Tag: palestine

Israeli forces using Palestinians as human shields to locate bombs in Gaza: report

The Israeli army has been using abducted Palestinian civilians as human shields in Gaza, an investigation by Ha’aretz has said, adding to previous allegations of a similar nature from Palestinian and Israeli sources.

The civilians, who the soldiers refer to as shawish, or ‘sergeant’ in Arabic, are used by the army to carry out dangerous search operations while dressed in Israeli army uniform, according to soldiers who spoke to the Israeli news outlet.

Soldiers deployed to Gaza who spoke to Haaretz said they were told it was preferable for a Palestinian to be killed by a booby trap bomb than an Israeli soldier.

In some instances, children and elderly people were abducted and forced to search tunnels for the army.

“There were times when really old people were made to go into houses,” one soldier said. 

Another soldier, who said that reports on Israel’s use of human shields by outlets like Al Jazeera reflected their experience, recounted an instance when a 16-year-old was abducted by the army and forced to search a tunnel. While some civilians were detained for a day to be used for searches, some were kept for 

“About five months ago, two Palestinians were brought to us. One was 20 and the other was 16. We were told: ‘Use them, they’re Gazans, use them as human shields,” the soldier said.

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Why Did Washington Memory-hole Gaza?

Some are calling it Kamala Harris’s “Sister Souljah moment,” referring to when, in June 1992, then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton publicly rebuked racist comments made by a popular female hip-hop artist as a way of distancing himself from extreme elements of the Democratic base. 

For her part, Harris appeared to be drawing her own line Wednesday, shutting down chants from pro-Palestinian protesters at a Detroit rally on Wednesday, with a firm, “I’m speaking now.” The chants— “Kamala, Kamala, you can’t hide, we won’t vote for genocide”—received this stern rebuke from the vice president: “You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”

Harris’s team said the Democratic nominee for president had already met with the protesters earlier so any suggestion she was ignoring this important segment of her constituency was wrong. Her defenders on social media applauded her willingness to call out disruptive tactics that feed into the notion that the party is divided. “At a moment when former President Donald J. Trump is attacking her as ‘radical’ her confrontation with protesters on the left offered a visual rebuttal,” wrote the New York Times’s Rebecca Davis O’Brien.

Heckling protesters and Sista Souljah moments aside, the incident raises another question, just as important—is Kamala hiding from the Israel–Gaza issue? And are the mainstream media and the Biden administration helping her do it?

Consider that just four months ago, her boss had stood up at the State of the Union and pledged a military “surge” of humanitarian aid into Gaza to save starving Palestinians on the ground. “To the leadership of Israel I say this: Humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip,” Biden said. “Protecting and saving innocent lives has to be a priority.”

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Why raping Palestinians is legitimate Israeli military practice

The Israeli sexual torture scandal, whereby nine soldiers were arrested on 29 July for allegedly physically and sexually torturing Palestinian men, was depicted in western media as a deviation from Israel’s usual torture methods.

The idea is that Israeli torturers of Palestinian prisoners do not usually subject them to rape.

Four of the arrested soldiers were later released following widespread riots.

The US State Department, presumably appalled by such torture, described a video reportedly showing the alleged rape as “horrific” and insisted that “[t]here ought to be zero tolerance for sexual abuse, rape of any detainee, period… If there are detainees who have been sexually assaulted or raped, the government of Israel, the IDF [Israeli army] need to fully investigate those actions and hold anyone responsible accountable to the full extent of the law”.

The White House, also presumably a stranger to the practice of abusing political prisoners held in US dungeons, remained calm but found reports of Israeli sexual torture “deeply concerning”.

The European Union followed suit and claimed to be “gravely concerned”.

But this is hardly a new development in the cruelty of the Israeli colonial-settler regime. The Israeli army has been systematically using physical and sexual torture against Palestinians since at least 1967, as human rights groups revealed years ago.

Indeed, sadism has been characteristic of the Zionist colonists’ treatment of Palestinians since the 1880s, as even Zionist leaders complained at the time.

This sadism and the sexual torture that often accompanies it are rooted not only in European colonial hubris but also in orientalist views that Arabs only “understand force” and are allegedly more susceptible to sexual torture than white Europeans.

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Kamala Harris Continues Support for Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza

Over 40,000 dead with thousands more buried under the rubble from tens of thousands of US bombs in Gaza has made no dent on Kamala Harris’s conscience. Nor has a death toll predicted by the UK medical journal Lancet that upwards of 185,000 will soon be dead from disease, starvation to go along with endless US weapons of civilian destruction in the most grisly genocidal ethnic cleansing this century.

Of course, Harris has more sense than to cheer on the Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Here campaign frames her support this way: “Harris has been clear: she will always work to ensure Israel is able to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups”. She claims to be troubled by the suffering caused by endless US bombs there, but refuses to support an embargo on genocide weapons.

Hubby Doug Imhoff chimed in “Let me just make this clear: the vice president has been and will be a strong supporter of Israel as a secure democratic and Jewish state, and she will always ensure that Israel can defend itself, period. Because that’s who Kamala Harris is.” If Imhoff were honest and decent, he’s could do so by simply replacing “democratic” and “Jewish” with “Apartheid” and “genocidal.”

When anti genocide protesters confronted her Harris about her genocide support during a campaign speech in Detroit, Harris shot back “You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.” That has become the go-to Democratic response to pushback against Democratic support for Israeli genocide in Gaza: ‘Don’t’ mention US enabling genocide… we’ve got an election to win.

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EU’s Borrell Says ‘No Justification For These Massacres’ After Israeli Strike Kills Nearly 100 Gazans

The Washington Post and several international outlets are reporting another mass casualty event in Gaza – this time a reported Israeli airstrike on a school in Gaza City sheltering refugees. Gaza’s Civil Defense Force says the attack killed at least 93 people, including women and children.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it targeted a Hamas command center and has accused Gaza sources of inflating the death toll. However, gruesome images show many mangled and charred civilian bodies strewn all over the ground in the strike aftermath.

Gaza officials say the al-Taba’een school in Gaza City was housing about 6,000 internally displaced Palestinians before it was struck. Hamas-run emergency services have called it a “horrific massacre” and European officials have responded with condemnation.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell expressed shock and horror, saying on X: “Horrified by images from a sheltering school in Gaza hit by an Israeli strike, with reportedly dozens of Palestinian victims. At least 10 schools were targeted in the last weeks. There’s no justification for these massacres.”

“The recovery operations are indescribable … The schoolyard was filled with bodies,” one local emergency response officials has said. The IDF has reacted to the widespread reports by saying the information in the media does “not align” with its own intelligence and information. 

The IDF claimed that terrorists have been “operating within a Hamas command and control center embedded in the Al-Taba’een school” and charged that Hamas has again used civilian population as “human shields”. 

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Zionism on the Brink: The Gaza War Beyond Netanyahu 

The idea that the war on Gaza is essentially waged and sustained by and for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has, for long, dominated political analyses on the subject.

The notion is often kept alive by public opinion inside Israel.

Most polls produced since the start of the Israeli genocide on Gaza suggest that an overwhelming majority of Israelis believe that Netanyahu’s decisions are motivated by personal, political and familial interests.

This conclusion, however, is too convenient and not entirely accurate. It wrongly assumes that the Israeli people oppose Netanyahu’s war in Gaza though, in reality, they have been quite approving of all tactics used by the Israeli army, so far.

For example, over 300 days into the war, 69 percent of all Israelis support Netanyahu’s desperate tactics of assassinations, including the killing of Hamas’ top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in Tehran on July 31.

While Netanyahu’s decision to target a political leader reflects his own failure and desperation, how is one to explain the Israeli people’s enthusiasm for the expansion of the circle of violence?

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NATO member to join genocide case against Israel

Türkiye intends to formally join a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has announced, at a news conference in Cairo.

The ICJ case was launched in December by South Africa, which accused the Jewish state of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Since then, over a dozen countries have announced their intention to join the case. The Hague court has yet to issue a final ruling, but has ordered Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under the UN Genocide Convention.

Fidan stressed that the Middle East can no longer tolerate Israel’s “provocations,” including its attacks on Lebanon and Iran, and accused the Jewish state of pursuing violence and “expansionism” while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu aims “to set the entire region on fire.”

The minister condemned the “treacherous” assassination in Tehran last week of the Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh – who served as the Palestinian armed group’s chief negotiator in indirect ceasefire talks with Israel. 

Iran and Hamas have accused Israel of being behind the strike, although the Jewish state has refused to confirm or deny involvement.

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Israel’s admission that it targeted a journalist exposes crude attempt to control war narrative

Ismail Al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami Al-Refee were observing the conflict-zone-reporting best practice, as they motored back from their assignment on the last day of July. Having reported issues facing the displaced people of northern Gaza, they were leaving the scene of greatest danger. Blast vests bearing the insignia “PRESS” protected their bodies. Minutes earlier they had updated the Al Jazeera newsroom with their location.

None of this would save their lives when an Israeli drone strike blasted their car. The explosion blew off Al-Ghoul’s head – an image subsequently shared on social media. Al-Refee and Khalid Shawa, a boy who happened to be passing by on a bicycle, also died instantly.

Unusually, we know that the killing was deliberate – because the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has admitted as much.

The occupation army justified the assassination, arguing that the journalist’s name appears on a list of “senior Hamas officers” that it captured earlier in the conflict. This allegation is strenuously denied by Al-Ghoul’s family, his employer and his union. And Israeli “evidence” in similar cases has appeared questionable. Indeed, Al-Ghoul spent enough time “on camera” that his capacity outside journalism would have been limited.

Critically, however, he was arrested by Israeli soldiers in March and held for 12 hours before being released without a charge. Surely, if the evidence of his Hamas membership justified his killing, there must have been sufficient basis for his prosecution?

This admission of targeting confirms much of what have for months been swirling allegations about Israeli operations. We know that it has software – Pegasus – that secretly invades mobile phones and shares its user’s locations, communications and the identities of those who they meet.

We know that the Israeli army uses software called “Lavender” that deploys AI to sort operational intelligence and suggest targets for assassination. A further tool, “The Gospel”, uploads targets’ geo locations to killer drones dramatically faster than had been possible with manual programming.

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Israeli media publishes video of soldiers allegedly raping Palestinian detainee

Israeli media has published footage purportedly showing the moment soldiers in an infamous detention facility raped a Palestinian detainee.

Late last month, nine Israeli soldiers were arrested for the alleged rape of a Palestinian detained in Sde Teiman, a facility in southern Israel’s Negev desert.

Since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October, many Palestinians detained by Israeli forces have said they were sexually abused by troops at Sde Teiman.

However, no one had been arrested for the abuse until 29 July, when military police raided the facility, clashed with the soldiers and took them into custody.

The incident created a backlash in Israel, with a far-right mob, that included an MP and minister, storming the detention centre and a military court in protest against the arrests.

Israeli media has published footage purportedly showing the moment soldiers in an infamous detention facility raped a Palestinian detainee.

Late last month, nine Israeli soldiers were arrested for the alleged rape of a Palestinian detained in Sde Teiman, a facility in southern Israel’s Negev desert.

Since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October, many Palestinians detained by Israeli forces have said they were sexually abused by troops at Sde Teiman.

However, no one had been arrested for the abuse until 29 July, when military police raided the facility, clashed with the soldiers and took them into custody.

The incident created a backlash in Israel, with a far-right mob, that included an MP and minister, storming the detention centre and a military court in protest against the arrests.

On Tuesday, Channel 12 released a video reputedly of the moment the Palestinian was sexually abused.

He was taken to a field hospital at Sde Teiman with “a ruptured bowel, a severe injury to his anus, lung damage and broken ribs”, according to media reports.

The footage released by Channel 12, taken from evidence used in the investigation, shows detained Palestinians lying on the floor with their hands and eyes covered.

A group of reserve soldiers are then seen taking one of the detainees aside, then trying to hide their subsequent actions with riot shields.

The reservists are members of Force 100, a unit tasked with guarding the prisoners in Sde Teiman.

According to Channel 12, the suspects in the case were found to be lying on a polygraph test.

Two suspects were asked two identical questions: “Did you insert an object into the Palestinian’s anus during a search? and “Are you hiding the identity of the person who inserted an object into the Palestinian’s anus?”

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Israel lobby spends millions to unseat US lawmaker critical of Gaza war

The pro-Israel lobby in the US is pouring millions into a campaign to unseat an African-American Congresswoman from Missouri, Cori Bush, as part of a broader effort to replace critics of Israel’s war in Gaza with more Israel-friendly Democrats, The Washington Post reported on 6 August.

“It’s because I called for a cease-fire in Gaza,” Bush told a potential voter as she campaigned door-to-door in her district. “That’s where all of this started.”

Bush is facing a tight primary contest Tuesday against St Louis County Prosecutor and fellow African-American and Democrat Wesley Bell, who is supported by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the largest and most powerful pro-Israel group in the US.

Whoever wins the primary will run against the Republican party’s candidate for the congressional seat in November.

Outside groups have already spent over $15 million in Missouri’s 1st Congressional district race, with 80 percent of the funds going toward ads opposing Bush and supporting her AIPAC-backed opponent.

In June, AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups spent $17 million to help defeat another progressive African-American member of the US Congress who was critical of the Gaza war, Democrat Jamaal Bowman from New York.

The Washington Post adds that the National Black Empowerment Action Fund (NBEA), founded by AIPAC veteran Darius Jones, donated $1 million to the campaign against Bush last week.

Most of the voters in Bush’s district with whom the Washington Post spoke said they did not know that AIPAC and other Israel lobby groups were so involved in tipping the race.

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