"Israel Is Unleashing an Apocalypse in Northern Gaza"/ Ha'aretz editorial today

[Evvy_dense]

(Via Meryl Nass)

War crime piled on war crime. Israel’s leadership won’t end this themselves. They have gone for broke and there is no way out. Like the Dems and the Globalists, it is up to us to stop them

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https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/2024-11-06/ty-article-opinion/israel-is-unleashing-an-apocalypse-in-northern-gaza/00000192-fe34-d05a-aff6-fefc994e0000

Nov 6, 2024

The Israeli public must look at what its army is doing in its name in the northern Gaza Strip straight in the face. In early October, the Israel Defense Forces announced a military operation, and for more than a month now, the area around the towns of Jabalya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia have been under a tight siege. “A siege within a siege within a siege,” one UN official called it. This means the IDF isn’t letting anyone enter the area, not even international aid organizations.

Residents of northern Gaza were told to move south, in the spirit of the so-called “Generals’ Plan” proposed by Maj. Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland, although officially, Israel denies that it is implementing it. The basic concept of the plan is to evacuate the residents, declare the area a closed military zone and then assert that anyone remaining there will be considered a terrorist who can be killed.

Many residents fear they won’t be able to return, while others have been unable to leave the area. A few days ago, the United Nations and other aid organizations warned that the situation is “apocalyptic” and "the entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence."

The army is forbidding humanitarian aid trucks to enter ; only ambulances have been given permission to transport seriously ill people to the hospital in Gaza City. And this is happening at a time when the IDF asked all the civilian rescue services to leave the area. [No witnesses for the next onslaught—Nass]

On top of the mass expulsion, there is starvation, damage to hospitals , and humanitarian disaster causing disproportionate harm to civilians . [International laws of war forbid this—Nass] The Israeli public is almost never informed about such incidents, and in any case, it has demonstrated utter indifference. Two weeks ago, for instance, the IDF attacked a building in Beit Lahia – killing 94 people, according to the Hamas-run Gazan Health Ministry – because a Hamas lookout post located on the building’s roof had helped set off a bomb that killed four soldiers two days earlier. In Israel, there is almost no discussion of whether such a massive death toll was justified in proportion to the military target.

In practice, the war is being run in disregard of international law. It’s as if there were no civilians in Gaza, no children and no consequences for our actions. The desire to take revenge for Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023 has turned into brutal, unbridled warfare that constitutes a gross violation of the laws of war and, even worse, will be remembered as a moral stain on the country.

Moreover, the massive destruction of homes and buildings in the northern Gaza Strip and the army’s preparations to hold on to territory by paving roads and establishing infrastructure indicate an intention to prepare for de facto annexation and the establishment of settlements based on the West Bank model.

Israel must abandon the Generals’ Plan and end the humanitarian disaster. The time has come to make a sincere attempt to sign a hostage deal and end the war.

The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.

[PatB]

What never ceases to amaze me is peoples utter hypocrisy. Ha’aretz and any observer over 4 years old will have seen land and home theft, deliberate sniping of children, destruction of centuries old olive groves, Palestinians taken hostage (called prisoners) tried in military courts or held indefinitely, soldiers raping hostages and being lauded for it, and the endless limit and malicious control of aid going into Gaza.

After decades of this Ha’aretz develops a conscious and wants to end ‘the humanitarian disaster’ by doing a deal to get their prisoners (called hostages by the Zio propagandists) back.

After decades of this Ha’aretz says 'the war (sic) is being run in disregard of ‘international law’. Isn’t disregard of UN resolutions, occupations of other countries territories, ethnic cleansing, indiscriminate bombing, and indefinite detention in “disregard of international law” and haven’t they being doing this since 1948?

Seems to me that as Israehell is getting its rear end kicked and the whole Zionist concept is in real jeopardy, that suddenly all those neo liberals develop a conscience.

[Evvy_dense]

Still, from the belly of the Beast, they have been releasing privileged information about Israel’s systematic lying since Oct 10 - beats the pants off of western media.

[AlanG]

Fwiw, here’s what we wrote 2 days ago to our MP, Jon Pearce, and copied to a couple of local Labour worthies who we actually know (no acknowledgements or replies yet!!):

Aiding & abetting genocide

Good day Jon, greetings from Chinley.

We have three questions for you, predicated on the following:-

As is now being reported in many publications, including the Guardian and Wikipedia, the actions of Israel in the Gaza Strip may indeed be accurately described as genocide (as was deemed ‘plausible’ by the International Court of Justice about 8 months ago). Spokespeople for UN agencies have of course been saying this for a long time and have more recently been joined by several major charities. Even the BBC has begun to report UN findings in terms which leave little doubt.

The intentions were stated clearly at the outset by the Israeli government. The recently sacked Israeli Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant determined publicly over a year ago that the Palestinians residing in the Gaza Strip were ‘human animals’ to be thenceforth denied food, water and power to sustain their very lives. Mr. Gallant is perceived in Israel and portrayed in Western media as ‘moderate’ and has presumably been presiding over only a ‘moderate’ extermination programme since October 2023.

(The Gaza Strip is of course, under international law, part of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, access to and egress from which is controlled by the military forces of the occupying state, Israel. Our understanding is that international law recognises the right to armed resistance on the part of anyone so oppressed but does not recognise the right of an oppressor to exterminate an occupied population.)

The extermination of Palestinian people, of Arab people, Muslim and Christian alike, and the acquisition of their territory, has not only been stepped up, in the Northern Gaza Strip in particular under the so-called ‘General’s Plan’, in recent weeks but is being increasingly implemented in the West Bank and Lebanon. Frequent bombing raids on Syria and Yemen complete the picture.

War crimes of every description committed by Israeli forces have been, are being, documented daily. The UN has recently estimated that about 70% of those targeted and killed are women and children (>43.500 identified dead, >102,500 wounded, many with life-changing damage, tens of thousands yet to be accounted for). Of the remaining population the vast majority are now homeless, prevented from accessing their destroyed/damaged homes by Israeli forces, and on the brink of starvation, as openly planned and implemented by those same forces.

The details of Israel’s murderous campaign are horrific: babies shredded and incinerated at birth in the remains of hospitals and in tented refugee camps; injured and dead alike crushed under armoured vehicles; young children presenting with high velocity bullet wounds to the head from sniper rifles; entire residential blocks destroyed by 2000lb. bombs and paramedic/civil defence assistance denied at gunpoint; hospitals, health centres, doctors, nurses & paramedics; UN aid centres & aid workers, food & water resources, mosques, churches, news agencies & journalists; universities and schools; all especially targeted for destruction (Unicef has just published its finding that schools housing displaced families have been attacked 64 times in the last month, mostly by bombing/shelling); detainees starved and gang-raped, the abusers lionised by Israeli society (which is by all accounts glorying in the prospect of finishing the job of dispossessing the entire native Palestinian population begun in earnest in 1947 which has proceeded only in fits and starts ever since); the list is endless and endlessly harrowing.

Our understanding is that support for the ongoing atrocities is still being made available to Israel from HMG and from your Labour Party. This has consisted from the outset, and still consists, not only of moral support, if not actual cheerleading, but, more sinisterly, in material assistance, in munitions and logistics. (For instance the UK is still supplying essential parts for Israel’s F35 warplanes engaged in the mass destruction of civilian lives and infrastructure in the besieged enclave as well as hosting and protecting Israeli weapons factories here in the UK. Assistance from the RAF’s surveillance missions over the Gaza Strip from Akrotiri has no doubt contributed to the slaughter.)

Question1: Please can you find out for us and let us know how much has been spent so far on material support for Israel’s military activities in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023?

In the light of indisputable evidence of the commission of war crimes we look in vain for a sign from our elected government that the UK might even contemplate complying with the findings of international courts and the UN General Assembly that national governments should be seeking, by all means, to end Israel’s genocidal behaviour. On the contrary, the RAF is now, along with the USAF, on a killing spree of its own in Yemen (nothing new there!), this time in an attempt to dissuade Yemenis from doing what they can to put an end to the slaughter in Palestine (and now also in Lebanon).

Question 2: Please will you find out for us and let us know how much of taxpayer’s money has so far been spent by our government on these attacks on Yemeni territory?

(We wonder if what we heard from the newly elected MP for our then constituency 20 years ago has any bearing on the apparent chronic moral bankruptcy of most of our elected representatives: she was told on arrival in Westminster, ‘if you’re looking for preferment you need to join your parliamentary Friends of Israel group’. (In connection with this revelation we note that you yourself were already in receipt of largesse from Labour Friends of Israel even before the election: we hope against hope that you will be allowed to entertain impartial opinions on ‘Israel/Palestine’ by your new peers.)

Question 3: In view of the likely, eventual recognition by the ICJ that Israel’s genocide of Palestinians is proved, and the, again, likely, eventual issue by the ICC of warrants for the arrest and prosecution of those responsible, and in consideration of the ongoing complicity of HMG in Israel’s genocide and ‘ethnic cleansing’ programme, please can you let us know if steps are being taken to protect members of both the current and previous UK government from the future administration of justice in this respect and, if so, what this is likely to cost us taxpayers?

Sincerely,