Hamas Attack – Prior Situation before Attack

Hamas Attack – Prior Situation before Attack

Updated 2024-07-16

2023 -10 -07 Things You Need to Know About the Latest Violence in Palestine/Israel   

1. Netanyahu’s far-right government has intensified Israel’s violent repression of Palestinians since taking power earlier this year.

Before the latest surge in violence, Israeli soldiers had already killed more than 250 Palestinians, including at least 47 children, in the occupied West Bank, more than any year since the Second Intifada, or uprising, against Israel’s occupation in the early 2000s.

Extremist Israeli settlers have also ramped up their attacks on Palestinians in an attempt to push them off their land. In August, the UN warned of a dramatic increase in settler violence, with nearly 600 attacks recorded in the first six months of the year, averaging 99 incidents each month.

Israeli extremists have also increased their provocations in and around the Noble Sanctuary Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam, which they want to destroy and replace with a Jewish temple. Israel’s notorious National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has repeatedly visited the site to demonstrate Israeli dominance over it.

2. Gaza has been under brutal Israeli military occupation for more than 50 years.

Under international law, Gaza remains under Israeli military occupation, despite Israel’s withdrawal of settlers and soldiers from the interior of Gaza in 2005, because it continues to control virtually all entry and exit, as well as Gaza’s airspace and coastline.

3. Israel has imposed a suffocating, illegal siege and naval blockade on Gaza for more than 15 years.

More than 2 million Palestinians are trapped in Gaza under Israel’s draconian siege and naval blockade, unable to travel to get medical treatment, go to school, or visit family and friends, deprived of basic goods and supplies. Gaza’s economy has been devastated by the siege and blockade, and by repeated Israeli military assaults that have destroyed much of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. The siege and blockade have been repeatedly condemned by the UN and human rights organizations as a form of collective punishment and illegal.

4. Most Palestinians in Gaza are refugees, expelled from what became southern Israel in 1948.

Two-thirds of Palestinians in Gaza are refugees who were expelled from their homes during Israel’s establishment in 1948, denied their internationally recognized legal right to return simply because they aren’t Jewish.

5. The source of the problem in all of Palestine/Israel is Israel’s brutal military occupation and apartheid system that was established in 1948.

In the words of Amnesty International: “Israel has established and maintained an institutionalized regime of oppression and domination of the Palestinian population for the benefit of Jewish Israelis – a system of apartheid – wherever it has exercised control over Palestinians’ lives since 1948.”  The only way to end the violence is to end Israel’s occupation and apartheid system.    https://imeu.org/article/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-latest-violence-in-palestine-israel

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Global Trade

Global Trade

Updated 2024-07-16

2024-04-11 UN Expert Demands EU Suspend Trade Deal With Israel Over Gaza Genocide     “Europe is the main trading partner—which accounts I think for 30% of Israel’s trade—so it has a huge power and it should use that power,” said U.N. expert Francesca Albanese.  Pointing out a significant “disconnect” between the European Union’s political class and the public regarding Israel’s assault on Gaza, the top United Nations expert on the occupied Palestinian territories on Wednesday said E.U. officials must suspend trade relations with the Israeli government.  https://www.commondreams.org/news/eu-israel-trade

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Global Economic and Moral Order

Global Economic and Moral Order

Updated 2024-07-16

2024-05-07 To Achieve Peace and Stability, the Middle East Needs a Regional Security Framework  The broader Middle East needs peace and stability, not more conflict. This will not come through more arms and more hostile posturing. If we’ve learned anything from history, it’s that the region’s antagonists will not be defeated. Conflict either emboldens them or results in a metastasizing of their conflicts’ root causes into new and more virulent forms.

During the past century, the U.S. and its Western allies played an extremely negative role. From the Sykes-Picot betrayal and dismemberment of the region, to the fatal partition of Palestine and United Nation’s failure to insist on Israel honoring the terms of its conditional admission in 1948, the West repeatedly turned a blind eye to Israel’s aggressive behaviors and its egregious violations of Palestinian rights. This only served to make a bad situation worse. As a result, the region has been forced to endure repeated wars involving Israel, the Palestinians, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt.

Our policies have been no better with regard to Iran. We supported the repressive regime of its Shah and worked to overthrow Iran’s effort to form a democracy in the 1950s—a wound Iranians never forgot. This hostility came into clear focus after the Shah’s pro-Western regime grew more repressive and was overthrown in a popular revolt in 1979. That promising revolution quickly devolved into the aggressive Islamic Republic of Iran with its decidedly anti-Western bent.

During the decade-long war of the 1980s between revolutionary Iran and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the U.S. supplied munitions (including chemical and biological components) to Iraq, while covertly (and illegally) funneling weapons to Iran. The results were devastating to both nations. Then came a decade of crippling U.S.-imposed sanctions on both countries and finally the disastrous U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, which led to Iran gaining a foothold in Iraq among its long-oppressed Shi’a majority. Iran was now emboldened to pursue its regional ambitions with its allies in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, all of whom had their own grievances within their countries

2024-04-11 The Task of Freeing Palestine Is the Task of Freeing Ourselves   The voices rising and feet marching in solidarity with Gaza are challenging the very foundations of a global economic and associated moral order built on exploitation and the systematic devaluation of certain lives.    https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/free-palestine-free-ourselves

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GenZ

GenZ

Updated 2024-07-16

2024-05-24 Why are Gen Z broke?   In this episode, we look at why Gen Z around the world are broke and whether they deserve the bad reputation for their lifestyle choices.  Gen Z are struggling financially. A 2023 survey of Gen Z in 44 countries suggested that around half of them were living paycheck to paycheck and almost half needed a side job. So why are Gen Z broke?

“Gen Z spends all their money on avocado toast and coffee and all they do is sit on social media and they don’t wanna work” – or such is the perception of the financial woes afflicting Gen Z. Studies show that Gen Z are the generation least likely to have savings or a plan for the future when it comes to money – but the “doomers” also report very little hope in the future.

Presenter: Myriam Francois,  Guests: Grace Blakeley – Author and economics commentator, Anushka Rathod – Finance content creator,Max Lu – YouTuber  https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-stream/2024/5/24/why-are-gen-z-broke

2024-04-27 Palestine Talks | Dr Harriet Fraad    Political theorist and psychotherapist Dr Harriet Fraad talks about how growing support for Palestine in America among young people reflects their own disenchantment with the socioeconomic conditions of their life and the disappearance of the “American Dream”, as well as the possibility of building healthy relationships and community within pro-Palestinian movements more broadly — in contrast to the hyper individualism of the West that has left many feeling alienated, lonely and depressed.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aTAnFDZSr8&list=PLUW304lJeu3Vg_nM0WQfWDZTDyu6h6PlD&index=6

2024-03-13 Palestine Talks | Lauren Booth on Zionism “falling apart”   Writer and activist Lauren Booth illuminates what she believes accounts for the global surge of pro-Palestinian solidarity, how her own travels to Palestine shaped her as a person and challenged her Western views – emphasising the value of individualism over community – and the strength of Palestinians in opposing Zionist and colonial violence, from which key moral lessons – bearing on both Islam and universal principles of justice –can be learned.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y-c69DC0-0&list=PLUW304lJeu3Vg_nM0WQfWDZTDyu6h6PlD&index=8

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Gaza Health Care

Gaza Health Care (also see Health Care Situation)

Updated 2024-08-25

2024-08-17 UN Secretary-General Urges ‘Polio Pause’ in Israeli War on Gaza as First Case Reported      “It is impossible to conduct a polio vaccination campaign with war raging all over,” said António Guterres after a 10-month-old infant became Gaza’s first new poliomyelitis case in 25 years.

Following over a month of warnings, Gaza recorded its first case of polio since the highly contagious virus was eradicated there 25 years ago, prompting a Friday call by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres for a temporary truce to enable a vaccination drive in the embattled strip.  

The Gaza Health Ministry said Friday that an 10-month-old infant in the central city of Deir al-Balah “who has not received any polio vaccine dose” has tested positive for the virus, which often causes paralysis and can be fatal. The ministry said the baby is one of “a number of children” who have presented with symptoms consistent with polio in recent days. https://www.commondreams.org/news/polio-in-gaza

2024-05-01 Gaza Child Amputees Struggle to Recover Amid Israeli Destruction of Health System    Thousands of Palestinian children who have lost limbs and suffered other debilitating injuries to Israeli bombs and bullets are struggling to recover due to the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure and a lack of adequate treatment, medication, and equipment like wheelchairs, Save the Children said Tuesday.

The London-based international charity recently published an analysis concluding that “the rate of attacks on healthcare in Gaza has been higher than in any other recent conflict globally.” The group cited figures from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which found that more than 1,000 Gazan children had one or both legs amputated during just the first month of Israel’s 208-day assault on the besieged coastal enclave. Many more children—the exact number is unknown—have had limbs amputated since then in what UNICEF called “the world’s most dangerous place to be a child.”

“Our pediatric staff say they are seeing lots of children with injuries caused by explosive weapons who are suffering unimaginable physical and mental harm,” Xavier Joubert, Save the Children’s country director for Palestine, said in a statement Tuesday.   https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-child-amputees

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Gaza Horror Personal Testimony 

Gaza Horror Personal Testimony 

Updated 2024-08-25

2024-08-18 A Death in Gaza and a Spiritual Explosion   What happened was just another Israeli bombing in Rafah. For some reason, a park had been targeted. Kids were playing in the park. Those killed included four members of one particular family: the mom, her daughter, and two sons, the youngest of whom was 18 months old.

The surviving dad is quoted in the story: “I saw the bodies of my wife Faten, and daughter Huda, my son Arkan, and my baby Ahmad. I was told he was headless. I just peeked inside the body bag and saw his body without a head, and I couldn’t stand to see it anymore.”  And here are the words of one of the surviving siblings: “I hope to be killed so I can join him in heaven.”  https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/death-in-gaza

2024-05-03 Protect Palestine and Poor News Network  Davey D speaks with Nancy Mansour about her humanitarian visit to Gaza. And later Poor News Network talks about America’s war on the poor.    https://kpfa.org/episode/hard-knock-radio-may-3-2024/

2024-03-26 Firsthand Account   Horrifying firsthand accounts are starting to emerging after Israel raided a hospital in Gaza City. Witnesses say soldiers executed and starved detainees and forced residents in the surrounding neighborhood to flee on foot to the south.    https://www.tiktok.com/@ajplus/video/7350804511146970410

2024-03-25 ill 6 year old Do you remember this 6-year-old who suffers from cystic fibrosis and malnutrition? He was finally able to evacuate Gaza to receive medical treatment.    https://www.tiktok.com/@ajplus/video/7350433259341335854

2024-03-19 Israel Raid  “A new raid in the same place where we are. Now a lot of shrapnel is falling on us.” Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif documented these devastating scenes as Israeli raids unfolded around him in western Gaza.    https://www.tiktok.com/@ajplus/video/7348199553788579115

2024-03-15 Journalist Targeted   This Palestinian journalist’s images of destruction in Gaza went viral. Then Israel targeted him in a strike, causing him to lose both his legs.   https://www.tiktok.com/@ajplus/video/7346725651715460383

2024-03-15 Food Center Attacked   Israel attacked two food distribution centers that provide lifesaving aid to Palestinians in Gaza.    https://www.tiktok.com/@ajplus/video/7346606005498776862

2024-03-07 Mother’s Loss This mother is desperately searching for her son in the rubble after her family’s home was bombed in Gaza.   https://www.tiktok.com/@ajplus/video/7343774934667234591

2024-03-07 Children  After a deadly Israeli bombing, these traumatized siblings in Gaza found each other again     https://www.tiktok.com/@ajplus/video/7343753286807293214

2024-03-05 Starving Children   Israel is killing children with starvation in Gaza, and the UN says Israel is intentionally depriving Palestinians of food.    https://www.tiktok.com/@ajplus/video/7343024625732816159

2024-03-05 Abused Children   Israel is detaining and abusing Palestinian children on a scale like never before. Save The Children says their childhoods are being stripped away under Israeli occupation and are calling for a complete suspension of Israeli military arrests, detention and prosecution of children in the West Bank and in Gaza.    https://www.tiktok.com/@ajplus/video/7342919638889647391

2024-03-01 Buried Child This child survived nine days buried under rubble in northern Gaza.    https://www.tiktok.com/@ajplus/video/7341524816115027230

2024-03-01 Starvation At least ten children have died of starvation in the last week, and people have resorted to eating donkey feed to survive.  https://www.tiktok.com/@ajplus/video/7341483560685030686

2024-02-27 Artist Fathi Ghaben Renowned Palestinian artist Fathi Ghaben has died in Gaza after being denied permission by Israeli authorities to travel for medical treatment abroad. Ghaben was suffering from chest and lung issues and needed to travel overseas to receive treatment. He was unable to get care in Gaza due to the lack of oxygen and other medical supplies in the besieged strip. Ghaben was 77 years old – that’s older than the state of Israel. He was born in 1947 in Hirbya, Palestine near Gaza City, and experienced displacement under Israeli occupation his entire life. His artwork depicted Palestinian resistance and struggle, resulting in him being arrested multiple times by Israeli authorities for “inciting violence.” Ghaben had previously served as an adviser to the Palestinian Ministry of Culture and won international acclaim. #FathiGhaben #Art #PalestinianArt #Artist #Gaza #GazaUnderSiege #Nakba #Israel     https://www.tiktok.com/@ajplus/photo/7340429127758941470

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Gaza End Game

Gaza End Game (also see Israel – Day After War and Peaceful Solutions)

Updated 2024-07-16

2024-06-23 Why Israel Has No ‘Next Day’ Plan for Gaza     The lack of such a “vision” does not entirely rest on Netanyahu’s own failure to produce one, but due to his inability to determine, with any degree of certainly, if the war would yield favorable results for Israel.

Some of these criticisms emanate from Israel’s traditional Western allies, who are wary of Netanyahu’s personal and political agendas, which are fixated on delaying his corruption trials and ensuring that his extremist allies remain committed to the current government coalition.

The criticism however is loudest in Israel itself.  “As long as Hamas retains control over civilian life in Gaza, it may rebuild and strengthen (itself), thus requiring the IDF to return and fight in areas where it has already operated,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in May, demanding a “day-after” plan.  

For a post-war plan that fits Israeli interests to be produced, Gaza would have to be militarily subdued, a goal that seems more distant than ever.   At the start of the war, and many times since then, Netanyahu argued that Israel would have “overall security responsibility” for the Gaza Strip “for an indefinite period.”

That too is unlikely, as Israel tried to establish such security control between 1967 and 2005—when it was forced, due to the popular resistance during the Second Uprising, to redeploy its forces out of the Gaza Strip, imposing a hermetic siege that has been in effect since then.   Recent events proved that even the Israeli blockade itself is unsustainable, as those who were entrusted with keeping Gazans locked in failed miserably at their main task. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/israel-no-plan-gaza

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Gaza Divided by Road

Gaza Divided by Road

Updated 2024-07-16

2024-03-12 Israel’s Gaza Road Satellite images show that Israel has built a 6.5-kilometer road in Gaza, named after a dismantled Israeli settlement, dividing the strip’s north and south.     https://www.tiktok.com/@ajplus/video/7345607415020260638

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Gaza Death Undercount

Gaza Death Undercount

Updated 2024-08-25

2024-07-25 US Health Workers Back From Gaza Calculate Death Toll at 92,000 — at a Minimum     ozens of U.S. doctors and nurses who have returned from volunteer trips to Gaza say in a scathing new letter that Israel’s assault, along with the famine and epidemics raging across Gaza, have killed a conservative estimate of at least 92,000 Palestinians so far — over double the widely-cited official death count by health officials.

In their message sent to President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the first lady on Thursday, the group of 45 health care workers say that the things they saw in Gaza are beyond anything they have seen in other conflicts, and will forever be seared in their minds.

“President and Dr. Biden, we wish you could see the nightmares that plague so many of us since we have returned: dreams of children maimed and mutilated by our weapons, and their inconsolable mothers begging us to save them,” they wrote. “We wish you could hear the cries and screams our consciences will not let us forget. We cannot believe that anyone would continue arming the country that is deliberately killing these children after seeing what we have seen.” https://truthout.org/articles/us-health-workers-back-from-gaza-calculate-death-toll-at-92000-at-a-minimum/

2024-03-05 Stop the Worsening UNDERCOUNT of Palestinian Casualties in Gaza     With virtually no healthcare left, no medications, and infectious diseases spreading especially among infants, children, the infirm and the elderly, can anybody believe that the fatalities have just gone over 30,000? With five thousand babies born every month into the rubble, their mothers wounded and without food, healthcare, medicine and clean water for any of their children, severe skepticism about the Hamas Health Ministry’s official count is warranted.

Netanyahu and Hamas, which he helped over the years, have a common interest in lowballing the death/injury toll. But for different reasons. Hamas keeps the figures low to reduce being accused by its own people of not protecting them, and not building shelters.  The Health Ministry is intentionally conservative, citing that its death toll came from reports only of named deceased by hospitals and morgues.  

It matters greatly whether the aggregate toll so far, and counting, is three, four, five, six times more than the Health Ministry’s undercount. It matters for elevating the urgency for a permanent ceasefire, and direct and massive humanitarian aid by the U.S. and other countries, bypassing the sadistic cruelty against innocent families of the Israeli siege. It matters for the columnists and editorial writers who have been self-censoring themselves, with some, like the Post’s Charles Lane fictionally claiming that Israel’s military doesn’t “intentionally target civilians.” It matters for accountability under international law.

Above all, it lets weak Secretary of State Antony Blinken and duplicitous President Joe Biden be less servile when Netanyahu dismisses the low death toll by taunting them: what about Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki?    https://nader.org/2024/03/05/stop-the-worsening-undercount-of-palestinian-casualties-in-gaza/

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Gaza Blockade

Gaza Blockade (also see Freedom Flotilla)

Updated 2024-07-16

Team Gaza – Documentary      Stuck under blockade, these four young Gazans try to rebuild their lives.  Team GazaTeam Gaza records the lives of four young men daring to dream in Gaza, a land strip sealed off from the outside world. A story about resilience, love, anger and desperate dreams. Together they unite in a football team, the only place where they can forget about everything. Outside of the football pitch they pray and fight for a better future, despite the hardships in war-torn Gaza.   https://www.journeyman.tv/film/8563

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