Saturday, February 10, 2024

The ongoing war

There's no defense for what Selma Blair said.  Early today, we noted CAIR's statement and Marcia blogged about Selman's hate in "The hateful people who destroy our world."  Otherwise?  Ava and I writing about it for THIRD.

Now let's note this:

Ayat Khadoura posted a video online in November. The text written across her recording reads: “My last message to the world.” For the freelancer, posting from northern Gaza about the search for food and basic needs, it wasn’t the first time she’d thought she might be filming her final moments. But this time she was right.

“We had very big dreams, but unfortunately, today our dreams are that if we are killed, we are killed in one piece,” she said.

An Israeli strike hit Khadoura’s home in northern Gaza, killing her and some of her siblings, her sister Yasmin said. She said relatives couldn’t bury Ayat because her body was blown to pieces.

“Ayat aspired to become a big journalist, to study further, to get filming equipment. So many things,” her sister said. But in her last days, Yasmin recalled, “she told me, ‘I no longer want anything. I just want the war to end.’”


The death toll continues to climb.  At least 85 journalists have been killed in Gaza.  Ayat Khadoura was killed on November 20th and THE WASHINGTON POST notes her and others killed.  



Radio Free Amanda notes, "85 was the number two months ago -- CPJ tends to be slow at processing and releasing these figures. According to UN reports and Gaza's own Government Media office, the number is at least 122 journalists killed by Israel at this point."  Reporters Without Borders notes:

The toll of four months of war in Gaza on journalism is nothing short of horrifying: Palestinian journalists killed, wounded, and prevented from working without any possibility of safe refuge. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) strongly condemns the eradication of journalism and the right to information in Gaza by the Israeli army, and calls on States and international organisations to increase pressure on Israel to immediately cease this carnage.

 

In 124 days of conflict, at least 84 journalists have been killed in Gaza, including at least 20 in the course of their journalistic work or in connection with it, according to RSF’s data. Journalists are being decimated as the days of this interminable war go by, through incessant Israeli strikes from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip. Journalists who have survived these four months are living a daily hell: In inhumane conditions, they suffer shortages of all kinds, particularly of equipment, as well as regular media blackouts.



CBS NEWS reports, "Israeli airstrikes killed at least 44 Palestinians — including more than a dozen children — in the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Saturday, hours after Israel's prime minister said he had asked the military to plan for the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people there ahead of a ground invasion."  CNN’s Abel Alvarado notes, "Another Israeli airstrike in Rafah hit a house and killed at least 12 civilians, according to information provided to CNN by the Abu Yousuf Al-Najjar hospital in Gaza. More people are believed to still be caught under the rubble."


Gaza remains under assault. Day 127 of  the assault in the wave that began in October.  Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion.  The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.  But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets:  How to justify it?  Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence."   CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund."  ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them."  NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza."  The slaughter continues.  It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service.  Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide."   The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher.  United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse."  THE NATIONAL notes, "At least 28,064 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since t'  he war began on October 7.  Another 67,611 have been wounded and thousands more are missing."  Months ago,  AP has noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing."  February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home."  February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:






And the area itself?  Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells."  Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second World War."   


Among the many children who have been killed or gone missing (or both) is Hind Rajab.  For some time, people have been asking where she is after the car she was traveling in with her cousins and her aunt and uncle was shot up and an ambulance arrived to take her for medical treatment. AP explains:


The sound of gunfire crackled over the phone as the teenage girl hid in the car and spoke. An Israeli tank was near the vehicle as she and her family were trying to heed Israel’s call to evacuate their home in Gaza.

Something had gone horribly wrong. Everyone in the vehicle was dead, the teen said. Everyone but her and her 5-year-old female cousin, Hind.

“They are shooting at us,” 15-year-old Layan told the Palestinian Red Crescent. “The tank is next to me.”





Emine Sinmaz (GUARDIAN) picks up there:


But the aid agency lost contact with the ambulance dispatched to her aid on 29 January and its crew and Hind remained missing.

Now Hind’s family has said that she was found dead inside the car in the Tel al-Hawa area of Gaza City on Saturday morning.

“Hind and everyone else in the car is martyred,” her grandfather, Baha Hamada, told Agence France-Presse. “[Family members] were able to reach the area because Israeli forces withdrew early at dawn today.”

Hind’s mother, Wissam Hamada, added: “I will question before God on Judgment Day those who heard my daughter’s cries for help and did not save her.”

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said that it had located its bombed-out ambulance just metres away, and that its two paramedics, Yusuf Al-Zeino and Ahmed Al-Madhoun, had also been killed.


As we noted at the top, journalists have been killed.  Children are being killed.  And The Red Cross - Red Crescent and other aid workers are being killed.  AP notes, "Palestinian Red Crescent spokesperson Raed al-Nims said Israel has killed 20 of its staffers and wounded about 30 others since the war began."




More killing is planned.   BBC reports:

Israel is facing growing international warnings over its planned offensive in Rafah - the city in southern Gaza crammed with Palestinian refugees.

UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said "over half of Gaza's population are sheltering in the area", while Dutch FM Hanke Bruins Slot said there could be "many civilian casualties".

Saudi Arabia warned of "very serious repercussions" if Rafah was stormed.

Gaza's Hamas rulers said there could "tens of thousands" of casualties.


THE NATIONAL adds that over a million people are packed into Rafah currently and:


 Israel's main backer, the United States, has said it does not support a ground offensive in Rafah, warning that, if not properly planned, such an operation risks "disaster."

The UAE also expressed deep concern for the humanitarian repercussions. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned against military action that could cause the loss of more innocent life and exacerbate the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip.

Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf said such action by Israel would be “indefensible”, and urged the international community to demand an immediate ceasefire.


ALJAZEERA notes that Netanyahu is insisting a "safe passage" would be offered to those in Rafah: 


However, it remains unclear how this would be achieved, considering it is now home to 1.4 million people in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli forces have also routinely bombed designated safe zones after telling Palestinians to evacuate to them since the start of the war on October 7.


The war continues to spread throughout the region.  Zeina Khodr (ALJAZEERA) reports:


This was deep inside Lebanon about 60km (37 miles) from the border with Israel, where the two sides, Hezbollah and Israel, have been exchanging fire triggered by the war on Gaza.

This is the not first attack of its kind. On Thursday an Israeli drone targeted a vehicle in the southern city of Nabaitieh targeting members of Hezbollah.

This is really becoming strategy on the part of the Israelis, and what is clear that there is no longer a front line. Back in January Hamas number two [Saleh al-Arouri] was assassinated in the heart of the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

Israel is using this opportunity to really target officials from Hezbollah and Hamas as well as try to degrade the capabilities of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

ALJAZEERA adds, "The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that any widening of the war in Gaza would aggravate the economic harm caused by the conflict."


The following sites updated:


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