British sources indicated to The Guardian that the US and the UK have already decided to lift restrictions but won’t announce it yet
by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, September 11, 2024
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken strongly hinted that the US was preparing to lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of US and NATO missiles to support long-range strikes inside Russian territory, which would mark a significant escalation of the proxy war.
Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv alongside UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Blinken said he discussed the issue of “long-range fires” with Ukrainian President Volodomy Zelensky and said he would bring the discussion back to Washington. He said President Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will discuss the issue when they meet this Friday.
Signaling the US is ready to support long-range strikes in Ukraine, Blinken said, “Speaking for the United States, from day one, as you’ve heard me say, we have adjusted and adapted as needs have changed, as the battlefield has changed, and I have no doubt that we’ll continue to do that.”
(Left-right) US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and Foreign Secretary David Lammy attend a trilateral meeting during a visit to Kyiv in Ukraine on Wednesday, September 11, 2024 (PA Images via Reuters Connect)
The Guardian reported that British government sources indicated there’s already been a decision made in private to allow Ukraine to use British-provided missiles inside Ukraine, which have a range of about 155 miles. The sources said Biden and Starmer are not expected to announce the decision on Friday, and it’s unclear when it might be made public.
Later on Wednesday, POLITICO reported that the White House is finalizing plans to expand the area where Ukraine can hit inside Russia using US and British-provided missiles.
Ahead of Blinken’s visit, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), the hawkish chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that he believed the Biden administration was ready to loosen restrictions on Ukraine’s use of US missiles to allow Army Tactical Missiles Systems (ATACMS) to be used in strikes inside Russia. ATACMS have a range of about 190 miles.
Blinken’s visit to Ukraine comes Russian forces are beginning to push back Ukrainian troops in Russia’s Kursk Oblast. Fighting has been raging in the Russian region since August 6, when Ukrainian forces invaded using US armored vehicles and British tanks. The offensive has failed to distract Moscow from eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, where Russian forces have continued to make gains.
Military situation in Kursk on September 11, 2024 (SouthFront.press)
The Ukrainian invasion of Kursk came a few months after President Biden gave Ukraine the greenlight to use US weapons in attacks on Russian border regions. Russia has strongly warned the US against allowing US weapons to be used in strikes deep inside Russian territory, but the Biden administration doesn’t appear to be concerned about the risk of escalation.
Palestinians attend the funeral of the four Palestinians killed during an Israeli army raid at a refugee camp in Tubas, West Bank on August 29, 2024.
(Photo: Nedal Eshtayah/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“We can either continue on our current path… and sleepwalk into a dystopian future, or we can wake up and turn things around for the better,” said U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk.
Other countries must hold Israel accountable for violating international law in its war on Gaza and escalating violence in the illegally occupied West Bank, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said Monday.
Türk’s remarks came as he opened the 57th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva with a wide-ranging warning about the rise of international violence and human rights violations worldwide.
Ending Israel’s war on Gaza and “averting a full-blown regional conflict is an absolute and urgent priority,” Türk said.
“States must not—cannot—accept blatant disregard for international law, including binding decisions of the (U.N.) Security Council and orders of the International Court of Justice, neither in this nor any other situation.
In particular, Türk referenced the International Court of Justice’s advisory ruling in July that Israel’s occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem is illegal. The ICJ also called on Israel to evacuate its settlers from the West Bank and on other nations not to recognize Israel’s occupation as legal or to render any aid to Israel that maintained the status quo.
Türk on Monday called for the situation to be “comprehensively addressed.”
He added that Israel’s war on Gaza had forced 1.9 million people to flee their homes since October 7, 2023, many more than once, as Hurriyet Daily Newsreported. The war has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to official figures, though experts say the true death toll is likely much higher.
“I urge voters to ask themselves which of the political platforms or candidates will work for the human rights of everyone.”
Türk added that “deadly and destructive” operations in the West Bank, such as 10-day period of raids that concluded Friday, are at a scale “not witnessed in the last two decades” and are “worsening a calamitous situation.”
He also spoke out for the rights of the likely more than 10,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and the 101 hostages still held in Gaza.
Beyond Israel and Palestine, Türk also highlighted ongoing conflicts in Sudan and between Russia and Ukraine, noting that the international community seemed to accept the “crossing of innumerable red lines, or readiness to toe right up to them.”
“We are at a fork in the road,” the human rights chief advised. “We can either continue on our current path—a treacherous ‘new normal’—and sleepwalk into a dystopian future, or we can wake up and turn things around for the better, for humanity, and the planet.”
In a record election year, Türk argued that committing to the protection of human rights was especially important.
“I urge voters to ask themselves which of the political platforms or candidates will work for the human rights of everyone,” he said.
In particular, he encouraged voters to “be wary of the shrill voices, the ‘strongman’ types that throw glitter in our eyes, offering illusory solutions that deny reality.”
“Know that when one group is singled out as a scapegoat for society’s ills, one day your own might be next,” he said.
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Basil Maghrebi at the Israeli newspaper Arab 48reports that on Friday, Israeli troops killed an American observer in the West Bank with a gunshot to her head, as she participated in a procession at Beita south of Nablus in the Palestinian West Bank. Aysenur Eygi, 26, a US citizen, was a recent graduate of the University of Washington in Seattle and was volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Beita residents are constantly harassed by illegal Israeli squatters who have stolen Palestinian land at nearby Eviatar for their squatter-settlement.
The occupation army said in a statement, “During activity of the security forces near the village of Beita today, the force responded with fire toward a principal instigator who was throwing stones toward the forces and constituted a danger to them. We are undertaking an investigation of reports of the death of a foreign national in the area, and the circumstances and details of her injury.”
(Cole: I call bullshit on this “statement.” It is illegal to fire live ammunition at unarmed protesters. Protesters do not pose a danger to heavily armed Israeli security forces. Eyewitnesses say that the real reason the Israeli troops opened fire was an attempt to stop the protest march, which of course is a war crime every which way from Sunday, or from Friday as the case may be.
Fellow protester Jonathan Pollack said, “It was quiet. There was nothing to justify the shot. The shot was taken to kill.”)
Moreover, The US State Department, which would have gone ballistic if Hamas or Putin had killed an American, issued mealy-mouthed pablum. They are going to “gather information.” But they didn’t act that way in other instances where a foreign military shot down an American in cold blood.
The Turkish foreign ministry said, “We condemn the crime of murder committed by the Netanyahu government.”
Maghrebi writes that medical sources revealed that Eygi was struck by Israeli live fire in the head, suffering a grave wound, during the occupation army’s attempt to suppress a weekly march at Beita protesting the Israeli colonization of the West Bank. Strenuous efforts were made to save her life, but she succumbed to her wounds.
The director of the hospital, the Rafidia Surgical Hospital in Nablus, Fuad Nafiah, announced the death of the American solidarity protester, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi. As she reached the hospital, there was brain tissue outside her cranium. The medical team provided her with cardiopulmonary resuscitation for a few minutes, but she died of her injuries.
Local sources said that the occupation troops tried to stop the protest march at Beita, which lead to confrontations, in which Israeli troops let loose a volley of live fire and threw flash bombs and fired tear gas canisters (which can be fatal if they hit you) toward the protesters.
Eygi was participating in a program seeking to protect Palestinian farmers from harassment by Israeli squatters and by the Israeli military.
In 2003, an Israeli driving an earth mover bore down on Rachel Corrie, who had also gone to the West Bank as part of the International Solidarity Movement, killing her.
The Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hussein Sheikh, said that the Israeli occupation army’s killing of Eygi was “another crime added to the series of crimes being committed daily by the Israeli forces, which cry out for international courts to hold their perpetrators accountable.”
On Friday, as well, Israeli squatters also attacked the the village of Qaryout in Nablus, in the north of the Palestinian West Bank, beating a 30-year-old young man so badly they sent him to the hospital.
Earlier this year, the current fascist government in Israel legalized Eviatar in Israeli law, though it remains a gross violation of the 4th Geneva Convention and of the judgment of the International Court of Justice that the Israeli occupation is illegal.
Roger McKenzie Morning Star, Thursday, September 5, 2024
A man walks on a damaged road following an Israeli army raid in Jenin, West Bank, September 4, 2024
ISRAEL must be investigated for war crimes of “wanton destruction,” says Amnesty International UK in a damning report published today.
The human rights group said Israel’s campaign to expand a “buffer zone” along the eastern perimeter of the occupied Gaza Strip should be the subject of a war crimes probe.
This came as the Israelis continued deadly raids across the occupied West Bank.
Amnesty said that its researchers had interviewed residents and farmers, studied satellite imagery and tracked statements by the Israeli authorities, Hamas and other armed groups to determine whether the destruction was lawful or justifiable in military terms.
The report said that in four areas, “the destruction was carried out after the Israeli military had operational control over the areas, meaning that it was not caused by direct combat between the Israeli military and Palestinian armed groups.”
In those areas of Gaza, “structures were deliberately and systematically demolished,” the authors added.
Amnesty said the “punitive demolition of civilian property solely because it has been used by armed groups is prohibited as a form of collective punishment.”
Research, advocacy, policy and campaigns director Erika Guevara Rosas said: “The Israeli military’s relentless campaign of ruin in Gaza is one of wanton destruction.
“Our research has shown how Israeli forces have obliterated residential buildings, forced thousands of families from their homes and rendered their land uninhabitable.
“Our analysis reveals a pattern along the eastern perimeter of Gaza that is consistent with the systematic destruction of an entire area.”
She added: “These homes were not destroyed as the result of intense fighting. Rather, the Israeli military deliberately razed the land after they had taken control of the area.”
In the West Bank, Israeli forces were inflicting widespread destruction in the city and refugee camp of Tulkarem as a large-scale military operation in the area entered a third day, the Wafa news agency reported.
Citing correspondents on the ground, the agency said Israeli forces had dropped bombs on the refugee camp, starting fires in al-Shamaliya neighbourhood.
The United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs has warned that Israeli forces are using “lethal war-like tactics,” including air strikes, in the occupied Palestinian territory, with people being killed, injured, displaced or deprived of access to basic services.
The Israeli military’s latest assault across the West Bank is now in its eighth day. At least 33 Palestinians have been killed and 130 wounded since last Wednesday, the vast majority in Jenin.
As the Israeli military’s largest assault on the West Bank in decades continued into its second week, U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese said the “writing is on the wall.”
Israeli military photo of its forces in Jenin in the Occupied West Bank on Monday. (IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
An independent U.N. expert warns that “Israel’s genocidal violence risks leaking out of Gaza and into the occupied Palestinian territory as a whole” as Western governments, corporations, and other institutions maintain support for Israel’s military, which stands accused of grave war crimes.
Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories, said in a statement that “there is mounting evidence that no Palestinian is safe under Israel’s unfettered control.”
“The writing is on the wall, and we cannot continue to ignore it,” said Albanese, who released a detailed report in May concluding that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza.
“Apartheid Israel is targeting Gaza and the West Bank simultaneously, as part of an overall process of elimination, replacement, and territorial expansion,” Albanese said Tuesday. “The longstanding impunity granted to Israel is enabling the de-Palestinization of the occupied territory, leaving Palestinians at the mercy of the forces pursuing their elimination as a national group.”
“The international community, made of both states and non-state actors, including companies and financial institutions, must do everything it can to immediately end the risk of genocide against the Palestinian people under Israel’s occupation, ensure accountability, and ultimately end Israel’s colonization of Palestinian territory,” Albanese added.
Defense for Children International–Palestine noted Monday that “dozens of Israeli military vehicles” have “stormed” the West Bank city of Jenin over the past week as “Israeli forces deployed across the targeted refugee camps, seizing Palestinian homes to use as military bases and stationing snipers on the roofs of buildings, subjecting their residents to field investigations.”
“The military bulldozers began destroying the civil infrastructure in Jenin city and camp, which led to the destruction of the main water networks and power outage in several neighborhoods in Jenin and surrounding villages,” the group said. “Israeli forces besieged several hospitals in Jenin and impeded the movement of ambulances and paramedics.”
Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed more than 620 people in the occupied West Bank since Oct. 7, on top of the roughly 40,800 killed by the Israeli military in Gaza.
Unlawful Israeli land seizures have also surged in the West Bank as settlers and soldiers wipe out entire Palestinian communities. The BBC reported Monday that, according to its own analysis, there are “currently at least 196 across the West Bank, and 29 were set up last year — more than in any previous year.”
Israel’s multi-day attack on the West Bank that began last week has intensified fears that unless there’s a permanent cease-fire, the assault on Gaza could expand to the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories and throughout the Middle East.
David Hearst, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye, wrote Monday that “even with the obvious reluctance of Hezbollah and Iran to get involved, all the ingredients are there for a much larger conflagration.”
“An Israel in the grip of an ultra-nationalist, religious, settler insurgency; a U.S. president who allows his signature policy to be flouted by his chief ally, even at the risk of losing a crucial election; resistance that will not surrender; Palestinians in Gaza who will not flee; Palestinians in the West Bank who are now stepping up to the front line; Jordan, the second country to recognize Israel, feeling under existential threat,” Hearst wrote.
For U.S. President Joe Biden or Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, he added, “the message is so clear, it is flashing in neon lights: The regional costs of not standing up to Netanyahu could rapidly outweigh the domestic benefits of being dragged along by him.”
James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, similarly argued Tuesday that “the U.S. must reverse course — and do so dramatically.”
“A long-overdue cut-off of U.S. arms to Israel and recognition of the Palestinian right to self-determination would provide exactly the shock to the system that is needed,” Zogby wrote. “It would force an internal debate in Israel, empowering those who want peace. It might also serve to send a message to the Palestinian people that their plight and rights are understood.”
These actions, especially if followed up with determination and concrete steps, won’t end the conflict tomorrow,” Zogby continued, “but they would surely put the region on a more productive path towards peace than the one it is on now.”
Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.
by Elizabeth Short, Morning Star, Friday, August 30, 2024
PALESTINE ACTION activists who occupied a weapons factory to disrupt weapon productions for Israel in Shipley are set to go on trial on Monday.
The four activists were charged with criminal damage after they were seen scaling and taking a sledgehammer to the roof of the US-owned Teledyne Defence and Space factory on April 2.
The factory manufactures components for missiles, electronics, gunsights and munitions for the Israeli military.
Operations were ground to a halt as a result of the action.
Two out of four activists were remanded to prison afterwards.
One was held for approximately one month, while the other was held for three months.
Palestine Action says the firm “boasts of its involvement with missile products procured by Israel, including the AGM-Harpoon, AIM-120 AMRAAM and AGM-114 Hellfire missiles deployed by Israel against Gaza — the latter reportedly being used to strike al-Shifa hospital.”
It also produces parts, including filters and multifunction assemblies for drones and aircraft, along with radar systems such as the type fitted in F-35 Fighter jets used by Israel.
Since 2018, its parent company Teledyne Technologies has applied for 134 export licences to Israel.
A Palestine Action spokesperson said: “Under Section 1 of the Genocide Convention, Britain is obliged to prevent and punish the commission of genocide.
“When our government fails to do so, it’s the legal and moral obligation of ordinary people to take direct action.
“The weapons manufacturers arming genocide are the guilty ones, not Palestine Action.”
It comes after it was announced on Thursday that co-founder of Palestine Action Richard Barnard faces three charges over giving two speeches.
Mr Barnard is accused of supporting a proscribed organisation under the Terrorism Act and two counts of encouraging criminal damage against arms manufacturers.
Government ministers continue to reject calls to suspend arms exports while the death toll in Gaza tops 40,000.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy has pushed back against publishing legal advice on whether the exports are being used to facilitate international war crimes, despite calling on the previous Tory government to do so while in opposition.
Complicity requires all licences to be suspended, according to government rules.
The US has been rushing weapons shipments to Israel since the end of July, Haaretz reported on Thursday, citing open-sourced aviation data.
The report said that the spike in arms shipments made August the second busiest month at Israel’s Nevatim Airbase for US deliveries since Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza began back in October 2023 following the Hamas attack on southern Israel.
Dozens of US military transport flights, as well as Israeli civilian and military and cargo planes, have landed at the base, mainly traveling from Qatar and the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
The Haaretz report appeared to attribute the rush in arms shipments to US preparations for a potential Iranian attack. The US has deployed additional fighter jets and warships to the region and is vowing to defend Israel from Iran’s response to the Israeli assassination of Hamas’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, on Iranian territory. Following a major exchange of fire between Israel and Hezbollah on Sunday, the US is still expecting a reprisal attack from Iran.
Besides helping Israel prepare for a potential attack from Iran, the US weapons shipments also help fuel the slaughter in Gaza and Israel’s operations in the West Bank, which significantly escalated on Wednesday. Israeli forces launched their largest attack on the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the Second Intifada in the early 2000s.
The rush in arms shipments also shows strong support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been working to prevent a ceasefire deal with Hamas, and shows President Biden and Vice President Harris are not serious about ending the slaughter in Gaza.
The Israeli Defense Ministry said on Monday that the US had delivered over 50,000 tons of weapons and other military equipment since October 7. The ministry said the US support was “crucial for sustaining the IDF’s operational capabilities during the ongoing war.”
American foreign policy failures have inflicted untold misery worldwide for decades, while Beijing is now achieving tangible results
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi shake hands at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on 26 April 2024 (Mark Schiefelbein/AFP)
Conventional wisdom decrees that the 21st century’s most important geopolitical battle will be between the United States and China.
In this context, the western mainstream narrative portrays the US as committed to safeguarding and enforcing the so-called rules-based world order, which Washington created and has presided over since its victory in the Second World War.
This rules-based order should correspond with the international law codified in many covenants since the birth of the United Nations almost 80 years ago. It does not.
At best, this rules-based order reflects a US/western interpretation of selected aspects of international law. At worst, international law has been twisted to suit the West’s specific interests.
In both cases, the purpose is to serve the West’s geopolitical interests and justify its hegemony. Of course, blinded by hubris, western powers believe that because these “rules” allegedly fit their interests, they also serve the interests of all humankind. They are wrong.
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That same western mainstream narrative portrays China as the main threat to this rules-based order, attributing to the Asian nation both the will and the capability to challenge and modify this order.
That the US and its allies have come to such conclusions demonstrates the catastrophic cognitive dissonance characterising western leaders’ analysis and decision-making.
Diplomatic failures
It is extraordinary that western chancelleries attribute such subversive intentions to Communist China, which – contrary to the US – has not deployed its army abroad for nearly half a century (the last instance being in 1979, against Vietnam).
Unlike the US, China has never interfered in or organised a coup against any other country. Unlike the US, it has never adopted unilateral sanctions against any country except those legally authorised by the UN Security Council. Also, unlike the US, it owns only one military base abroad (in Djibouti), and its navy – again, contrary to the US – mainly patrols the South China Sea, which constitutes the country’s most important supply line.
War on Gaza: How the western ‘rules-based order’ is a sham
China’s main territorial claim concerns an island in the Pacific Ocean close to its coast (Taiwan), which, since 1972, through three joint US-China communiques, Washington has unequivocally recognised as part of mainland China. To eliminate any ambiguity, the US doubled down by facilitating Taiwan’s expulsion from the UN to give its seat to Communist China.
If such extremely restrained and responsible behaviour qualifies China as a threat to the rules-based order, how should the behaviour of the US and its closest allies (particularly Israel) be viewed?
Another interesting metric for assessing whether the US or China poses the greatest threat to the rules-based world order is their respective behaviour in the most troublesome region of the planet: the Middle East.
Since the end of the Second World War, the US has claimed an exclusive role in allegedly promoting peace and stability in the region. It has been called “Pax Americana”, though, in recent times, it has been anything but peaceful.
US diplomacy once boasted significant successes, from shuttle diplomacy after the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 1978 Camp David Accords, which secured peace between Israel and Egypt, to the 1994 peace deal between Israel and Jordan.
However, over the last three decades, the US’ magic touch in the region has almost systematically failed.
China and the Middle East
These failures encompass everything from the collapse of an Israeli-Palestinian deal in 2000 and the “war on terror” across the broader Middle East (including Afghanistan in 2001 and a renewed invasion of Iraq in 2003) to an ignominious withdrawal from Kabul two decades later and the delivery of Iraq to pro-Iran militias after 2011.
They also include the “Assad must go” policy in Syria in 2011, followed by the country’s readmission to the Arab League and the reopening of Arab and western embassies in Damascus, along with an intelligent nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, followed by the Trump administration’s ignominious withdrawal from the same deal three years later.
Saudi-Iran reconciliation: How China is reshaping the Middle East
In addition, the US’ failures encompass the biased Abraham Accords, which only served Israel’s interests, and an ironclad and blind support for Israel in its murderous assault on Gaza, which has led to accusations at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) for genocide and crimes against humanity.
And then, there is China, a latecomer to the Middle East.
Unlike the US, China has no military bases in the region and not a single soldier has been deployed, except for a few hundred who have been engaged in the UN-mandated Unifil mission patrolling and surveying the critical border between Israel and Lebanon.
For decades, China’s main concern in the Middle East has been developing economic and trade relations with the countries in the region, and it has been successful on both counts. China boasts strategic economic agreements with Egypt, Iran and all the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), as well as good relations with Israel.
More recently, China’s diplomatic efforts have accomplished two major successes.
In 2023, it brokered a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, two of the most important players in the region, pursuing a very different political path from the one favoured by the US, which seeks to isolate Iran to trigger regime change in Tehran.
Earlier this year, China brokered another important understanding by successfully promoting reconciliation talks among the different Palestinian factions, especially between Fatah and Hamas.
Honest broker
This diplomatic achievement should not be underestimated because the decades-old divisions among Palestinians have been a significant obstacle to a successful peace process.
Israel has been claiming for years that it has no credible partner for negotiations. Of course, since the 1980s, Israel has actively fomented divisions among the different Palestinian factions, precisely so it could maintain the narrative that it lacks a partner for peace talks and thereby continue its annexation of the occupied territories.
If the Palestinian factions respect and fulfil the understandings reached in Beijing, this could be a crucial first step towards a more credible peace process in the future.
The current rules-based order, as often claimed by the US and its allies, is nothing more than a semantic trick aimed at concealing western hypocrisy and double standards
In other words, while the US has been providing iron-clad support to Israel’s genocide by sending vast amounts of weapons, shielding Israel’s crimes at the UN Security Council and trying – so far unsuccessfully – to broker a ceasefire in Gaza and secure the release of Israeli hostages, China has laid the first necessary stone for a more credible and durable peace process.
By drawing the right lessons from history and considering the long list of US failures in promoting an Israeli-Palestinian deal, China could legitimately claim that its role as a mediator between Israel and Palestine stands a greater chance of success.
One thing is certain: Beijing – again, contrary to Washington – would be an honest broker.
A Chinese success here could significantly bolster the rules-based order, but the right one – one that respects international law and international humanitarian law. The current rules-based order, as often claimed by the US and its allies, is nothing more than a semantic trick aimed at concealing western hypocrisy and double standards.
China is not challenging the Global West’s rules-based order. It is simply joining the Global Rest in demanding respect for international law, its consistent application to all states without double standards and the putting aside, finally, of misleading western terminology.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Marco Carnelos is a former Italian diplomat. He has been assigned to Somalia, Australia and the United Nations. He served in the foreign policy staff of three Italian prime ministers between 1995 and 2011. More recently he has been Middle East peace process coordinator special envoy for Syria for the Italian government and, until November 2017, Italy’s ambassador to Iraq.
The Biden administration has continued to deliver weapons
by Dave DeCamp Antiwar. com, August 26, 2024
The Israeli Defense Ministry said Monday that the US has delivered over 50,000 tons of weapons and other military equipment since the start of Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza, demonstrating the Biden administration’s staunch support for the slaughter.
Since October 7, 107 ships and 500 transport planes have brought US military aid shipments to Israel. The Israeli Defense Ministry said the deliveries have included “armored vehicles, munitions, ammunition, personal protection gear, and medical equipment.”
The ministry added that the US support was “crucial for sustaining the IDF’s operational capabilities during the ongoing war.”
Back in April, President Biden signed a bill into law that included $17 billion in additional military aid for Israel on top of the $3.8 billion the country receives each year. The State Department recently approved a series of major arms deals for Israel worth $20 billion, including a new fleet of F-15 fighter jets.
Stripped, blindfolded, and bound Palestinian civilians are taken prisoner and ordered into a line by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza in December 2023.
(Photo: Social media post by Israeli soldier)
“The torture of Palestinian healthcare workers is a window into the much larger issue of the Israeli government’s treatment of detainees generally,” said one Human Rights Watch expert.
Palestinian medical workers’ harrowing accounts of arbitrary detention and torture by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza prompted calls on Monday for a war crimes investigation by the International Criminal Court, whose chief prosecutor is already seeking to arrest Israeli and Hamas leaders for atrocities committed on and after last October 7.
Eight doctors, nurses, and paramedics formerly held by Israeltold Human Rights Watch (HRW) that they suffered “torture—including rape and sexual abuse by Israeli forces—denial of medical care, and poor detention conditions,” as well as “humiliation, beatings, forced stress positions, prolonged cuffing, and blindfolding.”
“The Israeli government’s mistreatment of Palestinian healthcare workers has continued in the shadows and needs to immediately stop,” HRW acting Middle East director Balkees Jarrah said in a statement. “The torture and other ill-treatment of doctors, nurses, and paramedics should be thoroughly investigated and appropriately punished, including by the International Criminal Court (ICC).”
“The torture of Palestinian healthcare workers is a window into the much larger issue of the Israeli government’s treatment of detainees generally,” Jarrah added. “Governments should publicly call on the Israeli authorities to release unlawfully detained healthcare workers and end the cruel mistreatment and nightmarish conditions for all detained Palestinians.”
The medical workers interviewed by HRW provided similar accounts of being detained in Gaza before being sent to detention facilities in Israel, including the notorious Sde Teiman prison, where former prisoners and Israeli whistleblowers have described torture and other abuse including amputations due to extreme shackling. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is investigating the deaths of at least 36 Sde Teiman detainees, including one man who died after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton.
A group of Sde Teiman guards has also been arrested in connection with an alleged gang-rape of a detainee that was caught on video. The IDF reservists’ arrests sparked a violent attempt to free the suspects by a far-right mob whose members included senior Israeli government officials. Meanwhile, many Israeli leaders, media personalities, and celebrities have publicly defended the rape and torture of Palestinian prisoners.
One paramedic who was imprisoned at Sde Teiman and featured in the new HRW report said he was “suspended from a chain attached to handcuffs, electroshocked, denied medical care for broken ribs caused by beatings, and administered what he believed was a psychoactive drug before interrogations.”
“It was so degrading, it was unbelievable,” he said. “I was helping people as a paramedic, I never expected something like this.”
Another paramedic imprisoned at Sde Teiman, 36-year-old Walid Khalili, said that when his captors removed his blindfold, he saw “dozens of detainees in diapers… suspended from the ceiling.”
“He said that personnel at the facility then suspended him from a chain, so his feet were not touching the ground, dressed him in a garment and a headband that were attached to wires, and shocked him with electricity,” the report states.
An ambulance driver told HRW that he saw Israeli guards beat two men to death with metal pipes while he and other Palestinians were being held in a large metal cage near the Israel-Gaza border fence.
Eyad Abed, a 50-year-old surgeon at the Indonesian Hospital, was seized by Israeli forces during the November siege and invasion of the facility. Abed said Israeli soldiers broke his ribs and tailbone during torture sessions.
“Every minute we were beaten,” Abed told HRW. “I mean all over the body, on sensitive areas between the legs, the chest, the back. We were kicked all over the body and the face. They used the front of their boots which had a metal tip, then their weapons. They had lighters: One soldier tried to burn me but burned the person next to me. I told them I’m a doctor, but they didn’t care.”
In addition to torture, the medical workers interviewed by HRW described hellish living conditions in Israeli custody.
According to the report:
Abed, the surgeon, said the food was “horrible” and inadequate, and that he lost 22 kilograms (49 pounds) during a month and a half in detention. The bathrooms were “not even fit for animals.” The mattresses and blankets were thin, and the cold nights were “unbearable.” In the cells, water for toilets and for drinking was only available for one hour a day, with a “disgusting” stench emanating from the nonflushable toilets. “They gave us a bag for the garbage. We used to fill it with water and drink from it later. It smelled horrible but we had no choice,” Abed said.
The new HRW report is the latest evidence of Israeli torture of Palestinian medical workers, more than 500 of whom have been killed by Israeli bombs and bullets since October, according to United Nations agencies. There have been numerous reports of Israeli forces deliberately targeting medical workers.
Healthcare professionals living and working—often without pay for months—under such conditions are experiencing severe trauma.
“Several staff members told us they were simply waiting to die, and that they hoped Israel would get it over with sooner rather than later,” a pair of U.S. surgeons who volunteered at Gaza European Hospital wrote earlier this month for Politico.
Israel is currently on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. Israeli forces have killed more than 40,400 Palestinians—mostly women and children—in Gaza since October, while wounding at least 93,500 others. At least 10,000 more Gazans are missing and believed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of buildings in the obliterated strip.
Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced by Israel’s bombardment and invasion. Israel’s ” complete siege” of Gaza has pushed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians over the brink of starvation; dozens of children have died due to malnutrition, dehydration, and lack of adequate medical care. Preventable diseases including measles, hepatitis, and polio are spreading, threatening not only Gazans but people in nearby countries including Israel and Egypt.
Meanwhile at the ICC—which is also located in The Hague—Prosecutor Karim Khan is pushing the tribunal to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders, at least one of whom, former political chief Ismail Haniyeh, has been assassinated by Israel.
