Israel returns to war crimes as scale of intelligence failure exposed

Gaza death toll spikes despite US plea for civilian protection

Israel pounded targets in the crowded southern half of the Gaza Strip on Saturday (local time) and ordered more neighbourhoods designated for attack to evacuate, driving up the death toll even as the United States and others urged it to do more to protect Gaza civilians a day after a truce collapsed.

At least 200 Palestinians have been killed since the fighting resumed on Friday morning following the week-long truce with the territory’s ruling militant group Hamas, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza.

Several homes were hit across Gaza on Saturday, with multiple casualties reported in a strike that flattened a multi-story building on the outskirts of Gaza City.

Separately, the ministry announced that the overall death toll in Gaza since the October 7 start of the Israel-Hamas war surpassed 15,200, a sharp jump from the previous count of more than 13,300 on November 20.

The repulsive lapse back into war crimes in the disproportionate response to the brutal Hamas attack on October 7th by Israel has been made more grotesque by the latest news that the IDF had seen large scale intelligence reports highlighting the very attack Hamas launched…

Israel ‘obtained Hamas plans for Oct 7 attack more than a year before’

Israeli officials reportedly saw a blueprint for Hamas’s October 7 massacre more than a year before it was carried out, prompting fresh questions about intelligence failures over the attack that claimed 1,200 lives…

…the IDF arrogantly wrote the fears off.

The problem of America giving Israel $3.8B each year in military aid is that level of power and abuse of power over occupied Palestinians creates a false sense of security.

The failure of intelligence here is just breath taking in its scale of hubris.

The IDF refused to believe that the intense pressure of a 17 year blockade and continued theft of Palestinian land on the West Bank could generate the anger required to pull off the attack Hamas barbarically did.

900 dead soldiers, 300 civilians and 150 hostages do not justify killing over 15 000, 70% of whom are women and children!

Israel has killed more people in 2 months than Russia has managed against the Ukraine in 2 years of war and we are very clear about calling Putin’s violence a war crime!

The IDF dropped 6000 bombs on Gaza in the first week which was more than America dropped on Afghanistan in a year!

No one can pretend what Israel is pursuing here is a legitimate response, it is a brutal group punishment that steps well over the war crime definition!

Telling us repeatedly that the IDF doesn’t target civilians, they target Hamas – sure, fine and good. But when Hamas are under a Hospital, bombing it to hit the Hospital has the exact same outcome as targeting the civilians in the first place!

This isn’t eye for an eye, this is eye for a face, for a limb, for a body organ!

There are an estimated 4000 trapped under rubble, that added to the known death rate is pushing this to 20 000 dead.

This is a frenzied attack of hate and vengeance on a biblical scale.

People of conscience must keep calling for an immediate ceasefire, and let us all be very clear that criticising the disproportionate war crimes being committed on a civilian population in the manner Israel has conducted is not antisemitism!

This is carnage, unnecessary, cruel carnage and it must end.

No one of conscience can defend this any longer.

I stand with the people of Palestine and the people of Israel.

 

 

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