Gaza’s Last Fairytale

by Eros Salvatore / August 27th, 2024

Alaa Jamal’s pain and suffering is wound so tightly around her heart that it shields it from all the horrors she’s lived through. So even though she’s in the crosshairs of Netanyahu’s hatred’s sights, her heart beats unceasingly, in defiance of what the Occupation has done to her. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to keep the remnants of her family alive: a one year old son named Eid and a three year old daughter named Sanaa. Alaa calls her daughter Princess, an apt nickname for Alaa’s life has always been a fairytale, just one punctuated by war every two to four years. Birth, war. School, war. Adolescence, war. Friendship, war. Family, war. University, war.

Then, when she was eighteen, Mohammed came, and Alaa forgot about the wars. Instead, she says, “A great love story arose.” Handsome, smart, and strong, Alaa knew they were meant for each other. He was a civil engineer, and she, a future architect. He proposed on Eid-al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice. Alaa’s parents agreed, and the lovebirds married. In photographs they’re the quintessential couple. He’s sharp in casual clothes, she’s dazzling demure in repose.

“I was so happy dressed in white,” she says, reminiscing about her wedding.

And for a moment, I could see Alaa, smiling with the groom in the midst of her fairytale. Two children later, it would end. Now, the only white garments worn in Gaza are shrouds for the dead.

When the war began, Alaa was at the hospital with her infant son. Eid had been born with an enlarged heart and needed close supervision whenever he was ill. Now, Alaa found herself trapped with him, as fighting raged on all around her. Israeli soldiers raided the hospital and dragged people out of their beds to kidnap or kill. Terrified, Alaa grabbed her son, ripped out the IV in his arm and ran out the back of the hospital, covered in his blood.

Alaa ran all the way home, but when she arrived, things got worse. The neighborhood children were playing in the street in front of her house. A missile landed on the next block, and a large piece of shrapnel was sent reeling from the resulting explosion towards the children, decapitating Mohammed’s 12-year-old cousin Badr as Alaa watched. Mohammed’s father was next.

Alaa was still in shock when the Israelis dropped leaflets ordering them to go south. She left first, taking the children. Mohammed was supposed to follow a few days later. In the meantime, their neighborhood was destroyed one block at a time. Dozens of Alaa’s friends and relatives were martyred—wedded to the land they loved in the ultimate sacrifice. Day-by-day, hour-by-hour, with each new message, Alaa learned of their deaths. And it was there, among the hordes of refugees walking south along the sea of Gaza, that Alaa’s fairytale life finally came to an end:

“My brother Bahaa was volunteering to drive refugees trapped in the fighting to safety. Mohammed was with him, when the Occupation shot up the car they were in. My brother was wounded, and Mohammed tried to drag him to safety. That’s when they shot my husband in the face. Somebody called an ambulance, but the Israeli soldiers wouldn’t let the paramedics through. They bled out for charity.”

Alaa began to weep.

“The Occupiers refused to let anyone collect the bodies for burial. My beloved husband and brother became food for stray dogs and crows.”

Alaa didn’t have time to properly mourn. Even after reuniting with her remaining relatives, things continued to get worse. As the days and weeks rolled by, they faced a lack of clean water, food and medical care. Winter came, and they had nothing to keep them warm. Everyone was malnourished and sick.

Eid and Sanaa went to the hospital to get treated for starvation with a nutrient IV drip. The elderly had no such luck. Three different times Alaa woke up on a cold morning to find one of her aunts dead. Their bodies simply couldn’t produce enough heat with so little food to eat. I wondered about her own health.

“How much weight have you lost since October 7th?” I asked.

“Thirty pounds,” she said.

I wanted to know more, but Alaa steered the conversation back to her children.

“My daughter Sanaa lost her ability to speak after her father died. She was in shock, depressed, and fell seriously ill. I tried to comfort her. Then one day she began to sing: ‘When I die, I will go to Heaven to be with my father.’”

Sanaa’s understanding of the afterlife allowed her to be a child again.

By April, when I met Alaa, the food situation had improved. But in May, Sanaa contracted hepatitis C and wouldn’t eat. The hospital fed her through another IV. In June, Eid got a bacterial skin infection on his face. Day-by-day I watched it spread in photographs Alaa sent me. The hospital in Deir al-Balah wanted one hundred dollars for the medication. One hundred more than what was reasonable. I used my connections in Gaza to get a charity to pay for it. But Alaa wouldn’t leave her children alone to retrieve the medicine. She was afraid she’d come back to find them dead. Her father went instead. Just in time too, because the skin on Eid’s face began to rot as it decayed. With all his other health issues, it could have been the end of him.

Eventually, Alaa realized that she needed to make a future for her children. She began to study online to finish her degree. She’s already started on her senior project: designing a rehabilitative mental health center for healing from PTSD. She wants to build it as soon as the war stops. It’s part of her overall plan: “I want to make Gaza beautiful again.”

In the meantime, she’s desperately trying to raise money to buy a tent. It’s crowded and unstable the way she lives, always shuffling around between her remaining relatives. Whenever I try to get a charity to help her, she asks if she can work for them. How can she simultaneously work, mourn, study, raise children and survive? Her life is one of incomprehensible contradictions.

“I hope God will compensate Alaa for her loss,” one of her relatives told me.

I concur, if things go well. If they don’t, Alaa tells me what will happen next: “I am an ambitious person, and I love life very much. But I know that one day my blood, and the blood of my children, will water this land.”

May God be pleased with her.

Alaa Jamal, Sanna, Eid with Mohammed

Alaa and her children

• You can learn more about Alaa Jamal here

• You can find more stories about Gaza at https://erossalvatore.com/FacebookTwitter

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Eros Salvatore is a writer and filmmaker living in Bellingham, Washington. They have been published in the journals Anti-Heroin Chic and The Blue Nib among others, and have shown two short films in festivals. They have a BA from Humboldt State University, and a foster daughter who grew up under the Taliban in a tribal area of Pakistan. Read other articles by Eros, or visit Eros's website.

GAZA

Dreams and families destroyed


Khaled El-Hissy and Razan Abu Salem 

The Electronic Intifada
26 August 2024 

The Israeli military has bombed homes all over Gaza, burying thousands of Palestinians in the rubble. Omar AshtawyAPA images

Ayman Hamada, 48, owned a factory that mainly produced canned legumes and canned meats to distribute throughout the Gaza Strip.

On 14 October, Israel bombed Hamada’s factory.

“I went there and saw the factory had been completely destroyed,” Hamada said. “The aim of bombing my factory directly is to cut off food supplies in the Gaza Strip and begin establishing famine.”

After a warning missile, Israel bombed Hamada’s house on 29 October.

He didn’t even have enough time to retrieve all his savings. Hamada and his family had to flee empty-handed from northern Gaza to the south.

While Hamada and his family passed through one of the checkpoints, an Israeli soldier ordered him to leave all the money he had, clothes, and bags he was carrying.

Hamada acted as if he didn’t hear the orders and kept walking, hoping the soldier would let him go.

But that didn’t happen. The soldiers then took everything away from him.

“I didn’t want them to hurt my family, so I didn’t resist in any way,” Hamada explained.

He is now unable to secure daily food for himself and his seven-member family.

They have been displaced more than six times, but what hurts him the most is not being able to buy the goods his factory used to produce.

“I sometimes pass by my old goods, which are still sold in the markets,” he said. “I look at them with sorrow. I can’t even afford to buy them now.”

Hamada was able to build a small stand for selling falafel as he said he “had to earn money” to feed his family.

He is far from alone in being out of home and work.

Almost 2 million people have been forced from their homes since Israel launched its attacks on 7 October 2023, Oxfam reported on 8 August.

The aid nonprofit said more than 60 percent of the buildings in Gaza have been destroyed, including Hamada’s factory.

“Since the start of its military assault on the Gaza Strip on 7 October 2023, the Israeli army has worked methodically to destroy livestock, agricultural lands and bird farms in a consistent manner with the clear intention of starving the populace and denying them access to the staple foods of fruits, vegetables, and white and red meat,” Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said in a 24 June press release.

“This has left the population’s survival dependent on the Israeli decision to allow or prohibit the entry of humanitarian aid.”
A teaching dream crushed

Samer Azzam, 45, was a taxi driver with a doctorate in psychology.

He spent 20 years of his life working as a taxi driver and saving money for university study in order to achieve his dream: becoming a professor.

In 2008, he studied psychology at Al-Azhar University, and in 2014, he pursued a master’s degree.

Azzam had to balance his roles as a student and the breadwinner for his six-member family.

In 2022, he obtained a Ph.D. in psychology.

He submitted many applications to universities to teach, most of which were rejected.

On 10 August 2023, al-Isra University promised Azzam a teaching position.

He began teaching a course entitled “Basics of Psychology” to undergraduates.

Then the war changed everything.

“I didn’t get enough time to fulfill my dream. The war came and destroyed all my dreams,” Azzam said. “Even being addressed as a ‘Doctor’ was taken away from me by Israel.”

On 3 November, Azzam and his family had to flee to southern Gaza after the bombing intensified where they were living.

They went from Jabaliya to the Netzarim corridor by car. When they reached the checkpoint, the Israeli soldier ordered them to leave everything in the car and walk on foot.

Azzam got out of the car carrying his important papers and a bag of clothes. As he and his family started to pass through the checkpoint, an Israeli soldier pointed his gun at Azzam’s head and forced him to throw everything away and cross empty-handed.

“The moment my family and I crossed the checkpoint, I heard a very loud explosion and looked back,” Azzam recounted. “I saw my car being blown up. I lost it and everything inside. I lost everything.”

Azzam and his family have been displaced more than five times, moving from one place to another. They currently live in a tent in al-Qarara, a Khan Younis suburb.

The Oxfam report noted many families have been in a similar situation, moving from place to place, from tent to tent to try to avoid death.

“People are sheltering together in overcrowded schools, mosques, tents and makeshift shelters. Many are staying with family and friends, all while facing a lack of power and limited access to water, food, hygiene and health services,” Oxfam said.

Azzam became a street vendor, selling noodles and packaged juice.

“I make little money to buy food for my family,” Azzam said, adding that being a street vendor fills up his time, so he does not “recount his life, which was destroyed or my dream that I worked so hard to achieve.”

Azzam was diagnosed with hypertension due to the psychological pressure he has faced. But he said he can’t afford the medication for his hypertension and that his health is deteriorating day by day.
7 people, 1 bag

On 13 March, Mona Abu-Rabie took her daughter Sarah with her to buy bread. Abu-Rabie’s other four children and husband were still at home.

While they were in the line at the bakery, they heard heavy bombing.

A man came running and screaming: “There are martyrs at the Abu-Rabie house.”

Abu-Rabie grabbed her daughter and ran home to find the house had become a single pile of rubble. Her other children, husband and parents were under it.

“The fire was still burning in the house. I whimpered that my whole family was under the rubble,” Abu-Rabie recounted.

“After hours, my four children, husband and parents were extracted from under the rubble but in pieces. I put all their remains in one bag. I lost them all at once with a single missile.”

After she and her daughter survived the massacre, they moved to live in a neighbor’s tent in Deir al-Balah.

“Even if the war ends, I have no home to return to and no family to embrace,” Abu-Rabie said.

Khaled El-Hissy and Razan Abu Salem are writers from Gaza.

Israel: Palestinian Healthcare Workers Tortured

ICC Prosecutor Should Investigate Attacks on Health Care, Detainee Abuses

By Human Rights Watch

August 27, 2024

Source: Human Rights Watch


A leaked photograph obtained by CNN shows a blindfolded man with his arms over his head at the Sde Teiman detention facility. (Photo: CNN)

Israeli forces have arbitrarily detained Palestinian healthcare workers in Gaza since hostilities began in October 2023, deported them to detention facilities in Israel, and allegedly tortured and ill-treated them, Human Rights Watch said today. The detention of healthcare workers in the context of the Israeli military’s repeated attacks on hospitals in Gaza has contributed to the catastrophic degradation of the besieged territory’s healthcare system.

Released doctors, nurses and paramedics described to Human Rights Watch their mistreatment in Israeli custody, including humiliation, beatings, forced stress positions, prolonged cuffing and blindfolding, and denial of medical care. They also reported torture, including rape and sexual abuse by Israeli forces, denial of medical care, and poor detention conditions for the general detainee population.

“The Israeli government’s mistreatment of Palestinian healthcare workers has continued in the shadows and needs to immediately stop,” said Balkees Jarrah, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The torture and other ill-treatment of doctors, nurses, and paramedics should be thoroughly investigated and appropriately punished, including by the International Criminal Court (ICC).”

From March to June 2024, Human Rights Watch interviewed eight Palestinian healthcare workers who were taken by the Israeli military from Gaza between November and December 2023 and detained without charge for between seven days and five months. Six were detained at work following Israeli sieges of hospitals or during hospital evacuations that they said had been coordinated with the Israeli military. None of the healthcare workers said they were ever informed of the reason for their detention or charged with an offense. Human Rights Watch also spoke with seven people who witnessed Israeli soldiers detaining healthcare workers carrying out their duties.

Human Rights Watch sent a letter to the Israeli military and Israeli Prison Services with the preliminary findings on August 13 but has not received a response.

All the healthcare workers interviewed provided similar accounts of mistreatment in Israeli custody. After being in Gaza, they were deported to detention facilities in Israel, including the Sde Teiman military base in the Negev desert and Ashkelon prison, or, forcibly transferred to the Anatot military base near East Jerusalem and the Ofer detention facility, in the occupied West Bank. All said that they were stripped, beaten, and blindfolded and handcuffed, for many weeks on end, and pressured to confess to being members of the Hamas movement with various threats of indefinite detention, rape, and killing their families in Gaza.

A surgeon said he was “wearing scrubs and Crocs” when Israeli forces detained him during their siege of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, Gaza, in December. “We were 50 healthcare workers, including nurses and doctors,” he said. “The soldier on the microphone ordered men and boys over 15 years old to evacuate the hospital…. When they took us out of the hospital, they told us to undress and stay in our underwear.”

One paramedic said that at the Sde Teiman detention facility he was suspended from a chain attached to handcuffs, electroshocked, denied medical care for broken ribs caused by beatings, and administered what he believed was a psychoactive drug before interrogations. “It was so degrading, it was unbelievable,” he said. “I was helping people as a paramedic, I never expected something like this.”

Healthcare workers also reported being punished in detention for moving or speaking, and collectively punished if other detainees spoke. “Sometimes if one spoke, they [soldiers] punished the whole warehouse [at Naqab prison], collectively,” one healthcare worker said.

The Gaza Health Ministry reported that Israeli forces have detained at least 310 Palestinian healthcare workers since October 7. Healthcare Workers Watch-Palestine, a nongovernmental organization, documented 259 detentions of healthcare workers and collected 31 accounts describing torture and other abuses by Israeli authorities, including the use of stress positions, deprivation of adequate food and water, threats of sexual violence and rape, and degrading treatment. Healthcare Workers Watch-Palestine helped Human Rights Watch interview released healthcare workers.

The prolonged arbitrary detention and mistreatment of healthcare workers has exacerbated the health crisis in Gaza, Human Rights Watch said. Since October, over 92,000 people in Gaza have been wounded, functional hospitals have fewer than 1,500 inpatient beds, and yet the Israeli authorities have allowed only 35 percent of nearly 14,000 people who requested medical evacuations to leave Gaza, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported on August 5.

The healthcare workers’ accounts are consistent with independent reports, including by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Israeli news media, and rights groups, documenting dozens of detainee accounts of incommunicado detention, beatings, sexual violence, forced confessions, electrocution, and other torture and abuses of Palestinians in Israeli detention.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on June 3 that the Israeli military was conducting criminal investigations into the deaths of 48 Palestinians in Israeli detention facilities since October 7. These include Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, a surgeon and head of orthopedics at al-Shifa Hospital, and Dr. Eyad al-Rantisi, the director of a women’s health center at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia.

Common article 3 to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, applicable to hostilities between Israel and the Palestinian armed groups, provides that “[p]ersons taking no active part in the hostilities … shall in all circumstances be treated humanely.” “Cruel treatment and torture” and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment” are prohibited at all times. Those wounded and sick “shall be … cared for.”

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, applicable to occupied territories, prohibits individual forcible transfers within the occupied territory as well as deportations of civilians from occupied territory to the occupying power’s territory, regardless of the motive. Serious violations of Common article 3 and article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention committed with criminal intent are war crimes.

Human Rights Watch has found that Israeli authorities for decades have failed to provide credible accountability for torture and other abuses against Palestinian detainees. According to official Israeli statistics, between 2019 and 2022, 1,830 complaints of abuse were opened against Israeli Prison Services officers, with none resulting in a criminal conviction. Israeli authorities have not allowed independent humanitarian agencies access to Palestinian detainees since the start of hostilities.

Governments should support international justice efforts to address Israeli abuses against Palestinian detainees and hold those responsible to account. The United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and other countries should press Israel to end its abusive detention practices, which form one aspect of systematic oppression underlying Israeli authorities’ crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against Palestinians.

The ICC is considering arrest warrant applications against senior Israeli officials for grave international crimes and should ensure that its investigation addresses abuses against Palestinian detainees. Israel’s allies should press the government to urgently allow independent monitoring of detention facilities.

“The torture of Palestinian healthcare workers is a window into the much larger issue of the Israeli government’s treatment of detainees generally,” Jarrah said. “Governments should publicly call on the Israeli authorities to release unlawfully detained healthcare workers and end the cruel mistreatment and nightmarish conditions for all detained Palestinians.”
Humiliation, Ill-treatment, and Torture

The healthcare workers interviewed all reported humiliation, ill-treatment, and torture, including being stripped and beaten, with prolonged painful stress positions, near-constant cuffing, and blindfolding. Some said they were threatened with sexual violence and by attack dogs.
Abuses During Deportation, Detention

All eight men reported being forced to strip publicly immediately after being taken into custody and remain kneeling for extended periods, exposed to the cold, and at various times throughout their detention. Photographs and videos that Israeli soldiers shared online and that Reuters verified show Palestinian detainees unclothed or in underwear. Publishing such images online is an outrage on personal dignity and posted sexualized images are a form of sexual violence, which are war crimes.

“We were forced to strip in the street and remain in our boxers, one by one,” said Osama Tashtash, 28, a doctor at the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia who was arrested in early December at his home nearby. “For an hour and a half, we were on our knees.” He said that during that period, he and other detainees were exposed to danger from Israeli military operations in the area. He said shrapnel fell on them as Israeli soldiers threw grenades at nearby houses and set them on fire.

Dr. Khalid Hamoudeh, 34, was arrested on the morning of December 12 at Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia. A photograph circulated late that evening by the Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 shows Dr. Hamoudeh shirtless alongside four other men he identified as fellow healthcare workers. The photograph shows the men standing in a row in front of an Israeli soldier holding a light panel, illuminating the detainees.

Dr. Hamoudeh said they were photographed, then designated for release or detention. Behind them the photograph shows hundreds of men sitting in a large pit with at least 18 Israeli soldiers guarding them. A detailed analysis by the investigative TechJournalist identified several detainees with their hands tied behind their back, including Dr. Hamoudeh.

The image, whose site was identified first by the open-source researcher FDov on X, formerly known as Twitter, and later confirmed by Human Rights Watch, was taken approximately half a kilometer northeast of the hospital. Dr. Hamoudeh said that about 50 healthcare workers sitting together separately from internally displaced people. He said he was told to undress and stay in his underwear and was then blindfolded.

The healthcare workers described beatings and physical abuse after being detained, including being punched, kicked with steel-toed boots, slapped, and beaten with assault-rifle butts by Israeli soldiers.

Eyad Abed, 50, a surgeon at the Indonesian Hospital who was detained during a coordinated evacuation of the hospital in November, said:


Every minute we were beaten. I mean all over the body, on sensitive areas between the legs, the chest, the back. We were kicked all over the body and the face. They used the front of their boots which had a metal tip, then their weapons. They had lighters: one soldier tried to burn me but burned the person next to me. I told them I’m a doctor, but they didn’t care.

Abed said that he had broken ribs and a broken tailbone as a result of the physical assault by Israeli soldiers during his arrest and detention, which two months later still had not healed.

An ambulance driver who asked not to be named said while he was being held with dozens of other men in large a metal “cage” near the Israel-Gaza border fence, he saw guards beat to death two men, one of whom he recognized, with metal bars.

The healthcare workers all described ill-treatment during their deportation from Gaza to detention facilities in Israel, including beatings, sitting in prolonged painful stress positions while blindfolded and cuffed by the hands and feet, being “stacked above each other like sheep,” pepper sprayed, and denied water.
Abuses in Detention Facilities

The healthcare workers said that Israeli authorities abused detainees at detention facilities inside Israel. Four said that when they arrived at detention facilities, the authorities forced them to wear adult diapers and denied them access to toilets.

The ambulance driver, who was detained for five months, was first transferred to a prison in Ashkelon, where guards interrogated him daily for a week, during which time they bound him in his underwear to a chair for between 10 and 15 hours a day in a room with a blasting air conditioner. He said he had been badly beaten and that sitting caused extreme pain in his spine. He said the authorities denied him access to a toilet, forcing him to urinate on himself, and refused to provide him any food or water. He was then transferred to the Ofer military detention facility in the Occupied West Bank, where at night, the guards threw cold water on him and on his mattress.

A paramedic, Walid Khalili, 36, said that when soldiers removed his blindfold at the Sde Teiman facility, he saw he was in a large building “like a warehouse,” with chains hanging from the ceiling. Dozens of detainees in diapers were suspended from the ceiling, with the chains attached to their square metal handcuffs. He said that personnel at the facility then suspended him from a chain, so his feet were not touching the ground, dressed him in a garment and a headband that were attached to wires, and shocked him with electricity.

Two doctors held at Sde Teiman said that other detainees came to them to seek care for wounds inflicted by Israeli authorities. When detainees “lifted their shirts, I saw signs of abuse and physical beatings,” one doctor said. The other said, “I saw [men] who had cigarette burns on their arms, it was very clear. One had a dog bite on his stomach.”

As punishment for moving or speaking, detainees would be forced to stand, sometimes for hours, with their cuffed hands held above their head or fixed to a fence, detainees said. Detainees could hear the screams of other detainees being beaten nearby. One said that after he asked a question, an Israeli officer forced his fingers through a chain-link fence, he “told me to shut up and not say a word,” and pressed downward on the detainee’s fingers for several minutes, causing severe pain until the detainee could no longer feel his fingers.

Three healthcare workers reported soldiers using military dogs to intimidate detainees. “They would threaten to shoot us and start loading their weapons,” one doctor said. “This felt like horror. They brought in military dogs. I screamed, that was the worst moment in my life, because I was still cuffed and blindfolded, not seeing where the dogs are coming from.” Another doctor said dogs were brought in late at night to wake and terrify detainees.
Threats and Acts of Sexual Abuse

Three healthcare workers said that Israeli authorities threatened them with sexual assault. Khader Abu Nada, 30, a nurse at Beit Hanoun hospital in northern Gaza, said that when he denied any Hamas affiliation during his first interrogation at a military base in Gaza, the commander threatened to rape him with an “electric stick.” When Abu Nada continued to deny any Hamas affiliation, soldiers beat him until he was bleeding from his nose, hands, and mouth.

Abu Nada said the commander then asked him where his mother was and threatened to bring her from the checkpoint where he was arrested and strip her in front of everyone. “When I heard this, I was psychologically broken. I felt humiliated,” he said. He said he was threatened with rape again prior to his release.

A detained paramedic who was transferred to al-Naqab prison after 20 days in Sde Teiman, said that a man who was visibly “bleeding from his bottom” was brought in and placed next to him. The man told the paramedic that before he was placed in detention, “three soldiers took turns raping him with an M16 [assault rifle]. No one else knew, but he told me as a paramedic. He was terrified.” In addition, a doctor said while he was detained in a military base, a detainee, “in his late 30s, crying hard … told me he was sexually assaulted during the strip search.”
Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Conditions

All the healthcare workers described horrific conditions in detention. Abed, the surgeon, said the food was “horrible” and inadequate, and that he lost 22 kilograms during a month and a half in detention. The bathrooms were “not even fit for animals.” The mattresses and blankets were thin, and the cold nights were “unbearable.” In the cells, water for toilets and for drinking was only available for one hour a day, with a “disgusting” stench emanating from the non-flushable toilets. “They gave us a bag for the garbage. We used to fill it with water and drink from it later. It smelled horrible but we had no choice,” Abed said.

For detainees’ meals at Sde Teiman, soldiers “emptied tuna cans into a garbage bag and gave it to me,” said Dr. Khalid Hamoudeh, whom soldiers ordered to distribute food to detainees. “One time I saw a soldier spit in the bag. Many [detainees] were starving and telling me they were hungry.” A nurse detained at Anatot said, “We got two meals [a day]. It was terrible food. I would just drink water, there were no fruits, not even apples. They gave us food just to survive the day.”

Khalili, the paramedic, said that at one point when he was detained in Sde Teiman, an Israeli news crew arrived, and a detainee who understood Hebrew told him that a prison official told the journalists, falsely, that the detainees were members of a unit of Hamas’s armed wing responsible for the October 7 attacks. The next day, the paramedic said, soldiers brought food and set it in front of the detainees, ordered them not to eat it, took photographs, then took the food away.
Prolonged Cuffing and Blindfolding

The healthcare workers said that they were cuffed almost constantly throughout their detention. They said Israeli authorities often ignored detainees who complained about the tightness of their cuffs or tightened their cuffs as punishment for complaining. In a public letter, an Israeli doctor working in the military field hospital at Sde Teiman wrote that in a single week, “two prisoners had their legs amputated due to handcuff injuries, which unfortunately is a routine event.”

Abu Nada, the nurse, said he was arrested at the Kuwaiti Roundabout in Gaza on November 22 while evacuating from the north with his family. Soldiers ordered him to strip, cuffed and blindfolded him, then took him for questioning. He said his first interrogation ended with an Israeli military commander punching him in the face and kicking him all over his body, then ordering another soldier to tighten his cuffs and drag him to an open field, where he waited on his knees for an hour.

“My wrists hurt so much, they felt paralyzed and numb. I cried so much, I couldn’t take the pain,” Abu Nada said. When he asked a soldier to loosen his cuffs, he said the soldier repeatedly kicked his head instead. “I told him, ‘Kill me I can’t take it anymore, kill me already.’” Israeli soldiers ignored or beat him in response to his multiple requests to loosen his handcuffs.

Abu Nada said his wrists later turned black, and he feared his mistreatment may have caused permanent damage: “I still feel pain in my hands. My hands are weak, and I have no strength to hold or carry anything. Also, there’s still pain from my shoulders all the way to my fingertips. I have severe neck pain from the pressure on my head when they kept pushing our heads down.”

As Physicians for Human Rights Israel has reported, prolonged physical restraint causes intense pain and can result in permanent nerve damage that interferes with using the hands and in extreme cases can lead to death.

The healthcare workers also all reported prolonged, near-constant blindfolding. According to Physicians for Human Rights Israel, “blindfolding can, even with short-term use, induce visual hallucinations in healthy individuals. Over extended periods, prolonged use of blindfolds can contribute to the onset of anxiety disorders, depression, substance abuse, and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) in the medium to long term.”
Medical Neglect

The healthcare workers described medical neglect despite the detainees’ numerous requests and clear, urgent need for treatment for preexisting health conditions, or for injuries sustained during the hostilities in Gaza or from abuses in custody.

A nurse at Awda hospital in northern Gaza, who asked not to be named, said that on November 21 he was injured when an Israeli airstrike hit his hospital. He had emergency surgery at Awda hospital to stabilize broken fingers and a torn tendon in his right hand, which was then placed in a cast, and an open wound on his left hand was wrapped in gauze.

The next day, the nurse left the hospital in an ambulance along with 15 other people, including patients, their companions, and hospital staff, in an evacuation arranged by the Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontieres (MSF or Doctors Without Borders). “The hospital shared our car license plate number, IDs, and names [with the Israeli military], and everything was approved,” he said.

Shortly after their departure, Israeli soldiers at the Kuwaiti Roundabout stopped the ambulance and ordered all passengers to exit. The nurse and another doctor were taken aside and ordered to strip. “My right hand had a cast and titanium [implants]; I couldn’t use it. I couldn’t even pee alone. The doctor detained with me helped me take off my clothes, even my shoes,” the nurse said.

Cuffed and blindfolded, the nurse was taken to Anatot military base. He said that on intake, soldiers introduced a man as a doctor who examined his wounds but did nothing else. He said despite repeated requests, the dressing was only changed for the first time on the third or fourth day of his detention and rarely after that. “They only changed the gauze on the injuries – no scans, no proper medication, nothing. My injury, the skin was open, [but I was given] nothing to treat possible bacteria,” he said. The nurse also said that after a week of detention he was released and needed surgery to treat hemorrhoids due to constant sitting and being kicked in detention.

Dr. Hamoudeh said that during his detention at Sde Teiman in late December, he saw another detainee with apparent “trauma from beatings, and I was terrified he would die.” He alerted authorities who said they were paramedics – he never saw an Israeli doctor at the facility – and “they took pictures [of the injuries] and sent it to someone. The soldier then told them enough, and not to do any more medical care.” He said when he told soldiers about people in need of medical care, they would reply to him saying they did not care if they died.

Dr. Hamoudeh said that one day in December, soldiers brought in five detained doctors, including Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, head of orthopedics at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, who was declared dead by Israeli Prison authorities in Ofer prison in April. “Dr. Adnan was in pain from the beatings. He was also punished. He had visible blunt trauma, and he had trouble breathing,” Dr. Hamoudeh said. “What happened to him, happened to many. There’s clear medical neglect.”

Dr. Osama Tushtash, 28, fell ill with a severe fever after a week in detention at what he believed was al-Naqab prison, but Israeli authorities refused to let him see a doctor or even to give him a painkiller. “They just told me to drink water,” he said.

Khalili, the paramedic, said he suffered broken ribs and a lung injury as a result of beatings, but received no medical treatment at Sde Teiman. He said he saw a detainee die from what he believes was cardiac arrest. When a soldier brought in a doctor, who confirmed the detainee was dead, the detainees shouted “Allahu akbar,” prompting a violent raid by an Israeli special unit tasked with prison raids.

Autopsies of Palestinians who died in Israeli detention facilities indicated medical neglect and signs of physical abuse, including bruising and broken bones, Haaretz reported in March. A report released by Physicians for Human Rights Israel documented treatment without consent, surgery performed without an anesthesiologist, and political interference in medical decisions in detention facilities.

In a letter to senior Israeli officials, an Israeli doctor at Sde Teiman field hospital described practices that endangered detainees’ health, including the lack of trained medical staff, and transferring patients back to the detention facility after only an hour of observation following “major [surgical] operations,” Haaretz reported.

Article 91 of the Fourth Geneva Convention requires facilities detaining civilians to “have an adequate infirmary, under the direction of a qualified doctor,” where those detained may receive “the attention they require, as well as an appropriate diet.” Under international human rights law, medical care for detainees should be at least equivalent to that available to the general population. Current conditions of detention violate the Israeli Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law, which provides for detainees’ right to medical treatment, hygienic conditions, healthy and dignified sleeping arrangements, and daily outside exercise.
Use of Prisoner Functionaries

Two healthcare workers detained in different facilities said Israeli military commanders tasked them to act as prisoner functionaries or Shawish (an Arabic slang term for “servant” or “subordinate”). The men said that shawish, who act as intermediaries between the guards and detainees, are the only detainees not constantly blindfolded, though their hands remain cuffed. The men prepared and distributed food, assisted detainees with eating or using the toilet, cleaned rooms, transferred detainees to interrogation, and provided basic medical care.

Whistleblowers who spoke to CNN alleged that Israeli authorities appointed detainees as shawish only after they were cleared of suspected links to Hamas, and thus had no reason to detain them. In a statement to CNN, the Israeli military denied holding detainees unnecessarily.

Dr. Hamoudeh said that soldiers at Sde Teiman told him to act as a shawish because he spoke English, warning, “If you do anything, you’ll be punished worse than the rest.” He was interrogated only once, for about 10 minutes, on the tenth day of his detention, and was released without charge after 22 days.

Abu Nada, the nurse, said authorities at the Anatot military base told him to work as a shawish. On the fifth day of his detention, a soldier speaking in Arabic told him that if he wanted a lawyer, he had to provide the lawyer’s phone number, which he could not. He said the soldier told him, “We didn’t find anything on you. But we will continue investigating.” He was released without charge after about eight days, on December 1.

With his blindfold removed, Dr. Hamoudeh saw 10 to 20 detainees with medical conditions at Sde Teiman, some of whom needed immediate medical care. “They [the soldiers] threw this responsibility at me, but [left me] without proper medical equipment and facilities,” Hamoudeh said. “I was terrified some would die. […] The shawish before me told me [before being released] that three detainees died during his time.”

Abu Nada accompanied cuffed, blindfolded detainees from the “warehouse” to the interrogation room. “All the way to interrogation, soldiers would be kicking and assaulting [the detainees],” he said. “I used to cry when transferring them, because I’m the one bringing them to this torture. Soldiers told me to turn my face not to look as they continued to kick and beat the detainees.”

NYT Uncritically Reported Israel’s Version of Golan Bombing

By Bryce Greene, Lara-Nour Walton 

August 27, 2024

Source: FAIR


Screenshot from a New York Times video (7/28/24) that claimed to know that the explosion in the Golan Heights was caused by a “rocket from Lebanon.”

As the US-backed genocide in Gaza continues, US media assist in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to widen the war, parroting the words of the aggressor. A consequential example of US press support for escalation was Western media’s coverage of the July 27 strike that killed 12 Druze children on a soccer field near the town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

Israel and the US immediately blamed the Iran-backed Lebanese organization Hezbollah for the strike—citing Israeli intelligence reports of an Iranian Falaq-1 missile being found at the soccer field (BBC, 7/28/24).

But, in a move that Hezbollah expert Amal Saad called “uncharacteristic” (Drop Site, 7/30/24), the group adamantly denied responsibility for the attack. Saad, a lecturer in politics at Cardiff University, noted that targeting the Syrian Golan Heights—where many inhabitants are hostile towards Israel—would be “illogical” and “provocative” for Hezbollah. Further, if the organization had accidentally committed an attack, Saad pointed to a precedent of the group issuing a public apology in a case of misfire, with the organization’s leader, Hassan Nasrullah, visiting families of victims.

Despite multiple eyewitnesses describing an Israeli Iron Dome interceptor missile falling on the field during the time of the Majdal Shams strike (Cradle, 7/28/24), the New York Times insisted on spotlighting Israeli and US claims in its headlines, rather than genuinely assessing the facts on the ground.

On July 28, the Times published “Fears of Escalation After Rocket From Lebanon Hits Soccer Field,” pinning the blame squarely on Lebanon’s Hezbollah. The next day, reporting on the potential escalations, the Times headline (7/29/24) described the strike as a “Deadly Rocket Attack Tied to Hezbollah.”

While the July 29 subhead acknowledged that Hezbollah denied responsibility, the assertion in the headline undermined any reference to alternative explanations. Attribution to Hezbollah was then repeated without qualification in the first paragraph of the story.

Rebroadcasting government talking points not only does a disservice to newsreaders as Israel has a long history of misleading the public, but it also serves Netanyahu’s goals of justifying an escalation against Hezbollah. Predictably, the New York Times did not contextualize accusations of Hezbollah responsibility with information about Israel’s current objectives for wider war. This continues a long trend of US media outlets obscuring and distorting reality in order to downplay Israel’s aggressive regional ambitions (FAIR.org, 8/22/23).

Israel an unreliable source

The first problem is that the New York Times accepts narratives from Israeli military and government officials at face value. From peddling evidence-free claims about Palestinian use of human shields during Operation Cast Lead in 2009 (Amnesty International, 2009; Human Rights Watch, 8/13/09), to dodging responsibility for its assassination of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022 (Al Jazeera, 5/22/22), to consistently attempting to conceal its use of illegal white phosphorus munitions across the Middle East (Haaretz, 10/22/06; Human Rights Watch, 3/25/09; Guardian, 10/13/23), the Israeli military has been known to circulate disinformation to the international public for decades. Neither in headlines nor in the text of its pieces does the Times acknowledge this well-established history.

The current assault on Gaza has made the central role of lies in Israel’s public relations arsenal clearer than ever. As early as October 17, there was controversy over the origin of a rocket strike on the Al-Ahli Arab hospital that killed hundreds of Palestinians (FAIR.org, 11/3/23). In the media confusion, Israel released audio it said captured two Hamas militants discussing Palestinian Islamic Jihad responsibility for the strike. However, an analysis by Britain’s Channel 4 news (10/19/23) found that the audio was the result of two separate channels being edited together. In other words, Israel engineered a phony audio clip to substantiate the notion that it had not committed a war crime.

In November, Israel laid siege to Al Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital facility, leaving behind mass graves. In another dubious public relations campaign, Israel justified its assault on Al Shifa hospital by alleging that there was a Hamas command center underneath the facility, and that no civilians were killed in the operation (FAIR.org, 12/3/23).

During and after the assault, Israel pumped out high volumes of low-effort lies (NBC, 11/18/23; New Arab, 11/14/23) to convince the public that there had indeed been a Hamas operations base in the basement, going so far as planting weapons in hospital rooms to insinuate Hamas activity in the area (CNN, 11/19/23). In the face of mounting public ridicule, Israel’s official Arabic Twitter account was compelled to delete a staged video of an Israeli actress boosting the Hamas-hospital-occupation theory while pretending to be a Palestinian Al Shifa nurse (France 24, 11/15/23).

However, after the mainstream outlets expressed skepticism at the claims and acknowledged that Israel had not provided sufficient evidence to back them up (New York Times, 11/17/23; Guardian,11/17/23), Israel announced that the supposed Hamas base was actually in southern Gaza.

At the same time as the Al Shifa raid, Israel stormed Rantisi Children’s Hospital, and engaged in similarly preposterous propaganda efforts to justify its attack. Noting the presence of hospital gowns, baby bottles and toilets in the children’s hospital, Israeli spokesperson Daniel Hagari declared that this was proof of hostages in the facility (Jerusalem Post, 11/13/23). Hagari (Al Jazeera, 11/17/23) later pointed to what he said was a handwritten list of Hamas fighters hanging from one of the hospital’s walls, holding that “every terrorist writes his name and every terrorist has his own shift, guarding the people that were here.”

But, this was not, in fact, a damning roll call of Hamas fighters, but instead an Arabic calendar. All that appeared on the calendar were the days of the week, though this was unknown to most of Hagari’s largely non-Arabic-speaking audience (Electronic Intifada, 11/14/23).

Even recently, when Netanyahu visited Washington, DC, the Israeli prime minister gave a speech to lawmakers that was filled with obvious lies, including the contention that during attacks on Rafah, no civilians were killed, save for the two dozen who were murdered in a Hamas weapons depot explosion (New Arab, 7/25/24). This flies in the face of numerous reports detailing fatal bombings and rocket attacks in Gaza’s southernmost city, including a single Israeli missile that killed at least 45 people (Al Jazeera, 5/27/24).

It is not possible that the writers and the editors at the Times—the supposed newspaper of record—are ignorant of this seemingly unending series of deceptions. The decision to uncritically accept the word of the IDF regarding the Golan Heights strike demonstrates a deliberate editorial decision to knowingly advance the deceitful public relations goals of a genocidal state.
Justifying a wider war

In light of Israel’s past lies, serious journalism ought to refrain from regurgitating Israeli claims without significant context or qualification. This is especially true when doing so would advance goals as disastrous as Netanyahu’s current aims. In the case of the Majdal Shams strike, media proliferation of Israeli propaganda manufactures consent for escalating the war on the northern border—something Israel has long stated as its goal, and something American officials have long been concerned about.

Multiple generals have bragged about Israel’s combat readiness in the north. In February, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant stated that if a ceasefire was reached in Gaza, Israel would increase its fire against Hezbollah, and later said his government is preparing to send Lebanon into the “stone age.”

Although some in the Israeli press believe that Israel is incapable of handling a front against both Hamas and Hezbollah (Cradle, 6/28/24), statements of readiness have intensified in summer months. The IDF announced on June 18 that it had approved operational plans for a war in Lebanon. Later, Axios (6/24/24) reported that the US envoy to Lebanon warned Hezbollah, “The US won’t be able to hold Israel back if the situation on the border continues to escalate.” Just two days before the Majdal Shams strike, Israeli media reported that Washington had given “full legitimacy” to an IDF campaign in Lebanon (Cradle, 7/25/24), contrary to apparent earlier efforts to avert a wider war in the Middle East.

On top of neglecting to acknowledge Israel’s flimsy credibility in their Majdal Shams analysis, Times reporters failed to address this readily available information about Israeli military objectives. By ignoring Israel’s strategic aims, they are ensuring the reader doesn’t encounter further reasons to question Israel’s account about the strike.
Who fired the rocket?

When reporting on Israel’s “reprisal” assaults on Lebanon following the strike on the soccer field, the New York Times (7/28/24) again asserted Israeli claims as fact, saying in the first paragraph that “a rocket from Lebanon on Saturday killed at least 12 children and teenagers in an Israeli-controlled town,” which “prompted Israel to retaliate early Sunday with strikes across Lebanon.”

Was Lebanon—and implicitly Hezbollah—the source of the explosion that killed the 12 children? The Times does not care to examine this question, which warrants exploration. Israel’s military chief of staff declared that the damage was done with an Iranian-made Falaq-1 rocket fired by Hezbollah, a claim that was uncritically repeated as fact by the New York Times (7/30/24), despite the lack of independent corroboration. While there has been fighting in the area, and Hezbollah acknowledged that they fired Falaq-1 rockets at the nearby IDF barracks, there is significant reason to doubt that one of these rockets struck the soccer field.

The Falaq-1 was described by Haaretz (7/28/24) as a munition that targets bunkers. But, images from the aftermath of the attack show that the damage to physical structures was far from bunker-busting. In an interview with Jeremy Scahill (Drop Site, 7/30/24), the Hezbollah expert Saad cited military specialists who told her that “if [Hezbollah] had used the Falaq-1, we would have seen a much larger crater…. It would be much, much bigger and there would be much more destruction.”

As discussed above, Israel, well-known for planting or fabricating evidence for propagandistic ends, released images of rocket fragments that it alleged were found at the impact site, though the Associated Press (7/30/24) was unable to verify their authenticity.

A substantial case can be made that the projectile came from the IDF. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, multiple eyewitnesses told Arab news outlets the projectile was a misfired Iron Dome missile (Cradle, 7/28/24; Drop Site, 7/30/24). The New York Times omitted this from its coverage of this event.

Contrary to the mythos behind the high-tech defense system, there have already been several cases of Iron Dome missiles falling on populated areas within Israel since October 7 (Al Jazeera, 6/11/23; Jerusalem Post, 12/2/23, 7/25/24; Times of Israel, 5/4/23, 8/9/24) with many such instances resulting in civilian injuries and deaths. There was even a report of an Iron Dome malfunction near Majdal Shams, months before the recent July strike.

Bolstering the case for an Iron Dome malfunction, OSINT researcher Michale Kobs noted that the sound profile of the projectile suggested that its speed was constant until it hit the ground. Hezbollah’s projectiles constantly accelerate as they fall on their targets, since they are driven by gravity, whereas Iron Dome missiles are propelled throughout their entire flight.

For their part, the Druze people in the Golan Heights—an Arabic-speaking religious community which has largely declined offers of Israeli citizenship—repudiated Israel’s displays of sympathy for their slain children, rejecting the use of their suffering to advance Israel’s plans for a broader war (Democracy Now!, 7/30/24). Locals even protested a visit from Netanyahu, chanting “Killer! Killer!” and demanding he leave the area (New Arab, 7/29/24).

In the Times reporting on the strike, Lebanese and Syrian denials of Hezbollah’s responsibility for the strikes were acknowledged and reported, but portrayed as predictable denials that did nothing to alter the narrative. By omitting the evidence pointing to Israeli responsibility for the strikes, the New York Times assists Israel in yet another propaganda campaign to mislead the public in order to justify further regional strife and bloodshed.

Life in Gaza Is Even Harder Than It Appears on Screen

A testimony about the struggles of daily life in Gaza

By Issam Hani Hajjaj

August 25, 2024

Source: GlobalVoices.org


Photo by Issam Hajjaj, illustrated by Zena El Abdallah

This story was written by Issam Hani Hajjaj and originally published in Arabic by UntoldMag on August 1, 2024. It was translated into English by Walid El Houri and published on Global Voices with permission.

The reality in Gaza is more challenging than one might imagine. Two weeks ago, I drank what was supposed to be potable water. My stomach still aches from time to time, even today. The water is as potable as Gaza is livable.

A week after we were displaced from the European Hospital in Gaza to the Al-Mawasi humanitarian area — an area the Israeli army touts to the world — I was awakened by the sound of a child screaming, “America is nuking Palestine!”

Although it is the Israeli occupation forces that are striking Palestine, with support from the United States, I wondered how such thoughts formed in this child’s mind. How did he come to articulate a sentence like that?

Al-Mawasi is a large area in Khan Yunis and Rafah that the Israeli occupation forces have designated as a zone for displaced citizens before they enter any governorate. The tents here are crowded together, some bearing the names of donor countries. The tents differ in shape and fabric, with some made of leather and others of different materials. The most prominent tents are from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Germany due to their size, followed by Pakistani tents known for their distinct geometric shape and fabric.

People here live in a constant state of displacement, forced to move whenever the army decides to enter a new area, each time leaving behind a trail of innocent lives.

In reality, the Mawasi area has become the most dangerous place in the Gaza Strip due to repeated bombings by the Israeli army. Countless people have been killed in an instant, for no reason other than that the army can do so.

The displacement journey begins the moment the army announces the evacuation of a place. People scramble to find vehicles to transport themselves and their belongings, and the suffering of the displaced begins with the war profiteers who demand exorbitant prices for transport. No one has a choice but to pay because survival is the priority.

You dismantle your tent, gather everything you can, and move to a new location where you can set up the tent again. Once there, you start preparing a bathroom. Water is the most important resource, so people seek locations near water sources.

After we found a place to set up our tent in the Mawasi area, specifically in Asdaa City, we bought a tent and set it up with the seller’s help. The next day, we dug a circular hole two meters deep to drain the bathroom. We bought a cement base for the bathroom, extended a plastic pipe to the hole, and thus completed the construction of the ground bathroom, known as the “Arab bathroom.” It’s a small, enclosed space, measuring 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) by 1.5 meters, surrounded by cloth or tarpaulins.

Some people can build a Western-style bathroom, especially in camps supported by certain parties. However, the Arab bathroom is more suitable for displacement, as it uses less water and is healthier for the body’s posture. However, this type of bathroom is difficult for someone like my father, who has injuries to his hand and foot, which should be treated in a hospital.

My father suffers from double fractures in his left hand and right foot, both of which now contain internal plates. He has also lost his left eye, making life unbearable inside the tent under the harsh sun, which further aggravates his condition. He needs three immediate surgeries, but no one sees his suffering except us, and despite his critical condition, we have not been able to get him out of Gaza for treatment.

To create some privacy, you enclose yourself with tarpaulins, covering one side of the tent, and designate corners for the kitchen and laundry.

In Asdaa City, waste disposal is different from other areas in Gaza. People dig holes to bury their waste because garbage trucks cannot reach this place, and building a landfill is impossible here.

The tent is unbearably hot during the day and freezing cold at night. During the day, you feel like stripping off all your clothes, while at night, you shiver under your covers. The sun wakes you up in the morning, drenched in sweat, with flies buzzing around your face. Sand is everywhere — on your body, in your clothes, and even in your food.

Initially, the discomfort is overwhelming, but eventually, you adapt. In the area, there is a large well called “Al-Hawoz,” which supplies water to the entire region. People come from different areas to fill their tanks, transporting them by donkey carts and makeshift carts, or carrying the water by hand over long distances.

As for potable water, sometimes a free truck arrives, and people rush to it, fighting to get water. This is the only chance to get somewhat drinkable water without paying USD 1 for 10 liters (2.6 gallons). In this intense heat and with the pressing need for water, such a small amount is insufficient.

Many people cannot meet their daily needs and survive on whatever little is available. This situation forces people to drink regular water, which often leads to colic and diarrhea. With a lack of proper care, their situation is heartbreaking.
Read more: Israel’s war on Gaza

For a family like mine, consisting of eight people, we need about USD 550 per month just for food because of the high prices. Other necessities, such as charging phones, using the internet, and countless other things, come at an additional cost. Life forces you to prioritize what is most important for you and your family according to your income, but you won’t always succeed.

Many people have lost their jobs and have turned to selling goods. Trading has become the most common profession because everything else has ceased — except for the trade of goods, and war profiteering. As dire as life in Gaza looks on screen, the reality is far more difficult than one can imagine.

Two weeks ago, I drank some water, and my stomach still hurts. The water was supposed to be potable just as Gaza is supposed to be liveable.

Western Media Can Be Held Legally Accountable for Its Role in the Gaza Genocide

Western media companies have made themselves a part of the mechanism of genocide in Palestine, and there are historical precedents for holding them accountable.

By Craig Mokhiber

August 25, 2024

Source: Mondoweiss

Screenshot from November 18, 2023, CNN report by Jake Tapper that disseminated now debunked sources and testimonies of sexual violence on October 7. These false testimonies were used to justify the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

The ruthlessness of the Israeli genocide machine in Palestine, and the direct complicity of the U.S., UK, and other Western governments are two key pillars in the horrors being perpetrated against the Palestinian people (and in the attacks on human rights defenders around the globe).

But there is an essential third pillar: the role of complicit Western media corporations knowingly disseminating Israeli disinformation and propaganda, justifying war crimes and crimes against humanity, dehumanizing Palestinians, and blacking out information on the genocide in the West. From the perspective of international human rights law, such actions could and should be subject to sanctions. And there are historical precedents.

Seventy-six years ago, when delegates gathered at the newly established United Nations to draft a Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the importance of protecting freedom of expression was front and center. They would declare that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

But, in the wake of a half-century of horrific atrocities, driven in significant part by the dehumanization of millions on the basis of their race, ethnicity, religion, or other status, they were all too well aware that speech could also be used as a powerful weapon to destroy the rights of others, including the right to life itself. Thus, in the same document, the UN made clear that freedom of expression does not grant media corporations or anyone else a right “to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the other rights and freedoms.”

At the same time, in another UN conference room, delegates were gathered to create a new Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. There too, the drafters were aware of the danger of speech that dehumanizes and incites. The final convention would criminalize not just genocide, but also incitement to genocide and complicity in genocide- prohibitions that apply not only to states but to private actors as well.

The drafters of both instruments were aware of the conviction in the Nuremburg Tribunal just two years earlier of publisher Julius Streicher for incitement and “persecution on political and racial grounds.” The court found that Streicher’s media publication Der Sturmer continued to publish articles that included “incitement to murder and extermination” even while he was aware of the horrors that were being perpetrated against European Jews by Nazi Germany.

Fifty years later, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) would convict three media personalities for their role in inciting the Rwanda genocide. Two worked for the Mille Collines television and radio company and one for the Kangura newspaper. All three were found guilty of incitement to genocide (among other crimes). During sentencing, ICTR Judge Navi Pillay (now a commissioner on the UN’s international commission of enquiry investigating Israel’s crimes) admonished the perpetrators: “You were fully aware of the power of words, and you used the…medium of communication with the widest public reach to disseminate hatred and violence…Without a firearm, machete or any physical weapon, you caused the death of thousands of innocent civilians.”

Der Sturmer knew what they were doing. Mille Collines knew what they were doing. And, today, CNN, Fox, BBC, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal know what they are doing. This is not to say that these Western outlets are in every sense the modern equivalents Der Sturmer and Milles Collines (they are not). But, like these historic examples, they have recklessly crossed the boundaries of ethical journalism and, in some cases, may find themselves legally exposed as well.

In the face of the first live-streamed genocide in history unfolding on the screens of people from Boston to Botswana, it is simply not credible to suggest that Western media companies are not aware of the realities on the ground and of what they are doing to obscure them. They have indisputably made conscious choices to hide the genocide from their audiences, to systematically dehumanize the Palestinian victims, and to insulate the Israeli perpetrators from accountability.

In the wake of the findings of the World Court that charges of genocide are plausible, its ordering of provisional measures, the request of the ICC Prosecutor for arrest warrants, and the issuance of successive damning reports on Israel’s conduct by independent international human rights mechanisms, rather than reporting fully on these developments, Western media companies have suppressed information on them and doubled down on running cover for Israel.

Equally importantly, the target audience of these media companies is not limited to uninvolved bystanders. It includes as well Western government officials and policymakers directly complicit in the genocide, through the provision of military, economic, intelligence, and diplomatic support to Israel, as well as the voting public that enables this support. And it includes a significant number of dual Israeli nationals who shuttle back and forth to participate in the killing. The nexus between media incitement and harmful actions is more direct than these media companies might like to admit.

Indeed, if your only source of information is mainstream Western media, you may have no idea that Israel is on trial for genocide in the World Court or that Israel’s leaders are the subject of arrest warrant requests for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court. It is likely that you have never heard the numerous statements of genocidal intent by the Israeli President, Prime Minister, cabinet ministers, and military commanders.

You will likely still believe the stories of beheaded Israeli babies (long proven to be fabricated) and be unaware of the many Palestinian babies who actually have been beheaded. You will almost certainly not know of the systematic killing of Palestinian civilians, children, infants, women, older persons, persons with disabilities, and others. You will be unaware of the torture camps, the systematic rape of detainees, and the Israeli snipers targeting small children in Gaza. And you may not even know that Israel now holds the world records for the murder of journalists, of aid workers, of UN officials, and of healthcare workers.

Instead, transparently false Israeli disinformation and propaganda are regularly and uncritically published in Western media to justify war crimes, dehumanize Palestinians, and distract the public from the daily atrocities committed in Israel’s campaign of extermination. Stories covering the genocide are censored. The voices of Palestinians and human rights defenders are suppressed.

Reporters are instructed not to mention “occupied territory”, “Palestinians”, or “refugee camps.” Those Palestinian civilian victims who are not erased entirely are reduced to “collateral damage” or “human shields” at best, or “terrorists” at worst. In massacre after massacre, Palestinians in headlines are not killed by Israel, they simply “die.”

In the rule book of Western corporate media, there is no genocide, only a war of self-defense. And history started on October 7. Absent is any coverage of the context of 76 years of ethnic cleansing, persecution, mass imprisonment, gross violations of human rights and apartheid.

In sum, western media companies have made themselves a part of the mechanism of genocide in Palestine. Absent real accountability, these influential actors will continue to abuse their power, thereby trampling on the human rights of any people who fall on the wrong side of the line between those supported by these companies, and those who they choose to denigrate and dehumanize.

Of course, defenders of Palestinian human rights in the West who oppose Israeli genocide and apartheid know better than anyone how important it is to preserve the right to free speech. No group in modern history has faced more official and corporate silencing or had its speech more criminalized by Western governments. Speech restrictions are never imposed on those with the most power, but always target those most despised by power. This is the time to buttress free speech protections, not to erode them.

But free speech guarantees do not protect incitement to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Those acts can and must be subject to criminal accountability. Both defamation and incitement can also bring accountability in civil courts. Action in international tribunals for Israel’s crimes against humanity and genocide in Palestine has already begun, and more is certain to follow. It is not inconceivable that, just as in the cases of the Nuremburg and Rwanda tribunals, some media companies or individuals might face real legal accountability in the months and years to come.

Regardless of what happens in the halls of justice, it is certain that these media outlets will eventually be held accountable in the court of public opinion. For defenders of human rights and people everywhere who care about holding power to account, this process is urgent. And, in fact, it has already begun. The cresting wave of public criticism of the blatant bias demonstrated by Western media during this genocide has forced some companies to begin to adjust their reporting, however slightly. This proves that change can happen if agents of change are mobilized. There is strength in speaking out, in supporting independent media, and in the boycott. As a first step, all those who care should unsubscribe from these outlets, both print and broadcast, switch to independent media sources, and encourage other to do the same.

To again quote Judge Pillay in the Rwanda decision: “The power of the media to create and destroy fundamental human values comes with great responsibility. Those who control such media are accountable for its consequences”. The task of ensuring that accountability falls, ultimately, on all of us.

Craig Mokhiber is an international human rights lawyer and former senior United Nations Official. He left the UN in October of 2023, penning a widely read letter that warned of genocide in Gaza, criticized the international response and called for a new approach to Palestine and Israel based on equality, human rights and international law.