Compilation of news reports – IAK staff 

Israel’s “heinous” attack on al-Mawasi incinerated Gazans using US-made one-ton bombs

The Cradle reports:

Israeli forces committed a new massacre against displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza’s Al-Mawasi region early on 10 September, described by the strip’s Civil Defense as among “the most heinous” since the start of the war.

The strike occurred in a designated “safe zone,” where displaced Palestinians in tent encampments have been repeatedly targeted by Israel over the past months.

Over 20 tents sheltering displaced Palestinians were hit in the early morning attack on Al-Mawasi, located on the coast near Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis.

“We are facing one of the most heinous massacres since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip … entire families disappeared under the sand due to the concussion missiles,” Gaza’s Civil Defense said.

The Civil Defense added that entire families and over a dozen tents completely disappeared after the Israeli strike.

WAFA news agency reported that “five missiles were used in the attack, causing total destruction to the tents and digging craters nine meters deep into the ground, which made it more difficult for rescue and medical teams to reach the victims.”

“The people were buried in the sand … They were retrieved as body parts,” eyewitnesses told AP.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent reported on Tuesday that “dozens are still missing and the civil defense have been digging with their bare hands to get the people out.”

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Despite ‘safe zone’ designation, 5 Israeli massacres have killed 217 Palestinians in al-Mawasi since May

Andalou Agency reports:

[NOTE: Some reports say 19 were killed Tuesday, some say 40. An explanation of the discrepancy is here. Either way, the death toll is likely to rise.]

Despite Israel declaring it a “safe area,” effectively promising Palestinians shelter from attacks, the al-Mawasi area, located along the southern Palestinian coastline of the Mediterranean Sea in southwestern Gaza, has suffered five Israeli massacres since May.

The Israeli military had designated the area a “safe humanitarian zone.” However, these attacks, which have claimed the lives of at least 217 Palestinians and injured 635 others, have been condemned by international and UN bodies, as well as numerous countries.

This sandy region, devoid of basic living necessities, has become home to about 1.7 million displaced Palestinians seeking shelter from months of Israeli attacks.

Forced to relocate under heavy fire, the majority arrived in al-Mawasi following the Israeli military’s ground operation in Rafah starting on May 6.

(Read the details here.)

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Gaza’s toxic air a ‘death sentence’ for trapped Palestinians, warn experts

Andalou Agency reports:

Experts are warning that millions of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are breathing toxic and polluted air that is nothing short of a “death sentence.”

Hundreds of thousands of people in the besieged and bombarded enclave are suffering breathing problems and respiratory issues, and doctors say the scale of the problem will continue to grow as Israeli bombs disperse more chemicals into the air, mixing with dust from the unending mounds of rubble throughout Gaza.

The extent of the crisis will also become clearer when Gaza’s health system is restored and hospitals get back the ability to conduct tests and offer other basic services destroyed in Israel’s ongoing assault.

Dr. Riyad Abu Shamala, a Palestinian ENT specialist in Gaza, fears an increase in birth defects in the near future, along with cases of lung cancer, particularly once “hospitals resume operations and departments such as radiology, MRI, CT scan and others … are restored.”

“I believe the general situation will worsen due to the deterioration of living conditions, increased pollution, lack of sanitation, and the contamination of water and air,” he told Anadolu.

Since Oct. 7 last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) has recorded 995,000 cases of acute respiratory infections in Gaza.

Yara Asi, an academic specializing in health management, believes these numbers are likely a significant undercount.

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Human Rights Watch: In Gaza, Israeli Military’s Digital Tools Risk Civilian Harm

New HRW report:

The Israeli military’s use of surveillance technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), and other digital tools to help determine targets to attack in Gaza may be increasing the risk of civilian harm, Human Rights Watch said today in releasing a question and answer document about the tools. These digital tools raise grave ethical, legal, and humanitarian concerns.

The Israeli military is using four digital tools in the Gaza hostilities to estimate the number of civilians in an area prior to an attack, notify soldiers when to attack, and to determine whether a person is a civilian or a combatant, as well as whether a structure is civilian or military.

One is based on mobile phone tracking to monitor the evacuation of Palestinians from parts of northern Gaza. Another, which the military calls “The Gospel,” generates lists of buildings or other structural targets to be attacked. Another, which the military calls “Lavender” assigns ratings to people in Gaza related to their suspected affiliation with Palestinian armed groups for purposes of labeling them as military targets. “Where’s Daddy?” purports to determine when a target is in a particular location so they can be attacked there.

Human Rights Watch found that the digital tools appear to rely on faulty data and inexact approximations to inform military actions in ways that could contravene Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law, in particular the rules of distinction and precaution.

“The Israeli military is using incomplete data, flawed calculations, and tools not fit for purpose to help make life and death decisions in Gaza, which could be increasing civilian harm,” said Zach Campbell, senior surveillance researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Problems in the design and use of these tools mean that, instead of minimizing civilian harm, the use of these tools could be resulting in the unlawful killing and wounding of civilians.”

These tools entail ongoing and systematic surveillance of Palestinian residents of Gaza, including data collected prior to the current hostilities, in a manner that is incompatible with international human rights law. The tools use Palestinians’ personal data to inform threat predictions, target identification, and machine learning.

(Read the rest of the summary here; find the full report here.)

RECOMMENDED READING: ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza

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UN says lives of staff endangered in Israeli halt of Gaza polio vaccine convoy

The Guardian reports:

On Monday, Israeli soldiers halted a UN convoy involved in the recent polio vaccination drive in Gaza and detained two staff members for questioning, in an incident during which live shots were fired and vehicles damaged by a bulldozer, the UN has said. The UN has released a statement that offers more detail about the incident.

According to the statement, a convoy of 12 UN staff members “whose movement was fully coordinated with Israel Defense Forces, and whose details were shared with them in advance,” was stopped Monday by Israeli forces on its way to northern Gaza to support the polio vaccine campaign.

Israeli soldiers demanded to question two of the UN staff members in the convoy.

“The situation escalated quickly, with soldiers pointing their weapons directly towards the convoy personnel. Live shots were fired, and tanks and bulldozers approached, engaged with, and damaged UN vehicles, endangering the lives of UN staff inside the vehicles.”

The staffers were questioned and released, and 7.5 hours after arriving at the checkpoint, the convoy left, returning to their base without fulfilling their mission.

“This incident highlights the ongoing dangers and obstacles humanitarian personnel face in Gaza. Despite daily coordination of humanitarian movements with the Israel Defense Forces, our staff and assets were not provided with sufficient protection, hindering our work.

“Under international humanitarian law, such protection is mandatory.”

The IDF claimed that it had “intelligence” that required the delay of the convoy.

Did Israel kill 5 at a food stall near polio vaccine sites to “undermine” vaccination campaign?

Euro Med Monitor reports: 

Israel is critically undermining Gaza’s Polio vaccination campaign: This morning, Israel bombed a food stall in the Tuffah neighborhood located between 3 deconflicted centers designated as safe for providing Polio vaccination to children in Northern Gaza 5 were killed

According to our field information, the targeted food stall in the Tuffah neighborhood east of Gaza City is only tens or hundreds of meters away from the designated safe vaccination centers in the Tuffah, Al-Daraj, and Al-Balad neighborhoods.

We have also documented airstrikes in Southern Gaza that similarly undermine the crucial polio vaccination campaign.

Additionally, Israel’s stopping & interrogating a UN mission yesterday indicate a clear tendency for the IDF to obstruct humanitarian & relief efforts.

Most Americans want to stop arming Israel. Politicians don’t care.

The Intercept reports: 

When Kamala Harris sat down with CNN’s Dana Bash last month, Bash asked a question: “Would you withhold some U.S. weapons shipments to Israel? That’s what a lot of people on the progressive left want you to do.”

Harris sidestepped the question, talked about a ceasefire, and ultimately said that she would not change course from the Biden administration’s policy of arming Israel as its war on Gaza enters its 11th month.

But polls of the American voting population show that she’s ignoring more than just the “progressive left”: A majority of voters support ending arms transfers to Israel, and support for an arms embargo is growing.

“The reality is that the public is far more in favor of stopping arms sales to Israel than opposed,” Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine/Israel Program at Arab Center Washington D.C., told The Intercept. He pointed to a June poll from CBS that showed 61 percent of all Americans said the U.S. should not send weapons to Israel, including 77 percent of Democrats and nearly 40 percent of Republicans.

Poll results have been consistent for months.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, a majority of Americans have expressed support for some form of restrictions on the U.S. sending weapons to Israel in repeated public surveys. Americans are even more overwhelmingly in favor of a ceasefire.

(Read the full article here.)

‘Our policy is clear’: Canada halts more arms sales to Israel

Al Jazeera reports:

Canada has suspended some 30 permits for arms shipments to Israel, including a US company’s Canadian subsidiary’s deal with the US government – a rare move.

“Our policy is clear: We will not have any form of arms or parts of arms be sent to Gaza. Period,” Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said.

Canada drew the ire of Israeli leaders when it initially announced it would halt new arms shipments to Israel as of January 8.

Pro-Palestinian protests across Canada – at universities, political events and even the Toronto International Film Festival last week – have continued to put pressure on the government to go further.

On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden said of the shooting of a Turkish American activist by an Israeli sniper, “Apparently it was an accident — it ricocheted off the ground, and she got hit by accident.”

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, was fatally shot by Israeli forces on Friday during a protest against illegal Israeli settlements in Beita, a town just outside of Nablus.

The Israeli army said Tuesday that it is “highly likely” that Eygi was “indirectly and unintentionally” hit by fire from its forces.

Earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israel’s killing of Eygi was “unprovoked and unjustified” and that it is “unacceptable.”

Eygi, born in Antalya, Türkiye in 1998, graduated in June from the University of Washington, where she studied psychology and Middle Eastern languages and cultures.

She arrived in the West Bank last Tuesday to volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement as part of an effort to support and safeguard Palestinian farmers.

AL JAZEERA ADDS: The family of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi called Israel’s investigation “wholly inadequate”.

“We are deeply offended by the suggestion that her killing by a trained sniper was in any way unintentional. The disregard shown for human life in the inquiry is appalling,” they said in a statement.

“We reiterate our demand for the US government leaders – President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Secretary of State Blinken – to order an independent investigation into the Israeli military’s deliberate targeting and killing of a US citizen,” they added.

STATEMENT FROM COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS (CAIR):

President Biden and Vice President Harris’ failure to call the family of an American citizen murdered by an Israeli sniper is deeply disturbing and disappointing, especially given that both of them quickly contacted the family of an Israeli-American killed by Hamas.

It is long past time for the Biden administration to start treating all American families as equally worthy of respect and all human beings, including the people of Gaza and the West Bank, as equally worthy of life.

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Top EU Diplomat Warns Israeli Impunity Will Lead to West Bank Becoming ‘a New Gaza’

Common Dreams reports:

European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell on Tuesday urged the international community to stop “radical members of the Israeli government” from thwarting Palestinian statehood and prevent Israel from turning the illegally occupied West Bank into “a new Gaza.”

Speaking to attendees of an Arab League conference in Cairo, Borrell lamented that a Gaza cease-fire agreement “has still not been signed and does not seem likely to be signed in the near future.”

“Why? Quite simply, because those who are waging the war have no interest in putting an end to it,” he continued. “So, they are just pretending… Because, as it turns out, their intransigence is accompanied by total impunity.”

“Not only is there no pause in the war in Gaza,” he noted. “But what looms on the horizon is the extension of the conflict to the West Bank, where radical members of the Israeli government—Netanyahu’s government—try to make it impossible to create a future Palestinian state.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his far-right government have openly boasted about their efforts to derail the so-called “two-state solution,” and Israeli lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in July to oppose the creation of a Palestinian state.

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South Africa says genocide case against Israel ‘will continue,’ to file memorial next month

Andalou Agency reports:

The genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will continue and South Africa will file a memorial next month, the presidency said in a statement on Tuesday.

[A memorial is a written statement of facts provided to a court, and provides the key points and summaries for its case.]

“South Africa intends to provide facts and evidence to prove that Israel is committing the crime of genocide in Palestine,” the statement said.

“This case will continue until the court makes a finding. While the case is in progress, we hope that Israel will abide by the court’s provisional orders issued to date.”

The remarks come amid reports that Israeli diplomats are being instructed to lobby members of the US Congress to pressure South Africa into dropping the case.

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ISRAELI JOURNALIST EXPOSES THAT NETANYAHU STAGED THE CRIME SCENE AT A KIBUTZ FOR ELON MUSK’S VISIT pic.twitter.com/AJnZaQAL0Y

— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) September 8, 2024

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Forged Hamas documents leaked to shape public opinion, Israeli report says

Middle East Eye reports:

Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth reports that leaked Hamas documents that purported to show plans to smuggle Israeli captives out of Gaza were forged.

Speaking to military officials, the Israeli outlet says the documents were leaked in an attempt to influence public opinion and present a view that Hamas and its leader, Yahya Sinwar, were uninterested in a ceasefire deal and attempting to pin the failure to reach an agreement on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The documents were used by the UK’s Jewish Chronicle and Germany’s Bild.

The Jewish Chronicle claimed that documents seized by the Israeli army in Gaza on 29 August revealed a plan to smuggle captives from Gaza to Egypt across the Philadelphi corridor buffer zone, and then to Iran.

Sinwar, who the Jewish Chronicle said was behind the plan, was also alleged to be planning his escape.

The two reports come after Netanyahu held English and Hebrew news conferences last week in which he insisted that Israel would not withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor – a demilitarised zone on Gaza’s border with Egypt – claiming it would allow Hamas to sneak captives out of Gaza.

Yedioth Ahronoth says these fake and forged documents caused “great concern and anger in the security establishment, and it is assumed that it will heighten the tensions between them and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his men”.

HA’ARETZ ADDS: Israel’s defense establishment has not found any signs that Hamas is preparing to move Israeli hostages from Gaza into Egypt via tunnels passing beneath the Philadelphi route, despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims.

According to Netanyahu, one of the main reasons behind the decision to keep Israeli troops in the Philadelphi route is the concern that Hamas will attempt to smuggle hostages to Egypt and then to Iran and Yemen.

Israeli defense officials estimate that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar lacks the capacity to transfer hostages to the Rafah area and from there to Egypt, let alone to other countries.

The defense establishment says that if this was Sinwar’s intention, he could have done so in the first months of the war, when the army had not yet entered the southern Gaza Strip.

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Int’l Criminal Court prosecutor requests expedited issuance of arrest warrants against Netanyahu, Gallant

WAFA reports:

International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan requested Tuesday to expedite the issuance of arrest warrants against the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Occupation Army Minister Yoav Gallant.

Media reports noted that Khan believes that the ICC is procrastinating on responding to his request several weeks after dozens of countries and concerned parties submitted their legal arguments, as he wishes that such warrants are issued before Netanyahu’s arrival to New York to deliver his speech at the United Nations General Assembly.

In May, Khan had announced that he had asked the ICC to issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, on the background of several charges, including committing crimes against humanity in Gaza.

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Two Palestinians fatally shot by Israeli forces’ fire in Tulkarem

 WAFA reports:

TULKAREM: Two Palestinians were fatally shot on Monday by Israeli forces’ live fire in the city of Tulkarem, in the northern occupied West Bank, according to the Ministry of Health.

The Ministry of Health said that two Palestinians, including a female, were shot dead by the Israeli forces.

The slain Palestinians were identified as Ahmad Majduba, 24, and Heba Shehada Mosleh Halawa, 21.

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US–UK jets bomb girls’ school in Yemen, leaving several casualties and taking a toll on US taxpayers

The Cradle reports:

Airstrikes launched by US and UK fighter jets against Yemen on 10 September killed two girls and injured seven others at a school.

The girls’ school which was hit by two missiles from US and UK aircraft,” local sources told Al Mayadeen.

The attack came a few hours after the Armed Forces of Yemen’s Sanaa government announced bringing down yet another US MQ-9 Reaper drone while it was carrying out hostile espionage and combat operations in the airspace of Saada Governorate,” said a Yemeni army spokesman on 10 September.

MQ-9 Reapers are worth around $30 million.

“This is the second plane that our air defenses have succeeded in shooting down within 72 hours,” said the spokesman. “It is the ninth plane to be shot down [since the start of the US–UK bombing campaign].”

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DEBATE: Which candidate loves Israel more?

Israel’s war on Gaza was among the many issues discussed in the US presidential debate between Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and her Republican rival, Donald Trump.

Harris repeated the same line she has espoused in previous public appearances, focusing on the stalled US-led effort to reach a ceasefire, but avoided committing to using any leverage to prevent Israel from carrying out more abuses in Gaza.

“Israel has a right to defend itself… and how it does so matters, because it is also true far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed – children, mothers. What we know is that this war must end,” she said.

“I will always give Israel the ability to defend itself, in particular, as it relates to Iran and any threat that Iran and its proxies pose to Israel.”

Trump claimed that Israel ‘won’t exist within two years from now’ if Harris becomes president. “I hope I’m wrong on that one,” he said, but claimed he has been “pretty good at predictions.”

Trump also said Harris “hates Israel” – to which the Democratic nominee responded, “That’s absolutely not true”, adding that she is a lifelong supporter of the Jewish state.

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