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‘War Criminals’: IDF Strikes Rafah After Hamas Agrees to Cease-Fire

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[This article remains relevant despite having been published 2 days ago]

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

Smoke rises from buildings after Israeli strikes on Rafah, Gaza on May 6, 2024.  (Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Why?” asked Israeli lawmaker Ofer Cassif. “Because killing Palestinians is more important for the Israeli government than saving Israelis.”

Israel on Monday launched long-awaited strikes on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip despite Hamas publicly confirming it agreed to a cease-fire and hostage release proposal from Egyptian and Qatari mediators.

The Israel Defense Forces said on social media that “the IDF is currently conducting targeted strikes against Hamas terror targets in eastern Rafah,” the city to which over a million Palestinians have fled since October 7, when Israel launched a retaliatory war that has already killed at least 34,735 people in Gaza and wounded another 78,108.

Earlier Monday, the IDF had dropped leaflets directing residents and refugees in that part of Rafah to relocate to a strip along Gaza’s coast, ignoring warnings from the international community and humanitarian groups that a full-scale Israeli attack on the crowded city would further endanger civilians and relief efforts.

“It is obvious Netanyahu wants this genocidal war to continue indefinitely so that he can remain in power.”

In addition to sparking outrage around the world, the Israeli government’s Rafah attack and rejection of the Hamas-backed proposal was met with criticism from people across Israel. The Associated Press reported that “thousands of Israelis rallied around the country Monday night calling for an immediate deal to release the hostages still held in the Gaza Strip.”

Ofer Cassif, a member of the Knesset who was almost expelled by fellow Israeli lawmakers earlier this year for backing South Africa’s ongoing genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), again called out his own government.

“Israeli tanks and infantry enter east Rafah while planes bomb from above, just hours after Hamas’ decision to accept the hostages/prisoners exchange deal,” Cassif said Monday. “Why? Because killing Palestinians is more important for the Israeli government than saving Israelis. War criminals!”

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that “the War Cabinet unanimously decided this evening Israel will continue its operation in Rafah, in order to apply military pressure on Hamas so as to advance the release of our hostages and achieve the other objectives of the war.”

Along with the prime minister, Israel’s War Cabinet includes Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Benny Gantz, former IDF chief of the general staff, along with three observers.

Netanyahu added that “while the Hamas proposal is far from meeting Israel’s core demands, Israel will dispatch a ranking delegation to Egypt in an effort to maximize the possibility of reaching an agreement on terms acceptable to Israel.”

Reuters reported that “an Israeli official said the deal was not acceptable to Israel because terms had been ‘softened.'”

According to the news outlet, the first part of a three-phase plan that Hamas—which has controlled Gaza for nearly two decades—agreed to includes a 42-day pause in fighting, the release of 33 hostages held by the group and some Palestinians in Israeli jails, a partial IDF withdrawal, and free movement in the besieged enclave.

Phase two would be “another 42-day period that features an agreement to restore a ‘sustainable calm’ to Gaza, language that an official briefed on the talks said Hamas and Israel had agreed in order to take discussion of a ‘permanent cease-fire’ off the table,” Reuters detailed. This phase also includes withdrawing most Israeli troops and Hamas releasing some soldiers and reservists.

The third phase would involve the exchange of bodies; reconstruction of Gaza overseen by Egypt, Qatar, and the United Nations; and ending the complete blockade on the strip, the outlet added.

Shortly before Israel’s Monday night strikes on Rafah began, Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, said that the U.N. chief “reiterates his pressing call to both the government of Israel and the leadership of Hamas to go the extra mile needed to make an agreement come true and stop the present suffering.”

Expressing concern about the then-imminent Israeli operation in Rafah, the spokesperson said that “we are already seeing movements of people—many of these people are in desperate humanitarian condition and have been repeatedly displaced. They search safety that has been so many times denied. The secretary-general reminds the parties that the protection of civilians is paramount in international humanitarian law.”

Other U.N. officials have been warning of what an assault on Rafah will mean for the over 1.4 million Palestinians there, among them 600,000 children. So have humanitarian and political leaders, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who on Monday urged President Joe Biden to stand by his earlier position that attacking the city was a “red line” and “end all offensive military aid to Israel.”

Council on American-Islamic Relations national executive director Nihad Awad issued a similar call Monday evening, warning that “the Israeli government is hellbent on using American financial, military, and diplomatic support to ethnically cleanse what remains of Gaza and commit another massacre.”

“President Biden must stand up to Benjamin Netanyahu and take concrete action to end the genocide now,” Awad continued, nodding to the Israeli leader’s legal trouble. The prime minister faces not only potential consequences on a global scale for what the ICJ has deemed a “plausibly” genocidal war on Gaza but also a corruption trial in his own country.

“It is obvious Netanyahu wants this genocidal war to continue indefinitely so that he can remain in power, avoid jail, and fulfill his racist, far-right Cabinet’s demands for the complete destruction of Gaza and the massacre of its people,” Awad said. “It is long past time for President Biden to end our nation’s complicity in this 21st-century genocide.”

Biden spoke with Netanyahu by phone ahead of the IDF strikes on Monday and “reiterated his clear position on Rafah,” according to a White House readout. They also discussed the hostage negotiations, humanitarian aid, the Holocaust, and antisemitism.

Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, also suggested that the Israeli prime minister wants the bloodshed in Gaza to continue for personal reasons.

“Netanyahu does not want an end to the war because the moment the war ends, his political career ends as well. And his prison sentence will commence,” said Parsi. “Yet, Biden has for seven months deferred to Netanyahu.”

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

Continue Reading‘War Criminals’: IDF Strikes Rafah After Hamas Agrees to Cease-Fire

‘How many more Palestinian children need to be killed before Westminster finally acts?’

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/how-many-more-palestinian-children-need-to-be-killed-before-westminster-finally-acts

World calls on Israel to halt its slaughter of helpless refugees trapped in Rafah

An Israeli tank overlooks the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, May 6, 2024

APPEALS to Israel to halt its merciless slaughter of helpless refugees trapped in the city of Rafah in Gaza rang out nationally and internationally today.

Refugees began streaming out of the town on the Egyptian border after Israel warned 100,000 people to evacuate, saying it was planning to attack.

An emergency demonstration has been called outside Downing Street for Tuesday night.

After another night of bombardment which left more than 20 dead, Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn said: “This is disgusting beyond belief, that Israel continues to bombard one million people stuck in Rafah and has now asked 100,000 to move to ‘humanitarian safe zones’.”

“Thirty-four thousand lives have already been lost. Now is the time to cease fire and stop arms sales to Israel.”

The Stop the War Coalition, which has called this evening’s Downing Street rally at 6pm, said: “As Israel continues its bombing of civilians trapped in Rafah and prepares a ground invasion, knowing nowhere is safe for the 1.7 million Palestinians trapped there, Sunak, Starmer and Biden continue to support Netanyahu’s genocide.

“Rather than pulling their support, including by stopping arms sales, they attack our marches, attack student protests, and attack anyone who calls out Israel’s atrocities.

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/how-many-more-palestinian-children-need-to-be-killed-before-westminster-finally-acts

Continue Reading‘How many more Palestinian children need to be killed before Westminster finally acts?’

‘Unlawful and Catastrophic’: IDF Begins Forced Evacuation of Rafah

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

Displaced Palestinians in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip gather their belongings following an evacuation order by the Israeli military on May 6, 2024. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)

The head of one humanitarian group called the Israeli military’s directives “a serious violation of international law.”

Israel’s army on Monday ordered roughly 100,000 people living in eastern Rafah to evacuate ahead of an imminent military assault on the area, terrifying families who have been forcibly displaced to the southern Gaza city in recent months and intensifying warnings of a bloodbath.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) dropped leaflets over Rafah ordering some of its 1.4 million residents to move to a strip along Gaza’s coast, a signal that a long-feared ground assault on the overcrowded city is set to begin in the face of vocal opposition from the international community and humanitarian organizations.

The U.S., Israel’s top arms supplier, has said it would oppose a Rafah assault without a credible plan to evacuate civilians from the city. Humanitarian groups and analysts have said such a plan is impossible because there is no genuinely safe place for Gazans to go. Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked so-called “safe zones” and designated routes Palestinians have used to flee in compliance with past IDF orders.

“Israel’s military offensive in Rafah could lead to the deadliest phase of this conflict, inflicting horrific suffering on approximately 1.4 million displaced civilians in the area,” said Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council. “The relocation orders issued by Israel today to thousands of Gazans, directing them to move to Al-Mawasi, are beyond alarming. The area is already overstretched and devoid of vital services. It lacks the capacity to house the number of people currently seeking refuge in Rafah, with no assurances of safety, proper accommodation, or return once hostilities end for those forced to relocate.”

“The absence of these fundamental guarantees of safety and return, as required by international humanitarian law, qualifies Israel’s relocation directives as forcible transfer, amounting to a serious violation of international law,” Egeland said. “Any Israeli military operation in Rafah—which has become the largest cluster of displacement camps in the world—will cause potential mass atrocities.”

“If large-scale military operations start, not only will children be at risk from the violence, but also from chaos and panic, and at a time where their physical and mental states are already weakened.”

Israel reportedly notified the U.S. of the evacuation orders overnight, and CIA Director William Burns is set to arrive in Israel on Monday to discuss the operation in Rafah, a city along Gaza’s border with Egypt that has become a critical point of entry for humanitarian aid. The new evacuation orders, expected to be just the first round of directives, include Rafah’s largest medical facility.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the main relief agency in Gaza, said in response to the IDF’s orders that it would not leave Rafah.

“An Israeli offensive in Rafah would mean more civilian suffering and deaths. The consequences would be devastating for 1.4 million people,” the organization wrote in a social media post. “UNRWA is not evacuating: The agency will maintain a presence in Rafah as long as possible and will continue providing lifesaving aid to people.”

The far-right Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been threatening a ground invasion of Rafah for months, characterizing the city as Hamas’ last major stronghold. Avichay Adraee, an IDF lieutenant colonel, said Monday that the Israeli military would use “extreme force” in the evacuation areas and warned that “anyone who is close to terrorist organizations puts his life and the life of his family at risk.”

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), around 600,000 children are currently sheltering in the city, including many who have been displaced multiple times since Israel’s assault began in October following a Hamas-led attack.

“More than 200 days of war have taken an unimaginable toll on the lives of children,” Catherine Russell, UNICEF’s executive director, said Monday. “Rafah is now a city of children, who have nowhere safe to go in Gaza. If large-scale military operations start, not only will children be at risk from the violence, but also from chaos and panic, and at a time where their physical and mental states are already weakened.”

Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, called the IDF’s evacuation push in Rafah “unlawful and catastrophic.”

“There’s nowhere safe to go in Gaza,” Shakir added. “The international community should act to prevent further atrocities.”

The IDF began issuing its evacuation orders in Rafah a day after the Netanyahu government voted to shut down Al Jazeera‘s operations in the country, a brazen attack on press freedom.

“The fact that Israel banned Al Jazeera hours before beginning its assault on Rafah is not a coincidence,” said author and Middle East analyst Assal Rad. “After everything we’ve seen in the last seven months, imagine what they’ll do when they think no one is watching.”

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

Israeli Plan To Evacuate Rafah By Force Sparks Warnings Of ‘Ethnic Cleansing’

Continue Reading‘Unlawful and Catastrophic’: IDF Begins Forced Evacuation of Rafah

UN Warns Israeli Ground Invasion Rafah Will Lead to ‘Slaughter of Civilians’

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

Palestinians wounded in Israeli attacks on Rafah attempt to collect belongings from bombed-out homes on May 1, 2024 in the southern Gaza city. 
(Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“The simplest truth is that a ground operation in Rafah will be nothing short of a tragedy beyond words,” said a top U.N. aid official. “No humanitarian plan can counter that.”

The United Nations’ humanitarian aid agency warned Friday that an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah would put hundreds of thousands of Palestinians “at imminent risk of death.”

“Any ground operation would mean more suffering and death” for the approximately 1.5 million Palestinians—including around 1.2 million people forcibly displaced from other areas of the embattled enclave—sheltering in Gaza’s southernmost city, U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) spokesperson Jens Laerke told reporters in Geneva on Friday.

“The hundreds of thousands of people who are there would be at imminent risk of death if there is an assault,” he added, warning of not only “a slaughter of civilians, but also at the same time an incredible blow to the humanitarian operation in the entire strip, because it is run primarily out of Rafah.”

According to Politico, Israel has shared with the U.S. government its plan to move the civilian population out of Rafah ahead of a looming ground assault the Wall Street Journal reported earlier on Friday could begin next week.

Conditions in Rafah are already dire. The city—which was home to fewer than 300,000 people before the war—is now one of the most densely populated places on the planet. Hundreds of thousands of refugees are crowded together in tents and other makeshift shelters. Water and other necessities are in desperately short supply. According to James Elder, the global spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), there is approximately one toilet for every 850 people in Rafah and one shower for every 3,500 people.

“Try to imagine, as a teenage girl, or elderly man, or pregnant woman, queueing for an entire day just to have a shower,” Elder wrote for The Guardian this week.

There are nearly 600,000 children in Rafah, nearly all of whom are “injured, sick, malnourished, traumatized, or living with disabilities,” UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell said Wednesday.

Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, who represents the U.N. World Health Organization in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories, on Friday called contingency response plans for a Rafah invasion a “Band-Aid” solution.

“It will absolutely not prevent the expected substantial additional mortality and morbidity caused by a military operation,” he stressed.

Israel’s 210-day assault on Gaza in retaliation for the October 7 attacks has already killed at least 34,622 Palestinians—a large majority of them civilian men, women, and children—while wounding more than 77,800 others, according to Palestinian and international officials. At least 11,000 other Gazans are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of the more than 370,000 homes and other buildings destroyed or damaged during the war.

That means around 5% of Gazans have been killed or wounded during Israel’s onslaught, the U.N. Development Program and the U.N. Economic Commission for Western Asia said in a report published Wednesday. The agencies called this an “unprecedented” level of casualties in modern warfare and said it would take until at least 2040 to restore all the homes destroyed or damaged during the war.

As many as 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have also been forcibly displaced by Israeli forces, who despite a January International Court of Justice (ICJ) order to prevent genocidal acts continue to block adequate humanitarian aid from reaching the starving people of Gaza.

Despite pleas and protestations from world leaders including U.S. President Joe Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to invade Rafah to “eliminate Hamas’ battalions there.”

Earlier this week, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the “total annihilation” of Gaza, specifically mentioning Rafah. The South Africa-led case against Israel at the ICJ has centered similar statements of intent to destroy Palestinians—which are key to proving the crime of genocide—made by Israeli officials since October.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces have ramped up aerial attacks on Rafah in what is likely preparation for a ground invasion. Palestinian and international media reported Friday that an overnight Israeli airstrike on a home killed at least eight people, mostly children.

“After almost seven months of brutal hostilities that have killed tens of thousands of people and maimed tens of thousands more, Gaza is bracing for even more suffering and misery,” U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said earlier this week.

“The world has been appealing to the Israeli authorities for weeks to spare Rafah, but a ground operation there is on the immediate horizon,” he continued. “For the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled to Gaza’s southernmost point to escape disease, famine, mass graves, and direct fighting, a ground invasion would spell even more trauma and death.”

“The simplest truth is that a ground operation in Rafah will be nothing short of a tragedy beyond words,” Griffiths added. “No humanitarian plan can counter that. The rest is detail.”

U.S. officials have also privately sounded the alarm over the likely consequences of an Israeli invasion of Rafah.

In March, according to a leaked cable obtained by The Intercept, members of the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development warned the State Department that a Rafah invasion “could result in catastrophic humanitarian consequences, including mass civilian casualties, extensive population displacement, and the collapse of the existing humanitarian response.”

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

Continue ReadingUN Warns Israeli Ground Invasion Rafah Will Lead to ‘Slaughter of Civilians’

Nearly All 600,000 Kids in Rafah ‘Injured, Sick, Malnourished,’ Says UNICEF

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

Palestinians, including children, collect remaining belongings from the rubble of destroyed houses after Israeli attacks on May 1, 2024 in Rafah, Gaza.
 (Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)

A full-scale Israeli assault on the crowded southern Gaza city “would bring catastrophe on top of catastrophe for children.”

“The children in Gaza need a cease-fire.”

That’s how Catherine Russell, executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), concluded a brief video Wednesday about the harrowing conditions across the Gaza Strip, particularly in Rafah, where about 1.5 million of the besieged enclave’s 2.3 million residents have sought refuge from Israel’s devastating assault.

The video was released nearly seven months into Israel’s retaliation for the Hamas-led October 7 attack—which has killed at least 34,596 Palestinians in Gaza, wounded another 77,816, and left thousands more missing—and as a full-scale Israeli assault of Rafah looms.

The war has already taken “an unimaginable toll,” and a major military operation against the crowded southern Gaza city “would bring catastrophe on top of catastrophe for children,” Russell warned. “Nearly all of the some 600,000 children now crammed into Rafah are either injured, sick, malnourished, traumatized, or living with disabilities.”

“Many have been displaced multiple times and lost homes, parents, and loved ones,” the UNICEF chief noted. “There is nowhere safe to go in Gaza. Homes throughout the Gaza Strip lie in ruin. Roads are destroyed and the ground littered with unexploded ordnances.”

“Rafah is also the main hub for the humanitarian response, which includes UNICEF, and the city has some of the last functioning healthcare facilities,” she explained.

Israeli forces launched at least 435 attacks on health facilities or personnel during the first six months of the war, and just 10 of the enclave’s 36 hospitals remain partially functional, according to the World Health Organization. As Common Dreams reported Wednesday, thousands of Palestinian child amputees are struggling to recover due to the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system.

“UNICEF continues to call for the protection of all women and children in Rafah and throughout the Gaza Strip—and the protection of the infrastructure, services, and humanitarian aid they rely on,” said Russell. “We repeat our calls for the unconditional release of all hostages in Gaza who need to be home with their children and families. The violence must end.”

The agency’s five core demands for Gaza are:

  1. An immediate and long-lasting humanitarian cease-fire;
  2. Safe and unrestricted humanitarian access;
  3. The immediate, safe, and unconditional release of all abducted children, and an end to any grave violations against all children;
  4. Respect and protection for civilian infrastructure; and
  5. Allow patients with urgent medical cases to safely access critical health services or leave.

As Russell called for peace in video form, James Elder, UNICEF’s global spokesperson, penned a Wednesday opinion piece for The Guardian following his recent trips to Gaza. He began with a startling anecdote:

The war against Gaza’s children is forcing many to close their eyes. Nine-year-old Mohamed’s eyes were forced shut, first by the bandages that covered a gaping hole in the back of his head, and second by the coma caused by the blast that hit his family home. He is nine. Sorry, he was nine. Mohamed is now dead.

“From looming famine to soaring death tolls, the latest fear is the much-threatened offensive in Rafah in southern Gaza,” he wrote. “Can it get any worse? It always seems to.”

“Rafah will implode if it is targeted militarily,” Elder stressed. “Water is in desperately short supply, not just for drinking but sanitation. In Rafah there is approximately one toilet for every 850 people. The situation is four times worse for showers. That is, around one shower for every 3,500 people. Try to imagine, as a teenage girl, or elderly man, or pregnant woman, queueing for an entire day just to have a shower.”

On October 31, just weeks after the start of what the International Court of Justice has since determined is Israel’s plausibly genocidal assault, UNICEF called Gaza a “graveyard” for children.

“Can it get any worse? It always seems to.”

“Last month I saw new graveyards in Rafah being constructed. And filled,” wrote Elder. “Every day the war brings more violent death and destruction. In my 20 years with the United Nations, I have never seen devastation like that I saw in the Gaza Strip cities of Khan Younis and Gaza City. And now we are told to expect the same via an incursion in Rafah.”

Elder recalled that “in the north of the territory, close to where a UNICEF vehicle came under fire last month, a woman clutched my hand and pleaded, over and over, that the world send food, water, and medicine. I will never forget how, as I felt her grasp, I tried to explain we were trying, and she continued to plead.”

“Why? Because she assumed the world did not know what was happening in Gaza. Because if the world knew, how could they possibly let this happen?” he continued. “How, indeed. The world has certainly been warned about Rafah. It remains to be seen how many eyes stay, or are forced, shut.”

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

Continue ReadingNearly All 600,000 Kids in Rafah ‘Injured, Sick, Malnourished,’ Says UNICEF