“HELL on Earth” returned to Gaza today in the words of a UN official, as Israel resumed its murderous bombing campaign with dozens of air strikes on the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.
Over 100 solidarity actions will take place for Palestine across Britain on Saturday as peace campaigners demand an end to the killing.
After almost a week’s truce which saw Hamas release 78 hostages seized in its October 7 raid on Israel, and Israel free 240 Palestinian prisoners of the thousands in its jails, Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) unleashed another wave of bombing which had killed at least 109 people today when the Morning Star went to press, bringing the total death toll from its war above 15,000.
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The Stop the War Coalition’s Lindsey German told the Morning Star that Gaza faced the “hideous prospect [of] winter cold, disease and food shortages and now renewed bombardment by Israel.
“The West Bank is also seeing increasing violence with many young Palestinians being shot and arrested every day.”
A window on the horror was exposed by the Unite union, which has a twinning arrangement with Shu’fat refugee camp which borders East Jerusalem and houses more than 16,000 refugees.
Colin Lomas, secretary of the twinning group, said: “The Shu’fat checkpoint [into Jerusalem] is frequently closed, making the camp an open prison subject to frequent incursions by the Israeli army.
“The United Nations health centre in the camp, already desperately overstretched, has experienced extensive damage.
“The Shu’fat youth centre has been raided on several occasions, resulting in the arrest of many young people.
“Homes have also been raided, with people being summarily arrested and imprisoned, mostly without charge or trial.
Search and rescue teams and civilians gather among the rubble of buildings in Deir Al Balah, Gaza on December 1, 2023. (Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Anything other than sustained peace and at-scale emergency aid will mean catastrophe for the children of Gaza,” said a UNICEF spokesperson.
Israel resumed its assault on the Gaza Strip Friday morning just minutes after the pause with Hamas officially expired, ending a fragile seven-day truce that created conditions for the release of hundreds of Israeli and Palestinian captives and allowed additional—but still inadequate—humanitarian aid to enter the besieged territory.
Gaza’s health ministry said that Israel’s post-pause airstrikes killed more than 30 people and wounded dozens more, hitting a multi-story residential building and other civilian infrastructure in the southern part of the strip, where many Gazans sought refuge as Israeli forces targeted the north in earlier stages of its attack.
The Associated Press reported that Israeli forces “dropped leaflets over parts of southern Gaza urging people to leave their homes, suggesting it was preparing to widen its offensive.”
“The Israeli military also released a map carving up the Gaza Strip into hundreds of numbered parcels, and asked residents to learn the number associated with their location in case of an eventual evacuation,” AP added. “It said the map would eventually be interactive, but it was not immediately clear how Palestinians would be updated on their designated parcel numbers and calls for evacuation.”
Our aid workers in Gaza are again ordered to flee from the bombardments. Now from Khan Yunis to overcrowded Rafah. Once again, nowhere in Gaza is safe for the 2.3 million civilians who are trapped there https://t.co/NXuLyUyrYS
Robert Mardini, director general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, toldAgence France-Presse that the resumption of bombing drags Gazans “back to the nightmarish situation they were in before the truce took place,” with millions of people in desperate need of food, medicine, clean water, and sanitary living conditions.
“People are at a breaking point, hospitals are at a breaking point, the whole Gaza Strip is in a very precarious state,” said Mardini. “There is nowhere safe to go for civilians. We have seen in the hospitals where our teams have been working, that over the past days, hundreds of severely injured people have arrived. The influx of severely wounded outpaced the real capacity of hospitals to absorb and treat the wounded, so there is a massive challenge.”
James Elder, spokesperson for the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), warned Friday that “the humanitarian situation in Gaza is so perilous that anything other than sustained peace and at-scale emergency aid will mean catastrophe for the children of Gaza.”
“To accept the sacrifice of the children in Gaza is humanity giving up,” said Elder. “This is our last chance, before we delve into seeking to explain yet another utterly avoidable tragedy.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is clinging to his job amid plummeting approval ratings, had pledged to continue assailing Gaza following the end of the truce, which marked the first pause in fighting since the war began in the wake of a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in early October.
The Financial Times reported Friday that Israel’s government is preparing for a war that “will stretch for a year or more, with the most intensive phase of the ground offensive continuing into early 2024.”
“The multi-phase strategy envisages Israeli forces, who are garrisoned inside north Gaza, making an imminent push deep into the south of the besieged Palestinian enclave,” FT reported, citing unnamed sources familiar with the planning. “The goals include killing the three top Hamas leaders—Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Marwan Issa—while securing ‘a decisive’ military victory against the group’s 24 battalions and underground tunnel network and destroying its ‘governing capability in Gaza.'”
An investigation published Thursday by +972 Magazine and Local Call found that Israeli forces have used “expanded authorization for bombing non-military targets” and “the loosening of constraints regarding expected civilian casualties,” as well as “an artificial intelligence system to generate more potential targets than ever,” to wage its devastating war on Gaza, killing more than 14,500 people in less than two months and displacing 70% of the territory’s population.
In one case that anonymous Israeli sources described to the two outlets, Israel’s military command “knowingly approved the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in an attempt to assassinate a single top Hamas military commander.”
“Another reason for the large number of targets, and the extensive harm to civilian life in Gaza, is the widespread use of a system called ‘Habsora’ (‘The Gospel’), which is largely built on artificial intelligence and can ‘generate’ targets almost automatically at a rate that far exceeds what was previously possible,” +972 and Local Call found. “This AI system, as described by a former intelligence officer, essentially facilitates a ‘mass assassination factory.'”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reportedly urged Israel to do more to protect civilians in Gaza during a meeting with the nation’s leaders on Thursday, but the Israeli government has repeatedly brushed aside public and private concerns expressed by the Biden administration, which continues to provide unconditional support for the assault.
“Blinken suggested that his call for protecting Palestinian civilians had reached receptive ears, at least in general terms,” The New York Times reported. “He did not cite any specific commitments by Israel, however.”
There was no regime so obnoxious, no tyrant too murderous, for Henry Kissinger’s blessings to be withheld, provided only it upheld US strategic interests
Celebrated for his diplomacy, especially over China, his true face was that of a callous murderer with the blood of millions on his hands, writes ANDREW MURRAY
HENRY KISSINGER, the US diplomat associated with some of the worst crimes of the cold war, has died at the age of 100.
He packed his worst offences against humanity into just six of those hundred years, when he served as national security adviser or secretary of state, and sometimes both, to presidents Nixon and Ford from 1969 to 1975.
A Metternich of the 20th century, Kissinger was a practitioner of cynical realpolitik in the service of the interests of US imperialism.
Even after leaving office, he retained considerable influence for decades, advising successive US administrations and various private clients on world affairs.
He is above all associated with the murderous bombing of Cambodia and the first outreach of Washington to socialist China, as well as support for the fascist coup in Chile in 1973, the pursuit of detente-through-strength with the USSR and peripatetic “shuttle diplomacy” during the Yom Kippur war between Israel and Arab states.
More than 1,000 protesters block the entrance to the Manhattan Bridge on Sunday, November 26, 2023, to demand a lasting cease-fire in Gaza. (Photo: Jewish Voice for Peace/Twitter)
“We will make business as usual impossible until the U.S. stops funding and fueling a genocide,” Jewish Voice for Peace said.
In what organizers said was the largest action of civil disobedience in New York City since the Iraq War, more than 1,000 protesters blocked traffic on the Manhattan Bridge for hours Sunday to demand a permanent cease-fire in Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
The action, organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, began around 2 pm Eastern Time, and traffic began moving again around 5:30 pm, The New York Times reported. The group included 1,500 Jews, Palestinians, religious leaders, and elected officials, Jewish Voice for Peace said on social media.
“These kind of things where you stop traffic brings more attention to the issue,” 74-year-old participant Joan Glickman, who lives in Westchester, toldGothamist. “I do think there are many Americans who don’t really pay attention to how serious this is.”
BREAKING: 1,500 Jews, Palestinians, rabbis, imams, pastors, parents, and elected officials for a ceasefire are risking arrest at the Manhattan Bridge.
We represent the majority of people in the US. 66% of Americans and 80% of Democrats want the bombing of Gaza to stop. pic.twitter.com/ZC2wmR1OSP
The protest came on the third day of a negotiated four-day pause in hostilities between Israel and Hamas. On Sunday, Hamas released a third group of 17 hostages while Israel released 39 Palestinian prisoners, The Associated Press reported. However, activists expressed concern about what would happen when the temporary truce ended.
“There are only two days left before the Israeli government resumes its genocidal onslaught against the people of Gaza—funded and fueled by the U.S. Netanyahu has said, ‘We will come back to annihilate them,'” Jewish Voice for Peace tweeted Sunday.
This is the largest civil disobedience NYC has seen since the Iraq war. There are only two days left before the Israeli government resumes its genocidal onslaught against the people of Gaza – funded and fueled by the US. Netanyahu has said "We will come back to annihilate them." pic.twitter.com/mduET90FGX
On October 7, Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking around 240 hostages. In the month and a half since, Israel has killed more than 14,800 Palestinians in Gaza, including 10,000 women and children. That figure is more than double the number of women and children confirmed killed in Ukraine in two years of war against Russia. More than 800 legal scholars have said Israel may be committing a genocide in Gaza, and one human rights lawyer and former United Nations official called Israel’s campaign in Gaza a “textbook case of genocide.”
The protesters Sunday blocked the Manhattan entrance to the bridge and sat down in the center of the entrance ramp, The New York Times reported. One person scaled the arch over the ramp to unfurl a Palestinian flag.
“We needed to continue to raise our voices and continue to speak out because there’s thousands of Palestinians that are under the rubble right now,” Jewish Voice for Peace member Jay Saper said at the protest, as the Times reported.
At one point, the protesters said they would refuse to leave until U.S. President Joe Biden called for a permanent cease-fire to the conflict, and they unfurled banners reading, “Lasting cease-fire,” and “The whole world is watching.”
“We will make business as usual impossible until the U.S. stops funding and fueling a genocide,” Jewish Voice for Peace tweeted.
A spokesperson for the New York Police Department told Gothamist that it made “multiple” arrests.
“I hope that this message is strong and they’re listening in the White House,” Palestinian American activist Linda Sarsour said during the protest, as Gothamist reported.
People take part in a Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign demonstration in Glasgow. Picture date: Saturday November 25, 2023.
HUNDREDS of thousands of protesters again took to the streets of London and major cities across Britain on Saturday as public anger over Israel’s slaughter in Gaza showed no signs of abating.
Demands for a ceasefire echoed in and other centres on the second day of the four-day “pause” in Israel’s attack for the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
In London, police arrested 18 protesters and police were accused of using catch-all Section 12 regulations to make arrests in response to political pressure.
Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) director Ben Jamal said: “There has been a major political effort by pro-Israel voices, including in government, to defame the protests as hate marches.
“In response the police today imposed a ludicrous Section 12 that gave them power to arrest anyone arriving early or leaving late no matter what they were doing.”
Stop the War Coalition national officer John Rees said: “This is political policing and it’s pretty certain none of this will be applied to tomorrow’s march for Israel,” referring to today’s demonstration called by the Campaign Against Anti-semitism.
