When the Red Line is a Green Light - CounterPunch.org When the Red Line is a Green Light
The Scourging of Gaza: Diary of a Genocidal War + On October 13, 2024, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a joint letter demanding that Israel take concrete steps within 30 days to improve the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza. This would avoid potential policy and legal repercussions triggered by Section 620i of the Foreign Assistance Act, which requires that the President halt weapons transfers and security assistance to any foreign government that restricts U.S. humanitarian aid. Specifically, the Biden administration demanded that the Netanyahu government: 1.) All a minimum of 350 trucks per day to enter Gaza, upholding your prior commitment to allow assistance to flow consistently through all four major crossings (Erez West, Erez East, Gate 96, and Kerem Shalom), as well as opening a new fifth crossing. 2.) Institute adequate humanitarian pauses across Gaza as necessary to enable humanitarian activities, including vaccinations, deliveries, and distribution, for at least the next four months. 3.) Allow people in Mawasi and the adjacent humanitarian zone to move inland before winter. 4.) Enhance security for fixed humanitarian sites and movements. 5.) Rescind evacuation orders when there is no operational need. 6.) Facilitate rapid implementation of the World Food Program’s winter and logistics plan to repair roads, install warehousing, and expand platforms and staging areas. 7.) Ensure that Israeli Coordination and Liaison (CLA) officers can communicate with humanitarian convoys at checkpoints and assign division-level liaison officers from Southern Command to the Joint Coordination Board. 8.) Remove restrictions on the use of container and closed trucks and increase the number of vetted drivers to 400. 9.) Remove an agreed list of essential items from the dual-use restricted list. 10.) Provide expedited clearance processing at the Port of Ashdod for Gaza-bound humanitarian assistance. 11.) Ensure the commercial and Jordan Armed Forces (JAF) corridors function at full and continuous capacity. 12.) Waive customs requirements on the JAF corridor until the UN is able to implement its own process. 13.) Allowing the JAF to enter Gaza through the northern crossings and others as agreed. 14.) Reinstate a minimum of 50-100 commercial trucks entering Gaza per day. 15.) End the isolation of northern Gaza by reaffirming that there will be no Israeli government policy of forced evacuation of civilians from northern to southern Gaza. 16.) Ensure humanitarian organizations have continuous access to northern Gaza through northern crossings and from southern Gaza. 17.) Take all possible steps to prevent adoption of Knesset legislation that could remove certain privileges and immunities from the United Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and its staff, prohibit official contact with UNRWA, and alter the status quo regarding UNRWA in Jerusalem. 18.) Allow the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to individuals detained in connection with the conflict and re-engage in dialogue with the ICRC immediately. 19.) Establish a new channel to raise and discuss incidents of civilian harm. We request the initial virtual meeting for this channel to be held by the end of October. When it was announced, it seemed like a pre-election gimmick, and it proved to be one a month later. Perhaps even the jaded electorate, which had already tuned out much of what the Biden Administration was selling, saw through it, too. What was meant to help Harris’s stumbling campaign may have ultimately doomed it. So, the deadline for meeting these obligations came and went on November 13, with Donald Trump being elected in the meantime. By then, a team of investigators from eight leading humanitarian groups–Anera, CARE, MedGlobal, MercyCorps, Norwegian Refugee Council, OXFAM, Refugees International and Save the Children–evaluated Israel’s response to each of these 18 demands from the Biden administration and found that Israel had failed to fully meet any of the criteria outlined in the secretaries’ letter and, in fact, that Israel’s siege of North Gaza had grossly exacerbated the very crises the letter hoped to ameliorate. The report warns that the “entire Palestinian population in North Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence.” On the vital matter of getting humanitarian aid to the starving population of Gaza, the Blinken/Austin letter demanded that the Israelis allow at least 350 trucks a day into Gaza (still 150 less than the 500 a day coming in before the war). But the report found that in the month since the letter was sent, Israel had allowed a total of only 1,000 trucks to cross into Gaza, an average of only 42 a day. Some days, as few as six trucks entered all of Gaza. As for commercial trucks, which the Biden administration wanted to see Israel allow 50 to 100 a day carrying fresh vegetables, fruit, and meat into Gaza, not a single one has crossed the border since the end of September. Instead of protecting humanitarian sites and staff, as requested, the Israelis continued bombing them. The report cites the killing of 13 aid workers since October 3, at least four of whom were killed after the Blinken/Austin letter was sent. In the 30 days since the letter was sent, the report states that Israeli “attacks hit numerous sites being used for aid distribution and service delivery, including a school-turned-shelter that was going to be used as a polio vaccination site the next day, a UNRWA distribution center as people were trying to access food, at least 30 schools, and a primary health center while the polio vaccination campaign was underway there – and within an area under a humanitarian pause. Since October 13, the Israelis have rescinded only one evacuation order but added five new ones. As for North Gaza, on October 7, 2023, more than 750,000 lived in the governate. A year later, the population was reduced to somewhere between 75 and 95,000. More than 100,000 have been displaced there since the latest Israeli siege began on October 1, many of them after the Blinken/Austin letter was sent. The public infrastructure–water, sanitation, roads, health facilities, schools, ambulances–has largely been destroyed by Israeli bombings and military operations. And the Israelis have said displaced Palestinians won’t be permitted to return to their homes. The US pleas to protect UNRWA and allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit detainees have both been ignored. On November 13th, as the deadline for compliance with the letter expired, Israel launched an airstrike on a house in the Jabalia refugee camp in North Gaza, killing 32 Palestinians. Thirteen of the dead were children. The Biden administration’s feckless response? They’re going to keep shipping weapons to Israel, regardless. Last week, Israel signed a $5 billion contract for 25 new fighter jets produced in the United States as part of continuing aid. The same day Israel blew through Biden’s redline on Gaza, Biden welcomed Israeli President Isaac Herzog to the White House. As conditions in Gaza were described by the UN chief of Humanitarian Affairs as “unliveable,” Biden reiterated his boast that “you don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist” and proclaimed that the US’s support for Israel remained “ironclad.” “You are clearly a Zionist, Mr. President,” replied Herzog. “God love you,” said Biden, as he cracked a grin and pumped Herzog’s hand. “Thanks for being here. In a press briefing at the State Department on Tuesday, Vedant Patel said: “We at this time have not made assessments that the Israelis are in violation of U.S. law. We are going to continue to assess their compliance with U.S. law. We’ve seen some progress being made; we’d like to see more changes happen.” The irrepressible AP Correspondent Matt Lee confronted Patel over the Biden administration’s failure to hold Israel accountable for not meeting its own demands. Lee: “Why did you bother to put in 350 trucks a day if it didn’t matter?” Patel: “I’m not gonna speak to that,” Patel said. Lee: “We didn’t give the Israelis 30 days, you guys did. And now those 30 days are up, and all the metrics you put out don’t matter.” +++ + Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) to Mehdi Hasan on the Biden Administration’s “shameful” decision not to take any action against Israel for continuing to block humanitarian aid to Gaza: “President Biden’s inaction, given the suffering in Gaza, is shameful. I mean, there is no other word for it. If you look at the letter that Secretaries Austin and Blinken sent on October 13th, they lay out all of the criteria against which they’re going to measure whether there’s more humanitarian aid getting in. Almost none of those have been met. Maybe some tiny little things they’re pointing to now. By the way, they also say Knesset doesn’t pass the two bills banning UNRWA. Don’t do it. They also say in this letter the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) should get access to prisoners. So what happens after the letter goes out? Israel passed the two bills, effectively shutting down UNRWA, and they’ve taken no action on the ICRC. And still, the administration says, ‘Oh, it’s okay.’ So look, if the President doesn’t mean what he says, then he should stop saying it because he looks so weak. The whole administration looks weak when they say to Netanyahu, ‘Don’t do this. Don’t do that. This is against our values. This is against our interests.’ And when they do it, he does nothing.” + Next week, Bernie Sanders says he will introduce a series of resolutions in the Senate to enforce the Leahy Act and block future US arms sales to Israel: As horrific as the last year has been, the current situation is even worse. Today, Israel continues to restrict the flow of food and medicine to desperate people. Tens of thousands of Palestinians face malnutrition and starvation. The volume of aid reaching Gazans is lower than at any time in the last year. Blocking humanitarian aid violates the Foreign Assistance Act as well as the Geneva Convention. This war has been conducted almost entirely with American weapons and $18 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars. Israel has dropped U.S.-provided 2,000-pound bombs into crowded neighborhoods, killed hundreds of civilians to take out a handful of Hamas fighters, and made little effort to distinguish between civilians and combatants. These actions are immoral and illegal. The United States cannot continue to be complicit in this war by supplying more military aid and weaponry to the Netanyahu government. Congress must act to block these arms sales. + Sen. Elizabeth Warren endorsed Bernie Sanders’ Joint Resolutions of Disapproval against Biden: “The failure by the Biden administration to follow US law and to suspend arms shipments is a grave mistake that undermines American credibility worldwide…“If this administration will not act, Congress must step up to enforce US law and hold the Netanyahu government accountable through a joint resolution of disapproval.” + Trump: “We are going to remove all restrictions on arms shipments to Israel on day one.” What restrictions is he talking about? +++ + Last Sunday, Haaretz published an editorial arguing that “the Israeli military is conducting an ethnic cleansing operation in the northern Gaza Strip.” The editorial quotes Brig. Gen. Itzik Cohen, the commander of the 162nd Division of the IDF: “We received very clear orders. My task is to create a cleansed space. … We are moving the population for its protection, in order to create freedom of action for our forces…There is no intention of allowing the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to return to their homes.” The editorial concluded: “Instead of talking about the Generals’ Plan, we should be talking about ‘Netanyahu’s Orders.’ He is the leader, and he is responsible for the war crimes committed by the IDF in the northern Strip in the name of the “War of Rebirth”: the expulsion of the Palestinians, the destruction of their homes, and the preparations on the ground for a prolonged occupation and Jewish settlement.” + To date, Human Rights Watch has cautiously–many would say, too cautiously– not called Israel’s slaughter and forced starvation of Palestinians in Gaza a “genocide.” But on Wednesday, the group issued a detailed report that describes Israel’s uprooting of 90 percent of Gaza’s population: “ethnic cleansing” and a “crime against humanity.” HRW said that Israel’s displacement of Palestinians in Gaza is “systematic” and “widespread.” The report disputes Israel’s fanciful justifications for the mass purge, saying “there is no plausible imperative military reason to justify Israel’s mass displacement of nearly all of Gaza’s population, often multiple times. Rather than ensuring civilians’ security, military “evacuation orders” have caused grave harm, often serving only to spread fear and anxiety. Rather than ensure security for displaced civilians, Israeli forces have repeatedly struck designated evacuation routes and safe zones.” The 154-page report, “‘Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged’: Israel’s Forced Displacement of Palestinians in Gaza,” documents the forced displacement of nearly 2 million Palestinians over the last 13 months and charges that “ Israeli forces have carried out deliberate, controlled demolitions of homes and civilian infrastructure, including in areas where they have apparent aims of creating ‘buffer zones’ and security ‘corridors,’ from which Palestinians are likely to be permanently displaced.” “From the first days of the hostilities, senior officials in the Israeli government and war cabinet have declared their intent to displace the Palestinian population of Gaza,” ” the HRW report stressed, Human Rights Watch called on the ICC prosecutor to investigate Israel’s forced displacement and “prevention of the right to return as a crime against humanity.” It also urged the US, Germany, and other governments to “immediately suspend weapons transfers and military assistance to Israel.” “No one can be in denial about the atrocity crimes the Israeli military is committing against Palestinians in Gaza,” said HRW researcher Nadia Hardman. “Transfer of additional weapons and assistance to Israel by the United States, Germany, and others is a blank check for further atrocities and increasingly puts them at risk of complicity.” + EU Foreign Minister Joseph Borrell concurred with HRW and Haaretz’s conclusion that Israel is committing ethnic cleansing in North Gaza, writing on Twitter: I strongly condemn the latest Israeli strike in Gaza’s Jabalia, with many civilian casualties. The words “ethnic cleansing” are increasingly used to describe what is going on in North Gaza. The daily reality of forced displacements violates international law. The use of hunger as a weapon of war is also against IHL. According to the UN IPC alert, there is a strong likelihood that famine will spread in North Gaza. This manmade catastrophe must be averted. Israel, as occupying power, has the obligation to act by letting aid in. And it is for the international community and Israel’s main allies to take urgent measures for an end of the suffering of the Palestinians and for the liberation of the hostages. As underlined in the IPC report, action by all parties is required within days, not weeks. +++ + According to UNICEF, Israel attacked 64 schools in Gaza that were serving as refugee shelters in October alone. Twenty-five of those schools were in North Gaza. At least 128 Palestinians were killed, most of them women and children. Since October of last year, Israel has launched 228 attacks on schools in Gaza. “Schools should never be on the frontlines of war, and children should never be indiscriminately attacked while seeking shelter,” said Catherine Russell, UNICEF’s executive director. “Children must be shielded from harm, and their right to education must be upheld, even amidst conflict.” + On November 15, an Israeli airstrike hit the Abu Assi School, an UNRWA shelter for displaced Palestinians in the al-Shati refugee camp of central Gaza City, killing ten and injuring 20. + Since October 1, Israel has blocked almost all humanitarian aid from entering North Gaza. Israel has permitted only a single mission by the World Food Program on November 11 and some medical supplies provided to hospitals during medical evacuations. North Gaza has had no fuel deliveries for water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities since the beginning of the month. + The World Health Organization reports that access to North Gaza’s last three hospitals–Kamal Adwan, Al Awda and Indonesia–remains extremely restricted. Due to fuel shortages, Al Awda Hospital has been forced to run its generators only three hours per day since the start of November, severely limiting surgeries and other power-driven health care services. + Between 6,800 and 13,700 children in North Gaza could not be reached to get a needed second polio vaccination and remain vulnerable to contracting the virus. + The WHO reports that nine in 10 Palestinian children in Gaza under the age of five have contracted at least one infectious disease. More than one-quarter of Gaza’s women are experiencing skin conditions. In the first week of November alone, the WHO reported more than 11,000 cases of acute respiratory infections. The number of cases of bloody diarrhea and acute jaundice syndrome continues to climb. + Only 9 of Gaza’s 21 partially functioning hospitals and field clinics can currently provide maternity care, meaning that, according to the WHO, “every day, hundreds of women give birth in traumatic, unhygienic and undignified conditions.”With 155,000 pregnant women in Gaza now without access to pre-natal and post-natal care, there’s been a sharp spike in premature births and maternal deaths, according to data collected by the UN Population Fund. + More than 42,000 pregnant women in Gaza are facing crisis or worse levels of food insecurity across the Strip, 15,000 of whom are classified in the emergency phase (IPC Phase 4) and 3,000 facing catastrophic hunger (IPC Phase 5). The UN Population Fund warns that this “number could surge to 8,000 as winter sets in.” These starvation conditions are having a devastating impact on the health of pregnant women, increasing the risk of babies being born with health complications and making many new mothers unable to breastfeed, which places infants at a higher risk of contracting infectious diseases, including pneumonia. + Most Palestinian families survive on bread and dry seeds (pulses). Before October, many Palestinians ate at least some vegetables six days a week and meat and eggs three days a week. Now, consumption of those staples has dropped to nearly zero. Nearly 95 percent of Palestinian children under the age of two are consuming only one or two food types a day. + Due to a lack of fuel and Israeli attacks on infrastructure and electrical generation sites, water production in Gaza has declined to critical levels. The Palestinian Water Authority and Coastal Municipalities Water Utility reported that between October 26 and November 8, the average daily water production across Gaza dropped to 96,394 cubic meters, less than a quarter of the levels before October 2023. + Palestinian Civil Defense is inoperable in most of North Gaza, leaving 100s of Palestinians trapped under the rubble from Israeli airstrikes for days. +++ UN vote on Resolution in favor of Palestinian self-determination. + On Thursday, the UN General Assembly approved a resolution supporting the “Right of the Palestinian People to Self-Determination” by a vote of 170 to 6, with nine abstentions. Argentina, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Paraguay, and the United States cast the six votes against it. The nine abstentions were from Kiribati, Liberia, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Togo, Tonga, and Tuvalu. + The text of the resolution stresses the urgency of achieving, without delay, an end to the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace settlement between the Palestinian and Israeli sides, reaffirming the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including the right to their independent State of Palestine. It urges all States and the United Nations specialized agencies and organizations to continue to support the Palestinian people in the early realization of their right to self-determination. + The now nearly completely isolated Biden administration bizarrely said the resolution “does not represent a step towards the realization of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.” +++ + The UN Special Committee on Israel’s warfare practices in Gaza concluded in a report issued this week that: “Israel’s warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide, with mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians there.” Among the report’s findings: “Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated UN appeals, binding orders from the International Court of Justice and resolutions of the Security Council, Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury, using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population… “By destroying vital water, sanitation and food systems, and contaminating the environment, Israel has created a lethal mix of crises that will inflict severe harm on generations to come… “The Israeli military’s use of AI-assisted targeting, with minimal human oversight, combined with heavy bombs, underscores Israel’s disregard of its obligation to distinguish between civilians and combatants and take adequate safeguards to prevent civilian deaths… “[The] deliberate silencing of reporting, combined with disinformation and attacks on humanitarian workers, is a clear strategy to undermine the vital work of the UN, sever the lifeline of aid still reaching Gaza, and dismantle the international legal order.” The report concluded that it is up to the international community and the member states of the UN to stop Israel’s violations of international law and hold it accountable for the war crimes it has committed in the Occupied Territories. “It is the collective responsibility of every State to stop supporting the assault on Gaza and the apartheid system in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Upholding international law and ensuring accountability for violations rests squarely on Member States. A failure to do so weakens the very core of the international legal system and sets a dangerous precedent, allowing atrocities to go unchecked.” +++ + Chris Sidoti, former human rights commissioner: “When Netanyahu talks about finishing off Hamas, I wonder about what the 1 million children in Gaza will be doing in 20 years’ time. The conflict in Gaza is an Israeli terrorism creation factory and there is no sign of it finishing.” + Graça Machel, Co-founder and Deputy Chair of The Elders, warned this week of alarming signs of ethnic cleansing in Gaza amid a worsening humanitarian catastrophe: “We are seeing alarming signs of ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been forcibly displaced, with little to no prospect of being able to go back to their homes. The tightened Israeli siege of North Gaza has cut off almost all humanitarian aid, and the UN has warned that the entire remaining population in North Gaza is at risk of dying. This is all the more alarming given the International Court of Justice has already ordered Israel to implement provisional measures to prevent acts of genocide. The world is bound to ask: what is being done? After more than a year of war, over 43,000 Palestinians have been killed – around 70% of them women and children. Hamas is still holding up to 100 Israelis hostage, and I reiterate the Elders’ call for their immediate and unconditional release. The horrific death toll in Gaza is perpetuated by Israel’s military and political allies, many of which continue to supply arms, notably the USA. Although the Biden administration gave Israel a 30-day deadline to make significant improvements in humanitarian access, it is evident that little progress has been made. I repeat the Elders’ call for all states, particularly the USA, to immediately suspend arms transfers to Israel and end impunity for its atrocity crimes.” +++ + Louise Wateridge, UNRWA: “Around 100,00 people have just been forcibly displaced to Gaza City from the besieged north from the besieged north—conditions awaiting families unfit for human survival. Dead bodies are being eaten by dogs. Desperate pleas & repeated stories of children buried or burned alive. An endless cycle of suffering.” + Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, decried the lack of on-the-ground international coverage of Gaza during an interview on PBS’s Newshour: “I’m amazed at how journalists sort takes one party in a very dirty war as a good source. Don’t believe the Israeli propaganda. Don’t believe Hamas propaganda. Don’t believe Hezbollah propaganda. There is a reason Israel is denying PBS and all other independent journalists in the world access to Gaza. They don’t want independent witnesses. We who are there, who are independent, neutral, impartial–all UN agencies, all Red Cross agencies, all nongovernmental agencies, American, European, etc. We are unanimous in that Israeli is deliberately starving the population and having an indiscriminate, excessive warfare that is killing thousands of women and children. There is no doubt. This has been documented. Israel is not telling the truth.” + Liat Atzili’s husband, Aviv, was shot during Hamas’s attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz and he was taken back to Gaza where he died. Hamas is still holding his body. Liat was also taken hostage and later released during the ceasefire. Now Liat told Haaretz that she “has no faith in anyone in the [Netanyahu] government” and that “my husband’s body has no significance. It’s important to save the hostages who are alive.” +++ + Since the beginning of October, the UN’s Office of Humanitarian Affairs has documented 203 attacks by Israeli settlers directly related to the olive harvest in 79 Palestinian communities across the West Bank. At least 151 of these attacks resulted in injuries, deaths, or property damage. In this period, 69 Palestinians were injured by Israeli settlers, 13 by Israeli forces, and more than 1,600 primarily olive trees burnt, chopped down or otherwise vandalized, and many crops and harvesting tools stolen. + The Palestinian Commission for Settlements’ Affairs reports that Israeli settlers have destroyed 1,490 trees in Palestinian orchards and olive groves in October alone: 740 of them in Hebron, 193 in Nablus, 178 in Ramallah, 160 in Bethlehem,100 in Salfit, and 30 in Qalqilya. + Even Crown Prince Bone Saws, who says he has no particular affection for or even interest in Palestinians, now says he believes Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. During a summit of Arab and Muslim leaders in Riyadh, the Crown Prince also condemned Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and warned against further strikes on Iran, a sign of improving relations between Riyadh and Tehran. +++ + Rep. Jamal Bowman says he offered to campaign for the Harris-Walz ticket in Dearborn, Michigan. His offer was rebuffed, and the campaign sent Ritchie Torres, Liz Cheney, and Bill Clinton, who further alienated Arab-American voters in the state. + A new poll commissioned by J Street during the week before the US general elections shows that Jewish-American voters want an end to the war on Gaza and an increase in humanitarian aid to Palestinians… The majority of American Jews are in favor of: 1) Stopping offensive US weapons shipments to Israel (62%) 2) Resume funding of UNRWA (66%) 3) Sanctioning Israeli leaders (66%) 4) Increasing aid to Palestinians (72%) 5) Establishment of a Palestinian state (72%) + Trump’s nominee as Middle East envoy, real estate mogul Steven Witkoff, raised funds for Trump by arguing that Israel should be allowed to drop US-made 2,000-pound bombs in densely populated areas of Gaza. + In a lawsuit filed this week, Ben & Jerry’s said that its parent company, Unilever, had silenced the ice cream brand’s attempts to express support for Palestinian refugees and threatened to dismantle its board and sue its members over the issue. + On November 4th, the Center for Constitutional Rights sent a letter to members of Congress warning them that they may have exposed themselves to legal liability for “aiding, abetting, inciting or conspiring to commit genocide.” +++ Israeli airstrike with a 2,000-pound US-made bomb on downtown Beirut that toppled an 11-story residential building. + On the night of November 14, Israeli airstrikes hit a Lebanese civil defense center in the village of Douris, near the ancient city of Baalbek in the Bekka Valley, killing at least 12 paramedics, including the center’s chief, Bilal Raad. The center was destroyed along with a nearby house. The rescue service is not affiliated with Hezbollah. + Israel has killed 219 medics and paramedics in Lebanon in six weeks–over six a day. HRW has warned that Israel’s repeated attacks on medics in Lebanon are “apparent war crimes.” + On November 15, the Israelis launched a US-made 2,000-pound bomb, equipped with a US-made JDAM guidance kit, in downtown Beirut. The missile struck an 11-story building in the heart of Lebanon’s capital, toppling the residential tower. + On November 16, an Israeli airstrike severely wounded Celine Haidar, a member of the Lebanese women’s national team. She is in critical condition. + The Irish writer Sally Hayden (My Fourth Time, We Drowned), who is in Beirut: “The kids in the school I’m beside in Beirut have been encouraged to clap and cheer when air strikes hit so they don’t become frightened. A loud one hit not too far away just now & I watched them all do this after they heard the explosion.” + James Elder, UNICEF: “I don’t know whether to scream or to cry. Brace yourself for a second. When I was first in Gaza a year ago, I encountered a story I never imagined possible, in a hospital with a boy utterly broken from a bombardment and his carer whispering to me. I didn’t understand why he was whispering. He was whispering because he was explaining that this little boy, his entire family, had been killed. I’d never heard such a thing, and I didn’t imagine I ever would. And now I’ve heard it dozens of times. And now, I’m in Lebanon, and I meet Ali two-year-old Ali, who spent 14 hours under rubble and hasn’t spoken for about two weeks because of that trauma. Only now in the last couple of days, little Ali speaks to a child psychologist and to learn that his mum has been killed, that in the airstrike, his father was killed, that Ali’s sister was killed, that Ali’s grandmother was killed. Do you get it? Ali’s entire family was killed. We have to ask ourselves, are those with power, those with the influence to stop this, really going to watch in silence again? While these horrors play out again?” +++ The mother of injured photojournalist, Fadi al-Wahidi announcing she’s going on a hunger strike and refusing medication to treat her cancer in protest of Israel blocking a medical evacuation for her paralyzed son. Israel has continued to prevent the evacuation of Al Jazeera photojournalist Fadi al-Wahidi for medical treatment. Al-Wahidi was shot in the neck by an Israeli sniper in October while he was reporting an IDF raid on Jabalia. Now, Fadi’s mother has announced she is going on a hunger strike and has stopped taking her cancer medication to protest Israeli occupation forces preventing her son from leaving the Gaza Strip for medical treatment. + Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), an organization that has supported journalists in the Occupied Territories of Palestine, recently conducted a survey of 512 journalists in Gaza. The findings 183 killed 115 wounded 131 lost family members 16 lost their children 495 displaced 446 lost their houses 468 lost their devices 33% believe wearing “press” helmets and vests made them a target. + On October 29th, Israel bombed a five-story residential building in Beit Lahia. The reason? An IDF spotter said he saw one potential “militant” on the roof. The airstrike took place at night without warning, as dozens of families slept inside. At least 93 people, mostly women and children, were killed, and dozens more were injured and pulled from the rubble. + On November 13, an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City targeted a group of Palestinians waiting for the arrival of an aid truck, killing or wounding more than 70 people. + The director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the North Gaza city of Beit Lahia said that patients lose their lives every hour due to the lack of medical supplies and that new cases of severe malnutrition have been documented among children in the hospital. + Euromed’s Maha Hussaini on the shortages of insulin in Gaza: “Insulin supplies are running out in hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies across the humanitarian zones in the central and southern Gaza Strip, not to mention northern Gaza, which remains under a systematic Israeli blockade. Diabetes patients are left in limbo, silently dying without any public outcry.” +++ Dr. Nizam Mamode testifying before a committee of the British parliament. Dr. Nizam Mamode, a retired British professor of transplant surgery who spent weeks volunteering in Gaza, testified before Members of Parliament this week, where he described Israeli quadcopter and drone attacks on Palestinian children and the detention and abuse of medical workers by Israeli troops: “What I found particularly disturbing was that a bomb would drop, maybe on a crowded, tented area and then the drones would come down. The drones would come down and pick off civilians – children. We [were] operating on children who would say: ‘I was lying on the ground after a bomb had dropped, and this quadcopter came down and hovered over me and shot me.’ That’s clearly a deliberate act and it was a persistent act–persistent targeting of civilians day after day. “The bullets that the drones fire are these small cuboid pellets and I fished a number of those out of the abdomen of small children. I think the youngest I operated on was a three-year-old. “These pellets were in a way more destructive than bullets. With the drone pellets, what I found was they would go in and they would bounce around so that they would cause multiple injuries. “I had a seven-year-old boy… He had injuries to his liver, spleen, bowel, and arteries, so quite extensive destruction from a single entry point. He survived that and went out a week later.” “I was operating on a young girl one night, who died not long afterward. I can’t even begin to describe her injuries. But when I finished operating on her, an ophthalmologist was trying to take out her left eye, which was just pulp. He was a lovely, gentle man, maybe five years older than me. And while he was working, he was saying, when they [Israeli forces] came in February, they got all of us who were still here. They put our hands behind our backs, tied them up, put a hood over our heads, made us stand for 10 hours, beat us, cursed us in Arabic, and humiliated us. And then some were taken away. Some were killed. Some were detained. Some were released. We had a medical student who worked with us who described how the women had all been lined up and told to strip down to their underwear and made to stand for hours like that, which is deeply, deeply humiliating, particularly in that culture. And then, when they told her she could go, they wouldn’t return her clothes. So she had to run through the streets like that, which for her was extremely traumatic. So there’s a consistent theme of attack, humiliation and aggression against people, who are simply trying to do their job, to try and help people.” +++ Dr. Joyce Msuya, the UN’s Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefing the Security Council on Gaza. + Let’s give the last word this week to Joyce Msuya, the UN’s Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, who briefed the Security Council this week on the rapidly deteriorating conditions in Gaza, which she described as “unfit for human survival.” Her remarks are worth quoting at length: Since the escalation of this conflict in October 2023, we have briefed this Council on no fewer than 16 occasions. We have condemned the death, destruction, and dehumanization of civilians in Gaza who have been driven from their homes, stripped of their sense of place and dignity, and forced to witness their family members killed, burned, and buried alive. Injured children have had the words ‘Wounded Child, No Surviving Family’ penned on their arms. Most of Gaza is now a wasteland of rubble. What distinction was made, and what precautions were taken if more than 70 percent of civilian housing is either damaged or destroyed? Essential commercial goods and services, including electricity, have been all but cut off. This has led to increasing hunger, starvation and now, as we have heard, potentially famine. We are witnessing acts reminiscent of the gravest international crimes. Mr. President, the latest offensive that Israel started in North Gaza last month is an intensified, extreme and accelerated version of the horrors of the past year. Shelters, homes and schools have been burned and bombed to the ground. Numerous families remain trapped under the rubble because fuel for digging equipment is being blocked by the Israeli authorities, and first responders have been blocked from reaching them. Ambulances have been destroyed. And hospitals have come under attack. Supplies to the north are being cut off and people are being pushed further south. The daily cruelty we see in Gaza seems to have no limits. Beit Hanoun has been besieged for more than one month. Yesterday, food and water reached shelters, but today, Israeli soldiers forcibly displaced people from those same areas. People under siege now tell us they are afraid that they will be targeted if they receive help. As I brief you, Israeli authorities are blocking humanitarian assistance from entering North Gaza, where fighting continues, and around 75,000 people remain with dwindling water and food supplies. Conditions of life across Gaza are unfit for human survival. Food is insufficient. Shelter items –needed ahead of winter – are in extremely short supply. Violent armed lootings of our convoys have become increasingly organized along routes from Kerem Shalom, driven by the collapse of public order and safety. Many food assistance kitchens have been forced to close. In October, daily food distribution shrank by nearly 25 percent compared to September. These are not logistical problems – they can be solved with the right political will. The Israeli military’s announcement that the Kissufim crossing into central Gaza has opened cannot come soon enough. However, our capacity to respond is being undermined, including by the Israeli Knesset legislation to ban UNRWA activities starting in January. If implemented, this bill will be another devastating blow to efforts to provide life-saving aid and avert the threat of famine. No other organization can fill these gaps. Jeffrey St. Clair -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#33654): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/33654 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/109655390/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
