Palestine v Israel.

[pErvinalia]

[Svartalf]

pure, thoroughly unpleasant, truth.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Military strike against civilians at a water station. It was Hamas water?

As Gaza is gripped by a water crisis, Israel has reportedly attacked a facility that provided safe drinking water to thousands of families in Gaza City.

Tamer Nahed, a journalist and activist with the recently created humanitarian group Sake For Gaza, reported via social media on Monday that his group had been forced to suspend its efforts to provide clean water to some of Gaza’s most dangerous areas after the facility they partnered with was “directly struck, resulting in the deaths of several people and injuries to others working there.”

Middle East Eye reported on Monday that the attack, east of Gaza City, “struck a gathering of displaced people in front of a water refilling station” and killed two people as Israel shelled the city early on Monday.

The Palestinian outlet Al-Quds said the attack “directly targeted civilians as they stood in front of a water filling station” in the Al-Samar area, and was “part of a series of attacks launched by the occupation forces against civilian gatherings and vital facilities in the besieged areas of the Gaza Strip, exacerbating the already deteriorating humanitarian crisis.”

Under international law, deliberately attacking civilian facilities or those that are essential for survival, like water facilities, is considered a war crime.

Israel has destroyed or damaged nearly 90% of water and sanitation infrastructure in Gaza, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which says the military has used water as a “weapon” in its genocidal war against Gaza.

The group has documented the military firing upon clearly marked trucks and destroying boreholes and desalination plants relied on by thousands of residents. The group has also documented attacks on civilians accessing clean water.

[source]

It's all too clear now that international law is blatantly antisemitic.

[Brian Peacock]

IDF accused of ‘field execution’ of Palestinian driver bringing aid into Gaza
Local truckers’ association

A Palestinian driver bringing food aid from the World Central Kitchen (WCK) into Gaza has been killed by an Israeli soldier “in a field execution”, according to witnesses and the local truckers’ association, which said it may suspend operations in protest.

Ahmad Esleem was shot in the head on Wednesday when an aid convoy stopped because of a breakdown to one truck soon after entering Gaza, according to three accounts. Israeli soldiers ordered the drivers to dismount and one of them shot Esleem in the head when his hands were raised.

Another driver in the four-truck convoy, Diaa Mansour, said the shooting happened on the Philadelphi corridor, a military road on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip.

“After the truck broke down, we waited for authorisation to get out and inspect it, because every movement we make has to be coordinated in advance,” he said. “While we were waiting, an Israeli military vehicle arrived. The soldiers ordered Ahmad and me to get out of our trucks, and then they ordered another driver, Alaa Shaat, to get out as well. The driver at the front of the convoy, Fares Muheisen, remained inside his truck and didn’t get out.

“They made us stand by the side of the road. They ordered me to take off my clothes and forced me to sit under the sun. Then they brought Ahmad out of his truck. One of the soldiers began talking to Ahmad while he stood with his hands raised. Ahmad did not speak Hebrew, and it seemed the soldiers did not understand his Arabic. Suddenly, they shot him. He was hit in the head and died at the scene. It appeared they were trying to find out why we had stopped, but they did not understand the situation and opened fire immediately, without any discussion or attempt to communicate.”...

[L'Emmerdeur]

The story contradicts itself. However, whether there was a brief verbal interaction before the driver was shot or not it seems clear that the driver had his hands up when it happened. Given the record of the IDF and the fact that the drivers followed protocol (conscious of the likely outcome if they didn't) I'm not inclined to give the IDF the benefit of the doubt.

[pErvinalia]

Another day, another war crime.

[Brian Peacock]

Just to rewrite the headline: IDF target and kill aid worker who organised Gaza World Cup screenings


Aid worker who organised World Cup screenings in Gaza killed in Israeli strike

A Palestinian aid worker who had organised screenings of World Cup matches in Gaza was killed by an Israeli missile strike just before the game between Egypt and Argentina on Tuesday evening.

Two brothers aged eight and 10 and another man who was in the street near the site of the attack were also killed.

Mohamed al-Wahidi, 57, the director of the Egyptian Committee in Gaza, had worked for years on aid and development projects in the Palestinian territory. More recently, he had organised the screening of World Cup games across the Gaza Strip, which had become a welcome diversion from the continuing misery of a very partially observed ceasefire, near daily Israeli strikes and while severe restrictions on humanitarian aid remain in place.

The Israeli military confirmed the strike, saying al-Wahidi had not been its intended target, and that the missile had been aimed at a “terrorist in Hamas’ military wing”.

The Sabra district of Gaza City was hit about an hour before kick-off in the World Cup match that al-Wahidi had helped make accessible to people in the city, who turned out in large numbers to support Egypt. According to his family, he had been in a taxi on the way to a screening of the match in Tel al-Hawa in southern Gaza City when a missile hit the car he was in.

His driver was reported to have survived, but at least three other people on the street near the car were killed, including the brothers Fari and Hamza al-Deri, who were on their way home from playing football.

“We were gathered at a family event when we heard an explosion and were told that a car had been hit on al-Maghribi Street,” al-Wahidi’s cousin, Abd Alkhaleq al-Wahidi, said. “When I arrived, medical crews had already recovered the bodies of a child and an unidentified man, while another young man was lying on the ground with injuries. Someone at the scene told me that one of my relatives had been critically injured and might have died...

[aufbahrung]

Imagine if they hadn't scuppered them abraham accords - could have peace by now and everybody smiling even?

[Brian Peacock]

Trump’s Board of Peace drops full Gaza recovery plan in favour of tiny pilot scheme

... Israel has routinely violated the Trump-brokered ceasefire since it was declared last October, blocked any reconstruction work and severely limited flows of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Western diplomats in Jerusalem believe the best hope of progress in Gaza is a new Israeli government, but it is far from clear whether any successor coalition would be substantially more flexible.

One diplomat in Jerusalem argued that the BoP had no choice but to make the most of very limited progress, as an admission of failure would open the way for extreme factions in the Israeli government with radically different plans for Gaza...

"Radically different plans" are the same as the current plan. The detail of how best to achieve it is the only difference. Those diplomats are knowingly peddling a fictional peace plan, as they are no-doubt well aware that more than 80% of Jewish Israelis support permanently expelling Palestinians from the territory. That's what's actually meant by "hope of progress in Gaza" - no Palestinians.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Israel is building a 'berm' presumably to shrink the area of Gaza that may be occupied by Palestinians in the future. Next up, zealot Israeli settlers, I'd say.

The Israeli military is quietly but quickly building a giant earthen barrier separating the over 50% of the Gaza Strip it controls from the rest of the territory, according to satellite imagery, further entrenching the division of the tiny Palestinian enclave.

More than 23 kilometers (14 miles) have been constructed in recent months, running through Palestinian communities demolished by the military. That is equivalent to more than half the length of the coastal strip, which is some 40 kilometers (25 miles) long and 11 kilometers (7 miles) wide, and home to over 2 million Palestinians.

When presented with the satellite images, Israel’s military confirmed to The Associated Press it has built a physical barrier in the area of the so-called yellow line, the boundary to which Israeli troops withdrew under the October ceasefire deal with Hamas. The line was envisioned in the U.S.-backed agreement as a temporary division of the territory pending a fuller Israeli withdrawal.

But as the truce stagnates, it appears Israel is digging in, heightening Palestinian fears that the line is morphing into a border. Neither U.S. Central Command, which is tasked with monitoring the ceasefire, nor the Board of Peace, the body led by U.S. President Donald Trump meant to eventually oversee Gaza, would comment on the barrier.

Along with the barrier, the military told AP it has developed a “security zone” around the line, equipped with intelligence and technological assets. It declined to give details on the route of the barrier when asked how far it would be extended. It said the barrier aimed to prevent infiltration and protect Israeli troops and Israeli communities near Gaza.

[source]

[Brian Peacock]

Yeah. And when Israel starts
settling the occupied land they'll be relying on Palestinian labour for construction. A workforce without rights is very, erm, productive.

[Svartalf]

can the palestinian force feed straw to israelis and use them for bricks?