“This is an extremely dark place in history” – Day 348

“This is an extremely dark place in history” – Day 348

Compilation of news reports – IAK staff 

Israeli bombardment left at least 28 dead across the Gaza Strip on Thursday.

UN Child Rights Committee condemns Israel’s treatment of Palestinian children

Press release from UN Child Rights Committee:

The Committee was greatly concerned about the high number of children in Gaza killed, maimed, injured, missing, displaced, orphaned and subjected to famine, malnutrition and disease, as a result of the State party’s indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks.

It urged the State party to immediately cease the killing and injuring of Palestinian children in Gaza, to ensure safe and unrestricted humanitarian access to and within the Gaza Strip, and to allow entry of all construction materials necessary for Palestinian families to rebuild homes and civilian and public infrastructure.

The Committee was deeply concerned about the continued abduction, arbitrary arrest, and prolonged detention of large numbers of Palestinian children by Israeli forces, mostly without charge, trial or access to legal representation or contact with family members.

It urged the State party to immediately end the arbitrary and administrative detention of children, to release all Palestinian children who have been arbitrarily detained, and to abolish the institutionalized system of detention and the use of torture and ill-treatment against them at all stages of the judicial procedure.

Bragi Guðbrandsson, vice chair of the U.N. Child Rights Committee, remarked, “The outrageous death of children is almost historically unique. This is an extremely dark place in history…I don’t think we can identify any measure that was taken to save children’s lives in this military operation in Gaza.”

He added, “I don’t think we have seen before, a violation that is so massive, as we are seeing in Gaza now. These are extremely grave violations that we do not often see.”

Israel accused the Child’s Rights Committee of having a “politically-driven agenda”, in a statement sent by its diplomatic mission in Geneva.

RELATED READING: UN adds Israel to the “Hall of Shame” – the list of states committing violations against children
As of February, an estimated 17,000 children were unaccompanied and separated from their families. This number is likely much higher now, with our team in Gaza finding more unaccompanied children every day.
As of February, an estimated 17,000 children were unaccompanied and separated from their families. This number is likely much higher now, with our team in Gaza finding more unaccompanied children every day. (collage)

‘Palestinians are also human beings’: US lawmaker

Andalou Agency reports:

US congresswoman Rashida Tlaib slammed her colleagues on Thursday who are silent about Israel’s killing of Palestinians, including babies, in the Gaza Strip:

Rep. Rashida Tlaib
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (screengrab)

“We are living through one of, again, the most documented horrific crimes against humanity in our history. These are children who did not live to see their first birthday. We cannot normalize this,” Tlaib said on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Her remarks came after the Gaza Ministry of Health released a 649-page document with the name of every identified Palestinian killed in the Gaza Strip.

It listed 34,344 Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks, publishing their names, ages, genders and ID numbers. The first 14 pages of the document – 710 names – are babies.

“My colleagues continue to be silent. I wonder if it’s because these babies are Palestinian? They’re children, that’s it. They’re children. I can’t believe I have to consistently remind my colleagues that Palestinians are also human beings,” said Tlaib.

“Fourteen pages of babies names…that the Israeli government has murdered. This is not self-defense. This is genocide,” she added.

She also criticized many of her colleagues who continue to send bombs to Israel. “This is not working tirelessly for a cease-fire. If the Biden-Harris administration wants a cease-fire, they should stop sending the bombs and the weapons. We must stop arming and funding genocide.”

RECOMMENDED READING: ‘12,000 minors, 710 infants’: Names released of over 34,000 victims of Israel’s war on Gaza

Israel’s deliberate blackout of the Gaza Strip for nearly a year is a tool of genocide

Euro Med Monitor reports:

Palestinian Territory – Israel’s deliberate cut-off of electricity to the Gaza Strip for almost a full year now has had catastrophic effects and long-lasting humanitarian repercussions, affecting every aspect of residents’ lives. The subjection of over two million individuals to deplorable living conditions by Israel, including cutting off their electricity, is a tool of its ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.

Cutting off electricity to a 2.3 million-person population spread over 365 square kilometers for almost a full year is a highly unprecedented measure in the history of conflicts and wars, as it is not only the product of military operations but also a political decision. Israeli officials have clearly stated that their goal is to annihilate the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced, on 7 October 2023, “a complete siege … no electricity, no water, no food, no fuel. We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.”

Subsequently, on the same day, Israeli Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Yisrael Katz decided to cut off the Gaza Strip’s electricity supply, and the Minister of Defense decided to prevent the entry of any trucks carrying fuel.

Following these decisions, the 120 megawatt feeder lines from Israel to the Gaza Strip were disrupted on 8 October 2023, and this disruption has continued to the present day. As part of its genocidal war against Palestinians, Israel has also prohibited the entry of fuel into the Strip, shutting down the sole power plant in the enclave…

(Read the full report here.)
Because of the unpredictable and intentional power outages, the Gaza Strip has experienced multiple debilitating crises, with hospitals and health facilities being forced to close multiple times due to damage to solar energy systems and electricity generators.
Because of the unpredictable and intentional power outages, the Gaza Strip has experienced multiple debilitating crises, with hospitals and health facilities being forced to close multiple times due to damage to solar energy systems and electricity generators. (photo)

West Bank: Israeli Army Kills 7 Palestinians, Injures 12

IMEMC reports:

Israeli forces executed seven Palestinian young men and injured at least twelve, including a child seriously, during a prolonged attack against the town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin in the northern West Bank. [NOTE: Middle East Eye reports eight dead.]

Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank on Thursday, Sept. 19
Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank on Thursday, Sept. 19 (photo)

Media sources said that on Thursday morning, a large army force stormed the town of Qabatiya and besieged a citizen’s home, before firing many live rounds and several shells at the home.

Sources added that the army executed three young men, after shooting them with live ammunition; the soldiers then stormed the rooftop where the men were killed, and proceeded to abuse their corpses.

Videos published on various media outlets show occupation soldiers kicking the bodies of the three slain men from the rooftop of the building where they were executed.

Later, the soldiers transported the three bodies with a bulldozer and proceeded to confiscate the bodies, taking them to an unknown location.

It is important to mention that the abuse of a corpse is in clear violation of International Humanitarian Law (IHL).

Occupation forces shot at least eight others with live rounds, and injured two others by running them over with an armored jeep.

After the army fired anti-tank grenades at the besieged home, a military bulldozer demolished it.

Sources said that on Thursday evening, an armed Israeli drone fired a missile at a vehicle near a coffee shop, killing a young man, while soldiers killed another man after shooting him with live rounds near the entrance to the town.

The attacking army fired tear gas canisters and live rounds at journalists who gathered to cover the events of the military incursion, and prevented ambulance crews from approaching the besieged home.

Two other Palestinians were also killed.

(Several videos of the day’s incidents are here.)

In response to news of Israeli soldiers abusing bodies, the Israeli military said in a statement, “This is a serious incident that is not in line with [Israeli military] values ​​and what is expected of [Israeli military] soldiers.”


Israeli Supreme Court rejects petition to shut prison where Palestinian was raped

Middle East Monitor reports:

The Israeli Supreme Court has rejected a request by civil society organizations to shut down the notorious Sde Teiman Prison, where aggravated human rights violations have been committed against Palestinian detainees.

The request came as part of a petition filed in May by the Association for Civil Rights, the Doctors for Human Rights, Gisha, Hamoked and the Committee Against Torture to immediately close the prison.

The court rejected the closure request and said, “In these difficult days, the Supreme Court is also required to issue rulings that should be obvious — that the state must abide by the law and is prohibited from abusing the detainees.”

In July Israel’s Attorney-General demanded Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu close the detention camp “immediately” following the rights groups’ petition.

Thousands of Palestinian civilians, including women, children, and health and civil defence workers have been arrested since 7 October. Images emerging from Gaza show them being rounded up, stripped to their underwear in public and taken away.

Over the past few months, the army has released dozens of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza in separate batches, most of whom suffered from deteriorating health conditions and bore signs of torture and medical neglect.

RECOMMENDED READING: Hostages of Israeli revenge in the Gaza Strip: Testimonies of 100 released Palestinian detainees reveal crimes of torture, cruel treatment.
Screen image from an Israeli Channel 12 report on the sexual assault and rape of a Palestinian prisoner at Sde Teiman prison.
Screen image from an Israeli Channel 12 report on the sexual assault and rape of a Palestinian prisoner at Sde Teiman prison. (screen image)

Netanyahu lashes out at UK prime minister for giving mixed signals on Israel support

Middle East Eye reports:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has criticized the government of new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, accusing it of sending “mixed messages” regarding the United Kingdom’s support for Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting in the prime minister's office in Jerusalem, Sunday, June 25, 2023.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. (photo)

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Netanyahu condemned London’s recent suspension of arms licenses to Israel as “misguided”.

“After the October 7 Hamas massacre,” Netanyahu stated, “the previous British government was clear in its support. Unfortunately, the current government is sending mixed messages.”

He criticized the UK’s discontinuation of support for Netanyahu in the International Criminal Court and its decision to suspend a small percentage of arms licenses to Israel.

In response, a Foreign Office spokesperson stated: “We have been absolutely clear that Israel must adhere to international humanitarian law when taking military action.”

He added, “The UK has raised concerns about these issues over many months, as have other allies. Unfortunately, these concerns have not been satisfactorily addressed.”


Hezbollah leader vows “just retribution” for Israel’s pager explosions

Andalou Agency reports:

Hezbollah Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah, vowed to turn Israel’s actions into a “hell”, Thursday, after the group suffered a “severe blow” when communication devices were detonated earlier this week in Lebanon, Anadolu Agency reports.

Nasrallah made the remarks during a televised speech to address the explosions that killed 37 people and injured thousands.

“We admit we have received a severe blow which is natural as we acknowledge Israel’s technological superiority, backed by the US, NATO and the West,” said Nasrallah. “The Israeli enemy sought to kill 5,000 people within just two minutes, showing no regard for anything.”

“The number of pagers carried by Hezbollah members is 4,000, which implies that Israel intentionally sought to kill 4,000 people,” he said.

The explosions “will be met with a just retribution, severe reckoning, timing, place, nature of which we will determine,” said Nasrallah.

Medical facilities across Lebanon are overrun as thousands are killed or injured in Israeli terror attack, September 17
Medical facilities across Lebanon are overrun as thousands are killed or injured in Israeli terror attack, September 17 (screengrab)

Paging The Hague: Israel’s Exploding Electronics Might Be War Crimes

The Intercept reports:

The seemingly indiscriminate nature of the attacks in Lebanon this week has drawn the attention and concern of experts in international law who caution that the explosions may rise to the level of war crimes.

Brian Finucane, a former State Department legal adviser under Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, “If it is Israel behind this [it is], they’ve got some tough questions to answer, including to the U.S. government, because the U.S. government is providing great military support.”

“It really should be in the U.S. government’s interest to ensure that its military partners are complying with the laws of war.”

Finucane said that, were he still advising the State Department, he would urge the U.S. to ask a series of questions: Did Israel take precautions to minimize harms to civilians? Did it anticipate blasts to be large enough to harm civilians? How and when were the devices altered to be detonated?

On the specific topic of exploding pagers and walkie-talkies, he highlighted a law of war that prohibits the “use of booby-traps or other devices in the form of harmless portable objects which are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material.”

“I think detonating pagers in people’s pockets without any knowledge of where those are, in that moment, is a pretty evident indiscriminate attack,” said Jessica Peake, an international law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. “I think this seems to be quite blatant, both violations of both proportionality and indiscriminate attacks.”

Both Peake and Finucane said the scale of this week’s attacks are unprecedented.

(Read the full article here.)

The remains of exploded pagers on display at an undisclosed location in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sept. 18, 2024. Photo: AFP/Getty Images
The remains of exploded pagers on display at an undisclosed location in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sept. 18, 2024. Photo: AFP/Getty Images (photo)

U.S. Officials Concede Gaza Cease-Fire Out of Reach for Biden

Wall Street Journal reports

After months of saying a cease-fire and a hostage-release deal was close at hand, senior U.S. officials are now privately acknowledging they don’t expect Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement before the end of President Biden’s term.

“No deal is imminent,” one of the U.S. officials said. “I’m not sure it ever gets done.”

NOTE: The WSJ article goes on to give a fabricated list of reasons why no deal has been reached, including that “Hamas makes demands and then refuses to say ‘yes’ after the U.S. and Israel accept them.”
In reality, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has been repeatedly “sabotaging talks“; adding “nonnegotiable” demands,” and “collaps[ing] the deal.” While the Biden administration has been publicly declaring for weeks that an agreement is very close, Netanyahu, his team, and mediators have insisted this is not the case. Israeli officials have said that Netanyahu’s hard lines are actually making a deal much harder to reach.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv on October 16, 2023.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv on October 16, 2023. (photo)

US: University of Virginia refuses to divest from Israel despite student referendum

Middle East Eye reports:

The managers of the University of Virginia’s (UVA) multi-billion-dollar endowment announced on Friday that they will not divest from Israel, a decision taken despite a February referendum passing a pro-boycott, divestment and sanctions resolution targeting Israel.

Students and faculty had been engaged in a divestment campaign since the fall of 2023, among many other college campuses.

UVA’s investment management company, responsible for managing the school’s nearly $14bn endowment, has now officially rejected those calls to withdraw investments from companies linked to Israel on the basis of not “using divestment as a means of expressing political views”, according to Kristina Alimard, the company’s chief operating officer.

During a recent board of visitors meeting, Alimard stated, “We are not divesting from any investments in response to the student referendum that was passed earlier this year.”

Over 8,000 students voted in the referendum calling for full divestment from Israel in the university’s $13.6bn endowment in companies “that engage with or profit from Israel’s apartheid regime and its acute violence against Palestinians”.

More than two-thirds of the voters supported the measure.

Columbia students protest in support of Palestine on campus on Oct. 12. More demonstrations have occurred since, including one on Nov. 9 that appears to have led to the suspension of two groups. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Columbia students protest in support of Palestine on campus on Oct. 12. More demonstrations have occurred since, including one on Nov. 9 that appears to have led to the suspension of two groups. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) (photo)

MORE NEWS:

IMEMC Daily Reports.
The Intercept: Kamala Harris Refused to Meet With Uncommitted About Gaza — and Uncommitted Refused to Endorse Her
CounterPunch: Exploding Pagers in Lebanon, Another Israeli Terrorism Blunder?
FAIR interview with Gary Shupak: ‘Genocide Can and Should Never Be Just a Normal Story’
Middle East Monitor: Canada university’s anti-Semitism adviser resigns after praising Lebanon pager explosions

FOR MORE NEWS ON THE LEBANON FRONT:

The Cradle: Hezbollah chief challenges Israeli leaders: ‘You will not return settlers to the north’
Andalou Agency: Israel launches intensive airstrikes against southern Lebanon amid escalating tensions
Middle East Eye: Bombs in toys: A brief history of Israeli booby traps in Lebanon

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – SEPTEMBER 19:

Palestinian death toll from October 7, 2023 – September 19, 2024: at least 41,978* (41,272 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 706 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 death9 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 19: at least 101,251 (including at least 95,551 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 19, 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.

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

Enter your email address below to receive our latest articles right in your inbox.