NAKBA 2.0
Bethan McKernan in Jerusalem
Fri 25 October 2024
Displaced Palestinians flee amid an Israeli military operation in Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip.Photograph: Mahmoud Issa/Reuters
Hospitals shelled, shelters set alight, men and boys separated from their families and taken away in military vehicles; a year into Israel-Hamas war, civilians clinging on in northern Gaza say the situation is worse than it has ever been.
About 400,000 people have remained in Gaza City and surrounding towns since Israel cut the area off from the rest of the territory and issued evacuation orders. Some are unwilling to leave home, afraid they will never be allowed to return; others decided to stay put for the sake of elderly or disabled family members. Civilians have reported that the routes to the relative safety of the south are unsafe, citing sniper fire and detention by Israeli forces.
Now, many believe Israel is trying to finish the job with a new aerial and ground offensive on the area that has killed at least 800 people since it began on 6 October. Tightening the siege and cutting off aid in order to force the remaining population to flee is outlined in a proposal known as “the generals’ plan”, presented to Benjamin Netanyahu’s government last month. Experts say such tactics amount to war crimes.
First responders have paused operations in northern Gaza altogether after crews were injured in airstrikes or detained by the military and their last fire engine was destroyed by tank shelling. The three struggling hospitals in the area say medical equipment is in such short supply that they are having to decide which patients they can help and which they have to let die. A near total blockade on aid deliveries mean that food and water are running dangerously low.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said on X this week: “People suffering under the ongoing Israeli siege in north Gaza are rapidly exhausting all available means for their survival.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Israeli government deny carrying out a deliberate “surrender or starve” campaign and say the new offensive is necessary to stop Hamas fighters regrouping. But the generals’ plan, so called because it was put together by a group of retired military leaders, forms a clear blueprint.
Sawsan Zaher, a Haifa-based Palestinian human rights lawyer, said: “It doesn’t matter if Israel says it is doing this or not, if it calls it by a different name or not. What matters in international law is what is happening on the ground, and we can clearly see Israel is trying to erase the Palestinian presence in north Gaza.”
The stated aim of the generals’ plan is to avoid a long war of attrition by putting as much pressure as possible on Hamas, forcing the group’s surrender and the return of 100 hostages seized on 7 October 2023 and still held captive.Interactive
The plan suggests giving Palestinians in northern Gaza an ultimatum to leave and then declaring the area a closed military zone. Those who remain would be considered combatants and therefore legitimate targets, it says. Water, food, fuel and medical supplies would be completely cut.
After Hamas’s surrender, the Gaza Strip would be permanently divided into two, with Israel in indefinite control in the north until a new civilian Palestinian administration could take over.
Human rights groups have condemned the plan, saying it breaches international prohibitions on the use of food as a weapon and forcible transfers. Whether Israel is intentionally limiting the entry of food to Gaza is already a major plank of the genocide case against it at the international court of justice. Israel says humanitarian agencies are to blame for slow deliveries and Hamas is siphoning off aid.
But with internationally mediated ceasefire and hostage release deal talks deadlocked since July, and Israel fighting a new war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, observers say it appears Israel may be experimenting with a change in strategy in Gaza.
“The bright lights aren’t on Gaza any more, even though the Israeli government is making it very clear what they plan to do. The reason why is simple: because they can. The US, the UN, the EU; who is going to stop them?” said Diana Buttu, a lawyer and former Palestinian peace negotiator.
Despite an expected revival of ceasefire talks next week, Israel is believed to be considering only a brief 12-day truce. Senior Israeli defence officials recently told the Israeli daily Haaretz that the government’s wider aim was now annexing large parts of the Palestinian territory.Interactive
The generals’ plan, or a version of it, would help towards that goal, although Gen Giora Eiland, the main author, told the Guardian that he opposed Israeli resettlement of the Gaza Strip. Siege was a valid tactic under international humanitarian law, he said, and the plan should be viewed as an alternative if a diplomatic solution to end the war could not be reached.
“The reason we had a successful hostage deal in November is because two trucks of aid were going to Gaza a day and Hamas was desperate,” he said. “The idea that there is some clean way to fight and not kill civilians in modern war is naive … Many more Palestinians and many more Israelis will die if the war is not brought to an end as soon as possible.”
Michael Milstein, a Hamas expert and head of the Palestinian studies forum at Tel Aviv University, said he believed the generals’ plan would not further Israel’s two stated military goals in Gaza – the defeat of Hamas and the return of the hostages.
“After a year of fighting and even with [Yahya] Sinwar gone we should realise by now that even if we occupy the whole Strip, Hamas will not stop fighting,” he said, referring to the recent killing of the group’s leader in Rafah.
“There are no good options for Israel in Gaza, but I worry this one will do even more damage to Israel’s image. Many people in Israel still do not understand that the rest of the world does not see what is happening in north Gaza as a just war. That in itself is a big strategic problem.”
Netanyahu interrupted by screaming Oct 7 victims’ families
Jessica Abrahams
Sun 27 October 2024
A man heckles Netanyahu during his speech - Gil Cohen-Magen/Pool Photo via AP
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was heckled by bereaved families as he spoke at a memorial ceremony for the civilian victims of the October 7 massacre today.
Netanyahu stood motionless at the lectern as audience members shouted, interrupting his speech for more than a minute during a live broadcast.
Relatives of some of the victims cried out “Shame on you!” before being removed from the event. The Israeli Prime Minister has been under pressure over his failure to prevent the attack or to secure the return of the hostages.
The memorial marked the Hebrew calendar anniversary of the Hamas attack on October 7 last year, in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 kidnapped. Israel’s top political and security officials attended the event in Jerusalem, laying wreaths and giving speeches.
AFP
Fri 25 October 2024
Women and children wait for medical attention at Kamal Adwan Hospital, which Gaza's health ministry said was raided by Israeli forces (-) (-/AFP/AFP)
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza accused Israeli forces Friday of storming the last functioning hospital in the territory's north in a raid it said left two children dead, while the military told AFP it was unaware of live fire or strikes in the area.
The Israeli military said its forces were operating around Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Jabalia refugee camp in north Gaza, where it launched a major operation earlier this month.
The operation sparked fresh concerns about the war's civilian toll, with UN human rights chief Volker Turk saying the conflict's "darkest moment" was unfolding in northern Gaza.
"Two children have died in the intensive care unit after the hospital's generators failed and the oxygen station was targeted," the health ministry said in a statement.
Israeli forces "are searching the hospital and firing within different departments, increasing the panic and anxiety", it added.
The Israeli army told AFP it was "not aware of live fire and strikes in the area of the hospital".
The World Health Organization earlier said it had lost contact with staff at the hospital on Friday morning.
"This development is deeply disturbing given the number of patients being served and people sheltering there," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Gaza's health ministry earlier said Israel's forces "stormed" the hospital, "detaining hundreds of patients, medical staff and some displaced individuals from neighbouring areas who sought refuge".
Israel said it had allowed the transfer of 23 patients out of the hospital on Thursday night, which was confirmed by the WHO.
Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for the Palestinian territories, said he witnessed "mayhem and chaos" at the hospital on Thursday.
At a checkpoint close to the hospital, the visiting WHO team saw "thousands of women and children leaving that area, walking, limping with their few belongings" towards Gaza City, he added.
- 'Emptying area of Palestinians' -
The UN human rights chief said that already "more than 150,000 people are reportedly dead, wounded or missing in Gaza" since the war broke out just over a year ago.
That number could "rise dramatically", he said, warning that Israel's actions in northern Gaza "risk emptying the area of all Palestinians".
The Israeli military says the goal of the assault is to destroy the operational capabilities it says Hamas is trying to rebuild in the north.
Israel has accused Hamas of operating from hospitals, schools and other civilian facilities, a charge the militant group denies.
Also in northern Gaza on Friday, Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli drone strikes killed 12 people waiting to receive aid near the Al-Shati refugee camp.
There was no immediate comment from the military.
In the south Gaza city of Khan Yunis, nine children were among 14 people killed in an Israeli strike that hit the Fara family home, the civil defence agency's Mahmud Bassal said.
"The rocket fell next to us, and we were buried under the rubble," Umm al-Ameer al-Fara, who survived the first strike, told AFP.
"My children and sister were killed."
A separate strike in Khan Yunis killed six people, Bassal said.
The Israeli military said "a number of terrorists were eliminated" in south Gaza.
- Three journalists killed -
Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack which triggered the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel's retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed 42,847 people, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.
Last month, after nearly a year of rocket fire by the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, Israel expanded its focus to Lebanon in a bid to secure its northern border.
At least 1,580 people have been killed in Lebanon since all-out war erupted on September 23, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures.
The Israeli military has announced the deaths of 32 soldiers since it began ground operations in Lebanon late last month.
On Friday, Lebanon accused Israel of a "deliberate" attack that killed three journalists.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military maintained it had targeted Hezbollah militants and said that "the incident is under review".
Pro-Iran Lebanese television channel Al Mayadeen said cameraman Ghassan Najjar and broadcast engineer Mohammad Reda were killed in the strike on a journalists' residence in the southern town of Hasbaya.
Another TV outlet, Al-Manar, run by Hezbollah, said video journalist Wissam Qassem was also killed in the strike on a bungalow located in a complex that several media organisations covering the war had rented out.
- Border crossing hit -
Journalists from other media organisations were sleeping nearby when the strike hit, in an area outside Hezbollah's traditional strongholds.
"I woke up to the whistling sound of a missile and found my door burst open... I thought there was a fire," Sky News Arabia correspondent Darine El Helwe told AFP.
Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the "deliberate" attack was among the "war crimes committed by the Israeli enemy".
Later on Friday, Lebanese state media said Israeli aircraft carried out at least eight strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.
AFPTV footage showed smoke rising from the area after Israel's army issued an evacuation call.
In northern Israel meanwhile, falling shrapnel from rockets fired by Hezbollah killed two people in the Arab town of Majd al-Krum, a hospital and the Israeli army said.
Hezbollah had earlier said it sent "a large rocket salvo" targeting a nearby city.
The group also said it hit three Israeli tanks in clashes in two villages near the border.
The Israeli military confirmed it struck a northern border crossing between Lebanon and Syria, accusing Hezbollah of moving weapons through it.
The UN refugee agency warned that the crossing had been the main escape route for people trying to flee the conflict in Lebanon.
bur/dl/ami/kir/rlp/tym
RAF’s Gaza photos could be used against Israel in war crimes court
Alexander Butler
Sat 26 October 2024
The Shadow R1 spyplane is currently operating in the Middle East (Alamy /Creative Commons)
Intelligence gathered by RAF spy planes flying over Gaza could be used as evidence against Israel in The Hague, it is understood.
Surveillance aircraft have carried out almost daily missions over the 25-mile-long Gaza Strip to try to help the Israelis find hostages captured by Hamas on 7 October.
But any video or images the aircraft obtained of suspected war crimes committed by either Israel or Hamas could be handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“If the ICC came to us and said, we think there has been a war crime in this area and do you have any footage, would the UK government offer that? Yes, absolutely,” a military source told The Times.
An ICC prosecutor sought arrest warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as his defence minister Yoav Gallant and several Hamas leaders in May - but these have not yet been approved by the court’s judges.
An International Criminal Court prosecutor sought an arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in May, as well as senior Hamas leaders (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
Hamas leaders Mohamed Deif, Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar - for whom arrest warrants were sought - have all been killed by the Israeli military in recent weeks.
It is not clear what aircraft are flying over Gaza or how many, but the Shadow R1, equipped with high-definition electro-optical and electronic sensors to gather data, is currently operating in the region.
The Shadow is flown by 14 Squadron, based at RAF Waddington, and its motto is written in Arabic. A quote taken from the Quran, it says: “I spread my wings and keep my promise.”
Between October 2023 and June 2024, the Met Police’s counter-terrorism unit received 158 reports of war crimes relating to the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip earlier this month (AP)
Recent footage showed a Palestinian teenager being burned alive while attached to an IV drip following an Israeli airstrike on a hospital complex.
Aid workers in Gaza have described daily seeing burned toddlers screaming in pain because there are not enough painkillers and children with severed limbs and their brains exposed after being hit in bombings.
The RAF was said to have been flying over Gaza on the day that Israel killed seven international aid workers who were in a World Central Kitchen convoy.
Those killed on April 1 included three British military veterans, John Chapman, James Kirby and James Henderson.
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