Israel’s violence and aggression against Palestinians appear to be escalating – Day 334

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Israel’s violence and aggression against Palestinians appear to be escalating – Day 334
Israeli forces bulldoze Jenin in the occupied West Bank (Issam Rimawi/Anadolu Agency)

Compilation of news reports – IAK staff 

Israel refusing entry to medical teams working on polio campaign – Gaza officials

Al Jazeera reports:

A day after the WHO completed the first phase of its polio vaccination campaign in Gaza, with more than 187,000 children below the age of 10 being inoculated, the drive has moved to southern Gaza.

The WHO targets to vaccinate an estimated 340,000 children in the second phase.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli forces are refusing to coordinate the safe entry into the area for vaccination teams into some areas.

The health ministry has called on concerned parties to intervene with Israeli authorities as more than 189,000 Palestinian children have been inoculated against the disease so far.

The Israeli military said it was checking into the issue.

Watch the full report:

Tent camp near Gaza hospital ‘turned into graveyard’

Al Jazeera reports:

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum has visited a tent camp near Al-Aqsa Hospital that was hit by a deadly Israeli air attack earlier today.

The aftermath, he says, is devastating, with dozens of tents completely wiped out and displaced people searching for what is left of their belongings.

People sheltering behind the hospital – the largest in central Gaza – say they received no warning ahead of the strike that killed at least four people, including women and children, according to Abu Azzoum.

“The attack was sudden in an area that is supposed to be protected,” he said. “The hospital has turned into a graveyard rather than a place of treatment.”

Tent camp near Al-Aqsa Hospital that was hit by a deadly Israeli air attack [Abdallah FS Alattar/Anadolu]
Tent camp near Al-Aqsa Hospital that was hit by a deadly Israeli air attack [Abdallah FS Alattar/Anadolu] (photo)

Palestinians in Gaza wish to die rather than live through more violence: Study

Assessment Capacities Project (ACAPS) reports:

The Swiss research group ACAPS has published a study, based on interviews with humanitarian responders, on how Israel’s war is affecting the mental health of Palestinians in Gaza. Some key points:

  • There has been a significant increase in mental health issues across Gaza, including widespread depression, anxiety and trauma.
  • Both adults and children are expressing the wish to die rather than live through further displacement, violence and deprivation.
  • Almost all of the estimated 1.2 million children in Gaza are in need of psychological help. Problems include depression in children as young as five, anxiety, suicidal thoughts and regressive behaviours such as bedwetting.
  • While security is a basic minimal requirement for effective mental health support, there is no safe place in Gaza.

ACAPS is a Swiss non-profit, non-governmental organization that provides independent humanitarian analysis and assessment.

Amnesty Int’l: Israeli military must be investigated for war crime of wanton destruction in Gaza

New report from Amnesty International:

Some highlights:

  • Amnesty International has accused Israel’s military of committing the war crimes of wanton destruction and collective punishment in Gaza, by creating a “buffer zone” along the territory’s eastern perimeter with Israel and bulldozing and blowing up homes and farms across the area.
  • The expanded buffer zone covers approximately 58 square kilometers (22.3sq miles), amounting to roughly 16 percent of the entire Gaza Strip.
  • As of May 2024, satellite imagery shows that more than 90 percent of the buildings within the area – or more than 3,500 structures – appear destroyed or severely damaged.
  • In four locations Amnesty International looked into, the destruction was carried out after the Israeli military took control of the area, meaning the damage was not caused by direct combat but through a deliberate and systematic campaign of demolition.
  • An Israeli soldier from the 8219 Engineering Battalion posted multiple videos of the demolitions in Khuza’a, showing troops smiling and posing for the camera – smoking shisha pipes or toasting with drinks – while explosions destroy buildings in the background.
NOTE: If fully realized, the buffer zone would reportedly reduce the area of the 25-mile-long enclave by 16%. The Biden administration is (or was) opposed to the plan and has warned against any proposal that would threaten the territorial integrity of the Gaza Strip, which at around 140 square miles is about the size of Philadelphia. In some places, the strip is less than 4 miles wide.
According to UN human rights chief Volker Turk, “Destructions carried out to create a ‘buffer zone’ for general security purposes do not appear consistent with the narrow ‘military operations’ exception set out in international humanitarian law.”

Israeli forces paving new road along Philadelphi Corridor: Report

Al Jazeera reports:

Video footage shows Israeli forces paving a road along southern Gaza’s Philadelphi Corridor, which Netanyahu has pushed to keep under Israel’s control.

The footage, shared by the Israeli news site Serugim and verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad fact-checking agency, shows numerous Israeli bulldozers and heavy construction equipment driving along the road under construction by night.

The road is to serve as a quick access route for Israeli forces to key strategic areas, such as the Egyptian border, Serugim reported.

The Philadelphi Corridor has become a major hurdle in ceasefire negotiations. Netanyahu is pushing for Israel to retain open-ended security control of the corridor on the Egypt-Gaza border while Hamas is demanding Israel’s full withdrawal.

No operational tunnel found by Israel along Gaza-Egypt border corridor: Israeli analyst

Andalou Agency reports:

As a critical counterpoint to Netanyahu’s demand to control the border area, the Israeli army has not discovered any operational underground tunnel under the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border, an Israeli military analyst said. 

“No single open tunnel has been found in the Egyptian territory. No single usable tunnel has been discovered under the Philadelphi Corridor,” Alon Ben-David told Israeli Channel 13.

The corridor, a demilitarized area along Egypt’s border with Gaza, has been a sticking point in Gaza cease-fire and prisoner swap negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists on maintaining a military presence on the axis, claiming that the corridor is a “lifeline” for Hamas to rearm.

Egypt rejects any Israeli military presence on the corridor and has denounced Netanyahu’s claims about weapons smuggling into Gaza through its territory.

“Around 80% of weapons are self-produced in Gaza,” Ben-David said, calling Netanyahu’s claims about weapons smuggling through the corridor “inaccurate.”

Last week, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that Israeli military withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor poses no security problem to Israel.

A view of the Gaza-Egypt border, January 11, 2024.
A view of the Gaza-Egypt border, January 11, 2024. (photo)

West Bank update: Israeli violence spreads

Various outlets report:

The Palestinian Ministry of Health says at least 40 people (6 of them youths) have been killed in the West Bank since August 28 when Israeli forces launched a large-scale incursion into several towns and cities: 21 Palestinians were killed in Jenin; 8 in Tubas; 8 in Tulkarem; and 3 in Hebron. 

This brings the total number of Palestinians killed across the West Bank since October 7 to 691.

At least 150 people have been wounded.

TUBAS: Five Palestinian young men were killed and two others were injured Thursday, one of them seriously, in an airstrike carried out by an Israeli occupation drone on a vehicle in the city of Tubas.

The Ministry of Health confirmed that five people were killed and two others were injured, one of whom was critically, and were taken to Tubas Turkish Governmental Hospital..

JENIN: The aggression on the city of Jenin and its camp continues for the ninth consecutive day.

Jenin Mayor Nidal Abu Saleh said in a phone call with WAFA that the occupation forces surrounded the municipality building, detained the municipality staff and employees, in addition to Jenin Governor Kamal Abu al-Rab, and began firing gunshots and sound bombs at the building while they were inside.

According to local sources, since the beginning of their assault on Jenin city and the refugee camp nine days ago, Israeli forces have displaced hundreds of residents from their homes through coercive measures.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says its teams have distributed supplies including food, baby formula and water to residents besieged by Israeli troops inside the Jenin refugee camp.

In a post on X, the PRCS said its teams delivered “essential relief supplies … to 1,175 families” in the camp.

TULKARM: Israeli forces deployed more vehicles to the camp, surrounding it from all entrances. They raided and searched several homes, interrogated residents, and physically assaulted some young men.

Meantime, a tight cordon was imposed by the occupation authorities around the Shuhada Thabet Thabet Governmental Hospital in the city, with ambulances and their crews subjected to inspection and interrogation.

BETHLEHEM: Confrontations erupted Thursday evening with Israeli occupation forces in al-Khader town, near Bethlehem, according to WAFA correspondent.

He said that the occupation forces barged their way into the western part of the town, simultaneously firing barrages of live gunshots and tear gas canisters.

There was no immediate information on any casualty.

60-year-old Mahmoud Asafra from Beit Kahil near Hebron, surrounded by Israeli forces as they mock him.
60-year-old Mahmoud Asafra from Beit Kahil near Hebron, surrounded by Israeli forces as they mock him. (photo)

HEBRON: Israeli occupation soldiers have released photos showing their abuse and humiliation of an elderly man during his detention from the town of Beit Kahil, northwest of Hebron.

The images, shared by one of the soldiers involved in the arrest of 60-year-old Mahmoud Asafra from Beit Kahil early last month, depict him seated among a group of soldiers with his hands bound and eyes covered.

The photos show the soldiers mocking and degrading him, making obscene gestures with their hands.

Mahmoud Asafra’s son, Mohammad, told our correspondent that his father, who served as the imam of a mosque in the town, has been detained twice since October 2023. During his first detention, he was subjected to severe physical abuse before being released.

In August of this year, the Israeli forces re-arrested him after raiding and thoroughly vandalizing their home.

NABLUS: Israeli forces have reportedly raided Balata refugee camp, east of Nablus city, in the West Bank.

A fleet of Israeli army vehicles accompanied by a bulldozer stormed the camp while firing live rounds. The vehicles fanned out into several streets, including the camp’s main commercial square, destroying property.

Israeli occupation forces frequently raid Palestinian houses almost on a daily basis across the West Bank on the pretext of searching for “wanted” Palestinians, triggering clashes with residents.

These raids, which take place also in areas under the full control of the State of Palestine, are conducted with no need for a search warrant, whenever and wherever the military chooses in keeping with its sweeping arbitrary powers.

Under Israeli military law army commanders have full executive, legislative and judicial authority over 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank. Palestinians have no say in how this authority is exercised.

Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant describes this major operation in the West Bank as “mowing the lawn” – but says Israel will eventually need to “pull out the roots”.

He added that there was “no other option” but to use “all the forces, everyone who is needed, with full strength”.

Campaigning Against Genocide (w/ Dr. Jill Stein & Butch Ware)

From the Chris Hedges Report:

“Genocide is the moral imperative of our era,” declares Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein in this episode of The Chris Hedges Reports as she continues her campaign for the U.S. presidency. Joined by running mate, Professor Butch Ware, the two make their case as to why they should earn the vote of every disenfranchised American, stuck in the woes of personal domestic struggles and the atrocities committed abroad on their behalf by a self-serving empire.

Stein’s view is clear when looking at how the election is shaping up: “Forget the lesser evil, there is no lesser evil. You have two genocidal candidates, one conducting genocide right now and the other promising to finish the job.”

Watch Hedges’ full interview here:

Palestinian activist Khairi Hannoun’s flag protest

Al Jazeera reports: 

Palestinian Khairi Hannoun,  a longtime activist in his late 60s, has been seen with his flag alongside armored Israeli military vehicles during the ongoing raid, which has now stretched into a second week.

Describing his protest, Hannoun said, ‘The Palestinian flag will not be replaced by the white flag.’

In 2020, Israeli soldiers violently arrested Hannoun while he was protesting, with one soldier putting his knee on the then 64-year-old’s neck.

IBM CEO: We listen to what Israel and Saudi Arabia consider “correct behavior”

The Intercept reports: 

The ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza has triggered tense, at times hostile, reckonings across American tech companies over their role in the killing. Since October 7, tech workers have agitated for greater transparency about their employers’ work for the Israeli military and at times vehemently protested those contracts.

IBM, which has worked with the Israeli military since the 1960s, is no exception: For months after the war’s start, workers repeatedly pressed company leadership — including its chief executive — to divulge and limit its role in the Israeli offensive that has so far killed over 40,000 Palestinians.

For many workers, the question of where IBM might draw the line with foreign governments is particularly fraught given the company’s grim track record of selling computers and services to both apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany.

On June 6, CEO Arvind Krishna addressed these concerns in a livestreamed video Q&A session.

For IBM workers worried about where the company draws the line, his response has sparked only greater consternation.

According to records of the presentation reviewed by The Intercept, Krishna told employees that IBM’s foreign business wouldn’t be shaped by the company’s own values or humanitarian guidelines.

Rather, Krishna explained, when working for governments, IBM believes the customer is always right.

(Read the full article here.)

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)

Israel withholds troop testimonies on 7 Oct from US investigators

The Cradle reports:

Israel allowed US investigators to collect testimonies directly from witnesses who experienced the events of 7 October but refused to allow testimony to be collected from Israeli soldiers for fear they could be tried for war crimes, Hapeles newspaper reported on 5 September.

The Hebrew language Haredi daily reported that Lahav 433, a crime-fighting umbrella organization within the Israeli Police, allowed evidence to be taken to the US as part of the cooperation between Tel Aviv and Washington to file indictments in US courts against senior Hamas officials.

However, the state attorney and head of Lahav, Motti Levy, did not pass on any testimony collected from the approximately 700 soldiers interviewed.

The testimonies of the soldiers were collected as part of the national investigation, but in view of the fear that the materials and testimonies of the soldiers would be used to prosecute them in the US and also at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, their testimonies were not provided, the paper added.

Hamas attacked Israeli military bases and settlements on 7 October. Some 1,200 Israeli soldiers and civilians were killed in the attack. Some were killed by Hamas, while many were killed by Israeli forces using attack helicopters, drones, and tanks, per the controversial Hannibal directive.

Due to the Israeli military’s use of heavy weapons, many Israeli civilians and soldiers were burned to death by their own military while being brought as captives by Hamas to Gaza or were buried under the rubble of their homes in the settlements.

It is possible the soldiers’ testimonies that were not sent to the US contain details about the Hannibal Directive.

An Israeli soldier walks past a destroyed house in Kibbutz Be’eri, near the border with Gaza, on October 11, 2023. (Photo credit: Menahem Kahana / Getty)
An Israeli soldier walks past a destroyed house in Kibbutz Be’eri, near the border with Gaza, on October 11, 2023. (Photo credit: Menahem Kahana / Getty) (photo)

When Six Israelis Were Mourned, Over 40,000 Palestinians Were Ignored

Ha’aretz (Gideon Levy) reports:

Israel mourns the six hostages who were killed. The world also mourns them. Their names, their pictures, their life stories and their families led news broadcasts in Israel and around the world.

Hersh Goldberg-Polin and Eden Yerushalmi became celebrities against their will, in their captivity and in their death. The world cried for them – it’s impossible not to: six beautiful young people, who went through hell in captivity before being brutally executed.

But our six hostages are only the tip of the story, a tiny fraction of the war’s victims. Their becoming a global story is understandable. Less understandable is the unbelievable contrast between the wide coverage of their lives and deaths and the total disregard for the similar fate of people their own age – as blameless and ingenuous and beautiful as them, and just as much innocent victims – on the Palestinian side.

While the world is shocked by the fate of Gaza, it has never paid similar respect to the Palestinian victims. The president of the United States does not call the relatives of fallen Palestinians, not even if they, like the Goldberg-Polins, had American citizenship.

The United States has never called for the release of thousands of Palestinian abductees that Israel has detained without trial. A young Israeli woman who was killed at the Nova festival arouses more sympathy and compassion in the world than a female teenage refugee from Jabalya. The Israeli is more similar to “the world.”

It’s not difficult to imagine how Gazans feel in the face of the world, which was rocked by six dead Israeli hostages while losing interest with alarming speed in 40,000 dead Palestinians.

Also, when they talk about abductees, they only talk about the Israeli hostages.

What about the hundreds and thousands of Palestinian abductees from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank; the so-called administrative detainees, held without trial; the “unlawful combatants” and the innocent laborers who were captured, and whose number no one even reports? Some of them, at minimum, are held in hellish conditions.

They too have worried families who have no idea what has happened to them for 10 months; they too are denied visits from the International Committee of the Red Cross.

MORE NEWS:

IMEMC Daily Reports.
Al Jazeera: Netanyahu and the Israeli protesters are on the same genocidal page
Andalou Agency: Israeli barriers, checkpoints have turned Hebron into a ‘large prison’
Electronic Intifada: What is Israel’s endgame?
MintPress News: UK halts arms exports to Israel but targets pro-Palestine voices at home
Middle East Monitor: France arrests nurse who volunteered in Gaza
Middle East Monitor: Israeli prison authorities ‘retaliate’ with punishments against Palestinians
Middle East Eye: Israel’s seizure of Sebastia symbolizes its theft of Palestine’s cultural sites

 

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STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – SEPTEMBER 5:

Palestinian death toll from October 7, 2023 – September 5, 2024: at least 41,546* (40,878 in Gaza* – 11,445 women (30%), 16,251 children as of July 22. [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 691 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 200,000 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**.
  • 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 5: at least 100,098 (including at least 94,454 in Gaza and 5,700 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, 2023 – September 5, 2024: ~1,452 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 288*** 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 ten 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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