Daily Sabah – December 5, 2023
At least 50 Palestinians dead in overnight Israeli strikes on Gaza
BY DAILY SABAH WITH AGENCIES
At least 50 Palestinians were killed in overnight Israeli airstrikes on southern Gaza's Khan Younis and the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian media reports.
Palestinian news agency WAFA reported an Israeli airstrike on a residential building of the al-Yazigi family in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, which left an unspecified number of casualties, including women and children.
Another Israeli airstrike on a home in the Khan Younis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip caused several deaths and injuries.
Several areas across the Palestinian enclave saw heavy Israeli airstrikes known as "fire belts."
Fire belts pound a specific area with a series of massive bombings and end with the destruction of the entire area.
Doctors and displaced people in the Dar Essalam Hospital in Khan Younis sent distress calls to protect them from Israeli heavy bombing around the hospital, WAFA added.
The health authorities in Gaza have yet to specify the exact number of casualties from the Israeli overnight raids across the Gaza Strip.
Israel resumed its military offensive on the Gaza Strip on Friday after the end of a weeklong humanitarian pause with the Palestinian group Hamas.
At least 15,899 Palestinians have been killed and more than 42,000 others injured in relentless air and ground attacks on the enclave since Oct. 7 following a cross-border attack by Hamas.
The Israeli death toll in the Hamas attack stood at 1,200, according to official figures.
Anadolu Agency – December 5, 2023
WHO says 1 child killed every 10 minutes in Gaza
'We need a sustained cease-fire,' says WHO representative in occupied Palestinian territories
Beyza Binnur Donmez
On average one child is killed every 10 minutes in Gaza, a World Health Organization (WHO) representative said on Tuesday, calling the situation "humanity's darkest hour."
"We are talking almost about 16,000 people killed, its more than 60% (are) women and children, and more than 42,000 people injured," Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative in occupied Palestinian territories, told a UN press briefing in Geneva.
Peeperkorn added: "On average a child is killed every 10 minutes in Gaza. I think in that sense we are close by the humanity's darkest hour."
"We need a sustained cease-fire," he urged.
Gaza, he said, went from 3,500 hospital beds to "probably way less" than 1,500 now, and stressed that the strip cannot afford any other loss of hospital beds as health needs are soaring.
Israel resumed its military offensive on the Gaza Strip on Friday after the end of a week-long humanitarian pause with the Palestinian group Hamas.
Nearly 15,900 Palestinians have been killed and more than 42,000 others injured in relentless air and ground attacks on the enclave since Oct. 7 following a cross-border attack by Hamas.
The Israeli death toll in the Hamas attack stood at 1,200, according to official figures.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/who-says-1-child-killed-every-10-minutes-in-gaza/3073714
Daily Sabah – December 4, 2023
Israel expands ground offensive into refugee-crowded southern Gaza
The Israeli military expanded its ground offensive into Gaza's refugee-crowded south on Monday while Israeli bombing continued to kill and injure dozens of Palestinians.
The renewed attack followed the end on Friday of a seven-day pause in the fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas which had allowed an exchange of 105 hostages held by Hamas, most of them Israelis, for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
The latest violence took place despite calls from the United States – Israel's closest ally – for Israel to limit harm to Palestinian civilians in the new phase of its offensive, focused on the south.
Gaza residents said Sunday they feared an Israeli ground offensive on the southern areas was imminent. Tanks had cut off the road between Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, effectively dividing the Gaza Strip into three.
On Monday morning, Israel's military posted to X a statement with new orders to Gazans to evacuate about 20 areas or blocks in the Gaza Strip, with three arrows on the map all pointing south indicating where people should go.
Israel says it is defining "safe areas" for Gaza civilians to minimize harm to them but U.N. officials and people in Gaza say it is difficult to heed these orders in real-time given patchy internet access and unreliable electricity.
Lebanon-based Hamas official Osama Hamdan said on Sunday: "There are no safe areas."
Bombardments from warplanes and artillery were also concentrated on Khan Younis and Rafah, another city in Gaza's south, residents said, and hospitals were struggling to cope with the flow of wounded.
Israel government spokesperson Eylon Levy said the military had struck more than 400 targets over the weekend "including extensive aerial attacks in the Khan Younis area" and in Beit Lahiya in the north.
There was no immediate comment on the reports of specific attacks.
Widespread violence
On Sunday, Hamas said its fighters clashed with Israeli troops about 2 kilometers (1 mile) from the southern city of Khan Younis.
"The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) continues to extend its ground operation against Hamas centers in all of the Gaza Strip," Israeli military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told reporters in Tel Aviv.
Israel said Monday its military death toll from ground operations in Gaza had risen to 76.
Early Monday, Hamas media quoted emergency services as saying an Israeli strike killed three civil emergency workers in Gaza City in the north of the coastal enclave.
The Jabalia refugee camp in the north of Hamas-ruled Gaza was among the sites reported hit from the air Sunday.
A Gazan Health Ministry spokesperson said an Israeli airstrike killed several people.
Footage obtained by Reuters showed a boy covered in grey dust, sitting weeping amid crumbled cement and rubble from collapsed buildings.
"My father was martyred," he cried in a hoarse voice. A girl in a pink sweatshirt, also coated with dust, stood between piles of rubble.
Shipping attacks
Attacks on shipping in the southern Red Sea on Sunday heightened fears of the conflict spreading.
The U.S. Defense Department said three commercial ships were attacked by Yemen's Iran-allied Houthi movement in international Red Sea waters, and a U.S. destroyer operating in the area shot down three drones as it responded to distress calls.
A Houthi spokesperson said its navy had attacked two Israeli ships in the Red Sea with an armed drone and a missile on Sunday though an Israeli military spokesman said the two ships had no connection to Israel.
More than 15,523 people have been killed, according to Gaza's health ministry, in nearly two months of warfare that broke out after the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion. In comparison, Israeli casualties are around 1,200.
Daily Sabah – December 4, 2023
Erdoğan warns against its expansionist designs
President Erdoğan denounced Israel as a 'murderer' and 'thief,' foreseeing a war criminal trial for Netanyahu like 'Milosevic,' and called for Muslim unity against Israel's expansionist agenda at an OIC event in Istanbul on Monday
Addressing an economic event of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul on Monday, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that the Israeli administration was a "murderer" and "thief" and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would eventually be tried as a war criminal.
Erdoğan also urged the Muslim world to unite against Israel's expansionist ideals and warned it may have plans to invade other places in the region.
"The OIC, whose founding purpose is to defend the Palestinian cause, offers us an important ground for us to carry out the struggle with one voice and one body," Erdoğan said. The president was also critical of the issue of Israel "having nuclear weapons" and said they would not allow it "to be forgotten."
Erdoğan's remarks did not differ much from Türkiye's rhetoric, which emphasizes full support for the Palestinian cause or the establishment of a fully independent, sovereign Palestinian state in lands "stolen" by Israel. Since the new round of the conflict broke out between Israel and the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Oct. 7, Türkiye advocated for a lasting, two-state solution to the issue. Erdoğan was one of the first leaders to denounce what he called Israel's atrocities amounting to genocide toward innocent civilians in Gaza and other Palestinian cities. Under the leadership of Erdoğan, Türkiye is also engaged in a diplomatic blitz to rally other countries to find a solution to the issue and ensure the safety of millions of civilians confined to Gaza under heavy bombardment by Israel, which only decreased thanks to a humanitarian pause. The Israeli attacks, however, resumed after the pause ended following a brief exchange of hostages between the two sides.
In his speech, Erdoğan noted that children, babies and women made up every two out of three persons "martyred" in Gaza and more than 6,500 Gazans were missing. "Israeli cruelty claimed the lives of 73 journalists and more than 100 United Nations employees. The U.N., founded to maintain global security and peace, cannot protect its own employees from Israel's barbaric acts. From Europe to the United States, powers claiming to defend rights and freedoms are too weak. These countries unconditionally support Israel to kill more children, strike more hospitals and houses," he said. "They supposedly taught us democracy and law, freedom of the press. But they are blind and mute to Israel's massacres," he said.
Erdoğan said Gaza was a Palestinian land and would remain so forever. "Defending Gaza and Palestine today means defending Jerusalem, Mecca, Medina, Istanbul, Damascus, Beirut, Baghdad and other Muslim territories. As the Muslim world, it is our duty not to leave even an inch of land in Gaza to invader Israel. This is not only for our Gazan, Palestinian brothers and sisters but for our own security and territorial integrity. We know very well that those invading Gaza today would set their sights elsewhere with their warped dream of the Promised Land. They don't hide this intention. Netanyahu, the Gaza butcher, openly declared his expansionist goals. We should not wait for this fire, this suffering, to reach our homelands," he said.
The president highlighted the decisions made at a recent emergency summit of OIC and the Arab League in Riyadh and said it was a milestone event to exhibit the Islamic world's stance on the Palestinian issue and recognize Israel's illegal settlers as terrorists for the first time.
The president also called the Muslim world to take up the work of rebuilding Gaza, which was demolished by Israel, and show a clear stance against Israel's policy of depopulation in Gaza. "If we act as a big family with 2 billion members from Asia to Africa, from Americas to Europe, nobody can threaten us, nobody can wag fingers at us," he said.
"The path to peace in our region is through establishing the Palestinian state. We are ready to take any responsibility to that extent, for establishing peace, including a guarantorship along with other countries," Erdoğan said, referring to Türkiye's early proposal to act as a guarantor state for Palestine to end the conflict.
Further on Netanyahu, Erdoğan said, "Beyond being a war criminal, Netanyahu, who is the butcher of Gaza right now, will be tried as the butcher of Gaza, just as Milosevic was tried," in reference to Yugoslav ex-President Slobodan Milosevic, who was tried for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes at a tribunal in The Hague.
"Those who try to skip over the deaths of all those innocent people by using the excuse of Hamas have nothing left to say to humanity," he added.
The president praised U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres's sincere efforts for peace but lamented the fact that members of U.N. Security Council members undermined the efforts. He lauded a resolution adopted by votes of 121 countries for a humanitarian cease-fire, but the current U.N. structure failed to stop the bloodshed.
"Forty abstaining votes at the U.N. is unfortunately enough to annul the will of 161 countries. This system is obvious enough to show how 2 billion Muslims in the world are cornered (in the global system). We have 121 countries opposing the war, but only a few countries were entitled to start the mechanism to stop the bloodshed. It was impossible to bring about the peace under this system," he said.
A beloved figure in countries ignored or exploited by superpowers, in the Islamic world, Asia, Africa and elsewhere, Erdoğan repeatedly calls for those countries to have their say in international affairs as well. At every international event about the U.N., Erdoğan repeats his call for a change to the international body's inner workings, particularly the composition of five members of the Security Council, under his oft-repeated motto "the world is bigger than five" or "a fairer world is possible."
Erdoğan also highlighted rising hostility toward Islam, a growing threat in the world. "In most European countries where Muslims make up the majority of the migrant population, we see xenophobic, anti-Muslim, racist, discriminating acts every day. Our citizens, particularly those living in Western European countries, face attacks on their properties and their mosques. Since January 2023, we have seen about 500 anti-Muslim attacks, especially in the form of the burning of the Quran, including outside the embassies of OIC member states. We saw three young men wearing Palestinian keffiyeh shot on the street in the U.S. last week," he said.
Erdoğan added that governments did not take any measures while anti-Muslim sentiment "spread like plague" in Western societies. They even excused heinous attacks towards the Quran under the pretext of freedom of expression. "Those turning a blind eye to those attacks suddenly adopt a prohibiting mindset when the issue at hand is defending the rights of the innocent in Palestine, in Gaza. We see they have no such tolerance and no freedom of expression (when it comes to pro-Palestinian protests in the West). Their real purpose is to provoke Muslims and create a 'Muslim problem.' We will not allow this and we will not fall into this trap," he said.
The president underlined that OIC countries should act together against those hate crimes and should use bilateral, international platforms to fight against hate crimes.
Information Clearing House – December 4, 2023
Israel Reopens the Gaza Slaughterhouse
Phase One of Israel’s genocidal campaign on Gaza has ended. Phase Two has begun. It will result in even higher levels of death and destruction.
By Chris Hedges
The skies over Gaza are filled — after a seven-day truce — with projectiles of death. Warplanes. Attack helicopters. Drones. Artillery shells. Tank shells. Mortars. Bombs. Missiles. Gaza is a cacophony of explosions and forlorn screams and cries for help beneath collapsed buildings. Fear, once again, is coiling itself around every heart in the Gazan concentration camp.
By Friday evening, 184 Palestinians — including three journalists and two doctors — had been killed by Israeli air strikes in the north, south and central Gaza, and at least 589 injured, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. Most of them are women and children. Israel will not be deterred. It plans to finish the job, to obliterate what is left in the north of Gaza and decimate what remains in the south, to render Gaza uninhabitable, to see its 2.3 million people driven out in a massive campaign of ethnic cleansing via starvation, terror, slaughter and infectious diseases.
The aid convoys, which brought in token amounts of food and medicine — the first batch was shrouds and coronavirus tests according to the director of al-Najjar hospital — have been halted. No one, least of all President Joe Biden, plans to intervene to stop the genocide. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel this week, and while calling for Israel to protect civilians, refused to set conditions that would disrupt the $3.8 billion Israel receives in annual military assistance or the $14.3 billion supplemental aid package. The world will watch passively, muttering useless bromides about more surgical strikes, while Israel spins its roulette wheel of death. By the time Israel is done, the 1948 Nakba, where Palestinians were massacred in dozens of villages and 750,000 were ethnically cleansed by Zionist militias, will look like a quaint relic of a more civilized era.
\Nothing is off limits. Hospitals. Mosques. Churches. Homes. Apartment blocks. Refugee camps. Schools. Universities. Media offices. Banks. Sewer systems. Telecommunications infrastructure. Water treatment plants. Libraries. Wheat mills. Bakeries. Markets. Entire neighborhoods. Israel’s intent is to destroy Gaza’s infrastructure and daily kill or wound hundreds of Palestinians. Gaza is to become a wasteland, a dead zone that will be incapable of sustaining life.
Israel began to bomb Khan Younis on Friday after dropping leaflets warning civilians to evacuate further south to Rafah, located on the border crossing with Egypt. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians had sought refuge in Khan Younis. Once Palestinians are pushed to Rafah, there is only one place left to flee — Egypt. The Israeli Ministry of Intelligence, in a leaked report, calls for the forcible transfer of Gaza’s population to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. A detailed plan to intentionally displace the Palestinians in Gaza and push them into Egypt has been embedded in Israeli doctrine for five decades. Already, 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza have been driven from their homes. Once Palestinians cross the border into Egypt — which the Egyptian government and Arab leaders are seeking to prevent despite pressure from the U.S. — Palestinians will never return.
This is not a war against Hamas. It is a war against Palestinians.
Israeli strikes are generated at a dizzying rate, many of them from a system called “Habsora” — The Gospel — which is built on artificial intelligence that selects 100 targets a day. The AI-system is described by seven current and former Israeli intelligence officials in an article by Yuval Abraham on the Israeli sites +972 Magazine and Local Call,as facilitating a “mass assassination factory.” Israel, once it locates what it assumes to be a Hamas operative from a cell phone, for example, bombs and shells a wide area around the target, killing and wounding tens, and at times hundreds of Palestinians, the article states.
“According to intelligence sources,” the story reads, “Habsora generates, among other things, automatic recommendations for attacking private residences where people suspected of being Hamas or Islamic Jihad operatives live. Israel then carries out large-scale assassination operations through the heavy shelling of these residential homes.”
Some 15,000 Palestinians, including 6,000 children and 4,000 women, have been killed since Oct. 7. Some 30,000 have been wounded. Over six thousand are missing, many buried under the rubble. More than 300 families have lost 10 or more members of their families. More than 250 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since Oct. 7, and more than 3,000 injured, although the area is not controlled by Hamas.TheIsraeli military claims to have killed between 1,000 and 3,000 of some 30,000 Hamas fighters, a relatively small number given the scale of the assault. Most resistance fighters shelter in their vast tunnel system.
Israel’s playbook is the “Dahiya Doctrine.” The doctrine was formulated by former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot, who is a member of the war cabinet, following the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Dahiya is a southern Beirut suburb and a Hezbollah stronghold. It was pounded by Israeli jets after two Israeli soldiers were taken prisoner. The doctrine posits that Israel should employ massive, disproportionate force, destroying infrastructure and civilian residences, to ensure deterrence.
Daniel Hagari, spokesman of the IDF, conceded at the start of Israel’s most recent attack on Gaza that the “emphasis” would be “on damage and not on accuracy.”
Israel has abandoned its tactic of “roof knocking” where a rocket without a warhead would land on a roof to warn those inside to evacuate. Israel has also ended its phone calls warning of an impending attack. Now dozens of families in an apartment block or a neighborhood are killed without notice.
The images of mass destruction feed the thirst for revenge within Israel following the humiliating incursion by Hamas fighters on Oct. 7 and the killing of 1,200 Israelis, including 395 soldiers and 59 police officers. There is a sadistic pleasure voiced by many Israelis over the genocide and a groundswell of calls for the murder or expulsion of Palestinians, including those in the occupied West Bank and those with Israeli citizenship.
The savagery of the air strikes and indiscriminate attacks, the cutting off of food, water and medicine, the genocidal rhetoric of the Israeli government, make this a war whose sole objective is revenge. This will not be good for Israel or the Palestinians. It will fuel a conflagration throughout the Middle East.
Israel’s attack is the last desperate measure of a settler colonial project that foolishly thinks, as many settler colonial projects have in the past, that it can crush the resistance of an indigenous population with genocide. But even Israel will not get away with killing on this scale. A generation of Palestinians, many of whom have seen most, if not all, of their families killed and their homes and neighborhoods destroyed, will carry within them a lifelong thirst for justice and retribution.
This war is not over. It has not even begun.
Chris Hedges is an American journalist, author, commentator and Presbyterian minister. In his early career, Hedges worked as a freelance war correspondent in Central America for The Christian Science Monitor, NPR, and Dallas Morning News
https://informationclearinghouse.blog/2023/12/03/israel-reopens-the-gaza-slaughterhouse/
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