From: paula rainey
Cc: Tracy Jensen; Tony Daysog; Malia Vella; Trish Spencer; City Clerk; Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft Subject: [EXTERNAL] Ceasefire is a local issue
Date: Tuesday, April 2, 2024 4:48:24 PM
Dear Mayor Ezzy Ashcraft and City Council,
Knowing that tonight the city will read a proclamation to announce Arab American Heritage Month, I remind you that Ceasefire is a local issue.
One concrete step the Council can take is to join other Apartheid Free communities.
Accountability is essential and these times demand that our Council speaks out.
For details about how to join the growing list of Apartheid Free communities, please refer to link below.
https://apartheid-free.org
Thank you.
Paula Rainey
Alameda resident.
From: Trish Spencer
To: City Clerk
Subject: Fwd: [EXTERNAL] Arab American Heritage Month Proclamation Date: Tuesday, April 2, 2024 4:12:16 PM
From: raviv moore <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 2, 2024 3:47:49 PM
To: Marilyn Ezzy-Ashcraft <[email protected]>; Malia Vella <[email protected]>; Tony Daysog <[email protected]>; Trish Herrera-Spencer <[email protected]>; [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Arab American Heritage Month Proclamation Dear distinguished Mayor and council members,
Having been informed of tonight's proposed proclamation, I would like to voice my support of the city recognizing the Arab heritage.
I would also like to voice my concern that this will become, again, a vehicle for having the city involved in international affairs that will further drive divisiveness in our city.
Respectfully yours
Raviv Moore
From: Trish Spencer
To: Lara Weisiger
Subject: Fwd: Endorse a ceasefire in Gaza at the April 2nd meeting Date: Monday, April 1, 2024 4:57:00 PM
Attachments: My_testimony_regarding_the_Israel_Gaza_w.pdf From: AFF4C <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, April 1, 2024 4:33:45 PM
To: Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft <[email protected]>; [email protected] <[email protected]>; Malia Vella <[email protected]>; Trish Spencer <[email protected]>; [email protected] <[email protected]>; [email protected] <[email protected]>; LARA WEISIGER <[email protected]>; [email protected] <[email protected]>; [email protected] <[email protected]>; AFF4C.Core <[email protected]>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Endorse a ceasefire in Gaza at the April 2nd meeting Dear Alameda City Councilmembers,
Alameda Families and Friends for Ceasefire wishes to reiterate that we want Alameda City Council to act and go on the record in some way opposing the genocide in Gaza and calling for a permanent ceasefire.
To this end we:
Name the contradiction in honoring Arab-American Heritage Month with a proclamation while failing to call for a ceasefire in Gaza
CA is home to the largest population of Arab Americans in the country, as well as the largest number of Palestinians.
While Alameda is proud to have designated April Arab American Heritage Month, we must call out the contradiction between celebrating Arab culture/ heritage while simultaneously supporting harm to Arab communities, specifically genocide in Gaza.
Active support and tacit support through the silence of the ongoing genocide in Palestine communicate loud and clear the message that Palestinian and Arab lives do not matter and fuel anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism.
Journalist Chris Hedges wrote: “The genocide, which the U.S. is funding and sustaining with weapons shipments, says something not only about Israel, but about us, about Western civilization, about who we are as a people… and what defines us.
It says that all our vaunted morality and respect for human rights is a lie. It says that people of color, especially when they are poor and vulnerable, do not count. It says their hopes, dreams, dignity and aspirations for freedom are worthless. It says we will ensure global domination through racialized violence.” Lift up Arab-American leaders in the fight for a Free Palestine from local to national leaders like Alameda Mayor, martyrs like journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, and celebrities like actor Ramy Youssef who’s called for a ceasefire and a free Palestine on SNL.
Absent a call for a ceasefire from this council, honoring this month with a proclamation is shallow lip service to multiculturalism and hypocritical.
Uplift the lived experience of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and in the US:
In Gaza, more than 100,000 Palestinians have been killed (32,623) or injured (75,092).
Meanwhile, over 8,000 are missing or presumed dead.
Let me say that again in terms you might relate to more:
Israel has killed – with US weapons – nearly 40,000 Palestinians in six months – that is comparable to half of the population of our island of Alameda.
Israel has killed – with US taxpayer money – more than 13,000 Palestinian children in six months – this is one and a half times the number of children in the Alameda Unified School District – all dead never to reach out a hand to hold or bring a smile to their parents’ faces again.
In the occupied West Bank, since 10/7 more than 5,000 Palestinians have been killed (454) or injured (4,750).
Many injuries are serious, permanent, and life-altering: loss of limbs, paralysis, blindness and chronic illness from exposure to toxins. The vast majority of both those killed and injured are children and women.
27 people in Gaza have died of starvation, 23 of them children. Those are the ones registered at hospitals. For those who survive, starvation also has lasting impacts on health.
The US has recently admitted that ‘famine is now probably present in Gaza’.
The World Food Programme says that due to Israel’s blockade, Gaza is now home to the largest population ever to suffer catastrophic hunger since records began in 2004.
UN Special Rapporteur on Gaza issued a report that concludes there are “reasonable grounds to believe the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met.” While aid has increased due to different delivery methods (e.g. air drops and delivery by sea) it remains insufficient, inefficient, impractical and highly expensive when compared to what trucks could be bringing in if allowed to flow. Israel also continues to target distribution points.
58,000 additional deaths are projected in Gaza over the next six months if there is no ceasefire, with the spread of infectious diseases the main cause of death.
While the world is distracted in Gaza, Israel on March 22 announced the largest single land grab in the occupied West Bank since 1993 - 10 square kilometers (3.8 square miles) of Palestinian territory, about a third of the size of Alameda.
Permits were/are being denied to the majority of Palestinian Christians in the West Bank for Easter, denying them religious freedom
Connect what is happening in Gaza to what is happening locally:
Recent polling shows that 55% of voters, and 75% of Democratic voters in particular, disapprove of Israeli military action in Gaza. This is up from 45% and 65% respectively from polling in November.
The Washington Post recently created an interactive guide for readers to explore what would happen to friends and family if Gaza was home. Outcomes included deaths of at least 7 personal connections, and nearly 1 in 3 people are at risk of starving to death.
This month is Earth Month and a time when this city will be reviewing its Climate Action Readiness Plan. Alameda’s goals of reducing emissions by 50% below 2005 levels by 2030 and becoming carbon neutral as soon as possible are meaningless when Israel’s relentless bombing campaign in Gaza creates emissions in excess of greater than the annual carbon footprint of more than 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations.
Today’s agenda includes a resolution to expand Alameda’s police station (5D). We are concerned about the Alameda Police Department’s interest in military-grade equipment.
We should spend money on community needs: housing, education, green jobs, social services rather than on military action and wholesale destruction of communities in Gaza.
Last Sunday, March 24, organizers estimated that nearly 2000 people walked all or part of a 22-mile long ‘interfaith Ceasefire pilgrimage’ in the East Bay. Hundreds of people walked the last leg through Alameda, ending with an interfaith service at Maya Lin school.
Highlight the other cities/groups that have taken action for a ceasefire and the changing political landscape
The UN Security resolution finally passed a resolution calling for “an immediate ceasefire “for the duration of the month of Ramadan leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire” as well as the immediate and unconditional release of hostages and greater humanitarian access to Gaza.” In a significant departure from its previous position, the US abstained rather than voting No.
Last week Gavin Newsom, in his open letter to Muslim, Palestinian American and Arab American communities called for an immediate ceasefire The cities of Albany and Alhambra have passed ceasefire resolutions unanimously.
Leading Jewish voices inside and outside Israel are condemning Israel’s military action in Gaza. In an interview with Haaretz.com, Jewish playwright Tony Kushner stated that Israel’s action in Gaza “really look a lot like ethnic cleansing to me. Meanwhile, Israeli historian Lee Mordechai took to Twitter to lay out the “enormous amount of evidence” supporting the position that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza (full academic paper attached).
In his recent piece in the Atlantic titled U.S. Support for Israel’s War has Become Indefensible, Phil Klay makes the point that “a good pretext for war is not enough to make a war just.”
Ceasefire is going to be a primary election issue. In addition 100,000+ Michiganders voting Uncommitted rather than vote for Biden, 19% of primary votes went to that category in Minnesota. His poll numbers have dropped in Michigan and Georgia. In a White House meeting, he started shouting and swearing, saying he’s doing what is right. --
Alameda Families & Friends for Ceasefire
Follow us on Instagram @ alameda4ceasefire and
Facebook @ Alameda Families and Friends for Ceasefire
1 March 15, 2024
Executive Summary
I, Lee Mordechai, a historian by profession and an Israeli citizen, testify in this document to the horrible current situation in Gaza as events are unfolding. The enormous amount of evidence I have seen, much of it referenced later in this document, has been enough for me to believe that Israel is currently committing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza. The current war is ostensibly the Israeli reaction to the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, a war crime and crime against humanity that was committed within the context of the longstanding conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that can be dated back to 1917 or 1948 (or other dates). In all cases, I do not believe that historical grievances and atrocities justify additional atrocities in the present. As such, I consider Israel’s response to Hamas’ actions on Oct. 7 utterly disproportionate.
The paragraphs of the executive summary contain the summary of much longer sections below, a paragraph for each section. Each section below includes several dozens of references that lead to the supporting evidence upon which I base my assessment.
Over the last five months, Israel has repeatedly massacred Palestinians in Gaza, resulting in the deaths of over 30,000 Palestinians – some 70% of whom are women and children – as of writing.
Tens of thousands more have been injured. These numbers are probably an undercount considering Israel’s deliberate destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system, which is the single independent source of these numbers (which are also used by Israel, including its Prime Minister and the military).
Israel has actively attempted to cause the death of the civilian population of Gaza. This has been done through the destruction of institutions that support life – such as hospitals or aid agencies – as well as by strangling the Gaza Strip from its necessities: food, water and medicine. As a result, people in Gaza (mainly children) have already begun to die from starvation and dehydration.
Because of the lack of medicine, difficult medical procedures such as amputations and caesareans are conducted with no anesthesia. Israel has gone further in attempting to destroy the fabric of Palestinian society by deliberately targeting cultural institutions such as universities, libraries, archives, religious buildings and historical sites.
Israeli discourse has de-humanized Palestinians to such an extent that the vast majority of Israeli Jews supports the aforementioned measures. Countless videos from the Gaza Strip uploaded by soldiers in the Israeli military attest to widespread abuse of Palestinians (including cruel violence and dehumanization), ubiquitous and normalized looting, and wanton destruction of all kinds of property with little consequences. This content is confirmed by Palestinian testimonials that depict the Palestinian experience of death, destruction and abuse during their detainment by Israeli security apparatus.
All the evidence I have seen strongly suggests that Israel’s objective is to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip, whether in part or in total. Key members in Israel’s government have made statements confirming this intent at different points throughout the war. Several of Israel’s government ministries have planned or worked to facilitate such an end. Israel has been clearing significant parts of the Gaza strip by demolition and bulldozing, while also constructing Israeli military infrastructure and attempting to corral Palestinians in limited areas of the already densely populated Gaza Strip.
One of the purposes of the war, according to the Israeli government, is to release the hostages – over 130 of whom remain in Hamas’ captivity. Here, too, the evidence suggests that a military operation is not the way to release them. To date Israel has released exactly three hostages through 2 military operations, while killing many others directly or indirectly through its actions. Israeli society is currently divided around the hostage issue, at least partially the result of the actions of the Israeli government.
The global attention to Gaza has drawn attention away from the West Bank. There, Israel’s operations through its miliary or settlers since the beginning of the war has resulted in the killing of hundreds of Palestinians, the ethnic cleansing of at least 15 local communities, and a sharp increase in levels of violence and abuse by both the Israeli state and Jewish settlers.
All of the above has been made possible through the strong support of most mainstream media in Israel as well as the West, primarily in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. The pro- war campaign – supported by both the state and the mainstream media in these locations – has legitimized Israeli violence and actions, deflects attention away from many events in Gaza, and contributes to the de-humanization of Palestinians.
3 Preface
I, Lee Mordechai, a historian and an Israeli citizen, testify in this document, as events are unfolding, to the horrible situation in the Gaza Strip. I write my personal opinion out of a sense of double responsibility: as a citizen whose country is committing what I consider as grave crimes, and as an academic, who believes that after having dedicated my career to research I am obliged to speak up against injustice, especially when it is so close. I write also because of the disappointing general silence on this issue among many international and Israeli academic institutions, especially those that are well-positioned to comment on it. The relatively few of my colleagues who have bravely spoken out have been an inspiration.1 I do not believe this document will convince many others to change their minds. Rather, I write this publicly to testify that during the war there were and remain Israeli voices who strongly dissented from Israel’s actions.
The newest version of this document can be found on my
academia.edu and Twitter pages, which
also have an English version. Older versions appear on my Twitter page. I plan to continue to revise this document every few weeks. I include in this document a large number of references, especially of videos from Gaza, to convey and clarify the scale of this event and the frequency of the horrors that I describe.
Although I am neither a lawyer nor an expert on the subject, the evidence I have seen and describe below has been sufficient for me to believe that what Israel is currently doing to the Palestinian population in Gaza is a crime against humanity2 that is consistent with the definition of genocide as I understand it.3 A recent (Jan. 26) International Court of Justice Order found that Israel’s actions could plausibly be argued to be genocide,4 as experts have pointed out before5 and after6 the Order – including both action and intent.7 A federal judge in California ruled the Israel’s actions are “plausibly” genocide.8 As of early March, Israel has not changed its conduct since the decision of the ICJ.9
On 7 October 2023, Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 people in Israel, most of whom were civilians, and taking about 250 people hostage to Gaza. These atrocities are war crimes and crimes against humanity. Many others have already written about these events in the international and Israeli media and I do not have much new to add on this matter. The horrible events of 7 October – themselves committed as part of a historical context that returns to the longstanding conflict between Israel and the Palestinians – initiated the current war that is the context for this document.
Despite Hamas’ aforementioned atrocities, I believe Israel’s response to the events of Oct. 7 over the past five months continues to be wholly disproportionate, immoral and criminal. My position on
1 I chose to write this open statement about what is happening in Gaza having been inspired by John Mearsheimer’s similar statement a few months ago. https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/death-and-destruction-in-gaza. Additionally important in composing this document is the comprehensive and important South African Application instituting proceedings and Request for the indication of provisional measures to the International Court of Justice, from which I have traced some of the sources of information in this document (https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20231228-app-01-00-en.pdf). 2 https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/crimes-against-humanity.shtml 3 https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml 4 https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20240126-ord-01-00-en.pdf 5 https://time.com/6334409/is-whats-happening-gaza-genocide-experts/ 6 https://www.justsecurity.org/91457/top-experts-views-of-intl-court-of-justice-ruling-on-israel-gaza-operations-south-africa-v- israel-genocide-convention-case/
7 https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml 8 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/01/genocide-gaza-israel-california-court. The court dismissed the case as the issue was outside its jurisdiction.
9 https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/how-israel-defied-icj-provisional-measures 4 these matters represents a tiny minority in Israeli society. In polls on this issue only 1.8% (October), 7% (December), and 3.2% (January) of Jewish Israelis believed the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) was using too much firepower in Gaza.10
My position is based on many pieces of evidence that I have collected particularly since late December 2023. In my analysis, I gave precedence to evidence provided by reputable institutions such as the United Nations, in particular its Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which releases almost daily updates about the situation in Gaza, as well as reports by several humanitarian aid and human rights organizations. I have also made use of mainstream media outlets, particularly in cases of factual reporting (e.g. someone saying something). In cases of in- depth investigative reporting I have also used sources like the Israeli +972/Local Call Magazine. To support the evidence I have collected from these sources, I have used material from social media from both sides. I estimate that since the beginning of the war, I have read hundreds of articles – academic, those written by academics or journalists, and others. In addition, I have watched thousands of videos and images, mostly by Israelis from the Gaza Strip. Many of these include deeply disturbing content – violence, cruelty, de-humanization and their results. The best of my ability, I estimate that the vast majority of the information I have included is reliable, and I have repeatedly chosen not to include information from both sides I had doubts about. I include in this document many footnotes to the sources I have used, so that the interested reader would be able to evaluate my account themselves.
This document corresponds to an update and expansion of earlier versions of my understanding of the situation in early January, late January and mid-February 2024, following ideas and suggestions I have since received. The document’s main purpose is still to state my opinion publicly out of a sense of commitment I have to human rights ideals. A secondary purpose is to preserve at least some of the evidence I have come across as I have been reading about the war. I hope readers find it useful to better understand the circumstances over these difficult days in the present and the future.
Context
Gaza itself is a tiny piece of land, consisting of some 365 square kilometers. Its population is about
2.3 million, making it one of the most densely populated areas on the planet.11 Israel controls Gaza’s borders, communications, electricity, water and even population registry.12 The United Nations, human rights organizations, government ministries (including in the US and the UK) and legal scholars all saw Gaza as an occupied territory under the control of Israel even before the war.13 These features as well as Gaza’s geography and demography exacerbate the crisis I outline below.
Israel, already before the current war, has been described as an apartheid state by leading human rights organizations following serious and well documented reports (Human Rights Watch,14
10 https://social-sciences.tau.ac.il/sites/socsci.tau.ac.il/files/media_server/social/2023/Findings-November-2023-EN.pdf; https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israelis-say-hamas-must-be-crushed-despite-gaza-casualties-un-rebuke-2023-12- 13/ ; https://www.idi.org.il/articles/51742 ; https://en-social-sciences.tau.ac.il/sites/socsci- english.tau.ac.il/files/media_server/social/peaceindex/2024-01-findings.pdf 11 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-87 12 https://features.gisha.org/gaza-up-close/
13 Sanger, Andrew (2011). "The Contemporary Law of Blockade and the Gaza Freedom Flotilla". In M.N. Schmit, Louise Arimatsu; Tim McCormack (eds.). Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law 2010. Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law. Vol. 13. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 429-431. 14 https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution 5 Amnesty International15, and B'Tselem16). This has facilitated many of the policies and actions I discuss below.
The massacre of Palestinians
So far, Israel has killed over 31,490 Gazans – about 1.5 percent of the total population of Gaza.17 This death toll is conservative and will almost certainly increase.18 The number is accepted by Israeli officials.19 The number does not include about 7,000 missing people, many still buried under the rubble.20 It also does not include any individuals whose death was not reported to Gaza’s overwhelmed health ministry. According to the available public data, including data in Israel, about three quarters (c. 73%) of the deaths in Gaza are of women and children.21 As of mid February, over 12,300 children had already been killed.22 73,439 people (about 3 percent of Gaza’s population) have been injured.23
Although the International Court of Justice Order that called upon Israel to take “all measures in its power” to prevent the killing of Palestinians on 26 Jan., as of writing Israel has continued to kill an average of over 100 Palestinians a day.24 A panel of UN experts stated in February that arms exports to Israel are illegal and must stop immediately.25
Israeli spokespersons themselves have estimated that two civilians have died for each Hamas militant, and stated that it is a justified ratio.26 In reality, the ratio is likely far worse – with estimates that about 80-90 percent of deaths have been of civilians.27 According to the key investigative report on the subject, Israel knows well the amount of civilians that will be hit by its attacks and proceeds to bomb buildings with little oversight, often through employing an artificial intelligence system (“The Gospel”).28 About 40-45% of the air-to-ground munitions Israel has dropped on Gaza are unguided.29 During the first six weeks of the war, Israel used 2,000 pound bombs in areas it designated safe for civilians in at least 208 occasions.30 In addition, Israel has also used quadcopters to fire on civilians.31 In February, Amnesty International closely investigated four attacks that killed at least 95 civilians. All took place in the southern governate that was supposed to be safe at the time, and Amnesty found no indication that the buildings were legitimate military objectives or that
15 https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/5141/2022/en/ 16 https://www.btselem.org/topic/apartheid
17 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-160 18 https://www.mekomit.co.il/%D7%9E%D7%A1%D7%A4%D7%A8%D7%99-%D7%94%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%92%D7%99%D7%9D- %D7%91%D7%A2%D7%96%D7%94-%D7%9B%D7%A0%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%94-%D7%92%D7%91%D7%95%D7%94%D7%99%D7%9D- %D7%A4%D7%99-%D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%95/
19 https://www.politico.eu/article/israels-netanyahu-says-he-will-defy-bidens-red-line-and-invade-rafah/ (at least 26,000 Palestinians killed as of early March); https://www.mekomit.co.il/%D7%94%D7%A6%D7%91%D7%90-%D7%91%D7%93%D7%A7- %D7%95%D7%9E%D7%A6%D7%90-%D7%A9%D7%93%D7%99%D7%95%D7%95%D7%97%D7%99- %D7%94%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%92%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%91%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%93-%D7%94%D7%91/ . 20 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/08/the-numbers-that-reveal-the-extent-of-the-destruction-in-gaza 21 https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-02-12-2024-4ade5edf47711c6b0c13d1380980de2b 22 https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-02-12-2024-4ade5edf47711c6b0c13d1380980de2b 23 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-160 24 https://twitter.com/_ZachFoster/status/1758520277288341601 25 https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/02/arms-exports-israel-must-stop-immediately-un-experts 26 https://cnn.com/2023/12/05/middleeast/israel-hamas-military-civilian-ratio-killed-intl-hnk/index.html 27 See e.g. the considerably lower mortality estimate here (1,000-2,000 Hamas fighters in late November). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/26/idf-messaging-suggests-gaza-truce-unlikely-to-last-much-beyond-tuesday ; also the ~70% of the dead were women and children, and it is likely that of the men who were killed some were not militants. 28 https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/; https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/01/the-gospel-how-israel-uses-ai-to-select-bombing-targets 29 https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/13/politics/intelligence-assessment-dumb-bombs-israel-gaza/index.html 30 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/21/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-bomb-investigation.html . For an example:
https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2024/02/23/gaza-atrocities-investigation-warehouse-attack-karadsheh-pkg-vpx.cnn 31 https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/war-gaza-israeli-quadcopters-hi-tech-weapon-menacing-palestinian-civilians 6 people in the buildings were military targets.32 A former UN’s Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights stated that the Israeli attack on Gaza has probably the highest kill rate of any military killing anybody since the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.33
The rate of civilian deaths is shocking, particularly as it continues in real time. The UN Secretary General has stated that “We are witnessing a killing of civilians that is unparalleled and unprecedented in any conflict [in recent years]”.34 Since the beginning of the operation, Israel has killed an average of about 100 children per day. This number is greater than the number of children killed in conflict zones around the world over the past three years combined, and is far greater than the rate of children killed in other 21st century wars.35 In October alone, the number of killed Gazan children was over 10 times more than the number of children killed in the entire first year of the Russia-Ukraine war.36 As UNICEF’s Executive Director put it, Gaza is “the most dangerous place in the world to be a child”.37 UNICEF estimated in early February that at least 17,000 children are unaccompanied or separated from their parents.38 Children deaths are prominent in videos from Gaza, often filmed by their own families.39 In late February, the head of MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières) stated in front of the UN Security Council that children as young as five told members of the organization that they would prefer to die than to continue to experience the displacement, fear and witnessing of the killing of their family members.40 A Gazan journalist wrote an open letter to Israeli society in which he narrated a case of a 6 year old boy who lay down to sleep under a truck and turned blue from the cold. When a passer-by woke him up and asked him what was he doing, the boy responded that he wanted the truck to drive over him in the morning because his entire family had been killed. The boy died the same day from hypothermia.41 As of March 15, 168 UN staff members have been killed.42 125 journalists and media workers have been killed, more than the entirety of journalists killed in World War II, and at a rate higher than any other conflict over the past century.43 More than 100 university professors, including several leading Palestinian academics, have been killed.44 At least 348 health workers have been killed.45 Israel’s attacks on hospitals have killed hundreds of Palestinians. More have died by lack of supplies46 or forced evacuations, including four premature babies in intensive care after the IDF forced the nurse taking care of them to leave when IDF soldiers reached the hospital. The babies were left in their
32 https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/02/israel-opt-new-evidence-of-unlawful-israeli-attacks-in-gaza-causing-mass- civilian-casualties-amid-real-risk-of-genocide/
33 https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1760286175699272027 ; https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/02/14/gaza-war-israel-civilian- deaths-urban-warfare-hamas/
34 https://twitter.com/UN_News_Centre/status/1726609880986083685 35 https://www.savethechildren.net/news/gaza-3195-children-killed-three-weeks-surpasses-annual-number-children-killed- conflict-zones;
36 https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/5903/Number-of-Gazan-children-killed-in-under-a-month-is-10-times-higher-than-that- of-Ukrainian-children-killed-in-entire-first-year-of-Russia%E2%80%99s-ongoing-war. 37 https://www.unicef.org.uk/press-releases/statement-by-unicef-executive-director-catherine-russell-on-the-resumption-of- fighting-in-gaza/
38 https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/stories-loss-and-grief-least-17000-children-are-estimated-be-unaccompanied-or 39 https://twitter.com/NourNaim88/status/1760724513581584472; https://twitter.com/CensoredNws/status/1761662724331774349 ; https://twitter.com/RamAbdu/status/1762531665958547626
40 https://www.msf.org/msf-briefing-gaza-un-security-council 41 https://twitter.com/AGvaryahu/status/1763102777423659018/photo/1 42 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-160 43 https://cpj.org/2024/01/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/; https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/9/how- deadly-is-the-israel-gaza-war-for-journalists; https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day- 160
44 https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20231228-app-01-00-en.pdf (#90); https://twitter.com/Timesofgaza/status/1744041205938409756; https://twitter.com/NourNaim88/status/1743662116614070495 ; https://twitter.com/NourNaim88/status/1745135460270096699; https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6108/Israel-kills-dozens- of-academics,-destroys-every-university-in-the-Gaza-Strip ; list with names at https://twitter.com/sawporg/status/1755224105249333643 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1760047560025317563 45 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-160 46 https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports/unrwa-situation-report-80-situation-gaza-strip-and-west-bank-including-east-Jerusalem 7 beds and later found during the ceasefire in late November in a state of decomposition as nobody cared for them.47 The amount of Palestinian deaths has led to digging graves and mass graves everywhere.48
Palestinian lives are incredibly cheap. In one case, a car with six civilians was attacked, killing four. A 15 year old girl called the Palestinian Red Crescent from the car, but was apparently killed during the conversation. Her cousin, a 6 year old girl, called again and stayed on the line, terrified and surrounded by her dead family members, for 3 hours. The Palestinian Red Crescent sent two paramedics to retrieve her, informing the IDF of their movement. All connections with the girl and the paramedics were lost, and 12 days later the girl’s decomposing corpse was found in the car, while the paramedics were killed nearby when an IDF tank shot their ambulance.49 In another case, IDF troops entered a family home and killed the two parents in sight of their children (aged 11, 9 and 5; the youngest, with cerebral palsy, lost his eye to a grenade the soldiers threw).50 In a different case, the IDF sent a handcuffed prisoner to deliver a message to evacuate a hospital in Khan Younis, then shot him as he tried to walk outside the gate.51 The IDF subsequently bombed the hospital.52 An American doctor that returned from Gaza told the Los Angeles Times that during her time there “a handful of children” around 5-8 were brought to the emergency room, all of whom had single sniper shots to the head.53 A detained Gazan had his hands zip-tied before driven over by an Israeli tank, potentially while he was still alive. An image of his mutilated corpse was shared on an Israeli telegram channel with a post stating that “You are going to love this!!!”.54 A human rights organization documented other occasions in which Israeli soldiers have deliberately driven over dozens of Palestinian civilians while they were alive.55 In another case, an IDF soldier shot and killed a Palestinian man with special needs in front of his mother in a Gaza hospital after the man shouted in fear and did not keep quiet as the soldier commanded.56 A different soldier killed an unarmed 73- year old Palestinian who signaled to him not to shoot. In response, the soldier’s commander said “He signaled ‘no no [with his hands]’ and you took him down? Excellent”.57 There are many similar stories of IDF soldiers purposefully killing civilians.58 In one particularly notable event, the “flour massacre”, at least 118 civilians were killed and over 700 were injured as they attempted to get food from a convoy of lorries bringing in humanitarian aid.59 Palestinians claimed that the IDF shot them,60 while the IDF claimed that most casualties died because of overcrowdedness and the general mayhem in which the lorries run over the civilians.61 In both cases, the IDF is responsible for the deaths of civilians. The international media tended to confirm the Palestinian version of the story, partially because the IDF did not provide evidence to support their claims (an IDF video supposedly showing the event was clearly edited several times)
47 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/03/gaza-premature-babies-dead-nasr/ 48 https://twitter.com/NourNaim88/status/1759600702886748387 49 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/10/body-of-6-year-old-killed-in-deliberate-israeli-fire-found-after-12-days 50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RDXQapOtUg
51 https://theintercept.com/2024/02/14/gaza-nasser-hospital-evacuation-israel-prisoner/ 52 https://twitter.com/Ahmad_tibi/status/1758038092353503495 53 https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-02-16/rafah-gaza-hospitals-surgery-israel-bombing-ground-offensive-children 54 https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/1763469843070697726; https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/war-gaza-israel- palestinian-ran-over-tank-images-suggest
55 https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6202; see also driving over Palestinian corpses: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel- soldier-boasted-running-over-dead-palestinian-man-tank
56 https://www.itv.com/news/2024-03-01/he-didnt-understand-disabled-man-shot-dead-in-gaza-hospital-by-idf 57 https://twitter.com/MatanGolanPhoto/status/1766586400558739508 58 https://twitter.com/NourNaim88/status/1761163980947558806 59 https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/08/middleeast/gaza-flour-massacre-idf-report-intl/index.html 60 https://twitter.com/NaksBilal/status/1763188564823576868 ; https://twitter.com/idfonline/status/1763174751042695313 ; https://twitter.com/kaneez_e_zahrah/status/1763176424012230952 ; 61 https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/08/middleeast/gaza-flour-massacre-idf-report-intl/index.html 8 and testimonials from Gazans who experienced the massacre.62 UN experts and human rights organizations agree more strongly.63 The director of the al-Awda hospital claimed that the vast majority of injuries who came to receive treatment after the event (142 of 176) suffered from gunshot wounds.64 According to online sources and videos, Palestinians seeking food were shot in the same place on many occasions on the days before and after the “flour massacre”.65 Israel’s National Security Minister praised the IDF soldiers for their conduct during the event.66 International law stipulates that Israel is required to supply food and water in the areas where it is an occupying power.67 Notably in this context, Israel and the United States were the only two countries who voted against declaring food as a human right in the United Nations in 2021.68 The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reiterated that there is no safe space in Gaza.69 There have been multiple mass graves where corpses of Palestinians have been deposited,70 with additional decomposed corpses in the streets.71 Reports have “documented dozens of cases of field executions carried out by the Israeli army”.72 In one such event, on 19 Dec. IDF troops are said to have executed at least 19 unarmed Palestinian men in front of their family members.73 In another, over 30 Palestinian corpses were found in black plastic bags, blindfolded and handcuffed.74 Few of these cases have even been covered in Israeli media.75
In a January poll, two thirds of Israelis preferred to continue the war in its current form of excessive bombardment and violence.76 In a poll from February, about three quarters of Israeli Jews supported the continuation of the military operation to Rafah.77
Causing the deaths of civilian populations
Israel has placed a stranglehold on the Palestinian population of Gaza since the beginning of the war.
The amounts of food, fuel, medicine and water are extremely limited. The absence of supplies in Gaza – a siege – has been the stated policy of top Israeli officials since the beginning of the war.78 Only about 20-30% of the 500 trucks necessary to supply Gaza for humanitarian causes are allowed
62 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/29/dozens-killed-injured-by-israeli-fire-in-gaza-while-collecting-food-aid; https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68445973 ; https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/29/gaza-aid-trucks-death-toll- explainer ; https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/03/09/gaza-new-accounts-of-the-flour-massacre_6601904_4.html ; https://www.972mag.com/gaza-aid-convoy-massacre-testimonies/ 63 https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6200 ; https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/05/un-experts-condemn-israeli- massacre-of-palestinians-collecting-flour
64 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1763221018103996559 ; https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68445973 65 https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/03/09/gaza-new-accounts-of-the-flour-massacre_6601904_4.html ; https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/1763651267237216587 66 https://twitter.com/itamarbengvir/status/1763196768458604583 . For the IDF’s own investigation, see:
https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/b1dmqvd6t; for a critique, see: https://www.mekomit.co.il/ps/132587/ 67 https://guide-humanitarian-law.org/content/article/3/occupied-territory/ 68 https://press.un.org/en/2021/gashc4336.doc.htm
69 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-82 70 https://www.reuters.com/pictures/all-cemeteries-are-full-palestinians-buried-mass-grave-gaza-2023-11-22/ 71 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Poydd3EG_-8; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1761369042596647177 72 https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6058/Euro-Med-Monitor-sends-UN-rapporteurs,-ICC-Prosecutor-primary-report- documenting-dozens-of-field-execution-cases-in-Gaza; https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/war-gaza-survivors-recount- harrowing-israeli-field-executions ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1745259688801816854 73 https://www.un.org/unispal/document/unlawful-killings-in-gaza-city-ohchr-press-release/ ; https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/20/palestinians-accuse-israeli-forces-of-executing-19-civilians-in-gaza 74 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/1/palestinians-demand-international-inquiry-after-mass-grave-found-in-gaza 75 https://www.ynet.co.il/yedioth/article/yokra13792905; https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/syv8bslop 76 https://www.idi.org.il/articles/52071
77 https://www.idi.org.il/articles/53276
78 https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/defense-minister-announces-complete-siege-of-gaza-no-power-food-or-fuel/ ; https://twitter.com/KnessetT/status/1716502486331113922 9 in daily, and encounter multiple problems as they try to do so, including attacks by the IDF.79 In the first two weeks of March, only half of the planned humanitarian missions to northern Gaza took place. The other half were denied by the IDF or postponed.80 Since the beginning of the war Gaza has been experiencing a full electricity blackout.81 Fuel prices, for example, have increased by over 500 percent.82 In the northern parts of the Gaza strip in early February, the price of a bag of flour, 30 shekels (~$8) before the war, reached 500-1000 shekels (~$125-250), 15-30 times higher.83 In late February, the price of a plate with some raw meat and rice reached $95 according to social media,84 while a nurse in Al-Shifa hospital claimed he had not eaten bread for 2 months during which he consumed animal feed.85 At the same time, the UN’s leading expert on the right to food described the circumstances as ‘a situation of genocide’, while the World Food Programme stated that “people are already dying from hunger-related causes”.86 As of mid-March, 31 people (of which 27 were children) in Gaza died of malnutrition or dehydration.87 In this context, the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy stated in front of the UN Security Council that “starvation is being used [by Israel] as a war arm”.88
As a result, the vast majority of Gaza’s population is at risk of famine. Virtually all households are skipping meals every day, with 50-80% of households going entire days and nights without eating.89 Some 90% of civilians in Gaza experience “high levels of acute food insecurity”.90 In late January the World Health Organization’s Director-General noted the food shortages that result in medical staffs and patients receiving only one meal per day.91 Some 40% experience “emergency levels” and over 15% (378,000) experience catastrophic levels, namely “extreme lack of food, starvation and exhaustion of coping capacities”.92 The Chief Economist of the World Food Program has stressed that “In my life, I’ve never seen anything like this in terms of severity, in terms of scale, and then in terms of speed.”93 A prominent scholar of famine and Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation stated that he had never seen the war crime of starvation perpetrated in such scale over the 40 years of his career94 and that “The rigor, scale and speed of the destruction of the structures
79 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-160 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/remarks-media-secretary-general ; https://edition.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/tug-of- war/episodes/0e6112dc-ae58-11ee-8bd1-6f9c6607fa1d ; https://jewishcurrents.org/israel-policy-starvation-gaza-aid 80 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-140 81 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-160 82 https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000154766/download/ 83 https://www.haaretz.co.il/magazine/2024-02-07/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/0000018d-8213-daa1-a9fd-e21b04660000 ; https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231117-give-us-our-daily-bread-gaza-faces-flour-crisis 84 https://twitter.com/HamzaAbuToha/status/1760588426103963720 85 https://twitter.com/MiddleEastEye/status/1762736475957829852 86 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68349031.amp ; https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/27/un-israel-food- starvation-palestinians-war-crime-genocide
87 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-160 https://twitter.com/Sarah_Hassan94/status/1761372883278807170; https://twitter.com/NourNaim88/status/1761322640935940449 ; https://twitter.com/RamAbdu/status/1762518985633890640; https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/1762478847277084910 ; https://twitter.com/save_children/status/1762543144061575626; https://twitter.com/alijla2021/status/1762535516774302206 ; https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/two-babies-starve-to-death-in-northern-gaza-hamas-health-ministry/; https://twitter.com/FranceskAlbs/status/1763466551968035006; https://twitter.com/FranceskAlbs/status/1764689858067358154; https://twitter.com/QudsNen/status/1764728907578712177 ; https://twitter.com/UNICEF/status/1764296731380920490 ; https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6212/In-just-24-hours,-two-children-and-an-elderly-man-starve-to-death-amid-rising- malnutrition-rates-in-Gaza
88 https://apnews.com/video/europe-gaza-european-union-war-and-unrest-josep-borrell-63eebfe7f71f4ed881580913c51b7036 89 https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/IPC_Gaza_Acute_Food_Insecurity_Nov2023_Feb2024.pdf ; https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/01/world/middleeast/gaza-israel-hunger.html; https://www.972mag.com/rafah-children- hunger-aid/
90 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-113; https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/2023-12-21/ty-article/.premium/0000018c-8908-d60e-afdf-ed0e2bb70000 91 https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-on-gaza--the-who-executive- board--trans-fats-and-leprosy
92 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-113 93 https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/gaza-is-starving 94 https://youtu.be/0pGgFZovlAw?si=mone7I85_SobAivS&t=875 10 necessary for survival, and enforcement of the siege, surpasses any other case of man-made famine in the last 75 years”.95 An aid organization stated on CNN that Gaza was the fastest decline in nutritional status ever recorded in a human population.96 Media coverage refers to people eating grass and drinking contaminated water or sea water.97 A group of aid organizations that include UNICEF stated in late February that over 90% of children under the age of 5 in Gaza were facing “severe food poverty”. A similar percentage was suffering from infectious diseases, with 70% of them having diarrhoea over two weeks in February.98 Images and videos from the strip appear to confirm these findings.99 Despite this situation, IDF officers demanded a further lowering of the humanitarian aid to Gaza.100 About 60 percent of Israeli Jews oppose humanitarian aid to Gaza, a stable figure over time.101 Jewish activists have completely blocked the entrance of aid to Gaza on several occasions in recent months.102 IDF soldiers recorded themselves destroying and burning food warehouses in Gaza.103 In November, the average water supply per person in Gaza was between 1.5-1.8 liters daily (the minimum average volume of water for drinking and domestic hygiene should be 15 liters),104 but this number decreased to less than one liter on average in February.105 The lack of medical supplies has resulted in the conduction of medical operations, including C-sections and amputations, without anesthesia or blood supplies.106 An online video shows a Gazan doctor who had to amputate his daughter’s foot on the dining table in their home without anesthesia.107 A medical student at Al- Shifa hospital recounts how he had to stitch the face of a boy who was wounded in an Israeli bombardment for 3 hours in darkness and without anesthesia.108 There are many similar stories. As a result of the lack of supplies, women who face postpartum bleeding as they give birth have underwent hysterotomies for lack of medicine and blood supply, preventing them from giving birth in the future.109 Oxfam’s Middle East Regional Director stated that “Amongst the horror and carnage in Gaza, we are now at the abhorrent stage of babies dying because of diarrhoea and hypothermia. It is shattering that newborns are coming into the world and due to the apocalyptic conditions, stand little chance of survival.” In some cases, mothers had to give birth in classrooms full with 70 other
95 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/11/health/gaza-israel-hunger-starvation.html ; https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/31/israel-gaza-starvation-international-law ; also https://jewishcurrents.org/israel-policy-starvation-gaza-aid 96 https://twitter.com/MedicalAidPal/status/1763172220900151317 97 https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/30/middleeast/famine-looms-in-gaza-israel-war-intl/index.html ; https://www.haaretz.co.il/magazine/2024-02-07/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/0000018d-8213-daa1-a9fd-e21b04660000 98 https://www.nutritioncluster.net/sites/nutritioncluster.com/files/2024-02/GAZA-Nutrition-vulnerability-and-SitAn-v7.pdf ; https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/feb/20/middle-east-crisis-live-israel-gaza-yemen-houthi-lebanon-hague-court- justice?page=with:block-65d4650d8f08f68df4ca9a84&filterKeyEvents=false#liveblog-navigation 99 https://twitter.com/NourNaim88/status/1750503719806923075 ; https://twitter.com/NABEELRAJAB/status/1750017231197544706; https://twitter.com/jakeshieldsajj/status/1751580352601309591 100 https://news.walla.co.il/item/3633138
101 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-30/ty-article/.premium/a-new-low-the-israelis-advocating-to-starve-the-people- of-gaza/0000018d-5b42-d0fc-a9bd-5f5fc0740000 ; https://www.idi.org.il/articles/52967 102 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-125 103 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1757406177883750809 104 https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000154766/download/ 105 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/27/un-israel-food-starvation-palestinians-war-crime-genocide 106 https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-32; https://www.trtworld.com/middle-east/nightmarish-gazas-pregnant-women-endure-c-sections-without-anesthesia-15823792; https://news.un.org/en/interview/2023/11/1143327; https://healthnews.com/news/c-sections-are-performed-without-anesthesia- in-gaza/ ; https://www.juzoor.org/cached_uploads/download/2023/11/11/maternal-health-report-final-1699726911.pdf 107 https://twitter.com/NourNaim88/status/1746887014337671410 108 https://twitter.com/NourNaim88/status/1763960723695185934 109 https://www.juzoor.org/cached_uploads/download/2023/11/11/maternal-health-report-final-1699726911.pdf 11 people, which the director described as “simply inhumane”.110 Miscarriages in Gaza have increased by 300% compared to the pre-war situation.111
Gaza’s health system has all but collapsed, with only a third of Gaza’s hospitals and a quarter of its primary health centers still partially operational.112 There are at least many hundreds of thousands of reported cases of diseases in Gaza so far.113 By December, over 100,000 cases of diarrhea have been reported, half of which are among children aged 5 or less (25 times the pre-war frequency).114 In a single week in mid-December, 3,200 cases of diarrhea were reported every day (compared to 2,000 per month before the war).115 On average, there is one shower in Gaza for every 4,500 people, and a toilet for every 220.116 Important public voices in Israel – such as a former general and head of Israel’s National Security Council and official wartime advisor to Israel’s Defense Minister117 – have spoken in favor of allowing diseases to decimate the civilian population in Gaza.118 Israel has systematically dismantled the health system in Gaza, making it inoperable. In late February, the head of MSF stated that “there is no health system to speak of left in Gaza”.119 Israel justified much of this by stating that the medical facilities were used for military purposes, but the head of MSF stated in late February that his organization has “seen zero independently verified evidence of this”.120
As a result of the above, the chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh has stated in December that “the world faces the prospect of almost a quarter of Gaza’s 2 million population - close to half a million human beings - dying within a year. These would be largely deaths from preventable health causes and the collapse of the medical system”.121 Other academics reached similar and more detailed conclusions.122
Israeli discourse and de-humanization of Palestinians
Much of the above is made possible through the consistent de-humanization of Palestinians, fore and foremost those living in Gaza. This dehumanization has proceeded from the top of the Israeli state. Israel’s Prime Minister has described the conflict as “a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle”,123 stated that “this war is civilization against barbarism”124 and defined the war as a battle against the Biblical Amalek,125 which the Bible directs to annihilate completely.126 Israel’s President has stated that Israel did not distinguish between militants and civilians, “it’s an entire nation out there that is responsible”.127 He
110 https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/babies-dying-preventable-causes-besieged-gaza-oxfam 111 https://jezebel.com/miscarriages-in-gaza-have-increased-300-under-israeli-1851168680 112 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-160 113 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-160 114 https://www.who.int/news/item/21-12-2023-lethal-combination-of-hunger-and-disease-to-lead-to-more-deaths-in-gaza 115 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-86 116 https://www.who.int/news/item/21-12-2023-lethal-combination-of-hunger-and-disease-to-lead-to-more-deaths-in-gaza; in early January in UNRWA shelters the ratio was 1 toilet for over 486 people. https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports/unrwa- situation-report-59-situation-gaza-strip-and-west-bank-including-east-Jerusalem 117 https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/r1zlcnoga
118 https://www.globes.co.il/news/article.aspx?did=1001462900 119 https://www.msf.org/msf-briefing-gaza-un-security-council 120 https://www.msf.org/msf-briefing-gaza-un-security-council 121 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/29/health-organisations-disease-gaza-population-outbreaks-conflict 122 https://gaza-projections.org/gaza_projections_report.pdf 123 https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/children-post-deleted-netanyahu/ 124 https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/netanyahu-to-dutch-leader-this-war-is-civilization-vs-barbarism/ 125 https://www.maariv.co.il/news/politics/Article-1049593; https://www.npr.org/2023/11/07/1211133201/netanyahus- references-to-violent-biblical-passages-raise-alarm-among-critics 126 1 Samuel 15.2-3.
127 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/israel-gaza-isaac-herzog_n_65295ee8e4b03ea0c004e2a8 12 also personally wrote a message on an artillery shell to be shot into Gaza.128 Israel’s Minister of Defense has described the Palestinians in Gaza as “human animals”. At least five other government ministers have made similar statements.129 Israel’s National Security minister told Border Police troops they should shoot terrorists even if the terrorists do not threaten them, against procedure.130 The minister of Social Equality and Women’s Advancement asserted that she was proud of the ruins in Gaza and that every baby there, even 80 years from now, will tell their grandchildren what the Jews did.131 A ruling party MP has stated on TV that he was told “it is clear that we need to destroy [or annihilate, depending on translation of להשמיד] all Gazans”.132 Other politicians have done the same.133 Institutionalized dehumanization was conducted as well. The IDF ran a Telegram channel (“72 Virgins – Uncensored”) that propagandized Israeli audiences through explicit and uncensored “exclusive” videos and images that depicted killings and corpses in Gaza, using explicit language that also compared Gazans to cockroaches and rats.134 IDF soldiers shared social media content that explicitly compared Gazans to the biblical Amalek (see above).135 Other IDF soldiers opened a “Hamas Hunting Club”, complete with a patch and logo, and filmed themselves holding it with Palestinian detainees in the background.136 Other soldiers upload much revenge content and relate it to the destruction of the Gaza Strip, including the destruction they themselves caused.137
In November, 90 Israeli doctors signed a letter calling to bomb hospitals in Gaza.138 A popular singer used a long series of expletives against Gaza during a show for Israeli soldiers.139 In early January, a long list of rabbis, academics and ten MPs have called for the cessation of all humanitarian aid to Gaza.140 In February, a former senior Mossad figure and an important journalist agreed that children aged 5 and up in Gaza are not uninvolved in the conflict and therefore do not deserve humanitarian aid.141 An Israeli media outlet has also noted with glee that the number of deaths of “Arabs” in Gaza in the current war is higher than all previous wars.142 An Israeli Telegram channel with 127,000 followers shared the image of a Gazan child with cerebral palsy who starved to death as the sequel to the film E.T.143 A rabbi at the head of a yeshiva for pre-military age men stated that according to Jewish law, all Gazans must be killed, including babies.144
128 https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-01-03/ty-article/.premium/a-munition-signed-by-israeli-president-could-hit-a- child/0000018c-cbc4-d4e1-ad8f-fff5a0c70000
129 https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20231228-app-01-00-en.pdf, pp. 60-62. 130 https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/bkxx1alft
131 https://twitter.com/GolanMay/status/1759675501424042329; https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1760354792663142557 132 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMxnNkQSfmQ
133 https://twitter.com/AmirHetsroni/status/1743063371551822292 (speaker is Moshe Feiglin); https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/syq0011n006
134 https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/security/2023-12-12/ty-article/.premium/0000018c-3918-dc03-a9ec-3d7b95f80000; https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/security/2024-02-04/ty-article/.premium/0000018d-7042-dd6e-a98d-f462d6a00000 135 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1762185882994425961 136 https://twitter.com/RamAbdu/status/1765386577855791185 137 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1767900767313182897 138 https://mondoweiss.net/2023/11/israeli-doctors-urge-the-bombing-of-gaza-hospitals/ 139 https://www.ice.co.il/social/news/article/988380 “Gaza, you daughter of a bitch, Gaza, you Black, you garbage can, Gaza, you whore...” 140 https://twitter.com/shilofreid/status/1742919348401135788 141 https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1757837275830907052 142 https://twitter.com/itamar_green/status/1741504115874627765 143 https://twitter.com/CensoredMen/status/1765773664325075354 144 https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/sy3bfhu6p
13 The dehumanization of Palestinians is now pervasive and obvious in countless videos145 that present shooting civilians waving white flags,146 abuse of individuals,147 captives and corpses,148 gleefully damaging or destroying houses149, various structures and institutions,150 religious sites151 and looting of personal belongings,152 as well as shooting local animals,153 destroying private property154 and defacing Palestinian symbols.155 One such video, for example, shows tens of Palestinian captives from Gaza sitting in a bus tied up and with their eyes covered. An Israeli solider then demands that they praise his family and state that they want to become slaves to his family “forever and ever”.156 Another testimony of a Gazan doctor states that the detained director of Al-Shifa medical complex was made to crawl like an animal, had a chain placed around his neck and was told to eat from a bowl like a dog.157 A Gazan detainee said that IDF soldiers placed women detainees from Gaza into the men’s section while being completely naked, and cut the hair of some of the women detainees.158 Looting has become normalized159 to the extent that one case was featured approvingly in a popular Friday evening news segment,160 while a prominent Israeli journalist’s Telegram channel shared an image of a table full of money with the caption “The [IDF] paratroopers
145 https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/videos-of-israeli-soldiers-acting-maliciously-emerge-amid-international-outcry-against- tactics-in-gaza ; https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1757920440155242710 ; https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1761868392326148474 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1763708173905506449 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1763563991387746557 ; images at https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1764384165724598533 146 https://twitter.com/middleeasteye/status/1744351540435935525 ; https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/1750601287102542296; https://twitter.com/RamAbdu/status/1749971465422745729
147 https://www.mistaclim.org/he/post/%D7%94%D7%92%D7%99%D7%91%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D- %D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%A0%D7%95
148 Long list of videos at: https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1713533460290076817, https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1744296383174025397 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1745427870216851736 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1747994879156793524 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1752258519900766489 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1755891061015064836 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1758617748383453638 ; https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1758914324150538698 ; https://twitter.com/angeloinchina/status/1759769783409738006 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1764778057364042167 ; https://twitter.com/RamAbdu/status/1764759225241129162 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1765447101100785887 ; https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2024/03/05/social-media-posts-show-off-blindfolded-and-bound-palestinian-detainees/ ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1767223231549718862 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1768061335030444144 149 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiC4ApANLwg; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiolU7WwpUQ ; https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240103-israeli-soldiers-invade-damaged-house-in-gaza-and-destroy-it/; https://twitter.com/RamAbdu/status/1743665392722059344 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1748137507319939548 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1746581304999542901 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1751618405453422875 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1753158451734220834 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1756458915473105113 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1757155595877032104 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1757163079207358570 ; https://twitter.com/NourNaim88/status/1760434485957390399 ; https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1761849659671085212; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1761723209760608272 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1765297033093538206
150 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1742346460559995063; https://twitter.com/NourNaim88/status/1743626241104543942 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1760038133872095300
151 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if_Z2ZeqrN8 ; https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1754458148276990180 ; https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1757054593656103198 152 https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/amid-ongoing-genocide-gaza-systematic-israeli-theft-occurring- palestinian-civilian-homes-enar; https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-gaza-singer-helpless-israeli-soldier- filmed-tiktok-his-guitar ; https://twitter.com/BChutzpah19416/status/1750186862579269867; written report that includes a soldier confessing to looting homes before demolishing them: https://medium.com/@dillontelem/gaza-warzone-musings-a- soldiers-reflections-on-demolition-and-humanity-7ddeae313c00 ; https://twitter.com/adinitay/status/1756791144111816917 ; https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1757157210356936804 ; https://twitter.com/QudsNen/status/1760426342753935765 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1761463006720926062 ; https://twitter.com/QudsNen/status/1761815084081246331; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1762221066372485260
153 https://twitter.com/Sarah_Hassan94/status/1754620276271149451 154 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1748130778737729911 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1761472312908320798 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1764773062908547579 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1765035342032142672 155 https://twitter.com/NourNaim88/status/1742273606699106542; https://twitter.com/QudsNen/status/1743712184725594564 156 https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1752433175320478060 157 https://twitter.com/adham922/status/1756068057779245412 158 https://twitter.com/NourNaim88/status/1756605167946899965 159 https://www.mekomit.co.il/ps/132092/
160 https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1756438313899024862 14 hit the jackpot in Khan Younis”.161 A military doctor noted that looting had become “almost institutionalized”.162
Many soldiers release humoristic videos about their experience and destruction in Gaza,163 or content that ignores the war, such as conducting a yoga class in an abandoned home in Gaza,164 or a soldier holding up a sign advertising a barber shop in Israel with corpses of dead Palestinians around him.165 Other photos include soldiers posing near election banners for local (Israeli) politicians and restaurant chains “coming soon” to Gaza.166 Recurring types of content include humorously presenting the lingerie of Gazan women167 or posing with items (often toys) from abandoned Gazan houses.168 Ha’aretz, the left-leaning Israel newspaper, covered the good food that IDF soldiers were eating in abandoned homes in Gaza at the same time as their displaced owners were starving.169 The IDF has even brought influencers to mockingly “review” a “hotel” in Gaza.170 Revenge is a recurring theme in many of these videos.171 More videos are covered by The New York Times172 and CNN.173 In January alone, the IDF burned hundreds of houses and apartments in Gaza which Israeli soldiers temporarily occupied, without legal approval in a procedure that became normative.174 Israeli demonstrators have repeatedly attempted to block humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, including holding a rave/protest just outside the border wall.175 On one occasion, the IDF attacked a food convoy.176 In late February and early March about half of the missions aimed at delivering aid
161 https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1760599708857237838 162 https://www.ynet.co.il/yedioth/article/yokra13792905 163 https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1745063720080793681; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1745491460525375587; https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1748075046294163757 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1746696846817325288 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1746685595366125951; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1745973511301026092; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1749272544975229438; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1749593678861984045 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1750782757326795020 ; https://twitter.com/NABEELRAJAB/status/1750228266193969448; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1750627849948532763 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1750540763413287350 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1749795644532035602 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1750197302579343870 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1753422534555427299 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1753536164085010674 ; https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1754091912040968444 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1754553057696784519 ; a long list of additional videos here: https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1755973157515669708 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1757094979460067773 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1760040514915553463 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1759307381169701366 ; https://twitter.com/NaksBilal/status/1761825956950421858; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1761363322182516924 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1761360983174316281 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1762212629576069120 ; https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1762543392997703956; https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1766193632661447085 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1766178422361821416 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1766491956090155333 ; more videos and images here:
https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1766912143444656544 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1767985211747270834 164 https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1749956154975744455 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1753536576791970148 ; https://twitter.com/EmilioMorenatti/status/1759669676810904020 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1766582097404137482 165 https://twitter.com/Mistaclim/status/1755129771825000637 166 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1760407071747719357 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1761039679212671105 167 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1760359033095991623 ; https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1760640827720638639 ; https://twitter.com/wattheactualfuq/status/1760775215418634685; https://twitter.com/bernstein_ariel/status/1761809205147717664 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1762207301920776365 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1762201439785410805 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1763708246227865971 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1763708570514657704 ; https://twitter.com/Mistaclim/status/1764883823857218031 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1765392369531187549 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1766016416371630284
168 https://twitter.com/grapesofwhat/status/1761332020402118799; https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1762556002711289987 ; https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1763682787054211217 169 https://www.haaretz.co.il/food/2024-02-13/ty-article-magazine/.premium/0000018d-82c5-d6dc-ab9f-cffd1ebc0000 170 https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1743296706576269446; https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1739728935779234254 171 https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1750219568428036237 ; https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1756652152607457781 172 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/06/world/middleeast/israel-idf-soldiers-war-social-media-video.html 173 https://twitter.com/amanpour/status/1758204651927744784 174 https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/2024-01-31/ty-article/.premium/0000018d-5fea-d9df-a9cd-7ffe4e820000 ; https://twitter.com/OmerArvili/status/1753754952155934999 175 https://twitter.com/Lowkey0nline/status/1757326323712774650 ; https://twitter.com/loffredojeremy/status/1762480372963508266 176 https://palestine.un.org/en/259747-food-convoy-waiting-move-northern-gaza-was-hit-israeli-naval-gunfire 15 to areas in the north part of the Gaza Strip were denied access by Israeli authorities.177 On 29 February, the IDF shot starving Gazans who came to take food from an aid convoy, killing over 100 and injuring over 700 more.178 In response, Israel’s Minister of National Security called to “completely support” all IDF troops while also calling for stopping all humanitarian aid to Gazans.179 When the IDF transferred about 70 Gazan orphans to the West Bank as a gesture of good will to Germany, it was harshly criticized by both politicians and the government.180 Thousands of Palestinians have been detained and moved to camps within Israel.181 Many of these Palestinians (as much as 85-90% according to Israeli media) are arrested without any concrete connection to Hamas.182 The conditions throughout the process of arrest and detainment are appalling, as a released Gazan poet has recently narrated in detail.183 Many others have shared similar stories, including on the torture they experienced.184 Online videos provide more evidence.185 In one, a Gazan doctor who was detained by Israel said that he was held for 45 days, throughout which he was blindfolded and handcuffed, with his legs tied in clamps in what amounts to torture.
He was subsequently released.186 To date, at least 8 Palestinian prisoners and captives have died in Israeli jails since the beginning of the war,187 where conditions are appalling as well.188 The IDF has admitted that additional detained Palestinians from Gaza have died but refused to supply additional details,189 until in early March Ha’aretz revealed that 27 Gazans died in IDF detention camps.190 The IDF refused to answer whether it opened Military Police investigations for the deaths of Gazan captives.191 According to a law amendment that was passed after the beginning of the war, Israel can now hold “illegal fighters” as detainees for up to 45 days without a warrant or notifying their families, and putting a detainee in contact with their lawyer can be delayed for up to 75 days (or half a year, if a judge approves).192 The same law was used, for example, to detain an imprison an 82-year old woman with Alzheimer disease for almost two months.193 The number of women detained in
177 https://twitter.com/UNRWA/status/1759993361702748380 ; https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash- update-140
178 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/29/world/middleeast/gaza-aid-trucks-map.html 179 https://twitter.com/itamarbengvir/status/1763196768458604583 180 https://www.inn.co.il/flashes/981582; https://www.mako.co.il/news-diplomatic/2024_q1/Article-ad64e47a0ed2e81026.htm; https://www.zman.co.il/newsletter/2024-03-12/; https://www.jdn.co.il/news/2157725/; https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/2024- 03-12/ty-article/.premium/0000018e-3344-d5ad-addf-7f5518fc0000; https://chabad.info/news/war/1063572/; https://news.walla.co.il/item/3649971 ; https://www.haaretz.co.il/magazine/on-the-line/2024-03-13/ty-article/.highlight/0000018e-32df- d897-a58f-b7dfad0b0000
181 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/09/gaza-civilians-detained-israel/ ; https://twitter.com/YinonMagal/status/1754505872753979498 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1755342772670804416 ; https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/03/world/middleeast/unrwa-gaza-detention-israel.html 182 https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/2023-12-10/ty-article/.premium/0000018c-542b-df2f-adac-fe2f4bf80000 183 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/01/a-palestinian-poets-perilous-journey-out-of-gaza 184 https://www.mekomit.co.il/20-%d7%a9%d7%a2%d7%95%d7%aa-%d7%a2%d7%9c- %d7%94%d7%91%d7%a8%d7%9b%d7%99%d7%99%d7%9d-%d7%9e%d7%99-%d7%a9%d7%96%d7%96- %d7%9e%d7%95%d6%bc%d7%9b%d6%b6%d6%bc%d7%94-%d7%90%d7%96%d7%a8%d7%97%d7%99%d7%9d/ ; https://twitter.com/QudsNen/status/1747273886264443173 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1756754492790349978 ; https://twitter.com/marwasf/status/1762590590737207562
185 https://twitter.com/brown_johnbrown/status/1743021596682371453 ; https://twitter.com/Mistaclim/status/1753512387322474545 ; https://twitter.com/NourNaim88/status/1753044873974849578 ; https://twitter.com/arixegal/status/1759978751524212926 186 https://twitter.com/ReneeLevant/status/1754269959927079245 187 https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/2023-12-06/ty-article-magazine/.premium/0000018c-3b9b-d11b-a3bf-ffbb16d80000; https://twitter.com/KhalilAsslan/status/1741926482463633866 ; https://twitter.com/MustafaBarghou1/status/1761325667252092984 188 https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1759571535637954816 189 https://www.mekomit.co.il/20-%D7%A9%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%A2%D7%9C- %D7%94%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%9B%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%9E%D7%99-%D7%A9%D7%96%D7%96- %D7%9E%D7%95%D6%BC%D7%9B%D6%B6%D6%BC%D7%94-%D7%90%D7%96%D7%A8%D7%97%D7%99%D7%9D/ 190 https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/2024-03-07/ty-article/.premium/0000018e-1240-df16-a58e-1ffedcf70000 191 https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/2024-01-02/ty-article/.premium/0000018c-c6e1-d6c4-ab8d-e7f5fd670000 192 https://www.mekomit.co.il/20-%d7%a9%d7%a2%d7%95%d7%aa-%d7%a2%d7%9c- %d7%94%d7%91%d7%a8%d7%9b%d7%99%d7%99%d7%9d-%d7%9e%d7%99-%d7%a9%d7%96%d7%96- %d7%9e%d7%95%d6%bc%d7%9b%d6%b6%d6%bc%d7%94-%d7%90%d7%96%d7%a8%d7%97%d7%99%d7%9d/ 193 https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/2024-02-01/ty-article/.premium/0000018d-5f18-d0af-a3af-7fbcea840000 16 Gaza (and the West Bank) since Oct. 7 has been in the hundreds. In mid-February, a panel of experts appointed by the UN’s Human Rights Council found evidence for egregious human rights violations, including keeping Gazan women in a cage in the rain and cold, without food, sexual assault against detained women including rape in two cases, and threats of rape and sexual violence, as well as uploading pictures of female detainees in degrading circumstances.194 One Palestinian woman has spoken about the sexual, emotional and physical abuse she has experienced for over a month in which she was detained.195 An UNRWA report based on over a hundred interviews with released detainees contained many gruesome details, such as a Gazan law student who was beaten so badly that his genitals turned blue and his urine continued to contain blood for weeks. He was forced to sleep naked in the open air, next to a fan blowing cold air, and played music so loudly that his ears bled.196 A BBC investigative report in mid-March found that the IDF beat, humiliated and detained for days dozens of Gaza medical staff from Nasser hospital. The UK foreign secretary said that the report was “very disturbing”.197
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is openly discussed in Israeli discourse, including by ministers in the ruling government. This includes the ministers of Finance,198 National Security,199 the former minister of Information200 and a former Minister of Justice.201 Israel MPs have also participated in the discussion.202 A Israeli government plan proposal to repopulate all Gazans to the Sinai Peninsula (part of Egypt) has been leaked.203 Israel has also attempted to get the US to pressure Egypt into accepting Gazan refugees,204 and has attempted to convince several countries including Congo to accept Palestinian refugees.205 Other locations members of Israel government suggested as potential resettlement locations include Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the European Union and Chile.206 According to Israeli media, Chad and Rwanda have expressed interest to accept tens of thousands of Palestinians in exchange for generous financial support that included military support.207 In mid-February a local human rights organization revealed that Egypt was building a high-security area for the reception of Palestinian refugees.208
The absence of clear war goals or a clear end game to the war has allowed many Israelis to support the resettling of Gaza with Jewish settlements after the war.209 Over 30 right-wing organizations have supported this goal in a late January conference.210 A total of 11 ministers and 15 MPs (of a total of 120) participated in the conference.211 Several IDF soldiers have stated their will to resettle
194 https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/02/israelopt-un-experts-appalled-reported-human-rights-violations-against 195 https://twitter.com/MiddleEastEye/status/1762502752184467495 196 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/03/world/middleeast/unrwa-gaza-detention-israel.html 197 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68513408; https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-68546268 198 https://www.timesofisrael.com/ministers-call-for-resettling-gazas-palestinians-building-settlements-in-strip/ 199 https://www.timesofisrael.com/ministers-call-for-resettling-gazas-palestinians-building-settlements-in-strip/ 200 https://www.hidabroot.org/article/1187840
201 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEu-dQWOlL4
202 https://twitter.com/tzvisuccot/status/1754822778950148138 203 https://www.mekomit.co.il/%d7%94%d7%9e%d7%a1%d7%9e%d7%9a-%d7%94%d7%9e%d7%9c%d7%90- %d7%a9%d7%9c-%d7%9e%d7%a9%d7%a8%d7%93-
%d7%94%d7%9e%d7%95%d7%93%d7%99%d7%a2%d7%99%d7%9f-%d7%9b%d7%99%d7%91%d7%95%d7%a9- %d7%a2%d7%96%d7%94-%d7%95/
204 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/21/biden-netanyahu-dispute-palestinian-state/ 205 https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/israeli-officials-said-in-talks-with-congo-others-on-taking-in-gaza-emigrants/ 206 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/01/04/gaza-displaced-civilians-resettlement-israel/ 207 https://www.zman.co.il/453910/popup/
208 https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/war-gaza-egypt-building-buffer-zone-palestinian-refugees 209 https://www.mako.co.il/news-politics/2023_q4/Article-9f47fed9563eb81027.htm 210 https://twitter.com/AlonLeeGreen/status/1746855797328433438 211 https://www.mako.co.il/news-politics/2024_q1/Article-7ce65d03aa05d81027.htm 17 Gaza while uniformed and within Gaza.212 Polls from February and March reveal that some 20% of Israeli Jews believe that Israel should resettle Gaza.213 A video from late February shows an Israeli civilian tractor sowing fields within the Gaza strip as a “victory photo”.214 In early March, Jewish activists were able to briefly enter the Gaza Strip in attempt to build a settlement there.215 IDF soldiers appear to have constructed “the first synagogue in Khan Younis”,216 another synagogue there,217 as well as inaugurated a Torah scroll in three occasions (Sheikh Radwan in Gaza City, the Islamic University in Gaza, and Khan Younis).218 One soldier filmed himself spray painting the Temple in Jerusalem on the ruins of a destroyed mosque in Gaza.219 An IDF military “pizzeria” has allegedly opened in Khan Younis, and soldiers placed a sign of a fast food restaurant that might soon open in Gaza.220 Other soldiers hold a commercial sign of an American construction company from New Jersey (and an American flag) with the destroyed buildings of Gaza in the background.221 Donna Italia (an international pizzeria chain) appears to have opened a pizzeria in a displaced family’s home in Khan Younis to support IDF troops.222
All the evidence I have seen indicates that Israel is systematically destroying Gaza to make it unlivable in the future. Israel is said to have dropped over 500 2,000-pound bombs within the densely populated urban area, despite the massive collateral damage these bombs cause (causing death or injury in a radius of up to 365 meters around the target). These bombs are four times heavier than the largest bombs the United States used when fighting ISIS in Mosul.223 Over 60 percent of Gaza’s housing units have been destroyed or damaged.224 As of mid-January experts estimate based on satellite imagery that between 142,900 to 176,900 buildings have been damaged.225 Israel has destroyed not only buildings whose connection to Hamas militants is weak,226 but also a long list of cultural institutions,227 historical and archaeological sites,228 dozens of governmental buildings (including the parliament229 and the main courthouse)230, religious buildings (over 223 mosques and 3 churches231), universities (most or all universities in Gaza have been destroyed according to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor),232 hospitals,233 public libraries234 and
212 https://twitter.com/Mistaclim/status/1746854844818681861; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1745907053426565605 213 https://www.inss.org.il/he/publication/swords-of-iron-14/ 214 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1760758994350588388 215 https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/r11oner3a
216 https://twitter.com/yanivkub/status/1742189448006127715 217 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1745979741931282775 218 https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1743588216630919271 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1750793042850664750 ; https://twitter.com/KhalilAsslan/status/1753364384800252200 219 https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1756666882331988140 220 https://twitter.com/arixegal/status/1747704367145201666 221 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1759534834710352030 222 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1753547113638604865 ; also https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1765450350549487672 223 https://www.cnn.com/gaza-israel-big-bombs/index.html; https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/12/israel-opt-us- made-munitions-killed-43-civilians-in-two-documented-israeli-air-strikes-in-gaza-new-investigation/ 224 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-160 225 https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2024/jan/30/how-war-destroyed-gazas-neighbourhoods-visual- investigation
226 https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/ 227 E.g. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israeli-army-says-it-struck-islamic-university-of-gaza/3015542 228 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-26/ty-article-magazine/.premium/bombing-historical-sites-in-gaza-israel-is- destroying-everything-beautiful/0000018c-a565-df1f-a7bf-b7e53e8e0000; https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/12/22/gaza- city-archives-among-heritage-sites-destroyed-in-israel-hamas-war ; https://www.unesco.org/en/gaza/assessment ; https://twitter.com/RamAbdu/status/1766458940118769799
229 https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/gaza-destruction-bombing-israel-aa528542 230 https://www.newarab.com/news/israel-destroys-gaza-courthouse-dozens-govt-buildings 231 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-160 232 https://twitter.com/PeruginiNic/status/1747730495482310771 ; https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6108/Israel-kills- dozens-of-academics,-destroys-every-university-in-the-Gaza-Strip ; https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6163/Israel%E2%80%99s-demolition-of-educational-institutions,-cultural-objects-in-Gaza- is-additional-manifestation-of-genocide
233 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1760766861279391872 234 https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-12-12/gaza-library-bombing; https://lithub.com/gazas-main-public-library-has- been-destroyed/ ; https://twitter.com/RamAbdu/status/1759474743189660011 18 archives.235 Already in early December, Israeli attacks destroyed or damaged more than 100 heritage sites,236 including buildings from Gaza’s medieval, Byzantine and Roman periods. Soldiers have been filmed within a warehouse filled with antiquities, and there appears to have been a post by the director of the Israel Antiquities Authority that claimed that some of those antiquities were taken to Israel and presented in the Knesset (the post was later deleted).237 Over 60% of all school buildings have sustained damage.238 One IDF soldier claims his unit received orders to destroy the village of Khuzaʽa and uploaded a video showing that they accomplished the mission over two weeks.239 At least 16 cemeteries have been desecrated by the IDF, often by bulldozing.240 A video shows the results of such an operation, with corpses left scattered across the landscape.241 An online video depicts the torching of the Shujjaiya neighborhood in a military operation.242 The IDF further bulldozed broad areas in the Gaza strip.243 The amount of debris created by the destruction of residential areas (>8,000,000 metric tons) will take over 3 years to remove according to estimates.244 After two months of fighting, Israel had already caused more destruction in Gaza than Syria in Aleppo (2012-2016), Russia in Mariupol in 2022, or (proportionally) the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II,245 as well as the fights against ISIS in Mosul (2016-7) and Raqqa (2017).246 The destruction in Gaza has resulted in the displacement of some 75 percent of Gaza’s population.247 Evidence supports the conclusion that Israel is attempting to destroy all buildings inside the Gaza Strip within a kilometer of the Israel-Gaza fence to create a “buffer zone”.248 Such destruction has been described by the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights as a “grave breach of the Fourth Geneva convention and a war crime”.249 In mid-February, Israeli media announced that the IDF was constructing a road to bisect the Gaza Strip, suggesting its plans for a long occupation.250 In early March, its construction was completed,251 and it enables rapid movement and will be held by Israel for “at least another year” according to the IDF.252
Hostages
Within this context, the Israeli government has refrained from making serious moves to release the 134 Israeli hostages that remain in Gaza.253 To date, three hostages of some 240 hostages taken on
235 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCNftkL7cx4
236 https://www.npr.org/2023/12/03/1216200754/gaza-heritage-sites-destroyed-israel, https://www.heritageforpeace.org/wp- content/uploads/2023/11/Report-of-the-effects-of-the-last-war-of-2023-on-the-cultural-heritage-in-Gaza-Strip-Palestine- english.pdf
237 https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240122-israel-army-displays-artefacts-stolen-from-gaza-in-the-knesset/ ; https://twitter.com/EmekShavehHeb/status/1749030636529008651 238 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-160 239 https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1744195835577921772 240 https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/20/middleeast/israel-gaza-cemeteries-desecrated-investigation-intl-cmd/index.html ; https://twitter.com/QudsNen/status/1749145986595713498
241 https://twitter.com/RamAbdu/status/1743386378606412188 242 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1767698980127838474 243 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1750443193575886945 244 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-104 245 https://apnews.com/article/israel-gaza-bombs-destruction-death-toll-scope-419488c511f83c85baea22458472a796 246 https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/02/14/gaza-war-israel-civilian-deaths-urban-warfare-hamas/ 247 https://twitter.com/UNHumanRights/status/1742863747683668418; https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and- israel-reported-impact-day-160
248 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1758376261628436523 249 https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/02/widespread-destruction-israeli-defence-forces-civilian-infrastructure-gaza 250 https://twitter.com/YairWallach/status/1759572148559962424 251 https://news.sky.com/story/israel-completes-construction-of-road-which-cuts-across-gaza-strip-13089556 252 https://twitter.com/Doron_Kadosh/status/1762434310831796618 253 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-113 19 October 7 have been released by military operations.254 The military operation that released two of them also killed some 100 Gazans.255 Three other Israeli hostages were killed by IDF forces within Gaza despite waving white flags and calling for help.256 Another was killed during an attempted rescue operation.257 Three others were supposedly killed by gas that the IDF flooded the tunnels with.258 In late February an Israeli report found that at least 10 hostages were killed by the IDF’s actions, including a case where the IDF bombed a building that it suspected had a Israeli hostage.259 On the other hand, a temporary ceasefire has resulted in the release of 105 hostages.260 Instead of negotiating additional hostage releases, the Israeli government prefers to continue its military operation, despite the obvious risk to the hostages. Those hostages who have been released in the previous exchange have repeatedly stated that Israeli bombardments they experienced were among the most terrifying things they experienced during their captivity.261 The spokesperson for the Likud, the largest party in the Israeli parliament, met the families of the hostages and warned them against pushing for an early election because “it will be bad for the hostages” and “in such a period [i.e. elections] a lot of filth will surface”.262 There is additional evidence that families of the hostages fear that if they speak up too loudly their family members might be pushed to the end of the list of hostages to be released.263 In mid-March, the chief of staff of the IDF unit responsible for the hostages resigned as he felt that Israel’s political leadership was not interested in moving towards a deal.264
The West Bank
The West Bank has received less attention in media and public discourse. Nonetheless, the situation there has deteriorated quickly since the beginning of the war. At least 15 herding/Bedouin Palestinian settlements there have been abandoned after attacks by Israeli Jewish settlers (646 recorded since October 7).265 About 4,000 Palestinians have been displaced in the West Bank in 2023.266 Jewish settlers have killed several Palestinians, and have wounded, terrorized and abused others.267 A total of 418 Palestinians have been killed so far.268 Half the fatalities in the West Bank since the beginning of 2023 (four times higher than in 2022) were reported in operations that did not involve armed clashes. The deputy mayor of Jerusalem stated that Israeli police in Jerusalem used live ammunition and shot-to-kill rioters, killing five in early-mid October.269 Since October 7, 4,690 Palestinians have been injured in the West Bank.270 Several videos depict the killing of
254 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-30/ty-article/.premium/israel-rescues-woman-soldier-kidnapped-to-gaza-by- hamas/0000018b-81cc-df47-a3df-ffcdbcdc0000 ; https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/11/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-hostages- rescued.html
255 https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/12/middleeast/israel-airstrikes-rafah-ground-offensive-looms-intl-hnk/index.html 256 https://www.ft.com/content/2e299603-2fed-4855-9694-9801008c48dc 257 https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/rjzpo117da
258 https://twitter.com/tomashinyu3/status/1747651031737979233 259 https://www.ha-makom.co.il/post/revital-host-idf
260 https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/12/world/hostage-israel-hamas-deal-dg/ 261 https://www.maariv.co.il/news/israel/Article-1061467 262 https://twitter.com/Bar_ShemUr/status/1757852992215056477 263 https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/bjkutcon6
264 https://13tv.co.il/item/news/politics/security/sqpwy-903972705/ 265 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-140 ; https://twitter.com/YehudaShaul/status/1758122975386014057 266 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/about-4000-palestinians-displaced-west-bank-2023 267 For example: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/01/09/israel-settler-violence-qusra-west-bank/ ; https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/03/04/israel-west-bank-settlers-attacks-palestinians 268 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-140 269 https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1754079208643420204 270 https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-140 20 unarmed and unthreatening Palestinians.271 When an Israeli police officer shot and killed a 12 year old boy who launched a firework, Israel’s National Security minister commended him and said he should receive a medal.272 Israeli troops disguised as medical workers and Muslim women have entered a hospital in the West Bank and killed three unarmed militants there in their beds as they slept, including one who was paralyzed for three months.273 Multiple videos present Israeli troops humiliating Palestinians,274 hitting them,275 destroying their property276 or public infrastructure,277 and defacing Palestinian symbols.278 One soldier shared an image in which he claimed to have stolen a bag full of money notes.279 Another shows a soldier celebrating his birthday(?) with balloons while a handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian is lying on the ground behind him.280 One video showed Israeli forces kidnap or detain a Palestinian, dressed him in uniform, cuffed his hands and feet, and apparently used him as a human shield.281 Like Gaza, here too there are video clips humiliating and de-humanizing Palestinians.282 Other videos show settlers stealing Palestinian property.283 A Wall Street Journal investigative report found that after Oct. 7 Israeli settlers have rapidly built both illegal roads and settlements in the West Bank. The Israeli government refused to review the evidence the newspaper supplied.284
More Palestinians are being arrested in the West Bank. In the first month of fighting, over 2,200 Palestinians were arrested. Over 2,000 Palestinians were held in administrative detention, without charge or trial. These have been subjected to torture and degrading treatment, according to Amnesty.285Online content affirms these claims.286 Many descriptions of released detainees refer to constant abuse by their prison staff.287 One recently said that daily, since Oct. 7 their guards require them to crawl while draped in an Israeli flag and kiss the Israeli flag, beating them if they refuse to do so. Food was thrown to the floor and stepped on.288
The media, propaganda and the war (disclaimer)289
For reasons of space this section will focus on Israeli and American media as well as other actions of the Israeli state to limit public discourse.
271 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1746987605034447294 272 https://twitter.com/Kahlissee/status/1767976353532383504 ; https://twitter.com/itamarbengvir/status/1767860298432528673 ; https://twitter.com/origivati/status/1767806214254002619 273 https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-forces-kill-3-gunmen-west-bank-hospital-army-says-2024-01-30/ 274 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1741445118333222937 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1748100280560845092; https://twitter.com/Mistaclim/status/1747358396519493874 ; https://twitter.com/Mistaclim/status/1751689800254476390 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1760462497943839127 ; https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1765200009580925182 275 https://twitter.com/AdameMedia/status/1761508331598848224 276 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1743038305581593033 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1756688401233817855 277 https://twitter.com/QudsNen/status/1751125745701671025 278 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1768010284860416327 279 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1756695309239939117 280 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1758619734809928130 281 https://twitter.com/TameeOliveFern/status/1752615765092815206 282 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1756696385510883830 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1756697908907233406 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1765313264324333905 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1765436458108653778 ; https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1765673191521874004
283 https://twitter.com/Mistaclim/status/1753732272816029757 284 https://www.wsj.com/video/series/in-depth-features/visual-evidence-shows-illegal-settler-construction-in-west-bank- surging/BF11225B-45A7-430A-A39C-48336B5B8286
285 https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/11/israel-opt-horrifying-cases-of-torture-and-degrading-treatment-of- palestinian-detainees-amid-spike-in-arbitrary-arrests/
286 https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1761463527489900685 287 https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/law/2023-12-30/ty-article/0000018c-b51e-d45c-a98e-bf5e7a340000 288 https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/2024-01-02/ty-article/.premium/0000018c-c6e5-d6c4-ab8d-e7f561840000 289 Because of the nature of the evidence, this section includes discourse to a greater extent than the rest of this document. The truth is also considerably less clear. I nonetheless did my best to present the evidence in a critical manner. Feedback would be welcome. 21 Introduction: propaganda, sometimes known as public diplomacy, aims to disseminate information to influence public perception. Such propaganda may convey facts, lies or anything in between.
States and other actors in the 21st century commonly employ propaganda. The propaganda of the Israeli state is often called hasbara.290
The current war has been enabled and facilitated by massive media efforts to shape discourse in Israel as well as in the West – in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. The Intercept, for example, has highlighted how Israel repeatedly “chooses an issue and demands global attention to its agenda at the expense of any other matter”.291 Israel otherwise keeps a tight control over media and its reporting in support of its own propaganda. For example, the IDF’s censor declared early in the war a ban on reporting on 8 subjects without approving them first. This censorship applies to both Israeli journalists and their foreign counterparts, who have to sign a document that they will comply with the censor to get a visa as a journalist in the country.292 CNN, for example, has admitted that it runs all its Gaza coverage through its Jerusalem bureau, itself monitored by the censor.293 At the same time, Israel also strongly limits the boundaries of acceptable public discourse. Israeli police has been repressing anti-war protests since the beginning of the war, often with excessive violence.294 Palestinian citizens of Israel were not allowed to protest early during the war with the support of Israel’s Supreme Court,295 a situation that has only partially improved subsequently. Israel has similarly obstructed external official investigations into the Oct. 7 atrocities, for example one led by the UN Human Rights Council.296 ***
Israeli discourse almost uniformly ignores Palestinian voices. There is almost no attention to the experiences of Gazans or the horrors of war.297 Instead, the dominant perspective provided to the Israeli public is the official account of the IDF’s spokesperson which is rarely challenged despite many examples of falsehoods and misrepresentations of reality by the IDF in the war.298 For example, despite Israeli claims to have killed large amounts of Hamas militants (10,000-13,000 as of late February-early March),299 the number has not been challenged in Israeli media, while a BBC examination found almost no evidence for this in hundreds of IDF videos, and little support for the number in the IDF’s own reporting.300 In Israeli media, the deaths of civilians in Gaza are minimized while the destruction is sanitized through images of buildings destroyed from far away. Most Israeli media has not covered the atrocities and war crimes conducted by Israeli soldiers in Gaza, and the ones that have done so did it only months after the beginning of the war. The main challenges to
290
https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%94%D7%AA%D7%A2%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%94_%D7%94%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%90 %D7%9C%D7%99%D7%AA
291 https://theintercept.com/2024/02/07/gaza-israel-netanyahu-propaganda-lies-palestinians/ 292 https://theintercept.com/2023/12/23/israel-military-idf-media-censor/ 293 https://www.salon.com/2024/01/05/cnn-admits-it-runs-all-gaza-coverage-through-bureau-monitored-by-israeli-military- censor_partner/ ; https://theintercept.com/2024/01/04/cnn-israel-gaza-idf-reporting/ 294 https://www.972mag.com/israel-police-repression-protests-gaza/ 295 https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/law/2023-11-16/ty-article/.premium/0000018b-d84e-dffa-adef-fe4e97f50000; https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/law/2023-11-08/ty-article/.premium/0000018b-af66-dedf-adab-ef76b2400000 ; https://13tv.co.il/item/news/domestic/crime-and-justice/war-protest-903791798/ 296 https://www.timesofisrael.com/government-forbids-doctors-from-speaking-to-un-group-investigating-oct-7-atrocities/ 297 https://hazmanhazeh.org.il/dehumanization-by-disregard/; https://www.the7eye.org.il/503665 ; https://www.kikar.co.il/journalism/s6bo7x
298 https://www.the7eye.org.il/501228 ; https://www.haaretz.co.il/gallery/television/tv-review/2024-01-16/ty- article/.highlight/0000018d-10f6-d71c-ad9f-53f6b2c90000 299 https://www.israelhayom.co.il/news/defense/article/15395367; https://www.ynet.co.il/blogs/118daysofwar/article/sksjxiy9a ; https://www.politico.eu/article/israels-netanyahu-says-he-will-defy-bidens-red-line-and-invade-rafah/ 300 The BBC found that only one of the 280 videos that the IDF uploaded to its website until 27 February showed what appeared as dead bodies of Hamas militants. The IDF referred in 160 posts to specified numbers of Hamas militants killed, reaching a total of 714. Other references were vague and therefore difficult to count. See https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68387864 22 dominant Israeli narrative in Hebrew language discourse come from independent media such as +972 Magazine and The Seventh Eye, which nonetheless have very limited reach and resources,301 as well as NGOs such as B’Tselem and Gisha.302
Israeli media’s pro-war position is rationalized, justified and widely accepted. The new CEO of Channel 13 told his employees in mid-March that they should unite the nation by entertainment and Israeli hasbara (i.e. public diplomacy/propaganda).303 An important Israeli journalist has stated that he believes that journalism should be used to bolster Israeli morale during the war.304 Accordingly, Israeli media amplifies pro-war voices – seen to support the state’s goals – while silencing others.
Israeli journalists avoided reporting on friendly fire casualties in the IDF.305 The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz (considered to be leftist by Israeli standards), for example, waited for five months until it called for a ceasefire,306 despite overwhelming evidence for the humanitarian costs of the war, widespread acknowledgement that the Israeli Prime Minister was prolonging the war for his own personal interests, and the apparent inability of the IDF to reach its military objectives. In another example, when an Israeli director won a prize for a film and discussed Israeli apartheid in his victory speech, the Israeli Channel 11 described it as antisemitic307 while Ha’aretz featured no less than four pieces against him.308 A Palestinian citizen of Israel who wrote an op-ed in the newspaper was not allowed to use the term ‘Palestinian’ to refer to Israeli citizens – and the editorial staff changed it to the socially acceptable ‘Arabs’.309 The Israeli Channel 14 has presented especially egregious examples of promoting fake news and reiterating false claims. In one case, for example, a popular anchor discussed in depth a supposed The Atlantic piece about the events of Oct. 7, aiming to absolve the Israeli Prime Minister from responsibility. A brief subsequent investigation revealed that the Atlantic piece never existed.310 In a different case the channel televised an interview with an IDF officer who openly lied about atrocities in the Gaza envelope well after those atrocities had been shown to be false in Israeli media.311
Part of Israel’s propaganda is institutionalized through the state apparatus.312 Despite the real horrors of the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, Israeli officials repeatedly shared content that was soon disproved as unreliable or outright fake. Most Israeli media chose not to inform the public that these stories had been refuted.313 In a conversation with US President Joe Biden, the Israeli Prime Minister himself has stated falsehoods such as that Hamas “took dozens of children, bound them up, burned them and executed them.”314 His wife wrote to Jill Biden a story about a hostage held by Hamas who gave birth in Gaza, a story supported by the Israeli state and media that was subsequently proved as
301 https://www.972mag.com/ ; https://www.the7eye.org.il/ 302 https://www.btselem.org/hebrew/press_releases/20231010_revenge_policy_in_motion_israel_committing_war_crimes_in_gaza ; https://gisha.org/targeting-civilians-is-a-war-crime/
303 https://www.haaretz.co.il/gallery/media/2024-03-13/ty-article/.premium/0000018e-38a2-d21d-a3ef-3be6160f0000 304 https://www.haaretz.co.il/opinions/2024-01-14/ty-article-opinion/.premium/0000018d-0361-d832-a59d-17f7e2e50000 ; also https://www.haaretz.co.il/gallery/media/2023-12-27/ty-article-magazine/.premium/0000018c-a5c7-d97c-a9ec-bfcf6d6d0000 305 https://www.the7eye.org.il/503392
306 https://www.haaretz.co.il/opinions/editorial-articles/2024-03-01/ty-article-opinion/0000018d-f607-da4e-adbf-f6bf17c30000 307 https://www.haaretz.co.il/gallery/media/2024-02-26/ty-article/.premium/0000018d-e6ee-d7f4-a3dd-e6ee92270000 308 https://www.haaretz.co.il/gallery/opinion/2024-02-28/ty-article-opinion/.premium/0000018d-ef8e-d1e0-a1dd-ffffe46f0000; https://www.haaretz.co.il/opinions/2024-02-28/ty-article-opinion/.premium/0000018d-eedc-d7f4-a3dd-eedcb0040000; https://www.haaretz.co.il/opinions/2024-03-05/ty-article-opinion/.premium/0000018e-0b2c-d9cb-afdf-0bbc88e20000; https://www.haaretz.co.il/gallery/opinion/2024-03-04/ty-article/.premium/0000018e-0a17-d9cb-afdf-0a9f2b770000 309 Discussion of her speaking in another podcast at: https://youtu.be/WHCMVqNOre0?si=PlZXwSpzeJ4boVyR&t=2430 310 https://twitter.com/FakeReporter/status/1761696937256853788 311 https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/2024-01-21/ty-article/.premium/0000018d-2bb4-daf5-a1bf-aff41ac80000 312 https://theintercept.com/2024/02/07/gaza-israel-netanyahu-propaganda-lies-palestinians/ 313 For two exceptions to this rule: https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/2023-12-03/ty-article-magazine/.premium/0000018c-2036- d21c-abae-76be08fe0000 ; https://twitter.com/moshe_aryeh/status/1750418165736100294 314 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq5hTirpL9s
23 fake.315 The IDF accepted and claimed to have verified evidence of beheaded babies, later found out to be false.316 Other stories such as putting a baby in the oven or cutting a baby out of his mother’s belly and stabbing it, were all promoted by the media and/or the IDF,317 yet found out to be fake as well. Other stories during the war, such as the Israeli claim that the central Hamas bunker is located under al-Shifa hospital, were found to be false.318 Moreover, Israeli media has revealed that the IDF has conducted a covert campaign aimed at influencing Israeli citizens during the beginning of the war. As part of this campaign, the military opened and operated a Telegram channel that shared exclusive explicit content from IDF sources that showed the abuse and dehumanization of Palestinians, mostly within a Gaza context.319
In American media, several studies and experts have pointed out that there has been a pervasive bias against Palestinians for a century.320 For example, a survey of the American media’s coverage of Palestinians found that only a tiny minority (less than 2%) of editorials, columns and guest opinion pieces that discussed Palestine in the New York Times and Washington Post (between 1970-2019) were written by Palestinians.321 The media coverage of the beginning of the war remained strongly pro-Israeli.322 For example, an investigation by The Guardian demonstrated that CNN’s coverage is heavily biased towards Israel,323 a critique that surfaced within the channel as well.324 Similarly, a study by The Intercept found that already early in the war, the coverage of Palestinians in top newspapers in the United States decreased as the number of Palestinian deaths increased. Strong emotional words were disproportionally used to describe Israeli deaths and not Palestinian ones.325 The selection of language to blur Israeli responsibility and preserve its image has been long documented and continues throughout the war.326
American media has also largely avoided investigations of events that could make Israel appear negatively. The media watchdog group FAIR pointed out that US media shields its audience from reports of Israeli friendly fire incidents in the Oct. 7 attacks – reports that had been widely covered in Israeli media.327 Notably, Ronen Bergman, a journalist working for both the Israeli Yediot Ahronot and The New York Times, has investigated these incidents in his Yediot Ahronot publications but not
315 https://news.walla.co.il/item/3623538 ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LScqOF48h34; https://www.maariv.co.il/news/health/Article-1067610 ; investigation here: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-04/ty-article- magazine/.premium/hamas-committed-documented-atrocities-but-a-few-false-stories-feed-the-deniers/0000018c-34f3-da74-afce- b5fbe24f0000
316 https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1MYGNorgjgLJw ; https://theintercept.com/2024/02/07/gaza-israel-netanyahu-propaganda-lies- palestinians/
317 https://twitter.com/Israel/status/1717553687025815817 ; https://www.mako.co.il/culture-articles/Article-cdbeed08ded1b81027.htm; https://www.news1.co.il/Archive/001-D-475197-00.html; https://www.maariv.co.il/news/israel/Article-1043930; https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1716462311370633484
318 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/17/us/politics/israel-al-shifa-hospital-hamas-evidence.html ; https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/21/al-shifa-hospital-gaza-hamas-israel/ 319 https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/security/2024-01-16/ty-article-magazine/.premium/0000018c-e8c1-d765-ab9d-f8fd29800000 ; https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/security/2024-02-04/ty-article/.premium/0000018d-7042-dd6e-a98d-f462d6a00000 ; 320 Many references here: https://palestine.beehiiv.com/p/new-york-times-complicit-plausible-genocide ; https://newrepublic.com/article/171286/new-york-times-israel-coverage-history-netanyahu 321 https://www.972mag.com/us-media-palestinians. The Nation included a higher ratio (10.5%); the New Republic had no pieces authored by Palestinians.
322
https://www.columnblog.com/p/massacred-vs-left-to-die-documenting 323 https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/feb/04/cnn-staff-pro-israel-bias 324 https://theintercept.com/2024/03/01/cnn-christiane-amanpour-israel-gaza-coverage/ 325 https://theintercept.com/2024/01/09/newspapers-israel-palestine-bias-new-york-times/ 326 https://palestine.beehiiv.com/p/new-york-times-complicit-plausible-genocide ; https://twitter.com/AssalRad/status/1763453379811098672; https://twitter.com/AssalRad/status/1764012307385053635; https://twitter.com/AssalRad/status/1764815517548994866; https://twitter.com/AssalRad/status/1764752005673984066; https://twitter.com/AssalRad/status/1763254348942037335; https://twitter.com/AssalRad/status/1762992473067130934; https://twitter.com/AssalRad/status/1761979317779824767 ; https://twitter.com/AssalRad/status/1767686506939068845; the author of these tweets includes many other examples.
327
https://fair.org/home/shielding-us-public-from-israeli-reports-of-friendly-fire-on-october-7/ ; also https://theintercept.com/2024/02/27/zaka-october-7-israel-hamas-new-york-times/ 24 in his New York Times ones.328 The New York Times has briefly or not covered other negative stories on Israel such as Israel’s targeting policy, its responsibility in starving Palestinians, or its torturing of detainees.329 Instead, a major story covering Hamas’ mass rape during Oct. 7 in The New York Times received inordinate resources – including the funding to conduct 150 interviews330 – and was solicited by the paper itself. Inexplicably, the story was given to a former Israeli intelligence officer with no former reporting experience, who also liked a tweet that called upon Israel to “turn the [Gaza] strip into a slaughterhouse”.331 After its release, independent media as well as The Intercept found a long list of fundamental problems with the account.332
The treatment of UNRWA as a case of media misrepresentation One example of the actions of Israel’s media strategy is the treatment of UNRWA, the UN body responsible for the support of Palestinian refugees. The same day after the ICJ found that it was plausible that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza (Jan. 26), Israel asserted that 12 UNRWA employees participated in the Oct. 7 attacks against Israel.333 Almost immediately, 16 of UNRWA’s donors – western countries – declared they would suspend their funding of UNRWA.334 Israeli and Western media followed the UNRWA story with coverage and discussions, burying the much more substantial ICJ story. Although Israel has not released any publicly available evidence to support these claims to date,335 a story in the British Channel 4 revealed the document Israel supposedly sent UNRWA’s donor countries. The document itself was extremely brief. Containing no actual evidence, it includes a single line about each of the 12 UNRWA employees that were supposed perpetrators.336 A different intelligence dossier released by Israel contains no evidence either.337 To date, the head of UNRWA has stated that despite multiple requests Israel has not shared any details of the allegation with him or his organization.338 Other claims made by Israel were never made to UNRWA but directly to the media.339 An assessment by the US’ national intelligence council assessed the involvement of a handful of UNRWA workers in the Oct. 7 events “with low confidence”.340 The weak evidence supporting the Israeli claim has led to several of the countries that stopped funding to resume it by early March.341 Other countries were planning to do so as well.342 According to UNRWA’s own leaked report, Israel pressured Gazan employees of UNRWA to falsely state that UNRWA has links to Hamas
328 https://fair.org/home/shielding-us-public-from-israeli-reports-of-friendly-fire-on-october-7/ 329 https://palestine.beehiiv.com/p/new-york-times-complicit-plausible-genocide 330 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/world/middleeast/oct-7-attacks-hamas-israel-sexual-violence.html 331 https://theintercept.com/2024/02/28/new-york-times-anat-schwartz-october-7 . Her partner’s nephew worked with her, as well as a veteran reporter who was responsible for the framing.
332
https://theintercept.com/2024/02/28/new-york-times-anat-schwartz-october-7; https://theintercept.com/2024/03/04/nyt-october-7- sexual-violence-kibbutz-beeri/; https://www.npr.org/2024/03/06/1236130609/new-york-times-hamas-attacks-israel-palestine ; https://jacobin.com/2024/02/new-york-times-anti-palestinian-bias 333 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/26/world/middleeast/un-aid-israel-oct-7-attacks.html 334 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/01/unrwa-funding-pause-employees-october-7-hamas-attack-claims-no-evidence-un 335 But see this video (originally reported on by The Washington Post) that allegedly shows an UNRWA worker taking the body of an Israeli on Oct. 7: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-presents-video-allegedly-showing-un-aid-worker-taking-body-israeli-oct-7- 2024-02-17/
336 https://twitter.com/DrSakriKaia/status/1754685268454785074 337 https://www.scribd.com/document/702738861/Swords-of-Iron-UNRWA-Hamas-Relations ; survey of how the media has treated Israel’s claims here: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/unwra-hamas-israel/ 338 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-02-20/ty-article-magazine/.premium/unrwa-chief-waiting-for-israels-evidence-on-hamas- infiltration-of-gaza-employees/0000018d-c5fc-db3b-a9cf-cdfdfd5a0000 ; https://twitter.com/UNLazzarini/status/1760764594644013287 339 https://www.un.org/unispal/document/unrwa-claims-versus-facts-press-release-26feb2024/ 340 https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-finds-claims-that-u-n-aid-agency-staff-took-part-in-hamas-attack-credible-957b747e 341 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68518468 ; https://twitter.com/Kahlissee/status/1763587426163798282 ; https://www.reuters.com/world/unrwa-donors-likely-resume-funding-soon-norway-says-2024-03-06/; https://www.reuters.com/world/eu-holds-back-part-unrwa-payment-boosts-palestinian-aid-2024-03-01/ 342 https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/war-gaza-uk-unrwa-plan-place-resume-funding; https://www.smh.com.au/world/middle- east/us-french-military-shoot-down-houthi-drones-after-attack-on-carrier-warships-20240310-p5fb5h.html ; https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20240228_10/
25 and that its staff took part in the Oct. 7 attacks. The employees were severely beaten, tortured and were threatened that their family members would be harmed.343 Israeli officials have long stated that they want to shut UNRWA down.344 Israel has recently stated again this aim,345 suggesting that it has been weaponizing its recent allegations for this purpose. In the recent war Israel and Israeli media state or insinuate there is a connection between UNRWA and Hamas, but Israeli media fails to independently evaluate the claims by the IDF, or mention facts such as that UNRWA is very frequently audited within the UN,346 or notify its audience that all UNRWA employees had been approved by Israel and re-approved every year, and that UNRWA screens all its employees against the UN Security Council sanctions list twice a year.347 UNRWA also fired several employees who were found to be linked to Hamas in the past.348 Moreover, the closure of UNRWA would massively exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, while discussions in Israeli media include no clear plan for providing alternative aid to Gazans.
As I hope to have demonstrated through the evidence above, the situation in Gaza is a horrible catastrophe that continues to unfold daily in front of our eyes. The least I can do is to gather the evidence and speak up now.
Do not go gentle into that good night \ Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
343 https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/unrwa-report-says-israel-coerced-some-agency-employees-to-falsely-admit-hamas- links/
344 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0bMANfC0BQ ; https://jewishcurrents.org/the-campaign-to-abolish-unrwa 345 https://www.kikar.co.il/israel-news/sa71dg ; https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/2024-03-11/ty-article/.premium/0000018e-2dbc- d468-a9ff-2fbdbafa0000
346 https://www.unrwa.org/who-we-are/frequently-asked-questions [under oversight of UNRWA spending]; https://youtu.be/LA_xtBh3eLw?si=DXUkq3gct46VbE9O&t=445
347 https://www.un.org/unispal/document/unrwa-claims-versus-facts-press-release-26feb2024/ ; https://jewishcurrents.org/the- campaign-to-abolish-unrwa
348 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/10/world/middleeast/unrwa-hamas-gaza.html