By Joseph Massad

The world today is divided between a minority of powerful imperialist white supremacists who support the genocide of the Palestinians and the majority of the people who do not

Late last month, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that it is "plausible" that Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.  In response to the case brought by South Africa, the court ordered Israel to "prevent the commission of all acts" in violation of the Genocide Convention and to "prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide" against Palestinians. The ICJ cited the many genocidal and dehumanising statements made by senior Israeli officials, including Israel's president and prime minister.    The ICJ decision places Israel squarely in the company of genocidal white colonial-settler societies. As a result of the interim ruling, the World Court will deliberate further in the coming months or years on whether Israel is committing "genocide".

It is a belated investigation of the atrocities that Zionism and the Jewish settler colony have been visiting on the Palestinian people since the 1880s, and more horrifically, as South Africa argued in its case, since 1948, and not only since 7 October 2023.

Historical accusations

While Palestinians have accused Israel of ethnic cleansing since 1948 onwards, Israeli politicians and Israeli and Palestinian scholars have also accused Israel of committing ethnocide, politicide, and "sociocide" against the Palestinian people.

As for genocide, the recent South African case was not the first time such an accusation was made. Shortly after the Sabra and Shatila massacres in September 1982, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution condemning the massacres as "an act of genocide", with an overwhelming 123 countries supporting the resolution and only 22 abstentions and no opposing votes.

The white settler colonies of the United States and Canada rejected the term "genocide" and abstained. So did the white settler colonies of Australia and New Zealand and western European colonial countries, including Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands, among others. In contrast, the Soviet Union declared: "The word for what Israel is doing on Lebanese soil is genocide. Its purpose is to destroy the Palestinians as a nation."

Since the beginning of Israel's transformation of Gaza into a concentration camp, accusations of Israel as a genocidal country became ubiquitous

The German Democratic Republic also accused Israel of committing genocide, as did Cuba and Nicaragua. The Nicaraguan delegate marvelled at how "a people that suffered so much from the Nazi policy of extermination in the middle of the twentieth century would use the same fascist, genocidal arguments and methods against other peoples".

An independent international commission composed of international jurists investigating Israel's crimes in Lebanon also recommended in early 1983 that "a competent international body be designed or established to clarify the conception of genocide in relation to Israeli policies and practices toward the Palestinian people".

Ever since the beginning of Israel's transformation of Gaza into a concentration camp in 2005-2006 and the incarceration of more than two million Palestinians inside it, accusations of Israel as a genocidal country became ubiquitous.

Aside from the Palestinians themselves, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, for example, labelled Israel's bombing of Gaza in 2008-2009 as "genocide". In the wake of the Israeli murder of more than 2200 Palestinians in its war on Gaza in 2014, Bolivian President Evo Morales accused Israel of genocide, as did dozens of Holocaust survivors and hundreds of descendants of Holocaust survivors.

'In good company'

Since at least 2008, international scholars have also accused Israel of genocide against the Palestinians in scholarly journals for atrocities committed in 1948 and beyond.

Israel and its apologists have always denied these charges vehemently. In doing so, however, they are in good company with white settler colonies who continue to debate whether their colonisation has been genocidal to indigenous peoples.

Indeed, even European and American scholars have actively contributed to concealing the genocidal practices of white settlers. The prominent German-American philosopher Hannah Arendt emphasised in 1951 that the English settlers' colonisation of America and Australia, the two continents "without a culture or history of their own", witnessed "comparatively short periods of cruel liquidation because of the natives' numerical weakness".

She went as far as claiming that none of England's nationalist and colonial statesmen "was ever seriously concerned with discrimination against other peoples as lower races, if only for the reason that the countries they were talking about, Canada and Australia, were almost empty and had no serious population problem".

Genocide often accompanies white European settler colonialism around the world. Justification for annihilating the natives for daring to resist the white colonists' theft of their land fills the archives of European colonial thought. This is particularly the case when white settlers encountered resistance on the "frontier" of their colonies, whether in the Americas or Australia.

Referred to as "reprisals" or, in the case of Israel and its western apologists, "retaliation", the colonists' murderous campaigns against the natives remain the cornerstone of western morality. They view the natives' attack on their colonial oppressors as the start of violence and not as a defensive response to colonial theft and oppression.

Western governments have maintained this position, as attested by their vehement support for Israel's genocidal war. This is in addition to the justifications proffered for the annihilation of the Palestinian people by the mainstream western press and the policing, both literal and figurative, of any opinion, especially scholarly, that condemns Israel's atrocities as part of the racist and annihilationist nature of Zionism. The UN General Assembly itself had adjudged Zionism as such in 1975 when it formally defined it as "a form of racism and racial discrimination".

A 'defining moment'

That the recent resolution at the General Assembly calling for a ceasefire was supported by 153 countries and opposed merely by 10 (including Israel and the US), and that the ICJ decision was supported by 14 of its 15 permanent judges, is hardly an accident. This international consensus has been nothing less than a showdown between the white European countries and their white settler colonies on one side, and the rest of the world on the other.

The ongoing genocide of the Palestinians is a defining moment, with white supremacists supporting the genocide of non-white peoples, and the people of the rest of the world who understand Israel to be a genocidal European settler colony, supported by current and former white colonial countries, opposing them.

Appalled by such a condemnation of Israel by the majority of the world, Germany, which has a most illustrious genocidal history, has been at the forefront of countries defending Israeli genocide and insisted on joining Israel's defence as a third party at the ICJ.

 It was no accident that Namibia, whose people were the first victims of German genocide, was incensed at Germany's unrepentant support of genocide against the non-white Palestinians: Namibia's president Hage Geingob (who recently passed away) lamented "Germany's inability to draw lessons from its horrific history," and declared that Namibia "rejects Germany's support of the genocidal intent of the racist Israeli state".

Given West Germany's unceasing diplomatic, financial, and military support of Israel since the 1950s, including the reunified German state's support of Israel's current genocidal war against them, the Palestinian people would be more than justified were they to consider today's Germany as "The Fourth Reich".

A long white supremacist line

As part of their domination of the indigenous population whose lands they usurped, white settler colonies always adopted a whites-only immigration policy.

The "white Australia" policy on immigration, introduced in 1901, was strictly applied until 1973. New Zealand's whites-only policy for immigration, introduced in 1947, was not abolished until 1987 (though it was modified in 1974). Canada's overtly racist immigration policy persisted till 1962. South Africa's racist immigration policy persisted till the fall of apartheid in 1994.

There are ongoing debates today on the fate of the Palestinians and how best to defeat their struggle while safeguarding Jewish racial supremacy in Palestine

The white supremacist understanding of the US republic became law in 1790 in the first Naturalisation Act, which limited the right to citizenship to any "free white person" resident in the country for two years and their children under the age of 21. This was supplemented by immigration policies culminating in the racist Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (partially repealed in 1943), which excluded most Asians (including Indians and Japanese) and was not fully repealed until 1965.

Israel's enactment of the Law of Return in 1950, which allows Jews anywhere in the world to immigrate to Israel and become citizens - a right it denies the indigenous Palestinian people it expelled and whom these Jews are supposed to supplant - is of a similar order.

Both white conservatives and mainstream white liberals, including the white-dominated western liberal press and university administrations, have always supported these white settler-colonial regimes and their policies towards indigenous people. These institutions, like western governments themselves, now include token people of colour who echo the white liberal line on Israel.

Whenever disagreements arose among them, it was mostly on how best to eliminate the threat of the natives and about the level of cruelty to be meted out to them.   There are ongoing debates today on the fate of the Palestinians and how best to defeat their struggle while safeguarding Jewish racial supremacy in the Jewish settler colony. These discussions are characteristically couched as calls for "peace" and "non-violence" and for ending the "humanitarian crisis" in Gaza. Leading them are the white liberal press and white liberal academics and university administrators, along with their non-white subsidiaries, including at my own Columbia University.

What all this demonstrates clearly is that the world today is divided between two opposing camps: a minority of powerful imperialist white supremacists, conservatives and liberals alike, including token non-white liberals, who support the genocide of the Palestinians and the majority of the people of the world who do not.

The supporters of genocide are shameless and unrepentant. That the ICJ came out against Israel and in support of South Africa has caused them little to no embarrassment.

Today, Thursday, the Israeli forces launched a campaign of arrests and raids in various areas in the West Bank.

A journalist who witnessed the scene at Al-Nasser hospital said the man warned others to leave before he was shot by a sniper

Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian man on Tuesday after sending him into al-Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis to warn others to evacuate, according to local media.

In footage shared online, the man is shown wearing protective overalls with his hands tied talking to Palestinians inside the hospital.

According to video testimony by Palestinian journalist Mohammed Akram al-Helo, which was shared by local media, the man was detained and arrested in the hospital, before being sent back to tell others that they needed to leave the building.

“He said the Israeli forces harassed him and treated him badly, and that if he did not do as he was told, they would storm the hospital, wound people and kill him,” Helo explained.

“When he finally left the hospital after doing what he was told, the Israeli soldiers shot him, he was shot three times in cold blood, in the vicinity of the hospital," he added.

"His mother tried to convince him to not head back out of the hospital, but he had to because he was severely threatened."

A surgeon at the al-Nasser Hospital confirmed to Middle East Eye that civilians were killed but it is unclear whether they included the man who was sent in to warn others by the Israelis.

Dr Khaled Alserr, who is one of the last remaining surgeons in the hospital, described a "horrible" scene during the attacks on the facility and its vicinity in voice notes sent via an instant messaging service to Middle East Eye.

  "Today, the Israeli army told everyone that they will bomb the hospital and told people to evacuate the hospital within half an hour," said Alserr.  "They [the Israelis] shouted at people using speakers on a drone and sent messages via people they have imprisoned before, by sending them to the hospital administration, telling them that they must leave.”

Alserr’s account confirms that Palestinians were killed at the entrance of the hospital.

“Despite telling people to evacuate the hospital through a 'secure way' - they shot three civilians in front of the hospital gates,” he added. 

Hospital turned into ‘battleground’

The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported on Tuesday that three people were killed by Israeli sniper fire at the hospital, while 10 others were wounded.

The ministry warned that the situation was becoming more dangerous for civilians as Israeli forces increased their activity in the area. 

A medical supply warehouse caught fire in the attack and the ministry stated that it estimates around 80 percent of the items in the store room were completely destroyed. 

On Wednesday, Al Jazeera journalist Hani Mahmoud said that it is becoming “more and more risky” for medical staff and the hundreds of displaced people sheltering there. 

  The northern gate of the hospital has been destroyed and is now blocked with a pile of debris and sand, Mahmoud said, adding that the hospital has turned into a “battle zone”.

“Soldiers are shooting at everything in sight – including a doctor and a nurse. There are bodies in the courtyard,” he explained.

'Soldiers are shooting at everything in sight – including a doctor and a nurse. There are bodies in the courtyard'

- Hani Mahmoud, Al Jazeera

“Those people were killed after being told to evacuate. This situation is extremely overwhelming for people inside the facility right now."

Israel’s attacks on hospitals may violate the Geneva Conventions, which require the protection of medical facilities.

“It is forbidden to turn recognised civilian hospitals into a conflict zone. It is also forbidden to use civilian populations, the sick or the injured as human shields, it is a war crime, as is fighting from inside a hospital,” international law expert Mathilde Philip-Gay told The Guardian.

Article 8 of the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague, also prohibits: “Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected.”

A citizen died, and others were seriously injured, as a result of the Israeli forces targeting the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.

Local sources confirmed that a citizen was killed and a number of others were injured, some of them seriously, as a result of the Israeli forces targeting the orthopedic department in the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis. After that, the Israeli forces stormed the complex’s courtyard and opened fire on its sections.

The Israeli forces also forced a number of displaced people, doctors and nurses, to evacuate the complex and head to Rafah, and arrested dozens of them when they tried to reach Rafah.

The Israeli forces are imposing a strict siege on the complex for the 25th day in a row, with snipers targeting those inside it or in its courtyards, which has led to the inability of medical teams to move between its buildings, in light of the presence of 300 health personnel, 450 sick and wounded, and 10,000 displaced people.

For the 132nd day, the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip continues, by land, sea and air, leaving, in an infinite toll, more than 28,473 killed and 68,146 injured, while thousands of victims remain under the rubble and on the roads, as the Israeli army prevents ambulance and rescue crews from reaching them.

By Bahzad al Akhras

The conflict has dragged on for more than four months, as Israel works to normalise its brutality against Palestinians

If you asked me to name the most dangerous weapon that Israel possesses, my answer would not be bombs, shells or even nuclear arms.

Rather, it would be time. After four months of war and the resounding silence of the international community, Palestinians and their supporters around the globe have seen its devastating effects. But how does this work, and how can we resist being targeted by Israel’s weaponisation of time?

The single most effective tactic is awareness of Israel’s methods. For months now, Israeli forces have continued their relentless onslaught against Gaza, despite significant global opposition and calls for a ceasefire. 

This has worked to normalise the brutality of Israel’s war, as news stories begin to fall off the front page and global attention moves elsewhere.

This strategy centres on maintaining a constant level of violence over time, and giving the impression that nothing will steer the war off course. To justify this, Israeli officials have repeated their claims that Palestinians are “human animals”, noting that the war and siege will continue as long as Israel deems it necessary.

The Israeli army has hit hospitals, schools and refugee shelters. Each attack helps to build the foundation for the next one, as statements of outrage lead to no action. Time marches on, and Israel hits another civilian neighbourhood, another camp, another hospital. 

None of these actions are hidden or concealed in any way. Soldiers boast about them on social media. This all reflects the central strategy of occupation, which revolves around keeping up a constant level of violence, while waiting for concessions from the other side.

Occupying the mind

One of the most chilling examples of this strategy is the aforementioned social-media content being posted by Israeli soldiers: the smiles as they target civilians, the jokes as they destroy entire residential blocks. 

This is not just for “fun”. This is a technique of killing, destroying and occupying not just populations or buildings, but also the human mind. 

Over time, people who initially stood up for Palestinians and held protests to end the war, begin to feel helpless and hopeless. Imagine how you might have felt during the first weeks of Israel’s genocidal assault, marching alongside millions of others worldwide to demand an immediate ceasefire. 

After returning home, you see that Israel has bombed another residential tower, and watch as the Palestinian death toll climbs by several hundred more people. You feel angry, and return to the next march. 

Creating this state of hopelessness among Palestine advocates is even more devastating than the killing itself

But as this cycle repeats itself over and over again, while media outlets continue to regurgitate the Israeli narrative that dehumanises Palestinians, you start to feel powerless. This is how Israel weaponises time.

When nothing changes externally, people tend to experience an unconscious shift in their own perspective. Shock and anger give way to hopelessness, which can sometimes even give way to victim-blaming, or a wish that the immediate bloodshed would end in any way possible - even through a return to the prewar misery of siege and occupation.

This is how global demands for a free Palestine can shrivel and change. And that is Israel’s ultimate goal, as it continues to wield time as a weapon. Creating this state of hopelessness among Palestine advocates is even more devastating than the killing itself.

In this context, awareness is a protective shield that can work against the Israeli strategy. It’s okay to sometimes feel hopeless; just remind yourself that there’s no shame in this. And as the war grinds on, there is still a strong impetus to march, to post, to boycott, to speak out, and to share the narrative about Palestine.

The request comes as international pressure mounts for Israel to hold off on a fully fledged assault on the southern city of Rafah.

The prime ministers of Spain and Ireland have asked the European Commission to urgently review whether Israel is complying with its human rights obligations in Gaza as international pressure grows for Israel to hold off on an assault of the densely packed southern border city of Rafah.

The two leaders said on Wednesday that attacking Rafah poses “a grave and imminent threat that the international community must urgently confront”.

 “We also recall the horror of October 7, and call for the release of all hostages and an immediate ceasefire that can facilitate access for urgently needed humanitarian supplies,” the prime ministers said in a joint letter published on the Spanish government’s website.

At least 1,139 Israelis were killed and about 240 people were taken captive in a raid by Hamas fighters on southern Israel on October 7, prompting Israel to unleash its most brutal offensive yet on the besieged territory.

At least 28,576 Palestinians have since been killed in Israeli attacks, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said on Wednesday, mostly women and children.

Spain and Ireland have been particularly outspoken on the topic of Israel’s assault on Gaza in comparison with other European Union states.

But a Spanish government source told the Reuters news agency that it was confident that European countries are unifying around a firmer position and for the European Commission to take more concrete action over Israel’s actions in Gaza.

The source pointed to a tweet on Tuesday by Alexander De Croo, the prime minister of Belgium, which said any Rafah operation could generate an “unmitigated humanitarian catastrophe”. Belgium at present holds the presidency of the European Council.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also said before talks scheduled with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that an offensive on Rafah would jeopardise the humanitarian situation there.

‘There must be accountability’

While only Spain and Ireland signed the letter, the source said it expected further backing for a review when ministers meet for the Council of Europe in March.

Their intervention follows South Africa’s referral of Israel to the International Court of Justice over allegations it is committing genocide.

The European Commission confirmed receipt of the letter and said it would “look into it”, spokeswoman Arianna Podesta told reporters.

“We do urge all sides when it comes to Israel to respect international law, and we note that there must be respect, there must be accountability for violations of international law,” the spokesperson said.

Two weeks ago, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said he was in talks with other EU heads of government to review the EU-Israel Association Agreement on the basis that Israel may be breaching the agreement’s human rights clause

The 23-year-old agreement sets out a framework for free trade in goods, services and capital based on “respect for human rights and democratic principles”.

Varadkar said several EU states were also talking about a possible joint recognition of a Palestinian state.

More than 1.4 million displaced Palestinians are currently trapped in Rafah as Israeli troops prepare for a full-scale ground operation that has triggered international alarm over the potential for mass casualties. Most of those in Rafah fled there after the Israeli army designated it a “safe zone”.

With an influx of desperate people and a lack of clean water, food, medicine and other basic supplies, disease is also flourishing.

Israeli tanks have already shelled parts of Rafah over the past few days, causing waves of panic. Dozens of Palestinians were killed in overnight attacks on Monday, and on Tuesday, two journalists, including an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent, were seriously wounded.

Thousands have started to flee the area to Deir el-Balah in central Gaza as much of the enclave has been turned into ruins.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

Extremist Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir said that imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti was transferred from Ofer Prison to solitary confinement in another prison “for fear of an escalation,” without providing further details.

Ben Gvir wrote through his accounts, “I am happy that the Prison Service is working to implement my clear policy towards terrorists in prisons, and today it transferred the chief of killers, Marwan Barghouti, from Ofer Prison to solitary confinement after information emerged about plans to inflame matters.” He added, “The days in which he runs the Terrorists are our prisons!”

In this context, the private Israeli Channel 13 said, on Wednesday evening, that Marwan Barghouti’s transfer came “for fear of escalation, after the Prison Service received information indicating that he is working to incite and ignite a third intifada in the occupied West Bank,” as it claimed.

The Israeli forces arrested Marwan Barghouti in 2002 for his role in the second Palestinian intifada. At that time, he was the secretary of the Fatah movement in the West Bank and a member of its central committee. He was also a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Marwan Barghouti is considered “the first Palestinian MP, and the first member of the Fatah Central Committee to be arrested by the Israeli authorities and sentenced to five life terms and 40 years in prison.”

Last December, the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said that the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” wants to release Marwan Barghouti, among other prisoners such as Abdullah Barghouti and Ahmed Saadat, through a prisoner exchange agreement with Israel.

Source: Al Jazeera Live

The International Court of Justice will convene in The Hague at the beginning of next week, to hear the pleadings of dozens of countries on the legal consequences arising from Israel’s policies and practices in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, to give an advisory opinion on that.

The first session of oral arguments will begin on Monday, February 19, which will continue until Monday, February 26, with the participation of 52 countries and three institutions: the League of Arab States, the African Union, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

Next week's sessions come after the participating countries submitted written pleadings last August as a first stage, and the countries' comments on the written pleadings last September.

These sessions come after the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution at the end of 2022, according to which it requested the International Court of Justice, pursuant to Article 65 of its Statute, to urgently issue an advisory opinion (advisory opinion) on two issues: First, what are the emerging legal implications? On the ongoing Israeli occupation violation of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, on its long-term occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, including measures aimed at changing the demographic composition, character and status of the city of Jerusalem, and on its adoption of discriminatory legislation and measures in this regard.

The second issue relates to how the policies and practices of the Israeli occupation referred to in the previous paragraph affect the legal status of the occupation, and what are the legal implications of this status for all countries and the United Nations.

According to the program of the sessions published by the International Court of Justice on its website, each country will present an oral argument before the judges of the Court, lasting thirty minutes. The opening argument will be for the State of Palestine, which will be opened by Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki, followed by members of the Palestinian legal team.

Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed learned from informed sources that the Permanent Representative of Palestine to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, will be present within the Palestinian delegation that will hold a press conference on the first day of the sessions.

A number of Arab countries are also participating, including the State of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, the Emirates, Jordan, Libya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and Iraq.

During their participation, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Hungary are expected to defend the Israeli occupation, according to what Al-Araby Al-Jadeed learned, through written pleadings submitted to the court in the first and second stages.

The State of Guatemala withdrew from the proceedings after it also made allegations in which it defended Israel. Argentina also withdrew after the election of the new pro-Israel Argentine president.

It is noteworthy that the International Court of Justice gave an advisory opinion in 2004 on the Israeli apartheid wall, in which it said that the wall was illegal and called on Israel to dismantle it, but no practical measures were taken on the ground to implement it or prevent the involvement of international companies and institutions in the process of building and securing the wall.

The director of the Palestinian Al-Haq Foundation, Shawan Jabareen, said in an interview with Al-Araby Al-Jadeed about the importance of the advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice, “One of the well-known roles of the International Court of Justice is to give an advisory opinion based on international law, and it is considered acceptable and binding to be implemented by the parties.” Institutions such as the Security Council, and this is what was done in all previous advisory opinions, including those that were against the United States, such as the Nicaragua case regarding the use of nuclear weapons, in which Nicaragua received financial compensation from the United States.”

He added: "It is customary for some countries to deny international law, but this opinion, if approved by the International Court of Justice, will have important effects for the benefit of the Palestinians, and will have weight before the courts and before institutions and countries."

The director of the Al-Haq Foundation, which was part of the discussion about the direction and work on the issue, called for “putting the issue before the Security Council after its approval, despite the expectations of the American veto, which will be heavy in defending the Israeli occupation.”

Jabareen pointed out that "Palestine has become a test for international law and the standards for achieving it in our time," calling for "working on a set of very important decisions to translate the issue into specific steps with the aim of implementing and respecting international law."

(Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed)

The World Health Organization on Wednesday warned that an Israeli military offensive against Rafah in southern Gaza would cause an "unfathomable catastrophe" and push the enclave's health system closer to the brink of collapse.

"Military activities in this area, this densely populated area, would be, of course, an unfathomable catastrophe... and would even further expand the humanitarian disaster beyond imagination," said Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative for Gaza and the West Bank.

More than one million Palestinians crammed into Rafah at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, on the border with Egypt, where many are living in tent camps and makeshift shelters after fleeing Israeli bombardments elsewhere in Gaza.

The Israeli military says it wants to flush out the militants from hideouts in Rafah and free hostages being held there after the Hamas rampage in Israel on Oct. 7, but has given no details of a proposed plan to evacuate civilians.

The United Nations said that an Israeli offensive there could "lead to a slaughter."

"It will also increase the burden on a completely overburdened... health system on its knees and increase the trauma burden and it would push the health system closer to the brink of collapse," Peeperkorn said.

Peeperkorn said WHO's ability to distribute medical aid to Gaza was limited because many of its requests to deliver supplies had been denied.

He said that only 40% of WHO's missions to northern Gaza had been authorized from November, and that this figure had dropped significantly since January.

"All of these missions have been denied, impeded, or postponed," he said, adding it was "absurd" that only 45% of WHO's mission requests for southern Gaza had been granted.

Israel has previously denied blocking the entry of aid.

"Even when there is no ceasefire, humanitarian corridors should exist so that WHO, the UN can do their job," Peeperkorn said.

Australia, Canada and New Zealand issued a joint statement, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, for humanitarian purposes.

The countries said in their joint statement that they are deeply concerned about indications that the occupation is planning a ground attack on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

It indicated that any military operation on Rafah would be disastrous, stressing that its effects would be devastating on Palestinian civilians.

It pointed out that there is an urgent need for an immediate ceasefire, for humanitarian purposes, and there is a need to negotiate a political solution to achieve lasting peace, according to the statement.

For days, Israel has been threatening to launch a ground attack on Rafah, where more than 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are besieged, displaced from their homes from various parts of the Gaza Strip, and living in tents in difficult humanitarian conditions.

A ground aggression against Rafah would cause genocide against the Palestinians, who lost the necessities of life, amid fears of the occupation’s plans to forcibly displace them from the Strip.

During the past 24 hours, Israeli army committed 11 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, leaving 103 killed and 145 wounded, in addition to massive destruction of private and public property.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health indicated, in a statement, that the toll of the Israeli aggression had risen to 28,576 killed and 68,291 wounded since the seventh of last October.

The Ministry confirmed that there are still a number of victims under the rubble and on the roads, and the occupation prevents ambulance and civil defense crews from reaching them.

By Marc Owen Jones

Israel does not intend to ‘evacuate’ Palestinians from Rafah to safety. It seeks to kill or deport them.

On Sunday, ahead of a planned Israeli invasion of Rafah, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave an interview to ABC, a TV channel in the United States. He addressed warnings by Western officials, including Americans, that this would result in a high civilian death toll.

“We are going to do it while providing safe passage for the civilian population so they can leave,” Netanyahu said.

Asked by host Jonathan Karl where 1.4 million Palestinians are supposed to go, he responded: “The areas that we have cleared north of Rafah, there are plenty of areas there, but we are working out a detailed plan to do so.”

Netanyahu sounded unconvinced by his own words.

A day earlier, Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy spoke to London-based LBC radio and also sounded rather unconvincing. When asked by host Matt Frei four times where the Palestinians in Rafah are supposed to go, Levy could not respond. All he could muster was: “Well, there are open areas in the Gaza Strip. And one option is for UN agencies to work together with us on evacuating civilians to open areas.” The question where those open areas are remained unanswered.

The reason why Netanyahu and Levy cannot respond to a simple question is because they both know the Israeli army does not intend to protect Palestinians, as it hasn’t up until now. They know that nowhere has been safe for Palestinians and nowhere will be safe for them when the invasion of Rafah starts. They also know that ultimately, Israel is aiming to expel the Palestinians from Gaza, not to keep them there.

No safe place in Gaza

Since the start of this Israeli war on Gaza, the Israeli government has upped the ante on misinformation. Nowhere has this been more evident than in claims that the Israeli army is creating “safe passage” for the people of Gaza or is trying to protect them.

The past four deadly months provide plenty of evidence.

First, Israel told the people of Gaza that the south would be safe. When they started evacuating, they were bombed on the way in their civilian convoys. They were also bombed when they arrived. When civilians were not bombed on “safe evacuation routes”, they were shot at by snipers or detained and forcibly disappeared.

When the Israeli army invaded the previous “safe zone” of Khan Younis, it told civilians to stay put in hospitals and shelters. Its snipers shot people trying to reach hospitals and shelters and then bombed them.

When the Israeli army told Palestinians to leave Khan Younis, it targeted them while they were fleeing.

Some Palestinians made it to Rafah, another “safe zone”, only to be told that it is no longer safe. Now people are being told to flee Rafah to “open areas”. Other “open areas”, such as Mawasi, where people were previously told to go have been repeatedly targeted.

Throughout this process of telling people to evacuate only to kill them, the Israeli army and government kept making announcements in English and giving interviews to Western media claiming it was taking measures to “protect civilians”. Whether it was unsafe “evacuation routes” or confusing “evacuation maps”, they did what they could to cover up the truth that there are no safe places in Gaza.

They continued to peddle the lie even after United Nations agencies and international organisations – such as Save the Children, Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF), Amnesty International, etc – all agreed there is no safe place in Gaza.

Even Western media – including The New Yorker, Time magazine and Deutsche Welle – started seeing through Israeli disinformation and reported the reality that there is no safe place in Gaza.

Should the same army that killed more than 28,000 Palestinians and destroyed or damaged more than 60 percent of homes in Gaza be trusted to offer “safe passage” now?

Schrodinger’s Hamas

In the past, as in this war, Israel has repeatedly blamed the killings of civilians on Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups. It has repeatedly claimed that Palestinian fighters and their commanders use the civilian population as “human shields”.

But these claims do not quite add up with the data that the Israeli military itself has released. In January, Israel claimed that it had killed 10,000 Palestinian fighters (9,000 in Gaza and 1,000 inside Israel), wounded 8,000, arrested 2,300 and eliminated two-thirds of Hamas’s regiments. It has also said it has “struck” 30,000 targets in Gaza.

If the Israeli army – the most moral in the world per its own evaluation – “strikes” only military targets, one would have thought that at least 30,000 fighters would have been killed or wounded.

And if we go by Netanyahu’s claim that for one Palestinian civilian killed, one Palestinian fighter has been eliminated, then we get a death toll that the Israeli intelligence would reject. (The latter apparently has been using internally the Gaza Ministry of Health’s numbers, which the Israeli government repeatedly has called to question.)

In other words, Israeli army data confirm that it is striking civilian targets and Netanyahu is lying about the civilian-military death ratio in Gaza.

But there is another contradiction in the official Israeli narrative that these data are revealing.

Hamas, by Israeli estimates, had at least 30,000 fighters before the war. If we are to believe the Israeli army claims that it has cleared Hamas from the areas it has invaded in the Gaza Strip and that Rafah is the “last Hamas stronghold”, that means at least 10,000 were in Rafah in January when Palestinians were still being told this city was a safe zone.

If, as Israel likes to claim, Hamas uses human shields, then Israel is simply admitting that it is pushing the civilian population into areas where they will be targeted because Hamas is there.

It turns out, in this war on reality, that Israel can simultaneously say that they are evacuating civilians to safety while saying Hamas uses them as human shields. Somehow, Hamas is everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Beneath these lies is the formula for the real truth that Israel operates by: Where Hamas goes, civilians go, where civilians go, Hamas goes. To defeat Hamas, we must also remove civilians.

‘Nakba is safety’

It is no secret that the Israeli government has been planning and lobbying to have Palestinians expelled to the Sinai Peninsula. As early as late October, a document from Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence emerged in which the deportation of the Palestinian population of Gaza to Egyptian territory was clearly outlined.

Netanyahu was quick to dismiss the document as a “concept paper” and downplay its contents. But one has to wonder what he was thinking of when he stumbled on the words “plenty of areas” in the ABC interview. Could it be the real estate plans that are being drawn up for development of new Jewish settlements in eviscerated Gaza or the conference his ministers attended calling for Israeli resettlement of the strip?

Over the past four months, more than two million Palestinians have been squeezed farther and farther south closer to Egypt. Meanwhile, the “safety” and “evacuation” rhetoric of the Israeli army and government has served as a convenient cover for where this is going.

Israel’s evacuation orders have been a performance for the international community to try to demonstrate that Israel is complying with its obligations under international law.

The same is true of their evacuation maps, their leaflet drops, the “precision” strikes, the “safe zones”. These all form part of the “technologies of genocide” designed to make another Nakba easier for Israel and more palatable for Israel’s allies and the international community.

Indeed, they are part of the window dressing that helps US President Joe Biden trivialise Israel’s genocidal campaign as “a bit over the top”.

In the war on reality, truth falls victim to political ideology, and disinformation conflicts with other disinformation.

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” Add to this quote from George Orwell’s classic 1984, “Nakba is safety”, for that is the reality that has been foisted upon Palestinians in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said it insists that "Israel will not yield to Hamas's imaginary demands."

Netanyahu added, "There is no new proposal from Hamas in Cairo regarding the detainees agreement, and only a change in its position will allow progress to occur."

For its part, the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation reported that Netanyahu decided not to send the negotiating delegation to Cairo without the knowledge of the two ministers in the Israeli War Council, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to approve sending a delegation to Cairo to continue talks on a prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas, and denied that the movement had presented a new proposal during the talks held yesterday, Tuesday, in the Egyptian capital.

A statement issued by Netanyahu's office said, "Israel has not received any new proposal from Hamas to release the hostages. The Prime Minister, Netanyahu, insists that Israel will not submit to Hamas' unreasonable demands." He claimed that "a change in Hamas' positions will allow progress in the negotiations."

Earlier today, the Israeli Walla website quoted two informed sources as saying that Egyptian intelligence wanted to continue the talks in Cairo, tomorrow, Thursday, but Netanyahu refused the Israeli delegation’s participation in these talks.

According to Walla, the proposal to continue the talks was an Egyptian and Qatari attempt to achieve progress on issues that are not related to the number of Palestinian prisoners that Hamas is demanding to liberate, but rather in order to create “continuity and momentum in communications.”

An informed source said that the Egyptians and Qataris proposed holding talks in Cairo, tomorrow, with the participation of high levels of work in order to discuss the humanitarian elements of a possible prisoner exchange deal, such as the amount of aid that will enter the Gaza Strip and the possibility of the Palestinians returning to their homes in the northern Strip, according to what was reported by “Walla”. 

Yesterday, an Israeli delegation headed by Mossad chief David Barnea participated in talks on a prisoner exchange that took place in Cairo, with the participation of the head of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Qatari prime minister. Upon its return, the delegation informed Netanyahu of the proposal to continue the talks tomorrow.

The source said that Netanyahu did not agree to send the delegation to the talks tomorrow, claiming that “there is no point in further talks until Hamas agrees to soften its position on the issue of the number of prisoners it demands to be liberated within the framework of the deal.”

Commenting on the Cairo talks yesterday, an Israeli official said, “The main gap remaining in the negotiations is the large number of prisoners that Hamas is demanding in exchange for the kidnapped,” noting that “the talks ended without a breakthrough in the talks, but progress was recorded in understanding the gaps that must be filled” In order to enter into negotiations leading to a deal.”

In an impassioned speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) called the Israelis “war criminals” for deliberately withholding food from Gaza while children starve. But Van Hollen voted "yes" early Tuesday on the $95 billion foreign military aid bill, which includes $14 billion to support Israel's massacre of Palestinians.

“Children in Gaza are now dying from deliberate food deprivation. In addition to the horror of that news, there is something else that is true. This is a war crime. It is a textbook war crime. This makes those who organize it war criminals,” Van Hollen said.

President Biden "must demand that the Netanyahu government immediately allow more food, water and other life-saving supplies into Gaza and ensure they reach children and other people suffering from hunger," the senator said.

If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not agree to the demands, Van Hollen said President Biden should invoke Section 620-I of the Foreign Assistance Act. Section 620-i is designed to cut off arms exports to any country that restricts the delivery of U.S. humanitarian aid.

Van Hollen also tried to justify his reasons for voting to send $14 billion in military aid to people he had just described as war criminals. According to The Intercept, Van Hollen cited $60 billion in spending on the proxy war in Ukraine and $9.2 billion in humanitarian aid to Ukraine, Gaza, and other war zones around the world as reason enough to pass a bill that would give more support to Ukraine, Gaza, and other war zones around the world: More weapons for the government that has killed 12,300 Palestinian children since October 7.

The bill was approved by a vote of 70 to 29, with 20 Republicans voting in favor and only two Democrats opposed. The fate of the resolution in the House of Representatives is considered unclear, as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) indicates that he wants a border deal before it is put to a vote.

The United States gave Israel the green light to kill civilians in Rafah despite public statements from US officials calling on Israel to develop a plan to protect civilians in the city, which is home to an estimated 1.5 million Palestinians.

American officials told Politico that the Biden administration does not plan any consequences for Israel if it goes ahead with a major attack on Rafah, which will inevitably lead to the death of a large number of civilians. “No retaliation plans are in preparation, meaning Israeli forces could enter the city and harm civilians without facing US consequences,” the report said.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby explained in a press conference on Monday that the United States is not considering cutting off military aid to Israel if it goes ahead with the attack. When asked if the United States had threatened to withhold aid, Kirby said: “We will continue to support Israel...and we will continue to make sure they have the tools and the capabilities to do that.”

President Biden is also not reconsidering his full support for the Israeli massacre in Gaza despite reports that he disparages Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in private conversations.

Congress is also supportive of continuing to support the mass killing of Palestinians, as the Senate voted to pass a $95 billion foreign military aid bill, which includes $14 billion for Israel. Only 20 Republicans voted for the bill, but the opposition is due to the lack of a border agreement, with nearly all Republicans in favor of unconditional support for Israel, even more so than Democrats in Congress.

The pre-war population of Rafah was 275,000, which means that Palestinians displaced from other areas in the Strip increased the population five-fold. The majority of Palestinians in the city are sheltering in tents on the streets, making them particularly vulnerable to Israeli attack. Israeli air strikes on Rafah on Sunday night and into Monday morning led to the deaths of 27 children and 22 women.

1. Today, Wednesday, intense Israeli bombardment renewed on a number of towns in southern Lebanon.

Israeli warplanes and drones launched raids on the towns of Labouneh, Naqoura, Adshit, Gebshit, Al-Sawwaneh, Kafr Donin, Al-Shihabiya, and Basalya.

The Israeli artillery targeted the towns of Tair Harfa, Ramiya, and Jabal Balat.

Today, Wednesday, Israeli settlers attacked four families in Kisan, east of Bethlehem.

According to local sources, about 50 settlers from "Ma'ale Amos", which is squatting on citizens' lands, attacked four homes, which are mobile homes and tents belonging to citizens Mahmoud Ibrahim Abayat, Afif Hassan Abayat, Hassan Yousef Abayat, and Ibrahim Awaida Sawarka, and forced them at gunpoint. To leave their homes, without knowing the fate of those homes.

Today, Wednesday, 13 Palestinian citizens were injured by Israeli forces’ bullets during confrontations in the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron.

According to the Ministry of Health, the occupation forces fired bullets at the citizens, wounding 13 of them with live bullets in their lower and upper limbs, including a critical condition, and dozens were injured by rubber-coated metal bullets and suffocated due to inhaling toxic tear gas.

Gershon Baskin, Director of the Middle East Department at the Organization of International Communities, and mediator against Hamas for 17 years, revealed to the Bakra website that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not want to conclude a new deal, and therefore he gave his instructions not to submit any new Israeli offer.

He added that the delegation was present in the negotiating hall only as a listener, and Netanyahu does not want the deal.

It is noteworthy that the Cairo negotiations are still continuing for the second day in a row, despite the return of the Israeli delegation. Regarding the new details, Baskin said that Hamas is demanding three things within 4 months: an end to the war, the withdrawal of the Israeli army, and an all-for-all deal, and Israel rejects that.

He continued to say that in Cairo, they are talking about an agreement with Hamas according to which the first phase will be separated from the second and third phases, which means a ceasefire for a period of 45 days, during which negotiations will continue for the second and third phase, whereby the Israeli army will withdraw from all areas and release a large number of prisoners. And not all of them.

500 life prisoners

He added, "Hamas demands the release of 500 prisoners with long life sentences, in addition to 1,500 prisoners."

Israel is prepared to release only 50 life-sentence prisoners on the condition that it determines their identities, provided that the released prisoners exceed 1,500.

It is an opportunity to take some caution during the 45 days and prevent a ground invasion of Rafah.

He added, “Israel has set 3 conditions:

1. Addressing the Philadelphia axis in cooperation with the Americans, who will provide technological assistance to Egypt in order to deal with the depths on the border, especially since tunnels are still in the region and weapons are smuggled through them.

2. Free all Israeli detainees.

3. Deporting Hamas leaders from Gaza to a country not neighboring, and the talk here is mainly about Yahya Al-Sinwar, Marwan Issa, and Muhammad Al-Deif.

Bakra website: But Hamas will not accept departure?

Baskin: This will be done through pressure from the Hamas leadership abroad on the leadership in Gaza. The war will be stopped on the condition that Hamas does not rule in Gaza.

"Salah al-Din" al-Sanwar won

Yes, Hamas will ask for an image of victory, and it will find it. It has defeated Israel and Sinwar is now being painted like Saladin, but he cannot remain in Gaza, and neither will Netanyahu remain in power after the war. This is the end of Netanyahu.

This must be accepted to prevent the next catastrophe in Rafah. Enough has happened.

I hope they reach an agreement with Hamas in Cairo on a ceasefire, and if they fail, the attack will inevitably be on Rafah.

The President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, called for working seriously to complete the prisoner exchange deal as quickly as possible, in order to spare the Palestinian people the scourge of the devastating Israeli war.

President Abbas said: “In the face of the comprehensive war being waged against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, we call on the Hamas movement and the American administration to quickly complete the deal.”

He added: "The Israeli occupation is waging an open war on the Gaza Strip, which has led to the martyrdom of hundreds of Palestinian people every day, in addition to the storming of the West Bank and Jerusalem, and other dangerous Israeli escalation. Therefore, we must bear our responsibilities in stopping this comprehensive war on Palestinian people".

President Abbas held everyone responsible for placing any obstacles from any party to disrupt the deal, saying: “Things are no longer tolerable, and the time has come for everyone to bear responsibility.”

He continued: "We want to protect our people from the repercussions of any serious disaster that will befall them, so we must make decisions that serve the interests of our people and protect them, so that we can defend our cause and our national interests, by stopping the aggression, recognizing the independent State of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital, and continuing our political attack." comprehensive review of the UN Security Council and the rest of the international institutions to obtain full membership for the State of Palestine in the United Nations.”

Today, Wednesday, the Israeli army forced Palestinian shepherds to leave their pastures in the northern Jordan Valley.

According to local sources, these forces chased the shepherds and their livestock while they were in the pastures in the Sakot area, forced them to leave the pastures, and threatened them not to enter them again.

This comes within the framework of a severe siege imposed by the occupation and settlers on citizens in the Jordan Valley, by closing vast pastoral areas to shepherds, as these lands have come under the control of settlers.

Israel decided to submit a report to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, relating to the decisions against it that the court issued on January 26, following its examination of the lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel, accusing it of committing genocide and demanding an end to the war on Gaza.

The Israeli public radio "Kan" reported today, Wednesday, that it is expected that the Israeli report, which will be submitted in approximately two weeks, will include Israel's response to the allegations against it and its discussion of the decisions of the International Court.

It is noteworthy that the International Court of Justice demanded that Israel submit a report on the interim measures that must be taken within a month since the hearing, and that it include the measures taken by Israel to prevent any acts related to genocide. The court also obligated Israel to prevent the destruction of evidence related to genocide, and to take measures to prevent incitement to genocide.

Kan added that it is expected that Israel will also respond, tomorrow, to another request recently submitted by South Africa to international justice, to consider Israel’s decision to expand its military operations in Rafah, and to determine whether it requires that the court use its authority to prevent further violations. for the rights of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Israel's acquiescence to the decision of the International Court of Justice comes despite its claim that the international court does not have the authority to look into the situation in the Gaza Strip and its criticism of the decisions issued by the court.

However, following the issuance of these decisions, legal authorities recommended before the Israeli political level to implement the decisions of the International Court and submit the required report, so that Israel would not be considered as violating the decision.

The Israeli forces committed 11 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, claiming 103 killed and 145 injuries during the past 24 hours.

According to the Ministry of Health, a number of victims are still under rubble and on the roads, and the Israeli forces are preventing ambulance and civil defense crews from reaching them.

The Ministry indicated that the toll of the Israeli aggression rose to 28,576 citizens and 68,291 injuries since the seventh of last October.

From yesterday evening until Wednesday morning, the Israeli forces arrested at least 18 citizens from the West Bank, including two women from Jericho, children, and former prisoners.

The arrests were concentrated in the Hebron and Qalqilya governorates, while the rest of the arrests were distributed in the Jericho, Nablus, Jerusalem, and Ramallah governorates.

The Israeli forces continue to carry out widespread incursions during arrest campaigns, accompanied by widespread abuse, severe beatings, and threats against detainees and their families, in addition to widespread sabotage and destruction of citizens’ homes, and the confiscation of vehicles and money.

Thus, the total number of arrests after October 7 rose to about (7,020), and this total includes those who were arrested from homes, through military checkpoints, those who were forced to surrender themselves under pressure, and those who were held hostage.

It is worth mentioning that these arrest campaigns constitute the most prominent consistent and systematic policies used by the occupation forces, and they are also one of the most prominent tools of the (collective punishment) policy, which also constitutes a central tool for the occupation in targeting citizens, in light of the comprehensive aggression against our people and the ongoing genocide in Gaza. , after the seventh of October.

Today, Wednesday, dozens of settlers stormed the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, amid heavy protection from the occupation police.

The settlers made provocative tours inside the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and performed Talmudic rituals.

Groups of settlers storm Al-Aqsa on a daily basis except Friday and Saturday.

The Israeli army introduced groups of Israeli civilians into detention centres and prisons holding Palestinian prisoners and detainees from the Gaza Strip, permitting the civilians to witness torture crimes against the detainees, with many allowed to film them on their own phones.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor received shocking testimonies from recently released Palestinian prisoners and detainees, in which they reported that the Israeli army invited a number of Israeli civilians during their interrogation sessions to witness torture and inhumane treatment, to which they were deliberately subjected in the presence of the civilians.

Arrested during ground incursions by Israeli army forces into the Strip, the prisoners and detainees were held for varying periods of time inside two detention centres: one located in the Zikim area on the northern border of the Gaza Strip, and another affiliated with the Naqab prison in southern Israel.

The released detainees told Euro-Med Monitor that the Israeli soldiers had purposefully presented them before Israeli civilians, falsely claiming that they were fighters affiliated with Palestinian armed factions and that they had taken part in the 7 October attack on Israeli towns on Gaza Strip borders.

According to testimony received by Euro-Med Monitor, groups of ten to twenty Israeli civilians at a time were permitted to watch and laughingly film Palestinian prisoners and detainees in their underwear while Israeli army soldiers subjected them to physical abuse, including beating them with metal batons, electric sticks, and pouring hot water on their heads. The detainees were also verbally abused.

This is the first time that these illegal practices have come to the attention of Euro-Med Monitor. It adds a new crime to the list of those committed by the Israeli army against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and specifically against prisoners and detainees who are subjected to cruel torture, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, and denials of a fair trial, among other atrocities.

Palestinian Omar Abu Mudallala, 43, told the Euro-Med Monitor team: “I was arrested at the checkpoint set up near the Kuwait roundabout, which separates Gaza City from the central region, as part of the Israeli random arrest campaigns. I was subjected to all types of torture and abuse for approximately 52 days,” pointing out that Israeli soldiers “brought Israeli civilians to watch our nude torture.”

Abu Mudallala added: “The Israeli army brought a number of Israeli civilians into our detention centres while beating us and telling them, ‘These are Hamas terrorists who killed you and raped your women on 7 October,’ while the Israeli civilians were filming us being beaten, abused, and tortured while making fun of us.”

“This happened five times while I was being held. The first time was in Barkasat Zikim, where we were blindfolded. However, one of the detainees who speaks Hebrew told us that the soldiers were interacting with Israeli civilians claiming that we were armed fighters. The other four incidents took place in the Negev detention facility, where successive Israeli groups were taken inside tents to witness our abuse and record the torture methods we were subjected to without allowing us to speak or interact with them. Since we were not wearing blindfolds at the time, I saw them all four times with my own eyes.”

Abu Mudallalasaid that “one of the detainees who speaks Hebrew tried to explain to the Israeli civilians that we are civilians and we had nothing to do with any military activities, but that also did not help. However, he was subjected to severe psychological and physical torture. It was really shameful to bring Israeli citizens to record our torture for being allegedly involved in killing and rape incidents.”

Forty-two-year-old D.H. also told Euro-Med Monitor: “Israeli civilians were brought to witness the abuse and torture that we were subjected to, which the army deliberately began when they were present. These Israelis sometimes brought their dogs with them to bark on us. They also took pictures of us and post them on social media apps, particularly “TikTok,” with the soldiers themselves did the same.”

Euro-Med Monitor was taken aback by the evident falsity of the Israeli army’s claim that the Palestinian civilians subjected to torture in the presence of Israeli civilians were fighters involved in the October 7 attack – when the subsequent release of the detainees serves as proof that this narrative is untrue and was intended as a means of exacting revenge on Palestinian civilians and attacking their dignity.

According to Euro-Med Monitor, the Israeli army’s torture and inhumane treatment of Palestinian prisoners and detainees is illegal under the Rome Statute and constitutes crimes against humanity. The army’s staging of these abuses as entertainment for Israeli civilians and subsequent photography of the victims amounts to a grave violation of the dignity of these individuals, as well as the commission of war crimes.

Euro-Med Monitor warns of the dire consequences of introducing Israeli civilians into arrest and detention centres, displaying Palestinian detainees to them during torture, and letting them use their personal phones to document these inhumane practices. This is a retaliatory approach that falls within the framework of promoting  false Israeli propaganda, perpetuating a state of extremism, fueling hatred, and inflaming Israeli public opinion to incite more crimes and rights violations against Palestinians.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor asserts that the vast majority of those arrested from within the Gaza Strip have been subjected to arbitrary detention without being charged or brought to justice, with no legal measures taken against them. They are also denied a fair trial and are subjected to forced disappearance, torture, and inhumane treatment. Euro-Med Monitor calls on the International Committee of the Red Cross to inspect Israeli detention centres and prisons holding Palestinian prisoners and detainees, investigate the horrific violations and crimes they are subjected to, and work to bring these conditions to light immediately.

Furthermore, Euro-Med Monitor asserts that Israeli practices against Palestinian detainees are blatant violations of international conventions and standards, particularly the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids an occupying authority from transferring prisoners from the occupied territory to detention facilities on its territory, as well as torturing, attacking, or otherwise degrading the human dignity of those detained.

Israeli aircraft continued their bombing of various areas of the Gaza Strip on the 131st day of the war, with the support of tanks and gunboats, leaving dozens of killed and hundreds wounded.

The Israeli army committed 16 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, claiming 133 martyrs and 162 injuries during the past 24 hours, bringing the toll of the Israeli aggression to 28,473 killed and 68,146 injuries since the seventh of last October.

The Israeli army continued its siege of Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis Governorate, south of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army asked the hospital administration to evacuate the displaced and keep only the medical staff and patients.

The Israeli soldiers executed a young Palestinian man, tied him up and sent him to ask the displaced people to evacuate before shooting and killing him.

Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, spokesman for the Ministry of Health, announced that three citizens were killed and ten others were injured inside Nasser Medical Complex by Israeli sniper bullets since Tuesday afternoon.

The Israeli helicopters opened fire towards the Al-Qarara area, northeast of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.

Rafah

The Israeli aircraft launched seven raids on Rafah during the past twenty-four hours.

It targeted the Al Jazeera channel crew in Rafah with a reconnaissance missile, seriously wounding the reporter and photographer.

It also bombed a gathering of citizens near Tal Zorob, south of Rafah, causing injuries.

Gaza City

Six Palestinians killed, including infants, died in a bombing that targeted a vehicle at the end of Al-Jalaa Street, north of Gaza City, while three others were martyred in a bombing near the Palestine Stadium after a car they were traveling in was targeted.

One Palestinian citizen was killed and one was injured as a result of reconnaissance aircraft targeting the vicinity of the Ali bin Abi Talib Mosque in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City.

The middle of the sector

Several injuries occurred as a result of an Israeli bombing that targeted a house on Al-Mazraa Street in the city of Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

The Israeli artillery shelled east of Deir al-Balah in the middle of the Gaza Strip.

Several citizens were also injured in a bombing that targeted the town of Al-Zawaida in the central Gaza Strip.

HuffPost revealed in a report on Tuesday, February 13, 2024, that the United States has been investigating possible violations of international law by Israel for months, and is continuing its efforts, despite a previous statement by the White House National Security Council spokesman, John Kirby. A month ago, he said that Washington was very confident of the attack launched by Israel against Gaza with the support of the United States, and that the United States did not need to conduct an investigation into the actions of the occupying state.

The newspaper says, according to three informed sources, that officials in the US State Department are conducting investigations into the Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip, which they believe may have violated international law.

A US State Department official familiar with the discussions that took place in recent weeks, speaking to HuffPost, explained that US State Department lawyers have been tracking such examples of violations of international law for months.

Investigations are conducted through several methods

The US State Department is investigating whether Israel, a major recipient of US aid, committed human rights violations that violate US law, according to the official. These violations may also have violated international law.

Officials say the State Department is also assessing Israeli behavior through the Civilian Injury Response Guidance (CHIRG) — a new policy announced by US President Joe Biden last fall — the official and another State Department official said. The operation aims to monitor whether foreign governments are using US-supplied weapons to harm civilians, and may uncover evidence of violations of international law, according to officials.

During a closed briefing organized by the White House National Security Council on Friday, February 9, the National Security Council said that the United States is conducting assessments on whether Israel is complying with international law, which HuffPost learned from a source who was present at the briefing.

While spokesmen for the US National Security Council and the US State Department did not respond to requests for comment on the matter.

A disconnect in the American position

This revelation highlights a disconnect between the Biden administration's stated commitment to the president's policy of comprehensive military and diplomatic support for Israel's war against Gaza, and the awareness among foreign policy officials that that policy may be illegal and may even implicate US officials in war crimes.

Some experts believe that the Biden administration's assessments of alleged Israeli crimes may help create more serious conversations about holding accountable the choices of Israel and the United States during the war against Gaza, and may also help change course.

“For months, US officials have repeatedly said that the United States does not assess whether Israel is complying with international law in its operations in Gaza,” said Annie Shay, of the Center for the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (CIVIC). Such assessments are necessary for the law to be enforced. And US policies in good faith, including the Conventional Arms Transfer Policy approved by the Biden administration itself, prohibit the transfer of weapons when the United States assesses that it is likely that such weapons will be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international law.”

Annie argued that the Biden team must now provide further clarity on their understanding of the US role in causing “catastrophic civilian harm in Gaza” and the US responsibility to prevent further harm.

A number of people were killed and injured at dawn on Wednesday, including children and women, as a result of the occupation bombing of a site east of Deir al-Balah, and when Israeli reconnaissance planes targeted a house in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip.

The Al-Qarara area, northeast of Khan Yunis, in the south of the Gaza Strip, came under fire from helicopters, coinciding with intense gunfire east of Al-Maghazi.

On Tuesday night, Wednesday, the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced the death of 3 citizens and the wounding of 10 others inside the Nasser Medical Complex in the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, by Israeli sniper bullets.

Netanyahu wants a complete victory, and Gantz supports a long pause... and the fighting in Khan Yunis is intensifying

Israeli officials have begun to formulate a plan to end the war on the Gaza Strip that sets a timetable acceptable to both Tel Aviv and Washington, and includes in any case attacking the border city of Rafah, regardless of a possible agreement with Hamas on a prisoner and detainee exchange deal.

Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said that decision-makers in Israel are working on developing a strategic plan to end the war, and among the members of the limited government (the war council), at least two such plans are being drawn up, which are supposed to ensure the achievement of all the goals of the war or the absolute majority of them. The first is the plan of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his envoy to the United States, Minister of Strategic Affairs and member of the War Council as well as Ron Dermer, and the second is the plan of the two ministers in the War Council, former Chiefs of Staff Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot.

According to Yedioth Ahronoth, there are no major differences between the two plans except for the timetables, and the fact that Gantz and Eisenkot are ready in principle to reveal their position and discuss it in the Council of Ministers, while Netanyahu fears the reaction of his coalition partners, and therefore he is not ready to discuss his plan even in the future. The government is limited, and he is content with secretly negotiating it with senior officials in the Joe Biden administration, through Dermer.

The strategic plan proposed by Gantz and Eisenkot is supposed to achieve “victory” in stages, with Israel agreeing to a long cessation of fighting for the purpose of the hostage deal, and then resuming it in order to continue dismantling Hamas’ military and governmental capabilities.

Gantz and Eisenkot say: “Yes” to the deal, but “No” to the demand to commit to ending the war once and for all.

Among other things, the Gantz and Eisenkot plan aims to preserve and enhance military and political assistance from the US government, and they believe that the Israeli announcement of a long truce in the fighting for the purpose of implementing the hostage deal will significantly reduce the internal and external pressure on President Biden, and he will be able to significantly claim that He succeeded in stopping hostilities.

According to the plan of Gantz and Eisenkot, during a long pause in Gaza, the army will intensively prepare for the resumption of fighting, training its forces, replenishing weapons stocks, and updating combat methods and plans, with the war ending by June, that is, about five months before the elections. November US Presidential Day.

The plan of the former chiefs of staff includes establishing civilian rule in Gaza, maintaining security control there, and promoting Arab normalization, and in their opinion, this is the closest thing that can be achieved to “victory” after the horrors of October 7. As for Netanyahu, he wants “complete victory” within a short time.

Yedioth Ahronoth said that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Galant hope to achieve a complete military defeat of Hamas, and eliminate the movement’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, and the organization’s leadership in Gaza by seizing Rafah before or during the month of Ramadan.

Netanyahu and Gallant believe that entering Rafah, even if it does not immediately lead to the liquidation of Sinwar, will soften the position of the Hamas leadership and allow for a “reasonable” deal to release the hostages. It will also enable Israel to make decisions from a position of strength regarding the next day, including the Philadelphia axis with Egypt and in the north with Lebanon.

Netanyahu is pressuring Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy to complete the dismantling of Hamas in Khan Yunis and begin seizing Rafah. But Netanyahu's problem is that Halevy still needs time to finish work in Khan Yunis, and a few more weeks to implement the Rafah evacuation plan before the attack.

According to Netanyahu's plan, the fighting will end around April, after the month of Ramadan, and then the fourth phase will move to the security control of the Gaza Strip.

The revelation of Israeli plans to end the war came at a time when Israel further deepened its attack in Khan Yunis (south of the Gaza Strip), which has been witnessing fierce fighting for more than 70 days.

Israel bombed large areas in Khan Yunis, and blew up a residential square in the center of the city, while on Tuesday it surrounded Nasser Hospital and demanded its evacuation.

An Israeli army spokesman said that the forces of the 98th Division established their operational control west of Khan Yunis, killed Hamas fighters, carried out raids on infrastructure, sniper ambushes and patrols, and destroyed warehouses to store combat equipment, while fighters of the 646th Brigade (paratroopers in reserve) engaged in fierce fighting in the Abasan area in Khan Yunis, killing militants, raiding a lot of infrastructure, and discovering an underground path. They also confiscated weapons, mobile phones, hand grenades, ammunition clips, military clothing, and combat manuals.

In contrast, the “Al-Qassam Brigades” affiliated with the “Hamas Movement” said that its fighters clashed “with a Zionist foot force consisting of 7 soldiers from a distance of zero in the Abasan Al-Kabira area, east of the city of Khan Yunis, and caused them to be killed and wounded. They were also able to detonate an anti-personnel device.” A Zionist force of 5 soldiers barricaded themselves inside a house in the Abasan Al-Kabira area.

The Israeli army admitted that 3 were killed in the Abasan bombing.

The military spokesman said that during the activity of the fighters, an explosive device exploded in a booby-trapped building, and as a result of the explosion, the commander of the “630 Battalion,” Lieutenant Colonel (reserve) Nathaniel Alkobi, and the acting commander of one of the “630 Battalion” companies, Major (reserve) Yair Cohen, and a reserve fighter, were killed. Assistant (reserve) Ziv Chen belonged to the 630th Battalion, while other fighters were wounded.

Since the beginning of last December, Israel has been focusing on the fighting in Khan Yunis, hoping to reach the leaders of the last October 7 attack, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya al-Sinwar, his brother Muhammad, the commander of the Khan Yunis Brigade, and the general commander of al-Qassam, Muhammad al-Deif. And his deputy, Marwan Issa.

Israel needs to finish the battle of Khan Yunis, before moving on to attack the border city of Rafah, the last stronghold of Hamas.

Israeli leaders confirmed that they are continuing to attack Rafah, which is densely populated, where one and a half million Palestinians live, the majority of whom are displaced, despite all international warnings and demands to refrain from the attack, which will leave a sea of blood.