The San Diego Union-Tribune – October 24, 2023
Israeli airstrikes surge in Gaza kill at least 700 Palestinians
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israel escalated airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, crushing families in the rubble of residential buildings, as health officials said hundreds of Palestinians were killed in the past day and medical facilities were shut down because of bomb damage and lack of power.
The massive air bombardment continued through the night as Israeli jets hit sites across Gaza, the Hamas-run Interior Ministry said.
The soaring death toll from the bombardment is unprecedented in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It augurs an even greater loss of life in Gaza once Israeli forces backed by tanks and artillery launch an expected ground offensive aimed at crushing Hamas militants.
Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been running out of food, water and medicine since Israel sealed off the territory following the devastating Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on towns in southern Israel.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Israeli airstrikes killed at least 704 people over the past day, mostly women and children.
Israel said Tuesday it had launched 400 airstrikes over the past day, killing Hamas commanders, hitting militants as they prepared to fire rockets into Israel and striking command centers and a Hamas tunnel shaft. Israel reported 320 strikes the day before.
Israel, for its part, has vowed repeatedly since the massacre to crush Hamas.
Jewish Voice for Peace - October 24, 2023
‘All of Palestine is under attack’
For many of us, it’s impossible to imagine the scale of death and destruction in Gaza.
In just two weeks, the Israeli military has killed over 5,000 Palestinians in Gaza. Israeli warplanes have flattened entire neighborhoods. Shell-shocked children are left to search for their parents under the rubble. Millions of Palestinians have once again been made refugees, bombed as they tried to flee. Surgeons are operating by the light of their cellphones, increasingly without anesthesia.
Let us be clear: This is genocide.
This isn’t a war on Hamas. It’s a war on the Palestinian people.
As Aseel Al Bajeh writes, “All of Palestine is under attack.”
While international attention is focused on Gaza, the Israeli government and extremist settler groups are taking the opportunity to accelerate the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the West Bank.
Israeli settlers are being armed by the Israeli state, and have become indistinguishable from Israeli soldiers. Both abuse Palestinians with impunity.
On October 12, as the last villagers of Wadi al-Seeq left their homes, driven out by ongoing settler terror, a group of Israeli “soldiers-settlers” — some dressed in military uniform and some in civilian clothing — took three Palestinian men captive.
For hours, the men were tortured: They beat them, forced them to strip down to their underwear, handcuffed and blindfolded them, urinated on them, extinguished cigarettes on their bodies, and attempted to sexually assault one of them.
Settlers have carried out dozens of attacks, setting Palestinian homes on fire, destroying their property, and shooting at them with live ammunition.
Over 90 Palestinians in the West Bank, including 26 children, have been murdered by the Israeli military and settlers since October 7.
They include 16-year-old Mohammad Rafat Mohammad Edwan, who was throwing stones at Israeli soldiers when he was shot with live ammunition. The bullet lodged itself in his lung, and four days later, on October 14, he was dead.
On October 12, 62-year-old Ibrahim Wadi and his son, 24-year-old Ahmad Wadi, were killed when Israeli settlers opened fire on the funeral procession of four Palestinians who had been murdered the previous day — three by Israeli settlers and one by an Israeli soldier.
And on October 19, 11-year-old Yousef Mohammad Omar Zaghdad was killed when the Israeli military fired a missile at a group of civilians inside Noor Shams refugee camp. Three other children were killed in the attack.
Enabled by the Israeli military and empowered by a climate of impunity and lawlessness, Israeli settlers are taking advantage of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza to steal more Palestinian land, thereby expanding Israeli control of the West Bank. Hundreds of Palestinians from over a dozen different communities in the West Bank have been displaced as a result.
“They came into the village and destroyed houses and sheep pens, beat an 85-year-old man, scared our children. Slowly our lives became unlivable,” Sliman al-Zawahri, a resident of the now-depopulated village of Ein Rashash, told the Guardian.
Israel’s war on Gaza has also heightened the discrimination faced by Palestinian citizens of Israel and those with Jerusalem IDs, who are increasingly being arrested, harassed, doxxed, suspended from school, and fired from their jobs for expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
The expansion of Israel’s regime of Jewish supremacy relies on the destruction of all Palestinian life. For Palestinians, there is no right way to protest their subjugation, and nowhere safe from Israeli violence.
It’s of the utmost importance that we keep up the fight, not only for an immediate ceasefire In Gaza — but for an end to all Israeli oppression of Palestinians.
Tomorrow (Wednesday, October 25), we’ll be joining our partner organizations Rising Majority, Movement for Black Lives, Dream Defenders, and artist Kehlani for a joint movement Palestine Power Hour.
Daily Sabah – October 24, 2023
UN chief slams Israel for violating international law in Gaza
U.N. chief Antonio Guterres harshly criticized Israel's violations of international law in Gaza, as he called for an immediate cease-fire amid indiscriminate Israeli airstrikes on the blockaded enclave, which is currently facing a humanitarian catastrophe with no food, fuel, or water.
Opening the session, Guterres said there was no excuse for the "appalling" violence by Hamas on Oct.7 but also warned against "collective punishment" of the Palestinians.
"I am deeply concerned about the clear violations of international humanitarian law that we are witnessing in Gaza. Let me be clear: No party to an armed conflict is above international humanitarian law," Guterres told a Security Council session without explicitly naming Israel.
In his speech, Guterres also said that it was "important also to recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation."
His remarks infuriated Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, who, pointing his finger at Guterres and raising his voice, recounted graphic accounts of civilians killed on Oct. 7 in the deadliest single attack in Israeli history.
"Mr. Secretary-General, in what world do you live?" Cohen said.
Pointing out that Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Cohen said, "We gave the Palestinians Gaza till the last millimeter. There is no dispute in regards to the land of Gaza."
Cohen's remarks completely disregard the fact that Since 2007, the Gaza Strip has been under a crippling Israeli and Egyptian blockade that has gutted its economy and deprived its inhabitants of many vital commodities, including food, fuel and medicine.
Israel has used collective punishment against Palestinians since the illegal occupation began in 1967 through home demolitions and psychological and economic warfare.
Israel's ambassador to the U.N., Gilad Erdan, called on Guterres to resign.
Information Clearing House – October 24, 2023
From Balfour to Now, Western Duplicity Covers Israeli State Terrorism and Genocide
The cynicism and duplicity of Western governments in the face of an appalling, daily massacre of Palestinian civilians is monstrous.
By Finian Cunningham
The cynicism and duplicity of Western governments in the face of an appalling, daily massacre of Palestinian civilians is monstrous.
Hundreds of men, women and children are being murdered every day by non-stop Israeli aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip. Hospitals, mosques, churches and family homes are being deliberately targeted with no warnings. This is premeditated state terrorism, all with full Western support.
Hospitals are so overwhelmed by casualties that bodies can’t even be identified nor afforded the final dignity of a shroud. Mangled, bloody corpses are left strewn on hospital grounds. Petrified children have their names written on their hands in case they are killed so as to allow them to be identified, as reported by Matt Kennard. The situation is heartrending and utterly profane.
The Gaza population of 2.3 million is at the mercy of bombs raining down. The Israeli authorities last week warned people to move to the southern end of the 40-kilometer coastal enclave purportedly out of harm’s way, only for the air strikes to hit supposedly designated safe zones.
Palestinians are also being hunted down and shot in the other enclave of the Occupied West Bank. As journalist Lubna Masarwa reports from East Jerusalem: “It feels as though the whole state is now baying for genocide… The situation is terrifying. We are entering a new era that feels even worse than military rule… The worst horror is the silence and complicity of the West in Israel’s unspeakable massacres.”
This is a genocide being conducted in real time which Western media are showing glimpses of on their screens, yet the Western governments refuse to call for a ceasefire by the Israeli regime. Tel Aviv knows it has a license for mass murder from the Western states and their morally repugnant leaders.
As the slaughter of Palestinian civilians intensifies, Western political leaders are wholly complicit in war crimes. But their complicity has the added contempt of trying to appear benign.
This week US President Joe Biden and five other Western leaders released a joint statement reiterating their support for Israel’s “right to defend itself against terrorism” with the added and completely bogus proviso for Israel’s “adherence to international law, including the protection of civilians.”
Adherence to international law? By a regime blatantly murdering children every day in full view of the world?
Along with Biden, the other signatories were Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
These political leaders have already declared their unwavering support for Israel’s “self-defence” in previous separate statements. But now they have felt the need to issue a joint statement with the added seeming concern about the mounting civilian death toll. That concern has no doubt been prompted by public protests around the world, including in Western capitals, against the barbaric Israeli military violence.
The seeming concern from Western leaders is an abject deception. If they were genuinely motivated to stop the killing, Washington and the others could unreservedly demand Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to immediately halt the murderous assault. Far from it. The United States has vetoed a resolution at the United Nations Security Council calling for a ceasefire while the US is airlifting emergency supplies of military weapons to Tel Aviv. The reason for the US veto? Because the wording did not mention Israel’s “right to self-defence”.
On top of the violence, Palestinians in Gaza are being starved of food and water under an Israeli blockade. Hospitals are running out of fuel for generators and life-saving equipment. A few trucks with humanitarian aid have been permitted to enter Gaza from the Egyptian border.
Yet Western leaders double down in their cynicism by stating in their joint statement: “The leaders welcomed the announcement of the first humanitarian convoys to reach Palestinians in need in Gaza and committed to continue coordinating with partners in the region to ensure sustained and safe access to food, water, medical care, and other assistance required to meet humanitarian needs.”
UN officials in Gaza say the paltry aid being allowed is far too little and too late to meet the needs of more than two million people. They describe it as “a drop in the ocean” of desperate needs. To put in perspective the latest convoy of 17 trucks permitted into Gaza, before the latest siege on the enclave that began more than two weeks ago the number of aid-supply trucks crossing into the territory from Egypt would normally be 500 per day.
The Hamas gun and rocket attacks on October 7 which killed at least 1,400 Israelis were a shocking atrocity. But those crimes are no justification for the subsequent mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. This week the death toll in Gaza is rising towards 5,000 with more than half of those casualties being children and women. More than 12,000 have been injured. There is a bigger ulterior agenda here — the complete eradication of Palestinians and Palestine as a future state.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who previously called Palestinians “human animals”, this week said that the military assault on Gaza will likely go on for several more weeks. A ground invasion by Western-backed Israeli troops is imminent. The civilian death toll can be expected to escalate.
The incitement of a regional war by this Western-sponsored genocide is reaching a flashpoint. Arab nations, as well as Iran and Turkey, will inevitably be pushed by the anger of their populations to intervene.
Despite fueling the danger of a wider war from their complicity in the genocide against Palestinians, the gutless Western politicians added this contemptuous statement: “The leaders committed to continue close diplomatic coordination, including with key partners in the region, to prevent the conflict from spreading, preserve stability in the Middle East, and work toward a political solution and durable peace.”
The cynicism and duplicity of the Western powers is redolent of the infamous Balfour Declaration published by the British government more than a century ago.
In November 1917, the then British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour wrote to Zionist supporter and wealthy banker Lord Walter Rothschild stating, “His Majesty’s Government view[s] with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”
That fateful policy by the British government led to the creation of the Israeli state in 1948 from London’s colonial holding of Palestine. For 75 years, the colonialist extermination of Palestinians has been facilitated relentlessly and remorselessly by Western governments, first by the British, and subsequently by the Americans. Of course, the genocide has been interspersed with platitudes about peace and human rights.
The Balfour document went on to state with faux magnanimity, “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”
The treachery of Britain was the carving out of a Zionist state in a land populated by a majority of Arabs. Yet, this flagrant violation was presented by London with a cynical and disingenuous concern for Palestinian rights.
From Britain’s betrayal over a century ago to the present complicity in Israel’s genocide against Palestinians, there is a heinous continuity in Western deception and culpability.
Finian Cunningham, Former editor and writer for major news media organizations.
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The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
