Palestine Tet – 128 – Algeria Watch: War on Gaza: Damage to “critical infrastructure” estimated at $18.5 billion
Constantine, Algeria
War on Gaza: Damage to “critical infrastructure” estimated at $18.5 billion
Israel’s genocidal war against the Gaza Strip has caused damage to “critical infrastructure” estimated at $18.5 billion, according to a report released Tuesday.
This amount, resulting from a study carried out jointly by the World Bank (WB), the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU), is the first estimate of the effects of bombings and ground combats carried out by the army of Israeli occupation for six months and corresponds to the equivalent of 97% of the GDP of the entire Occupied Palestinian Territories. The report takes into account the destruction carried out between the start of the conflict and the end of January.
The destruction of housing represents a large part of these “critical infrastructures” destroyed (72%), ahead of health, education and “conveniences (water, electricity)” (19%), the rest concerning commercial and industrial equipment. .
Now more than a million people are homeless, out of the 2.2 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip before the start of the conflict, twice as many as the previous estimate, published in mid-December. Worse still, more than half of the population is close to famine, while the entire population is malnourished or food insecure.
As for health equipment, 84% of them were destroyed or damaged, compared to 60% at the end of 2023, and those still operating have almost no water or electricity to treat their patients or the injured.
The running water and sanitation system is only operating at 5% of its capacity at the beginning of October; and the Ghazawi education system is considered to have completely collapsed, with all of Ghaza’s children being out of school. While half of the road network was destroyed in mid-December, this is now the case for 92% of the primary road network, while the telecommunications network is considered to be “seriously compromised”.
The report also identifies the most essential actions to begin reconstruction, starting with an increase in humanitarian aid and food production, the provision of large-scale shelter and the resumption of essential services. Israel’s horrific aggression against Gaza has already left nearly 33,000 dead, mostly civilians.
The American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, also called on Israel to do more to “protect innocent civilians”, after the death on Monday of seven workers from the American NGO World Central Kitchen, killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza.
The White House, for its part, said it was “outraged” after the death of seven employees of the NGO World Central Kitchen and assured that humanitarian workers must be protected. President Joe Biden spoke with the founder of the NGO, Spanish chef José Andres, saying he was “heartbroken,” said White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre, adding that he “will send a clear message to Israel that humanitarian workers must be protected.”
Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Szejna said Israel must provide explanations, name those responsible and “compensate” the families of the seven humanitarian workers, including a Pole, from the American NGO World Central Kitchen, killed in Gaza during an Israeli strike. Israeli authorities must establish “who should be held criminally responsible for pressing a certain button” and consider “how to compensate the families of the victims, even if it is impossible to do so with money” , Mr. Szejna told private radio ZET.
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D.U. Institute for Comparative & Regional Studies: Palestine & Gaza: A Pathway for Peace in the Middle East. Monday, April 15 @ 5:30 pm
Support the Denver 15: Colorado Jews Say Ceasefire Now!
Palestine Tet – 127 – MondoWeiss: ‘Come out, you animals’: how the massacre at al-Shifa Hospital happened.
Jewish Voice for Peace/Not In Our Name protest at the office of U.S. Congresswoman Diana DeGette, late October, 2024.
(Two lies – or at least misconceptions – 1. that the United States is trying to organize a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza. All the statements suggesting Washington is reigning Israel’s savagery in Gaza are just posturing. Sending powerful weapons to Israel at the same Washington claims to be “concerned” about civilian casualties says it all. 2. Israel claims that the Al Shifa Hospital raid resulted in no civilian casualties, Below, a more accurate account. RJP)
MondoWeiss: ‘Come out, you animals’: how the massacre at al-Shifa Hospital happened.
During the massacre at al-Shifa Hospital, the Israeli army shot patients in their beds and doctors who refused to abandon the sick, separated people into groups with differently-colored bracelets, and executed hundreds of civil government employees.
Human heads eaten by crows, unidentified and decomposing body parts, and hundreds of corpses piled up and buried in mass graves are all that remained of the victims of the massacre at al-Shifa Hospital. The grim scene was something out of a dystopian movie, the product of the two-week siege of Gaza’s largest hospital that ended in its total destruction.
Following the completion of al-Shifa’s decimation, the Israeli army announced that it had been one of the most successful operations since the start of the war, claiming that it had arrested hundreds of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives in the medical compound. But the question that no one seemed to ask is how such a massive number of so-called Hamas and PIJ “operatives” had gathered at al-Shifa with the full knowledge that the place had already been combed by the army once before and that Gaza City has been occupied by the army ever since.
Mondoweiss contacted many survivors of the events at al-Shifa. Most of them refused to speak and feared having their identities known. A few accepted under the condition of anonymity, fearing that their testimonies would make them targets by the Israeli army and that they would be subsequently killed. In light of the testimonies gathered by Mondoweiss, a different picture emerges of what happened.
The intelligence leak
One young man who managed to escape the hospital mere moments before the army invasion began said that there had indeed been hundreds of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad-affiliated employees in the hospital, but none of them were military operatives. They were workers in the Gaza government’s civil branch, including Civil Defense crews, the police force, the internal security services, interior ministry employees, and employees of other branches of the local government. All of them had gathered to receive their governmental salaries at al-Shifa, given that it was one of the few remaining places that was supposed to be relatively safe from the fighting.
“There was a room in the specialized surgeries building that served as an office for the government branches that operated aboveground,” said the young man, (hereafter named “Z”), referencing the Hamas government’s civilian branches.
Z also confirmed that a number of PIJ members who worked non-military jobs were there as well to receive salaries. “There was another building that was an office for the [PIJ] movement, and the men employed by the movement would go there to collect their salaries.”
“It had been a long time since any of these employees had seen one another,” Z explained. “That’s why they were all chatting in the medical compound and catching up with one another.”
The way the Israeli army described the gathering was that it had obtained confirmed intelligence reports of a large number of “terror operatives” from both groups inside al-Shifa, and after the raid, it announced that it had arrested 900 “suspects” and confirmed that 500 of them were “terror operatives,” while announcing that it had killed 200 more “gunmen,” among them “top commanders in Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”
The siege begins
Z told Mondoweiss that he heard the sound of army vehicles and tanks approaching the hospital minutes before the attack. He and his colleague had also arrived at al-Shifa to receive their salaries.
“When we heard the vehicles, I told my colleague we had to leave immediately, thinking they might be headed toward the hospital itself,” Z said, explaining that anyone employed by the Hamas government is regarded as wanted by Israel. His colleague didn’t listen, believing that the army might be invading a nearby area instead. “He told me they were probably headed to the industrial zone.”
At first, Z’s colleague refused to leave, but as the sound of the tanks drew nearer, both decided to leave immediately. While they were both civilians with no military background, they were both members of the Hamas movement.
A few moments later, the invasion started. They witnessed the tanks surrounding the compound and the arrival of quadcopter drones hovering overhead. In an instant, all of al-Shifa was besieged from land and from air.
Another survivor who had managed to escape the compound said that the majority of intelligence regarding who had gathered at the compound was relayed to Israel by informants, collaborators, and undercover Israeli spies.
“On the night of the invasion, there were two street vendors who always sat at the entrance of al-Shifa,” the survivor told Mondoweiss. “One of them sold water, and the other sold canned foods. When the invasion happened, the two merchants revealed themselves to be soldiers. They took out handguns and entered the hospital with other soldiers, and they directed them where to go. They had been there for a long time and knew where everything was.”
The medical compound housed several buildings, including maternity wards, specialized surgery buildings, and cardiac wings. When the soldiers entered the compound, everyone was ordered to evacuate the buildings. Drones carrying speakers broadcast the army’s orders, telling people that they must exit and gather in the courtyard.
“The drones kept saying, ‘come out, you animals,’” Z told Mondoweiss.
Executions of doctors and suspected government employees
When everyone left the buildings, the army began to separate the crowds of people into groups, making each group wear differently-colored plastic bracelets. The soldiers told them that these bracelets were connected to a system that alerts snipers to their movements. They were divided into two colors: yellow, which was attached to hospital staff and whoever the army considered civilians, and red, which was given to people who could not move on their own, such as patients, the injured, amputees, or people with broken limbs.
The army also gathered people who were suspected of belonging to Hamas or the PIJ and separated them from the rest. They were not given bracelets, but were separated from the injured and hospital staff, who were sent to a different building.
A third much larger group was ordered to leave the hospital entirely — thousands of displaced persons who had been sheltering in the compound, in addition to some members of the hospital staff. Some of the staff members, including doctors, refused to leave. Those who persisted in refusing orders were executed immediately and without argument.
The army then brought out a huge number of men from the group of suspected Hamas and PIJ members and employees, gathering them in the center of the courtyard. It then proceeded to execute them, one after the other. When the slaughter was done, army bulldozers piled up their corpses in the dozens, dragging them through the sand and burying them.
As this was ongoing, other soldiers stormed various buildings in the compound in search of people who had refused to evacuate when the initial order was given. They killed anyone they found, regarding them as suspects.
There were some in the hospital who resisted and attempted to open fire, including police officers carrying handguns. That number of people was minor, and their resistance did not save them — they were killed along with those who did not put up any resistance.
A video published on social media filmed by a journalist at the hospital shows a female doctor, who identified herself as Amira al-Safadi, describing what happened.
“After the first day of the attack, which we were surprised by at 2 a.m., the army ordered us not to leave when it entered,” Dr. Safadi says. “Then, on the second day, it gave us the bracelets and emphasized that we had to wear them and that anyone who left the building without wearing one would be immediately killed.”
“We were sent to four different buildings,” she continues, describing that she joined a number of other doctors and nurses with their patients. “Around 16 injured patients died because we were unable to treat them.”
By the time the army withdrew from al-Shifa, the entire compound had been all but decimated, reduced to rubble and burnt buildings.
One of ‘largest massacres in Palestinian history’
The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the massacre at al-Shifa was one of the largest in Palestinian history, estimating that at least 1,500 people had been killed, about half of whom were women and children. The organization also confirms that at least 22 patients were shot while in their hospital beds, while the number of displaced persons sheltering at the hospital who were forced to evacuate southward was estimated to include 25,000 people. Moreover, 1,200 housing units in the vicinity of al-Shifa were destroyed.
Despite the army’s claims about the al-Shifa operation’s strategic and military importance and the number of alleged Hamas and PIJ members it had arrested and killed, it overshadowed the intended purpose of the operation, which was to destroy the health system in northern Gaza and worsen the already disastrous humanitarian conditions. The entire compound is now unfit for use. Even the morgue, containing countless bodies of the slain, was burned down.
Israel’s “operation” at al-Shifa was, indeed, a success, and that success was to put Gaza’s largest hospital out of service.
Tareq S. Hajjaj
Tareq S. Hajjaj is the Mondoweiss Gaza Correspondent, and a member of the Palestinian Writers Union. He studied English Literature at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. He started his career in journalism in 2015 working as a news writer and translator for the local newspaper, Donia al-Watan. He has reported for Elbadi, Middle East Eye, and Al Monitor. Follow him on Twitter at @Tareqshajjaj.
The Our World Podcast – Rob Prince – Part Two: An AntiZionist Jew, Me.
This link is to the second part of an extended interview with me done by The Our World Podcast. It gives background to the current murderous Israeli offensive in Gaza, A lot of it deals with the bumpy relationship between Zionism and Judaism. It ws conducted in Lakewood, Colorado on April 2, 2024.
The Our World Podcast – Rob Prince – Part One: History of Zionism, Palestinian Nationalism
Speer and Champa. December 3, 2023. Jewish Voice for Peace member being escorted to a paddy wagon, getting arrested at a civil disobedience protesting a conference held by the Jewish National Fund in Denver, and in support of an immediate ceasefire which the Biden Administration still opposes months and tens of thousands of Palestinian lives later.
Over the past two months, The Our World Podcast” crew conducted two interviews with me, Rob Prince. This first one concerns background to Israel’s murderous incursion into Gaza, done with full U.S. support. Conducted in January, 2024, it is long, an hour and forty minutes.
There was a second extended interview held in April, 2024.That will be posted later.
No, Israel does not have the “right to self defense” – in Gaza, according to international law: some citations
1. Jadaliyya: No, Israel Does Not Have the Right to Self-Defense In International Law Against Occupied Palestinian Territory
“A state cannot simultaneously exercise control over territory it occupies and militarily attack that territory on the claim that it is “foreign” and poses an exogenous national security threat. In doing precisely that, Israel is asserting rights that may be consistent with colonial domination but simply do not exist under international law.”
2. MondoWeiss: Israel does not have a right to self-defense for its occupation by Mitchell Plitnick
“So here’s a news flash: Israel actually does not have the right to defend itself in terms of the West Bank and Gaza. It has the right to protect its citizens, but it does not have the right to use overwhelming military force against people under its occupation. ”
(Note: We hear ad nauseum of “Israel’s right to defend itself”. Above are two articles which challenge that notion, arguing that, according to international law there is no such “right”. RJP)
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WHERE ARE WE NOW? After two months in Russia, including two trips to Donbass, allow me to offer a realistic appraisal of the NATO-Russia proxy war, based on numerous deep-digging conversations with serious players, including commanders in the field.
Russia is de facto de-populating Ukraine of neo/crypto Nazis of all persuasions. That was one of the objectives of the SMO from the beginning – alongside de-militarization.
The ultimate objective remains the same: whatever’s left of Ukraine should be a neutral, non-NATO state.
This is NOT about gaining control of territory. Russia already has waaaay more land than it’s able to develop – an issue I discussed in some detail with people from several oblasts (I’m dying to go to Kamchatka, Altai, Buryatia, Yamal…)
The Kremlin/Security Council has a clear strategy. Terrorism – against civilians and against infrastructure – will NOT deviate them from the strategy.
USUKEU – short for NATOstan – and their Ukronazi puppets in Kiev are growing more desperate every passing second. THEIR preferred strategy from now on is Terror.
There’s every possibility of another strike on the Crimea bridge – Budanov already said so. Not to mention against civilians in St. Petersburg and Moscow.
Mr. 87% has a popular mandate to do whatever it takes. Depending on the terror escalation, retribution may go off the charts and reach real Highway to Hell. Or not.
The Brits will continue to be obsessed with sinking as many Black Sea ships as possible with drones and cruise missiles. Targeting info comes from USUK spy planes based in Romania. Russia is not “neutralizing” them – yet.
Drones/missiles/HIMARS are wrecking refineries deep inside Russia; decimating the Black Sea fleet; and constantly wiping out combat vehicles. NATO does have a tech advantage over Russia on some key fields – and that’s why the proxy war is dragging on and on and on.
And the proxy war will continue to drag on.
Because Russia still does not have all it takes to wear the Americans and NATO out. The only certainty is that there will be more asymmetrical warfare “surprises” in store. CIA/MI6 will continue to weave their terror architecture via all sorts of proxies – and not only ISIS-K.
There’s no indication that Moscow is going to strike back directly. Because that would mean a Russia-NATO open/hot war.
All of the above explains the current – avowedly infuriating – Russian strategy. Meat grinder along the frontlines. Minimal Russian casualties. Detailed targeting to take out virtually all of Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure.
Yet de-militarization – certainly in progress – will eventually have to reach the stage of regime decapitation.
And the corollary will be inevitable: Unconditional Surrender. There’s simply no other possible scenario for Moscow. Towards the endgame, Russia will not call for “negotiations”.
The meat of the matter was laid out in the December 2021 draft treaty on “indivisibility of security” – which the Americans barely read, and certainly did not understand.
The Bear can wait. It’s all there. It will be up to the Hegemon to finally decide to sit on the table. Before being totally humiliated, sooner or later, terror or no terror, in the black soil of Novorossiya.
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Lebanon. South of the Litani River. June, 1981. Shot from Rashidiyyah Palestinian Camp south of Tyre. (R. Prince photo)
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Note: This article is a “google translation of a piece that appeared in Arabic at Raialyoum, an Arabic news source. I print it mostly because we in the USA virtually never get news about the fighting going on between Hezbollah in S. Lebanon and the Israeli forces in N. Israel.
As this article notes – Israel continues to “break red lines” in an effort to provoke Hezbollah to launch a full scale war against Israel that Netanyahu is counting on, would draw the U.S. directly into the conflict.
Extremely tense, fluid times … as both Israel and the USA suffer from “wounded beast syndrome’
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“Hezbollah” announces the targeting of Israeli soldiers and sites, and clashes escalate with the Israeli army.. and martyrs, including two members of the party.. and an Israeli raid on a center for the Amal Movement in southern Lebanon.
Wassim Saif Al-Din/Anatolia
Hezbollah announced launching attacks with artillery and rocket shells, on Friday, on Israeli soldiers and military sites after occupation raids on towns in southern Lebanon that killed two people.
This came in various statements published by the party through its social media accounts.
The party reported that its fighters targeted, with “appropriate weapons” (which it did not specify), “the spy equipment in the Israeli “Zarit” military barracks, and “directly hit it.”
He added that his fighters targeted with artillery and rocket shells a movement of Israeli army soldiers and vehicles at the Al-Malikiyah site, and “achieved confirmed hits.”
Hezbollah indicated that its fighters targeted, with a guided missile, a military vehicle at the gate of the “Al-Matula” site, “hitting it directly, which led to its destruction and its crew being killed and wounded.”
He pointed out that they also targeted the “Hadab Yaron” Israeli military site with artillery shells and “directly hit it.”
The party also targeted with artillery shells a deployment of Israeli army soldiers in the vicinity of the “Al-Manara” military site, and “hit it directly,” according to its statements.
There was no confirmation from the Israeli side of these “Hezbollah” announcements until 15:05 GMT.
On Friday, Hezbollah announced the martyrdom of two of its members in clashes with the Israeli army in southern Lebanon, bringing the number of its martyrs to 267 since last October 8.
In separate statements, Hezbollah mourned the racists, “Bilal Haidar Halal, born in 1996 from the town of Qana in southern Lebanon, and Ali Nasser Abd Ali, born in 1998 from the town of Aytit (south).”
The party explained that its members “rose martyrs on the road to Jerusalem,” as it put it, without details about the circumstances of their killing.
With the martyrdom of two members, the party’s death toll as a result of clashes with the Israeli army rises to 267 since October 8, according to Anatolia monitoring.
Earlier today, two people were killed and a third was injured in an Israeli air strike that targeted a house in the town of Aita al-Shaab in southern Lebanon, according to the official Lebanese News Agency.
It added that Israeli warplanes also bombed 4 homes in the towns of “Kafr Kila,” “Tair Harfa,” and “Al-Zaloutiya,” and on the outskirts of the town of “Zibqin,” without clarifying the identity of the targeted homes, and whether or not this resulted in casualties.
Subsequently, Hezbollah announced launching attacks with artillery and rocket shells on Israeli soldiers and military sites in Zarit, Al-Malikiyah, Metulla, Hadab Yaron, and Al-Manara, in which it achieved “direct hits.”
The Israeli army claimed, in simultaneous statements, that it had targeted Hezbollah sites with air strikes, including “infrastructure, two military buildings, and a reconnaissance site.”
Three people were martyred and another wounded, on Friday, in an Israeli raid that targeted a center for the “Amal Movement” in the Nabatieh Governorate, southern Lebanon.
The Lebanese News Agency reported that “three martyrs and one wounded were killed in an enemy raid that targeted a center for the Amal Movement in the village of Jdeidet Marjayoun.”
The agency reported that this afternoon, Israeli forces fired machine-gun fire towards the town of Al-Dhahira.
No statement was issued by the Amal Movement about the raid until 17:00 (UTG).
In the wake of a devastating Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, which led to Tel Aviv being brought before the International Court of Justice on charges of “genocide,” the Israeli-Lebanese border has witnessed, since October 8, 2023, an exchange of fire between the Israeli army on the one hand, and “Hezbollah.” And Palestinian factions, on the other hand, led to deaths and injuries on both sides of the border.
Recently, threats have escalated from Israeli officials to expand attacks on Lebanese territory unless Hezbollah fighters withdraw away from the border with northern Israel.
Linda Sarsour’s talk at Colorado State University. April 3, 2024.
This is the second time within a month that Palestinian author and activist, Linda Sarsour, was invited to speak at a Colorado university. Earlier she spoke at the University of Colorado – Boulder.
In both cases there was resistance to her presence from Zionist student organizations and pro-Zionist Jewish Community elements who tried to get her talks cancelled. Then as now, these efforts failed; the students involved in bringing Sarsour to their campus fought successfully to overcome these efforts to silence free speech.
I would guess about 200 people were in the audience last night, overwhelmingly students. From what I could tell, very few, if any, faculty members were in attendance. The audience had a similar makeup during her Boulder talk.
Had a chance to exchange a few words with Linda Sarsour before her presentation.
In attendance were three women – all in their 60s. Using gorilla glue – good stuff – they had glued themselves to the wall of the city council building in protest to the Ft. Collins city council for refusing to pass a ceasefire resolution. I guess gorilla glue works pretty well as it was necessary to call the fire department to separate the women from the wall.
“Come Learn About Palestine”. Video from talk given in Raton, New Mexico. Saturday, March 30, 2024
The event was sponsored by the Colfax/Las Animas Forum for Peace and Justice.
The State Department official who quit over the Biden Administration’s support for Israeli genocide against Gazay is Annelle Sheline
Palestine Tet – 125 – Day 180 – Euro-Med Monitor: The Israeli Genocide in the Gaza Strip
Numbers of casualties here are always about 25% higher than what we hear from other sources. I have found their reporting accurate in the past.
Two million people displaced, nearly 118,000 dead and wounded, nearly 400,000 completely and partially destroyed homes, 869 targeted healthcare professionals either dead or wounded …
Josh Paul, former State Department official puts just a bit of the horror into perspective:
Israel’s murder of World Central Kitchen aid workers comes on the day that Israel wrapped up its operations in al Shifa Hospital that have left the ground littered with decaying body parts.
And nor is it by any means the first strike on humanitarian aid workers. In February Israel murdered US citizen Mousa Shawwa, logistics coordinator for Anera. In November it murdered three doctors from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), and in December it murdered Reem Abu Lebdeh, who was a Board Member of MSF UK.
It has murdered over 100 journalists, many of them on-the-clock and wearing press jackets. It has murdered hundreds of UN aid workers.
It has struck hundreds of “deconflicted” humanitarian sites, including churches, shelters, and pharmacy storehouses.
And of course in February after having given direct permission for an ambulance to retrieve 6-year-old Hind Rajab from the car where she sat surrounded by the dead bodies of her parents, it struck that ambulance, murdering the medics within it.
In that context, last week the U.S. Department of State authorized the transfer of over 2,000 more bombs and 25 F-35 fighter jets; this week it will likely authorize 1,000 more munitions and notify Congress of the proposed sale of 50 F-15 fighter jets and associated upgrades worth over $18.8 billion dollars.
The Biden Administration cries wolf of concern for Palestinian civilians while rushing a major shiop of powerful bombs to bolster Israeli stockpiles.
This is Washington’s war as well as Tel Aviv and the term “Genocide Joe” applied to Biden and his administration is apt.
Six months into Israel’s genocidal attack – with new horrors inflicted on the Palestinian people of Gaza every day – the world is becoming exhausted by the Palestinian issue. But then there is a growing fatigue and fear growing both in Washington and Tel Aviv, a fatigue that has a strong element of panic as their global isolation intensifies and Washingont watches its prestige plummet with every doctor and aid worker killed in Israeli missile strikes, with every child that dies of starvation while gleeful Israelis – with the support of the Netanyahu government – prevent the aid caravans from entering Gaza.
Regardless, we have work to do, to stop the genocide, We thought Israel’s war on Gaza would be a sprint, over in a few weeks, like earlier conflicts. Instead it is a long-distance race. We need to adjust to this fact and continue our work for a ceasefire, to end the genocide, and to bring Washington and Tel Aviv to justice for the crimes against humanity they continue to carry out everyday.
Nothing else matters ….
Israel Has No Right of Self-Defense Against Gaza – an article written in 2018 in response to Israeli assault on Gaza.
December 3, 2023. Jewish youth with Jewish Voice for Peace and three alter kocker supporters close down Speer Blvd and Champa St. calling for an immediate cease fire that five months later still has not happened. Most of the group goes to court in two weeks, on April 16, 2024
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Note: After the presentation I have in Raton, New Mexico, this past Saturday (March 30, 2024), I was specifically asked to respond to the argument – repeated ad nauseum – to defend Israel’s brutal attacks on Gaza, “mowing the lawn” in the name of “the right of self-defense.” This so called “right” is the pretext for Israeli aggression today and long in the past. Most recently many members of Congress, deluged with emails, letters and phone calls, demanding the U.S. use its influence to put the breaks on Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, have responded to this pressure by arguing “Israel has a right to defend itself” as it and the Biden Administration try to bend and twist international law to justify the current slaughter.
Actually Israel has no such right and every U.S. Administration that has claimed that it does, knows better.
Below is a 2018 article which shatters the legitimacy of such fabricated logic. It holds for Israel’s war crimes that have been committed since October 7, 2024 in Gaza and is just as valid today as it was six years ago. RJP
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Israel Has No Right of Self-Defense Against Gaza
by NORMAN G. FINKELSTEIN JAMIE STERN-WEINER
Israel has no legal right to use any kind of force in Gaza — under any circumstances.
Since the overwhelmingly nonviolent demonstrations in Gaza began on March 30, 2018, the international community has strongly condemned Israel’s armed attacks.
A UN General Assembly resolution “deplore[d] the use of any excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate force by the Israeli forces against Palestinian civilians,” while the UN Human Rights Council denounced Israel’s “disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force.” After Israeli snipers killed Razan al-Najjar, a twenty-one-year-old unarmed Palestinian paramedic, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process warned Israel that it “needs to calibrate its use of force.” In a devastating report, Human Rights Watch concluded that “Israeli forces’ repeated use of lethal force in the Gaza Strip … against demonstrators who posed no imminent threat to life may amount to war crimes.”
Welcome as these condemnations are, the question nonetheless remains whether they go far enough. Simply put, does Israel have the right to use any force under any circumstances against the people of Gaza?
The current legal debate has focused on a pair of interrelated questions:
- Did Israeli snipers resort to “excessive” or “disproportionate” force against demonstrators (as critics allege), or was the amount of force they deployed necessary to prevent protesters from breaching the perimeter fence (as Israel alleges)?
- Is Israel’s conduct toward the Gaza protests governed by human rights law (as critics allege) or by international humanitarian law (as Israel alleges)? International humanitarian law applies in situations of armed conflict, whereas human rights law regulates domestic law enforcement. The difference matters, as human rights law imposes more stringent constraints on the use of force.
All parties to both these controversies proceed from a common premise: that Israel has the right to use force in order to prevent Gazans from breaching the fence. The dispute comes down to: how much? Critics who allege “disproportionate” or “excessive” force tacitly legitimize Israel’s use of “proportionate” or “moderate” force, while those who insist upon the applicability of human rights law acknowledge that Israel’s resort to force is legitimate if demonstrators pose an “imminent threat” to a sniper’s life.
This presumption holds even at the most critical pole of the debate on Gaza. The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem condemned as “illegal” Israel’s resort to lethal force against unarmed persons “approaching the fence, damaging it, or attempting to cross it.” But it conceded that “[o]bviously, the military is allowed to prevent such actions, and even to detain individuals attempting to carry them out.” A senior Human Rights Watch official argued that Israel’s use of live ammunition in Gaza was “unlawful.” But she suggested that “nonlethal means, such as tear gas, skunk water, and rubber-coated steel pellets” would have passed legal muster. The International Committee of the Red Cross cautioned Israel that “lethal force only be used as a last resort and when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life.” Even the major Palestinian human rights organizations characterized Israel’s use of force as “excessive,” “indiscriminate,” and “disproportionate” rather than inherently illegal.
But the fact is, Israel cannot claim a right to use any force in Gaza — whether moderate or excessive, proportionate or disproportionate; whether protesters are unarmed or armed, don’t or do pose an imminent threat to life. If it appears otherwise, that’s because the current debate ignores critical caveats in international law and abstracts from the specific situation in Gaza.
What International Law Says
To justify its use of force in Gaza, Israel claims the right to prevent alien intrusion into its sovereign territory. An Israeli legal commentator observes that this professed concern for the sanctity of the Gaza “border” is opportunistically selective. Israel invades Gaza at will; only when Palestinians seek to cross in the other direction does the fence become sacrosanct. Setting this hypocrisy aside, Israel’s purported right to self-defense still lacks any legal basis. On the contrary, Israel’s resort to force contravenes international law.
The Palestinian people in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza are struggling to achieve their internationally validated “right to self-determination” (International Court of Justice). As preeminent legal scholar James Crawford notes, international law prohibits the use of military force “by an administering power to suppress widespread popular insurrection in a self-determination unit,” whereas “the use of force by a non-State entity in exercise of a right of self-determination is legally neutral, that is, not regulated by international law at all.”
Demonstrators in Gaza have chosen to use nonviolence in pursuit of their internationally validated rights — a tactic that, of course, international law also does not prohibit. But this prudential decision is not a legal requirement. Even if Gazans opted to use weapons against Israeli snipers who obstruct their right to self-determination, Israel’s resort to military force would still be legally debarred.
The allocation of rights and obligations in standard Western discourse — which effectively accords Israel the right to use violent force in self-defense against Gazans, even as it obliges the people of Gaza to wage nonviolently their self-determination struggle — upends international law.
It might be objected that inasmuch as Israel is a belligerent occupier in Gaza, it has the right, under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, to use force in order to maintain public order. But this objection falls on three counts. Read more…
Ceasefire now. End Israel’s Genocidal Campaign in Gaza. Notes from talk given in Raton, New Mexico. Saturday, March 30, 2024
“The crew” from the “Colfax/Las Animas Forum for Peace and Justice” in Raton, New Mexico who organized the talk I gave there “Come Learn About Palestine” at the “El Raton”,
1.
Nancy and I went to Raton, New Mexico where I gave a talk on the current U.S. funded Israeli war on Gaza. A most enjoyable and fruitful visit in every way.
Raton, New Mexico is having something of an urban revival bringing together a long history of mining and ranching folk with newcomers looking for a more affordable, sustainable,liveable place to call home. The talk I gave, took place in Raton’s renovated theater, recently restored.
It was the opening event for the Colfaz/Las Animas Forum for Peace and Justice” that brought together these Raton “newcomers” with long standing members of Raton’s community. The audience itself, from what I could glean, was mostly long-time locals. Although our stay in Raton was little more than 24 hours, the taste of the town that Nancy and I got suggests the chemistry for such a welding of diverse interests is there as is the will to bring the town back to its former dynamism.
Worth watching.
2.
In 2020, the population of Raton, New Mexico was a bit more than 6000. As a labor organizer friend of mine noted, at one point the Raton Basin was home to some 100 mines, now all closed down. Like many a mining town in the West, especially in the states I am more familiar with, Colorado, New Mexico, mining towns are/were boom-and-bust operations. When the mines are humming along producing whatever – coal, gold, silver, tin, uranium – they flourish and then, when for whatever reason, the mines close down, as they did in Raton in the late 1980s, early 1990s, the town economy collapses or pretty close to that. And then the struggle begins … how to revitalize the place. Here in Colorado, some like Central City, Idaho Springs, even Lafayette and Louisville either become tourist centers trying to cash in on the town’s more vibrant past, or suburbs, bed room communities of larger metropolitan areas.
Many – perhaps, even most mining towns – simply die, become ghost towns.
I would venture to guess that is the fate of more of them, than those that actually survive and re-invent themselves. Nor is this the fate of only old mining towns. Small towns all over the place that lose their economic foundation, be it mining, or manufacturing – as is the fate of Fairbury, Nebraska from nearby where my in-laws hail or Ovid, Colorado that lost its sugar beat processing plant – all face similar the similar dilemmas of “what now?” “how can we re-invent ourselves”? Meanwhile the social ills of dying rural communities – small cities and towns continue to plague Raton: poverty, drug and alcoholism addiction, spiked crime rates and youth who leave after high school … all the usual social conseqeunces of the collapse of rural-based economies.
Dennis Duckett and Dianne Fleming, Raton residents They are in Sugarite Canyon State Park which hugs the New Mexico-Colorado state line. We’d just crossed over for a few steps into Colorado from New Mexico.
Many such towns turn to the same dead end shallow solutions: tourism, a generally unstabile actually mercurial form of development. It seems Raton is toying with this idea at the present time too, in terms of sustainable development.
But there are rays of light as well,
But it will take much more than good will to turn Raton around – a major federal and/or state funded plan done in conjunction and coordination with Raton’s citizenry – to pull it off. With concentrated state and/or federal funding, a sustainable development plan drawn up by Raton residents, its revitalization is possible. And not only for Raton.
It would help a great deal if, on a national level, the swollen military budget can be cut, our addiction to foreign wars curbed with funds used to build weapons, providing Israel with the means to commit genocide in Gaza and source military bases can be redirected to provide the financial umph necessary to revitalize our rural communities, be they Raton, Fairbury Nebraska or Ovid and Sugar City, Colorado.
If I write all this, it is in large measure because of the potential for sustainable development I witnessed from our Raton visit.
3.
Notes from my talk. I never strictly follow my own scripts in giving talks … but the notes I provide below are pretty much what I shared with audience .
Remarks of Rob Prince/”Come Learn About Palestine” – Raton, New Mexico. March 30, 2024.
Glad to be here.
1. Raton ..
Some miles to the east – the Folsom point archeological site. It is the type site for the Folsom tradition, a Paleo-Indian cultural sequence dating to between 11000 BC and 10000 BC. The Folsom site was excavated in 1926 and found to have been a marsh-side kill site or camp where 32 bison had been killed using distinctive tools, known as Folsom points.
Ludlow Massacre – across Raton Pass just north of Trinidad, one of history’s most dramatic confrontations between capital and labor — the so-called Ludlow Massacre — took place at the mines of the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I).
The old and the new Raton – hope they merge into one community; takes work, attention.
Need to cut the military budget to refocus federal monies away from war making abroad and for overall sustainable development in the USA with a special emphasis on rural-small town development.
2. Read Annelle Sheline’s – Why I resigned from the State Department.
- Excellent summary of where U.S. funded Israeli war against Gaza is at – and the U.S. role in this
- A former State Department insider is accusing her government – our government – of complicity in genocide
- Her remarks suggest a whole different narrative than what we are hearing both from the Biden Administration and the mainstream media
- Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and doing it with U.S. funding, weapons, intelligence and direction.
Some quotes from Sheline’s resignation letter:
“I can no longer continue what I was doing. I hope that my resignation can contribute to the many efforts to push the administration to withdraw support for Israel’s war, for the sake of the 2 million Palestinians whose lives are at risk and for the sake of America’s moral standing in the world.”
“Since Hamas’ attack on October 7, Israel has used American bombs in its war in Gaza, which has killed more than 32,000 people — 13,000 of them children — with countless others buried under the rubble, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Israel is credibly accused of starving the 2 million people who remain, according to the UN special rapporteur on the right to food; a group of charity leaders warns that without adequate aid, hundreds of thousands more will soon likely join the dead.”
“However, as a representative of a government that is directly enabling what the International Court of Justice has said could plausibly be a genocide in Gaza, such work has become almost impossible. Unable to serve an administration that enables such atrocities, I have decided to resign from my position at the Department of State.”
“Across the federal government, employees like me have tried for months to influence policy, both internally and, when that failed, publicly. My colleagues and I watched in horror as this administration delivered thousands of precision-guided munitions, bombs, small arms and other lethal aid to Israel and authorized thousands more, even bypassing Congress to do so. We are appalled by the administration’s flagrant disregard for American laws that prohibit the US from providing assistance to foreign militaries that engage in gross human rights violations or that restrict the delivery of humanitarian aid.”
3. An immediate ceasefire is the most important stop that can be taken to stop the bleeding.
How Palestine benefits:
Obvious – for the Palestinians it would freeze the bloodshed, result in the distribution of humanitarian aid, impossible in the midst of a military conflict. It would provide the basis for Gaza Palestinians to return to their homes throughout Gaza, begin the process of of healing the wounds and rebuilding Gaza as a livable place.
It would also put an end to Israeli plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians, to expell them into the Sinai Desert and end any plans for Zionist expansionism, already well developed, into Gaza.
How Israel benefits:
Israel’s massive military campaign into Gaza is not going well at all, either militarily or politically. It is a mistake to think that ceasefire would only benefit Hamas or the Palestinians in general.
The invasion is hurting Israel domestically and internationally.
– the war has created several hundred thousand internal Israeli refugees who have been displace both from Israeli regions near Gaza and in the north, by the border of Southern Lebanon. These internal refugees have been moved to more central Israeli areas (and in the W. Bank); they have become both a great political burden (what to do with them?) and a financial burder of the first order.
– there are reports of of exponentially high levels of PTSD among Israel military personnel (and also civilians)and other forms of trauma among the Israeli population. Large numbers of people are fleeing the country with no intention of returning, either to Cyprus, Europe or the USA.
– from a miitary point of view, the war is not going well. Israel has failed to achieve its goals (eliminating Hamas and/or its leadership, expelling the Palestinian population in its entirety from Gaza).
Concerning the United States:
Both genericly and in terms of the Bide Administration’s re-election chances, ending the fighting is imperative.
As a result of its total support for the Israeli war effort – its claims of concern for Palestinians civilians aside – ending the fighting is an imperative.
At a Denver mosque, comment from a Kuwaiti friend: came to America “to fulfill a dream”. He’s leaving, cannot under any circumstances live in the country fueling Israeli genocide against Palestinians.
As a result of its support for Israel, US global prestige is plummeting. Collapse of prestige translated into a loss of influence. Washington’s ability to dominate any post war negotiations is collapsing as well.
End to end the fighting. A ceasefire is the first step towards the complex process of peacemaking that most follow. Every day the war continues, prospects for peace sour that much more
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
One of many initiatives to get the U.S. Congressional delegation to support a ceasefire. Although they shed crocodile tears for Gaza civilians, the delegation refuses to support a ceasefire, including U.S. Congressman Neguse (Boulder, County)
‘Ecocide in Gaza’: does scale of environmental destruction amount to a war crime?
Olive groves and farms have been reduced to packed earth …
Soil and groundwater have been contaminated by munitions and toxins
The sea is choked with sewage and waste
The air polluted by smoke and particulate matter.
Researchers and environmental organizations say the destruction will have enormous effects on Gaza’s ecosystems and biodiversity.
The scale and potential long-term impact of the damage have led to calls for it to be regarded as “ecoside” and investigated as a possible war crime.
But America’s munchkins can slaughter people while destroying the environment all they want. They’re defending “their democracy”
And yet not a word from Europe’s main Green Parties. Nothing. Like obedient boys and girls they are quiet about it all. A most disgraceful silence.
View from the Left Bank: Rob Prince's Blog 