Thousands of Israelis gather in front of the Israel’s Ministry of Defense building, holding banners and Israeli flags to protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government for not signing the ceasefire agreement with Gaza and to demand hostage swap deal with Palestinians in Tel Aviv, Israel on November 16, 2024 [Mostafa Alkharouf – Anadolu Agency]
Families of Israeli hostages in Gaza threatened legal action on Thursday against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of blocking a prisoner swap deal with Palestinians, Anadolu Agency reports.
“We will petition the High Court if you persist in abandoning our loved ones in Hamas captivity,” the families said in a letter to Netanyahu cited by Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth.
The letter accused the Israeli premier of hindering efforts to reach a prisoner exchange agreement with Hamas.
“Refusing to end the war sacrifices the hostages and diminishes their chances of returning alive,” it reads.
On Wednesday, Hamas said that a Gaza cease-fire and prisoner swap has been delayed due to new Israeli conditions.
“The (Israeli) occupation set new issues and conditions related to withdrawal, ceasefire, prisoners, and the return of the displaced, which delayed reaching an agreement that was available,” it added in a statement.
On Tuesday, Netanyahu said that an Israeli negotiating team would return from Qatar for consultations on a potential prisoner exchange deal with Hamas.
Observers, however, view Netanyahu’s announcement as part of a pattern of delays in negotiations.
Since the lone ceasefire in late November 2023, the Israeli premier has hinted at progress in talks for a prisoner swap and a potential cease-fire, only to later insist on continuing military operations in the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu told The Wall Street Journal last week that the Gaza war will continue “until Hamas is entirely eradicated,” emphasizing Israel’s rejection of Hamas’ presence near its borders.
His Defense Minister Israel Katz also said that Israel will maintain security control in Gaza and establish buffer zones along the border.
Their remarks drew fire from officials in Israel’s negotiating team for jeopardizing talks to reach a Gaza cease-fire and prisoner swap deal with Hamas.
Israel is believed to hold more than 10,300 Palestinian prisoners, while approximately 100 Israeli captives are in Gaza. Hamas has said that dozens of the captives were killed in indiscriminate Israeli airstrikes.
Israel has continued a genocidal war on Gaza that has killed nearly 45,400 people, most of them women and children, since a Hamas attack on 7 October, 2023.
Last month, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel is also facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its actions in Gaza.
Tony Blair sent the SAS to hunt down suspected Bosnian war criminals in the 1990s who were accused of lesser abuses than Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.
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Whitehall’s weak reaction to ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant stands in contrast to the exertions it made towards the former Yugoslavia and, more recently, Russia.
When the ICC announced an arrest warrant for Russian ruler Vladimir Putin in March 2023, the UK increased funding to the organisation and hosted an international conference in London.
“The ICC plays a vital role in global efforts to end impunity for war crimes”, the UK Ministry of Justice said.
A year earlier the UK had galvanised a group of governments to refer Russian atrocities in Ukraine to the ICC to enable it to proceed straight to an investigation – a process known as ‘state party referral’.
David Lammy described the ICC’s arrest warrant for Putin as “an historic step”, adding that “President Putin is now a wanted man”.
By contrast, the current foreign secretary has only grudgingly conceded that, in the cases of Netanyahu and Gallant, “there is an obligation on me to transmit to the courts should those named seek to come in to our country”.
When in 2006 former Liberian president Charles Taylor was undergoing a war crimes trial in The Hague for aiding rebels in Sierra Leone notorious for hacking off limbs of civilians, the British government offered to house him in a UK jail if convicted.
Sentenced to 50 years imprisonment, Taylor began serving his conviction at HMP Frankland near Durham. It seems inconceivable that Netanyahu and Gallant will ever see the inside of a British jail.
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWREGenocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK 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.
Palestinians living in makeshift tents and ruined buildings in Jabalia Camp try to continue their daily lives under Israeli attacks in Gaza Strip on December 18, 2024. [Dawoud Abo Alkas – Anadolu Agency]
The Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip has become a “ghost town” with around 70% of homes and buildings completely destroyed in Israel’s deadly onslaught in the area, Israeli media said on Sunday, Anadolu Agency reports.
“As far as the eye can see lie miles and miles of destroyed homes. It’s hard to look away from the devastated remains of Jabalia’s refugee camp in northern Gaza,” Amos Harel, a military affairs analyst, writes in Haaretz newspaper.
The Israeli army estimates that 70% of the refugee camp’s buildings were completely destroyed.
“I could see that even the few buildings that are still standing were badly damaged,” Harel said.
Israel has launched a large-scale ground operation in northern Gaza since Oct. 5 to allegedly prevent the Palestinian group Hamas from regrouping. Palestinians, however, accuse Israel of seeking to occupy the area and forcibly displace its residents.
Since then, no sufficient humanitarian aid including food, medicine, and fuel has been allowed into the area, leaving the remaining population on the verge of imminent famine.
“The IDF (army) operated here twice before, in December 2023 and May 2024. But this time, the camp was taken apart,” Amos said.
“Jabalia has become a ghost town. Outside, you mainly see pack after pack of stray dogs roaming around and hunting for scraps of food.”
The Israeli onslaught in northern Gaza was the latest episode in a brutal Israeli war on the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 45,200 people, mostly women and children, since Oct. 7, 2023.
Last month, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a press conference in Tel Aviv on July 13, 2024 [NIR ELIAS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not participate in the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz for fear of being arrested following the arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
The warrant was issued on charges of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in the war on Gaza, according to reports by Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita on Friday.
The newspaper quoted Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, Poland’s deputy foreign minister, who is organising the ceremony scheduled to be held on 27 January, saying that his country is committed to respecting the decision of the ICC in The Hague.
The ceremony commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz is expected to be attended by many world leaders. The Polish newspaper predicts Israel will be represented by its Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, but Israeli media quoted Israeli officials saying that Education Minister Yoav Kisch will represent Israel in the ceremony.
The Polish newspaper reported that Israel did not request Netanyahu’s participation in the ceremony and that the Israelis knew how Warsaw would react if Netanyahu arrived in Poland.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog is not expected to participate in the ceremony. His predecessor, Reuven Rivlin, participated in the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
On 21 November, the ICC issued two international arrest warrants against Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip, including starving Palestinians.
Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Lithuania and Slovenia have all confirmed they will arrest Netanyahu if he enters their territory, and outgoing Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo asserted: “There can be no double standards.”
Leaders from several countries are expected to attend the commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Spanish King Felipe VI, British King Charles, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Hungarian President Tamas Sulyok.
Poland has invited US President-elect Donald Trump to the ceremony, but he is expected to be represented by his vice president, JD Vance, or his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, the Polish newspaper reported.
A Palestinian girl carries an empty jerry can amid the ruins of Khan Yunis, Gaza on December 4, 2024. (Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“This isn’t just negligence; it is a calculated policy of deprivation that has led to the deaths of thousands from dehydration and disease,” said the rights group’s director.
A Human Rights Watch report published Thursday accuses Israel of “extermination and acts of genocide” in Gaza “by intentionally depriving Palestinian civilians there of adequate access to water, most likely resulting in thousands of deaths.”
Mirroring language used in Article II of the Genocide Convention to define the crime of genocide, HRW said that Israeli officials “have deliberately inflicted conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the population in Gaza” by deliberately denying Palestinians “access to safe water for drinking and sanitation needed for basic human survival.”
“Israeli authorities and forces cut off and later restricted piped water to Gaza; rendered most of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure useless by cutting electricity and restricting fuel; deliberately destroyed and damaged water and sanitation infrastructure and water repair materials; and blocked the entry of critical water supplies,” the report states.
“In doing so, Israeli authorities are responsible for the crime against humanity of extermination and for acts of genocide,” HRW continued. “The pattern of conduct, coupled with statements suggesting that some Israeli officials wished to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, may amount to the crime of genocide.”
NEW: For over a year, the Israeli government has deliberately denied Palestinians in Gaza the minimum water needed for survival, most likely resulting in thousands of deaths.A calculated policy.An act of genocide. 🧵⤵️www.hrw.org/news/2024/12…
HRW “also found that some statements from senior Israeli officials calling for cutting water, fuel, and aid, in tandem with their actions, have amounted to direct and public incitement to genocide.”
According to the report:
Immediately after the attacks in southern Israel by Hamas-led Palestinian armed groups in Gaza on October 7, 2023, which Human Rights Watch has found amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity, Israeli authorities cut all electricity and fuel to the Gaza Strip. On October 9, then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a “complete siege” of Gaza, stating, “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed.”
That same day, and for weeks thereafter, Israeli authorities cut off all water and blocked fuel, food, and humanitarian aid from entering the strip. Israeli authorities continue to restrict the entry of water, fuel, food, and aid into Gaza and to cut Gaza’s electricity, which is required to operate life-sustaining infrastructure. This continued even after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued provisional measures in January, March, and May 2024 ordering Israeli authorities to protect Palestinians in Gaza from genocide and, in so doing, provide humanitarian aid, specifying in March that this includes water, food, electricity, and fuel.
HRW detailed how Israel “also barred nearly all water-related aid from entering Gaza, including water filtration systems, water tanks, and materials needed to repair water infrastructure,” and how Israeli forces “have deliberately attacked and damaged or destroyed several major water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) facilities.”
“Based on interviews with healthcare professionals and epidemiologists, it is likely that thousands of people have died as a result of the Israeli authorities’ actions,” the report states, adding that deaths are in addition to the more than 45,000 Palestinians directly killed by Israeli bombs and bullets.
HRW added that hundreds of thousands of Gazans have contracted diseases and ailments attributable to a lack of access to safe and sufficient water, including diarrhea, hepatitis A, skin diseases, and upper respiratory infections.
“Water is essential for human life, yet for over a year the Israeli government has deliberately denied Palestinians in Gaza the bare minimum they need to survive,” HRW executive director Tirana Hassan said in a statement. “This isn’t just negligence; it is a calculated policy of deprivation that has led to the deaths of thousands from dehydration and disease that is nothing short of the crime against humanity of extermination, and an act of genocide.”
Without naming any specific nations, the report notes that “several governments have undermined accountability efforts and continue to provide the Israeli government with arms despite the clear risk of complicity in serious violations of international humanitarian law.”
The United States is Israel’s main arms supplier and diplomatic ally, approving tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons transfers, vetoing several United Nations Security Council cease-fire resolutions, and threatening international officials seeking to hold Israel accountable for its crimes.
“Governments should not contribute to the grave crimes that Israeli officials are committing in Gaza, including crimes against humanity and genocidal acts, and should take all steps possible to prevent further harm,” Hassan said. “Governments arming Israel should end their risk of complicity in atrocity crimes in Gaza and take immediate action to protect civilians with an arms embargo, targeted sanctions, and support for justice.”
Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
