war crimes

Calls Grow for ‘European Arms Embargo’ on Israel After Dutch F-35 Ruling

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

A protester occupies the roof of Howmet Fastening Systems in Leicester, U.K., which makes components for Israeli F-35s, in October 2023.  (Photo: Palestine Action)

“Surely it’s time to stop all arm shipments to Israel,” said one British lawmaker, “and implement targeted sanctions against members of the Israeli leadership.”

While the White House has claimed U.S. President Joe Biden is growing increasingly “frustrated” with Israel’s bombardment of Gaza—largely made possible by U.S. military aid—calls are growing in Europe for governments to halt arms exports to stop their own contributions to the mass killing.

After a Dutch court ordered the Netherlands to stop exporting F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel on Monday, ruling that the country was running a “clear risk” of helping Israel to violate international human rights law, several British lawmakers intensified their demands that the U.K. also halt arms exports.

“Selling arms to Israel for its war on Gaza is incompatible with U.K. and international law,” said Diane Abbott, a Labour Party member in British Parliament. “[Prime Minister Rishi] Sunak should follow suit and ban weapon sales to Israel.”

Natalie Bennett, a member of the Green Party in the British House of Lords, spoke on Tuesday about six-year-old Hind Rajab, whose body was found last week in a car in which her family members had tried to flee Gaza City. The car was riddled with bullet holes, and an ambulance nearby, which paramedics had sent to rescue Hind, had been bombed.

“Is the government challenging the Israeli government about risks to hundreds of thousands of children in Rafah, now in the path of the Israeli offensive?” said Bennett. “Surely it’s time to stop all arm shipments to Israel… and implement targeted sanctions against members of the Israeli leadership.”

The U.K. provides about 15% of the components of Israel’s F-35 bombers—the Israeli Air Force’s “flagship asset,” according to the Royal United Services Institute—and has licensed more than $594 million in military exports to Israel since 2015.

While the U.S. Senate on Tuesday passed a $95 billion foreign aid bill, including $14.1 billion for Israel, some European governments are working to end their complicity in Israel’s mass killing of at least 28,576 Palestinians so far in attacks that have also wounded at least 68,291 and left at least 17,000 children orphaned.

On February 6, the Walloon regional government in Belgium suspended two licenses for the export gunpowder to Israel, citing the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) interim ruling last month which found that Israel is “plausibly” committing a genocide in Gaza.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said in late January that the government had halted all arms sales to Israel in October, when Israel began its bombardment of Gaza in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on October 7.

José Albares, Spain’s foreign minister, also said last month that the Spanish government had done the same, but El Diarioreported on Sunday that the country had actually exported $1.1 million in ammunition to Israel in November.

“The suspension of arms transfers to Israel must be comprehensive and permanent, and not just temporary,” said Alberto Estévez, a spokesperson on weapons issues at Amnesty International Spain. “The Spanish government has wanted to be an example in this crisis in the face of other much more complicit governments, but it must be more forceful to promote a European arms embargo on Israel and Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, in addition to pressuring the United States to stop the supply of arms to Israel and support the imposition of a global embargo on the U.N. Security Council.”

On Wednesday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez joined Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar in writing to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and demanding an “urgent review” of Israel’s compliance with human rights obligations under its trade deal with the European Union.

“Against the background of the risk of an even greater humanitarian catastrophe posed by the imminent threat of Israeli military operations in Rafah, and given what has occurred, and continues to occur in Gaza since October 2023, including widespread concern about possible breaches of international humanitarian law and international human rights laws by Israel, we ask that the Commission undertake an urgent review of whether Israel is complying with its obligations, including under the E.U./Israel Association Agreement, which makes respect for human rights and democratic principles an essential element of the relationship,” wrote Sánchez and Varadkar.

The two leaders reiterated their call for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire, which was supported by a large majority of countries in a vote at the U.N. General Assembly in December, “including by 17 E.U. member states.”

Varadkar and Sánchez also pointed to the ICJ’s interim ruling in South Africa’s case last month, in which the country accused Israel of genocidal violence against Palestinians.

The orders of the ICJ, which demanded that Israel ensure that humanitarian aid can reach Gaza residents and that its military is not committing acts of genocide, “are binding,” the leaders reminded the European Union.

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

Continue ReadingCalls Grow for ‘European Arms Embargo’ on Israel After Dutch F-35 Ruling

‘All Eyes on Rafah’ as Global Protests Against Looming IDF Assault Continue

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

An Israeli woman holds a sign opposing Israel’s looming invasion of Rafah, Gaza during a February 13, 2024 protest outside the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv.  (Photo: Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)

Demonstrators turned out from Cardiff to Tel Aviv as Palestinians in the Gaza city endured heavy Israeli bombing while bracing for an all-out ground invasion.

Global emergency protests against Israel’s expected invasion of Rafah continued Tuesday, a day after demonstrators took to the streets of cities around the world to say “hands off” the southern Gaza city whose population has swelled more than fivefold due to the influx of Palestinian war refugees.

Hundreds of protesters turned out in the cold and rain of Cardiff, Wales Tuesday afternoon, with demonstrations planned for later in the day in cities including Manchester, England and Houston, Texas.

“We do not care if it is raining—it’s raining bombs in Rafah over a million Palestinians, squeezed into an area barely the size of an airport,” protest co-organizer Black Lives Matter Cardiff & Vale said on social media.

In Tel Aviv, a crowd of left-wing Israelis protested outside the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense, holding signs with messages including “Stop Bombing Gaza” and “Stop Funding Genocide.”

Tuesday’s demonstrations followed Monday protests around the world including outside both the White House in Washington, D.C. and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s residence on Downing Street in London. Rallies and marches also took place in cities including Rome, New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Vancouver, and at U.S. President Joe Biden’s campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, where 21 Sunrise Movement climate activists were arrested.

Airstrikes on Rafah are intensifying as the Israel Defense Forces appear poised to launch a major ground invasion of the besieged city on the Egyptian border. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and wounded in Rafah since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Friday order to the IDF to create an evacuation plan for the 1.5 million people in the city, most of them refugees from other parts of Gaza.

South African officials said Tuesday that Israel’s bombing of Rafah and stated intent to invade the city are violations of the International Court of Justice’s order for Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent acts of genocide. The court found in a preliminary ruling that Israeli forces were “plausibly” committing genocide, as alleged in the South Africa-led case.

The looming invasion of Rafah comes amid a wider war on Gaza in which more than 100,000 Palestinians have been killed, maimed, or left missing by Israeli bombs and bullets since October 7, when Hamas led deadly attacks on southern Israel and kidnapped over 240 Israelis and others. Around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced and a majority of the besieged strip’s homes have been damaged or destroyed by Israel’s relentless onslaught.

Senior officials from Israel, the U.S., Egypt, and Qatar met in Cairo on Tuesday to resume negotiations for an extended cease-fire in Gaza in exchange for the release of the approximately 130 hostages held by Hamas.

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

Continue Reading‘All Eyes on Rafah’ as Global Protests Against Looming IDF Assault Continue

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

Dozens of professional athletes sign “Athletes for ceasefire” letter

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Original article republished from peoples dispatch

John Carlos, who raised a fist during the playing of the US national anthem at the 1968 Olympics, was among the signatories of the “Athletes for Ceasefire” letter

The statement was signed by several celebrated athletes, including John Carlos, who raised a fist during the playing of the US national anthem at the 1968 Olympics

John Carlos, who raised a fist during the playing of the US national anthem at the 1968 Olympics, was among the signatories of the “Athletes for Ceasefire” letter

“In the wake of an unfolding genocide in Gaza, as described by countless legal scholars, human rights experts and international organizations across the world, we, as athletes, recognize our moral responsibility to utilize our platform for a higher purpose – to save human lives and to raise awareness about this ongoing tragedy,” reads a statement signed by 29 professional athletes, published on February 12. “We call for humanity, empathy and an immediate ceasefire.”

The statement was signed by several celebrated current and former athletes, including John Carlos, former track and field athlete who raised a fist during the playing of the US national anthem at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, at the height of the Black liberation movement. 

“In signing this letter, we continue a long legacy of athletes speaking up for the human rights of all people, such as Olympians John Carlos and Tommie Smith who raised their fists at the 1968 games in part to demand that apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia be held to account,” reads the letter. “We stand in the proud tradition of ‘The Greatest’ Muhammad Ali who stood for Palestinian freedom throughout his life both in word and deed.

The letter was also signed by former NBA player Tariq Abdul-Wahad, who gave an interview about his support for a ceasefire with Dave Zirin on The Real News Network. In the interview, Abdul-Wahad implores other athletes to also speak out, “This is one of those where you might have to sacrifice something, but something must be said. And as exceptional as you are, you only —And I’m talking to these athletes—As exceptional as you are, you are only as exceptional as your moral fiber.” 

Original article republished from peoples dispatch

Continue ReadingDozens of professional athletes sign “Athletes for ceasefire” letter

South Africa makes ‘urgent request’ to top UN court over Israeli attacks on Rafah

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/south-africa-makes-urgent-request-top-un-court-over-israeli-attacks-rafah

Smoke rises after a bombardment in the Gaza Strip, February 12, 2024

SOUTH AFRICA said it had lodged an urgent request with the United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ) over Israel’s assault on Palestinians in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

The South African government is asking the ICJ to consider whether Israel has committed a “further imminent breach of the rights of Palestinians in Gaza” following the provisional orders the court handed down last month.

This comes as progress is reportedly being made in securing a ceasefire deal between Hamas and the Israeli government.

In December, South Africa instituted proceedings at the ICJ accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

Among its six orders, the ICJ said that Israel must do all it can to prevent the deaths of Palestinians and the destruction of Gaza.

…

A statement released by the office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, said: “The South African government was gravely concerned that the unprecedented military offensive against Rafah, as announced by the state of Israel, has already led to and will result in further large-scale killing, harm and destruction.

“This would be in serious and irreparable breach both of the Genocide Convention and of the court’s order of January 26 2024.”

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/south-africa-makes-urgent-request-top-un-court-over-israeli-attacks-rafah

Continue ReadingSouth Africa makes ‘urgent request’ to top UN court over Israeli attacks on Rafah