Why would six Israelis receive more attention than 41,000 murdered Palestinians
By Jamal Kanj | Al Mayadeen | September 5, 2024
On September 1, 2024, 27 Palestinian families woke up to mourn their loved ones, including at least 11 who were killed at a supposedly “safe” shelter, in Safad School in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood east of Gaza City. On the same day, the Israeli occupation military recovered the bodies of six Israeli captives, who were killed as a direct or indirect result of an Israeli incursion into a tunnel in Rafah.
By the end of the day, the smiling faces and names of these six Israelis were prominently featured across digital and print media, while the murdered Palestinians were reduced to mere statistics, nameless and faceless. Both groups, however, share one tragic commonality: their demise was caused by the same killer. Indiscriminate bombing is a murder without distinction.
Despite being warned of the risk of attempting to retrieve the captives by force, Netanyahu opted to sacrifice them to eliminate a political burden that could be seen as an obstacle to achieving his “war goals.” Their disappearance — by a deal or death — would free Netanyahu’s hand and ease pressure from the public, who otherwise supports his war of genocide in Gaza.
Inarguably, there is an inherent interest for the Palestinian Resistance in protecting the lives of the Israelis, simply to exchange them with Palestinian hostages held in Israeli jails. On the other hand, the Netanyahu coalition government has a political motive to reduce the value of Israeli captives in the hands of the Palestinians, and their death could be an option.
The Israeli public protesting in the streets today, individually and collectively, is responsible for nurturing Netanyahu’s unrealistic war objectives. The findings of a Pew Research poll conducted last March and April revealed that 67% of Israelis supported Netanyahu’s “war goals.” In fact, a staggering 86% believed Palestinians in Gaza should not have self-governance, not even the Palestinian Authority. Less than half of Israelis supported a prisoner exchange, and 60% opposed halting the war for any such exchange.
In December 2023, support for Netanyahu’s war goals was even higher, between 76 and 84%. It’s significant to mention that the support for the war among Israeli Jews mirrored that of Jewish Americans. In the US, 62% of American Jews approved “Israel’s” war conduct, compared to 38% of the general American population.
These statistics reflect a broader issue of deep-seated Israeli-Jewish dehumanization of Palestinians. A bigotry germinated in the political Zionist culture, where in the Israeli religious and cultural plurality most Jews perceive themselves to be more equal than non-Jews. Before anyone from the professional victim pack cries out on October 7, this predominant attitude among Israeli Jews is neither an anomaly nor a new phenomenon.
In a 2016 poll, an undisputed majority of Jewish Israelis (79%) believed that Jews are entitled to “preferential treatment” over non-Jews. When asked if Palestinians should be deported from their homes, the majority of Israelis agreed.
Imagine, the American Jewish leadership protestation if 40% (1/2 of the Israeli percentage) of white or Christian Americans supported a preference over the other. In the meantime, progressive Americans can ruminate on their reaction if a similar percentage of Americans favored expelling Native Americans from their homes.
Palestinians need not imagine, for this is what they face under the American-financed Israeli apartheid.
It is this Israeli public mindset that drove Netanyahu and his racist ministers to take a chance to recover the Israeli captives by force, calculating that success would yield significant political rewards from the same public who is protesting today. In case of failure, the retrieval of bodies reduces the value of the exchange for the Palestinian Resistance. In other words, the Netanyahu coalition favors playing the victim over dead Israelis rather than releasing Palestinian hostages from Israeli jails.
Currently, there are approximately 97 Israeli captives held in Gaza, with 33 confirmed dead, mostly due to “Israel’s” indiscriminate bombings. Additionally, Netanyahu has “successfully” recovered the bodies of 37 dead settlers in the past eleven months. Despite this blunder, Netanyahu capitalized on the innate anti-Palestinian Israeli Jewish bigotry to maintain strong support among Israelis and American Jews for the war of genocide in Gaza.
This time, however, the same public who supported Netanyahu’s “war goals,” amassed in the streets of Tel Aviv blaming him for choosing to save his government coalition at the expense of Israeli captives. Even US President Joe Biden broke his public silence blaming Netanyahu for not doing enough to reach a deal.
Biden’s latest remarks belied statements by his own government officials who absolved the Israeli Prime Minister regarding the ceasefire negotiation. Last week, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken claimed Netanyahu had accepted the so-called “bridging proposal,” while CIA Deputy Director, David Cohen blamed the Palestinian Resistance for the breakdown in ceasefire talks.
To contextualize the extent of the influence of the Israeli firsters within the Biden administration, consider recent developments in “Israel”. During last week’s Israeli cabinet meeting, the Minister of War stormed out accusing Netanyahu of endangering the lives of Israeli captives. Meanwhile, the otherwise pro-genocide Israeli public, filled the streets protesting Netanyahu’s new conditions on the American ceasefire plan. This is while American officials and Israeli firsters, Sayanim, including Zionists like Blinken and Cohen, continue to provide Netanyahu with political cover to further his intransigence.
Western appeasement of “Israel”, based on the flawed belief that this would give them leverage over Israeli leaders, is rooted in a corrupt philosophy promoted by Israeli firsters, Sayanim. Israeli firsters in the West use their positions to sanctify Israeli Jewish life while demonizing Palestinian one. In the media, the Sayanim sanitize Israeli atrocities against Palestinians, and as government officials, they help “Israel” escape accountability and avoid global scrutiny.
Surrounded by Sayanim, Joe Biden has been beguiled by Israeli firsters throughout his political career. This is one of the many reasons the “sanctified” six Israeli Jews count more than the lives of the 41,000 “dehumanized” Palestinians.
What is Happening in the Northern West Bank?
By Diana Khwaelid | International Solidarity Movement | September 4, 2024
Northern West Bank – The radical Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has renewed his incitement to impose collective punishment on citizens in the occupied West Bank, including the killing of detainees in occupation prisons.
In the early hours of August 28, 2024, Israel announced the start of a large-scale military operation in the northern West Bank, specifically targeting three cities and their refugee camps: Jenin, Tulkarm, and Tubas. Israel has named this operation “The Summer Camps,” while the resistance factions in the West Bank, particularly the Jerusalem Brigades, have called it “The Terror of the Camps”. This Israeli operation is the largest since the “Protective Fence” operation in 2002. According to the *Yedioth Ahronoth* newspaper, a full military squad was mobilized after several weeks of preparation. Hebrew Channel 14 confirmed that the army had deployed thousands of soldiers from various special units, including the use of military helicopters and heavy weapons.
The operation began with a simultaneous Israeli incursion into the three cities, using huge bulldozers and air cover. The Israeli occupation forces closed all roads leading to the cities of Tulkarm and Jenin, but encountered armed resistance from fighters who attempted to prevent further advancement. In response to the armed clashes on the ground, Israel resorted to airstrikes, bombing three different locations: the Far’a refugee camp (Tubas), the Nour Shams refugee camp (Tulkarm), and a site near the Jenin refugee camp. These bombings killed several resistance fighters and wounded others. The first day ended with the assassination of nine resistance fighters, most of them from the Al-Quds Brigades and the Al-Qassam Brigades, and the wounding of an Israeli soldier amid massive destruction to the infrastructure of several targeted cities.
A week ago, the occupation forces began a large-scale operation in the northern West Bank under the pretext of dismantling resistance cells. Since then, resistance fighters have been confronting them with explosive devices and gunfire, resulting in the deaths and injuries of several Israeli soldiers.
The operation has so far resulted in the martyrdom of 33 Palestinians and the injury of 130 others, causing significant destruction to the infrastructure in the cities and camps of Jenin, Tulkarm, Nablus, and Tubas. The Israeli occupation forces have not only liquidated several resisters in the Nur Shams refugee camp, northeast of Tulkarm, Jenin Camp, Tubas, and Nablus but also renewed their incursion into the city of Tulkarm on the evening of Monday, September 2. This time, they stationed themselves in the Tulkarm refugee camp, where the military operation is still ongoing.
The residents of the camps in the northern West Bank, particularly in the Tulkarm and Jenin camps, are experiencing a state of fear and terror. On Monday evening, Israeli occupation snipers targeted a civilian and his 15-year-old son. The father was transferred to the hospital, but the child died while attempting to leave the camp.
Israeli special forces also surrounded a Palestinian house in the village of Dhnaba, east of Tulkarm, and demanded the surrender of two Palestinian youths. According to eyewitnesses, they used a Palestinian child, no older than 16, as a human shield. The forces subsequently killed the two Palestinians, seized their bodies, and confiscated their private vehicle.
The Israeli occupation forces are also obstructing the movement of medical crews in the northern West Bank cities, particularly Tulkarm and Jenin, preventing them from entering the camps, transporting the injured, and assisting Palestinian patients in humanitarian cases.
The house that was surrounded and two Palestinians were executed in the village of Dhnabu
What options has the Israeli occupation left for the Palestinians?
By Suhail Kewan | MEMO | September 4, 2024
What has happened in the Gaza Strip could easily happen in the West Bank, in terms of the destruction of its refugee camps and cities, collective punishments and huge numbers of Palestinians killed and wounded. All the signs are that the occupation state is ready and willing to do this. It will, to a large extent, be up to the Palestinians to decide if and how to challenge this.
What is happening in the West Bank at the moment is that Israel is forcing people to defend themselves and is leaving them with only two options: complete and unconditional surrender to the extremist settlers; or defending themselves and their property. Both options are very costly, and the occupation state has not left a middle option.
The confiscation of Palestinian land in the West Bank started decades ago and is ongoing. More than 1,200 land confiscation orders have been issued since 1969 under various pretexts, including classifying land as military zones, national parks and areas of public interest. The act of confiscation is accompanied by harassment of the owners and shooting at them, whether at checkpoints or elsewhere such as on their farms and even in their homes. Crops and livestock are also targeted, and more restrictions are imposed on their movement, making Palestinian villages and cities large prisons, with people scared of moving between them.
The permanent and “flying” checkpoints mean that Palestinians are forced to stand for ages in lines that are hundreds of metres long, or even a kilometre or so. Anyone who visits the West Bank gets the sense that they are in a large prison, exposed to danger and humiliation all the time. If someone goes half a metre beyond the red line at the checkpoint, they may be killed; this has happened on many occasions.
Ready-made justifications are always available: they tried to run over or stab soldiers, so they were shot.
The West Bank was not calm before October 2023; it’s wrong to suggest otherwise. Hundreds of settlements and outposts have been established and expanded, housing half a million settlers, with occupied Jerusalem housing around 220,000. All of Israel’s settlements and settlers are illegal under international law, which is treated with contempt by the apartheid state.
Palestinians are humiliated on a daily basis, even if they have permits to work in Israel. Those without permits risk their lives to sneak into the occupation state in the search for a job to earn a living. There are videos available showing Palestinians being fired on after they were arrested, or facing savage guard dogs.
More than 40 per cent of the West Bank area has become under the direct control of the settlements. Separate roads have been built for use by settlers only, taking yet more Palestinian land to make travel as easy as possible for them. Palestinian towns and villages, meanwhile, are basically open prisons, and travel is made as difficult as possible, even within built-up areas.
Palestinians risk their lives just by going to work in their fields, as they may be confronted and attacked by settlers. While Israeli soldiers look on — and protect the settlers if necessary — the Palestinians are beaten and harassed, and crops and livestock are destroyed and stolen.
With the stroke of a pen, Israel can declare Palestinian land to be “state land” and thus out of bounds for Palestinians. Displacements are common as homes and farms are torn down by the occupiers. Since the beginning of this year alone, Israel has confiscated almost 30 square kilometres of West Bank land, and even more if the Jordan Valley is taken into account. Ministers in this far-right government have called for the establishment of a new settlement for every country that recognises the state of Palestine.
Israel and its settlers control water sources and sell water to municipalities and villages in the West Bank at prices determined by the national water company, which can cut off supplies at any moment. We have seen what has happened in the Gaza Strip when this was done. Moreover, most of the electricity supplies come directly or indirectly by the Israel Electricity Company. Sewage from the settlements is usually channelled through Palestinian land and towns. Pollution is a major environmental problem, as are the landfills used by the settlers.
All of this is happening in full view of the world and with the support of the West, especially the US. The Palestinian Authority is a public relations exercise on a large scale. Agreements signed with the PA are ignored.
Only the Palestinians are expected to make concessions; Israel never is, and never does.
The situation of the Palestinians before October 2023 was not good, and not a single Palestinian could claim that they were free in their homeland, neither in the West Bank areas, including the Ramallah “bubble”, nor in the Gaza Strip, nor as citizens of the occupation state within the Green Line.
Israeli governments have achieved what they aspired to, especially in the past two decades, which is to make the two-state solution impossible. This has become a reality. The so-called “peace process” is dead and buried.
No Israeli leader is going to evacuate three-quarters of a million settlers from the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem. No Israeli leader is going to share Jerusalem with the Palestinians as the capital of two independent states. No Israeli leader will restore Palestinian control over any part of their land and allow them to expand their urban areas naturally.
The possibility of a two-state solution no longer exists, even if the whole world supports it in theory. Israeli officials from the prime minister down have declared that the land “from the river to the sea” belongs to Israel, and only Israel.
Every illegal Israeli settlement is a war crime, to which can now be added the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza Strip, and the decades-long siege and repression that preceded 7 October. Palestinians have been left with no option but to accept colonial occupation and oppression, or to resist. Legitimate resistance to the occupation of the land is not the cause of the unrest in occupied Palestine. Cause and effect are very easy to determine. Resistance didn’t start the issue; it is a response to the occupation; a legitimate response.
The people in the West and in Israel itself need to understand and accept this, and then act accordingly. If they don’t, then the responsibility for the bloodshed and insecurity across the region lies with Israel and its supporters, especially the US, not with the Palestinians in occupied Palestine and in the diaspora.
This article first appeared in Arab48 on 2 September 2024
Retaliatory measures by occupation authorities lead to scabies outbreak among prisoners
Palestinian Information Center – September 4, 2024
RAMALLAH – The Palestinian Prisoner Society and the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees said in a joint statement that the widespread outbreak of scabies among Palestinian prisoners, in Israeli prisons — namely in Negev, Megiddo, Nafha, and Ramon — is due to the retaliatory measures imposed by the prison administration on prisoners and detainees after October 7. Among those affected are child prisoners in Megiddo prison.
The joint report highlighted that the spread of scabies among the prisoners was exacerbated by depriving them of necessary cleaning materials, including those used for personal hygiene.
Additionally, the reduction in the amount of water available, the limited time allotted for prisoners to bathe, and the confiscation of clothing from prisoners have led to a situation where most inmates rely on a single change of clothes. Some have been wearing the same clothes for long periods, forcing them to wash and wear them while still wet, which has contributed to the spread of the disease.
The report mentioned that the severe overcrowding in the cells and sections, resulting from the escalation of daily arrest campaigns and poor ventilation, along with isolating prisoners in cells devoid of sunlight, has also caused the spread of scabies among prisoners.
The deliberate transfer of infected prisoners from one section to another, instead of isolating them or delaying their isolation intentionally, has accelerated the spread of the infection among the inmates.
According to prisoners’ organizations, the Israeli occupation forces continue to carry out systematic arrest campaigns as one of their main established policies, which have escalated unprecedentedly since the start of the ongoing extermination war in Gaza. This escalation is evident not only in the number of detainees but also in the level of crimes being committed, alongside raids on the homes of detainees’ families, which are accompanied by widespread destruction and damage.
The Israeli occupation forces have arrested more than 10,400 citizens from the West Bank, including Jerusalem, since the beginning of the ongoing war of genocide on Gaza on October 7 last year.
US criminal charges against Hamas prompt concerns for Gaza ceasefire talks
Yahya Sinwar, Palestinian leader of Hamas in Gaza Strip in Gaza City, Gaza on December 14, 2022. [Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | September 4, 2024
In a move that has sparked concerns over its potential to disrupt ongoing ceasefire negotiations, the US has filed criminal charges against six Hamas leaders, including Yahya Sinwar, for their involvement in the 7 October attack on Israel. The indictments were announced by the US Department of Justice.
The charges include the alleged killing of American citizens and “conspiracy to finance terrorism”. However, analysts note that the action is largely symbolic, as some of those named in the indictment are already believed to be dead.
“Yahya Sinwar and the other senior leaders of Hamas are charged today with orchestrating this terrorist organisation’s decades-long campaign of mass violence and terror, including on 7 October,” said US Attorney General Merrick Garland. “The defendants are responsible for financing and directing a decades-long campaign to murder American citizens and endanger the security of the United States.”
Of the six defendants mentioned, three are already dead. Those still alive are Sinwar, who is believed to be in Gaza; Khaled Meshaal, who is based in Doha and heads the group’s diaspora office; and Ali Baraka, a senior Hamas official based in Lebanon.
The charges, which were filed in February but only made public on Tuesday, cover a range of alleged attacks by Hamas over several decades. At least 43 American citizens were reportedly killed in the October attack. Garland did not disclose details regarding how they died or whether any of the 43 Americans are among the dozens of civilians killed by Israeli forces under the so-called Hannibal Directive.
The controversial policy, also known as the Hannibal Protocol, essentially authorises the use of maximum force to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers and citizens, even at the risk of harming or killing the soldiers and citizens themselves.
Garland also made no mention of the right of Palestinians to resist foreign occupation let alone a foreign occupation that is also illegal. In July, the highest legal body in the world, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), ruled that Israel’s occupation is unlawful. In its determination the ICJ further affirmed that both Gaza and the West Bank are under illegal occupation, which means that armed resistance against Israel is permissible under international law, provided it is conducted in accordance with the rules of engagement established by international humanitarian law.
Critics argue that the timing of Washington’s announcement could complicate ongoing efforts to broker a ceasefire and secure the release of hostages. Professor Yossi Mekelberg, an associate fellow at the UK think tank Chatham House, told the BBC that the charges could affect Sinwar’s mindset, stating, “I don’t think this will be encouraging him to show flexibility.”
The situation was complicated further by Israel’s assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh at the end of July. Haniyeh was the key negotiator for the movement. The political murder took place in Tehran at a critical juncture in the negotiations, and has been criticised widely for derailing the peace process. Many observers argue that Haniyeh’s assassination has impeded negotiations significantly, setting back progress towards a ceasefire and hostage release.
Speaking to Associated Press, however, an unnamed US official attempted to downplay concerns about the impact on negotiations, saying that, “There is no reason to believe this will affect the ongoing talks.” However, the cumulative effect of these actions on the ceasefire process remains uncertain.
The effectiveness of these charges is questionable. Nevertheless, the US Justice Department maintains that they send a strong message to Hamas and its supporters.
4 journalists injured by Israel army fire in West Bank
MEMO | September 3, 2024
Four Palestinian journalists were injured by Israeli army fire in the occupied West Bank town of Kafr Dan, the Red Crescent Society said today.
The society said two journalists were treated on the spot by its medics while two others were transferred to hospital.
Jaraah Khalaf, one of the injured journalists, said he and other reporters were covering an Israeli siege on a house in Kafr Dan, in the Jenin Governorate, when they came under direct Israeli fire.
“We were all wearing vests that clearly had press identification labels in English (PRESS), and our vehicles carried the same insignia,” he said.
Israeli occupation forces raided the town early today and besieged a house, calling on its occupants to surrender via loudspeakers, according to witnesses.
The house was later demolished by Israeli military bulldozers, while a child and another Palestinian were injured during the raid, according to the Ministry of Health.
Turkish protestors demand expulsion of US warship docking in Izmir Port
Press TV – September 3, 2024
Turkish citizens have taken to the streets in Izmir to demonstrate against the docking of an American warship, expressing solidarity with Palestinians and their opposition to US all-out military support for Israel amid the Gaza genocide.
Turkish parties on Monday night gathered at the Izmir port entrance to voice their opposition to the USS Wasp anchoring, one of the ships sent to the region by the US to support the Israeli regime.
Waving the Palestinian flag, protesters held banners reading “Our country’s ports cannot be supply and logistics points for murderers” and “We do not want the US ship that brings war and death to Palestine in Izmir.”
They chanted slogans such as “Down with Israel,” “Down with NATO” and “Down with USA,” demanding the immediate departure of the American ship from the Port of Izmir, as they honored the memory of Palestinians killed in Israel’s US-backed war in Gaza.
The USS Wasp, carrying nearly 1,500 US soldiers, anchored at the port of Izmir on Sunday after participating in bilateral at-sea training with Turkish Navy ships in August. The vessel, along with its accompanying ships, the USS Oak Hill and the USS New York, has been positioned in the region since June as part of deterrence efforts against possible threats to Israel amid high tensions in the region.
Protesters issued a stern warning to the Izmir Governorship, declaring they will not leave the port until the ship departs.
The protesters condemned the United States for its role in causing suffering and violence in Iraq, Syria, the West Asia region, and globally.
“It has been almost a year. Israel is carrying out a brutal massacre in Gaza. By killing tens of thousands of people, Israel is not only committing a great crime against humanity. It is also persistently continuing an unlawful and unscrupulous incitement to drag our region into a bloody war,” the protesters said in their statement.
The statement emphasized that the United States openly backs Israel and its military actions, and questioned its occasional ceasefire calls.
They also called on the Turkish government to remove the American soldiers from the streets of Izmir, after two US Marines from the USS Wasp were assaulted during a port visit in Izmir on Monday, as part of a protest against Israeli actions in Gaza and decades-long “US imperialism.”
“US soldiers who have the blood of our soldiers and thousands of Palestinians on their hands cannot tarnish our country. Every step you take on these lands will be met with the response you deserve,” the Turkey Youth Union (TGB), which carried out the attack said in its statement on Monday.
Fifteen individuals involved in the incident were detained by Turkey’s police.
The US has ramped up its military presence in the region as the Israel war on Gaza rages on.
Washington has sent 50,000 tons of arms and ammunition to Israel since October 7 when the regime launched its genocidal war on Gaza.
Late last month, the US completed the air delivery of its 500th consignment of weapons and munitions to Israel since it launched its genocidal war in October.
Israel Wanted Disease and Genocide in Gaza, So Why Is It Agreeing to the Polio Vaccine Being Given?
Is Israel engaging in biological warfare against the Palestinians?
By Sam Husseini | September 1, 2024
In October 2023, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared: “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.’”
In November 2023, Middle East Eye reported in “Former Israel general says ‘severe epidemics’ in Gaza would help Israel win the war”:
“A retired senior Israeli general has said that Israel should not ‘shy away’ from permitting the outbreak of severe epidemics amongst Palestinians in southern Gaza as it will bring Israel ‘closer to victory.’
“‘The international community warns us of a humanitarian disaster in Gaza and of severe epidemics,’ retired Major General Giora Eiland, the former head of Israel’s National Security Council, wrote Sunday.
“‘We must not shy away from this, as difficult as that may be. After all, severe epidemics in the south of the Gaza Strip will bring victory closer and reduce casualties among IDF soldiers.’
“Eiland went on to say that the Israeli government must take a ‘harder line’ against the US and rule out discussions about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza until all the hostages held in the besieged enclave are released.
“The opinion article elicited an endorsement from far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said, ‘I agree with every word.’”
Zeiad Abbas Shamrouch, executive director of the Middle East Children’s Alliance, told me in November: “Due to Israel cutting off some of the supply of water and destroying key water infrastructure and storage tanks, people are being forced to drink water from unsafe sources. Dehydration and waterborne diseases are spreading and medicine is running out. There are outbreaks of chickenpox, scabies and diarrhea due to the shortage of water.”
The BBC reported in May that “Half of Gaza water sites damaged or destroyed, BBC satellite data reveals.”
Drop Site News reported in July in “The IDF Just Destroyed a Key Rafah Water Facility Rachel Corrie Spent Her Last Month of Life Defending” about a video showing the “calculated demolition of a chief water facility in Rafah. The video, in three parts, shows Israeli soldiers planting explosives inside and around the water pumps of a facility in the occupied city. The video — which is captioned in Hebrew, ‘Destruction of the Tal Sultan water reservoir in honor of Shabbat’ — ends with footage of the water facility being blown up. The soundtrack is a song produced by soldiers of the 51st Golani Brigade with lyrics like, ‘We will burn Gaza… shake all of Gaza… for every house you destroy we will destroy ten.’ …
“For months, Israeli forces have been targeting vital water resources in the strip leading to starvation and, according to new reports, worsening access to clean water. Last week, the Israeli military and the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that Poliovirus has been found in Gaza’s sewage, further intensifying the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the occupied enclave.”
The Daily Mail in August reported on Israelis who had been held captive in Gaza: “Blood tests also showed they had been exposed to a range of diseases, including typhus and spotted fever, during their 50 days in captivity. Many of them were also experiencing head lice due to poor hygiene conditions, including a lack of running water.”
The Vaccine
So, why is Israel reportedly agreeing to pauses to allow for administration of the polio vaccine? That may be hard to know for sure, but a few things that should be understood:
- The WHO is not what it seems to many people. There’s lots that can be said about that, but what I have examined is that the group’s chief scientist, Jeremy Farrar, who was a central figure, and perhaps the central figure, in the massive propaganda campaign which claimed in 2020 that Covid could not have a lab origin. It is simply not a credible organization just on that basis. Additionally, this gives a great deal of credence to arguments that the WHO is capable of making critical decisions with the aim of control, manipulation and publicity rather than the health and wellbeing of the global public.
- The vaccine being given to Palestinian children in Gaza is nOPV2, that is, novel oral polio vaccine, focusing on type 2 polio. Prior oral vaccines have been problematic. They contain attenuated (weakened) polio virus. This can be problematic since, as The Journal of Infectious Diseases noted in 2013: “With prolonged replication, attenuated polioviruses used in oral polio vaccine (OPV) can mutate into vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) and cause poliomyelitis [polio] outbreaks.”
- OPV was typically given in poorer countries. In rich counties like the US, what has been given is IPV which is made with inactive polio virus and given intramuscularly (an injection), not orally.
- According to the Polio Global Eradication Initiative (whose partners include the WHO, CDC and the Gates Foundation), the outbreak in Gaza is from Egypt. Curiously, the Initiative claims “the variant poliovirus could have been introduced in Gaza as early as September 2023” — that is, prior to Oct. 7. The Egyptian polio outbreak according to a recent article in BMC Infectious Diseases came from a “vaccine-derived polioviruses”. That is, the outbreak now in Gaza appears, according to these sources, to be the result of the negative effects of polio vaccines given in Egypt which mutated.
- In 2018, Science reported: “Alarming polio outbreak spreads in Congo, threatening global eradication efforts: Vaccine-derived virus spreads despite emergency response.”
- Neetu Vashisht and Jacob Puliye in 2012 wrote in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics : “It was hoped that following polio eradication, immunisation could be stopped. However the synthesis of polio virus in 2002, made eradication impossible. It is argued that getting poor countries to expend their scarce resources on an impossible dream over the last 10 years was unethical. … The charade about polio eradication and the great savings it will bring has persisted to date. It is a paradox, that while the director general of WHO, Margret Chan, and Bill Gates are trying to muster support for polio eradication (22) it has been known to the scientific community, for over 10 years, that eradication of polio is impossible.”
- Nature reported in 2023: “Vaccine-derived polio is undermining the fight to eradicate the virus: Wild polio has almost been eradicated, but vaccine-derived strains retain the potential to paralyse. Better vaccines have arrived — but they are only part of the answer.”
- nOPV2 is a relatively new vaccine. In March, the WHO noted that nOPV2 has been used since 2021 “under WHO Emergency Use Listing (EUL) approval”. A report posted on the CDC website notes that there have been cases of it causing polio as in Burundi and DRC, but apparently at a substantially lower rate than previous oral vaccines. But The BMJ reported in August 2023 in “Polio vaccines: hope, hype, and history repeating?” that despite a great deal of positive media spin: “Before it was approved for emergency use, scientists warned that nOPV2 would not solve the problem set for it: to stamp out vaccine-derived polio. So far, it has not done so. Instead there are unanswered questions about the vaccine’s performance, whether the decision to rely on it was right, and whether there’s a viable path to the dream of global eradication even with a full suite of modernised vaccines.”
- Some prior OPV disasters are outlined in Science from May, largely about the Gates Foundation: “‘Unqualified failure’ in polio vaccine policy left thousands of kids paralyzed”.
- It seems remarkable that the WHO and company can spot and prioritize a case of polio amid the carnage and devastation that Israel has wrecked on Gaza. It seems driven by ideology, control or interest rather than prioritizing the needs of the Palestinians in Gaza.
- nOPV2 requires another dose in four weeks. It is not clear to me what happens if someone gets one dose and not the second.
- While Israeli snipers are targeting children in the head, Israel is being depicted as agreeing to a truce to help save children from polio.
- Some have argued Israel’s goal is to ensure that there is not a polio outbreak in Gaza since that might threaten it — it’s an example of enlightened self-interest. However, this reasoning might be undermined by the fact that Israel has been giving its soldiers a polio vaccine. And they have been giving them the IPV vaccine, not the oral one given to Palestinians. This would indicate that they would be immune to it and Israel may effectively come off unscathed from a polio outbreak among the Palestinians. Also, IPV deals with all three types of polio. In 2022, Israel had cases of polio and the WHO reports IPA and OPV were used.
- The vaccines may be seen by some as a minimal help to Palestinians in Gaza, preventing yet another disaster. And the minimal pauses resulting may be seen as baby steps toward permanent ceasefire, but this seems quite optimistic, especially given Israel’s posture. It is quite possible that the nOPV2 vaccine is largely being done for public relations reasons. This was the case for the much hyped pier the US government was allegedly building to help the Palestinians in Gaza. Some thought that there was a diabolical plot around the pier — as a mechanism for mass expulsion for example. But it mostly served as a propaganda talking point to communicate alleged US government benevolence for months on end, giving cover for Israel to continue its genocide.
- Moreover, this is useful to distract from the failure of the UN to stop Israel’s carnage. Most especially the US-dominated UN Security Council has refused to implement orders from the International Court of Justice and virtually all states — with the notable exceptions of South Africa and Nicaragua — have failed in responsibilities under the Genocide Convention. The General Assembly has failed to take meaningful action using “Uniting for Peace”. So now, the WHO doing a hopefully minimally successful immunization effort is being used in various pronouncements to put a happy face for the UN system on the continuing catastrophe. See recent WHO/UN news conference.
- Perhaps most ominously however, it may be problematic to give attenuated oral polio vaccine to a population that is immunocompromised — which most certainly includes the Palestinians in Gaza. They desperately need food and clean water and basic medical care. A host of diseases are ravaging Gaza and reportedly, 100,000 people in Gaza have contracted acute jaundice syndrome, or suspected hepatitis A. From Options for Poliomyelitis Vaccination in the United States: “Those in whom OPV is contraindicated include individuals with immunodeficiency disorders… The risk of VAPP [Vaccine-Associated Paralytic Poliomyelitis] in immunodeficient children is 3,000 times that in normal children.”
- Israel is virtually alone among industrialized countries in not signing the Biological Weapons Convention. Professor Francis Boyle drafted the U.S. Domestic Implementing Legislation for the BWC, the Biological Weapons Anti-terrorism Act of 1989 that was approved unanimously by both Houses of the United States Congress and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush with the approval of the U.S. Department of Justice . He said the emergency authorization provisions “trigger the Nuremberg Code on Medical Experimentation [PDF] requiring that each recipient or their legal guardians be given informed and voluntary consent… It does not appear that this is being done in Gaza. … They are giving the live polio virus to Gaza kids whose immune systems have been severely compromised already since October 8.” He warns you could have an “entire next generation of Palestinian Children in Gaza wracked and disabled by polio. … This implicitly raises and supports the question whether Israel is engaging in biological warfare against the Palestinians here by means of using the live polio virus.”
- As the top of this article indicates, Israel is effectively using biological warfare against the Palestinian people by virtue of knocking out the water facilities. The open question is if the polio rollout is part of that or simply a response by international institutions — perhaps following funding incentives and other pressures — unable or unwilling to do their actual jobs to stop the ongoing genocide.
Where Is Duha? Netizens Want Answers After Palestinian Girl Disappeared in Gaza
© Photo : Younis Tirawi | يونس
By John Miles – Sputnik – 02.09.2024
The UN Human Rights Council and the charity Save the Children have reported on thousands of cases of Palestinian children who have been detained, disappeared or abducted after Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip.
Users on social media are drawing attention to the story of Duha Talat, an 8-year-old Palestinian girl apparently removed from Gaza by an Israel Defense Forces soldier.
Palestinian journalist Younis Tirawi reported on the story on his account on the X platform Saturday, writing that the young girl’s whereabouts have been unknown since July.
Tirawi, who is known for monitoring and reporting on the contents of IDF members’ social media accounts, recently uncovered an Instagram post made by Ido Zahar, a soldier serving in the Israeli military’s 432nd Tzabar Battalion. Zahar posted a photo of himself with Talat with no members of her family present. The girl was reportedly taken into custody by the IDF near Gaza’s Rafah border crossing in late July.
Zahar quickly deleted the photo and set his account to private after the Instagram post drew public scrutiny.
The soldier responded combatively when asked for comment on the incident, replying, “No story. No face. No nothing. Please delete this completely from everywhere.”
The Israeli military was similarly tightlipped when Tirawi inquired, with a spokesperson only saying that the incident was reportedly being investigated.
Observers noted a similar incident took place late last year when the story emerged of a baby taken from Gaza by an Israeli military captain. During an interview broadcast on the IDF’s radio station Israeli soldier Shahar Mendelson told the story of a crying infant who was taken back to Israel after the IDF’s assault on Gaza City.
A post about the incident on the X platform was reportedly deleted by an official Israeli military account after it was pointed out that the child’s abduction could constitute a war crime. The incident received coverage in Israeli media after the Palestinian foreign ministry called for an investigation.
“A report by Save the Children, titled ‘The Missing Children of Gaza,’ estimated that thousands of children are missing in Gaza, including what the organization describes as ‘detained, disappeared, or abducted [minors],”’ wrote Tirawi. “The UN Human Rights Council, in a press release from May, reported numerous cases of women and girls from Gaza being forcibly disappeared by the Israeli military.”
Tirawi made contact with another soldier from the Tzabar Battalion who claimed Talat was taken into Israeli custody for “safety reasons” after an elderly family member reportedly offered to reveal the locations of Hamas tunnels in Gaza.
However Tirawi notes several apparent inconsistencies in the second IDF member’s account.
“We believe it is in the public interest to know the whereabouts and safety of this girl,” continued Tirawi on X. “We also urge any relevant authorities to provide more information about the missing girl.”
Users on social media have taken up the call to draw attention to the story, hoping to convince major media outlets to bring light to young Duha’s case. Users fear Talat has been kidnapped or may suffer the same fate as Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl who was tragically killed along with her family and two paramedics in January by IDF soldiers outside Gaza City. The act of child homicide led to international condemnation.
Almost 17,000 children have been killed since Israel’s invasion of Gaza last October, according to recent figures from the territory’s health ministry, about 2.6 percent of all children in Gaza. Thousands more have been left trapped under the rubble of Israeli strikes and are presumed dead.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has previously refused to sanction Israeli military units credibly accused of serious human rights violations against Palestinian children, including physical and sexual assault.
Ex-Palestinian MP Khalida Jarrar facing ‘slow’ death in Israeli jail: Rights group
Press TV – September 1, 2024
An international rights group has raised concern about Khalida Jarrar’s health, warning the 61-year-old female Palestinian detainee is facing “slow and deliberate killing” at the hands of Israeli prison officials.
Jarrar, a scholar, feminist, leftist and former lawmaker, has been in arbitrary incarceration under the Israeli regime’s illegal administrative detention since last year.
She is kept in solitary confinement in Neve Terzia prison where she was moved to from Damon Prison last month.
Despite requiring five different medications for her heart and health ailment related to blood pressure, diabetes, and cholesterol, she is denied food and medication on time, while locked up in an airless solitary cell measuring 1.5 x 2.5 meters, a concrete bed and open toilet with no curtains, lacking water.
To breathe, reportedly, Jarrar is forced to lie on the floor to draw some oxygen from the crack under the cell’s door.
According to Palestinian human rights advocate, B’tselem, 60 detained Palestinians have died in Israeli jails since the regime forces launched a genocidal war on Palestinian people in Gaza on October 7, 2023.
EuroMed Human Rights Monitor has detailed the conditions of Jarrar’s arbitrary detention and cruel solitary confinement, calling on the international community to demand for her immediate release and an end to arbitrary detention of Palestinians.
“Compel Israel to stop the slow and deliberate killing of Palestinian MP Khalida Jarrar,” the rights group said in a report published on Thursday.
It also called on the Working Group on illegal arbitrary detention of Palestinians and the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Al-Salem, to take effective and immediate action in this regard.
EuroMed Human Rights Monitor, in an urgent letter, wrote a detailed report about the conditions of Jarrar’s arbitrary detention and cruel solitary confinement in the Israeli prison intended for female criminals to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and Girls.
The report includes a complaint received by EuroMed Monitor from Jarrar’s husband, Ghassan Jarrar, on his wife’s dire condition in prison.
Jarrar’s husband told the rights group her wife remains in isolation for unknown reasons.
He said there was also no legal basis for her to be moved from the prison where she was being held before to Neve Terzia, a prison meant for female offenders.
Additionally, Israeli authorities did not notify him she was being moved to the Neve Terzia prison.
He noted the most serious problems facing Jarrar in prison as: lack of oxygen in the cell; not being allowed to go outside for “recreation”; the water to the toilet is cut off; the temperature is abnormally high; and that the purposeful delay of food and medicine are all “conditions of killing, not isolation”.
“Do they want to kill Khalida this way?” Jarrar questioned. Despite her critical health condition, no one answers her calls when she urgently needs anything, with “four hours [going] by before anyone answers”.
He summarized her suffering in this letter sent by his wife to her lawyer.
“I die every day. The cell looks like a tiny, airtight box. The cell is equipped with a toilet and a small window above it, which was closed a day after I was moved to it. They did not leave me any space to breathe. Even the so-called porthole in the cell door was closed. I spend most of my time sitting next to a tiny opening that allows me to breathe. I wait for the hours to pass while I suffocate in my cell in hopes of finding oxygen molecules to breathe and survive,” she wrote.
“The high temperatures make my isolation even more tragic. Put simply, I am inside a very hot oven. The heat has made it impossible for me to sleep. Not only did they put me in this situation alone, but they also purposefully turned off the water in the cell. It [initially] took them at least four hours to bring me a bottle of water. After eight days of confinement, I was allowed to leave the cell once, to go to the prison yard. Additionally, they purposely postpone the awful dinner for hours,” she added.
Khalida Jarrar was arrested on December 26, 2023 from her home in Ramallah, in the central occupied West Bank.
Initially, she was kept in Damon Prison with other female inmates without being charged or given a chance to defend herself, until she was recently moved to solitary confinement.
Before her 2023 arrest, Khalid Jarrar had been an ex-prisoner who served five years in Israeli jails. She is a human rights and feminist activist and a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
Nearly nine-thousand Palestinian detainees are currently suffering physically and mentally from the regime’s illegal arbitrary arrests, harsh and degrading detention conditions, torture, and punitive and retaliatory measures, including starvation and solitary confinement—which are all unlawful practices violating human rights which have intensified since the start of Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip on October 7.
Some 260 Palestinian detainees have been killed in Israeli prisons and detention facilities since 1967.
This figure does not include the dozens of Palestinian prisoners and detainees from the Gaza Strip who have been killed since last October. The exact numbers and identities of most of these individuals remain unknown.
Why Doesn’t ‘Israel’ Allow Media to Inspect Glilot Intelligence Base after the Hezbollah Strike?: MP
Al-Manar | August 30, 2024
Member of Loyalty to Resistance parliamentary bloc, Dr. Hasan Fadlallah, affirmed that Operation Arbaeen Day is historical because it challenged all the threats made by the Israeli officials and the foreign envoys who had visited Lebanon to convey them.
Addressing a ceremony held to commemorate the two Islamic martyrs all the way to Al-Quds Khodr Moussa Sweid and Hamza Mohammad Zalghout in the southern town of Harees, MP Fadlallah wondered how the Zionist enemy claimed that he frustrated Hezbollah attack although it was carried out.
Hezbollah lawmaker indicated that the Islamic Resistance misled the enemy by making it think that it bombed sophisticated weaponry and carrying out the attack in response to the Zionist aggression on Beirut’s Dahiyeh on July 30, 2024.
The enemy’s premier Netanyahu then acknowledged that the Israeli airstrikes had targeted only short-range missiles, according MP Fadlallah, who pointed out that the Israelis always resort to media coverage in order to refute reports.
“Why has not Israel allow media to inspect Glilot Intelligence Base since Hezbollah Strike?”
MP Fadlallah stressed that the Israeli enemy is hiding its losses because it is unable to carry out its threats in response.
Six Hezbollah drones reached their targets in the Israeli Military Intelligence headquarters in Glilot near Tel Aviv, Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar reported on Friday, citing reliable sources in occupied Palestine.
Meanwhile, Israeli media outlets started unveiling certain aspects of the Hezbollah attack on Glilot, describing it as unprecedented.
MP Fadlallah maintained that the Israeli enemy cannot impose its terms on Lebanon and will fail to gain in politics what it has lost in the battlefield, reiterating that the main goal of Hezbollah border battle is supporting Gaza till the end of the Israeli war.
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From the Archives
A superpower and “the world’s sickest warrior state”
By Paul J. Balles | March 8, 2010
Living through five or six major wars has hardened me to what I thought were the extremes of inhuman cruelty and brutality.
Two things made those extremes almost bearable: the brutality always revealed – at least according to the media coverage – the viciousness of the enemy. It was therefore quite understandable when our “brave men and women” pulverized the enemy.
Films of Japanese torturing captive Americans somehow justified holding Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II; and only a small percentage of Americans found the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki unreasonably vengeful at best, at worst, depraved.
The media giants in America portrayed the North Koreans as barbaric beasts with their captives, quite unlike their southern counterpoints – our allies during the Korean War. No one ever felt the need to explain how the South Koreans were a civilized breed while the North Koreans were absolute savages, at least according to the official line.
In Vietnam, our warriors justifiably (or so the media made us believe) dropped napalm on the North Vietnamese who had the gall to hide in villages and tunnels to ravage our invaders. At least it was accepted practice until some rogue photojournalist filmed a young girl screaming down a Vietnamese road in flames. … continue
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