In Occupied Palestine
Zionism in practice
Israel’s Daily Toll on Palestinian Life, Limb, Liberty and Land
08:00, 20 September until 08:00, 21 September 2024
[Source of statistics: Palestinian Monitoring Group]
Gaza Strip
Attacks: There are no safe places for the militarily-dominated population in Gaza, who find themselves subjected to airstrikes and other missile attacks on buildings, homes and many essentialfacilities, as well as constant gunfire and invasions by Israeli forces. The Israeli Navy continues to fire missiles, targeting facilities and buildings along the entire Gaza shoreline.
Victims: 119 more people have been killed, bringing the total number killed in Gaza since 7 October to at least 41,391. Another 209 have been wounded, bringing that total up to 95,760. The daily average number of men, women and children killed in Gaza is at least 118 and that of those injured is now more than 274.
Palestine today
Don’t say you didn’t know
Ali Kazak akazak@bigpond.net.au
Israeli soldiers throwing the bodies of Palestinians from the roof of a house
Video footage showed, on Thursday 19 September 2024, Israeli occupation soldiers mutilating the bodies of 3 Palestinian martyrs in the town of Qabatiya, south of the occupied West Bank. Videostaken by citizens showed the soldiers throwing the bodies from the roof of a house they had surrounded in the town.
UN warns escalating Israel-Hezbollah violence risks devastating conflict
At UNSC, UN rights chief says Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah devices violated international law and could be a war crime. A senior United Nations official has told the Security Council that further violence between Israel and Iran-aligned groups Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon risked igniting a far more damaging conflict. “We risk seeing a conflagration that could dwarf even the devastation and suffering witnessed so far,” UN political affairs chief Rosemary DiCarlo told the 15-member council on Friday, which met about attacks this week on Hezbollah.“It is not too late to avoid such folly. There is still room for diplomacy,” she said. “I also strongly urge member states with influence over the parties to leverage it now.” As its war in Gaza nears one year old, Israel killed at least 14 people and wounded 66 in an air raid on the Lebanese capital Beirut on Friday.
The Lebanon pager attack: Israel’s terror playbook strikes again
Indiscriminate violence is a favourite Israeli tactic, whether deployed in Gaza, Lebanon or elsewhere. On Tuesday, hundreds of handheld pagers used by members of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah simultaneously exploded across Lebanon, killing at least 12 people, including two children. Nearly 3,000 others were wounded, many of them critically.And while the ostensible targets of Tuesday’s attack were pager-wielding Hezbollah members, it was carried out with the full knowledge that the fallout would be indiscriminate and that massive civilian casualties would ensue. But that is the whole point of terrorism, is it not?Hezbollah, it bears underscoring, owes its entire existence to the terroristic 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon that slaughtered tens of thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians.
Israel’s torture-happy occupation of southern Lebanon persisted until May 2000, when the Israeli military was ignominiously forced to withdraw its forces by the Hezbollah-led Lebanese resistance. In 2006, Israel returned to Lebanon in a 34-day assault on the country that decimated Lebanese infrastructure and killed an estimated 1,200 people, the majority of them civilians. After all, a nation that thrives on perpetual war cannot afford to let too much time elapse in between blowing things up. Of course, Israel perpetually claims to be acting in self-defence – and wantonly detonating pagers across Lebanon has apparently now been added to the “defensive” repertoire. But a glance at history reveals that, as in Palestine, Israeli machinations in Lebanon have traditionally been driven by distinctly predatory motives.
Most of the world agrees Israel’s Occupation of Palestine must end. The US is fine with it.
The United States voted against a U.N. resolution that sets a 12-month time-frame to end Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. Wednesday’s vote had 124 nations in favour of the resolution, 14 against, and 43 abstaining. In addition to the United States and Israel, the coalition of 14 nations opposing the resolution included just two European states, Czechia and Hungary; two South American countries, Argentina and Paraguay; the African nation of Malawi; Papua New Guinea; and six tiny Pacific Island nations.“This resolution makes it abundantly clear that the vast majority of the international community support the findings of the International Court of Justice that Israel’s 57-year occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory is a violation of international law and should not be allowed to continue,” said Jessica Peake, an international law professor at UCLA Law, adding that vote is “historic” given Palestine’s status as a new member of the United Nations General Assembly.
US House passes bill to label products from settlements in Occupied West Bank as ‘Made in Israel’
The US House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday that designates products from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank as originating from “Israel”. This bill, titled the “Anti-BDS Labelling Act,” solidifies a Trump-era policy that critics argue undermines Palestinians’ UN-recognised territorial claims and champions Israel’s annexation efforts while directly targeting the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, sending a clear message against those advocating for Palestinian human rights. The bill, sponsored by Republican Congresswoman Claudia Tenney of New York, passed with a vote of 231 to 189 and received support from 16 Democrats, including some of the party’s most pro-Israel members.
It mandates that products from the occupied West Bank and Gaza no longer be labelled together but separately, effectively erasing the recognition of their unified identity. Products would read either “West Bank” or “Gaza” rather than “West Bank and Gaza”. The proposal further stipulates that products from the majority of the occupied West Bank will be labelled as “Product of Israel” or “Made in Israel.” The bill goes to the finance committee next week. Should the bill pass in the Senate, it would further complicate efforts by advocates for Palestinian rights. Critics say this bill represents yet another move by Congress to erode Palestinians’ right to self-determination.
Hungary, Bulgaria, Taiwan and Japan: Following the exploding radio and pager trail
Questions raised about companies in several countries over alleged links to Israel’s operation detonating communications devices in Lebanon. Israel hit Lebanon with two extraordinary attacks this week, detonating booby-trapped pagers and radios belonging to Hezbollah. On Tuesday afternoon, thousands of pagers exploded across the country, killing at least 14 people. On Wednesday, walkie-talkies blew up, including at the funerals of some of those who died the previous day, killing at least 20 people. Thousands more were wounded across both attacks. On Friday, it was reported that Taiwanese prosecutors questioned and later released Hsu Ching-kuang, Gold Apollo’s president and founder. Hsu said his company did not manufacture the pagers in question, and that they were made by BAC Consulting KFT, a Budapest-based company which had a licence to use its brand.
In Hungary, annual reports for BAC cited by NPR show that the company registered in May 2022 with a single owner, Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono, and an account balance of just over $320 as of this May. The company’s website, which was working fine earlier this week, has been down since Wednesday afternoon. According to Reuters, citing a neighbour, Barsony-Arcidiacono vacated her apartment in Budapest on Wednesday. A Hungarian government spokesperson said earlier this week that the pagers were not manufactured in the country, and that BAC acted as an intermediary.The New York Times reported on Wednesday that BAC was in fact an Israeli front, according to three intelligence officers briefed on Israel’s operation. The sources said that at least two other shell companies were created to mask the actual identities of the pager manufacturers: Israeli intelligence officers. Bulgaria has also garnered attention after local media reported on Thursday that Sofia-based company Norta Global Ltd was involved in selling the pagers.
Bulgaria’s state security agency said it would work with the interior ministry to investigate the alleged role of a company registered in the country. Elsewhere, a Japanese manufacturer said it was launching an investigation after its name was on the hand-held radios that exploded on Thursday. Icom, a telecommunications equipment manufacturer based in Osaka, said it had discontinued the device in question a decade ago. It said it had shipped the IC-V82 transceivers, the model pictured following the second day of explosions, to overseas markets between 2004 and 2014.
UK officials warned of criminal liability over F-35 exports to Israel
Top British officials have been warned they could face criminal liability if they continue to export UK-made components for F-35 fighter jets that might end up in Israel. The warning, issued in letters sent on Friday to the foreign, business and defence ministers, comes from two groups threatening fresh legal action in the High Court over the export of these parts.Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights organisation, and the UK-based Global Legal Action Network (Glan), told the ministers that they, along with arms company executives, could be indicted for aiding and abetting war crimes if they continue to transfer the components. On 2 September, the UK government announced the suspension of 30 arms export licences to Israel over concerns that the weapons could be used in violation of international humanitarian law in Gaza. However, the list did not include UK-made F-35 parts which are sent to third countries and could ultimately end up in Israel.
Inspectors general with jurisdiction over the State Department and Pentagon are preparing to publish the results of multiple investigations scrutinising the Biden administration’s provision of US weapons to Israel for its military campaign in Gaza, and “several” related inquiries are either underway or planned, their offices told The Washington Post. The forthcoming reports follow complaints from government employees who contend the export of billions of dollars in arms has violated US and international law and received far too little oversight from watchdogs.
Read more
Israel going ‘too far’ in war on Gaza, warns New Zealand
New Zealand Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, said on Friday that Israel was going “too far” in the ongoing war on Gaza, Anadolu Agency reports. Flagging concern as the war nears one year, Peters said Tel Aviv “created misery for innocent people”. Speaking to Radio New Zealand, he also defended his country’s support for the Palestine resolution in the UN General Assembly on Wednesday and said: “We have to do the best we can to try and see that this misery is over.” Responding to a question about Israel’s right to self-defence, he said Israel has the right but “there comes a time when you cannot maintain that argument, when so many innocent people become the victims of your defence”.
Paging The Hague: Israel’s Exploding Electronics Might Be War Crimes
Experts on international law pointed to the indiscriminate nature of the blasts in Lebanon and the prohibition on booby traps. A day after pagers simultaneously exploded across Lebanon and Syria, a second round of bombs — this time embedded in walkie-talkies and solar equipment — detonated on Wednesday in Beirut and throughout Lebanon. The combined death toll from the attacks rose to at least 37 people, including a 9-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy, with more than 3,000 wounded. Doctors at a Beirut hospital reported that many among the injured had lost eyes and had to have limbs amputated. Exploding walkie-talkies caused more than 70 fires to erupt in homes and stores across Lebanon, along with more than a dozen cars and motorcycles.
The seemingly indiscriminate nature of the attacks has drawn the attention and concern of experts in international law who caution that the explosions may rise to the level of war crimes.
“If it is Israel behind this, they’ve got some tough questions to answer, including to the US government, because the US government is providing great military support,” said Brian Finucane, a former State Department legal adviser under Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump. “It really should be in the US government’s interest to ensure that its military partners are complying with the laws of war.”
“I think detonating pagers in people’s pockets without any knowledge of where those are, in that moment, is a pretty evident indiscriminate attack,” said Jessica Peake, an international law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. “I think this seems to be quite blatant, both violations of both proportionality and indiscriminate attacks.” Both Peake and Finucane said the scale of this week’s attacks are unprecedented. have killed and injured thousands of civilians who were in the vicinity of alleged Hamas militants, and the program has been criticized by IDF officersworking in these AI operations for ignoring the laws of war.
Israel’s deliberate blackout of the Gaza Strip for nearly a year is a tool of genocide
Israel’s deliberate cut-off of electricity to the Gaza Strip for almost a full year now has had catastrophic effects and long-lasting humanitarian repercussions, affecting every aspect of residents’ lives. The subjection of over two million individuals to deplorable living conditions by Israel, including cutting off their electricity, is a tool of its ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.
Cutting off electricity to a 2.3 million-person population spread over 365 square kilometres for almost a full year is a highly unprecedented measure in the history of conflicts and wars, as it is not only the product of military operations but also a political decision. Israeli officials have clearly stated that their goal is to annihilate the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced, on 7 October 2023, “a complete siege … no electricity, no water, no food, no fuel. We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.”
Subsequently, on the same day, Israeli Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Yisrael Katz decided to cut off the Gaza Strip’s electricity supply, and the Minister of Defence decided to prevent the entry of any trucks carrying fuel. Israel did not stop at these two measures to cut off electricity to the Gaza Strip; instead, it launched a concerted campaign over the course of several months to seize alternative energy sources that some residents and service facilities relied on. These attacks targeted solar energy systems and panels installed on building roofs as well as public and private facilities, such as bakeries, hospitals, restaurants, and shopping centres. This suggests that Israel has a deliberate strategy to destroy any source of electricity, even a small amount of it, in order to guarantee total blackout conditions for residents of the Gaza Strip. Prior to the ongoing genocide, the Gaza Strip had been subjected to an arbitrary and illegal 17-year-long blockade that caused an acute electricity crisis.
Israeli soldiers killed 15 protesters in the same place they shot Aysenur Eygi
Since 2021, Israeli soldiers have met weekly protests in the West Bank village with deadly force. On a hot August afternoon in 2021 as protesters confronted Israeli soldiers near the West Bank village of Beita, Imad Ali Dweikat stood far away from the commotion, next to several parked ambulances, to take a water break. As he chatted with friends and lifted his water bottle to drink, Dweikat suddenly fell face-first to the ground. With temperatures rising into the 90s, his friends thought he had collapsed from the heat. But when they turned him over, blood started streaming from his chest where gunfire from Israeli forces had struck him. Dweikat (aged 38), a construction worker from Beita and father of five, died at a nearby hospital less than an hour later.
American activist Aysenur Eygi, who was shot by Israeli forces earlier this month. Like Dweikat, Eygi had been standing with other activists a long distance from Israeli soldiers, far from any protesters confronting the military, when gunfire rang out and she suddenly dropped to the floor, according to eyewitnesses in a growing number of reports. Eygi died of a gunshot wound to the head. She was buried over the weekend in Turkey where she was born, drawing hundreds of mourners.
For the report published by Al-Haq in March, AlBajeh helped record the cases of 10 Palestinians who were killed by Israeli gunfire in 2021 and 2022 in the same place: the village of Beita, just south of Nablus, whose residents have gathered for weekly protests against a nearby illegal Israeli settlement, Evyatar, which was built on Palestinian land on Mount Sabih in 2021. Residents of Beita feared the same fate of other nearby villages that have seen their lands annexed away by Israel and are subject to constant settler violence. Since AlBajeh’s research ended, the Israeli military has killed six others at the same protest site near Beita, including Eygi, according to footage of the shootings, Palestinian media reports, and the International Solidarity Movement, the group Eygi had joined. Israeli soldiers have also killed two more civilians during military operations inside the village. Among the 18 dead are six teenage boys. None posed a threat to Israeli soldiers or Border Police officers, according to eyewitness statements highlighted in the Al-Haq report and a separate report published in 2022 by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.
Gaza faces blood shortage as Israel strikes destroy blood bank of major hospital
The ongoing deadly Israeli attacks on Gaza have left a devastating impact on the health infrastructure, especially in the northern part of the region, Anadolu Agency reports. After 350 days of continuous bombardment, the central blood bank affiliated with Al-Shifa Hospital was destroyed, making it nearly impossible to meet the urgent blood needs of the wounded and ill Palestinians.
Compounding this crisis, the widespread hunger gripping the region means that even those willing to donate blood are unable to do so due to malnutrition.
According to the UN July report titled, “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024”, every resident of Gaza is suffering from severe food insecurity. This crisis is most acute in the northern areas, where people are so under-nourished that they are unable to donate blood. The destruction of Al-Shifa’s blood bank has led to severe shortages, leaving the wounded and those with chronic illness facing the risk of death due to a lack of blood.
Amid the ongoing genocide, Euro-Med Monitor documents the most prominent mass graves in Gaza
Thousands of families continue to bury their children in random mass graves, a phenomenon brought on by over 11 months of systematic killings of Palestinians by Israel in every Gaza Strip governorate. The situation is worsening as a result of the Israeli occupation army’s constant targeting of people who attempt to enter these makeshift cemeteries to bury their loved ones.
Euro-Med Monitor has released an infographic design that shows the locations and dates of approximately 30 randomly established mass graves in the northern, central, and southern governorates of Gaza, containing roughly 3,000 dead victims of Israel’s genocide in the enclave. The infographic also depicts 120 random mass graves in which three or more people are buried, and which were established in the Gaza Strip between now and last October.
Since many random graves are found inside houses and other private spaces and some are periodically moved to new locations, the majority of them are still unrecorded. Thus, the number and location of these graves remain constantly changing. Furthermore, the Israeli occupation army is continuously bulldozing both makeshift cemeteries and official graves, disfiguring the victims’ bodies, and even stealing some of them, in grave violation of international law. Al-Batsh Cemetery, located in Gaza City’s eastern Al-Tuffah neighbourhood, is the largest documented mass grave in the Gaza Strip. Between 500 and 1,000 people have been buried there since the cemetery’s founding on 22 October 2023, just two weeks after Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began.
Israel settlers attack 2 Palestinian schools in West Bank
Israeli settlers attacked two Palestinian schools yesterday in the village of Al-Jab’a in Bethlehem, in the southern occupied West Bank. Local sources reported that a group of settlers hurled stones at Al-Jab’a Boys’ Primary School and Al-Tawafuq Mixed Secondary School, southwest of Bethlehem, according to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA. The students were left in a state of panic and were sent home early, according to the agency. The village of Al-Jab’a has been subjected to ongoing settler violence, including attacks on residents and property, the burning and cutting down of trees and the confiscation and bulldozing of large areas of land.
Palestinians assert that Israeli authorities are lenient towards settler attacks as part of an official effort to intensify settlement expansion in the occupied territories. According to data from the Palestinian government’s Wall and Settlement Resistance Committee, settler violence since 7 October 2023 has resulted in the killing of 19 Palestinians, injuries to more than 785 people, and the displacement of 28 Bedouin communities. UN OCHA recorded about 1,360 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians between 7 October 2023 and 16 September. Since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza on 7 October, Israeli forces and settlers have escalated their attacks in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, resulting in the deaths of 689 Palestinians.
Canada university’s anti-Semitism adviser resigns after praising Lebanon pager explosions
The anti-Semitic adviser at Canada’s University of Ottawa has resigned after posting on X that deadly explosions this week across Lebanon were “brilliant”, Canadian media reported yesterday.
Pagers and walkie talkies apparently belonging to Hezbollah exploded across Lebanon over two days, injuring thousands of civilians and killing at least two children. Taking to X on Tuesday after the first attacks, Artur Wilczynski wrote: “Today’s targeting of Hezbollah operatives was brilliant…” As the backlash erupted, Wilczynski at first defended his post but later apologised and resigned .
Pager slaughter in Lebanon, humanity of no consequence
Thousands of Lebanese citizens, injured or murdered by apparent Israeli planted explosives in pagers and other communications devices, are referred to as Hezbollah operatives, even though victims have included small children.
A macabre picture does not end there. The public is given the usual either or account of slaughter in a war depicted as between Israel and its enemies, hence invitations to politicians to take sides. This binary convenience ignores the sadism inherent in Israel’s claims about defence, let alone questions about international law or values concerning a common humanity. Mainstream media’s response perpetuates the either or accounts even to the point of taking sides. In descriptions of Hezbollah supporters, newsreaders repeat the same formula used when referring to Hamas, but this time it’s “Hezbollah, identified by Western governments as a terrorist organisation”.
There’s no comment about well-organised state terrorism, no pause to consider whether terrorists caused this slaughter by pagers. Imagine the media uproar about terrorism if one Israeli citizen was killed by a remote explosion. Witness the Australian Government’s latest cowardice, as in their abstention on a UN resolution demanding Israel end its occupation of Gaza and the West Bank within a year. No sign of concern for a common humanity, only allegiance to the notion that wars and illegal occupation should continue. In the pager killings, and in the ways they have been reported, lies a terrible danger. International law is of no consequence. Rules of war are being rewritten. A so-called international community is asked to accept murder should prevail. Don’t dare to think beyond that.
West Bank
[Palestinian Monitoring Group]
Israeli Army attack: Jenin – 03:00, Israeli Occupation forces, firing live ammunition, raided the city.
Israeli settler attack: Tulkarem – 14:45, armed Occupation settlers opened indiscriminate fire towards passing vehicles, near the Einav checkpoint.
Israeli Army attack on protesters: Nablus – noon, Israeli forces fired live ammunition, rubber-coated bullets and stun grenades at people protesting against Occupation land-thefts for settlement in the Jabal Sabih area of Beita.
Israeli Army attack – 1 child wounded: Bethlehem – 22:05, the Israeli Army opened fire on, and wounded, a 15-year-old boy, Mustafa Mahmoud Muhammad Masalma, near the Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque.
Home invasion: Tulkarem – 21:40–23:55, Israeli Occupation forces raided Anabta and invaded a home.
Home invasions: Hebron – 18:15–20:50, Israeli forces raided the village of Abu al-Ghuzlan and invaded a number of houses.
Home invasion: Hebron – 00:25–02:10, the Israeli Army raided the village of Beit Amra and invaded a home.
Home invasions: Hebron – 00:50–02:30, Israeli troops raided Beit Awa and invaded a number of homes.
Israeli Army population–control – 1 taken prisoner: Jenin – 15:05, Israeli Occupation forces took prisoner a man, Abdul Rahman Muhammad Sadiq Zakarna, when he reported, as ordered, for interrogation at Israeli Military Intelligence.
Israeli Army assault with rubber-coated bullets and stun grenades: Qalqiliya – 17:20, Israeli forces fired rubber-coated bullets and stun grenades towards people, near the Eyal checkpoint.
Occupation settler stoning: Ramallah – 18:05, Israeli Occupation settlers stoned passing vehicles near the village of Deir Nizam.
Occupation settler stoning: Ramallah – evening, Israeli settlers stoned passing vehicles and shattered windscreens, on the main road near the village of Umm Safa.
Occupation settler population–control: Nablus – armed settlers invaded the Khirbet Tana area, east of Beit Furik, terrorising residents, preventing them from reaching the local spring and finally forcing them out of the area.
Occupation settler plunder – agricultural sabotage: Salfit – 18:40, Occupation settlers invaded the north of Kafr al-Dik and stole the solar panels from three agricultural facilities.
Occupation settler stoning: Jericho – 14:40, Israeli settlers closed the road to Nabaa al-Auja and stoned motor vehicles.
Occupation settler – pastoral sabotage: Hebron – Israeli Occupation settlers invaded the village of al-Tuwani and terrorised a shepherd, threatening to steal his sheep.
Raid: Jenin – 22:20–02:30, Israeli forces raided and patrolled the town of Araba.
Raids: Jenin – 23:00–02:30, Israeli forces raided Silat al-Dahr and the village of al-Fanduqumiya.
Raid – 1 taken prisoner: Jenin – 03:00–05:50, the Israeli Army raided the city, taking prisoner one person.
Raid: Qalqiliya – 23:45–01:20, Israeli troops raided and patrolled the village of Kafr Laqif.
Raid – rubber-coated bullets and stun grenades fired: Nablus – 11:45-15:20, the Israeli military, firing rubber-coated bullets and stun grenades, raided the Industrial Zone in the town of Beita.
Raid: Nablus – 12:05-13:40, Israeli soldiers raided and patrolled the village of Urif.
Raid – rubber-coated bullets and stun grenades fired: Nablus – 19:00-21:00, Israeli Occupation forces, firing rubber-coated bullets and stun grenades, raided the village of Yatma.
Raid: Nablus – 23:25–01:05, Israeli forces raided and patrolled the village of al-Badhan.
Raid – rubber-coated bullets and stun grenades fired: Nablus – evening, the Israeli Army, firing rubber-coated bullets and stun grenades, raided and patrolled the town of Sebastia.
Raid – 1 taken prisoner: Hebron – 09:40-11:20, Israeli troops raided the town of Dura, taking prisoner one person.
Raid – 2 taken prisoner: Hebron – 20:15–22:20, the Israeli military raided the village of al-Tabaqa, taking prisoner two people.
Raid – 1 taken prisoner in refugee camp: Hebron – 16:40-17:55, Israeli soldiers raided the al-Fawar refugee camp, taking prisoner one person.
YAWN!!!!!
Comments are closed.