Palestinians in Gaza can’t seem to run fast enough to keep up with Israeli evacuation orders; can’t dig airstrike victims out of the rubble; Israel reportedly was aware of UN car that it bombed, killing a high-ranking international worker; Israeli police reportedly knew about aid convoy and allowed its destruction; Israel appears ready for a full-scale invasion of Rafah; Ben Gvir calls for expulsion; Palestinian killed in West Bank; Biden seeks approval for another $1 billion in military sales to Israel; campus protest update, more
By IAK staff, from reports
Palestinians mark 76 years of dispossession as a potentially even larger catastrophe unfolds in Gaza
Associated Press reports: Palestinians on Wednesday will mark the 76th year of their mass expulsion from what is now Israel, an event that is at the core of their national struggle. But in many ways, that experience pales in comparison to the calamity now unfolding in Gaza.
Palestinians refer to it as the Nakba, Arabic for catastrophe. Some 700,000 Palestinians — a majority of the prewar population — fled or were driven from their homes before and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that followed Israel’s establishment.
After the war, Israel refused to allow them to return because it would have resulted in a Palestinian majority within its borders.
Instead, they became a seemingly permanent refugee community that now numbers some 6 million, with most living in slum-like urban refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
In Gaza, the refugees and their descendants make up around three-quarters of the population.
Now, many Palestinians fear a repeat of their painful history on an even more cataclysmic scale.
All across Gaza, Palestinians in recent days have been loading up cars and donkey carts or setting out on foot to already overcrowded tent camps as Israel expands its offensive. The images from several rounds of mass evacuations throughout the seven-month war are strikingly similar to black-and-white photographs from 1948.
Mustafa al-Gazzar, now 81, still recalls his family’s monthslong flight from their village in what is now central Israel to the southern city of Rafah, when he was 5. At one point they were bombed from the air, at another, they dug holes under a tree to sleep in for warmth.
(Read the full article here.)
Gaza rescue efforts may stop due to lack of fuel, heavy equipment
Al Jazeera reports: Gaza’s civil defense crew is struggling to reach victims trapped under the rubble of bombed buildings. Israeli forces “continue to target and destroy the heavy equipment that helps us recover the victims”, said the spokesperson at a press conference outside Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah.
A severe fuel shortage is further straining rescue efforts, which may soon come to “a total halt”, added the spokesperson.
“As we speak, hundreds of victims remain buried under the rubble and our teams are not able to recover them. These numbers are continuing to rise.”
An Israeli attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp targeted a three-story residential building where an estimated 100 people were sheltering. The structure was completely flattened.
Some of those killed were newly displaced people from Rafah.
![Search for survivors after Israeli strikes on Nuseirat refugee camp](https://iakn.wpmudev.host/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/5-15-n-300x200.jpg)
Epidemic risk rising as Rafah invasion intensifies lethal cocktail of over-crowding, sewage and hunger
Oxfam reports: Israeli attacks since October has caused at least $210m worth of damage to Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure.
The destruction of critical water and sanitation infrastructure by the Israeli forces along with severe over-crowding, malnutrition and heat is pushing Gaza to the brink of a deadly epidemic outbreak, Oxfam warns.
The international aid agency said at least five of its life-saving water and sanitation projects in the Gaza Strip had been severely damaged or destroyed in the Israeli attacks since 7 October.
Oxfam staff in Gaza have described piles of human waste and rivers of sewage in the streets, which people are having to jump between. They also reported people having to drink dirty water and children being bitten by insects swarming around the sewage.
Conditions are ripe for the outbreak of epidemics including Hepatitis A and cholera, which thrive in overcrowded places lacking proper sanitation. Soaring temperatures are also increasing health risks.
(Read the full, disturbing report here.)
![Palestinians who take refuge in a tent camp in Rafah face the risk of epidemics due to uncollected rubbish and accumulated sewage water, Friday](https://iakn.wpmudev.host/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/4-27-g-300x200.jpg)
Jabalia evacuation centers besieged
UN informed Israel of vehicle fatally hit in Gaza
Al Jazeera reports:: The United Nations says it informed Israeli authorities of the movements of a vehicle carrying UN staff that was hit in southern Gaza, killing an Indian army colonel.
One UN security services member, Colonel Waibhav Kale, was killed and another wounded in the attack on Monday, marking the first death of a UN international employee in the Palestinian territory since the war began more than seven months ago.
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of Colonel Waibhav Kale, working for the UN Department of Safety and Security [DSS] in Gaza,” UN spokesperson Rolando Gomez told a media briefing.
“The UN informs Israeli authorities of the movement of all of our convoys. That has been the case in any theatre of operation. This is a standard operating procedure. This was the case yesterday morning so we have informed them. And it was a clearly marked UN vehicle.”
When asked about the attack, the Israeli military said it had “not been made aware of the route of the vehicle,” adding, “the incident is under review.”
NOTE: Israel’s self-investigations consistently whitewash its crimes and fail to appropriately punish the perpetrators. Israeli sources, including the government itself, have a long track record of lying (for example, this and this and this.)
‘The police supported them’: Israeli rights activist on aid convoy looting
Al Jazeera reports: Sapir Sluzker Amran, an Israeli human rights lawyer who went to the Tarqumiyah crossing in Hebron to document the looting of a Gaza-bound aid convoy yesterday, has described the scenes to Al Jazeera.
For hours, a group of far-right Israeli activists tore food parcels out of aid trucks and destroyed them, including boxes of rice and noodles headed to desperately hungry people in Gaza.
Police at the scene protected the activists, giving them “full permission to do whatever they wanted”, said Sluzker Amran.
“I didn’t see anyone being arrested. The only one who was asked to leave was me,” she added, noting that the activists also threatened and physically attack her for trying to document the incident.
She said she believes police or security forces fed the activists information on when and where the aid trucks would arrive, with the information being shared openly on social media platforms.
Elsewhere, Al Jazeera adds: Little is being done on the part of the Israeli government to stop this. Israel has an incredibly powerful security force, particularly when it comes to looking at Palestinian protesters. But they’re not doing the same when it comes to these protests.
According to media reports, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right-wing security minister, told the police not to get involved because his ideology is the same as that of protesters. He wants settlements to start again in Gaza, he doesn’t want aid to get in and doesn’t want a ceasefire.
US officials: Israel has amassed enough troops to launch full-scale incursion into Rafah
Netanyahu Ministers Join Israeli Far-right ‘March to Gaza,’ Demand Palestinians’ Expulsion
Ha’aretz reports: Thousands of Israelis joined a far-right Independence Day march on Tuesday in the south, led by Jewish activists advocating for resettling Gaza and forcing Palestinians to leave the enclave.
![Itamar Ben Gvir](https://iakn.wpmudev.host/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/5-15-bg-300x300.jpg)
The march was supported by lawmakers speaking at the event, including two cabinet members: Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
“First,” he said, “we must return to Gaza now! We are coming home to the Holy Land! And second,” he continued, “we must encourage emigration. Encourage the voluntary emigration of the residents of Gaza. It is moral!” He also called the forced expulsion of Gazans the “true solution.”
NOTE: The Palestinian people have made it clear that they do not want to emigrate to anywhere. Forced transfer of a people group is a crime against humanity – a crime that Israel already committed against the Palestinian people in 1948.
Palestinian young man shot dead by Israeli forces in Ramallah
WAFA reports: A Palestinian young man was Wednesday shot dead by Israeli occupation during confrontations that broke out after an occupied West Bank march commemorating the mass displacement of Palestinians in the Nakba of 1948.
Security sources told WAFA that Ayser Mohammad Safi, 20, a student at Birzeit University, a resident in Jalazoun camp, north of the city of Ramallah, was killed after being seriously injured by Israeli live bullets in the neck.
Occupation forces had fired poison gas and sound bombs, which led to dozens suffering from suffocation.
Biden advances $1 billion in arms for Israel amid Rafah tensions
More News:
Al Jazeera: US university ties to weapons contractors under scrutiny amid war in Gaza
Electronic Intifada: Germany eyes new deals with Israel’s merchants of genocide
Middle East Monitor: 10,000 Palestinians left disabled by Israel’s bombing of Gaza
IMEMC Reports
Memorable Quote
[Because land crossings could bring in all the needed aid if Israeli officials allowed, the U.S.-built pier and sea route] is a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist.Like all of the land crossings, it comes down to the consent of the government of Israel [on allowing aid through its screening process and ensuring aid teams are safe to distribute it within Gaza].
If Israel is comfortable with allowing the maritime corridor to function… then it will work in a limited way. And if they don’t, it won’t. Which is why it’s a very, very expensive alternative. ~ Scott Paul, an associate director of the Oxfam humanitarian organization.
NOTE: With a price tag of $320 million, and no guarantee that Israel will allow the pier to be used for humanitarian aid to Gaza, this project is potentially a massive waste of US tax dollars. Even if it is used, it is a waste of taxpayer money because hundreds of truckloads of aid wait just miles from the famine-ridden people, waiting only for Israel to allow them to enter Gaza and distribute it.
“The infrastructure [in Khan Younis] is completely destroyed. There are no water, electricity nor sewage services.”
Displaced people fleeing #Rafah are moving back to destroyed areas that are in no way fit for them to live in. Nowhere is safe in #Gaza. pic.twitter.com/SrIFPDGlHV
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) May 14, 2024
🔴 Yet another hospital in Gaza has been forced to close.
As Israeli forces intensify their onslaught in Rafah, we have been forced to stop providing healthcare at Rafah Indonesian Field Hospital.
Learn more👇https://t.co/DbQvQA71fa
— MSF International (@MSF) May 14, 2024
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – MAY 14:
Palestinian death toll from October 7 – May 14: at least 35,743* (35,233 in Gaza* and at least 510 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 14: at least 84,141 (including at least 79,141 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 14: ~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.
Women and children make up at least 56 percent of the 35,173 people killed in the Gaza war, the UN says, in a new breakdown, which is the “most comprehensive” to date.
**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.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org
- Knowledge is going up in smoke in Gaza
- Who’s Funding AIPAC’s Political Spending Barrage?
- For Columbia and a Powerful Donor, Months of Talks and Millions at Risk
- Columbia crackdown led by university prof doubling as NYPD spook
- Strapped down, blindfolded, held in diapers: Israeli whistleblowers detail abuse of Palestinians in shadowy detention center
- What it’s like to be used as a human shield by the Israeli army
- Detailed study finds 99% of pro-Palestine protests at US universities are peaceful
- VIDEO: Armenian Christians under siege by Israel
- Ex-Israeli special forces agent says he went ‘undercover’ at UCLA protest encampment
- The mainstream media distorted our anti-Vietnam War protests 50 years ago. They’re following the same strategy today
- Pete McCloskey, longtime supporter of Palestinians and USS Liberty veterans, has passed away
- Punishments Rise as Student Protests Escalate
- “Yes, it is genocide” –Israeli genocide scholar
- Israeli Destruction of Gaza: The Facts
- Cruelty of language: Leaked NY Times memo reveals moral depravity of US media
- AIPAC Is Secretly Intervening In Portland’s Congressional Race To Take Down Susheela Jayapal, Sources Say
- Drone footage raises questions about Israeli justification for deadly strike on Gaza journalists
- Here Are the Top Recipients of AIPAC Money
- Mearsheimer: Israel Lobby is why Biden doesn’t stop Israeli genocide
- Journalism professors call on New York Times to review Oct. 7 report
- How an ‘antisemitism hoax’ drowned out the discovery of mass graves in Gaza
- United Methodist Church votes to divest from Israel bonds
- Palestinians in Gaza’s displacement camps face rampant disease due to destroyed infrastructure
- Wave of Legislation Seeks to Penalize Criticism of Israel as “Antisemitism”
- Cable News Viewers Have a Skewed Attitude Toward Gaza War, Survey Finds
- The ‘Antisemitism’ Moral Panic Has Officially Jumped The Shark
- Giraldi: Students Are Taking the Lead in Denouncing Gaza Atrocities
- Commentary: Israel owns our military and Congress via NGO’s FDD & JINSA
- OCTOBER 7—The Lies in Brief
- Palestinian Released From Israeli Prison Describes Beatings, Sexual Abuse and Torture
- What we are seeing in Gaza is a ‘repeat of Auschwitz,’ says genocide expert
- Banning Arab and Anti-occupation Films, This Censorship Agency Shaped Israel for Decades
- Report of the Independent Task Force on National Security Memorandum-20 Regarding Israel
- Commentary: AntiSemitism? God’s ‘Chosen’ People Have Bombed to Death 25,000 Women and Children
- A statistic 1,000 times too small doesn’t warrant a correction in the NY Times
- Three days under fire: Palestinians in Tulkarem describe the ‘most violent’ Israeli raid in years
- ‘Nowhere is safe’: Fear and mourning inside the West Bank villages where Israeli settlers went on the rampage
- US Senator Incites Violence Against Gaza Protesters
- Israel Is Turning Hospitals Into Mass Graves While The West Fixates On ‘Antisemitism’
- State-backed deadly rampage by Israeli settlers underscores urgent need to dismantle apartheid
- Genocide alert issued over Israeli violence in West Bank
- Blinken Is Sitting on Staff Recommendations to Sanction Israeli Military Units Linked to Killings, Rapes
- Leaked New York Times Memo Tells Journalists To Avoid Words “Genocide,” “Ethnic Cleansing,” and “Occupied Territory”
- U.S., Not Israel, Shot Down Most Iran Drones And Missiles
- Sorry, but Iran is not the aggressor here
- Mainstream U.S. media is hiding key truths in its coverage of Iran’s retaliatory attack
- Israel and US deliberately gutting international law in Gaza
- The growing panic about antisemitism isn’t a reflection of reality – The Forward
- Watching the watchdogs: Israel’s attacks on journalists are backfiring
- ‘Come out, you animals’: how the massacre at al-Shifa Hospital happened
- AIPAC Talking Points Revealed
- We Israelis are the biggest Holocaust deniers
- Freedom Flotilla Coalition to bring aid, international observers to Gaza this month
- Israel’s ‘Human Shields’ Lie Has Been Conclusively, Irrefutably Debunked
- 2024 spending bill disburses over $20 million per day to or because of Israel
- ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza
- Will the Israel Lobby Cause America’s Downfall?
- Israel Created ‘Kill Zones’ in Gaza. Anyone Who Crosses Into Them Is Shot
- Why AIPAC is still Israel’s foreign agent
- Hamas’s 2017 Charter: Full Text
- Israeli source of “executed children” lie admits story was untrue
- Another Israeli soldier admits to implementing the ‘Hannibal Directive’ on October 7
- Israeli General Admits War on Gaza Impossible Without US Support (video)
- UN Security Council says Yes to ceasefire; US abstains
- Israeli Soldier’s Video Undercuts Medic’s Account of Sexual Assault
- Report: Israeli forces strip, rape pregnant Gazan woman in public
- Pro-Israel Right Declares War on Candace Owen
- Be informed on things that matter: 6 recommended reads on Palestine & Israel
- It isn’t Netanyahu who is acting against the will of his people, it’s Biden
- Pramila Patten’s Rape Fantasies: A Critical Analysis of the UN Report on Sexual Violence during the 7 October Attack
- Here’s what Pramila Patten’s UN report on Oct 7 sexual violence actually said
- Learn something new about Palestine and Israel this week – recommended reading
- An open letter to VP Kamala Harris on the occasion of her ceasefire speech
- Israel has lost control of the narrative – October 7 truths coming out
- Gaza Becomes Israel’s Testing Ground for US- and Israeli-made Military Robots
- Israeli rapes of Palestinian women and children, past & present
- NYT bombshell alleging Hamas sexual violence debunked once again
- Israeli newspaper: Israeli army ordered the killing of Israeli civilians and soldiers Oct 7
- Gaza’s chronically ill patients are out of medicine, doctors, and hope
- Ignoring Immolators Lulls the Society to Sleep: Aaron Bushnell at the Israeli Embassy: “FREE PALESTINE!”
- No Access, No Information: Thousands of Gazans “Forcibly Disappeared” by Israeli Forces
- “Anti-cancel-culture” Bari Weiss has a history of working to cancel voices she dislikes
- These Are the Jewish Megadonors Helping Fund Biden’s – and Republican Congress Members’ – Reelection Campaigns
- If you love babies, this is a must-read
- A wave of new post-Oct 7th “antisemitism” bills completely miss the point
- CNN staff say network’s pro-Israel slant amounts to ‘journalistic malpractice’
- Facts For Peace: the billionaire-backed campaign attacking the Palestinian cause
- Top military expert Col. Douglas MacGregor warns against attack on Iran (video)
- October 7th myths are still out there, killing Palestinians
- NYT: Where Is Hamas Getting Its Weapons? Increasingly, From Israel.
- 12 Essential Facts for Understanding the Current Israel-Gaza Violence
- Falk: Israel used Oct 7 attack as a pretext for its plan to expel Palestinians
- Synopsis of ICJ’s decision on Israeli genocide, reactions, and take-aways
- The West’s complete contempt for the lives of Palestinians will not be forgotten
- Israel has repeatedly rejected Hamas truce offers
- Why the Guardian’s ‘Hamas mass rape’ story doesn’t pass the sniff test
- Israel’s torture and humiliation of female and male Gazan prisoners
- Coverage of Gaza War in NYTimes & other major papers heavily favored Israel, analysis shows
- Two reports debunk New York Times ‘investigative report’ of mass rape on October 7th
- Israel’s Assault on Gaza Is Unlike Any War in Recent Memory
- US poised to give Israel $18 billion in aid this year
- Gaza Civilians, Under Israeli Barrage, Are Being Killed at Historic Pace