https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/18/israel-starvation-used-weapon-war-gaza

Evidence Indicates Civilians Deliberately Denied Access to Food, Water

• The Israeli government is using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the Gaza Strip, which is a war crime.
• Israeli officials have made public statements expressing their aim to deprive civilians in Gaza of food, water, and fuel – statements reflected in Israeli forces’ military operations.
• The Israeli government should not attack objects necessary for the survival of the civilian population, lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip, and restore electricity and water. 

(Jerusalem) – The Israeli government is using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the occupied Gaza Strip, which is a war crime, Human Rights Watch said today. Israeli forces are deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food, and fuel, while willfully impeding humanitarian assistance, apparently razing agricultural areas, and depriving the civilian population of objects indispensable to their survival.

Since Hamas-led fighters attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, high-ranking Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Energy Minister Israel Katz have made public statements expressing their aim to deprive civilians in Gaza of food, water and fuel – statements reflecting a policy being carried out by Israeli forces. Other Israeli officials have publicly stated that humanitarian aid to Gaza would be conditioned either on the release of hostages unlawfully held by Hamas or Hamas’ destruction.

“For over two months, Israel has been depriving Gaza’s population of food and water, a policy spurred on or endorsed by high-ranking Israeli officials and reflecting an intent to starve civilians as a method of warfare,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. “World leaders should be speaking out against this abhorrent war crime, which has devastating effects on Gaza’s population.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed 11 displaced Palestinians in Gaza between November 24 and December 4. They described their profound hardships in securing basic necessities. “We had no food, no electricity, no internet, nothing at all,” said one man who had left northern Gaza. “We don’t know how we survived.”

Read more at Human Rights Watch

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/11/opinion/international-world/us-government-gaza-humanitarian-aid.html 

By Michelle Nunn, Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, Jan Egeland, Abby Maxman, Jeremy Konyndyk and Janti Soeripto

We are no strangers to human suffering — to conflict, to natural disasters, to some of the world’s largest and gravest catastrophes. We were there when fighting erupted in Khartoum, Sudan. As bombs rained down on Ukraine. When earthquakes leveled southern Turkey and northern Syria. As the Horn of Africa faced its worst drought in years. The list goes on.

But as the leaders of some of the world’s largest global humanitarian organizations, we have seen nothing like the siege of Gaza. In the more than two months since the horrifying attack on Israel that killed more than 1,200 people and resulted in some 240 abductions, about 18,000 Gazans — including more than 7,500 children — have been killed, according to the Gazan health ministry. More children have been reported killed in this conflict than in all major global conflicts combined last year.

The atrocities committed by Hamas on Oct. 7 were unconscionable and depraved, and the taking and holding of hostages is abhorrent. The calls for their release are urgent and justified. But the right to self-defense does not and cannot require unleashing this humanitarian nightmare on millions of civilians. It is not a path to accountability, healing or peace. In no other war we can think of in this century have civilians been so trapped, without any avenue or option to escape to save themselves and their children.

Most of our organizations have been operating in Gaza for decades. But we can do nothing remotely adequate to address the level of suffering there without an immediate and complete cease-fire and an end to the siege. The aerial bombardments have rendered our jobs impossible. The withholding of water, fuel, food and other basic goods has created an enormous scale of need that aid alone cannot offset.

(see the full opinion piece on the NY Times).

Over 7,000 children have been killed. We need a ceasefire now! The humanitarian situation is worse by the day and Palestinians fear another Nakba (ethnic cleansing).

Please call, write and call again!

https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/resource/urgent-tell-congress-to-stop-fueling-violence/

Monday, December 11th at 8pm Eastern Time: https://kinema.com/events/israelism-5bdinr

About the event

The U.S. was the lone Security Council member to vote against a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, casting its veto despite nearly 100 states sponsoring the proposal. The American veto provoked outcry from humanitarian and advocacy groups, with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) calling it “a vote against humanity.”

https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-64-u-s-alone-against-the-world-vetoes-security-council-resolution-on-gaza-ceasefire/

To few people’s surprise, but amid widespread consternation, the United States chose on Friday to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. The resolution was brought forward by the United Arab Emirates and co-signed by 97 U.N. member states, after U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made the rare move to invoke Article 99 of the U.N. Charter, which allows the highest representative of the international body to bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter that “threatens the maintenance of international peace and security.”

The U.S., Israel’s foremost ally and financial backer, was the lone country in the 15-member Security Council to vote against the resolution, with the United Kingdom choosing to abstain.

WE ARE COMPLICIT!

The latest Israel-Hamas war has provided an unprecedented opportunity for the IDF to use such tools in a much wider theatre of operations and, in particular, to deploy an AI target-creation platform called “the Gospel”, which has significantly accelerated a lethal production line of targets that officials have compared to a “factory”.

The Guardian can reveal new details about the Gospel and its central role in Israel’s war in Gaza, using interviews with intelligence sources and little-noticed statements made by the IDF and retired officials.

This article also draws on testimonies published by the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, which have interviewed several current and former sources in Israel’s intelligence community who have knowledge of the Gospel platform.

Their comments offer a glimpse inside a secretive, AI-facilitated military intelligence unit that is playing a significant role in Israel’s response to the Hamas massacre in southern Israel on 7 October.

The slowly emerging picture of how Israel’s military is harnessing AI comes against a backdrop of growing concerns about the risks posed to civilians as advanced militaries around the world expand the use of complex and opaque automated systems on the battlefield.

“Other states are going to be watching and learning,” said a former White House security official familiar with the US military’s use of autonomous systems.

The Israel-Hamas war, they said, would be an “important moment if the IDF is using AI in a significant way to make targeting choices with life-and-death consequences”.

Read more at the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/01/the-gospel-how-israel-uses-ai-to-select-bombing-targets

The breaking story came from +972 Magazine:

‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza

The Israeli army’s expanded authorization for bombing non-military targets, the loosening of constraints regarding expected civilian casualties, and the use of an artificial intelligence system to generate more potential targets than ever before, appear to have contributed to the destructive nature of the initial stages of Israel’s current war on the Gaza Strip, an investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call reveals. These factors, as described by current and former Israeli intelligence members, have likely played a role in producing what has been one of the deadliest military campaigns against Palestinians since the Nakba of 1948.

https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/

PORTLAND, Ore. (KPTV) – It’s been over a month since violence sparked back up in Israel and Palestine with the Health Ministry in Gaza reporting they lost the ability to count Palestinian deaths. The last official report earlier this month exceeded 11,000 people, half of whom are children. It’s all a part of Israel’s military response to Hamas’ October 7th attack, where more than a thousand Israelis were killed and hundreds more taken hostage.

For weeks since the initial attack, world leaders have been calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, a small piece of land home to 2.2 million people, that is about the size of Portland. On Tuesday, Israel agreed to a brief halt in the fighting to allow for the release of 50 Israeli hostages, as well as the release of 150 Palestinians being held in Israel. Some Oregon leaders were part of the call for a ceasefire, including Sen. Jeff Merkley. The senator said in a statement his decision to do so came after speaking with Oregonians who have ties to the region, including Nael Saker and Joel Beinin.

Read Amal Elhelw’s report on KPTV12

Read the full opinion piece by Bernie Sanders on the NY Times

Finally, if Palestinians are to have any hope for a decent future, there must be a commitment to broad peace talks to advance a two-state solution in the wake of this war. The United States, the international community and Israel’s neighbors must move aggressively toward that goal. This would include dramatically increased international support for the Palestinian people, including from wealthy Gulf States. It would also mean the promise of full recognition of Palestine pending the formation of a new democratically elected government committed to peace with Israel.

Let’s be clear: this is not going to happen on its own. Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party was explicitly formed on the premise that “between the Sea and the Jordan [River] there will only be Israeli sovereignty,” and the current coalition agreement reinforces that goal. This is not just ideology. The Israeli government has systematically pursued this goal. The last year saw record Israeli settlement growth in the West Bank, where more than 700,000 Israelis now live in areas that the United Nations and the United States agree are occupied territories. They have used state violence to back up this de facto annexation. Since Oct. 7, the United Nations reports that at least 208 Palestinians, including 53 children, have been killed by Israeli security forces and settlers. This cannot be allowed to continue.

Mr. Netanyahu has made clear where he stands on these critical issues. So should we. If asking nicely worked, we wouldn’t be in this position. The only way these necessary changes will happen is if the United States uses the substantial leverage we have with Israel. And we all know what that leverage is.

For many years, the United States has provided Israel substantial sums of money — with close to no strings attached. Currently, we provide $3.8 billion a year. President Biden has asked for $14.3 billion more on top of that sum and asked Congress to waive normal, already-limited oversight rules. The blank check approach must end. The United States must make clear that while we are friends of Israel, there are conditions to that friendship and that we cannot be complicit in actions that violate international law and our own sense of decency. That includes an end to indiscriminate bombing; a significant pause to bombing so that massive humanitarian assistance can come into the region; the right of displaced Gazans to return to their homes; no long-term Israeli occupation of Gaza; an end to settler violence in the West Bank and a freeze on settlement expansion; and a commitment to broad peace talks for a two-state solution in the wake of the war.

https://www.merkley.senate.gov/merkley-statement-on-ceasefire/

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Oregon’s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley today released the following statement regarding the Israel-Hamas war.

In his statement, the Senator calls for a ceasefire, to include the immediate cessation of hostilities by both sides. He also notes that a ceasefire will not endure unless the ceasefire and the negotiations that follow accomplish a number of objectives, including the release of all hostages and a massive influx of humanitarian aid.

(more…)

Jerusalem in the afternoon is the bitterness of two hundred winter-bare olive trees fallen in the distance.–Deema Shehabi

Jerusalem/ Gaza

(2012-2014)

If there were no separation between
Events in space because of time
How would we order our world?
We would have to live with our history then
And live with our acts always

Ancient walls would be
Obscured by the images of the hands
That lifted the stones, again and again
And we would see those hands
Like a cloud of birds, rising, fluttering.

And we would also see the hands
That cast those stones down
And the shape of each stone falling.
Perhaps seeing that appalling waste
would teach us something.

Some places in the world
Would be thick always
With the images of the slain
Heaped in the roads and gutters like leaves
Fall, the gurgling of clotting drains.

And from on high the view would seem
Like something from a crazy Escher dream
Outlines of the bodies, chalked in as at the scene
Of a crime of such brutal magnitude
No absolution could ever intrude.

— Gilbert Schramm