Israeli settlers destroy truckloads of aid, as Israeli forces watch, Gazans starve – Day 220

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Israeli settlers destroy truckloads of aid, as Israeli forces watch, Gazans starve – Day 220
UN National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan "While the trucks were uploaded with products at the crossing settlers attacked the trucks and they destroyed the products and set fire in trucks," he said, saying Israeli soldiers had stood by as the attack took place. (photo)

Humanitarian aid trucks attacked (not for the first time); US is angry but impotent (not for the first time); Israel targets aid worker’s car, has no explanation (not for the first time); 450,000 Gazans evacuated from shelters (not for the first time); incitement by Israeli settlers and ministers; US military officer resigns; DNC afraid to hold debate about Gaza; campus protest update:

Gaza humanitarian aid trucks attacked and set on fire by right-wing Israeli protesters.

By IAK staff, from reports

Ha’aretz reports: A truck intended to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip was set on fire near the Negohot settlement in the Hebron Hills of the West Bank. The truck was part of a convoy that was blocked and looted by right-wing protesters against the transfer of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Firefighters arrived at the scene and the police started an investigation.

A senior defense official told Haaretz that “police are turning a blind eye to the riots of lawbreakers who vandalize and burn the aid trucks, using inside information they receive about the movement of trucks.”

Earlier Monday, close to 100 people blocked an aid convoy, emptied trucks of their contents and damaged nine of them. Four people were arrested in the incident. According to Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, the incident lasted for hours, in the presence of Israeli forces who didn’t intervene.

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US expresses both “total outrage” and utter passivity about Israeli settlers’ looting of aid trucks.

The National News reports: A top US official on Monday expressed “total outrage” after Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank attacked vehicles carrying aid headed for Gaza.

Settlers ransacked trucks carrying aid, which had been sent from Jordan at a crossing between the West Bank and Israel, according to Palestinian media and Israeli human rights organizations.

In widely circulated videos, the settlers can be seen throwing aid boxes to the ground and ripping them apart. Other recent videos show trucks set on fire, or sugar poured into their gas tanks.

“It is a total outrage that there are people who are attacking and looting these convoys coming from Jordan going to Gaza,” US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said at a briefing.

“We are looking at the tools that we have to respond to this. And we’re also raising our concerns at the highest level of the Israeli government.”

The US State Department said: “It is our strong view that aid cannot and must not be interfered with.”

NOTE: The US has for months expressed its desire to see appropriate amounts of humanitarian aid reaching the starving people of Gaza on one hand, while undermining Gaza’s largest aid organization on the other; meanwhile Israel has consistently stalled efforts.
In mid-March, Israel promised to “flood” Gaza with aid, but has failed to do so.
Meanwhile, the US is building a “temporary pier” off the Gaza coast to receive aid by sea – at a cost of at least $320 million – and has, along with other countries, airdropped packages of aid into Gaza – a practice that has caused over 20 Palestinian deaths due to malfunction.
The Biden administration has so far not used its leverage as the provider of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel (with one exception), a move that could potentially end the war in short order.

The car in which a UN staff member was killed and another injured after their vehicle came under fire in Rafah
The car in which a UN staff member was killed and another injured after their vehicle came under fire in Rafah (photo)

Israeli strike hits UN vehicle, killing worker:

The Israeli army claimed on Tuesday that a United Nations vehicle that was struck in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip was in an “active combat zone.”

A UN staff member employed by the UN Department of Safety and Security was killed and another injured after their vehicle came under fire in Rafah while driving to the European Hospital in southern Gaza.

The army claimed that it was not aware of the movement of the UN vehicle.

It added that it was not able to confirm if Israeli forces had fired at the UN vehicle, saying the incident was under review.

The United Nations said Tuesday that it had informed the Israeli authorities of the movements of the vehicle.

NOTE: Israel’s self-investigations consistently whitewash its crimes and fail to appropriately punish the perpetrators.

Israelis Are Attacking Known Aid Worker Locations in Gaza:

At the same time that Israeli settlers – backed by the Israeli military – are destroying the contents of humanitarian aid trucks, and Israeli forces have killed another UN worker in Gaza, Human Rights Watch issues a new report on Israeli violence against aid workers and supplies:

Israeli forces have carried out at least eight strikes on aid workers’ convoys and premises in Gaza since October 2023, even though aid groups had provided their coordinates to the Israeli authorities to ensure their protection, Human Rights Watch said today. Israeli authorities did not issue advance warnings to any of the aid organizations before the strikes, which killed or injured at least 31 aid workers and those with them. More than 250 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since the October 7 assault in Israel, according to the UN.

The eight incidents reveal fundamental flaws with the so-called deconfliction system, meant to protect aid workers and allow them to safely deliver life-saving humanitarian assistance in Gaza.

“Israel’s killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers was shocking and should never have happened under international law,” said Belkis Wille, associate crisis, conflict, and arms director at Human Rights Watch. “Israel’s allies need to recognize that these attacks that have killed aid workers have happened over and over again, and they need to stop.”

Israel’s attack on April 1 on the World Central Kitchen convoy, which killed seven workers, far from being an isolated “mistake,” is just one of at least eight incidents that Human Rights Watch identified in which aid organizations and UN agencies had communicated with Israeli authorities the GPS coordinates of an aid convoy or premises and yet Israeli forces attacked the convoy or shelter without any warning.

(Read the full report here.)

NOTE: Israel has on multiple occasions fired at individuals waiting for food aid (recently killing over 100 at one time), at least once allegedly sending fake text messages to Gazans, telling them to assemble and then shooting at them when they did; Israel has also attacked food aid convoys and those who accompanied them several times. Additionally, Israeli citizens have blocked border crossings for weeks with no meaningful attempt by Israel to reopen them. 
In mid-March, Israel promised to “flood” Gaza with aid, but has failed to do so.
The vehicle where aid workers from the World Central Kitchen were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Monday
The vehicle where aid workers from the World Central Kitchen were killed in an Israeli airstrike on April 1 (photo)

Israeli army forces displaced Palestinians to evacuate schools:

Al Jazeera reports: Monday morning, the Israeli army forced hundreds of displaced families to evacuate six UNRWA schools that were turned into shelters for displaced people in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.

Al Jazeera filmed the displacement of families from the area of the schools towards the western areas of Jabalia camp.

In the footage, Palestinian families are seen fleeing amid near continuous shelling and gunfire from the areas where Israeli vehicles have entered east of Jabalia refugee camp.

Israeli forces also fired on ambulances trying to reach the wounded as Israeli air raids pound crowded residential areas within the refugee camp, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.

On Nakba Day, settler waves Israel flag in Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyard:

Middle East Monitor reports: An illegal Israeli settler today raised an Israeli flag in the grounds of Al-Aqsa Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem.

Following calls by extremist Israeli groups, illegal settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex today to mark Israel’s independence day, with one settler raising an Israeli flag before being told to take it down by occupation forces.

While Israelis mark their independence day today, Palestinians will commemorate 76 years since the Nakba – the ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine to make way for the creation of the state of Israel – tomorrow.

Settlers also placed an Israeli flag on the Mughrabi Gate area, the gate used by illegal Israeli settlers to storm the mosque.

Israeli minister supports call to build settlements in Gaza:

Israel’s Housing and Construction Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, who heads the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, has voiced support for renewed Israeli settlement in the war-torn and besieged Gaza Strip.

The hardliner published a video on X endorsing a march expected to take place on May 15 – commemorating 76 years since Israel was founded – which call for settlements in Gaza.

NOTE: In order to settle in Gaza, Israel would have to transfer Palestinians out of the Strip or uphold the current displacement of most of the population. Forced transfer of a people group is a crime against humanity.
Israel has illegally built around 280 settlements on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, which are home to more than 700,000 illegal settlers. Israeli settlements and settlers on Palestinian land are a violation of international law. Settlers, moreover, have a history of violence against Palestinians, often with the assistance of Israeli military forces.
Jewish settler attacks against Palestinians are routine in the West Bank.
Jewish settler attacks against Palestinians are routine in the West Bank. (Activestills.org)

ICJ to hold hearings on extra provisional measures over Israel’s Rafah attack:

Middle East Eye reports: The International Court of Justice will hold hearings on Thursday and Friday to discuss new emergency measures sought by South Africa over Israel’s attacks on Rafah during the war in Gaza, the tribunal said Monday.

The hearings will deal with South Africa’s request to the court to order more emergency measures against Israel over its attacks on Rafah as part of its ongoing case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.

U.S. Military Officer Resigns Over Israel’s War in Gaza:

Wall Street Journal reports: A military officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency has resigned his commission in protest of America’s support for Israel during its campaign against Hamas in Gaza, as sentiment against the conflict intensifies inside the Biden administration and across the country.

An image from Maj. Harrison Mann’s LinkedIn profile
An image from Maj. Harrison Mann’s LinkedIn profile (PHOTO)

Army Maj. Harrison Mann, a Middle East analyst, posted on LinkedIn on Monday that he was resigning over the administration’s support for the war in Gaza. DIA performs intelligence collection and analysis on foreign militaries, including those of Israel and Hamas.

Biden administration officials have resigned in protest of the war and an enlisted airman set himself on fireU.S. support for Israel’s war

NEW YORK TIMES ADDS: “My work here — however administrative or marginal it appeared — has unquestionably contributed to that support,” his post said. “The past months have presented us with the most horrific and heartbreaking images imaginable…This caused me incredible shame and guilt.”

“At some point — whatever the justification — you’re either advancing a policy that enables the mass starvation of children, or you’re not,” he added.

“I know that I did, in my small way, wittingly advance that policy,” the major wrote. “And I want to clarify that as the descendant of European Jews, I was raised in a particularly unforgiving moral environment when it came to the topic of bearing responsibility for ethnic cleansing.”

With protests over Gaza raging, Dem convention organizers are plotting how to prevent disruption:

Politico reports: President Joe Biden’s top advisers are all too aware the ghosts of 1968 may haunt their convention in Chicago, but they’re grappling with how can they mitigate the threat of disruption inside the arena, and how will they navigate a rookie mayor who unabashedly sympathizes with protesters?

The goal: drive maximum viewership on television and the internet while minimizing live programming and openings for protest in Chicago’s United Center. This would mean moving party business, such as rules and platform votes, off the floor and denying would-be demonstrators a chance to seize on contentious debates.

So with campus protests over the war in Gaza raging and Biden being disrupted nearly everywhere he goes, Chicago’s organizers are plotting on how to preempt opportunities for heckling and quickly tamp down demonstrators who do get into the arena.

Critics object: “The DNC’s attempt to sideline genuine discourse and sanitize the convention undermines the spirit of democracy that our party’s voting base expects them to champion. Open the party doors to genuine debate, let delegates speak freely, and show that the party still stands for the basic tenets of freedom and democracy.

“We demand a meeting with the senior planners of the convention and DNC Chair Jaime Harrison to ensure delegates can attend in-person and speak freely, allowing the party to stand for true democratic participation.

“…we expect a “pro-democracy” president to welcome members of his party who care about the basic rights of Palestinians as much as he does Israelis and Americans.”

UC San Diego students condemn university stance:

Mondoweiss reports: Students, faculty, and staff from the UCSD Divest Coalition joined 160 encampments across the globe to demand an end to our institutions’ silence and complicity in genocide. On May 6 at 5:45 a.m., UCSD administration dispatched over one hundred police officers dressed in full riot gear to violently arrest more than 60 members of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, including over 40 students and faculty.

It is in the context of this accelerating campaign of genocidal violence against the Palestinian people that we, as UCSD graduate students, write to express our outrage and disappointment that Dr. Joe Uziel was invited to present a job talk on our campus on March 7. Dr. Uziel’s work as the director of archaeological digs in Silwan directly contributes to ongoing efforts by the Israeli state to systematically erase, displace, and eliminate the Palestinian people.

During Dr. Uziel’s eight years as Director, 129 homes and community buildings were demolished, 166 individuals were displaced, and 673 individuals were impacted through their direct displacement or the destruction of their workplaces. His work is central to a project of ethnic cleansing facilitated by a pseudo-scientific form of archaeology that seeks to legitimize the Zionist colonial project by providing evidence to support the reductive and historically inaccurate narrative of Jews as the original indigenous people of Israel…

(Read the students’ full statement and demands here.)

RECOMMENDED READING: Princeton Alumni call on university to divest and end complicity in genocide
NYPD officers in riot gear march onto Columbia University campus
NYPD officers in riot gear march onto Columbia University campus (photo)

Pro-Palestine campus protests are ‘essential’ to democracy, says Ben and Jerry’s board

Reuters reports: The board of the ice cream brand owned by Unilever has said that the pro-Palestine protests sweeping US college campuses and graduation ceremonies are “essential” to democracy.

The Vermont-based frozen dairy dessert maker, sold on some college campuses, called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza in January.

“Lunch counter sit-ins, student-led protests against the Vietnam War and Apartheid South Africa, and now the campus protests in solidarity with Gaza, all are part of our rich history of free speech and non-violent protest that makes change and is essential to a strong democracy,” the independent board said in a statement.

Three years ago, Ben and Jerry’s announced it would stop selling its ice cream in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, saying it was “inconsistent” with its values, and leading parent company Unilever to look for a “new arrangement” for selling the ice cream in Israel.

Unilever then offloaded its Israeli Ben and Jerry’s business to a local licensee, keeping the ice cream for sale in the country.

Campus protest updates

More News:

Al Jazeera: Gaza solidarity encampments: We, as educators, need to protect our students
Palestine Chronicle: “We love Hanan and hate war” – Gaza’s promising female footballer killed with family
IMEMC Reports

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – MAY 13:

Palestinian death toll from October 7 – May 13: at least 35,682* (35,173 in Gaza* – 4,959 women (20%), 7,797 children (32%) identified – and at least 509 in the West Bank (117 children). This does not include an estimated 7,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 42,510 Palestinian deaths.

At least 42 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (27 from Gaza, 14 from West Bank).

At least 31 Palestinian children and several adults have died due to malnutrition**.

About 1.7 million, or 75% of Gaza’s population are currently displaced.

About 1.1 million (out of total population of 2.3 million) are facing Catastrophic levels of food insecurity.

Palestinian injuries from October 7 – May 13: at least 83,827 (including at least 78,827 in Gaza and 5,000 in the West Bank).

It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.

Reported Israeli death toll from October 7 – May 13: ~1,426 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 272 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza;, 16 in the West Bank) and~8,730 injured.

Times of Israel reports: The IDF also listed 41 soldiers killed due to friendly fire in Gaza and other military-related accidents – nearly 16%.

NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.

*Previously, IAK did not include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile was being disputed. However, given that much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, Israel had previously bombed the hospital and has attacked many others, Israel is prohibiting outside experts from investigating the scene, and since the UN and other agencies are including the deaths from the attack in their cumulative totals, if Americans knew is now also doing so.

**Euro-Med Monitor reports that Gaza’s elderly are dying at an alarmingly high rate. The majority die at home and are buried either close to their residences or in makeshift graves dispersed across the Strip. There are currently more than 140 such cemeteries. Additionally, according to Euromed, thousands have died from starvation, malnourishment, and inadequate medical care; these are considered indirect victims as they were not registered in hospitals. 

Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here.

Hover over each bar for exact numbers.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org

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