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"Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation, and serious injury, using starvation as a method of war, and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population."
Less than 48 hours after the Biden administration said it does not believe Israel is unlawfully obstructing humanitarian assistance in Gaza, a United Nations special committee issued a report Thursday arguing that the Israeli military's actions in the Palestinian enclave bear "the characteristics of genocide."
"Since the beginning of the war, Israeli officials have publicly supported policies that strip Palestinians of the very necessities required to sustain life—food, water, and fuel," said the U.N. committee. "These statements, along with the systematic and unlawful interference of humanitarian aid, make clear Israel's intent to instrumentalize lifesaving supplies for political and military gains."
"Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated U.N. appeals, binding orders from the International Court of Justice, and resolutions of the Security Council, Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation, and serious injury, using starvation as a method of war, and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population," the panel added.
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In what one journalist called an "insane twist" to the long saga of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' use of his online platform to spread rampant disinformation, satirical newspaper The Onion on Thursday announced it had won an auction to buy Infowars, Jones' bankrupt publication.
Jones declared bankruptcy in 2022 after the families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting won nearly $1.5 billion in damages in lawsuits they filed over Jones' repeated claims on his show that the shooting had been a hoax.
Jones claimed the families and victims—20 first graders and six educators—were crisis actors, inciting his supporters to threaten the grieving families.
The auction included everything from Jones' desk and production studio to his diet supplement line, and the Sandy Hook families supported The Onion's effort to take control of Infowars, which the company said would be relaunched as a parody of itself.
"The Onion's goal with the acquisition is to end Infowars' relentless barrage of disinformation for the sake of selling supplements and replace it with The Onion's relentless barrage of humor for good," said the company in a press release, which did not state how much The Onion paid for Infowars.
excerpt:
"Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated U.N. appeals, binding orders from the International Court of Justice, and resolutions of the Security Council, Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation, and serious injury, using starvation as a method of war, and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population," the panel added.
The new report examines in detail Israel's relentless and large-scale aerial assault on the Gaza Strip, which Israeli missiles and bombs—many of them provided by the United States—have rendered a "wasteland of rubble, garbage, and human remains," as one U.N. expert recently put it. Women and children have made up nearly 70% of those killed by Israeli forces in Gaza over the past 13 months.
The near-constant bombing since the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023 has devastated Gaza's civilian infrastructure, including water and sanitation systems, sparking a massive public health crisis that has compounded the humanitarian impacts of the military assault.
Israeli forces have also systematically targeted Gaza's agricultural land and infrastructure, which along with Israel's suffocating blockade has created famine conditions across the enclave.
"By destroying vital water, sanitation, and food systems, and contaminating the environment, Israel has created a lethal mix of crises that will inflict severe harm on generations to come," the U.N. committee said in a statement Thursday.
