Saturday’s assassination attempt on Trump. “This changes everything,” one campaign official told the British news agency. ”We’re still assessing. Making the case against Trump, drawing that split screen will get much harder.”

Before Saturday’s assassination attempt, Biden’s campaign strategy was set to focus on attacking Trump personally, including TV ads highlighting his May felony conviction relating to hush money paid to a porn star to avert a sex scandal before the 2016 US election.

As student protests against the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza spread across dozens of US university campuses this year, Biden was quick to condemn protesters and accuse them of promoting violence and antisemitism.

In April, he released a statement condemning protesters at Columbia University occupying the institution’s Hamilton Hall, which they renamed Hind’s Hall in honor of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl who was murdered by the Israeli army in Gaza.

Hind and her relatives were killed on 29 January while fleeing their neighborhood in Gaza City after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for the area. Their bodies were finally recovered 12 days later. Multidisciplinary research group Forensic Architecture mapped a total of 335 bullet holes in the Kia Sedan where they were killed.

Keep reading