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Category: Fascism

  • Critics of US Complicity in Gaza Genocide Slam State Department Report

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    Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

    Injured Palestinians, including children, are brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital for treatment after an Israeli attack on July 9, 2024 in Deir Al-Balah, Gaza.
     (Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)

    While the report stresses that “Israel has an inherent right to defend itself,” a related press release doesn’t mention Gaza. One expert said, “I guess they left out the genocide they’re arming and funding.”

    The Biden administration broadly and the State Department in particular have faced intense criticism throughout the U.S.-backed Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, and Wednesday was no exception, as an annual genocide report was sent to Congress.

    The State Department report is required under the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018, named for a Holocaust survivor who wrote about his experiences at the Auschwitz and Buchenwald Nazi concentration camps.

    A department press release explains that the report “details U.S. interagency efforts to address genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity around the world. It also chronicles whole-of-government work over the past year to promote atrocity prevention programs, protect civilians at risk, and hold perpetrators accountable in places where some of the most heinous crimes have been committed.”

    “Our government cannot continue cherry-picking what war crimes and genocide they choose to acknowledge.”

    The Intercept‘s Prem Thakker shared the department’s full three-paragraph statement about the report on social media and pointed out that the two nations mentioned are Sudan, where there is a civil war, and Ukraine, which is battling a Russian invasion.

    Notably missing—though mentioned in the report—is Israel’s nine-month assault on Gaza, which has been enabled by U.S. diplomatic and weapons support, and is the subject of a South Africa-led genocide case before the International Court of Justice.

    Responding to Thakker’s posts, Assal Rad, an expert in Middle East history, said, “I guess they left out the genocide they’re arming and funding.”

    Justice Democrats declared: “This is shameful. Our government cannot continue cherry-picking what war crimes and genocide they choose to acknowledge—especially not when we’re the ones funding it.”

    The 23-page report includes three paragraphs on Israel and Gaza:

    Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization that has vowed to annihilate Israel and repeat the October 7, 2023 massacre, during which it murdered almost 1,200 Israelis, took more than 240 people hostage, and committed horrific acts of sexual violence. In response, Israel has engaged in military actions in Gaza with the stated intent of defending itself against future Hamas attacks. By the end of the reporting period, tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed and over a million displaced as a result of Israel’s military actions.

    Israel has an inherent right to defend itself consistent with international law, in response to the October 7 attack, and the United States has made clear that Israel has a moral obligation and a strategic imperative to protect civilians, investigate allegations of any wrongdoing, and ensure accountability for any abuses or violations of international human rights law and violations of [international humanitarian law, or IHL]. As President [Joe] Biden stated in his 2024 State of the Union address: “Israel has an added burden because Hamas hides and operates among the civilian population. But Israel also has a fundamental responsibility to protect innocent civilians in Gaza. This war has taken a greater toll on innocent civilians than all previous wars in Gaza combined.” Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken has urged Israel to do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties and has consistently reiterated at the highest levels that Israel’s military operations in Gaza must comply with IHL.

    The Department of State provides a variety of assistance for those impacted in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza through U.N. Women, U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, U.N. Development Program, U.N. Population Fund, U.N. Children’s Fund, Office for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, other U.N. agencies, and international organizations that operate in Israel and Gaza. Additionally, the Department of State hosted U.N. Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten in March to discuss her report and recommendations following her fact-finding visit to Israel and the West Bank regarding allegations of [gender-based violence].

    As of Wednesday, Israel’s war has killed at least 38,243 people in Gaza and injured another 88,243, according to health officials in the Hamas-governed Palestinian enclave. Thousands more remain missing and presumed dead. Israeli forces have devastated civilian infrastructure, leaving a trail of bombed-out homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.

    In a letter published in the medical journal The Lancet last week, three public health experts wrote that “applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.”

    Israel has also limited the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Although the United Nations has not formally declared a famine, 10 top U.N. experts said Tuesday that “we declare that Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza.”

    Since October, multiple U.S. government employees, including State Department officials, have resigned over the administration’s complicity in genocide, including weapons support—which the department previously addressed in a May report to Congress.

    The May report—the release of which was blasted as a “Friday news dump”—says that it “is reasonable to assess” that U.S. weapons “have been used by Israeli security forces since October 7 in instances inconsistent with its IHL obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm,” but concludes that Israel can continue receiving arms support.

    The earlier report also expresses “deep concerns” about Israel’s actions regarding relief efforts but states that “we do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance within the meaning of Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act.”

    Later that month, Stacy Gilbert, one of the State Department officials who resigned, said that “there is consensus among the humanitarian community” that Israel has obstructed relief efforts, adding: “That’s why I object to that report saying that Israel is not blocking humanitarian assistance. That is patently false.”

    Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

  • Despite Gaza War Crimes Accusations, Biden Sends Israel More 500-Pound Bombs

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    Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

    A U.S. soldier secures a load of 500-pound bombs in this undated photo. (Photo: U.S. Army)

    Since October, the U.S. has sent Israel more than 20,000 heavy bombs, which have been used in some of the deadliest massacres in Gaza.

    The Biden administration has ended a two-month pause on the shipment of 500-pound bombs to Israel despite the frequent use of U.S.-supplied weapons by Israeli forces to commit alleged war crimes and genocide in Gaza.

    Citing an unnamed Biden administration official, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the bombs “are in the process of being shipped” to Israel and should arrive in the coming weeks.

    In May, the Biden administration suspended transfers of 500- and 2,000-pound bombs manufactured by aerospace giant Boeing over fears the devastating munitions would be used in airstrikes on Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than a million Palestinians had sought refuge.

    By that time, Israel had already dropped hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs—which the U.S. military avoids using in civilian areas because they can destroy entire city blocks—on Gaza, including in an October 31 attack on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp that killed more than 120 civilians.

    “This is what U.S. funding and weapons do.”

    Last month, the United Nations Human Rights Office said Israel’s use of 2,000-pound bombs and other U.S.-supplied weapons likely violated international law by deliberately targeting civilians in disproportionate attacks. Israeli military commanders have also been criticized for using artificial intelligence-based target selection to approve bombings they know will cause high civilian casualties.

    The Biden official told the Journal that the pause on 2,000-pound bomb shipments will remain in effect.

    “Our main concern had been and remains the potential use of 2,000-pound bombs in Rafah and elsewhere in Gaza,” they said. “Because our concern was not about the 500-pound bombs, those are moving forward as part of the usual process.”

    But Israeli forces have killed many civilians with smaller bombs too. The New York Times reported Wednesday that multiple weapons experts including a a former U.S. Army explosive ordnance disposal technician identified a fragment from a Boeing-made GBU-39 250-pound bomb used in Tuesday’s attack on a refugee tent encampment outside the al-Awda school in southern Gaza that killed and wounded scores of civilians, including many women and children.

    Palestinian and international agencies say Israel’s 278-day Gaza assault and siege have left at least 137,500 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing. Israel’s conduct in the war is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case. International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan is also seeking to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders for crimes including extermination.

    Despite overwhelming evidence of Israeli war crimes, the Biden administration remains Israel’s most steadfast supporter, providing billions of dollars in military aid, approving more than 100 arms shipments, and offering diplomatic cover in the form of United Nations Security Council vetoes and what critics call genocide denial.

    Reuters reported last month that since October the U.S. has sent Israel 14,000 2,000-pound bombs, 6,500 500-pound bombs, 3,000 Hellfire missiles, 1,000 bunker-buster bombs, 2,600 air-dropped small-diameter bombs, and other munitions.

    Citing the al-Awda massacre, Jewish Voice for Peace Action said Wednesday that “this is what U.S. funding and weapons do.”

    “Arms embargo NOW,” the group added.

    Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

  • Israel orders evacuation of Gaza City again as it presses on with new deadly offensive

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/israel-orders-evacuation-of-gaza-city-again-as-it-presses-on-with-new-deadly-offensive

    Smoke rises to the sky after an explosion in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, July 8, 2024

    THE Israeli military ordered the evacuation of the repeatedly displaced Palestinians from Gaza City and told them to head south again today as it pressed ahead with a fresh offensive just hours after killing dozens of people.

    Thousands of leaflets were dropped onto the city urging people to leave through two “safe” roads “quickly and without inspection from Gaza City to shelters” in Deir el-Balah and az-Zawiya.

    Gaza City, it said, will “remain a dangerous combat zone.”

    Israeli authorities claimed in January that they had “dismantled Hamas’s military structure” in the northern city.

    Israel ordered residents of northern Gaza to flee south months ago as it operated in the area, and much of the population fled earlier in the war.

    …

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/israel-orders-evacuation-of-gaza-city-again-as-it-presses-on-with-new-deadly-offensive

  • UN Experts Say ‘Targeted Starvation Campaign’ by Israel Has Led to Famine Across Gaza

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    Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

    Fatma Hijazi, the mother of 10-year-old Palestinian boy Mustafa Hijazi, who died due to malnutrition and lack of medication, holds the lifeless body of her child in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on June 14, 2024. (Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)

    The starvation of Palestinians in Gaza “is a form of genocidal violence,” said 10 rights experts.

    While the United Nations still has not formally declared a famine in Gaza after nine months of Israel’s near-total blockade on humanitarian aid, 10 top U.N. experts on Tuesday said they have seen enough.

    “We declare that Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza,” said the experts.

    Michael Fakhri, special rapporteur on the right to food, was joined in the statement by other experts including Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, and Paula Gaviria Betancur, special rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons.

    They said the recent deaths of three children in various parts of the enclave led the experts, who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations as a whole, to declare a famine has taken hold.

    “Fayez Ataya, who was barely six months old, died on May 30, 2024 and 13-year-old Abdulqader Al-Serhi died on June 1, 2024 at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah,” said the experts. “Nine-year-old Ahmad Abu Reida died on June 3, 2024 in the tent sheltering his displaced family in Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis. All three children died from malnutrition and lack of access to adequate healthcare.”

    “With the death of these children from starvation despite medical treatment in central Gaza, there is no doubt that famine has spread from northern Gaza into central and southern Gaza,” they continued.

    At least 34 Palestinians in Gaza—the majority being children—have now died from malnutrition since October, when Israel began its bombardment of the enclave in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced there would “be no electricity, no food, no fuel” allowed in to Gaza.

    Israeli officials said in response to Tuesday’s statement that it has increased the aid allowed into Gaza recently, but hundreds of delivery trucks remain stranded in Egypt and a floating pier built by the U.S. has not significantly improved the humanitarian crisis.

    The U.N. experts said that with the first death of a child from malnutrition and dehydration, it should have been considered “irrefutable that famine has taken hold.”

    “When a two-month-old baby and 10-year-old Yazan Al Kafarneh died of hunger on February 24 and March 4, respectively, this confirmed that famine had struck northern Gaza,” they said. “The whole world should have intervened earlier to stop Israel’s genocidal starvation campaign and prevented these deaths… Inaction is complicity.”

    The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, which is backed by the U.N., said last month that Gaza is at high risk for famine and that nearly half a million people were facing “catastrophic” food insecurity, with an extreme lack of food.

    In May, Human Rights Watch co-founder Aryeh Neier, who had previously hesitated to say Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, said Israel’s “sustained policy of obstructing the movement of humanitarian assistance into the territory” ultimately convinced him that Israeli officials are “engaged in genocide.”

    In March, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to ensure its military refrain from violating the Genocide Convention by preventing humanitarian aid from reaching people in Gaza, saying that “the catastrophic living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated further” and that “famine is setting in.”

    A woman named Ghaneyma Joma told Reuters on Monday at a hospital in Khan Younis that she feared her son would soon die of starvation.

    “It’s distressing to see my child… lying there dying from malnutrition because I cannot provide him with anything due to the war, the closing of crossings, and the contaminated water,” she told the outlet.

    The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on the U.S. government, the biggest international funder of Israel’s military and a persistent defender of its actions in Gaza, to ensure that a cease-fire agreement is reached and that Palestinians receive necessary humanitarian aid.

    “The intentional starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza can only occur with the active complicity of the Biden administration in Israel’s campaign of genocide,” said Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director for the group. “This complicity must end, and the Palestinian people must be offered a future in which they are free of occupation and can live in dignity.”

    Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

    Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted "I support Zionism without qualification." He's asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
    Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.

  • Israeli Bombings, Evacuation Order in Gaza City Forces Hospitals to Shut Down

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    Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

    Injured Palestinians lay on the floor at Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza on July 8, 2024, following Israeli attacks on Gaza City.  (Photo: Mahmoud Issa/Anadolu via Getty Images)

    Patients were forced to move to other facilities in northern Gaza, where one hospital was at “triple capacity” and providers were struggling to provide care amid fuel and medical supply shortages.

    Healthcare officials were joined by human rights experts on Tuesday in condemning Israel’s latest evacuation orders for Gaza City, which the World Health Organization director said would “further impede delivery of very limited lifesaving care” as hospitals in the area struggled to treat sick and wounded Palestinians.

    The Israel Defense Forces claimed on Tuesday morning that there was “no need to evacuate the hospitals and medical facilities in the area,” after it had issued an evacuation order for 70% of Gaza City on Monday. The IDF has ordered civilians to evacuate parts of the city three times since June 27 as it has intensified its military operations, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee.

    Despite the IDF’s claims, the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, which partially operates al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, said it had closed and evacuated all patients and workers after a series of drone strikes in the facility’s “immediate vicinity.”

    “To our great dismay, our hospital is now out of operation at a time when its services are in very significant demand and where injured and sick people have few other options for places to receive urgent medical care,” said the diocese in a statement.

    “Key hospitals and medical facilities could quickly become nonfunctional due to hostilities in their vicinity or obstruction to access.”

    Healthcare authorities have been forced to transport patients to other hospitals that are also struggling to provide care, as Israel’s near-total blockade on humanitarian aid since October has caused dire shortages of fuel and medical supplies.

    Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director of the World Health Organization, said Patient’s Friends Benevolent Society Hospital in Gaza City was also out of service due to the evacuation order, putting more strain on other facilities in the northern city of Beit Lahia, including Kamal Adwan and Indonesian hospitals.

    Those medical centers are “suffering shortage of fuel, beds, and trauma medical supplies,” said Tedros on social media. “Indonesian Hospital is triple over its capacity. Al-Helou Hospital is within the blocks of the evacuation order but continues to be partially functional. As-Sahaba and al-Shifa hospitals are in close proximity to the areas under evacuation order but remain functional so far. Six medical points and two primary healthcare centers are also within the evacuation zones.”

    “These key hospitals and medical facilities could quickly become nonfunctional due to hostilities in their vicinity or obstruction to access,” he added before repeating a demand: “Cease-fire!”

    Israel’s claim that the hospitals in Gaza City remain safe despite the evacuation orders comes after several Israeli bombings of medical facilities and other so-called “humanitarian areas” since October.

    Hospitals including al-Shifa in Gaza City have become major targets of Israel’s assault on the enclave, prompting outcry from human rights advocates who have demanded that the IDF follow international humanitarian law.

    The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Tuesday said it was “appalled” by the IDF’s latest evacuation order, noting that Palestinians have been killed after fleeing to supposedly “safe” zones since Israel’s bombardment began.

    Many of the people fleeing Gaza City this week “have been forcibly displaced multiple times, to evacuate to areas where IDF military operations are ongoing and where civilians continue to be killed and injured,” said the OHCHR.

    Deir al-Balah, where Gaza City residents have been told to move in the latest order, “is already seriously overcrowded with Palestinians displaced from other areas of the Gaza Strip,” the office added.

    The Gaza Health Ministry reports that 38,243 people have been killed in the enclave since Israel began its attacks in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on October 7.

    As Israel forced hospitals in Gaza City out of operation and occupied the southern part of the city, including around the headquarters of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, another Israeli attack on the Bureij refugee camp killed nine people on Tuesday, including five children.

    The IDF also said its warplanes had attacked “a school complex” in the Nuseirat refugee camp.

    “There’s really no safe corner in Gaza,” said Tedros.

    Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).