In 89 days, Israel has dropped more than 45,000 bombs on Gaza weighing more than 71,000 tons; perspectives on South Africa’s genocide accusations at the Int’l Court of Justice; widespread condemnation of Israeli ministers’ “transfer” rhetoric
In Gaza, a generation of child amputees is emerging as the months of bombardment from the Israeli military wear on, leveling densely-packed housing blocks and causing blast and crush injuries.
Doctors and aid workers say Gaza’s collapsed medical system is ill-placed to give children the intricate follow-up care they need to salvage their still-growing, truncated bones. Only 30% of pre-conflict medics are working due to killings, detentions and displacements, according to the World Health Organization.
More than 1,000 children had undergone leg amputations, sometimes more than once or on both legs, by end-November, according to U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, in a conflict where Gaza health authorities say nearly a quarter of injuries are among children.
Gaza gov’t office says Israeli forces have bombed so-called “safe areas” in the enclave 48 times, committing “six massacres” that claimed the lives of 31 people in Rafah, in the south of Gaza, in the last three days alone.
“The occupation army repeated the crime of forcing civilians, under threat of gunfire and death, to flee from their safe homes and residential neighborhoods to other areas it claimed were safe, but it bombed them and committed massacres against them,” the authorities said in a statement.
In 89 days, Israel has dropped more than 45,000 bombs on Gaza weighing more than 71,000 tons, the Gaza Media Office has said. “Occupation aircraft dropped over 45,000 missiles and giant bombs, some of them weighing 2,000 pounds of explosives, during the comprehensive genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, deliberately targeting entire residential areas,” it said.
“The weight of the explosives dropped by the army on the Gaza Strip exceeded 65,000 tonnes [71,000 tons], which is more than the weight and power of three nuclear bombs like those dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.”
The office said about “two-thirds of the bombs and missiles … are unguided and imprecise, commonly known as dumb bombs.” It pointed out that the use of such bombs indicates “the deliberate targeting of indiscriminate and unjustified killing by the occupation, a clear and explicit violation of international law and various international conventions.”
The office documented Israel’s use of around nine internationally banned bombs and missiles against civilians, children and women.
RECOMMENDED READING: ‘I pretended to be dead’: Survivors recount harrowing Israeli field executions in Gaza
Gaza’s Mayor Yahya al-Sarraj has issued an urgent appeal “to all international institutions and free people in the world to provide sufficient and large quantities of fuel, and to provide the necessary support mechanisms to provide water, sanitation and hygiene services to serve all residents of the Gaza Strip”.
Al-Sarraj added in a video address that water supplies have been significantly reduced and that drinking water is “almost non-existent”. “The sanitation service is not available and large quantities of untreated water accumulate in roads, shelters and hospitals, and we cannot provide cleaning and waste collection,” al-Sarraj said.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has confirmed that it will hold public hearings on January 11 and 12, in proceedings instituted by South Africa against Israel on December 29, 2023.
The hearings to be held at the ICJ’s court in the Peace Palace in The Hague will be dedicated to South Africa’s request for “provisional measures”, the ICJ said in a press release. South Africa requested the “provisional measures” in order to:
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- “Protect against further, severe and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people under the Genocide Convention.”
- “Ensure Israel’s compliance with its obligations under the Genocide Convention not to engage in genocide, and to prevent and to punish genocide.”
South Africa will make its oral argument on Thursday, January 11 from 10am to 12 noon (09:00-11:00 GMT).
Israel, which has promised to fight South Africa’s accusation, will then make its oral argument on Friday, January 12 from 10am to 12 noon (09:00-11:00 GMT).
In recent days, US officials have rebuked South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide at the UN’s top court, calling it “meritless,” but in 2022, when Ukraine filed a similar case alleging genocide by Russian forces, Washington backed that filing.
Regarding South Africa’s accusation, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters yesterday, “We don’t think it’s a productive step at this time.”
Many experts concur with South Africa. The Center for Constitutional Rights declared,
While there has been recent criticism of those taking the position that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, there is a long history of human rights scholarship and legal analysis that supports the assertion. Prominent scholars of the international law crime of genocide and human rights authorities take the position that Israel’s policies toward the Palestinian people could constitute a form of genocide.
Those policies range from the 1948 mass killing and displacement of Palestinians to a half century of military occupation and, correspondingly, the discriminatory legal regime governing Palestinians, repeated military assaults on Gaza, and official Israeli statements expressly favoring the elimination of Palestinians…
“A Textbook Case of Genocide: Israel has been explicit about what it’s carrying out in Gaza. Why isn’t the world listening?” points out,
Grave violations committed by Israel against Palestinians in the aftermath of 7 October, particularly in Gaza, point to a genocide in the making, UN experts said today.
They illustrated evidence of increasing genocidal incitement, overt intent to “destroy the Palestinian people under occupation”, loud calls for a ‘second Nakba’ in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory, and the use of powerful weaponry with inherently indiscriminate impacts, resulting in a colossal death toll and destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure…
John Mearsheimer is an American political scientist and international relations scholar and the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. An influential scholar and Israel expert, Mearsheimer summarizes and offers remarks on South Africa’s case against Israel:
There is no question that many of the facts described in the South African document have previously been reported in the media. What makes the application so important, however, is that it brings all those facts together in one place and provides an overarching and thoroughly supported description of the Israeli genocide…”
even though the South African application focuses on Israel, it has huge implications for the United States, especially President Biden and his principal lieutenants. Why? Because there is little doubt that the Biden administration is complicit in Israel’s genocide, which is also a punishable act according to the Genocide Convention.
Despite his admission that Israel is engaged in “indiscriminate bombing,” President Biden has also stated that “we’re not going to do a damn thing other than protect Israel. Not a single thing.”…
most of the human rights mavens in the liberal mainstream have said little about Israel’s savage actions in Gaza or the genocidal rhetoric of its leaders. Hopefully, they will explain their disturbing silence at some point. Regardless, history will not be kind to them, as they said hardly a word while their country was complicit in a horrible crime, perpetrated right out in the open for all to see.
(Read the full article here.)
At least 51 Palestinian women from the Gaza Strip are being held in Damon Prison in northern Israel, according to a statement by Palestinian prisoners’ affairs groups on Thursday. The statement, however, said Israel is holding a higher number of Gazan women than the figure announced. “Those detainees face abuse and humiliation and are held in tragic conditions,” the statement said.
Last month, Gaza’s government media office said that at least 2,600 Palestinians have been detained by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) urgently appealed today to the international community and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement for immediate intervention to protect the Society’s Al-Amal Hospital and its premises in Khan Younis amidst the ongoing Israeli airstrikes.
This includes safeguarding medical staff, patients, and approximately 14,000 internally displaced persons seeking refuge at the hospital, all in accordance with international humanitarian law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, the society said in a press statement.
The Red Crescent reported that Israeli occupation forces had shelled multiple floors of its headquarters over the past three days, killing seven displaced individuals, including a five-day-old infant, and injuring 11 others.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) also announced that Israeli forces attacked, in the Maghazi camp, the family home of Anwar Abu Holi, who serves as the director of the Central Gaza Ambulance Center. The PRCS said it pulled two bodies from the building and rescued five injured people “while many others remain under the rubble”.
Israeli forces killed a young Palestinian man on Thursday during another military raid in the occupied West Bank, taking the number of Palestinians killed in the territory since the war on Gaza began on 7 October to 325. The latest victim was 29-year-old Usaid Bani Odeh, the Palestinian health ministry said.
Bani Odeh, who had gotten married in March, was mourned on Wednesday afternoon by hundreds of Palestinians, as a funeral procession moved first through the streets of Toubas, then through his hometown of Tammoun, where he was laid to rest.
After a raid that went on for 40 hours, the Israeli army has withdrawn from the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem, the occupied West Bank. Hundreds of Palestinian men were arrested and interrogated, and at least 13 suffered broken bones after being beaten up by soldiers.
Another raid is taking place in Tubas.
Israeli occupation forces arrested a 16-year-old boy while he was tending to his sheep, and subsequently confiscated 60 sheep from him east of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, according to Hassan Brijieh, the director of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Authority in Bethlehem.
A growing chorus of international condemnation – including from the UN human rights chief, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UK minister for the Middle East region, EU foreign policy chief, Jordan, Egypt, Oman, the Netherlands, France, Germany, importantly, the United States, and even members of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s cabinet– has been directed at Israeli ministers calling for Palestinians to leave Gaza to make room for Israeli settlers.
Both Bazelel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir presented the idea of encouraging Palestinians from Gaza to move abroad earlier this week, suggesting that the idea would be the solution to the long-running conflict as well as a prerequisite for securing the stability necessary to allow residents of southern Israel to return to their homes.
Ben Gvir called it an “opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza,” and “a correct, just, moral and humane solution.”
Smotrich said that the “correct solution” to the war would be to “encourage the voluntary migration of Gaza’s residents to countries that will agree to take in the refugees.” He also doubled down on the position Wednesday, claiming that “more than 70 percent of the Israeli public today supports” such “a humanitarian solution,” but did not provide a source for this statistic.
Forced transfer of a people group is a crime against humanity.
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John Kirby gets visibly frustrated with a reporter who tries to get him to say that the U.S. has supported escalation of the war against Hamas. pic.twitter.com/oELZDSUj7r
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) January 3, 2024
After Minister Smortic, now Ben-Gvir, Minister of National Security, unequivocally calls for massive transfer of the Palestinians living in Gaza, a resettling of Jews on their lands.
This government must be stopped now, their aim is simple:
to wipe out the Gazan population. https://t.co/3bs4nVaIVb
— Ariel Bernstein (@bernstein_ariel) January 1, 2024
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – JANUARY 3:
Palestinian death toll since October 7: at least 22,166* (~21,967 in Gaza* (at least 9,100 children), and at least 325 in the West Bank, about 77 of them children). This does not include an estimated 7,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 30,034 Palestinian deaths.
*IAK does not yet include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile is being disputed; although much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, experts are still looking into the incident. Israel is blocking an international investigation.
About 1.9 million people have been displaced (about 85% of the population).
Palestinian injuries since October 7: at least 61,245** (including at least 57,614 in Gaza** and 3,949 in the West Bank). **NOTE: it is impossible to provide an accurate number of injuries in Gaza due to the ongoing bombardment and communication disruption.
It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties in Gaza**.
Reported Israeli death toll since October 7: ~1,139 (7 killed in West Bank, 173 in Gaza), including 32 Americans, and 8,730 injured, approximately 36 children).
NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel may have been caused by Israeli soldiers; additionally, since Israel has a policy of universal conscription, it is unknown how many of those attending the outdoor rave a few miles from Gaza on stolen Palestinian land were Israeli soldiers.
Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here.
For more news, go here and here. Broadcast news from the region is here.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org
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