Zionism

“Are They ‘Hamas’?” 12,300 Children Killed by Israeli Forces in Gaza

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

People mourn as they receive the dead bodies of victims of an Israeli airstrike on February 12, 2024 in Rafah, Gaza.  (Photo by Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images)

Gruesome new data shows that kids make up around 43% of the death toll from Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip.

Israeli forces have killed more than 12,300 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip in just over four months, a staggering toll that’s likely to grow as the Netanyahu government ramps up its assault on and prepares to invade the overcrowded city of Rafah.

New figures that Gaza health authorities provided to The Associated Press show that children make up roughly 43% of the total death toll in the Palestinian enclave since October 7. Women and children combined account for three-quarters of the death toll, according to the new data.

“Are they ‘Hamas’?” Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, asked in response to the numbers, referring to Israel’s claim that it is targeting militants despite the massive and growing body of evidence to the contrary.

An Amnesty International report released Monday examining four recent Israeli airstrikes on Rafah. Amnesty said that “in all four attacks,” it did not find “any indication that the residential buildings hit could be considered legitimate military objectives or that people in the buildings were military targets.”

Virtually all of Gaza’s 1 million-plus children have been traumatized in some way by Israel’s monthslong war on the Gaza Strip: Around 17,000 have been separated from their families, more than 1,000 have had one or both of their legs amputated, and more than 610,000 are currently trapped in Rafah, a small city that was previously considered a relative safe zone for people fleeing Israeli bombs and bullets.

“Israel is erasing generations in Gaza and its soldiers are killing children in numbers competing with the cruelest of wars,” Israeli journalist Gideon Levy wrote in a column last month. “This will not and cannot be forgotten. How can a people ever forget those who killed its children in such a manner? How can people of conscience around the world remain silent?”

“This is the gravest test of all. Will they uphold international law and children’s right to life? Or will they stand by while the lives, bodies, and futures of more children are decimated?”

Children were among the dozens of Palestinians killed Monday in a wave of Israeli airstrikes conducted as the U.S.-armed Israel Defense Forces raided an apartment building to rescue two hostages.

Jason Lee, Save the Children’s country director for the occupied Palestinian territory, said last week that “much of the international community has failed tests of their commitment to protect children so far.”

“This is the gravest test of all,” Lee said of Rafah. “Will they uphold international law and children’s right to life? Or will they stand by while the lives, bodies, and futures of more children are decimated?”

The United Nations Children’s Fund, known as UNICEF, similarly appealed to the international community to act to prevent catastrophe for children and others in Rafah.

“We need an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza, and the safe and immediate release of all hostages—especially children—who have suffered so much,” Catherine Russell, UNICEF’s executive director, said Friday. “A humanitarian cease-fire will save lives. It will allow for the expansion of the humanitarian response, and help provide the best protection for children whose lives and futures are hanging in the balance.”

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

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Continue Reading“Are They ‘Hamas’?” 12,300 Children Killed by Israeli Forces in Gaza

UK complicity in Israel’s Gaza genocide

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I’ve been trying to investigate the UK’s complicity in Israel’s Gaza genocide. There is no doubt that UK is complicit in genocide by supporting Israel’s Gaza genocide but the actual details are a little obscured. I’ve found that Declassified UK is a good source about the UK’s military support of Israel.

British military training Israeli officers in UK amid Gaza war

The UK announced that it is providing training to Israeli military officers in the country as the war on Gaza nears its 5-month mark with over 100,000 Palestinians recorded killed and injured.

“Israel is represented by Armed Forces personnel in its Embassy in the UK, and as participants in UK defence-led training courses”, British Defense Minister James Heappey has told parliament.

“There are currently six Israeli Armed Forces officers posted in the UK”, he added responding to a written question by Alba MP Kenny MacAskill.

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The UK provides arms and military components for Israel’s armed forces

BRITAIN SECRETLY SENT 500 EXTRA TROOPS TO CYPRUS BASE BEING USED TO SUPPLY WEAPONS TO ISRAEL

The UK has also deployed additional military personnel to Egypt, Israel and Lebanon since the Gaza bombing began, but refuses to say at what levels.

  • New troops take number of UK personnel on Britain’s Cyprus bases to nearly 3,000
  • Figure does not include SAS personnel deployed to island for Gaza operations
  • Secret detachment of 129 American airmen are also deployed on UK territory on Cyprus
  • Number of new UK troops deployed elsewhere in Middle East will remain secret “for operational security reasons”, government says
  • British MP demands “openness and accountability” on role UK bases on Cyprus are playing in Israel’s bombing of Gaza

Britain secretly deployed 500 additional troops to its bases on Cyprus after Israel began bombing Gaza, it can be revealed.

The UK government has said previously that it deployed 1,000 troops to the East Mediterranean to support Israel but it did not reveal how these troops were distributed.

But in a letter to Alba MP Kenny MacAskill, seen by Declassified, defence minister James Heappey wrote that on 27 November half these troops were in Cyprus.

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UK ADMITS NINE ISRAELI MILITARY PLANES HAVE VISITED BRITAIN SINCE GAZA BOMBING BEGAN.

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RAF flights to Israel

The MoD also admitted on Tuesday that it has flown close to 50 RAF operated aircraft to Israel since it began bombing Gaza.

The department told parliament: “As of 2 February 2024, a total of 48 RAF operated aircraft have flown to Israel since 7 October 2023.”

It added: “These flights included aircraft used to transport Ministers and senior officials conducting diplomatic engagements with Israel.”

Declassified could find no similar flights in the two months before the Gaza campaign began. 

The majority of these flights are vast C-17 and A400 military transport aircraft which have gone from RAF Akrotiri, the sprawling British air base on Cyprus, to Tel Aviv.

The UK government claims the dozens of flights have “provided no lethal or military equipment other than medical supplies to Israel”.

But it is possible the US and Israel are using bases in Britain to move weapons to Israel. 

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UK military aircraft have provided “surveillance support” to Israel

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has stated that UK military aircraft have provided surveillance support to Israel, following the deployment of assets to the eastern Mediterranean amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

In written parliamentary responses confirming the deployments on 13 November, MoD officials stated the UK had deployed “P-8 and other surveillance assets to improve our situational awareness in the region and provide assurance to our partners”.

Israel has been embroiled in an ongoing war with Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and which conducted a bloody incursion into Israel on 7 October resulting in the deaths of some 1,200 Israeli’s, with over 200 kidnapped. The military response from Israel into Gaza has caused over 10,000 civilian deaths, according to Hamas-run Gazan authorities.

On 13 October, the UK confirmed it would be sending aircraft to the region to “support Israel and reinforce regional stability”.

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BRITAIN HAS FLOWN 50 SPY MISSIONS OVER GAZA IN SUPPORT OF ISRAEL

The UK military refuses to tell Declassified what intelligence it is sharing with Israel as we reveal the extraordinary number of surveillance flights Britain is undertaking over Gaza from its base on Cyprus.

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The UK military has flown 50 surveillance missions over Gaza since December, it can be revealed.

The flights have taken off from Britain’s controversial air base on Cyprus, RAF Akrotiri, and averaged around one a day since the beginning of December. 

When asked the UK government refused to provide the number of spy flights, but Declassified has analysed flight tracking records.

The British plane used is the Shadow R1, which is known as an intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) aircraft.

The Shadow R1 is operated by the UK military’s No.14 Squadron, which is based at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, east England. 

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The British flights began on 3 December when two R1s flew over Gaza. The flights have continued nearly daily up until now, with around half the days featuring two flights. On 3 January, the British sent an R1 over Gaza three times. 

The flights appear to last around six hours. 

Intelligence

The UK Ministry of Defence announced on 2 December that it would begin surveillance flights over Gaza “in support of the ongoing hostage rescue activity”. 

“The safety of British nationals is our utmost priority,” the department said. “Surveillance aircraft will be unarmed, do not have a combat role, and will be tasked solely to locate hostages”. 

It added: “Only information relating to hostage rescue will be passed to the relevant authorities responsible for hostage rescue.”

But the extraordinary number of flights, and the fact that they started nearly two months after the hostages were taken, raises suspicions that the UK is not collecting intelligence solely for this purpose. 

Foreign secretary David Cameron confirmed last week that Hamas holds just two British hostages. 

…

Continue ReadingUK complicity in Israel’s Gaza genocide

LABOUR MPS HAVE ACCEPTED OVER £280,000 FROM ISRAEL LOBBY

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https://www.declassifieduk.org/labour-mps-have-accepted-over-280000-from-israel-lobby/

Labour MPs on a “solidarity mission” with Israel’s president. (Photo: LFI / X)

Twenty percent of Labour’s sitting MPs have been funded by pro-Israel groups or individuals – including 15 who have been directly funded by the Israeli state.

  • Israel lobbyists have paid for Labour MPs to travel to Israel on over 50 occasions
  • Remarkably, the number of MPs supporting Labour Friends of Israel has increased amid the Gaza genocide

Some 41 of Labour’s 197 sitting MPs have accepted money from the Israel lobby, Declassified has found.

The value of the donations amounts to over £280,000, with Israel lobby groups paying for Labour MPs to visit Israel on over 50 occasions since 1999.

The funders include parliamentary group Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), pro-Israel figures such as Trevor Chinn, and governmental bodies including the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Amid Israel’s genocide on Gaza, at least one Labour MP, Margaret Hodge, has continued to accept Israel lobby funds to travel to the country.

Labour Friends of Israel

LFI has described itself as a “Westminster based lobby group working with the British Labour Party to promote the State of Israel”. 

The organisation does not disclose its sources of funding, but is closely associated with the Israeli state.

LFI currently counts 75 Labour MPs as parliamentary supporters or officers – a number which, remarkably, has risen since the onset of Israel’s war on Gaza.

One of LFI’s main activities is taking Labour MPs on “fact finding” missions to Israel. 

The organisation has paid for 32 of Labour’s sitting MPs to travel to Israel since they were first elected to parliament, Declassified has found. 

The value of these donations is over £64,000, with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs often covering additional costs in Israel. 

Fifteen Labour MPs have accepted financial assistance directly from the Israeli state for these and other visits.

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Article continues at https://www.declassifieduk.org/labour-mps-have-accepted-over-280000-from-israel-lobby/

Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel's Gaza genocide.
Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel’s Gaza genocide.
Continue ReadingLABOUR MPS HAVE ACCEPTED OVER £280,000 FROM ISRAEL LOBBY

UK won’t say when or if it will restart aid to Gaza despite reports of famine

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Original article by Adam Ramsay republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

RAFAH, GAZA – JANUARY 04: UNRWA personnel distribute flour to Palestinian families  | (Photo by Abed Zagout/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Aid is suspended amid allegations about UNRWA. There is no such suspension of arms exports despite evidence of genocide

The UK government still has no answers about if or when it will restart funding to the main relief agency in Gaza despite mounting reports of famine.

Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said last month it was stopping aid to UNRWA while it “reviewed” allegations from the Israeli government that 12 of the agency’s 13,000 staff had been involved in attacks on Israel in October.

No such suspension has been announced of Britain’s arms exports to Israel, despite the International Court of Justice having found there was a plausible case that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. The ICJ also ordered Israel to allow aid into the region.

The Israeli government’s allegations came in the form of a six-page dossier, which Israel passed to UNRWA and its donors the day after the genocide ruling. In recent years, claims made by the Israeli government have repeatedly been subsequently dismissed as propaganda intended to influence geopolitics at key moments.

Labour MP Zarah Sultana has submitted a parliamentary question asking the department what the review involves and how long it will take given the urgent humanitarian crisis in the region more than two weeks on, but it has snubbed both her and openDemocracy’s questions.

While the dossier that Israel passed to UNRWA and its donors was confidential, Channel 4 News managed to get a copy, and said it provided no evidence for the explosive claims, which knocked the genocide ruling off front pages across the western world.

UNRWA, whose full name is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, was founded in 1949 to support the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees forced from their homes in order to create the state of Israel in 1948.

It currently supports 5.9 million Palestinian refugees, including those in Gaza and the West Bank affected by the current conflict, in Lebanon where there is ongoing socio-economic collapse, in Syria, where the civil war continues, and in Jordan. With its projects including running schools, medical clinics and hospitals and the distribution of food aid, it is the biggest single UN agency.

Before the allegations were made, senior Israeli officials had argued that it would be necessary to destroy UNRWA in order to win the war on Gaza.

Sultana called the government’s suspension of UNRWA funding “an act of collective punishment on the Palestinian people, millions of whom are currently displaced, unable to access food and water, and in urgent need of humanitarian aid”.

She said it was right that the allegations against UNRWA staff were investigated, but added that it was Britain’s duty under international law to ensure Palestinians in Gaza have access to humanitarian assistance. “The government’s refusal to be transparent about this decision and the process for its investigation is wholly unacceptable,” she said.

The UK’s contributions to UNRWA have varied over the years, peaking at around £90m in 2019 before being slashed to around £25m in 2022. UNRWA has subsequently admitted it fired all the staff members accused by Israel of involvement in the attacks before investigating whether there was any truth to the allegations.

The UN Secretary General has called for the donors who have suspended their funding “to, at least, guarantee the continuity of UNRWA’s operations”. UNRWA has said that the decision of some donors to suspend funding “threatens our ongoing humanitarian work across the region”. While some governments, like the UK, have suspended aid, others including Belgium, Ireland, Denmark and Spain have continued their funding.

The UK government has said that it remains “committed to getting humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza who desperately need it,” but other aid organisations who operate in Gaza have argued that none but UNRWA has the capacity to deliver it. More than 20 aid groups, including Oxfam and Save the Children, have warned that, if funding suspensions are not reversed, “we may see a complete collapse of the already restricted humanitarian response in Gaza”, calling the government’s decision “reckless”.

The UK says it “allocated” £16m to UNRWA between 7 October and the suspension in January, and that no further UK funding was due until April 2024. It has not said how much of the £16m has already been paid or spent, and how much is affected by the decision to suspend payments.

The BBC reported yesterday that children in northern Gaza have been going for days without food as aid can no longer reach them.

Original article by Adam Ramsay republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Image of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. UK halts aid to UNRWA in Gaza over Israeli allegations that 12 staff from a total of 13,000 were involved in the 7 October 2024 attack on Israel.
Image of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. UK halts aid to UNRWA in Gaza over Israeli allegations that 12 staff from a total of 13,000 were involved in the 7 October 2024 attack on Israel.
Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel's Gaza genocide.
Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel’s Gaza genocide.
Continue ReadingUK won’t say when or if it will restart aid to Gaza despite reports of famine

Greens call for scaling up actions against Israel, accusing UK government of complicity in killing 

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Image of the Green Party's Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
Image of the Green Party’s Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.

As Israel appears to be on the brink of an all out assault on Rafah, despite warnings against such action by the UN, Red Crescent and others, Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer is demanding the UK scale up actions against the Israeli government until the killing stops. Greens are calling for an end to all arms sales to Israel, prosecutions of war criminals and targeted sanctions on Israel’s leaders. 

Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer said: 

“It is clear that the Israeli government is refusing to heed warnings about the catastrophic implications of an all-out attack on Rafah. The UK government must now demand that Israel stop the killing, calling for an immediate ceasefire. Hamas must also agree to this ceasefire of course, and release all hostages.  

“Decisions made by the UK government – above all its failure, month after month, to call for an immediate ceasefire – have made them complicit in the killing of almost 28,000 people to date, 12,000 of whom are children.

“Israel relies on certain weapon parts manufactured in the UK, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter whose essential components are made here.

A Dutch court has today ordered the state to cease the export of F-35 spare parts to Israel. We call on the UK government to follow suit, and suspend all arms export licences to Israel until the killing stops. The UK must also cease all military collaboration with Israel, including allowing Israeli use of British bases and RAF intelligence flights over Gaza.

“Greens would also implement the requirements of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign across the UK economy. This would include excluding Israel from international sporting and music events; withdrawing all public money from funds with investments in Israel; and ending beneficial trade arrangements with Israel.

“It is clear that only outside pressure will make Israel stop its mass killing. We can increase the pressure on Israeli leaders by introducing targeted sanctions against key individuals. This would include travel bans and asset freezes on Israel’s leadership and cabinet members, in particular those calling for new settlements in Gaza and the annexation of the West Bank. 

“Finally, we would encourage UK authorities including the Metropolitan Police and Director of Public Prosecutions to pursue perpetrators of war crimes committed where UK citizens are the victims or where UK citizens are potential perpetrators. 

“There are many steps the UK government could take to pressure Israel to stop the killing. Its refusal to do so means that they are implicitly condoning the appalling carnage in Gaza.” 

Continue ReadingGreens call for scaling up actions against Israel, accusing UK government of complicity in killing