Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
Israeli forces killed at least 30 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Saturday, according to medical sources, including at least 22 people in an attack targeting a school in Gaza City.
Israel kills orphans and widows in school bombing
Middle East Eye reports:
Israeli forces killed at least 16 Palestinian orphans and widows after bombing a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City on Saturday, according to local officials.
The children and women killed in the attack had lost their primary caregiver in earlier Israeli attacks amid the relentless bombing campaign ongoing for nearly a year, the Gaza-based government media office said.
The orphans and widows had arrived at the Zeitoun C school in southern Gaza City to receive cash assistance as part of a charity orphan sponsorship program.
The media office said the “horrific massacre” was the latest episode of Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza’s civilians.
At least 181 schools-turned-shelters have been bombed by the Israeli air force since the war on Gaza began nearly a year ago, it added.
The Palestinian health ministry said a total of 22 people had been killed in the attack and 30 others wounded.
A three-month-old baby was among those killed, the media office said.
One witness, Ahmed Azzam, told the news agency he did not see a single man among the wounded.
“It was all women and children,” he said.
The Israeli military confirmed carrying out the deadly attack, saying it was a “precise strike” on “terrorists.”
![A Palestinian woman cries as she hugs her child following a deadly Israeli attack on the Bureij refugee camp in Gaza on Thursday [Ashraf Amra/Anadolu]](https://israelpalestinenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/9-20-a-300x196.jpg)
Israeli abuses caught on film
Al Jazeera obtained images from an Israeli drone shot down by the resistance in Gaza.
The images, obtained by Al Jazeera, reveal violations committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian civilians in the Khan Younis area.
The drone images show Israeli soldiers forcing an unarmed Palestinian to strip in a street in Khan Younis.
The images also depict the destruction of Palestinian homes and widespread damage in Khan Younis.
Additionally, the drone images capture the moment another drone dropped a bomb directly on an unarmed wounded Palestinian.
Breaking🚨🚨
Al Jazeera obtains images from an Israeli drone shot down by the resistance in Gaza.
The images, obtained by Al Jazeera, reveal violations committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian civilians in the Khan Younis area.
The drone images show Israeli soldiers… pic.twitter.com/8Bj0iF79ph
— Ramy Abdu| رامي عبده (@RamAbdu) September 21, 2024
Around 21 schools sheltering displaced Gazans bombed by Israel since August: Euro-Med rights group
Andalou Agency reports:
The Israeli army bombed around 21 schools sheltering displaced people in the Gaza Strip since last month, killing 267 Palestinians and injuring hundreds, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said on Saturday.
At least 22 people, including 13 children and six women, were killed early Saturday when Israeli fighter jets hit a school housing displaced civilians in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City, according to local authorities.
The attack “is a new crime to be added to a series of potential war crimes committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip,” the Geneva-based rights group said in a statement.
It called Israeli attacks on schools housing displaced people “a blatant violation of the principles of distinction, military necessity, and proportionality.”
The organization condemned Israeli attempts to justify its attacks on schools and shelters in Gaza.
The Israeli army often claims that it targeted gunmen during its attacks on schools, an allegation vehemently denied by Palestinians.
“No evidence was given to prove the validity of the Israeli claims,” the rights group said.
5 Gaza Health Ministry employees killed in Israeli strike
Andalou Agency reports:
Five employees of the Health Ministry in Gaza were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the ministry’s storage facilities in the Musbah area of Rafah, southern Gaza, the ministry said on Saturday.
In a statement, the ministry said that ambulances have been unable to reach the site to recover the bodies or assist the injured and called on international organizations to intervene to protect and rescue those trapped.
Since the start of the war on Gaza on Oct. 7, the Israeli army has targeted Gaza’s hospitals and medical facilities, rendering most out of service, and putting the lives of doctors, workers, and patients at risk, according to Palestinian and international reports.
The Gaza government media office reported that 986 medical staff have been killed in the ongoing war.
AL JAZEERA ADDS: Medical warehouses have come under attack before. This has happened at al-Shifa Hospital, al-Awda Hospital, the Indonesian Hospital and others. This is partly why there is an acute shortage of supplies in Gaza’s hospitals.
![the building of medical charity Doctors Without Borders [MSF], which was targeted by Israeli tank fire in the al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on February 21, 2024](https://israelpalestinenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2-22-msf-300x200.jpg)
Israel’s ‘buffer zones’ in West Bank: Palestinians denounce ‘new face of land theft’
Andalou Agency reports:
Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank said “buffer zones” the Israeli army recently established by confiscating Palestinian lands around areas seized under the pretext of “security” are “the new face of land theft.”
Farmers and activists are sounding the alarm about the new strategy of land confiscation around illegal settlements as it increasingly restricts access to Palestinian agricultural lands.
Since Oct. 7, there has been a notable increase in land seizures and the creation of buffer zones in the West Bank, ostensibly for “security reasons.”
Sami Daglas, an activist from Burqa town, told Anadolu that Israel has stolen hundreds of dunams of agricultural land and established a “security perimeter.”
Daglas owns property in the confiscated area, and is forbidden to access it.
“The lands confiscated by the Israelis are growing day-by-day through these so-called buffer zones, with the aim of seizing more land and confining the Palestinian population to a narrow area,” said Daglas.
The Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Wall and Settlements Resistance Commission reported that the “buffer zones” are preventing Palestinians from accessing hundreds of acres of farmland.
Amir Daoud, an official with the Commission, warned that the “silent confiscation” poses a serious threat to Palestinian land rights, because under Israeli law, land left uncultivated for three years can be declared “state land.”
Daoud is concerned about the trajectory of the developments.
“A state is being created for the (illegal) Israeli settlers, and the West Bank is being turned into ghettos,” he said.
Could this be the week Netanyahu goes from pariah to international fugitive?
The Guardian reports:
One year ago, Benjamin Netanyahu came to the UN with a vision of a “new Middle East” anchored by Israel’s growing ties with its Arab partners in the region. Now he is on the brink of launching a major escalation against Hezbollah, ignoring calls for restraint from his allies over the Gaza war and defying criticism that he is prevaricating in negotiations over a temporary ceasefire.
The Israeli PM remains scheduled to speak on Friday at the UN general assembly in an appearance that is sure to lead to walkouts and protests on the streets of midtown Manhattan.
Netanyahu’s trip to the UN comes after a year of bloodshed in Gaza that has left more than 41,000 people dead and led the international criminal court (ICC) to consider issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar.
The ICC judges are regularly rumored to be close to approving a warrant that could accuse Netanyahu of war crimes.
António Guterres, the UN secretary general, has said that he and Netanyahu have not spoken since the beginning of the war, but that he was ready to meet him on the sidelines of the summit if the Israeli PM asked.
“I have not talked to him because he didn’t pick up my phone calls, but I have no reason not to speak with him,” Guterres said. He blasted the “lack of accountability” for the deaths of the humanitarian aid workers, most of whom have been killed in strikes that the UN has slammed as indiscriminate.
Netanyahu’s most recent trip to the US came in July, when he addressed a raucous joint session Congress, promising “total victory” in his war against Hamas and mocking demonstrators against his appearance in the US Capitol as “idiots”.
The bloodletting in Gaza following the attacks by Hamas have sent tensions soaring, and most recently Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said his country would not recognize Israel without a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
And, if the ICC panel of judges makes a surprise decision this week to accuse Netanyahu of war crimes in Gaza, it will mark a further embarrassment as he goes from pariah to international fugitive.
RECOMMENDED READING: Spying & threats: Israel spent 9 years trying to keep the ICC off the trail of Israel’s war crimes.
Israel Lobbied Britain to Change Law on War Crimes Arrests
Declassified UK reports:
When retired Israeli general Doron Almog boarded his flight from Tel Aviv on 11 September 2005, he expected to soon step foot on British soil.
But an arrest warrant had been issued for the former army chief over alleged war crimes committed in Gaza, and British police officers were waiting at the immigration desk to seize him.
Almog remained on the plane for two hours before departing again for Israel.
The incident seemingly marked the first time that an arrest warrant had been issued in Britain for an Israeli national over abuses against Palestinians, and it sent shockwaves through the Knesset.
What followed was a decade-long campaign by the Israeli government to ensure that something like this could never happen again, leaked files reviewed by Declassified reveal.
The campaign focussed on lobbying Britain to change its approach to universal jurisdiction legislation, which allows for the most serious crimes to be prosecuted in another country.
The goal was to allow Israeli officials to visit Britain without fear of arrest, particularly those accused of serious abuses against the Palestinians.
(Read the full article here.)
No one is safe: The global threat of Israel’s weaponized pagers
The Cradle reports:
Israel’s coordinated attacks on Lebanon, marked by the near-simultaneous explosion of thousands of pager and walkie-talkie devices over two days, resulted in the deaths of at least 37 people, including children, and left thousands severely wounded.
This is a stark reminder that the occupation state’s criminal actions know no limits.
In the wake of this aggression, who can guarantee that Israeli exports to other countries won’t be weaponized in future conflicts? The “pager attack” serves as yet more evidence that Israel poses a global threat, ushering in a dangerous, dystopian new era in which civilians are no longer safe, even in their own homes.
When analyzing the pager detonations from a legal standpoint, it becomes clear that Israel’s killing spree in Lebanon this week lies somewhere between a war crime and an act of terrorism. The legal classification depends on the current state of affairs between Lebanon and Israel. If Lebanon is considered to be at war with Israel, the targeting of civilians — non-combatants — through the bombing of pagers blatantly violates international laws of warfare, including the Geneva Conventions.
Article 51 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (1949) strictly prohibits indiscriminate attacks on civilians, and Article 85 lists attacks on civilians as grave breaches that amount to war crimes.
The Guardian notes that half a century after the Second World War, a global treaty — to which Israel is a signatory — came into force, which “prohibited in all circumstances to use booby-traps or other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects that are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material.”
However, if we consider that Lebanon is not in a formal state of war with Israel, the aggression falls under a different legal classification: terrorism.
According to the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings (1997), Israel’s actions can be categorized as a “terrorist bombing.” The use of civilian devices, like pagers, in non-military zones with the intent to spread fear aligns with the convention’s definition of terrorism, which criminalizes the unlawful use of explosives to target civilians or infrastructure with the intent to intimidate populations or coerce governments…
(Read the full analysis here.)
RECOMMENDED READING: From Stuxnet to Gospel to Pager Bombs, Israel is leading the Weaponization of the digital World
![Ambulances are being dispatched to the area in Beirut, Lebanon while security forces take precautions after at least eight people, including a child, were killed in a mass explosion of wireless communication devices known as pagers on September 17, 2024 [Houssam Shbaro – Anadolu Agency]](https://israelpalestinenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/9-18-a-300x200.jpg)
Biden Didn’t “Fail” To Get A Ceasefire; He Never Tried
From Caitlyn Johnstone’s newsletter:
The Wall Street Journal reports that senior US officials don’t think the Biden administration will secure a ceasefire in Gaza before Biden’s term is up. Anyone who told you that Biden or Harris were seriously working on a ceasefire lied to you.
I’ve seen some people calling this a “failure” on the part of the Biden administration, and that needs to stop. It’s not a failure. You can only fail at something you tried to do. Biden and Harris didn’t “fail” at anything, they SUCCEEDED at their goal of helping Israel destroy Gaza.
Biden could have ended this at any time by withholding weapons, or even by simply threatening to. He could have ended it with a phone call. The killing continued because he and his handlers wanted it to.
MORE NEWS:
IMEMC Daily Reports.
The Cradle: Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya in bed with Israeli army to ‘shape Gaza coverage’: Report
Children of a given group dehumanised/persecuted across border. I hope the concerned authorities will issue a clarification (apology?) and the involved law enforcement agents will face disciplinary action and compulsory human rights training. https://t.co/cocHhAo757
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) September 21, 2024
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – SEPTEMBER 21:
Palestinian death toll from October 7, 2023 – September 21, 2024: at least 42,147* (41,431 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 716 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 21: at least 101,518 (including at least 95,818 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 21, 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.
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.
***Approximately twelve 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.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org
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