war crimes

Israel continues to systematically massacre and starve Palestinians in Gaza

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Original article by Aseel Saleh republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

A man searches through the rubble after an airstrike in Nusreiat refugee camp in May. Photo: Xinhua

After 10 months, Israel continues to commit horrific atrocities against Palestinians, indifferent to international law

The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) launched several aerial attacks across Gaza on Thursday, August 8. At least 32 Palestinians have been killed and dozens of others were injured in the airstrikes, including children.

The airstrikes targeted Abdul Fattah Hamoud School and Al-Zahra School in Gaza City, in addition to several homes in Khan Younis in southern Gaza and Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. Another airstrike targeted a group of civilians in Zaytoun neighborhood southeast of Gaza City. The Israeli army falsely claimed that its forces targeted the schools due to being used as “hideouts” by Hamas resistance fighters.

Deadly airstrikes have been taking place on a daily basis in Gaza, while starvation has also been used as a weapon against Palestinians in the besieged strip. The United Nations reported on Monday, August 5, that the malnutrition levels among children in northern Gaza witnessed a 300% increase from May to July.

The United Nations deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq explained at a press briefing on Monday, August 5, that the United Nations humanitarian partners attributed the deterioration in nutrition conditions in Gaza strip to access constraints, shortages in essential supplies, limited availability of fresh produce and meat, poor water and sanitation services and spreading diseases.

Nevertheless, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich described the prevention of humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza strip, on Monday, as “justified and moral”. “We can’t, in the current global reality, manage a war. Nobody will let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger even though it might be justified and moral until our hostages are returned,” Smotrich said.

The European Union, France and the United Kingdom condemned Smotrich’s statement on Thursday, August 8. The statement was also denounced by the US administration on the same day. The Times of Israel quoted a US State Department spokesperson saying: “We are appalled by these comments and reiterate that this rhetoric is harmful and disturbing.”

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs decried Smotrich’s statement on Thursday, saying it is an “explicit admission of adopting and bragging about the policy of genocide.” Moreover, the ministry urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue an arrest warrant for Smotrich.

Many people from Gaza have also been subjected to severe humiliation at the hands of Israeli forces, especially those who have been arrested and detained. On Wednesday, August 7, Israeli media outlets broadcasted a leaked video from surveillance cameras in Sde Teiman detention centre. The video showed a group of Israeli soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee from Gaza, while hiding themselves behind their shields. The victim shown in the video is believed to be the Palestinian detainee from Gaza, who was taken to hospital due to sustaining severe injuries in his rectum as a result of sexual assault.

An Israeli lawmaker from the ruling Likud party Hanoch Milwidsky was asked in a meeting last week whether it is justified “to insert a stick in a person’s rectum, is that legitimate?” Hanoch’s answer was: “Yes! If he is a Nukhba everything is legitimate to do him,” he answered, referring to Nukhba special forces with Hamas military wing Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), has described the video as “shocking.” OHCHR spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said in a statement: “These are shocking scenes and represent one of many instances of serious Israeli violations in recent months, including the mistreatment of Palestinian detainees, torture, sexual violence, and rape.” The US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller urged Israel to fully investigate the sexual abuse incident on Wednesday, calling for “zero tolerance” for perpetrators. However, despite the number of gross violations committed by Israel, the US government has still refused to leverage any pressure tactics against Israel to force it to change its siege on Gaza, namely cutting off aid and weapons shipments. Progressive organizations in the US and globally continue to demand the US end all aid to Israel and thus stop enabling its atrocities.

Original article by Aseel Saleh republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingIsrael continues to systematically massacre and starve Palestinians in Gaza

Top lawyer urges UK to halt arms sales to Israel following ICJ ruling

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Original article republished from Middle East Monitor under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.. Published on July 31, 2024, the article is still relevant.

Activists drop a banner from Westminster Bridge, calling on Labour leader Keir Starmer to say he’ll end arms sales to Israel if he becomes prime minister, on 3 June 2024, in London, Uk [Luca Marino]

A prominent lawyer who represented Palestine at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has called on the UK to stop selling arms to Israel in light of the court’s recent advisory opinion. Professor Philippe Sands KC, a member of Palestine’s legal team, has called on the new Labour government to comply with the ICJ ruling, which found Israel’s occupation and settlement policies in Palestinian territories to be illegal and found that Israel’s practice in the occupied territories amounted to the crime of apartheid.

The ICJ opinion, issued earlier this month, declared that UN member states have an obligation to neither recognise the occupation as lawful nor assist in its maintenance. Sands emphasised the significance of this ruling for the UK, stating: “The most immediate issue is the obligation in the advisory opinion on the states, which includes the United Kingdom, not to aid or assist in the maintenance of the current situation in the occupied territories of the West Bank, including [East] Jerusalem.”

He explained further: “That legal obligation precludes sales of military material which could be used directly or indirectly to assist Israel in maintaining its unlawful occupation of the occupied Palestinian territories.”

While ICJ advisory opinions are not directly binding on individual UN member states, Sands asserts that it will be “recognised as an authoritative statement of the law and one that the UN and its specialised agencies will follow as law.”

The lawyer also highlighted implications for trade, noting that, “Anything that is produced in the occupied territories, such as food, or that is sold there over the internet, is in principle subject to the international prohibition, if it can be said to aid or assist in the maintenance of the unlawful occupation.”

The ICJ ruling comes at a time when the UK is already under scrutiny regarding arms sales to Israel, particularly in light of Israel’s aggression against the Palestinians in Gaza. The apartheid state is also under investigation by the ICJ for the crime of genocide, the worst of all crimes against a people. The military offensive, launched in response to the 7 October cross-border incursion by Palestinian resistance groups, has claimed the lives of almost 40,000 Palestinians, mainly women and children, and wounded 91,000 others. An estimated 10,000 Palestinians remain missing, presumed dead, under the rubble of their homes and other civilian infrastructure destroyed by Israeli bombs.

There has been widespread speculation about how the new Labour government will respond to the ICJ opinion, particularly concerning arms sales. Labour has recently stated that UK arms sales to Israel have been delayed as ministers review weapons potentially linked to war crimes in Gaza.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy has indicated that officials are conducting a “comprehensive review of Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law” and is considering banning certain arms sales to the country.

Sands also addressed the issue of Palestinian statehood, referencing the ICJ statement on “the realisation of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including its right to an independent and sovereign state.” He noted that while recognition of a state is ultimately a political decision, the UK remains part of a “small and diminishing group” that has not recognised Palestine as a state.

As the international community awaits the UK’s official response to the ICJ advisory opinion, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has stated that it is “considering it carefully before responding” and “respects the independence of the ICJ.”

Original article republished from Middle East Monitor under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.. Published on July 31, 2024, the article is still relevant.

UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party's support for and complicity in Israel's genocide of Gaza.
UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party’s support for and complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.
Continue ReadingTop lawyer urges UK to halt arms sales to Israel following ICJ ruling

‘Beyond Horror’: Israel Kills Mostly Children in Fresh Attacks on Gaza Schools

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

Rescue teams recover the bodies of those killed in an Israeli attack on schools in Gaza City, Gaza on August 4, 2024. (Photo: Mahmoud Issa/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Remember that each one of those numbers is one person, a child who has been forever changed by what’s happened.”

Israeli forces killed dozens of displaced Palestinians—mostly children—on Sunday with attacks on a pair of United Nations-run schools in the Gaza Strip as diplomats in the region worked to prevent all-out war from breaking out in the aftermath of Israel’s latest assassination spree.

Al Jazeera reported that 80% of the roughly 30 people killed in the Israeli attacks on two schools in Gaza City were children. The strikes came shortly after Israel’s military bombed a hospital complex in central Gaza, killing at least five people.

“This is beyond horror now,” David Shoebridge, an Australian senator, wrote in response to the attacks on schools-turned-shelters.

Tareq Abu Azzoum of Al Jazeera noted that rescue teams were still searching the rubble of the two schools for survivors on Monday.

“At least 16 Palestinians are still missing, including children, under the remnants of these areas that were targeted by Israel without any prior warning,” Azzoum wrote. “Civil defense crews have been using only their bare hands in order to look for survivors. They have been saying that sometimes the process for recovering and pulling out victims can take days simply because there isn’t enough fuel to operate the vast majority of bulldozers, and due to the Israeli attacks on bulldozers at the municipal facilities, used in the initial months of the war to rescue victims.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1820104591565795824

Israel’s monthslong war on the Gaza Strip has devastated the territory’s children, killing more than 14,000, wounding more than 12,000, and leaving over 20,000 missing. The physical toll has been compounded by what one Gaza mother recently described as the “complete psychological destruction” of the enclave’s youth.

Becky Platt, a British pediatric nurse who recently returned from Gaza after a stint at a field hospital there, wrote Monday that “the psychological distress that I witnessed among children and young people is like nothing I’d ever seen before.”

“It’s very easy to be overwhelmed by the numbers when we watch the news or read about what’s happening in Gaza,” Platt continued. “Remember that each one of those numbers is one person, a child who has been forever changed by what’s happened. Then multiply that one child by thousands. That’s the work that needs to be done.”

Israel’s attacks came after a round of cease-fire talks in Cairo concluded without a deal to end the assault on Gaza. Critics, including some Israeli officials, believe Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is actively sabotaging cease-fire talks in a bid to remain in power.

Axios reported Sunday that “Israeli officials and families of hostages are concerned Netanyahu, who recently toughened his demands and presented new conditions for a hostage and cease-fire deal, sent the delegation [to Cairo] only to create an appearance of negotiations to relieve some of the pressure from” U.S. President Joe Biden, who has called for a cease-fire while continuing to provide military support for the war on Gaza.

“Hamas rejected Netanyahu’s new conditions, which include forming an international mechanism to prevent weapons transfers from southern Gaza to the north,” according to Axios. “Israeli officials say this and other new demands are making a deal impossible.”

Meanwhile, diplomats are trying to prevent the region from descending into full-scale military conflict following Israel’s assassination of a Hezbollah commander and Hamas’ political leader.

Iran’s supreme leader has reportedly ordered an attack on Israel in retaliation for the killing of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told G7 nations on Sunday that Iran’s military response could begin as soon as Monday.

Late last week, the Pentagon announced it would “deploy additional fighter jets and Navy warships to the Middle East” as lawmakers and anti-war campaigners warned of deepening U.S. involvement in the regional war.

“Americans do not want to fight another war in the Middle East,” Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council, said last week, “and the path out of the unimaginable death and destruction in Gaza that threatens to engulf the region is through a cease-fire.”

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

Continue Reading‘Beyond Horror’: Israel Kills Mostly Children in Fresh Attacks on Gaza Schools

Left and civil society groups demand India end its complicity in Israel’s genocide

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Original article republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Brinda Karat, CPI (M) polit bureau member speaking in the press conference in New Delhi on Thursday, August 1

Left parties will observe a day of solidarity with Palestine on August 3 to pressure the Indian government to stop sending weapons to Israel and to end the genocide

Five left parties in India issued a joint call, asking the Indian government to stop supplying weapons to Israel, and demanding immediate comprehensive international sanctions over its continued violations of international law and the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Similar calls were made by civil society groups as well.  

The parties include the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Communist Party of India (CPI), the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), Forward Bloc, and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, issued a joint call for a nationwide protest mobilization on August 3, in solidarity with the Palestinian people. 

Apart from calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and creation of a Palestinian state on pre-1967 borders, the left parties demanded Israel be declared an apartheid state, and denounced Israel’s continued defiance of UN resolutions, existing international laws and the rulings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ).  

“In the light of brazen violations of UN resolutions, the ICJ rulings against the genocide by Israel in Gaza and the escalation of such genocide against the people of Palestine,” the left parties call upon “Indian people to express their solidarity with the Palestinian people and against the genocide and atrocities being carried out by Israel backed by the United State of America” the text of the joint call reads.  

The left parties also demanded that the government of India “cancel all export licenses and permissions to various Indian companies for the supply of military arms and ammunition to Israel, and halt all arms imports from Israel” and “end all forms of complicity with Israel’s illegal military occupation and genocide [which is] based on the principles of colonial apartheid.”

Speaking in a press conference organized by civil society groups on Thursday in New Delhi, Brinda Karat, a CPI (M) polit bureau member said that, “our deep and abiding solidarity for Palestinian freedom requires us to hold our own government accountable for actions which help the perpetrators of the continuing barbaric horrors against the children, the people of Palestine.”

Speaking in the press conference, economist and right to food activist Jean Dreze accused the Indian government of complicity in genocide and starvation of Palestinians, by refusing to stop cooperation with the Zionist state and by refusing to press Israel to stop its war in Gaza.

Almost 40,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 90,000 injured so far in the Israeli genocide on Gazam which began on October 7 of last year.   

Stop aiding Israeli genocide in Gaza!

Several prominent figures, including former judges of the Supreme Court of India, scholars and activists wrote a joint letter to India’s defense minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday, asking the country to immediately halt all supplies of weapons to Israel, claiming it violates India’s obligations to international laws and its own constitutional provisions.  

Quoting media reports about Spain not allowing the docking of at least two ships allegedly carrying military equipment from India to Israel in recent months, as well as labels of “made in India” found on some of the missiles dropped by Israel in Gaza, the civil society members claimed in a press conference on Thursday that the Narendra Modi-led government of India has forgotten its own commitments to the Genocide Convention and other international laws, and even failed to implement its historical positions on the Palestinian issue. 

The joint letter to India’s defense minister provides evidence of how at least three Indian companies are manufacturing missile parts and Hermes drones, which are used by Israel to launch attacks inside civilian areas in Gaza. 

“Any supply of military material to Israel would amount to a violation of India’s obligations under international humanitarian law and the mandate of Article 21 read with Article 51 (c) of the Indian constitution. We urge you, therefore, to cancel the concerned export licenses and halt the granting of any new licenses to companies supplying military equipment to Israel,” the joint letter reads.   

India’s billions of dollars of arms trade with Israel contradicts its own stated positions of “peaceful resolution in Palestine” and its voting patterns on successive UN resolutions most of which support an immediate ceasefire and the creation of a Palestinian state on the occupied territories, various speakers said in the press conference on Thursday. 

Speakers, including Karat, demanded that the Indian government should stop trying to be a beneficiary of the Israeli occupation and stop indulging in opportunistic practices, such as sending its workforce to replace Palestinians in Israel.  

Last year, the Indian government agreed to send workers to replace thousands of Palestinians whose work permits were canceled by Israel after the beginning of the war on October 7.

Siddharth Varadarajan, editor of the Wire, said that India’s policy on supporting Israel during the war goes against the Modi government’s stated position of preserving Indian interests, as Israeli acts such as the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Iran earlier this week could result in the eruption of regional warm which can force around 5 million Indians working in the Gulf countries to return home.

Lawyer Prashant Bhusan, and prominent writer Arundhati Roy, also underlined that any clandestine deal between India and Israel violates India’s democratic principles and its historic commitments to anti-colonial struggles around the world. 

Original article republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingLeft and civil society groups demand India end its complicity in Israel’s genocide

Tens of thousands march across Britain demanding an end to arms sales to Israel

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/tens-of-thousands-march-across-britain-demanding-end-arms-sales-israel

People take part in the National march for Palestine in central London organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, August 3, 2024

TENS of thousands of Palestine supporters marched in towns and cities across Britain on Saturday in defiance of threats of continuing far-right violence.

In London an estimated 100,000 marched as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) staged its 17th national demonstration in the capital since Israel began its invasion of Gaza in October last year.

Hundreds turned out in Manchester marking the 300th day of Israel’s genocide in which more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed including 20,000 children.

Norma Turner, chair of Greater Manchester Friends of Palestine which brings together a dozen Palestine campaign groups in north-west England, said: “Three hundred days — 60 children killed by Israel every day — and we demand our government stops arming Israel.

“We grieve for three children randomly killed in Southport.

“We condemn the fascist thugs trying to cause discord on the back of people’s grief. And we mourn the 40,000 martyrs in Gaza — we will continue to protest and take action until Palestine is free.”

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/tens-of-thousands-march-across-britain-demanding-end-arms-sales-israel

Continue ReadingTens of thousands march across Britain demanding an end to arms sales to Israel