US medics: Gaza’s children are “maimed and mutilated by our weapons” – Day 292
Calls to end the “unbearable cruelty” inflicted by Israel; death, crowding in Gaza’s shrinking “safe zones”; EU slams Israel over UNRWA “terrorist” label; targeted Israeli killing of a 13-year-old Palestinian boy in West Bank; standing ovations for Netanyahu as bombs drop on “safe zones”; how Israel is shrinking Gaza’s ‘safe zones’; more Palestinians testify to torture; UN expert: Large-scale destruction of housing is a crime; US reportedly green-lights expanded Israeli war on Lebanon; Col Douglas Macgregor on Netanyahu in DC;
By IAK staff, from reports.
US medics who volunteered in Gaza demand arms embargo over ‘unbearable cruelty’ inflicted by Israel
The Guardian reports: Dozens of US doctors and nurses who worked in Gaza have written to Joe Biden claiming that the true death toll from Israel’s months-long assault is much higher than previously reported, demanding the US withdraw diplomatic and military support for Israel until there is a ceasefire.
The eight-page letter, delivered on Thursday and addressed to Biden, the first lady, Jill Biden, and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, said the medics saw evidence of widespread violations of laws governing the use of US weapons supplied to Israel, and of international humanitarian law.
Forty-five surgeons, emergency room physicians and nurses who volunteered in several Gaza hospitals over recent months laid out what they described as the “massive human toll from Israel’s attack on Gaza, especially the toll it has taken on women and children”.
“We cannot forget the scenes of unbearable cruelty directed at women and children that we witnessed ourselves,” they wrote.
“Every single signatory to this letter treated children in Gaza who suffered violence that must have been deliberately directed at them. Specifically, every one of us on a daily basis treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head.”
Several of the signatories previously told the Guardian they believed Israeli snipers were targeting children and reported the devastating impact on civilians of weapons designed to spray high levels of shrapnel.
The medics, who volunteered with the World Health Organization and other relief groups, told the president the real death toll is much higher than the Palestinian ministry of health’s casualty figure of more than 39,000 people killed, the majority being women and children.
“It is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 92,000, an astonishing 4.2% of Gaza’s population,” they wrote.
Mark Perlmutter, an orthopedic surgeon, wrote: “Gaza was the first time I held a baby’s brains in my hand. The first of many.”
“Israel has targeted our colleagues [Palestinian healthcare workers] in Gaza for death, disappearance and torture. These unconscionable acts are entirely at odds with American law, American values and international humanitarian law,” they wrote.
“President and Dr Biden, we wish you could see the nightmares that plague so many of us since we have returned: dreams of children maimed and mutilated by our weapons, and their inconsolable mothers begging us to save them,” they said.
“We wish you could hear the cries and screams our consciences will not let us forget. We cannot believe that anyone would continue arming the country that is deliberately killing these children after seeing what we have seen.”
Israeli war has killed 366 UN staff and family members
Drop Site News reports: Israel’s assault on Gaza had killed at least 172 dependents of United Nations staff by the end of June, according to a confidential UN report obtained by Drop Site, in addition to 195 staff members.
The previously unreported data reflects the extraordinary toll not just for employees of the United Nations but for their families.
‘No space for a single tent’ in al-Mawasi after Khan Younis invasion
The Palestine Red Crescent Society says the Israeli military is pounding the Khan Younis governorate in southern Gaza for a fourth consecutive day, forcing thousands more people to flee.
“In the so-called ‘humanitarian area’ in al-Mawasi, there is no space even for a single tent due to the overwhelming number of people desperate for safety,” PRCS said.
“The Israeli occupation prevents displaced persons from Gaza and the north from returning to their homes.”
According to the UN, at least 150,000 Palestinians fled Khan Younis earlier this week after Israel launched its latest invasion of the city.
How Israel is shrinking Gaza’s ‘safe zones’
Al Jazeera reports: As of Monday, 83 percent of the Gaza Strip has been marked unsafe for Palestinian civilians by the Israeli military.
This big chunk of the beleaguered enclave has either been designated as a “no-go zone” by Israel or people there have been issued evacuation orders, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
(Read Al Jazeera’s explainer here.)
UN expert: Large-scale destruction of housing is a crime
Al Jazeera reports: Israel’s widespread destruction of housing in Gaza may amount to war crimes, according to a UN expert.
“The crime of domicide is one which involves the systematic or widespread destruction of housing,” Balakrishnan Rajagopal, UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, told Al Jazeera in a television interview.
“Housing destruction on an individual basis, for example, when the destruction of a house is not justified as a military objective, is already a war crime under a Geneva Convention.”
EU’s Borrell says labelling UNRWA as ‘terrorist’ is ‘nonsense’
Al Jazeera reports: EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has slammed Israel’s advance of laws labelling UNRWA as a ‘terrorist’ organization, amid a push to discredit the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
“Outlawing @UNRWA – and labelling it as terrorist, which it is not – amounts to targeting regional stability and human dignity of all those benefiting from the UN agency work,” Borrell said on X.
“We join many partners in urging the Israeli Government to halt this nonsense.”
US defends UNRWA after Israel moves to declare it a ‘terrorist organization’
The United States criticized an Israeli bill that would declare the UN agency for Palestinian refugees a terrorist organization, saying that such efforts are “incredibly unhelpful.”
“UNRWA is not a terrorist organization, and we urge the Israeli government and the Knesset to halt the movement of this legislation,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
NOTE: While the EU has renewed its funding for UNRWA since it was cleared of the fraudulent charges against the organization, the US has not.
21 EU lawmakers call for trade ban with illegal Israeli settlements after ICJ ruling
The landmark ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that termed Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory as unlawful must lead to a “drastic change” in European Union policy, according to 21 members of the European Parliament.
They write to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a letter that the 27-member bloc must align itself with the findings of the UN’s highest court.
Palestinian boy, 13, dies from injuries after shot 5 times by Israeli forces in West Bank
Defense for Children International said Saif Ziad Ali Omair was shot five times on July 11, allegedly while throwing stones at Israeli soldiers in the village of Meithalun, south of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli forces opened fire from inside an armored vehicle, hitting the 13-year-old four times in the abdomen, hand, leg and pelvis.
The boy was then shot again, in the chest, by an Israeli soldier who stepped out of the armored car and shot the teenager as he lay, grievously injured, on the ground.
Saif succumbed to his wounds on July 23, the child rights group said.
Israeli soldiers and armed settlers have now killed 58 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank so far this year, and a total of 139 have been killed since October 7, the group said.
US lawmakers give Netanyahu over 50 standing ovations as jets pound ‘safe zones’ across Gaza
The Cradle reports: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his much-anticipated address to a joint session of the US Congress on 24 July, receiving well over 50 standing ovations by lawmakers during an hour-long speech in which he repeated several disproven claims and outright lies about the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Chief among these lies was saying that Tel Aviv has gone “beyond what international law requires” to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza.
To rapturous applause, Netanyahu claimed that during a recent visit to Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, he was told by an army commander that “practically [no civilians were killed], with the exception of a single incident where shrapnel from a bomb hit a Hamas weapons depot and unintentionally killed two dozen people.”
“The war in Gaza has one of the lowest ratios of combatant to non-combatants in the history of urban warfare,” Netanyahu said.
Several rights groups and the UN have accused Israel of regularly flaunting international law and directly targeting civilians in Gaza, where it has displaced more than 90 percent of the population and wiped out entire neighborhoods.
Israeli soldiers recently revealed that there are no firing regulations inside Gaza, describing most of the strip as “free fire zones” where civilians are killed with no repercussions. A US doctor who volunteered in Gaza has also accused Israeli snipers of deliberately shooting Palestinian children.
(Read the full article here.)
RECOMMENDED READING: ‘I’m bored, so I shoot’: The Israeli army’s approval of free-for-all violence in Gaza
Another group of Palestinians released into from Israel’s Ofer prison show signs of torture:
NOTE: Israeli torture of Palestinians has been widespread and well-documented since October 7th and long before – includingtorture of children. Torture is a war crime.
Since October 7th, Israel has “apprehended” thousands of Gazan civilians, includingchildren, pregnant women, and the elderlyand sick. In many cases they were kept forweeks, and experienced torture andhumiliation.
“Shut Up, Asshole”: Democrats Want Delegates Frustrated by Gaza Policy to Just Fall in Line
Mother Jones reports: Last night, the Michigan Democratic Party held a call asking delegates to rally around Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s nominee after President Joe Biden stepped out of the race.
During the call, two uncommitted delegates—chosen by voters protesting against Biden’s failure to push for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza—said they would not endorse Harris until they knew her policy on aid to Israel. According to a recent Gallup poll, 55 percent of Americans disapprove of Israel’s actions in Gaza, and only 36 percent are supportive.
Delegate Abbas Alawieh, who is an organizer with the Uncommitted Movement, tried to explain his position on last night’s Michigan Democratic Party Zoom call. He says he was told to “shut up, asshole”—an incident which he says is symptomatic of anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism within the party.
Michigan Democratic Party Chair Lavora Barnes said the incident was “unacceptable,” and that “in this moment, we want to reiterate that our Arab American and Muslim brothers and sisters are welcome in this party.”
Alawieh spoke to Mother Jones about what happened.
(Read the full article here.)
Washington gives Netanyahu ‘full backing’ to expand war on Lebanon: Report
The Cradle reports: Former Israeli intelligence and security official Yuval Malka told Hebrew media on 25 July that Washington has greenlit a wider war on Lebanon.
“According to the information I received from the delegation and what I know, Netanyahu has received full legitimacy in the United States to wage a war in Lebanon,” Malka told Israel’s Channel 14.
“When he arrives in the country, he is expected to head to the ‘Al-Bur’ in Al-Kiryah, and from there he will start the war in Lebanon,” he added, referring to a military complex that houses the headquarters of the Israeli army’s different corps.
Netanyahu visited Washington this week for a speech in Congress and talks with officials.
The Israeli army has reportedly signaled to the government that the time is ripe for an expanded war against Lebanon, according to a defense analyst for Hebrew media.
Col Douglas Macgregor on Netanyahu in DC
Colonel Douglas MacGregor is a 20-year veteran of the US Army who previously served as Senior Advisor to the US Secretary of Defense. Also see this.
Trump: Israel needs to end Gaza war ‘fast’ as bad ‘publicity’ mounts
Al Jazeera reports: Former US President Donald Trump has called for a quick end to Israel’s war on Gaza and a return of its captives, saying the US ally is “getting decimated” by bad publicity.
“I want him to finish up and get it done quickly, he’s got to get it done quickly,” Trump told Fox News one day before meeting Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
“For whatever reason, you have Jewish people out there wearing yarmulkes and they’re, you know, pro-Palestine. You’ve never seen anything like this. … They got to get this done fast because the world is not taking lightly to it. It’s really incredible.”
NOTE: Jewish Americans have been a powerful voice for justice in the current war – but it is nothing new. Long History of Jewish Dissent Over Israel’s Treatment of Palestinians recalls some of the many Jews who have criticized and fought against the Zionist approach toward Palestinians – an approach that amounted to subjugation and/or ethnic cleansing. “Pro-Palestine” Jews today are simply continuing this work.
RECOMMENDED READING from Jewish Voice for Peace:
The truth about campuses and What’s the meaning of solidarity?
In late-night session, Knesset hands Ben Gvir authority over building violations in West Bank
Times of Israel reports: During a late-night marathon plenum session on Wednesday, lawmakers voted 55-51 to ratify a government decision giving far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir authority over a unit that enforces building regulations, a move that critics believe targets Arab citizens.
The decision to transfer the Finance Ministry’s Real Estate Enforcement Division to the National Security Ministry was announcedduring a cabinet meeting in early April — a transfer of authority that requires Knesset approval.
“We have already increased enforcement in real estate, but the transfer of the authority to my office will allow us to act even more decisively and in a joint effort against the illegal construction in the Negev and the north,” Ben Gvir declared in a statement on Thursday morning.
NOTE: Israel admits that its construction permit system is highly discriminatory. Between 2016 and 2020, 99.1 percent of Palestinian requests for building permits were rejected, according to data provided by the IDF’s Civil Administration. Any Palestinian who builds without a permit risks having his building tagged for demolition.
RECOMMENDED READING: Who is Israel’s far-right, pro-settler Security Minister Ben-Gvir?
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