Serious UN: Israel Guilty of War Crimes!

[superpower]

In addition to the genocide and siege going on in Gaza, ICC is also looking into another war crime Israel may have committed: impeding the flow of humanitarian relief supplies to civilians and children in the Rafah crossing.

If Russia's acts in Ukraine are war crimes, then Israel's acts are no less heinous and should be judged by the ICC as war crimes too.

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Three rights groups file ICC lawsuit against Israel over Gaza ‘genocide’​

The lawsuit urges the ICC to include ‘genocide’ in Gaza war crimes inquiry and issue arrest warrants for Israel’s leaders.

9 Nov 2023

Three Palestinian rights groups have filed a lawsuit with the International Criminal Court (ICC), urging the body to investigate Israel for “apartheid” as well as “genocide” and issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.

The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday by human rights organisations Al-Haq, Al Mezan, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, called for “urgent attention to the continuous barrage of Israeli airstrikes on densely populated civilian areas within the Gaza Strip”, which have killed more than 10,500 Palestinians, almost half of them children, according to Gaza health officials.

The document also asked the body to expand its ongoing war crimes investigation by looking into “the suffocating siege imposed on [Gaza], the forced displacement of its population, the use of toxic gas, and the denial of necessities, such as food, water, fuel, and electricity”.

These acts amount to “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity”, including “genocide”, the lawsuit said.

The three groups want arrest warrants to be issued against Israel’s President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

The ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) opened an official investigation into the situation in Palestine in 2021 after determining that “war crimes have been or are being committed by Palestinian and Israeli actors in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip”.

However, the group has faced criticism from rights groups and activists who say its response to ongoing Israeli attacks in Gaza have been tepid.

In the latest ICC filing, the rights groups’ lawyer, Emmanuel Daoud, referenced the ICC’s ruling against Russia’s President Vladimir Putin for war crimes in Ukraine, and said there was “no room for double standards in international justice”.

“Whether war crimes are committed in Ukraine or Palestine, the culprits should be held to account,” said Daoud.

This is not the first time a file against Israel has been brought to the ICC during its one-month war in Gaza.

On October 31, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) submitted a complaint to the body alleging Israel had perpetrated war crimes against journalists in Gaza.

As of Thursday, Israeli attacks have killed at least 39 journalists since October 7, according to figures from press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 34 of whom were Palestinian, four were Israeli, and one was Lebanese.

‘Criminal responsibility’​

ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan pointed to additional possible crimes when he visited Egypt’s Rafah border crossing on October 29, saying impeding humanitarian aid from reaching civilians could be prosecuted under the Rome Statute.

“There should not be any impediment to humanitarian relief supplies going to children, to women and men, civilians,” Khan said.

“They are innocent, they have rights under international humanitarian law. These rights are part of the Geneva Conventions, and they give rise to even criminal responsibility when these rights are curtailed under the Rome Statute.”

Israel, which is not a member of the ICC, has previously rejected the court’s jurisdiction and does not formally engage with the court.

The ICC’s founding Rome Statute gives it legal authority to investigate alleged crimes on the territory of its members or by their nationals when domestic authorities are “unwilling or unable” to do so.

On October 10, the office of the prosecutor of the ICC said its mandate applies to potential crimes committed in the current conflict.

 

[superpower]

Israel has finally admitted to ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, which the rest of the world already knows but largely ignores.

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Israeli Minister Admits Military Is Carrying Out ‘Nakba’ Against Gaza’s Palestinians​

Sanjana Karanth
Mon, 13 November 2023 at 7:31 am SGT

An Israeli cabinet official has publicly admitted to the government’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, saying on television over the weekend that the country is “rolling out the Gaza Nakba.”

On Saturday, security cabinet member and Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter sat for a television interview with an Israeli news network. Dichter is part of the right-wing nationalist Likud party, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs.

“We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba,” Dichter said when asked if the recent images of northern Gaza residents evacuating south are comparable to images of the 1948 Nakba.

“From an operational point of view, there is no way to wage a war ― as the IDF seeks to do in Gaza ― with masses between the tanks and the soldiers,” he continued, according to a translation of the interview by Haaretz.

The Nakba, which in Arabic means “catastrophe,” refers to the mass displacement and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Palestine was considered a multi-ethnic society until the tension between Arab and Jewish people rose as a result of both Jews migrating to flee persecution in Europe, as well as the Zionist movement attempting to establish a Jewish ethnostate in Palestine.

The tension escalated to war in 1948 after the UN General Assembly’s resolution trying to partition Palestine into two states was rejected a year earlier. The war resulted in the permanent displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians by the newly formed Israeli forces.

Despite the UN calling for Palestinian refugee return and property restitution, Israel has continued to deny the rights of Palestinians and carry out an apartheid for 75 years. The anniversary of the Nakba serves as a painful acknowledgment of the generational and ongoing trauma that Palestinians face both on their occupied land and outside the region.

“Gaza Nakba 2023,” Dichter said. “That’s how it’ll end.”

When later asked if labeling the current forced evacuation a Nakba means Palestinians won’t be able to return to Gaza City, Dichter said: “I don’t know how it’ll end up happening since Gaza City is one-third of the Strip ― half the land’s population but a third of the territory.”

Israel’s monthlong siege on Gaza has killed more than 11,000 people and displaced millions. Israeli forces told Palestinians to evacuate northern Gaza to avoid being killed, though several areas in the southern region have also been bombed.

On Friday, Netanyahu said that he wants “full security control” of Gaza with the power to “enter whenever we want” to kill who Israel perceives to be enemies.

 

[superpower]

AFP News

UN flags lowered for staff killed in Gaza​

Tue, 14 November 2023 at 5:24 AM SGT

The UN agency for supporting Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said 101 of its employees had died in the Gaza Strip
since the war erupted (Lillian SUWANRUMPHA)

Flags flew at half-mast at UN facilities across the globe Monday including at the body's New York headquarters, as staff stood in silent tribute to the more than 100 colleagues killed in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war.

The blue and white United Nations flag was lowered at 9:30 am local time at offices in Bangkok, Tokyo and Beijing, with other UN venues following suit.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres led UN personnel in observing a minute of silence at UN headquarters when the clock struck 9:30 am in New York.

"Since the start of this conflict, more than 100 UNRWA staff have lost their lives," he posted on X, formerly Twitter, along with a photograph of senior UN officials somberly standing in silence.

"They will never be forgotten."

The UN agency for supporting Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said Monday that 102 of its employees had died and 27 had been injured in the Gaza Strip since the war erupted just over a month ago -- the highest number of UN aid workers killed in a conflict in the body's history, according to the agency.

"UNRWA staff in Gaza appreciate the UN lowering the flag around the world," the agency director in the Gaza Strip, Tom White, said in a statement.

"In Gaza however, we have to keep the UN flag flying high as a sign that we are still standing and serving the people of Gaza."

Israel has been relentlessly bombarding the Gaza Strip since Hamas fighters carried out an October 7 attack on southern Israeli communities, the deadliest in the country's history.

About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the Hamas attacks and around 240 people taken hostage, according to Israeli officials.

More than 11,000 people, most of them civilians and many of them children, have been killed in Gaza in retaliatory strikes by Israel, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

 

[Likemeat]

AFP News

UN flags lowered for staff killed in Gaza​

Tue, 14 November 2023 at 5:24 AM SGT

The UN agency for supporting Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said 101 of its employees had died in the Gaza Strip
since the war erupted (Lillian SUWANRUMPHA)

Flags flew at half-mast at UN facilities across the globe Monday including at the body's New York headquarters, as staff stood in silent tribute to the more than 100 colleagues killed in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war.

The blue and white United Nations flag was lowered at 9:30 am local time at offices in Bangkok, Tokyo and Beijing, with other UN venues following suit.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres led UN personnel in observing a minute of silence at UN headquarters when the clock struck 9:30 am in New York.

"Since the start of this conflict, more than 100 UNRWA staff have lost their lives," he posted on X, formerly Twitter, along with a photograph of senior UN officials somberly standing in silence.

"They will never be forgotten."

The UN agency for supporting Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said Monday that 102 of its employees had died and 27 had been injured in the Gaza Strip since the war erupted just over a month ago -- the highest number of UN aid workers killed in a conflict in the body's history, according to the agency.

"UNRWA staff in Gaza appreciate the UN lowering the flag around the world," the agency director in the Gaza Strip, Tom White, said in a statement.

"In Gaza however, we have to keep the UN flag flying high as a sign that we are still standing and serving the people of Gaza."

Israel has been relentlessly bombarding the Gaza Strip since Hamas fighters carried out an October 7 attack on southern Israeli communities, the deadliest in the country's history.

About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the Hamas attacks and around 240 people taken hostage, according to Israeli officials.

More than 11,000 people, most of them civilians and many of them children, have been killed in Gaza in retaliatory strikes by Israel, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

They were killed by terrorist zionist israhell soldiers. They will kip barking they have the right to self defence. Against doctors, nurses, hospital workers, journalists,

 

[superpower]

Arab-OIC summit calls Israeli assault on Gaza a war crime​

The summit, hosted by Saudi Arabia and attended by 57 countries — members of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) — also rejected the Israeli claim that its war on Gaza was in “self-defence”

November 13, 2023 by Peoples Dispatch

A joint Arab-Islamic summit held in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh on Saturday, November 11, rejected Israeli claims that the war in Gaza was in “self defense.” The participating members instead held it responsible for “continuation and aggravation of the conflict” and “warned of the disastrous repercussions” for its “war crime.”

The joint communique issued after the meeting also reiterated the demand for an immediate end of the “barbaric, inhuman and brutal massacre by the colonial occupation government” in Gaza and an end to Israel’s “barbaric crimes committed also in the West Bank and Al-Quds Al-Sharif (East Jerusalem).”

The summit was called to discuss a joint response to the Israeli war in Gaza. Israel has been carrying out indiscriminate air strikes and land incursions in the besieged Palestinian territory since October 7. The offensive has killed more than 11,000 Palestinians, mostly children, women and the elderly, and injured over 27,000.

Israeli attacks have displaced more than 70% of the 2.3 million population of Gaza, destroying residential buildings, hospitals, schools, shelters, and almost all of its civil infrastructure.

The summit, originally scheduled as a meeting of the Arab League members, was later extended and converted into a joint summit with members of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC).

As per reports, the original OIC summit was scheduled on Sunday, but it was postponed due to the “extraordinary” situation in Gaza.

The 57 members of the OIC includes 22 Arab countries, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, and several other Asian and African countries.

 

[superpower]

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Israel must respect 'sanctity of hospitals': UK minister​

Tue, 14 November 2023 at 10:20 PM SGT

UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron (R) and development minister Andrew Mitchell at 10 Downing Street on November 14, 2023 (Ben Stansall)

Israel must respect "the sanctity of hospitals" in Gaza and allow them to be places of safety during its offensive in the Palestinian territory, a UK foreign minister said on Tuesday.

"All parties to a conflict must afford civilians the protection that is their right under international law," Andrew Mitchell, a minister in Britain's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), told members of parliament.

"That includes respecting the sanctity of hospitals so that doctors can continue to care for the sick and injured," he added.

Israel has bombarded Gaza relentlessly and sent in ground troops since an attack by Hamas militants in southern Israel on October 7.

Some 1,200 people were killed and 240 kidnapped in the Hamas attack, Israeli officials say.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says Israel's military response has killed 11,240 people, also mostly civilians, including thousands of children.

Gaza's main Al-Shifa hospital, which has been a shelter for those displaced by the fighting, has been forced to bury scores of dead patients in a mass grave after continuous Israeli bombardment, according to its director.

Aid organisations have said a full ceasefire is needed to get help to civilians in Gaza wounded in Israeli bombardments, and to transport crucial aid to the 2.4 million people living in the densely populated, besieged territory.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that a ceasefire without the release of the hostages would mean "surrender to Hamas".

The UK government has backed that stance.

But Mitchell said it was "impossible to comprehend the pain and loss that innocent Palestinians are enduring in Gaza" since Israel launched its offensive.

"Hospitals... should be places of safety, able to treat patients with compassion," he added.

"It is distressing to see them unable to do so. Every civilian death is heartbreaking."

Mitchell said that while Israel has a right to defend itself "against this terrorist threat", it must act within international law.

It must take every precaution to minimise civilian casualties, limiting attacks to military targets, the minister added.

"At the same time, we should be under no illusions Hamas has chosen to embed itself within the civilian population," he added.

"Their willingness to sacrifice innocent Palestinians in this way only brings home their inhumanity. Alleviating the suffering is our foremost priority."

 

[superpower]

Mahathir says that Israel is bent on achieving the 'Final Solution':

 

[Boliao]

By the time the world gets their act together, Palestine would have disappeared from the world. Those bastards bombed the UN and killed 101 staff, yet UN lan-lan keep quiet. US quiet, UK quiet.. Western media dare not report this at all.

 

[superpower]

By the time the world gets their act together, Palestine would have disappeared from the world. Those bastards bombed the UN and killed 101 staff, yet UN lan-lan keep quiet. US quiet, UK quiet.. Western media dare not report this at all.

Attacking hospitals is really a new low for the Zionists they're protected under Geneva Conventions. Even if some Hamas militants are hiding in hospitals it doesn't justify the collateral damage to lives of innocent patients and children, hospital staff and healthcare facilities. This is all the more dire in wartime as a lot of the health resources go to treat the severely injured.

The Zionists have the Western media and the US admin by the short and curlies, and with the US vetoing every UNSC resolution, the Israelis are having field day carrying out their ethnic cleansing.

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Israel’s attacks on hospitals ‘should be investigated as war crimes’: HRW​

Health facilities and ambulances have protected status under international humanitarian law, Human Rights Watch affirms.

Palestinians check the damage after a convoy of ambulances was hit by an Israeli air strike at the entrance of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, on November 3, 2023 [File:Mohammed Al-Masri/Reuters]

14 Nov 2023

Israel’s repeated attacks on medical facilities, health personnel and ambulances in Gaza should be “investigated as war crimes”, international NGO Human Rights Watch has said.

The Israeli military’s “apparently unlawful attacks” are further destroying Gaza’s healthcare system at a time when medics have unprecedented numbers of severely injured patients, and hospitals have run out of medicine and basic equipment, the group said on Tuesday.

“Despite the Israeli military’s claims on November 5, 2023, of ‘Hamas’s cynical use of hospitals’, no evidence put forward would justify depriving hospitals and ambulances of their protected status under international humanitarian law,” HRW added.

A war crime is a serious violation of international humanitarian law, committed with criminal intent. HRW urged the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate Israel’s actions.

Healthcare system ‘devastated’​

As of November 10, two-thirds of primary healthcare facilities and half of all hospitals in Gaza are not functioning, according to the United Nations. And as of November 12, at least 521 people, including 16 medical workers, have been killed in 137 “attacks on health care” in Gaza, the World Health Organization said.

“Israel’s repeated attacks damaging hospitals and harming healthcare workers, already hard hit by an unlawful blockade, have devastated Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure,” said A Kayum Ahmed, special adviser on the right to health at HRW. “The strikes on hospitals have killed hundreds of people and put many patients at grave risk because they’re unable to receive proper medical care.”

Between October 7 and November 7, HRW said it investigated attacks on or near five healthcare facilities in Gaza.

It found that Israeli forces struck the Indonesian Hospital multiple times between October 7 and 28, killing at least two civilians; the International Eye Hospital was struck repeatedly and completely destroyed on October 10 or 11; the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital was forced to close on November 1, days after air raids on or near the facility; a man and a child were injured after repeated attacks on the al-Quds Hospital; and Israeli forces struck well-marked ambulances on several occasions – at least a dozen people were killed or wounded in one incident outside al-Shifa Hospital on November 3.

“These ongoing attacks are not isolated. Israeli forces have also carried out scores of strikes damaging several other hospitals across Gaza,” HRW said.

‘Special protections’​

“Intentionally directing attacks against … medical units and transport” is prohibited as a war crime under the ICC’s Rome Statute, HRW noted.

“Hospitals and other medical facilities are civilian objects that have special protections under international humanitarian law, or the laws of war. Hospitals only lose their protection from attack if they are being used to commit ‘acts harmful to the enemy’, and after a required warning,” it said.

Israel claims that Hamas fighters have set up command centres beneath hospitals like al-Shifa and the Indonesian Hospital – claims Hamas and the hospital staff deny.

“These claims are contested,” HRW said. “Human Rights Watch has not been able to corroborate them, nor seen any information that would justify attacks on Gaza hospitals.”

HRW also criticised the “sweeping nature” of Israel’s evacuation orders, which did not take into account specific requirements for hospitals and patients. The group said there was no way to ensure safe compliance as “there is no reliably secure way to flee or safe place to go in Gaza”, which raised concerns that “the purpose was not to protect civilians, but to terrify them into leaving”.

“The Israeli government should immediately end unlawful attacks on hospitals, ambulances, and other civilian objects, as well as its total blockade of the Gaza Strip, which amounts to the war crime of collective punishment,” HRW said.

It added that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups should also take feasible precautions to protect civilians under their control.

 

[Devil Within]

 

[superpower]

How not to hate the Jews when they have occupied your homeland, turned your country into the world's largest open-air prison, and now are proceeding to bomb it to smithereens and wipe out your entire race? You cannot even begin to imagine the atrocious conditions under which the average Palestinian child is living. Many have lost their entire families, food rations are low, electricity and water supplies disrupted, and even hospitals are wrecked.

Ask any Holocaust survivor whether they hate the Nazis.

 

[Devil Within]

How not to hate the Jews when they have occupied your homeland, turned your country into the world's largest open-air prison, and now are proceeding to bomb it to smithereens and wipe out your entire race? You cannot even begin to imagine the atrocious conditions under which the average Palestinian child is living. Many have lost their entire families, food rations are low, electricity and water supplies disrupted, and even hospitals are wrecked.

Ask any Holocaust survivor whether they hate the Nazis.

 

[superpower]

Stop Living in Denial, Israel Is an Evil State​

Israel may not be Nazi, nor even a fascist state. Yet it is a member of the same terrible family, the family of evil states. Just consider these acts of evil perpetrated by the state...

Gideon Levy
Jul 31, 2016

After we’ve cited nationalism and racism, hatred and contempt for Arab life, the security cult and resistance to the occupation, victimhood and messianism, one more element must be added without which the behavior of the Israeli occupation regime cannot be explained: Evil. Pure evil. Sadistic evil. Evil for its own sake. Sometimes, it’s the only explanation.

Eva Illouz described its signs (“Evil now,” Haaretz, July 30). Her essay, which challenges the idea of the banality of evil, considers the national group as the source of the evil. Using philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s concept, she finds a “family resemblance” between the Israeli occupation and history’s evil regimes. This similarity does not mean that Israel is Nazi, nor even fascist. And yet it is a member of the same terrible family, the family of evil states. It’s a depressing and brilliant analysis.

The evil that Illouz attributes to Israel is not banal, it cannot happen anywhere, and it has political and social roots that are deeply embedded in Israeli society. Thus, Illouz joins Zeev Sternhell, who warned in his impressive and resounding essay about the cultural soil out of which fascism is now growing in Israel (“The birth of fascism,” Haaretz Hebrew edition, July 7).

But alongside these analyses, we must also present a brief history of evil. We must present the instances that combine to create a great and horrific picture, a picture of Israeli evil in the territories, so as to stand up to those who deny the evil. It is not the case of the individual – Sgt. Elor Azaria, for example, who is being tried for the death of a subdued Palestinian assailant in Hebron – but the conduct of the establishment and the occupation regime that proves the evil. In fact, the continuation of the occupation proves the evil. Illouz, Sternhell and others provide debatable analyses on its origins, but whatever they are, it can no longer be denied.

One case is like a thousand witnesses: the case of Bilal Kayed. A young man who completed a prison term of 14.5 years – his entire sentence – without a single furlough, without being allowed to at least say goodbye by phone to his dying father; a clear sign of evil.

About six weeks ago, Kayed was getting ready for his release. A representative of the Shin Bet security service – one of the greatest agencies of evil in Israel – even showed him a photograph of the home his family had built for him to stir him up even more ahead of his release. And then, as his family waited impatiently for him at the crossing point and Kayed grew ever more excited in his cell, he was informed that he was being thrown into administrative detention for at least another six months, without trial and without explanation.

Since then, he has been on hunger strike. He is cuffed to his bed. His family is not allowed to see him. Prison guards never leave his room and the lights are not turned out for a moment. Evil.

Only evil can explain the state’s conduct toward Kayed – only an evil state acts this way. The arbitrary announcement, at the last moment, of a senseless detention is abuse, and the way he has been treated since then is also abuse.

A great many of the decisions of the occupation regime that decides the fates of individuals, families, communities, villages and cities cannot be explained without evil. The list is as long as the occupation. The extortion of sick people from Gaza to enlist them as collaborators, the blockades on cities and towns for weeks, the Gaza blockade, the demolition of homes – all evil.

Banal or not, its existence must be acknowledged and it must be recognized as one of the most influential values in Israel. Yes, there is an evil regime at work in Israel, and therefore it is an evil state.

 

[superpower]

 

[Devil Within]

If Palestinians don't want to be bombed in hospitals, then they should not support Hamas using civilians and the sick as their shields and hiding under the hospitals.

 

[superpower]

Al-Shifa is a huge multi-disciplinary general hospital for all sick patients requiring acute tertiary and surgical treatment, old and young. I think no one can deny some Hamas militants are hiding in the hospital, or even using it as a base.

1. What can the hospital staff do? Chase these buggers out?
2. Even if you have a bunch of terrorists hiding in the hospital, is it justified to bomb the hospital and kill innocents and destroy medical facilities and supplies and meds?

 

[superpower]

Levelheaded article by an Israeli Jew.

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My Israeli Friends: This is Why I Support Palestinians – ILAN PAPPE​

October 10, 2023

Palestinians mourn the victims of the Israeli aggression on Gaza. (Photo: Mahmoud Ajjour, The Palestine Chronicle)

By Ilan Pappe

It is not always easy to stick to your moral compass, but if it does point north – towards decolonization and liberation – then it will most likely guide you through the fog of poisonous propaganda.​

It is challenging to maintain one’s moral compass when the society you belong to – leaders and media alike – takes the moral high ground and expects you to share with them the same righteous fury with which they reacted to the events of last Saturday, October 7.

There is only one way to resist the temptation to join in: if you understood, at one point in your life – even as a Jewish citizen of Israel – the settler colonial nature of Zionism, and were horrified by its policies against the indigenous people of Palestine.

If you have had that realization, then you will not waver, even if the poisonous messages depict Palestinians as animals, or ‘human animals.’ These same people insist on describing what took place last Saturday as a ‘Holocaust’, thus abusing the memory of a great tragedy. These sentiments are being conveyed, day and night by both Israeli media and politicians.

It is this moral compass that led me, and others in our society, to stand by the Palestinian people in every way possible; and that enables us, at the same time, to admire the courage of the Palestinian fighters who took over a dozen military bases, overcoming the strongest army in the Middle East.

Also, people like me cannot avoid but raise questions about the moral or strategic value of some of the actions that accompanied this operation.

Because we always supported the decolonization of Palestine, we knew that the longer Israeli oppression continued, the less likely the liberation struggle would be “sterile” – as it has been the case in every just struggle for liberation in the past, anywhere in the world.

This does not mean we should not keep an eye on the big picture, not even for a minute. The picture is that of a colonized people fighting for survival, at a time when its oppressors had elected a government, which is hellbent on accelerating the destruction, in fact the elimination of the Palestinian people – or even their very claim to peoplehood.

Hamas had to act, and quickly so.

It is hard to voice these counter arguments because Western media and politicians went along with the Israeli discourse, and the narrative, however problematic it was.

I wonder how many of those who decided to don the Parliament House in London and the Eiffel Tower in Paris with the colors of the Israeli flag truly understand how this seemingly symbolic gesture is received in Israel.

Even liberal Zionists, with a modicum of decency, read this act as a total absolution of all the crimes Israelis have committed against the Palestinian people since 1948; and therefore, as a carte blanche to continue with the genocide that Israel is now perpetrating against the people of Gaza.

Fortunately, there were also different reactions to the events which unfolded in the last few days.

As in the past, large sections of civil societies in the West are not easily fooled by this hypocrisy, already at full display in the case of Ukraine.

Many people know that since June 1967, one million Palestinians have been imprisoned at least once in their lives. And with imprisonment, come abuse, torture and permanent detention without trial.

These very people also know about the horrific reality Israel had created in the Gaza Strip when it sealed the region, imposing a hermetic siege, starting in 2007, accompanied by the relentless killing of children in the occupied West Bank. This violence is not a new phenomenon, as it has been the permanent face of Zionism since the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Because of that very civil society, my dear Israeli friends, your government and media will ultimately be proven wrong, as they will not be able to claim the role of victims, receive unconditional support, and get away with their crimes.

Eventually, the big picture will emerge, despite the inherently biased Western media.

The big question, however, is this: will you, my Israeli friends, be able to clearly see this same big picture as well? Despite years of indoctrination and social engineering?

And no less important, will you be able to learn the other important lesson – one that can be gleaned from recent events – that sheer force alone cannot find the balance between a just regime on the one hand and an immoral political project on the other?

But there is an alternative. In fact, there has always been one:

A de-zionised, liberated and democratic Palestine from the river to the sea; a Palestine that will welcome back the refugees and build a society that does not discriminate on the basis of culture, religion or ethnicity.

This new state would labor to rectify, as much as possible, the past evils, in terms of economic inequality, the stealing of property and the denial of rights. This could herald a new dawn for the whole Middle East.

It is not always easy to stick to your moral compass, but if it does point north – towards decolonization and liberation – then it will most likely guide you through the fog of poisonous propaganda, hypocritical policies and the inhumanity, often perpetrated in the name of ‘our common Western values’.

 

[Likemeat]

Lie and israhell propaganda. Babi Netan stoop that low​

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EXPOSED: Israeli Actress POSES As Palestinian Nurse In Propaganda Video​

 

[superpower]

With 102 Workers Killed, U.N. Agency in Gaza Struggles to Provide Aid​

Even before the war, the U.N. agency that helps Palestinian refugees was struggling financially. Now, it faces an even bigger crisis.

Palestinians displaced from the north of the Gaza Strip, near a UNRWA-run school in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, last month.



By Ben Hubbard
Published Nov. 14, 2023Updated Nov. 16, 2023, 2:22 a.m. ET

At least 102 workers from the largest United Nations agency in Gaza have been killed in five weeks of heavy Israeli bombing. Most did not die in the line of duty but instead while at home, often in strikes that also killed members of their families, U.N. officials said.

They were men and women. The largest number were teachers. Others included school principals, warehouse workers, engineers, a software developer, a gynecologist and a man in charge of staff safety. He was killed in his home along with his wife and their eight children, said Juliette Touma, the director of communications for UNRWA, the agency that cares for Palestinian refugees and their descendants across the Middle East.

“It is a huge, huge loss,” Ms. Touma said. “Every day, we get more of these reports of our colleagues who were killed.”

The UNRWA employees, all Palestinians, have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, when Hamas, which controls the enclave, launched a deadly surprise attack on Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capturing another approximately 240 as hostages, Israeli officials say. The Israeli military responded with a punishing air campaign and ground incursions into Gaza that health authorities there say have killed more than 11,000 people, including thousands of children.

UNRWA, or the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, was created in 1949 to aid the more than 700,000 Palestinian refugees who fled or were forced from their homes during the war surrounding Israel’s founding in 1948. Of all the places UNRWA works, Gaza is where it plays the largest role, given that 1.4 million of the territory’s 2.2 million residents are registered refugees.

The soaring death toll has brought new attention to UNRWA, whose duties not only put workers in danger but also extend across much of Gazan life. It is one of the largest employers, with some 13,000 staff members who work at schools and health facilities and even oversee garbage pick up.

Gazans displaced by Israeli bombing seek shelter in tents provided by UNRWA in Khan Younis.Credit...Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times


Now, UNRWA, which was struggling financially before the war, is facing the greatest crisis in its 73-year history, experts say. Many of its staff have been killed, its schools and other facilities are overflowing with displaced Gazans, and a siege imposed by Israel has so greatly disrupted its operations that it remains unclear how long it will continue to function and what role it might play in helping Gaza recover once the war ends.

From its outset, UNRWA defined Palestinian refugees as not just those who were personally displaced, but also their descendants, which meant that their number has grown over time.

So UNRWA also grew, now offering services to 5.9 million eligible refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. After Hamas — which the United States, Israel and many other countries consider a terrorist organization — took control of Gaza in 2007, UNRWA became a key provider of basic services to Gaza’s refugees, making it akin to a civil service alongside departments run by the militant group.

The agency’s mandate never included resolving the issue of Palestinian refugees, but the organization’s existence has taken on great symbolism for both Palestinians and Israelis.

The Palestinians see the agency as official recognition that their displacement remains an issue waiting to be resolved. Israel rejects that idea, arguing that allowing the refugees to enter Israel would effectively destroy the Jewish state and accusing UNRWA of perpetuating Palestinian hopes for such an outcome.

 

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