Smoke rises after a bombardment in the Gaza Strip, February 12, 2024
SOUTH AFRICA said it had lodged an urgent request with the United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ) over Israel’s assault on Palestinians in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
The South African government is asking the ICJ to consider whether Israel has committed a “further imminent breach of the rights of Palestinians in Gaza” following the provisional orders the court handed down last month.
This comes as progress is reportedly being made in securing a ceasefire deal between Hamas and the Israeli government.
In December, South Africa instituted proceedings at the ICJ accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
Among its six orders, the ICJ said that Israel must do all it can to prevent the deaths of Palestinians and the destruction of Gaza.
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A statement released by the office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, said: “The South African government was gravely concerned that the unprecedented military offensive against Rafah, as announced by the state of Israel, has already led to and will result in further large-scale killing, harm and destruction.
“This would be in serious and irreparable breach both of the Genocide Convention and of the court’s order of January 26 2024.”
Palestinians sit by the destruction from the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip in Rafah on February 12, 2024
AT LEAST 95 civilians were killed in four unlawful air strikes on an alleged “safe” area in Rafah, a damning new report by Amnesty International revealed today.
The dead included 42 children. The Gaza Health Ministry says more than 12,300 minors have been killed in the besieged enclave since Israel began its invasion of Gaza following the Hamas attack on it on October 7.
According to Israeli authorities, 1,139 people died during the Hamas assault and more than 200 people were taken as hostages.
It also comes as Israel intensified its bombing of Rafah in preparation for an expected ground assault. Palestinians had been ordered to evacuate to the area by Israeli authorities as a place of safety from the battle that raged in northern Gaza.
According to Amnesty the evidence shows that Israeli forces are flouting international humanitarian law in their military operations in Gaza.
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 Internationalreport 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.”
“This bill provides Netanyahu $10 billion more in unrestricted military aid for his horrific war against the Palestinian people. That is unconscionable,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
