Ceasefire deal on the table, as Gazans survey the wreckage – Day 238
Biden presents ceasefire deal, Netanyahu says “non-starter”; Israel withdraws from Jabalia, leaving corpses, destruction, signs of ethnic cleansing in its wake; conditions in Rafah are “horrific and apocalyptic”; more mass graves discovered; Israel has made one third of Gaza “uninhabitable”; Blinken’s feeble commentary on Gaza’s famine; experts say Israel could have used smaller weapons, avoided mass casualties in Rafah last week; AND YET Congress invites Netanyahu to speak.
By IAK staff, from reports.
3-phase ceasefire deal on the table:
Associated Press reports: President Joe Biden on Friday detailed a three-phase deal proposed by Israel to Hamas militants that he says would lead to the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza and could end the grinding, nearly 8-month-old Mideast war. (sic)
Biden added that Hamas is “no longer capable” of carrying out another large-scale attack on Israel as he urged Israelis and Hamas to come to a deal to release the remaining hostages for an extended cease-fire.
The Democratic president in remarks from the White House called the proposal “a road map to an enduring cease-fire and the release of all hostages.”
Biden said the first phase of the proposed deal would would last for six weeks and would include a “full and complete cease-fire,” a withdrawal of Israeli forces from all densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of a number of hostages, including women (an unknown number are IDF soldiers), the elderly and the wounded, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners (there are currently 9,000), including children.
The second phase would include the release of all remaining living hostages, including male soldiers, and Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza.
The third phase calls for the start of a major reconstruction of Gaza, which faces decades of rebuilding from devastation caused by the war. The 4-1/2 page Israeli proposal was transmitted to Hamas on Thursday.
What did key players say about the proposal?
Al Jazeera reports: Hamas has indicated that it is open to the proposal, raising hopes of a halt to Israel’s eight-month war.
In a statement, the group said it “reaffirms its readiness to positively engage and cooperate with any proposal based on the foundation of a permanent ceasefire, complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, reconstruction, the return of displaced people to their homes, and the completion of a genuine prisoner exchange deal, provided that the occupation announces its explicit commitment to this”.
But on Saturday, Netanyahu was adamant in declaring that for Israel’s war on Gaza to end, Hamas must be destroyed.
“Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel,” his office said in a statement.
It said those conditions must be met, “before a permanent ceasefire is put in place”.
“The notion that Israel will agree to a permanent ceasefire before these conditions are fulfilled is a non-starter,” it added.
President Biden stated, “As someone who’s had a lifelong commitment to Israel, as the only American president who has ever gone to Israel at a time of war, as someone who just sent the US forces to directly defend Israel when it was attacked by Iran, I ask you to take a step back, think what will happen if this moment is lost.”
“As long as Hamas lives up to its commitments, a temporary ceasefire would become, in the words of the Israeli proposal, ‘the cessation of hostilities permanently,'” said Biden.
“Israel has made their proposal. Hamas says it wants a ceasefire. This deal is an opportunity to prove whether they really mean it…With a ceasefire, aid could be safely and effectively distributed to all who need it,” Biden said.
NOTE: Here, Biden appears to assume that Israel will also live up to its “commitments” – not a field in which Israel has a good track record (for example, read this and this and this).
The people of Gaza desperately need humanitarian aid, but their demand is much larger: an end to Israel’s occupation and blockade, and Israel’s compliance with international law.
RECOMMENDED READING (Electronic Intifada): Biden admits Israel’s defeat in Gaza.
Palestinian Civil Defense recovers over 70 dead bodies in Jabalia after Israeli withdrawal:
Andalou Agency reports: The Palestinian Civil Defense on Friday said its teams recovered bodies of more than 70 people killed in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip during the Israeli army’s 20-day assault on the refugee camp.
In a statement, Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal told Anadolu that most of the corpses found belong to women and children – 30 of them belonged to a single family, including 22 women and children.
“Our teams have not yet finished their work in Jabalia, and continue to look for more martyrs under the rubble of destroyed homes,” the spokesman added.
Israel’s ethnic cleansing in Jabalia camp:
Euro-Med Monitor reports (excerpts): Throughout its three-week military operation against the Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, the Israeli army has deliberately continued its crime of forcibly uprooting Palestinian civilians.
Israel’s army has been conducting a large-scale military operation in the Jabalia camp since 11 May. The Israeli army has struck residential neighborhoods and other civilian objects in the vicinity with fire belts, and has been continuously bombarding civilian targets with intensive and indiscriminate artillery attacks. This is in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law regulations pertaining to proportionality, military necessity, and taking all necessary precautions.
In addition to the crimes of premeditated killings, arbitrary arrests, and targeting of civilians, the Israeli military operation in Jabaliya has resulted in massive destruction. The attacks have destroyed entire residential blocks and impacted hundreds of homes and buildings in the camp.
A field inspection of the conditions in the Jabalia camp after the Israeli withdrawal revealed that not a single residential building was spared from bombing, bulldozing, or burning operations.
Simultaneously, the Euro-Med Monitor field team observed the Israeli army demolishing all UNRWA headquarters and facilities in the Jabalia camp.
The UNRWA headquarters in northern Gaza was also burned, resulting in the total destruction of personnel files including documents pertaining to refugee aid.
Next to UNRWA’s main headquarters, its aid distribution store was set on fire—at a time when it was packed with aid supplies that had entered the camp just two days before its residents were forcibly evacuated.
This destruction is part of a larger pattern of deliberate acts of genocide that Israel has been committing against the Palestinian people since 7 October 2023.
Israel’s army is deliberately and systematically militarizing civilian objects in the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces have turned buildings such as schools, educational facilities, and hospitals into military bases, in flagrant violation of international law and the rules of war, and have deliberately destroyed 80% of the Strip’s schools, either completely or partially—an action described by UN experts in a joint statement issued on 18 April as “scholasticide”, as it is depriving another generation of Palestinians of their future.
(Read the full report here.)
World Food Programme director describes ‘horrific and apocalyptic’ scenes in Rafah:
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in southern Gaza’s Rafah have been displaced again because of the Israeli military’s offensive in the area and have been forced to abandon limited support networks they relied on.
“The sounds and smells of everyday life are horrific and apocalyptic,” according to Matthew Hollingworth, Palestine country director at the World Food Programme (WFP).
“People sleep and wake to the sounds of bombing, drones and war. And now tanks are rolling into parts of central Rafah, which is only kilometers away” from the designated areas where Palestinians have been forced to go, he said during a virtual briefing with reporters.
“I have spoken to so many people over the last few days when I was in Gaza who asked me, ‘Shall I leave? Should we try to storm the border with Egypt? Should we try to go back to Gaza City? What should we do? We don’t know what to do. Where can I get the aid I used to know where to get?’”
Israel ‘demolishing’ homes, public facilities in eastern Rafah:
The Israeli military has continued to bomb Rafah and push deeper into the western part of the city.
Eyewitnesses described seeing tanks and armored vehicles, with artillery shells reaching as far as the tent camp for displaced people in the western part of the city, which is an evacuation zone.
As it stated, the Israeli military has full control over the Philadelphi Corridor and is now systematically demolishing homes in the eastern part of Rafah city.
The entire eastern part of Rafah has been cleared of residential buildings and public facilities.
New mass graves discovered in Gaza:
Three mass graves have been discovered at the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, with 30 headless bodies among them.
Three mass graves have also been discovered at the Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, and another mass grave at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza – bringing the total to seven.
The Israeli military says it has done nothing wrong. But exhumations at these sites suggest a harrowing ordeal for Palestinians.
Watch the full report here.
Israel has encroached on 32% of Gaza, Al Jazeera investigation shows:
Al Jazeera reports: Israel has taken over some 32 percent of Gaza’s area by “systematically demolishing neighborhoods” to create a buffer zone and a central axis dividing it, according to Al Jazeera’s Sanad Verification Agency.
This does not include the area of the Philadelphi Corridor on Egypt’s border, which Israel declared it had taken control of on Thursday.
One third of Gaza has been made uninhabitable.
Analysis of satellite imagery by Al Jazeera’s verification agency, Sanad, showed 80-90 percent destruction rates in the 120sq km (46 square miles) Israel has taken.
With Israel’s assault on Gaza not yet over, the territory could be further diminished.
On January 23, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that the US opposed any permanent change in the territorial composition of Gaza and rejected the permanent displacement of its population. A permanent buffer zone is a direct challenge to this position.
Blinken: Rafah crossing being closed a ‘real problem’:
The humanitarian situation remains dire in Gaza due to combat operations in the south, especially in terms of distributing aid to civilians, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says.
“Rafah remains closed, and that’s a real problem,” Blinken said during a news conference in Prague. The US is working intensely to address the acute needs of Gaza civilians, he added.
NOTEThousands of aid trucks are reportedlywaiting just outside Gaza, where Israel has made it extremely difficult to pass, employingcomplicated and arbitrary procedures. Israel has on multiple occasions fired at individualswaiting for food aid (once killing over 100); Israel has also attacked food aid convoys. Additionally, Israeli citizens have blocked a border crossing for weeks, andattacked and looted trucks they believed were heading to Gaza – all with no meaningful attempt by Israel to stop them.
In mid-March, Israel promised to “flood” Gaza with aid, but has failed to do so.
The US has for monthsexpressed itsdesire to see appropriate amounts of humanitarian aid reaching Gaza on one hand, whileundermining Gaza’s largest aid organization on the other.
Meanwhile, the US has built a “temporary pier” off the Gaza coast to receive aid by sea – at a cost of at least$320 million (which has so far beenineffective) – and has, along with other countries,airdropped packages of aid into Gaza – causing over 20 Palestinian deaths due to malfunction.
The Biden administration has so far not used its leverage as theprovider of billions of dollars in military aid to and for Israel (with oneexception), a move that could potentially end the war in short order.
Israel could have used smaller weapons against Hamas to avoid deaths in Gaza tent fire, US military experts say:
Associated Press reports: Defense experts who have reviewed debris images from an Israeli airstrike that ignited a deadly fire in a camp for displaced Palestinians questioned why Israel did not use smaller, more precise weapons when so many civilians were nearby. They said the bombs used were likely U.S.-made.
The strikes, targeting Hamas operatives, killed as many as 45 people sheltering in a temporary displacement camp near the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Sunday and have drawn international condemnation.
Based on images and satellite photos of the debris field, two defense experts said the bombs used were likely U.S.-made 250-pound (113-kilogram) GBU-39 small-diameter bombs.
Though they’re smaller than many other weapons the U.S. has provided to Israel, these bombs can still create a wide swath of damage. The entire 250-pound shell and components are designed to spew fragments that can travel as far as 2,000 feet (600 meters).
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Wednesday that the U.S. is waiting for an investigation to show what weapons were used and how they were deployed.
Even if that confirms Israel used a small-diameter weapon, “we also see that even limited, focused, targeted attacks can have terrible, horrific, unintended consequences,” Blinken said.
The defense experts said Israel had better options to turn to than the GBU-39 when civilians were nearby.
Congressional leaders invite Israel’s Netanyahu to address U.S. lawmakers:
CBS News reports: The top four leaders of the House and Senate invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint meeting of Congress, despite political divisions over Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.
“We join the State of Israel in your struggle against terror*, especially as Hamas continues to hold American and Israeli citizens captive and its leaders jeopardize regional stability,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (see this), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (see this), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (see this) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (see this) wrote in the letter to Netanyahu, which was released Friday. (All receive large campaign donations from the multi-strategic Israel lobby; an unknown quantity is dark money.)
“To build on our enduring relationship and to highlight America’s solidarity with Israel, we invite you to share the Israeli government’s vision for defending democracy**, combatting terror, and establishing a just and lasting peace in the region,” the letter said.
A date for the speech was not included in the invitation.
*NOTE: The use of the word “terrorist” for a group that resists occupation and oppression is a political, not fact-based choice. In reality, international law supports the efforts of resistance groups against an occupying power, even to the point of armed resistance. Hamas has clearly and openly stated that itsenemy is not the Jewish people, but the racist ideology of Zionism – the ideology under which Israel dispossessed 750,000 Palestinian people and exiled them to Gaza and other locations.
**NOTE: It is disingenuous to refer to Israel as a “democracy,” when in reality the Palestinians under Israeli rule (half of the total population) do not enjoy equality with Israeli Jews. The Nation-State Law (passed in 2018) is perhaps the most blatant example of the country’s overt Jewish supremacy; a number of highly respected human rights organizations (including Israeli orgs) have cataloged the laws, systems, and practices in place, and deemed them to add up to apartheid (most notably: Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the United Nations, and the Israeli human rights groups B’Tselem, Yesh Din).
MORE NEWS:
Mondoweiss: A Texas company is providing the jet fuel for Israel’s assault on Gaza.
The New Arab: In Gaza, Israel trials new face of America’s imperial laboratory.
IMEMC Reports.
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – MAY 31:
Palestinian death toll from October 7 – May 31: at least 36,741* (36,224 in Gaza* – 4,959 women (20%), 7,797 children (32%). This is expected to be a significant undercount since thousands of those killed have yet to be identified – and at least 517 in the West Bank (~117 children). This does not include an estimated 10,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 43,640 Palestinian deaths. (Ralph Nader has estimated 200,000 Palestinians may have been killed in Gaza.)
At least 42 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (27 from Gaza, 14 from West Bank).
At least 31 Palestinian children and several adults have died due to malnutrition**.
About 1.7 million, or 75% of Gaza’s population are currently displaced.
About 1.1 million (out of total population of 2.3 million) are facing Catastrophic levels of food insecurity.
Palestinian injuries from October 7 – May 31: at least 86,817 (including at least 81,777 in Gaza and 5,040 in the West Bank).
It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.
Reported Israeli death toll from October 7 – May 31: ~1,445 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 293 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza; 16 in the West Bank) and~8,730 injured.
Times of Israel reports: The IDF also listed 41 soldiers killed due to friendly fire in Gaza and other military-related accidents – nearly 16%.
NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.
*Previously, IAK did not include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile was being disputed. However, given that much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, Israel had previously bombed the hospital and has attacked many others, Israel is prohibiting outside experts from investigating the scene, and since the UN and other agencies are including the deaths from the attack in their cumulative totals, if Americans knew is now also doing so.
**Euro-Med Monitor reports that Gaza’s elderly are dying at an alarmingly high rate. The majority die at home and are buried either close to their residences or in makeshift graves dispersed across the Strip. There are currently more than 140 such cemeteries. Additionally, according to Euromed, thousands have died from starvation, malnourishment, and inadequate medical care; these are considered indirect victims as they were not registered in hospitals.
Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org
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