Bay Area United Against War Newsletter, November 24, 2023

 

Nov 24 is not Black Friday—it’s People’s Day For Palestine.

 

Everywhere across the U.S. we are taking back this day to say:

 

🛑 NO shopping, NO profits, NO business usual, when genocide is taking place.

 

Find an action in your city or register one: shutitdown4palestine.org

 

#ShutItDown4Palestine #FreePalestine

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BAY AREA

#CEASEFIRE MASS MEETING

Sunday, November 26

10:00 A.M. – 3:00 P.M.

Bay Resistance, Center for Political Education, APTP and AROC invite you to connect with allies and community to move into forceful action to stop the genocide in Gaza.

In this critical moment, we offer this mass meeting space to get clear on messaging and deepen our shared understanding of our organizing strategy. There will be space for political education, training on organizing skills, action planning, and spaces for arts and culture.

This event is open to everyone to get plugged in, including new people who want to learn more about this movement and activists who want to find ways to do more. We’ll have special breakout sessions for families and parents organizing at schools and in their districts.

Stay tuned for an RSVP link coming soon!  Check HERE for updated details:

https://www.facebook.com/events/267145765886103

Take Urgent Action Now!

Call Congress to Demand a Ceasefire Now!

https://act.uscpr.org/a/callforgaza?oa_ext=AROC

Email Congress to demand a Ceasefire Now!

https://act.uscpr.org/a/stop-funding-israels-massacres?oa_ext=AROC

AROC is the only organization in Northern California that builds power for our SWANA people by providing critical legal support and social services while organizing our community around issues of justice and equity.

Our team invites you to be part of the fabric that holds our work together, in the spirit of takkaful, by donating to our organization today:

https://araborganizing.networkforgood.com/projects/100246-main-giving-page

Donate to AROC:

https://araborganizing.networkforgood.com/projects/100246-main-giving-page

Copyright © 2023 Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC), All rights reserved.

You are receiving this email because you have expressed interest in AROC news and events.

Our mailing address is:

Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC)

522 Valencia Street

San Francisco, CA 94110

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"The Rock" on top of Bernal Hill overlooking downtown San Francisco re-painted October 26, 2023, after pro-Israeli Zionist's destroyed it. 

Palestinians killed and wounded by Israel:

As of November 24, 2023, the total number of Palestinians killed by Israel is now over 14,100 (over 5,840 are children and 32,850 are wounded)—and more than 226 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in the occupied West Bank in the past month. 

The U.N. humanitarian affairs office estimates that about 2,700 people, including 1,500 children, are missing and believed buried in the ruins.

Since October 7, one in every 57 Palestinians living in Gaza has been killed or injured in Israel’s airstrikes and ground invasion,

Volker Türk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, told diplomats in Geneva.

Israelis killed and abducted by Hamas: 

A total of 1,200* Israelis killed by Hamas (30 of them children) and 239 abducted on October 7, 2023.

* Israel has revised its official estimated death toll of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, lowering the number to about 1,200 people, down from more than 1,400, a spokesman for the country’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday night.

NO JUSTICE! NO PEACE!

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA  PALESTINE WILL BE FREE!

END ALL U.S. AID TO ISRAEL!

FOR A DEMOCRATIC, SECULAR PALESTINE!

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Protesters calling for ceasefire in Gaza take over base of the Statue of Liberty

Hundreds of protesters affiliated with the group Jewish Voice for Peace staged a sit-in at the National Park Service site at 1:00 P.M., Monday, November 6, 2023 to call for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/11/06/protesters-statue-liberty-gaza-israel-ceasefire

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Ann Boyer’s Powerful New York Times Resignation Letter

November 17, 2023

Read: The War Turns Gaza Into a ‘Graveyard’ for Children, By Raja Abdulrahim, Photographs by Samar Abu Elouf and Yousef Masoud, Nov. 18, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/18/world/middleeast/gaza-children-israel.html

According to Literary Hub[1], "[Early on November 16, 2023], the news broke that Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, essayist, and poetry editor of the New York Times Magazine, Anne Boyer, has resigned from her post, writing in her resignation letter that 'the Israeli state’s U.S.-backed war against the people of Gaza is not a war for anyone...'"

 

The letter in full is written below:

 

"I have resigned as poetry editor of the New York Times Magazine.

"The Israeli state’s U.S-backed war against the people of Gaza is not a war for anyone. There is no safety in it or from it, not for Israel, not for the United States or Europe, and especially not for the many Jewish people slandered by those who claim falsely to fight in their names. Its only profit is the deadly profit of oil interests and weapon manufacturers.

"The world, the future, our hearts—everything grows smaller and harder from this war. It is not only a war of missiles and land invasions. It is an ongoing war against the people of Palestine, people who have resisted throughout decades of occupation, forced dislocation, deprivation, surveillance, siege, imprisonment, and torture.

"Because our status quo is self-expression, sometimes the most effective mode of protest for artists is to refuse.

"I can’t write about poetry amidst the ‘reasonable’ tones of those who aim to acclimatize us to this unreasonable suffering. No more ghoulish euphemisms. No more verbally sanitized hellscapes. No more warmongering lies.

"If this resignation leaves a hole in the news the size of poetry, then that is the true shape of the present."

—Anne Boyer

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[1] https://lithub.com/read-anne-boyers-extraordinary-resignation-letter-from-the-new-york-times/

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Viva Fidel!

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PLEASE SIGN AND FORWARD WIDELY!

 

To endorse the following statement as a trade unionist, please click here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd2tpd2c62Sh5YEVDOr2vmGWTuQArt-6OPQMDwd2wUnfNi_rQ/viewform

 

To endorse as other, please click here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdzWaP1U_KOHlH-ou1R3OD8zsuI5BWW1b9H4gtPoFK_lIQB3g/viewform

 

The list of signers will be updated periodically

Contact: info@laborforpalestine.net

Website: laborforpalestine.net

 

Stand With Palestinian Workers: 

Cease the Genocide Now—Stop Arming Israel!

Labor for Palestine

 

“We need you to take immediate action—wherever you are in the world—to prevent the arming of the Israeli state and the companies involved in the infrastructure of the blockade.” An Urgent Call from Palestinian Trade Unions: End all Complicity, Stop Arming Israel (October 16, 2023)

 

The undersigned U.S. workers, trade unionists, and anti-apartheid activists join labor around the world in condemning the Israeli siege on Gaza that has killed or maimed thousands of Palestinians—many of them children—and stand with Palestinians’ “right to exist, resist, return, and self-determination.”

 

The latest Israeli attacks reflect more than a century of ongoing Zionist settler-colonialism, dispossession, ethnic cleansing, racism, genocide, and apartheid—including Israel’s establishment through the uprooting and displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians during the 1947-1948 Nakba. Indeed, eighty percent of the 2.3 million people in Gaza are refugees from other parts of historic Palestine.

 

Israel’s crimes are only possible because of more than $3.8 billion a year (or $10+ million per day) in bipartisan US military aid that gives Israel the guns, bullets, tanks, ships, jet fighters, missiles, helicopters, white phosphorus and other weapons to kill and maim the Palestinian people. This is the same system of racist state violence that, through shared surveillance technology and police exchange programs, brutalizes BIPOC and working class people in the United States and around the world.

 

In response, we demand an immediate end to the genocide, and embrace the recent Urgent Call from Palestinian Trade Unions: End all Complicity, Stop Arming Israel:

 

1.     To refuse to build weapons destined for Israel. To refuse to transport weapons to Israel. 

 

2.     To pass motions in their trade union to this effect. 

 

3.     To take action against complicit companies involved in implementing Israel’s brutal and illegal siege, especially if they have contracts with your institution. 

 

4.     Pressure governments to stop all military trade with Israel, and in the case of the U.S., funding to it.

 

We further reaffirm the call on labor bodies to respect previous Palestinian trade union appeals for solidarity by adopting this statement, and/or the model resolution below to divest from Israel Bonds, sever all ties with the Israel’s racist labor federation, the Histadrut, and its US mouthpiece, the Jewish Labor Committee, and respect the Palestinian picket line for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS). 

 

Initial Signers on behalf of Labor for Palestine

(organizational affiliations listed for identification only)

Suzanne Adely, Labor for Palestine, US Palestinian Community Network, Arab Workers Resource Center; Food Chain Workers Alliance (staff); President, National Lawyers Guild; Monadel Herzallah, Arab American Union Members Council; Ruth Jennison, Department Rep., Massachusetts Society of Professors, MTA, NEA; Co-Chair, Labor Standing Committee River Valley DSA; Delegate to Western Mass Area Labor Federation; Lara Kiswani, Executive Director, Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC); Block the Boat; Michael Letwin, Former President, Association of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW Local 2325; Jews for Palestinian Right of Return; Corinna Mullin, PSC-CUNY International Committee; CUNY for Palestine; Clarence Thomas, Co-Chair, Million Worker March; Executive Board, ILWU Local 10 (retired.)

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Jewish Doctor Speaks Out on Israel and Palestine

Dr. Gabor Maté, Hungarian-Canadian physician and author describes his own life experience and expresses his view on the situation in Israel and Palestine.

“I’m personally a Holocaust survivor as an infant, I barely survived. My grandparents were killed in Auschwitz and most of my extended family were killed. I became a Zionist; this dream of the Jewish people resurrected in their historical homeland and the barbed wire of Auschwitz being replaced by the boundaries of a Jewish state with a powerful army…and then I found out that it wasn’t exactly like that, that in order to make this Jewish dream a reality we had to visit a nightmare on the local population.

“There’s no way you could have ever created a Jewish state without oppressing and expelling the local population. Jewish Israeli historians have shown without a doubt that the expulsion of Palestinians was persistent, pervasive, cruel, murderous and with deliberate intent—that’s what’s called the ‘Nakba’ in Arabic; the ‘disaster’ or the ‘catastrophe.’ There’s a law that you cannot deny the Holocaust, but in Israel you’re not allowed to mention the Nakba, even though it’s at the very basis of the foundation of Israel.

“I visited the Occupied Territories (West Bank) during the first intifada. I cried every day for two weeks at what I saw; the brutality of the occupation, the petty harassment, the murderousness of it, the cutting down of Palestinian olive groves, the denial of water rights, the humiliations...and this went on, and now it’s much worse than it was then.

“It’s the longest ethnic cleansing operation in the 20th and 21st century. I could land in Tel Aviv tomorrow and demand citizenship but my Palestinian friend in Vancouver, who was born in Jerusalem, can’t even visit!

“So, then you have these miserable people packed into this, horrible…people call it an ‘outdoor prison,’ which is what it is. You don’t have to support Hamas policies to stand up for Palestinian rights, that’s a complete falsity. You think the worst thing you can say about Hamas, multiply it by a thousand times, and it still will not meet the Israeli repression and killing and dispossession of Palestinians.

“And ‘anybody who criticizes Israel is an anti-Semite’ is simply an egregious attempt to intimidate good non-Jews who are willing to stand up for what is true.”

—Independent Catholic News, October 16, 2023

https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/48251

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TERRORISM IN THE EYES OF THE IMPERIAL BEHOLDER - a poem

 

the French word

for rabies

is

la rage -

rage or outrage

 

and 

the French have a saying -

a man who wants to get rid of his dog

accuses it of spreading rabies

 

the people of Gaza

treated as inhuman animals

worse than dogs

are charged

with terrorism

 

come to think of it

what an honor !

 

world war two's resistance

against nazi extermination

was designated

as terrorism

by the Axis allies

 

what an honor !

 

Mandela

was monitored

as a terrorist

by the CIA

 

What an honor !

 

Tortuguita

peacefully meditating

near Israeli-funded cop city

was executed

in cold blood

on suspicion

of domestic terrorism 

 

What an honor !

 

in the spirit of Mandela

in the spirit of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising

in the spirit of Tortuguita

in the spirit of Attica

may the anti colonial outrage

of the People of Palestine

contaminate us all -

the only epidemic

worth dying for

 

 (c) Julia Wright. October 17 2023. All Rights Reserved To The family of Wadea Al- Fayoume.

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The ongoing Zionist theft of Palestinian land from 1946 to now.

77 years of brutal oppression must end!

End all U.S. aid to Israel now!

For a democratic, secular Palestine!

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Leonard Peltier’s Letter Delivered to Supporters on September 12, 2023, in Front of the Whitehouse

 

Dear friends, relatives, supporters, loved ones:

 

Seventy-nine years old. Mother Earth has taken us on another journey around Grandfather Sun.  Babies have taken their first breath. People have lived, loved, and died. Seeds have been planted and sent their roots deep below red earth and their breath to the Stars and our Ancestors.

 

I am still here.

 

Time has twisted one more year out of me. A year that has been a moment.  A year that has been a lifetime. For almost five decades I’ve existed in a cage of concrete and steel.  With the “good time” calculations of the system, I’ve actually served over 60 years.

 

Year after year, I have encouraged you to live as spirit warriors. Even while in here, I can envision what is real and far beyond these walls.  I’ve seen a reawakening of an ancient Native pride that does my heart good.

 

I may leave this place in a box. That is a cold truth. But I have put my heart and soul into making our world a better place and there is a lot of work left to do – I would like to get out and do it with you.

 

I know that the spirit warriors coming up behind me have the heart and soul to fight racism and oppression, and to fight the greed that is poisoning our lands, waters, and people. 

 

We are still here.

 

Remember who you are, even if they come for your land, your water, your family. We are children of Mother Earth and we owe her and her other children our care.

 

I long to turn my face to the sky. In this cage, I am denied that simple pleasure. I am in prison, but in my mind, I remain as I was born: a free Native spirit.

 

That is what allows me to laugh, keeps me laughing. These walls cannot contain my laughter – or my hope.

 

I know there are those who stand with me, who work around the clock for my freedom. I have been blessed to have such friends.

 

We are still here and you give me hope. 

 

I hope to breathe free air before I die. Hope is a hard thing to hold, but no one is strong enough to take it from me. 

 

I love you. I hope for you. I pray for you. 

 

And prayer is more than a cry to the Creator that runs through your head.  Prayer is an action.

 

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

DOKSHA, 

LEONARD PELTIER

Write to:

Leonard Peltier 89637-132

USP Coleman 1

P.O. Box 1033

Coleman, FL 33521

Note: Letters, address and return address must be in writing—no stickers—and on plain white paper.

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Free Julian Assange

Immediate Repeated Action Needed to Free Assange

 

Please call your Congressional Representatives, the White House, and the DOJ. Calls are tallied—they do count.  We are to believe we are represented in this country.  This is a political case, so our efforts can change things politically as well.  Please take this action as often as you can:

 

Find your representatives:

https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

 

Leave each of your representatives a message individually to: 

·      Drop the charges against Julian Assange

·      Speak out publicly against the indictment and

·      Sign on to Rashida Tlaib's letter to the DOJ to drop the charges: 

           202-224-3121—Capitol Main Switchboard 

 

Leave a message on the White House comment line to 

Demand Julian Assange be pardoned: 

             202-456-1111

             Tuesday–Thursday, 11:00 A.M.–3:00 P.M. EST

 

Call the DOJ and demand they drop the charges against Julian Assange:

             202-353-1555—DOJ Comment Line

             202-514-2000 Main Switchboard 

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Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!

FREE HIM NOW!

Write to Mumia at:

Smart Communications/PADOC

Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335

SCI Mahanoy

P.O. Box 33028

St. Petersburg, FL 33733

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Updates From Kevin Cooper 

March 23, 2023 

Dear Friends and Comrades, 

This is Kevin Cooper writing and sending this update to you in 'Peace & Solidarity'. First and foremost I am well and healthy, and over the ill effect(s) that I went through after that biased report from MoFo, and their pro prosecution and law enforcement experts. I am back working with my legal team from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.

'We' have made great progress in refuting all that those experts from MoFo came up with by twisting the truth to fit their narrative, or omitting things, ignoring, things, and using all the other tactics that they did to reach their conclusions. Orrick has hired four(4) real experts who have no questionable backgrounds. One is a DNA attorney, like Barry Scheck of the innocence project in New York is for example. A DNA expert, a expect to refute what they say Jousha Ryen said when he was a child, and his memory. A expect on the credibility of MoFo's experts, and the attorney's at Orrick are dealing with the legal issues.

This all is taking a little longer than we first expected it to take, and that in part is because 'we' have to make sure everything is correct in what we have in our reply. We cannot put ourselves in a situation where we can be refuted... Second, some of our experts had other things planned, like court cases and such before they got the phone call from Rene, the now lead attorney of the Orrick team. With that being said, I can say that our experts, and legal team have shown, and will show to the power(s) that be that MoFo's DNA expert could not have come to the conclusion(s) that he came to, without having used 'junk science'! They, and by they I mean my entire legal team, including our experts, have done what we have done ever since Orrick took my case on in 2004, shown that all that is being said by MoFo's experts is not true, and we are once again having to show what the truth really is.

Will this work with the Governor? Who knows... 'but' we are going to try! One of our comrades, Rebecca D.   said to me, 'You and Mumia'...meaning that my case and the case of Mumia Abu Jamal are cases in which no matter what evidence comes out supporting our innocence, or prosecution misconduct, we cannot get a break. That the forces in the so called justice system won't let us go. 'Yes' she is correct about that sad to say...

Our reply will be out hopefully in the not too distant future, and that's because the people in Sacramento have been put on notice that it is coming, and why. Every one of you will receive our draft copy of the reply according to Rene because he wants feedback on it. Carole and others will send it out once they receive it. 'We' were on the verge of getting me out, and those people knew it, so they sabotaged what the Governor ordered them to do, look at all the evidence as well as the DNA evidence. They did not do that, they made this a DNA case, by doing what they did, and twisted the facts on the other issues that they dealt with.   'more later'...

In Struggle & Solidarity,

An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:

Mr. Kevin Cooper

C-65304. 4-EB-82

San Quentin State Prison

San Quentin, CA 94974

 

 

Call California Governor Newsom:

1-(916) 445-2841

Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish, 

press 6 to speak with a representative and

wait for someone to answer 

(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)

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The writers' organization PEN America is circulating this petition on behalf of Jason Renard Walker, a Texas prisoner whose life is being threatened because of his exposés of the Texas prison system. 

See his book, Reports from within the Belly of the Beast; available on Amazon at:

https://www.amazon.com/Reports-Within-Belly-Beast-Department-ebook/dp/B084656JDZ/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/protect-whistleblowers-in-carceral-settings

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Sign the petition:

https://dontextraditeassange.com/petition/

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Tell Congress to Help #FreeDanielHale

 

I’m pleased to announce that last week our client, Daniel Hale, was awarded the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence. The “Corner-Brightener Candlestick” was presented to Daniel’s friend Noor Mir. You can watch the online ceremony here. As it happens, this week is also the 20th anniversary of the first drone assassination in Yemen. From the beginning, the drone assassination program has been deeply shrouded in secrecy, allowing U.S. officials to hide significant violations of international law, and the American Constitution. In addition to the lives directly impacted by these strikes, the program has significantly eroded respect for international law and thereby puts civilians around the world in danger. Daniel Hale’s revelations threw a beam of light into a very dark corner, allowing journalists to definitively show that the government's official narrative was a lie. It is thanks to the great personal sacrifice of drone whistleblowers like Hale that public understanding has finally begun to catch up to reality. As the Sam Adams Associates note:  “Mr. Hale was well aware of the cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment to which other courageous officials have been subjected — and that he would likely suffer the same. And yet — in the manner of his famous ancestor Nathan Hale — he put his country first, knowing what awaited him at the hands of those who serve what has become a repressive Perpetual War State wreaking havoc upon much of the world.” We hope you’ll join the growing call to pardon or commute Hale’s sentence. U.S. citizens can contact your representatives here.

Happy new year, and thank you for your support! Jesselyn Radack Director Whistleblower & Source Protection Program (WHISPeR) ExposeFacts Twitter: @JesselynRadack

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Laws are created to be followed

by the poor.

Laws are made by the rich

to bring some order to exploitation.

The poor are the only law abiders in history.

When the poor make laws

the rich will be no more.

 

—Roque Dalton Presente!

(May 14, 1935 – Assassinated May 10, 1975)[1]

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[1] Roque Dalton was a Salvadoran poet, essayist, journalist, political activist, and intellectual. He is considered one of Latin America's most compelling poets.

Poems: 

http://cordite.org.au/translations/el-salvador-tragic/

About: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roque_Dalton

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A Plea for the Compassionate Release of 

Leonard Peltier

Self Portrait by Leonard Peltier

Video at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWdJdODKO6M&feature=youtu.be

Sign our petition urging President Biden to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier.

 

https://www.freeleonardpeltier.com/petition

 

Email: contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info

Address: 116 W. Osborne Ave. Tampa, Florida 33603

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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression

https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/

 

Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests. 

 

The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page. 

 

Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.

 

Emergency Hotlines

If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities. 

 

State and Local Hotlines

If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for: 

 

Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312

San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org

Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963

National Hotline

If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:

 

National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811

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Articles

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1) Who Are the Palestinian Prisoners Who Could Be Released in a Hostage Deal?

By Karen Zraick, Published Nov. 21, 2023, Updated Nov. 22, 2023

“As of this week, the total number of what Addameer calls Palestinian political prisoners in Israel — including people from Gaza, the West Bank and Israel — was 7,000, up from about 5,000 before Oct. 7, according to Addameer. That includes more than 2,000 people held in ‘administrative detention,’ meaning they are being held indefinitely without charges, it said.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/21/world/hamas-prisoners-hostage-deal.html

Relatives and supporters of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons staged a sit-in in front of the Red Cross in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday. Credit...Jaafar Ashtiyeh/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Negotiations around the release of Israeli women and children held hostage in Gaza have centered on an exchange for Palestinian women and minors held in Israeli prisons. The size of that group has grown quickly during the six weeks of war and upheaval since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, according to a Palestinian prisoners’ rights group.

 

The group, Addameer, says that about 200 boys, most of them teenagers, were in Israeli detention as of this week, along with about 75 women and five teenage girls. Before Oct. 7, about 150 boys and 30 women and girls were in Israeli prisons, it said, and since then, many other detentions have occurred, as well as many releases.

 

Addameer said that it compiled the figures using data from the Israel Prison Service, which administers the country’s jails, and information from the families of detained people.

 

Early Wednesday, the Israeli government and Hamas announced they would uphold a four-day cease-fire in Gaza to allow for the release of 50 hostages captured during Hamas’s assault last month on Israel and 150 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

 

Many of the most recent arrests of Palestinians came during raids across the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where protests and violence have surged, including attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers. Israel has said that the arrests are part of a counterterror operation against Hamas in the West Bank.

 

There are also about 700 people missing from Gaza who are believed to be in Israeli prisons, but information on their whereabouts is murky, said Tala Nasir, a spokeswoman for Addameer. It was not clear how many of those people, if any, were women or minors. The Israeli military has said that it has apprehended 300 people in Gaza during the ground invasion that it claimed were connected to armed Palestinian groups, and that they “were brought into Israeli territory for further interrogations.”

 

Of the roughly 240 Israeli hostages taken to Gaza by Hamas and other armed groups, 33 are minors, the youngest of whom is 9 months old, according to the Israeli government. At least 62 are women, according to an organization formed by the hostages’ families. Four of the women being held hostage are Israeli soldiers, according to interviews with their family members and information gathered by a forum of the hostages’ families.

 

As of this week, the total number of what Addameer calls Palestinian political prisoners in Israel — including people from Gaza, the West Bank and Israel — was 7,000, up from about 5,000 before Oct. 7, according to Addameer. That includes more than 2,000 people held in “administrative detention,” meaning they are being held indefinitely without charges, it said.

 

Ms. Nasir said that her group defines that category as Palestinians arrested for offenses that are related to political activity and free speech rather than crimes like drugs or violence. She added that Addameer had received many reports in recent weeks of people arrested on charges of incitement for their social media posts in Israel and the West Bank. Earlier this month, the Knesset passed an amendment to a counterterrorism law that criminalized the “consumption of terrorist materials.”

 

Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, said that it was monitoring 121 cases of arrests and detentions linked to social media posts, some which “merely contained expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza, or even verses shared from the Quran.”

 

Rights groups have long warned that Palestinian detainees are held without due process and face abuse and even torture. Military Court Watch, a nonprofit legal group, said last year that of the 100 Palestinian children detained by Israeli forces that it had interviewed, 74 percent reported physical abuse, and 42 percent said they were put in solitary confinement.

 

The women in Israeli detention include Ahed Tamimi, 22, a high-profile figure in the West Bank who was sentenced to prison in 2018 for slapping an Israeli soldier. Israeli officials accused her of her posting hate speech online; her family said the post was not hers.

 

Six Palestinian detainees who were held without charges have died in Israeli prisons in recent weeks, according to Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s news agency. One of them, Omar Daraghmeh, was a senior member of Hamas, the militant group said when his death was announced.

 

Hiba Yazbek, Johnatan Reiss and Talya Minsberg contributed reporting.

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2) The Public Health Crisis in Gaza That Could Devastate a Generation

By Catherine Russell, Nov. 22, 2023

Ms. Russell is the executive director of UNICEF.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/opinion/gaza-children-food-malnutrition.html

Hatem Ali/Associated Press

It is hard to describe what it means for someone to be “severely wasted,” but when you hold a child who is suffering from this most lethal form of acute malnutrition you understand, and you never forget. In Afghanistan last year, I met a 3-month-old girl named Wahida who was so malnourished I could barely feel the weight of her in my arms. Her suffering has left an indelible mark on my heart.

 

Now the suffering in Gaza is leaving a similar mark on me. Last week, I visited the al-Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. Inside, I was met with a sea of patients, health care workers and the displaced. And there were children everywhere: girls and boys running through the corridors, resting on mattresses with their families and recovering in hospital beds. I met a 16-year-old being treated for injuries sustained when her neighborhood was bombed. Though she survived, the doctors say she will never be able to walk again.

 

The medical staffers were mounting truly heroic efforts to provide lifesaving care to their patients, including dozens of children. But with their supplies of fuel, medicines and water nearly depleted, it is unclear how long they can continue to provide even the most basic of interventions. In the hospital’s neonatal ward, for example, tiny babies were clinging to life in incubators, as doctors worried about how they could keep the machines running without fuel.

 

These children, Gaza’s youngest — as well as those in utero — are especially vulnerable to the burgeoning crisis of malnutrition and the prospect of starvation. After more than six weeks of war amid bombs and gunfire, a lack of electricity and the near-total closure of all border crossings, Gaza’s one million children are now food insecure, facing what could soon become a public health catastrophe.

 

Supplies of nutritious food have virtually run out. Shops are closed, and in the streets of Khan Younis I saw piles of garbage where there once were food stands. Last week, the al-Salam Mill in Deir al-Balah was reportedly hit in an attack and forced to shut down. This was Gaza’s last functional flour mill. All local flour production is now effectively halted.

 

The hostage release deal outlined on Tuesday would include a cease-fire of at least four days and would reportedly allow for some new shipments of basic humanitarian aid to go to the people of Gaza who desperately need it. But to save lives and ensure that Gaza’s population, especially its children, remain healthy and stave off looming health issues, we as humanitarian partners must be permitted to bring quality food, essential nutrition supplies, water and fuel into Gaza, at levels that are sufficient to meet the surging needs. And we must be permitted to continue safely delivering these resources after hostilities resume.

 

Without sufficient quantities of nutritious food, people will quickly become malnourished and could eventually starve. The risks associated with food insecurity are compounded by the extreme scarcity of safe drinking water. According to international humanitarian standards, one person needs a minimum of almost four gallons of clean water per day for drinking and to meet basic personal needs.

 

In Gaza, this standard is far from being met: About 96 percent of the water supply is considered unfit for human consumption. Water pumping and wastewater treatment have all ceased to function because of the lack of fuel. People have resorted to accessing water from unsafe sources that are salty or polluted.

 

These conditions, when combined with displacement and overcrowding in shelters, can quickly lead to disease outbreaks that threaten everyone, especially malnourished children. Since mid-October, more than 71,000 total cases of acute respiratory infections have been reported, while over 22,000 cases of diarrheal infections have been reported in children under the age of 5. And without clean water, health care facilities cannot provide effective treatment to those in need, nor can they maintain basic infection prevention and control measures.

 

The consequences of this crisis extend not just to survivors of the war but also to those who will be born in its aftermath. The United Nations estimates that 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza — 5,500 of whom are expected to deliver in the next month — can no longer obtain basic antenatal health and nutrition services. Malnourished women are more likely to die and face complications during pregnancy and childbirth. They are more likely to have children born too small, too thin and vulnerable to undernutrition, illness and death. More than 105,000 breastfeeding mothers in Gaza are now struggling to feed themselves and breastfeed their babies. Our analyses show that about half of all stunting in early childhood originates during pregnancy or in the first six months of life — a time when (in the absence of baby formula, which is in extremely short supply in Gaza right now) children are entirely dependent on their mothers for nutrition.

 

We project that over the next few months, child wasting, the most life-threatening form of malnutrition in children, could increase by nearly 30 percent in Gaza. Up to 5,000 of these children could experience severe wasting, in which dangerous weight loss and acutely weakened immune systems put them at imminent risk of death — even from illnesses like the common cold, other respiratory infections and diarrhea. These are conservative projections; the longer the conflict and siege continue, the higher these figures will rise.

 

Without urgent therapeutic feeding and care, severely malnourished children may not survive. Even if they do survive, their condition may disrupt their physical growth and cognitive development, with irreversible long-term effects for the vast majority of them. Undernourished and stunted children are more likely to develop chronic health problems as adults, and more likely to have lower educational achievement and economic security.

 

Even before the current crisis, approximately 30,000 children under the age of 5 in Gaza were experiencing stunted growth, while more than 7,600 suffered from wasting. Now the violence has shut down lifesaving prevention, screening and treatment services for malnutrition that were previously reaching the 340,000 children under 5 years of age in Gaza. With hospitals and health centers ceasing to function and nutrition programs nonoperational, we cannot get malnourished children the critical prevention and treatment services they urgently need.

 

In the humanitarian community, we use the phrase “time is of the essence” a lot, perhaps to the point where it has lost its ability to convey urgency. But that is exactly the situation we are in right now in Gaza. If we cannot get proper nutrition and care services, safe water and sanitation to children and women now, they will die.

 

Gaza’s children have endured far too much death and suffering already. In just the last seven weeks, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, at least 5,600 children have been killed and nearly 9,000 injured because of the ongoing conflict. We must not let this grim tally rise, especially when the solutions are so evident: sustained, safe and unimpeded humanitarian access to civilians wherever they are, to bring essential food nutrition supplements, fuel and other humanitarian supplies into Gaza. Delays will cost lives.

 

The parties to this conflict have the power to stop this nutrition crisis from turning into a catastrophe for Gaza’s one million children. I urge them to give us the space to do our jobs so that we can get these kids the support they need and deserve.

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3) Families in the West Bank eagerly await a prisoner release.

By Hiba Yazbek Reporting from Jerusalem, Nov. 23, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/11/23/world/israel-hamas-gaza-hostage-war#israel-palestinian-prisoner-release

The family of Walaa Tanji, who was detained by Israel over a year ago, is hoping to welcome her home soon in the Balata refugee camp on the outskirts of Nablus in the West Bank. Credit...Jaafar Ashtiyeh/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

As soon as the Tanji siblings heard that their youngest sister, Walaa, could be released from an Israeli prison on Thursday, they began frantically preparing for her arrival.

 

Some were arranging transportation for family members scattered across the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Others rented plastic chairs to accommodate the crowds that would come to greet her. A friend even flew in from Canada to be there.

 

“We were so happy,” said Nagham Tanji, Walaa’s older sister. “My sisters and I could not wait for the sun to rise and for this day to come.”

 

The family was among many on both sides of the conflict that were hopeful after the announcement of a deal to release about 50 hostages held in Gaza and about 150 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, paired with a temporary cease-fire. Then came some delays, which dampened hopes. But on Thursday came an announcement that the exchange would begin on Friday.

 

When told the news, Ms. Tanji said: “Praise be to God, who made the deal happen. Patience is the key to relief. Now I want to start arranging again for her reception.”

 

Walaa Tanji, 26, was detained by Israel over a year ago at her home in the Balata refugee camp on the outskirts of Nablus, along with two other women. Israel’s military accused the three of planning an attack on an Israeli checkpoint and said it had found firearms in a car they were using. Ms. Tanji said that her sister was innocent and that she had yet to be charged or sentenced.

 

Even if Walaa had been released on Thursday, the reception would not have been possible.

 

Israeli forces started raiding the refugee camp early Thursday, and violent clashes erupted, killing one Palestinian and wounding three others, according to Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s news agency. The Israeli military has been carrying out nightly raids across the West Bank since the Hamas attack in Israel on Oct. 7, saying they are part of a counterterrorism operation to apprehend wanted Palestinians.

 

Ms. Tanji said that Walaa’s home was among those raided and severely damaged by Israeli forces. “We can’t think about the prisoner release deal now because of the horror we have been living since the raid started,” she said.

 

The agreement reached by Israel and Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, would also grant people in the enclave at least four days of calm after a relentless Israeli bombardment that health officials say has killed over 12,000 Palestinians. The bombing began in retaliation for the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7 that Israel says killed about 1,200 people.

 

Buthaina Abu Ziadeh said her family was hoping and praying that her younger sister Rawan, who has been in an Israeli prison for over eight years, would be one of the Palestinian prisoners released. Her name is on Israel’s list of about 300 candidates.

 

“The wait has been very tough,” Ms. Abu Ziadeh said. “When she comes out, I just want to hug her and hold her tight.”

 

Rawan Abu Ziadeh, who is from the village of Baytillu near Ramallah, was arrested in 2015 at the age of 20 and is serving a nine-year sentence after she was convicted of stabbing and lightly wounding an Israeli soldier.

 

Ms. Abu Ziadeh said the family had not been expecting Rawan to be on the list because she was set to be released in seven months: “She basically served her entire sentence, even if she is released now.”

 

The long-awaited reunion would not be what the family had hoped for, said Ms. Abu Ziadeh. “We’ve been eagerly awaiting this day,” she said. “But the joy will be incomplete because of all the pain in Gaza.”

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4) More than 100 bodies are delivered to a mass grave in southern Gaza.

By Yousef Masoud and Daniel Victor, Nov. 23, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/11/23/world/israel-hamas-gaza-hostage-war#israel-has-made-lopsided-prisoner-swaps-before

More than a hundred bodies of Palestinians were buried in a mass grave at a cemetery in the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis on Wednesday. The bodies, believed to be from Al-Shifa Hospital and Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, were returned by Israel to Palestinian authorities earlier this week. Credit...Yousef Masoud for The New York Times

In Khan Younis, a city in the southern Gaza Strip where many Palestinians have fled to escape Israeli bombardment of the north, 111 bodies wrapped in bright blue bags arrived on Wednesday in a shipping container on the back of a truck.

 

The bodies were believed to be from Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, which Israeli troops seized last week, and Beit Hanoun, a city on the northeastern edge of Gaza. Israel returned the bodies to Palestinian authorities earlier this week.

 

They were removed from the shipping container on stretchers, as workers dug a trench with construction equipment and shovels. Journalists watched, but no family members were present. The bodies were unidentified except for numbers on the bags.

 

Workers then stacked them next to each other in the trench, their blue bags standing out against the red-orange soil.

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5) The High Stakes of Low Quality

By Yvon Chouinard, Nov. 23, 2023

Mr. Chouinard is the founder and former owner of Patagonia.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/23/opinion/patagonia-environnment-fast-fashion.html

Illustration by Shoshana Schultz/The New York Times

Over 50 years ago, my wife, Malinda, and I bought a chef’s knife of carbon steel that we still use. It could be passed down to several generations. Compare that to the junk stainless steel ones that might not rust but that won’t hold an edge to cut a tomato.

 

Cheap products, made poorly and thrown away quickly, are killing people and the planet.

 

Since 1999, humans have far surpassed — by billions of metric tons — the amount of Earth’s resources that scientists estimate we can sustainably use. The culprit: our overconsumption of stuff, from shoddy tools to fast fashion that is trendy one day, trash the next.

 

Obsession with the latest tech gadgets drives open pit mining for precious minerals. Demand for rubber continues to decimate rainforests. Turning these and other raw materials into final products releases one-fifth of all carbon emissions.

 

The global inequality that benefits some and persists for the many, ensures that some of the poorest people and most vulnerable places bear the social and environmental costs of international trade. Research links demand for goods in Western Europe and the United States to the premature deaths of more than 100,000 people in China because of industrial air pollution.

 

And people keep buying junk. In a world where it’s often cheaper to replace goods than to repair them, we have gone from a society of caretaker owners to one of consumers.

 

Manufacturers and brands must shoulder much of the blame. They increase sales by intentionally limiting the life span of batteries, lightbulbs, washing machines and more through planned obsolescence. Some build in quality fade, slowly downgrading materials to save money and duping customers into buying something a little bit worse each time even if the label stays the same. As a result, products that could have been made to last a lifetime — or even generations — end up in landfills.

 

This hurts low-income buyers most of all. The rich can pay a premium for craftsmanship, but as the saying goes, the poor can’t afford cheap goods. The novelist Terry Pratchett captured the problem in his “boots theory” of socioeconomics: “A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.”

 

I know firsthand the high stakes of low quality. When I started forging climbing equipment and selling it out of the back of my car in the 1950s, I was my own best customer. My dirtbag climber buddies and I wanted stronger pitons and sturdier carabiners to support us as we hung thousands of feet above the Yosemite Valley floor. If the metal were too soft, or a joint too weak, the resulting fall would have killed me or one of my friends.

 

I wanted to stay alive, so I chose quality at every turn, creating products that were simple, versatile and made with the lightest, strongest materials I could find. And I didn’t want to deface the wild, beautiful places I loved, so I got creative and designed new gear that wouldn’t scar the rocks.

 

To this day, some of the most popular items Patagonia makes were designed in the 1970s and ’80s — essential products that we continue to tinker and refine. The company I founded turns 50 this year. People ask me how it has managed to stick around so long when the average life span of a corporation is less than 20 years. I tell them it’s been our unrelenting focus on quality, which includes making things that last and that cause the least amount of harm to our planet.

 

Countless skeptics told me we’d never turn a profit. They thought we were crazy for repairing our own gear and urging our customers to buy less. They said our focus on quality would drive up prices and put our products out of reach.

 

But the naysayers were wrong. Some of our most loyal customers still live out of vans and save up for one of our coats, knowing they may not need to replace it for a decade or more. And long-lasting goods create secondhand markets for discounted clothes and gear that have many years of good use left in them.

 

Quality is smart business. Even during economic downturns, people don’t stop spending. In our experience, instead of wanting more, they value better. Consumers should demand — and companies should deliver — products that are more durable, multifunctional and, crucially, socially and environmentally responsible.

 

Government has a role, too. We need a national revolution around quality — backed by policies and legislation that prioritize the most sustainable raw materials and best manufacturing practices.

 

We can’t eliminate every environmental threat overnight, but we can weed out some of the worst offenders by imposing steep tariffs on poor-quality imports. We know we have to phase out using fossil fuels, but where do we start? Let’s start by banning petroleum imports from areas like the Amazon, the tar sands in Alberta and the swamps of southeastern Nigeria, one of the most polluted places in the world.

 

We should build on the work of the Inflation Reduction Act to reorder our system of taxes and incentives around what is most important: products and a planet that can survive for the long haul. We know we need to reduce manufacturing’s carbon footprint, so let’s start by taxing industries like apparel and steel production based on their emissions. In agriculture and energy production, the government currently subsidizes some of the most ecologically damaging methods of making our food and powering our lives. Let’s acknowledge that corn ethanol is not green and an irresponsible source of energy. It wastes precious topsoil and water, pollutes our oceans, and contributes more to climate change than gasoline!

 

A quality revolution will require a massive shift, but it’s been done before. Early post-World War II Japan was known for making flimsy, inexpensive products. But in 1950, an American statistician named W. Edwards Deming introduced a new system that emphasized consistency, continuous improvement and the importance of sourcing the very best materials. His principles transformed Japan into a manufacturing gold standard, but they didn’t catch on in his home country. Frustrated with U.S. companies’ disinterest in his methods, Deming told a reporter he’d like to be remembered “as someone who spent his life trying to keep America from committing suicide.”

 

If we can embrace quality as the key to living more responsibly, choosing the carbon steel knife that lasts decades over the ones that have to be replaced each year, we may just get to keep the one thing we can’t toss out — Earth.

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6) Israel’s secret air war in Gaza and the West Bank

Anna Schecter and Keir Simmons and Courtney Kube

Updated Tue, November 21, 2023

https://www.yahoo.com/news/israel-secret-air-war-gaza-064047802.html

A Palestinian man carries an injured child in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on Nov. 7, 2023. (Said Khatib / AFP - Getty Images file)

Day and night, according to Palestinians, a sound echoes above Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza. The noise isn’t the detonation of a bomb dropped by an Israeli jet. It’s the low hum of Israeli drones circling overhead.

 

“They never leave the sky,” Tareq Hajjaj, a freelance Palestinian journalist, said via WhatsApp.

 

As civilians flee northern Gaza, the focus of international attention — and the fears of many Palestinians — is how Israel may wage war in southern Gaza. The focus, in particular, is on airstrikes.

 

Israeli officials, including two active-duty drone pilots, said they follow exacting procedures to minimize civilian casualties. An Israel Defense Forces military attorney must sign off on every strike after a review of intelligence. And pilots must conduct real-time analyses of potential civilian deaths.

 

“We preplan what happens if children enter into our area,” said one of the drone pilots, referring to calling off a strike. “We preplan what happens if the terrorists launch a rocket and then drive into a crowded area, as they so often do.”

 

Critics of Israel’s tactics say the sheer volume of airstrikes it has conducted in such densely populated areas is worrying. In the first week of the conflict, which began after Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack killed more than 1,200 Israelis, the IDF dropped 6,000 bombs in Gaza. In 2019, the U.S. dropped 7,400 bombs in Afghanistan over the course of an entire year.

 

Professor Janina Dill, a co-director of Oxford University’s Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, said she is concerned Israel might be violating international law.

 

She cited the number of airstrikes, the reported deaths of 13,000 Palestinians and statements by Israeli officials that she said suggested they believed that not all Palestinian civilians deserve protection.

 

“If we take these three things together,” Dill said, “then it’s really difficult to believe that all airstrikes here comply with international humanitarian law.”

 

Since disclosing the number of airstrikes it carried out during the war's first week, the IDF has declined to say how many bombings it has conducted. An Israeli official who asked not to be named said he couldn’t disclose whether jets or drones carry out the majority of the Israeli strikes.

 

“A lot of the things in Gaza are unmanned aircraft, and some of the things are not,” he said.

 

Last week, Human Rights Watch accused the Israeli military of "repeated, apparently unlawful attacks on medical facilities" and said they "should be investigated as war crimes." Israeli officials accuse Hamas of building command centers beneath hospitals.

 

The Biden administration, meanwhile, has provided little information regarding the accuracy of Israeli airstrikes, while closely monitoring and condemning Russian attacks that kill Ukrainian civilians.

 

With war crimes investigators and international journalists unable to operate independently in Gaza, United Nations officials and open-source data researchers say the full details of Israel’s bombing campaign remain largely unknown. “It’s really tricky,” said a researcher who asked not to be named. “It’s difficult to tell.”

 

‘War is terrible’

 

IDF officials granted NBC News access to an Israeli military drone base south of Tel Aviv and provided interviews with two active-duty Israeli drone pilots. Israeli officials requested that the pilots remain anonymous because the IDF considers their identities classified.

 

The pilots declined to discuss specific targets, but Israel's strikes in Gaza appear to be focused on two things: undermining Hamas capabilities, such as rocket launching, and killing the senior leadership of Hamas, which is more difficult because of the group’s extensive underground tunnel system.

 

The pilots described how they try to minimize civilian casualties when they carry out strikes. They also said they were aware of the controversy surrounding Israeli air attacks.

 

“War is terrible. It’s filled with chaos. And when the other side, Hamas, is using civilians as human shields, it makes our jobs 100 times worse,” said the first of the two pilots.

 

“We’re an integral part of the battle and the battlefield,” the first pilot added. “We take full responsibility for anything that goes on.”

 

The other pilot said, “Our job is to make sure that whoever needs to be eliminated is taken out exclusively and no one else.”

 

A strike in the West Bank

 

Drone strikes in the conflict aren’t limited to Gaza. On Saturday, NBC News visited a damaged Palestinian Authority Fatah party building in the Balata refugee camp, near Nablus, in the West Bank. The drone strike Friday appeared to have created a hole in its ceiling.

 

The IDF said it had targeted a “hide-out used by terrorists,” and both the IDF and residents said a member of the armed wing of Fatah was killed. Residents said five people, in all, died in the bombing.

 

One of them was a man walking by the building, according to witnesses. Another was a 15-year-old boy who died inside it. An interview with his mother that was posted online said he was at his grandfather’s house and then went to the Fatah center before the strike occurred. “My fate,” his mother said, “was to become the mother of a martyr.”

 

On Saturday, the bodies of the dead were covered in flags and carried through the streets by crowds of men, some masked and firing automatic weapons in the air. A mobile sound system played songs celebrating Palestinian fighters.

 

During the funeral, a drone could be seen flying overhead. “Even after the bombing, it’s still roaming around,” a man said. “It monitors everything in the area.”

 

‘I see children’

 

It takes two people to fly a weaponized drone: the pilot of the drone and a second person who operates the “ball,” handling the signals intelligence and imagery.

 

IDF officials gave NBC News exclusive access to five videos showing what Israeli drone pilots saw surveilling possible targets in Gaza during the first weeks of the war.

 

In the videos, two IDF pilots discuss whether or not to strike. They talk about people, sometimes children, walking close enough to targets that they choose to cancel the strikes or delay them until civilians have left the area.

 

“There are at least six or seven people wandering the area of the school wearing black. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,” an IDF pilot counts in Hebrew. The black and white video shows dark gray images that appear to be people moving on the ground below.

 

Another IDF pilot refers to an area that comes into view and says in Hebrew, “I estimate there are 10 here at least, even 20 or 30. I am mentioning again, we think this is not within the policy.”

 

In a second video, an IDF pilot is heard saying, “I see children right beside the building.” Later in the video, another pilot asks, “Could you show me where the children are?” The first pilot replies: “Now it’s out of our eyesight. We can’t see, but in the area that I’m marking, in that space, there are many people, including children.” At the end of the video, a pilot says: “We are leaving this target. It isn’t approved.”

 

One of the drone pilots interviewed by NBC News said such conversations were common. “We have to stay sharp,” he said. “That’s why we are constantly speaking about the children at the scene and whoever or whatever gets into our picture and why we have to abort airstrikes and call off airstrikes.”

 

The principles of war

 

U.S. Army Lt. Col. Paul Lushenko, a co-author of the forthcoming book “The Legitimacy of Drone Warfare: Evaluating Public Perceptions,” reviewed the five Israeli drone videos for NBC News.

 

“First and foremost, this is a complicated business set against the sort of terrain that we’re operating within,” he said, referring to Gaza. “You can see how congested, contested and built-up it is.”

 

He said international humanitarian law requires combatants to abide by the principles of distinction (between civilians and combatants), proportionality (the use of commensurate force) and military necessity (the need to achieve a legitimate military objective). The rules apply to both ground operations and airstrikes, including drone attacks.

 

Lushenko said drone strikes conducted by Israel have most likely resulted in civilian casualties — though probably fewer than would be caused by large bombs dropped by planes — and that the deaths may have been unintentional.

 

“Make no mistake: International humanitarian law is put in place to minimize collateral damage, especially the killing of women and children,” Lushenko said. “But it doesn’t preclude it in the event that you have an overriding military objective.”

 

Israeli ethicists, professors and experts said international humanitarian law is integrated into IDF operations: commanders’ and soldiers’ guidelines and orders, their training and real-time legal advice.

 

“There are on-site, hands-on military attorneys who operate at every level from the Israeli chief of staff to the units that operate on the ground,” said Netta Barak-Corren, a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a fellow at Princeton University. “They are there to assist the military commander by giving advice in real time about whether a specific operation is legal under international humanitarian law or not.”

 

The IDF’s code of ethics also includes a clause explicitly stating that members of the military will not use their weapons to harm civilians.

 

One of the authors of the IDF code of ethics, Moshe Halbertal, an adviser to the IDF, said the code applies to drones. “Drones are operated by humans, and they have to take care while operating a drone,” said Halbertal, a professor at Hebrew University and New York University Law School.

 

Dill, the Oxford University professor, said she worried that commanders may rely too heavily on drone strikes in order to minimize their own troop losses. They may also attempt attacks they would not conduct on the ground.

 

“The disadvantage is that they give commanders the notion that ... they can target anywhere, and so maybe sometimes they bring targets within reach that would otherwise not have been attacked,” she said. “The ethical and legal upside is that they allow the commander to keep their own forces out of harm’s way.”

 

‘War is messy’

 

The Israeli drone pilots acknowledged the dangers of their strikes. “I can say that war is messy, and we can train all day and all night not to hit civilians,” one said. “When it happens, we as IDF soldiers take it very hard, understanding that we have to be better next time and be more precise. And that’s what we train to do.”

 

The other pilot said: “Our moral code and moral high ground only takes us to some point. And it’s hard; it’s difficult. It’s unbelievably tricky.”

 

Hajjaj, the Palestinian freelance journalist in southern Gaza, said people there fear what comes next. He said it seemed that larger targets like buildings were being hit with bombs dropped by Israeli F-16s or other planes. Drones, meanwhile, continue to circle overhead, emitting a low hum.

 

“The noise prevents us to sleep, prevents us to speak and prevents us to hear well,” Hajjaj said.

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7) ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 48: Ahead of temporary ceasefire, Israeli forces continue to terrorize hospitals

Israel is taking the opportunity to heavily bomb the Gaza Strip before the temporary ceasefire takes effect, forcibly evacuating the Indonesian hospital, arresting hospital staff, and obstructing ambulances.

BY LEILA WARAH,  NOVEMBER 23, 2023

https://mondoweiss.net/2023/11/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-48-ahead-of-temporary-ceasefire-israeli-forces-continue-to-terrorize-hospitals/

 

Casualties 

 

14,100 killed*, including 5,840 children, and 32,850 wounded in Gaza Strip.

226 Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem

 

Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,200

 

*This figure covers the casualties from October 7 to November 22. Due to breakdowns in communication networks within the Gaza Strip (particularly in northern Gaza), the Gaza Ministry of Health has not been able to regularly update its tolls.

 

Key developments 

 

Qatari-mediated four-day ceasefire delayed until Friday. 

Over 60 percent of Gaza’s buildings damaged by Israeli bombardment, says Gaza’s media office.  

Number of medical personnel killed since October 7 reaches 205, says Gaza government media office.  

Number of people displaced since October 7 reaches 1.5 million people, according to Gaza government media office.  

Five Hezbollah members killed in Israeli airstrike in Lebanon on Thursday evening, reports Reuters. 

Israeli forces arrest director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City along with several other healthcare workers, AFP reports, citing Khalid Abu Samra, a department chief at the hospital.

Palestinian photojournalist Mohammad Moin Ayyash killed by Israeli airstrikes, along with a number of family members, according to Al Jazeera. 

Izz al-Din Mustafa al-Hafi, 18, shot dead by Israeli forces during raid in Balata refugee camp east of Nablus.

Israeli forces kill 46-year-old Khaded al-Sayyeh Ulawn at entrance to the village of Burqa, east of Ramallah, reports Wafa.

Christmas in Bethlehem canceled “in mourning and in honor” of the Palestinians killed in Gaza, says city municipality. 

Obama-era deputy director of the State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs, Stuart Seldowitz, arrested following viral video of him repeatedly harassing and threatening halal food vendor.

Hospitals: ‘an area of destruction and killing’ 

 

The four-day Qatar-mediated temporary ceasefire did not come into effect as expected on Thursday morning as Israeli bombardment continued across the Gaza Strip for the 48th consecutive day, killing tens of people. 

 

As eyes are focused on the upcoming temporary ceasefire, Israel is continuing to “commit crimes” against the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza, according to Ismail al-Thawabta, director general of the government media office in Gaza. 

 

The Israeli military told everyone seeking refuge inside the hospital on Thursday morning to evacuate within four hours. Sarbini Abdul Murad, the head of the Indonesian charity, Medical Emergency Rescue Committee (MER-C), explained to Al Jazeera that the hospital has since been emptied.

 

“The doctors and the wounded were moved to the European Hospital. Our volunteers are sheltering at a school with thousands of others,” Murad said. 

 

Meanwhile, Al-Thawabta added that the Israeli military is still occupying al-Shifa Hospital and has turned it into a “military barracks, a mass grave, and area of destruction and killing.”

 

On Thursday, Israeli forces arrested the director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City along with several other healthcare workers. 

 

“Doctor Mohammad Abu Salmiya was arrested along with several other senior doctors,” Khalid Abu Samra, a chief of the department at the hospital, told the AFP news agency.

 

On Wednesday, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) evacuated 190 wounded and sick people, their companions, and several medical teams from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. However, the organization says many other injured along with their companions and medical staff are still in the hospital to this day.

 

Ambulances have also been a target of the Israeli military, especially those evacuating patients from northern hospitals to the south. 

 

“The evacuation process lasted for almost twenty hours as the convoy was obstructed and subjected to careful inspection while passing through the checkpoint that separates northern and southern Gaza, hence putting the lives of the wounded and sick people in danger,” PRCS said.

 

Temporary ceasefire postponed 

 

Despite the confusion regarding the temporary ceasefire due to its delay, Haaretz has clarified it is still scheduled to take place. 

 

There would be “no halt to the fighting in the Gaza Strip as long as there is no finalized timeline for the agreement with Hamas,” the Israeli news outlet reported.  

 

The agreement concerns a prisoner exchange that is set to take place during the ceasefire — 150 Palestinian women and children will be released from Israeli prisons in exchange for 50 captives held in Gaza.  

 

Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesperson, called the agreement a “complex process that may take time” and has many stages. In light of the confusion, National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson clarified that the deal between Hamas and Israel “was agreed and remains agreed.” 

 

She is “hopeful that implementation will begin on Friday morning,” Watson told CNN. “The parties are working out final logistical details, particularly for the first day of implementation.” 

 

On Thursday afternoon, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majid al-Ansari told the Qatari News Agency that the exact time of the ceasefire would be announced “within hours” and that talks were “continuing in a positive way.”

 

Many international leaders are relieved to see the temporary truce and hope it will be extended, including U.S. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who “strongly supports” the brief pause in fighting in Gaza. 

 

Warren urged all parties “to extend this agreement and work to achieve an enduring end to this fighting,” calling for a possible extension of the ceasefire. 

 

“We need unfettered access to humanitarian aid and security guarantees throughout Gaza to support a long-term recovery,” said Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norweigan Refugee Council, in a statement. “A sustained ceasefire is needed to prevent further civilian deaths and provide safety for people in need of vital humanitarian assistance.”

 

“Children are traumatized, and many face a future without their parents and siblings. They need urgent, long-term help. This can only happen through a sustained ceasefire,” Egeland added, describing Gaza as the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.

 

Nebal Farsakh, the spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent, told Al Jazeera that while the distribution of aid will finally be possible during the pause, the amount of fuel that enters the Gaza Strip, if any, will be limited. 

 

“We have not been notified that fuel will be allowed to get in, particularly to…hospitals,” Farsakh said. “What we have been told, a number of trucks that have fuel will be allowed to get into the work of water and sanitation networks, but not for hospitals.”

 

Around 400 trucks will be allowed in during the four-day humanitarian pause, according to Faraskh — an increase from the 42 convoys per day but still less than the 500 trucks per day that entered Gaza before October 7. 

 

“A pause will have little worth if the killing resumes in a few days. The international community must use this brief window of opportunity to work towards a permanent ceasefire and an end to the siege,” warned Islamic Relief, a Canadian humanitarian group.

 

Despite hopes for a permanent ceasefire, top Israeli politicians made it clear they have no intention to end their war on Gaza, during a press conference in Tel Aviv on Wednesday. 

 

“The war continues. We will continue this war until all our objectives have been met, including the return of our captives and the elimination of Hamas and ensuring that the day after Hamas, Gaza will not be under the control of any party that engages in terrorism or teaches terrorism,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

 

Israel’s Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, vowed to continue fighting following the truce. Gallant said Israel would “ deepen our operations and we will do everything that is necessary” to increase pressure on Hamas and liberate more captives. 

 

“The operation is very delicate, the operation is resolute, and the operation is lethal,” he asserted, adding that Israel was “succeeding in dismantling Hamas as a fighting force.”

 

“We are winning, and we will pursue the fight until complete victory,” Netanyahu added.

 

Hamas official Abu Marzouk told Al Jazeera that while the group is seeking a permanent ceasefire, they are prepared to deal with all situations imposed by Israel.

 

Palestinian political prisoners 

 

On Wednesday, the Israeli government released a list of 300 Palestinian political prisoners eligible for release. The list mainly comprises boys aged 16 to 18, although a handful are as young as 14, and there are about 33 women. 

 

While Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI) said it “welcomes the release of Palestinian children,” it called for “an end to the Israeli military detention system that has imprisoned children for decades.”

 

Israel is the only country in the world to prosecute children in military court, DCI said. 

 

“Israeli forces detain, interrogate, prosecute and imprison 500-700 Palestinian children between the ages of 12 and 17 each year,” the organization continued, describing the arrest of children as “business as usual” in a thread on X.

 

Hamas official Marzouk told Al Jazeera that there are no guarantees Israel will not target the Palestinians who are released from their prisons. 

 

Netanyahu told reporters that the Palestinian political prisoners to be released are “not murderers,” but are still “bad people,” promising Israel will do everything it can to ensure those released will not be a risk to Israelis. 

 

The 300 eligible prisoners are among the 8,300 Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons, Qadura Fares, head of the Palestinian Commission for Detainees and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs, told CNN. 

 

According to Fares, over 3,000 of them are being held under what Israel calls “administrative detention,” a practice of indefinitely detaining Palestinians without charge or trial based on “secret evidence” that is not presented to the legal team of the accused. 

 

Meanwhile, the identities of the captives being released from Gaza are still unclear, and neither is the timeline for their release. 

 

Israeli news outlets have reported that Mossad chief David Barnea has received the list of captives to be released. However, Israeli officials have said they will not publish the list or notify the families until after the captives are released.

 

Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi announced that “the start of the release will proceed according to the original agreement between the parties, and not before Friday.”

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