The Common Ills: Gaza

Sunday, August 18, 2024

Gaza

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken continues to push for a cease-fire or a 'cease-fire.' CBS NEWS notes, "Blinken, on his ninth diplomatic mission to the Middle East since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, arrived in Israel on Sunday to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and President Issac Herzog on Monday. Blinken will travel to Egypt on Tuesday for meetings with officials there, the State Department said. He may stop in at least one other country in the region before returning home." 9th? Maybe 10th. REUTERS notes, "In his 10th trip to the region since war began last October, Mr Blinken on Monday will meet senior Israeli leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a senior State Department official." THE GUARDIAN goes with 9th trip and adds, "The US secretary of state has declared it to be 'maybe the last opportunity' to get hostages held in Gaza out after he arrived in Israel to push for a ceasefire agreement." AMMON NEWS adds, "US President Joe Biden said Sunday that a Gaza ceasefire remained a possibility, despite Israel and Hamas trading blame as top diplomat Antony Blinken landed in Tel Aviv to push a deal." And IRISH TIMES explains, "The mediating countries – Qatar, the United States and Egypt – have so far failed to narrow enough differences to reach an agreement in months of on-off negotiations, and violence continued unabated in Gaza on Sunday."

Tom Bateman (BBC NEWS) notes:

On the way here one senior US official was using phrases including "critical moment" and "inflection point".

The Americans hope they can get this over the finish line perhaps as soon as this time next week.

But that level of optimism is not shared by the Israeli leadership or Hamas.

Each accuses the other of obstinate cynicism, and blocking a deal.

Meanwhile, AP notes, " Israeli strikes across Gaza killed 28 people overnight and into Sunday, including young quadruplets, local health officials said."

At ZNET, Ramzy Baroud writes:

On October 25, Israeli politician Moshe Feiglin told Arutz Sheva-Israel National News that “Muslims are not afraid of us anymore.”

It might sound odd that Feiglin saw the element of fear as critical to Israel’s well-being if not its very survival.

In actuality, the fear element is directly linked to Israel’s behavior and fundamental to its political discourse.

Historically, Israel has carried out massacres with a specific political strategy in mind: to instill the desired fear to drive Palestinians off their land. Deir Yassin, Tantara and the over 70 documented massacres during the Palestinian Nakba, or Catastrophe, are cases in point.

Israel has also utilized torture, rape and other forms of sexual assault to achieve similar ends in the past, to exact information or to break down the will of prisoners.

UN-affiliated experts said in a report published on August 5 that “these practices are intended to punish Palestinians for resisting occupation and seek to destroy them individually and collectively.”

Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza has manifested all these horrific strategies in ways unprecedented in the past, both in terms of widespread application and frequency.

In a report entitled ‘Welcome to Hell’, published on August 5, the Israeli rights group, B’tselem, said that Israel’s detention “facilities, in which every inmate is deliberately subjected to harsh, relentless pain and suffering operate as de-facto torture camps”.

A few days later, the Palestinian rights group, Addameer, published its own report, “documented cases of torture, sexual violence, and degrading treatment”, along with the “systematic abuses and human rights violations committed against detainees from Gaza.”

If incidents of rape, sexual assaults and other forms of torture are marked on a map, they would cover a large geographical area, in Gaza, in the West Bank, and Israel itself – mostly notably in the notorious Sde Teiman Camp.

Considering the size and locations of the Israeli army, well-documented evidence of rape and torture demonstrates that such tactics are not linked to a specific branch of the military. This means that the Israeli army uses torture as a centralized strategy.

Gaza remains under assault. Day 315 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. THE NATIONAL notes, "Gaza death toll rises to 40,099 with 92,609 wounded." Early on, Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) pointed out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." Months ago, 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 of acute food insecurity or worse." 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."

New content at THIRD: