Nasser Kanaani, a spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, speaks at a press conference in Tehran, Iran. (Photo: Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
A spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry called on Israel’s allies to “stop supporting and arming it.”
The Israeli military carried out a series of airstrikes on central Syria late Sunday, reportedly killing more than a dozen people and prompting a furious response from Syrian ally Iran.
“We strongly condemn this criminal attack,” Nasser Kanaani, a spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, said during a press conference in Tehran.
Kanaani went on to urge Israel’s weapons suppliers, chiefly the United States and Germany, to “stop supporting and arming it” as its catastrophic assault on the Gaza Strip spills out across the region. Nearly 40 people were wounded in Israel’s strikes on Sunday, according to a Syrian health official, and several are in critical condition.
Initial reports of at least 14 people were killed and others injured this morning in an Israeli bombing in the community of Masyaf in Syria.
Citing two unnamed regional intelligence sources, Reuters reported early Monday that the Israeli strikes hit a “major military research center for chemical arms production located near Misyaf.”
The facility, according to Reuters, “is believed to house a team of Iranian military experts involved in weapons production.”
Kanaani denied that the facility hit was connected to Iran.
“What official sources from the Syrian government have announced is that there were attacks on some Syrian facilities, including an attack on a research center affiliated with the Ministry of Defense and the Syrian army,” he said.
Israeli forces have carried out dozens of airstrikes in Syria—including one targeting Iran’s consulate in Damascus—since the Hamas-led October 7 attack, which prompted Israel’s large-scale assault on Gaza.
Al Jazeera reported that Israeli forces continued to pummel the Palestinian enclave on Monday, bombing “al-Amoudi street in the Sabra neighborhood, south of Gaza City.” The outlet noted that “at least 10 people have been killed today in attacks across the Gaza Strip.”
Protestors take part in a National March for Gaza on September 7, 2024 in London, England. (Photo: Leon Neal/Getty Images).
“We demand our government completely stop arming Israel and push for a cease-fire now,” said the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
Thousands of people gathered at London’s Picadilly Circus Saturday for the city’s latest march against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and the United Kingdom’s continued support for the Israel Defense Forces, following what organizers called “a major victory in defense of the democratic right to protest.”
The Metropolitan Police on Friday dropped its restrictions on the march, which was the first pro-Palestinian protest since last October to proceed to the Israeli embassy in London.
The police had attempted to stop campaigners from gathering before 2:30 pm, conflicting with plans to begin the rally preceding the march at noon.
“They never provided any convincing explanation or evidence for this delay, and it has caused enormous, unnecessary difficulty to the organization of a large-scale demonstration,” Ben Jamal, who leads the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, one of the groups organizing the march, told Middle East Eye on Friday.
“It has unfortunately been part of a pattern of obstruction, delay, and lack of communication on the part of the Met which we will press them to review and reflect on for future demonstrations,” he added. “For tomorrow, we call on our supporters to turn out in their hundreds of thousands to show we will not be deterred from seeking an end to Israel’s genocide and justice for Palestine!”
Jamal said the police “saw sense and abandoned their unjustified and impractical attempt to delay the start of the march by two hours on Saturday,” allowing the march to begin at 1:30 pm.
During previous marches in which hundreds of thousands of people have demonstrated in solidarity with Palestinians since last October, police have blocked off the area surrounding the Israeli embassy in Kensington, threatening anyone who protested in the vicinity with arrest.
Marching to the embassy, demonstrators made a “renewed call to end the ongoing genocide in Gaza” and demanded an “immediate and full cessation of arms supplies to Israel.”
Earlier this week, the U.K. government announced it was suspending approximately 30 of its 350 arms export licenses for Israel, saying that “there does exist a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.”
Human rights advocates, medical professionals working in Gaza, and legal experts have for months demanded that Israel’s top international funders, including the U.S. and U.K., stop providing military aid as Israel has blocked humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza and waged attacks on civilian infrastructure, killing more than 40,000 people.
The country has also been accused of carrying out genocide in a case led by South Africa at the International Court of Justice; the court has ordered Israel to end its blockade on humanitarian aid and to prevent genocide in Gaza.
“We demand our government completely stop arming Israel and push for a cease-fire now,” said the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
As Londoners marched on Saturday, the Gaza Health Ministry announced that at least 61 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces in the last two days. Four people were killed in a strike on Halimah al-Saadiyah school in Jabaliya, where displaced Palestinians have been sheltering, and three were killed in a bombing at Amr Ibn al-As school in Gaza City.
Media outlets in Palestine reported that a baby named Yaqeen al-Astal had become the 37th child in Gaza to die of malnutrition since Israel began its near-total aid blockade.
International outrage also grew on Saturday regarding the killing of a Turkish American activist, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, in the West Bank on Friday. Local media and eyewitnesses said Eygi had been deliberately shot in the head by Israeli forces at a protest over the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.
The U.S. called on Israel to investigate the killing on Friday, but Eygi’s family said in a statement that such a probe would not be “adequate.”
“We call on President [Joe] Biden, Vice President [Kamala] Harris, and Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken to order an independent investigation into the unlawful killing of a U.S. citizen and to ensure full accountability for the guilty parties,” said the family.
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for the United Nations, called for “a full investigation of the circumstances” and said that “people should be held accountable. And again, civilians must be protected at all times.”
Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was shot dead by Israeli forces (Photo via Wafa)
The shooting occurred while Israeli forces were violently suppressing a weekly protest against an Israeli settlement
26-year-old US activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi succumbed to her wounds on Friday after being shot by Israeli forces at a protest in Beita, to the south of Nablus. Headlines from Western mainstream media sources have already attempted to obscure who killed the solidarity activist, with CNN stating “American activist shot dead during protest in West Bank, Palestinian officials say,” CBS News writing, “American woman Aysenur Eygi killed in Israeli-occupied West Bank, US confirms,” and BBC writing. “American activist shot dead in occupied West Bank.”
Hey how’d they die, Matt? Was it magic? Who or what killed Aysenur?
The shooting occurred while Israeli forces were violently suppressing a weekly protest against an Israeli settlement. Israeli forces employed live ammunition, stun grenades, and tear gas, and also resulted in the injury of an 18-year-old Palestinian man via shrapnel. Eygi was reportedly part of the Faz’a campaign, which aims to mobilize international solidarity activists on the ground in Palestine to protect Palestinian farmers from Israeli settlers and military forces. Eygi was also an activist with the International Solidarity Movement, a Palestinian-led organization committed to resisting the occupation.
ISM released a statement condemning Eygi’s killing, quoting multiple ISM members. ISM volunteer Mariam Dag (a pseudonymn) witnessed the shooting, and said ““We were peacefully demonstrating alongside Palestinians against the colonization of their land, and the illegal settlement of Evyatar. The situation escalated when the Israeli army began to fire tear gas and live ammunition, forcing us to retreat. We were standing on the road, about 200 meters from the soldiers, with a sniper clearly visible on the roof. Our fellow volunteer was standing a bit further back, near an olive tree with some other activists. Despite this, the army intentionally shot her in the head.”
Dag continued, “This is just another example of the decades of impunity granted to the Israeli government and army, bolstered by the support of the US and European governments, who are complicit in enabling genocide in Gaza. Palestinians have suffered far too long under the weight of colonization. We will continue to stand in solidarity and honor the martyrs until Palestine is free.”
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the “brutal execution committed today by Israeli occupation forces,” stating that “the ministry views this act as part of the ongoing crimes perpetrated by the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian people, including genocide, forced displacement, and the targeting of individuals who show solidarity with the Palestinian cause.”
The Ministry “calls on the international community, human rights organizations, and global institutions to take urgent action to provide international protection for Palestinians. The Ministry urges these entities to fulfill their legal and moral responsibilities by addressing violations, including genocide, forced displacement, illegal settlements, and extrajudicial killings, and to hold Israeli war criminals accountable.”
It is unclear how the United States will respond, beyond offering their “deepest condolences.” Israel has killed several US citizens, including two Palestinian-American teenagers earlier this year, Mohammad Khdour and Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, both 17 years old, also shot by Israeli forces. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken again offered condolences for the teenagers “who reportedly were killed,” but did nothing more than call for an investigation.
“We’ve made clear that with regard to the incidents you’ve alluded to, there needs to be an investigation. We need to get the facts. And if appropriate, there needs to be accountability,” Blinken said at the time.
The families were unsatisfied with the US’s response. “We don’t need talking, man,” said Adnan Khdour, uncle to Mohammad Khdour, killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank. “We need something. We want to see something.” The US has never conditioned aid to Israel based on the killing of a US citizen.
Eygi’s killing recalls the high-profile case of Israel’s murder of US activist Rachel Corrie in 2003, who was run over by a bulldozer trying to demolish a Palestinian home in Rafah. The United States did nothing to punish Israel, despite US officials themselves claiming that the Israeli investigation into Corrie’s death was not “credible.” In fact, the US itself is complicit in the killing as the Caterpillar bulldozer which killed Corrie was supplied by the US as part of its aid to Israel.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation, a US-based socialist political party active in the Palestine solidarity movement, said of Eygi’s killing: “This killing, like so many others, was carried out thanks to weaponry provided by the United States. We demand the Biden administration end all aid to this genocidal regime. The killers of Aysenur should be brought to justice, alongside the killers of thousands of Palestinians.”
A Palestinian man inspects the damage to a building after Israeli forces raided the West Bank city of Jenin, September 6, 2024
[Published at Morning Star Friday, September 6, 2024]
ISRAELI forces appear to have withdrawn from three refugee camps in the occupied West Bank.
The apparent withdrawal follows a brutal operation lasting more than a week that left dozens of Palestinians dead and a trail of destruction.
Overnight, Israeli armoured personnel carriers were seen leaving the Jenin refugee camp from a checkpoint set up on one of the main roads, and reporters inside the camp saw no evidence of any remaining troops inside as dawn broke early this morning.
Israeli military officials said the operation in Jenin, Tulkarem and the Al-Faraa refugee camps was an attempt to curb recent attacks against Israeli civilians they say have become more sophisticated and deadly.
A Palestinian woman surveys the destruction by Israeli forces of her home and neighborhood in Khuza’a, which is located near Gaza’s border with Israel, on November 25, 2023. (Photo: Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“The creation of any ‘buffer zone’ must not amount to the collective punishment of the Palestinian civilians who lived in these neighborhoods,” warned one Amnesty campaigner.
Amnesty International said Thursday that the Israeli military should be investigated for the “war crimes of wanton destruction and of collective punishment” over its destruction of entire communities along Gaza’s border with Israel.
“Using bulldozers and manually laid explosives, the Israeli military has unlawfully destroyed agricultural land and civilian buildings, razing entire neighborhoods, including homes, schools, and mosques,” the London-based rights group said in a new investigation.
Amnesty analyzed satellite imagery, as well as photos and videos posted online by invading Israel Defense Forces troops between October and May, and found that the IDF has cleared wide swathes of land up to 1.2 miles (1.8 km) wide along Gaza’s eastern border.
“In some videos, Israeli soldiers are seen posing for pictures or toasting in celebration as buildings are demolished in the background,” the report states.
The Israeli military’s campaign to significantly expand a “buffer zone” along the eastern perimeter of #Gaza should be investigated as the war crimes of wanton destruction and collective punishment.
Israeli forces laid waste to much of Khuza’a in Khan Younis governate, under the pretext that Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel from the town on October 7.
Salem Qudeih, a teacher who lived in Khuza’a about a mile from the border, told Amnesty that “around my family home we had a three dunam (0.7 acre) orchard full of fruit trees. They were all destroyed. Only an apple tree and a rose were left.”
“I had bees and produced honey. All of it is gone now,” he added. “Out of the 222 houses of my relatives in the area, only about a dozen remain. My home—where I lived with my wife, my five daughters, and one son—was completely destroyed.”
Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty’s senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns, said in a statement: “The Israeli military’s relentless campaign of ruin in Gaza is one of wanton destruction. Our research has shown how Israeli forces have obliterated residential buildings, forced thousands of families from their homes, and rendered their land uninhabitable.”
“Our analysis reveals a pattern along the eastern perimeter of Gaza that is consistent with the systematic destruction of an entire area,” she continued. “These homes were not destroyed as the result of intense fighting. Rather, the Israeli military deliberately razed the land after they had taken control of the area.”
“The creation of any ‘buffer zone’ must not amount to the collective punishment of the Palestinian civilians who lived in these neighborhoods,” Guevara-Rosas added. “Israel’s measures to protect Israelis from attacks from Gaza must be carried out in conformity with its obligations under international law, including the prohibition of wanton destruction and of collective punishment.”
“The Israeli military deliberately razed the land after they had taken control of the area.”
Other experts—including United Nations officials and scholars—have previously highlighted what Robert Pape, a U.S. military historian and University of Chicago professor, described as “one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history.”
In the 335 days since October 7, Israeli forces have killed or maimed more than 145,000 Palestinians in Gaza while forcibly displacing almost all of the embattled strip’s 2.3 million people and destroying hundreds of thousands of homes and other structures, according to Palestinian and international officials. Rebuilding after Israel’s obliteration of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure is expected to cost over $18.5 billion, or nearly Palestine’s entire annual gross domestic product.
Israel is currently on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Meanwhile, International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan has applied for warrants to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes including extermination.
“International humanitarian law, which applies in situations of armed conflict, including during military occupation, is comprised of rules whose central purpose is to limit, to the maximum extent feasible, human suffering in times of armed conflict,” Amnesty explained Thursday.
The group noted that under the Fourth Geneva Convention, “extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly,” is a war crime.
Additionally, the treaty bans collective punishment of civilians, stating that “no protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed.”
Amnesty has repeatedly accused Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza and has urged the ICC to open investigations into multiple “indiscriminate” and “disproportionate” IDF massacres, as well as torture and other alleged human rights violations.
