#Hamas United Nations Red Cross

[yhebrew]

the Finger of God is real!

October 7 War 2023 - Flooding and Earthquakes distract the world from Israel.

Va’era (I APPEARED) * I Made Myself Known Exodus 6:2-9:35, Ezekiel 28:25-29:21. Romans 9:14-17; 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1 January 13, 2024 * 3 Shevat 5784 Day 100 of October 7 Shemini Atzeret Simchot Torah War Isa 52:6  Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I.  Israel is Gathered in Security Eze 28:25  Thus…

[infamouslydorky]

I'm about to put this senator in public view for his opinions

Hey bud, it's not antisemitism to want to stop Isreal from using illegal weapons like white phosphorus on Lebanon. It's not antisemitism to call the country out for killing journalists and medical personnel, like the red cross, for trying to report and help the people of Gaza. It's not antisemitism to acknowledge that the IDF is actively destroying family lines of Palestinians, which very much qualifies as genocide. It's not antisemitism to call Isreal out for striking Beruit, a highly civilian populated city, and destroying apartment buildings with bombs designed to obliterate bunkers. It's not antisemitism to point out that Isreal has sabotaged beepers, used only by emergency personnel like doctors, and rigged them to explode upon beeping.

It IS antisemitism to blame Jewish people specifically for the actions of Isreal BECAUSE they are Jewish. Isreal, as a nation, does not speak for every Jewish person and neither does Netanyahu. Isreal never shared the land with Palestinians as much as Isreal forced Palestinians out of their homelands beginning in 1948. Now, historically, Jewish diaspora is and was very much a real thing, as consequence of a largely antisemitic western society, which forced the migration of Jewish people and displacing them from their original homes until they were once again driven out of any given country until after WW2, and westerners decided to shove all the Jewish people in what is now called Isreal. Fun fact: originally, the UN wanted to put displaced Jewish people in Uganda.

In more precise words, this is another form of colonization that capitalized on the suffering of misplaced peoples that lived in a society that largely scapegoated them for their problems instead of treating them like people and now the country of Isreal is doing the exact same thing to Palestinians.

What remains in the United State's interest in keeping support of Isreal is an easy access base of operations for resources like oil as well as military influence in the region. It is neo-colonialism in a claiming antisemitism trenchcoat.

So, no, it is not antisemitism to hold Isreal accountable for their actions.

It is, however, Islamophobic and racist to continue to state that Hamas beheaded babies with no evidence of such claims.

Also, a devastating hurricane destroyed massive amounts of the state of Florida as well as states like Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, and Tennessee with another two potentially on the way and no amount of support from the federal government because FEMA has no money but we sure as hell see it shipped off in the billions to kill innocent civilians for the military industrial complex, I tell ya hwat 🙃

[reasonsforhope]

Additional humanitarian aid trucks started rolling over the Rafah Crossing from Egypt to Gaza early Friday [November 24] morning, as the planned four-day ceasefire began. The aid trucks, fuel tankers among them, were a welcome sight amid the seven-week-long war between Israel and Hamas.

Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostage, Israel has periodically [note: imho, this language is wildly minimizing the extent of the long-term, near-total blockade] cut off water, fuel and electricity to Gaza. An estimated 14,000 people have been killed by Israeli bombardment of the territory, the Hamas-run health ministry has said.

People in Gaza experienced reprieve on Friday after the warring sides implemented a new deal that included a temporary pause in fighting, delivery of more aid, and the planned exchange of a possible 50 Hamas hostages for 150 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

International organizations and Qatar’s foreign minister, who helped broker the deal, have said the new aid will not be enough to address the dire humanitarian disaster in Gaza. More than half of the territory’s two million-plus residents are internally displaced, with food and clean water now running out in north Gaza.

The United Nations and many aid groups have been calling for a permanent ceasefire.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the country will continue its war to eliminate Hamas after the truce. Hamas told Al Jazeera in an interview that they want a permanent ceasefire, but said the group is “ready to deal with all situations imposed by Israel.”

What aid is entering Gaza? 

Between Oct. 21 and Nov. 23, more than 1,723 truckloads of humanitarian supplies entered Gaza through the Egyptian border, the U.N. said. Before the war, a monthly average of nearly 10,000 trucks of commercial and humanitarian commodities came in.

The U.N. said Israel allowed 19,812 U.S. gallons (75,000 liters) of fuel to enter Gaza on Nov. 23. Israel had previously prohibited fuel over fears it would be used by Hamas for military purposes. Fuel is now being distributed by the U.N. to support food distribution and to operate generators at hospitals, water and sanitation facilities, shelters and other critical services, the agency said. 

The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement shared on various social media channels that four tankers of fuel and four tankers of cooking gas were transferred from Egypt on Friday morning. 

Videos showed more trucks started passing into Gaza after the temporary ceasefire started at 7 a.m. local time. 

As of 10:30 a.m., 60 trucks of a total of 230 expected on Friday had entered Gaza, Al Arabiya reported, citing a Rafah crossing border official.

The Palestinian Red Crescent received two ambulances and 85 trucks loaded with aid through the crossing, carrying food, water, relief items, medical equipment, and medications, the group wrote on X (formerly Twitter)...

Multiple U.N. agencies have called for a humanitarian ceasefire, with U.N.’s Secretary-General saying in a statement on Nov. 19 that “this must stop.”

In a news conference Friday morning, Jens Laerke, spokesman for the U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA, told reporters: “We hope that this humanitarian pause leads to a longer term humanitarian ceasefire for the benefit of the people of Gaza, Israel and others.”

-via Time, November 24, 2023

[zvaigzdelasas]

U.S., in policy switch, urges humanitarian pauses in Gaza - WaPo

After weeks of declining to back growing international calls for “humanitarian pauses” in Israeli airstrikes to allow a steady flow of aid to enter Gaza, permit American and foreign citizens to exit into Egypt and facilitate the release of hostages, the Biden administration is now fully in favor of them and is pressing Israel to agree.

The abrupt policy shift comes as [...] much of the world has declined to follow the U.S. lead in withholding public criticism of how Israel is conducting its war against Hamas.[...]

The administration’s public promotion this week of humanitarian pauses came after what one U.S. official said was “a lot of the groundwork in private communications.” But it still left the United States behind the curve of international opinion, as the U.N. General Assembly Friday overwhelmingly approved an Arab-sponsored resolution calling for a complete ceasefire. Only 14 of the 193 U.N. member nations voted against the measure, including the United States, Israel and several Pacific island and eastern European states. Most close U.S. allies were in favor or abstained from the vote.[...]

Last week, the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for humanitarian pauses, saying that the measure did not affirm Israel’s right to defend itself. Over the weekend, Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered to “consider” such pauses to protect civilians.[...]

Of the many civilians The Washington Post has contacted inside Gaza waiting to leave, none has said that Hamas or anyone else has physically prevented them from crossing. But the border gate is not operational.[...]

A range of countries and the United Nations have together sent hundreds of tons of humanitarian aid to Egypt’s Arish airport near Rafah, where the Egyptian Red Crescent is organizing aid for delivery to Gaza. In recent days, more than 200 trucks filled with aid stood waiting on the Egyptian side of the crossing. Angry truck drivers staged a protest last week, demanding they be allowed to deliver their desperately needed cargo to “Palestinian brothers” on the other side of the border.[...]

Eighty-four truckloads have now entered Gaza from Egypt since last weekend, just a small fraction of the more than 100 a day that U.N. officials have said is the bare minimum for civilian survival. U.S., U.N. and Egyptian officials have said a main impediment to a more substantial flow is the length of time it has taken for Israel’s inspections of every truck[...]

Inspections that take 10-15 minutes during the normal flow of Egyptian-Israeli trade are now taking “hours,” 

27 Oct 23

[honesty-my-policy]

Resources/Sources against HAMAS + more [re-organization of previous posted resources]

LONG POST - WILL PUT A READ MORE - SEE UNDER IT FOR MORE RESOURCES.

Sources/places that have uncensored footage from the Oct. 7th attack. For anyone who needs a reality check or needs to smack someone with a reality check.

THIS FOOTAGE IS UNCENSORED AND HIGHLY DISTURBING BUT IMPORTANT TO HISTORY. I HAVE WATCHED A LARGE COMPILATION AND IT STILL RUNS THROUGH MY MIND ALL DAY.

https://www.october7thattack.com/

https://oct7th.org/

https://www.hamasvideo.com/

https://theworldwatch.com/tags/hamas/

https://www.hamas-massacre.net/

important websites + articles they have posted

UN Watch - https://unwatch.org/about-us/our-work/

Fact Checking UNRWA Claims About Teachers and Education

Hamas stole 36,000 liters of fuel from UN warehouses

Group of 3,000 UNRWA teachers celebrates Hamas massacre and rape

UN staff celebrate Hamas massacre

The Case against UNRWA from UN Watch - link

2023-Report-UNRWA-pdf - link

Report: Red Cross Statements ‘Overwhelmingly’ Biased Against Israel - link

Honest Reporting - https://honestreporting.com/about/

Desperate Media Accuse Israel of ‘War Crime’ Over Killing of Terrorists in Daring Hospital Raid

Media Accused Israel of ‘Strike’ on Palestinians Who Died in Gaza City Aid Truck Stampede

Council on Foreign Relations -https://www.cfr.org/about

What is HAMAS? Link

The Sunni-Shia Divide - link

MeForum - https://www.meforum.org/about/

A Primer on Hamas; Part 4: Who Are the Palestinians? - link

Countering ‘Pro-Palestine’ Propaganda Part 4: Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing - link

Countering ‘Pro-Palestine’ Propaganda Part 5: Gaza is an Open-Air Prison - link

Countering ‘Pro-Palestine’ Propaganda Part 6: Palestinian Refugees’ Right of Return - link

Israel Can Trust Hamas - To Keep Its Promises - link

The Rhetoric of Nonsense - link

The Wilson Center - https://www.wilsoncenter.org/about

Digital Deception: Disinformation’s Impact in the Israel-Hamas War - link

Hamas: Words and Deeds… - link 

Hamas over-reporting civilian casualties in Gaza, again - link

Misc Articles (find the about page yourself if you care enough) -

Hamas use of human shields in Gaza (pdf) - link

Intelligence Reveals Details of U.N. Agency Staff’s Links to Oct. 7th Attack - link

Don’t erase our history: The Jewish people are indigenous to the land of Israel - link

Hamas’s October 7th Attack: Visualizing the Data - link

Teaching Terror: How Hamas Radicalizes Palestinian Society - link

Why Hamas is an Unreliable Source and How Many Reporters Fail to Disclose this - link

Misc Resources -

The Complete List of the 1030 Jewish Expulsions in Human History (pdf) - link

Educational Posts made by rootsmetal -

Palestine and the Holocaust

Hamas's Islamism

we are treated differently

evidence (there's plenty)

teaching hatred

united nations

lies about 1948

was there peace before 1948?

HAMAS Guidelines to Social Media (excerpts)

Anyone killed or martyred is to be called a civilian from Gaza or Palestine, before we talk about his status in jihad or his military rank. Don't forget to always add 'innocent civilian' or 'innocent citizen' in your description of those killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza.

Begin [your reports of] news of resistance actions with the phrase 'In response to the cruel Israeli attack,' and conclude with the phrase 'This many people have been martyred since Israel launched its aggression against Gaza.' Be sure to always perpetuate the principle of 'the role of the occupation is attack, and we in Palestine are fulfilling [the role of] the reaction.'

Beware of spreading rumors from Israeli spokesmen, particularly those that harm the home front. Be wary regarding accepting the occupation's version [of events]. You must always cast doubts on this [version], disprove it, and treat it as false.

The interior ministry prepared a series of suggestions specifically for Palestinian activists who speak to Westerners via social media. The ministry emphasizes that conversations with them should be conducted differently from conversations with other Arabs.

When speaking to the West, you must use political, rational, and persuasive discourse, and avoid emotional discourse aimed at begging for sympathy. There are elements with a conscience in the world; you must maintain contact with them and activate them for the benefit of Palestine. Their role is to shame the occupation and expose its violations.

Avoid entering into a political argument with a Westerner aimed at convincing him that the Holocaust is a lie and deceit; instead, equate it with Israel's crimes against Palestinian civilians.

The narrative of life vs. the narrative of blood: [When speaking] to an Arab friend, start with the number of martyrs. [But when speaking] to a Western friend, start with the number of wounded and dead. Be sure to humanize the Palestinian suffering. Try to paint a picture of the suffering of the civilians in Gaza and the West Bank during the occupation's operations and its bombings of cities and villages.

Do not publish photos of military commanders. Do not mention their names in public, and do not praise their achievements in conversations with foreign friends!

Recently I came across a bunch more ancient/old maps of the Middle East, Near East, Levant, Israel, and others. Some are remakes as the old ones were degraded or unable to be scanned, some are historian estimates of what the area looked like at the times, others are actual scans of maps from back in the day. I will link specific maps of interest but also databases below. I will link the maps first and the databases they are from above them.

David Rumsey Historical Map Collection (over 130,000 maps and related images online)

Alte Welt: Städte. (Old world: cities)

No. 1: General map of the countries mentioned in the Bible

No. 2: Map of the journeyings of the Israelites : in the desert

Turkey. Middle East. Ancient World

American Society of Overseas Research (online resources)

The Ancient Near East: The Hellenistic World c. 200 BCE

Neo-Hittite and Aramean States

Iron Age IIIv2 Empires

The National Library of Israel

Specific search for maps of Israel

Map History (part of the virtual library)

Index

Gallica (digital library of the National France Library and its partners + I don’t know if it’s just my browser but switching the language to English didn’t work much so it was mostly in French)

Database

Maps

W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (Digital Collection)

Palestine of the Old Testament

Historic Map Works

ASIA/recens summa/cura delineata

United Nations Archives

Map Collection of the League of Nations + UNOG

Library of Congress World Digital Library

Map Collection

links to previous posts containing the same resources in case i missed any - link

[capybaracorn]

Israel bombs yet another Gaza camp it had declared a safe zone

Officials say many bodies were ‘charred’ after the strikes triggered a fire that ripped through the camp in Rafah.

Palestinians look at the destruction caused by Israeli attacks on tents for the displaced people living near the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warehouses in Rafah. [Ali Jadallah/Anadolu]

(27th of May 2024)

The Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza says the death toll from an overnight Israeli attack on the tents of displaced Palestinians in Rafah has risen to 45 as the attack sparks condemnation across the Arab and Western world.

In scenes grimly familiar from a war in its eighth month, Palestinian families on Monday rushed to hospitals to prepare their dead for burial after the Sunday night attack set tents and rickety shelters ablaze. Women wept as men held prayers beside bodies in shrouds.

“The whole world is witnessing Rafah getting burned up by Israel and no one is doing anything to stop it,” Bassam, a Rafah resident, said via a chat app, of the attack in an area of western Rafah that had been designated a safe zone.

The attack took place in the Tal As-Sultan neighbourhood, where thousands were sheltering after Israeli forces began a ground offensive in the east of Rafah more than two weeks ago.

Many of the dead were women and children, the health officials said, adding that the death toll was likely to rise as some injured people with severe burns were in critical condition.

Israel has kept up attacks on Rafah despite a ruling by the top United Nations court on Friday ordering it to stop, arguing that it grants it some scope for military action there.

The Israeli army said the air raids that came hours after rockets were fired towards Tel Aviv killed two senior Hamas operatives, and that it was investigating the reports of civilians killed in Rafah.

Gaza’s Civil Defence said many bodies were “charred” after the attack caused a fire that ripped through the camp. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said one of its field hospitals received an “influx of casualties seeking care for injuries and burns” and that “our teams are doing their best to save lives”.

The Israeli attack led to strong protests from Egypt, Qatar, Jordan and Kuwait, which warned it could “hinder” budding steps to revive stalled ceasefire talks.

People walk near the bodies of Palestinians killed in an Israeli air raid on an area designated for displaced people in Rafah. [Mohammed Salem/Reuters]

Mourners sit with the bodies of Palestinians killed in the Israeli attack on the Rafah camp. [Mohammed Salem/Reuters]

Israel's army said the air raids late on Sunday killed two senior Hamas operatives and that it was investigating the reports of civilian deaths. [Ali Jadallah/Anadolu]

Children look into a vehicle carrying the bodies of Palestinians killed in the attack. [Mohammed Salem/Reuters]

The attack led to strong protests from Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar, which warned it could 'hinder' budding steps to revive stalled truce talks. [Ashraf Amra/Anadolu]

Gaza's civil defence agency said on Monday that many bodies were 'charred' after the air raids triggered a fire that ripped through the displacement centre in Rafah. [Ashraf Amra/Anadolu]

The air raids were reported hours after Hamas fired a barrage of rockets from Gaza that set off sirens as far away as Tel Aviv for the first time in months in a show of resilience more than seven months into Israel's massive air, sea and ground attacks. [Ali Jadallah/Anadolu]

Palestinians look at the destruction caused by the attacks on the tents of displaced people in Rafah. [Ali Jadallah/Anadolu]

[eretzyisrael]

Over 240 Israelis and foreigners, from babies to octogenarians, were kidnapped to Gaza and have been held captive for a month in unknowable conditions, imprisoned by terrorist organizations.

The Red Cross hasn’t seen them.

Their pictures are being ripped off notice boards in the West by people shouting “Free Palestine.”

More than 120,000 Israelis have been ordered to abandon their homes, compelled to become internal refugees. Many have no homes to go back to. They’ve been burned to the ground.

Communities lie in ruins. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have joined the ranks of the bereaved, the widowed, the orphaned, the broken, the traumatized, the terrified.

These unthinkable numbers, the unbearable loss, and the waves of sorrow and pain that they created stunned us at first. A vast blind rage grew within us, shaking the land from end to end. That anger shaped the first declaration of war, where one goal was defined: the total elimination of the Hamas regime.

And then many sobered up.  And the goal of the war was updated: The total elimination of the Hamas regime, and the return of all the hostages.

Can those two war goals be achieved? Which does the leadership define as more important? There is no answer.

Meanwhile, the air force bombards and the ground forces enter Gaza, and divide its north from its south. More of our soldiers are killed. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans populate tent camps in the south of the Strip.

On foreign TV channels, fresh reports of the ruins in Gaza push aside the atrocities perpetrated against us and further fuel anti-Israel demonstrations and displays of antisemitism in the Middle East, in Europe and in the United States. Jews worldwide report that they have never felt so threatened.

That is in the outside world. We in Israel cannot get past October 7.

The horrors of the outdoor rave where over 260 partygoers were massacred. The families huddling in safe rooms at home as the flames drew closer. The whispers on the telephone to Israeli TV reporters, to

[mariacallous]

Even before this week’s deadly hospital blast, Gaza’s health system was already on the brink of collapse. At least 3,700 Palestinians in Gaza have been declared dead since the beginning of the Israeli-Hamas war, and an estimated 12,000 have been injured, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Gaza’s health system has faced a huge influx of emergency patients, while at the same time suffering the effects of bombardment and having utilities cut.

On October 13, the Israeli military told everyone in the north of Gaza to evacuate. This created an impossible situation for hospitals filled with patients who were too unwell to be moved. The World Health Organization said the evacuation order was a “death sentence” for the sick and injured.

“The whole health system is collapsing around us,” says Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a plastic surgeon with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) who is working in Gaza at Al-Shifa Hospital, the biggest medical facility in the Gaza Strip, located in Gaza City. He paints a picture of a system stripped down to the bare bones.

The orthopedic department has run out of the pins and rods needed to stabilize fractures, Abu-Sittah says. The water pressure has become too weak to run the sterilization machines that disinfect equipment, meaning the hospital staff are forced to rely on a chemical antiseptic that hasn’t been commonly used for decades. There are no ventilators available. There is not even enough room for the injured in the hospital. “There is no more space or mattresses to put the wounded on in the corridors,” says Abu-Sittah. Health care staff are exhausted and are struggling to deal with the overwhelming number of injured.

On October 18, Abu-Sittah helped treat a patient with a wound that had become infected and septic. But with all operating rooms full, doctors could not treat it in time, and the patient will lose a leg as a result.

Since Israel blocked access to electricity in Gaza more than a week ago, hospitals have been relying on backup generators. Now they’re running dangerously low on fuel. The United Nations Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported on Wednesday that Gaza’s Ministry of Health is redistributing fuel from other public facilities to keep hospital generators running. “They’re running out of everything,” says Zaher Sahloul, the president of MedGlobal, an NGO that is supporting medical facilities in Gaza. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said that without electricity, “hospitals risk turning into morgues.”

Surgeons at Al-Shifa Hospital are operating without painkillers, according to Christos Christou, the international president of MSF. MSF team members say that they have “heard wounded patients screaming in pain.”

Al-Shifa is currently working at more than 600 percent over capacity, its director-general Muhammad Abu Salmiya said in an editorial published in The Lancet on October 18. The same day, Abu Salmiya told the Associated Press that the “hospital’s generators would run out within hours.”

Chris Hanger, a spokesperson for the ICRC, told WIRED that surgeons at Al-Shifa Hospital are working 24 hours a day to care for the wounded. “They have told us that the whole system is on its knees as they try and triage patients, but there is no way to manage the number of casualties,” he says. “All surgical theaters are occupied.”

Northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital is receiving “mostly burnt-out bodies, bodies full of shrapnel, mutilated bodies of women and children,” says Sahloul, who is in regular contact with Hussam Abu Safiya, MedGlobal’s lead doctor in northern Gaza. Almost all of their victims are women and children, Sahloul says.

Another concern is that the sheer number of dead bodies may lead to a disease outbreak. “The hospital is overflowing with dead bodies,” Sahloul says. Abu Safiya, the doctor working in northern Gaza, is worried that decomposing bodies will contaminate water and cause a disease outbreak.

On October 18, all five of Gaza’s wastewater treatment plants had been forced to shut down due to a lack of power, according to the UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, increasing the risk of waterborne diseases. Al-Shifa Hospital is burying bodies in mass graves.

With limited resources, caring for the most severely injured people has been prioritized. That means patients requiring continuous treatment for cancer and other diseases can no longer be cared for. The Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, located to the south of Gaza City, is on the brink of shutting down, meaning all 9,000 cancer patients in the Gaza Strip will be left without care. “Many of these people will die,” says Sahloul. “Not from the bombing, but from the lack of access to critical medications.”

Following US president Joe Biden’s talks with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it was announced on October 19 that 20 trucks with humanitarian relief deliveries will be allowed to cross the Egypt-Gaza border, carrying food, water, and medical supplies. The aid will start moving Friday at the earliest, according to the White House.

In the meantime, Gaza’s health system will continue to crumble and casualties will continue to rise. Hospitals are so stretched that doctors aren’t able to prevent patients’ from dying, Abu-Sittah says. “You are just an emergency department where people come, and if they are going to survive, they survive, and if they are not, they are dead.”

[girlactionfigure]

*ISRAEL REALTIME* - "Connecting the World to Israel in Realtime"

🔻Anti-genocide peace rockets fired from Gaza today (2) at Sderot, and friendly neighbor welcoming rockets and friendly homicide drones were fired by Hezbollah at Kiryat Shmona (3), Arab al-Aramsha, and Katzrin today.

▪️From Wednesday to Friday, 70 buses with "pilgrims" crossed the Iraqi-Syrian border. It is clear that these are not pilgrims, but Iranian and Iraqi fighters who cross into the territory of Syria and Lebanon.

▪️ABOUT ALL THE WARNINGS OF WAR IN THE NORTH.. The IDF does not inform the public or countries near and far about future military operations that it intends to launch into an operation or war.  The messages you have been hearing are NOT from the IDF, but rather efforts of the political echelon to deliver a message to Hezbollah that Israel is getting serious.  And in response you get the opposite, the item above, Iran moving militia fighters closer.

▪️Houthis: American and British ships (war and merchant) became legitimate targets after their attacks on Yemen.

▪️4 U.S. bases attacked in Syria and Iraq overnight.

▪️ANGRY SOLDIERS SAY.. he media does not reflect the reality, we are mowing them down in Gaza!!  According to US estimates, Hamas had approximately 25,000 terrorists before the October 7 war, and that the IDF has eliminated about 10,000 Hamas fighters since Oct. 7 with thousands more are missing and wounded.

▪️JUDEA-SHOMRON STATs.. since the beginning of the war, over 2,950 wanted persons have been arrested throughout the Judea and Samaria Division and the Bekaa and Valleys Division, over 1,350 of whom are associated with the terrorist organization Hamas.

▪️FRANCE has joined the suspend-UNWRA club.

▪️Heavy snow on Mt. Hermon, the site is closed.

▪️(How info spreads…)  Min. Of Foreign Affairs contacted foreign embassies in Israel and checked whether they have generators and satellite phones for backup in case of long power outages.  And noting that all these facilities are in Tel Aviv, Hertzilya or Jerusalem - that spreads the thought “what does the government know that they would ask such a question?”

▪️Noting 10 days after “medication” was delivered with the promise of delivery to hostages - with evidence.  No evidence provided.  Remember the last deal, visits by the Red Cross… never happened.  Why do we keep doing this?

▪️NBC news says Biden administration considering slowing down arms shipments to Israel to force Netanyahu to follow U.S. orders to reduce fighting in Gaza.  WHERE ARE THE BABIES?

▪️Min. Of National Security signs regulations automatically extending gun licenses that would expire in Q1, 2024 for months.

▪️IDF: Two reserve units are withdrawing from Gaza, one reserve unit is DEPLOYING to Gaza.

[soon-palestine]

HAMAS STATEMENT - AL SHIFA HOSPITAL.

"In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

A new crime is committed by the criminal zionist occupation army this dawn in its aggression against the Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City and the surrounding area by directly targeting the hospital buildings without care for the patients, medical staff and displaced people within.

The crimes of the occupation and the ongoing genocide war against our people and all components of life in Gaza will not create any image of victory for Netanyahu and his Nazi army. They are an expression of the state of confusion, chaos, and loss of hope in achieving any military achievement other than targeting defenseless civilians.

The failure of the international community and the United Nations to take action against the occupation army was a green light to continue the war of genocide and ethnic cleansing it is committing against our people, one of the pillars of which is the destruction of medical facilities in the Gaza Strip.

We once again call on the International Committee of the Red Cross, the World Health Organization and other relevant international institutions to fulfill their responsibilities to protect the remaining medical facilities in the Gaza Strip, and to document the crimes of the Nazi zionists against the medical sector, which is protected under the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law.

Islamic Resistance Movement - Hamas

Monday: 8 Ramadan 1445 AH

Corresponding to: March 18, 2024 AD"

[good-old-gossip]

Israel’s deadly attack on a Palestinian displacement camp in southern Gaza on Sunday amounts to a war crime and a breach of the binding decisions of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), according to legal experts.

The Sunday attack took place in an area that is part of the Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone”, which it advised civilians to shelter in, according to an analysis by Al Jazeera.

Parties to the conflict between Israel and Palestinian groups are obliged under international law to respect the principles of distinction and proportionality, both of which have been recognised as part of customary international law by the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC).

According to the principle of distinction, parties to the conflict are only permitted to target combatants and must not target civilians. The Israeli military said the attack was based on “precise intelligence” that resulted in the deaths of two members of Hamas’ military wing, Yassin Rabia and Khaled Najjar.

The Palestinian group has yet to confirm the deaths of its members. Alonso Gurmendi, an international lawyer and academic, said “It is highly doubtful that this would be the case, considering the warning from Israel’s closest allies, most humanitarian actors on the ground, and the ICJ - all stated that an attack on Rafah would lead to disastrous consequences and mass deaths,” he said.

Gurmendi added that the Tel al-Sultan air strikes contravened the ICJ’s latest order for Israel to halt its Rafah military ofensive. Itay Epshtain, an international lawyer and humanitarian law expert, said that the assault “tragically demonstrated Israeli rejection of the laws of armed conflict (including distinction, proportionality and precaution in attack).” Francesca Albanese, an international lawyer and the United Nations’ special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, said the attack was a “blatant defiance of the international law and system”.

As of Monday, the Israeli onslaught on Gaza, which started in October, has killed more than 36,000 Palestinians and wounded at least 81,000.

[dragoneyes618]

The dank, claustrophobic basement of a derelict building in east London was the setting for an unusual exhibition last week. Organized by the 7/10 Human Chain Project, a grassroots group formed in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 blitzkrieg on Israel, the installation, titled “Voice from the Tunnels,” sought to bring to life the experience of Israeli hostages held underground in Gaza for more than 100 days.

The exhibition was open for five days to members of Parliament, celebrities, leaders of faiths and communities, senior CEOs of large corporations, journalists, social media influencers, and anyone else with a platform to highlight the plight of the remaining captives. The disturbing displays recreate the settings of the Hamas tunnels under Gaza, estimated to be at least 350 miles long — far exceeding the length of the London Underground railway system at 250 miles.

“It’s based on IDF evidence, it’s based on footage that was found, it’s based on interviewing the Hostages and Missing Families Forum,” says exhibit co-creator Orit Eyal-Fibeesh. “It’s really an attempt to portray, as accurately as we possibly can, some of those stories.”

The 7/10 Human Chain Project came from a nucleus of people who began putting up posters of hostages to publicize the October 7 kidnappings. The small group watched pro-Hamas activists tear down their posters and became more determined.

The group began holding demonstrations outside Parliament Square, Downing Street, and the London offices of the Red Cross and United Nations Women. It took the name 7/10 Human Chain Project after gathering enough people to form a human chain at one protest.

The group would remind passersby that hostage Emily Hand had turned nine years old in Hamas captivity. Little Emily has since been released, but her father, Thomas, has said in interviews that his daughter still cries uncontrollably, does not wish to be comforted by anyone, and only speaks in a low whisper. Emily, like the other children and women already released, left the tunnels traumatized, hungry, and alone.

Utter Overwhelm

On January 14, marking the hostages’ 100 days in captivity, the 7/10 Human Chain Project organized a rally in support of Israel that drew more than 25,000 people to London’s Trafalgar Square. The next day, the group opened the “Voice from the Tunnels” exhibition, an effort for which planning had been underway for many weeks.

The project came about after one of the organizers, who identifies himself only as David, decided to create a display of Hamas atrocities. David has a business that supplies mannequins to stores and theatres, and saw an opportunity to put his trade to use to help the hostages.

The display he developed, using mannequins that are human-like but essentially faceless, created a haunting impression that David wanted to capture. By that time, some of the hostages had been released, and horrific stories began to emerge.

The organizers spoke to doctors who had treated released hostages, as well as their family members, and also made use of video footage discovered in the tunnels that was released by the IDF. Everything in the group’s reconstruction of the Gaza tunnels was then verified and cross-checked with the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

The exhibit, made accessible last week to members of the media, took the form of a tour that begins in a makeshift hospital environment. Beds are lined up in a large ward at ground-floor level, and at first glance resemble the setting in any other hospital. But as the tour makes clear, many of Hamas’s tunnels have been discovered underneath hospitals, schools, kindergartens, mosques, and even United Nations buildings. It is a reminder of the security cam footage discovered by the IDF that showed Hamas terrorists bringing hostages to a Gaza hospital on October 7.

As the tour heads below ground, project co-creator Orit Eyal-Fibeesh, serving in the role of tour guide (she is also a former IDF officer), informs guests that the actual Gaza tunnels are some 50 to 60 meters (170 to 200 feet) underground, running to five or six levels. The complex could only have been constructed with a mind-boggling quantity of concrete — not to mention engineering expertise.

The gut-wrenching part of the tour starts in earnest when it reaches a display of prone mannequins covered in a bloody white sheet, meant to recreate what the IDF discovered upon entering one of the tunnels in their quest for hostages. Apart from one female soldier, the rest of the hostages discovered on that day had been murdered.

The tour moves on to an introductory room, where TV screens display various media loops covering the unfolding events of October 7, followed by news coverage in subsequent days and weeks.

Little Kfir Bibas, kidnapped when he was just under nine months old (his birthday was on January 18), is mentioned in the coverage, along with his four-year-old brother Ariel. The oldest person still in captivity is 85.

At this point, two women appear next to Orit. They seem to have joined the tour, but Orit explains that they have just watched a 43-minute compilation of footage from Hamas body cameras retrieved by the IDF, along with video from kibbutz and police security cameras and that taken by soldiers.

The two women are both in total shock, so overwhelmed that they cannot speak, and they begin to cry. Orit starts sobbing herself, as she is familiar with the film. The two women cannot continue and need to leave.

Careful Preparations

Throughout the tour in the cold, damp, filthy tunnels, screams of “Allahu Akbar” repeat on a recorded loop taken from October 7. There are also recordings of the sound of bombing in the distance, believed to be from IDF bombs and shells.

Freed Israeli hostages have told doctors and family members that the shouts of “Allahu Akbar,” which echoed in the tunnels when terrorists came in pumped up with adrenalin, will not leave their heads. Hostages being held underground did not know if it was night or day. Their captors constantly told them, “No one is looking for you and no one knows you are here.”

On the tour, the screams of “Allahu Akbar” and the booms of nearby IDF bombing only last about 45 minutes — leaving it to tour participants to imagine what it would be like to be trapped there for more than 115 days with little or no food, no medication, no room to move, no showers, limited access to toilets, and terrorists brandishing automatic weapons.

Orit leads the tour into another tunnel, the floors of which are strewn with children’s pajamas, shoes, and clothes, baby bottles, diapers, and pacifiers. The IDF discovered such tunnels, proving that Hamas was preparing for this “operation” for a long time.

The IDF also determined that Hamas assembled detailed records of who was living in each house, their ages, nationalities, and more. The next room recreates a scene in which Hamas commanders, with their detailed paperwork, are giving instructions to the terrorists already in the kibbutzim as to who lives where.

The next room recreates Hamas’s crude operating theatre, where the hostages Maya and her brother Itai are highlighted. Maya was shot in the foot while she was taken hostage and has described how she was forced to walk on the wound more than two miles in the tunnels. Her brother Itai was also shot.

None of the Arab doctors wanted to operate on Jews, so a veterinarian was brought in to perform the complicated operation on Maya. In what has been well documented, Maya’s foot was sown up the wrong way, while Itai was operated on without any anesthetic.

Next is the Hamas command center, where operatives prepare to fire more rockets into Israel. There is a Koran and a prayer mat. In another room, a young boy is depicted sitting on the ground in front of a TV screen. This is Eitan Yahalomi, aged 12, who was kidnapped with his mother and sister on two separate motorbikes.

The mother and sister managed to escape when one of the bikes hit a tank. Eitan was on his own, and once he was in Gaza, he was made to watch some of the footage of Hamas’s barbaric atrocities. If Eitan started to cry, they threatened him with pain and death. He spoke fluent Arabic when he was released from Gaza after 50 days.

The stories of the elderly hostages are just as horrific. Emma was released more than two months ago, but remains in the hospital. She was taking medication to manage a health problem before being taken hostage. Since being released, Emma’s organs have failed because of the conditions in which she was held.

Many of the tunnels did not have high ceilings and the elderly had to walk crouched over for miles in the damp, dark, and wet tunnels. The older people were forced to sleep on the floor. They had to wait 12 hours before using the toilet.

Forced into Hiding

Noam Sagi, a son of a 74-year-old hostage from Kibbutz Nir Oz who was released, visited the London tunnels last week and attested that it was an accurate depiction. His mother turned 75 in captivity. She was one of the lucky ones; she was sold by Hamas to Islamic Jihad and then taken above ground and held in a family home.

Ada, another hostage, was also sold to Islamic Jihad and held above ground. Before October 7, she lived on the border and spoke fluent Arabic, as she was an Arabic teacher, and she believed in peace with her neighbors. She refuses to speak to the media today, but a family member says she will eventually write about her captivity.

Orit Eyal-Fibeesh says many of the hostages suffered from chemical burns because they were not allowed to shower even once, the entire time. Doctors discovered they were drugged, probably with Ketamine, which is used to induce a state of sedation and immobility.

The exhibition is a collection of images that cannot be unseen. The fact that the event was essentially forced into hiding — open only to politicians and journalists at a secret location in London — testifies loud and clear about the violent anti-Semitism that has taken hold in the UK.

As Hamas’s supporters dominate the streets of central London in weekly marches, any reminder of Jewish humanitarian suffering in Hamas’s torture tunnels has essentially been driven underground.

[workersolidarity]

🇵🇸🇮🇱 🚨 UN SECRETARY GENERAL ANTONIO GUTIERRAZ ENCOURAGES FURTHER DIALOGUE DURING TRUCE, PUSHES FOR CEASEFIRE

The United Nation's Secretary General's Office released a statement Monday pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza as the truce between Israeli Occupation Forces and Hamas continues on its fourth and final day.

"Seven weeks of hostilities in Gaza and Israel have taken an appalling toll that has shocked the world," the statement says.

"For the past four days, the guns have fallen silent. We have seen the release of Israeli and foreign hostages held by Hamas and others since 7 October, and the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails."

The Secretary General's statement commends the governments of Qatar, Egypt and the United States for their role in facilitating the arrangement that made the truce possible, and also recognizes the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for the "critical role" it played in the implementation of the agreement and vowed to continue supporting these efforts in every possible way.

According to the statement, in the time the truce has been in effect, the United Nations has ramped up the entry of Humanitarian Aid into Gaza and has even delivered aid to the northern areas of Gaza that have been cut-off for weeks.

The statement goes on to say that this aid barely registers for the 1.7 million displaced Palestinians living in Gaza, and says the "catastrophe" in Gaza is getting worse by the day.

"The dialogue that led to the agreement must continue, resulting in a full humanitarian ceasefire, for the benefit of the people of Gaza, Israel and the wider region," the statement continues.

"The Secretary General once again calls for the remaining hostages to be released immediately and unconditionally."

The statement ends by urging "all States to use their influence to end this tragic conflict and support irreversible steps towards the only sustainable future for the region: a two-state solution, with Israel and Palestine living side by side, in peace and security."

#source

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[necarion]

I don't know how we deal with the fact that a few members of UNRWA provided actual military assistance to Hamas on October 7, and were engaged in hostage-taking/holding activities. (A lot more were very much not-neutral in expressing excitement on October 7, but this is about the ones who actually participated.) Cutting off assistance to the entirety of UNRWA seems excessive. But.

"Officially sanctioned non-combatant aid organization committing military actions while maintaining status a protected non-combatant" is historically one of the worst of the war crimes. Allowing that to occur endangers everybody's medical aid.* The first Geneva Convents (1864) were only about aid to the wounded, providing for [wikipedia]:

the immunity from capture and destruction of all establishments for the treatment of wounded and sick soldiers,

the impartial reception and treatment of all combatants,

the protection of civilians providing aid to the wounded, and

the recognition of the Red Cross symbol as a means of identifying persons and equipment covered by the agreement.

I could maybe see something along the lines of "you have to do an investigation, one which is actually possible to pass, and put in place some new safeguards, and funding will be restored". And it looks like UNRWA seems to be investigating, and we probably should restore funding soon.

“The Israeli Authorities have provided UNRWA with information about the alleged involvement of several UNRWA employees in the horrific attacks on Israel on 7 October. “To protect the Agency’s ability to deliver humanitarian assistance, I have taken the decision to immediately terminate the contracts of these staff members and launch an investigation in order to establish the truth without delay.  Any UNRWA employee who was involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution. “UNRWA reiterates its condemnation in the strongest possible terms of the abhorrent attacks of 7 October and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all Israeli hostages and their safe return to their families. “These shocking allegations come as more than 2 million people in Gaza depend on lifesaving assistance that the Agency has been providing since the war began. Anyone who betrays the fundamental values of the United Nations also betrays those whom we serve in Gaza, across the region and elsewhere around the world”.

But this is one of those things that really can't go unanswered. And it sucks.

--

* Obama ordering military agents to disguise themselves as vaccine workers in Pakistan, while hunting al'Qaida, has now led to international vaccine workers being shot, and has seriously hurt the fight against polio in Pakistan and Afghanistan. While I generally like Obama, that action was a war crime and should have been dealt with as such.