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By Dr. Ramzy Baroud

Chinese diplomacy has done it again.

By hosting a historic signing of a unity agreement between 14 Palestinian political parties in Beijing on July 23, China has, once more, shown its ability to play a global role as a peace broker.

For years, China has attempted to play a role in Middle East politics, particularly in the region’s most enduring crisis, the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

In 2021, China announced its four-point plan, aimed at “comprehensively, fairly and permanently” resolving the Palestinian question.

Whether the plan itself was workable or not, it mattered little, as neither the Israeli government nor the Palestinian Authority were prepared to ditch Washington, which has dominated Middle East diplomacy for decades.

For the Israelis, their interests lie largely within their historic alliance with the United States, which has translated into very generous aid packages, military support and political backing.

As for the PA, since its inception in 1994, it revolved largely within a US-foreign policy sphere.

With time, the Palestinian leadership grew even more reliant on American-western financial handouts and validation. Thus, allowing China to flex its diplomatic muscles in the Middle East, at the expense of the US, would be considered a violation of the unspoken agreement between Washington and Ramallah.

Consequently, the Chinese efforts yielded nothing tangible.

But China’s success in ending a seven-year rift between Saudi Arabia and Iran re-introduced Beijing as a powerful new mediator, in a region known for its protracted and layered conflicts.

The latest horrific war in Gaza has further highlighted the possible role of China in Palestine and the region at large.

For years, China attempted to find the balance between its historic role as a global leader, with clout and credibility in the Global South, and its economic interests, including those in Israel.

That balancing act began eroding soon after the start of the war.

The Chinese political discourse on the war was committed to the rights of the Palestinian people and their historic struggle for freedom and justice.

The above notion was highlighted in the words of China’s ambassador to the UN, Fu Cong, when he said that “the establishment of an independent state is the indisputable national right of the Palestinian people, not subject to questioning or bargaining”.

Such language, which came to define China’s strong stance against the war, the massive human rights violations and the urgent need for a ceasefire, continued to evolve.

On February 22, China’s representative to the Hague, Ma Xinmin, said that “in pursuit of the right to self-determination, Palestinian people’s use of force to resist foreign oppression (…) is (an) inalienable right well founded in international law”. His statement was made during the fourth day of public hearings held by the ICJ to address Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestine.

The Chinese, and other countries’ efforts, paid dividends, as the ICJ released its Advisory Opinion on July 19, stating that “the sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying Power” and “continued frustration of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, violates fundamental principles of international law”.

It is within this context that ‘The Beijing Declaration on Ending Division and Strengthening Palestinian National Unity’ was signed.

The agreement was not a mere document, similar to those signed between rival Palestinian parties in the past. It proposed a three-step initiative that includes a “comprehensive, lasting and sustainable ceasefire in Gaza”, followed by a post-conflict governance plan, which is itself predicated on the principle of “Palestinians governing Palestine.”

The final step seeks long-term peace, all of which is achieved through broad-based participation of regional and international players. In other words, ending the domination of a single country over the future of Palestine and her people.

There will certainly be attempts to undermine, if not cancel, the Chinese efforts entirely. But there are reasons that give us hope that the diplomatic push by China may, in fact, serve as a foundation for a change in the global attitude towards justice and peace in Palestine.

The fact that western European countries like Spain, Norway and Ireland have recognized Palestine shows that the US-dominated western diplomacy is breaking apart.

Moreover, the growing role of the Global South in supporting the Palestinian struggle suggests another seismic shift.

Since the signing of the Oslo Accords, much of the world has been sidelined from the struggle in Palestine. This is no longer the case.

China’s growing role in Palestinian and Middle East politics is taking place with changing global dynamics, and the practical end of the US traditional role as the ‘honest peace broker’.

The war on Gaza has presented China with the opportunity to play the role of an advocate for Palestine. This has given Beijing the needed credibility to achieve the most comprehensive agreement among Palestinian groups.

Time will tell if the agreement will be implemented or thwarted. But the fact remains that China is now officially a peace broker in Palestine and, for most Palestinians, a credible one at that.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle.

1 August 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Ali Abunimah

The assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran early Wednesday is a major escalation that brings the region closer to an all-out war that Israel claims it does not want, but seems to be doing everything in its power to provoke.

It came hours after Israel bombed Lebanon on Tuesday evening, killing three civilians. Israel claimed that it targeted Fuad Shukr, Hizballah’s most senior military official and its leader Hasan Nasrallah’s close confidant. Hizballah confirmed Shukr’s martyrdom later in the day on Wednesday and said that Nasrallah “will announce our political position tomorrow regarding this crime during the funeral of Commander Shukr.”

In keeping with its standard practice, Israel has not made any official comment on the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh and his bodyguard Wasim Abu Shaaban in the Iranian capital, where the Hamas leader was present for the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday.

During a brief speech on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the public that “challenging days are ahead” and said that “[we] will stand united and determined against every threat.”

He did not comment on Haniyeh’s assassination and instead doubled-down on his position not to end the war on Gaza through an agreement reached with Hamas. Referring to international and domestic pressure, Netanyahu said “I did not give in to those voices then, and I don’t give in to them now.”

But at least one Israeli official, heritage minister Amihai Eliyahu, celebrated the killing. He posted on X, formerly Twitter, that “this is the right way to clean the world from this filth.”

“No more imaginary ‘peace’/surrender agreements, no more mercy for these sons of death,” Eliyahu added.

Despite Israel’s official silence, few are in doubt about its responsibility, not least Iran, where the killing of Haniyeh on its soil will be viewed as a major breach of its sovereignty and security.

“The criminal, terrorist Zionist regime martyred our dear guest in our territory and has caused our grief, but it has also prepared the ground for a severe punishment,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, said.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said that Haniyeh and his bodyguard were killed in the residence where they were staying. It added that the attack is under investigation and that details will be released later.

Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official, said that Haniyeh was “directly” killed in a missile strike that destroyed the windows, doors and walls in the room where he was staying. Al-Hayya added that Israel was aiming to “burn the entire region … because they’ve failed to achieve their goals” in Gaza, rejecting a deal and wanting “to continue their aggression despite all the failure.”

Haniyeh’s family massacred

Among Haniyeh’s last public words are those he made to Khamenei one day before his murder. Haniyeh told the Iranian leader how he had lost more than 60 members of his family in Gaza during Israel’s genocide, including three sons, a sister and many grandchildren.

Following Israel’s killing of several of his family members in April, Haniyeh said “the blood of my children and grandchildren is not more precious than the blood of the children of the Palestinian people.”

“I thank God for this honor that He has bestowed upon me by the martyrdom of my three sons and some of my grandchildren,” Haniyeh added.

After the news of Ismail Haniyeh’s murder, his eldest son Abd al-Salam said, “we have accustomed ourselves to receive the news of martyrdom, like all our people, we have accustomed ourselves to victory or martyrdom.”

He added that Israel was “deluded” if it thought murdering leaders of the resistance would halt the Palestinian struggle for liberation.

Ismail Haniyeh was born in 1962 in Gaza’s Beach refugee camp to a family originally from the Palestinian city of Majdal Asqalan, renamed Ashkelon after the Zionist conquest of the city in 1948.

In the early 1980s he studied literature at the Islamic University of Gaza and joined the Islamic student bloc.

He was active during the first intifada, the mass uprising in the occupied Gaza Strip and the West Bank that began in 1987, the same year Hamas was founded. Haniyeh was one of the group’s early members, becoming a close confidant to its founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was assassinated by Israel in 2004.

As an activist against the occupation, Haniyeh was repeatedly jailed by Israel, his longest stint in its prisons lasting three years. After that, in 1992, he was among hundreds of Palestinian leaders and activists expelled by Israel to Lebanon.

He returned to Gaza after the signing of the Oslo accords between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel in 1993. In 1997, he became the assistant to Sheikh Yassin.

Yassin had just been released from prison by Israel following a failed Israeli assassination attempt on senior Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Amman, Jordan, in which Israeli agents had sprayed a toxin into Meshaal’s ear. King Hussein of Jordan demanded that Israel provide the antidote, which it did, and that it release Yassin.

Haniyeh’s rise to leadership

When he returned to Gaza, Haniyeh also returned to the modest family home in which he was born and raised in Beach refugee camp. Haniyeh became a well-known and popular leader across Gaza, in part by regularly giving sermons during Friday prayers in mosques across the territory.

In 2006, following Hamas’ victory in the Palestinian Authority legislative elections in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, Haniyeh became prime minister of a short-lived national unity government. That government was ended by a plot, backed by the United States, to overthrow Hamas using militias affiliated with its main rival Fatah, which had fully controlled the Palestinian Authority up to that point.

The US-backed coup succeeded in the West Bank but failed in Gaza. Haniyeh remained as prime minister in Gaza as Israel imposed a devastating siege on the territory with the support and complicity of the US, the European Union, Canada, some Arab states and the Palestinian Authority run by Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.

Haniyeh was known as a conciliator among Palestinian factions and in 2014 he stepped down as prime minister in Gaza in a fresh attempt to achieve national unity. This followed the signing of an accord with a Palestine Liberation Organization delegation known as the Shati agreement, because it was signed in Haniyeh’s home in al-Shati camp, as Beach camp is called in Arabic.

But the obstacles in the way of unity – principally the PA’s insistence on maintaining its collaboration with Israel and objections from the Ramallah government’s foreign sponsors – torpedoed every attempt to overcome the divide.

In May 2017, Haniyeh was elected head of the politburo of Hamas, succeeding Khaled Meshaal. This coincided with Hamas’ launch of a new political charter that affirmed the group’s independence from the Muslim Brotherhood.

The document indicated Hamas’ readiness to accept a Palestinian state within the West Bank and Gaza.

The new charter stated that the “conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.”

Resistance a “legitimate right”

The revised charter also stated that resistance, including armed resistance, “is a legitimate right” guaranteed by international law. But it also signaled that armed resistance was a means to an end, and that if those ends – Palestinian liberation and self-determination – could be achieved by political means, Hamas was ready for that.

Hamas had hoped that these far-reaching concessions and political overtures would gain it admission to the international political arena, in a manner similar to the Irish republican movement Sinn Fein and its associated armed wing, the IRA.

Hamas also supported the mass protests in Gaza beginning in 2018 known as the Great March of Return – an effort to win international support and pressure on Israel to end the siege of Gaza. Israel responded by sending military snipers to murder and maim thousands of unarmed civilians.

Met with adamant rejectionism from Israel and the US to all its political overtures, Hamas saw no option but continued and escalating armed resistance, culminating in the al-Aqsa Flood operation of 7 October 2023.

With his assumption of the role as Hamas’ top leader, Haniyeh relocated from Gaza to Doha. From the Qatari capital he could conduct international diplomacy and negotiations, including a central role in the so far unsuccessful efforts to achieve an end to Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and a mutual exchange of detainees.

Following the assassination of Haniyeh, Israel reaffirmed that it still seeks a deal to free its captives in Gaza, a perverse and cynical statement after it murdered its chief Palestinian interlocutor.

Haniyeh was seen by Palestinians as a major and popular national leader and had gained widespread international recognition, serving as an interlocutor with major world capitals including Moscow, Beijing and Ankara. An opinion poll conducted in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in March, six months into Israel’s genocide, showed him winning 70 percent of the vote in a potential match-up against Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas.

After the January assassination of Haniyeh’s deputy and key negotiator Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut – an act also widely attributed to Israel – the now departed head of Hamas stated:

“A movement that offers its leaders and founders as martyrs for the dignity of our people and our nation will never be defeated, and such assassinations only make it stronger, more resilient and more determined.”

Ali Abunimah is Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine.

Maureen Clare Murphy contributed research.

1 August 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor

Palestinian Territory – The Israeli authorities continue to enforce their ongoing arbitrary blockade of the Gaza Strip, refusing to allow humanitarian aid and necessities that are essential for survival—such as cleaning and personal hygiene supplies—into the Strip. This comes amid the spread of infectious diseases and on top of the precarious living conditions faced by the approximately 2.3 million Palestinians in the enclave, constituting a perpetuation of Israel’s comprehensive crime of genocide, which began on 7 October 2023.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor emphasises that the consequences of Israel’s intentional worsening of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, by blocking people’s access to cleaning and personal hygiene products, medical equipment, and sterilisation supplies, are dire. Nothing justifies subjecting the population to conditions that can cause widespread death, including by causing the spread of serious infectious and skin diseases like hepatitis.

Israel continues to systematically and arbitrarily deny hygiene supplies and equipment to all Gaza Strip residents, exacerbating the catastrophic health crisis that Israel has caused there. This crisis has been made worse by the population’s forced, widespread, and repeatedly occurring displacement, as well as the lack of personal hygiene supplies and disinfectants in shelters and camps housing hundreds of thousands of displaced people. Israel continues to prevent and obstruct the entry of the most basic supplies into the Strip, creating conditions that are ripe for the spread of infectious diseases, water pollution, and the absence of sanitation services, as Israeli army forces have destroyed these facilities.

Since the beginning of the genocide nearly, Israel has arbitrarily closed crossings into the Gaza Strip, blocking the entry of humanitarian supplies and the flow of food and water. These actions have resulted in a dangerous accumulation of crises that directly threaten the lives and health of the Gaza Strip’s residents, most notably due to their lack of access to food, clean water, medicines, medical supplies, sanitary tools, and cleaning supplies.

Aya Kamal Ashour Abed, a 20-year-old displaced mother of two at the Deir al-Balah Preparatory School for Girls in the central Gaza Strip, spoke with the Euro-Med Monitor team. “We are more than 30 people living in this classroom for about nine months,” she stated. “A few months ago, we numbered roughly 70, but after some of the displaced individuals relocated to tents outside the school, our numbers dropped somewhat.

“We only receive cleaning and personal hygiene supplies in small quantities every two or three months, despite the fact that our number is very high and we require them constantly,” Abed continued. “Sanitation supplies, like tissues, soap, and shampoo, are extremely expensive [or] even nonexistent in the markets.”

Added Abed, “A bar of soap, for instance, now costs 30 shekels (roughly nine USD) while a bottle of shampoo costs 90 shekels (roughly 25 USD). We do not have anything to eat, so how can we afford these amounts for basic hygiene?”

Abed, who was displaced from her home in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip following its bombing last October, said that her two sons had become afflicted with allergies and bacteria, for which she is unable to provide ointments because they are unavailable in UNRWA clinics. “I showed my son to the doctor, and he told me that his entire body is seriously infected with bacteria due to poor hygiene,” Abed told Euro-Med Monitor.

Obtaining sanitary pads—which are pricey and hard to find in local markets—is one of her biggest challenges. “Even though my children’s diapers are completely unusable, I have to cut them into tiny pieces and use them as sanitary pads,” Abed explained. “During my period, I also have to use a single pad for the entire day, which has led to numerous infections and rashes.”

Approximately 680,000 women and girls in the Gaza Strip are of reproductive age. These individuals lack access to menstrual pads and other essentials, and also face other challenges such as inadequate access to water, toilets, various hygiene products, and privacy. Additionally, they must use contaminated or unsterilised materials, which puts them at risk of developing infections that can lead to infertility and uterine cancer.

Since Israel has cut off electricity to the Gaza Strip, there is a growing risk to all residents caused by waste accumulation and sewage flooding of roads and markets due to the inability to drain it. Israel has destroyed most of the Strip’s vital infrastructure, including sewage networks, and forced over two million people—the majority of whom have been displaced more than once—into shelters and tents that lack the basic necessities of life, personal hygiene, and health care.

Forty-two-year-old Mohammed Saad Abu Haitham said that his family of eight, which resides in a tent in the Mawasi neighborhood of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, is severely impacted by the lack of cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, and bar soap. Due to its scarcity, soap is unusually expensive and therefore difficult to purchase.

“We do not have the money to buy enough meals for our children, so we cannot buy cleaning materials and soap in light of their high prices and the lack of availability,” Abu Haitham told the Euro-Med Monitor team. “My spouse and kids’ hair has been infected with lice, and we all have skin diseases as a result of not washing and not using enough soap and shampoo.”

Food dyes are used instead of traditional dyes for making liquid soap and sterilisation products, which have not entered the Gaza Strip in months due to the Israeli closure of the crossings and the imposition of an arbitrary siege. These alternative and primitive cleaning products are made locally, are unsafe, and are generally insufficient in both quality and quantity when sold in the markets of the central and southern Gaza Strip.

Tens of thousands of cases of skin diseases, including eczema, have been reported to medical facilities as having cropped up in shelters and camps for displaced people living in tents. This is particularly concerning for women, as eczema often appears on the hands of people working to clean food utensils using antiquated and dangerous materials. Meanwhile, reports from the United Nations indicate that skin rashes and skin infections, especially among children, are sharply increasing in the Strip.

The Israeli authorities have placed an arbitrary and oppressive siege on the Palestinian people there, squeezing them into a tiny area with exceedingly limited resources; denying them access to food, clean water, and other necessities; and leaving them exposed to extreme heat.

The right to dignity is an internationally recognised human right that protects people from humiliation, among other forms of unethical treatment. It is meant to ensure fairness by providing the means for people to live in dignity, as well as other fundamental needs and rights, like the right to health and the right to water and sanitation. These rights are essential to maintaining human dignity and preserving the lives of the populace.

The only way to guarantee the rights of Gaza Strip residents is to put an end to Israel’s crime of genocide, lift the arbitrary siege on the Strip, and rescue what remains of the currently uninhabitable region. Delays will either cause the region to irreversibly deteriorate, or incur significant costs in terms of civilian lives and health.

The international community is required to guarantee the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, including the entry of non-food essentials needed to respond to the dire circumstances faced by the Strip’s entire population. Euro-Med Monitor stresses that swift and effective action must be taken to safely deliver aid to civilians across the entire Strip, including the northern section, which is particularly isolated right now. Additionally, the international community must prioritise providing adequate supplies of personal and family hygiene products, as well as products for menstruating individuals, plus sexual and reproductive health care services to prevent and mitigate further harm to women and children in particular, and the entire Palestinian population in general. These actions are mandated by international human rights law and relevant international obligations.

Pressure needs to be put on Israel, as the occupying force, to maintain sanitation facilities and services in the Gaza Strip, as well as to guarantee the safety of the technicians charged with repairing and renovating water lines and their various sources. The main water pipelines that enter the Strip need to be restored, particularly those that enter it from the north.

In addition to ensuring the entry of enough fuel to operate the Gaza Strip’s water and sanitation infrastructure, including desalination plants, water wells, and mobile toilets, it is crucial to exert pressure on Israel to permit the entry of materials required for repair work and rehabilitation of civilian infrastructure. These services are essential to the civilian population’s survival in the Strip, and will protect them from the threat of further health disasters.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor is a Geneva-based independent organization with regional offices across the MENA region and Europe

1 August 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Benjamin Mateus

The director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Wednesday that polio had been detected in Gaza and warned that urgent preventive measures had to be taken to protect children from the infection, which can cause death or crippling paralysis.

“The detection of polio in Gaza is another reminder of the dire conditions the population is facing,” the WHO director wrote on X, referring to the Israeli military onslaught on the Palestinian enclave. “The persistence of the conflict hampers efforts to identify and respond to preventable threats such as polio.”

The WHO has dispatched a million doses of polio vaccine to the Israeli-occupied territory, but how they will reach the population, particularly the children, under conditions of continuous military violence is unknown.

The Gaza Health Ministry declared a polio epidemic Monday based on testing of wastewater samples. No actual cases have yet been reported, but the chaotic conditions in Gaza, with constant bombing and shelling and forced movements of population make any systematic monitoring for the disease impossible.

In a statement posted on Telegram, the ministry warned that polio “poses a health threat to the residents of Gaza and neighboring countries,” referring to both Israel and Egypt, the two countries which border on the Gaza Strip, as well as the wider Middle East.

Gaza has been polio-free for a quarter of a century, thanks to effective mass vaccination, but this health achievement, like all the social gains of the Palestinians, is threatened with utter destruction under the impact of Israeli bombs, missiles and tank shells.

Miles of tents line the beaches and empty lots and fields, people are piled into tents in clothes that have not been washed for months, children are playing in and drinking from puddles of water contaminated with sewage.

The primary means of spread for polio is fecal-oral contamination, and the targeting of water and sanitary facilities by the Israel Defense Forces has as a conscious aim the spreading of infectious disease to decimate the Palestinian population.

Repeatedly during the ongoing genocide, health authorities had warned that the destruction of critical infrastructure would bring with it a public health crisis. And last week, six of seven routine sewage samples detected the virus.

The UN noted that besides polio, diseases like Hepatitis A, dysentery, and other gastrointestinal disorders are widespread and continue to rise. More than one million respiratory infections have been documented. Scabies and lice are running rampant among the population. And as many have noted, this is only the beginning of the broader public health crisis that the exhausted and trodden population will see adding to their historic misery.

Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care physician, speaking with Al-Jazeera, called the detection of polio a “ticking time bomb.” She added, “Normally if you have a case of polio, you’re going to isolate them, you’re going to make sure that they use a bathroom that nobody else uses, make sure that they’re not in close proximity to other people, [but] that’s impossible. You have everybody clustering in refugee camps at the moment without vaccines for at least the past nine months, including children who would otherwise have been vaccinated for polio and adults who, in the setting of an outbreak, should receive a booster, including healthcare workers.”

Dr. Medhat Abbas, director general of Al Shifa Medical Complex, told the press that the streets were full of sewage. “Personal hygiene is absent. You can’t wash your hands, even after you’ve used the bathroom,” he said. “So, there’s pollution and this disease is spread through feces.”

In May, Oxfam’s Middle East director, Sally Abi Khalil, lamented, “The situation is desperate, with so many people in Gaza living in fear and being forced to endure inhumane and unsanitary conditions caused by sustained Israeli bombardment. One colleague told me there was so much human waste in the streets, it literally smelt like disease.”

She said at that time: “Israel’s military assault on Rafah could be devastating, not only because of the risk of mass civilian casualties, but also the repercussions of vast numbers of people being forced to move. With the infrastructure already beyond breaking point, little or no healthcare available, and widespread malnutrition this could quickly escalate into a major epidemic.”

This week, Dr. Ayadil Saparbekov, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) health emergency team lead for Gaza and the West Bank, told NPR, “It’s a very dangerous disease. And, in the situation of Gaza, it’s beyond dangerous.” The limited investigation indicates the virus came from Egypt sometime in September before the commencement of hostilities.

Another important element in the policy of extermination through disease is the blockade-imposed famine, which starves some victims to death and weakens the resistance to infection among many more.

This is combined with the military offensive on hospitals, clinics, and healthcare workers that has killed 500 physicians, 50 of them specialists. More than 200 medical staff have been imprisoned in detainee camps in Southern Israel where they undergo violent interrogations. Twenty of 36 hospitals have been completely destroyed and the rest are functioning under most barbaric conditions. The sick and injured have no place to turn to address any of their immediate and life-threatening injuries and illnesses.

In response to the reports of polio, Israel said it was offering soldiers serving in the Gaza Strip the polio vaccine to be administered during routine troop turnover, although it was not mandatory for them to accept it. The Israeli army also indicated it would allow international groups to bring the polio vaccine into the enclave. According to the WHO, more than a million polio vaccine doses were being brought in to be given over the coming weeks.

Even before the military assault on the defenseless enclave, in March 2023, Israeli physicians were urging the government and medical community to respond to an outbreak of polio and prioritize and vaccinate the 176,000 Israeli children who had never received any doses. At the time, four children had been diagnosed with polio, and one had paralysis in his limbs. Prior to that outbreak, Israel had no clinical cases of polio between 1988 and 2022.

1 August 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, Dr. Mark Perlmutter, Dr. Thalia Pachiyannakis, and et al.

Dear President Joseph R. Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Dr. Jill Biden,

We are 45 American physicians, surgeons, and nurses who have volunteered in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023.

We worked with various nongovernmental organizations and the World Health Organization in hospitals throughout the Strip. In addition to our medical and surgical expertise, many of us have a public health background, as well as experience working in humanitarian and conflict zones, including Ukraine during the brutal Russian invasion. Some of us are veterans of the United States Armed Forces. We are a multifaith and multiethnic group. None of us support the horrors committed on October 7 by Palestinian armed groups and individuals in Israel.

The Constitution of the World Health Organization states:

“The health of all peoples is fundamental to the attainment of peace and security and is dependent on the fullest cooperation of individuals and States.”

It is in this spirit that we write to you.

We are among the only neutral observers who have been permitted to enter the Gaza Strip since October 7. Given our broad expertise and direct experience of working throughout Gaza we are uniquely positioned to comment on several matters of importance to our government as it decides whether to continue supporting Israel’s attack on, and siege of, the Gaza Strip. Specifically, we believe we are well positioned to comment on the massive human toll from Israel’s attack on Gaza, especially the toll it has taken on women and children.

This letter collects and summarizes our own experiences and direct observations in Gaza. We have also provided links to a much longer and heavily cited appendix summarizing the publicly available information from media, humanitarian, and academic sources on key aspects of Israel’s invasion of Gaza. The appendix is available as a PDF file here. This letter can be accessed electronically as a PDF file here.

This letter and the appendix show probative evidence that the human toll in Gaza is far higher than is understood in the United States. It is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 92,000, an astonishing 4.2% of Gaza’s population. Our government must act immediately to prevent an even worse catastrophe than what has already befallen the people of Gaza and Israel. A ceasefire must be imposed on both Israel and Palestinian armed groups by withholding military support for Israel and supporting an international arms embargo on both Israel and all Palestinian armed groups. We believe our government is obligated to do this, both under American law and International Humanitarian Law, and that it is the right thing to do.

With only marginal exceptions, everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both. This includes every national aid worker, every international volunteer, and probably every Israeli hostage: every man, woman, and child. While working in Gaza we saw widespread malnutrition in our patients and our Palestinian healthcare colleagues. Every one of us lost weight rapidly in Gaza despite having privileged access to food and having taken our own supplementary nutrient-dense food with us. We have photographic evidence of life-threatening malnutrition in our patients, especially children, that we are eager to share with you.

Virtually every child under the age of five whom we encountered, both inside and outside of the hospital, had both a cough and watery diarrhea. We found cases of jaundice (indicating hepatitis A infection under such conditions) in virtually every room of the hospitals in which we served, and in many of our healthcare colleagues in Gaza. An astonishingly high percentage of our surgical incisions became infected from the combination of malnutrition, impossible operating conditions, and lack of supplies and medications, including antibiotics. The pregnant women we treated often gave birth to underweight infants, and they were unable to breastfeed due to malnutrition. This left their newborns at high risk of death given the lack of access to potable water anywhere in Gaza. Many of those infants died. In Gaza we watched malnourished new mothers feed their underweight newborns infant formula made with poisonous water. We can never forget that the world abandoned these innocent women and babies.

We urge you to realize that epidemics are raging in Gaza. Israel’s continued, repeated displacement of the malnourished and sick population of Gaza, half of whom are children, to areas with no running water or even toilets available is absolutely shocking. It is virtually guaranteed to result in widespread death from viral and bacterial diarrheal diseases and pneumonias, particularly in children under the age of five. We worry that unknown thousands have already died from the lethal combination of malnutrition and disease, and that tens of thousands more will die in the coming months. Most of them will be young children.

Children are universally considered innocents in armed conflict. However, every single signatory to this letter treated children in Gaza who suffered violence that must have been deliberately directed at them. Specifically, every one of us on a daily basis treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head and chest.

Image source

President and Dr. Biden, we wish you could see the nightmares that plague so many of us since we have returned: dreams of children maimed and mutilated by our weapons, and their inconsolable mothers begging us to save them. We wish you could hear the cries and screams our consciences will not let us forget. We cannot believe that anyone would continue arming the country that is deliberately killing these children after seeing what we have seen.

The pregnant women we treated were particularly malnourished. Those of us who worked with pregnant women regularly saw stillbirths and maternal deaths that were easily preventable in any third-world healthcare system. The rate of infection in C-section incisions was astonishing. Women underwent C-sections without anesthesia, and were given nothing but Tylenol afterwards because no other pain medications were available.

All of us observed emergency departments overwhelmed by patients seeking treatment for chronic medical conditions such as renal failure, hypertension, and diabetes. Aside from trauma patients, most ICU beds were taken up by type 1 diabetics who no longer had access to injected insulin, due to the lack of medication and the widespread loss of electricity and refrigeration. Israel has destroyed more than half of Gaza’s healthcare resources and has killed one out of every 40 healthcare workers in Gaza. At the same time healthcare needs have increased massively from the lethal combination of military violence, malnutrition, and disease.

The hospitals where we worked were starved of basic supplies from, surgical material to soap. They were regularly cut off from electricity and Internet access, denied clean water, and operated at four to seven times their bed capacity. Every hospital was overwhelmed beyond the breaking point by displaced persons seeking safety, by the constant stream of patients whose treatment of chronic conditions had been interrupted by the war, by the huge influx of seriously wounded patients who typically arrived in mass casualty events, and by the sick and malnourished seeking medical care.

These observations and the publicly available material detailed in the appendix lead us to believe that the death toll from this conflict is many times higher than what is reported by the Gaza Ministry of Health. We also believe this is probative evidence of widespread violations of American laws governing the use of American weapons abroad, and of International Humanitarian Law. We cannot forget the scenes of unbearable cruelty directed at women and children that we witnessed ourselves.

As we met our healthcare colleagues in Gaza it was clear that they were malnourished, and both physically and mentally devastated. We quickly learned that our Palestinian healthcare colleagues were among the most traumatized people in Gaza, and perhaps in the entire world. Like virtually all people in Gaza they had lost family members and their homes. Most lived in and around their hospitals with their surviving families in unimaginable conditions. Although they continued working a grueling schedule, they had not been paid since October 7. All were acutely aware that their work as healthcare providers had marked them as targets for Israel. This makes a mockery of the protected status hospitals and healthcare providers are granted under the oldest and most widely accepted provisions of International Humanitarian Law.

We met healthcare personnel in Gaza who worked at hospitals that had been raided and destroyed by Israel. Many of these colleagues of ours were taken by Israel during the attacks. They all told us a slightly different version of the same story: in captivity they were barely fed, continuously physically and psychologically abused, and finally dumped naked on the side of a road. Many told us they were subjected to mock executions and other forms of mistreatment and torture. Far too many of our healthcare colleagues told us they were simply waiting to die.

We urge you to see that Israel has directly targeted and deliberately devastated Gaza’s entire healthcare system, and that Israel has targeted our colleagues in Gaza for death, disappearance, and torture. These unconscionable acts are entirely at odds with American law, American values, and International Humanitarian Law.

Dr. Biden, you worked with young people throughout your life. We hope and pray that you will not look away from the unspeakable horrors the youth of Gaza face today, horrors only we as Americans can end. We sincerely hope you will do everything in your power to stop what is being done to them.

President Biden and Vice President Harris, any solution to this problem must begin with an immediate and permanent ceasefire.We urge you to withhold military, economic, and diplomatic support from the State of Israel and to participate in an international arms embargo of both Israel and all Palestinian armed groups until a permanent ceasefire is established, and until good faith negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians lead to a permanent resolution of the conflict.

In the meantime:

1. All land crossings between Gaza and Israel as well as the Rafah Crossing must be opened to unfettered aid delivery by recognized international humanitarian organizations. Security screening of aid deliveries must be conducted by an independent international inspection regime instead of Israeli forces. These screenings must be based on a clear, unambiguous, and published list of forbidden items, and with a clear independent international mechanism for challenging forbidden items, as verified by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory.
2. A bare minimum water allocation of 20L of potable water per person per day must be allocated to the population of Gaza, as verified by UN Water.
3. Full and unrestricted access of medical and surgical professionals and medical and surgical equipment to the Gaza Strip must be allowed. This must include items taken in healthcare professionals’ personal luggage to safeguard their proper storage, sterility, and timely delivery, as verified by the World Health Organization. Incredibly, Israel is currently blocking any physician of Palestinian descent from working in Gaza, even American citizens. This makes a mockery of the American ideal that “all men are created equal” and degrades our nation and our profession. Our work is lifesaving. Our Palestinian healthcare colleagues in Gaza are desperate for relief and protection, and they deserve both.

We are not politicians. We do not claim to have all the answers. We are simply physicians and nurses who cannot remain silent about what we saw in Gaza. Every day that we continue supplying weapons and munitions to Israel is another day that women are shredded by our bombs and children are murdered with our bullets.

President Biden and Vice President Harris, we urge you: end this madness now!

Sincerely and urgently,

Feroze Sidhwa, MD, MPH, FACS, FICS
Trauma, acute care, critical care, and general surgeon
Northern California Veterans Affairs general surgeon
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, March 25-April 8 Secretary/Treasurer, Chest Wall Injury Society
Associate Professor of Surgery, California Northstate University College of Medicine
Prior humanitarian work in Haiti, West Bank, Ukraine (3 deployments since 2023), and Zimbabwe
Treated victims of the Boston Marathon Bombing
French Camp, CA

Mark Perlmutter, MD, FAAOS, FICS
Orthopedic and hand surgery
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, March 25-April 8 President, World Surgical Foundation
Global Vice President, International College of Surgeons Prior humanitarian work in 30 countries
Treated victims of 9-11 and Hurricane Katrina
Rocky Mount, NC

Thalia Pachiyannakis, MD, FACOG
Obstetrician and gynecologist
Served at Nasser Medical Complex, Khan Younis, June 20-July 11 South Bend, IN

Adam Hamawy, MD
Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, May 1-21 Lt. Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.)
Princeton, NJ

Bing Li, MD
Emergency medicine
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, June 6-13
Served at Nasser Medical Complex, Khan Younis, June 14-20 Served at Indonesian Hospital, Beit Lahia, June 21-July 3 U.S. Army Veteran
Peridot, AZ

Thaer Ahmad, MD
Emergency medicine
Served at Nasser Medical Complex, Khan Younis & al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, Deir el-Balah, January 8-24
Director of Global Health, Advocate Christ Medical Center Assistant Clinical Professor, University of Illinois Chicago College of Medicine
Chicago, IL

Tanya Haj-Hassan, BM BCh, MSc
Pediatric intensivist
Served at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, March 11-25
Prior humanitarian work in the West Bank with Doctors Without Borders
Rhodes Scholar
Philadelphia, PA

Mohammad Subeh, MD, MS
Emergency medicine and ultrasound
Served at the International Medical Corps Rafah Field Hospital, February 14-March 13
Served at the International Medical Corps Deir el-Balah Field Hospital, June 25-July 18
Mountain View, CA

Nahreen Ahmed, MD, MPH
Pulmonary and critical care intensivist
Served at Nasser Medical Complex, Khan Younis, January 8-21 Served at the MedGlobal/WHO Nutrition Center, Rafah,; al-Awda Hospital, Gaza City & Kamal Adwan Hospital, Beit Lahia March 4-18
Former medial director, MedGlobal
Previous humanitarian work in Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, and Sudan Philadelphia, PA

Ahmed Hassabelnaby, DO
Emergency medicine
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, March 18-April 1 Served at Indonesian Hospital, Beit Lahia, June 20-July 3 Orlando, FL

Talal Khan, MD, FACP, FASN, FRCP
Nephrologist
Served at Nasser Medical Complex, Khan Younis, July 16-August 13
Clinical Associate Professor, University of Oklahoma College of Medicine
Currently serving in Gaza
Oklahoma City, OK

Mahmoud G. Sabha, MD
Family medicine
Served at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, Deir el-Balah, March 25-April 3
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, May 1-17
Dallas, TX

Asma A. Taha, PhD, RN, CPNP-PC/AC, FAAN
Pediatric nurse practitioner
Served at Emirati Hospital for Women and Children, Rafah, February 15-March 1
President, Association of Faculties of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners Professor of Nursing, Oregon Health & Science University School of Nursing
Portland, OR

Imad Tamimi, DMD
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, February 8-20 Clinical Associate Professor, Rutgers New Jersey School of Dental Medicine
President, Palestine Children’s Relief Fund Medical Advisory Board
Clifton, NJ

Chandra Hassan, MD, FACS, FRCS
General, bariatric, minimally invasive, and robotic surgeon Served at Nasser Medical Complex, Khan Younis & al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, Deir el-Balah, January 9-23
Board Member, MedGlobal
Prior humanitarian work in Ukraine and Syria
Associate Professor of Surgery, University of Illinois College of Medicine
Chicago, IL

Hani El-Omrani, MD
Obstetric and regional anesthesiologist
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, March 4-18 Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology, University of Washington School of Medicine
Seattle, WA

Zaher Sahloul, MD, FCCP
Pulmonary and critical care intensivist
Served at Nasser Medical Complex, Khan Younis, January 9-25 President, MedGlobal
Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine
2020 Gandhi Peace Award recipient
Chicago, IL

Mike M. Mallah, MD
Trauma, acute care, critical care, and general surgeon Served at European Hospital, March 4-18
Assistant Professor of Surgery
Director of Global Surgery Program
Charleston, SC

Mohamed Elfar, MD, MSc, FACS, FCCM
Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, February 8-20 Assistant Professor of Surgery, SUNY Upstate Medical University Adjunct Professor of Surgery, Touro University New York College of Osteopathic Medicine
New York City, NY

Hisham Qandeel, MD
Cardiac and thoracic surgeon
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, March 18-April 1 Clinical Assistant Professor, Michigan State University Medical Schools
Lansing, MI

Mohammed J. al-Jaghbeer, MD, FCCP
Pulmonary and critical care intensivist
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, March 25-April 8 Cleveland, OH

Waleed Sayedahmad, MD, PhD
Anesthesiologist
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, March 25-April 8 Parkland, FL

Amer Afaneh, MD, FACS
Trauma, acute care, critical care, and general surgeon
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, March 25-April 8 Toledo, OH

Omer Ismail, MD, FACS
Trauma, acute care, critical care, and general surgeon Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, May 1-21 Des Moines, IA

Ammar Ghanem, MD, FCCP
Pulmonary and critical care intensivist
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, May 1-17
Clinical Assistant Professor, Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine
Lansing, MI

Abeerah Muhammad, MSN, RN, CEN
Emergency and critical care nurse
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, May 1-17
Dallas, TX

Abdalrahman Algendy, MD
Anesthesiologist
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, February 19-March 5
Toledo, OH

Ayman Abdul-Ghani, MD, FACS, FRCS
Cardiac and thoracic surgeon
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, March 25-April 8
Honolulu, HI

Mohamad Abdelfattah, MD
Pulmonary and critical care intensivist
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, May 1-17
Los Angeles, CA

Irfan Galaria, MD, MBA
Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, January 29-February 7
Chantilly, VA

Mohammed Khaleel, MD, MS
Orthopedic and spine surgeon
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, April 3-10
Fort Worth, TX

Salman Dasti, MD
Anesthesiologist and interventional pain specialist
Served at European Hospital and Nasser Medical Complex, Khan Younis, June 20-July 4
San Francisco, CA

Bashar Alzghoul, MD, FCCP
Pulmonary and critical care intensivist
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, March 25-April 8
Gainesville, FL

Lana Abugharbieh, BSN, RN, CEN
Trauma, operating room, and emergency nurse
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis & Primary Care Clinics, Rafah, January 24-February 7
Ashburn, VA

Rana Mahmoud, RN, BSN
Emergency and critical care nurse
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, January 22-February 6 & March 25-April 8
Wesley Chapel, FL

Tarek Gouda, RN, AACN
Critical care nurse
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, March 5-13
San Diego, CA

Ndal Farah, MD
Anesthesiologist
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, February 8-20
Toledo, OH

Hina Syed, MD
Internal medicine and geriatric medicine
Served at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, Deir el-Balah, April 1-10
College Park, MD

John Kahler, MD, FAAP
Pediatrician
Co-founder, MedGlobal
Served at Primary Care Clinics, Rafah, January 8-24
Served at Kamal Adwan Hospital and Nutrition Center, Beit Lahia, March 4-25
Chicago, IL

Aman Odeh, MBBS, FAAP
Pediatrician
Served at Emirati Hospital for Women and Children, Rafah, March 20 to April 1
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Dell Medical School
Austin, TX

Tamer Hassen, BSN
Trauma and emergency nurse
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, April 29-May 22
Bedford, MA

Gamal Marey, MD, FACS, FACC
General, cardiac, and thoracic surgeon
Served at European Hospital, Khan Younis, March 25-April 8 Lt. Colonel, U.S. Army Reserve
Stockton, CA

Ahmad Yousaf, MD, MBA
Internal medicine physician and pediatrician
Served at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, June 24-July 16
Little Rock, AK

Ahmed Ebeid, MD
Anesthesiology and pain specialist
Served at Kamal Adwan Hospital, Beit Lahia, March 25-April 13
Portland, OR

Nadia Yousef, MD
Nephrologist
Served at Nasser Medical Complex, Khan Younis, June 18-July 3
Modesto, CA

*

4 August 2024

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Tariq Dana

Amid the Israeli regime’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, high-stakes negotiations aimed at formalizing and upgrading the long-standing, covert relationship between Israel and Saudi Arabia persist. While attempting to draw the parameters of a ceasefire agreement, the Biden administration has likewise doubled down on efforts to broker a historic deal between the two countries.

This policy memo examines the mutually reinforcing interests of the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel that fuel the prospective agreement. It interrogates Saudi’s feigned solidarity with the Palestinian struggle and situates the normalization deal within shifting regional dynamics.

US and Israeli Interests: A Shifting Security Alliance

Washington has long aspired for Saudi Arabia to embrace Israel officially. The bipartisan Israel Relations Normalization Act, passed by Congress in March 2022, underscored this objective, mandating the State Department to further Arab normalization with Israel based on the Trump-era Abraham Accords.

The message to Saudi Arabia is clear: an Israeli alliance is a prerequisite for US protection

Among all possible partnerships, Saudi Arabia holds particular weight for both US and Israeli interests. The US is endeavoring to cement Israel as the preeminent military-economic linchpin of a US-led regional order. Within that order, Israel will serve as the hub for an anti-Iran coalition involving Saudi Arabia and other Abraham Accords partners. Thus, understanding Saudi-Israeli rapprochement as a calculated initiative to cultivate new security alliances amid increasing global power rivalries is critical.

A US-Saudi defense pact, which lies at the heart of ongoing normalization talks with Israel, speaks directly to this aim. The pact would commit the US to defend Saudi Arabia and expand Saudi’s access to US weapons. In doing so, the arrangement would strengthen US-Saudi military relations and simultaneously help to thwart Riyadh’s security cooperation with China. Regional interests notwithstanding, the US has conditioned any such agreement with Saudi Arabia on the latter’s normalization with Israel. Hence, the message to Saudi Arabia is clear: an Israeli alliance is a prerequisite for US protection.

Masking Saudi’s Abandonment of Palestine

The Saudi regime is ostensibly making a number of Palestine-related demands as part of the normalization negotiations. Riyadh’s stipulations reportedly include a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and a “pathway” to Palestinian statehood. The timeline for statehood is not clear, however, and the Israeli regime would certainly place conditions on the agreement that would allow indefinite postponement of such a move.

Saudi Arabia’s attempt to tie Israeli normalization with Palestinian statehood is undoubtedly designed to provide political cover from those who may argue that the kingdom has abandoned the Palestinian cause. In reality, normalization with Israel would be a continuation—not the start—of Saudi’s desertion of the Palestinian struggle and its de facto acceptance of the Israeli settler-colonial status quo.

Normalization with Israel would be a continuation—not the start—of Saudi’s desertion of the Palestinian struggle

Indeed, the fruits of Saudi’s decades-long informal relationship with the Israeli regime can currently be seen through its crackdown on domestic solidarity with Palestine and amplification of anti-Palestinian propaganda in its media coverage of the genocide. The new Saudi school curriculum has even gone so far as to scrub the name “Palestine” from maps in school textbooks.

Despite this systematic effort to reshape public understanding of Israeli settler colonialism, the Saudi regime faces an uphill battle in trying to sway its population. A recent survey by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies found that 95% of the Saudi public consider the Palestinian cause as a central Arab issue. A 2023 poll by the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy likewise indicated that 96% of Saudi citizens are opposed to normalization and believe Arab countries should cut all ties with Israel.

Joining the Abraham Accords

If a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal goes ahead, it will likely be incorporated into the expansive Abraham Accords framework. Saudi Arabia’s formal entry into this scheme carries far-reaching and dangerous ramifications for Palestine and the broader region. Indeed, the kingdom’s immense financial clout and symbolic weight in the Arab and Muslim worlds could catalyze a domino effect. Through economic incentives or political pressure, Saudi participation may compel other Arab and Muslim nations to join this growing alliance.

Even if a formal Saudi-Israeli normalization deal remains pending until after the next US president assumes office in 2025, Saudi Arabia’s determined push to legitimize a widely-condemned regime stands as a pursuit utterly divorced from global realities. And while much of the world has awoken to Israel’s genocidal and colonial aims, Riyadh’s dogged willingness to proceed with such normalization obliterates any pretense of rational and strategic calculations, let alone solidarity with the Palestinian cause.

Tariq Dana is Assistant Professor of Conflict and Humanitarian Studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, and an adjunct lecturer at Northwestern University in Qatar.

30 July 2024

Source: al-shabaka.org

By Benjamin Mateus

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported Monday that over the weekend, in violation of humanitarian law, a unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the 401st Brigade of the Armored Corps, rigged a critical water reservoir in Gaza with explosives and then detonated them, destroying the facility known as the Canada Well.

The water facility, located in Tel Sultan neighborhood on the northwestern side of Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip, was built in 1999 with funding provided by the Canadian International Development Agency. Equipped with solar panels, it enabled water services to continue for tens of thousands of people in the area despite the destruction of the entire electrical grid in the enclave.

Following the destruction, the IDF soldiers celebrated by posting videos of the operation on their Instagram and X social media accounts, writing, “Destruction of the Tel Sultan water reservoir in honor of Shabbat.” The Israeli army admitted that its soldiers were responsible for the bombing of the Canada Well and said it was investigating if any international laws were violated.

Monther Shoblaq, director general of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, speaking with Drop Site, said, “I was shocked when I saw the video. It’s not just that they targeted this water facility; it’s the fact that they planted explosives, celebrated the act on Instagram, and did so under the guise of honoring the Sabbath. It’s deeply cruel. This is the Canada Well in Tal al-Sultan—one of the most important water facilities in the city of Rafah.”

What is being disputed in the Israeli press, however, is whether the brigade commander of the Combat Engineers obtained permission from senior officers of the IDF Southern Command to destroy the facility and not the obvious fact that the operation was typical of the conduct of the IDF throughout the war against the people of Gaza. The areas where the operation took place were considered humanitarian safe zones, which become killing zones whenever the IDF pleases. As is usual in these situations, the army told Haaretz it was going to look into the incident and consider if the military police needed to open an investigation.

Given the international outcry over Israeli war crimes in Gaza, these reports from Rafah are one more embarrassment for the IDF and the Netanyahu government, which will try to manufacture yet another outrageous pretext, perhaps claiming that the operation was necessary to prevent Hamas from accessing potable water for their continued operations. A similar argument could be made for actions to deprive the population of breathable air as well.

Throughout the now more than nine-month-long siege on the Gaza Strip, countless video clips posted on social media have exposed the barbarism of IDF in the killing and abuse of innocent Palestinians, as well as international aid workers who have risked their lives to help the beleaguered population. In each case, neither the Israeli army, Netanyahu, nor the US government has raised a finger to curb the savagery. On the contrary, they have commended and justified these actions.

On the same day as the Haaretz report, UN Human Rights Office’s spokesperson, Jeremy Laurence, speaking with Anadolu Agency,said, “It is indeed strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law to attack civilian objects. Moreover, it is prohibited to attack objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as drinking water supplies.”

Furthermore, Laurence noted, “The Human Rights Office has received no information on any investigations by Israel into the specific incident of the destruction of the water reserve. In view of Israel’s well-documented failure to ensure accountability for serious violations of international humanitarian law and the international human rights law, remedies at the international level are essential to addressing this long-standing accountability gap.”

The complete destruction of the water supplies in Gaza is part and parcel of the assault on the basic essentials of life for Palestinians from the very inception of the genocidal campaign.

In an interview with Major General (Reserves) Giora Eiland, the adviser to Yoav Gallant, on the IDF’s radio station, GLZ, in October 2023, Eiland said, “But there are many wells in Gaza, which contain water which they treat locally, since originally they contain salt. If the energy shortage in Gaza makes it so that they stop pumping out water, that’s good. Otherwise, we have to attack these water treatment plants in order to create a situation of thirst and hunger in Gaza, and I would say, forewarn of an unprecedented economical and humanitarian crisis.”

The same month, Eiland wrote in the Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, “The State of Israel has no choice but to turn Gaza into a place that is temporarily or permanently impossible to live in. Creating a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a necessary means to achieve the goal. Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.”

Placing context on the blowing up of the Canada Well water reservoir, Reuters reported yesterday that in July the Israeli army destroyed 30 water wells in Rafah and Khan Younis. And given the incessant bombing and drone attacks, the daily chore to seek water and sustenance has potentially lethal consequences. In May, the BBC reported that satellite data had revealed more than half of Gaza’s water sites had been damaged including four of the six wastewater treatment plants crucial to preventing the build-up of sewage.

As the Reutersreport noted, “People have dug wells in bleak areas near the sea where the bombing has pushed them or rely on salty tap water from Gaza’s only aquifer, now contaminated with seawater and sewage. Children walk long distances to line up at makeshift collection points. Often not strong enough to carry the filled containers, they drag them on wooden boards. Gaza city has lost nearly all its water production capacity, with 88 percent of its water wells and 100 percent of its desalination plants damaged or destroyed.”

31 July 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

LONDON / PNN

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s Senior Director of Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns, today said that the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) advisory opinion on the ‘unlawful’ Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is a historic victory for the rights of Palestinians.

She clarified in a statement that “the occupation is a fundamental pillar of the apartheid system that Israel relies on to dominate and persecute the Palestinians, as they are exposed to the demolition of their homes and the seizure of their lands in favor of colonist expansion.”

Rosas affirmed, “The ICJ’s advisory opinion comes while Israel has continued to blatantly and catastrophically violate international humanitarian law during the past nine months, launching deadly and unlawful attacks on the occupied Gaza Strip, which has claimed the lives of an unprecedented number of civilians.

She stressed that the international community, especially Israel’s allies, must now take tough action to ensure that Israel ends its illegal occupation, starting with an immediate halt to the expansion of Israeli colonies, reversing the annexation of Palestinian lands, including East Jerusalem, and dismantling the brutal apartheid system against Palestinians.

“Ending the occupation is crucial in order to stop the recurring pattern of human rights violations throughout Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories,” she added.

Rosas  affirmed that Israel must withdraw its forces from all parts of the occupied territories, including the Gaza Strip, evacuate all colonists from the West Bank, including illegally annexed East Jerusalem, and relinquish control over all aspects of Palestinian life.

22 July 2024

Source: english.pnn.ps

Bethlehem / PNN /

The Washington Post reported on Monday that violence is widely used against Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons.

The newspaper reported in an article that One Palestinian inmate died with a ruptured spleen and broken ribs after being beaten by Israeli prison guards. Another met an excruciating end because a chronic condition went untreated and a third screamed for help for hours before dying.

The Washington Post said that the three men are among at least 13 Palestinians from the West Bank and Israel to die in Israeli jails since October 7, 2023.

“Violence is pervasive,” said Jessica Montell, executive director of the Israeli rights group HaMoked, which has worked for years with Palestinian inmates. “It’s very overcrowded. Every prisoner that we’ve met with has lost 30 pounds.”

A 28-year-old former prisoner said guards beat them “like crazy people,” kicking and beating them with batons.

Ibrahim, the brother of Abdul Rahman al-Maari, 33, who died in Megiddo Prison in November, said his brother was detained at a temporary checkpoint in February 2023.

Ibrahim said he lost contact with his brother after October 7, 2023.

An autopsy report examined by Dr. Danny Rosen of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel stated that al-Maari’s ribs were broken, and that there were deformities in his back, hip, left arm, head and neck.

Khairy Hamad, 32, who was held in the same section, said al-Maari was thrown down the stairs while handcuffed and bleeding from his head, on the grounds that he had spoken back to guards during a cell search.

He said al-Maari was left for hours in pain and crying for help until he died.

30 July 2024

Source: english.pnn.ps

By Lubna Masarwa in Jerusalem and Rayhan Uddin in London

The scenes of far-right Israelis breaking into a detention facility to protest the arrest of soldiers accused of raping a Palestinian reveal a society heading towards a breakdown of state institutions, analysts have told Middle East Eye.

On Monday, nine soldiers in the notorious Sde Teiman facility were detained in southern Israel’s Negev desert for questioning.

They were accused of sexual abuse against a Palestinian detainee, which led to him being hospitalised with serious injuries to his rectum area. The soldiers deny the charges.

The arrests were met by angry demonstrations at the gates of Sde Teiman, with several protesters temporarily breaching the gates before being dispersed by police.

Among the protesters were reservist soldiers, as well as two far-right parliamentarians: Zvi Sukkot, a member of the Religious Zionist movement, and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, of the Jewish Power party.

“This is a very significant event,” Israeli journalist and analyst Meron Rapoport told MEE. “An event that has the character of a rebellion… to completely dismantle what is left of the rules that are supposed to govern society.”

Israeli soldiers reportedly barricaded themselves into Sde Teiman and used pepper spray to defend themselves against arrest by the military police, before eventually being taken into custody.

May Pundak, a lawyer, activist and chair of Israeli-Palestinian peace organisation A Land for All, told MEE that the scenes following the arrests were evidence that forces within Israel were attempting to “dismantle democracy”.

She noted that members of the Israeli government – which sought the arrests in the first place – joined the protests in an attempt to make “the government and the leaders of the army an enemy of the state”.

Effectively, that made these far-right leaders a threat to the government “from within”, she noted.

“There is no law and order, no enforcement,” she said. “This is the disintegration of the state.”

Widespread abuse

The alleged rape in Sde Teiman is the latest such allegation of abuse from the notorious facility.

Established after the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel and subsequent war on Gaza, Sde Teiman is an ostensibly temporary centre to hold Palestinian detainees. More than 4,000 Palestinians from Gaza have been detained by the Israeli military, often held with no charge or evidence of wrongdoing.

In April, an unnamed doctor described in harrowing detail the conditions at the facility, including limb amputation due to handcuff injuries and prisoners forced to defecate in nappies.

Further investigations by Middle East Eye, CNN and the New York Times found widespread examples of abuse at the centre.

According to the UN, at least 27 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli custody since the war, including at Sde Teiman. Officers at the facility told the New York Times that 35 Palestinians detained there since October had died either at the facility or after being brought to nearby hospitals.

Tal Steiner, executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, told MEE that an “unprecedented increase in torture” has been used by Israel against Palestinians since 7 October.

“We have documented multiple instances of abuse, of physical torture, of humiliation,” she said.

Steiner added she was hopeful that a “silver lining” from Monday’s events could be that allegations of abuse that had been reported for months may finally receive public attention and “some accountability”.

Throughout the war, Israeli soldiers have brazenly published images of themselves abusing and humiliating Palestinian detainees, without any consequences or retributions from the authorities.

Indeed, such actions appear encouraged by government officials. On Sunday, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who leads the party that Eliyahu belongs to, boasted that conditions inside Israeli prisons “have indeed worsened” since the war on Gaza began. “I am proud of that,” he said.

The latest abuse allegations from Sde Teiman are part of a well-worn pattern, Pundak noted, saying they were the latest example of Israeli authorities “breaking every red line from a moral point of view, from an international law point of view and from an inhumane point of view”.

Indeed, such abuses and impunity are not new, as can be seen with the case of Elor Azaria. In 2016, the Israeli soldier shot and killed a pacified Palestinian suspect, only to be lionised by the Israeli right wing. He served just nine months of an 18-month sentence and became a poster boy for rightwingers.

‘The army itself became the enemy’

The Israeli military has operated with impunity since the war broke out, yet its conduct has nonetheless drawn international pressure.

Israel is subject to cases at the two major Hague-based courts: the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

At the ICC, the chief prosecutor is applying for arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, over crimes committed in Gaza. The ICJ, meanwhile, is trying Israel over accusations of genocide in the Palestinian enclave.

Rapoport sees the arrests at Sde Teiman as an attempt by Israel to show the international courts that it was acting domestically to deal with instances of abuse against Palestinians.

Under the principle of complementarity, the ICC acts as a court of last resort when member states are unwilling or unable to try heinous crimes themselves.

“This whole investigation… is because of the international pressure and the Hague, otherwise it would not have been opened,” he said.

Netanyahu “strongly condemned” the attempted break-in at the facility, though he did not comment on the allegations themselves, unlike other members of his Likud party and government coalition, many of whom defended the soldiers.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, for instance, posted a video in which he said the arrested soldiers should be treated like heroes, not criminals.

Rapoport said that for many on the Israeli right wing, “the army itself became the enemy” as soon as it began investigating harm against Palestinians.

He compared the sentiments to those shared by rightwing Israelis in the lead-up to the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister who was killed in 1995 by an ultranationalist for engaging in peace talks with Palestinians.

This time, he warned, “it seems to be deeper and more dangerous”.

“Rabin was one person. Here they rebel against the authority of the army. As soon as it does not have the army, it is doubtful whether it will be possible to call the country a functioning country,” Rapoport said.

Notably, none of the protesters who forced their way into Sde Teiman were arrested. Another protest broke out at a military courthouse later that day in Beit Lid, where demonstrators again were met with little resistance.

“This is a country that fails to maintain law and order, it is a country that is close to being a failed state,” said Rapoport.

He added that the scenes on Tuesday reveal a schism between military generals in Tel Aviv and soldiers on the ground in Gaza.

“Suppose there is a ceasefire tomorrow and the army orders the units to leave the Gaza Strip. Will these units listen to the army?” he asked. “A serious question arises here.”

Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond.

30 July 2024

Source: middleeasteye.net