Bernie Sanders

‘War Criminals’: IDF Strikes Rafah After Hamas Agrees to Cease-Fire

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[This article remains relevant despite having been published 2 days ago]

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

Smoke rises from buildings after Israeli strikes on Rafah, Gaza on May 6, 2024.  (Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Why?” asked Israeli lawmaker Ofer Cassif. “Because killing Palestinians is more important for the Israeli government than saving Israelis.”

Israel on Monday launched long-awaited strikes on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip despite Hamas publicly confirming it agreed to a cease-fire and hostage release proposal from Egyptian and Qatari mediators.

The Israel Defense Forces said on social media that “the IDF is currently conducting targeted strikes against Hamas terror targets in eastern Rafah,” the city to which over a million Palestinians have fled since October 7, when Israel launched a retaliatory war that has already killed at least 34,735 people in Gaza and wounded another 78,108.

Earlier Monday, the IDF had dropped leaflets directing residents and refugees in that part of Rafah to relocate to a strip along Gaza’s coast, ignoring warnings from the international community and humanitarian groups that a full-scale Israeli attack on the crowded city would further endanger civilians and relief efforts.

“It is obvious Netanyahu wants this genocidal war to continue indefinitely so that he can remain in power.”

In addition to sparking outrage around the world, the Israeli government’s Rafah attack and rejection of the Hamas-backed proposal was met with criticism from people across Israel. The Associated Press reported that “thousands of Israelis rallied around the country Monday night calling for an immediate deal to release the hostages still held in the Gaza Strip.”

Ofer Cassif, a member of the Knesset who was almost expelled by fellow Israeli lawmakers earlier this year for backing South Africa’s ongoing genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), again called out his own government.

“Israeli tanks and infantry enter east Rafah while planes bomb from above, just hours after Hamas’ decision to accept the hostages/prisoners exchange deal,” Cassif said Monday. “Why? Because killing Palestinians is more important for the Israeli government than saving Israelis. War criminals!”

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that “the War Cabinet unanimously decided this evening Israel will continue its operation in Rafah, in order to apply military pressure on Hamas so as to advance the release of our hostages and achieve the other objectives of the war.”

Along with the prime minister, Israel’s War Cabinet includes Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Benny Gantz, former IDF chief of the general staff, along with three observers.

Netanyahu added that “while the Hamas proposal is far from meeting Israel’s core demands, Israel will dispatch a ranking delegation to Egypt in an effort to maximize the possibility of reaching an agreement on terms acceptable to Israel.”

Reuters reported that “an Israeli official said the deal was not acceptable to Israel because terms had been ‘softened.'”

According to the news outlet, the first part of a three-phase plan that Hamas—which has controlled Gaza for nearly two decades—agreed to includes a 42-day pause in fighting, the release of 33 hostages held by the group and some Palestinians in Israeli jails, a partial IDF withdrawal, and free movement in the besieged enclave.

Phase two would be “another 42-day period that features an agreement to restore a ‘sustainable calm’ to Gaza, language that an official briefed on the talks said Hamas and Israel had agreed in order to take discussion of a ‘permanent cease-fire’ off the table,” Reuters detailed. This phase also includes withdrawing most Israeli troops and Hamas releasing some soldiers and reservists.

The third phase would involve the exchange of bodies; reconstruction of Gaza overseen by Egypt, Qatar, and the United Nations; and ending the complete blockade on the strip, the outlet added.

Shortly before Israel’s Monday night strikes on Rafah began, Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, said that the U.N. chief “reiterates his pressing call to both the government of Israel and the leadership of Hamas to go the extra mile needed to make an agreement come true and stop the present suffering.”

Expressing concern about the then-imminent Israeli operation in Rafah, the spokesperson said that “we are already seeing movements of people—many of these people are in desperate humanitarian condition and have been repeatedly displaced. They search safety that has been so many times denied. The secretary-general reminds the parties that the protection of civilians is paramount in international humanitarian law.”

Other U.N. officials have been warning of what an assault on Rafah will mean for the over 1.4 million Palestinians there, among them 600,000 children. So have humanitarian and political leaders, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who on Monday urged President Joe Biden to stand by his earlier position that attacking the city was a “red line” and “end all offensive military aid to Israel.”

Council on American-Islamic Relations national executive director Nihad Awad issued a similar call Monday evening, warning that “the Israeli government is hellbent on using American financial, military, and diplomatic support to ethnically cleanse what remains of Gaza and commit another massacre.”

“President Biden must stand up to Benjamin Netanyahu and take concrete action to end the genocide now,” Awad continued, nodding to the Israeli leader’s legal trouble. The prime minister faces not only potential consequences on a global scale for what the ICJ has deemed a “plausibly” genocidal war on Gaza but also a corruption trial in his own country.

“It is obvious Netanyahu wants this genocidal war to continue indefinitely so that he can remain in power, avoid jail, and fulfill his racist, far-right Cabinet’s demands for the complete destruction of Gaza and the massacre of its people,” Awad said. “It is long past time for President Biden to end our nation’s complicity in this 21st-century genocide.”

Biden spoke with Netanyahu by phone ahead of the IDF strikes on Monday and “reiterated his clear position on Rafah,” according to a White House readout. They also discussed the hostage negotiations, humanitarian aid, the Holocaust, and antisemitism.

Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, also suggested that the Israeli prime minister wants the bloodshed in Gaza to continue for personal reasons.

“Netanyahu does not want an end to the war because the moment the war ends, his political career ends as well. And his prison sentence will commence,” said Parsi. “Yet, Biden has for seven months deferred to Netanyahu.”

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

Continue Reading‘War Criminals’: IDF Strikes Rafah After Hamas Agrees to Cease-Fire

‘Obscene’: Biden Quietly OKs More 2,000-Pound Bombs, Warplanes for Israel

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

Search and rescue efforts for those trapped under rubble continue after Israel bombed the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza on December 25, 2023.
 (Photo: Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Arming a war criminal makes you a war criminal,” one critic admonished the U.S. president.

Despite growing worldwide calls for an arms embargo, the Biden administration in recent days has approved the transfer of billions of dollars worth of new weapons shipments to Israel, including warplanes and 2,000-pound bombs that have been dropped on densely populated areas of Gaza with devastating results.

The Washington Post reported Friday that the administration has “quietly” authorized arms shipments including more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, as well as 25 F-35A fighter jets and engines worth approximately $2.5 billion. The transfers are the latest of more than 100 arms shipments authorized by the Biden administration since the October 7 attacks on Israel.

“‘Quietly,'” Palestinian American writer and political analyst Yousef Munayyer scoffed in response to the report. “This is cowardly from the administration. If you are going to be full backers of genocide, own it. We see you and history sees you as well.”

“It is scary to think of the world U.S. support for Israel is creating. A world with no rules, no limits in war, where norms don’t exist, and where genocide is supportable,” he added. “Good luck getting anyone to listen to you about international law after this.”

Edward Ahmed Mitchell, deputy executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, said in a statement: “We strongly condemn the Biden administration’s unbelievable and unconscionable decision to secretly send hundreds of new 2,000-pound bombs and other weapons to support Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocide. Arming a war criminal makes you a war criminal.”

According to the Post:

The 2,000-pound bombs, capable of leveling city blocks and leaving craters in the earth 40 feet across and larger, are almost never used any more by Western militaries in densely populated locations due to the risk of civilian casualties.

Israel has used them extensively in Gaza, according to several reports, most notably in the bombing of Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp October 31. U.N. officials decried the strike, which killed more than 100 people, as a “disproportionate attack that could amount to war crimes.” Israel defended the bombing, saying it resulted in the death of a Hamas leader.

The Biden administration’s arms shipments to Israel continue despite urgent pleas from United Nations officials, international human rights groups, and some progressive U.S. lawmakers to stop arming Israel’s 175-day Gaza onslaught, during which Israeli bombs and bullets have killed more than 32,600 Palestinians—mostly women and children—while wounding over 75,000 others and damaging or destroying hundreds of thousands of homes, schools, hospitals, mosques, and other structures.

The International Court of Justice in January found that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza and ordered the country to prevent genocidal acts. However, Israel has been accused of ignoring the ICJ order, and amid ongoing atrocities—including the forced starvation of Palestinians—the court on Thursday issued another order demanding that Israel allow desperately needed humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Last December, when the death toll in Gaza stood at approximately 18,000, President Joe Biden implored the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing” of Palestinian civilians in the embattled enclave.

However, U.S. support for Israel—which already included nearly $4 billion in annual military aid—has continued unabated, with the Biden administration seeking an additional $14.3 million in armed assistance and repeatedly bypassing Congress to fast-track emergency weapons shipments.

“The U.S. cannot beg Netanyahu to stop bombing civilians one day and the next send him thousands more 2,000-pound bombs that can level entire city blocks,” U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said on social media Friday. “This is obscene. We must end our complicity: No more bombs to Israel.”

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told the Post that “the Biden administration needs to use their leverage effectively and, in my view, they should receive these basic commitments before greenlighting more bombs for Gaza. We need to back up what we say with what we do.”

Biden administration officials have claimed they don’t have any leverage over Israel, drawing ridicule from observers who point to the indispensable military and diplomatic support the U.S. provides.

The staggering death and destruction wrought by Israel’s assault on Gaza has drawn criticism from even staunch supporters of the key U.S. ally.

Referring to the worsening famine in Gaza—which one U.S. State Department official acknowledged anonymously to Reuters on Friday—New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote on social media: “Really, POTUS? With Gaza facing starvation and Netanyahu defying you over Rafah, you ship billions of dollars in additional weapons to Israel, including 2,000-pound bombs, without end-use restrictions? Bibi is rolling you.”

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

Continue Reading‘Obscene’: Biden Quietly OKs More 2,000-Pound Bombs, Warplanes for Israel

Sanders Rips ‘Absurd’ US Claim That Israel Is Not Violating International Law

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

Children in Rafah, Gaza gather to receive food distributed by aid organizations on March 15, 2024.
 (Photo: Jehad Alshrafi/Anadolu via Getty Images

“The State Department’s position makes a mockery of U.S. law and assurances provided to Congress,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday said the U.S. State Department’s determination that Israel is not violating international law with its assault on the Gaza Strip is “absurd on its face,” pointing to the mass death, destruction, and starvation that Israeli forces have inflicted on the territory’s population over the past six months.

“Thirty-two thousand Palestinians in Gaza have been killed and almost 75,000 injured, two-thirds of whom are women and children,” Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement. “Some 60% of the housing units have been damaged or destroyed, and almost all medical facilities have been made inoperable. Today, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children are facing starvation because [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu won’t let in sufficient humanitarian aid, while thousands of trucks are waiting to get into Gaza.”

“The State Department’s position,” said Sanders, “makes a mockery of U.S. law and assurances provided to Congress.”

The senator’s statement came after State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters during a press briefing earlier Monday that the Biden administration has not found Israel “to be in violation of international humanitarian law, either when it comes to the conduct of the war or when it comes to the provision of humanitarian assistance.”

Miller was responding to a question about assurances the administration has received from the Israeli government that its use of American weaponry has complied with international law and that it has permitted U.S. humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, where the entire population is facing acute hunger.

Under a new Biden administration policy known as NSM-20, recipients of American military aid are required to provide the U.S. government with “credible and reliable” written assurances that they are using such assistance “in a manner consistent with all applicable international and domestic law and policy.”

Late last week, a group of U.S. senators—including Sanders—warned the Biden administration that deeming Israeli assurances credible would “be inconsistent with the letter and spirit of NSM-20” and “establish an unacceptable precedent” for the application of the policy “in other situations around the world.”

“Until Biden is ready to impose real policy consequences on Netanyahu’s government, the famine will continue.”

It is a violation of U.S. law to continue sending military assistance to a country that is obstructing the delivery of American humanitarian aid. Last month, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich blocked a U.S.-funded flour shipment from entering the Gaza Strip, and Israeli forces have repeatedly fired on convoys attempting to deliver aid to desperate Gazans.

Prominent human rights groups have been calling on the U.S. to impose an arms embargo on Israel for months, pointing to documented examples of the Israeli military using American weaponry to commit atrocities in Gaza.

But the Biden administration has refused to even apply concrete restrictions on American military aid. Over the weekend, U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law a measure that approves $3.8 billion in unconditional military assistance for the Israeli government and imposes a one-year ban on funding for the primary humanitarian aid organization in Gaza.

Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International and a former USAID official, said Monday that Israel’s assurances to the U.S. are “not remotely credible” and argued the Biden administration is undermining efforts to combat the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza by accepting the Israeli government’s claims.

The U.S., he said, is “talking a big game about fighting the famine that its bombs and diplomatic cover have helped create.” Resorting to “gimmicky” efforts such as airdrops and temporary ports while a U.S. ally obstructs humanitarian aid “is not how you fight a famine,” Konyndyk argued.

“Fundamentally Biden must choose: between continuing to enable Netanyahu, or ending the famine. There’s no way to split the difference,” said Konyndyk. “Until Biden is ready to impose real policy consequences on Netanyahu’s government, the famine will continue.”

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

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Continue ReadingSanders Rips ‘Absurd’ US Claim That Israel Is Not Violating International Law

Sanders: ‘The Netanyahu Gov’t Should Not Receive Another Penny from US’

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Original article by COMMON DREAMS STAFF republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) walks toward the Senate Chambers early on Saturday March 23, 2024 in Washington, DC. The Senate passed a $1.2 trillion spending bill to fund the government through September and avert a partial shutdown. President Biden signed the bill into law later in the day.  (Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images

The bill passed the Senate in a 74-24 vote at 2:03AM

Following the passing of the U.S. government appropriations bill early Saturday morning, Senator Bernie Sanders said:

I voted NO on the appropriations bill that the Senate passed last night. While hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children face starvation in Gaza, this bill actually prohibits funding to UNWRA, the key United Nations aid agency delivering life-saving humanitarian support. This will only intensify the already horrific situation in Gaza. This bill also provides another $3.3 billion in U.S. military aid for Netanyahu’s right-wing government to continue this barbaric war. The Netanyahu government should not receive another penny from U.S. taxpayers.

The bill passed the Senate in a 74-24 vote at 2:03AM Saturday morning following hours of intense negotiations.

Later on Saturday, President Biden signed the $1.2 trillion government funding bill to stave off a government shutdown.

Original article by COMMON DREAMS STAFF republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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Continue ReadingSanders: ‘The Netanyahu Gov’t Should Not Receive Another Penny from US’

‘That’s the Law’: Senators Say Biden Must End Arms Sales If Israel Keeps Blocking Aid

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

U.S. President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are pictured during a White House meeting on November 21, 2023 in Washington, D.C. 
(Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

“Federal law is clear, and, given the urgency of the crisis in Gaza, and the repeated refusal of Prime Minister Netanyahu to address U.S. concerns on this issue, immediate action is necessary.”

A group of senators said Tuesday that under U.S. law, the Biden administration must cut off American military assistance to Israel unless the Netanyahu government immediately stops impeding aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip, where children are dying of starvation after months of incessant Israeli bombing and attacks on humanitarian convoys.

“The severe humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza is nearly unprecedented in modern history,” the eight senators—led by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.)—wrote in a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden. “Your administration has repeatedly stated, and the United Nations and numerous aid organizations have confirmed, that Israel’s restrictions on humanitarian access, both at the border and within Gaza, are one of the primary causes of this humanitarian catastrophe.”

The senators argued that the Israeli government’s systematic obstruction of aid deliveries violates U.S. law, pointing specifically to Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. The law states that “no assistance shall be furnished… to any country when it is made known to the president that the government of such country prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.”

Biden administration officials have admitted that Israel is impeding aid deliveries to desperate Gazans. But when asked last week whether Israel’s actions amount to a “breach” of the Foreign Assistance Act, U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said he would “have to go back and look at the language of that text.”

“It’s not something that I’ve spent a lot of time looking at,” he added.

“The United States should not provide military assistance to any country that interferes with U.S. humanitarian assistance.”

The senators wrote to Biden on Tuesday that “according to public reporting and your own statements, the Netanyahu government is in violation of this law.”

“Given this reality, we urge you to make it clear to the Netanyahu government that failure to immediately and dramatically expand humanitarian access and facilitate safe aid deliveries throughout Gaza will lead to serious consequences, as specified under existing U.S. law,” the letter reads. “The United States should not provide military assistance to any country that interferes with U.S. humanitarian assistance.”

“Federal law is clear,” the senators added, “and, given the urgency of the crisis in Gaza, and the repeated refusal of Prime Minister Netanyahu to address U.S. concerns on this issue, immediate action is necessary to secure a change in policy by his government.”

The senators’ letter was made public hours after the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said Israel turned away a truck “loaded” with humanitarian aid because there were scissors in children’s medical aid kits—just one of many examples of Israel blocking the delivery of badly needed assistance.

Israel has limited the flow of aid to Gaza for years, but its siege has become much more restrictive since October 7, when Israel began its latest assault on the Palestinian territory following a deadly Hamas-led attack.

The U.S., by far Israel’s biggest arms supplier, has yet to impose any substantive consequences on the Netanyahu government for its mass killing of civilians or obstruction of humanitarian aid. The Biden administration has quietly approved more than 100 separate weapons sales to Israel since October.

Instead of using its leverage to force Israel’s hand, the administration has resorted to airdropping aid into Gaza and planning the construction of a temporary port off the enclave’s coast—steps that aid groups say won’t be anywhere near enough to avert famine.

Citing four unnamed U.S. officials, Politicoreported Monday that Biden “will consider conditioning military aid to Israel” if it launches a ground invasion of Rafah, a small city near the Egyptian border where more than half of Gaza’s population is sheltering.

Brian Finucane, senior adviser for the U.S. program at the International Crisis Group, wrote in response to Politico‘s reporting that “U.S. law and policy already impose conditions on military aid to Israel as well as every other country.”

“The Biden admin has just refused to enforce those conditions so far,” he added.

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

Continue Reading‘That’s the Law’: Senators Say Biden Must End Arms Sales If Israel Keeps Blocking Aid