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Gaza Death Toll Passes 30,000 as IDF Massacres Crowd of Starving Civilians

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

Injured Palestinians receive medical treatment in al-Shifa Hospital after Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid trucks at al-Rashid Street in Gaza City, Gaza on February 29, 2024. (Photo: Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Israel deliberately targeting civilians after starving them is a gross violation of international humanitarian laws and our humanity,” said Oxfam. “The risk of genocide is real.”

Israeli forces on Thursday opened fire on a crowd of desperate and starving Gazans waiting for food aid in the enclave’s north, which Israel’s military has cut off from humanitarian assistance almost entirely for months.

The attack reportedly killed more than 100 Palestinians and wounded over 700, further straining Gaza City hospitals that are barely functioning after Israel’s monthlong bombing campaign and blockade, which has restricted the flow of fuel, medicine, and other necessities.

The massacre helped push the death toll from Israel’s nearly five-month war on Gaza above 30,000, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

“We are devastated by the 30,000 killed—and this is not just a number,” Melanie Ward, CEO of Medical Aid for Palestinians, said in a statement. “Every single life taken was a person with dreams and hopes for the future, left loved ones behind with no time to mourn their death. One in every 23 people has been killed or injured in Gaza. Everyone has been tragically affected in so many ways, including our own dear staff; their lives will never be the same again.”

One eyewitness who was wounded by Israeli fire in Gaza City on Thursday told The Associated Press that he and others went to Gaza City’s al-Rashid Street after hearing there would be a food delivery. The man, identified as Kamel Abu Nahel, told the outlet that “we’ve been eating animal feed for two months.”

“He said Israeli troops opened fire on the crowd, causing it to scatter, with some people hiding under cars,” AP reported. “After the shooting stopped, they went back to the trucks, and the soldiers opened fire again. He was shot in the leg and fell over, and then a truck ran over his leg as it sped off, he said.”

Medics who arrived on the scene described terrible carnage, with hundreds of people lying on the ground dead or wounded. Donkey carts were used to carry some of the wounded off to hospitals, as there weren’t enough ambulances available.

A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told Reuters in response to reports of the Gaza City massacre that “there is no knowledge of Israeli shelling in the area.” One unnamed Israeli source told the news agency that IDF soldiers shot at “several people” in the crowd who allegedly “posed a threat.”

The IDF also claimed in a statement that “dozens were killed and injured from pushing, trampling, and being run over by the trucks.”

B’tselem, an Israeli human rights group, said in response that “whether they were shot or trampled to death, intentionally opening fire at civilians is a severe violation of international law and constitutes a war crime. This is especially grave given a crowd of thousands begging for aid.

The humanitarian group Oxfam International said it was “appalled” by Israeli attacks on people waiting for aid, which has become almost impossible to deliver across much of the Gaza Strip amid relentless Israeli bombing and targeting of aid workers.

“Israel deliberately targeting civilians after starving them is a gross violation of international humanitarian laws and our humanity,” Oxfam added. “The risk of genocide is real.”

Malnutrition and infectious diseases are spreading rapidly across Gaza as Israel continues to impede aid shipments, blatantly violating the International Court of Justice’s binding interim order. Save the Children said last week that families across Gaza have been forced to “forage for scraps of food left by rats and eating leaves out of desperation to survive.”

“All 1.1 million children in Gaza are now facing death by starvation and disease as aid delivery is impossible to carry out safely,” said the humanitarian group.

Volker Türk, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, said in a speech Thursday that “there appear to be no bounds to—no words to capture—the horrors that are unfolding before our eyes in Gaza.”

“Since early October, over 100,000 people have been killed or wounded. Let me repeat that: about one in every 20 children, women, and men, are now dead or wounded,” said Türk. “At least 17,000 children are orphaned or separated from their families, while many more will carry the scars of physical and emotional trauma life-long.”

“This is carnage,” he added.

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

Continue ReadingGaza Death Toll Passes 30,000 as IDF Massacres Crowd of Starving Civilians

Israeli Assault Leaves Gaza’s Nasser Hospital ‘Not Functional’

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

Injured Palestinians are brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, Gaza on January 22, 2024.  (Photo: Belal Khaled/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The WHO “was not permitted to enter” the facility in recent days, said the agency chief, warning that “the cost of delays will be paid by patients’ lives.”

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced Sunday that the largest hospital in the southern Gaza Strip “is not functional anymore, after a weeklong siege followed by the ongoing raid” by Israeli forces.

After claiming that Hamas was using Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis for “military activity” and some hostages’ bodies may be there, the Israel Defense Forces on Thursday began raiding the facility, where around 10,000 people had sought shelter. Sources there said the IDF bombed “a ward full of patients” and multiple people who were dependent on oxygen have died due to power outages.

Tedros highlighted on Sunday that the WHO team “was not permitted to enter” the facility in recent days “to assess the conditions of the patients and critical medical needs, despite reaching the hospital compound to deliver fuel alongside partners.”

“There are still about 200 patients in the hospital. At least 20 need to be urgently referred to other hospitals to receive healthcare; medical referral is every patient’s right,” he added. “The cost of delays will be paid by patients’ lives. Access to the patients and hospital should be facilitated.”

Later Sunday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said that “150 patients who cannot move are piled inside the rooms and corridors of the old building at Nasser Medical Complex without medical care after the arrest of 70 of the complex’s management and medical staff.”

“The occupation refuses to evacuate patients for treatment in other hospitals, which endangers their lives, including seven intensive care patients, five dialysis patients, [and] three newborns in the nursery, in addition to cases of burns, amputations, quadriplegia, childbirth, and others,” the ministry added.

The IDF said on Telegram that in its operations around the facility, Israeli troops apprehended “hundreds of terrorists and other terror suspects who were hiding in the hospital, some of whom had posed as medical staff,” including alleged participants in the October 7 Hamas-led attack that led to the war.

Noting IDF claims that soldiers aimed to recover the remains of hostages believed to be in the facility, The Washington Postreported that “Israeli forces have not yet found the bodies of any hostages but said on Sunday that they discovered medicine at the hospital bearing the names of Israelis who were abducted by Hamas.”

The Israeli assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has killed nearly 29,000 Palestinians, injured over 68,800 others, devastated civilian infrastructure—including hospitals—and left most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents displaced, hungry, and at risk of disease. Global experts and critics have accused Israel of genocide, including in a South Africa-led case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

In response to IDF orders to leave northern Gaza, most residents are now crammed into the southern part of the strip. According toAl-Jazeera:

Al-Amal Hospital, the only other major medical facility still operational in Khan Younis, continues to be a target of Israeli attacks. The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) on Sunday said Israeli forces targeted the third floor of the hospital with artillery fire.

The Israeli military has expanded its siege on Khan Younis and its medical facilities as it pushed further south into Rafah on the border with Egypt.

Throughout the week, people around the world including humanitarian and United Nations leaders have pressured Israel to refrain from a full-scale attack on Rafah. The ICJ on Friday echoed U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres’ warning that it “would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences.”

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

Continue ReadingIsraeli Assault Leaves Gaza’s Nasser Hospital ‘Not Functional’

IDF Storms Largest Hospital in Southern Gaza and Attacks ‘Ward Full of Patients’

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

Injured Palestinians, including children, are brought to Nasser Hospital to receive medical treatment following Israeli attacks in Khan Younis, Gaza on January 22, 2024.  (Photo: Belal Khaled/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“The situation is escalating every hour and every minute,” said a surgeon at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

Israeli forces on Thursday stormed the largest hospital in southern Gaza, ignoring warnings from United Nations officials, humanitarian groups, and the facility’s administrators that such a raid would put the lives of patients and people sheltering there at dire risk.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reportedly destroyed the southern wall of the Nasser Hospital complex in Khan Younis and started raiding the facility, where around 10,000 people had sought shelter from Israeli airstrikes and ground attacks.

Without providing evidence, Israel has claimed Hamas is using the hospital for “military activities.” Israel also claimed to have intelligence indicating that hostages or their bodies were being held at Nasser.

Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesman for Gaza’s health ministry, said Thursday that Israel launched a “massive incursion” into the hospital, firing on and wounding people inside and ordering the facility’s staff to move all patients who were unable to flee into a building that’s not adequately equipped, The Associated Press reported.

As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 1,500 displaced people and patients were still inside the Nasser complex, Gaza health officials said in an update on social media.

“Many cannot evacuate, such as those with lower limb amputations, severe burns, or the elderly,” al-Qudra told Al Jazeera.

Others worried that Israeli forces would shoot them if they tried to leave.

“I’m terrified to leave the hospital and get shot,” Hanin Abu Tiba, a 27-year-old English teacher sheltering at the hospital, toldThe New York Times on Wednesday.

The raid began Thursday after Israeli forces reportedly bombed a ward of the hospital that was full of patients. Gaza health officials said the IDF targeted the hospital’s orthopedic department, killing at least one person and injuring “many” more.

The Israeli military, which has encircled Nasser Hospital for weeks, began ordering civilians inside the facility to evacuate on Tuesday.

Citing one of the only remaining journalists inside the facility, The Intercept reported Wednesday that the IDF sent a handcuffed Palestinian man into Nasser to tell people sheltering inside to leave.

An Israeli soldier shot the man, later identified as Jamal Abu Al-Ola, three times in the chest and abdomen as he began walking out of the hospital after delivering the message.

Israeli snipers have also opened fire on people scrambling to flee the hospital as well as medical personnel and patients inside the facility.

Gaza health officials said Wednesday that the situation at Nasser is “catastrophic” and that Israel’s evacuation orders sparked “a state of panic among its residents.”

Dr. Ahmed Moghrabi, a surgeon at Nasser, posted video footage to Instagram that provides a glimpse of the chaos inside the hospital as it comes under Israeli attack.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3WPe8lILDa/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Dr. Khaled Alserr, another Nasser surgeon, told AP that seven people injured by Israeli attacks on Thursday were already being treated for existing wounds. Alserr said a doctor was also injured when an Israeli drone “opened fire on the upper stories of the hospital.”

“The situation is escalating every hour and every minute,” he said.

Israel’s raid began hours after Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, condemned the evacuation orders and reiterated its call for a permanent cease-fire. MSF said some of its staff members were “still in the building” treating patients “amid near impossible conditions.”

“People have been forced into an impossible situation: stay at Nasser Hospital against the Israeli military’s orders and become a potential target, or exit the compound into an apocalyptic landscape where bombings and evacuation orders are a part of daily life,” Lisa Macheiner, MSF’s project coordinator in Gaza, said in a statement. “Hospitals should be considered as safe places and shouldn’t even be evacuated in the first place.”

In a Nasser update posted to social media Thursday morning, MSF said that “following shelling this morning, our staff reported a chaotic situation, with an undetermined number of people killed and injured.”

“Our medical staff have had to flee the hospital, leaving patients behind,” the group said. “Israeli forces set up a checkpoint to screen people leaving the compound; one of our colleagues was detained at this checkpoint. We call for his safety and the protection of his dignity.”

MSF demanded that the Israeli military “immediately stop this attack, as it endangers medical staff and patients who are still stuck inside the facility.”

This post has been updated with new comments from Médecins Sans Frontières.

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

Continue ReadingIDF Storms Largest Hospital in Southern Gaza and Attacks ‘Ward Full of Patients’

IDF Let Israeli Civilians Film Torture of Palestinian Detainees: Report

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

Stripped, blindfolded, and bound Palestinian civilians are taken prisoner and ordered into a line by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza in December 2023.  (Photo: Social media post by Israeli soldier)

“This is beyond military occupation, apartheid, economic exploitation, and all the rest,” asserted one journalist. “There is something extremely sickening happening here.”

Israel Defense Forces officers brought Israeli civilians into detention centers and allowed them to watch and film Palestinian prisoners being tortured, according to survivor testimonies published this week by the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.

Prisoners held at detention centers in Zikim on the northern border of the Gaza Strip and at a site in southern Israel affiliated with Naqab Prison “told Euro-Med Monitor that the Israeli soldiers had purposefully presented them before Israeli civilians, falsely claiming that they were fighters affiliated with Palestinian armed factions and that they had taken part in the October 7 attack on Israeli towns,” the group said.

The former detainees said groups of 10-20 Israeli civilians were brought in and allowed to record torture sessions in which the men, stripped nearly naked, were beaten with metal batons, electrocuted, and had hot water poured over their heads. The ex-prisoners said some of the Israelis laughed while filming their torture.

“I was arrested at the checkpoint set up near the Kuwait roundabout, which separates Gaza City from the central region, as part of the Israeli random arrest campaigns. I was subjected to all types of torture and abuse for approximately 52 days,” 43-year-old Omar Abu Mudallala told Euro-Med Monitor, adding that his IDF captors “brought Israeli civilians to watch our nude torture.”

Abu Mudallala continued:

The Israeli army brought a number of Israeli civilians into our detention centers while beating us and telling them, “These are Hamas terrorists who killed you and raped your women on 7 October,” while the Israeli civilians were filming us being beaten, abused, and tortured while making fun of us.

This happened five times while I was being held. The first time was in Barkasat Zikim, where we were blindfolded. However, one of the detainees who speaks Hebrew told us that the soldiers were interacting with Israeli civilians claiming that we were armed fighters. The other four incidents took place in the Negev detention facility, where successive Israeli groups were taken inside tents to witness our abuse and record the torture methods we were subjected to without allowing us to speak or interact with them. Since we were not wearing blindfolds at the time, I saw them all four times with my own eyes.

“One of the detainees who speaks Hebrew tried to explain to the Israeli civilians that we are civilians and we had nothing to do with any military activities, but that also did not help,” Abu Mudallala added. “However, he was subjected to severe psychological and physical torture. It was really shameful to bring Israeli citizens to record our torture for being allegedly involved in killing and rape incidents.”

Another former prisoner, identified only as 42-year-old D.H., told Euro-Med Monitor that “Israeli civilians were brought to witness the abuse and torture that we were subjected to, which the army deliberately began when they were present.”

“These Israelis sometimes brought their dogs with them to bark at us,” he added. “They also took pictures of us and posted them on social media apps, particularly TikTok, with the soldiers themselves doing the same.”

Euro-Med Monitor asserted that “the vast majority of those arrested from within the Gaza Strip have been subjected to arbitrary detention without being charged or brought to justice, with no legal measures taken against them.”

“They are also denied a fair trial and are subjected to forced disappearance, torture, and inhumane treatment,” the group added. “Israeli practices against Palestinian detainees are blatant violations of international conventions and standards, particularly the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids an occupying authority from transferring prisoners from the occupied territory to detention facilities on its territory, as well as torturing, attacking, or otherwise degrading the human dignity of those detained.”

Israeli forces, with their long history of torturing Palestinian prisoners, have been accused during the current war on Gaza of torturing civilian detainees before executing them. Photos and videos of Israeli troops abusing Palestinians—both alive and dead—have been published by perpetrators on social media. Human rights defenders point to such images and their proud display as evidence of Israeli genocide in a war in which more than 100,000 Palestinians have been killed, maimed, or gone missing.

The International Court of Justice found last month in a preliminary ruling that Israel is “plausibly” committing genocide in Gaza, while ordering Israeli forces to “take all measures” to avoid perpetrating genocidal acts.

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

Continue ReadingIDF Let Israeli Civilians Film Torture of Palestinian Detainees: Report

‘This Is Not Self-Defense… This Is Ethnic Cleansing’: Israel Blows Up Gaza University

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

The Israeli military used hundreds of mines to blow up Israa University in Gaza on January 17, 2024.  (Photo: Screengrab)

“All the universities in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed,” said one international relations expert.

The Israel Defense Forces’ detonation of more than 300 mines planted at Israa University in Gaza on Wednesday provided the latest evidence that Israel’s objective in its bombardment of the enclave is not self-defense, rights advocates said.

“This is not self-defense,” said Chris Hazzard, an Irish member of the United Kingdom’s Parliament. “This is not counter-insurgency. This is ethnic-cleansing.”

The International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC) called the destruction of Israa University Israel’s latest attempt to carry out a “cultural genocide” along with the slaughter of at least 24,620 people in just over three months—people who Israeli officials have claimed are legitimate military targets despite the fact that roughly half of those killed have been children.

The wiping out of cultural landmarks was included in South Africa’s International Court of Justice case accusing Israel of genocidal acts in Gaza last week, with the complaint noting that “Israel has damaged and destroyed numerous centers of Palestinian learning and culture,” including libraries, one of the world’s oldest Christian monasteries, and the Great Omari Mosque, where an ancient collection of manuscripts was kept before the building was destroyed in an airstrike last month.

“The crime of targeting and destroying archaeological sites should spur the world and UNESCO into action to preserve this great civilizational and cultural heritage,” Gaza’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said after the mosque was bombed.

Now, international relations professor Nicola Perugini of the University of Edinburgh said, “all the universities in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed.”

On its Facebook page, the university said the IDF had occupied the campus for about 70 days before planting 315 mines and detonating the institution’s main building, its museum, a university hospital, and other buildings.

The IDF occupied Israa University, said administrators, “and used it as a military base for its mechanisms and a center for [the] snatching of isolated civilians in the areas of Rashid, Maghraqa, and Zahraa streets, and temporarily detained [them] to investigate with citizens before moving them.”

Mitchell Plitnick, president of Rethinking Foreign Policy, said the fact that 315 mines were detonated meant that “by definition… it was not a legitimate military target.”

“Israel would have to have full control to plant so many mines,” said Plitnick. “This is a clear example of a war crime and destruction for the fun of it.”

Eight universities in Gaza have now been targeted since the IDF began its bombardment on October 7, according to the IMEMC.

Birzeit University, in the occupied West Bank, condemned the destruction of the school and accused Israel of stealing 3,000 rare artifacts from Israa’s museum.

“Birzeit University reaffirms the fact that this crime is part of the Israeli occupation’s onslaught against the Palestinians,” said the school on social media. “It’s all a part of the Israeli occupation’s goal to make Gaza uninhabitable; a continuation of the genocide being carried out in Gaza Strip.”

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

Continue Reading‘This Is Not Self-Defense… This Is Ethnic Cleansing’: Israel Blows Up Gaza University