Biden hands another $8.7 B in aid to Israel as it continues slaughter – Day 355

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Biden hands another .7 B in aid to Israel as it continues slaughter – Day 355
The aftermath of an attack on the Jabalia refugee camp on September 11, 2024 [File: Mahmoud İssa/Anadolu] (photo)

Compilation of news reports – IAK staff 

In war-battered Gaza, Israeli forces killed 36 Palestinians in the past 24 hours.

  • A major Israeli air strike on a school in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza killed 15 people. Israel’s military claims the school was being used as a Hamas “command and control center”.
  • Another Israeli strike targeting a residential building killed four people — a man, his wife and their two children with disabilities.

In Lebanon, Israeli air strikes have killed 92 people and wounded 153 others over the past 24 hours, with more than 700 people now dead since Monday.

  • In Shebaa, Lebanon, nine members of the same family were killed in an overnight strike – four of those victims were reportedly children.

Bodies returned by Israeli army to Gaza unidentifiable

Al Jazeera reports from Deir el-Balah, central Gaza:

The past few hours have been quite emotional, but particularly for families waiting to know anything about their missing children.

A truck carried to Nasser Hospital 88 bodies that Israel recently returned to Gaza.

Many of these people were abducted from evacuation centers, kidnapped, tortured, and dehumanized by the Israeli military.

The last thing their families heard was that they were killed, and some of them heard that they would be sent back alive to the Gaza Strip.

Family members were gathered around the hospital, around this truck, in a desperate attempt to find out who these bodies are, and if their missing children – who had been gone for the past year almost – were among them.

The bodies were then taken to their final resting place in a mass graveyard in the Turkish cemetery around Nasser Hospital.

This is the fifth time the Israeli military has returned the bodies of Palestinians believed to have been tortured and killed after being kidnapped from evacuation centers.

This is the first time that none of the bodies were able to be identified. They all came back in fully skeletal shape … with no signs to [help identify] them.

In an incident eerily similar to that of September 26, Israeli occupation authorities return ‘unidentifiable’ bodies of 80 Palestinians to Gaza, on 5 August 2024 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]
In an incident eerily similar to that of September 26, Israeli occupation authorities return mostly ‘unidentifiable’ bodies of 80 Palestinians to Gaza, on 5 August 2024 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor] (photo)

Israel says it has secured $8.7 billion U.S. aid package

Anadolu Agency reports:

Israel said Thursday that it is set to receive a military aid package from the US totaling $8.7 billion.

“Director General of the Israel Ministry of Defense, Major General Eyal Zamir, has concluded negotiations in Washington for a substantial $8.7 billion U.S. aid package to support Israel’s ongoing military efforts,” the Israeli Defense Ministry said in a statement. “

The package comprises $3.5 billion for essential wartime procurement, which has already been transferred to the IMoD (Israeli Ministry of Defense), and $5.2 billion designated for air defense systems, including the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and an advanced laser system.

The statement noted that under the agreement, the funds and equipment mentioned are expected to be delivered soon.

AL JAZEERA ADDS: Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters, “We’ve been committed from the very beginning to help Israel, provide the things that are necessary for them to be able to protect their sovereign territory, and that hasn’t changed and won’t change in the future,” Austin said after a meeting in London.

Despite polls showing more than half of Americans believe military aid to Israel should be restricted, Washington continues to provide significant military assistance to Tel Aviv.

NOTE: The U.S. already provides Israel more than $38 million in military aid per day, while it gives the Palestinians $2.7 million per day in foreign (non-military) aid.
A plane with armored vehicles for the Isaeli army arrives at Ben Gurion Airport, October 19, 2023. (Photo credit: Israel Defense Ministry)
A plane with armored vehicles for the Israeli army arrives at Ben Gurion Airport, October 19, 2023. (Photo credit: Israel Defense Ministry) (Israel Defense Ministry)

Israel claims it attacked 220 “Hezbollah targets” in Lebanon over past 24 hours

Ha’aretz reports:

The Israeli military says that the air force has struck approximately 220 Hezbollah terrorist targets in Lebanon over the past 24 hours.

According to a statement, among the targets that were struck were “terrorist infrastructure sites, launchers from which projectiles were fired toward Israeli territory, Hezbollah terrorists and weapons storage facilities in Lebanon. The IDF is continuing to operate to degrade and dismantle Hezbollah’s terrorist capabilities and infrastructure,” the statement added.

NOTE: The Israeli military claims that Hezbollah is storing enormous, dangerous weapons inside “the living rooms and garages” of Lebanese civilians. Israel released an animated video (below) purporting to illustrate this scheme – but gave no evidence for it, and ignored its absurdity.
But Israel is using this “information” to justify its targeting of civilian structures across southern Lebanon.
When Israel says it struck “terrorist sites” and “weapons storage facilities,” it is referring to civilian homes.
(This has also been the case in Gaza – resulting in the destruction or damage of hundreds of thousands of housing units.)

An Israel-Lebanon ceasefire agreement appeared and disappeared Thursday, thwarted by Netanyahu’s extremist cronies

Ha’aretz reports:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reversed his stance on a cease-fire agreement with Hezbollah in Lebanon, retracting verbal commitments he had made to the U.S. administration. This shift comes in response to mounting political pressure from within Israel, diplomatic sources involved in the U.S.-French truce proposal told Haaretz.

According to sources, Netanyahu and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a close ally of the prime minister, had been regularly briefed on Tuesday and Wednesday about the ongoing diplomatic efforts led by the U.S. and France.

The United States and France unveiled an updated proposal on Thursday for a three-week cease-fire in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, aiming to prevent an escalation into full-scale war.

In response to harsh criticism and opposition from government ministers regarding the plan, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Thursday morning that reports of a cease-fire were inaccurate.

Initially, both expressed their approval of the cease-fire initiative. However, during Netanyahu’s flight to the U.S., facing criticism from factions within his government, he changed course and adopted a more confrontational stance towards the proposed cease-fire.

“The Americans faced something similar with Netanyahu during negotiations over the hostage deal in Gaza,” a senior Western diplomat told Haaretz. “He got spooked by the backlash from his own government and made a U-turn midway.”

When asked about Netanyahu’s shift in stance, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken refrained from direct criticism but underscored the international consensus for a cease-fire. “I can’t speak for him. I can just say that the world is speaking clearly, with virtually all key countries in Europe and the region calling for a cease-fire,” Blinken said during a press conference in New York.

NOTE: Hezbollah has made it clear that it would cease its conflict with Israel only in the event of an Israeli ceasefire with Gaza.
L-R: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands after their meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, on Monday, January 30, 2023. (photo)

Why Israel is at War with Lebanon, Not Hezbollah

Palestine Chronicle reports:

If you were to receive your understanding of the current war between Lebanon and Israel from the Western corporate media, you would probably think that Israel is launching strikes on “Hezbollah targets”: that it is combating a terrorist organization that has been attacking it since October 8 and that the Lebanese people are being used as human shields.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Within the space of less than forty-eight hours, Israeli airstrikes killed around 700 people in Lebanon, injuring over 2,000; many of the casualties were women and children.

On top of this, thousands of homes across Lebanon have been destroyed or damaged.

If you listen to Israeli officials who have commented publicly to explain their actions, they don’t hide that they are hitting civilian infrastructure.

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, even published his video message to the people of Lebanon, where he says “Hezbollah has been using you as human shields”, stating that “they’ve placed rockets in your living rooms” and “missiles in your garage”.

On top of these allegations being ridiculous due to them being uttered without a single shred of evidence and literally the same copy/paste arguments to justify their attack on Gaza, the message is in English, not Arabic, making it clear that this is a message to the West and not the people of Lebanon…

(Read the full analysis here.)

Lebanese Red Cross teams conducted search and rescue operations in the rubble of collapsed buildings following an Israeli army attack in Nabatieh province of southern Lebanon, on September 27, 2024. [Ramiz Dallah – Anadolu Agency]
Lebanese Red Cross teams conducted search and rescue operations in the rubble of collapsed buildings following an Israeli army attack in Nabatieh province of southern Lebanon, on September 27, 2024. [Ramiz Dallah – Anadolu Agency] (Ramiz Dallah – Anadolu Agency)

West Bank: Israeli raid on Jenin causes ‘widespread destruction’

Al Jazeera reports:

Israeli forces have reportedly withdrawn from Jenin in the occupied West Bank after a raid that lasted nearly 15 hours and caused “widespread destruction to the infrastructure and citizens’ properties”.

The report quoted the director of public relations in the Jenin Municipality, Bashir Matahin, as saying that Israeli bulldozers destroyed infrastructure that had been repaired after the last deadly raid on Jenin that had lasted 10 days.

Matahin said the bulldozers destroyed “several structures and sewage networks, causing a power outage” in some areas.

Dozens of homes were raided, the belongings destroyed or damaged while the home of the young man Qais al-Saadi was blown up.

Israeli forces organize a raid with bulldozers on Jenin in the West Bank on September 01, 2024. [ Issam Rimawi – Anadolu Agency]
Israeli forces organize a raid with bulldozers on Jenin in the West Bank on September 01, 2024. [ Issam Rimawi – Anadolu Agency] (photo)

Iraqi drone strikes Israel’s southern port of Eilat

The Cradle reports:

The Islamic Resistance of Iraq (IRI) announced on 25 September a drone attack targeting a “vital” target in the southern Israeli port of Eilat.

“In support of our people in Palestine and Lebanon, and in response to the massacres committed by the usurping entity against civilians, including children, women and the elderly, the Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq attacked today, Wednesday 9-25-2024, by drone, a vital target in occupied Umm al-Rashrash (Eilat),” the IRI said on Wednesday evening.

“The Islamic Resistance confirms that operations to destroy enemy strongholds will continue at an increasing pace,” it added. Two Israelis were wounded as a result of the attack, Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said.

HA’ARETZ ADDS: The Houthis in Yemen claimed responsibility for launching a missile that triggered sirens across central Israel, including in Tel Aviv, and claimed to have additionally launched a drone towards the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon.

Saudi Arabia forms global alliance to push for Israeli-Palestinian two-state solution

Ha’aretz reports:

Saudi Arabia has formed a global alliance to push for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the country’s foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said on Thursday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York.

Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (photo)

The alliance includes a number of Arab and Muslim countries and European partners, the Saudi state news agency reported, without specifying which countries had committed to join.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on X the first meetings would be in Riyadh and Brussels.

After the eruption of the Gaza war last October between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas that rules Gaza, Saudi Arabia put on ice U.S.-backed plans for the kingdom to normalize ties with Israel, sources said.

“Implementing the two-state solution is the best solution to break the cycle of conflict and suffering, and enforce a new reality in which the entire region, including Israel, enjoys security and coexistence”, bin Farhan was quoted as saying.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said last week the kingdom would not recognize Israel without a Palestinian state and strongly condemned the “crimes of the Israeli occupation” against the Palestinian people.

RECOMMENDED READING: Is “Israel Has a Right to Defend Itself” Code for “We Are Killing the Geneva Conventions”?

China’s Foreign Minister calls out US double standards on human rights

Middle East Monitor reports:

Wars and conflicts currently raging in the Middle East reveal the United States’ double standards in regards to human rights, China’s Foreign Minister has stated.

Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi
Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi (photo)

According to a statement by China’s Foreign Ministry, during a meeting in New York on Wednesday on the sidelines of this week’s UN General Assembly, Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, addressed UN Human Rights chief, Volker Turk.

He asked, “If the United States cares so much about the human rights of Muslims, why does it continue to provoke or support wars in the Middle East and other regions, causing large numbers of innocent Muslim casualties?”

He further asked why the US turns “a blind eye to the historical injustices the Arab people have faced and not support Palestine becoming a full member of the United Nations?”

Wang Yi argued that the “political manipulation” of human rights issues by Western nations such as the US was “becoming increasingly unpopular across the world.”

He further questioned why Washington is “not playing its due role in achieving a permanent ceasefire and complete withdrawal of troops from Gaza.”

RECOMMENDED READING: Does Any Other Country besides Israel have the Right to Defend Itself?

Meet the First Tenured Professor to Be Fired for Pro-Palestine Speech

The Intercept reports:

Maura Finkelstein never hid her support for Palestinian liberation during her nine years working as a professor of anthropology at Muhlenberg College, a small liberal arts school in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Maura Finkelstein
Maura Finkelstein (photo)

“I have always had an ethical practice of making sure that I include Palestine in my teaching,” Finkelstein told me. “It was never outside the bounds of what I do.”

For Finkelstein, who is Jewish, this was not always easy. More than 30 percent of Muhlenberg’s 2,200 students are Jewish, many of them vocal supporters of Israel.

Neither her longtime public support of Palestinians, however, nor the courses on Palestine she taught in her early years at the school prevented Finkelstein from earning tenure in 2021.

Following the arduous tenure process, professors are supposed to enjoy lifetime job security and robust safeguards of academic freedom. The bar for dismissal from a tenured academic position is by design meant to be extremely high, requiring justifiable cause.

In late May, however, Muhlenberg told Finkelstein that she was fired. The reason? She had shared, on her personal Instagram account, in a temporary story slide, a post written not by herself but by Palestinian poet Remi Kanazi calling for the shunning of Zionist ideology and its supporters.

(Read the full story here.)

RECOMMENDED READING: University Professors Are Losing Their Jobs Over “New McCarthyism” on Gaza

Bernie Sanders introduces legislation to block arms sales to Israel

Anadolu Agency reports:

Sen. Bernie Sanders said Wednesday that he introduced legislation to block the sale of more than $20 billion in US arms sales to Israel.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) during a press conference on debt limit negotiations with other Democrat Senators, at the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, May 18, 2023.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) during a press conference on debt limit negotiations with other Democrat Senators, at the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, May 18, 2023. (photo)

“Sending more weapons to (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu’s extremist government is unacceptable,” Sanders said in a statement.

Stressing that American weapons are responsible for far too many civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip, he said that “sending weapons is not only immoral, it is also illegal.”

The Senate will vote on the Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRD) when it reconvenes in November, he added.

The export of the weapons would violate the criteria laid out in the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act (AECA), Sanders stressed.

“There is a mountain of documentary evidence demonstrating that these weapons are being used in violation of US and international law,” he added.

NOTE: The U.S. provides Israel more than $38 million in military aid per day, while it gives the Palestinians $2.7 million per day in foreign (non-military) aid.

MORE NEWS:

The Intercept: “I Saw a Mirror”: Marcellus Williams’s Execution Enrages Palestine Solidarity Protesters
+972 Magazine: In Israel’s prisons, skin diseases are a method of punishment
Anadolu Agency: Reporters Without Borders stages protests in 10 countries to honor journalists killed in Gaza
Middle East Monitor: The war of legitimacy: how the ICJ and UNGA challenged decades of Israel, US arrogance

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – SEPTEMBER 26:

Palestinian death toll from October 7, 2023 – September 26, 2024: at least 42,252* (41,534 in Gaza* – 11,308 women (30%), 16,715 children as of September 5. [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 718 in the West Bank (~148 children). This does not include an estimated 10,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 49,032 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 300,000 Palestinians may have been killed in Gaza.

  • At least 45 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (27 from Gaza, 23 from West Bank).
  • At least 41 Palestinians have died due to malnutrition (at least 37 of them children)**.
  • About 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million population are currently displaced.
  • Almost 500,000 Gazans are currently experiencing catastrophic levels of food insecurity.

Palestinian injuries from October 7 – September 26: at least 101,792 (including at least 96,092 in Gaza and 5,700 in the West Bank, including 830 children). [It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.]

Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – September 26, 2024: ~1,457 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 293*** military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza; 25 military and civilians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel) and~10,000 injured.

The death toll from Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon since Oct. 8 has reached 1,540 including women and children, with some 5,410 injured, a Lebanese official said Wednesday. The number of displaced individuals registered in approved shelters is 77,100. The actual number of displaced people has likely surpassed 250,000.

NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis 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. 

***More than 40 of the deaths listed above were Israeli soldiers killed by Hezbollah in fighting at the Israel-Lebanon border. The figure does not include the reportedly 53 Israeli soldiers – nearly 16% of the total Israeli military deaths – killed due to friendly fire in Gaza and other military-related accidents. 

† 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
 

 

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