More Evidence of Israel's Genocidal Crimes Against Humanity
As limited truce begins November 24, 2023, some Gazans in the south return to their homes to see
what remains.
The systematic destruction the Israeli Zionists conducted after the
truce in the fighting was announced and its declarations that after
the
truce it will continue its mission of wiping out Hamas and wiping
out
the Palestinian people are a testament to their depravity and the
urgent
need to stop
them. The disastrous situation into which the crimes Israel has
committed
thus far have plunged the people continues to be revealed. The
number
of Palestinians killed since October 7 was
14,532 when the truce was announced, including about 6,000 children
and many more buried under the rubble not yet accounted for. With
the vicious assaults
Israel launched in the
next 24 hours the death toll rose to 19,385 of whom 8,005 were
children.
Devastation in northern Gaza, November 23, 2023
The Qatar-mediated four-day truce is an agreement between Israel and Palestinian resistance organizations providing for a limited prisoner swap and for aid to enter into Gaza. The office of the Israeli Prime Minister said a one-day extension would be authorized for each additional 10 prisoners in Gaza released by Palestinians after the end of the initial four-day period. The Israeli government has not been authorized to extend the ceasefire for longer than 10 days in total, according to an agreement announced by Israel's war cabinet.
The limited truce came into effect on November 24 with the release of 10 captives by Hamas.
With the announcement of the ceasefire tens of thousands
of displaced Palestinians immediately began walking to return to
their homes. Video footage circulating on social media has shown
the Israeli army shooting at Palestinians trying to return to the
north of Gaza after the humanitarian pause took effect. Israeli
forces also dropped leaflets to warn Gazans against doing so. The
leaflet said. "To the residents of the Gaza Strip, the war didn't
end yet, the humanitarian pause is temporary, and the northern
region of Gaza is a war zone."
The temporary truce has revealed both the extent of the
humanitarian catastrophe and destruction wrought upon the
Palestinian people of Gaza by Israeli forces as well as the social
love and solidarity the people have for one another. Middle
East Monitor (MEMO) writes:
"In the first minutes of the pause, hundreds of thousands of
Palestinian displaced people went to see their homes and
neighbourhoods, especially in the border areas and in areas where
Israeli forces were deployed. The Palestinians discovered massive
destruction caused by Israeli forces in their areas of residence.
Witnesses reported finding dozens of Palestinians who had been
killed by the Israeli armed forces, laying open, decomposing. They
found entire residential neighbourhoods containing hundreds of
buildings and tens of thousands of homes completely destroyed
along with massive damage to roads, government buildings, private
institutions, infrastructure, electricity and communications
networks destroyed." MEMO reports this was the scene they
came upon on town after town. "Among the areas that witnessed
widespread destruction were the towns of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia
and Jabalya, the neighbourhoods of Al-Rimal, Tal Al-Hawa, Sheikh
Ijlin, and the vicinity of Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City."
Thousands of Palestinians were shocked when they saw their homes
destroyed and surrounded by corpses and blood.
At the same time Palestinian Information Centre (PIC) has reported
on countless examples of the social love and popular solidarity of
the people in the face of such savage Israeli aggression. Many
videos shared speak to this profound humanity and social
solidarity. Those who have food, offer it to displaced people
passing by on foot. Meal deliveries, food parcels and water are
shared amongst the displaced population by volunteer organizations
and institutions. Medical doctors come by bicycle to keep in touch
with patients because fuel has run out. There are accounts from
Jabalia refugee camp of people opening their homes, sharing
blankets and whatever they have with resistance fighters. Reports
inform of UN-run schools, hospitals, universities, wedding halls,
social clubs opening their doors to those displaced by Israeli
bombardments.
The PIC writes, "Citizens share bread, water bottles, and medicine strips, and no one monopolizes his possessions. Everything brought by the head of the family for his children becomes common property for the neighbors and the community; no one deprives anyone of anything. [... A]ctivists make large quantities of food on firewood and distribute it to the displaced. The meals often consist of lentils and beans, and in some cases, meals of rice and chicken are provided through donations received from homes and abroad. [... Volunteers work] on providing water, distributing food, blankets and essential life supplies." Others are organized to support specific groups with special needs -- the disabled, infants, pregnant women, the sick and so forth, through donations from the people.
Red cross
ambulances carrying first group of Israelis to be released by Hamas, November 24, 2023.
Prisoner Swap: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has received 13 Israeli civilians along with 10 other foreign nationals from Palestinian fighters in Gaza, as per the first footage released. This group was exchanged for 39 Palestinian women and children held in Israeli jails.
The prisoner swap will see Palestinian resistance organizations release a total of 50 civilians, all women and children, at least 10 per day over the life of the truce. Israel in turn agreed to release 150 Palestinians. The Resistance groups gave priority to 300 women, children and others who had been in jail the longest including two women imprisoned since 2015, two women over 50 years old as well as 123 minors under the age of 18, five of whom are under the age of 14 according to the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz.
In addition to the first group of women and children that Hamas handed over to Israel on November 24, it released 12 Thai nationals who had been working in Israel as labourers when they were captured during the October 7 raid. Their release was confirmed by the Thai Prime Minister.
Prior to October 7 there were some 5,200 Palestinians detained by Israel, many on "administrative detention orders" which means they are held for indefinite periods without charge, trial or conviction of any crime. Since October 7 those numbers have swelled to more than 10,000 people, not counting the 4,000 Palestinian labourers from Gaza who were working in Israel and are currently detained in military bases or the more than 2,000 other Palestinians arrested in nightly raids across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The IDF fire tear gas at relatives of the Palestinian prisoners awaiting their release from Israeli prison, November 24, 2023.
U.S., Canadian and British media, along with other media whose mission is to destroy public opinion in support of the Palestinian people and their resistance and promote irrational support for Israel, never speak of the captives Israel is holding, or their conditions. To do so would corroborate that it is Israel which is a terrorist state, not Palestine.
Aid Trucks: Under the agreement, between 200 and 300 aid trucks will enter Gaza each day and will include fuel, a Hamas spokesperson informed. Aid will be allowed to reach northern Gaza as well as the south, the spokesperson said. An average of 30 trucks a day have entered the Gaza Strip since October 7, down from an average of 500 trucks per day before the war.
Even under the agreement reached, Israel continues to control the flow of aid which is unacceptable. While people urgently require relief, they are not hopeful that Israel will stop its crimes. Hamas called a halt to the prisoner exchange for several hours because Israel was not abiding by the terms of the agreement to permit aid into the north. However, late on November 25, it agreed to release 13 Israelis and seven foreigners in exchange for 39 more Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, and later informed that the 20 people had been handed over to the ICRC.
The main United Nations agency in Gaza, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) announced on November 22, the 47th day after the October 7 events, that almost 1.7 million people -- nearly 80 per cent of the population -- have been displaced since Israel launched its aggression against Gaza. As many as 945,000 of these internally displaced people are sheltering in UNRWA premises across Gaza. UNRWA reported 23 of its installations have been directly hit and 45 were impacted by collateral damage from Israeli bombing, resulting in the injury of at least 798 internally displaced people and the death of at least 191.
At least 108 UNRWA workers have been killed since the beginning of the Israeli war on the besieged strip. More than 40 of them have been killed south of Wadi Gaza, in the area where Israel's military has told civilians to move.
UNRWA also reported that Israel has limited deliveries of fuel to less than one-half of what is required for daily operations. Without more fuel, the agency said it would be forced to handle a reduced number of trucks carrying humanitarian aid crossing daily into Rafah, and large parts of Gaza would continue to be flooded with sewage, further increasing risks of disease. "Let's be clear: the control of fuel and the access to water is to control whether thousands -- perhaps tens of thousands -- of children live or die," UNICEF spokesperson James Elder told a press briefing in Geneva.
Médecins sans frontières
"I have spent my entire adult professional life working on basically medical care in conflict zones, and I have never seen anything like this. It's not only attacks on structures that should be safe, like hospitals and schools, but also holding an entire population without food or water or fuel for over a month," Médecins sans frontières (MSF) physician Dr. Amber Alayyan said.
The U.S. has been providing Israel with the location of humanitarian groups working in Gaza for weeks under the guise of preventing strikes against their facilities, but Israel has still targeted them, the news outlet Politico reported on November 21. The information included GPS coordinates of several medical facilities and information on movements of aid groups. Israel simply used the information to target the medical and aid workers.
On November 21, Israel killed two MSF doctors, Mahmoud Abu Nujaila and Ahmad Al-Sahar and a third doctor Ziad Al-Tatar, in an airstrike on the Al-Awda Hospital. Other medical staff, including MSF staff, were also severely injured. MSF had shared the GPS coordinates of their staff with Israeli authorities the same day. On November 18, Israel killed one person and injured another in an attack on a MSF convoy trying to evacuate the group's Palestinian staff members and their families from Gaza. The MSF convoy of five cars, all clearly marked with MSF identification, including on the cars' roofs, included 137 people, among them 65 children.
More Israeli Destruction at Al-Shifa Hospital
Reports indicate the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) withdrew on
November 24 from Al-Shifa Hospital Complex in Gaza City after
about 10 days of storming, raiding and destroying large parts of
it. The IDF blew up the hospital's power generators and medical
equipment, including X-ray machines, in addition to oxygen pumps,
before withdrawing. About 180 patients, unable to move due to the
severity of their injuries, and seven medical staff members are
still present in Al-Shifa Hospital. "About 19 of the wounded and
patients are at risk of losing their lives due to the severity of
their health conditions," one agency reports.
The IDF also kidnapped the director of Al-Shifa Hospital, Mohamed
Abu Salmiya, and other doctors during their withdrawal to southern
Gaza. "It is a crime, a flagrant violation of international
conventions that stipulate that medical personnel must not be
harmed at all times, including during wartime," medical
authorities said. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza also
demanded that the UN and World Health Organization (WHO) submit a
report on the Israeli detention of medical personnel and demand
their release. The Ministry explained: "A convoy from the United
Nations, represented by WHO, moved on Wednesday [November 22] to
evacuate some of the patients and medical staff who were subjected
to the most horrific Nazi practices in addition to starvation. We
were surprised that this convoy was stopped by the Israeli
checkpoint separating the north from south of Gaza, for about
seven hours, during which Israeli occupation forces maltreated the
patients, their companions, and the medical staff, before
arresting a number of them, including the Director General of Al-Shifa
Medical Complex, Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya."
Last Hospital in Northern Gaza Closed
The last medical centre in northern Gaza to receive wounded Palestinians, the Indonesian Hospital, remains under Israeli siege. The Indonesian Hospital, under Israeli attacks since the start of the war, became a major focus of Israeli forces in Gaza at dawn on November 21 when Israel directly bombed the hospital, including the surgery ward, killing at least 12 patients and other members of their families. The attacks also wounded several doctors and other medical staff.
Photos from Indonesian hospital following Israeli bombing.
More Journalists Killed
On November 20, Israeli Occupation Forces killed two Al Mayadeen journalists, Farah Omar and cameraman Rabih Al-Maamari during an attack on the village of Tair Harfa, southern Lebanon. Ghassan Ben Juddou, chairman of the Board of Directors of Al Mayadeen, condemned the cruel murder and assured that the Israeli soldiers targeted the journalists of the pan-Arab channel "directly and deliberately." Addressing the Israeli occupation, he stressed, "You will not be able to silence the voice of Al Mayadeen, and you should know that no matter how much you kill [us] or attempt [to silence] us, we will go on." He confirmed, "We will remain and continue our coverage and our honourable journalistic work, whose priority is to expose the crimes of the occupation in Gaza, the West Bank, Palestine and Lebanon."
On the same day, the constant Israeli army bombing surrounding the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza resulted in the death of Egyptian journalist Ahmad Fatima of channel Al Qahera News. Another journalist was also seriously injured. Khaled el Balshy, the president of the Egyptian Union of Journalists condemned the killing of journalists by Israel. "The Zionist occupation's crimes against journalists and those who transmit the truth in Palestine continue. The most recent one is the death of the cameraman of the Al Qahera News channel and the injuries suffered by another journalist in the bombing against the surroundings of the hospital of Al Shifa in Gaza," he said.
Palestinian journalist Amal Zohd and her entire family were killed in an Israeli shelling that targeted their home in Gaza City on Friday, November 24. The number of journalists martyred in the Gaza Strip since the start of the ongoing Israeli aggression has reached more than 63.
Click to enlarge
Attacks on Refugee Camps and the West Bank
More than 60 Palestinians from the Jabalia Refugee Camp were killed in a new massacre committed by the Israeli occupation in Gaza, November 21. Israeli occupation forces also conducted a raid on the Tulkarm Refugee Camp in the West Bank. Sources told Al Mayadeen on November 21 that four Palestinian Resistance fighters were killed and that the IDF prevented an ambulance from reaching the targeted location.
The IDF raided a number of homes in the city, while armoured bulldozers worked on destroying civilian infrastructure, including roads in the refugee camp. They also conducted a wave of mass arrests in the West Bank, detaining at least 35 Palestinians. The raids focused on Jenin, Nablus, al-Khalil, al-Quds, Beit Lahm, and Ramallah. Numerous residential homes were stormed, and people's possessions were vandalized.
Olive Harvest Targeted
Israeli armed forces and armed settlers are terrorizing Palestinians in the West Bank, obstructing the annual olive harvest and vandalizing thousands of olive trees -- many hundreds of years old -- that are the livelihood of many local Palestinian communities. "Masked people wearing army pants come, and sometimes soldiers; we can't tell the difference," Lafi Shalabi, head of the Turmus Ayya village council near the Shiloh settlement bloc, told Ha'aretz earlier this month. "They tell us while they're brandishing their guns: 'If we see you one more time, we'll shoot you." Israeli rights group Yesh Din alone reported 99 incidents of violence, blocked access and destroyed property this season, compared to 38 incidents for all of last year. Some 80 per cent of the villagers didn't harvest their olives this year.
Reports are also informing that Jews from abroad have returned to Israel and have come to defend the Palestinians from the attacks of settlers. More on this is sure to become known in due course as more and more Israelis oppose what Israel is doing to the Palestinians and demand new arrangements where Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side in peace.
The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz published a report that "state-backed settler militias have embarked on a campaign of population transfer amid the genocide in Gaza." Palestinian residents of sixteen shepherding communities across the occupied West Bank have been forced to flee after settler threats, Ha'aretz writes. The South Hebron Hills are now ruled by settler "defence squads" who act with total impunity, it says. These illegal settlers -- all settlers and their settlements are illegal under international law -- are said to have grown "wilder than ever." "The community defence squads have the authority to arrest anyone they want and do whatever they want," a field researcher for B'Tselem reported.
The same pattern of terror and ethnic cleansing is repeated in every Palestinian village. Settlers, sometimes masked and in military uniforms, arrive at night to threaten and intimidate residents. They've held guns to children's heads, destroyed cars and other property, emptied villagers' water tanks, torn open sacks of grain, killed livestock and destroyed possessions, all while delivering 24-hour ultimatums for the Palestinians to leave. The Palestinian Information Centre also reports that Israeli soldiers also stormed in large numbers Marah Rabah and Al-Manshiya villages in Bethlehem. Similar raids were also reported in Ramallah and Nablus. A large-scale raid and search campaign was also carried out in several towns in Jenin. Military checkpoints were erected during the raids, which led to the outbreak of violent clashes. The Information Centre reported that in al-Khalil, resistance fighters opened fire on an Israeli military tower set up at the entrance to Beit Ummar, north of the city.
Challenges Confronting Israeli Occupying Regime in Gaza
The military spokesman for Al-Qassam Brigades Abu Obeida issued a statement on November 24 which said that since October 7, "We have documented the targeting of 335 Zionist military vehicles since the beginning of the ground incursion, directly hit by our anti-armour weapons, guerrilla action devices, and Shuath explosives. This includes 33 vehicles targeted in the last 72 hours in the areas of Al-Tawam, Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun, Al-Sheikh Radwan, and Al-Zaytoun. ... The results of these targeting operations ranged from complete to partial destruction of these vehicles, which varied between troop carriers, tanks, bulldozers, and excavators. This is besides dozens of operations targeting soldiers and infantry forces in their fortification, positioning, and assembly areas with shells and anti-personnel devices. ... Our fighters are entrenched in their positions and combat nodes, with some having been on their post for more than 30 days, waiting for the moment to strike their specified target at the designated time. This explains why our fighters, by the grace of Allah, are still able to strike enemy forces in their rear lines, emerging from the rubble and in areas the enemy thought were militarily decided weeks ago. ... What the enemy relies on to prolong the battle is genocide, brutalization, collective punishment, and committing massacres, not any real tangible military objective. Therefore, we affirm that we are ready, with the help of Allah, to continue the confrontation and resistance to the enemy, regardless of the duration and extent of the aggression."
News reports inform that between November 18 to 20, resistance fighters successfully targeted 60 Israeli military vehicles of various types in the past 72 hours and confronted the invading forces in several axes across Gaza. An elite force from Al-Qassam, comprising 25 fighters, executed an organized attack on Israeli forces stationed at al-Rantisi Children's Hospital, which had been forcefully emptied of patients and displaced people by occupation forces earlier. Resistance fighters on sight also attacked a personnel carrier near the hospital and simultaneously struck an Israeli infantry force fortified in a nearby school. They then destroyed a tank and another carrier that rushed to the scene. Close-range combat ensued, resulting in the deaths of several more IDF forces.
On November 23, Israeli Army Radio quoted the Israeli Disabled Veterans Association as saying that since October 7, 1,600 army soldiers have been left physically disabled. Some of those injured have been transferred to the U.S. for medical and psychological treatment.
Tehran Times reports on a secret audio recording it received of a recent meeting attended by senior Israeli military and political figures, providing insights into the challenges confronting the occupying regime in its ongoing war on the Gaza Strip and hinting at potential future courses of action. Among the notable attendees was Aviv Kohavi, a former Israeli general who served as the 22nd chief of general staff of the Israeli military until January 2023. In the tape Kohavi says Israel needs more time to accomplish its objectives in Gaza. "I'm not saying we need three years [to capture Gaza] but we can't complete the mission after three months," he is heard saying.
Kohavi also admits that the only way for the Israeli regime to capture Gaza is through a massive campaign of airstrikes on the civilian population. "We are using one-ton bombs and we are dropping 400 of them every night," he says. In addition to discussing military strategies, the former general characterizes the current situation in the Palestinian occupied territories as a "chronic disease" for Israeli settlers. Kohavi warns that it is only a matter of time before Israeli settlers may decide to abandon what he calls the "holy land" for Jews, suggesting the potential for a mass exodus.
Israel's economy is also facing a serious crisis. Israel could lose anywhere between $51 to $60 billion if the war continues for eight months, economists say. Israel mobilized nearly 400,000 reserve soldiers, at a direct cost of $1.3 billion a month, in addition to the economic loss of removing so many people from the economy. Weekly losses to the Israeli economy resulting from this are estimated at $1.2 billion. Bloomberg news says Israel's war on Palestine is costing $260 million a day. Israel has already borrowed $6 to $8 billion to cover its budget deficit, which reached $6 billion in October alone -- an increase of 400 per cent on a monthly basis. The Israeli Central Bank is reportedly in a panic. S&P has already estimated that Israel's GDP will contract by five per cent in the last quarter of this year -- on a quarterly basis -- while JPMorgan expects that the Israeli economy will contract by 11 per cent during the last quarter -- on a yearly basis. Financial Times newspaper argued that Israel can expect the fiscal deficit to "double three times next year."
Beware of Options the U.S. Is Weighing
Military Review, published by the U.S. Army, Department of Defense, carried a commentary in its November edition by Dr. Omer Dostri advocating expulsion of the Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank as the preferred option and objective of the current Israeli aggression. Omer Dostri is a former Likud functionary who is now a national security strategist at the Jerusalem Institute For Security and Strategy think tank and researcher at the Israel Defense and Security Forum. While Military Review neither endorses or opposes Dostri's options and rationale, publishing this opinion shows that the U.S. have put this option on the table for consideration while the White House continues to posture as if it is the voice of restraint and reason striving for a reliable "Palestinian" or "Arab alliance" acceptable to the U.S. and Israel to handle civil administration while the U.S. and/or Israel handle the military occupation and elimination of Hamas and other Palestinian Resistance organizations.
Interestingly Dostri uses the same terminology as
do NATO country spokespersons such as Canada's Deputy Prime
Minister Chrystia Freeland and Germany's Chancellor Olaf Sholtz,
according to whom western "liberal democracies" mistakenly thought
global neo-liberalism would "convince" the world to adopt western
liberal democratic governance structures. They have concluded that
this supposition failed and hence the necessity to build up NATO
and military capabilities to enforce the "rules-based"
international order, with U.S. imperialism as the indispensable
nation which every country must obey in order to guarantee world
peace.
An item from the NATO think tank the Atlantic Council by White
House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, Brett
McGurk, claims to set out "the Biden doctrine" for the Middle
East. The article was originally published in February 2023 but
the Atlantic Council claims it is relevant to the current aim of
the U.S. in the Middle East. McGurk says, "The framework that
we're working to implement has five declaratory principles. It is
effectively a Biden doctrine, and it now guides U.S. engagement in
the region." The doctrine's first principle is partnerships, the
second principle is deterrence, the third principle is diplomacy,
the fourth is integration. McGurk says of integration,
"[I]mportantly, [...] the spirit of the Hariri Center and the
Atlantic Council, is integration. We are working to build
political, economic, security connections between U.S. partners,
wherever possible." The fifth principle, he says, "is important to
any American diplomat, and it is values. ... we will always
promote human rights and the values enshrined in the UN Charter."
Hamas Targeted Legitimate Military Targets on October 7
Former
weapons inspector Scott Ritter has characterized the October 7
resistance operation by Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups
as "the most successful military raid of this century." In his article
Ritter says clearly it was a military raid carried out with discipline
and
precision, not an act of terrorism. The primary targets were Israeli,
including the kibbutzim, Ritter says, adding that they all qualify as
legitimate military targets and are integrated into the Israeli
military capacity against the Palestinian people.
Ritter dismissed the Israeli scenarios as false narratives and says most of the civilian Israeli deaths were the doing of IDF forces using Apache helicopters and tanks -- not the Palestinian resistance forces. Everything about October 7 fits what the U.S. military characterizes as a "military raid," conducted with great success by the Palestinian resistance, Ritter writes. The Palestinians, he said, "are people who have suffered untold deprivation at the hand of their Israeli occupiers while awaiting the moment they will see their dream of a Palestinian homeland come true. They know that a Palestinian homeland cannot be realized so long as Israel is governed by those who embrace the notion of a Greater (Eretz) Israel, and that the only way to remove such people is by defeating them politically, and the only way to trigger their political defeat is to defeat them militarily," he says adding that this is what Hamas is accomplishing.
According to Ritter, there is a heavy price to pay if there is to be any chance of a Palestinian homeland.
This article was published in
Volume 53 Number 26 - November 2023
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2023/Articles/MS53261.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca