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Tag: IDF

  • Warren Leads Letter Pressing Biden on Israel’s Use of US Arms

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

    An Israeli soldier carries a 155mm artillery shell near a self-propelled howitzer deployed at a position near the border with Lebanon in the upper Galilee region of northern Israel on October 18, 2023. (Photo: Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images)

    The senators—who are seeking improved oversight—sounded the alarm on the “staggering number of civilian deaths” caused by Israeli bombing with U.S.-supplied ordnance.

    As the number of Gazans killed, maimed, or left missing by Israeli bombs and bullets—many of them manufactured in the United States— tops 60,000, a group of U.S. senators on Tuesday urged President Joe Biden to boost oversight of how American arms are used against Palestinian civilians.

    Noting that Israel’s response to the Hamas-led attacks of October 7 “has killed over 15,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the vast majority of whom are civilians,” Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) asked the White House for “information on the accountability and oversight measures that ensure any use of U.S. weapons is in accordance with U.S. policy and international law.”

    “U.S. allies and human rights groups have argued many of these deaths were preventable,” the senators wrote in their letter. “In its campaign, Israel has also repeatedly targeted areas it previously designated as ‘safe zones,’ after telling Palestinians to move to these locations for safety.”

    “[Israel Defense Forces] airstrikes have also hit the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp multiple times,” the lawmakers noted. “The first strike killed ‘more than 100 people’ and injured ‘hundreds’ more. The second strike left dozens wounded and rescuers said those killed included ‘whole families’… Other strikes and operations have targeted hospitals.”

    A growing number of legal, human rights, and other experts have called Israel’s war on Gaza a genocide.

    The senators’ letter continues:

    While these strikes were aimed at Hamas, we have concerns that strikes on civilian infrastructure have not been proportional, particularly given the predictable harm to civilians. The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has said these strikes are ‘clear violations of international humanitarian law.’ Even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has admitted that his government’s efforts to minimize civilian casualties to date are ‘not successful.’

    The letter singles out 155mm artillery shells, unguided explosive rounds with a “kill radius” of about 50 meters, with shrapnel able to kill and wound people hundreds of meters away.

    “The IDF requires its ground forces to stay 250 meters away to protect its own forces,” the letter states. “The IDF has previously used these shells to ‘hit populated areas including neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, shelters, and safe zones,’ causing a staggering number of civilian deaths.”

    “Over 30 U.S.-based civil society organizations warned against providing Israel 155mm shells in an open letter to [U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd] Austin calling the shells ‘inherently indiscriminate’ and ‘a grave risk to civilians,’” the lawmakers added.

    Claiming that “civilian harm prevention is a cornerstone of American foreign policy”—a curious assertion given that the United States has killed more foreign civilians by far than any other armed force on the planet since the end of World War II—the senators argued that “we must ensure accountability for the use of U.S. weapons we provided to our ally.”

    “As you have acknowledged, Israel’s military campaign has included ‘indiscriminate bombing,’” they wrote. “Your administration must ensure that existing guidance and standards are being used to evaluate the reports of Israel using U.S. weapons in attacks that harm civilians in order to more rigorously protect civilian safety during Israel’s operations in Gaza.”

    To that end, the senators ask Biden to answer 13 questions, including:

    • Are U.S. officials aware of the IDF’s current policy on preventing civilian harm?
    • What insights does the U.S. government have into how the Israeli military assesses issues of proportionality?
    • What systems does the Israeli government have in place to investigate allegations of civilian harm?
    • Does the U.S. Defense Department or State Department plan to provide Israel with guidance on how 155mm shells should be
      used when civilians are nearby?
    • Are you aware of any requests for inspector general reviews or audits of U.S. military assistance provided to Israel?

    The senators’ letter came ahead of Wednesday’s procedural vote on whether to begin debating a $106 billion “national security” spending package requested by Biden, which includes more than $10 billion in additional U.S. military aid to Israel atop the nearly $4 billion it receives each year from Washington.

    On Tuesday, Sanders—who has angered progressives by failing to demand a Gaza cease-fire—said he opposes sending billions of dollars in unconditional U.S. armed aid to the “right-wing, extremist” Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    “Israel must dramatically change its approach to minimize civilian harm,” he said, “and lay out a wider political process that can secure lasting peace.”

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

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  • Dutch Court Hears Case Accusing Government of Complicity in Israeli War Crimes

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

    Protesters hold signs denouncing genocide during a demonstration in solidarity with Palestine in Amsterdam on October 15, 2023. (Photo: Ana Fernandez/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

    “When military goods can contribute to human rights violations or international humanitarian law, that export is strictly prohibited,” said one campaigner. “It is incomprehensible that, despite clear warnings, the government has knowingly deviated from this.”

    A Dutch court on Monday heard opening arguments in a case brought by four human rights organizations that have accused the government of the Netherlands of being complicit in Israeli war crimes due to its export of military supplies as Israel kills thousands of civilians in Gaza.

    Supplying the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) with parts for F-35 fighter jets, which are stored in a warehouse in the Netherlands, puts the Dutch government at risk for “becoming complicit in violations of international humanitarian law,” the director of the Dutch branch of Amnesty International , one of the plaintiffs, said when the lawsuit was announced last month.

    Amnesty is joined by Oxfam Novib—the Dutch chapter of Oxfam International—The Rights Forum, and PAX in the case, which is expected to result in a judgement around December 15.

    The groups filed the lawsuit after government documents showed the Netherlands had allowed at least one shipment of reserve parts for F-35s since October 7, Al Jazeera reported .

    The Dutch Defense Ministry wrote in a letter to Parliament that “it cannot be established that the F-35s are involved in grave violations of the humanitarian laws of war,” but with nearly 16,000 people killed in Gaza in less than two months—including more than 6,600 children —the human rights groups aim to test that claim in court.

    “The state must immediately stop its deliveries of F-35 parts to Israel,” lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld said Monday at the Hague District Court. “That is its obligation under… Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions, it is its obligation under the Genocide Treaty to prevent genocide, and it is its obligation under export law.”

    Martje van Nes, PAX’s director of organization, pointed out last month that “the Netherlands has a very concrete assessment framework for arms exports.”

    “When military goods can contribute to human rights violations or international humanitarian law, that export is strictly prohibited,” said van Nes. “It is incomprehensible that, despite clear warnings, the government has knowingly deviated from this. This makes them responsible for the deployment of the equipment.”

    PAX noted on Monday that the call for the Netherlands to end shipments of any supplies that Israel could use to continue its massacre of Palestinian civilians—in retaliation for an attack by Hamas in October that killed 1,200 Israelis—”is all the more urgent” considering the end of a temporary cease-fire on Friday. More than 800 people have been killed since the pause in fighting ended last week, and Israel was stepping up its ground attacks on Monday.

    “As far as we are concerned, the government must take action now to protect citizens,” said PAX on social media. The group has demanded a permanent humanitarian cease-fire.

    Dagmar Oudshoorn, director of Amnesty International in the Netherlands, said that as the host country “of both the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court,” the Dutch government “likes to present itself as a champion of international law.”

    “Our government is losing all credibility right now,” she said. “Evident violations such as food, water, and fuel blockade, the forced displacement of the population, and the bombing of schools and hospitals, are not mentioned. And by supplying armies, the Netherlands runs the risk of becoming complicit in violations of international humanitarian law.”

    The Netherlands has maintained since October 7 that Israel “has the right to defend itself” and has called for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to adhere to international law, but the groups said the IDF is clearly not doing so and should lose the support of the country.

    “This complicity must stop now,” said Gerard Jonkman, director of The Rights Forum.

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

  • ‘Nowhere Safe in Gaza’ as Evidence of Israeli War Crimes Mounts

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

    Injured Palestinians, including children, are taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital for treatment after Israeli airstrikes hit the school at Al Bureij Refugee Camp in Deir Al Balah, Gaza on November 20, 2023. (Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)

    Amnesty International accused Israel of committing war crimes with two recent bombings of a church and a home in a refugee camp.

    Palestinians in Gaza and human rights advocates on Monday pleaded with the international community to see the ongoing killing of thousands of people in the blockaded enclave for what it is—a massacre in which Israel has shown “a chilling indifference to the catastrophic toll on civilians,” according to Amnesty International, and has committed numerous war crimes as it bombards civilian targets.

    The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on October 19 and October 20, calling on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the bombings as possible war crimes.

    Amnesty investigators visited the sites of the bombings, Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza City and a home in al-Nuseirat refugee camp near Deir al-Balah, and interviewed 14 people, including nine survivors of the attacks and two other witnesses. The group’s Crisis Evidence Lab also analayzed satellite imagery and and audiovisual material.

    The two bombings, which killed a total of 46 civilians, including 20 children, “were indiscriminate attacks or direct attacks on civilians or civilian objects, which must be investigated as war crimes,” said Amnesty.

    “These deadly, unlawful attacks are part of a documented pattern of disregard for Palestinian civilians and demonstrate the devastating impact of the Israeli military’s unprecedented onslaught has left nowhere safe in Gaza, regardless of where civilians live or seek shelter,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, director of global research, advocacy, and policy for the U.K.-based group. “We urge the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor to take immediate concrete action to expedite the investigation into war crimes and other crimes under international law opened in 2021.”

    The group noted that on October 19, when the historic church was struck, the Israeli government released a statement saying that “IDF fighter jets struck the command and control center belonging to a Hamas terrorist involved in the launching of rockets and mortars toward Israel.”

    But the IDF later deleted a video it had posted of the strike on Saint Porphyrius, and has provided no information to substantiate the claim that the church was a “command and control center.”

    Before the strike, in the first days of Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza, church officials had publicly said hundreds of civilians were taking shelter at Saint Porphyrius.

    “Their presence would therefore have been known to the Israeli military,” said Amnesty. “The Israeli military’s decision to go ahead with a strike on a known church compound and site for displaced civilians was reckless and therefore amounts to a war crime, even if there was a belief that there was a military objective nearby.”

    One of the families sheltering in the church was that of Ramez al-Sury, whose three children—aged 14, 12, and 11—were killed in the attack.

    “We left our homes and came to stay at the church because we thought we would be protected here. We have nowhere else to go. The church was full of peaceful people, only peaceful people,” al-Sury told Amnesty. “There is nowhere safe in Gaza during this war. Bombardments everywhere, day and night. Every day, more and more civilians are killed. We pray for peace, but our hearts are broken.”

    The day after al-Sury’s children were killed, Hani al-Aydi was sitting at home with family members at al-Nuseirat refugee camp, which is within the area the Israeli military had ordered Palestinians to evacuate to from the north.

    Despite telling people the area was safe, the IDF launched a strike that destroyed the al-Aydi family home, which the military had no reason to suspect was a Hamas target, according to Amnesty.

    “All of those present in the al-Aydi house that was hit directly and in the two nearby homes were civilians,” said Amnesty. “Two members of the al-Aydi family had permits to work in Israel, which requires rigorous security checks by Israeli authorities, for those obtaining the permit and their extended family.

    Al-Aydi told the group that “everything collapsed on our head” suddenly when Israel bombed the house, killing 28 people including 12 children.

    “All my brothers died, my nephews, my nieces,” said al-Aydi. “My mother died, my sisters died, our home is gone… There is nothing here, and now we are left with nothing and are displaced. I don’t know how much worse things will get. Could it get any worse?”

    Amnesty noted that even if it had found in its investigation that there were plausible military targets in the vicinity of the two sites—which it did not—”these strikes failed to distinguish between military objectives and civilian objects. The evidence collected by Amnesty International also indicates that the Israeli military failed to take feasible precautions to minimize damage to civilians and civilian property, including by not providing any warning—at minimum to anyone living in the locations that were hit—before launching the attacks.”

    The Geneva Conventions require parties in a conflict to take measures to protect the lives of civilians and prohibit collective punishment of a population for acts committed by a particular group.

    “The harrowing accounts from survivors and relatives of victims describing the devastating human toll of these bombardments offer a snapshot of the mass civilian suffering being inflicted daily across Gaza by the Israeli military’s relentless attacks, underscoring the urgent need for an immediate cease-fire,” said Guevara-Rosas.

    Amnesty made the request of the ICC as the death toll in Gaza surpasses 13,300 people in just over six weeks. At least 5,500 children have been killed.

    Al-Mezan, a Gaza-based human rights group, also addressed the ICC on Monday, calling on the body to issue warrants for Israeli officials responsible for crimes against Palestinian children.

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

  • Probe Demanded Over ‘Absurd’ Israeli Narrative About Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital

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    2023.10.08 Pro-Palestinian Rally, Washington DC. Ted Eytan, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
    2023.10.08 Pro-Palestinian Rally, Washington DC. Ted Eytan, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

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

    “Israel needs to offer the outside world more than a few rifles and other armaments to justify its attacks on Gaza’s hospitals and ill and injured civilians,” said Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

    A human rights monitor in Geneva on Friday called on the United Nations to help get to the bottom of Israel’s claim that its bombing and raid of Gaza’s largest medical complex this week was necessary to stop Hamas from running a vast military compound beneath it—an allegation that more than two days after the attack began, has been backed up only by images Israel released of a small cache of weapons.

    Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said the time has come for an independent international investigation into “Israel’s absurd narrative” about al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City, and noted that administrators at the facility are also demanding a probe “that includes a United Nations inspection.”

    Israel did extensive damage to al-Shifa’s cardiac care department, surgical ward, and a pharmaceutical warehouse when it began bombing the hospital at dawn on Wednesday in just one of more than 245 attacks on medical facilities in Gaza since October 7. Israeli officials said they expected to find “the beating heart” of Hamas’ military operations in the hospital.

    But after searching basement areas and several health departments as well as conducting a “violent interrogation campaign” targeting displaced people and medical personnel, Euro-Med said, Israel has so far produced only a video showing a small number of weapons.

    “The absence of any neutral international party’s involvement in the Israeli military raids and searches of al-Shifa Medical Complex and other hospitals in the strip raises widespread doubts about the Israeli narrative,” said Euro-Med. “Israel needs to offer the outside world more than a few rifles and other armaments to justify its attacks on Gaza’s hospitals and ill and injured civilians.”

    “We are left with nothing—no power, no food, no water. With every passing minute, we are losing a life. Overnight, we lost 22 persons.”

    Separately, the BBC aired a segment on Friday in which the network noted the Israel Defense Forces first released a seven-minute video displaying the weapons it found—a video that appeared to be edited despite IDF claims that it was filmed in a single shot with no edits, and that raised several other questions.

    “This IDF video was posted, then deleted, then reposted, this time without a section referring to an Israeli soldier who’d been held hostage,” reported the BBC.

    Reporters from the network arrived at al-Shifa a few hours after the IDF released the original video, and were shown a different selection of weapons than those that appeared in the military’s video.

    https://twitter.com/_RichardHall/status/1725498963174752490?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1725498963174752490%7Ctwgr%5E625d358c2e3a367d9e3d245bbf052640ce85b5c6%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fisraeli-claims-al-shifa

    “What we see in this IDF video doesn’t equate Israel’s description of an ‘operational command center for Hamas,’” the BBC reported.

    The footage, released late at night “after long hours of searches and fruitless inspections,” said Euro-Med, “raises a lot of questions, especially since no gunman has been arrested and no evidence has been found to back the previous claims about the presence of tunnels beneath the hospital.”

    The IDF has also claimed that Hamas “knew we were coming” and had likely “made off with or hidden traces of their presence” at al-Shifa, The New York Times reported.

    Israel’s narrative about al-Shifa has also drawn scrutiny from Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, who said that even if the hospital were being used as a command center for Hamas, “protecting [patients] is paramount.”

    “Even if health facilities are used for military purposes, the principles of distinction, precaution, and proportionality always apply,” Tedros said.

    The director of al-Shifa, Muhammed Abu Salmiya, toldAl Jazeera Friday that staff are still trying to save as many of the 7,000 patients and refugees in the hospital as they can amid Israel’s ongoing siege, but they “lost all those who were in the intensive care unit” following the attack on Wednesday.

    “We are left with nothing—no power, no food, no water,” said Abu Salmiya. “With every passing minute, we are losing a life. Overnight, we lost 22 persons.”

    The Biden administration, which has continued supporting Israel’s bombardment of Gaza as the death toll has grown to at least 11,470 in less than six weeks, said this week it believed the IDF’s claims about al-Shifa, with President Joe Biden saying it was a “fact” that Hamas has “their headquarters, their military hidden under a hospital.”

    A day after the bombing, as observers awaited evidence of an extensive command center beneath the hospital, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matt Miller appeared less confident in Israel’s narrative, telling reporters that the White House “never said there were command posts in every hospital in Gaza.”

    “We don’t want to see hospitals struck from the air,” said Miller. “We understand that Hamas continues to use hospitals in places where they embed their fighters.”

    After the BBC reported on the IDF’s changing video documentation of its findings, Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft called Israel’s “propaganda” supporting its onslaught in Gaza “increasingly clownish.”

    “Only Joe Biden seems to believe it,” said Parsi.

    Journalist Jeremy Scahill pointed out that Israel itself is known to have built “an underground operating room and tunnels under the hospital” in 1983.

    “This is not a secret,” Scahill wrote on social media, noting that Israel has claimed Hamas expanded the tunnels in recent years.

    Allegations of a Hamas command center, supported by the U.S., said Scahill, “should be backed up by clear evidence, not a Geraldo Rivera/Al Capone’s vault-style video presentation featuring an English-speaking IDF soldier.”

    “No matter what is or is not found, there is no justification for the repeated attacks against civilian hospitals—in fact al-Shifa is the largest hospital treating the most vulnerable people in Gaza, including NICU babies,” he added. “The mere existence of tunnels, originally built by Israel, does not prove the specific allegations made by the U.S. or Israel. The standard for such evidence should be very, very high.”

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

  • Probe Shows 126+ Civilians Killed by Israeli Airstrike Targeting ‘Just One Guy’

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

    The bodies of victims of the October 31, 2023 Israeli bombing of the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip are lined up outside the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza City.  (Photo: Fadi Alwhidi/Anadolu via Getty Images)

    Airwars noted that this is “the most named victims we have ever monitored in a single event.”

    Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 11,000 Palestinians, including over 100 civilian victims of a single Israeli bombing in the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp on October 31 who were publicly identified on Thursday by the U.K.-based watchdog Airwars.

    The group identified 116 names of civilians killed in the strike—including 10 cases with the death of multiple family members, three of which reportedly involved entire families being wiped out. The estimated civilian death toll is 126-136, including 69 children.

    Airwars noted on social media that this is “the most named victims we have ever monitored in a single event,” and “almost every named victim we found died along with at least one other family member.”
    The analysis is just for the Israeli attack on October 31, but the group is separately reviewing a strike from the following day. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed both bombings and claimed to be targeting “a very senior Hamas commander.”

    As Guardian reporting cited by Airwars detailed:

    A spokesperson for the Israeli military said the attack had been authorized to assassinate a senior Hamas commander and destroy his base. IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari named the target as Ibrahim Biari, commander of Central Jabaliya Battalion, who he said had been leading fighting in northern Gaza from a network of tunnels under the camp.

    Hagari declined to comment on how many munitions, or which types, were used to target the camp, or identify which craters were caused by tunnel collapses. He said Israel would provide some of these details at a later date.

    But a visual analysis by The Guardian has identified at least five craters in the densely populated refugee camp, which weapons experts said were left by the use of multiple JDAMs—joint direct attack munitions—in the airstrike.

    “Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem denied any senior commander there and called the claim an Israeli pretext for killing civilians,” according toReuters.

    Ahmad al-Kahlout, a spokesperson for the Hamas-controlled Gaza Interior Ministry in Gaza, told reporters at the time that “these buildings house hundreds of citizens. The occupation’s air force destroyed this district with six U.S.-made bombs. It is the latest massacre caused by Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.”

    Hagari claimed the IDF killed “scores” of militants alongside Biari.

    “With ambiguity around the exact number of militants killed, Airwars has applied a 12-24 combatant casualty range to account for comments such as ‘dozens’ of targets killed,” the watchdog said.

    Those in the camp remain at risk. Middle East Eye reported Wednesday that “renewed heavy Israeli shelling has targeted residential homes in the Jabalia refugee camp. Footage showed blocks falling to the ground and survivors digging in the rubble with their hands to retrieve dead bodies.”

    The IDF strikes on Jabalia have been globally condemned as war crimes—as have various other Israeli actions since October 7, when the nation launched what experts are calling a “genocidal” war in response to a Hamas-led attack.

    Throughout Israel’s bombing campaign and ground operations in Gaza—which along with killing and wounding thousands of civilians have destroyed civilian infrastructure and displaced around three-quarters of the population—global calls for a cease-fire have mounted.

    There have also been growing demands for International Criminal Court action. Rutgers Law School professor and Just Security executive editor Adil Haque tagged the ICC prosecutor, Karim A. A. Khan, in a social media post about the Airwars analysis.

    Khan last month asked civil society groups “to send us any and all evidence that underpins their reports or their communiques or their notices that they issue” on Gaza, explaining that “reports by themselves are, of course, not evidence and I cannot and will not act pursuant to my oath of office without reliable evidence that we can validate that can stand up in a court of law.”

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