Tariq Ali on U.S. & U.K. Arming Israel’s War on Gaza, Pakistan Protests & Macron’s Embrace of the Right

By Tariq Ali, Amy Goodman , Juan Gonzalez

September 11, 2024

Source: Democracy Now!

We speak to acclaimed historian, activist and filmmaker Tariq Ali about Western governments’ support for Israel’s war on Gaza and popular protest in support of Palestine, which Ali calls the “biggest divide we’ve seen in politics almost since the Vietnam War.” He argues that this division is “challenging the very nature of democracy” and the international rule of law. Ali also shares his analysis of South Asian politics — in Pakistan, where former Prime Minister Imran Khan has accused the United States of engineering his ouster, and in Bangladesh, where a student-led uprising recently toppled the authoritarian regime of its former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Finally, we cover developments in Europe. In France, President Emmanuel Macron has appointed conservative leader Michel Barnier as prime minister, despite the electoral gains of the country’s left-wing coalition. This comes as far-right and anti-migrant sentiment spreads throughout the Global North.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Britain to meet with the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the Foreign Secretary David Lammy. The focus is expected to be on the Middle East, Ukraine and the Asia-Pacific. Blinken’s meeting comes just days after the United Kingdom announced it’s suspending some arms exports to Israel, citing a risk they might be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza. Britain’s new prime minister, Keir Starmer of the Labour Party, defended the decision.


PRIME MINISTER KEIR STARMER: This is a serious issue. We either comply with international law or we don’t. And we only have strength in our arguments because we comply with international law.

AMY GOODMAN: Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy told the British Parliament last week many weapons exports to Israel will continue, including parts for F-35 fighter jets.


DAVID LAMMY: This is not an arms embargo. It targets around 30, approximately of 350 licenses to Israel in total, for items which could be used in the current conflict in Gaza. The rest will continue.

AMY GOODMAN: Oxfam responded to the British government’s move by calling for all arms exports to be suspended to Israel.

To talk about Britain, Israel’s war on Gaza, and much more, we’re joined by Tariq Ali, the acclaimed historian, activist, filmmaker, editor of the New Left Review and the author of over 50 books, including the forthcoming You Can’t Please All: Memoirs 1980-2024. He’s joining us here in our studio in New York.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Tariq. It’s great to have you in person.

TARIQ ALI: Very good to be with you and Juan, Amy. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in this studio, about 12 years almost.

AMY GOODMAN: Amazing. Well, today you are here, and Antony Blinken is meeting with Keir Starmer in London and the Foreign Minister David Lammy. There have been massive protests in London around a U.K. policy toward supporting Israel in its war on Gaza, and now you have this stopping of some arms shipments to Israel. Can you talk about the U.K. stance and the U.K.-U.S. relationship, especially when it comes to Gaza right now and Israel?

TARIQ ALI: The U.K., Amy, has been totally complicit in this war. They’ve sent help. They’ve sent fighter jets. Their personnel are involved. So, for them to pretend somehow that they’re an impartial party is utterly ridiculous. This war has been supported by the Conservative government, and it’s now being supported by the Labour government. Keir Starmer, the prime minister you just showed on the screen, as leader of the opposition, supported the genocide in Gaza, supported the cutting off of electricity, supported the cutting off of all water supplies.

I think they have received legal advice that they have to do something or they are liable to international law by the courts — not that that amounts to very much, as we see these days. But I think that’s the reason they made a few cuts to the aid. But as they themselves say, these are meaningless. They’re purely symbolic.

And the bulk of the country now wants aid to Israel, and the military aid particularly, cut off. The antiwar movement in Britain is one of the largest in the world. We’ve had, I think now — it’s almost a year, Amy, since this war began. Almost a year. And we’ve had dozens and dozens of demonstrations, some including a million people. So the country is opposed to this, you know, across the board.

But we have these governments in power — I call them the extreme-center governments, because, right or left, they do the same thing. And why is Blinken visiting Starmer? Normally they send orders online. So, why the need for a personal visit is to boost each other’s morale. I can see no other reason for it.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Tariq, it’s not just the U.K. government, but most of the European Union governments. Could you talk about the wide gap between how these governments are dealing with Israel’s war on Gaza and the rest of the world, especially the Global South?

TARIQ ALI: Well, the Global South is more or less, you know, formally hostile to it. This is the biggest divide we’ve seen in politics almost since the Vietnam War, that the Global South opposed to the war and the West very much in favor of it, Juan. And this comes across very clearly. Now, the other thing is that the demonstrators — you know, Jews, non-Jews, Palestinians, non-Palestinians — who’ve been marching in the streets of Western cities are identifying here very clearly with the Global South, so even in their own homeland, not to mention in the United States, the demonstrations and the campus struggles. So what we are seeing is a big divide on a global level and a divide on an internal level, where large sections, if not majorities, are against what their governments are doing in backing unconditionally what the Israelis have been up to for a year now in Palestine.

And this divide is going to continue, given what is going on with the U.S.-China rivalries. And so, this gulf now which has opened up is going to be difficult to resolve. I mean, whatever else, on foreign policy, I don’t think there will be any big change in the United States regardless of who is elected. So, the demonstrations still go on, a year later, all over Europe, including France. The Germans have banned demonstrations. They don’t allow them because of their special links to the Judeocide and Holocaust of the Second World War, for which the Palestinians are now being punished. That’s what’s going on.

And it’s quite a critical situation, because lots of young people who I come across and speak to are challenging and questioning the very nature of democracy, the nature of the system which exists, where one court, international court, after the other has said this genocide must stop, pressure on the International Criminal Court not to prosecute Netanyahu, which has been demanded. And so, international law itself has now been questioned.

So we are now in a situation where what the United States says goes. The decisions are made in the White House and the Pentagon and the State Department. These are the key institutions which determine what happens in Israel. And why the U.S. is doing this puzzles many people who are sympathetic to them. Why are they doing this, when we’ve had presidents like Truman, like Reagan, like Bush Sr. stopping Israel from doing things like this when it was necessary? Now not a single phone call, both political parties totally complicit in this war. They might have other disagreements, but on the Gaza war, they are completely united, apart from indies, like Jill Stein, who, personally, I would vote for, were I a U.S. citizen, a sort of excellent politician. But apart from her and a few others, there’s no one else in the mainstream who’s come out against this. And this is very disturbing, I think, for democracy itself and for all its legal, political institutions.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Tariq, I wanted to ask you, in terms of — you’re talking about the state of democracy. In your own homeland of Pakistan. Imran Khan has been detained since — for over a year now, accused of inciting violence, a former prime minister. And the U.N. panel recently had findings that Imran Khan’s detention is politically motivated. Do you think there will be any pressure on Pakistan to release him?

TARIQ ALI: So far, there hasn’t been any pressure. And Imran Khan, when he was first dismissed from office, claimed that the United States was behind the dismissal because of the positions he had taken on Ukraine at that particular time. He directly accused the State Department of having engineered his dismissal.

So, the fact that he is still in prison is a sign that the people who control Pakistan are the military. Politicians come and go. Political parties come and go. Politicians change sides in order to gain office. But effectively, Juan, it is the Pakistani Army that has run the show for many, many decades. They make the decisions. They choose the politicians, including Imran. He was a military choice. And his successors are military choices.

And now they are nervous, because normally they can discredit a politician very quickly. They haven’t been able to do it in the case of Imran Khan, and all the opinion polls show that were there to be an election in Pakistan, Imran would win by large majorities throughout the country. The Army have now made him a martyr. They’ve made him a popular hero. And he has been locked up in prison on completely frivolous and bogus charges.

AMY GOODMAN: So, there’s also the discussion of banning the PTI party, the Khan party, talking about it, oh, inciting violence, leaking classified information. What would that mean?

TARIQ ALI: Well, the classified information he revealed, Amy, which should be of interest to viewers here, is that a senior figure from the Pakistan Foreign Office said — wrote a letter back home from the United States saying that in the United States, he had been told in very clear language that Imran had to go. Well, in Pakistan, as in other parts of the world, these letters are not — they don’t remain secret for too long. So, Imran referred to the letter in public, stating something which most people knew. And as a result of that, they’ve charged him with betraying official secrets. I mean, there was no official secret. Everyone knew this in the first place.

And so, I think they’re determined to get rid of him. Banning his party won’t help, because his popularity will increase. And if there’s another uprising, like we’ve seen in Bangladesh recently, that could erupt in Pakistan, then they’ve had it. I mean, they’ll have to shoot people on the streets. And we’ll see a repeat of the uprisings of the ’60s and ’70s.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Tariq, I wanted to ask you about Bangladesh. The supporters of the former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina have claimed that the United States was behind that, as well, that it wasn’t really a popular uprising as much as a color revolution. I’m wondering your thoughts. Is there any credible evidence that that is so?

TARIQ ALI: I don’t think so, Juan. I mean, you know, because the United States has done these things in the past, it can do them everywhere. And what we saw in Bangladesh was a very authoritarian government, confronted largely by students demanding democratic rights and freedoms and an end to laws which they regard as anti-democratic. And they won. She ran. She was taken by a special plane waiting for her to India and is now blaming the United States for this. In my opinion, there is no evidence to show U.S. involvement so far. Some may come out. We will see.

But I think more disturbing is that the students who replaced her had no real alternative. So quite a few unprincipled parties, political parties, and politicians who were there and are now in power, or close to it, are mistreating Awami League supporters. And that, too, is unacceptable.

But in Bangladesh, as in Pakistan, behind the scenes in Bangladesh, it’s the military who rules. The appointment of a sort of banker who became a celebrity and won the Nobel Prize, Dr. Yunus, very, very aged man, older even than me, and he is not going to be able to deliver anything. Behind him, it’s the Army.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to what’s happening in France. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets Saturday protesting President Macron’s appointment of the conservative Michel Barnier as the new prime minister even though leftist parties won the most of votes in July’s snap parliamentary elections. This is the leader of the leftist Unbowed party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, speaking last week.


JEAN-LUC MÉLENCHON: [translated] And so the election has been stolen from the French people. The message has been denied, and now we’re finding out about a prime minister that was named with the permission and maybe on the suggestion of the far-right National Rally, knowing that the second round of the legislative election has been entirely concentrated on making this National Rally fail.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon, head of Unbowed. You have the leftists winning, and the president, Macron, who called the snap election and yet lost it, giving the prime ministership to the right.

TARIQ ALI: It’s appalling, Amy. I mean, this is the sort of trend we see in most of the Western world, a very authoritarian approach to politics if they lose. And Jean-Luc Mélenchon was determined to fight. He created a new united front with the socialists and all progressive parties to make sure that the extreme right-wing party of Marine Le Pen was defeated. Macron had said before the election, “Let the far right come to power. They’ll discredit themselves.” Well, that didn’t happen because of the campaign waged by La France Insoumise, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon in particular. Effectively, they created a united front which defeated the far right. And this spoiled brat Macron, who belongs — who came up from nowhere, you know, a sort of technocrat politician, now operates as if he’s a statesman. I mean, I think he has discredited himself considerably. And we shall see. He had a meeting with the far right. He has not met Mélenchon once. He’s made it clear that he’s not going to appoint a president from the group or the bloc which got the largest votes.

And this is the trend I was referring to earlier, of they feel they can get away with anything. And there have been demonstrations. There have been a few strikes, as well. But there’s been no big protest from the so-called international community, i.e. the State Department in D.C. You know, no protest from Foggy Bottom at all that this is intolerable behavior, because, you know, they tolerate it when their own allies do it.

How it’s going to turn out for Macron, we shall see. I think there is now 52% voted for his impeachment. I mean, in opinion polls, 52% of French people said that Macron should be prosecuted and impeached. So he’s divided the country quite, quite sharply. So, we’ll see what he does. I mean, Barnier is a joke figure. He got 4% of the vote, and he’s been appointed prime minister.

I mean, what’s needed in France actually, to be serious, is an abolition of this Fifth Republic that was created by de Gaulle after he seized power as a general in 1958. And it was designed to give the president maximum powers. It’s not a democratic state, you know, in any sense of the word. The democracy has tried to push through it. And so, we need a new republic. And, you know, Mélenchon has been arguing, and many of us have been, let’s have elections to a constituent assembly to choose and draft a new constitution. We need a Sixth Republic in France, because the Fifth Republic has failed.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Tariq, I wanted to ask you, though — across Europe, the extreme right wing, especially anti-immigrant parties, have been gaining strength, even though in Britain and France they’ve been beaten back. But even the center has become increasingly more anti-immigrant, anti-African, anti-Arab, anti- — in the United States — Latin American. What’s your sense of the prospects for progressives and radicals to win popular support, given that sectors of the working class and the middle classes are falling prey to this anti-immigrant phobia?

TARIQ ALI: Oh, Juan, this is always the case at times of crisis — social, political, economic — that people from the working class and the middle class, as you call it here, get carried away. It’s a simple propaganda: “We don’t have enough jobs. We don’t have enough money. Look at these people coming from outside.” Well, in Europe, you can say that, but in the United States, as I always point out, everyone has come from the outside, except Native Americans. So, what is the big deal? That, you know, you just want to exclude people of color. In Europe, of course, they went and searched for workers all over the former colonies, because after the Second World War, there was a big shortage of labor. And what they did, effectively, was to go and plead with West Indian Black nurses to come and run the British National Health Service, for workers to come and run the factories. And this is a population which they are now targeting.

But the most reprehensible feature of this, as you point out, is that mainstream politicians have not managed to frontally take on these arguments. In fact, in the new Labour government, you have politicians sort of slyly saying, “Well, yes, there are problems. We have too many immigrants. Labour is working very hard to try and stop the flow.” And the result of this is illegal gangs promising migrants in poverty-stricken countries or countries where you have large numbers of people dislodged by wars, as we see in the Middle East today and as we’ve seen for the last five or six years, who want to come and seek refuge. And they’re being denied entry into the countries which have made these wars. And, in effect, many of them are drowning in boats in the English Channel, just dropping dead, being pushed out by unscrupulous gangsters who promised them that they would get them in illegally. So it’s a really grim situation on that front.

And this is now in Germany, too, that in recent state elections in the former eastern Germany, Thuringia, the far-right party, AfD, won the largest vote. I mean, you know, they can still be outvoted, but they won a large vote. And this is spreading in other parts of Germany, too, which also takes in the fact that some of these far-right groups are saying, “Why are we backing a war with Russia? Why are we supporting Ukraine? It’s not in our national interest. Why are we following the Americans?” So, it’s immigration and a lot of other issues actually being tied together by these parties. And the extreme-center governments, center-left and center-right, do nothing. They’re actually provoking this by doing nothing at all.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Tariq Ali, we want to thank you for being with us and in our studio. We look forward to having you back to talk about your memoirs when they are released. Tariq Ali is a British Pakistani historian, activist, filmmaker, editor of the New Left Review, the author of over 50 books, including the forthcoming You Can’t Please All: Memoirs 1980-2024, in from London, here in New York City.




Tariq Ali

Writer, journalist and film-maker Tariq Ali was born in Lahore in 1943. He owned his own independent television production company, Bandung, which produced programmes for Channel 4 in the UK during the 1980s. He is a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio and contributes articles and journalism to magazines and newspapers including The Guardian and the London Review of Books. He is editorial director of London publishers Verso and is on the board of the New Left Review, for whom he is also an editor. He writes fiction and non-fiction and his non-fiction includes 1968: Marching in the Streets (1998), a social history of the 1960s; Conversations with Edward Said (2005); Rough Music: Blair, Bombs, Baghdad, London, Terror (2005); and Speaking of Empire and Resistance (2005), which takes the form of a series of conversations with the author.

 

Targeting Childhood in the West Bank-By Area

by Visualizing Palestine / September 12th, 2024

From October 7, 2023–July 31, 2024, Israeli forces and settlers killed Palestinian children in the West Bank at a rate of one child every two days. We partnered with Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP) to create visuals for their new report, “Targeting Childhood: Palestinian Children Killed by Israeli Forces and Settlers in the Occupied West Bank”.

Israeli forces and settlers targeted Palestinian children playing outside, protesting in the streets, walking home from school, and even standing inside their own homes in various towns and villages in the West Bank, at distances ranging from five meters up to 300 meters away. They killed a total of 141 Palestinian children during the reporting period. The majority–116 children–were killed with live ammunition targeting vital areas like the head and torso. In 43% of cases, Israeli forces deliberately prevented injured Palestinian children from receiving medical care by detaining ambulances or firing live ammunition toward ambulances, paramedics, and civilians attempting to provide aid. In eighteen cases, Israeli forces confiscated the bodies of the children they killed, in violation of international law.

In both Gaza and the West Bank, the impact of Israel’s genocidal violence on Palestinian children is devastating. In Gaza, Israeli forces have killed over 16,500 children, with public health experts now conservatively estimating that, when direct and indirect fatalities are fully accounted for, fatalities will reach at least 4x higher than what has been officially reported. In the West Bank, Israeli forces and settlers are escalating attacks against Palestinian communities.

Amid the ongoing brutal genocide in Gaza and Israel’s continued invasion and forced displacement of Palestinian communities in the West Bank, we join advocates for justice in calling for an arms embargo on Israel. In the words of Khaled Quzmar, DCIP’s general director: “Israeli forces are killing Palestinian children with calculated brutality and cruelty all throughout the occupied Palestinian territory. The international community must act urgently to enact an arms embargo and sanctions to protect Palestinian children’s lives.” 

Targeting Childhood in the West Bank-By Distance

by Visualizing Palestine / September 11th, 2024

From October 7, 2023–July 31, 2024, Israeli forces and settlers killed Palestinian children in the West Bank at a rate of one child every two days. We partnered with Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP) to create visuals for their new report, “Targeting Childhood: Palestinian Children Killed by Israeli Forces and Settlers in the Occupied West Bank”.

Israeli forces and settlers targeted children playing outside, protesting in the streets, walking home from school, and even standing inside their own homes, at distances ranging from five meters up to 300 meters away. They killed a total of 141 Palestinian children during the reporting period.

Special thanks to Hadeel Saalok and DCIP for their collaboration on this visual.

Visualizing Palestine is the intersection of communication, social sciences, technology, design and urban studies for social justice. Visualizing Palestine uses creative visuals to describe a factual rights-based narrative of Palestine/Israel. Read other articles by Visualizing Palestine, or visit Visualizing Palestine's website.

IRELAND

No excuse for further delay to enacting Occupied Territories Bill, Matt Carthy TD

12th September 2024Leave a Commenton No excuse for further delay to enacting Occupied Territories Bill, Matt Carthy TD

“Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have been dragging their heels for too long as a genocide unfolds in front of our eyes.“

Matt Carthy TD, Sinn Féin spokesperson on Foreign Affairs

From Sinn Féin

Sinn Féin spokesperson on Foreign Affairs Matt Carthy TD has said that legal advice published recently creates ‘a legal imperative for Ireland to meaningfully sanction Israel and enact the Occupied Territories Bill and Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill’. Authored by Professors of EU Trade Law at King’s College London and the City University of London, Carthy describes the legal opinion as a ‘scathing rebuke and correction of the advice the Taoiseach and Tánaiste have been using as a shield to avoid sanctioning Israel for nearly a decade.’

Speaking after attending the launch of the legal advice, Teachta Carthy said: “Israel’s near year long genocidal campaign against Gaza has now killed at least 40,819 Palestinians, including more than 16,456 children. They have targeted hospitals and healthcare workers, the injured, women and children and journalists. They breach the most fundamental treaties of international law and international humanitarian law on a daily basis, more recently seeking to expand the scale of brutality already endured by Palestinians in the West Bank to equal that unleashed on Gaza. And yet the Irish government, which rightfully has taken action in support of Palestine, has as of yet cowed from introducing any meaningful sanctions against Israel.

Government must now move to enact the Occupied Territories Bill and the Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have been dragging their heels for too long as a genocide unfolds in front of our eyes. Israel is in breach of international law and Ireland has yet to meaningfully sanction it. The Occupied Territories Bill was introduced more than 6 years ago, has passed in the Seanad and was approved by the Dáil to proceed more than 5 years ago.

Sinn Féin’s Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill passed Second Stage in the Dáil last year and has since been the subject of every obscure legislative delaying tactic by government, meaning that Irish taxpayer money continues to be invested in companies which operate in illegal Israeli settlements within Palestine. Government is hiding behind advice from the Attorney General which has today been exposed as critically flawed at the time it was written, outdated and irrelevant in the context of Israel’s genocide and subsequent ICJ ruling. Not only does today’s legal advice lay bare that there is no excuse for not enacting the Occupied Territories Bill, but there is in fact a legal imperative as a matter of urgency to enact both bills.

Sinn Féin welcome that the Taoiseach has sought fresh legal advice himself in relation to trade with Israel, but this advice cannot be limited to trade with the Occupied Territories – government must seek the Attorney Generals advice in relation to invoking Ireland’s right to challenge the European Commission on its failure to act regarding genocide.”

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• This was originally published in Sinn Fein’s email bulletin on 6th September 2024.
• Matt Carthy is a TD for Cavan–Monaghan and Sinn Féin’s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Where is Starmer Taking Ireland? – Geoff Bell, Labour For Irish Unity

12th September 2024Leave a Commenton Where is Starmer Taking Ireland? – Geoff Bell, Labour For Irish Unity

“Keir Starmer’s first interview as leader of the Labour Party relating to Ireland, in July 2021, saw a return to the colonial mode.”

By Geoff Bell

Historically, the Labour Party and Labour governments have often been part of Ireland’s British problem. Too often they were informed by a colonist mindset. In 1921 the Labour Party supported Ireland’s partition and the establishment of the British semi-state in what came to be known as “Northern Ireland”. In 1949 the Atlee-led Labour government passed the Ireland Act, strengthening partition. And one of the most repressive periods of direct rule by the British government during the Troubles was overseen by Labour’s Secretary of State Roy Mason and Prime Minister James Callaghan from 1976-79.

There have also been those within the party who actively opposed these policies. The largest parliamentary revolt by Labour MPs against the 1945-51 Government was over its capitulation to Unionists. A small group of Labour MPs in the 1960s campaigned against Unionist discrimination and sectarianism in the North of Ireland. Roy Mason’s regime prompted the birth and growth of the Labour Committee on Ireland. This won majority support among constituency parties for British withdrawal from the North at the 1980 party conference, although the trade union block vote ensured the defeat of the key resolution. Nevertheless, the change in mood eventually paved the way for the Blair government to oversee and enable the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) of 1998, This was a significant step away from unionism, stating, “it is for the people of the island of Ireland alone…without external impediment…to exercise their right of self-determination on the basis of consent…subject to the agreement and consent of the majority of the people of Northern Ireland.”

What now? Keir Starmer’s first interview as leader of the Labour Party relating to Ireland, in July 2021, saw a return to the colonial mode. He declared he would campaign against Irish unification in Ireland should a referendum take place on the issue. He did not appear to realise that this would contravene the GFA.

Since then neither he nor his spokespersons on Ireland have repeated this intention. Beginning with shadow Secretary of State Peter Kyle a new position emerged. This was that Labour would be an “honest broker” in Northern Ireland. Both Starmer and his now Secretary of State, Hilary Benn, have echoed this, which might appear liberal and listening, but we have heard such phraseology before.

Notably, the British narrative during the Troubles when the British Army was portrayed as being the “pig in the middle” – the well-intentioned chaps keeping apart the two uncivilised Irish tribes. The troops were never that: they were pro-unionist, working in collusion with loyalist paramilitaries, while targeting the Catholic community with house searches, beatings and in Ballymurphy in 1972 and Bloody Sunday in 1972 shooting Catholic civilians sight. So, it is best to be cautious of those who repeat or recast the old colonialist claim of British state political neutrality.

But at least Labour has now promised to amend the Tories’ Northern Ireland “Legacy” legislation, which was designed to give an amnesty to all British security killers during the Troubles and stop investigations into their crimes. This is a welcome commitment, and it is one demanded by all parties, North and South, including the DUP.

However, the devil will be in the detail, and we await that before passing judgement. 

Already, on 6 September Secretary of State Benn said parts of the Tory legislation will be retained, notably the establishment of the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information (ICRIR).  This is opposed by many victims and civil liberties groups and is known to be heavily staffed by present and former members of the Northern Ireland police, whose crimes are meant to a major focus of investigation of the ICRIR. It is the old story of the accused judging themselves. To make matters worse said that “achieving full consensus on legacy issues may simply not be possible.”

Even leaving this issue aside, both Starmer and Benn seem at times to inhibit an Irish fantasy world. They refuse to acknowledge the all-Ireland debate now taking place on building a new Ireland. There have been numerous meetings and public forums in both parts of island on what this should look like. Many of these were organised by the cross-community organisation Ireland’s future.

But while one of the first acts of Hilary Benn on being appointed Secretary of State was to attend a march of the avowedly anti-Catholic Orange Order, he refuses to engage in this new Ireland debate.  Only the unionist Parties in the North practice a similar abstentionism. How is the British government’s partisanship on this issue the actions being an “honest broker”?

This issue was raised in an editorial in the pro-nationalist Irish News, commenting on a recent meeting between Starmer and his southern Irish equivalent Simon Harris. “What was missing”, said the newspaper, “was a firm clarification of their attitude towards the notably vague criteria for a possible Irish border poll.” The newspaper was referring to the promise in the GFA that a decision on such a poll would be in the hands of the British, but Ireland is now moving on from this colonialism. As the editorial continued:

“The discussion on the circumstance in which a referendum can be called remains at an early stage, but there can be no doubt of the wider post-Brexit direction is taking us.

There will be an expectation that Mr Harris and Sir Keir will soon set out their detailed vision of how the key issue linked to the unity debate can be democratically resolved.”

More generally it remains the case that British intervention in Ireland been and remains the deepest cause of political contention in the island.  To date, Stermer has refused to discuss even the criteria for a border poll, saying it is “not on the horizon”.  Again, how does this traditional British arrogance and intransigence equate to the GFA statement on Irish-self-determination? And how does it square with being an “honest broker”?  A real honest broker would allow, no, encourage the people of Ireland to decide the own future. The first step is for the present Labour government to open discussions with the relevant Irish political parties and community groups on the practical mechanics of this process. The British labour movement should discuss how it can help.

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• Geoff Bell is a regular contributor to Labour Outlook. His most recent book is The Twilight of Unionism (Verso). He is on the executive of Labour for Irish Unity.
• If you support Labour Outlook’s work amplifying the voices of left movements and struggles here and internationally, please consider becoming a supporter on Patreon.

Israeli Air Force Burns Up 20 Refugee Tents, Kills 40, In Strikes on Humanitarian Zone

By Juan Cole

September 10, 2024

Source: Informed Comment

Image by Dawn News



Al Jazeera Arabic reports that the Israeli occupation army committed yet another massacre on Monday evening, targeting a tent encampment of internally displaced refugees in the al-Mawasi area of the district of Khan Yunus in the south of the Gaza Strip. Civil defense said that 40 persons were killed, and another 60 injured. The bodies of the dead were still being recovered.

Powerful flames swept through the tents, burning up at least 20 of them. The rockets left a impact craters 9 meters / yards deep. There were some 200 tents at al-Mawasi, so ten percent were burned up by these air strikes.

The civil defense spokesman said that entire families had vanished into the sand during the bombardment, adding that early estimates indicate that we are confronting one of the ugliest massacres since the beginning of the Israeli war on Gaza.

The spokesman said that the Israeli air force had used heavy missiles in its raid on the tents of the refugees.

The Israeli military justified the killings in what they had designated a safe zone on the grounds that it included a Hamas command center.

As I have pointed out before, what the Israeli military likely actually means is that their drones, using biometric data, identified a couple members of the al-Qassam Brigades in the area and struck at them without regard to civilian casualities. The Israeli rules of engagement allow up to 20 civilian deaths per militant killed, so a death toll of 40 might indicate that two members of the al-Qassam Brigades were taken out. No civilized military has such a permissive ROE when it comes to civilian casualties. The extremist Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to kill all 30,000 members of the al-Qassam Brigades in revenge for the October 7 attacks. It is not permitted, however, in the international law of war to simply murder enemy combatants who are not armed and not engaged in battle, and who are surrounded by civilians. Since October 7 was planned and executed by a small cadre of perhaps elite 3,000 commandos, it is possible that many rank and file Qassam Brigades members did not even know about it.

In a statement, Hamas denied that any of its gunmen were in the area of the airstrike.

Almost all of the 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza have been expelled from their homes repeatedly by the Israeli military, which has turned virtually the entire territory into refugee settlements. Ironically, 70% of Gaza families were made refugees in 1948 from their homes in Beersheba and elsewhere in southern Israel, so they have now been chased from their homes once again by the Israelis who had occupied their original domiciles in 1948. All Palestinians have been made like Jesus in Matt 8:20 : “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that the Israeli military has ordered Palestinians out of parts of northern Gaza where it was earlier agreed there would be a military pause so that children would receive polio shots. Only about a third of the children who must be vaccinated have been, with the Israeli air force pausing bombing runs in the morning and the early afternoon for makeshift vaccination centers, but resuming them in the late afternoon and evening. This procedure discourages families from gathering for the shots and endangers the health workers administering them.

Only half of the necessary medicines are now available in the Strip, with insulin supplies running very low, which is a death sentence for those with diabetes.

OCHA says that Israeli aerial and ground assaults persist throughout the Gaza Strip, inflicting additional civilian casualties, expulsions, and razing of residences and other non-military infrastructure. Ground maneuvers, especially in Beit Hanoun, southwestern Gaza City, eastern Khan Younis, Deir al-Balah, and both east and south Rafah, with intense combat, are also still being reported, along with Palestinian rocket launches toward Israel.

Between the afternoons of September 5 and 8, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health (MoH), the Israelis killed 94 Palestinians in Gaza and 307 were injured.

From October 7, 2023, to September 8, 2024, at least 40,972 Palestinians were killed and 94,761 sustained injuries, as reported by the MoH in Gaza.

OCHA reports these Palestinian casualties at the hands of the Israeli military for this past Frida.y through Sunday:“On 6 September, six Palestinians, including four women, were reportedly killed and five others injured when a residential building was hit near Bader Mosque in Az Zaytoun area, in Gaza city.
On 6 September, seven Palestinians were reportedly killed when a house was hit in An Nuseirat Refugee Camp in northern Deir al Balah.
On 6 September, five Palestinians were killed, including two women and two unidentified corpses recovered in pieces, and at least 10 others were injured when an apartment was hit in Al Yarmouk street, in central Khan Younis.
On 7 September, five Palestinians, including two children and two women, were reportedly killed, and others injured, when a house was hit in Al Bureij Refugee Camp in northern Deir al Balah.
On 7 September, at least eight Palestinians, including a boy, were reportedly killed and others injured in western An Nuseirat Refugee Camp, in northern Deir al Balah.
On 7 September, six Palestinians, including two children and three women, were reportedly killed and others injured when a house was hit near the entrance of Al Bureij refugee Camp, in northern Deir al Balah.
On 8 September, five Palestinians including the Deputy Director for the Civil Defence (PCD) were reportedly killed and others injured when their house was hit in Jabalya. According to the PCD [Palestinian Civil Defense], the number of PCD staff killed so far has risen to 83.”



Juan Cole

Juan R. I. Cole is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. For three and a half decades, he has sought to put the relationship of the West and the Muslim world in historical context, and he has written widely about Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and South Asia. His books include Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires; The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East; Engaging the Muslim World; and Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East.

“A Horrifying Undercount” – True Gaza Death Toll Could Be Many Times Higher

By Ralph Nader, Amy Goodman , Juan Gonzalez

September 11, 2024

Source: Democracy Now!


Former presidential candidate and celebrated consumer advocate Ralph Nader discusses Israel’s war on Gaza, the U.S. presidential election and more. Nader’s latest article, “Exposing the Gaza Death Undercount,” can be read in the Capitol Hill Citizen, which he also founded. The official death toll in Gaza has been suspended at around 40,000 for months, as Israel’s devastation of the territory makes it increasingly difficult to properly recover and identify the dead. Nader says that the true cost in Palestinian lives could already be “well over 300,000,” and that “if the true count was known, it would devastate the mythology that the Biden administration and Congress are furthering, that the Israeli government does not purposely target civilian populations.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We continue to look at Israel war’s on Gaza, where the official death toll has topped 41,000 Palestinians, though that could be a vast undercount that doesn’t include those who remain trapped in the rubble and the people and children who have died due to chronic illnesses, infectious diseases spreading across Gaza.

Over the past 11 months, Israel has destroyed Gaza’s health system and other crucial infrastructure, placed a blockade on medications and other urgent aid. More than 2 million Palestinians living in Gaza also risk imminent famine, with children starving at a record rate. The U.N. humanitarian aid chief Martin Griffiths has said life is “draining out of Gaza at terrifying speed,” unquote.

Even some Biden administration officials have admitted the Gaza death toll could be significantly higher. This is Barbara Leaf, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, speaking last November.


BARBARA LEAF: In this period of conflict and conditions of war, it is very difficult for any of us to assess what the rate of casualties are. We think they’re very high, frankly. And it could be that they’re even higher than are being cited. We’ll know only after the guns fall silent. So, you know, we take in sourcing from a variety of folks who are on the ground. And so, I can’t stipulate to one figure or another, but I think that it’s very possible that they’re even higher than is being reported.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf.

The prestigious British medical journal Lancet has estimated the actual death toll could be 186,000 or even higher, roughly 8% of Gaza’s population. The report looks at how war leads to indirect deaths due to shortages of medical care, food, shelter and water.

This all comes as protests continue demanding the U.S. government immediately halt its military aid to Israel and calling on Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who’s debating Donald Trump tonight in Philadelphia, to shift her policies on Gaza.

For more, we go to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Ralph Nader, longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic, former presidential candidate four times. He’s the author of many books, including, most recently, Let’s Start the Revolution: Tools for Displacing the Corporate State and Building a Country That Works for the People. Ralph Nader is the founder of the monthly print-only newspaper, Capitol Hill Citizen, where his front-page article in the latest issue is headlined “Exposing the Gaza Death Undercount.”

Let’s start with this undercount, what you are saying is so much higher, the death toll in Gaza, than what we understand.

RALPH NADER: Amy, this is a horrifying undercount, and it has political rationale for it. If the true count was known, it would devastate the mythology that the Biden administration and Congress are furthering, that the Israeli government does not purposely target civilian populations and, therefore, violate all kinds of U.S. laws, conditioning the shipment of weapons to Israel, and international laws.

So, I put together in this article in the Capitol Hill Citizen — people can go to CapitolHillCitizen.com and get it — the various probative evidence that shows that experts, who are blocked from getting additional data that the State Department has and is keeping secret — that the evidence shows that it’s well over 300,000. And it may double by the end of the year. In an article in The Guardian by the distinguished chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh titled “Scientists are closing in on the true, horrifying scale of death and disease in Gaza,” she estimates over 300,000 before the end of the year, pointing out, with The Lancet report that you mentioned, that The Lancet people used a very — quote, “used a very conservative estimate, but allowed that the number could easily be much higher.”

And so, why is this happening? Why are all sides, the anti-genocide side, the Israeli, the Hamas — why are they always using these figures? Because, for different reasons, it serves their political purposes. Hamas doesn’t want the true count to be known, because it will be assailed by its own people and its international allies as unable to protect its own people and provide shelters. Netanyahu, of course, wants it lowballed for obvious reasons, and Biden for the same reason.

So, what do these scientists see? They see a tiny enclave the geographical size of Philadelphia with 2.3 million people, crowded, already sick and destitute from years of Israeli illegal embargoes, high levels of anemia among the children before October 7th, and then, starting October 8th, the Israeli military issued the genocidal orders of no food, no water, no medicine, no electricity, no fuel, and they proceeded accordingly. And so, what these scientists are seeing are what’s called the empirical evidence, that people on social media are seeing and others. With over 130,000 bombs and missiles, plus daily tank shelling, ruthless sniper fire, there’s been massive destruction of apartment buildings, congested marketplaces, refugee camps, hospitals, over 150 health clinics, masses of families huddled in schools being blown up, ambulances being blown up, bakeries destroyed, schools, universities, mosques, churches, roads, electricity networks, critical water mains — just about everyone and everything.

And some people, partisans of Netanyahu, will say, “Oh, the Israeli government never targets civilians.” Historically, they’ve always targeted civilians. Go back to the early ’80s, when former Israeli ambassador and foreign minister Abba Eban wrote of Israel under then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin that Israel — and I’m quoting him — quote, “is wantonly inflicting every possible measure of death and anguish on civilian populations in a mood reminiscent of regimes which neither Mr. Begin nor I would dare to mention by name,” end-quote. And just a few years earlier, in the late ’70s, Israel’s leading military analyst, summing up remarks by the Israeli chief of staff, stated the following, quote, “The Israeli Army has always struck civilian populations, purposefully and consciously. The Army has never distinguished civilian [from military] targets … [but] purposefully attacked civilian targets,” end-quote.

And why is this important? Because to this day, all of the administration spokespeople are denying that Israel has targeted civilians, denying that Israel has violated international genocide laws, denying that they have violated six federal statutes conditioning shipment of weapons to foreign countries on recognizing human rights excessively. To this administration and to the Congress, all deaths of civilians are accidental. Blowing up schools sheltering refugees, well, that was a mistake. So that’s why it’s important, Amy and Juan, to get that estimate as reliably high as possible.

We are seeing possibly a million deaths before the end of the year. We have starvation. We have infectious diseases. All the doctors that you’ve had on Democracy Now! have provided the clinical evidence of what’s going on, 5,000 babies born every month into the rubble, contaminated water, horrific air pollution with heavy metals from the bombing, and no food. We’re led to believe by these 41,000 figures that 98% or more of the Palestinian population is still alive? I mean, what are they made of? Asbestos and steel? And as the doctors have said on your program, when they went back to the rubble and the broken hospitals, they didn’t meet anybody in Gaza who wasn’t sick or injured. There was an interview in February on Al Jazeera by a Gaza undertaker who’s doing this free of charge and crying every day with his assistants on the open graves. He says he’s buried 17,000 bodies, including 800 in one day, and that was back in February.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Ralph, I wanted to ask you — in addition to the bombings and the killings of civilians, Israel has also refused to allow foreign press to come into Gaza and has systematically been killing those journalists, those Palestinians within Gaza who are reporting. Talk about this attack on the press, that really has not gotten much outrage in the West.

RALPH NADER: Yeah, I mean, how weak can you get as a president of the United States or member of Congress when you can’t even demand that Netanyahu let foreign and Israeli journalists, including U.S. journalists, into Gaza to freely report? He’s been blocking this for years. And the Israeli military has targeted, as you indicated, Palestinian journalists. They’ve killed over 165 of them, including, in addition, members of their own family, targeting apartments, for example. They’ve killed over 200 members of UNRWA, the U.N. relief. They’re out to destroy every relief center, every food — feeding center of UNRWA, education center.

I mean, this is — right now let’s put it in comparative terms here. More Palestinians have been killed since October 8th than have been killed by the U.S. in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden. That total death toll was about 235,000-240,000 people. And those deaths were in countries, Germany and Japan, with 160 million population. Here we only have 2.3 million population. And all you’ve got to do is read the Israeli press, read Haaretz, read the statements by —

AMY GOODMAN: We have five seconds, Ralph.

RALPH NADER: — 17 Israeli human rights groups.

AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, we want to thank you for being with us, longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic, four-time former presidential candidate. We’ll link to your article in the Capitol Hill Citizen, “Exposing the Gaza Death Undercount.”

That does it for our show. Watch tonight’s debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris at democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

The Live-Streamed Genocide in Gaza Exposes US Complicity for All to See

The spiritual death of the United States has been a long time coming. It’s not just the murder and destruction—it’s the arrogance and hypocrisy of it all.

By Omar Suleiman

September 11, 2024Z ArticleNo Comments5 Mins Read
Source: Middle East Eye
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Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Israel continued to battle Hamas fighters on October 10 and massed tens of thousands of troops and heavy armour around the Gaza Strip after vowing a massive blow over the Palestinian militants' surprise attack. 

Photo by Naaman Omar\ apaimages

With a military budget greater than the next 10 countries combined, the U.S. naturally remains an international hegemon.

But it’s not the benevolent empire it once sold itself as to the globe. Now, as it transitions from post-9/11 forever wars, yet continues to engage in, finance and manufacture the weapons of a genocide, America’s decades-long spiritual decline has hit rock bottom.

Recently, a man approached me after a lecture, asking: “What makes Gaza different?” He was referring to the simultaneous international attention and inaction on the occupation’s barbarity in Gaza.

Of course, there are religious implications—Muslims naturally revere Palestine as a holy land, as do Jews and Christians.

There are historical implications, too, including an extensive history of over seven decades of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, the continuous building of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, as well as an ever-growing list of Israeli human rights abuses.

But the biggest difference that came to mind was that every detail of this genocide is being broadcast. It’s a “live-streamed genocide”, as Blinne Ni Ghralaigh, an adviser to the South Africa team at the International Court of Justice, put it.


It’s televised on your phone, your computer screen, your social media. A healthy conscience can’t simply ignore the mutilated bodies of tens of thousands of dead Palestinian children.

“It’s the first genocide in history where its victims are broadcasting their own destruction in real time,” she said.

It’s televised on your phone, your computer screen, your social media. A healthy conscience can’t simply ignore the mutilated bodies of tens of thousands of dead Palestinian children.
Arrogance and hypocrisy

But this isn’t the first time the U.S. has been complicit in the murder of thousands of innocent civilians.

What if the victims of the American military machine in Afghanistan and, later, Iraq were able to livestream their own death and destruction?

How many massacres has the U.S. been proxy to or carried out itself? How many victims will never be mentioned?

In 2020, under the Freedom of Information Act, the The New Yorkersued the Navy, the Marine Corps and the U.S. Central Command in an effort to obtain images from the Haditha massacre of 2005, a civilian slaughter in which US Marines killed 24 Iraqi men, women and children.


The Haditha massacre is a microcosm of not just the U.S. occupation of Iraq, but the West’s brutal attempt to engineer artificial change, secure national security interests at the expense of local populations and impose its will in the Muslim world.

The youngest victims included a three-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy named Abdullah, shot in the head from six feet away.

After a long fight lasting four years, in March, the US military apparatus released the images of the bloodbath. The perpetrators remain unpunished.

The Haditha massacre is a microcosm of not just the U.S. occupation of Iraq, but the West’s brutal attempt to engineer artificial change, secure national security interests at the expense of local populations and impose its will in the Muslim world.

In an interview with Al Jazeera’s Centre Stage last week, Middle East Eye’s editor-in-chief, David Hearst, blasted the western world order amidst its complicity in Gaza.

“Nothing that the western [liberal] alliance has done in the last three decades has worked, and yet it’s still going on,” he said.


The Gaza genocide is an American one, and it is high time Americans came to terms with their government’s complicity.

From forever wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, to Barack Obama’s “no boots on the ground” that fuelled a drone-strike heavy policy in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia, the US’s spiritual death has been a long time coming.

And it’s not just the murder and destruction—it’s the arrogance and hypocrisy of it all.
Sinister defence

“They’re using extremely illiberal means to protect their liberalism, and they’re using it against Muslims,” Hearst added in his interview with Al Jazeera. “They wouldn’t dare to use that against Jews or synagogues.”

It is largely American bombs that have been dropped on the hospitals, mosques, churches and over 500 schools of Gaza.

It is an American backing of Israeli war crimes and human rights abuses that allows the occupation to continue its ongoing genocide, and it is this sinister defense of Israeli terror—often at the expense of its own citizens—that is putting the final nail in the coffin of America’s spiritual death.

For decades, Washington has remained silent and dismissive of Israel’s murder of American citizens, going to bat at State Department and White House briefings for the occupation against their own citizens.

It is an American backing of Israeli war crimes and human rights abuses that allows the occupation to continue its ongoing genocide…

In 2003, Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American activist, was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza. The bulldozer was an American one, sold to Israel through a Defense Department program.

In 2022, Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist, was killed by Israeli snipers in the West Bank in 2022.

Just this week, Israeli forces shot dead 26-year-old Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a Turkish-American taking part in protests against illegal Israeli settlements south of Nablus. Israeli officials stated they “would look into it,” a dismal response echoed for decades.

And the U.S. response will remain the same: a shoulder shrug, a disapproval devoid of consequence.

The U.S. is not a negotiator, arbitrator or by any means an objective voice vis-a-vis the Israeli occupation of Palestine. It is the raison d’etre.

The Gaza genocide is an American one, and it is high time Americans came to terms with their government’s complicity in the type of war crimes they so often associate with historical hegemonic rivals.

Israeli Tanks, Bulldozer Attack UN Convoy En Route to Support Polio Vaccination

By Sharon Zhang

September 12, 2024

Source: Truthout

Image by Ashraf Amra/Anadolu

Israeli forces detained and attacked a UN convoy on its way to support the polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza this week, using tanks and bulldozers to terrorize the UN staff and firing their guns despite supposed agreements by Israeli forces that the polio campaign be safe from violence.

According to Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the UN had coordinated the convoy’s travel in detail with Israeli forces. Despite this, the Israeli military held the convoy for over eight hours at a checkpoint as it was on its way to northern Gaza. None of the 12 UN staff involved were killed during the incident, but they were forced to return to base and were unable to complete their mission.

According to UN secretary-general spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, Israeli soldiers pointed guns at staff while saying they wanted to detain two of them for questioning. Then, firing off their guns, they surrounded the convoy with tanks and bulldozers.

They then rammed the UN vehicles from the front and back, “compacting the convoy with UN staff inside,” Dujarric said. A bulldozer dropped debris on the lead vehicle in the convoy.

Staff were held at gunpoint and unable to leave; Israeli soldiers interrogated two of the workers and released them.

Lazzarini raised alarm on Monday that the incident made it unclear whether staff could continue the polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza the next day, as the agency said the campaign was moving into its “most complex phase.” The UNRWA reported on Wednesday that it has been able to continue the campaign in northern Gaza “against all challenges and thanks to the dedication of our health workers.”

“This significant incident is the latest in a series of violations against UN staff including shootings at convoys and arrests by the Israeli Armed Forces at checkpoints despite prior notification. UN Staff must be allowed to undertake their duties in safety and be protected at all times in accordance with international humanitarian law. Gaza is no different,” said Lazzarini.

The UNRWA has reported that, as of Sunday, humanitarian workers have been able to vaccinate over 446,000 children in central and southern Gaza out of a total of 640,000 children under 10 years old in Gaza who need the vaccine. Lazzarini reported on Tuesday that the UNRWA has vaccinated an additional 77,000 children in northern Gaza.

Israel has supposedly agreed to brief pauses in deconflicted sites to allow the polio vaccine to be distributed, as experts warned that a polio epidemic could spread across the territory to Israel and elsewhere if it wasn’t stopped. Last month, officials reported that a 10-month-old baby had paralysis from poliovirus, caused by Israel’s genocide and disease campaign in Gaza.

The attack on the convoy raises questions about whether or not Israel is truly respecting their own pledge of deconfliction, or an agreement to avoid attacking certain spots for humanitarian aid purposes. Other attacks also suggest that Israel may be violating its deconfliction pledge.

On Tuesday, Israel struck a food stand in northern Gaza located between three deconflicted polio vaccination centers, killing five Palestinians, according to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. The food stall was as little as tens of meters away from vaccination centers, the group said.

“We have also documented airstrikes in Southern Gaza that similarly undermine the crucial polio vaccination campaign,” Euro-Med Monitor said. “Additionally, Israel’s stopping and interrogating a UN mission yesterday indicate a clear tendency for the IDF to obstruct humanitarian and relief efforts.”

Israel has also directly turned deconflicted zones into combat zones. On Monday, Israel ordered a new evacuation order for four neighborhoods in northern Gaza that covered several polio vaccination sites, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for the occupied Palestinian territory reported.