Palestinians and international human rights observers arrested in Masafer Yatta, occupied West Bank
International Solidarity Movement | July 7, 2024
Israeli Occupation forces arrested three Palestinians, including a 14 year old child, together with three internationals (including a US citizen) and one Israeli human rights observer in at-Tuwani, Masafer Yatta, in the South Hebron Hills area.
This morning, armed Israeli settler shepherds invaded Palestinian land with their flocks, provoked the family that was working on their land and attempted to steal one of their donkeys. The Palestinians tried to prevent them from going on their land and were attacked by the settlers. They called the police to remove the settlers, but the army and police chose to arrest three Palestinians, one of whom is a 14 year old child, three international and one Israeli human rights observers. No settlers were detained. They have all been taken to an Israeli police station. As of 5.45 pm (Jerusalem time), the family has been released but the human rights observers remain under custody.
The family, including the child, was already detained for around 3 hours on their land a couple of weeks ago and they have suffered numerous attacks over the years from violent settlers and the army. A couple of weeks ago, settlers cut newly planted trees and destroyed the water connections.
Land theft and ethnic cleansing have spiralled since October 7 in Masafer Yatta, and in other areas of the occupied West Bank. Israeli settlers who live in illegal settlements have been heavily armed and have escalated harassment and threats towards Palestinian communities, with the backing of the Israeli occupation forces. Umm al-Khair, one of the villages in Masafer Yatta, has lately come under almost daily attack from settlers and the army. On June 26, occupation forces demolished a dozen structures in Umm al-Khair displacing dozens of residents, including children. Since then, settlers have raided the village, shot live ammunition, erected a tent in the village and destroyed the water system, leaving the whole community of Umm al Khair without access to water.
On July 4, settlers carried out a pogrom in the village of Khalet a Dabaa. About 200 settlers reached the village at midnight, set agricultural land and trees on fire and attacked villagers, shot live ammunition and kidnapped a villager. An Italian activist from the NGO Mediterranea was also badly beaten. There are daily incidents in Masafer Yatta, with settlers coming on what remains of Palestinian land to herd in order to harass and push Palestinians further away from their land.
These are not isolated incidents. They are a part of a bigger plan of annexation of the West Bank/Area C. Between October 7 and July 1, over 1,050 attacks from settlers on Palestinians have been recorded by OCHA. At the beginning of March, Israeli authorities approved the construction of almost 3,500 illegal housing units in settlements around the West Bank. More recently, almost 5,295 new illegal housing units have been approved. This all comes amidst the biggest land seizure in the West Bank in over 30 years. Far-right Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has vowed to bring a million more settlers under his expansion plan.
In a quiet move, about a month ago, more control was moved from the Israeli army’s civil administration to the recently established governmental body “Settlement Administration”, led by Smotrich. Last Thursday, Orit Strock, Minister of Settlements and National Missions, was reported praising a master plan to build over 100 housing units in the South Hebron Hills area, saying this was “a miracle time” and “a sacred mission,” highlighting her efforts to invest in the area.
All of this is happening while the Israeli authorities are repressing human rights solidarity in the area, with at least six more international and three Israeli human rights observers banned from the area in the previous few weeks, with the aim of isolating Palestinian communities and promoting their propaganda unchecked.
Israel approves largest seizure of West Bank lands in 3 decades
MEMO | July 3, 2024
The Israeli army seized a large area of Palestinian land south of Nablus in the northern West Bank, according to a Palestinian government agency on Wednesday, Anadolu Agency reports.
“The Occupation authorities decided to seize a total of 12,715 dunams (3,141 acres) of land belonging to citizens in the village of Aqraba, south-east of Nablus,” the Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission said in a statement.
The Commission said Israel designated the seized territory as “state land” to “convert citizens’ lands into an expanding settlement project”.
The decision was “part of a larger plan to control the eastern slopes of the West Bank, particularly those adjacent to the Jordan Valley and its outskirts by seizing vast areas in this region,” the statement said.
Since the beginning of 2024, Israeli authorities have issued four announcements converting private Palestinian lands into state lands, thereby prohibiting Palestinian citizens from accessing, cultivating or reclaiming them, the Commission noted.
The statement indicated that the area declared as “state land” in these announcements totals 24,000 dunams (5,930 acres).
According to the Commission, the total area of land seized under various designations since the start of 2024 has reached 39,000 dunams (9,637 acres).
On Tuesday, the Commission’s semi-annual report highlighted the establishment of 17 new Jewish-only settlement outposts, while the Israeli government granted legal status to 11 other outposts.
Settlement outposts are small communities established by illegal Israeli settlers on privately owned Palestinian land without approval from the Israeli government.
Estimates indicate that around 700,000 Israeli settlers live in roughly 300 illegal settlements in the Occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
All Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories are considered illegal under international law.
Saudi Arabia warns of ‘dire consequences’ of Israel’s new settlement plans in West Bank
Press TV – June 29, 2024
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry has warned of the “dire consequences” of Israel’s plan to expand illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank.
In a statement on Saturday, the ministry slammed the Israeli regime’s decision to legitimize five new outposts in the West Bank.
Saudi Arabia opposes the “ongoing Israeli violations of international law and international legitimacy resolutions,” it added.
“These violations undermine opportunities for peace and contribute to fueling conflicts and destabilizing regional and international security and stability,” the statement read.
On Thursday, Israel’s extremist finance minister Bezalel Smotrich announced that the Security Cabinet authorized one outpost for every country that unilaterally recognized Palestine as a state in the last month.
Last month, Spain, Ireland and Norway formally recognized the Palestinian state, joining over 140 UN member states that have recognized its statehood over the past four decades.
Slovenia and Malta have also indicated they plan to formally recognize the state of Palestine.
The five settlement outposts are Evyatar, Givat Assaf, Sde Efraim, Heletz, and Adorayim.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation in a statement on Saturday condemned Israel’s new settlement expansion plan in the West Bank.
It said all actions and decisions taken by Israel as the occupying power to perpetuate its colonial regime in the occupied Palestinian territory are null and void under international law and the relevant UN Security Council resolutions, especially UN Security Council Resolution 2334 (2016).
Israel gives extremist settler ‘absolute’ control of occupied West Bank
The Cradle | May 3, 2024
Brigadier General Avi Bluth, an extremist religious settler, has been appointed to the position of Central Command commander of the Israeli army, Israeli media reported on 2 May.
Bluth has previously served as commander of the Army’s Judea and Samaria Division and as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Military Secretary.
According to Muhammad Shehada of Euro Med Human Rights, Bluth will now have absolute powers over the West Bank, including the ability to demolish homes and conduct army raids.
Bluth contributed to pogroms against Palestinians in the towns of Huwara and Burqa by standing by as Jewish settlers lynched civilians and burned and destroyed homes, shops, and vehicles.
He also played a role in incorporating extremists from a religious settler group called the Hilltop Youth into units of the Israeli army.
Bluth pushed for Operation Break the Wave in 2022, in which the army killed 149 Palestinians in the West Bank and abducted 2000 others in a series of raids, and Operation Bayit Vagan in July 2023, in which the army carried out a massive assault on Jenin, killing 12 Palestinians and leaving widespread destruction in its wake.
Bluth is a signatory to the army’s 2015 policy change, which loosened the conditions for using live fire against Palestinians throwing stones and carrying out ramming operations.
Shehada adds that Bluth has links to the Religious Zionism Party led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, which is committed to stealing and annexing Palestinian land in the West Bank.
Bluth was raised in Neve Tzuf, an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank. He earned a BS in philosophy, economy, and political science from Hebrew University and an MA in strategic thinking from the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
The genocide in Gaza is an opportunity for Ben-Gvir to get what he wants in the West Bank
Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | January 23, 2024
If what is currently happening in the Israeli-occupied West Bank took place before 7 October, our attention would have been fixated completely on that part of Palestine. The ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, however, has distracted us from the important events underway in the West Bank, which is now a stage for the most violent Israeli military campaign since the Second Palestinian Uprising between 2000 and 2005.
At the time of writing, since 7 October more than 360 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis in the West Bank, while thousands have been wounded. Thousands more have been arrested. These numbers exceed, by far, the total number of Palestinians killed in 2022, which was already designated by the UN as the most violent year on record in the occupied territory since 2005.
How are we to understand the logic behind the Israeli violence in the West Bank, given that it is already under a brutal Israeli military occupation and the joint “security” control of the Israel “Defence” Forces and the Palestinian Authority? And if the Israelis are honest in their claim that their offensive in Gaza is not genocide against the Palestinian people per se, but a war against Hamas, why are they attacking the West Bank with such ferocity, killing people from all different political and ideological backgrounds, and many civilians, including children?
The answer lies in the growing political power of the Jewish settlers, whose presence is illegal under international law. Historically, there are two kinds of Israeli violence meted out routinely against Palestinians: violence carried out by the Israeli army; and violence carried out by Jewish settlers.
Palestinians understand fully that they are intrinsically linked. The settlers often attack Palestinians under the protection of the Israeli army, and the latter often launches violent raids on Palestinians for the sake of the illegal settlers.
In recent years, however, the relationship between these two violent entities has started to change, thanks to the rise of the far right in Israel, which is situated mostly within illegal settlements, and their supporters inside Israel. Hence, it should not be a surprise that both of the most far-right ministers in the extremist government of Benjamin Netanyahu, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, are themselves settlers.
As soon as Ben-Gvir became National Security Minister, he began promoting the idea of establishing a National Guard. After 7 October, he managed, with direct support from Netanyahu’s government, to establish so-called civilian security teams. Israeli officials like Yair Lapid, for example, have described Ben-Gvir’s new armed group as a “private militia”. And he is right.
Although Ben-Gvir insists that the war in Gaza must continue, his actual aim from this — aside from the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population in the territory — is to use this rare opportunity to fulfil all of the wishes of Israel’s political extremists, all at once.
Remember, Ben-Gvir came to power based on the lofty promises of annexing the West Bank, expanding settlements and seizing control of Palestinian holy sites in East Jerusalem, among other extremist ideas. Al-Aqsa Mosque was a major target for him and his equally far-right followers, who believe that only by building a Third Temple on the ruins of Islam’s third holiest shrine would Israel be able to reclaim total control over the Holy Land.
Ben-Gvir’s bizarre political language could once have been dismissed as the extremism of a fringe politician.
Not any more, though. He is arguably the most powerful politician in Israel, due to his ability to use six seats in the Knesset to make or break Netanyahu’s ruling coalition.
While Netanyahu is behaving largely out of desperation to save his own political skin, his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant is fighting to redeem the tattered reputation of the army. Others, like War Council Minister Benny Gantz, are walking a political fine line so as not to be perceived as the ones who have broken Israel’s fragile political unity during a most decisive war.
None of this applies to Ben-Gvir. The man sees himself as the political descendant of the likes of the notorious late Meir Kahane; he is a fervent advocate of religious war. And since religious wars can only be the outcome of chaotic social and political circumstances, he is keen to instigate these very events that could ultimately lead to the war that he covets most.
One of the prerequisites is unhinged violence, where people are killed based on the mere suspicion of being “terrorists”. For example, on 18 January, Ben-Gvir told Israeli border police officers during a visit to a base in the West Bank, “You have complete backing from me.” He urged them to shoot at every “terrorist” — for which read “Palestinian” — even if they do not pose a threat.
Ben-Gvir perceives all Palestinians in the West Bank to be potential terrorists, the same way that Israel’s “moderate” President Isaac Herzog perceives all in Gaza as being “responsible” for the actions of Hamas. This essentially means that the Israeli security forces — soldiers and police — in the West Bank have the green light to kill Palestinians there with the same impunity as those killing Palestinians in Gaza.
Even though security and intelligence officials in Israel have warned Netanyahu against launching war on another front in the West Bank, the Israeli army has no other option but to fight that supposed “war” anyway. Why? Because it is already seen by a large constituency in Israel as a failure for its inability to prevent or respond successfully to the 7 October attacks, even after over 100 days of war in Gaza. To redeem their tarnished honour, senior officers are happy to fight a less challenging “war” against isolated and under-equipped Palestinian fighters in small parts of the West Bank.
Ben-Gvir, of course, is ready to manipulate all of this in his favour. And he is getting precisely what he wants: expanding the war to the West Bank, ethnically-cleansing Palestinians; torturing prisoners; demolishing homes; torching properties; and all the rest.
Arguably his greatest achievement so far is his ability to create a perfect amalgamation between the political interests of the settlers, the government and the security apparatus. His aim, however, is not merely to steal yet more Palestinian land, or expand a few settlements. His wished-for religious war will, he believes, lead ultimately to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, not just from Gaza, but also from the West Bank.
The war in Gaza is a perfect opportunity for these sinister goals to be achieved. For now, this genocidal war continues to create opportunities for religious Zionism to acquire new followers, and to lay deeper roots within Israel’s political establishment. A sudden end to the war, however, could represent the marginalisation of religious Zionism for years to come.
Israeli military’s blunders, brazen lies, failures sum up 110 days of war on Gaza
By Shabbir Rizvi | Press TV | January 23, 2024
Since the beginning of the Israeli regime’s ground operation against Gaza in late October, the regime forces have been met with fierce resistance by Palestinian fighters, prompting military experts to predict that Israeli troops would not find it easy to meet any of their objectives.
Nearly three months into the ground assault, these military analysts have been proven correct.
In the latest, at least 24 Israeli troops were declared killed in less than 24 hours on Tuesday, laying bare the fragility of what many have described as the “TikTok occupation army.”
The Israeli regime has not met a single objective. Instead, it has attempted to cover up its losses, committed egregious war crimes resulting in a genocide case against it at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and spent nearly $246 million per day on sustaining its genocidal war on Gaza.
The Tel Aviv regime, which has launched a Western-focused campaign to have the hundred-some Israeli captives held by Hamas released, has not been able to secure the release of any of them so far.
In fact, the one opportunity Israeli forces had to secure their release, they instead shot them. Coupled with this embarrassment was the retreat of Israeli troops, including the infamous Golani brigade.
Facing pressure from the inevitability of military, political, and economic disaster, Zionist officials have been contradicting each other at every corner, smacking of frustration from their losses.
For example, an Israeli war minister admits that “Hamas is far from being defeated in Gaza,” while another spokesperson says that Hamas has been completely dismantled in the north.
These contradictory statements usher in more public distrust as to what is really happening on the battlefield. They also expose the dilemma the regime is facing in the face of indomitable resistance.
The Israeli regime is notorious for brazenly lying and covering up its losses while inflating its “successes.” So in order to find the truth, we must observe the battlefield itself.
Just over a week after Israeli forces announced the “dismantlement” of Hamas in the north, a barrage of 50 rockets launched from northern Gaza by the movement’s armed wing Qassam Brigades hit buildings in surrounding settlements in the occupied Gaza envelope.
The operations of Qassam Brigades are giving jitters to Israeli settlers still in the area, as Zionist forces again failed to ensure their safety, especially after downplaying the existence of threats in north Gaza.
Furthermore, thousands of Zionist settlers from the Gaza Envelope who flocked out of the occupied territories in the wake of the Al-Aqsa Storm (Al-Aqsa Flood) operation have yet to return home.
As one former settler told Israel’s Channel 13 recently, it is “not only due to the threat of rockets … no one knows if the Palestinians from Gaza can reach us. No one knows where their tunnels extend to.”
“I have been living in Sderot for years, and I cannot count the times they told us that Hamas is deterred,” he was quoted as saying, laying bare the hollow rhetoric of the Israeli military.
Meanwhile, the Al-Qassam Brigades and other resistance factions remain strong. This is through demonstrable proof – over 100 days after the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Storm (Al-Aqsa Flood), the resistance groups are able to launch rockets as far as Tel Aviv at will.
Al-Qassam Brigades routinely (nearly daily) upload videos of their fighters confronting Zionist tanks and personnel head-on and at point-blank range, posting the destruction of Israeli forces for the world to see.
Where just a few days ago Israeli military officials announced the withdrawal of Israeli forces to give them time to lick their wounds and regroup, the political pressure amassed on the Netanyahu regime has now forced some brigades from the Israeli regime back into Northern Gaza, where they continue to be met with fierce resistance.
Clearly, the claim of Hamas’ dismantlement has been proven false.
Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, says that Al Qassam is “smashing the Israeli army and will continue to do so,” and that Hamas “will not submit to the conditions of the occupation.”
Israel now faces the same resistance but with worn-out soldiers and less numbers.
Though thousands of soldiers still fight in Gaza, it is nowhere near as much quantity as it was just under a month ago. Thousands have backed out under “strategic withdrawal” while thousands more suffer injury and permanent disability.
To dilute the success of Palestinian resistance, the Israeli occupation has ordered hospitals not to cover the losses from Gaza. A spokesman declares that the order violates “press freedom, but claims that the logic behind the new procedure is the desire to maintain the dignity of the injured and their families.”
To date, Hamas has claimed the destruction of thousands of troops and over one thousand vehicles
The same battlefield ferocity cannot be said of Israeli forces. Resorting to aerial bombardments that only slaughter innocent civilians, the Israeli military has yet to claim a categorical battlefield win, instead filming themselves bullying and assaulting civilians and destroying their homes and neighborhoods.
The statements and videos from Al Qassam are not just demonstrations of Hamas’ battlefield skills. They also serve as a weapon against the Zionist entity itself, forcing Israeli settlers to reckon with the fact that the Israeli military cannot protect them, as they cannot even protect themselves.
Tamer Eidam, a settler and “head of the Sdot Negev regional council” has reported that the Netanyahu regime is going as far as bribing settlers to return to the Gaza envelope, without “removing the security threat.” The feelings among settlers are also the same in north-occupied Palestine, fearing Hezbollah strikes and lack of Israeli military protection.
Netanyahu insists on the return of settlers to the Gaza envelope while simultaneously asserting that the aggression on Gaza could last until 2025, as Western media and Israeli outlets report.
Meanwhile, sirens ring nearly daily due to incoming rockets from the besieged Gaza Strip.
Here lies the turbulent political landscape. Netanyahu and his officials are in direct contradiction with the assessment of the military, and within themselves, resulting in no certainty for their troops or their settlers.
Where Netanyahu promises safety and security, Al Qassam responds with barrages of rockets. And where the regime’s military affairs minister Yoav Gallant promises the elimination of Hamas, worn-out Israeli troops are met with ambushes and fierce resistance.
The scenes and reports of Israeli military withdrawal in Gaza succinctly underscore the fate of the Netanyahu regime.
The regime, which was already unpopular amongst settlers and routinely being protested against, now faces more heat from its own settlers, as facts surface from October 7 proving the usage of the infamous “Hannibal Directive.”
The directive was created to ensure civilians and soldiers are not captured by enemy fighters in order to force the Israeli regime into hostage negotiations. The directive purportedly says the capturing of any civilians or soldiers should be stopped by any means necessary – including killing them.
New details have emerged that Israeli forces not only deliberately opened fire on settlers and their own soldiers at the “Nova Festival,” but also within Israeli settlements, indiscriminately killing hundreds of Israelis.
The Tel Aviv regime lays the blame for these deaths on Hamas while destroying evidence that would tie the deaths to its own forces.
This directive comes into direct contradiction with the public occupation demand to free Israeli captives
Culminating failures of the security apparatuses of the occupation have resulted in heated war cabinet meetings that have resulted in further division within Israeli leadership, to the point of Netanyahu even demanding lie detector tests.
Zionist reports say that ministers have stormed out of meetings, or even turned meetings into nasty shouting matches where little “progress” was made.
The regime is torn between two demands: first, the demand for the return of Israeli captives with the restoration of settlements, and second, the destruction of Palestinian resistance.
Pursuing the latter risks the failure of the former as Israeli bombs have killed captives, and pursuing the former concedes defeat to the day one objective of “eliminating Hamas.”
The Zionist regime believes it can save face by conducting a flagrant genocide in front of the world. But this is a severe miscalculation. It has only brought them to the ICJ in the Hague and launched a worldwide campaign in support of Palestinian resistance. Through this horrific crime, they have crossed the point of no return.
Furthermore, other allies of the Palestinian cause – including Yemen, Hezbollah, and Iraqi resistance groups, now exert pressure on American forces in the region, with the potential to escalate into a regional war.
Hamas and the Palestinian resistance have put the Israeli occupation into a box. The very stability of the occupation is falling apart, as public distrust of the Netanyahu regime and the occupation forces itself flourishes.
While protests grow and ministers argue amongst themselves, Al Qassam taunts the occupation with rockets and videos of destroyed Merkava tanks.
Hence, the Zionist regime must reckon with the inevitability of its crushing defeat.
Shabbir Rizvi is a Chicago-based political analyst with a focus on US internal security and foreign policy.
Settlers refuse return to Gaza envelope: ‘Hamas not yet deterred’
The Cradle | January 19, 2024
Hebrew media reported on 19 January that tens of thousands of evacuated settlers from the Gaza envelope are refusing to return to their homes.
A former resident of the Sderot settlement, located less than a mile from Gaza, told Israel’s Channel 13 in an interview that settlers “will not return to Sderot in the current situation.”
This is “not only due to the threat of rockets … no one knows if the Palestinians from Gaza can reach us. No one knows where their tunnels extend to,” the settler said.
“I have been living in Sderot for years, and I cannot count the times they told us that Hamas is deterred.”
Sderot is one of the Gaza envelope settlements that was stormed by resistance fighters during the outbreak of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October. Rockets struck the settlement at the onset of the attack, as Palestinian fighters made their way in.
The Hamas fighters seized the Sderot police station, taking around 30 of its force as captives. The fighters then waged a 20-hour battle with Israeli troops in which all of the policemen were killed. The Israeli military then destroyed the station, bringing it down on top of those inside.
Since being evacuated in October, Sderot and other Gaza envelope settlements have continued to be hit by rocket attacks launched by the Palestinian resistance in Gaza.
According to Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, the Israeli government is facing great difficulty in convincing the residents of the Gaza envelope settlements to return to their homes.
Last month, Israeli public broadcaster KAN reported that Tel Aviv was offering financial grants to those willing to return to the settlements located between four and seven kilometers from the Gaza border.
A meeting was held between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the council chiefs of the Gaza envelope settlements on 16 January, according to a Channel 12 report.
The council chiefs reportedly demanded that “the process of returning … be delayed or extended until the summer and the start of the new school year, and for the state to continue to fund their stay in temporary accommodation until then,” The Times of Israel said.
Netanyahu also reportedly told the council chiefs during the meeting that the war could potentially continue until 2025.
“Netanyahu said he accepted their request, promised that financial assistance to residents would be applicable then as well, and instructed the relevant officials to draw up the necessary framework.”
Meanwhile, Hamas’ Qassam Brigades and other groups in Gaza are nowhere near defeat, continuing to engage the Israeli army in fierce clashes and deadly ambushes across the entirety of the Gaza Strip, including in north Gaza, where Israel has announced a scale-back of operations.
The scale-back came as Israeli officials were boasting that Hamas has been “dismantled” in the north. Despite this, the fighters have been able to fire large rocket barrages at Israel from northern Gaza.
Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, reporting on 19 January, cited sources in the Palestinian resistance who said that the Israeli ground operation has achieved nothing – particularly in the north. The report added that in the north, Hamas has been able to replenish its supplies and rebuild its ranks.
And just as the Israeli settlers of the Gaza envelope refuse to return to their homes, so too do the settlers of northern Israel, where hundreds of thousands have also been displaced by Hezbollah’s operations on the Lebanese border.
UK’s chief rabbi gives his blessing to war crimes in Gaza
By Jonathan Cook | January 11, 2024
Britain’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, spoke at a public event at a synagogue last Sunday to extol the “outstanding” performance of the Israeli military in Gaza. He did so days before South Africa argues its case before the International Court of Justice in The Hague – starting today – that Israel is committing genocide in the enclave.
Whether Israel is eventually found to be perpetrating genocide may prove more a political decision than a legal verdict, given the pressures on the 15 judges from their respective national leaderships.
But it is indisputable that Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. It is known to have killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and seriously wounded tens of thousands more. It has driven from their homes the overwhelming majority of the enclave’s population of 2.3 million – that is, Israel has ethnically cleansed them.
Israel has repeatedly bombed the “safe zones” to which it has ordered civilians to flee, as well as critical infrastructure such as hospitals, schools, mosques, churches and bakeries. It has imposed a “complete siege” that is denying food, aid and medicine, leading to mass starvation and the spread of lethal disease.
Video footage has shown Israeli soldiers in Gaza gleefully smashing up shops; stripping Palestinian men and boys to their underwear; and shooting civilians, including women, in the street as they carrying white flags. Soldiers even executed three of Israel’s hostages trying to escape captivity and surrender with an SOS sign.
Yet Britain’s chief rabbi, the face of Judaism in the UK, has raised his voice to call all of this “the most outstanding possible thing”. He has gone further: he has described the troops committing these crimes “our heroic soldiers” and revealed that his own son, Danny, is assisting with the attack on Gaza in the Israeli military. He has said he is “immensely proud” of him.
Mirvis could have chosen a form of weaselly words of the kind Israel’s apologists more typically deploy. He could have argued that the Israeli military was carrying out its task in Gaza as best as it could in near-impossible circumstances. That the Palestinians killed in Gaza were unfortunate collateral damage as the Israeli military sought to eradicate Hamas.
But he didn’t. He called the undoubted war crimes being carried out over the past three months “the most outstanding thing”.
There are several points to note about his remarks:
1. For any public figure, Jewish or otherwise, to call atrocities committed by the foreign power of Israel “outstanding” reflects a worldview that utterly dehumanises Palestinians and is ready to incite war crimes against them. Even were the Hague court not to rule that genocide is taking place, Mirvis has clearly incited to crimes against humanity.
2. As the effective head of British Judaism, Mirvis is giving religious sanction to the carrying out of war crimes. Many of the soldiers in Gaza – a significant proportion of them religious – will now have reason to believe that the crimes they and their army have been committing over the past three months are blessed, that their mission is divinely ordained. In short, Mirvis has implied that killing Palestinians is God’s work.
3. In referring to “our heroic soldiers”, Mirvis has conflated the Jewish people with Israel. Those soldiers are not British soldiers. They are not Jewish soldiers. They are Israeli soldiers. Were you or I to do this – to suggest Jews are behind the atrocities being committed in Gaza, not a foreign national army – we would rightly be called antisemites. And for good reason. Because when you confuse the identifiers “Jewish” and “Israeli”, you tar all Jews everywhere, including in the UK, with the crimes being committed by Israel against Palestinians. You make all Jews responsible for atrocities. And you thereby make them the target of antisemitic hate crimes by those who fall for this malicious conflation. So in other words, Mirvis now has not only Palestinian blood on his hands but potentially Jewish blood too. His words may inspire attacks on Jews.
4. There is something deeply ugly – maybe sinister would be a better word – that Mirvis’ religious incitement to crimes against humanity (and very likely genocide) is viewed as entirely unremarkable by our establishment media and politicians. And yet a slogan calling for equality between Palestinians and Israelis is systematically misrepresented by these same actors to suggest it is somehow genocidal. “From the river to the sea, Palestinians will be free” is a demand to end Israel’s unified system of apartheid across both Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, a system that assigns Israeli Jews and Palestinians entirely different rights. Reversing that can be viewed as genocidal only if you imagine that Israelis will fight to the death to stop Palestinians gaining equal rights. It reveals far more about the mindset of those who believe the slogan is genocidal than any evil intent of those chanting what is a call for liberation. That mindset is on full display in the atrocities Israel is committing in Gaza, cheered on by Jewish leaders like Mirvis.
5. Britain has a Prevent strategy whose official aim is “to reduce the threat to the UK from terrorism by stopping people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism”. In practice, the strategy is the British state’s attempt to stigmatise the Muslim community as a pool of potential terrorism recruits, surveill their community organisations, and weaken legal protections against arrest and conviction. The stated concern is that Muslims are being “radicalised” by extremist imams in their mosques – rather than by the extreme events they see, such as genocide unfolding in Gaza.
Mirvis has shown beyond doubt that extremist preachers are to be found not just in mosques but in synagogues too. If the government is really using Prevent to end support for terrorism, it needs to apply the strategy even-handedly. Killing and seriously wounding some 100,000 Palestinians – roughly one in every 20th person in Gaza – and making almost of all the population homeless, destitute and starving surely ranks as state-organised terrorism, whether or not the court eventually rules it amounts to genocide.
The context is that for many years Mirvis chose to study and live in Israel’s illegal West Bank settlements, where Jewish extremists regularly terrorise Palestinian communities to drive them off their land. He raised at least one of his children to choose to serve in an army terrorising and ethnically cleansing Palestinians in Gaza. Mirvis considers the soldiers committing war crimes to be “our heroes”.
In 2017 Mirvis endorsed the fanatical Jewish settlers – Israel’s equivalent of white supremacists – on their annual march through the occupied Old City of Jerusalem. Every year on that march, most of the participants are recorded waving masses of Israeli flags at Palestinians who live there and chanting “Death to the Arabs”. One Israeli newspaper columnist describes the Jerusalem Day march as a “religious carnival of hatred”. But Mirvis celebrates it.
A further point. Despite the fact that, judged by any reasonable standard, Mirvis is an extremist and holds views that should be repellent to any decent person, he is held in high esteem by the British establishment, including its media.
One can understand why. In late 2019, days before the UK general election, Mirvis publicly accused the leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, of being unfit for high office because he supposedly indulged and promoted antisemism in the Labour party. The British establishment had spent years cultivating this evidence-free smear.
Mirvis argued that “the very soul of our nation is at stake” in Britain’s election. He thereby effectively called on British Jews and the British public to vote for the government.
It was an unprecedented act of electoral interference that was reported reverentially by the British media. Both the fact that Mirvis sought to influence the vote with a deception and that the establishment media colluded with him in doing so should have been shocking, even at the time. But Mirvis’ latest remarks provide additional context. Because it is Rabbi Mirvis – not the antisemites – who is quite happy to flaunt his dual loyality. Those soldiers are apparently “ours”.
So the question is this: which nation was Mirvis actually referring to when he warned shortly before the 2019 election that “the very soul of our nation is at stake”? The British nation whose religious Jews he supposedly represents, or the Israeli nation that is currently ethnically cleansing and murdering Palestinian men, women and children?
Mirvis, it seems, just gave us his answer.
Israel settlers destroy drinking water network, trees in southern Hebron
MEMO | November 15, 2023
Israeli settlers, with the protection of occupation forces, yesterday destroyed water networks in Khirbet Al-Tha’la and released their sheep into the lands of the residents in Khirbet Qawawis in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, a Palestinian official who specialises in settlement activity said.
The coordinator of the Popular and National Committees Against the Wall and Settlements in southern Hebron, Rateb Al-Jabour, added that settlers from the illegal settlements of Mitzpeh Yair and Avigayil released their sheep to graze on the farmers’ fields and destroyed their trees in Khirbet Qawawis. They also destroyed the fences and barbed wire surrounding the land.
Furthermore, they destroyed more than 20 almond trees owned by the residents Jabreen Musa Al-Na’ameneh and the sons of Ismael Salman Al-Na’ameneh.
Israeli soldiers also raided the village of Beit Amra, west of the town of Yatta, south of Hebron, and searched the homes of several residents belonging to the Da’is and Rashid families, and tampered with their contents.
He said residents confronted the settlers who were attempting to pave a settlement road near a settlement late on Monday night.
Israeli Finance Minister Demands Security Zones Around Illegal West Bank Settlements
By Connor Freeman | The Libertarian Institute | November 9, 2023
Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of the Religious Zionism party in the ruling right-wing coalition, demanded Tel Aviv impose security zones around illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank on Monday. The letter Smotrich has sent to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant includes an insistence that Palestinians be kept away during the ongoing olive harvest season.
This follows a pattern of occupying forces and settlers exploiting the war on Gaza as an opportunity to further cut Palestinian towns, cities, and villages off from each other via more military checkpoints, cement blocks, iron gates, and earth mounds.
“I demand that a written directive be issued immediately by the political echelon to the Israel Forces to create those wide security zones around the settlements and roads and to prevent Arabs from approaching them… including for the olive harvest,” Smotrich’s letter reads.
Murders of Palestinians by settlers and soldiers alike in the West Bank are concurrently soaring while apartheid Israel concurrently wages its unprecedented bombing campaign against the besieged Gaza Strip, killing thousands of civilians and children.
At least 175 Palestinians have been killed, and thousands injured, in the West Bank since the October 7th Hamas attack on southern Israel. According to UNICEF, dozens of children have been killed and injured in the West Bank during the past month.
On October 28th, Bilal Mohammad Saleh, the 40-year-old wild herbs vendor, was shot in the chest by a settler and murdered in front of his wife, children, and other relatives while the Israeli military stood by and watched.
Bilal and his family were harvesting olives on land he inherited from his father, just less than a dozen miles south of Nablus, in the village of al-Sawiya. The village is encircled by Jewish-only colonies, or illegal settlements, Palestinian residents are only able to build and work on five percent of the 12,000 dunums that they own.
The area has been terrorized for years by the settlers. Nihad Arar, the village council head, told Al Jazeera, “[They] cut down our trees, burn our farms, steal our olives, and are known to assault Palestinians inside their homes and on their own property.”
As the war on Gaza rages, settler attacks and murders on Palestinians, including those working their olive groves during the prime harvest month of October have significantly escalated.
Mohammed Wadi, whose father and brother were shot dead by settlers during a funeral procession for three Palestinian olive growers killed by settlers a day earlier, told Reuters that although the settlers used to aim low at Palestinians in the past, “[n]ow, they shoot to kill.”
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that, since the October 7th Hamas attack and the war on Gaza began, settler attacks on Palestinians have more than doubled.
For Palestinians, prior to this month, this year was already one of the deadliest on record. Before the end of September, more than 220 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces, including over three dozen children. That figure included 187 people who were murdered in the occupied territories and another 37 killed – mostly amidst a smaller bombing campaign – in the Gaza Strip.
In March, Smotrich proclaimed that there is “no such thing as a Palestinian people.” His party, along with National Security Minister Itmar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party, support massive settlement expansion and ultimately the complete annexation of the West Bank. Additionally, Smotrich has endorsed illegal collective punishment policies and called for “wiping out” the entire Palestinian village of Huwwara earlier this year.
With Smotrich at the helm, approving new settlements and the demolition of Palestinian homes, the Netanyahu coalition has set records for illegal settlement construction this year.
As Mondoweiss explains, “Smotrich holds sway over two ministries — the first is the Finance Ministry, for which he is directly responsible given his role as Finance Minister, and the other is a new position in the Defense Ministry, essentially making him the governor of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and most crucially making him responsible for settlement in the West Bank.”
Ben-Gvir announced last month that Tel Aviv would purchase and distribute 10,000 assault rifles to Israeli citizens including within the West Bank’s illegal settlements. According to Axios, the US State Department is set to approve a $34 million sale of 24,000 M-16 semiautomatic and automatic rifles after reportedly receiving assurances from Tel Aviv that the weapons will not be provided to settlers.
It is not at all clear if Ben-Gvir will hold to that promise, as he has personally distributed hundreds of rifles to settlers in recent weeks.
Israeli Finance Minister calls for ban on Palestinians harvesting olives in occupied West Bank
MEMO | November 6, 2023
Israel’s extreme far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Galant to prohibit Palestinians in the West Bank from harvesting their olive crop. According to Smotrich, Israel needs to establish “sterile security zones” with no Palestinian presence around settlements and settler-only roads. The aim is to prevent Palestinian farmers from having access to their olive groves in the occupied territory.
The Zionist fanatic also criticised what he called, without a hint of irony, “the continued neglect of the security of the settlers in Judea and Samaria” and claimed that security has been undermined severely since the 7 October attack in the south of the occupation state.
“The concept of security must be shaken, emphasising the need to create sterile security zones around the settlements and roads and to prevent Arabs [sic] from entering them, including for harvesting,” said Smotrich. “The writing is on the wall and I am not ready to be a part of it. I will not agree to additional blood under my watch due to insistence on maintaining distorted perceptions.”
While the world’s attention has focused on the Israeli bombardment of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, illegal Jewish settlers have been attacking Palestinians and their properties in the occupied West Bank. Most attacks take place while the armed settlers are protected by the Israeli army. All of Israel’s settlements and the settlers who live in them are illegal under international law.
According to the Palestinian Authority-affiliated Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, since 7 October settlers have carried out at least 280 attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, utilising terrorist tactics against the indigenous population and their farms and properties.
The Israeli army has also killed 151 Palestinians in the occupied territory in the same period, and arrested 2,080 others. The death toll in Gaza has now passed the 10,000 mark. Most of those killed were children and women.
The other mass displacement: while eyes are on Gaza, settlers advance on West Bank herders
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs | November 1, 2023
Shortly after armed Israeli settlers threatened to kill them if they did not leave, 24 Palestinian households totaling 141 people, half of whom are children, were displaced from Khirbat Zanuta in the southern West Bank.
On 28 October 2023, the families dismantled about 50 residential and animal structures and vacated the area with their 5,000 livestock. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has previously documented settler attacks in this community, most recently on 12, 21 and 26 October. About two thirds of the families that comprised this community are now displaced.
“On 26 October, settlers attacked us, destroying our homes, water tanks, solar panels, and cars,” said 43-year-old Abu Khaled from Khirbet Zanuta. “I felt the presence of death so tangibly as if I saw it with my own eyes. I was torn between staying in or leaving the place I love, where I belong, where I may die. On 28 October, I made the hardest decision in my life: to leave Zanuta and leave everything behind, as memories. I did this to protect my children.”
These experiences are not unique to Khirbat Zanuta. In 15 herding communities across the West Bank, at least 98 households comprising 828 people, including 313 children, have been displaced amid settler violence or increased movement restrictions since 7 October. Since then, Israeli settler violence has increased significantly, from an already high average of three incidents per day thus far in 2023 to a current average of seven per day.
In this period, OCHA has recorded 171 settler attacks against Palestinians, resulting in Palestinian casualties (26 incidents), damage to Palestinian properties (115 incidents), or both (30 incidents). Cases of harassment, trespass, and intimidation are not included in these statistics when they do not result in damage or casualties, although they too increase the pressure on Palestinians to leave.
On 9 October, 40 people were displaced from the herding community of Al Ganoub. Armed Israeli settlers had raided the community, threatening residents at gunpoint, saying they would kill them if they did not leave within an hour. Abu Jamal, 75, is one of those who were displaced. “Settlers set fire to our tent and stole my goats,” he told us. “They destroyed everything that had kept me here.” Another residential structure was also set on fire during this incident.Since 7 October, access restrictions, typically imposed by the Israeli occupation authorities, have intensified throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. These are particularly severe in areas near illegal Israeli settlements and in the ‘Seam Zone,’ the Palestinian area isolated by Israel’s 712-kilometre-long illegal Separation Wall in the West Bank. Settlers too have imposed movement restrictions, blocking access roads to Palestinian communities. Such measures have limited Palestinians’ access to essential services and livelihoods. In some cases, settlers have also damaged water resources relied upon by herding communities, depriving them of a fundamental human necessity. Palestinian herding communities are often highly dependent on humanitarian assistance, including health and education services. However, since restrictions intensified, many of the services have had to stop.
On 12 October, eight households, comprising 51 people, were displaced from Shihda WaHamlan herding community in Nablus, after settlers threatened them at gunpoint, saying they would kill them and set their tents on fire during the night. One of the family members, 52-year-old Abu Ismail, stated: “I had no choice but to leave everything behind to protect my children.” More than one in every three settler-related incidents since 7 October has involved settlers using firearms to threaten Palestinians, including by opening fire. In almost half the cases, Israeli forces accompanied or actively supported the attackers. Many of the latter incidents were followed by confrontations between Israeli forces and Palestinians, where three Palestinians were killed, and dozens injured. Eight Palestinians were killed by settlers directly, as of the end of October. Damage or destruction was caused to 24 residential structures, 40 structures used for farming, 67 vehicles and more than 400 trees and saplings. Settlements are illegal under international humanitarian law and, compounded by settler violence, they have for many years resulted in increased risks and heightened humanitarian needs among Palestinians.
At the same time, concerns are high over families who have remained and continue to endure attacks by settlers. Mohamad Abu Seif (Abu Khalid), 90, has been living with his family in the herding community of Ein Shibli for over 40 years. While they have remained, they are exposed to repetitive threats and harassment by settlers. “They prevent us from grazing our sheep,” he told us.
He and his family are among five Palestinian households, comprising 33 people, who remain in this community. All of them are at risk of displacement as grazing areas diminish by the actions of Israeli settlers. Eight families, comprising 51 people, have already left this area since 7 October. While Abu Khalid is still there, he and his family have no assurances that they would be able to remain for much longer.
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Not Ready for the Big Leagues
Patriot Missile Launcher
By William Schryver | imetatronink | January 20, 2024
… In an attempt to cover just three large airbases against a series of salvos of 100+ missiles of various types, the entire US stockpile of PAC-3 interceptors could very conceivably be exhausted in little more than a week or two. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- MIT Prof Ted Postol: U.S. Iran Missile War
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- No Tricks Zone
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