Middle East Council on Global Affairs | Webinar on “Digital Deception: Disinformation, Elections, and Islamophobia,” September 2, 2024, featuring Juan Cole, Marc Owen Jones, Sohan Dsouza, and Sahar Aziz. Middle East Council on Global Affairs: “Digital Deception: Disinformation, Elections, and Islamophobia In 2007, the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. established the Brookings Doha Center (BDC). […]
By Leonie Fleischmann, City, University of London | – (The Conversation) – As the war in Gaza rages on, the situation in the West Bank has deteriorated. On August 28, Israeli forces began carrying out raids on the cities of Jenin and Tulkarm in the north of the territory, as well as the Al-Far’a refugee […]
( Tomdispatch.com ) Yes, long ago, I dreamt of being a novelist. Two ancient manuscripts packed away in a distant corner of my closet attest to that (ir)reality, as does one novel focused on the world of publishing (in which I’d been an editor) that made it into print, even if it was barely noticed. […]
81 Killed in 24 Hours as Israel Continues Targeting UN School Shelters in Gaza
"Why do they target us when we are innocent people?" said a Palestinian woman sheltering at a school attacked Tuesday. "We do not carry weapons but are just sitting and trying to find safety for ourselves and our children."
Israeli attacks have killed 81 Palestinians over roughly the last 24 hours, including an attack on a United Nations-run school shelter in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, according to data released by the Gaza health ministry on Wednesday.
The Nuseirat strike, which killed 23 Palestinians on Tuesday, was at least the eighth Israeli attack on a school shelter in the last ten days. Six of the schools had been run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
"Why do they target us when we are innocent people?" Umm Mohammed al-Hasanat, a woman who was sheltering at the Nuseirat school, askedAl Jazeera.
"We do not carry weapons but are just sitting and trying to find safety for ourselves and our children," she said.
The Nuseirat attack was one of many in the last two days across the Gaza Strip.
A strike near Cairo School in the al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City on Wednesday killed at least nine, including three children. An overnight strike on a house in Al-Zawyda in central Gaza killed eight, while an attack on a house Wednesday in the Khan Younis area killed five. An Israeli bombing also killed two in the al-Shakoush area northwest of Rafah on Wednesday. Israeli tanks also advanced into northern Rafah, Reuters reported.
The latest string of attacks included another on Tuesday in which Israeli forces killed about 17 in a strike on a "safe" zone in al-Mawasi, a coastal area west of Khan Younis where refugees have gathered.
Even before Tuesday, Gazans were facing one of the deadliest weeks since the war began. Israelbombarded the al-Mawasi camp on Saturday, killing more than 90 Palestinians. Israeli forces also killed at least 17 people on Sunday in an attack on the UNRWA-run Abu Oreiban school in Nuseirat, which was housing thousands of displaced people; most of the dead were women and children, according toAl Jazeera.
UNRWA announced last week that Israeli forces have targeted two-thirds of the schools it administers in Gaza and attacked its facilities 453 times overall since the start of the war. Nearly 200 UNRWA staff members have been killed, the U.N. agency said.
The agency reiterated its call for a stop to Israeli targeting of its facilities in a social media message on Tuesday: "Nowhere is safe. The blatant disregard for U.N. premises and humanitarian law must stop."
News of the atrocities in Gaza came as Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday issued a 236-page report on the atrocities of October 7, in which Hamas-led armed groups killed roughly 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped more than 250. The report's authors found that the groups had committed "crimes against humanity" and "war crimes" in their attack in southern Israel.
"Human Rights Watch research found that the Hamas-led assault on October 7 was designed to kill civilians and take as many people as possible hostage," Ida Sawyer, HRW's crisis and conflict director, said in a statement accompanying the report's release. "The October 7 atrocities should spur a global call to action for an end to all abuses against civilians in Israel and Palestine."
Relatives of Palestinians killed in an Israeli attack on the al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City mourn their loss on July 17, 2024.
(Photo: Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
At least nine out of 10 people in the Gaza Strip are now displaced and have no homes. They have been forced to move by Israeli warplanes multiple times since 7 October, 2023.
“We are again at the crossroads where the UN and its partners has to reset their operations,” Andrea De Domenico, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian Territory, said at a virtual news conference as reported in Anadolu.
“…We estimated that nine of every 10 people in the Gaza Strip have been internally displaced at least once, if not up to 10 times, unfortunately, since October,” he reported.
“People in the last nine months have been moved around like pawns in a board game, forced from one location to the next location.”
De Domenico said residents have to rebuild extremely difficult living conditions each time, leading to more suffering and a greater need for humanitarian aid.
Stressing that the UN will continue to stay in the region, he highlighted that aid distribution is challenging every day.
Citing the Palestinian Authority’s Bureau of Statistics, De Domenico said Gaza’s population is 2.3 million and he estimated that 110,000 have left Gaza, and 37,000 have been killed.
Meanwhile the UN lowered its population estimates of Gaza from roughly 2.3 million people to about 2.1 million, following thousands of deaths and exodus of Palestinians.
He said that 110,000 people have fled Gaza and crossed into Egypt since October, according to the border authority, and close to 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war.
Over 87,000 Palestinians are wounded, while another 10,000 are estimated to be buried under the debris of bombed homes according to TRT.–
Dr Marwan Asmar is a journalist from Amman, Jordan
Israeli forces on Thursday bombed a Gaza school run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, killing dozens of people including women and children.
The precise death toll from the Israeli strike on the school—which was sheltering displaced Palestinians—is unclear, but the communications director for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said she’s been informed that up to 45 people were killed.
Euronews reported that the nearby Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital “received at least 33 dead from the strike, including 14 children and nine women, according to hospital records and an Associated Press reporter at the hospital.”
Without offering any proof, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) claimed a “Hamas compound” was “embedded inside” the school in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. The Israeli government has repeatedly asserted without evidence that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations.
“The terrorists directed terror from the area of the school while exploiting it and using it as a shelter,” the IDF said in a statement. “Several terrorists who planned to carry out terror attacks and promote terrorist activities against IDF troops in the immediate time frame were eliminated in the strike.”
Imran Khan, a senior correspondent for Al Jazeera, noted that the IDF “knew it was a U.N. school” and that “it is a place where displaced Palestinians have been staying.”
(Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Israelis are briefing local Israeli media, saying they suspected some of the people behind the October 7 attack on Israel were staying there. That’s language that we’ve heard a lot before,” Khan reported. “Right now, we’re in this kind of ‘he-said, she-said.’ The Israeli army is very clear, saying, ‘We believe that Hamas was in that school and in that refugee camp,’ but not providing any single shred of evidence.”
According toReuters, “two children were among the dead laid out” at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital following Thursday’s strike. Mourners told the outlet that “the children had been killed along with their mother.”
“This is not war, it is destruction that words are unable to express,” said Abu Mohammed Abu Saif, the father of the two children.
The UNRWA school in Nuseirat was just the latest U.N. facility targeted by the Israeli military during its eight-month U.S.-backed assault on the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces have damaged or destroyed more than half of Gaza’s infrastructure, including all of its universities.
Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib said Thursday that “the devastating airstrike on a UNRWA school in Gaza is an appalling and unacceptable act of violence.”
“All parties must respect civilian infrastructure,” Lahbib added. “This tragedy reminds us of the urgency to end the violence.”
Advocacy groups in the U.S. condemned the Biden administration’s ongoing complicity in Israel’s attacks on Gaza civilians in the wake of Thursday’s strike.
“There aren’t any excuses or words left to describe the horrors the U.S. government continues to fund and enable,” Justice Democrats wrote on social media. “How many more war crimes will we witness every day before we hold Israel accountable for this genocide?”
Shortly before Israel’s military bombed the UNRWA school, peace activists disrupted a taping of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’ appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
“Stop the genocide!” one of the activists yelled. “Fifteen thousand children dead because of you!”
Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.
Originally published in CommonDreams.org
Palestinians working for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East inspect a school devastated by an Israeli airstrike in Nuseirat refugee camp on June 6, 2024 in Gaza.
"It's a nightmare at Al-Aqsa," said Samuel Johann, MSF coordinator in Gaza. "How many more men, women, and children have to be killed before world leaders decide to put an end to this massacre?"
More than 33,000 civilians have been killed in Gaza since October 7.
And every ten minutes, another child is killed by Israeli military air strikes led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza. This means that every ten minutes, there is a child who will never get to fulfill their dreams. A child who will never get to fulfill their childhood, their teenage years, or their adult years, and a family that will never get to watch their kid grow up. Will you send a letter to Congress to stop taxpayer dollars from funding weapons of war in Gaza?
We need to continue to push for a permanent ceasefire and to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches those who need it in Gaza. That is the role the U.S. should play here, not sending endless funds without conditions to Netanyahu to further fuel this violent campaign against civilians in Gaza. The U.S. has poured billions into the Israeli military budget since October 7, and it must end NOW. Send a letter to tell Congress and the administration that taxpayer money should not be used for weapons of war in Gaza.
There are compounding crises within the United States that deserve the ample amounts of funding and attention that the government has been supplying to the Israeli government for its indiscriminate airstrike campaign. It's not difficult to understand: Continuously arming and funding Netanyahu and the Israeli military will not bring home Israeli hostages or address the devastating humanitarian crisis in Gaza—in fact, it's exacerbating these crises.
Over the last six months, we have seen unspeakable horror in Gaza. Millions of people are on the brink of famine. Aid workers were targeted and killed for trying to help those in need. Enough is enough. Our tax dollars should not be used for weapons to kill innocent civilians in Gaza. Take action by sending a letter to Congress NOW.
Thanks for all you do.
-Nakia, Isbah, Corinne, Allison, and the rest of the team
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The protest vote over Joe Biden's unrelenting support for Israel continues to gain momentum, with voters writing variations of "uncommitted" and "leave it blank" on Democratic ballot measures to demonstrate their disgust over the president's refusal to help end the war.
I've seen some pieces floating around arguing against the effectiveness of this strategy. But this finger-wagging—sorry but that's exactly what it is—is incredibly frustrating. An antiwar protest at the ballot is one of the loudest, most visceral ways to warn a president that he risks losing their support in an election that he himself brands the battle for democracy.
I was glad to read my colleague Noah Lanard's interview today with former State Department official Annelle Sheline, who resigned last week in protest of the Biden administration's wartime support for Israel. What struck me most about their conversation was Annelle's thoughts on why it was so important to go public with her decision, rather than quit quietly to reduce the risk that her resignation wrangle future employers. As she told Noah:
It came from observing the ways in which public pressure—including through things like the uncommitted campaign—seems to be the only thing that is getting this administration to shift even a little bit. When colleagues asked if I’d be willing to resign publicly, that is what ultimately caused me to make that decision. My hope is that by resigning publicly I can contribute to this effort to build public pressure.
Public pressure. This is what uncommitted voters—sickened by the US's support for a war that has already killed more than 32,000 people, laid the groundwork for imminent famine, and killed seven aid workers—are building. So for any detractors of the protest vote, ask yourself: Do you really want to be someone grading nonviolent acts of resistance?
As Annelle said, "I would encourage people to publicly express their opposition to the policy by putting up a ‘Ceasefire in Gaza’ sign. Because I think that’s what it’s going to take: Other people seeing that they’re not alone."
"There are people working very hard inside State to try to hold Israel accountable, but none of that will actually go into effect unless Biden wants it to," says Annelle Sheline.
BY NOAH LANARD
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