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Israeli army converts Nasser Hospital into military barracks, arrests dozens of doctors, patients

Palestinian Information Center – February 18, 2024

GAZA – Israeli occupation forces converted the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis into a military barracks after taking it out of service. They have arrested dozens of medical staff and patients.

Dr. Ashraf al-Qudra, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, said on Sunday that the Israeli occupation has turned the Nasser Medical Complex into a military barracks and taken it out of service.

He pointed out that the Israeli occupation forces kept medical personnel for hours in the maternity building, handcuffed them, beat them, and stripped them of their clothes. He pointed out that the occupation army arrested 70 healthcare workers in the medical complex.

He said that there are now only 25 medical personnel left in the Nasser Medical Complex who are unable to handle cases in need of critical care. He warned that the occupation army has arrested the intensive care doctor and there is no doctor to follow up on critical cases.

He noted that the Israeli occupation forces have arrested dozens of immobile patients who are receiving treatment and placed them in military beds, loaded them onto trucks, and taken them to an unknown location, putting their lives at risk.

He added that the electricity has been cut off from the Nasser Medical Complex for three days, resulting in lack of oxygen for the patients. This has led to the death of seven patients so far, with fears of the death of dozens of critical cases.

He pointed out that three women, including a female doctor, gave birth in the Nasser Medical Complex under difficult and unsafe conditions, lacking water, food, electricity, and cleanliness. The water supply to the Nasser Medical Complex has been completely cut off for three days due to the power generators being out of service.

The spokesperson held Israel fully responsible for the lives of the medical staff and patients in the Nasser Medical Complex.

The Israeli army since January 22, following the expansion of its ground attack to the west of Khan Yunis and their issuance of more evacuation orders for the area, has been besieging the Nasser Hospital with a capacity of 475 beds, Al-Amal Hospital with a capacity of 100 beds, the Jordanian Field Hospital with a capacity of 50 beds, and Al-Khair Hospital, in addition to three health clinics, which housed thousands of displaced people along with patients, according to the statement.

On the same day, the Israeli occupation forces raided Al-Khair Hospital, which is run by a charitable association, and ordered women and children to evacuate towards Rafah. They also arrested several medical staff members and completely took it out of service.

In the following days, the Israeli occupation forces continued to shell and fire at Al-Amal Hospital and the Nasser Medical Complex, using artillery, snipers, and quadcopter aircraft, resulting in the killing and injury of dozens of civilians. The hospital grounds turned into temporary graves before being raided, and taken out of service, along with the medical staff and patients inside.

February 18, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Behind the curtain: How British spy agencies are aiding Israeli genocide in Gaza

By Reza Javadi | Press TV | February 18, 2024

Since the launch of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in early October, the United Kingdom has dramatically increased its military and intelligence support for the Israeli regime.

It has done so either by recruiting spies in the occupied Palestinian territories, engaging private military companies, deploying surveillance aircraft and vessels, or conducting spy missions over Gaza.

Notable components of the British deployment include Royal Air Force P-8 maritime patrol aircraft, unspecified surveillance assets, two Royal Fleet Auxiliary support ships, three Merlin helicopters, and a contingent of Royal Marines, which were meant to aid the Israeli aggression against Palestinians.

According to the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), a UK-based civil society organization, the United Kingdom and Germany are among the biggest arms suppliers to Tel Aviv.

The CAAT report said British companies supplied approximately 15 percent of components used in F-35s that were employed in the Israeli bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip.

Some companies, such as Elbit, the Israeli regime’s international military contractor, hold licenses for trading military equipment in Britain, the report stated.

MI5 recruits spies in Gaza

Beyond military assistance, the UK has consistently sought to provide intelligence support to the Israeli regime by utilizing existing intelligence operatives and recruiting new agents within occupied territories.

In a recently revealed case, the British spy agency MI5 tried to recruit a British man in Gaza by offering to help his family escape the city, which is currently under heavy bombardment by the Israeli regime.

The man, who reportedly declined the offer, revealed that his family had registered with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) for evacuation but experienced prolonged delays, enduring dire conditions in a tent among other displaced individuals in Gaza.

“I have been waiting for more than two months for them to get me and my family out of this crazy, dangerous war,” he was quoted as saying, expressing frustration.

The MI5 contact with the man in Gaza indicated that the agency’s ability to facilitate the family’s evacuation through FCDO was contingent upon the man agreeing to work for the intelligence agency.

Despite the urgency of their situation, the man said he did not agree to this condition.

MI5, the contact said, had influence over the FCDO but only if he could show “there is willingness from your side about working together”.

“After I received their offer, I said to myself: the UK is a country of institutions and law, and they will not obstruct the evacuation of me and my family because I did not respond to MI5’s proposal. But unfortunately, I was wrong,” the unidentified man stated.

Moazzam Begg, a senior director at advocacy organization Cage International, and a former Guantanamo Bay detainee assisting the family, noted that the recruitment methods employed by MI5 seem consistent with the agency’s tactics to exploit individuals facing desperate circumstances.

Begg emphasized the coercive nature of such recruitment, sharing his own experience.

“I know from personal experience from MI5 agents telling me directly that the only way you can get out of a place where you are being tortured or abused or detained without trial is by cooperating.”

UK spy mission over Gaza

The British intelligence support for the Israeli regime and its spy missions in the occupied territories is not limited to the recruitment of potential spies.

A recent investigation revealed that the British military conducted approximately 50 spy missions over the Gaza Strip for the Israeli regime since December.

In its latest report, Declassified UK, a news website focused on British foreign policy, said the flights have taken off from the UK’s Akrotiri air base on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Flights originating from the controversial air base utilized Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft to gather intelligence.

The UK Ministry of Defense initially claimed these flights aimed to collect information on British captives held by the Hamas resistance movement, but the frequency and timing raised suspicions of broader intelligence gathering.

“The extraordinary number of flights, and the fact that they started nearly two months after the hostages were taken, raises suspicions that the UK is not collecting intelligence solely for this purpose,” Declassified UK said.

Head of the Cyprus Peace Council Charis Pashias said last week that locals have seen a “daily” increase in the number of flights from Akrotiri since Israel launched its bombardment of Gaza on Oct 7, 2023.

He said people have also “become aware of the illegal presence of thousands of American soldiers now stationed in Akrotiri.”

UK’s plan for surveillance flights

In another noteworthy development, the UK government openly announced its plan for surveillance flights over Israel and Gaza, citing it as part of hostage rescue efforts.

Hamas condemned this decision, labeling it as military involvement in the “genocidal” war on Gaza. The group urged the UK to reconsider, citing historical grievances such as the 1917 Balfour Declaration, describing it as “the sin of the century” and condemning the UK for perpetuating a shameful colonial past.

The UK’s “intention to carry out intelligence flights over the Gaza Strip makes it an accomplice to the Zionist occupation in its crimes, and responsible for the massacres to which our Palestinian people are subjected,” the Palestinian resistance group said in a statement.

The UK should have “corrected its historical position that was offensive to the Palestinian people,” and “atone for” the 1917 Balfour Declaration, a letter from then-British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lionel Walter Rothschild, a leading figure of the British Jewish community, pledging support for “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.

British Cyprus intelligence base

The recent surge in UK surveillance activities is closely tied to its significant presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, specifically the British Sovereign Base Areas (SBA) on Cyprus.

These bases, constituting 3 percent of the island’s landmass, house the largest Royal Air Force base outside the UK and contain substantial signals- and intelligence-gathering assets. Most UK surveillance flights are launched from these bases, strategically located just 200 miles from Gaza.

Although officially unacknowledged, leaked top-secret documents from GCHQ, the UK’s largest spy agency, confirm that Cyprus “hosts a wide range of UK and US intelligence facilities.”

The main US spy agency of National Security Agency (NSA) particularly operates on British territory, maintaining a “far-reaching technical and analytic relationship” with the Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU), sharing information on access, intercept, targeting, language, analysis, and reporting, according to Declassified.

A top-secret document from GCHQ adds that “Cyprus collection facilities are acknowledged by NSA as important assets”.

These revelations, leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, gained significance in light of the US-UK activities on Cyprus, suggesting that intelligence obtained from Gaza by American spy agencies operating on British Cyprus might be shared with the Israeli regime.

The US and British militaries are key partners of Israel and have supported its bombing of Gaza. The documents show intelligence gathered on Cyprus is likely to be part of this support.

The leaked GCHQ document acknowledges that intelligence gathered from Cyprus is integrated “with military planning and operations,” emphasizing the close interaction between GCHQ and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on Cyprus.

Moreover, RAF Troodos, a British “retained site” near the northern Cyprus border, operates as a listening post for the US, providing unique access to critical points in the Middle East. The intelligence collected from Troodos supports technical analysts in both the US and the UK and is used for weapons-related collection, according to a GCHQ document.

The Troodos site, GCHQ noted, “has long been regarded as a ‘Jewel in the Crown’ by NSA as it offers unique access to the Levant, North Africa, and Turkey”.

Furthermore, it is believed that the CIA is operating from Britain’s bases on Cyprus. A leaked US cable, reported by Declassified, mentioned a UK official stating that American aircraft flying from RAF Akrotiri are operated by the State Department and US military, with the “possibility of other agencies”, presumably the CIA, conducting operations from the base.

British soldiers take part in Israeli war

In a recent revelation, the death of Nathanel Young, a 20-year-old British man serving as a corporal in the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), shed light on the fact that hundreds of Britons are serving in the IOF, which is illegally occupying Palestinian land and has killed thousands of children in Gaza.

In an interview with the Times, Sam Sank, a British paratrooper in the Israeli army, who has been participating in the Israeli war against Palestinians since early October, revealed that hundreds of fellow Brits are currently serving in the IOF.

Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, whose husband has lived in the Israeli-occupied territories, previously told the Jewish Chronicle that they have “close family members who serve in the IDF”.

It is unclear if those relatives are British citizens.

This prompted the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians to seek urgent clarification from the UK Foreign Office on the legality of British nationals enlisting in the Israeli army.

They made the request “In light of the catastrophic situation currently unfolding in Gaza, with clear evidence that war crimes and crimes against humanity may already have been committed in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and the real risk that further mass atrocity crimes may be imminent”.

People who fight for a foreign army are often viewed as mercenaries and would meet the dictionary definition. However, the UK lacks effective anti-mercenary laws and tends to prosecute foreign fighters on an ad hoc basis, depending on whatever geo-political interests are being pursued by the government of the day.

The UK even tried to thwart attempts by the United Nations to craft a ban on mercenaries. The only international law concerning mercenaries that Britain has signed is Article 47 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Convention.

It was adopted in 1977 as “countries attempted to create a fine distinction between those classified as mercenaries and other actors, essentially to retain the right to recruit, train, finance, and use mercenaries with impunity,” according to a report presented last month to the UN General Assembly by its working group on mercenaries.

Britons joining the IOF may only meet certain aspects of the Geneva Convention’s criteria for mercenaries, especially concerning material compensation exceeding that of their Israeli counterparts.

The country’s historical resistance to international efforts to ban mercenaries complicates the legal landscape around this issue.

UK arms exports to Israel

According to research by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT), the UK has licensed approximately £472 million in arms exports to Israel since 2015. These exports include various components, equipment, and technology for fighter aircraft and drones.

It’s worth noting that, as James Butler observes, “the headline figure is taken from the value of standard licenses, but the UK also operates a system of open licenses that permit transfers of unlimited – and unspecified – quantities of particular military goods.”

Scrutiny of the Israeli regime’s genocide in Gaza has increased in the UK due to concerns that weapons supplied by the UK might be used in violation of international humanitarian law (IHL).

Despite these concerns and calls from human rights campaigners to suspend arms sales to Israel, the UK government has shown no intention of halting such exports. The UK government’s rhetorical emphasis on IHL compliance contrasts with its uninterrupted supply of arms to the apartheid regime.

In the first weeks of the war, a report by openDemocracy said “The UK government has no plans to suspend arms sales to Israel, despite human rights campaigners warning its exports have been used to kill civilians.”

In late November, when pressed in the House of Commons, the incumbent Defence Secretary Grant Shapps rebuffed the idea of the UK suspending its arms sales to the regime in Tel Aviv.

This stance persisted even after the regime’s attacks on October 7, with London and other Western nations expressing “unequivocal support” for Israel, which made them directly complicit.

February 18, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli army bars access of UN aid convoy to Nasser Hospital in Gaza

Palestinian Information Center – February 17, 2024

GAZA – The health ministry in Gaza said on Friday that the Israeli occupation army blocked a World Health Organization (WHO) aid convoy and top UN officials from reaching the besieged Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.

In a statement, the ministry said that the convoy, which consists of two trucks carrying food, water and fuel, had been stopped by the Israeli army on the road for several hours, while bulldozers dug holes in front of and behind the convoy.

There was no information if the Israeli army released the convoy later and allowed it to go back or reach the hospital.

In this regard, Palestinian minister of health Mai Kayla accused the Israeli army of committing a genocidal crime against the remaining displaced civilians, patients and medical staff at the Nasser Hospital.

Kayla warned that there would be a humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip if the hospital stopped providing medical services, describing the facility as the backbone of the health system in the war-torn territory.

For its part, the WHO described the reports emerging from the Nasser hospital as “deeply alarming” and expressed its concern over the safety of the patients, health workers, and civilians sheltering at the facility.

WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic told journalists at a press briefing in Geneva that the UN health body was trying to gain urgent access to the hospital.

“We really need to get there to bring fuel so [the] hospital can continue to function and those patients who are still there can continue to receive medical care,” he said, also stressing the need to assess the conditions of patients and for their safe referral to other facilities.

“We have been saying all this time… that patients, health workers and civilians who are seeking refuge in hospitals deserve safety and not a burial in those places of healing,” he added.

February 17, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

GAZA WOMEN DESCRIBE ISRAELI KIDNAPPING, INTERROGATIONS

The Grayzone | February 15, 2024

In the latest Grayzone report from the ground in Gaza, 39-year-old mother Abier Mohammed Gheben describes how invading Israeli forces kidnapped her and subjected her to humiliation and violent threats as they interrogated her in captivity.

13-year-old Palestinian boy recovers in hospital hallway

Defence for Children Palestine | February 13, 2024

Abdulhakim, 13, was injured in the Israeli military’s assault on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. As he recovers in a hospital in southern Gaza, there is no room for him and many others, so his bed remains in the hallway.

February 16, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Video, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

US-UK attacks in Yemen ‘illegal’ – Russian security chief

RT | February 16, 2024

The US-led strikes against targets in Yemen are illegitimate and have no justification under the UN Charter, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev said on Friday at a meeting of security officials from regional powers.

The US and UK, with support from allies, have launched dozens of attacks since January against the Houthis, a Yemeni armed movement. The stated intention was to protect maritime traffic from the militants, who have targeted trade vessels with raids and drone strikes in an attempt to put pressure on Israel.

”Washington and London have unleashed a war with Yemen under the pretext of securing freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. They are trying to drag other nations of the region into it,” Patrushev said. “However, their strikes on the positions of the Houthis are absolutely illegitimate and have nothing to do with the right of self-defense… contrary to what Washington claims.”

The Houthis were a major party in the civil war in Yemen and the primary opponents of the Saudi-led military intervention launched in 2015. They have emerged from the conflicts as the de-facto government of a large portion of the country.

Houthi forces have been targeting passing ships they believe to have ties with Israel in an attempt to enforce a naval blockade of the Jewish state – in retaliation for Israel’s siege of Gaza, which West Jerusalem has conducted with the stated goal of obliterating the Palestinian militant movement Hamas.

Tensions are on the rise globally, Patrushev said, claiming that the core reason for the violence is “the Western intention to hold on to its dominance in world affairs at all cost.”

“People in Washington are convinced that doing so would be easiest amid a global chaos,” he added.

Patrushev delivered the report to his counterparts from China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. The event’s main focus was on the situation in Afghanistan.

February 16, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli troops launch ‘massive incursion’ into south Gaza hospital

The Cradle | February 15, 2024

Israeli forces stormed Al-Nasser Hospital in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Yunis on 15 February, which had been besieged by the invading troops for several weeks.

“Israel’s military stormed Nasser Hospital and turned it into a military outpost. The Israeli military destroyed the ambulance station and tents of displaced civilians and bulldozed over [mass] graves in the courtyard of the hospital,” the Gaza Health Ministry announced. 

Displaced Palestinians inside the hospital were “forcibly evacuated” on 14 January before a “massive incursion” on Thursday morning, which began under intense shelling, the ministry added. 

Al-Jazeera reported “heavy tank and machine-gun fire as the Israeli army entered Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis after ordering occupants to evacuate this morning.” 

Intensive care patients were forced to move into one of the hospital’s older buildings, which was not equipped to care for them. 

“The Israeli occupation forces the administration of Nasser Medical Complex to keep intensive care patients without medical staff, which puts their lives in grave danger,” Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said. 

According to hospital officials, seven patients were hit by Israeli fire, and one of them was killed. 

The Israeli military claimed on 15 January it had “credible evidence” that Hamas kept prisoners inside Al-Nasser Hospital and that their remains may still be in the facility. 

However, Hebrew media reported on Thursday that “expectations regarding finding corpses of Israeli detainees at Nasser Hospital must be lowered.”

Tel Aviv also claimed Hamas operatives involved in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood were hiding in the hospital. The Israeli army entered Khan Yunis in early December, laying siege to the southern city’s hospitals.

Over the past week, dozens of Palestinians have been shot and killed by Israeli snipers in the vicinity of Al-Nasser Hospital, including those who were trying to leave the facility.

The Israeli army stormed Khan Yunis’ Al-Amal Hospital at the start of this month.

Tel Aviv has been conducting a military campaign against hospitals in Gaza with the aim of making the strip uninhabitable for Palestinians. In November, north Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital was besieged, stormed, and transformed into a detention center by Israeli troops.

Israeli forces are now preparing to push further south into Rafah but are still facing fierce resistance from Hamas’ Qassam Brigades and other resistance groups in Khan Yunis. 

February 15, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Joe Biden Acts Like the Defender of Gazans, But He is the Destroyer

By Adam Dick | Peace and Prosperity Blog | February 13, 2024

This week President Joe Biden was again talking about his ideas of how the Israel government should exercise more restraint in its war in Gaza. But, he remains all talk and no action on this count.

It is tedious to repeatedly hear the man who is, in the absence of congressional action to provide special assistance to Israel for its war, unilaterally providing the key aid including weapons and intelligence for prosecuting Israel’s war continue to insist he supports restraint while the Israel government keeps pursuing relentless devastation.

Biden, in a Monday statement he made at the White House after meeting with Jordan King Abdullah, said the following regarding impending Israel military action:

As I said yesterday, our military operation in Rafah — their — the major military operation in Rafah should not proceed without a credible plan — a credible plan for ensuring the safety and support of more than one million people sheltering there. Many people there have been displaced — displaced multiple times, fleeing the violence to the north, and now they’re packed into Rafah — exposed and vulnerable. They need to be protected.

This schtick is way past its expiration date. The Israel war, now in its fifth month, continues to rack up destruction of life, health, and the physical manifestations of civilization in Gaza at an astounding pace, with the brunt of the suffering imposed on civilians. Israel is taking the actions. But, the US is the key accomplice to the atrocities because of the aid it provides.

This is Biden’s war as much as it is Israel’s war.

Biden is notoriously prone to make blunders in his public presentations. The blunder he made in his comment in his Monday White House statement is different than many. Biden quickly corrected his mention of “our military operation in Rafah” to clarify that the military operation is Israel’s. The slipup here was not that Biden had stated something false. Instead, it was that Biden had stated the truth that he and his administration are trying their best to hide.

February 13, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

BBC News Arabic evacuates staff from Gaza via the Rafah Crossing

MEMO | February 13, 2024

BBC News Arabic evacuated its press crew from the Gaza Strip through the Rafah land crossing, after the crew covered the ongoing war there for over four months.

The Egyptian authorities facilitated the crossing of the nine-member press crew through the Rafah Crossing after their families left the Strip through the crossing weeks ago.

The Rafah crossing is the gateway that connects Gaza to the world and is used for the entry of humanitarian and relief aid and the exit of individuals wounded in Israel’s genocidal war for treatment in Egypt and other countries.

On Sunday, flouting the provisional ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Israel launched an air campaign on Rafah, killing more than 65 Palestinians. The city had been declared a “safe zone” by occupation forces and over a million Palestinians had taken shelter there after being forced out of their homes in the northern areas of the Strip since 7 October.

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 was damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

The UN, Egypt, and several other countries, including the US, warned Israel against launching an attack on Rafah, as it could cause what they described as a “disaster” in the city crowded with more than half of the two million displaced civilians from across Gaza.

February 13, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Here’s why you shouldn’t trust the ‘declining’ Gaza death toll narrative

By Robert Inlakesh | RT | February 11, 2024

Shortly before the International Court of Justice’s highly anticipated decision to pursue South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide, the New York Times released a report titled ‘The Decline of Death in Gaza’.

The article attributed this alleged decline to a change in Israel’s battle strategy in Gaza, yet the piece omitted key data that contradicted its claims. Then, in the aftermath of the ICJ preliminary ruling, the NYT became the first news outlet to receive and publish information from an Israeli dossier that accused UNRWA staff of complicity in the armed activities of Hamas.

Since the beginning of the war between Israel and Gaza, which began with the Hamas-led attack on October 7, Western corporate media have shown what can only be described as pro-Israeli double standards. On January 9, The Intercept published a quantitative analysis of over 1,000 articles in US mainstream media, including by the NYT, proving the undeniable bias demonstrated in favor of Israeli life and underreporting on Palestinian suffering.

An even more targeted analysis was published by researchers Jan Lietava and Dana Najjar, who specifically looked at the BBC’s coverage of the conflict between October 17 to December 2. The study documented that words like murder(ed), massacre(d) and slaughter(ed) were used by the BBC to describe Israelis 144 times, while Palestinians had only been described as having been murdered or massacred one time each; the word slaughter had never been used to describe the killing of Palestinians. The study clearly shows the disparity in humanizing language used and the number of stories on Palestinian deaths, despite the Palestinian death toll being far higher than the Israeli one.

The Israeli death toll throughout the war officially stands around 700 civilians and 600 combatants, while for Palestinians it is roughly 27,600, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The estimates are that between 61% to 75% of the Palestinians killed in Gaza are women and children. Ranging estimates as to how many Palestinian combatants have been killed are not trustworthy. Israeli spokespeople claim between 7,000 to 10,000 Hamas fighters, depending on the time of day, but provide no estimate for the number of fighters killed who are members of the dozen or so other armed groups in Gaza.

While the NYT report attempts to make the point that deaths in Gaza are steadily declining as the Israeli operation goes on, statistics released by the authorities in Gaza, from January 17 (when the NYT data chart ends) until January 24, clearly show the opposite trend. For reference the daily death tolls read: 163, 172, 142, 165, 178, 190, 195, 210.

The piece also lacks any evidence showing a correlation between the Israeli announcement of what it calls “phase 3” of its battle plan and the death toll charts that showed a downward arc in the daily fatality rate. Israel began announcing its intention to implement its new phase at the beginning of January, yet the argument presented in the article attempted to draw the conclusion that pressure from the US government had contributed to a lowering of fatalities between early December and January 17.

There was a decline in the daily reported death toll, but this occurred prior to any stated change in the military strategy. Also observable is that during the week that the report was released, the daily Gaza death toll actually jumped to 188. Monday through to Sunday of that week there were some 1,317 Palestinians killed by Israel. The week prior, a total of 1,110 were killed.

The NYT also pointed to the Israeli withdrawal of forces from northern Gaza, attempting to use this as evidence of a change in tactics in January that had been brought about due to efforts from the Biden administration. Israel actually reinvaded the north, briefly, after the article was published.

Furthermore, Israel didn’t start withdrawing from northern Gaza in January – it began this process around December 21, when it withdrew the elite Golani Brigades. In late December, five brigades were withdrawn and the reservists amongst them were released for economic reasons. Then, earlier last month, a further four brigades were withdrawn as the Israeli army implemented a retreat from most of the built-up areas in northern Gaza.

Israeli authorities claim that the reason for the change in the war strategy, shifting from the high-pressure tactics of the first two phases, was due to their desire to continue the fight for the whole of 2024. If Israel is planning to fight a year-long war, it makes sense for it to use fewer munitions and soldiers, as munitions are finite and the cost of the initial battle strategy would have been a significant economic burden.

Another crucial point is that the report completely left aside all other considerations as to what could explain a decline in death tolls across certain periods of time. A major issue that is faced today is a lack of a properly functioning health sector in Gaza altogether; according to the World Health Organization (WHO), only 16 hospitals out of 36 remain operational and all are “minimally or partially functioning.”

One of the last remaining professional journalists in northern Gaza, Anas al-Sharif, reported to Al Jazeera Arabic, on January 16, of the intensifying bombardments in the area and the underreporting of casualties there. A resident named Akram based in the Jabalia Refugee Camp told RT that “the bombing over those few days returned to how it was at the start of the war, it was terrifying and it seemed like it didn’t stop at all for over a day.”

With a health sector that has all but collapsed, properly accounting for the dead is a tough challenge, which is why the Gaza Health Ministry routinely includes the caveat to its daily death tolls that there are others under the rubble who are unaccounted for. To demonstrate how big of a difference the death toll is, when those missing under the rubble are factored in, take the statistics released by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, which stated that 31,497 Palestinians had been killed by January 14.

Aside from us not having a full picture of the true daily death toll, Israel is also being accused of using starvation as a weapon of war, and the statistics that are being cited do not include those who are now dying due to disease and starvation. Some 400,000 people living in northern Gaza are without aid altogether, as efforts by international organizations to transport medical, food and fuel aid to the north have repeatedly been blocked. On December 9, Save The Children warned that the primary cause of death in Gaza could soon be starvation and disease, instead of bombs, with the humanitarian situation having severely deteriorated since then.

When the Israeli government later released its allegations that 12 UNRWA employees – out of 13,000 working in Gaza – had participated in the Hamas-led attack of October 7, the New York Times was the first to get its hands on the Israeli dossier that detailed its allegations. The newspaper failed to report that most of the allegations were based on interrogations conducted by the Shin Bet (Israeli secret police), which is renowned for extracting confessions through torture. The article that the NYT published on the issue made the dossier’s information seem somewhat credible, yet, when the UK’s Channel 4 obtained it and quoted it directly to the public, it concluded that “no evidence” was contained within the dossier.

The NYT’s reporting on Israeli allegations that Hamas conducted a premeditated mass rape campaign have come under fire also. In one case family members of an Israeli woman killed on October 7 had to take to social media to denounce the NYT’s attempts to suggest she had been raped, which the newspaper allegedly failed to tell the family it was planning to include in its article.

At every turn, Western corporate media has used distortions, linguistic manipulation, and outright lies to mislead its audiences on the truth about what is occurring in Gaza. It does not get lower than playing with statistics in order to downplay what the highest judicial body on earth has overwhelmingly ruled is plausibly a genocide, or what UN aid chief Martin Griffiths has called “the worst ever” humanitarian crisis.

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News.

February 11, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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.

February 9, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

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.

February 9, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Arab world calls US top security threat, sees no prospect of peace with Israel: Poll

The Cradle | February 9, 2024

A new opinion poll conducted in 16 Arab countries shows that Washington’s continued support for Israel’s campaign of genocide in the Gaza Strip has dramatically hurt its image across West Asia and North Africa, as 94 percent of respondents describe the US position as “bad.” At the same time, more than half say the US poses the biggest threat to regional security.

Other western states fared almost as poorly, with more than three-quarters of those polled saying the position of the UK, France, and Germany in relation to Gaza is “bad” or “very bad.”

In contrast, Iran received a surge in recognition, with 48 percent of respondents expressing a positive view of the Iranian position, while 37 percent held a negative view. Despite Ankara’s increasing trade ties with Tel Aviv, Turkiye got a similar response – 47 percent perceived the country’s position positively, and 40 percent perceived it negatively.

To make matters worse for Washington, 51 percent of respondents agree that the US is currently the biggest threat to peace and stability in the region – marking a 12-point jump from 2022. Israel trails behind with 26 percent, a 15-point drop from 2022.

The survey, conducted by the Arab Center Washington DC (ACW) in cooperation with The Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS), also asked respondents their opinions on prospects for peace with Israel in the wake of the war in Gaza.

Fifty-nine percent answered with certainty that there can be no possibility for peace with Israel, while 14 percent reported having serious doubts, and nine percent said they did not believe in the possibility of peace with Israel in the first place.

Furthermore, 89 percent of Arab citizens say they oppose official recognition of Israel, with only four percent favoring it. This marks the lowest level of recognition since the question was first asked in 2011.

When asked what actions regional leaders must take to stop the mass murder of Palestinians in Gaza, 36 percent said governments should suspend relations or normalization agreements with Israel, 14 percent said aid must be delivered to Gaza regardless of Israeli approval, and 11 percent said oil exports should be used to put pressure on Israel and its western backers.

A large majority of respondents also agreed that the US is not serious about working to establish an independent Palestinian state under the 1967 borders with occupied Jerusalem as its capital.

“This is a historic moment in some very important ways,” Shibley Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland, said at an event presenting the survey findings on Thursday. “The scale of what we have seen and the role the US has played in this deeply painful crisis has been so large and been perceived to be so large that it’s going to leave an imprint on the consciousness of a generation in the region that is going to outlast this administration and outlast this crisis.”

Questions about Washington’s alleged commitment to democracy and regional stability have been growing steadily in the Arab world for several years. According to a Gallup poll conducted in April 2023, a great majority of citizens in 13 countries across West Asia and North Africa said they did not trust US claims about “encouraging the development of democracy” or about “improving the economic lot of people.”

A few months earlier, the ACRPS revealed the results of the largest opinion survey conducted in the Arab world, showing that 84 percent of Arabs reject recognizing Israel for political and cultural reasons.

February 9, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment