Juan Cole, Informed Comment, 09/07/2024

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Basil Maghrebi at the Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports 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.

“Hope,” Digital, Dream / Impressionism v3, Clip2Comic, 2024

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.

The Middle East Monitor has written,

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.

Filed Under: Featured, Israel/ Palestine, US Foreign Policy

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

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.

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Consortium News, September 4, 2024

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)

By Jake Johnson
Common Dreams

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.

Albanese’s statement came as the Israeli military’s largest assault on the West Bank in decades continued into its second week on Monday. At least 29 Palestinians have been killed during the series of military raids, according to Al Jazeera, including at least five children.

“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.

This article is from 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.

Teledyne’s Shipley factory manufactures key components for missile systems, namely missile filters.

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.

.
https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/palestine-action-activists-go-trial-after-dismantling-teledyne-weapons-factory

According to flight data, there’s been a spike in US arms deliveries to Israel since the end of July

by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, August 29, 2024

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.”

Marco Carnelos, Middle East Eye, 27 August 2024

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

Read More »

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

Read More »

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.

Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams, Aug 26, 2024

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.

Consortium News, August 23, 2024

It is illogical to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza over the last 10 months as defensive, writes M. Reza Behnam.

Smoke and flames billow after Israeli forces struck a high-rise tower in Gaza City, Oct. 7, 2023. (Palestinian News & Information Agency, Wafa, in contract with APAimages, CC BY-SA 3.0)

By M. Reza BehnamZ-Network

Despite the countless atrocities, assassinations and violations of humanitarian and international law, American politicians and the corporate media recite ad infinitum the accepted talking point that Israel has a “right to defend itself.” From their distorted perspective, only the aggressor deserves that prerogative.  

Israel’s claim to self-defense is never questioned.  Although it has one of the strongest modern militaries (581 aircraft, including F-15, F-16 and advanced stealth F-35 fighter jets); possesses the latest air defense systems; stockpiles 400 nuclear weapons with delivery systems; and has the United States, the world’s largest military power, standing ready to protect it, we are to believe that Israel is in physical danger. 

On the other hand, the Palestinians, most in need of defense, are denied that right.  They are told to accept colonized lives in the Gaza concentration camp, to accept marginalization, injustice and humiliation forever; that they have no right to resist the Israeli apartheid regime.  

And the United States and its Western proxies threaten the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon and others in the Palestinian Resistance for daring to challenge Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. 

Even though the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Palestinian Islamic Jihad and smaller groups have no organized modern military, no air force, navy, air defense systems, nuclear weapons and no Western allies to defend them from Israeli terrorism, we are to believe that they are a threat. 

In addition, the U.S.-Israeli narrative concerning Palestinians and their regional allies is rife with contradictions.  The United States and Israel can choose their allies, while Iranians and Palestinians cannot without controversy. 

Hardly the Victim 

Sudden refugees forever, Palestine Nakba 1948. (Hanini, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

Israel is hardly the victim it portrays itself to be. 

Its colonial expansion through the use of force began when it destroyed over 500 Palestinian towns and violently dispossessed over 750,000 Palestinians to establish an exclusive Jewish state in 1948. 

It broadened with the 1967 Arab-Israel War, which led to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as well as control over the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula and Syrian Golan Heights. 

The historical record reveals that for many years prior to 1967 Israel intended to seize the West Bank and Golan Heights.  There was no military threat or safety concerns. The war was fought out of a desire to demonstrate Israel’s power and to achieve territorial gains.

Israel continues to seize Palestinian land and escalate expansion.  Currently, as many as 700,000 Jewish “settlers” live in 150 illegal “settlements” and 128 outposts across occupied Palestine.

The mainstreamed popular Israeli myth of a small David defending against an Arab Goliath was shattered by the Gaza prison break of Oct. 7.  A fantasy President Joe Biden and many in the American political class grew up on and continue to embrace. 

The reality of Israel’s brutal siege of Gaza and the West Bank has also forced many Jews in the diaspora to recognize that Israel has not been their defender.  To the contrary, the mixing of Judaism with Zionism — religion and bellicose nationalism — has fueled anti-Semitism.

Law Breaker 

Israeli military forces arriving to demolish the Palestinian community of Khirbet Ein Karzaliyah on Jan. 8, 2014. (B’Tselem, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)

To become a regional nuclear Goliath, Israel has violated countless international and humanitarian laws.  Tel Aviv has yet to confront a law it has been willing to obey or a country’s sovereignty it felt compelled to respect.  

The U.N. Charter of 1945 and the body of international law enshrined in its conventions, treaties and standards were created to govern relations and to usher in comity among nations, and to insure the horrors of the Second World War were never repeated. 

The Charter, for example, strictly prohibits the acquisition of territory by force.  Israel, however, began violating it soon after it proclaimed statehood and again in its preemptive 1967 War. 

As a consequence of the Arab-Israel wars of 1948-49 and 1967, Israel permanently occupied the land it captured and has not allowed the Palestinians made refugees by the wars to return to Palestine and to their homes. 

Occupation is by definition temporary until conditions are such that the territory can be returned to its original sovereign.  

Flagrantly, Israel has violated one of the most important principles established under modern international law: an occupying power cannot, under any circumstances, acquire the right to annex or gain sovereignty over any territory under its occupation. 

Furthermore, Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 states: 

“The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies” and prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportation of protected persons from occupied territory.”

Significantly, two principles of international law regarding the use of force are especially important to weigh with regard to Oct. 7 and its aftermath. 

The Right to Resist Includes Armed Struggle  

Message on the walls of Deheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem, 2006. (delayed gratification, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

For Palestinians, international law recognizes that resistance, by all available means, including armed struggle, is a legitimate right for people under illegal occupation (Additional Protocol 1 to the 1977 Geneva Conventions). 

For Israel, when an occupation is in place, as it is in the West Bank and Gaza, the occupier (Israel) cannot use militarized force in response to an armed attack; it can only use police force to restore order (1949 Geneva Convention, respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land). 

Essentially, international law leaves little doubt — Israel is an illegal occupant.  The International Court of Justice on July 19 said just that.  In its advisory opinion it ruled that Israel should end its illegal occupation and that “settlers” be removed from all of occupied Palestine.

Repeated United Nations condemnations, reports and resolutions have not stopped Israel from defying the rules and norms which other members of the international community are bound to observe. 

The United States and its proxies have enabled it to become the rogue state it is today.  And in the process, they have made Israel’s  genocidal war in Gaza possible.  

Oddly, while Israel escalates its violent behavior in the Middle East, the United States has warned Iran and other Palestinian allies not to escalate. 

In addition, in August, Washington approved an additional $20 billion in new arms transfers (F-15 fighter jets, missiles, tens of thousands of mortar and tank shells); thereby, giving Israel the green light to continue its war in Gaza and to regional escalation. 

In this and in many other actions, the American administration has made its defense of Israel unequivocal.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei praying at the funeral for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Aug. 1. (Khamenei.ir, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)

Since the assassination late last month of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders in Beirut and Tehran, Israel has anticipated a retaliatory attack.  To mitigate that, the United States initiated on Aug. 15 renewed negotiations for a ceasefire. 

To sabotage the talks, Israel escalated the war by bombing Gazans sheltering in ruined schools and living in tents. Provocatively, Israeli ultranationalists marched on the Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyard, reserved for Muslim worship, in occupied Al-Quds (Jerusalem).   

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as he has done for 20 years, continues to relentlessly pursue his dream of dragging the United States into a war against Iran. 

Interestingly, Iran, through its Mission to the United Nations, has stated that it would support a ceasefire recognized by Hamas.  It has, however, also maintained its legitimate right to respond to the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, chairman of Hamas’ Political Bureau, and to Israel’s violation of its national security and sovereignty.

Iran is also keenly aware that if the assassination on its soil is left unanswered, it simply “whets the appetite of the Israeli occupation for more transgressions and aggression.” 

It is illogical to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza over the last 10 months as defensive.  Unfortunately, that is what many in the American corridors of power and Israeli-backed media have been doing. 

The narrative has finally begun to shift.  Voices have grown increasingly louder demanding that Palestinians have a right to defend themselves, to resist occupation and to seek liberation. 

The worn-out “defense” trope used to protect Israel no longer persuades.   It is time for it to be jettisoned.

Reza Behnam is a political scientist specializing in the history, politics and governments of the Middle East.

This article is from Z-Network.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

by Rep. John J. Duncan, Jr. Posted on August 23, 2024

On August 12, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, issued a press statement commemorating the anniversary of the adoption of the Geneva Conventions.

He said: “The 75th anniversary of the adoption of the 1949 Geneva Conventions is a fitting occasion to reaffirm our commitment to respecting international humanitarian law… We call on others to do the same.”

Except Israel.

Blinken added: “Faced with the horrible reality of war, parties to armed conflict must comply with international humanitarian law to mitigate many of war’s worst humanitarian consequences, support pathways to peace, and advance the protection of civilians and other victims.”

Except Israel.

Of course, Blinken did not add the words “except Israel” but he should have, considering what had happened just two days earlier.

On August 10, Israel dropped bombs on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians, killing over 100 and injuring hundreds more.

The New York Times reported that one witness “said he found a scene of carnage unlike any he had seen in the past 10 months of war: A prayer hall strewed with bodies and body parts over two floors.” Another witness said “the dead were all in pieces.”

CNN said there was “no advance warning of the attack” and reported that the director for ambulance and emergency services said, “All of these people who were targeted were civilians, unarmed children, the elderly, men and women.”

NBC News described the event as “one of the deadliest attacks in the 10-month war” and said the strikes hit the school “during dawn prayers.” The network reported, “The White House said it was deeply concerned.” Two days earlier, Secretary Blinken announced that the US was sending billions more to Israel in a new weapons package.

The Financial Times quoted a surgeon as saying, “This was a very bloody day,” and that he had performed several amputations including on at least four children.

War deaths in Gaza have now passed 40,000 with thousands more still buried under the rubble. At least two-thirds were women and children. Over 95 percent of the people in Palestine were not members of Hamas.

Jeffrey Sachs is a world-renowned economist and foreign policy expert and holds the highest rank awarded by Columbia University. He is a Jew and a fierce critic of this war.

He said during Judge Napolitano’s August 13th podcast that Israel is now a “completely lawless country.” He said Israel is “doing whatever it can to provoke” war in the Middle East and “this is not what the American people want.”

He added that “Netanyahu and his party want no Palestinian state and this means no peace.” He said this is what the Israel Lobby wants.

Netanyahu received 50 standing ovations when he spoke to the Congress on July 24. None of these members would have applauded the killing of thousands of children in any other country. In fact, they would have been rushing to condemn it.

Professor Sachs has said in many interviews that the US is “complicit in the genocide” that is still going on in Gaza. He says this war would not last one more day without US support.

I believe God will punish the members of Hamas who did horrible things to Jewish people last October 7. But I also believe that God loves the innocent people of Palestine, too, especially the little children.

Psalm 147 says: “The Lord builds up Jerusalem, He gathers together the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” There are certainly no more outcast people in Israel today than those living at the brink of starvation in Gaza.

The Bible also instructs us, in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, to “seek peace and pursue it.”

A few weeks ago the US supported a UN resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. Netanyahu has ignored this because he either wants to kill all the Palestinian people or at least ethnically cleanse them out of Israel.

We are $35 trillion in debt. We are spending money we do not have to support this war. Almost every member of Congress is scared to death that the Israel Lobby will spend millions against them if they speak out against Netanyahu. I guess, unfortunately, that this war will continue.

Reprinted with author’s permission from The Knoxville Focus.

John James Duncan Jr. is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for Tennessee’s 2nd congressional district from 1988 to 2019. A lawyer, former judge, and former long serving member of the Army National Guard, he is a member of the Republican Party.