Tag: palestine

The Smearing of Cori Bush for Being Truthful About the Gaza War

Soon after the Gaza war began 10 months ago, a prominent newspaper columnist denounced Congresswoman Cori Bush under a headline declaring that “anti-Israel comments make her unfit for reelection.” The piece appeared in the newspaper with the second-largest readership in Missouri, the Kansas City Star. Multimillion-dollar attacks on Bush followed.

Bush’s opponent, county prosecutor Wesley Bell, “is now the number-one recipient of AIPAC cash this election cycle,” according to Justice Democrats. “Almost two-thirds of all his donations came from the anti-Palestinian, far-right megadonor-funded lobby group.” The Intercept reports that “AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, has gone on to spend a total of $7 million so far to oust Bush” in the Aug. 6 Democratic primary in her St. Louis area district.

“The $2.1 million in ads spent for her campaign is up against $12.2 million spent to attack her or support Bell,” The American Prospect points out. AIPAC “is trying to pull voters away from her without ever saying the words ‘Israel’ or ‘Palestine.’ Instead, their advertising against Bush centers around her record on infrastructure legislation, in a manner that lacks context.”

It’s easy to see why AIPAC and allied forces are so eager to defeat Bush. She courageously introduced a ceasefire resolution in the House nine days after the bloodshed began on Oct. 7, calling for “an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine.”

The Kansas City Star article, published shortly after Bush introduced the resolution, was written by former New York Times reporter Melinda Henneberger, now a member of the Star’s editorial board. “A military attack in response to the massacre of civilians by a group committed in writing to ‘carnage, displacement and terror’ for Jews is not my idea of ‘ethnic cleansing,’” she wrote in early November. “But it is Missouri Rep. Cori Bush’s, which is why she deserves to lose her congressional race next year.”

Bush supposedly became unfit to keep her seat in Congress because, after three weeks of methodical killing in Gaza, she tweeted: “We can’t be silent about Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign. Babies, dead. Pregnant women, dead. Elderly, dead. Generations of families, dead. Millions of people in Gaza with nowhere to go being slaughtered. The U.S. must stop funding these atrocities against Palestinians.”

Henneberger’s response was hit-and-run. She wrote a hit piece. And then she ran.

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The Official Death Toll in Gaza Is a Lie. The Casualty Numbers Are Far, Far Higher

The death toll in Gaza is way too low by every imaginable metric. We need to be stressing this – all the more so when Israel’s apologists are vigorously engaged in a disinformation campaign to suggest that the figures are inflated.

On 6 May, 7 months into Israel’s slaughter, there were reported to be 34,735 dead. That was an average of 4,960 Palestinians killed each month.

Today, nearly three months on, the reported death toll stands at 39,400 – or an increase of 4,665.

It should not need a statistician to point out that, were the rise linear, the expected number of deaths would stand by this point at around 49,600.

So, even by the simplest calculation, there is a large shortfall in deaths – a shortfall that needs explaining.

Such an explanation is easy to provide: Israel destroyed Gaza’s institutions and its medical infrastructure, including its hospitals, many months ago, making it impossible for officials there to keep track of how many Palestinians are being killed by Israel.

The death toll figures started to stall in the spring, around the time Israel completed its destruction of Gaza’s hospitals and kidnapped much of the enclave’s medical personnel.

More than a month ago, Save the Children pointed out that some 21,000 children in Gaza were missing, in addition to the 16,000 known to have been killed by Israel. Many are likely to have suffered lonely, terrifying deaths under rubble – gradually suffocated to death, or dying slowly from dehydration.

But again, even those shocking figures are likely to be a severe under-count.

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Palestinian prisoners endure ‘Guantanamo-like’ conditions in Israeli torture camps: Report

A new report from The Washington Post published on 29 July details Israel’s torture, starvation, and killing of Palestinians in its prison system in a manner resembling the notorious US prison in Guantanamo Bay.

Based on eyewitness accounts from former prisoners and autopsies carried out by Israeli authorities, The Post reports that “One Palestinian inmate died with a ruptured spleen and broken ribs after being beaten by Israeli prison guards. Another met an excruciating end because a chronic condition went untreated. A third screamed for help for hours before dying.”

The three prisoners are among at least 12 Palestinians from the West Bank and Israel to die in Israeli jails since 7 October, according to Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), whose members sat in on the autopsies.

An unknown number of Palestinians abducted by the Israeli military from the Gaza Strip have also died in detention camps outside of Israel’s formal prison system.

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Israel bombs Gaza field hospital massacring dozens of displaced Palestinians

Israeli jets launched airstrikes on a girls’ school in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah being used as a field hospital on 27 July, killing at least 30 Palestinians and injuring dozens more.

Following the latest massacre of Palestinian civilians, the Israeli army claimed its attack was targeting a “Hamas command and control center.”

“The occupation continues to lie by claiming that the Khadija school is a leadership complex for the movement. What happened in Deir al-Balah is a continuation of the genocide plan practiced by the Israeli occupation,” Hamas leader Osama Hamdan said on Saturday afternoon.

“We agreed to the serious proposals of the mediators, but the occupation does not want to stop its aggression. The occupation is trying to pressure the resistance by escalating its military operations,” Hamdan added.

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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‘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.

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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. 

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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?

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