Israel targets Red Crescent headquarters in Gaza
MEMO | February 9, 2024
The headquarters of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in the Gaza Strip have been damaged due to incessant bombings by the Israeli army.
Major damage was caused to the society’s headquarters in the Tal Al-Hawa neighbourhood in Gaza City and the Al-Amal neighbourhood in the city of Khan Younis, eyewitnesses told Anadolu.
The Israeli army also targeted vehicles belonging to the humanitarian aid group, an Anadolu correspondent reported.
The Society’s Al-Quds Hospital in Tal Al-Hawa was also subjected to significant damage as a result of being targeted by Israeli tanks.
“The Israeli army deliberately targeted the society’s headquarters and vehicles to put them out of service,” Red Crescent spokesman Raed Al-Nims said.
“The most severe Israeli attacks against the society were those in northern Gaza, which caused a health and humanitarian crisis, especially after hospitals and medical centres went out of service there,” he added.
Nims said only one medical centre affiliated with the society is now operating in northern Gaza to provide first aid services.
He added that Israel has cut off medical, relief and food supplies to the northern Gaza Strip, which has exacerbated the humanitarian situation for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living there.
“The Israeli army is still besieging the society’s Al-Amal Hospital, west of Khan Younis, from all sides, depriving Palestinians sheltering there of food, water, medical supplies, basic needs, and oxygen.”
“The hospital houses more than 200 patients, medical and administrative staff,” the spokesman added.
On 7 February, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) reported an alarming spread of diseases due to the lack of sanitation and clean water.
Recent results of malnutrition screenings conducted by partner organisations indicate a significant increase in the overall acute malnutrition rate among children.
Overall acute malnutrition in the Gaza Strip reached 16.2 per cent, a rate that exceeds the critical threshold set by the World Health Organisation set at 15 per cent.
Despite the International Court of Justice’s provisional ruling, Israel continues its onslaught on the Gaza Strip where at least 27,947 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and 67,459 injured since 7 October, according to Palestinian health authorities.
The Israeli offensive has left 85 per cent of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60 per cent of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
Netanyahu orders ‘evacuation’ of over one million Gazans from Rafah
Displaced Palestinians who fled Khan Younis set up camp in Rafah further south near the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt, on 6 December 2023. (Photo credit: Getty)
The Cradle | February 9, 2024
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed on 9 February that the over one million Palestinian civilians who have taken refuge in the southern Gaza city of Rafah will be able to evacuate before the Israeli army begins a ground operation there.
Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that he had instructed the army to prepare plans for both the evacuation of the Palestinian civilian population from the southern Gaza Strip and the dismantlement of any battalions of Hamas’ armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, in the Rafah area.
“It is impossible to achieve the war goal of eliminating Hamas and leave four Hamas battalions in Rafah,” the statement said.
“On the other hand, it is clear that a massive operation in Rafah requires the evacuation of the civilian population from the combat zones,” it added.
But such a plan to evacuate over 1 million people is likely impossible. UN chief Antonio Guterres says half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population “is now crammed into Rafah with nowhere to go,” warning the displaced “have no homes” and “no hope.”
Israel’s previous warnings to Palestinians to flee northern Gaza and take refuge in the south did not provide safety to civilians, as Israel bombed the proposed evacuation routes and alleged safe zones.
Expressions of concern for civilians in Gaza by Prime Minister Netanyahu have come amid other calls he has made to exterminate the millions of Palestinians in the besieged enclave.
“You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible — we do remember,” Netanyahu has said on several occasions. According to the New York Times he was referring to the “ancient enemy of the Israelites, in scripture interpreted by scholars as a call to exterminate their ‘men and women, children and infants.’”
Last month, the UK aid group Oxfam said that the Israeli military is killing 250 Palestinians per day, with many more lives at risk from hunger, disease, and cold.
Any plan to evacuate civilians is also likely to be superficial, given that as of Sunday, no such plan was being prepared. CNN reported that Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfuss, who oversees the army’s 98th Division, said that he would work on such a plan “if and when” he receives the order to send his forces into the area and that as of Sunday, the order had not been issued yet.
South Africa FM says Israel trying to ‘intimidate’ her over ICJ case
Press TV – February 9, 2024
South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor denounced the Israeli intelligence agency’s attempts to “intimidate” her over the Israeli genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and reaffirmed Pretoria’s support for the Palestinians.
Speaking on the sidelines of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation address on Thursday night, Pandor said she was concerned for the safety of her family after having been targeted on social media.
Pandor said she had spoken to Police Minister Bheki Cele about beefing up her security after she received threatening messages.
“I felt that [it would] be better if we had extra security. But what I’m more concerned about is my family, because in some of the social media messages my children are mentioned and so on, but this is par for the course.
“The Israeli agents, the intelligence services, [this] is how they behave, and they seek to intimidate you, so we must not be intimidated. There is a cause that is under way,” the top South African diplomat said.
She said the government was determined to see the ICJ case through, much like the people of Palestine had been in fighting South Africa’s apartheid system.
“We can’t stand back now. We must be with them. And I think one of the things we must not allow is a failure of courage. It’s extremely important that we continue with this. We talked to the South African people; they understand why it is we have taken up this moral course,” Pandor noted.
The ICJ, also called the World Court, issued an interim ruling last month, ordering Israel to take “all measures within its power” to prevent acts that could amount to genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The Hague-based court, however, stopped short of ordering a ceasefire.
Israel waged the bloody war on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas launched Operation al-Aqsa Storm in the occupied territories in retaliation for the Tel Aviv regime’s incessant crimes against Palestinians.
Since the start of the aggression, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 27,947 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the territory.
The campaign has devastated large swathes of Gaza, destroyed hospitals and displaced most of its population of 2.4 million.
Israel has also imposed a “complete siege” on the coastal sliver, cutting off fuel, electricity, food and water as human rights bodies have warned of a major humanitarian crisis.
‘Vassal’ Scholz Gov’t Ignoring Nord Stream Terrorism Despite ‘Colossal Damage’ Done to Germany
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 09.02.2024
Tucker Carlson asked President Putin who he thought blew up the Nord Stream pipeline network and why, with the Russian leader offering a response which included an assessment of the competence of the current German government. Sputnik reached out to a lawmaker from Germany’s fastest growing opposition party for his take on Putin’s comments.
“Who blew up Nord Stream?” Carlson asked Putin at the midpoint of his two-hour-long interview. “You, for sure,” Putin jokingly replied. “I was busy that day. I did not blow up Nord Stream,” Carlson assured. “You personally may have an alibi, but the CIA has no such alibi,” Putin answered.
“You know, I won’t go into details, but people always say in such cases: ‘look for someone who is interested’. But in this case we should not only look for someone who is interested, but also for someone who has the capabilities. Because there may be many people interested, but not all of them are capable of going to the bottom of the Baltic Sea and carrying out this explosion,” Putin continued. “It is clear to the whole world what happened, and even American analysts talk about it directly,” Putin said, citing evidence laid out publicly about Washington’s responsibility for the Nord Stream attack.
Vladimir Putin, in an interview with Carlson, explained who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline.
“Who blew up Nord Stream?” the reporter asked.
“You for sure,” the president replied.
“I was busy that day. I did not blow up Nord Stream. Thank you though,” Carlson said.
Asked why Germany, the main economic loser from the attack, has remained silent on the terrorist incident despite essentially being targeted by its own NATO ally, Putin said he believes “today’s German leadership is guided by the interests of the collective West rather than its [own] national interests.”
“After all, it is not only about Nord Stream-1, which was blown up, and Nord Stream-2, which was damaged, but one pipe remains safe and sound, and gas can be supplied to Europe through it, but Germany does not open it,” Putin said, pointing to the energy crisis currently rocking the country, and suggesting the nation is being led by “highly incompetent people.”
Over 15 months after the Nord Stream incident, German authorities have yet to release the findings of an official investigation.
Eugen Schmidt, a Bundestag lawmaker from the opposition Alternative for Germany (German acronym AfD) Party who has made several parliamentary inquiries on the matter, told Sputnik that the lack of interest in finding the culprits of the attack is a sign of not only incompetence, but vassal status.
“Even the fact that the investigation has been classified as ‘secret’, i.e. the public is isolated as much as possible from it, despite the colossal harm done to both the German economy and the country’s prestige in general,” is concerning, Schmidt said.
Instead, the lawmaker noted, Germans have been treated to regular doses of misinformation in media reports citing intelligence officials that the Nord Stream attack was “supposedly done by some group of Ukrainian swashbucklers,” despite comments by Germany’s own investigators that only a small handful of nations have the capability to target pipelines 80 meters underwater in the Baltic Sea.
“The goal, apparently, is to divert public opinion from the real masterminds, the real perpetrators, and of course, the beneficiaries. It’s quite obvious that the beneficiary of such an act is first and foremost the United States. And technically, they could do it. That is, they are one of the few countries that could pull off something like this,” Schmidt stressed.
The politician recalled how President Biden warned publicly in February 2022, with Chancellor Scholz standing beside him, that the US would “bring an end” to Nord Stream if the Ukrainian crisis escalated.
“That is, there is a huge number of factors, plus Seymour Hersh’s investigation, all suggesting that the United States both planned and carried out this terrorist attack,” Schmidt said.
In the middle of it all, Germany’s government has not only demonstrated its “absolute incompetence,” but has “shown that they are absolutely dependent on the United States, that they are not able to pursue any sovereign policy. They’ve shown their status as a vassal. That’s why they’re hiding the results of the investigation,” the lawmaker believes.
Germany’s ruling elites are almost entirely dependent on America, Schmidt stressed. “They are actual American agents of influence here in Germany. They do not pursue their own sovereign policy. They pursue US policy in Germany. In other words, they’re not seeking to make Germany independent or to pursue policies in the interests of Germany itself. They’re absolutely dependent on the US. Therefore, the country’s entire policy does not meet its own national interests.”
The authorities’ incompetence is perfectly highlighted by its reaction to possibly the worst economic crisis in Germany’s postwar history, according to the lawmaker. “They’ve recruited ideologically-motivated people who have no idea how the economy works or how to correctly implement the country’s policies, especially in economic terms, how to protect the country’s interests so that the economy works effectively.”
Instead, Schmidt lamented, the government is filled with officials whose top priorities include the climate agenda, or accepting even more immigrants into the country. “No one is busy with the work for which they are there. They are simply carrying out their own ideological projects.”
The consequences include an economy “bursting at the seams, with businesses closing and moving abroad,” and Germany being treated like “some kind of foreign policy dwarf” on the world stage, the lawmaker said. “Energy prices are breaking records. We’re paying crazy amounts of money for American liquefied natural gas at the same time that we’re imposing sanctions on [Russian] pipeline gas.”
There are still “sound political forces” in Germany, Schmidt stressed, including AfD, and these are gaining more and more public support, resulting in media smear campaigns and accusations of “Nazism,” “right-wing populism,” and of being in bed with the Kremlin, which the lawmaker has personally experienced.
“Every imaginable propaganda cliché is being used to discredit our party using all possible means. Because [the authorities] are confused and afraid of losing their warm places,” engaging in witch hunts against the opposition instead of actually earning the public’s trust, up to and including calls to ban the AfD outright.
“This is a completely ridiculous and impossible situation that harms democracy in the country,” Schmidt said, adding that unfortunately for the government, the attacks on the opposition are reflected in public opinion polling, where the ruling coalition has set records to become possibly the most unpopular government in German history.
Fresh polling by the Erfurt-based Institute for New Social Answers, one of Germany’s leading social research institutions, found the Traffic Light coalition government, which includes Chancellor Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens and the Free Democratic Party, collectively polling at just 32 percent support. The same poll found that the mainstream socially conservative opposition Christian Democratic Union has 30 percent support, with the AfD sitting at 20.5 percent (5.5 percent more than Scholz’s Social Democrats), and former Left Party lawmaker Sarah Wagenknecht’s new party at 7.5 support (three percent more than the Free Democrats).
Germans are set to go to the polls sometime between late August and late October of 2025, unless the Bundestag is dissolved earlier and snap elections are called.
Israeli Troops to Attack Rafah as the UN Warns of ‘Large-Scale Loss of Civilian Life’
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | February 8, 2024
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would order his troops to attack Rafah, a city in Gaza sheltering over one million internally displaced civilians. The situation in the Gazan city is already dire. The UN warns the attack could cause a massive loss of civilian life.
Netanyahu declared Israeli troops would soon attack Rafah. The statement follows the Israeli leader rejecting a ceasefire deal and hostage exchange, saying he would settle for nothing less than “total victory.”
Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said attacking the city that is sheltering over 1.5 million Palestinians “may constitute war crimes.“ “To be clear, intensified hostilities in Rafah in this situation could lead to large-scale loss of civilian lives, and we must do everything possible within our power to avoid that,” he warned.
Palestinians living in Rafah are sheltering in tents. The people lack food and clean drinking water. Disease and starvation are spreading in the city. Gazans feel the coming assault has them “waiting to be martyred.”
Omar Shaki, the Israel-Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, expressed that Israeli attacks on the densely populated city will add to the 11,500 children Israel has killed in Gaza over four months. “Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth, and Rafah is now the most densely populated place in Gaza. Any sort of military campaign or air strike would amplify risks of disproportionate attacks,” he stated.
It is unclear where the Palestinians will go after Rafah is destroyed by the Israeli military. Tel Aviv has placed two-thirds of the Strip under execution order. Outside of Rafah, other places in Gaza deemed “safe zones” lack infrastructure to support the 2.3 million Palestinians living in the small enclave. Egypt has threatened to go to war if the Israeli military attempted to drive the Palestinians across the border.
Bob Kitchen of the International Rescue Committee explained there was nowhere safe for the Palestinians to go. “If they aren’t killed in the fighting, Palestinian children, women and men will be at risk of dying by starvation or disease,” he said. “There will no longer be a single ‘safe’ area for Palestinians to go to.”
Rafah is the last city in Gaza not devastated by the Israeli military operations in the Strip. However, Israel has conducted scores of strikes in the city. On Wednesday, Israeli strikes in Gaza killed 13 people, including two women and five children.
Palestinian Red Crescent calls for pressure on Israel over fate of missing staff, child
Press TV – February 8, 2024
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in the Gaza Strip has called on the international community to exert pressure on the Israeli regime to reveal the fate of two of its staff and a six-year-old Palestinian girl who have been missing for a week.
PRCS made the appeal in a social media post on Thursday, 122 hours after the disappearance of their staff members Youssef Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoon as well as Palestinian girl Hind Rajab in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City.
“We urgently appeal to the international community to exert pressure on Israeli occupation authorities to disclose the whereabouts of Hind and the PRCS team,” the group said.
On January 29, Hind was traveling in a car with her uncle Bahsar Hamada, his wife and their four children, fleeing the brutal bombardment by the Israeli regime.
On their way, Hamada’s car was stopped by the Israeli military. The stoppage was followed by a shower of bullets at Hamada’s car, which killed him, his wife and three of their children on the spot.
Layan Hamada, 15, survived with her cousin Hind. Layan was shot dead as she was speaking on the phone with the PRCS crew while Hind was still trapped inside the vehicle.
Around 6 pm local time, the PRCS team reached the area to rescue Hind who as per the last update remained trapped alone in a car with the dead bodies of her uncle, aunt and cousins scattered around her.
The PRCS team had informed and coordinated with the Israeli authorities before dispatching an ambulance to the location but the NGO lost all contact with its crew after the team went to retrieve the girl.
Since then, demands for answers have been mounting over the fate of Hind and the PRCS medical workers.
Hind’s mother, Wisam, has also issued appeals to international rights organizations for help in finding out what happened to her daughter.
Israel waged its brutal war on besieged Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out an unprecedented operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 27,700 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 67,000 others.
Albanese: Israel is still practicing ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Jerusalem
Palestinian Information Center – February 8, 2024
GAZA – The United Nations Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, said on Wednesday that Israel has never respected the international law and has been allowed to violate it since 1967. It is still carrying out acts of ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jerusalem.
The famine suffered by the residents of the Gaza Strip is unparalleled in the whole world, she said, stressing the necessity of taking all required measures to prevent genocide in Gaza.
Albanese said, in a press statement, “the more aid and ceasefire are delayed, the greater the number of casualties in the Gaza Strip will be.”
She accused Israel of ignoring the International Court of Justice’s ruling by killing more civilians everyday in Gaza, calling on world countries to put pressure on Israel by halting mutual commercial trades.
Albanese said she was shocked to know that member states of the International Court have recently attacked UNRWA, noting that the international community is capable of stopping the ongoing massacres carried out by Israeli occupation forces in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli occupation’s ongoing aggression on the blockaded Gaza Strip has so far led to the martyrdom of 27,708 people and the injury of 67,147 others, in addition to the enforced displacement of more than 85 percent (about 1.9 million people) of the Strip’s population, according to official authorities and international bodies and organizations.
US ‘involved’ in deadly Ukrainian attack on Russian bakery – envoy
RT | February 7, 2024
Washington is partially responsible for Ukraine’s missile strike on a bakery in the city of Lisichansk in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) last week that killed over two dozen civilians, Moscow’s permanent envoy to the UN Vassily Nebenzia stated on Tuesday.
On February 3, the Armed Forces of Ukraine used high-power precision weaponry, presumably US-supplied HIMARS missiles, to target the bakery. The attack almost completely destroyed the two-story building and left some 40 people buried in the rubble, according to Nebenzia. Some 28 civilians died in the strike, including a pregnant woman and her five-year-old child. LPR Minister of Emergency Situations Aleksey Poteleschenko was among those killed in the attack.
Speaking at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council initiated by Russia in response to the strike, Nebenzia stressed that the US is to be considered an accomplice in the attack, which Moscow has described as an “act of terrorism.”
“If someone undertakes to argue that Western countries have nothing to do with it and that Kiev picks its own targets for strikes, they should be reminded of the confession of Vadim Skibitsky, a representative of the Defense Intelligence (Service) of Ukraine,” the diplomat said.
Nebenzia recalled that in August 2022, Skibitsky admitted that in order to use the HIMARS systems, Kiev must first obtain target clearance from Washington. “So it is quite obvious who was involved in the Lisichansk attack,” the ambassador said. This also applies to the “dozens if not hundreds” of other crimes committed by Kiev using Western weapons, such as the recent downing of a Russian Il-76 aircraft carrying Ukrainian POWs, he added.
The diplomat also pointed out that the time and place of Kiev’s attack on Lisichansk were chosen deliberately, as Ukraine’s forces were aware that there are not many recreational places left in the city. “The neo-Nazis deliberately waited for the moment when families went for a walk on their day off, and cynically attacked almost the only place of leisure in Lisichansk,” Nebenzia said.
Тhe Russian envoy reiterated calls on the members of the UN Security Council and the UN leadership to “strongly condemn the attack on Lisichansk and all other terrorist acts by the Kiev regime.”
“The Bandera junta views your silence as a carte blanche to commit more crimes. For our part, we confirm that all those involved – the organizers and the perpetrators of this crime – will be identified and held accountable,” Nebenzia added. Russia will achieve its goals of demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine through either diplomatic or military means, he insisted.
Euro-Med: Detainees kidnaped from Gaza faced grave Israeli violations
Palestine Information Center – February 6, 2024
GENEVA – New testimonies received by Euro-Med Human Right Monitor from recently released Palestinian detainees from the Gaza Strip, including women and children, have revealed their exposure to torture and ill-treatment by the Israeli occupation army.
Euro-Med Monitor cited revelations of crimes such as forced nudity, sexual harassment, and threats of sexual torture, and called for urgent international action to stop these violations.
“Testimonies from a group of recently released detainees who spent varying lengths of time in Israeli jails and detention centers were provided to the Euro-Med Monitor team. These individuals confirmed that they were subjected to severe beatings, dog attacks, strip searches, and denial of food and bathroom access, among other cruel practices that amount to torture.”
The most disturbing testimonies Euro-Med received concern female detainees who were directly sexually harassed.
Euro-Med quoted those female detainees, who preferred to remain unidentified due to safety concerns, as saying that “Israeli soldiers had harassed them by touching their genitals as well as making them remove their headscarves.”
Additionally, Euro-Med confirmed that “the soldiers forced the female detainees and their families into providing information about others by threatening to indecently assault and even rape them.”
A 70-year-old man who requested anonymity spoke with a Euro-Med team as well. “[Israeli soldiers] took me from my house in the neighborhood of Al-Amal in Khan Yunis,” the man, identified only as “M.N,” stated. “I told them that I was sick and could not move, but they did not care. They forced me to take off my clothes. They took me to a demolished house; I had the impression that I was used as a human shield.”
M.N. explained that the Israeli soldiers made more arrests later on and “led us to a detention facility that was nothing more than an iron cage for severe torture”. He spent 10 days confined to the prison.
“We were subjected to daily insults and beatings,” M.N. added. “We went four days without drinking [anything]. They poured water on the ground in front of us as a form of torture. We were made to sit on our knees, given little food, and only allowed to use the restroom once.”
“They asked us to evacuate, so I left with my family west of Khan Yunis,” reported another man, identified only as “K.H.N.” due to safety concerns. “[Israeli soldiers] arrested me at the checkpoint and forced me to take off my clothes. I was severely beaten. Blankets soaked with water were draped over us. We did not drink any water and were abnormally cold.”
K.H.N. stated that the Israeli army “later transferred us to another place, where we were subjected to another form of torture. Every new place had a unique method of torture. I was struck in the head by an officer, who continued to hit me after I complained.” The severe cold prevented him from falling asleep, he told Euro-Med.
“They arrested me from Beit Lahia, and forced me to completely undress,” a third man, identified as “M.W.”, told Euro-Med. “They detained me in an open area and severely beat me; I felt their hands scour my body. After severely beating me with rugs and rifle butts, they hung me by my legs. I was exposed to severe beatings for 4 to 6 hours [per day].”
He added: “They threatened to rape my family, and asked for information that I did not know. They forced us to insult certain factions and personalities, to support Israel, and to say that the dog that was attacking us was ‘a crown on our heads.’”
“They arrested me at the checkpoint on Salah al-Din Road,” a woman, identified as “G” told Euro-Med. “They asked me to head to a sand berm, where they blindfolded me, searched me with their hands, and asked me about Hamas and the tunnels.”
“Then they moved me to an open area, then [transferred] me to a detention center, where I was forced to take off my clothes,” G said further. “They provided me with nothing but [house clothes] and no underwear.”
The woman told Euro-Med that she was questioned multiple times while in custody. “Every time I was stripped nude, with the female soldiers putting their hands on me, while male soldiers occasionally made rude comments, harsh insults that I cannot [repeat], and rape threats.”
According to Euro-Med, a recent report by Israel’s own media on the detention center housing Palestinians from the Gaza Strip shows that Israel practices systematic torture, in violation of human rights agreements that were explicitly designed and implemented to prevent torture. The report shows detainees being shackled and forced to sit on the ground in iron animal-like cages — in accordance to Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant’s October 2023 remarks that the Palestinians in Gaza are “human animals.”
Euro-Med accused the Israeli occupation forces of forcibly hiding Palestinian detainees and subjecting them to brutal violence and even severe torture from the very first moment of their arrest right up until the moment of release.
Euro-Med also accused the Israeli occupation authority of refusing requests from multiple human rights groups, including Israeli ones, seeking information about Gazan detainees.
“Detainees from the Gaza Strip are being held in newly-established Israeli army detention facilities scattered throughout the Negev and Jerusalem, where they endure severe abuse, torture, and starvation,” Euro-Med said.
Euro-Med pointed out that the number of detainees from Gaza is not known accurately. “The Israeli army recently claimed that there are 2,300 detainees in Gaza; however, estimates based on the testimonies of those released suggest that the actual number of detainees is much higher. One detainee said that Israeli officers had personally informed them that there are thousands of Gazan detainees.”
“Israel’s Sde Teman army camp, located between Beersheba and Gaza, has been turned into a Guantánamo-like prison,” Euro-Med said. “Detainees there are held in extreme conditions akin to open-air chicken cages, without access to food or drink for long periods of time.
Euro-Med highlighted testimonies it had received about the death of two detainees, one of them with an amputated foot, inside the Sde Teman camp.
Euro-Med called on Israel “to promptly reveal the names, whereabouts, and fate of all forcibly disappeared detainees, and to immediately stop its policy of torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian detainees.”
Euro-Med emphasized that “Israel’s ruthless assaults on Palestinian detainees, which violate their dignity and purposefully cause them great pain and suffering, are tantamount to crimes against humanity and/or torture, which fall under the purview of war crimes and crimes against humanity as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”
Euro-Med stated that “these breaches are related to Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, which began on October 7, 2023. Specifically, the killing of Palestinian detainees inside detention centers is considered to be a crime of premeditated murder and an extrajudicial execution. This type of killing is prohibited by international law, especially international human rights law, international humanitarian law, and international criminal law, which considers intentionally killing civilians a war crime, according to the Rome Statute.”
“International law also prohibits arbitrary arrest and unlawful imprisonment, and considers them to be war crimes,” Euro-Med noted. “International law forbids detaining and arresting someone and depriving them of their freedom by failing to provide any information about their whereabouts or fate in an effort to deny them legal protection for an extended period of time. According to the Rome Statute, enforced disappearance is considered a crime against humanity.”
The Geneva-based rights group called on the International Committee of the Red Cross to shoulder its responsibilities and work on confirming and exposing the detention conditions of Palestinian detainees in Israeli detention camps and jails.
Euro-Med also called on the Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to launch an urgent and impartial investigation into Israel’s egregious violations in Gaza. “This investigation is needed to probe the Israeli army’s liquidation of Palestinian civilians after their arrest in different areas of the Gaza Strip, to hold those responsible accountable, and to provide justice to all survivors as well as the families of victims.”
At least 135 cases of Israeli crimes against journalists in Palestine were recorded in January – Journalists Syndicate
WAFA | February 5, 2024
RAMALLAH – At least 135 crimes, assaults and violations committed by the Israeli occupation against journalism in Palestine were recorded in January, the foremost of which was the killing of 14 journalists, including eight who were killed by direct missile and bullet attacks against their homes and four others who were killed while on the job, according to the monthly report issued by the Freedom Committee at the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.
The report stressed that the Israeli attacks on journalists, including the intentional targeting of their homes and the killing of their families, continued unabated. According to the report, 12 inhabited houses were targeted, which led to the killing of dozens of journalists’ family members.
The report affirmed the Israeli occupation soldiers’ lawless measures against journalists in the West Bank, adding that 50 cases of attacks against journalists were recorded, including detaining press crews, preventing them from doing their job and targeting them with live bullets.
The report stressed that journalists are faced with violence and intimidation, recording at least 26 incidents in which four journalists were brutally injured by bullets and missile shrapnel, in addition to four others who sustained cuts and bruises in Israeli attacks.
The report recorded four cases of beatings, eight injuries by tear gas and sound bombs and seven cases of destruction and seizure of equipment. In addition, the Israeli occupation detained two journalists and stormed press institutions and the homes of three journalists. One journalist was also subjected to prosecution.
The report also cited the complete interruption of communication and internet services for 14 days last month as a result of the Israeli direct targeting of telecommunications towers in Gaza. Several technical staff were killed by the Israeli occupation while attempting to fix the damage, it added.
The commission said that 116 journalists and media workers have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on October 7.
At least 35 journalists remain behind Israeli bars under harsh conditions that deny them the most basic rights of prisoners enshrined in international laws and conventions, according to the report.
The report added that the fate of several journalists remains unknown after losing all contact with them on October 7.
Ukrainian official tries to justify the killing of 28 civilians in Russian bakery
RT | February 5, 2024
The emergencies minister of Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), Aleksey Poteleschenko, was confirmed on Monday as being among the victims of the recent Ukrainian strike on a bakery in the city of Lisichansk. The attack claimed the lives of 28 civilians.
While the strike has been squarely described by Moscow as a “terrorist attack” perpetrated by Kiev, the death of the regional cabinet minister actually legitimizes the strike, Petr Andryuschenko, an aide to the Ukrainian mayor of Mariupol (who fled the city in early 2022) has suggested. Mariupol, located in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), was liberated by Russian forces early in the ongoing conflict, and joined Russia after a referendum in late 2022.
“At the end of the week, late in the evening, heavenly punishment visited Lisichansk in a restaurant near a bakery, where the top collaborators had already celebrated two birthdays,” Andryuschenko wrote on Telegram, claiming that only the restaurant was destroyed, while the bakery itself remained “intact.”
It was not immediately clear where he’d come by his information, given that the bakery and the restaurant were effectively a single establishment, located in the same building. Its structure ended up heavily damaged in the Ukrainian strike, partially collapsing and burying dozens of civilians under the rubble. Additionally, the strike did not exactly happen “late in the evening” as Andryuschenko claimed, occurring shortly after 5pm local time.
The official also urged the Ukrainian side to brag about such attacks in the future, arguing that Kiev should have broke the news on the strike first, while describing the bakery as an “assembly point” of “collaborators,” and therefore depriving Russia of the “information field advantage.”
The death of Poteleschenko was confirmed by the acting head of the LPR, Leonid Pasechnik. According to the latest official tally, the strike on the bakery left 28 people dead, including one child.
“He was a courageous man with an iron character and great fortitude. He defended the Lugansk People’s Republic within the ranks of the People’s Militia, then worked in the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the LPR. For a year, he headed the Lisichansk fire and rescue squad,” Pasechnik wrote, eulogizing the fallen official on Telegram.
Russian troops secured the city of Lisichansk in early July 2022, making it one of the last municipalities in the LPR to be liberated. However, the city, which remains close to the front line, has been a frequent target of Ukrainian artillery and missile attacks ever since. Saturday’s strike, however, was reportedly the deadliest to date in the community in terms of civilian casualties.
Featured Video
Death Spikes & Rising Cancer In Our Youth Explained
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Politicians lie
By Mazin Qumsiyeh | Popular Resistance | August 18, 2013
There is no way to say this truth nicely: Politicians lie. That includes Japanese, American, Egyptian, Israeli, and Palestinian politicians! Is there something more common sense than that? Yet, so many citizens around the world believe their own politicians or wistfully acknowledge lies but think it is part of the job needed to run things. They believe even when politicians contradict themselves blatantly. This phenomenon is rather remarkable. It is a dissonance and disconnect from reality that many seem oblivious to. It is very dangerous because it can lead to accepting rationales for going to war. These can be deadly wars that lead to millions of lives lost as happened in what was called World War 1 and WW2. Even when incredible and declassified evidence abound, politicians continue to lie and old mythologies refuse to die. Here are just a few of the countless lies told to us over the past few decades… continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- RSF military group defects, joins Sudanese army: State media
- Ireland goalkeeper refuses to play ‘Israel’ as squad weighs boycott
- China pushes back against US on Cuba, Iran
- Ukrainian Soldiers, Potential Mercenaries: Have Gun, Will Travel!
- Burnham’s UN debut… A masterclass in British disinformation
- Iran flights continue despite US aviation sanctions
- Global Tipping Points Lead the World Into a State of Entropy
- The day-after at the White House: USA and Xi Jinping
- The Geopolitical Balance in the Red Sea: The UAE Being Displaced by New Players
- Iraqi resistance group vows to stage airport sit-ins over Iran aerial blockade
- If Americans Knew
- Deconstructing Netanyahu’s pants-on-fire UN rant – Daily Update
- Trump betrayed voters with his campaign lies and prioritized a foreign country once he took office
- Netanyahu calls Israel’s war in Gaza ‘opposite of genocide’ in UN speech to near-empty hall
- Settler Kidnappings: Torture, Sexual Abuse and Terrorisation of Palestinian Abductees as Israel Deepens Annexation of West Bank
- Gaza winter nears as 162,000 tents become unusable, raising fears of humanitarian crisis
- Netanyahu says, “It’s the opposite of genocide”; UN says Gaza economy is world’s ‘most severe crisis on record’ – Daily Update
- Israel’s US-Backed Assault on Gaza Has Created the ‘World’s Most Severe Economic Crisis on Record’: UN
- ‘Protecting U.S. Citizens’… From Israel
- ‘This is where I live now, the back of a truck’: a day in the life of a grandmother in Gaza
- In UN Speech, Iran’s President Displays Pictures of Children Killed by US, Brings Attention to Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
