An RAF Shadow R1 spy plane over the Mediterranean. (Photo: Gordon Zammit / Alamy)
Declassified Exclusive: Royal Air Force has surveillance tape of Gaza from the day Israel killed British aid workers – but refuses to publish it.
Family of slain aid worker demands to see footage
UN expert warns British military may have to hand tape to International Criminal Court
Britain’s Ministry of Defence holds video surveillance footage of Gaza from the day that Israel killed seven international aid workers but is refusing to publish the tape.
Among those killed in the World Central Kitchen convoy on 1 April were three British military veterans: John Chapman, James Kirby and James ‘Jim’ Henderson.
The footage was taken by a Royal Air Force (RAF) surveillance plane which spent approximately five hours above Gaza that day.
It seemingly returned to base in Cyprus minutes before the airstrikes were launched.
The RAF may therefore have collected footage of events leading up to the tragedy, which could provide clarity over Israeli claims that “Hamas gunmen” were seen near the convoy.
The Ansar Allah-led Yemeni Armed Forces announced on Thursday July 18, that Hodeidah International Airport in western Yemen was hit by three airstrikes launched from American and British jet fighters. No further details were mentioned in the announcement which was broadcasted on Ansar Allah’s Almasirah news website.
Hodeidah airport was subjected to previous airstrikes by the United States and the United Kingdom on Friday, July 12. It has also been a vital target for the US and the UK for several months due to its location in Hodeidah Governorate, which overlooks the Red Sea. The airstrikes are believed to be launched to pressure Ansar Allah to stop its activities in the regional waters in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
The Yemeni Armed Forces have begun their activity in the Red Sea since the Israeli aggression began on Gaza in the aftermath of October 7 events, by launching scores of attacks on commercial ships connected with Israel in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
The airport was not the only location in Yemen to be targeted by US airstrikes during the course of the current week. “The US launched in its aggression on our country 13 raids this week in Hodeidah and Hajjah, but with no effect, neither in preventing our operations nor in limiting them,” Sayyed Abdulmalik al-Houthi, the leader of Yemen’s Ansar Allah, said during a televised speech on Thursday July 18.” We seek to increase operations targeting ships in Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea,” added Sayyed Abdulmalik.
The Yemeni Armed Forces’s attacks in the Red Sea have had a great impact on one of the most important maritime trade routes in the World, suspending the transit of vessels belonging to some of the biggest oil and shipping companies worldwide. Vessels had to sail additional thousands of miles around the continent of Africa instead of going through the Suez Canal due to the blockade of the Red Sea caused by Ansar Allah’s attacks.
According to the Arab Center Washington DC research organization, Ansar Allah’s attacks represent a new phenomenon in geo-economic conflict being launched by a non-state actor using asymmetric warfare in fighting conventional armed forces, and imposing targeted economic sanctions by attacking international shipment selectively. Shipping companies based in pro-Israel countries, and ships carrying cargos connected to these countries, have lost access to the Red Sea shortcut, namely the Suez Canal, between Asia and Europe and therefore endured additional cost and extended sail duration. Consequently cargo fees have witnessed an increase, including on routes that do not pass through the Red Sea.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) mentioned in a report published in March, 2024 that attacks on vessels in the Red Sea reduced traffic in the Suez Canal, through which about 15% of global maritime trade volume normally passes. The attacks obliged shipping companies to divert their ships around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa as an alternative route, increasing delivery times by an average of 10 days.
On the morning of Friday June 19, Ansar Allah claimed responsibility for a drone attack which struck Tel Aviv and killed one person.
Israel launched a series of airstrikes on Yemen. Photo: TV Al Masirah
With its aggression against Yemen, Israel demonstrates its insistence to provoke an all-out regional war with support from the United States and its allies
The Israeli Occupation Forces launched airstrikes on the Red Sea port of the Hodeidah Governorate, in Yemen on Saturday, July 20. The Israeli airstrikes targeted gas, oil and power facilities within the Ansar Allah-run sea port with F-35 fighter jets, according to media reports.
The Yemeni Health Ministry announced that a number of people were martyred and wounded in the attack without providing further details. The Israeli airstrikes on Yemen came around one day after Ansar Allah-led Yemeni Armed Forces launched a drone attack against the Israeli city of Tel Aviv. This was part of the military operations which the Yemeni Support Front has initiated in response to Israel’s genocidal aggression on Gaza.
A couple of hours after Hodeidah port was attacked by the Israeli Occupation Air Force, the Yemeni Armed Forces announced in a televised statement, that the Israeli enemy targeted the power station, the port, and fuel tanks in the Hodeidah governorate with airstrikes, and that all these targets are civilian facilities.
The spokesperson of the Yemeni Armed Forces, Brigadier-General Yahya Sare’e, also said in the statement that Ansar Allah will respond to the blatant Israeli aggression on Yemen and will not hesitate to strike the enemy’s vital targets. He also reaffirmed what was declared in Ansar Allah’s previous statement in regard to considering the occupied Yafa area as an unsafe zone.
Sare’e confirmed that the Yemeni Armed Forces will continue their operations in support of their brothers and sisters in Gaza, regardless of the implications and consequences. He added that they have prepared the means for a prolonged war with the Zionist enemy until the aggression on the Palestinian people is halted and the siege is lifted.
The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement, also condemned the Israeli aggression on Yemen. Hamas called on all countries and forces of the Arab Islamic nations to condemn the aggression, urging them to unite, mobilize resources, and engage in confronting the usurping Zionist enemy. Islamic Jihad stated that the Zionist crime against Yemen confirms that the criminal entity poses a danger to all the peoples of the Arab and Islamic nations. It also pointed out that the aggression against Yemen would not have happened without the blatant Western support for the criminal entity, primarily by the US and UK who have also been launching airstrikes against Yemen since January.
Israeli soldiers and armored vehicles are pictured in the West Bank town of Beita on July 12, 2024. (Photo: Wahaj Bano Moufleh/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
The United Nations’ highest court issued an advisory opinion arguing that Israel’s large-scale expansion of settlements amounts to annexation, a crime under international law.
The International Court of Justice said Friday that Israel’s decadeslong occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is unlawful and must end “as rapidly as possible.”
The court’s nonbinding advisory opinion was read aloud by ICJ President Nawaf Salam, a Lebanese judge and academic. Salam said the court determined based on “extensive evidence” that Israel is guilty of confiscating “large areas” of Palestinian land for use by Israeli settlers, exploiting natural resources, and undermining the local population’s right to self-determination under international law.
The court pointed to “Israel’s systematic failure to prevent or punish” settler violence and “demolition of Palestinian property” in the West Bank as part of its case that the Israeli government’s actions in the occupied territories are indicative of an attempt to permanently annex land and forcibly transfer Palestinians from their homes.
“Israel is not entitled to sovereignty in any part of the occupied Palestinian territory on account of its occupation, nor can security concerns override the prohibition on acquisition of territory by force,” said Salam.
The ICJ vote against Israel’s occupation was 11-4. The court also voted to call on Israel to evacuate all settlers from the West Bank.
In a 12-3 vote, the ICJ said that all nations “are under an obligation not to recognize as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of the state of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by the continued presence of the state of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
The United States was among the countries that warned the ICJ against advising that Israel must swiftly end its occupation.
The ICJ handed down its opinion as the court is also considering a genocide case brought against Israel over its ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip—a devastating war that the court did not weigh as part of its new advisory opinion.
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, applauded the ICJ’s call for the dismantling of Israeli settlements and reparations for Palestinians harmed by Israel’s occupation.
“The ICJ ruling in essence confirmed what the majority of people (except the West) already knew and have recognized: that Israel’s occupation is illegal, that it is still occupying Gaza, it is annexing the West Bank, and Israel is an apartheid state,” Parsi wrote on social media. “If there is any respect for international law, Western media must now include this in all its Israel coverage. Most don’t even describe settlements as illegal!”
Nancy Okail, president and CEO of the Center for International Policy, said in a statement that “while the ICJ’s action is nonbinding, countries that seek to uphold international law should respect the court’s determination and take all appropriate steps to counter the injustices of the occupation and bring it to a peaceful end.”
“At a minimum, countries should not engage in actions which help to perpetuate the occupation and its discriminatory, annexationist goals,” said Okail. “In particular, the United States must end the unconditional supply of arms that Israel uses in connection with the dispossession and settlement of Palestinian land and other violations of Palestinian rights.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at Nachalat Yitzhak cemetery in Tel Aviv on June 18, 2024. (Photo: Shaul Golan/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
“We believe ample credible evidence exists to sufficiently establish that serious crimes falling within U.S. criminal jurisdiction are systematically being perpetrated in Gaza,” said the Center for Constitutional Rights.
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to visit Washington, D.C. next week, an American legal group on Friday pressured the U.S. Department of Justice to open a criminal investigation into him and other officials for committing or authorizing genocide, war crimes, and torture targeting Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Since Israel launched its retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on October 7, Israeli forces partly armed by the U.S. government have killed at least 38,848 people and wounded another 89,459—according to Gaza officials—while destroying civilian infrastructure and restricting the flow of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian enclave.
“We believe ample credible evidence exists to sufficiently establish that serious crimes falling within U.S. criminal jurisdiction are systematically being perpetrated in Gaza,” says the Center for Constitutional Rights’ (CCR) 23-page letter to Hope Olds, who leads the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section (HRSP) of the DOJ’s Criminal Division.
“Given the frequent travel of Israeli officials and citizens to the United States resulting in their presence within U.S. jurisdiction, and recalling that HRSP is part of a coordinated, interagency effort to deny safe haven in the United States to human rights violators,” the letter states, “the Department of Justice must urgently investigate and hold accountable those responsible for war crimes and other serious crimes being committed on a wide-scale basis in the occupied Gaza Strip, including potentially U.S. and U.S.-dual citizens.”
🚨Before @netanyahu lands in DC, we demand @TheJusticeDept investigate him for genocide, war crimes & torture in Gaza. Nearly 40k killed, including more than 14k children, 90k injured, 2 million displaced, & an entire population subject to starvation. This cannot go unanswered. pic.twitter.com/2id5cpOa58
The Israeli prime minister is expected to be in the United States from at least next Monday to Wednesday for a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden—who is currently isolating in his Delaware home due to a Covid-19 infection—and to address a joint session of Congress, despite objections from critics of Israel’s war including some lawmakers.
“Netanyahu has killed more than 14,000 precious Palestinian children with U.S. weapons and support and is starving all of Gaza—and now sycophants in the White House and Congress are rolling out the red carpet for him,” Maria LaHood, CCR’s deputy legal director, said in a statement. “DOJ’s Human Rights and Special Prosecution Section must exercise its mandate to investigate Netanyahu and hold him to account for his heinous crimes, just as it would an international criminal from any other country.”
The group’s letter says that “in light of Netanyahu’s imminent visit, HRSP should prioritize investigating him… There is overwhelming evidence that under Netanyahu, Israeli forces and authorities are committing genocide, war crimes, and torture against Palestinians in Gaza, acts that are proscribed under federal criminal statutes and prosecutable by HRSP.”
“As the most powerful political figure in Israel, Netanyahu also leads the Security Cabinet, as well as the recently dissolved War Cabinet—the two bodies responsible for setting the strategy for and directing the military assault on Gaza since October 7, 2023,” the letter stresses. “He therefore bears criminal responsibility for the serious international crimes committed against the Palestinian population over the past nine months.”
We also urge the convening of an inter-agency effort to identify the number of U.S. citizens that have actively served in the Israeli armed forces since Oct 7 (including active-duty U.S. citizens) and the impact of torture, war crimes, and other atrocities in Gaza since Oct 7.
Various developments this week have elevated concerns for the people of Gaza. The World Health Organization said Friday that poliovirus has been detected in sewage samples at six locations in the strip, and Amnesty International on Thursday published interviews with 27 former detainees who described being tortured by Israeli forces.
A Wednesday report from Oxfam detailed what the group called Israel’s “water war crimes” in Gaza. That same day, Israeli lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposing “the establishment of a Palestinian state” west of the Jordan River—widely seen as an effort to send a message to Netanyahu ahead of his trip to D.C.
International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan is seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders, and Israel faces a South Africa-led genocide case at the International Court of Justice—which on Friday issued a nonbinding advisory opinion that Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is unlawful and must end “as rapidly as possible.”
So far, legal efforts to hold the Biden administration accountable for enabling Israel’s genocidal violence against Palestinians have been unsuccessful. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit against the president, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
CCR attorney Katherine Gallagher, who represented plaintiffs in the case, said that “this stunning abdication of the court’s role to serve as a check on the executive even in the face of its support for genocide should set off alarm bells for all.”
