MadisonRafah.org

The Madison-Rafah Sister City Project

MadisonRafah.org

Israel to join truce talks in Paris, media says

Heavy Gaza bombardment

 

‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 139

As Palestinians in north Gaza starve, Israel attacks MSF building in Rafah

The situation in Gaza grows worse by the day as Palestinians are starved and Israeli forces turn hospitals into morgues. In the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, tensions rise as Ramadan approaches.

 
LEILA WARAH, MONDOWEISS, FEBRUARY 22, 2024

Palestinians inspect the damage done to a local mosque and surrounding homes in the Shaboura camp in Rafah, southern Gaza.
A PALESTINIAN WOMAN AND CHILD STAND AMIDST THE RUBBLE OF DESTROYED BUILDINGS IN THE SHABOURA CAMP RAFAH, IN THE SOUTHERN GAZA STRIP, WHICH HAD PREVIOUSLY BEEN DECLARED A ‘SAFE ZONE’ FOR GAZANS FLEEING OTHER PARTS OF THE STRIP. FEBRUARY 22, 2024. (ABED RAHIM KHATIB/DPA VIA ZUMA PRESS APAIMAGES)

Casualties

  • 29,410+ killed* and at least 69,465 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
  • 380+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
  • Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147.
  • 576 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.**

*This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on Telegram channel. Some rights groups put the death toll number at more than 36,500 when accounting for those presumed dead.

** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.”

Key Developments

  • Palestinian child fatally shot by Israeli forces’ bullets in Qalqilya city, in the occupied West Bank according to Wafa.
  • UNOCHA: 100 children among 394 Palestinians killed in occupied West Bank since October 7th.
  • Palestinian Centre for Human Rights: Lawyer killed along with 2-year-old daughter and six other family members in Israeli attack in Rafah.
  • UNOCHA: Israeli settlers carried out 573 recorded attacks against Palestinian people and their property since October 7th.
  • Israeli forces set up a checkpoint exclusively to stop and search Palestinians at Damascus Gate, the entrance to the Muslim Quarter in the Old City in occupied East Jerusalem.
  • Ten Israeli captives were killed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza, an Israeli reportsays.
  • UNOCHA: Israeli demolitions led to the displacement of 830 people, including 337 children, with 131 homes demolished since October 7th.
  • One killed and eight wounded in a shooting attack by three Palestinians near the Maale Adumim settlement in the occupied West Bank. Two gunmen were killed, one arrested.
  • US intelligence assessed with “low confidence” that a handful of UNRWA staff participated in October 7th attacks on Israel, according to the Wall Street Journal.
  • Doctors Without Borders: Israel attacked “clearly marked” MSF shelter in Gaza, killing two family members of workers sheltering there.
  • Israeli Knesset votes strongly in favor of a measure rejecting unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state by international actors.
  •  UN official: Besieged Nasser Medical Complex has become a “place of death”, as Israeli forces continue to target medical facilities.
  •  Breaking the Silence: ‘looting has never been normalized in the way it has over the last four months. It’s never been done with such glee, knowing that the Israeli public and the world are watching”
More

Israel fires on MSF building in Rafah, killing two 

The bombardment of Gaza has continued for the139th day and the Palestinian death toll is steadily increasing. Nowhere is safe for civilians in the besieged enclave as the Israeli military is attacking the area with wild abandon.

Overnight on Wednesday, stretching into the early hours of Thursday morning, an intense bombing campaign took place across Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah, reported Hani Mahmoud from Gaza for Al Jazeera.

“Overnight, we’re looking at attacks in the eastern part, the northern part, and even the western part where literally hundreds of thousands of people have been sheltering,” Mahmoud said, describing the sounds of systematic home demolitions in the north.

“This is absolutely terrifying in a densely populated area. Right now, Rafah has been a center for Israeli attacks,” Al Jazeera correspondent Tareq Abu Azzoum added.

The Israeli military has also continued its attacks on Gaza City, where the military demanded all residents of the Zeitoun and Turkmen neighborhoods urgently move to al-Mawasi area in Rafah’s outskirts in the south of the Gaza Strip. To do so, they would have to travel more than 30km through ongoing attacks and bombed roads of the war zone.

Avichay Adraee, a spokesman for the Israeli army, told the Palestinians on X that the evacuation order comes “for your safety”, despite there being no safe place in the war-torn and besieged enclave.

Israeli attacks on the supposed ‘safe areas’ have continued. On Wednesday, a shelter run by Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) in al-Masawi was targeted by Israeli forces.

According to the statement, an Israeli tank fired on the building, sheltering 64 MSF employees and family members, killing the wife and daughter-in-law of an MSF worker. Nearby shelling prevented an ambulance from reaching the facility to assist the wounded for more than two hours.

Israeli forces had been “clearly informed of the precise location of this MSF shelter in al-Mawasi” and that the building was additionally identified with a large MSF flag, the organization added.

“These killings underscore the grim reality that nowhere in Gaza is safe, that promises of safe areas are empty and deconfliction mechanisms unreliable,” said MSF general director Meinie Nicolai. “The amount of force being used in densely populated urban environments is staggering, and targeting a building knowing it is full of humanitarian workers and their families is unconscionable.”

Just a few hours after the evacuation order in Gaza City, Israeli forces killed journalist Ihab Nasrallah and his wife in Zeitoun. Their three children were also badly burned, reported Wafa, citing medical sources.

In Nuseirat, in central Gaza, air strikes on the home of the al-Daalis family killed 17 people and wounded dozens of others, who were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in neighboring Deir el-Balah, Wafa added.

Families across the Gaza Strip have continued to shelter in the ruins of schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) because they have nowhere else to go, the UN agency says in a post on X.

“Entire neighborhoods are gone without a trace. Military operations relentlessly continue. No place is safe.”

Hospitals are ‘a place of death’

Civilians across the besieged enclave areas are still unable to receive proper healthcare amid Israel’s ruthless offensive, which Palestinains say has turned hospitals into morgues.

In Khan Younis, the situation is especially difficult as the two leading hospitals, al Amal and Nasser, remain under military siege and many critically ill patients have been trapped inside the hospitals for weeks.

During an evacuation mission to Nasser Hospital, Jonathan Whittal, a senior humanitarian affairs officer with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), described “appalling” conditions, which have transformed “a place of healing” to “a place of death.”

“There are 150 patients in one of these buildings. They have no food and water, no electricity. There’s very few doctors and nurses that are remaining inside this hospital. The conditions are appalling,” Whittall said in a video on X.

“There are dead bodies in the corridors. Patients are in a desperate situation. This has become a place of death, not a place of healing.”

“This is a preventable tragedy that should not have happened.”

Medical workers have said they do not want to be evacuated but instead have called for the protection of medical facilities and for critical functions of the hospital to be restored so they can continue treating patients there.

“The last week has been miserable; it’s been a nightmare [for workers in the hospital under Israeli siege]. The things they’re seeing are traumatizing, and they’re asking for some sort of help. They’re asking, actually, not to be evacuated from the hospital but for the hospital to function. For the lights to be turned back on, for the medicine they need to treat the 150 patients that remain,” Dr. Thaer Ahmad, a US-based emergency physician who spent several weeks volunteering at Nasser Hospital in January, told Al Jazeera.

“I spoke to one of the last surgeons remaining there, who sent a message to a group of physicians here in the [United] States, and he asked us to advocate for the patients who are there. He told us, ‘I’m staring at patients, and they need my help, they need my care, and there’s nothing that I can do.’”

Similarly, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) is warning of the dire situation at al-Amal Hospital “due to the ongoing siege and targeting by the Israeli occupation for the 30th consecutive day”.

The PRCS is, once again, calling on the international community to take immediate action to protect the hospital and “to lift the imposed siege before it is too late and the hospital is forced out of service.”

‘Gazans on the brink of death’

Israel’s ongoing blockade is still starving Palestinians across the Gaza Strip.

Israel is bringing over 2 million people in Gaza to the brink of death, especially the 400,000 living in the northern area of the besieged enclave, according to the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“Israel’s prevention of aid trucks from entering and its occasional targeting of the few allowed in is already resulting in the death of children, elderly, and patients due to hunger,” the ministry said in a statement.

“The sight of thousands of children holding empty pots and standing in long lines waiting for any meal or food rations dominates life in northern Gaza.”

Ismail al-Thawabteh, the head of Gaza’s government media office, says that residents of the northern Gaza Strip have been eating animal feed for three consecutive weeks, reported Al Jazeera.

If the world fails to force Israel to allow humanitarian aid into the besieged coastal enclave, a humanitarian catastrophe affecting hundreds of thousands of Palestinians will take place, warned al-Thawabteh.

UNOCHA has said only four humanitarian aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip on Sunday, far below the average of 47 trucks per day between February 9 and 15 and a steep decline compared with 133 trucks per day the week before. It is important to note that before October 7, about 500 humanitarian aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip daily.

“Between January 1 and February 15, less than 20 percent of missions (15 out of 77) planned by humanitarian partners to deliver aid and undertake assessments in areas to the north of Wadi Gaza were facilitated by the Israeli authorities fully or partially and 51 per cent were denied (39 out of 77),” OCHA said in a statement.

“Access of missions to support hospitals and facilities providing water, hygiene, and sanitation (WASH) services were among those overwhelmingly denied” by Israel, OCHA added.

Hamas said in a statement on Telegram: “We call on the World Food Program and all UN agencies, including UNRWA, to put pressure on the occupying power, by announcing a return to work in the northern Gaza Strip in accordance with their international mandates to relieve our people from the dangerously increasing threat of famine, in compliance with their legal and humanitarian responsibilities,” reported Al Jazeera.

UNRWA ‘still waiting’ for Israel to share evidence of claims against the agency

Meanwhile, UNRWA’s future is uncertain after Israel is leading a global campaign to defund the UN organization, which is the primary aid distributor in the Gaza Strip.

While several major donor nations, including the US, have frozen vital aid to the agency due to the allegations, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said on Monday that the agency is still waiting for Israel to share evidence of its claims.

A new report by US intelligence has assessed with “low confidence” that a handful of staff members at UNRWA participated in the October 7 attacks on Israel, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing officials familiar with the findings.

The “low confidence” assessment indicates that the intelligence officials find Israel’s claims that a dozen UNRWA employees took part in the attacks plausible but can’t offer a more decisive confirmation as they lack independent evidence.

Similarly, the intelligence officials also weren’t able to verify Israel’s claims that a large number of UNRWA staff have links to Hamas. Israel has claimed that 10 percent of UNRWA’s 12,000 staff in Gaza have some kind of affiliation with the group.

Pressure mounts in occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem

On Thursday, at least one person was killed and eight wounded when three Palestinian gunmen opened fire at motorists near an Israeli checkpoint near occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli police said, adding that two gunmen were killed, and a third was arrested.

A police spokesperson said the gunmen were Palestinians but gave no further details, according to Al Jazeera.

In response to the attack, Israel’s National Security Ministry, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has called for an escalation in the collective punishment of Palestinians.

“The freedom of life of the citizens of Israel prevails over the freedom of movement of the residents of the PA! We need to place more and more barriers and close roads on the Authority’s roads,” he said on X.

Similarly, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has demanded the approval of a plan to build thousands of new illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

“The serious attack on Maale Adumim must have a decisive security response but also an answer from the settlements,” he wrote on X.

“I demand the prime minister approve the convening of the higher planning council and immediately approve plans for thousands of housing units in Maale Adumim and the entire region,” he said.

“Our enemies know that any harm to us will lead to more construction and more development and more of our control across the entire country.”

United Nations resolutions repeatedly affirmed that Israel’s establishment of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity. Most states and international bodies have long recognized that Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.

Hamas has said the attack was a “natural response to the [Israeli] occupation’s massacres and crimes in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank,” as cited by Al Jazeera.

Tensions across occupied Palestine have been increasing amid Israel’s state-sanctioned violence against Palestinians.

The day before the attack, a Palestinian child was fatally shot in the heart by Israeli forces in Qalqilya in the northern occupied West Bank, according to Wafa.

About 394 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7, including 100 children, according to OCHA.

The UN agency added that since October 7, Israeli demolitions have led to the displacement of 830 people, including 337 children, with 131 homes, and Israeli settlers carried out 573 recorded attacks against Palestinian people and their property.

Israel has also been tightening security in East Jerusalem as Ramadan approaches. On Wednesday, journalist Hamdah Salhut reported that Israeli authorities set up a checkpoint for Palestinians at Damascus Gate, a central entry point for Palestinians trying to reach the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

“Palestinians at the gate told me this is “the reality of life under occupation,” Salhut said in a social media post, expanding that Jewish Israelis bypass the security check.

US congressman: ‘Kill them all’

Republican US Congressman Andy Ogles sparked anger when he appeared to call for the mass killing of Palestinians when confronted by activists calling for a ceasefire.

A woman was telling Ogles about the footage of Palestinian children killed by Israel. He responded, “I think we should kill them all if that makes you feel better – everybody, Hamas.”

The comment has left Palestinian rights advocates questioning why the comment has not garnered a forceful rejection from mainstream politicians.

“Not a peep from Congressional leadership in response to this murderous statement and open support for genocide,” Jewish Voice for Peace Action said on X.

The same politicians brushing aside his comment are the ones who criticized Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, in November over her criticism of Israel.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has called on every member of Congress to condemn Republican Congressman Andy Ogles for appearing to call for the mass murder of Palestinians.

CAIR Deputy Director Edward Mitchell said in a statement: “If a member of Congress had called for every Israeli child to be killed, the entire American political establishment would rightfully condemn such remarks and call for, at the least, censure.”


Leila Warah
Leila Warah is a freelance multimedia journalist based in Palestine.

More by this author

Dane County Board approves call for ceasefire in Gaza

Joining local governments across the U.S.

Madison365 staff, Feb 19, 2024

A pro-Palestinian sign at a recent protest of the current crisis in Gaza at UW-Madison (Photo by Omar Waheed)

The Dane County Board of Supervisors has approved a resolution, introduced by County Board Supervisor Kierstin Huelsemann (District 27), calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and “urgent political action both to de-escalate the crisis and to prioritize truth, reconciliation, restitution, and the building of a future for the Israeli and Palestinian people.” 2023 Resolution 333 was approved at Thursday night’s board meeting.

Dane County joins local governments across the nation, including Cudahy, San Francisco, Oakland and Richmond, California; Wilmington, Delaware; Carrboro, North Carolina; Providence, Rhode Island; Detroit, Michigan; Atlanta, Georgia; and Madison in passing a resolution calling for a ceasefire. At least 68 members of Congress also have publicly called for a ceasefire in Gaza.

“The targeting of civilians, no matter their religion or ethnicity, is a violation of international humanitarian law,” said Huelsemann in a statement. “We cannot be silent in the face of the tremendous loss of life and the deepening humanitarian crisis, starvation, and displacement of fellow human beings that grows with each day this war continues.”

In addition to urging an immediate release of all hostages and cessation of hostilities toward civilians by all parties in the war, the resolution also urges the Biden Administration and elected Senate and Congress members to oppose additional funding for military action against Israelis and Palestinians in this war, and to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

According to the United Nations, since the start of the war on October 7, 2023, more than 100,000 people in Gaza have been killed, injured, or are missing, and over 2 million people have been displaced.

An update about MECA’s work in Gaza

Middle East Children's Alliance
Image
Children in Deir El-Balah (central Gaza Strip) enjoying hot meals from one of our community kitchens

It’s been a while since we sent you an update about MECA’s work in Gaza. When you see the news getting more terrible every day you may wonder if we’re able to do very much at all.

In fact, we’re continuing some of the things we’ve been doing since October 8, like delivering food parcels and clean water.  And, as the genocide goes on, MECA’s Gaza team finds new ways to meet the needs of thousands of children and families.

Your support is what makes this work possible. If you can make another contribution now for Gaza emergency aid, it will go immediately to bring food and clean water to people who are suffering so much.

Donate for Gaza Emergency Aid


 
Even here at MECA, we are inspired by what our staff, partners, and volunteers are able to do when faced with such danger and scarcity. Also, the difficulties of communication blackouts, roads damaged, destroyed or blocked by Israeli tanks.

Food and water continue to be the most urgent needs throughout Gaza and MECA is meeting those needs several ways:

Fresh produce provides key nutrition. MECA continues to get fresh vegetables and fruit from local farmers. Right now, we are distributing boxes to 12,500 families in the three southernmost areas —Middle Area, Khan Younis, and Rafah.

Hot Meals from Community Kitchens.  With the support of the World Central Kitchen (WCK), MECA now has one large and two small solar-powered community kitchens in Rafah and one further north. Israeli tanks and bulldozers destroyed another kitchen, but we are expecting new equipment from WCK to rebuild it soon.  Together, the kitchens provide hot meals for more than 3,500 people every day.

While MECA’s team in Gaza works day and night to help people survive, I urge you to do what you can to stop this slaughter—even when it seems unstoppable.  Here’s an action toolkit and here’s MECA’s Gaza Emergency Aid donation page.

 
Food parcels with rice, lentils, beans, cheese, and more plus ready-to-eat meals are delivered to several thousand people every week, many who are recently displaced from their homes or shelters.

Water: We’ve provided 26,417 gallons of water to displaced families in Rafah, and now other large organizations are distributing water there. We had been trucking water to the tens of thousands of people sheltering in Mawasi on the edge of Khan Younis until the Israeli military presence made that impossible. However, we managed to get 2,000 water bottles of clean drinking water for families from World Central Kitchen into the area. A huge achievement was the recent installation of a water purification unit for the community in Mawasi. This water purification unit is solar powered and provides 2,600 gallons of clean drinking water every day.

Some aid for people in the north. The needs in northern Gaza are so great and the obstacles are almost insurmountable but one new and one longtime partner organization were able to find and distribute medicine, milk, drinking water and even hot meals of rice and meat.

MECA’s team in Gaza is working tirelessly and they are determined not to give up. They won’t even take a break when I want them to. This the collective spirit in Gaza and among Palestinians everywhere that has made it possible for us to survive to this day.

Many thanks for your support.

In solidarity,

Zeiad Abbas Shamrouch
MECA Director

Image Image
Image Image
Image Image

TAKE ACTION FOR GAZA!

 

Image

Facebook Twitter Instagram

Middle East Children’s Alliance
1101 8th Street
Suite 100
Berkeley, CA 94710
United States

Read Palestine! Book Clubs

The Read Palestine! project, supported by Madison Rafah Sister City Project, is hosting book clubs for 4th – 12th graders. Please fill out this form if you’re interested in participating. Meeting times, format and next books to read will be decided by the group once it has formed. Different grade levels will read different books:

4th-5th: Farah Rocks Summer Break by Susan Muaddi Darraj
6th-8th: Ida in the Middle by Nora Lester Murad
9th-12th: They Called Me Lioness by Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri

Israel must end its occupation of Palestine to stop apartheid and human rights violations

DONATE NOW

Palestinians riding on a cart are refected on a mirror in the shape of the map of Palestine in Rafah, on the southern Gaza Strip on February 7, 2024 amid ongoing battles between Israel and the militant Hamas group.
Palestinians riding on a cart are refected on a mirror in the shape of the map of Palestine in Rafah, on the southern Gaza Strip on February 7, 2024 amid ongoing battles between Israel and the militant Hamas group. ©MOHAMMED ABED/AFP via Getty Images

Israel must end its brutal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which it has maintained since 1967, said Amnesty International, as public hearings begin at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to examine the legal consequences of Israel’s prolonged occupation.

The public hearings are taking place in the Hague from 19 to 26 February after the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in December 2022 to request an advisory opinion from the ICJ on the legality of Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and the consequences of Israel’s conduct for other states and the UN. More than 50 states, the African Union, the Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation are scheduled to participate in the proceedings.

The world must recognize that ending Israel’s illegal occupation is a prerequisite to stopping the recurrent human rights violations in Israel and the OPT.

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General

“Israel’s occupation of Palestine is the longest and one of the most deadly military occupations in the world. For decades it has been characterised by widespread and systematic human rights violations against Palestinians. The occupation has also enabled and entrenched Israel’s system of apartheid imposed on Palestinians,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

“Over the years, Israel’s military occupation has evolved into a perpetual occupation in flagrant violation of international law.

More

“The current conflict raging in the occupied Gaza Strip, where the ICJ has ruled there is a real and imminent risk of genocide, has brought into sharp focus the catastrophic consequences of allowing Israel’s international crimes in the OPT to continue with impunity for so long. The world must recognize that ending Israel’s illegal occupation is a prerequisite to stopping the recurrent human rights violations in Israel and the OPT.”

‘Perpetual’ occupation

Under international humanitarian law, occupation of a territory during a conflict is meant to be temporary. The occupying power is required to administer the territory in the interest of the occupied population and to preserve as much as possible the situation that existed at the beginning of the occupation, including by respecting existing laws and refraining from introducing demographic changes and tampering with the territorial integrity of the occupied territory.

A Palestinian woman stands with others (not pictured) as they gather near an Israeli army checkpoint as they wait to reach their olives fields on the other side of Israel’s separation barrier (background) after they received an special Israeli permission to harvest their olive trees, on October 13, 2021 near Bait A’wa village on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Hebron. ©HAZEM BADER/AFP via Getty Images

Israel’s occupation has failed to align with these basic principles of international humanitarian law. The duration of Israel’s occupation – spanning more than half a century – coupled with the authorities’ illegal official annexation of occupied East Jerusalem and de facto annexation of large swathes of the West Bank through land confiscation and settlement expansion, provide clear evidence that Israel’s intention is for the occupation to be permanent and for the benefit of the occupying power and its own citizens.

The Gaza Strip remains occupied even after the withdrawal of Israeli forces and removal of settlers in 2005 as Israel has retained effective control over the territory and its population, including through its control of its borders, territorial waters, air space, and population registry. For 16 years, the occupation has been experienced in Gaza through Israel’s illegal blockade that has severely restricted movement of people and goods and has devastated Gaza’s economy, and through repeated episodes of hostilities that have killed and injured thousands of civilians and destroyed much of Gaza’s infrastructure and housing.

“All states must review their relations with Israel to ensure that they are not contributing to sustaining the occupation or the system of apartheid. As European foreign ministers gather in Brussels today, the need to make a clear and united call for an end to Israel’s occupation has never been more urgent,” said Agnès Callamard.

Life under occupation

Palestinians living under Israeli occupation are subjected to a myriad of human rights violations, maintained by an institutionalized regime of systematic domination and oppression. The discriminatory and repressive laws, ostensibly adopted as part of the occupation but effectively serving the objectives of the Israel’s system of apartheid, have fragmented and segregated Palestinians across the OPT, while unlawfully exploiting their resources, arbitrarily restricting their rights and freedoms and controlling almost every aspect of their lives.

Even before the latest hostilities, Palestinians in Gaza had been subjected to numerous Israeli military offensives – at least six between 2008 and 2023 – in addition to an enduring land, air, and sea blockade, which has helped maintain Israel’s effective control and occupation of Gaza. During those offensives, Amnesty International documented a recurrent pattern of unlawful attacks, amounting to war crimes and even crimes against humanity, while the enduring blockade constitutes collective punishment, also a war crime.

For 56 years Palestinians in the OPT have been living trapped and oppressed under Israel’s brutal occupation, subjected to systemic discrimination.

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General

In the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, Palestinians routinely face excessive use of force, unlawful killings, arbitrary arrest, administrative detention, forced displacement, home demolitions, confiscation of land and natural resources, and denial of fundamental rights and freedoms. Israel’s multi-layered closure system, fortified by mass surveillance, physical barriers and legal restrictions, including an illegal wall/fence, hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks, and an arbitrary permit regime, has curtailed Palestinians’ freedom of movement and perpetuated their disenfranchisement.

Among the most emblematic examples of Israel’s outright disregard for international law has been the establishment and incessant spread of Israeli settlements throughout the OPT and the illegal annexation of occupied East Jerusalem immediately after the 1967 war which was constitutionally enshrined in 1980. There are currently at least 300 illegal Israeli settlements and outposts in the West Bank, including in occupied East Jerusalem, with a population of over 700,000 Israeli settlers.

Palestinian residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem were holding peaceful demonstrations against the imminent forcible eviction on four Palestinian families. Demonstrators were met with excessive and unnecessary force. 5-9 May, 2021. ©Private

“For 56 years Palestinians in the OPT have been living trapped and oppressed under Israel’s brutal occupation, subjected to systemic discrimination. Every aspect of their daily lives is disrupted and controlled by Israeli authorities, who place restrictions on their rights to move around, earn a living, pursue educational and professional aspirations, and enjoy a decent quality of life, as well as depriving them of access to their land and natural resources,” said Agnès Callamard.

“Israel has also continued its vicious land grab policies relentlessly expanding illegal settlements in violation of international law with devastating consequences for Palestinians’ human rights and security. Violent Israeli settlers have been attacking Palestinians for decades with virtually total impunity.”

A draconian system of control

Israel’s draconian system of control over the OPT includes a large network of military checkpoints, fences/ walls and military bases and patrols as well as a string of repressive military orders.

Israel’s control of the OPT’s borders, the population registry, the supply of water, electricity, telecommunication services, humanitarian and development assistance, and the imposition of its currency have had devastating effects on the economic and social developments of the Palestinian people in the OPT.

This control has reached unprecedented levels of cruelty in the Gaza Strip where Israel has maintained a 16-year illegal blockade which has been further tightened since 9 October 2023. The blockade, coupled with Israel’s recurrent military operations have plunged the Gaza Strip into one of the gravest humanitarian and human rights crisis of modern times.

“As the occupying power Israel has an obligation to ensure the protection and welfare of all those residing in the territory it controls. Instead, it has perpetrated gross and systematic human rights violations with impunity. Israel cites the need to maintain security as the reason for its cruel policies. But security can never justify apartheid, illegal annexation and settlements, or war crimes against the protected population. The only way to ensure security for Israelis and Palestinians is to uphold human rights for all,” said Agnès Callamard.

Palestinian emergency services and local citizens search for victims in buildings destroyed during Israeli air raids in the southern Gaza Strip on October 19, 2023 in Khan Yunis, Gaza. Gazans are evacuating to the south as advised by the Israeli government, ahead of an expected Israeli ground offensive. ©Photo by Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images

Ending the occupation would mean restoring Palestinians’ rights by lifting the brutal blockade on Gaza, dismantling Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and reversing its illegal annexation. It would allow Palestinians to move freely in the areas where they live and allow families separated by different identification legal statuses – such as the Jerusalem residency and West Bank or Gaza Strip – to be reunited. It would alleviate mass suffering and end widescale human rights violations.

It would also contribute to tackling one of the root causes of the recurrent violence and war crimes against Israelis, thus helping to improve human rights protection and secure justice and reparation for victims on all sides.

Background

On 30 December 2022, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/77/247, in which, it requested the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion on key questions regarding the legal consequences arising from its prolonged occupation, and settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, how the policies and practices of Israel affect the legal status of the occupation and what legal consequences arise for all states and the UN from this status.

The Court is expected to issue its advisory opinion later this year.

For six decades, Amnesty International has been documenting how Israeli forces have committed grave human rights violations in the OPT with impunity.  In 2022, the organization issued Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel system of domination and crime against humanity, a report which highlights the entrenched role that Israel’s military and its occupation have had in perpetuating the system of apartheid. Many of the report’s findings and recommendations underline the urgent need for an end to Israel’s occupation to remove the environment that enables the commission of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

US Palestinian Organizations Say Biden’s Legacy Is Genocide

February 18, 2024

We, Palestinian-led organizations in the United States, are issuing an urgent call and a warning to President Biden. Palestinians in Gaza are facing the threat of extermination or expulsion, and this administration is greenlighting it. Israel’s genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip is the latest chapter in the ongoing Nakba, which began in 1948. Then, like now, Israel’s colonial regime is trying to erase Palestinian life in Palestine under the fog of war.

1.5 million Palestinians are crowded in Rafah. The majority have been displaced from elsewhere in the Gaza Strip over the course of the last 132 days. The majority were already refugees before October, forced to flee from homes across Palestine. With this assault, Israel is pursuing plans to depopulate Rafah, pushing a population it has starved into the Sinai Peninsula, in a continuation of its century-long attempt to cleanse Palestine of all Palestinians.

The world has watched this unfold, streaming horrors in real-time, scenes that will be embedded in our memories for centuries to come. Yet, even as we cry out for justice, the leaders of the so-called free world, led by Biden and Congress, continue to fuel the flames of destruction with their unrelenting support for Israel. The most bone-chilling part of this all is the public gloating and encouragement of our destruction, by Israeli and US officials alike, without consequence. We cannot, we must not, let Rafah fall under the shadow of yet another joint US-backed Israeli assault meant to drive Palestinians into the desert and into permanent exile. We Palestinians know that when we leave our homes, Israel works to ensure we cannot go back. This cannot be repeated.

Palestinians in the United States have watched our government’s complicity in what US courts and the International Court of Justice have described as a genocidal campaign. We have watched the Biden administration state “no red lines” on Israel, and instead, rush even more weapons, veto ceasefire resolutions, and block humanitarian aid, enabling every step of this genocide.

We also know that the horrors of today are the culmination of a 100-year process of dehumanization, dispossession, fragmentation, and suppression of Palestinians. With a blank check from the US, Apartheid Israel has thrived.

Through a century of Zionist colonization and 75 years of an ongoing Nakba, our Palestinian people continue, against all odds, to collectively struggle against our erasure. We are still here, whether on our lands or in our communities in exile, demanding a future of freedom, justice, and dignity between the river and the sea. The international community thought Palestinians would accept their permanent subjugation. But the history of colonized people tells a different story. The next 100 years will be our century of liberation, and it begins with protecting Rafah, protecting Gaza, and ending US complicity in apartheid and genocide.

We all recognize the unwillingness of Western world leaders to contend with the damage and destruction they cause both at home and abroad. We are living through complete obliteration: a human and climate disaster that will mark the earth for centuries to come, permanent environmental destruction through chemical and arms pollution, and an enduring trauma that will alter the DNA of humanity.

What happens in Gaza is about much more than freedom for Palestine and our return to our homes. The struggle for Gaza is a struggle of all oppressed peoples. This is why we have seen so many rise up and join our struggle.

The weapons of destruction, the tactics of dehumanization, the open complicity of the US in the face of genocide—these are the same tools that threaten us all. From immigrants and minorities, to workers and all the oppressed, the specter of white supremacy and racism looms large. We call on everyone of you who reads these words to not stay silent, not stay seated. Rise up. To those who have been on the streets with us, do not tire. Do not allow the inhumanity to become normalized. Disrupt the complacency of everyday life, and refuse to turn a blind eye to the genocide unfolding before us. 

TAKE ACTION ON PRESIDENTS DAY

  • Adalah Justice Project
  • American Muslims for Palestine (AMP)
  • Americans for Justice in Palestine Action (AJP Action)
  • Arab Resource and Organizing Center
  • Palestine Legal
  • Palestinian Feminist Collective
  • Palestinian Youth Movement
  • US Campaign for Palestinian Rights
  • US Palestinian Community Network

Is The Pentagon Hiding War Crimes?

Image

The Pentagon is not retaining comprehensive records of alleged war crimes in its global military operations as required by the Defense Department’s own policies, according to a declassified version of a government report reviewed by The Lever. As journalist Freddy Brewster reveals in our new scoop, the government report found that an entire year’s worth of records has gone missing from the military’s command center in the Middle East — a period that coincides with an independent watchdog group’s claims of war crimes committed in the region.


Is The Pentagon Hiding War Crimes?

By Freddy Brewster


Share this article on Twitter and Facebook.
 
The Pentagon is not retaining comprehensive records of alleged war crimes in its global military operations as required by the Defense Department’s own policies, according to a declassified version of a government report reviewed by The Lever. 

The report found that an entire year’s worth of records that could include such allegations has gone missing from the military’s command center overseeing operations in the Middle East — a period that coincides with an independent watchdog group’s claims of war crimes committed in the region.

Government investigators found evidence of at least 47 allegations of U.S. military war crimes between 2012 and 2022 as the United States waged an air and ground war against the Islamic State in the Middle East and Africa. But a significant portion of information about alleged war crimes during that time was missing.

Military personnel were not able to provide records of potential war-crime allegations from the sub-command center overseeing operations in Iraq and Syria for all of 2015, when President Barack Obama oversaw thousands of airstrikes in the countries. And records that would have detailed allegations in 2017 were missing from the military’s Middle East command center.

More

That year, Amnesty International accused pro-Iraqi government forces — led by the U.S. military under the direction of President Donald Trump — of potentially committing war crimes amid the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of civilians in the Iraqi city of Mosul.

“While we have not yet had an opportunity to review the GAO report, we find it concerning if [the Defense Department] does not track or report on commission of war crimes,” said Daphne Eviatar, Director for Security with Human Rights at Amnesty International USA. “While in some cases [the Defense Department] has acknowledged civilian harm, it almost never acknowledges whether war crimes were committed or whether the incidents were investigated as potential war crimes.”

      Image

      Merch That Holds Them Accountable

      Check out The Lever’s merch. Every purchase supports holding the powerful accountable through the tireless independent journalism that corporate media will not do.

The revelations come from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO)’s investigation of military recordkeeping. The analysis looks at a time period that began during Obama’s second term, as his administration created a “kill list” and ramped up drone strikes, whose casualty rates were shrouded in secrecy. GAO investigators also looked at Trump’s term and the first half of President Joe Biden’s term.

The GAO report honed in on Africa and the Middle East due to the “kinetic strike operations” that the U.S. military conducted in the regions from January 2012 through December 2022 as part of its war against the Islamic State.

The probe was a response to a Defense Department Inspector General investigation and a New York Times report that found deficiencies in how — and whether — the Pentagon tracked alleged war crimes.

The Times report focused on a 2019 U.S. bombing in Syria that killed more than 60 civilians — mostly women and children — that was actively covered up and never independently investigated by the U.S. military.

GAO investigators noted that while they found scores of war-crime allegations inside the military bureaucracy, the major military commands admitted they do not keep comprehensive records providing a full picture of the situation.

“Several components have not retained reports of alleged law of war violations as required by [Defense Department] guidance because there is no system to comprehensively retain such reports,” the report said. “Without a system to comprehensively retain records of allegations of law of war violations, [Defense Department] leadership may not be well positioned to fully implement the law of war.”

The GAO report found key failures in two Defense Department command centers — CENTCOM, which oversees the Middle East and parts of Asia, and AFRICOM, which oversees Africa.

Between 2014 and 2023, the Defense Department launched nearly 40,000 airstrikes in the two command areas. Those two command centers provided GAO records of at least 47 documented allegations of potential war crimes that took place between January 2012 and December 2022.

Investigators did not try to determine the validity of those alleged “law-of-war violations,” and noted that there could be other allegations that weren’t identified.

“We found that the alleged law-of-war violations obtained may not represent the entire universe of alleged violations, but we are not able to determine what that universe is,” the report stated.

The Department of Defense notes that the law of war is based on treaties and international laws applicable to the United States. The United Nations defines war crimes as, among other activities, killing civilians, torture, sexual violence, wanton destruction of civilian property, and taking hostages.

According to the report, key information was missing from the office overseeing military operations in Iraq and Syria, which has reportedly seen nearly 35,000 airstrikes from U.S.-led forces since the U.S. began bombing the area in 2014.

GAO noted that multiple Defense Department policies require proper war-crime recordkeeping. That includes the Defense Department’s Law of War Program, which requires the military to “maintain a central collection of information on reportable incidents.”

The report did not find instances of retaliation against military members who reported potential war crimes in the AFRICOM and CENTCOM areas. But it did note that the Defense Department’s Inspector General reported one case of retaliation during the timeframe.

“An investigation found that both the alleged reprisal and overarching alleged law of war violation were not substantiated,” the report noted.

CENTCOM

The Defense Department divides the world into six separate command zonesand assigns a call name to each.

Of the 47 total reports of alleged war crimes the GAO found in its report, all but one took place under CENTCOM, which oversees operations in the “central” area of the globe, including interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. According to investigators, CENTCOM officials appeared to routinely lose or misplace records of war-crime allegations.

The sub-command center overseeing operations in Iraq and Syria faced 17 reported allegations of war crimes between 2012 and 2022, but only had summary-level records of two of the allegations on hand. In fact, the sub-command center couldn’t find any reports at all from 2015.

​“Officials said that they could not locate [the] records and their current existence and locations are unknown,” the report found. “As a result we could not determine the circumstances of the two allegations or if they were committed by U.S. personnel.”​

Officials said they did not know why there were no records from 2015, but said it may be due to a limited military presence in the area before 2016.

In October 2015, amid growing revelations and outcry over Obama’s drone war, U.S. forces bombed a Doctors without Borders-run hospital in Afghanistan, killing 22 people. The incident was later described as a “mission that went wrong from start to finish,” and resulted in 16 U.S. military personnel being punished via “administrative actions.”

CENTCOM was also missing documents tracking potential war crimes for 2017, for which officials provided no explanation.

“CENTCOM retained records of alleged law of war violations for 2012 through 2016 and 2018 through 2022, but did not have all records for 2017,” noted the GAO report.“CENTCOM officials did not know why a document tracking potential alleged law of war violations for 2017 was unavailable.”

In July 2017, Amnesty International claimed it had documented more than 400 civilian deaths in 45 attacks that year in Mosul by the Iraqi government or U.S.-backed forces, and noted that its tally was “very likely to be an underestimate.”

When GAO first requested documents from CENTCOM, investigators received 37 reports of war crime allegations. Later, the Defense Department’s Inspector General later provided five more reports, explaining they had not been included because CENTCOM joint operation centers do not usually receive those kinds of reports. Four additional reports were sent to the GAO from two other command centers.

      Image

      Hold Them Accountable With A Donation

      Give a one-time donation in any amount to fund The Lever‘s missionto hold the powerful accountable through reader-supported investigative journalism. Every cent helps.

AFRICOM

GAO investigators also scrutinized AFRICOM, a Germany-based command of 2,000 people that has spearheaded incursions in Libya and Somalia as part of war on the Islamic State, and found a single allegation of war crimes between 2012 and 2022.

According to the GAO report, that allegation was related to an unspecified incident that occurred in August 2017.

In 2017, U.S. bombing in Somalia reportedly became “excessive” after Trump signed an executive order that March declaring the southern portion of Somalia an “area of active hostilities.”

“U.S. forces carried out 34 strikes in Somalia in the last nine months of 2017 – more than in the entire five years from 2012 to 2016,” Amnesty International wrote.

The human rights group claimed that the U.S. bombing in Somalia may be considered war crimes.

“Amnesty International uncovered compelling evidence that US air strikes killed a total of 14 civilians and injured eight more, in five attacks that may have violated international humanitarian law and could, in some cases, constitute war crimes,” wrote the group.

Follow us on Apple News and Google News to make sure you see our stories first, and to help make sure others see our breaking news as well.

The GAO report also noted that AFRICOM’s policy on war-crime reporting “does not fully align” with Defense Department requirements.

Among other concerns, the report noted that current AFRICOM policy failed to define what exactly would qualify as “credible information” about a potential war crime violation, justifying an investigation into the matter. AFRICOM also failed to define “reportable incidents,” or initial reports of potential wartime law violations.

GAO investigators also called out the command center’s convoluted and inefficient process for reporting war crimes allegations.

“By waiting for formal investigations to conclude before determining whether an allegation is supported by credible information, AFRICOM risks failing to report reportable incidents in a timely manner,” the report states.

AFRICOM command last updated its war crime-reporting policies in 2014, and AFRICOM officials admitted that they had failed to update it because “other priorities took precedence over updating its policy,” the report stated.

AFRICOM officials said that although their current policy is outdated, it still abided by the proper Defense Department policies. The GAO report disagreed.

“Without a current policy aligned to DOD requirements, AFRICOM officials may not be reporting all alleged law-of- war violations as required,” the report stated. “As a result, AFRICOM leadership may not be fully aware of all such allegations within their command or be in a position to forward reportable incidents to senior DOD leadership as required.”

No “Comprehensive Set Of Records”

The new GAO report, released Feb. 13, is based on a classified report the agency provided to the Department of Defense in December 2023 after it scrutinized records and interviewed officials from across the Defense Department.

GAO investigators didn’t just limit their criticisms to specific command centers. They found that the Defense Department as a whole lacked a unified system to track potential war crimes across the entire agency, instead leaving tracking to individual operations across the world.

“No single entity above the combatant commands retains a comprehensive set of records for either reportable incidents or those found to be unsupported by credible information,” noted their report.

      Image

      Learn All Our Investigative Tricks

      Image

      Score a copy of our Citizens’ Guide to Following the Money and Holding the Powerful Accountable, free with a paid subscription. The e-book gives you all the tools and tricks our reporting team uses to scrutinize power.

A core part of the GAO report focused on law-of-war training for military members from each branch.

According to the Pentagon’s wartime engagement policies, all military members must receive training on when to engage with a potential enemy threat and how to minimize civilian deaths.

One official from the CENTCOM sub-command center overseeing Iraq and Syria told GAO representatives that the pre-deployment training was “not the best, but it covered all of the necessary points,” and that military members deployed for war “would know how to identify and report a law-of-war violation.”

As part of its report, the GAO issued just two recommendations to the Defense Department: The Secretary of Defense should ensure that AFRICOM updates its guidance on reporting allegations of war crimes; and that the Secretary of Defense ensures the implementation of a comprehensive recordkeeping system for all war-crime allegations.


Help us spread the word! Please forward this email to family and friends.

Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up for free to receive original reporting like this in your inbox every day.

February 24, 2024
Reading of Homeland: My Father Dreams of Palestine

IMG_6741[71]
« of 4 »

Kismet Books
101 N. Main Street, Verona
10:30 am

February 23, 2024
Madison Congressional Office Visits

World BEYOND War

12-2:00 pm Sen Baldwin’s office, 30 W Mifflin Street
2:00 pm walk to Rep Pocan’s office
2:15 pm Rep Pocan’s office, 10 E Doty St, #405

 
Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriation Bill

After passing the US Senate with Sen. Baldwin’s YES vote, the $95 billion gift to the weapons industry is going to the House; this is a supplement to our $886 billion dollar 2024 military budget already approved.

CodePink explains:

    “The Senate bill includes another $14.3 billion for weapons for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, $60 billion to continue the war in Ukraine (bringing that total to $170 billion) and almost $8 billion to further militarize east Asia for a confrontation with China. The bill also includes $9 billion in humanitarian aid to be split between Ukraine, Israel and Gaza; In other words; a few sips of water before the bombing resumes.

    As if that isn’t bad enough, the Senate bill also includes a prohibition against US funding for UNRWA, the lifeline for water and food to Gaza, to threaten mass starvation for over two million people. Finally, there’s a provision that allows President Biden to send unlimited weapons to Israel without the legally-required notification to Congress.”

Rep. Pocan has previously voted against this supplemental bill. We will visit his office and ask him to continue to oppose it. As for Sen. Baldwin, we’ll visit her office again to continue to condemn her votes that fund murderous policies; deaf and blind to the genocide, she continues to promote the defense industry as an economic boon for Wisconsin. What a racket! Can you join us?

RSVP if you can to warabolition@gmail.com, or just show up for any part; and to access Baldwin’s office during the time of vigil, you can call 608 217 2248.