palestine news and politics

The Israeli army Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi said his forces "not on a killing spree, revenge or genocide" according to a report by the Israeli daily Haaretz.

"We must be careful not to use force where it is not required, to distinguish between terrorist and non-terrorist, not to take anything that is not ours – a souvenir or military item – and not to film revenge videos," said Halevi.

Israeli forces according the UN and other human rights organisations has waged a unprecedented war on Gaza resulting in more than 100,000 Palestinians mostly women and children being killed and wounded in the spree.

While Israeli forces have been documented in torturing Palestinian men and made videos looting Palestinian homes.

On Monday UN experts decried reports of rape and sexual assault of Palestinian women and girls held in Israeli detention.

The independent experts, part of the UN’s fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms of the Human Rights Council, confirmed in a statement receiving reports of Palestinian female detainees being subjected to “multiple forms of sexual assault,” with at least two detainees reportedly raped, while others were allegedly threatened with rape and sexual violence

Palestinian women and girls have reportedly been arbitrarily executed in Gaza, often together with family members, including their children, according to information received. “We are shocked by reports of the deliberate targeting and extrajudicial killing of Palestinian women and children in places where they sought refuge, or while fleeing. Some of them were reportedly holding white pieces of cloth when they were killed by the Israeli army or affiliated forces,” the experts said.

Edward Said wrote this open letter in 1989, but decided it would be too incendiary to publish. It is appearing here in print for the first time, with introductions by Nubar Hovsepian and Peter Beinart.

The massacre of Palestinians in Gaza is escalating as the misnamed Israel Defense Forces (IDF) continue their carnage, flattening whole neighborhoods and committing mass murder of civilians. Yemen and Southern Lebanon have now been drawn into the war. More than 35,000 Palestinians, mostly children and women, have been killed and 67,000 seriously injured according to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor

https://archive.ph/SE7g0

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/15735114

"The Gaza Strip is poised to witness an explosion in preventable child deaths which would compound the already unbearable level of child deaths in Gaza," said Ted Chaiban, deputy head of humanitarian action at the UN children's agency UNICEF.

At least 90 percent of children under five in Gaza are affected by one or more infectious diseases, according to a joint assessment by the UN agencies for children, food and health.

Seventy percent had had diarrhoea in the two weeks prior to the assessment, marking a 23-fold increase compared to the 2022 baseline.

"Hunger and disease are a deadly combination," World Health Organization emergencies director Mike Ryan said in a statement.

"Hungry, weakened and deeply traumatised children are more likely to get sick, and children who are sick, especially with diarrhoea, cannot absorb nutrients well," he said.

"It's dangerous, and tragic, and happening before our eyes."

Using 3D trajectory analysis, we dispute the Israeli military’s claim that:

Footage of a mid-air explosion before the blast shows the misfired Palestinian rocket that allegedly struck al-Ahli. According to our analysis, this footage in fact shows an exploding Israeli interceptor.

Most of the damage to the hospital and its courtyard was caused by unspent rocket propellant from a misfired rocket in the salvo. Our analysis of open source footage suggests that all seventeen of the rockets in question had finished burning their propellant while in flight.

With most of the Gaza Strip’s Palestinians now trapped inside the enclave’s southern tip, the Israeli onslaught they had attempted to escape has followed them to Rafah. Some 1.4 million people are pinned against a virtually impermeable Egyptian border, while the entry of life-sustaining aid is chronically stalled. At Kerem Shalom, the southeastern crossing directly controlled by Israel, Jewish Israelis have been filmed gleefully blocking food convoys from Egypt, in a fitting correlative to the genocidal rhetoric of their leaders.

Where, then, are the Palestinians of Gaza, hungry and homeless, to go?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/15718266

BRUSSELS, Feb 19 (Reuters) - The European Union on Monday warned Israel against launching an offensive in Rafah that ministers said would create a disaster for the roughly 1.5 million refugees crammed into the city on the southern edge of Gaza. "An attack on Rafah would be absolutely catastrophic ... it would be unconscionable," Ireland's Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said before a meeting with foreign ministers from the 27 EU member states in Brussels.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/12145086

Desperate Palestinians rushing toward aid trucks to fetch food in central Gaza were forced to flee after Israeli troops opened fire on them amid the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in the enclave.

Footage verified by Al Jazeera shows hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza City in the central part of the besieged enclave running to get food items delivered by the United Nations in boxes on the back of trucks as bullets are fired.

“Desperate and hungry Palestinians are running out of options. Under Israeli sniper fire, they are risking their lives to reach one of the few aid trucks entering Gaza City,” said Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Rafah in southern Gaza.

Footage has also shown how Israeli gunboats have opened fire on small Palestinian boats that were trying to fish off Gaza’s coast as dozens watched from land.

The Rubymar cargo ship suffered “catastrophic damages and came to a complete halt” after being targeted in a military operation, said Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree in a televised address on Monday.