#deliberately starving gazans

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

The Biden administration’s Middle East aid envoy Lisa Grande reportedly made demands of Israel regarding the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, in a harsh phone call with Israel’s military liaison to the Palestinians, COGAT chief Gen. Ghassan Alian. Channel 12 news reports that Grande demanded during the call that Israel declare it is not following a policy of deliberately starving Gazans amid the ongoing war, which was sparked by Hamas’s brutal massacre in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. She also demanded that Israel cancel all civilian evacuation orders, allow Palestinians who have been evacuated to return to their homes, and present a comprehensive plan to reduce harm to civilian infrastructure, according to the report. Channel 12 cites US officials as saying that it was a constructive call, though it caught Alian off guard — especially given Israeli efforts in recent months to increase humanitarian aid to Gaza. “There are some in our administration who believe the harm to civilian infrastructure is not proportionate,” Grande reportedly said during the call. “Stunned” by the call, Alian was said to respond: “What kind of proportionality is expected from the IDF when it is acting against a terrorist organization whose deliberate modus operandi is to fight from inside civilian areas and civilian and humanitarian facilities, including hospitals, residential buildings, UN facilities, and others, while simultaneously keeping 100 hostages in these areas.” “I am astounded that you raise the notion that we are following a policy of deliberate starvation. We are bringing in aid on a wide scale and without limitation, and there has been an increase in the inflow of aid since October, especially in November,” the COGAT chief said, according to Channel 12. The International Criminal Court in the Hague has accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant of war crimes and crimes against humanity for allegedly using starvation as a method of war against the Palestinians. Israel has persistently claimed that it has facilitated the transfer of tens of thousands of aid trucks with enough food to provide for Gaza’s nutritional needs, and has blamed the UN for not scaling up its logistics and distribution operations.

I'm trying to recall; has the Biden Administration demanded anything of Hamas since the October 7 massacre? Have they even demanded the return of American hostages?

[probablyasocialecologist]

Israel is intentionally starving Palestinians and should be held accountable for war crimes – and genocide, according to the UN’s leading expert on the right to food. Hunger and severe malnutrition are widespread in the Gaza Strip, where about 2.2 million Palestinians are facing severe shortages resulting from Israel destroying food supplies and severely restricting the flow of food, medicines and other humanitarian supplies. Aid trucks and Palestinians waiting for humanitarian relief have come under Israeli fire. “There is no reason to intentionally block the passage of humanitarian aid or intentionally obliterate small-scale fishing vessels, greenhouses and orchards in Gaza – other than to deny people access to food,” Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, told the Guardian. “Intentionally depriving people of food is clearly a war crime. Israel has announced its intention to destroy the Palestinian people, in whole or in part, simply for being Palestinian. In my view as a UN human rights expert, this is now a situation of genocide. This means the state of Israel in its entirety is culpable and should be held accountable – not just individuals or this government or that person.”

[...]

“The speed of malnourishment of young children is also astounding. The bombing and people being killed directly is brutal, but this starvation – and the wasting and stunting of children – is torturous and vile. It will have a long-term impact on the population physically, cognitively and morally … All things indicate that this has been intentional,” said Fakhri, a law professor at the University of Oregon. Intentionally starving civilians by “depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies” is a war crime, according to the Rome statute of the international criminal court. Indispensable objects include food, water and shelter – which Israel is systematically denying Palestinians. Starvation is a war crime under the Geneva conventions and the Rome statute. It was also recognized as a war crime and general violation of international law by the UN security council in 2018.

[...]

The speed of the malnutrition crisis speaks to the fact that even before this war, half of Gazans were food insecure and almost 80% relied on humanitarian aid due to the 16-year blockade. A 2019 study on small-scale agriculture in the Palestinian territories found that “the Israeli occupation is the most important single driver of food and nutrition insecurity.” “It was already a very fragile situation due to Israel’s chokehold on what goes in and out of Gaza. So when the war started, Israel was very easily able to make everyone go hungry because they had most people on the brink,” said Fakhri.

[bfpnola]

ID 1: Screenshot from Let’s Talk Palestine’s Instagram text channel. Their most recent text reads:

“Hi everyone.

Gaza has officially run out of fuel and electricity. Here’s what this means:

Hospitals cannot operate without electricity. Emergency fuel will run out today.

Refrigerated food will now soon expire. As Israel has cut Gaza off of all food, this accelerates the threat of mass starvation looming over people, including more than 1 million kids. Children. Babies. Toddlers.

Media blackout: our access to information will become severely limited, as even foreign media outlets based in Gaza can no longer charge their equipment.

We have no words. Nothing can convey the horrors that will unfold unless the world forces Israel to stop. Nothing justified the deliberate starving and executing of children and civilians. SPEAK OUT.” Two red exclamation point emojis follow. At the time of the screenshot, 261 people had liked the message. End ID.

ID 2: Screenshot of Let’s Talk Palestine’s most recent Instagram post. First slide reads, “Israel is Pushing 2 million Gazans to the Brink of Death.

Israel has completely cut off all food supplies from Gaza. If not reversed, this decision sets Gaza on the path to mass starvation for all 2.3 million people living there.

Israel has destroyed the only exit out of Gaza. The Rafah Crossing into Egypt is effectively closed now after a third Israeli bombing in the last 24 hours.

This means that Gazans are now completely trapped with no way out to escape the bombings.” End ID.

ID 3: Continuing: “Israel has imposed a "total" siege on Gaza.

Cutting it off from electricity, water, and fuel. Without electricity, Gaza's already overflowing hospitals will no longer be able to save the lives of civilians attacked by Israel.

Israel is carpet bombing entire neighborhoods and cities - targeting residential buildings, hospitals, and UN schools.

An entire family has been wiped out in an Israeli airstrike, with all 19 members killed in their home, including children.” End ID.

ID 4: The next slide reads: “Israel threatened Egypt that it would bomb humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza, prompting Egypt to withdraw its aid convoys.

177,000 PEOPLE ARE SEEKING REFUGE IN 88 U.N. SCHOOLS THAT HAVE BEEN CONVERTED INTO EMERGENCY SHELTERS but these schools are no longer safe as Israeli airstrikes have been targeting them.” End ID.

ID 5: Continuing: “10% OF THE POPULATION HAS ALREADY BEEN DISPLACED FROM THEIR HOMES IN JUST THREE DAYS.

THATS 20,000 PEOPLE.

200,000 children, mothers, fathers, and elderly.” End ID.

ID 6: The next slide reads: “50% OF GAZA'S POPULATION IS UNDER THE AGE OF 15.

ISRAEL HAS ALREADY KILLED 260 CHILDREN

HOSPITALS ARE OVERWHELMED AS THEY REACH FULL CAPACITY AND PRE-RESERVED MEDICAL RESOURCES HAVE BEEN DEPLETED AS 13 ISRAELI ATTACKS HAVE HIT GAZA'S HEALTH FACILITIES.” End ID.

ID 7: The final Instagram slide reads: “THIS IS NOT WAR.

MASS STARVATION IS NOT WAR.

BOMBING HOSPITALS IS NOT WAR.

WIPING OUT ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOODS IS NOT WAR.

THIS IS MASS MURDER.

THIS IS AN ANNIHILATION OF MORE THAN TWO MILLION PEOPLE ALREADY PERSECUTED UNDER APARTHEID.

SPEAK OUT.

BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.” End ID.

ID 8: Screenshot of the caption for the aforementioned Instagram post. It reads: “This is not an exaggeration. This is not something we wrote lightly. Two million people are being dragged by Israel towards mass annihilation, and it's only escalating further every hour. The patterns are appearing, namely the policy of starvation.

And the thousands of people who adopted Israeli rhetoric in the last few days here on social media are complicit.

Before any mass atrocity is committed against a group of people, they are dehumanized. You called them terrorists, you called them barbaric. You naively played into Israelis' hands, having not at all learnt the lessons from the American so-called "War on Terror" where dehumanising rhetoric and accusations of terrOrism were used to justify and condition people to accept the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

We are shocked, we are terrified, but most of all we are enraged that the world - especially privileged Westerners - never seem to ever learn their lesson. There are too many celebrities and even too many so-called "progressive activists" who are now complicit in these massacres.

This attack on Gaza it's different. It's different from all the previous attacks. People are saying goodbye to their loved ones abroad. Israel is planning annihilation.

Our people are being murdered. Our people are being slaughtered in their homes. Israeli pilots are targeting schools, hospitals and neighbourhoods. You care about civilians? SPEAK OUT. SHARE.”

33,917 people at the time of the screenshot had liked the post and 655 people had commented. End ID.

[matan4il]

People are claiming Israel is blocking baby formula from Gaza. Do you know where this rumor comes from and is there any basis?

Hi Nonnie,

I searched through journalistic sources, and while I have found a few reports in Amrican media, which say that baby formula is hard to find in Gaza (which is no surprise if Hamas steals about 60% of all humanitarian aid entering Gaza (this was happening even before the war, that donations were being stolen by Hamas), in part to sell it to Palestinians for much higher prices (again, something that happened before this war as well), in part to produce anti-Israel propaganda, that allows Hamas to falsely claim Gazans are being deliberately starved (but divert the blame away from themselves), but as far as I can tell, there's no fact checked source that says anything about it being completely blocked. My guess is that this rumor is exactly what so many of the other anti-Israel ones are: a libel, meant to help demonize the Jewish state.

Where did this libel originate? It might be tied to the reports about the baby formula being hard to find, once again using demonizing hyperbole (stretching it from 'hard to find' to 'none is being brought in') and taking it out of context (leaving out that humanitarian aid in general, including baby formula, is hard to find in Gaza, because Hamas steals it). Another option is that they're simply relying on the horror of the story. I've found a few cases with the same claims about babies not having food / baby formula in Gaza dating back to 2017, 2010 and 2009.

It seems like COGAT, the unit in the IDF that exists solely in order to coordinate help for the Palestinians, has already heard about this rumor, and has posted its own data about this, which refutes the rumor and specifies how much baby formula has been allowed in, and that there are no restrictions on any humanitarian aid (posted Mar 21):

But what if people don't trust the IDF's word? Well, then how about that of organizations which are def pro-Palestinian, ones which have been asking for people's donations to provide Gazans with humanitarian aid, and who claim that they've delievered baby formula inside Gaza? Since Israel approves of anything going in, this couldn't have happened (or be posted about publicly) if Israel were blocking all baby formula from entering Gaza.

Or how about the word of the Jordanians, fellow Arabs, who reported that their air drops of humanitarian aid in Gaza include baby formula? And again, nothing gets air dropped in Gaza without Israel's approval.

I hope this helps!

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[tslockjawmassacre]

Whenever gay Americans get angry abt what our government is doing to Palestinians (and why), there's always someone who loves to be like "Who's gonna tell these dummies homosexuality is illegal in Gaza?"

That's so crazy.

I'm a gay Texan in my mid 20s. When I was a little kid, homosexuality was illegal. Here in Texas, where I lived and where I still happily live.

So (TW "war" crimes) I guess it would've been fair enough if the U.S. and Israel had bombed me and my family and neighbors, our houses and jobsites and whole communities, the girls I played with down the street, my baby brothers, my grandparents at work, the trans Texans who used to meet up downtown in the city, everybody else etc. If they had deliberately driven us from our homes and forced us to live in terror every night and every day, maiming our children, burning our parents alive, attacking&cutting off our food and water, blocking our aid, methodically starving us out and telling us straight up that we needed to be scrubbed off the face of the earth so they could take everything we have and not worry about keeping it.

I mean, damn I guess we would've had it coming. Homosexuality wasn't even legal, right? Sounds like a Texas problem. What do I care what the gov spends all those $$,$$$,$$$,$$$ and lives doing?

*Just to be clear, gay sex between men was a crime here until 2003 (when I was definitely kicking around, painting my nails with markers and eating bugs).

If I wanted to see penalties that were exactly the same as (or often harsher than) what's been left on the books in Gaza (and maybe sometimes ? enforced), I just have to go back one generation to my parents' lifetime, when men were getting 10 years in prison and, unlike in Palestine, police were setting up sting operations to actively crack down on the gay problem (again, smth that doesn't even happen in Gaza).

This is not, like, a weird feature of some "foreign" culture to me, and it really shouldn't be for any American who isn't super young or who knows her history. That doesn't make it right (at all), but you can't believe the lie that "these people aren't like you". It's actually insane. Pretending this has any relevance on the genocide other than to say that queer Palestinians are even more greatly impacted by it is crazy and disgusting.

-- This really doesn't need to be added, but if we're supposed to play this stupid game, Palestinians in the West Bank took their anti-gay laws off the books in the early 1950s, at the same time basically all U.S. state governments were creating new laws specifically targeting gay (and trans) ppl and categorizing gay sex as a felony with harsh prison sentences. Now should our American grandparents/parents have been starved and scrubbed off the earth?? I would say... No!

The laws in Gaza are definitely not good for gay and trans Gazans -- stigma is very real, and gay rights aren't explicitly protected under the freedoms and human rights guaranteed by the Palestinian constitution. This is wrong, but obv genocide makes it a million times worse and is indescribably more horrible for all Palestinians, queer and straight.

And I don't get how anybody living in the "anglo-sphere" can pretend like this is some distant culture we're talking about -- these laws were imposed by the British Empire on occupied Palestine in the 1930s and then left on the books. Incredibly, Palestinians are normal people, and I think there's a good reason so many lgbt's see right through this bullshit.

We understand that the same politicians who weaponize "family values" can condemn families to death to line their own pockets.

We've heard "save the children" from people happy to condemn children to the horrors of genocide.

And when bought-out politicians defend our gay rights, they still don't hesitate to drop bombs on our mangled gay bodies.

[odinsblog]

Israel’s campaign to displace Gazans—and potentially expel them altogether into Egypt—is yet another chapter in the Nakba, in which an estimated 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes during the 1948 war that led to the creation of the State of Israel. But the assault on Gaza can also be understood in other terms: as a textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes. I say this as a scholar of genocide, who has spent many years writing about Israeli mass violence against Palestinians. I have written about settler colonialism and Jewish supremacy in Israel, the distortion of the Holocaust to boost the Israeli arms industry, the weaponization of antisemitism accusations to justify Israeli violence against Palestinians, and the racist regime of Israeli apartheid. Now, following Hamas’s attack on Saturday and the mass murder of more than 1,000 Israeli civilians, the worst of the worst is happening.

Under international law, the crime of genocide is defined by “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such,” as noted in the December 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In its murderous attack on Gaza, Israel has loudly proclaimed this intent. Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant declared it in no uncertain terms on October 9th: “We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly.” Leaders in the West reinforced this racist rhetoric by describing Hamas’s mass murder of Israeli civilians—a war crime under international law that rightly provoked horror and shock in Israel and around the world—as “an act of sheer evil,” in the words of US President Joe Biden, or as a move that reflected an “ancient evil,” in the terminology of President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. This dehumanizing language is clearly calculated to justify the wide scale destruction of Palestinian lives; the assertion of “evil,” in its absolutism, elides distinctions between Hamas militants and Gazan civilians, and occludes the broader context of colonization and occupation.

The UN Genocide Convention lists five acts that fall under its definition. Israel is currently perpetrating three of these in Gaza: “1. Killing members of the group. 2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. 3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” The Israeli Air Force, by its own account, has so far dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza, which is one of the most densely populated areas in the world—almost as many bombs as the US dropped on all of Afghanistan during record-breaking years of its war there. Human Rights Watch has confirmed that the weapons used included phosphorous bombs, which set fire to bodies and buildings, creating flames that aren’t extinguished on contact with water. This demonstrates clearly what Gallant means by “act accordingly”: not targeting individual Hamas militants, as Israel claims, but unleashing deadly violence against Palestinians in Gaza “as such,” in the language of the UN Genocide Convention. Israel has also intensified its 16-year siege of Gaza—the longest in modern history, in clear violation of international humanitarian law—to a “complete siege,” in Gallant’s words. This turn of phrase that explicitly indexes a plan to bring the siege to its final destination of systematic destruction of Palestinians and Palestinian society in Gaza, by killing them, starving them, cutting off their water supplies, and bombing their hospitals.

It’s not only Israel’s leaders who are using such language. An interviewee on the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 called for Israel to “turn Gaza to Dresden.” Channel 12, Israel’s most-watched news station, published a report about left-leaning Israelis calling to “dance on what used to be Gaza.” Meanwhile, genocidal verbs—calls to “erase” and “flatten” Gaza—have become omnipresent on Israeli social media. In Tel Aviv, a banner reading “Zero Gazans” was seen hanging from a bridge.

—RAZ SEGAL, associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University and the endowed professor in the study of modern genocide.

[feminist-furby-freak]

ok like obviously if you're supporting the ongoing genocide of Palestinians you have some screws loose but isn't it in your like own best interest to pretend you have empathy? Like pretend you care about children being "shredded" (words used by a US Doctor working on the front lines) grandmas being sniped in the head and infants starving because there is no clean water and then say "it is tragic but it needs to happen bc xyz and we should minimize casualties as much as possible." Openly laughing at some of the most horrific and senseless violence of the 21st century, the most well-documented genocide in the history of the world, is just not a good strategy. I continue to be shocked to see people just coming out and saying that they think Gazan lives are less valuable than Israeli lives (although I shouldn't be at this point). These are real fucking people. It is not a conspiracy. Real lives and they can't help where in the world they were born.

I've said this before but it is crazy that we need to issue a disclaimer about how the casualties on October 7th matter too everytime we bring attention to the CURRENT deliberate slaughter and leveling of cities by a "democratic government" (funded by our own fucking tax dollars) but pro-Israel zionists can just be like "arabs are uncivilized barbarians" and say the most dehumanizing racist psychopath level shit and we just have to be like oh well that is their opinion.

[hero-israel]

Something I've found quite frustrating is that critics of the IDF's conduct in Gaza seem to be making easy and simple (but wrong) accusations, that then allow Israel/the IDF to respond to those accusations and ignore a real but more complicated problem (or at least distract from it).

The prime example of this is food aid: it seems like every criticism on this front is "Israel is stopping food aid entirely because it is deliberately trying to starve Gazans to death!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" And then Israeli/IDF spokespeople can go "no, we actually let a lot of food in, here's a photo of all the pallets of food that have gotten into Gaza that no one has picked up and distributed yet" and then not have to talk about how right now the ACTUAL problem seems to be that food aid can't get where it needs to go WITHIN Gaza, and how that is actually at least partially the fault of the IDF invasion because it damaged or destroyed the literal streets trucks of food aid would take to get to where it needs to, as well as the logistical systems to distribute it, plus the fact that getting the food where it needs to go requires crossing areas that the IDF considers open-fire zones, and that sometimes means that food aid convoys get blown up by the IDF even though the IDF should know they're food aid convoys and not terrorists.

And to be fair the other side of the coin is Hamas and other armed groups stealing food for themselves or to sell on the black market, and the third side of the coin is organizations like UNRWA being incompetent at distributing the aid, and that after prodding by the US and others and several catastrophic failures the IDF/Israel appear to be making a serious effort to fix things, but still, people miss the point to make easy (and wrong) arguments.

This is a good summary of why entering Gaza was an obvious trap, why I could never come out fully in favor of it, and why I can't say with any real confidence that it has made anything better. Once you've destroyed a territory's infrastructure and roads, there are only so many times you can say "but that's not the real problem" when people are (allegedly) starving. With the whole world making accusations and asking loaded questions non-stop, just the sound of repeatedly having to answer them makes the reasons seem less important than the crisis. It's just as Colin Powell warned in 2003 - "you break it, you bought it."

[journalofimprobablethings]

As the West and the US in particular keeps leaning on the whole "Israel has the right to defend itself" argument I keep wanting to ask them,

at what point do Palestinians get the right to defend themselves?

And of course the unspoken answer is never. No amount of Palestinian suffering will ever be enough for the West to see their fighting back as anything other than "terrorism".

The logic seems to be that even one dead Israeli is justification for whatever horrors the Israeli government feels like visiting on Palestinians, and that no matter how much the Israeli government does to them, how many innocents are killed, no Palestinian violence in response is ever justified.

At least 30,000 Gazans have been killed in five months (almost certainly a horrific undercount, as it does not include those under the rubble or those who have been killed by starvation or disease or cold). Civilians are routinely detained, stripped, humiliated, tortured. There is evidence that sexual assault of Palestinians, women and men both, by Israeli forces is a regular occurrence. 2 million people have been forcibly displaced, their homes destroyed, and are being systematically starved. And yet if any one of those people dares to have a violent response, to try to fight back against their deliberate annihilation, they will be called a terrorist.

Kids throwing stones at tanks are called terrorists. Or their deaths are justified because "well they just would have grown up to be a terrorist."

Armored soldiers shooting unarmed, starving people who are desperately trying to get food for themselves and their families are "defending themselves".

The double standard is so obvious and yet people are still trying to "both-sides" the matter as if there is anything resembling equal footing here.

[terranceholdsapencil]

Aaron Bushnell was an exceptionally brave man who engaged in an extreme act of protest because he refused to be complicit in genoclde.

No matter your stance on self-immolation, we have to recognise the circumstances that led to more extreme forms of protest being necessary or seen as necessary in the first place.

The death count has risen above 30.000, not including those trapped under the rubble and missing.

Over 85% of the population is displaced, a huge percentage of them crammed inside Rafah, which used to be regarded as a safe zone but is now being viciously bombed.

Aid trucks, despite the ICJ's verdict a month back that ruled israel had to take measures to improve the humanitarian situation for palestinian civilians, are being held back and stopped, and are deliberately being blocked. As we have seen earlier today, getting aid and food - as israel is starving the gazan population - is a deadly ordeal, as soldiers killed over 100 people and injured many more.

Children as young as 5 have told 'doctors without borders' that they want to dle as the situation worsens.

This is a very, very small excerpt of the horrible circumstances that must have led aaron bushnell to his decision to protest in the way he did.

'Nie wieder ist jetzt'

[avikats66]

Today I am on hunger strike again with thousands of other Canadians in solidarity with and protest for the Gazan people and the way Israel is intentionally starving them with genocidal intent in direct violation of international law while the world watches. It is little more than a symbolic gesture and yet another reminder of the inhumane suffering being imposed upon the Gazan people still to this day after months of genocidal assault, and decades of illegal occupation and blockading before that.

I will experience some mild hunger and cravings for a day. In Gaza, there are people literally starving. People who have been living off of scraps, meagre rations, literal animal feed, and dirty water for months, who risk and often lose their lives in attempt to find more food for them and their hungry families. Children are experiencing acute malnutrition at record-breaking rates of acceleration, and some have already died directly from this malnutrition and starvation. Mothers are struggling to breastfeed their babies, and the insufficient amounts of formula available often can’t even be safely used due to lack of clean water.

All this in addition to people dying and suffering from sickness and grievous injury - horrific third degree burns, limb loss, infection, chronic illness, gunshot wounds - with a decimated healthcare system struggling to provide the most basic care to as many people as possible with the barest and scarcest of resources. And of course the countless bombs and bullets being indiscriminately and deliberately rained down upon men, women, and children alike, again in flagrant violation of international law and humanity by Israel. The horrors and egregious human rights violations taking place in Gaza and throughout the rest of Palestine to her people - and those which have been occurring for decades now - are so innumerable and vast in scope it’s absolutely numbing.

War crimes are not a new phenomena, nor are Israel the only perpetrators of them even in this moment as you read this. The focus on Israel and Palestine right now is for a number of reasons. The scale and severity of which these crimes are occurring. The support and direct aid Israel is receiving to commit them, especially from western governments - Canada included (thankfully we are starting to take steps against that - after six months of war crimes and annihilation-phase genocide). The impunity with which Israel commits these crimes and then flaunts and celebrates them. The existence of Israel itself as a colonial state forcibly established on Palestinian land through ethnic cleansing and maintained for decades by apartheid and illegal military occupation and settlements.

I encourage you to take action - no matter how small - and stand up for the people of Gaza and human rights. Stand on the side of humanity, of decency, of morality. Free Palestine.

[connorthemaoist]

The International League of Peoples’ Struggle stands united in unconditional solidarity with the Palestinian resistance.  The Palestinian people are absolutely united in their aspiration to bring an end to the Zionist occupation and to finally live in a free and democratic Palestine.

The actions by the Zionist state are nothing short of a genocide.  Since the latest attacks against Gaza began, over 3,000 have been killed in indiscriminate airstrikes, including at least 500 getting medical treatment and taking refuge in a hospital.  A complete blockade has deliberately cut Gaza off from food, water, fuel and electricity, leaving the people starving and with a medical system on the brink of collapse with over 10,000 injuries and rising.  Palestinian health officials cannot keep up with carrying away the dead bodies that lie unattended throughout the strip, leading to the high risk of a disease outbreak amongst the population.  Zionist forces have also demanded that 2.3 million Gazans evacuate to the south to make way for their ground invasion and likely attempt to re-occupy the strip while killing even civilians obeying this order.  Airstrikes have even hit the southern border between Gaza and Egypt, the only way for Palestinians to leave the strip if they want, leaving desperately needed humanitarian aid packages sitting at the border unable to enter.  In addition to airstrikes, the Zionists have even used internationally banned weapons such as white phosphorus gas.  Included is the continued violence by soldiers and armed settlers which has killed over 70 in the past 11 days alone.

Indeed, the Zionist government may have declared war on October 7th, but the previous 75 years of occupation and ethnic cleansing policies since the Nakba have been a never-ending war against the Palestinian people.  What we see now is merely a heightened general offensive by Zionism within Palestine itself with continuing aggression against neighboring rival countries.

The Zionists may have openly declared war this time, but that’s only because of the Palestinian resistance’s decision to unite in struggle to take up arms against the US-backed occupation state and its “state-of-the-art” military.  For over 75 years, the Palestinian people have used every option they’ve had against the occupation of their land, to no avail.  The international governance system has allowed the occupation to become normalized with no end in sight.  The people have chosen to take the courageous path of united coordination in armed resistance, bravely tearing up the Zionist-imposed border fence of Gaza and launching coordinated strikes in air, land and sea that inspired peoples’ movements the world over to see a united people taking the military might of an imperialist satellite state off guard.

The Palestinian resistance is a beacon to our resistance!  By this, we mean that this strike against a running dog of US imperialism is a move that weakens US imperialism as a whole.  The global imperialist system is entering into a new stage of multipolar turmoil, from the US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine, to the build up to war in Asia-Pacific, to the upsurge of peoples’ movements for national self-determination in Latin America and Africa, and of the continued advance of armed resistance movements in the Philippines, India, Kurdistan, West Papua and of course Palestine.  The Palestinian resistance gives inspiration to all people struggling in this context for national and social liberation, and therefore we must support their resistance as if it was our own.

The ILPS supports all resistance fighters regardless of organizational affiliation – now is the time to unite!

We also condemn the attacks on Palestinian and Palestine solidarity organizations around the world on behalf of the US and Zionist forces.  We are witnessing an unprecedented outlawing of democratic organizations and bans on free speech when it comes to the Palestinian cause while pro-Zionist slogans are given full support, even within the so-called “democratic” liberal states of North America and Europe.  Now is the time to defend peoples’ struggle in all its forms.

The ILPS calls on its members to take actions worldwide outside of Israeli, US and European embassies to condemn the genocide taking place in Gaza.  We also encourage members to demand of their own governments official condemnation and to push for the unconditional end of the blockade, assault and genocide of Gaza, as well as the end of all military aid to the Zionist state, especially from the US.

All organizations are encouraged to hold educational sessions on the history and current situation of the US-Zionist occupation and resistance of Palestine.  Ongoing actions in support of the Palestinian resistance must be maintained worldwide, especially amidst the crackdown and banning of anti-Zionist organizations.  We must assert that activism and resistance of any form is not terrorism.

From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free!

Palestinian resistance is a beacon to our resistance!

Long live international Solidarity!

Signed:

Len Cooper

ILPS Chairperson

20 October 2023

[lisbeibeth]

The thing is, the ruling and its implications have been overshadowed by Israel deliberately releasing some bullshit 'scoop' about 12 UNRWA employees being involved in October 7 (now it's down to 6 - soon it will be 0), which has caused the highest funding countries - US, UK, Germany (but of course) Australia, and some others - to stop funding it. Yep, that's right, they are now literally participating in the genocide by starving Gazans. There are some saints on earth who are not participating in this horrensdous war crime (Norway, Spain among others), but I just want to scream. It's like any movie where there's a shadowy cabal in the background moving people like chess pieces, and this time they've said LET THEM STARVE.

Speaking of movies:

And now I'm broken. I knew, vaguely, about the bomb signing - in 2016, for the USAF: no, that doesn't make it better, but I managed to handwave it. But now? Palling around with Biden? HA HA I GOT A PAIR OF HIS RAYBANS. I want to throw up.

Is it possible Chris Evans has lived on this planet for the last 4 months and missed the immense, huge, hundreds of thousands of people protests with Palestinian flags? Is he one of those "well, half a million people can't be right!" people? I had my suspicions in the past, but this is hitting me hard.

I have a couple of MCU fics - I'm very close to taking them both down right now. I need to sleep on it.

Since I'm reading many people disheartened at the lack of ordering a ceasefire by the ICJ, here's some info:

The ruling was BIG and far more than many expected. I, for one, certainly did not expect that the German judge ruled in favor of all of the provisional measures, nor that the Israeli judge would rule in favor of some of them. That is absolutely ground-breaking.

This ruling, whilst not final, will change the course of how the international community is going to act towards Israel, because now they are all going to be very careful not to be complicit in what potentially might be ruled as an actual genocide in the merits case (which will likely take years, but that's how it goes).

Governments and individuals have a face to lose, and the ICJ ruling is one more nail in the coffin of their complicity.

Edit, another tweet:

[sa7abnews]

EU, France, UK slam Israel minister for Gaza starvation comment

New Post has been published on https://sa7ab.info/2024/08/11/eu-france-uk-slam-israel-minister-for-gaza-starvation-comment-2/

EU, France, UK slam Israel minister for Gaza starvation comment

The European Union, France and the UK on Wednesday condemned a far-right Israeli minister for suggesting it would be “justified and moral” to starve two million Gazans to free scores of captives held in the Palestinian territory.

“No one in the world will allow us to starve two million people, even though it might be justified and moral to free the hostages,” Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said at a conference earlier this week.

“We are bringing in humanitarian aid because we have no choice. We are in a situation that requires international legitimacy to conduct this war.”

Smotrich’s remarks sparked outrage in the international community, with the European Union saying the deliberate starvation of civilians was a “war crime”.

“It demonstrates, once again, his contempt for international law and basic principles of humanity,” the EU said in a statement.

“We expect the Israeli government to unequivocally distance itself from the words of Minister Smotrich,” the EU said, as it called for access to cover the humanitarian needs of Gazans, including hundreds of thousands of children.

The EU reiterated its call for an “immediate ceasefire” to secure the release of all captives and also to increase the distribution of aid across the Gaza Strip.

France also criticised Smotrich, expressing its “deep dismay at the scandalous remarks”.

Providing humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza is an “obligation under international humanitarian law” for Israel as it controls all access to the territory, it added.

UK Foreign Minister David Lammy said on X that there “can be no justification for Minister Smotrich’s remarks” and called on “the wider Israeli government to retract and condemn them”.

Since the war on Gaza broke out in October, the humanitarian situation in the besieged Palestinian territory remains dire, with almost all of its 2.4 million population displaced and suffering from food shortages.

During the 7 October attacks, Hamas captured 251 people, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s military campaign has killed at least 39,677 people, according to the health ministry in the territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.

[stevedeschaines]

Last week one of the world's great orators came to Washington and delivered an address to Congress that was so powerful and so true that a number of Democrat progressives boycotted his remarks, apparently because they can't handle the truth.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proved a comment once made by ABC newsman Ted Koppel: " Our society finds truth too strong a medicine to digest undiluted. In its purest form, truth is not a polite tap on the shoulder. It is a howling reproach."

Netanyahu delivered a howling reproach to the anti-Israel and antisemitic demonstrators outside the Capitol building and on college campuses when he said: " Defeating our brutal enemies requires both courage and clarity. Clarity begins by knowing the difference between good and evil. Yet incredibly many anti-Israel protesters, many choose to stand with evil. They stand with Hamas." He called such people "useful idiots" to Iran, which he said was behind much of the demonstrations that promote hatred of Israel, Jews and, yes, America, as we saw when demonstrators burned American flags outside Union Station and defaced monuments.

Just how useful these "idiots" are to Iran was noticeable in an earlier statement by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said anti-Israel demonstrators on college campuses are "on the right side of history."

Netanyahu mocked the demonstrators: " These protesters chant 'From the river to the sea.' But many don't have a clue what river and what sea they're talking about. They not only get an "F" in geography, they get an "F" in history. They call Israel a colonialist state. Don't they know that the land of Israel is where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob prayed, where Isaiah and Jeremiah preached and where David and Solomon ruled?"

He also responded to Hamas' propaganda that Israel is deliberately targeting civilians in Gaza: "...despite all the lies you've heard, the war in Gaza has one of the lowest ratios of combatants to non-combatant casualties in the history of urban warfare. And you want to know where it's lowest in Gaza? It's lowest in Rafah."

What about another Hamas lie that humanitarian aid is not reaching civilians (a lie Vice President Kamala Harris perpetuated after her meeting with Netanyahu).

"The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has shamefully accused Israel of deliberately starving the people of Gaza," Netanyahu said." This is utter complete nonsense. It's a complete fabrication. Israel has enabled more than 40,000 aid trucks to enter Gaza. That's half a million tons of food, and that's more than 3,000 calories for every man, woman and child in Gaza. If there are Palestinians in Gaza who aren't getting enough food, it's not because Israel is blocking it, it's because Hamas is stealing it." After meeting with Vice President Harris, Netanyahu said her public statement was different from what she told him in private. She claimed Gazans were suffering from "food insecurity" and some are starving. She trotted out the old "formula" that only a two-state solution can end the regional conflict. This has been debunked so many times by statements from Israel's enemies which favor a one-state solution. It is amazing the line continues to be repeated over several administrations.

Following his meeting with Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago, former president Donald Trump said he asked the prime minister why so many American Jews vote for Democrats, many of whom vote against Israel's (and America's) interests? "Habit," he quoted Netanyahu saying.

What ought to stick with Americans is what Netanyahu said about Iran's ultimate goal: "Last month, I heard a revealing comment, ostensibly about the war in Gaza, but about something else. It came from the foreign minister of Iran's proxy, Hezbollah, and he said this: 'This is not a war with Israel. Israel,' he said, 'is merely a tool.' The main war, the real war, is with America.'"

If Iran is allowed to produce a nuclear bomb they are likely to prove the truth of that claim.

[progressglobenews]

Jacobin:

Last month, Israeli human rights group B’Tselem issued a damning report warning that Israel was manufacturing famine in Gaza, and thus committing the crime of starvation. “The severe hunger that has developed over recent months in the Gaza Strip is not a result of fate, but the product of a deliberate and conscious Israeli policy. It has been openly declared by decision makers, including a member of the Israeli war cabinet, from the very beginning of the war.” Abu Ataya’s death comes amid reports that the United Nations may finally put Israel on its “list of shame” of child-killing states, which is unlikely to stop Israel from starving more children in Gaza. Emboldened by the United States’ unconditional support, Israel has sealed off all the seven land crossings to Gaza, including the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. Israel has destroyed all bakeries in Gaza and the southern city of Rafah and routinely bombed Palestinians seeking food aid for their starving families. The Guardian reports that Israeli soldiers have backed settler groups blocking, attacking, and looting aid trucks bound for Gaza. The Israeli army has destroyed and burned food supplies in Gaza, while Israeli soldiers have filmed themselves stealing humanitarian aid bound for starving Palestinians in Gaza.