Amsterdam Media Conspiracy Exposed
I’ve held off from commenting of the violence in Amsterdam because it’s difficult to know what happened without being. This report appears comprehensive.
Thoughts of the Day 14 November 2024
Keir Starmer was having trouble defining genocide at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday but insisted that Israel was not committing genocide. He should have very little difficulty since he is often described as a human rights lawyer. The rest of us know that Israel is committing genocide. While not a definition, we can see that they are from indiscriminate mass-murder, targeting hospitals, healthcare workers, journalists, aid workers, using starvation and disease as weapons of war, forcible displacements and the statements made by Israeli ministers e.g. Smotrich and Ben-Gvir.
It should be recognised that the UK and US are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that Keir Starmer, David Lammy and others in the UK Labour Party are therefore genocidal war criminals. UK’s military forces are participating in genocide and the cabinet are supposedly held jointly responsible under UK law. [ed: The problem is that t] They need to be held accountable, prosecuted and convicted.
Continuing ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ Campaign, Israel Blows Past US Deadline for Gaza Aid
Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
One advocate urged action “to prevent further loss of innocent life, the deepening of an extraordinary humanitarian crisis, and the continued erosion of U.S. credibility as an upholder of international humanitarian law.”
As the deadline set by the Biden administration last month for Israel to step up aid deliveries to Gaza passed on Tuesday, human rights groups demanded that the U.S. stick to its commitment to holding the Israeli government accountable for what one advocate called “a campaign of ethnic cleansing.”
But the White House’s refusal over the last 13 months to follow U.S. and international law provoked doubt that it would do so.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on October 13, giving Israel 30 days to allow at least 350 humanitarian aid trucks per day into Gaza, open a fifth crossing into the enclave, and ensure access to northern Gaza for aid groups, among other specific steps outlined in the letter.
Noncompliance would violate National Security Memorandum 20, which President Joe Biden issued in February to demand credible assurances from Israel that it was acting according to international law, and Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits the U.S. from providing military aid to countries that are blocking U.S. humanitarian aid.
Advocates have said for months that Israel and the U.S. have been violating both statutes, as mounting evidence has shown U.S. weapons have been used in Israeli attacks on civilians and United Nations experts have warned Gaza has descended into famine.
Louise Wateridge, a senior emergency officer for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said Tuesday that the Biden administration’s warning 30 days ago did not improve conditions in Gaza, with aid entering the enclave “at its lowest level in months.”
“Thousands and thousands of people have been killed senselessly. They have been killed because there is lack of aid, because the bombs have continued, and because we have not been able to even reach them under the rubble,” Wateridge said at a press briefing in Geneva. “The average for October was 37 trucks a day into the entire Gaza Strip… That is for 2.2 million people… Children are dying. People are dying every day.”
With the number of daily deliveries since October 13 far below the level stipulated by the Biden administration, Wateridge emphasized that “anything that happens now is already too late.”
As the deadline passed, Israel appeared eager to put new humanitarian aid efforts on display, with the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) posting on social media an image of a convoy delivering what it said were “hundreds of food and water packages to the Jabaliya and Beit Hanoun areas in 6n Gaza.”
The military also arranged a photo call on Monday where journalists “were invited to film around eight aid truc ks passing into Gaza,” reported Jon Donnison at the BBC. “They were laden with sacks of flour, rice, and toilet paper, among other things.”
“So, aid is getting into Gaza,” wrote Donnison. “But nowhere near enough.”
Before Israel began its bombardment of Gaza in October 2023, about 500 aid trucks entered the enclave each day.
A spokesperson for COGAT told the BBC Tuesday that “most aspects [of Blinken’s demands] have been met and those which have not are being discussed.”
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U.N. officials said this week that aid workers have been unable to deliver relief even after the Israel Defense Forces gave approval for deliveries in northern Gaza, which has been cut of from virtually all aid for more than a month. Israeli troops on the ground have restricted aid despite the IDF’s approval.
In southern Gaza, hundreds of trucks containing aid have been sitting on the enclave’s side of the border with Egypt because U.N. workers cannot reach them due to “lawlessness, theft, and Israeli military restrictions,” according to The Associated Press.
As the deadline passed Tuesday, a coalition of human rights groups including Oxfam, Refugees International, and Save the Children released a scorecard assessing Israel’s progress in complying with the conditions set by Blinken and Austin on October 13.
They found “outright failure” by Israel to meet 15 out of 19 measures of compliance, and said the IDF has only partially complied with the remaining four.
Israel has failed to allow 350 aid trucks into Gaza over the last month, said the groups, and has not ended the isolation of northern Gaza or allowed the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to Palestinians detained by Israel, among other requirements set last month.
“The U.S. government once again laid out basic measures for how the government of Israel must follow international law and allow for aid delivery in Gaza,” said Oxfam America president and CEO Abby Maxman. “Since then, we have seen Israeli forces accelerate their efforts to bombard, depopulate, deprive, and erase the Palestinian population of the North Gaza governorate. We are witnessing a campaign of ethnic cleansing.”
“Oxfam and partner organizations are unable to provide any support to the remaining civilians in the North Gaza governorate, where people are dying every day,” added Maxman. “jAccess to the rest of Gaza is also severely restricted, with civilians facing starvation and relentless violence. The U.S. must finally make this overdue call to suspend deadly arms sales to Israel or be complicit in the horrific atrocities unfolding before our eyes.”
Michelle Nunn, president and CEO of CARE, said that with the letter sent to Netanyahu’s government last month, the U.S. “created a critical opportunity to respond to the facts on the ground, and to insist upon accountability to our own laws.”
“It is imperative to act now to prevent further loss of innocent life, the deepening of an extraordinary humanitarian crisis, and the continued erosion of U.S. credibility as an upholder of international humanitarian law,” said Nunn.
The analysis, added Refugees International president Jeremy Konyndyk, “demonstrates that the Israeli government is violating its obligations under U.S. and international law to facilitate humanitarian relief for suffering Palestinians in Gaza.”
“With experts again projecting imminent famine in north Gaza, there is no time to lose,” he added. “The United States must impose immediate restrictions on security cooperation with Israel as required under Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act.”
Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
- New Research Details How Israel Has Used US Weapons to Commit War Crimes
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- Israel Bombed Belgian Aid Office in Gaza After Nation Refused to Halt UNRWA Funding
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Activists blockade two Israeli weapons sites in Bristol
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/activists-blockade-two-israeli-weapons-sites-bristol
Protesters use a van to block the gates to Elbit at Filton near Bristol Photo: Neil Terry Photography
ACTIVISTS blockaded two Israeli weapons sites in Bristol as they vowed to redouble their efforts to shut down Elbit Systems today.
Palestine Action used lock-on devices inside vans to block the gates at the entrances of both sites, preventing anyone from coming in or out.
One of the sites, a facility at Filton, is the brand new £35 million research and development hub of Israel’s biggest weapons firm.
The other site is Elbit’s headquarters at Aztec West 600, which the activists said is used by Elbit to oversee their logistical, financial, and operational affairs throughout the country.
…
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/activists-blockade-two-israeli-weapons-sites-bristol
US finds that Israel is not impeding assistance to Gaza
Original article republished from MEMO under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
President Joe Biden’s administration has concluded that Israel is not currently impeding assistance to Gaza and, therefore, is not violating US law, the State Department said on Tuesday, although Washington acknowledged the humanitarian situation remained dire in the Palestinian enclave, Reuters reports.
US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and Defence Secretary, Lloyd Austin, in a 13 October letter gave their Israeli counterparts a list of specific steps that Israel needs to take within the next 30 days to address the worsening situation in Gaza. Failure to do so may have possible consequences on US military aid to Israel, they said in the letter.
But, on Tuesday, the deadline mentioned in the letter, State Department deputy spokesperson, Vedant Patel, repeatedly declined to say if the specific criteria were fulfilled. Instead, he told reporters that Israel has taken steps to address the demands and that Washington would continue to assess the situation.
“We’ve seen some progress being made. We would like to see some more changes happen. We believe that had it not been for US intervention, these changes may not have ever taken place,” Patel said, adding that Washington will continue to assess Israel’s compliance with US law.
READ: UN: 85% of humanitarian aid requests to Northern Gaza blocked or delayed by Israel
International aid groups said Israel had failed to meet the series of US demands intended to improve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza by the Tuesday deadline.
Patel, fielding repeated questions from reporters in the briefing, declined to explain why Washington chose to make the assessment based on Israel’s measures to address the problems instead of actual results on the ground, which US officials have repeatedly said would be their measuring stick.
Earlier this month, the State Department said the results on the ground as of 4 November were not good enough.
On Tuesday, Patel said Israel had taken some steps, including reopening the Erez Crossing, waiving certain customs requirements and opening additional delivery routes within Gaza.
For more than a month, Israeli forces have been pushing deeper into north Gaza, surrounding hospitals and shelters and displacing new waves of people in an operation they say is designed to prevent Hamas fighters regrouping.
Biden, whose term ends soon, has offered strong backing to Israel since Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel last October, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages.
However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.
More than 43,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza over the past year and Gaza has been reduced to a wasteland of wrecked buildings and piles of rubble where more than 2 million Gazans seek shelter as best they can.
READ: Israel fails to meet US aid demands to ease Gaza catastrophe, aid groups say
Original article republished from MEMO under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Global Fury After State Dept Claims Israel Not Violating US Law by Blocking Gaza Aid