People march through Manchester demanding Britain impose an arms embargo on Israel, August 31, 2024Photo: John Nicholson
THOUSANDS of protesters across Britain again marched for Palestine on Saturday as Israel intensified its war on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
In major towns and cities calls were made to step up the worldwide Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel following news that international coffee shop chain Starbucks saw its market share fall by billions of dollars as customers rebel against the company’s involvement with Israel.
Protests also took place in Israel demanding a ceasefire after Hamas said that six Israeli hostages found dead in Gaza had been killed in Israeli bombing and shelling. Israel said the hostages had been murdered by Hamas as its troops approached.
Calling for more action against organisations investing in firms involved in Israel, Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) said its research has revealed that local government pension scheme funds in Britain collectively invest over £4.4 billion in companies complicit in Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.
The PSC said: “Councils must take immediate action to end ties with companies that are complicit in abuses of Palestinian rights, including by divesting pension funds they administer from companies enabling Israel’s genocide. The deferred wages of local government workers must not be used to fund injustice.”
Israeli people, holding Israeli flags and banners, stage a demonstration demanding hostage swap deal and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to sign a ceasefire in Gaza, on August 31, 2024, in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Photo by Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images.
‘Starting tomorrow, the country will tremble. We call on the public to prepare. The country will grind to a halt. The abandonment is over.’
Tens of thousands rallied across Israel on Saturday night, demanding a hostage deal and against the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In Tel Aviv, tens of thousands of demonstrators, including relatives of those held hostage in Gaza, gathered at the Hostages Square for a rally demanding their loved ones’ return and pled with the prime minister and negotiating team to reach an agreement before time runs out. Roving groups of right-wing activists cursed and spat on the demonstrators.
Along with the mass demonstration in Tel Aviv, large protests were held in cities nationwide, drawing thousands of demonstrators.
Later Saturday night, the Israeli Defense Force announced it had located several bodies in the Gaza Strip, which might be the remains of Israeli hostages. “At this stage, the forces are still operating in the area and carrying out a process to extract and identify the bodies, which will last several hours,” the military says.
After the IDF says it has found bodies in Gaza that possibly are of hostages, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum issued a statement calling on the public to prepare to hold sweeping protests tomorrow.
“Netanyahu abandoned the hostages. It is now a fact. Starting tomorrow, the country will tremble. We call on the public to prepare. The country will grind to a halt. The abandonment is over.”
The Forum says it will provide further details tomorrow morning.
via @NYTimes: Included was the body of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American. “I am devastated & outraged”, said. Understandable comment. But in sharp contrast to the lack of anger & sympathy he’s shown re the Israeli killing of 1,000s of Palestinians. https://t.co/tMuUAw5dyo
IDF: The IDF located a number of bodies during combat in the Gaza Strip.
At this time, the troops are still operating in the area and are carrying out a process to extract and identify the bodies that will last several hours. We ask to refrain from spreading rumors.
A large crowd gathered at Hostage Square tonight in solidarity with the families of the hostages, chanting: “We will not allow Prime Minister Netanyahu to sacrifice the lives of the hostages.”
This evening, following the decision by the Prime Minister and the Political-Security… pic.twitter.com/Q0YArmtRt8
#TelAviv tonight: Tens of thousands 🇮🇱 calling for an immediate hostage/ceasefire deal in Gaza, the ousting of Netanyahu and new elections. pic.twitter.com/A1Z3sud6W6
Bodies of Palestinians, including babies, who were killed in the Israeli army’s attack on the Nuseirat Refugee Camp are brought to the Aqsa Martyrs Hospital morgue in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on August 30, 2024. (Photo: Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Harris is saying she will reject 77% of Democrats, 61% of Americans, international law, domestic U.S. law, and basic humanity to continue the flow of weapons to Israel while it stands accused of genocide,” said one analyst.
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris said in a CNN interview that aired late Thursday that, if elected in November, she would not change the Biden administration’s policy of steadfast military support for Israel, rejecting widespread calls for an arms embargo to help bring about an end to the devastating assault on Gaza.
“I’m unequivocal and unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s defense and its ability to defend itself, and that’s not gonna change,” said Harris, recounting the horrors of the Hamas-led October 7 attack. “Israel had a right, has a right to defend itself.”
Acknowledging that “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed,” the vice president responded “no” when CNN‘s Dana Bash asked whether a Harris administration would implement a “change in policy in terms of arms” and withhold even “some” weapons shipments to Israel.
Watch:
HORRIFIC. It's extremely clear that Kamala Harris would do the same as what Biden is doing on Gaza: "Would you do anything differently? For example, would you withhold some U.S. weapons shipments to Israel?" Kamala Harris: "I'm unequivocal and unwavering in my commitment to… pic.twitter.com/EQ0gV6vcFP
The CNN appearance marked Harris’ first major television interview since becoming the Democratic nominee, a change at the top of the party’s 2024 ticket that Palestinian rights advocates hoped would open the door to a fundamental shift away from the Biden administration’s Gaza policy—which has been to arm Israel to the teeth while tepidly pressuring the country’s far-right government to protect civilians and agree to a cease-fire deal.
“The vice president’s statement was morally indefensible and politically shortsighted as the lack of American consequences for Netanyahu’s horrific assault on Palestinian civilians in Gaza has emboldened Israel to now invade the West Bank,” Layla Elabed and Abbas Alawieh, co-founders of the Uncommitted National Movement, said in a statement Friday. “Vice President Harris must turn the page from one of the most glaring foreign policy failures of our time by aligning with the American majority that opposes sending weapons to Israel’s assault on Gaza.”
Despite Bash’s characterization of calls for an arms embargo against Israel as a demand from the “progressive left,” survey data has shown that a majority of U.S. voters oppose sending weapons to Israel as it commits appalling war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank. Since October, the U.S. has sent Israel over 50,000 tons of weaponry.
“Harris is saying she will reject 77% of Democrats, 61% of Americans, international law, domestic U.S. law, and basic humanity to continue the flow of weapons to Israel while it stands accused of genocide,” Middle East scholar Assal Rad said late Thursday, citing the results of a recent CBS News/YouGov poll.
A separate poll commissioned by the IMEU Policy Project suggested that voters in key U.S. battleground states would be more likely to vote for a Democratic nominee who pledged to withhold weapons from Israel.
The CNN interview aired as Israel continued its multi-day assault on the West Bank, a deadly military campaign that the head of the United Nations and others warned could become an extension of the nearly 11-month war on Gaza, during which Israel has killed more than 40,600 people, displaced 90% of the enclave’s population, and sparked famine across the territory.
On Thursday, Israel’s military killed five Palestinians in an airstrike on a vehicle convoy of the Washington, D.C.-based American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) agency. It is a violation of U.S. law to provide weaponry to a country obstructing the delivery of American humanitarian aid.
Note: In May, the Biden-Harris State Department admitted it’s “reasonable to assess” that Israeli forces have used US weapons in ways “inconsistent” with international law.
Still, Harris — after months of failed attempts to secure a ceasefire — says she wouldn’t change policy: https://t.co/cyXw7Hoqk7
The attack on the ANERA convoy came a day after Israeli forces opened fire on a World Food Program vehicle, forcing the U.N. agency to suspend employee movement in Gaza.
Harris’ refusal to express openness to an arms embargo against a military that has repeatedly targeted aid and healthcare workers, journalists, and other civilians sparked immediate backlash from Palestinian rights advocates, including at least one member of Congress.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American in the U.S. Congress, said Harris’ answer signaled that “war crimes and genocide will continue.”
Yonah Lieberman, co-founder of IfNotNow, called the Democratic nominee’s answer on Gaza “terrible” and “out of touch with voters, especially those in key battleground states who Harris needs to feel motivated to go to the polls.”
“Poll after poll after poll tells us that a majority of Americans and even more key Democratic constituencies want the US to stop giving arms to Israel that it’s using to kill and displace Palestinian families,” Lieberman added. “Not sending bombs to Israel is politically expedient and—quite obviously!—the morally correct thing to do for anyone reading the daily headlines of Israeli massacres being done with U.S. weapons.”
In an op-ed for Common Dreams on Friday, RootsAction national director Norman Solomon warned that “time is running out for Kamala Harris to distance herself from U.S. policies that enable Israel to continue with mass murder and genocide in Gaza.”
“Polling shows that a pivot toward moral decency would improve her chances of defeating Donald Trump,” Solomon wrote. “But during her CNN interview Thursday night, Harris remained in lockstep with President Biden’s unconditional arming of Israel.”
This story has been updated to include a statement from the Uncommitted National Movement.
IOF attacks in Al-Fara’a Camp in Tubas. Photo: Wafa News Agency
Israel continues to close all possible doors to a ceasefire in Gaza and de-escalation in the West Asia region, intensifying military operations and provocations in the West Bank and Gaza
The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) launched the largest military operation across the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, August 27, aiming at crushing the Palestinian armed resistance groups. According to Israeli media outlets, the operation is the largest assault carried out by the Israeli military since 2002 at the peak of the Second Intifada. The operation involves hundreds of Israeli ground soldiers, warplanes, drones, and bulldozers.
On Tuesday night, the IOF ordered the residents of Nour Shams refugee camp, in the city of Tulkarm north of the West Bank to evacuate the camp. Israeli forces also established a military checkpoint to search the residents before leaving. The IOF has resorted to similar evacuation orders in the Gaza strip during the 11-month Israeli genocidal aggression on the Palestinian people there.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote on X on Wednesday, August 28, “We must deal with the threat just as we deal with the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents and whatever steps are required. This is a war for everything and we must win it.”
Katz added regarding the expanded operation, which the IOF carried out in the cities of Jenin and Tulkarm overnight, that the Israeli military has been working “to thwart Islamic-Iranian terror infrastructure that was set up there.”
The large-scale Israeli military operation that started on Tuesday night is intended to continue for several days, according to media reports. The operation also included the West Bank cities of Nablus, Tubas and Ramallah. At least 10 people have been killed in the last 24 hours. The death toll in the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, has surpassed 660 people since October 7 attacks.
While storming different parts of the West Bank, the IOF has been committing flagrant violations of human rights against civilians and medical staff. According to the Palestinian News and Information Agency Wafa, the Israeli military seized the house of Palestinian resident Hamada Odeh Al-Barghouthi in the town of Beit Rima, northwest of Ramallah since Tuesday night. They turned the house into a field investigation center and a military barracks, where a number of Palestinian young men from the town, neighboring towns and villages have been detained.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) also reported that the IOF stormed a medical facility in the Al-Far’a refugee camp south of the city of Tubas, and detained and assaulted its staff, while shooting live ammunition inside the facility.
As Israeli incursions have been taking place in the West Bank, the massacres in Gaza and elsewhere in the region have not stopped. On Wednesday, August 28, IOF struck the Al-Manfalouti school, where displaced people were sheltering in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza strip, killing at least 8 Palestinians and injuring several others. At least 4 people have been killed in an Israeli air strike that targeted a car in Syria near the border with Lebanon. The Israeli Army claimed that Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement’s top commander Faris Qasim was killed in the attack, without any confirmation by Islamic Jihad that Faris could have been assassinated.
A Palestinian woman holds the shrouded body of a child killed by Israeli bombardment of the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 26, 2024. (Photo: Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images)
The human rights group said Israeli forces “failed to distinguish between civilians and military objectives by using unguided munitions in an area full of civilians sheltering in tents.”
In an investigation focusing on a pair of Israeli massacres of forcibly displaced Palestinians in Gaza, Amnesty International on Monday urged the International Criminal Court—whose chief prosecutor has already applied for warrants to arrest Israeli and Hamas leaders—to open a war crimes probe of the attacks, which it said were likely “indiscriminate” and “disproportionate.”
“On May 26, 2024, two Israeli airstrikes on the Kuwaiti Peace Camp, a makeshift camp for internally displaced people in Tal al-Sultan in west Rafah, killed at least 36 people—including six children—and injured more than 100,” noted Amnesty, which early in the assault on Gaza found “damning evidence” of Israeli war crimes including indiscriminate killing of civilians.
The Tal al-Sultan attack, which hit an Israeli-designated “safe zone,” ignited an inferno that burned people alive inside the tents in which they were sheltering. One survivor told Amnesty that “there were so many dead people all around us,” many of them “in pieces and in pools of blood.”
“The military could and should have taken all feasible precautions to avoid, or at least minimize, harm to civilians.”
The Amnesty report states that the airstrikes, “which targeted two Hamas commanders staying amid displaced civilians, consisted of two U.S.-made GBU-39 guided bombs” and that “the use of these munitions, which project deadly fragments over a wide area, in a camp housing civilians in overcrowded temporary shelters likely constituted a disproportionate and indiscriminate attack, and should be investigated as a war crime.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the Tal al-Sultan massacre a “tragic mistake.”
“On May 28, in the second incident investigated, the Israeli military fired at least three tank shells at a location in the al-Mawasi area of Rafah, which was designated by the Israeli military as a ‘humanitarian zone,'” Amnesty continued. “The strikes killed 23 civilians—including 12 children, seven women, and four men—and injured many more.”
“Amnesty International’s research found that the apparent targets of the attack were one Hamas and one Islamic Jihad fighter,” the publication notes. “This strike, which failed to distinguish between civilians and military objectives by using unguided munitions in an area full of civilians sheltering in tents, likely was indiscriminate and should be investigated as a war crime.”
Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns, said in a statement that “while these strikes may have targeted Hamas and Islamic Jihad commanders and fighters, once again displaced Palestinian civilians seeking shelter and safety have paid with their lives.”
“The Israeli military would have been fully aware that the use of bombs that project deadly shrapnel across hundreds of meters and unguided tank shells would kill and injure a large number of civilians sheltering in overcrowded settings lacking protection,” she added. “The military could and should have taken all feasible precautions to avoid, or at least minimize, harm to civilians.”
Israel—whose 325-day bombardment, invasion, and siege of Gaza has left more than 144,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and millions more suffering forced displacement, starvation, and disease—is currently on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands.
In January, the ICJ orderedIsrael to “take all measures within its power” to uphold its obligations under Article II of the Genocide Convention. Israel’s far-right government and military have been accused by human rights groups of ignoring the order.
As Israeli forces launched a major ground invasion of Rafah four months later, the ICJ issued another order for Israel to “immediately halt its military offensive” in the city, where around 1.5 million forcibly displaced and local Palestinian residents were sheltering. Instead of heeding the order, Israel ramped up its assault on Rafah.
At the International Criminal Court, Prosecutor Karim Khan is urging the tribunal to promptly act upon his May application for warrants to arrest Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders—at least one of whom, political chief Ismail Haniyeh, was subsequently assassinated by Israel.
Guevara-Rosas on Monday reminded Israel of its legal responsibility to protect noncombatants.
“The avoidable deaths and injuries of civilians is a stark and tragic reminder that, under international humanitarian law, the presence of fighters in the targeted area does not absolve the Israeli military of its obligations to protect civilians,” she said.
“All parties to the conflict must take all feasible precautions to protect civilians,” Guevara-Rosas added. “This also includes the obligation of Hamas and other armed groups to avoid, to the extent feasible, locating military objectives and fighters in or near densely populated areas.”
The new Amnesty report was published on the same day that Human Rights Watch called upon the ICC to investigate alleged and documented incidents of Israeli forces torturing imprisoned Palestinian medical workers, including at the notorious Sde Teiman prison, where guards are accused of war crimes including murder, rape, and torture.
