Horrific Israeli attack in Khan Younis with almost no warning

Palestinians, including women and children, living in the east of Khan Younis city move towards safe areas with whatever belongings they can take with them after Israel announced that an operation will be carried out and ordered the Palestinians to evacuate the area immediately in Khan Yunis, Gaza on July 22, 2024. (photo)

77 Gazans killed in Khan Younis with no chance to flee; Israeli army admits leaving Palestinian man with Down Syndrome to die; journalists killed by Israel reaches 163; Israeli forces fire on UN convoy; water and garbage crisis in Gaza; polio vaccines for Israeli soldiers, but not for Gazan civilians; Israel killed 2 more Israeli hostages; 250% increase in killing of West Bank children; Yemeni harbor still ablaze after Israeli strike; Knesset members listen to debunked myths of Oct 7; our founding fathers supported Israel?; JD Vance to skip Netanyahu speech; Dem Majority for Israel endorses Harris; potential VPs regarding Israel; more.

By IAK staff, from reports.

Israel gives 400,000 Palestinians minutes to flee Khan Younis before latest blitz

The Cradle reports: The Israeli army ordered the sudden evacuation of over 400,000 Palestinians taking shelter in eastern Khan Younis on 22 July, dropping leaflets in the besieged city moments before warplanes began their raids.

At least 77 deaths and 200 wounded have been reported in the aftermath of the attacks.

Ha’aretz reports that the death toll from this operation has risen to 89, that 68 are reported missing, and 263 more people were injured. 13 houses in the city were reportedly directly targeted.

Authorities at Nasser Medical Complex appealed for urgent blood donations, saying it faces a shortage of blood units, “which poses a serious threat to the lives of the sick and injured in light of the ongoing massacres carried out by the occupation forces against the innocent and civilians.”

“The IDF is about to forcefully operate against the terror organizations and therefore calls on the remaining population left in the eastern neighborhoods of Khan Younis to temporarily evacuate to the adjusted humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi,” the Israeli military said in a statement on Monday morning.

NOTE: The use of the word “terrorist” for a group that resists occupation and oppression is a political, not fact-based choice. In reality, international law supports the efforts of resistance groups against an occupying power, the UN extending that right to the point of armed resistance.

Israeli Army Radio reported that Monday’s air raids in Khan Younis are the most violent since the end of the military operation in the city earlier this year.

Local reports say many victims are still under the rubble and scattered along the streets, with ambulance and civil defense crews unable to reach them due to the violent and continuous shelling.

AL JAZEERA ADDS: Many fleeing Palestinians are hesitant to join the swelling tent camps in al-Mawasi, declared a humanitarian zone in May, after a recent attack on the area killed at least 92 people and wounded more than 300, according to figures from the Health Ministry. That attack caused global outrage.

OCHA ADDS: The new evacuation order by the Israeli military encompasses about 8.7 square kilometres (3.4 square miles) in the so-called “humanitarian zone” in Al Mawasi area of Khan Younis decreases the area of the zone by nearly 15 per cent.

Tens of 1000s of Palestinians in Khan Younis are running for their lives as the israeli invaders launch a surprise kill-on-sight mass invasion of the city pic.twitter.com/BjsgGzTHtz

— Sarah Wilkinson (@swilkinsonbc) July 22, 2024

Gaza: Israeli army admits abandoning Palestinian man with Down syndrome

Middle East Eye reports: The Israeli army has admitted that a Palestinian man with Down syndrome who died after being attacked and injured by an army dog was abandoned by its soldiers.

The army’s admission comes two weeks after Middle East Eye originally reported on the death of Muhammed Bhar following a raid by Israeli soldiers on his family home in eastern Gaza City’s Shujaiya neighborhood on 3 July.

His family told MEE they had been forced at gunpoint to leave behind the 24-year-old after he was mauled by the dog. Relatives described Muhammed as “like a one-year-old”, and said he needed help eating.

Family members contacted the Red Cross daily for a week, pleading for Muhammed’s release or medical treatment, but were told that the Israeli army was not cooperating.

After a week, and once Israeli troops withdrew from Shujaiya, they returned to find his decomposing body at their home.

An Israeli spokesperson said, “The IDF regrets the harm to civilians during the fighting.”

Number of journalists killed in Gaza rises to 163

The Israeli army struck a tent sheltering journalists in Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, central Gaza on Monday

At least one person, journalist Haydar Ibrahim al-Msaddar, was killed while several others were wounded and suffered serious injuries.

Msaddar was a media researcher and a specialist in media affairs, according to local authorities.

According to his friend and fellow journalist Islam Bader, Msaddar had specialized in the study of propaganda and public opinion.

“All the contents in the tent are journalistic equipment,” Youssef al-Hindi, a rescue worker who attended the scene after hearing the explosion, told Middle East Eye.

Holding up a press helmet he found at the scene, Hindi said that he believes the journalists’ tent was intentionally targeted.

Khalil al-Dakran, a doctor at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, agreed. It was the second time a tent in the grounds of the hospital had been hit, he said.

Israeli forces shoot at UN convoy heading for Gaza City

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), said that Israeli forces shot at a UN convoy heading towards Gaza City on Sunday.

The movement of the convoy was coordinated and approved by the Israeli authorities.

“One vehicle received at least five bullets while waiting just ahead of the Israeli Forces’ checkpoint south of Wadi Gaza,” Lazzarini said on X.

“The car was severely damaged, it left the convoy. The teams re-assembled & finally reached Gaza City.”

He concluded saying that “those responsible must be held accountable.”

STOP everything you're doing & listen to what Jewish American Doctor Mark Perlmutter saw in Gaza: pic.twitter.com/ZbltdHqE6l

— Omar Baddar عمر بدّار (@OmarBaddar) July 22, 2024

Medical Threat: Water and Garbage in Gaza

A new report by PAX, an international NGO, highlights the growing public health risks of solid waste exposure in Gaza due to the collapse of the waste management system and blocked access to designated landfills by Israeli forces.

The report especially highlighted the potential medical threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), whereby patients in conflict areas fail to respond to antibiotic treatments, which health experts have linked to the degradation and damage of water and wastewater treatment infrastructure as well as to heavy-metal exposure including munition remnants.

The environmental consequences of the crisis are also enormous, according to the report, as they can render Gaza wholly uninhabitable and cause grave ecosystem and public health problems in the overall region due to the contamination of agricultural lands and the aquifer and the possible penetration of toxic substances into the food chain.

The report presents a number of short-term and long-term recommendations for policymakers.

FOR A SAMPLING OF REPORTS ON ISRAEL’S RECENT HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS, SEE Human rights reports on Israel-Palestine (regularly updated)

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Israel launches polio vaccination campaign for soldiers in Gaza, nothing for Palestinians

The New Arab reports: On Sunday, the Israeli army launched a campaign to vaccinate its soldiers who are carrying out military operations in the Gaza Strip to avoid the infection of poliovirus, while ignoring the Palestinian population.

Israel’s vaccination campaign occurs after an official announcement issued by the Palestinian health ministry said it discovered the spread of the poliovirus in the wastewater in the war-torn, besieged Gaza Strip.

“The coastal enclave has been suffering from the lack of medicine and even vaccines that would be enough for the local people to avoid the spread of the poliovirus,” said sources.

Meanwhile, Israel claimed “it sent about 300,000 polio vaccines to Gaza in cooperation with international organizations since the beginning of the war […] which is enough for more than a million citizens in Gaza.”

“All the Israeli claims are not true […] it seems that the Israeli authorities decided to kill all the Palestinians in Gaza, either through the strikes or diseases and starvation,” Ismail Thawabta, the director of the Palestinian government media office in Gaza, remarked to TNA.

HA’ARETZ ADDS: The IDF stresses that the soldiers not make any use of the local Gazan water system, and that the army regularly brings in large quantities of water from Israel, including millions of bottles of water for drinking and bathing, and tons of ice, as well as field showers, soap and disinfectant wipes.

According to a recent Lancet study, the death toll in Gaza could be at least 186,000 dead due to direct and indirect impacts of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Knesset passes bills to close UNRWA, label it ‘terrorist organization’

Middle East Eye reports: Israel’s parliament has passed three bills in their first readings to close the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and designate it a “terrorist organization”.

The first bill prohibits UNRWA from operating any mission, providing any service or conducting any activity on Israeli territory. It was passed 58-9, The Times of Israel newspaper reported.

The second bill was approved 63-9 and calls for stripping UNRWA personnel of their legal immunities and privileges offered to UN staff in Israel.

The third bill calls for designating the UN agency as a “terrorist organization” and requires Israel to cut ties with it. It was passed by a 50-10 vote.

The three bills will now go to the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for further deliberation. They will require two more readings to become effective.

Israel has lobbied hard to have UNRWA closed, especially since it began its war on Gaza in October.

Two Israeli hostages confirmed dead – IDF admits likely at fault

Jerusalem Post reports: The Israeli military confirmed on Monday that two more hostages are dead, and that they were probably mistakenly killed by IDF forces during battles in Khan Younis some months ago.

On March 10, Hamas had announced that the two hostages had been killed, but Israeli officials chose to assume the announcement was a bluff, and did not believe it. Now, based on “new, unspecified intelligence,” they have accepted their deaths as fact.

The IDF did not disclose the exact circumstances of the hostages’ deaths, but did admit it is likely that they were mistakenly killed by Israeli forces.

NOTE: Hamas offered a prisoner swap immediately after October 7th, but Israel rejected it.

Israel’s Netanyahu says deal could be nearing for hostages

The New Arab reports: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told families of hostages held in Gaza that a deal that would secure their loved ones’ release could be nearing, his office said on Tuesday.

“The conditions are undoubtedly ripening. This is a good sign,” Netanyahu told the families on Monday in Washington, where was expected to meet US President Joe Biden later this week after making an address to Congress.

Efforts to reach a Gaza ceasefire deal, outlined by Biden in May and mediated by Egypt and Qatar, have gained momentum over the past month. On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said negotiators were “driving toward the goal line.”

Ruby Chen, father of dual US-Israeli citizen Itai Chen, a soldier whose body is being held in Gaza, was one of the family members who met with Netanyahu.

“He did say that conditions were ripening but I’m taking that with a pinch of salt,” Chen told Israeli Army Radio.

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Israel’s West Bank Assault Sparks 250% Surge in Killings of Palestinian Kids

Common Dreams reports: Three days after the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion stating that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is unlawful, the United Nations children’s rights agency said that after decades of being “exposed to horrific violence,” the number of children who have been killed in the West Bank since last October has skyrocketed.

Since Israel began its bombardment of the Palestinian territories nearly 10 months ago, 143 Palestinian children have been killed in the West Bank, according to the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

The number represents a 250% increase compared to the nine months preceding October 7th.

“The situation has deteriorated significantly, coinciding with the escalation of hostilities inside Gaza,” said Catherine Russell, executive director of UNICEF. “We are seeing frequent allegations of Palestinian children being detained on their way home from school, or shot while walking on the streets. The violence needs to stop now.”

Some of the killings of children in the West Bank over the last 10 months have received international attention, like the Israeli forces’ shooting of two children, Basil Suleiman Abu al-Wafa and Adam Samer al-Ghoul, during a raid on the Jenin refugee camp in November.

Al-Ghoul, who was nine, was shown on CCTV footage trying to run away from IDF soldiers when he was gunned down.

Since October, two Israeli children have been killed in fighting the West Bank, said UNICEF.

Yemeni harbor still ablaze two days after Israeli attack, as US says Israel justified

Al Jazeera reports: Firefighting teams are struggling to contain a blaze at Yemen’s Hodeidah port, two days after a deadly Israeli strike damaged oil storage facilities and endangered aid ships in the harbor, AFP reports.

Firefighting teams appear to have made little progress. The blaze appears to be expanding in some parts of the port amid fears it could reach food storage facilities.

High-resolution satellite images taken by Maxar Technologies showed flames consuming a heavily damaged fuel storage area at the harbor in Hodeidah, a city on the Red Sea.

An analysis of satellite imagery from Planet by the Dutch peace organization PAX showed at least 33 destroyed oil storage tankers, said Wim Zwijnenburg, a project leader with the organization.

“We expect [to find] more damage as not all storage tanks are visible because of heavy smoke” from the fire and burning fuel, Zwijnenburg said.

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Knesset hears [fictitious] accounts of Hamas rape, infanticide from “casualty identification unit”

Israel Hayom reports: In a chilling testimony before Knesset, Rabbi Moshe Dickstein, who served as a reservist in the IDF’s Southern Command, provided disturbing details of the alleged atrocities committed by Hamas members during the October 7 attack on Israeli communities.

NOTE: Israel has disseminated numerous atrocity stories about the October 7th attack that have since been proven untrue. In addition, an unknown but significant number of the Israeli soldiers and civilians killed on October 7 were shown to have been killed by Israeli fire. The Israeli military has also disseminated false stories about civilians captured.

Visit https://www.oct7factcheck.com/index for a growing list of debunked myths.

“The first body we came across was an overturned stroller. Inside the stroller was a baby, and his head was thrown aside with a knife in it. The woman we found, presumably the mother, was lying on the couch with blood flowing from her private area. We were told to collect only the bodies. In the next stage, they would come to clean up the blood and everything else,” Rabbi Dickstein said, choking back tears.

The rabbi continued with the difficult [and fabricated] descriptions: “And so we went from house to house and found women lying on the floor with legs spread, it’s indescribable. Another house and another house, then also in the field. They cut off men’s genitals, and we found women with severed breasts. A pregnant woman with her belly opened up to reveal the umbilical cord and the baby with a knife in its body.”

NOTE: There is zero evidence that any of these alleged incidents actually occurred. Israeli media and others have thoroughly debunked these and similar stories months ago.

Channel 14 Israeli TV anchor says: we israelis are coming, we’re going to kill everyone in the world, including all of America — now do you get it? pic.twitter.com/S2oRknMucx

— Sarah Wilkinson (@swilkinsonbc) July 22, 2024

Even Israeli TV presenters call them liars…but now they cannot speak pic.twitter.com/ThtoDat1Qo

— JP (@creatingpages) July 22, 2024

Colonists break into Jerusalem’s Aqsa Mosque, perform Talmudic rituals

WAFA reports: Israeli colonists, under the protection of Israeli police, Monday morning broke into Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied Jerusalem.

Eyewitnesses said that dozens of colonists entered the holy site in groups, conducted provocative tours throughout the compound, and performed Talmudic rituals.

During the incursion, Israeli police imposed restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshippers to the mosque.

Additionally, Israeli police intensified the restrictions at the gates of the Old City, effectively turning the area into a military zone.

Ahistorical statement by Speaker Johnson: Supporting Israel Is One of America’s ‘Founding Principles’

Antiwar reports: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) described US support for Israel as one of America’s “founding principles” during a speech at an event hosted by the Republican Jewish Committee on July 18.

“It is an important principle that America and Israel stand together resolutely. That is part of who we are as a country. It’s one of our founding principles. I believe that we maintain peace through strength, and I think that the relationship with Israel is essential to who we are as Americans,” Johnson said.

Since the modern state of Israel was created in 1948, it’s unclear what Johnson meant when he said the US-Israel relationship is a “founding principle.” The most well-known Founding Fathers would also disagree with Johnson since they strongly warned against permanent alliances and “attachments” to other nations.

In his farewell address in 1796, George Washington said, “A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification.”

Johnson also threatened Democratic lawmakers with possible arrest if they protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress, which is scheduled for this Thursday.

“There’s a number of Democrats in the House who have said they are going to boycott the event, and then some others are gonna protest,” he said. “We’re gonna have extra sergeants at arms on the floor, and if anybody gets out of hand the Speaker of the House will bang the gavel. We’re gonna arrest people if we have to do it. We’re gonna get the message out.”

Democratic Majority for Israel endorses Harris: ‘She stands shoulder to shoulder with Israel’

Ha’aretz reports: The Democratic Majority for Israel has wholeheartedly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the party’s nomination for the upcoming presidential election.

“We proudly endorsed Kamala Harris as part of the Biden-Harris ticket in 2020 and again in 2024. Since then, the Vice President has helped lead the most pro-Israel administration in American history, standing shoulder to shoulder with Israel as it has faced unprecedented attacks on its homeland and people,” said DMFI President & CEO Mark Mellman.

GOP Jewish group slams Harris for ‘snubbing’ Netanyahu; J.D. Vance won’t attend Netanyahu’s speech to Congress

Ha’aretz reports: The Republican Jewish Coalition has described as “disgraceful” what it described as “Kamala Harris’ first official act as the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States […] to snub the leader of America’s key strategic ally, the Jewish state. Kamala Harris would be a total disaster for the US-Israel relationship,” the RJC said.

Prior to Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race, Harris was scheduled to be on the road campaigning for him during Netanyahu’s address to Congress. She was also supposed to meet with the Israeli prime minister, though it remains unclear if this meeting will still occur.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s running mate and the Republican senator from Ohio, J.D. Vance, has opted to hit the campaign trail rather than attending Netanyahu’s speech. It remains unclear whether he or Trump will speak or meet with the Israeli prime minister during his U.S. visit.

🧵 STATEMENT: BIDEN'S LEGACY IS GENOCIDE

Nothing will erase the fact that @POTUS's legacy is—and always will be—GENOCIDE.

Over the past 9 months, he has repeatedly funded, armed, and backed Israel’s mass slaughter of the Palestinian people. #StopArmingIsrael

— USCPR ACTION (@uscpr_action) July 21, 2024

Trump’s Ambassador to Israel David Friedman: VP Harris ‘never expressed sympathy for the Israelis suffering from Hamas’

Ha’aretz reports: Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said that Vice President and 2024 Presidential candidate Kamala Harris “has never expressed sympathy for the Israelis suffering from Hamas’ barbarism with the same fervor that she exhibits when speaking of Palestinian suffering.”

He continued criticizing Harris, saying, “she wrongly accused Israel of overseeing a famine in Gaza, proven to be totally false. She said that Palestinians in Rafah ‘had no place to go’ just before 900,000 were successfully evacuated in a week. Apart from that, she plainly is not up to the task of protecting Americans from the growing threats around the world — threats that will intensify further if our enemies see her campaign gaining strength.”

The Forward says Harris’s past statements on Israel-Hamas, “broadly speaking, do not differ much from those of President Biden”

Both centrist Democrats and those to the left are seeing what they want in Harris…

Jewish Republicans are smearing Harris as anti-Israel. “The shock troops of misinformation deserve high marks for speed, but not so much for accuracy…”

The veepstakes…

Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona has strong ties to Jews and Israel, starting with his marriage by a rabbi to Gabby Giffords, the Jewish former congresswoman who survived a mass shooting in 2011. Kelly, a former astronaut and Navy captain, co-sponsored the bipartisan Countering Antisemitism Act and has visited Israel at least twice since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. Read the story ➤

Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania is proudly and publicly Jewish, and the experts we interviewed said that should help — not hurt — the campaign if he were chosen as Harris’ running mate. “The interesting thing is that, historically, that has always been a much greater concern for Jews,” while most other voters don’t care, said Jonathan Sarna, one of the leading historians of American Jewry. Read the story

Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado was asked Monday on CNN if he’d accept the offer to be vice president. “Look,” he quipped, “if they do the polling, and it turns out that they need a 49-year-old, balding gay Jew from Boulder, Colorado, they got my number.”

MORE NEWS:

IMEMC Daily Reports.

Al Jazeera: Israel’s Netanyahu goes to the US: All to know about the visit

Mondoweiss: Looking at Kamala Harris’s record on Israel

Middle East Eye: Netanyahu’s US visit solidifies Israel’s upper hand in Washington

Middle East Eye: Even the US propaganda machine can’t whitewash Biden’s sordid record

The New Arab: Over half of European Jews feel ‘ashamed’ of Israel’s actions, survey shows

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – JULY 22:

Palestinian death toll from October 7 – July 22: at least 39,668* (39,090 in Gaza* – 11,445 women (30%), 16,034 children as of June 17. [The Ministry’s figures have been contested by the Israeli authorities, although they have been accepted as accurate by Israeli intelligence services, the UN, and WHO. These data are supported by independent analyses, comparing changes in the number of deaths of UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff with those reported by the Ministry, which found claims of data fabrication implausible.]

This is expected to be a significant undercount since thousands of those killed have yet to be identified – and at least 578 in the West Bank (~140 children). This does not include an estimated 10,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 46,848 Palestinian deaths.

Lancet: “Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.

Ralph Nader earlier estimated 200,000 Palestinians may have been killed in Gaza.

At least 46 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (27 from Gaza, 18 from West Bank).
At least 40 Palestinians have died due to malnutrition**.
About 1.7 million, or 75% of Gaza’s population are currently displaced.
2.15 million (out of total population of 2.3 million) are projected to face Crisis or worse levels of food insecurity.

Palestinian injuries from October 7 – July 22: at least 95,567 (including at least 90,147 in Gaza and 5,420 in the West Bank, including 830 children). [It remains unknown how man Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.]

Reported Israeli death toll from October 7 – July 22: ~1,481 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 326 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza; 16 in the West Bank) and~8,730 injured.

Times of Israel reports: The IDF 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.

† For most of the conflict, women and children accounted for about 70% of deaths in Gaza, with children making up a little over 40% of those killed, according to official statistics.

Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here.

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