Al Jazeera – November 24, 2023
39 Palestinians were released from Israeli prisons
in exchange for 13 Israeli captives freed by Hamas
Israel has released 39 Palestinian prisoners in line with a Qatar-mediated deal that saw 13 Israeli captives freed by Hamas hours earlier.
Qadura Fares, who heads the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club NGO, said 33 prisoners freed in the West Bank were handed to a team from the International Committee of the Red Cross. He said the remaining six were released in Jerusalem.
The releases on both sides were part of a deal for a four-day truce in the Israel-Hamas war that began Friday.
Over the next four days, 150 Palestinian prisoners and 50 Israeli captives are to be freed.
Marah Bakeer, who was arrested in 2015 when she was 16 years old, was among those released in Jerusalem.
She told Al Jazeera many of the released prisoners require medical attention.
“All of the prisoners suffered a high level of medical neglect [while detained],” she said.
She said she is looking forward to spending time with her family and is considering enrolling in a university to pursue a degree in law.
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/11/24/photos-palestinians-released-from-prison-reunite-with-loved-ones
Information Clearing House – November 25, 2023
Israel’s war on Gaza: War of ethnic cleansing
By Jamal Kanj
In the battle of his political life, Benjamin Netanyahu has nothing to lose. He could, however, gain vainglory and self-exaltation by murdering as many Palestinians as possible to satisfy the unquenchable vengeful Israeli culture. A crime catapulted by Western leaders who rallied behind Netanyahu in the aftermath of the prisoners’ revolt against the posts guarding the largest open-air prison on earth.
The embrace of Netanyahu by Western leaders has granted the bona fide pathological liar an unchecked authority to carpet-bomb civilian centers, target hospitals, and orchestrate the evacuation of northern Gaza in order to complete the ethnic cleansing of historical Palestine.
In a disturbing parallel to the 1948 Zionist-led massacres that marked the initial ethnic cleansing of Palestine, Israeli forces committed further atrocities in northern Gaza this week. Two of which targeted ﾠthousands of displaced refugeesﾠseeking protection at the al-Fakhura UN school, and another at an evacuation center in Tel al-Zataar neighborhood.
The deliberate targeting of evacuation centers and hospitals where civilians sought shelter in northern Gaza is part of “Israel’s” terror strategy to intensify the forceful evacuation of residents from their neighborhoods. Let’s not forget that those who heeded Israeli directions and moved south found themselves facing the same danger. Dozens lost their lives on the highways, and others were killed upon reaching the ostensibly “safer” shelters. “Israel” is ensuring that no place in all of Gaza remains safe, a troubling reality reflected in the fact that 43% of civilians killed in the Strip are in the so-called “safer” south.
In the past 40 days, Gaza has endured an onslaught equivalent to more than three nuclear bombs. This surpasses by threefold the total number of bombs dropped by the United Statesﾠon Afghanistan throughout an entire year. Regrettably, US taxpayers footed the bill for both wars. While acknowledging civilian casualties in Afghanistan, the US did not primarily pursue indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations as its primary war objective. For “Israel”, however, the main goal is to remove the civilians, or as “Israel’s” Minister for Agriculture and former head of Shin Bet, Avi Dichter, articulated this policy on Israeli TV, “We are now actually rolling out the Gaza Nakba.” The Nakba, is the term Palestinians use for the ethnic cleansing from Palestine in 1948.
“Rolling out” the Nakba, or human-made catastrophe, can neither be achieved without inducing flight and instill fear among the civilian population, nor without a cover-up and Israeli exception to international law. Western media for example, almost always, qualify their coverage on the number of killed Palestinian civilians with a statement like, we know “Israel” has warned civilians to move south, in effect normalizing, and, to an extent, mitigating the responsibility of the Israeli army for civilian casualties. In fact, this could mark the first war where the burden of avoiding loss of life is placed on noncombatants rather than the military conducting the war.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken declares from New Delhi, “Far too many Palestinians have been killed. Far too many have suffered these past weeks.” Yet, the American government continues to reject, or is unable to force “Israel” to submit to a ceasefire. This glaring cognitive dissonance in America’s inconsistency between its public pronouncement expressing specious concerns for the loss of life, yet it calls the war—that murdered “far too many”— as “self-defense.” At the same time, it provides the material and nonmaterial means to carry out further killing.
It’s beyond hypocrisy when Biden and Western leaders call on ﾓIsraelﾔ to minimizethe killing of civilians. The passive plea to minimize murdering children, rather than unequivocally ending it, sends a clear message that empowers “Israel” to persist in its murder with impunity. Does Secretary Blinken know the acceptable magic number that would satisfy “Israel’s” vengeance? If 13,000 civilians (75% women and children) are not “too many” enough, what should be the threshold to reach that limit? We know as of this writing it has to be more than 5,500 murdered children.
This begs the obvious question: Does the same consideration extend to the Palestinian side? What is the fair number of Israeli civilians that can be killed? Was the number exceeded on October 7? Or is it a case where only the lives of the “less than equal” humans are expendable?
Besides the civilian population, and “safe” UN shelters, “Israel” continued to target hospitals. The first was the massacre outside the Baptist al Ahli Hospital, murdering and injuring more than 500, which was then exculpated by Biden who owned the Israeli fabricated narrative. This week it is al-Shifa, the largest medical complex in the whole of Gaza.
Medical centers are traditionally regarded as havens for treating the sick, alleviating pain, and preserving life. International law, specifically the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 18, and its Additional Protocol I of 1977, in Articles 12 and 19, provide explicit protections for civilian hospitals. Despite this, “Israel” has turned Gaza hospitals into the largest morgues, and their yards the site of massacres and mass graves.
A friend shared a harrowing account of his brother, a doctor at al-Shifa hospital. According to him, doctors were compelled to manage death by attrition rather than focusing on healing. They faced the agonizing task of playing God and deciding who should be next to have their life support turned off and who should be saved. They ran out of fuel to keep the power generators running, and ambulances operational. “Israel” destroyed the photovoltaic (solar) panels that generated little electricity. The hospital ran out of life-saving medications to treat bacteria in simple wounds or open cuts. They lacked the anesthesia to apply when they had to amputate a limb to stop the spread of an infection, they had no medication to treat. Doctors are forced into having to choose between maintaining neonatal incubators under controlled conditions of temperature, oxygen, humidity, and light, or allocating the same energy to save older patients.
Transforming places of healing into morgues seems inadequate for “Israel”, as hospitals emerge as the last bastions hindering the execution of its “final solution” for the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza. The systematic dismantling of civilian infrastructures, encompassing power, electricity, water and sewer treatment, telecommunication, and others, is considered indispensable to make life unlivable. The objective is evident: to establish conditions so intolerable that civilians feel compelled to abandon their homes, thereby obstructing any prospect of their return.
To achieve this, “Israel” conducted a disinformation media campaign over several weeks, falsely showing a computer-generated rendering of a Hamas military command and control center under al-Shifa Hospital. In an effort to debunk these baseless allegations, the Palestinian Ministry of Health invited international organizations to conduct independent investigations and verify the facts. Unfortunately, this appeal was disregarded, allowing “Israel” to act on its uncontested lies and launch an attack, ultimately entering the hospital on November 14.
Upon entering the hospital, “Israel” orchestrated a staged television production depicting Israeli soldiers delivering supplies. However, unbeknownst to viewers, the showcased items were primarily logistical goods intended for the Israeli army stationed in the complex. The hospital has no need for new equipment; rather, it urgently needed fuel and power to sustain its existing operations, which “Israel” did not provide.
The public relations charade became evident when, instead of ensuring the hospital’s functionality through the purported “new Israeli supply,” the army issued orders for the evacuation of the sick, including the removal of 31 premature infants from incubators, displacing dialysis patients, and leaving the elevators inoperative. Meanwhile, it continued to hold more than 100 patient hostages as human shields inside the hospital.
According to my friend, the Israeli army occupied the first floor and prevented medical personnel from accessing life-saving medical equipment on the lower floors. Failing to show the alleged military “command center” for Hamas, “Israel” resorted to showcasing AK-47 rifles purportedly found in the hospital. It’s worth noting that, even if the guns weren’t planted by Israeli soldiers, they could have been part of the hospital’s security measures.
When “Israel” couldn’t substantiate its claims of the supposed “command center,” Israeli Hasbara shifted its narrative. Netanyahu then asserted that the facility was used to hold Israelis detained by Hamas. While there may be some truth to this, the hospital likely treated Israeli captives—a moral responsibility to provide them with care according to international law.
Despite the Israeli army’s failure to produce evidence, both the US Pentagon Department and President Biden reiterated the false Israeli claim, accusing Hamas of committing war crimes by “having their headquarters, their military, hidden under a hospital.” Mind you that just two days earlier, President Joe Biden said hospitals in Gaza ﾓmust be protected,ﾔ and cautioned for “less intrusive action” during the Israeli war on Gaza.
However, when “Israel” disregarded the President’s advice and seized control of the largest hospital, he backpedaled to cover up for his inability to prevent Israeli “intrusive action.” In an attempt to save face and deflect attention from his failure, Biden embraced the now-debunked Israeli narrative about a supposed headquarters. By submitting to America’s largest welfare state, Biden, the leader of the so-called “free world,” is being diminished to a mere caricature, mindlessly regurgitating Israeli disinformation.
It’s important to highlight that as the Israeli army advanced towards the hospital, there was no resistance or any sign of military fortifications in the vicinity of the hospital. This belies Israeli and American claims that the hospital or civilians were used as a human shield. Nevertheless, upon “Israel” taking control of the area, it promptly positioned tanks and soldiers within the compound, effectively using patients and medical staff as human shields against potential counterattacks.
The only remaining full-service hospital in north Gaza, the Indonesian Hospital is next on Israeli targets to be put out of commission. As of early Monday morning (November 20), the hospital was under Israeli military attack with tanks surrounding the facility. A repeat of al-Shifa Hospital before it was occupied and vacated by Israeli soldiers.
Soon following the “conquering” of what seems to be “Israel’s” primary military objective, and as the hospital was effectively put out of service, Bezalel Smotrich, a senior minister in the Israeli government, came with a suggestion for a “voluntary emigration of Gaza (Palestinians) Arabs to countries around the world.” The bedeviled plan was packaged as a charitable solution to address “the residents of Gaza and the entire region after 75 years of refugees, poverty, and danger.” He omitted, however, any mention of who caused the suffering, and failed to acknowledge that the 75-year mark signifies the number of years since “Israel” was imposed upon Palestine.
The descendant of Ukrainian Khazar Jewish converts, whose surname is derived from the Ukrainian town of Smotrych, chooses not to refer to Palestinians, who graciously welcomed his refugee parents in Palestine, by their Palestinian national identity but rather colloquially as “Arabs.” Also, last March he spoke in Paris, behind a banner depicting a map of “greater Israel,” encompassing all of historical Palestine, with borders extending into Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. In his address at a memorial organized by France’s Jewish Agency, he called Palestinians a “fictitious” people. It’s noteworthy that in France, characterizing “Israel” as a fictitious state would be considered a hate crime. Paradoxically, under the same law, it seems acceptable for an Israeli minister to deny the existence of the Palestinian people.
In addition, during a debate in the Israeli Knesset in October 2021, Smotrich addressed a descendant of Palestinians who remained in their homeland when “Israel” was forced on them in 1948, “You’re here by mistake, it’s a mistake that Ben-Gurion didnﾒt finish the job and didn’t throw you out in 1948.”
With that in mind, the “Israel” war government is taking the obvious steps in its current war on Gaza to fix Ben-Gurion’s “mistake.” The first was to ethnically cleanse the north of Gaza under the euphemism of evacuation to the “safer” south. In the subsequent phase, the focus shifted south where “Israel” dropped leaflets urged Palestinians who evacuated there to move to a new designated “safe” area on the farthest southwest corner of Gaza.
Not surprisingly, this area is on the border with Egypt, suggesting that Sinai could be the ultimate intended destination for Gazans. Addressing the new military orders, Mark Regev, an aide to Israeli Prime Minister, explained toﾠMSNBC, “Because the western areas are closer to the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, humanitarian aid could be brought in “as quickly as possible.”
It’s astonishing how Israeli officials unabashedly cloak their dubious intentions in ostensibly altruistic terms. They suggest evacuating people from their homes because they want them to be closer to aid at the border of another country instead of allowing aid to enter Gaza. Similarly, Smotrich proposed to solve the 75 years of refugees not by returning them to their original homes, but by ethnically cleansing them as distant refugees in far-off places. What started as a covert ethnic cleansing and mass dispossession of Palestinians in 1948 has evolved into an overt Israeli policy in 2023. The challenge, however, lies in the West’s reluctance to acknowledge Israeli actions for what they are, as openly voiced by Israeli leaders.
“Israel’s” war on Gaza, withal, is not about October 7 as Western mainstream media would suggest. It’s about the 75-year-old war to empty Palestine of its indigenous population. “Israel” is systematically carrying out its plan under the leadership of a psychopath intoxicated on American weapon technology and taxpayers’ money to fund his wars, enabled by prevailing Western double standards.
Jamal Kanj, is the author of “Children of Catastrophe,” Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America, and other books. He writes frequently on Arab world issues for various national and international commentaries. Via Al mayadeen
https://informationclearinghouse.blog/2023/11/21/israels-war-on-gaza-war-of-ethnic-cleansing/
Information Clearing House – November 25, 2023
Despite the truce, people in Gaza will keep dying –
this horrifying death toll must never be forgotten
The devastating human toll in Gaza has been underreported. The health ministry estimates 13,300 dead after six weeks, but independent monitors suggest the civilian death toll may be significantly higher.
By Owen Jones
Even if the truce between Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and Hamas results in the promised four-day pause in hostilities – or longer – the horror enveloping Gaza in terms of lives lost is worse than many people think. Among those who oppose Israel’s onslaught, there are still those who do not truly grasp it. It’s understandable that Israeli authorities are seeking to sow doubt about the size of the death toll, because the numbers expose the gravity of the crimes being committed. But we should not be deceived.
Take the argument that the health ministry is Hamas-run and, therefore, its figures can never be trusted. It sounds like a reasonable enough claim on the surface, until you realise that in previous conflicts the death toll reported by the ministry was largely consistent with the UN’s and even Israel’s counts. Last month, after doubts were raised by President Biden, the ministry even released the names, ages and identification numbers of the victims.
Indeed, the health ministry’s official estimate – currently 13,300 dead after six weeks – could well be an underestimate, as a senior US official has conceded. The figures do not include the dead buried under rubble who have not been retrieved. According to the independent Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, which is chaired by US emeritus law professor and former UN special rapporteur on Palestine, Richard Falk, the civilian death toll as of 20 November is 16,413, with nearly 34,000 injured. This would mean one in every 142 Palestinian civilians killed in a month and a half.
Given that this slaughter may not end soon, the current health ministry tally of 13,300 dead, when placed in the context of Gaza’s population of 2.2 million, tells us something about the sheer scale of what has happened. Comparisons with other conflicts are truly eye-opening here. The Bosnian war loomed over my own childhood as a case study of an unspeakable atrocity. About 40,000 civilians died in those killing fields in the years between 1992 and 1995. That was over three years, not six weeks, and it was in a country whose prewar population was about twice that of Gaza.
But aren’t many of the deaths in Gaza not civilians, but Hamas militants, you might ask? The evidence suggests not. Research by the Iraq Body Count project, which diligently compiled violent civilian deaths after the 2003 invasion, concluded last month about Gaza that “few of the victims can have been combatants”. Analysing the ministry of health data, they found only a “modest excess of adult males killed”, which could be explained by their greater exposure to risk in, for instance, rescue efforts. With an estimated 70% of the dead being women and children – and many of the slain men unlikely to have been combatants – their conclusion is difficult to rebut.UN commissioner says killing of Gaza civilians cannot be dismissed as ‘collateral damage’ – video
We could also make a comparison with the war in Syria, rightly regarded as one of the great moral obscenities of our age. The UN estimates that nearly 307,000 civilians have met violent ends since 2011. Its prewar population was just over 10 times that of Gaza. This means that after just six weeks, the death rate of Palestinians is approaching half that of Syrians after a decade of war.
Another comparison is Yemen. This is a tragedy close to my heart: I’ve written multiple columns about the western-backed Saudi onslaught and visited a Yemeni refugee camp, where children drew pictures of dead relatives slain by bombs. An estimated 15,000 Yemeni civilians were killed by direct military action between 2015 and 2021, mostly by Saudi-led airstrikes. This is comparable to Gaza, except Yemen’s average population in these war years was 14 times greater than Gaza’s, and this death toll was amassed over six years, not six weeks.
It might be countered that Yemen’s death toll is actually closer to 377,000, because of deaths from indirect causes, such as a lack of access to food, water and healthcare. But, of course, the same will be true of Gaza under siege and that figure will only become clear after the current bloodshed is over.
A comparison of child deaths across conflicts, macabre as it is, underlines the unique nature of this conflict in Gaza. In the first two years of the Syrian war, children were estimated to represent roughly 10% of deaths, in Iraq since 2003, 8.6% and in Ukraine since the invasion, 6%. In Gaza, they represent an estimated 42% of deaths.
No comparison is perfect and every tragedy must be understood on its own terms. Yet these numbers give a sense of the unusually brutal scale of what is happening in Gaza. It is not as if the realities on the ground are hidden. Thanks to courageous journalists and media workers – dozens now killed – we have evidence of the civilian toll in the most graphic detail possible. So where is the urgency on behalf of western politicians and many media outlets to put a stop to this? Why doesn’t it rival their justified disgust at the horrors unleashed by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine? Few cheerleaders of Israel’s invasion have been able to admit that Hamas’s obscene atrocities of 7 October do not justify civilian death on this scale.
This truce is welcome but the widespread destruction of infrastructure will mean people keep dying long after the bombs stop falling. And with Israel’s stated desire to occupy Gaza ﾓfor an indefinite periodﾔﾠ, much violence is surely yet to come. We are left with a bleak conclusion. There isn’t even a pretence that Palestinian life matters. An Israeli civilian death toll of more than 1,000 was rightly understood to be intolerable, but there appears no limit to how many Gazans can meet violent ends. This brazen disregard for innocent life has barely been discussed in the west. It has been widely understood beyond in the Arab world and much of the global south, though, and it will not be forgotten.
Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
Daily Sabah – November 23, 2023
Silence on Israeli violations unveils the West as savage, not civilized
BY MELIH ALTINOK
Israel's actions bear resemblance to those of the Nazis, and the silent West, endorsing Israel's transgressions, is now regarded as savage rather than civilized
The Israeli army has been striking civilians in Palestine for 48 days. According to publicly available data, nearly 14,000 civilians have lost their lives in Israel's attacks to date, with 5,600 of them being children.
The Israeli government justifies its aggression and blatant violations of international law and universal human rights by pointing to Hamas' targeting of civilians in the Oct. 7 attacks. The Israeli officials argue that their targeting of immune facilities such as hospitals, schools, churches and mosques is due to armed Hamas members "hiding among civilians and beneath hospitals."
Despite these claims, during the recent raid on Al-Shifa Hospital, where the Israeli army purportedly damaged medical equipment and fired indiscriminately, no evidence supporting these allegations has been shared with the public. Even if they were to find such evidence, it does not excuse targeting hospitals and ambulances containing civilians. This is not a unique situation to Gaza; in all wars, there may be individuals seeking refuge in hospitals. This possibility is inherent in the conflict, so rules have been established through international agreements: hospitals and ambulances, even if enemy soldiers are present, cannot be targeted.
Nevertheless, 195 healthcare personnel have lost their lives and 51 ambulances have been rendered unusable due to Israel's ongoing attacks. A staggering 130 healthcare facilities targeted by Israeli aircraft, coupled with 18 hospitals and 46 health centers grappling with fuel shortages, are now incapacitated.
Israel has undeniably etched itself into history with no discernible difference from the Nazis. The so-called "civilized" West, which remained silent in the face of the minimum rules of the new world order established after 1945 being violated and even supported Israel's crime, has now been certified as savage rather than civilized.
ECHR now defunct
I, too, used to believe that institutions like the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) would contribute to the globalization of democracy.
Nevertheless, the court's poor performance over the last decade has unmistakably revealed its selective commitment to law, humanity and democracy based on the party involved.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, as people faced oppression through overt censorship, punitive measures and coerced treatments, the ECtHR chose to turn a blind eye to universal law. In the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, it displayed indifference to the anti-Russian sentiment sweeping through Europe and human rights violations, taking a clear stance. And now, it has abandoned Europeans who are daring to express "Palestine is right," threatened with fundamental human rights violations, leaving them isolated and vulnerable.
Peaceful demonstrations in support of Palestine are being banned and freedom of expression is under threat.
In the media, pens are being broken for criticizing the killing of civilians, with numerous instances of this censorship. Jazmine Hughes, a writer for The New York Times Magazine, was compelled to resign, alleging a violation of publishing policies, after endorsing a statement expressing support for Palestine. Just recently, TV5Monde channel terminated host Muhammed Kaci for asking Olivier Rafowicz, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Spokesperson, "Does entering (Al-Shifa) Hospital align with international law and humanitarian principles according to you?"
It was once asserted that there are judges in Strasbourg; where are they now?
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