Israel’s Military-Settler State: There are no Jewish ‘civilians’ in the West Bank
By Robert Inlakesh | The Cradle | July 14, 2023
Israeli settler terrorism is a strategy employed by Israel to advance its territorial gains and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
US President Joe Biden recently called out Benjamin Netanyahu’s government as being the “most extreme” he’s seen, and pointed to members of the Israeli Prime Minister’s coalition as being “part of the problem.”
His comments immediately drew attention to Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, along with Israeli security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, and illegal West Bank settlers in general.
But Israeli settler extremism is not isolated to the West Bank, nor to Israel’s current far-right government’s ministers like Ben Gvir and Smotrich. Israeli settlers occupy the highest positions in the military and government, while extremists are operating special militias inside the Israeli army – with its approval – and additionally receiving funds from US charitable organizations.
Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians have been steadily on the rise over the past years, with an average of three violent incidents occurring per day in 2023, compared to two in 2022 and one in 2021, according to the United Nations.
One of the worst recorded attacks this year came on February 26, when a settler militia force, at least 400 strong, descended upon several villages surrounding the Palestinian city of Nablus, including the town of Huwara.
The settler attack, even described as a pogrom by top Israeli general Yehuda Fuchs, resulted in the murder of a Palestinian man, in addition to the burning down of at least 30 homes and 100 cars.
In support of the settler assault, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich openly proclaimed that he thought “the village of Huwara needs to be wiped out. I think the State of Israel should do it.”
In mid-June, another 400 armed Israeli settlers attacked Turmusaya and surrounding villages, torching 30 homes and around 60 cars, additionally resulting in over 100 injuries and the murder of another Palestinian man; while he was attempting to save children.
The two most notorious far-right members of Israel’s current coalition government are ministers Smotrich and Ben Gvir, both of whom live in illegal settlements and were longtime activists as part of the settler movement.
Ben Gvir, who has faced a laundry list of criminal charges ranging from terror group affiliations to incitement of racism, resides in the extremist settlement of al-Khalil (Hebron). Smotrich currently resides in Kedumim, a settlement located just a short drive from Yitzhar – the other infamous settler community.
Their unified list, running under the name Religious Zionism, secured the third-highest number of votes from the Israeli public and now holds the position of the second-largest party in the current coalition government.
Not ‘a few bad apples’
Dror Sadot, spokesperson for B’Tselem, Israel’s leading human rights organization, emphasizes that we cannot downplay the broader support and backing that enables such actions. She tells The Cradle that: “Even if it wasn’t this current Ben Gvir-Smotrich government, it would still be Apartheid.”
“When the Huwara pogrom happened, we should’ve paid attention to what sort of backup the settlers got from those politicians. What they are saying reveals the truth, it reveals the mechanisms in place that were always there under previous governments.”
Sadot continues: “We shouldn’t talk about settler violence as if it is a few bad apples, or extremists, or anything like this, because, at the end of the day, Israel is backing everything.”
While attention has been drawn to figures like Ben Gvir and Smotrich, the truth is that radical right-wing settlers occupy significant positions within the Israeli government and military.
The recent decision to launch an invasion of Jenin, for example, was heavily influenced by pressure from settler communities. Yossi Dagan, head of the regional settlement council in the Northern West Bank, played a prominent role in encouraging the violent attack on Jenin, which experts at the UN have labeled a war crime.
Yet, Dagan’s ambitions did not stop there. He called on the government to “order the IDF to immediately launch a larger, broader, more thorough and in-depth operation.”
Radicals in the corridors of power
Israeli Member of Knesset for the ruling Likud Party, Avichai Boaron, has also made alarming statements. Following the military operation in Jenin, Boaron suggested that “we must expand the military operation to include Nablus and Ramallah as well.”
Notably, Boaron himself is a settler activist who has come under fire for using euphemisms to refer to Palestinians while proposing extermination camps as a solution.
In 2018, Netanyahu posted on social media to celebrate Avichai Boaron’s success with the Amihai settlement, which was built in 2017 as an alternative to the evacuated settler outpost of Amona – illegally developed on Palestinian land – that had turned into a “crisis” for the Israeli public.
The Amihai settlement was added to the illegal settlement of Shiloh, accompanied by the settler outposts of Adei Ad, Geulat Zion, and others, which happen to surround Turmusaya, along with other Palestinian villages which have recently been targets of large-scale settler-militia attacks.
Boaron recently secured a position in the Likud Party to replace David Amsalem, who Netanyahu promoted to be the Israeli Regional Cooperation Minister. Amsalem is also a West Bank settler, from the illegal colony of Ma’alei Adumim, and is currently in charge of “advancing partnerships with states in the region (the Mediterranean basin) and the Palestinian Authority.”
Moreover, the leadership of the Israeli military itself is not immune to this influence. Herzi Halevi, the current Chief of Staff, is a resident of the illegal colony of Kfar Ha-Oranim in the West Bank. His appointment to this key role was approved last year under the government of Yair Lapid, with no major objections.
Avi Moaz, the deputy minister and head of the national Jewish identity department in the Prime Minister’s Office, resides in an illegal settlement stronghold located in the Silwan area of occupied East Jerusalem. His position holds significant weight, and he is a leading figure in the Noam Party.
Speaking to The Cradle, the Executive Director of Bisan Center for Research and Development, Ubai al-Aboudi, says that “the settlers are a militia, these are not civilian groups, most of them are ideologues, they see themselves as tasked with replacing Palestinian villagers, their houses, and they call for this openly.”
The two strongholds of the settler terror groups are situated around the Palestinian cities of Al-Khalil and Nablus. Od Yosef Hai Yeshiva, in Yitzhar settlement, is the indoctrination center for many of the most extreme settler terrorists, where they are taught ideas, such as, that Arabs are a “cancer” and that killing non-Jewish babies is permissible.
The army colludes with settlers
According to the conclusions of a 2022 report published by B’Tselem on settler violence, the attacks “are not perpetrated by “bands of outlaws” or “bad seeds,” nor are they simply “violent outbursts” or “unusual incidents,” but rather they are a “strategy employed by the Israeli apartheid regime.”
A 2021 investigation conducted jointly between The Intercept and Local Call found that at least four of the 11 Palestinians who were killed in the West Bank on 14 May of that year, were due to deliberate joint attacks carried out by Israeli settlers and soldiers.
In the May 2021 joint settler-soldier attack on Palestinians in the village of Urif, the Israeli military confirmed in a statement that one of the masked settlers caught on film firing at Palestinians, alongside soldiers, was, in fact, from the settlement of Yitzhar and himself an active Israeli soldier.
Zvi Sukot, who was a spokesperson for the settlement of Yitzhar and part of the ‘Hilltop Youth,’ applauded the Israeli army for the joint attacks on Palestinians at the time. Sukot, who is now a member of the Israeli Knesset as part of the current government, made his name campaigning for the release of a group of settlers who burned a Palestinian baby to death in 2015.
Israeli settlers were caught on a leaked video dancing at a wedding, celebrating the murder of the 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh, and stabbing at pictures of the Palestinian family they had killed alongside him. Present also at the wedding was the legal representative for the terrorist settlers, Itamar Ben Gvir.
As recently as June 24, Israeli settlers were documented to have used Israeli army-issued assault rifles – Colt M4’s manufactured in the US – to shoot at Palestinians in the village of Umm Safa.
The settler extremists, despite not having known structured armed organizations, were revealed in May to have been integrated into a special Israeli military unit. The extremist settlers belonging to the Hilltop Youth have allegedly been inducted into the newly created ‘Desert Frontier’ army unit, where they represent a majority of the Unit and are carrying out severe abuses across the West Bank.
B’Tselem spokeswoman, Dror Sadot, says that her organization has “documented hundreds of cases of settler violence, during many of which the soldiers were there, and in the “best cases” you will see they won’t do anything, but in the worst cases they will join the settlers against the Palestinians.”
In a frightening development, Israeli Security Minister Ben Gvir has been granted permission to build Israel’s new “national guard,” which is shaping up to be a publicly funded ultra-nationalist militia force to serve the extremist goals of the Israeli settler movement. One of the Israeli colonel’s that is helping Ben Gvir form the national guard is Efraim Laor, who made the following comment during a lecture in 2019:
“An enemy needs to be killed, you don’t shoot at [terror] cells, you shoot between the eyes – whoever can’t do that, 15 cm lower. Including those who are there and are not attacking. But you see an enemy – you do not find out whether he is involved or not — he’s involved — he needs to be eliminated.”
US charities fueling illegal settlements
The Hilltop Youth settler group, often portrayed as “bands of outlaws,” have direct links to the Israeli government and even charitable donations from the US. In 2008, the Hilltop Youth ushered in a new era of what was called “Price-Tag” violence, where settlers would attack Palestinian civilians, along with their mosques, schools, crops, and homes.
One such figure within this context is Itay Zar, known as the first Hilltop Youth, who established the settler outpost of Havat Gilad in 2002. It is important to note that settlement outposts, including settler “farms,” are considered illegal under Israeli law.
However, many are eventually recognized by Israeli authorities, as was the case with Havat Gilad in 2018. The proximity of Havat Gilad to the Yitzhar settlement, which houses a notoriously radical Yeshiva (Jewish religious school), illustrates how extremist belief systems are transmitted within these religious educational institutions.
One US-based charity named the Central Fund of Israel (CFI) was found to have funded an extremist Yeshiva, along with the Honenu group that provides legal funds and financial support for settler terrorists. CFI still operates as a charity in the US, despite having funneled tens of millions of dollars to far-right extremist groups in occupied territory.
Worryingly, the settler extremists, despite not having known structured armed organizations, were revealed in May to have been integrated into a special Israeli military unit. The extremist settlers belonging to the Hilltop Youth have allegedly been inducted into the newly created Desert Frontier army unit, where they represent a majority of the unit and are carrying out severe crimes across the West Bank.
A concerning web of US-based and registered charities exists, providing direct financial support to organizations guiding the settlement movement, according to Ubai al-Aboudi. This ongoing financial backing allows these organizations to receive funds, perpetuating the expansion of Israeli settlements.
The Israel Land Fund (ILF), for instance, supports the acquisition of real estate for Israeli settlers, providing legal assistance for them, and advertises properties in the occupied territories. The ILF’s fiscal sponsor is the aforementioned CFI, which is a registered charity in New York, it is also the fiscal sponsor for Regavim, which works to expand Israeli control over Palestinian land through applying pressure on the relevant Israeli authorities.
The Hebron Fund, directly registered in New York, plays a role in funding the illegal settlement project in al-Khalil (Hebron). The fiscal sponsor for the Ir David Foundation, which utilizes archaeological claims to displace Palestinians from East Jerusalem, is called the Friends of Ir David and is also registered in New York.
Similarly, Ateret Cohanim, working to establish a Jewish demographic majority in occupied East Jerusalem by replacing Palestinian families with Israeli settlers, has its fiscal sponsor named the Friends of Ateret Cohanim, registered in New York as well.
Two sides of the same coin
Israeli settlers have recently attacked the properties of Palestinians who are US citizens, which according to the US’s stringent property laws, should force them to intervene and protect their own nationals. According to US law, since 1854 it has been seen as an obligation for sitting President’s to intervene in order to protect the lives and properties of citizens threatened by foreign powers.
Even in the cases of murdered US citizens, there is no protection or significant pressure applied on the Israeli government. In the cases of Shireen Abu Akleh, Omar Asad, Ourwa Hamad, and Mahmoud Shalan, all US citizens, no one was charged for their murders by the Israeli authorities.
The Biden administration’s allowance of such financing, coupled with its failure to safeguard its own citizens, creates a contradiction as it condemns the settlement movement while inadvertently encouraging it.
Meanwhile, his government continues to allow US dollars to finance Israeli settler extremism, and the settlement movement, does nothing to protect its own citizens from Israeli criminality.
Never mind the White House’s public criticism of Israeli extremism. In reality, there are few punitive measures Washington is prepared to take against Israel’s ferocious aggressions. This, despite the mounting evidence that there is no separation between the Israeli government and the settler movement today.
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and has worked with RT, Middle East Eye, The New Arab, MEMO, Mint Press News, Al-Mayadeen English, TRT World, and various other media outlets. He has worked as a news correspondent, political analyst, and produced a number of documentary films. https://twitter.com/falasteen47
Gaza Poet, Writer, Refaat Alareer Killed In Targeted Strike With 6 Family Members
By Celia Farber | The Truth Barrier | December 8, 2023
Beloved Palestinian writer, poet, and teacher Refaat Alareer, founder of the Gaza based organization “We Are Not Numbers,” has been killed in an Israeli airstrike along with six members of his family. He was known for his lifelong devotion to encouraging story telling and writing, including the book Gaza Writes Back, featuring writing from young Palestinians.
According to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, Alareer had gotten direct death threats from an Israeli officer, knew he was a target, and had re-located to his sister’s home, and killed there by a surgical strike.
Max Blumenthal wrote a blistering account, here:
And here is his tribute to Akareer, published in The Grayzone.
[As for mockery, (see Blumenthal’s Tweet,) there have been waves of Tik Tok trends with Israelis, including children, grotesquely mocking Palestinians, so let’s BE FAIR.]
There had been many calls for Alareer’s death, according to his friend and one time student, interviewed here, and the BBC, in its headline about his murder, icily called him “controversial.”
In his last interview, he spoke very openly about the near certainty of being killed. “There is no way out,” he said.
…
This was Alareer’s most well known poem, “If I Must Die:”
And here is a TED talk he gave about story telling, and family.
Voices of Gaza’s children.
One country voted against a ceasefire in Gaza.
US blocks UN Security Council demand for ceasefire in Israel’s genocidal war
Press TV – December 8, 2023
The United States has vetoed a United Nations Security Council demand for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged Gaza Strip despite mounting calls to stop the regime’s atrocities.
On Friday, 13 Security Council members voted in favor of a draft resolution, put forward by the United Arab Emirates, while Britain abstained and the US vetoed it, isolating itself while sheilding Israel’s aggression.
“Tonight, the UK refused to back a UN resolution for a ceasefire,” said former UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
“We mourn those who will die because their lives were deemed unworthy of protection. And we vow to keep demonstrating in solidarity with the Palestinian people to end the bombings, blockades and occupation,” Corbyn added.
The vote came after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres formally warned the 15-member council on Wednesday of a global threat from the two-month-long Israeli war against the defenseless people of Gaza.
“What is the message we are sending Palestinians if we cannot unite behind a call to halt the relentless bombardment of Gaza?” Deputy UAE UN Ambassador Mohamed Abushahab asked the council.
Deputy US Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood called the draft resolution an imbalanced text “that was divorced from reality.”
“Although the United States strongly supports a durable peace in which both Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace and security, we do not support this resolution’s call for an unsustainable ceasefire that will only plant the seeds for the next war,” Wood claimed.
Washinton’s ally London abstained. Britain’s UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward said her country abstained because there was no condemnation of Hamas.
“Israel needs to be able to address the threat posed by Hamas and it needs to do so in a manner that abides by international humanitarian law so that such attack can never be carried out again,” she told the council.
Guterres convened the meeting on the “humanitarian catastrophe” in the besieged Palestinian territory, two months after Israel launched its air and ground strikes on the besieged territory.
The brutal war has so far killed more than 17,487 people and left the territory in ruins.
Wood told the meeting that Washington does not support a ceasefire.
The General Assembly, where the US has no veto power, overwhelmingly supported a humanitarian ceasefire. On Oct. 26, the assembly approved the cease-fire with 120 votes in favor and only 14 against the non-binding resolution.
UN inaction makes it complicit in Gaza slaughter: MSF
The medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Friday that the council is “complicit in the ongoing slaughter” in the Gaza Strip through inaction and vetoes.
The charity said that “the inaction of the United Nations Security Council and vetoes from member states, particularly the United States, make them complicit in the ongoing slaughter; this inaction has given license to the mass killing of men, women and children.”
The meeting was convened after Guterres activated Article 99 — a step no one in his post has taken for decades.
The article allows the secretary general to bring to the council’s attention “any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, also rejected calls for a ceasefire as he addressed the Security Council.
Erdan once again threatened that the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has to be “eliminated.”
Israel waged its war on Gaza on October 7, after Hamas carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm into the occupied territories in response to Tel Aviv’s intensified crimes against the Palestinian people.
In the event, the regime’s leaders ordered Israeli military forces to attack the besieged Gaza Strip with a force “like never before.”
End ‘decimation’ of Palestinian lives in Gaza
The head of the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) called on Friday for an end to the “decimation” of Palestinian lives in the territory.
Philippe Lazzarini urged all UN member states to “take immediate actions to implement an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.”
Diplomats from Arab countries call for immediate ceasefire
In a related development, chief diplomats from a grouping of Arab and Islamic nations, on a visit to Washington, called for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan on behalf of the group, called on the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution calling for a ceasefire.
“Our message is we believe it is absolutely necessary to end the fighting immediately.”
He was in Washington as part of a visit of the Arab-Islamic Ministerial Committee.
Earlier this week, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) condemned Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians and called for a ceasefire, in remarks at the summit of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council in Qatar.
He said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is pushing the entire region into danger for the sake of his political future.”
Flooding Gaza would be war crime – Russia
RT | December 8, 2023
If Israel is truly considering flooding the “Hamas tunnels” under Gaza with seawater, this would be a clear-cut atrocity, Russia’s first deputy permanent representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, said at the Security Council meeting on Friday.
China, Russia and the United Arab Emirates called for the emergency session, given the deteriorating situation in the Palestinian enclave after the Israel forces resumed military operations at the start of December.
“In recent days, shocking information has spread about Israeli plans to flood underground structures in the Gaza Strip with seawater,” Polyansky told the council. “According to publicly available information, the IDF has already built a system of pipes and pumps designed to pump seawater, and is currently discussing with the United States the practical possibility of such flooding: will there be enough water, will the ‘topography’ of the tunnels allow it, and so on.”
“Such a step, if taken, would constitute a clear war crime.”
Polyansky explained that the flooding would be indiscriminate and the equivalent of ordering “take no prisoners,” while the sea water would contaminate the groundwater in Gaza and make the area uninhabitable.
Documents published in mid-October suggest that the Israeli authorities would like to displace all of Gaza’s Palestinian population into Egypt.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war on Hamas after the Gaza-based militant group raided nearby Israeli settlements on October 7, [allegedly] killing an estimated 1,200 people and taking scores hostage. Since then, more than 16,000 [17,000] Palestinians have died in Israeli operations in Gaza.
After a week-long “humanitarian pause” at the end of November, Israel has launched a “more brutal and bloody phase” of its operation, Polyansky told the UN, with the scale of destruction indicating “indiscriminate” use of force and striking of targets considered protected by humanitarian law.
“The brutal Hamas raid on October 7 cannot justify Israeli crimes against humanity,” the Russian diplomat argued. “Failure to respect humanitarian law by one side does not relieve the other from the same obligations.”
Polyansky added that he doubted the International Criminal Court would do anything, as it will not act “against its Western masters.” The ICC is likely to “forgive” Israel just as it turned a blind eye to Western atrocities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, he added.
US ‘Only Administration With Leverage’ to Stop Israeli Assault, End ‘Humanitarian Crisis’ in Gaza
By Fantine Gardinier – Sputnik – 08.12.2023
An international human rights lawyer said the United States is the only country with the necessary pull on the Israeli government to be able to force an end to the war in the Gaza Strip, which has generated a massive humanitarian crisis.
As the Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip enters a new phase, turning its attention toward the southern cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah, more than 1 million refugees who fled from the north have been left in an increasingly precarious position.
The war has aroused fury among populations around the globe, including in the United States, where a mass protest movement has generated large demonstrations in dozens of cities every day demanding a permanent ceasefire. However, the Biden administration has remained staunchly in support of the Israeli operation, even as the White House begins to moderate its tone and express more concern for the civilian population in Gaza.
“We need three things from the US: munitions, munitions, and munitions,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently told a group of ministers, according to Israeli media. “There are huge demonstrations in Western capitals. We need to apply counterpressure … There have been disagreements with the best of our friends.”
In the territory of 2.3 million people, an estimated 80% of Gaza’s population has been displaced from their homes amid the Israeli operation, which has devastated the area. As of Monday, analysis of data collected by satellite photography had revealed more than 60% of the buildings in northern Gaza had been destroyed or severely damaged by the Israeli bombing campaign and ground invasion. The most recent reports from Gaza’s Health Ministry on Friday said that 17,177 people, including 7,112 children, had been killed and 46,000 wounded since October 7.
The Israeli operation was launched in response to a massive cross-border raid by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups based in Gaza, which attacked several Israeli border towns and killed an estimated 1,200 people. However, Israeli media has revealed that many of those deaths were likely caused by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) firing on civilians. In the aftermath, Netanyahu announced a “complete siege” of Gaza and an operation to destroy Hamas for good.
International human rights attorney Moien Odeh told Radio Sputnik’s The Backstory on Thursday that it was likely impossible for the IDF to achieve its stated goal of destroying Hamas, saying that the military operation would only generate enmity among more generations of Palestinians, who will join Hamas or organizations like it, and continue to fight Israel.
“I believe until the US understands that this war is going to have its own interests in the region and until they understand that there is no exit for Israel from this war, they will continue supporting Israel doing whatever they want,” he said.
He said that Israel’s position that the war in Gaza will not stop until it has achieved its military goals is intended as a message to two different audiences.
“One is internally for their own people, for the Israeli people, to tell them that ‘we will [take] revenge [for] what happened on October 7 and then the Palestinians will pay a very heavy price for that’. This is from one side. The other side will be, of course, to the whole world that ‘we will not stop until we will achieve our own military goal’ – which is until now, we keep changing every couple of weeks, and it’s clear that it’s unachievable, but until now, they are continuing the war despite all the thousands of dead Palestinians and the tens of thousands of injured, the hundreds of thousands displaced. But unfortunately, the end of this war doesn’t look close, for now at least.”
“Unfortunately, international law is bent mainly on the international will to follow it or not,” he observed. “And so far, it looks like the international will – and mainly that the US will – does not exist. So without any political will from the world and really from the US, the international law will continue to be only on the shelves of an international organization. So I can’t say that the support of the US is allowing Israel to continue its crimes without any kind of responsibility. And in this regard, we can mention the visit of the ICC, the International Court Criminal Court, last week to the Palestinian territories. And until now, despite over 60 days of war on Gaza, they or Mr. Khan, the ICC prosecutor, didn’t even start an investigation against all of these crimes.”
“I think many Palestinians have already lost hope and belief in international law. But I think it’ll be a devastating result on the whole system, and prove again and again that the International Criminal Court is a hostage, unfortunately, for the Israeli narrative and and that the double standard is happening all the time and that the ICC is just a political tool to punish some countries, mainly the the the African countries, for some crimes without any real results in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
Odeh said that the international community is largely incapable of stopping the Israeli operation even if they wanted to, noting that the United States is “the only administration that has any leverage on the Israeli government.”
“And unfortunately, so far there was no kind of clear push for a ceasefire to stop all these bombings against civilians, against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” he said.
‘No Safe Area’ in Gaza
Odeh noted that the IDF has launched a new phase of its military operation in Gaza, which has brought the same strength against the south of the territory, where it had told more than 1 million Gazans to flee to, as it did previously against the north of the territory, from which it had previously evicted them due to the military operation.
“I think it’s worse now, because at least at the beginning, they used to claim that if you tell the civilians that you can leave the north and go to the south and you’ll be safe. Now, they are saying that you can’t go either back to the north, you can’t stay in the south. But what should people do? [There is] no safe area, despite that they keep talking about safe areas in the south. But from the other side, they keep saying that Hamas is using the safe areas to launch rockets against Israel, so they attack in these areas.”
“I think the people are really in a very, very bad situation now. They are suffering a lot, I think it’s literally a humanitarian crisis now in the Gaza Strip. Not enough food, no clear water at all, and fuel, no houses, after thousands of housing units were destroyed and many others were affected. So people are very, very suffering. And unfortunately, until now, the international community keep ignoring all of this stuff and thinking that Israel still can achieve its goals by destroying Hamas, which is I don’t believe that it’s achievable even if they will be able to destroy Hamas militarily, which is the big question, Hamas would continue existing in other places and this will just create another generation of Palestinians who hate Israel more for what’s happened in 2023, now.”
Odeh said that it appeared the IDF had drawn up its present war plans years ago and was waiting for an opportunity to implement them – which they found in the October 7 attacks.
“I think even before this war and for years, Gaza was a big problem for Israel. They already had ideas and plans about how to deal with Gaza. And it looks like after the attacks on October 7, they found it a good opportunity to start moving people and displacing people inside Gaza, hoping that many people will really move to Egypt or to Sinai and they will clean as much [of the population] as possible from the Gaza Strip.
“All of what’s happening, all the bombing, It’s not really helping them to achieve the military goal that they had at the beginning. And it’s proof again that all the displacement, all of these attacks are just for one reason: it is just to collectively punish the people and to push the people to be against Hamas itself, which is – I don’t think this is an option for many people now, to stand against Hamas and to show up to tell Hamas that ‘you did this to us’. People will only see Israel as the only reason behind their suffering and they will continue this conflict with Israel for more and more generations.”
Martyrdom of Dr. Refaat Al-Areer, the PIC social media founder and manager
Palestinian Information Center | December 8, 2023
The Palestinian Information Center (PIC) mourns with grief and pride Dr. Refaat Al-Areer (Abu Omar) one of the pillars of the PIC English language site and the founder and manager of its social media department.
Abu Omar was killed along with his brother, sister and her four children in an Israeli shelling that targeted her house in Gaza City in yet another proof of the barbarity of the Israeli genocidal campaign on the Gaza Strip that has been ongoing for more than two months.
Dr. Refaat was an English language professor in the Islamic University that was destroyed in the barbaric Israeli aggression and whose rector was also killed by Israeli shelling along with his family.
The martyr was distinguished for advocating the Palestine cause at various western and international media platforms. He wrote a book about Gaza titled “Gaza Writes Back” in the English language and had numerous notable interviews with western media outlets.
While mourning our academic and media expert colleague Abu Omar, we strongly condemn Israel’s escalating targeting of reporters and journalists in a bid to cover up its army’s crimes that have violated and continue to violate all human rights laws and doctrines.
We further call on international human rights institutions worldwide to adopt whatever is necessary to protect journalists and enable them to do their job without hindrances or harassment. We also call on world organizations concerned with protecting journalists to condemn the premeditated Israeli targeting of journalists and deliberate targeting of Palestinian civilians. We also call for bringing all those responsible for such crimes to justice.
75 Palestinian journalists have so far been killed and 80 others were injured while two are still missing due to the Israeli aggression on Gaza Strip that started on October 7.
Israel targeting Gaza’s history, destroying ancient mosques, churches
MEMO | December 8, 2023
Israel has deliberately destroyed dozens of archaeological sites and ancient sites in the besieged Gaza Strip since 7 October, in a blatant attempt to target Palestinian cultural heritage.
Yesterday Israeli warplanes bombed the ancient Othman Bin Qashqar Mosque in the Old City of Gaza, killing a number of Palestinians and causing damage to nearby homes.
The mosque was built in 620AH in the Al-Zaytoun neighbourhood, east of Gaza City, and is considered one of the oldest mosques and archaeological sites in the Gaza Strip.
According to Palestinian sources, the Ministry of Culture recorded that Israeli warplanes have bombed eight museums since the beginning of the war, including the Rafah Museum, Al-Qarara Museum and the Khan Yunis Museum, in addition to destroying most parts of Gaza’s Old City, including dozens of historical buildings i.e. churches, mosques, museums and archaeological sites.
Israel has also destroyed nine publishing houses and libraries and destroyed or partially damaged at least 21 cultural centres.
The Great Omari Mosque, located in the Daraj neighbourhood in Gaza, is considered one of the most important and oldest mosques in Palestine and the first mosque in the Gaza Strip. It was destroyed in an air strike.
The mosque was named after the second Muslim Caliph, Omar Bin Khattab, and which was later described as “the beautiful mosque” by traveller Ibn Battuta.
The Israeli bombardment also targeted the Church of Saint Porfirio, located in the Zaytoun neighbourhood, which was built in 425AD and was renovated in 1856.
The Sayyed Al-Hashim Mosque, considered one of the most important mosques in the Old City of Gaza because it is thought to hold the tomb of Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him)’s grandfather, Hashim Bin Abd Manaf, was also destroyed.
The Byzantine church in Jabalia, a prominent landmark in the Levant, was also levelled, along with Al-Khader Shrine in the city of Deir Al-Balah, which is the first and oldest Christian monastery built in Palestine by Saint Hilarius during the Byzantine era.
Toothless body: Why has International Criminal Court failed Palestinians?
By Ivan Kesic | Press TV | December 8, 2023
International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan’s recent visit to the occupied West Bank and Ramallah once again laid bare the Hague-based international tribunal’s strong pro-Israel bias.
It was his first-ever visit to the occupied Palestinian territories and came amid the Israeli regime’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, with the backing of the United States.
Even though the Tel Aviv regime does not recognize ICC’s jurisdiction and refuses to cooperate with it, Khan told the Israeli authorities that his office would be happy to cooperate with the regime.
Amid the Israeli regime’s war against Palestinians in Gaza, which started on October 7, many world leaders, activists, and commentators have raised questions over the submissiveness of the ICC.
The first reaction of Khan, a British lawyer who has been serving as the ICC prosecutor since June 2021, came three days after the Israeli regime launched bombings on Gaza in October.
In a statement issued on October 10, Khan confirmed that the ICC’s mandate applies to the latest confrontation between the Israeli regime and Palestinians, adding they are continuously gathering information in support of an investigation about what happened on October 7.
Palestine joined the international court in 2015, while the regime in Tel Aviv is still not a member of the ICC and has repeatedly rejected its jurisdiction and does not formally engage with it.
ICC’s Rome Statute gives it legal authority to investigate crimes committed on the territory of its 123 member states or by their nationals on other territories when domestic authorities are “unwilling or unable” to do so.
Continued indifference of ICC
Toward the end of October, Khan visited the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, when he criticized Israel for denying food and medicine to Palestinians at a Cairo conference.
He warned that curtailment of these rights could give rise to criminal responsibility under the Rome Statute, adding that the ICC has active investigations about war crimes committed there since 2014.
His statements, however, were characterized as vague as he wittingly tried to equate Israeli and Palestinian “crimes”, even though one side is an aggressor and the other side is a victim.
There has also been no sense of urgency in the ICC investigation, for which the court has been regularly criticized and cajoled by Palestinian politicians and human rights activists.
Amid pressure, in mid-November, Khan announced that five countries had sent him a referral of the situation of Palestine, specifically South Africa, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Comoros, and Djibouti.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa noted that his country, together with many other countries across the world, referred the Israeli regime’s action to the ICC.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian also appealed to the ICC president and prosecutor through letters, emphasizing the need for the international court to initiate judicial proceedings.
He urged the ICC not to allow the perpetrators of serious international crimes to escape punishment, highlighting the importance of adhering to the court’s main duty outlined in the Rome Statute by avoiding double standards, selectivity, and politicization.
However, there has been no headway in the ICC probe so far even though the war continues.
Khan’s visit to Tel Aviv
Despite growing international calls for accountability and professionalism, blatant duplicity and hypocrisy reached a new high after Khan’s recent visit to the occupied West Bank and Tel Aviv.
His trip was initiated by a group that represents families of victims of the Al-Aqsa Storm Operation (Al-Aqsa Flood), despite evidence revealing that the Israeli regime killed their own on Oct 7.
The Israeli regime made a major propaganda effort to portray the Oct 7 spectacular military operation and its humiliating defeat as a “massacre,” using the group as the regime’s front-line trumpeters.
For weeks now, they have been bombarding the media with propaganda, also meeting with world leaders, seeking an emotional reaction which the Israeli regime then uses to smear Palestinians.
It ranges from the widely promoted propaganda about 40 “murdered babies” to individual stories like that of Emily Hand, whose father gleefully trumpeted to the media that he was happy that she was dead, only to be declared alive later, and eventually freed.
Hamas’ humane treatment of recently freed Israeli captives prompted the regime to ban their families from speaking to the media, suggesting that they tried to manipulate public opinion.
Khan has been accused of taking the forged Zionist narratives as indisputable facts, commenting in an official statement that the Hamas operation was an “attack on civilians” and that it represents “one of the most serious international crimes that shock the conscience of humanity.”
He called Hamas a “terrorist” organization, which is not an international position and demanded the release of Israeli captives while ignoring that over 6,000 Palestinian civilians are in Israeli captivity, without any charges.
Palestinians criticize Khan
Khan also met with Palestinian officials in Ramallah, including President Mahmoud Abbas.
But he was snubbed by Palestinian political parties and human rights groups who rightly accused him of parroting Israeli accusations of rights abuses over longstanding Palestinian charges.
In a statement, Hamas condemned his visit and his claims regarding alleged atrocities committed on October 7, accusing Khan of bias toward Israel’s “false and misleading narrative” while not conducting “a professional and fair investigation.”
“As Palestinian human rights organizations, we decided not to meet him,” said Ammar Al-Dwaik, director general of the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR).
“I think the way this visit has been handled shows that Khan is not handling his work in an independent and professional manner,” he said, emphasizing his unequal treatment of Israeli and Palestinian cases.
The BDS movement also voiced criticism, noting that the ICC has failed the Palestinian people for years and now it’s failing to stop the Israeli regime’s genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, undermining the court’s legitimacy.
On the X platform the movement described Khan’s trip to occupied territories as biased and Israeli-sponsored, adding that the visit compounds the court’s failure.
The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, led by Ramy Abdu, has also criticized the ICC prosecutor for failure to act on the situation in occupied Palestine, including the Gaza Strip.
“In light of the extraordinarily high level of documentation, unparalleled in history, of the Israeli wars on Gaza, which fit the definition of a genocide in the making under international law, Khan’s selective vision is a shameful affront to justice,” its statement noted.
They accused Khan of “clear double standards” for not taking “a practical action,” on developments in occupied Palestinian territories, highlighting the fact he did not meet with victims of Israel’s occupation and settler terrorism or their families.
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, Al-Haq, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, also expressed deep concern over what they said was a “prolonged delay” in Khan’s direct engagement with victims, especially in Gaza.
Triestino Mariniello, a legal representative of Palestinian victims before the ICC, said Khan has “always failed to meet with victim representatives or victims themselves.”
Mariniello noted that since Khan took office, his mandate has been characterized by “double standards” in relation to the situation in Palestine.
“The Prosecutor has not put in place any effective investigation and allocated very minimal and largely insufficient funding to the investigation since it opened,” he said.
Journalist Benjamin Norton commented that although the US and the Israeli regime are not even members, they lobbied for Khan to become the ICC prosecutor, and as a result, he immediately dropped investigations into US and Israeli war crimes in Afghanistan and Palestine.
’Rome Statute should be null and void’: Why is it so easy to accuse Russia but not Israel?
By Robert Inlakesh | RT | December 8, 2023
In the first weeks of the Gaza-Israel war, the ICC’s prosecutor issued a statement in which he said that impeding aid to Gaza could be a crime, but was later revealed to have traveled to Israel and is being accused of stalling the courts investigation into war crimes. “If this is not a case that calls for an international tribunal, then the Rome Statute should be null and void,” says American attorney Stanley Cohen, speaking to RT.
On October 29, International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor, Karim Khan, issued a warning to the Israeli government that impeding the transfer of aid into Gaza could give rise to “criminal responsibility” under the Rome Statute. However, during his speech delivered in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, Karim Khan notably placed much greater focus on the Hamas-led attack of October 7 than on anything the Israeli military had committed in the Gaza Strip. Following the ICC prosecutor’s remarks, there have been questions raised as to whether the court will prove useful in addressing crimes committed across Palestine-Israel.
Renowned American attorney Stanley Cohen addressed Karim Khan’s remarks in Cairo. Cohen said that Khan “made rather affirmative declaratory arguments about what Hamas, what the Qassam brigades, did do, how, when, where, what happened. In the absence of any independent examination, in the absence of any independent evidence, based upon, to some degree, propaganda distortion, alternative intelligence information, which was put out there.” Cohen went on to state that “if I were one of the attorneys representing Palestinians in front of the ICC, given the commentary that the prosecutor made, I might ask him to recuse himself.”
In March of 2021, the ICC officially opened a probe into what it says are war crimes that may have been committed in Palestine – by all parties involved – since June 13, 2014. This would technically mean that crimes recently committed could be subject to an investigation and those responsible may, in theory, be prosecuted. Also, in 2021, Israel’s top human rights group, B’tselem, along with Human Rights Watch, declared that the Israeli government was operating a regime of Apartheid against the Palestinians. In 2022, Amnesty International followed suit, issuing its own lengthy report that demonstrated why it also had decided to accuse Israel of the crime of Apartheid. The ICC has the right, under the Rome Statute, to prosecute those who commit the crime of Apartheid.
However, as the US-based think tank Arab Center Washington DC noted in September, “little has been done” over the past two years by the ICC, despite the prosecutors’ “professed desire to improve the credibility of the court and his private protestations that he cares about the question of Palestine.” Despite Israel having stated that it “will not cooperate” with the ICC, protesting its announced probe into war crimes in 2021, the families of Israelis killed on October 7 have urged the court to launch an investigation into alleged crimes committed by Hamas. This puts the Israeli government in a tough position, as it has repeatedly stated that the ICC has no jurisdiction in their territory. Hamas, on the other hand, welcomed the ICC probe into war crimes, while defending its own actions.
Commenting on the question of why the ICC has yet to move towards indicting those responsible for crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territories, Stanley Cohen replied:
“They returned an indictment against Putin on the basis of ex parte claims, certainly probable cause, within four days. In the case of Israel you’ve had nine years to find, investigate and corroborate systemic violations of international law, the violation of the law of war, human rights violations, collective punishment, violations of the humanitarian code, crimes against humanity. War crimes.”
Cohen also added the following: “I don’t know why it’s taken two years… There should be an ongoing investigation right now. I was involved in the preliminary applications for the ICC. There have been, just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of declarations, of affidavits, of videos, of films, of admissions, of statements over the last nine years now, that the ICC has. The cynic in me imagines or wonders whether this, the same piece would’ve taken the speed if the targets were African, if they were black, because the ICC has a history of moving with deliberate speed when it involves African defendants or targets, or people of color.”
Since the child death toll in Gaza alone, as a result of Israel’s war on the besieged coastal enclave, is more than six times times higher than the total Israeli civilian death toll from October 7, it begs the question as to whether the ICC is viewing crimes committed against Palestinians with the same seriousness. If that case goes forward, and investigates the never ending list of war crimes committed across Palestine-Israel, it could perhaps rescue some of the legitimacy of the court, which has been repeatedly accused by African leaders of wrongful targeting. In fact, due to the majority of the ICC’s indictments having been handed out to those on the continent of Africa, some have even suggested that the ICC should be renamed the African Criminal Court.
To make matters worse, once it was revealed that ICC prosecutor Karim Khan had traveled to Israel, he quickly made plans to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian human rights groups. However, human rights groups based in the occupied territories rejected his request to meet. Ammar Al-Dwaik, director general of the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) said that “the way this visit has been handled shows that Mr Khan is not handling his work in an independent and professional manner.”
According to Stanley Cohen, “there are lots of options” beyond the International Criminal Court when it comes to the prosecution of war crimes, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ). “You also then have the situation of courts with universal jurisdiction such as South Africa and Spain and about a dozen or so other countries, which I have no doubt will also be initiating investigations under universal jurisdiction,” he said.
Whether the ICC acts now will either be its saving grace, or irreparably stain the reputation of the court forever. The sheer scale of the atrocities that are now being committed in Gaza is difficult to even describe, with more tonnage of explosives being dropped on the besieged territory than the nuclear bomb used by the United States against Hiroshima. Meanwhile, food, water, medical aid, fuel and electricity are being prevented from entering, or in other cases are being severely limited. Some 1.5 million civilians have been displaced and around 20,000 people killed, while upwards of 30,000 have been injured.
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. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.
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