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UN Rights Chief Demands International Probe of Mass Graves Near Gaza Hospitals

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

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk speaks during a press conference in Cairo, Egypt on November 8, 2023.
 (Photo: Khaled Desouki/AFP via Getty Images)

“Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law,” said Volker Türk, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights.

The United Nations’ human rights chief on Tuesday called for an international investigation into mass graves discovered at two Gaza hospitals that Israeli forces recently assailed and destroyed, further imperiling the enclave’s barely functioning healthcare system.

Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement that he was “horrified” by the discovery of mass graves at the Nasser and al-Shifa medical complexes, which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reduced to ruins.

More than 300 bodies were reportedly discovered in the mass grave near the Nasser facility in Khan Younis, Gaza, and eyewitnesses said Israeli soldiers executed civilians during their two-week-long raid of al-Shifa last month.

Türk demanded an “independent, effective, and transparent” probe into the killings and mass graves, adding that “given the prevailing climate of impunity, this should include international investigators.”

“Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law,” he added. “And the intentional killing of civilians, detainees, and others who are hors de combat is a war crime.”

“Every 10 minutes a child is killed or wounded. They are protected under the laws of war, and yet they are ones who are disproportionately paying the ultimate price.”

The IDF’s destructive attacks on Nasser and al-Shifa were part of a broader Israeli assault on Gaza’s healthcare system. An analysis released Monday by Save the Children found that the rate of monthly Israeli attacks on healthcare in Gaza since October has exceeded that of any other conflict around the world since 2018.

The group estimated that Israel has launched an average of 73 attacks per month on healthcare in Gaza—and at least 435 attacks total since October.

“After six months of unimaginable horror, the healthcare system in Gaza has been brought to its knees,” said Xavier Joubert, Save the Children’s country director in the occupied Palestinian territory. “Healthcare workers are risking their lives daily to give Palestinian children a chance at survival. The constant attacks on healthcare are simply unjustifiable and must stop. Palestinian children must have unimpeded access to services, including healthcare and education.”

Türk also used his statement Tuesday to condemn Israeli forces’ killing of women and children in airstrikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah in recent days. The human rights official noted that Gaza doctors rescued a baby from the womb of her mother as the latter succumbed to head injuries from an Israeli strike.

“The latest images of a premature child taken from the womb of her dying mother, of the adjacent two houses where 15 children and five women were killed—this is beyond warfare,” said Türk. “Every 10 minutes a child is killed or wounded. They are protected under the laws of war, and yet they are ones who are disproportionately paying the ultimate price in this war.”

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

Continue ReadingUN Rights Chief Demands International Probe of Mass Graves Near Gaza Hospitals

West Bank Pogrom ‘Underscores Urgent Need to Dismantle Apartheid’: Amnesty

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

Mourners carry the body of one of the Palestinian men killed during an Israeli settlers’ attack on the village of Aqraba in the illegally occupied West Bank on April 19, 2024. (Photo: Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP via Getty Images)

“The appalling spike in settler violence against Palestinians in recent days is part of a decadeslong state-backed campaign to dispossess, displace, and oppress Palestinians in the occupied West Bank,” said one Amnesty official.

Amnesty International said Monday that the ongoing surge in deadly violence by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the West Bank “underscores [the] urgent need to dismantle apartheid” in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories.

For more than a week now, Israeli settlers have been attacking West Bank Palestinians in towns and villages including Al-Mughayir, Duma, Deir Dibwan, Beitin, and Aqraba, killing at least four people including a child; wounding dozens of others; and destroying homes, vehicles, and other property.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops have either stood and watched or participated in the settler attacks, which the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem and others are calling a “pogrom.”

Amnesty said the “alarming spike in violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians across the occupied West Bank in recent days highlights the urgent need to dismantle illegal settlements, end Israel’s occupation of the occupied Palestinian territories, and its longstanding system of apartheid.

“The appalling spike in settler violence against Palestinians in recent days is part of a decadeslong state-backed campaign to dispossess, displace, and oppress Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, under Israel’s system of apartheid,” Amnesty Middle East and North Africa regional director Heba Morayef said. “Israeli forces have a track record of enabling settler violence and it is outrageous that once again Israeli forces stood by and in some cases took part in these brutal attacks.”

“Establishing Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories flagrantly violates international law and constitutes a war crime,” Morayef added. “Violence is integral to the establishment and expansion of these settlements and to sustaining apartheid. It’s time for the world to recognize this and pressure Israeli authorities to abide by international law by immediately halting settlement expansion and removing all existing settlements.”

The latest wave of settler violence was sparked by the disappearance of Binyamin Achimair, a 14-year-old Israeli from the illegal settler outpost of Mal’achei Hashalom who went missing on April 12 while herding sheep near the village of Al-Mughayir east of Ramallah. As Israelis searched for Achimair, settlers began attacking Al-Mughayir’s residents and property.

Achimair’s body was found the following day. Israeli officials said he was killed in a “terrorist attack.” However, no Palestinian resistance group has claimed responsibility for the incident. A 21-year-old Palestinian man was arrested Monday in alleged connection with the boy’s death.

Late Friday, IDF troops and armored vehicles surrounded the Nur Shams refugee camp east of Tulkarem and besieged the community of more than 6,000 Palestinians during a 50-hour raid in which residents were shot, homes were destroyed, and scores of people were arrested.

By Saturday, IDF soldiers had killed 14 people in the camp, including at least one child. More than 40 other Palestinians were wounded.

“I saw one of my relatives, Jihad Zandiq, put his hands in the air to the soldiers but then they shot him anyway from point-blank range and killed him. Half of his skull exploded,” eyewitness Mahmoud Qazmouz told Middle East Eye on Sunday.

Palestinian officials said Israeli troops attacked first responders attempting to rescue victims, including a volunteer paramedic who was shot in the leg.

Meanwhile, a funeral was held Sunday for Mohammed Awad Allah Musa, a 50-year-old Palestinian Red Crescent Society volunteer paramedic who was shot dead Saturday by Israeli settler-colonists while trying to reach Palestinians wounded by rampaging settlers in the town of Sa’wiyah south of Nablus.

The Nur Shams raid and ongoing settler attacks came as the U.S. State Department on Friday announced new sanctions targeting far-right Israeli settler leaders including Ben Zion Gopstein, the founder and head of the Jewish supremacist group Lehava.

The Biden administration—which backs Israel with billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic support—is also reportedly considering imposing sanctions on the IDF’s Netzah Yehuda battalion over war crimes committed in the West Bank before the current Israeli war on Gaza, including the January 2022 death of Omar Assad, a 78-year-old Palestinian American man.

Responding to the prospect of the first-ever U.S. sanctions on his country’s military, far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that “I will fight it with all my strength.”

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, at least 485 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank since October 7, when Gaza-based militants attacked Israel. More than 1,100 people were killed in the attack—some by responding Israeli forces—and over 240 Israelis and others were kidnapped by Hamas and other militants.

Israel’s 199-day retaliatory assault on Gaza—which critics including Israelis have called genocidal—has killed at least 34,151 Palestinians, mostly women and children, while wounding over 77,000 others, according to Palestinian and international officials. At least 11,000 Gazans are missing, presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of the hundreds of thousands of homes and other buildings that have been destroyed or damaged by Israeli bombardment. Around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced, and Israel’s continued obstruction of humanitarian aid delivery has fueled a burgeoning famine in which dozens of people, mostly children, have perished.

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

Continue ReadingWest Bank Pogrom ‘Underscores Urgent Need to Dismantle Apartheid’: Amnesty

‘This Is Unforgivable’: Israeli Airstrike Kills 7 World Central Kitchen Workers

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

Relatives and friends mourn Saif Abu Taha, a staff member of the U.S.-based aid group World Central Kitchen who was killed by an Israeli airstrike on April 2, 2024. (Photo: Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images)

“This is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organizations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war,” said the aid group’s CEO.

World Central Kitchen said Tuesday that a targeted Israeli airstrike killed seven members of its aid team in Gaza as they left a warehouse in the city of Deir al-Balah, where they had just unloaded more than 100 tons of food set to be distributed to starving Palestinians.

The Washington, D.C.-based aid organization said the seven killed included a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada as well as Australian, Polish, and British nationals and one Palestinian staffer later identified as Saif Abu Taha.

“This is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organizations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war,” Erin Gore, the group’s CEO, said in a statement. “This is unforgivable.”

WCK said its convoy of vehicles—including two armored cars branded with the group’s logo—was hit by an Israeli strike while traveling in what was supposed to be a deconflicted zone. The group said it coordinated the convoy’s movements with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), leading WCK to conclude that the attack was not an accident.

“I am heartbroken and appalled that we—World Central Kitchen and the world—lost beautiful lives today because of a targeted attack by the IDF,” Gore said Tuesday. “The love they had for feeding people, the determination they embodied to show that humanity rises above all, and the impact they made in countless lives will forever be remembered and cherished.”

Photographs and video footage from the scene and its aftermath show utter carnage. Rescue teams that arrived at the scene and removed the WCK staffers’ bodies from the wreckage displayed the passports of those killed, identifying Zomi Frankcom of Australia, Damian Sobol of Poland, and other victims of the Israeli strike.

(Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The IDF pledged to carry out “an in-depth examination at the highest levels”—a promise that, given the Israeli military’s record, is likely to prove empty.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that the strike “unintentionally hit innocent people,” but Haaretz reported that the attack “was launched because of suspicion that a terrorist was traveling with the convoy”—an indication that the strike itself, targeting vehicles carrying aid workers, was intentional.

The Israeli military has repeatedly attacked aid workers with impunity in recent months, killing staffers of United Nations agencies, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent, Doctors Without Borders, and other organizations.

WCK is known for coordinating emergency food relief in disaster zones around the world. The group has collected and delivered hundreds of tons of food to Gaza in recent weeks as famine has spread across the enclave due to the Israeli government’s blockade.

Following the deadly attack on its staffers, WCK said it would pause its operations in the region immediately.

“We will be making decisions about the future of our work soon,” the group said in a statement.

Celebrity chef José Andrés, the group’s founder, wrote in a social media post late Monday that he is “heartbroken and grieving for their families and friends and our whole WCK family.”

“These are people…angels…I served alongside in Ukraine, Gaza, Turkey, Morocco, Bahamas, Indonesia,” he wrote. “They are not faceless…they are not nameless. The Israeli government needs to stop this indiscriminate killing. It needs to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid workers, and stop using food as a weapon. No more innocent lives lost. Peace starts with our shared humanity. It needs to start now.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who has been accused of abetting genocide in Gaza, confirmed that Australian citizen Zomi Frankcom was among those killed by the Israeli strike and demanded “full accountability.”

“This is a tragedy that should never have occurred,” Albanese told reporters, saying he had summoned the Israeli ambassador to Australia.

Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council, said the Biden White House is “heartbroken and deeply troubled by the strike.”

“Humanitarian aid workers must be protected as they deliver aid that is desperately needed, and we urge Israel to swiftly investigate what happened,” she added.

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

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Continue Reading‘This Is Unforgivable’: Israeli Airstrike Kills 7 World Central Kitchen Workers

Israeli Newspaper Details IDF’s Creation of ‘Kill Zones’ in Gaza

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

An Israeli tank is pictured on February 6, 2024 near northern Gaza.
 (Photo: Amir Levy/Getty Images)

Israel’s military says it has killed around 9,000 militants in Gaza since October 7—and adamantly denies targeting civilians.

But new reporting published Sunday by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz casts serious doubt on the IDF’s estimate and details how the U.S.-armed military has established combat zones that have become death traps for ordinary Gazans.

The boundaries of such “kill zones” are not clearly marked, making it almost impossible for Palestinian civilians to know whether they are entering one. An Israeli reserve officer told Haaretz that “as soon as people enter” a kill zone, “orders are to shoot and kill, even if that person is unarmed.”

“To a large extent, the tragedy in which three hostages were killed by the IDF is such a story,” the newspaper reported, “since in fleeing from their captors the three entered a kill zone in the middle of the Shujaiyeh neighborhood of Gaza City.”

Significant discretion is given to Israeli commanders to decide whether to open fire on people near a kill zone. Unnamed Israeli soldiers told Haaretz that “there are commanders who will shoot at a building with a suspect in it even if there are civilians in the vicinity, while other commanders will act differently.”

“For our commanders, if we identified someone in our area of operation who was not part of our forces, we were told to shoot to kill,” said one soldier. “We were explicitly told that even if a suspect runs into a building with people in it, we should fire at the building and kill the terrorist, even if other people are hurt.”

One Israeli commander described to Haaretz “incidents in which civilians tried to reach areas they thought the army had left, possibly in the hope of finding food left behind.”

“When they went to such places, they were shot, perceived as people who could harm our forces,” the commander said.

“One reason why the Israeli government, media, the Biden administration, et al. have been trying to undermine the credibility of Gazan casualty figures is to deflect from the fact that the IDF’s own figures are almost certainly bullshit.”

The new reporting points to a recent example documented by Al Jazeera in which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it attacked “a terrorist” who was allegedly behind a rocket attack on southern Israel.

“Ostensibly, this was another statistic in the roster of dead Hamas militants,” Haaretz reported. “However, over a week ago, other documentation of the incident surfaced on Al Jazeera. It showed four men, not one, walking together on a wide path, in civilian clothing. There is no one nearby, only the ruins of houses where people once lived. This apocalyptic silence in the Khan Younis area was shattered by a loud explosion. Two of the men were killed instantly. Two others were wounded and tried to continue walking. Perhaps they thought they had been saved, but seconds later, a bomb was dropped on one of them. You can then see the other one falling to his knees and then, a boom, fire, and smoke.”

A senior IDF officer told the Israeli newspaper that the individuals who unwittingly entered a kill zone “were unarmed” and “didn’t endanger our forces in the area in which they were walking.” It was also not clear they were involved in the rocket attack.

“It’s quite possible that Palestinians who never held a gun in their lives were elevated to the rank of ‘terrorist’ posthumously, at least by the IDF,” Haaretz noted. As one officer who served in Gaza told the newspaper, “In practice, a terrorist is anyone the IDF has killed in the areas in which its forces operate.”

Last week, Al Jazeera published video footage showing Israeli forces gunning down two unarmed Palestinians in northern Gaza, one of whom was waving a piece of white fabric. They are believed to have entered an Israeli “kill zone.”

Israeli forces have killed more than 32,600 people in Gaza since October 7, according to Gaza health officials. One human rights monitor recently estimated that 90% of those killed were civilians, contradicting the Israeli military’s estimate of the civilian-to-militant death ratio.

“One reason why the Israeli government, media, the Biden administration, et al. have been trying to undermine the credibility of Gazan casualty figures is to deflect from the fact that the IDF’s own figures are almost certainly bullshit,” foreign policy analyst Derek Davison wrote Sunday in response to the Haaretz story.

Brianna Rosen, a senior fellow at Just Security, argued that the “kind of indiscriminate killing” detailed in Haaretz‘s reporting “is illegal and falls far short of any gold standard for civilian harm.”

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

Continue ReadingIsraeli Newspaper Details IDF’s Creation of ‘Kill Zones’ in Gaza

‘Everyone in the World Needs to See This’: Footage Shows IDF Drone Killing Gazans

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Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). N.B. October 7 | Al Jazeera Investigations published.

Al Jazeera obtained footage of what it reported was an Israeli drone killing four Palestinians in Khan Younis, Gaza in February.  (Photo: Al Jazeera/screenshot)

“There is no way they could have been considered combatants,” said one writer and analyst. “This is unreal.”

Adding to the mountain of evidence that Israel is engaged in a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera on Thursday aired footage of what the news outlet reported was an Israeli drone targeting four Palestinians in Khan Younis last month.

Those killed by the unmanned aerial vehicle in the rubble of the southern Gaza city appear to be unarmed teenagers or young men. According to a translation of the coverage, they were not identified in the reporting.

While Al Jazeera deemed footage “too graphic” to be included on its daily live blog covering the war, a clip of it quickly spread on social media, where critics of the Israel Defense Forces operation expressed outrage.

“OUTRAGEOUS even after months of outrages,” declared Palestinian American political analyst Yousef Munayyer. “This video shows an Israeli military drone literally stalking four unarmed civilians posing no threat and eliminating them one after the other!!!”

Tariq Kenney-Shawa, Al-Shabaka’s U.S. policy fellow, said: “This is among the worst footage I’ve seen. Not only were these boys clearly unarmed and present no threat whatsoever, but they were struck multiple times even after stumbling/crawling away. There is no way they could have been considered combatants. This is unreal.”

Note: The following video contains graphic images.

Assal Rad, an author with a Ph.D. in Middle East history, said: “Have we ever seen so many war crimes take place right before our eyes? Any country still providing weapons and aid to Israel is complicit in these crimes.”

Exiled American whistleblower Edward Snowden asserted that “everyone in the world needs to see this. Note that this footage permits no room for ‘it was a mistake,’ showing repeated, specifically targeted strikes on the unarmed and even wounded.”

“The sort of behavior the ICJ explicitly forbid in the genocide ruling against Israel,” added Snowden, referencing the International Court of Justice’s preliminary order in January for an ongoing case led by South Africa.

Since the ruling, rights groups around the world have accused Israel of ignoring the ICJ order by continuing to bomb and starve people across Gaza. The mounting casualties—at least 31,988 killed and 74,188 wounded—have elevated demands for the U.S. government to end arms transfers to Israel.

The United States gives its Middle East ally $3.8 billion in annual military aid and since the Israeli assault was launched in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on October 7, the Biden administration has sought $14.3 billion more while bypassing Congress to send more weapons. U.S. President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin face a genocide complicity case in federal court.

While the Biden administration has repeatedly vetoed and opposed cease-fire resolutions at the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly, Nate Evans, a spokesperson for Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., confirmed Thursday that the United States plans to unveil a new one on Friday.

The resolution will “unequivocally support ongoing diplomatic efforts aimed at securing an immediate cease-fire in Gaza as part of a hostage deal, which would get hostages released and help enable a surge in humanitarian aid,” Evans told Al Jazeera. “This resolution is an opportunity for the council to speak with one voice to support the diplomacy happening on the ground and pressure Hamas to accept the deal on the table.”

Blinken said Thursday that “there’s a clear consensus around a number of shared priorities. First, the need for an immediate, sustained cease-fire, with the release of hostages. That would create space to surge more humanitarian assistance, to relieve the suffering of many people, and to build something more enduring.”

Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). N.B. October 7 | Al Jazeera Investigations published.

Continue Reading‘Everyone in the World Needs to See This’: Footage Shows IDF Drone Killing Gazans