Civil Defence first-responders carry a man who was wounded after his handheld pager exploded, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, September 17, 2024
FOLLOWING Israel’s murderous exploding-pager stunt in Lebanon, Labour’s Emily Thornberry is asking questions every Cabinet minister should answer.
It is all very well for the Foreign Office to call for “calm heads and de-escalation” every time Israel bombs or assassinates people in neighbouring countries.
Since Israel faces no consequences for repeated escalation, it will continue to escalate: and, as Iran warned after the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, this means a failure to respond to Israel’s provocations is itself escalatory, likely to lead to wider war.
Iran called on the UN security council to rein Israel in: since Israeli allies Britain, France and the US have a majority on that council, and since all are also involved in supplying arms to Israel and providing logistical support for its war on Palestine, the particular responsibility to act rests with Tel Aviv’s Western backers.
Thornberry, newly elected chair of the foreign affairs committee in the Commons, asks: “Why is this happening now? And what will the result be?
“…Is this the first step, and what will Israel do next? Is it part of a larger plan? It is very worrying and I would certainly be expecting Israel’s friends to be speaking very seriously to them, and saying: ‘What on Earth are you doing’?”
Thornberry could go a lot further. She could call out the pager operation for what it was: a callous act of terrorism committed in a country with which Israel is not at war.
Former Labour Party leader and now Independent MP Jeremy Corbyn on stage to address a march in central London organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, July 6, 2024
LINDA PENTZ GUNTER reports on speakers highlighting global conflicts, from Gaza to Manipur, as Jeremy Corbyn’s initiative gathers leading lights of the left to grapple with Britain’s progressive political future
EVERY morning, Lubna Masarwa repeats the same task. She views footage and photographs and decides what her news outlet will publish. Except that these are no ordinary images. These are the pictures coming from Gaza and now the West Bank, and, according to Masarwa, they can be summed up in a single word: horrible.
“I have never witnessed such a thing,” said Masarwa, the Jerusalem bureau chief of the news website Middle East Eye, who has been covering Israel’s genocide in Gaza since it began.
The material she is forced to view includes “mothers grieving near Nasser hospital trying to recognise the bodies of their children,” says Masarwa, children who are often only identifiable by the shoes they were wearing that day or even their teeth. “I would say Israel went mad,” she said.
Masarwa was the opening speaker of a day-long conference last Saturday in London, hosted by the Peace and Justice Project (PJP), an initiative launched in December 2020 by Jeremy Corbyn and his wife, Laura Alvarez. The PJP said Corbyn was designed to be “a political home for the politically homeless.”
Trucks carrying aid supplies to Gaza are seen at the Karem Abu Salem border crossing on February 17, 2024. (Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Over 11 months, we have reached shocking levels of conflict, displacement, disease, and hunger,” said one campaigner.
Israel’s “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip “is driving a humanitarian disaster,” with 83% of required food aid failing to enter the embattled enclave, where the entire population is facing hunger and disease and almost half a million Palestinians are at risk of starvation, an analysis published Monday revealed.starvation,
The analysis by 15 international aid organizations noted that a record-low average of just 69 aid trucks are entering the Gaza Strip each day, compared with an already insufficient 500 daily truckloads a year ago. Additionally, the groups said that “only 17 out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially functional, and “critical infrastructure such as water networks, sanitation facilities, and bread mills” have been destroyed.
“While Israeli military attacks on Gaza intensify, lifesaving food, medicine, medical supplies, fuel, and tents have been systematically blocked from entering for almost a year,” the aid groups—which include ActionAid, American Friends Service Committee, CARE International, Christian Aid, Islamic Aid, Oxfam International, and Save the Children—said in a statement.
New data reveals: 83% of required food aid does not make it into #Gaza, up from 34% in 2023.
This means people in Gaza have gone from having an average of two meals a day to just one meal every other day.
The publication highlights numerous ways that “lifesaving aid is systematically obstructed on a daily basis” in Gaza.
“These include the denial of safety, with more than 40,000 Palestinians and nearly 300 aid workers killed since last October; the sharp tightening of a 17-year blockade to a full siege, which prevents aid from entering Gaza; delays and denials which restrict the movement of aid around Gaza; tightly restrictive and unpredictable control of imports; the destruction of public infrastructure such as schools and hospitals; and the displacement of civilians and humanitarian workers,” the analysis’ authors wrote.
Zenab, a 33-year-old Palestinian woman pregnant with her second child, said that her pregnancy “has been the hardest time of my life.”
“It was also hard to get the medication I needed,” she continued. Sometimes I had to walk for hours to different pharmacies, hospitals, and health centers to see if anyone had my medication available. For me as a pregnant woman, there has been hardly any healthcare support, no proper hygiene and sanitation, and no suitable mattress to sleep on.”
“I was suffering from complications during my pregnancy,” Zenab added. “We didn’t have enough water to drink, and had hardly any food. The doctors again told me that my pregnancy was in danger.”
Among the report’s key findings:
83% of required food aid doesn’t make it into Gaza, up from 34% in 2023;
An estimated 50,000 children aged between 6-59 months urgently require treatment for malnutrition by the end of the year;
65% of the insulin required and half of the required blood supply are not available in Gaza;
Availability of hygiene items has dropped to 15% of the amount available in September 2023, with 1 million women now going without the hygiene supplies they need;
Only around 1,500 hospital beds in Gaza remain operational, compared to around 3,500 beds in 2023 which was already well below sufficient to meet the needs of a population of more than 2 million people; and
1.87 million people are in need of shelter with at least 60% of homes destroyed or damaged as of January, yet tents for around just 25,000 people have entered Gaza since May 2024.
“There is a shortage of all humanitarian items. We are overwhelmed [with] these needs and [these] urgent requirements,” said Amjad Al Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network. “People [are] starving due to the shortage of aid. One hundred percent of the population depends on humanitarian aid.”
The authors of the analysis—which was released ahead of this week’s United Nations General Assembly in New York—are demanding that Israel secure an immediate and lasting cease-fire. They are also calling for an arms embargo on Israel and Israeli compliance with the recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion, which found that the occupation of Palestine is an illegal form of apartheid that must end immediately. Israel is on trial for genocide in a separate ICJ case.
“The situation was intolerable long before last October’s escalation and is beyond catastrophic now.”
“The situation was intolerable long before last October’s escalation and is beyond catastrophic now,” CARE International West Bank and Gaza country director Jolien Veldwijik said in a statement. “Over 11 months, we have reached shocking levels of conflict, displacement, disease, and hunger.”
That includes dozens of children who have died due to malnutrition, dehydration, and lack of adequate medical care.
“Aid is still not getting in, and humanitarian workers are risking their lives to do their jobs while attacks and violations of international law intensify,” Veldwijik added. “Aid, which is urgently required for 2.2 million people at risk of dying in the coming weeks and months, should never be politicized. We demand an immediate and sustained cease-fire, and the free flow of humanitarian aid into and throughout Gaza.”
United Nations special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese addresses the European Parliament in Brussels on April 10, 2024. (Photo: Thierry Monasse/Getty Images)
One expert even asked if Israel’s United Nations membership should be reconsidered given the country “seems to have zero respect” for the world body.
United Nations human rights experts warned Monday that Israel risks becoming an international “pariah” over its ongoing assault on Gaza—for which it is on trial for genocide at the world body’s International Court of Justice.
The special rapporteurs—who are appointed by the U.N. but do not speak on its behalf—condemned Israel’s human rights violations against Palestinians, as well as its blatant disregard for international law and multiple rulings from the ICJ.
George Katrougalos, the U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion of democratic and equitable international order and a former Greek foreign minister, said during a press conference that the “first obligation” for harmonious relations between nations “is for everybody to respect the United Nations rules.”
“This is not happening in the case of Israel,” Katrougalos noted.
"In order to be able to work… a first obligation is for everyone to respect the UN rules. This is not happening in the case of Israel"
UN Special Rapporteur @gkatr explains that if this continues Israel will become a pariah state like apartheid South Africa was pic.twitter.com/Hl790IqRWM
The United Nations agency for Palestinian relief says that around 200 of its staff members have been killed in more than 450 Israeli attacks on agency facilities since October. More than 500 Palestinians have been killed while seeking shelter under the U.N. flag.
Overall, more than 146,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since October. Almost all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced, and Israel’s “complete siege” has caused widespread starvation—sometimes deadly—and sickness throughout the coastal enclave.
Comparing the international community’s reaction to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s war on Gaza, Katrougalos stressed that “we cannot anymore stand this kind of double standards and hypocrisy.”
“I trust that the progressive and democratic citizens of Israel would not let their country become a pariah like South Africa [had] become during the times of apartheid,” he added. South Africa is leading the genocide case against Israel at the ICJ.
Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, said that “I think it’s unavoidable for Israel to become a pariah in the face of its continuous, relentless, vilifying assault of the United Nations, on top of millions of Palestinians.”
“Shockingly, in the face of the abyss reached in the OPT… most member states remained inactive at best, or [are] actively aiding and assisting Israel’s criminal conduct,” she continued.
“Should there be a consideration of its membership as part of this organization, which Israel seems to have zero respect for?” Albanese added.
Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, the U.N. special rapporteur on the rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, warned that “we are blowing up the United Nations if we don’t react” to Israel’s human rights violations.
Arrojo-Agudo added that, as with starvation, Israel is using deprivation of water as a “weapon” and disavowed Israel’s claim that Hamas—which led the October 7 attack on Israel—has “completely mismanaged water in Gaza.”
The special rapporteurs’ remarks came as representatives of U.N. member states gathered in New York for this year’s annual General Assembly. General debate sessions are set for next week.
End the genocide in Gaza protest at Labour Party Conference, Liverpool 21 September 2024.
UK Labour Party Conference is starting on Sunday 22 September 2024. A protest has been announced on the 21st protesting the Labour party’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
I oppose Keir Starmer and the UK Labour Party for many reasons: their complicity in and support for Israel’s Zionist genocide in Gaza and the West Bank and attacks on the poor and disabled e.g. denying winter fuel payment benefits from poor and disabled pensioners likely to result in many deaths and the refusals to repeal the two-child benefit cap and the bedroom tax. Essentially the Labour Party are Zionist scum Blue Tories pretending to be Socialists. They are part of a global agenda to diminish international law to facilitate and support Israel’s racist, Fascist, genocide in Gaza and the West Bank.
I object to Labour Party Deputy Angela Rayner’s efforts to attack me while hiding – actually very typical of New Labour sihts in my experience.
Deputy Labour Party Leader Angela Rayner calls for police to kill and harass innocent people.
May be elaborated and extended.
Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
