Sunday, June 16, 2024

Gaza

Olivia Rosane (COMMON DREAMS) reports:


Former Israeli Knesset member Moshe Feiglin quoted Adolf Hitler as he called for Israel to resettle the Gaza Strip and create a "Hebrew Gaza."

Feiglin, who quit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party to found the right-wing Zehut Party and plans to challenge Likud in Israel's next elections, made the comments during a panel discussion on Israel's Channel 12 that was shared on social media on Sunday, as Middle East Eye reported.

"We are not guests in our country, this is our country, all of it..." Feiglin said, adding, "As Hitler said, 'I cannot live if one Jew is left.' We can't live here if one 'Islamo-Nazi' remains in Gaza." 

That's outrageous.  But revealing.  It's already Monday in Gaza.  ALMAYDEEN reports:

During the early hours of Monday, Al Mayadeen's correspondent in Gaza confirmed that three Palestinians, including a woman, were killed, while several others were seriously injured after the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) deliberately bombed a house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City. 

Israeli bombardment also targeted agricultural lands east of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

When does it ever end?  Today, the 'tactical pause' went into place.  Not a lot of details still.  ALJAZEERA notes:


Many questions remain over Israel’s announcement of “tactical pauses” in fighting along a road connecting the only functional border crossing into the Gaza Strip with the nearby city of Khan Younis, also in the south of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army’s Hebrew-language X account said there would be “no cessation of hostilities in the southern Gaza Strip”, around 90 minutes after the pauses were announced by its English-language account on Sunday morning.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper also reported the Israeli military hit back at claims from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant were left in the dark about the announcement.

Both Netanyahu and Gallant are facing arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court  (ICC) over charges of using starvation as a “method of war”.

Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told the AFP on Sunday that the UN welcomed the announcement but that it had “yet to translate into more aid reaching people in need.”


THE GUARDIAN notes, "Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly criticised plans announced by the military to hold daily tactical pauses in fighting along one of the main roads into Gaza to facilitate the delivery of aid."  CNN adds, "Netanyahu then contacted his military secretary and said the idea was unacceptable until he was assured the fighting in Rafah would continue, said the official who spoke to CNN on Sunday and requested anonymity."  MINT NEWS notes, "Later, Netanyahu openly criticised the military as Israeli television channels quoted him as saying, 'We have a country with an army, not an army with a country'."

Meanwhile, Sarah El Deeb (AP) reports:

An Associated Press investigation analyzed 10 strikes across the Gaza Strip between October and December that killed over 500 people. Nearly every Palestinian family has suffered grievous, multiple losses. But many have been decimated, particularly in the first months of the war.

AP geolocated and analyzed the strikes; consulted with weapons investigators; open data-analysts and legal experts; and drew on data by Airwars, a London-based conflict monitor. They hit residential buildings and shelters with families inside. In no case was there an obvious military target or direct warning to those inside. In one case the family said they had raised a white flag on their building in a combat zone. 


 Gaza remains under assault. Day 254 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, "More than 37,337 Palestinians have been killed and 85,299 injured in the war in Gaza since October 7, the Gaza Health Ministry said on Sunday. Thousands more are thought to be trapped under the rubble."    Months ago,  AP  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:

  



April 11th, Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT) reported, "In addition to the over 34,000 Palestinians who have been counted as killed in Israel’s genocidal assault so far, there are 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza who are missing, a humanitarian aid group has estimated, either buried in rubble or mass graves or disappeared into Israeli prisons.  In a report released Thursday, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the estimate is based on initial reports and that the actual number of people missing is likely even higher."
 

As for 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."

The following sites updated:


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