U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim

[admin]

Remembering Issam Abdallah, Reuters Journalist Killed Covering Israeli Missile Strikes in Lebanon
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
OCTOBER 16, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/16 ... df_lebanon

On Friday, an Israeli shell reportedly landed among a group of international journalists covering clashes on Lebanon’s border with Israel, killing Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and injuring six others. We speak to Abdallah’s close friend Lama Al-Arian, an international producer for Vice News in Beirut, who says colleagues believe that Abdallah’s death was the result of a “targeted attack.” Abdallah, whose hometown of Khiam had been occupied by Israel during the 15-year occupation of southern Lebanon, became a journalist “to tell stories from this region that he cared about so much, that he thinks is very misunderstood by Western media.” Remembers Al-Arian, “He always wanted to show the humanity of people suffering.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

On Friday, an Israeli artillery strike reportedly landed among a group of international journalists covering clashes near Lebanon’s border with Israel, killing 37-year-old Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah, who was part of a Reuters crew providing a live video signal. Six others were injured in the strike, including reporters for AFP — that’s Agence France-Presse — and Al Jazeera.

The Lebanese army said in a statement Israeli troops fired the shell that struck the journalists. Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry has requested a complaint be filed by Beirut’s mission to the United Nations over what it called a, quote, “flagrant violation and a crime against freedom of opinion and press,” unquote. The Israel Defense Forces say the incident is being looked into. Reuters says it’s, quote, “urgently seeking more information, working with authorities in the region, and supporting Issam’s family and colleagues.”

Just before the show, just before yet another funeral for Issam, I spoke with one of his closest friends, Lama Al-Arian. She’s an international producer for Vice News based in Beirut, Lebanon. I asked her to describe what happened.

LAMA AL-ARIAN: Well, Amy, since the bombing of Gaza began, there’s been a lot of tensions and flare-ups in the south of Lebanon between Israel and different groups there, and he was one of the many journalists who traveled there to cover what was happening.

He was in a group, in a press scrum, in a group of journalists, who were standing right in front of the Israeli border, clearly marked as press, you know, wearing their jackets, wearing their helmets and doing just live positions. They weren’t embedded with any sort of group. They were just there, you know, to tell the story of what was happening in the south. He even posted a selfie a few — maybe like 30 minutes before the events took place, you know, just showing what was happening. He was wearing his jacket and his helmet.

And then, you know, speaking to journalists who were there and also watching the Reuters live feed, which caught the moment they were hit, two Israeli strikes — we’re not sure what kind of artillery yet — hit them. And one of them, unfortunately, killed our friend and beloved journalist Issam and injured six other journalists, including Christina Assi, who’s still undergoing surgery at the moment.

AMY GOODMAN: And who did they all work for?

LAMA AL-ARIAN: There were journalists from the AFP. There were journalists from Reuters. There were journalists from Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera had been there for many days doing lives from this very position. Nobody thought that they were unsafe there. Issam was somebody who used to call me reckless and say that “I’m worried about you,” because he was somebody who really valued safety. And he’s been to many conflict zones. And he just always put safety of colleagues and himself, you know, even before the story. And so, that’s why many of his colleagues and his friends think they were targeted, because there were no, like, Hezbollah members or any members of armed groups in that area. It was just a group of journalists who were hit.

AMY GOODMAN: And where did the airstrike come from? And where exactly did it hit?

LAMA AL-ARIAN: It came definitely from the direction of Israel, because they were standing right in front of the border. Of course, there’s going to be investigations into this, but this is from eyewitnesses who were there, including his colleagues who survived the attack. The Lebanese army has also made a statement saying that it came from the direction of Israel and it was an Israeli strike. The Lebanese prime minister said the same thing, the acting prime minister, Najib Mikati.

And when the Israeli officials were asked about this, they, of course, haven’t taken any responsibility yet. The Israeli ambassador to the United Nations even was a little bit callous. He says, “We’re sorry. We’ll look into it. But we’re in a time of war, and things happen.”

So, it came — you know, as his colleagues, eyewitnesses and friends say, and many, many official reports, it came from Israel, but it’s very unlikely that there will be any accountability.

AMY GOODMAN: Did Issam die immediately?

LAMA AL-ARIAN: It seems from the videos that were published online, the very grim videos, that he did die immediately. You can hear other colleagues screaming in the background, saying, “My legs! My legs! I can’t feel my legs!” You have Dylan from the Associated Press — or, sorry, you have Dylan from AFP, who immediately ran to help his colleague. He put a tourniquet over her leg. When the second strike came — he was saying yesterday he wasn’t sure if it was the first strike or the second strike that killed Issam. But, unfortunately, I’ve been looking for his voice in any of the videos that have been published, especially immediately after the attack, when I was trying to figure out if my friend was safe or not, and I couldn’t hear his voice. So I think it was an immediate death.

AMY GOODMAN: How did you learn?

LAMA AL-ARIAN: I read on Twitter that a journalist had been injured, and I immediately started to call his friends. And they were all, you know, trying to also find out more information. And I kept calling his phone. And usually during any big incidents that happen in the country, like the Beirut explosion, he just declines my phone call. But this is the first time that I didn’t get like a declined phone call or him picking up, saying, “I’m busy. I’m working, but I’m OK.” And so, I just — unfortunately, I — I just felt that it was him who had passed away. We knew that he was with the other journalists that day. And it was a Reuters live feed that had caught the moment of impact, which, you know, he was running with two of his other colleagues who traveled here from Iraq.

AMY GOODMAN: When was the last time you saw him?

LAMA AL-ARIAN: I was actually just with Issam and a group of his friends two days before he passed away and a day before he traveled to the south. He was telling me that he was going to cover these events, but he was also mentioning, you know, how broken up he was about the images coming out of the Gaza Strip and also how upset he was by the coverage of many Western media outlets regarding this war. He had also told a friend earlier that this — he had also told a friend earlier last week that, you know, he was worried about safety concerns along the border. And what he feared most was that if he was to pass away or to die, nobody would name his killer.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us about the funeral?

LAMA AL-ARIAN: The funeral was, of course, extremely sad. It took place in south Lebanon, you know, amongst the olive and pomegranate trees, which he loved so much. We’ve taken trips there in the past, where we drank coffee in the homes of his aunts, who all live there. And I know that he loved Lebanon very much. He loved the south very much. It took place, again, in his hometown, Khiam, which is a place that saw a lot of war and destruction previously. It was under, I think, 22 years of Israeli occupation before it was liberated May 25th, 2000. So, of course, there’s a lot of symbolism there. And it was attended by a lot of officials from many different political parties and, of course, many, many journalist friends of his. He was buried along with his press jacket, and on top of his grave, they lined his grave with his cameras.

AMY GOODMAN: Why did he become a journalist?

LAMA AL-ARIAN: I think the reason why Issam really became a journalist is to tell stories from this region that he cared about so much and that he thinks is very misunderstood by Western media. And he worked for Reuters for a very long time covering many different stories. He covered the Egyptian revolution in 2011, which I know he was very proud of. He covered stories from Lebanon. After the explosion, he was one of the first journalists to go straight to the port, and he interviewed injured people. He always took risks to make sure that people’s voices got out there. He covered the war in Ukraine. He was interviewing grieving mothers. He was in Turkey after the earthquake for weeks interviewing people living in the rubble. He was there when they were pulling people out from under the rubble. He was there, you know, covering funerals. And he just always wanted to show the humanity of people suffering.

AMY GOODMAN: And why had he gone to the border that day with the other journalists?

LAMA AL-ARIAN: He went to the border that day because there was, you know, back-and-forth fire between Israel and different armed groups in Lebanon. Because of what was happening in Gaza, you know, tensions and flare-ups started to happen at the border. And that was his job. His job was to go and tell people what was happening.

AMY GOODMAN: Lama, I’m talking to you today right before you’re going to another funeral for Issam?

LAMA AL-ARIAN: Yes. He was somebody who was extremely loved within the community. And, you know, it’s very common in Muslim and Arab culture to go and spend the first week with the family. So that’s what we’re going to be doing to try to give them as much support as possible, to the family members, to the journalists, who’ve also had to mourn their colleague but also keep working, reporting on what’s been happening in Gaza, reporting on what’s been happening inside Lebanon, and also the very real — also preparing for the very real possibility that there could be, you know, another war here.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Lama, your sister Laila wrote a piece about your family and about your grandfather buying land in Gaza, investing his life savings, and about what’s happened to your own family in this last week in Gaza. Could you tell us about that?

LAMA AL-ARIAN: Of course. I mean, this is what I’ve been telling friend, like, who’ve been sending condolences. This is the second time this week, you know, friends from around the world have had to send me condolences. Earlier this week, my mother lost 11 of her extended family members in a single airstrike on her family home inside Gaza. And that was already very difficult on my mother and, of course, on our family. I didn’t know these family members very well, but it was still extremely heartbreaking to see videos of people who share our last name on the internet pulling out dead children from the rubble and injured people. And, you know, amongst the people that were killed was a 6-month-old baby named Zeineddine [phon.].

AMY GOODMAN: That was Lama Al-Airan, an international producer for Vice News, speaking to us from Beirut, Lebanon, about her dear friend Issam Abdallah, the Reuters videographer killed last week reportedly in an Israeli airstrike while reporting on the Israel-Lebanon border. The strike injured six other journalists, as well.

[admin]

Twelve Journalists, Mostly Palestinians in Gaza, Killed in “Deadliest Time for Journalists”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
OCTOBER 16, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/16 ... m_abdallah

At least 12 journalists, mostly Palestinians, have been killed over the past 10 days of conflict in and around the Gaza Strip. Sherif Mansour of the Committee to Protect Journalists says it is one of the highest death tolls for journalists covering the conflict since 1992 and calls today it the “deadliest time for journalists in Gaza.” He joins Democracy Now! to discuss the role of journalism in combating misinformation during times of violence and the threat of widespread censorship by Israel and other state actors.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: In the first week of fighting in Gaza, the Committee to Protect Journalists reports at least 12 journalists have been killed. More are missing and injured.

We’re joined now by CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, Sherif Mansour.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Sherif. In these last few minutes we have — we’ve heard the story of Issam — tell us what you understand about what’s happened to journalists. He was on the Israel-Lebanon border. Israel says they’re looking into it. What’s happening in Gaza?

SHERIF MANSOUR: Well, this is the deadliest time for journalists in Gaza. That is, according to our count, one of the highest tolls for journalists covering the conflict since 1992. Since 2001, we’ve recently published stories of 20 Palestinian journalists who have been killed over the years covering IDF operations. Many of them, 13, were in Gaza before the start of this war. But right now we’re looking at at least 10 Palestinian journalists, mostly freelance photojournalists, for taking outsized challenge and risk in order to tell the story of what’s happening. But there are, in addition to Issam, from Lebanon, at least one or two journalists from Israel who have been killed and went missing since the beginning of the raid on October 7. We are also still investigating a lot of damages to media facilities in Gaza that were bombed over the course of the week, reportedly at least 48 or so. Many were injured. Many lost their homes. And many cannot access the outside world because of lack of internet.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let me ask you: What are the international laws and conventions in place to safeguard journalists and hold those responsible for their killings?

SHERIF MANSOUR: Well, we call on Israel to immediately investigate what happened to Issam and his six colleagues who were injured. We support the Lebanon complaint in the U.N. to make an investigation. And we also call on Brazil, who is presiding right now, on this week, on the U.N. Security Council, to make sure that journalists’ safety is included in any talks that’s happening diplomatically.

AMY GOODMAN: And let me ask you — last week, BBC Arabic journalists Muhannad Tutunji and Haitham Abudiab were reportedly stopped, assaulted and held at gunpoint by Israeli police in Tel Aviv. What do you know about this situation?

SHERIF MANSOUR: Unfortunately, censorship is widespread, not just on covering Gaza in Israel, and we’ve seen and reported a lot of journalists being threatened live, including from Al Araby TV just couple of days ago. And journalists have told us they have received threats, in addition to all the misinformation that has been spread to justify those attacks against those journalists. And we saw the Israeli government right now making decrees to censor and close Palestinian media outlets and inciting against even Israeli journalists who, quote-unquote, “harm national morale” during the war.

AMY GOODMAN: And I wanted to ask — on Friday, the U.S. news organization Semafor reported, quote, ”MSNBC has quietly taken three of its Muslim broadcasters out of the anchor’s chair since Hamas’s attack on Israel last Saturday amid America’s wave of sympathy for Israeli terror victims.” The article detailed how Mehdi Hasan, Ayman Mohyeldin and Ali Velshi have all seen their roles reduced over the past week, even though the three have some of the deepest knowledge of the region at the network, Semafor reported. Your final comments on this?

SHERIF MANSOUR: Well, journalists must provide accurate and independent account of what’s happening, including in time of crisis. We rely on them so that the misinformation that we see does not fuel the conflict. We rely on them so that we know the motivation and the implication of all the warring parties. And we rely on them to expose the potential of human rights violation or war crimes. So, we call for the absolute resilience of journalists and the support of their editors so that they can do their job fairly, without censorship.

AMY GOODMAN: Sherif Mansour, we want to thank you so much for being with us, Middle East and North Africa program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

That does it for our show. A happy birthday to Juan González and Miguel Nogueira! I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.

[admin]

“We Will Never Leave”: Human Rights Lawyer Raji Sourani in Gaza City Refuses to Be “Good Victim”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
OCTOBER 17, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/17 ... urani_gaza

We go to Gaza City to speak with Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, who is refusing to move south after Israel’s evacuation order. “Why should we be good victims for criminals who do war crimes [in] the daylight in front of the whole world, and the world is watching?” asks Sourani, who says there are no safe havens in Gaza, but social solidarity is high among survivors. “They can bomb us. They can kill us. But they cannot take the love and the justice from our hearts and minds.” Since October 7, Israel’s attacks on Gaza have killed 2,800 people — over a third of them children — a figure that does not include an estimated 1,000 additional Palestinians trapped under rubble of homes and businesses. Civil groups are sounding the alarm as civilians in Gaza are being forced to use contaminated water, a majority of hospitals remain partially operational, and critical supplies are running low under Israel’s complete siege of the territory.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: The death toll from Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has topped 2,800 after Israeli airstrikes killed at least 71 people in the southern Gaza Strip. The attacks came just days after Israel ordered residents of the northern Gaza Strip to head south. Gaza’s civil defense force estimates at least 1,000 Palestinians remain trapped under rubble from recent Israeli strikes.

ABID SAQIR: [translated] The number of martyrs who are under rubble is 1,000, according to the figures of the Ministry of Interior. Work is underway to extract them, though we don’t have heavy machinery to do so. We are exerting individual efforts by civil defense personnel with some excavators. From Gaza Valley until the governate of Rafah, there are only two excavators working. And in each operation an excavator gets damaged, we postpone taking out martyrs until we fix it.

AMY GOODMAN: Earlier today, the Gaza Ministry of Health announced Gaza’s only oncology hospital, the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, will be forced to close within 48 hours due to a lack of fuel. On Monday, UNRWA, the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency, warned that Israel’s siege is having a devastating impact on civilians.

JULIETTE TOUMA: No supplies have come into Gaza since the 7th of October. Nothing. No fuel, no food, no water, no other types of assistance. No supplies have gotten into Gaza since the 7th of October. That, I can confirm. Not for UNRWA and not for other U.N. agencies. … There continues to be no water for the vast majority of the population in Gaza. We’re talking about 2 million people in the Gaza Strip who do not have water. And water is running out. And water is life. And life is running out of Gaza.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken announced President Biden will visit Israel Wednesday to show support for Israel following last week’s surprise attack by Hamas that killed over 1,400 people in Israel. During the attacks, Hamas and other militant groups seized as many as 250 hostages, most of whom are civilians. On Monday, Blinken said a deal is being developed to resume the delivery of some aid to Gaza.

SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: To that end, today, and at our request, the United States and Israel have agreed to develop a plan that will enable humanitarian aid from donor nations and multilateral organizations to reach civilians in Gaza — and them alone — including the possibility of creating areas to help keep civilians out of harm’s way. It is critical that aid begin flowing into Gaza as soon as possible.

AMY GOODMAN: President Biden is also expected to travel to Amman to meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah, the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Biden has so far refused to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. And on Monday, the U.S. voted against a ceasefire resolution proposed by Russia at the U.N. Security Council. On Monday, more than 50 protesters were arrested at the White House in demonstrations calling for a ceasefire. The protest was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow.

The head of U.S. Central Command, Army General Michael Kurilla, flew into Israel today as the United States continues to rush ammunition, air defenses and other weaponry to Israel ahead of a possible Israeli ground invasion of Gaza.

We go now to Gaza City, where we’re joined by Raji Sourani. He’s the award-winning human rights lawyer and director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza. He’s also the 2013 Right Livelihood Award laureate. He’s on the executive board of the International Federation for Human Rights. He received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in 1991, also twice named an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience. And years ago, when he was denied entry into the United States, it was former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, among others, who advocated on his behalf to secure a visa.

On Monday, he shared this message with his friends, quote:

“Good morning from Gaza
The most wonderful city l loved and wish to end my life on its soil
Terrible and unbelievable the criminality
We did not sleep from the bombing
Freedom and dignity so costly and we are ready to pay our lives for it
No right to give up
I am so proud of my people, unbelievable courage and strength
Keep the strategic optimism
Love and hugs to you all my friends.”

Raji Sourani, you’re in Gaza City. We spoke to you a week ago. You have remained in Gaza City, which is in the north of Gaza. You have not moved south. Can you talk about what’s happening in your city and why you’ve chosen to remain there?

RAJI SOURANI: Hi, Amy.

You know, I mean, Gaza, 85% of its population are refugees, and they suffered the Nakba in 1948. And there is the cultures and subcultures of Palestinians having always the Nakba in their minds and hearts. And what Prime Minister Netanyahu asked people of Gaza, day one, he asked Gazans to leave. His minister of defense, he said, “No electricity, no water, no fuel and no food.” And from the first minute for their reaction, they began to bomb everywhere and made sure no safe haven in Gaza. Much more than that, they were targeting civilians and civilian targets.

And later on, they asked people in the north of Gaza to move to the south, as if the south is the safe haven. But when people even, hundreds of thousands of them, moved to the south, the Israelis bombarded them. More than 170 were killed en route to the south. In the last two days, the south has had the hell of bombing and the concentration of bombing of the Israeli F-35, and the smart bombs of GBU-31/32/37, the most smart American bombs, are targeting everywhere. So, they left nothing. Nothing.

Why should we be good victims for criminals who do war crimes at the daylight in front of the whole world, and the world is watching? I cannot be, you know, good victim for the Israeli criminal occupation in this sixth war, launched against us after a blockade of 16 years and after occupation of 55 years. After 75 years, we have no right as the Palestinians to do another Nakba. We will resist that, because we knew the disaster which came to the Palestinian people 75 years ago. Israeli criminals, their criminality, it’s not a secret. It’s there in the real time, and the whole world is watching. And those who are backing it, politically, militarily, are complicit and part of the crime committed against Palestinian people.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Raji Sourani, how are the people, you and others, surviving without water, without electricity, without fuel?

RAJI SOURANI: I’m proud of my people, because with all the might of Israel, the strongest army in the Middle East, towards Gaza, the 365 square kilometers, and after a blockade of 16 years in the most dense populated area on Earth, which is lack of everything, they are still strong, still surviving. They didn’t give up. They have no right to give up. And they are managing. We have death everywhere, in the streets and the sky — and the deaths coming from the sky, from the sea, from the artillery. Everywhere, I mean, there is death and destruction. With that, I mean, people having super fantastic social solidarity. And they are trying to resist this aggression once and again. We have no right to give up. I’m very proud that I’m Gazan. I’m very proud I’m Palestinian. I’m very proud that we are not good victims for the criminals.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And when you hear the report now that President Biden, in the midst of this colossal war crime that is being committed, is going to travel to Israel?

RAJI SOURANI: I don’t know why he and Mr. Blinken insisting on bringing humanitarian aid, as if we are animal farm and all what people need, food. I’m telling you 1,200 children have been killed in Gaza. Nine hundred fifty women have been killed in Gaza. More than that, we have 7,000 injured people, who are, hundreds of them, in very critical conditions. We are having 1,200 under the rubble. People cannot uncover them because we have no means to uncover them in Gaza. And the civil defense was bombarded, and seven of them have been killed. More, I mean, even hospitals were asked to evacuate. To evacuate to where? Like, you are imposing death penalty, imposing death penalty on injured people who are treated in the hospitals, and trying to — Gaza, I mean, doctors, nurses have the courage to say, “No, we are not going to evacuate. Bomb us. Bomb us.”

And they are, you know, doing all these horrendous acts. Is this the most moral army on Earth who bombs schools of UNRWA youth shelters with thousands of people? Is this the most moral army who cuts water, electricity, food supplies on civilians? Is this the mighty Israel?

International law, international humanitarian law and the human rights, it’s there to protect civilians at the time of war. That’s why Geneva Conventions are there. That’s why Rome Statute are there. That’s why ICC is there. I mean, civilians need protection. They need to have a safe haven, but not only food. We have a prolonged occupation. Nobody is talking about occupation. We have crimes on our skins, on our ideas. The deaths of people in obscenity way, I mean, Israel dealing with it.

And then, I mean, this is Blinken and Biden bringing some food and medicine to the animal farm? We want dignity. We want freedom. We want the end of the occupation. That’s what we want. They have to stop these atrocities. And that is there is something called a free world, civilized world should call for. Why U.S. supported Ukraine? Because Russia invaded and occupied Ukraine. They give them political support. They give them financial support. They give them military support. And they ask Americans, and with them Europeans, to go and try for the freedom of Ukraine, to end the occupation of Russia. We are occupied 55 years, the Nakba since 75 years. We want to have an end for this occupation. We are not the criminals. No just or fair occupation on Earth. All international human rights organizations — name it — Human Rights Watch, Amnesty, EuroMed Human Rights Network, FIDH, even Israeli leading human rights organization B’Tselem and others — they said we have to hold Israel accountable for the crimes they are committing and doing, even before this war. With this war, I believe Mr. Biden, what he should say is, “Stop this aggression promptly, immediately. Stop attacking civilians. End the occupation. Give the Palestinians dignity, freedom and their independence.” That’s what we want from the free world. We don’t want one more bag of flour. No, we want end of the occupation. We want dignity, and we want freedom.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re sticking with you, Raji. It’s a little hard to understand as you speak on the phone, but rarely do media organizations have people on the phone from Gaza. It becomes increasingly difficult to hear what is happening on the ground there. So we appreciate and will — at democracynow.org, the transcript of this conversation will be available. I wanted to ask you about the State Department memo that was revealed, warning diplomats not to use the word “de-escalate,” and an Israeli military strategist saying, “Our goal isn’t turning Gaza City into a parking lot. Our goal is to turn Gaza into a Hamas-less region.” Can you respond to that, Raji?

RAJI SOURANI: Hamas, Fatah, PFLP, Jihad Islamic combatants, they are part of a resistance. Israel has a problem with them. We have no problem. There is rules of engagement between militaries. We have no problem with that. The real, real serious problem, it’s not that Israel is engaging with these. They are revenging from the civilians in Gaza. What hospitals, the schools, houses, towers had to do with Israel, with the attack which had happened? What 1,100 children have been killed has to do with the attack? The women have been killed, those who under rubbles and under destruction and unable to be recovered. Why patients cannot — I mean, receive all this? Why our fate and destiny to stay under occupation?

Everybody should think about the root causes of this. There is an occupation by Israel. This occupation committed many, many crimes. It’s the most well-documented conflict in history. And there is an open investigation at the ICC. And the prosecutor, Mr. K.K., Karim Khan, didn’t move one millimeter, while with Putin, in one year, he gave warrant to be arrested, and lies of sanctions — layers of sanctions have been imposed on Russia in unprecedented way. Now with Israel, everything is OK? Our blood is obscene?

They have the right to kill and destroy us, not to destroy what’s happening, even destroy our tomorrow. It’s shame on the West to support such criminal country who do these war crimes. We cannot be like old Rome. In old Rome, there was rule of law for masters, not for slaves. Palestinians are not the slaves of the 21st century. We will not accept that. We will die with dignity and with pride, but we are not going to be killed according to the Israeli army orders and instructions.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Raji, we have heard now for a week that the Rafah crossing from Egypt into Gaza will be opened, but it continues to be closed. What are you hearing about why it has taken so long to allow at least the most injured and those who are most vulnerable to leave Gaza?

RAJI SOURANI: Egypt knew the real intentions of Netanyahu. They knew that the real ultimate goal of this, to push all Gazans, the 2.4 million people, toward Sinai and Egypt. And they cannot be complicit, part of this crime. And they closed the border from their side, because they don’t want Gazans to live there. The Israeli-orchestrated bombing, the level of bombing, the architect of bombing, pushing people toward the south, toward Egypt. And that’s why Egypt, I mean, closed that. Israel wants the border to be open to make Gazans leave. Most of the Gazans won’t leave. And Egypt understood this is the Israeli plan. That’s why they blocked it. And they said, “If you want to open the crossing, I will only do that if you allow the humanitarian aid coming to Gaza.”

AMY GOODMAN: Raji —

RAJI SOURANI: Israel doesn’t want the humanitarian aid to come to Gaza. And they bombed and — Rafah crossing twice. Sorry, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Yes, it was just bombed again, the area leading to Rafah, today. We just have 30 seconds, but just to understand: Are you going to leave Gaza? Are you going to leave your home? The last time we talked to you, your house was shaking. They had bombed the Islamic University nearby. What are your plans now?

RAJI SOURANI: On my body, I have no plan. I am here like an olive tree. We will never leave our homeland. I’m eight generations — I’m eight centuries, my family, I mean, living in this part of the world. I’m not going to reward Netanyahu by leaving because he threatened of that. They can bomb us. They can kill us. But they cannot take the love and the justice from our hearts and minds. We are defending just, fair, right cause. We know dignity and the freedom so costly. We will fight for that.

AMY GOODMAN: Raji Sourani, I want to thank you for being with us, award-winning human rights lawyer, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, recipient of the Right Livelihood Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, speaking to us from his home in Gaza City. Please be safe, Raji.

Next up, we go to Ramallah in the occupied West Bank to speak with Sari Bashi of Human Rights Watch. Back in 30 seconds.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: “We Are Palestinians” by the Palestinian singer Dalal Abu Amneh, who has been arrested by Israeli forces in the West Bank after she shared a social media post in support of charities working in Gaza.

[admin]

HRW Condemns Israel’s Collective Punishment on Gaza, Urges Biden to Help Restore Humanitarian Aid
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
OCTOBER 17, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/17 ... _west_bank

Israeli soldiers and settlers have cracked down on the occupied West Bank since Hamas’s shocking attack on Israel on October 7, killing at least 55 and arresting over 700 Palestinians, including several prominent lawmakers. “People are worried. All of this is unprecedented,” says Sari Bashi, program director at Human Rights Watch in Ramallah. Bashi is co-founder of Israeli human rights group Gisha, which works against apartheid policies that affect Palestinians, and urges U.S. lawmakers to address the human rights violations that led to this conflict. “No U.S. policy toward Israel-Palestine will be successful if it doesn’t address the abuses on the ground.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

We head now to Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 55 Palestinians in the West Bank since Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel October 7th. Israeli authorities have also arrested over 700 Palestinians, several prominent lawmakers, including Aziz Dweik, the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

To talk about the situation in the West Bank and the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, we’re joined by Sari Bashi, program director at Human Rights Watch, co-founder of Gisha, the leading Israeli human rights group promoting the right to freedom of movement for Palestinians in Gaza.

Sari, if you can talk about the entire situation, the imminent invasion of Gaza? You just heard Raji Sourani. And also talk about what’s happening in the West Bank. In the last year, approximately — it’s a bit more, but a Palestinian a day has been killed since the beginning of the year.

SARI BASHI: Yes. Thank you.

And I’m sorry to say that since October 7th in Gaza, Israeli airstrikes have killed, on average, 100 children a day. And that’s the statistic that stays with me.

So, this latest escalation began on October 7th, when Hamas-led fighters entered Israel and committed unspeakable war crimes against Israeli civilians. They massacred partygoers at an outdoor dance party. They entered homes, in some cases burning the homes, in other cases shooting families. And they took hostage men, women, older people, children, people with disabilities. Appropriately, the U.S. government and people in the United States condemned those acts, because they were unspeakable crimes against civilians that have no justification.

So the answer cannot be for the Israeli government, with the backing of the American government, to then target and harm civilians in Gaza. I am particularly concerned about the collective punishment of civilians in Gaza. The Israeli military cut food, electricity, water and fuel supplies on October 7th, which is contributing to the humanitarian catastrophe. And the Israeli military is engaging in — is dropping explosive weapons in densely populated areas with wide area effects. So, when you do that, when you drop bombs on crowded urban centers, it is predictable that you will kill civilians. It is predictable that you will kill children. And that’s what’s happening. Gaza is the size — about the size of the U.S. city of Philadelphia. It’s 2.2 million people. Nearly half of those people are children.

And that’s something that we need to see more of the United States government addressing. We’ve heard thus far general comments about the need to respect international humanitarian law. We need very specific directives for the Israeli government to immediately restore food, fuel, electricity and water supplies and to stop dropping weapons in densely populated civilian areas.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Sari Bashi, I wanted to ask you — the prime minister, Netanyahu, has urged the Palestinians in Gaza to flee to Egypt if they want to avoid the horrors of the bombing and the invasion. Isn’t this itself a form of ethnic cleansing? After all, Israel is not telling the Palestinians, “Hey, if you want to escape the bombing and the invasion, move into Israel or be transported to the West Bank.” After all, even Putin, in his invasion of Ukraine, ended up admitting 1.2 million Ukrainians into Russia to avoid the worst impact on them of the war itself.

SARI BASHI: So, the first thing to say is that the countries that are neighboring Gaza — Israel and Egypt — have an obligation to open their borders and let people who are fleeing for their lives enter. Not to do that risks violating the principle of non-refoulement. When you have mothers with children who are trying to save their children’s lives, Israel and Egypt need to open their borders and let that happen. But the Israeli evacuation order risks forcible transfer. The Israeli military has called on half the population in Gaza in the north to go to the south, and Israeli military officials have also called on people in Gaza to flee to Egypt.

Now, for people in Gaza, Gaza is — 70% of the people living in Gaza are refugees from what is now Israel. Some of the older people who fled Friday, Saturday from northern Gaza to southern Gaza, they remember fleeing the Israeli army 75 years ago. They remember the homes they left behind in what is now Israel. And they remember that they were never allowed to come back, although international law defends the right of return for all refugees, whether they’re Ukrainians trying to resume — to return to areas that have been liberated from Russian occupation or under Russian occupation, or people from Gaza coming back after the army has left.

My concern is that while it’s acceptable, and in some cases advisable, for warring parties to issue warnings, those warnings are only effective if there are safe ways for civilians to avoid harm. So, when you tell a million people to evacuate but there’s no safe place to go to and no safe way to get there, that’s not an effective warning. And another thing that the United States government should do very clearly is to call on the Israeli government to cancel the evacuation order and to take all measures to protect civilians who remain in the north. There are many people — men, women, children, older people, people with disabilities, hospital patients — who either cannot or will not leave the northern Gaza, and they retain their protections under international law.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you talk to us about how Palestinians in the West Bank are being impacted as a result of the continuing conflict in Gaza?

SARI BASHI: So, here, people are mostly worried. There have been road closures. Workers have not been allowed to enter Israel for their jobs. There have been increased military activity in the West Bank, including incursions and arrests. You mentioned arrests of people who expressed support for the attacks on October 7th. Businesses who engaged in that have been closed at night, with the Israeli army coming in. For the most part, people are worried.

All of this is unprecedented. The attacks that Hamas-led fighters committed against Israeli civilians on October 7th are unprecedented. It was the worst massacre of civilians in Israeli history. And the level of harm, targeted harm, that the Israeli military is inflicting on civilians in Gaza is also unprecedented.

At Human Rights Watch, we’re trying to hold open a narrow space for universal basic principles of humanity. It is never OK to commit unspeakable war crimes against civilians, as was done in southern Israel on October 7th. And that in no way justifies committing war crimes against civilians in Gaza.

And for Americans who are confused by all of what’s going on, I would suggest you just remember that very basic principle that civilians need to be protected, and then encourage your elected representatives to remind the U.S. government of that principle, because the United States government is providing $3.8 billion in annual military aid to Israel, and it’s rushing even more weapons here right now. It has a responsibility to rein in the attacks on civilians, to call on Israel to cancel the evacuation order and protect civilians in Gaza and to immediately restore humanitarian supplies to civilians.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the difference between your experience on the West Bank, as an Israeli Jewish lawyer, and your husband’s experience, as a Palestinian professor, a resident of Ramallah, for people to understand? And also this issue — you know, Jake Sullivan recently said, just a few weeks ago, Biden’s national security adviser, that it’s been quieter in the Middle East than any time in 20 years. This is the time that at least a Palestinian a day was being killed. And talk about settlers and the army.

SARI BASHI: Yeah. I think part of the concern — and I know Raji was addressing that when he talked about root causes — is that some of the root causes of the violence, including what Human Rights Watch and many other groups have called apartheid, are invisible to U.S. policymakers. We have a situation where U.S. policymakers are very busy brokering normalization deals between the most right-wing Israeli government in history and dictatorial Arab governments, and it’s not paying attention to what’s happening on the ground.

For decades, the Israeli authorities have engaged in systemic repression of Palestinians, including not allowing people in Gaza, refugees in Gaza, to return to their homes in what is now Israel, and including a punishing closure for the last 16 years that has not allowed appropriate supplies to enter and leave Gaza and has not allowed people to travel. And that’s part of the reason why people in Gaza were so vulnerable even before this violence began.

In addition, the Israeli government is privileging Israeli Jews over Palestinians. And that’s the essence of the crime against humanity of apartheid, when you commit inhumane acts and engage in systemic repression in order to privilege one group over another. So, I’m Israeli Jewish, American, as well. My partner is Palestinian. And I can do things that he can’t do. I can travel quite freely. And even though his mother is a refugee from what is now Israel, he can’t pass areas that are off limits to Palestinians. I have excellent rights. I have health. There are cities in Israel being built for Jews only, and also in the West Bank, settlements being built for Israeli Jews only, while Palestinians are hemmed in, unable to build cities, and their homes are being demolished for lack of permits that are almost impossible to get. The Israeli authorities are engaging in forcible transfer, where they remove Palestinian communities in the West Bank to make room for settlements. All of these are part of the root causes of the violence.

And the only thing I can hope is that U.S. policymakers will realize that it’s not quiet here. There’s terrible abuses going on. You just have to listen to what people on the ground are telling you, and adjust accordingly. No U.S. policy toward Israel-Palestine will be successful if it doesn’t address the abuses on the ground, first, second and third.

AMY GOODMAN: Sari Bashi, we want to thank you for being with us, program director at Human Rights Watch, co-founder of Gisha, the leading Israeli human rights group promoting the right to freedom of movement for Palestinians in Gaza.

Next up, we go to a former Israeli peace negotiator. His recent interview on BBC went viral. Back in 20 seconds.

[admin]

“Step Back from the Brink”: Ex-Israeli Peace Negotiator Daniel Levy Decries Israel’s Actions in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
OCTOBER 17, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/17 ... levy_media

President Biden will visit Israel on Wednesday in an unprecedented show of support for the country following last week’s surprise attack by Hamas that killed over 1,400 Israelis, including many civilians. The United States continues to rush ammunition, air defenses and other weaponry to Israel ahead of a possible Israeli ground invasion of Gaza. To end this conflict, former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy says, the U.S. must change course to end Israel’s impunity toward Palestinians. If Biden refuses to recognize Palestinian suffering, “then he is, by sins of omission, encouraging the kind of … genocidal language that is proliferating right now and that is incredibly dangerous to everyone,” says Levy.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! — that’s “Rahawan” by Haya Zaatry — democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report.

Critics of the mainstream media’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war say a key problem has been its failure to challenge the dominant narrative from Israel that its military response in Gaza is targeting Hamas. Former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy recently challenged BBC News presenter Maryam Moshiri on this point. He’ll join us in a minute. First, the clip of their exchange, which went viral.

MARYAM MOSHIRI: The Israelis would say, “Well, look, you know, we are defending ourselves. We are targeting Hamas targets in Gaza. We are trying to put an end to what we believe is a terrorist organization once and for all.”

DANIEL LEVY: Do you really keep a straight face when you say that? Do you think terrorist organizations, embedded in populations who are denied their most basic rights, are ended once and for all in a military campaign? Does that happen in history? Can someone credibly tell me that when the leadership of a country says, “We are cutting off food, electricity, water, all supplies to an entire civilian population,” that they’re targeting militants?

I’m sorry, these kind of lies can’t be allowed to pass. And when you tell yourself the lie, it leads to the wrong policy. If anyone told me that what the militants did on the weekend was a legitimate response to years and years of occupation, I would say, “No, you’re wrongheaded. You’ve lost sight of humanity and reality.” And if anyone tells me that what Israel is doing in Gaza today is a legitimate response to what happened on the weekend, it’s exactly the same.

MARYAM MOSHIRI: And yet they are saying it. And yet the international community is saying that.

DANIEL LEVY: Yes, and people need to challenge them on it, because it’s a lie. And we’re warmongering if we allow them to get away with it.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we are joined by Daniel Levy, who you just heard in that clip, president of the U.S./Middle East Project, former Israeli peace negotiator with the Palestinians at Taba under Prime Minister Ehud Barak and at Oslo-B under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He co-wrote a piece with Zaha Hassan for The Irish Times headlined “The outside world must walk Israel back from the abyss. It cannot be part of the choir of incitement.”

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Daniel Levy. We only have a few minutes. President Biden is arriving in Israel tomorrow. He’ll be meeting with Netanyahu. Can you talk about what needs to happen, what Netanyahu needs to do? You were the peace negotiator and adviser to the office of the former prime minister. Can you talk about what Israel needs to do and what the U.S. needs to do?

DANIEL LEVY: Well, first of all, it’s good to be with you.

Israel needs, as we have heard just now from Sari Bashi, to operate within the confines of international law and international humanitarian law and to not collectively punish the civilian population of Gaza. And then it has to address the ongoing crimes being committed under the occupation. That is not the mood in Israel right now, and it wasn’t on October 6th, before the horrific events of October 7th and before everything that has transpired since.

Therefore, it will be for the U.S. administration to do the thing that it has conspicuously failed to do historically, and which was a significant contributor to how we got here in the first place, because according Israel impunity, guaranteeing that there can be no accountability for what Israel does, has been the worst lesson one could possibly impart, the worst political guidance, and it contributed, not to everything that’s gone wrong, but it also contributed to the hubris and complacency which I think were a major part of how October 7th happened.

So you’re going to have the public messaging of President Biden, and I fully expect him to wrap his arms around the Israeli leadership and their people, show empathy — and he should. The first thing to say is, if he fails to humanize Palestinians, to show empathy to Palestinians, to speak of Palestinian pain and suffering, which is all too real — and we heard Raji Sourani — then he is, by sins of omission, encouraging the kind of — I don’t use this word lightly — genocidal language that is proliferating right now, and that is incredibly dangerous to everyone. So, that’s in public.

In private, I hope — my hopes aren’t high, I have to say, but what needs to happen is a strong message to the Israelis — it will have to go public, if necessary — of what they can and cannot do, and how do we prevent broader escalation, not only on the northern border, where many people are anticipating, and not only in terms of stopping what’s going on in Gaza, but we’ve just heard, and I think we have to take a long, hard look at what might happen and what is already happening in the West Bank and inside Israel itself, where people are terrified on all sides, but what you see is an impossible set of circumstances toward the Palestinian citizens of Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: You have said, “We do not say this lightly: if the international community does not intervene to stop what is coming, we could be watching a combination of mass killing and forced expulsion in real time.” Elaborate on this.

DANIEL LEVY: Well, I think we’ve heard what is going on right now in terms of the killings of Palestinians, and that number goes up all the time. The number of children go up all the time. And what you’ve seen on the Israeli leadership declarations is a real refusal to draw a distinction between combatants and civilians.

And we have heard a lot of talk coming out of Israel in the last years, and it has only intensified, including after October 7th, of a second Nakba, of a second forced displacement of Palestinians. Israel has gone through an interesting transition, where first the Nakba was denied, and then it was embraced as something that needs to be completed — not by everyone. I want to make that very clear. But that threat is real, and it doesn’t just hover over Gaza, which has largely been cut off from the broader expanse of Palestinian territory anyway.

And so, that is why we raised the alarm bell and called on internationals not to join this choir of incitement, because it is the road to hell for everyone. If Israel is going to exist in that part of the world, then it has tied its fate to the Palestinians in that part of the world. And it cannot be zero-sum, because what we are doing is just creating more and more hatred. And you step back from that; you don’t propel yourself further into it.

AMY GOODMAN: We have 30 seconds, Daniel Levy. Your message to the U.S., to Israel, to Palestinians and the world?

DANIEL LEVY: Step back from the brink in the immediate term, and then get to grips with the fact that Palestinians, who live without hope, rights, the ability to plan a future, are not going to succumb to that. It doesn’t justify anything, but we have been warning for years that this will explode, and it has. And now we need a different approach.

AMY GOODMAN: Daniel Levy, president of the U.S./Middle East Project, former Israeli peace negotiator with the Palestinians.

[admin]

A Letter from Michael Moore Regarding the Killings of Palestinians and Israelis
by Michael Moore
OCT 17, 2023
https://www.michaelmoore.com/p/a-letter ... dium=email


Actor/playwright Wally Shawn at the White House with a massive turnout of Jewish peace groups @IfNotNowOrg and @JvpAction demanding President Biden fight for a cease fire and end the killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians.

To My Friends and Loved Ones,

No one ever wants to wake up on a Saturday morning to a thousand dead Jews in the street. Anywhere.

SHAME!

I still have not been able to process this and I still can’t believe this is the world I live in. I was born 8+ years after the Holocaust. And now I sit and wait for the mass slaughter of Palestinians, a Semitic tribe, cousins to Jews.

Not one Palestinian helped build Auschwitz.

Not one Palestinian led a Spanish Inquisition.

Not one Palestinian in New York City turned away a boatload of Jewish refugees trying to dock here to escape the Nazis — and not one Palestinian escorted those Jews back to their death in Germany.

And yet they, the Palestinians, will now be exterminated like something less than insects by the descendants of the very people who have suffered one extermination attempt after another for 5,784 years! Cousins! Cease! The Madness! Your only true enemy for the past 2,000 years has been and still is the White “Christians”! Ask the Native Americans. Ask any Black American. Ask the Mexicans. Ask the Indigenous Peoples of the British Empire, the Vietnamese under the boot of the French, and on and on. And now this week, the people of Gaza must be wiped out or forcibly moved into the Sinai Desert? Those left behind have already had their food and their drinking water cut off (humans can only live 4 days without water).

WHY?! Palestinians didn’t take your land, your water, your fruit groves. They share the same prophets with you. They eat hummus and you eat hummus. No Palestinian ever murdered you while you were registering voters in the South. No Palestinians ever paraded with tiki torches through Charlottesville chanting “THE JEWS SHALL NOT REPLACE US!” That was US! Why not punish us? No. Instead you’ve given us great masterpieces of music, art, comedy, literature, philosophy, film, medicine, science and a moral compass which you gave us to live by, to help create a world of love and peace with each other. Now you throw your compass away? You were supposed to be our guiding light, even in the midst of unspeakable horrors. You’ve let a fascist gang take over, a group of killers who seek genocide — and our only hope of stopping them is that there are too many smart citizens of Israel who’ve already figured it out. They are asking the right questions. Why did Netanyahu pull the army back from the Gaza border? For 6-18 hours no help arrived. People were left to be slaughtered. And now comes news from the Israeli press that Netanyahu’s administration has for years been holding secret meetings with Hamas because they wanted to use them and turn them against the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Divide and conquer, one of the oldest fascist tricks in the book.

But the Israeli peace movement is vibrant and loud and there is nothing like them in the U.S. When we, the few of us, tried to stop the invasion of Iraq, we were denounced and opposed by 29 Democrats in the U.S. Senate, the New York Times, and other “liberals” who called us “unpatriotic” for not “supporting the troops.”

But too many Israelis now know the truth about October 7th, and they will not go away. As the bank for this now in-progress-slaughter — a bank called the United States of America — the citizens of my country must support the voices against genocide in Israel. You do not defeat evil by becoming evil. Those with the most courage and humanity rise up and say, “NO! Never! Not I!! I will not do to others what has been done to me.”



***

Thanks to our friend, Donald Borenstein, for researching and providing us with these 10 links, many of them from Israelis who are trying to get the word out to stop the impending slaughter of Palestinians. Please share.

On Netanyahu and Hamas:

“For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces”

On Netanyahu and the assassination of PM Rabin:

“Labor chief Michaeli: Rabin was assassinated with Netanyahu’s cooperation”

On the uncomfortable and widespread far-right sentiments in the current Netanyahu govt, which has now secured an emergency unified govt with its primary opposition in a time of war:

“Likud court restores member who said ‘6 million more’ Ashkenazim should burn”

Likud court restores member who said ‘6 million more’ Ashkenazim should burn: Panel says Itzik Zarka’s remarks ‘crossed red lines’ but hails him as ‘devoted and committed’ to ruling party, rejects petitions against two other activists for contentious acts
by Toi Staff
The Times of Israel
22 September 2023, 4:45 pm


Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (center) embraces Likud activist Itzik Zarka during a party faction meeting at the Knesset on July 9, 2018 (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

The ruling Likud party’s internal court on Friday rejected petitions to boot several party activists for inflammatory remarks and actions.

In July, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the removal of Itzik Zarka after he was caught on video shouting at protesters, “Ashkenazim, whores, may you burn in hell,” referring to Jews of Eastern European origin.

“I am proud of the six million that were burned, I wish that another six million will be burned,” Zarka said at the time, referencing the Holocaust.“Leftists are traitors, you are the cancer of the country.”

While not acquitting Zarka for his remarks, the court restored his membership effective immediately and handed him a yearlong conditional suspension, which will kick in if he makes any comments over the next three years “relating directly or indirectly to the Holocaust or the murder of six million people because they belong to the Jewish people.”

In its decision, the court described Zarka as “devoted and committed” to Likud and said he “crossed red lines in a manner that cannot be accepted,” before reinstating him.

“There are comments that have no justification and no atonement. Zarka’s inconceivable comments became the property of the entire public in Israel and will accompany us and especially him for many years to come, like a blue number that is burned on the arm and cannot be removed,” it said, in an apparent reference to the tattoos received by prisoners of Nazi concentration camps.

Zarka, a prominent Likud activist, has a long history of violent statements against those who oppose Netanyahu or his government’s policies, while still enjoying close ties to senior politicians including the premier, as well as to his family.


Likud activist Itzik Zarka celebrates the election results with pink champagne in an apparent reference to party leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial, in Jerusalem, November 1, 2022 (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

The tribunal outright rejected petitions to ban activists Rami Ben-Yehuda and Moshe Meron for their contentious statements and actions, saying they “are lovers of their people and country” and lauded their commitment to the party in the face of “incited zombies.”

Among other incidents in the past, the two were documented with posters reading “leftists are traitors” near the Western Wall during a protest by veterans of the 1973 Yom Kippur War against the government’s judicial overhaul.

Part of their defense was a letter from Jerusalem District Prosecutor Nurit Litman, who determined that “leftist traitors” cannot be considered incitement to violence and is protected as freedom of expression.

Ben-Yehuda is known for his attack dog tactics against political rivals and opponents of the party. He was suspended from the Likud in September after physically assaulting anti-Netanyahu protesters, and placed under a restraining order in 2021 for verbally abusing the wife of Likud defector MK Ze’ev Elkin.

Despite his antics, which include calling opponents of the judicial overhaul both “Hitler’s contemptible handmaids” and wishing a lawmaker would be sent “to the gas chambers,” Ben-Yehuda has been feted by senior Likud members and photographed alongside them, and last month received birthday greetings from far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

Meron, a former Kahanist, was a leading figure in protests against the previous government.


Rami Ben-Yehuda arrives for a court hearing at the Magistrate’s Court in Tel Aviv on December 18, 2022. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Responding to Friday’s rulings, Likud put out a statement saying it was “sorrowed” the court reinstated Zarka’s membership and said the party’s position was that he should be permanently barred.

“We will appeal with the appropriate procedures,” the statement said.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party slammed Likud, accusing it of “spitting in the face of hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors.”

“Shame on you,” it added.

Elkin, the former Likud lawmaker, condemned Likud for its praise of Ben-Yehuda.

“To where have you declined?!” Elkin, now a member of the opposition National Unity party, wrote on X. “And after this they will again tell us that Netanyahu and Likud are not responsible for [Ben-Yehuda’s] thuggery.”

On Gaza as an open air prison:

“Israel occupation makes Palestinian territories 'open-air prison', UN expert says”

On the influx of Evangelical Christian money and American right-wing support for the Netanyahu government:

“Half of evangelicals support Israel because they believe it is important for fulfilling end-times prophecy”

Please watch this. It is not easy and it is morally required of you as an American paying for this:



On how this is not being carried out in the name of anyone but Benjamin Netanyahu:

Gilad Melzer
October 13 at 9:08 AM
Dear Friends all around the world.
Here is "Little Rock", a 19 years old young woman from Kibbutz Beeri - less than 3 miles from the border with Gaza. 110 of her neighbors were slaughtered. Buildings burnt to the ground. The community destroyed. Her friends in near by communities suffered no less. AND HER HER PLIGHT; STOP THE BOMBING OF GAZA. EXCHANGE PRISONERS NOW. SIT DOWN FOR PEACE TALKS.
"Little Rock" is our mountain of hope. She asks that we all listen to her, we owe it to her. I ask that you all spread the word. Words of hope. Re-post, re-twitt, on all mediums
Translated, Ilana Goldberg. Edited, Eitan Mor.
Here it is also in YOUTUBE - SPREAD THE WORD

On where this fits in to the struggle for Palestinian Liberation (written before the seige escalated):

“A Siege Broken”

https://twitter.com/ayaghanameh/status/ ... nNQgSnHV3s

Most importantly, if you wish to take action, call your congressperson NOW:

Jewish Voice for Peace: URGENT: Stop genocide against Palestinians in Gaza (call now)

[admin]

For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces. The premier’s policy of treating the terror group as a partner, at the expense of Abbas and Palestinian statehood, has resulted in wounds that will take Israel years to heal from
by Tal Schneider
Times of Israel
8 October 2023, 3:58 pm
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years ... dium=email

THE MOSSAD'S FALSE FLAG AL QAEDA CELL

Rashid Abu Shbak, the head of Palestinian Preventive Security in the Gaza Strip said on Friday, December 6, 2002 that his forces had identified a number of Palestinian collaborators who had been ordered by Israeli security agencies to "work in the Gaza Strip under the name of Al-Qaeda." Al-Jazeera TV reported that the Palestinian authorities had arrested a group of Palestinian "collaborators with Israeli occupation" in Gaza, who were trying to set up an operation there in the name of bin Laden's Al-Qaeda. The Palestinian Authority spokesman said the members of the group had confessed that they were recruited and organized by the Israeli intelligence, Mossad. Sharon had personally claimed on December 4, 2002 that he had proof of Al-Qaeda operations in Gaza, and used the allegations to justify brutal Israeli Defense Forces attacks in the Gaza Strip the next day -- which was the start of the Islamic holiday, Eid, celebrating the end of Ramadan. Ten civilians were killed in the IDF assaults. Reuters published an extensive featured story on the affair by Diala Saadeh on December 7, 2002, under the headline "Palestinians: Israel Faked Gaza Al Qaeda Presence." The article quoted President Arafat, who told reporters at his West Bank Ramallah headquarters, "It is a big, big, big lie to cover [Sharon's] attacks and his crimes against our people everywhere." Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo explained: "There are certain elements who were instructed by the Mossad to form a cell under the name of Al Qaeda in the Gaza Strip in order to justify the assault and the military campaigns of the Israeli occupation army against Gaza." (Haaretz, Reuters and Al Jazeera, December 7, 2002) Sharon is of course a past master of false-flag tactics like these, having been implicated in the direction of the Abu Nidal organization and also in the setting up of Hamas.

On Sunday, December 8, 2002, Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian Authority Planning and International Cooperation Minister, held a press conference with Col. Rashid Abu Shbak, head of the PA 's Preventive Security Apparatus in the Gaza Strip, to release documents and provide further information about the Israeli intelligence creation of a self-styled Al Qaeda cell. Shaath called on the diplomats to "convey to their countries that they assume the responsibility of exerting pressure on the Israeli government to stop the Israeli aggression," and announced that the PA had handed ambassadors and consuls of the Arab and foreign countries documents revealing the involvement of the Israeli Intelligence in recruiting citizens from Gaza Strip in a fake organization carrying the name of Qaeda. The goal of the operation was to create a new pretext for aggression against the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. Shbak said that the PA had found eight cases of fake Al Qaeda recruiting over the previous nine months. Three Palestinians were arrested, while another 11 Palestinians were released, "because they came and informed us of this Israeli plot." The PA Security Service had traced mobile phone calls and e-mails, purportedly from Germany and Lebanon, back to Israel; these were messages asking Palestinians to join Al Qaeda. One e-mail even bore the forged signature of Osama bin Laden. "We investigated the origin of those calls, which used roaming, and messages, and found out they all came from Israel," Shbak said. The recruits were paired with collaborators in Gaza, and received money and weapons, "although most of these weapons did not work." The money was provided by collaborators, or transferred from bank accounts in Israel and Jerusalem. (Palestine Ministry of Public Information, Islam Online, December 9, 2002)...

Palestine -- After Israeli had occupied the west bank of the Jordan River, the Gaza strip and the Sinai peninsula in June, 1967, the Israelis found themselves ruling over some two million Palestinians. Under the United Nations system it is illegal to annex territory acquired through armed conflict without the approval of the United Nations Security Council, which in this case was not forthcoming. Rather, the UNSC passed resolution 242, calling on Israel to withdraw to the internationally recognized borders as they had been before June 1967. (In the run-up to the Iraq war, Bush spokesmen accused Iraq of having violated some 17 United Nations Security Council resolutions; they conveniently forgot that Israel was the all-time champion in that department, since Israel is currently in violation of some 30 UNSC resolutions regarded the territories it has occupied since 1967. But the US never proposed war to enforce compliance with those resolutions.) The Israeli occupation of conquered Palestine was oppressive and humiliating, and a national resistance soon emerged in the form of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Its leader was Yassir Arafat, a secular nationalist more or less in the Nasser mold. Since the PLO had few weapons, and since the Israeli army was a dominant presence, the PLO began doing what the Jews had done between 1945 and 1948 against the British occupation of the same territory: they launched guerilla warfare, which the occupiers quickly labeled terrorism. The official Israeli line was that there was no Palestinian people, but this was soon disproved. From the beginning, the Israeli Mossad was active in conducting provocations which it sought to attribute to the PLO and its peripheries: attacks on airliners and on the 1972 Olympic games in Munich are therefore of uncertain paternity. The more horrendous the atrocity, the greater the backlash of world public opinion against the PLO. There is no doubt that the Mossad controlled a part of the central committee of the organization known as Abu Nidal, after the nom de guerre of its leader, Sabri al Banna. In 1987-88, just as the first Palestinian intifada uprising was getting under way, there emerged in the occupied territories the organization known as Hamas. Hamas combined a strong commitment to neighborhood social services with the rejection of negotiations with Israel and the demand for a military solution which was sure to be labeled terrorism. Interestingly enough, one of the leading sponsors of Hamas was Ariel Sharon, a former general who was then a cabinet minister. These facts are widely recognized; US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurzer, an observant Jew, stated late in 2001 that Hamas had emerged "with the tacit support of Israel" because in the late 1980s "Israel perceived it would be better to have people turning toward religion, rather than toward a nationalistic cause." (Ha'aretz, Dec. 21, 2001) In an acrimonious Israeli cabinet debate around the same time, Israeli extremist Knesset member Silva Shalom stated:

"between Hamas and Arafat, I prefer Hamas ... Arafat is a terrorist in a diplomat's suit, while the Hamas can be hit unmercifully." (Ha'aretz, Dec. 4, 2001)

This tirade provoked a walkout by Shimon Peres and the other Labor Party ministers. Arafat added his own view, which was that

"Hamas is a creature of Israel which, at the time of Prime Minister Shamir, gave them money and more than 700 institutions, among them schools, universities, and mosques. Even [Israeli Prime Minister] Rabin ended up admitting it, when I charged him with it, in the presence of Mubarak." (Corriere della Sera, Dec. 11, 2001)

With incredible arrogance, the Bush administration has pronounced Arafat as unfit to be a negotiating partner. In effect, they are choosing Hamas -- or worse, an act of incalculable folly for Israel and for the United States as well.

-- 9/11 Synthetic Terror Made in USA, by Webster Griffin Tarpley

Palestinians wave their national flag and celebrate by a destroyed Israeli tank at the Gaza Strip fence east of Khan Younis, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Yousef Masoud)

For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.

The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad.

Hamas was also included in discussions about increasing the number of work permits Israel granted to Gazan laborers, which kept money flowing into Gaza, meaning food for families and the ability to purchase basic products.

Israeli officials said these permits, which allow Gazan laborers to earn higher salaries than they would in the enclave, were a powerful tool to help preserve calm.

Toward the end of Netanyahu’s fifth government in 2021, approximately 2,000-3,000 work permits were issued to Gazans. This number climbed to 5,000 and, during the Bennett-Lapid government, rose sharply to 10,000.


Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leads a government conference at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem on September 27, 2023. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Since Netanyahu returned to power in January 2023, the number of work permits has soared to nearly 20,000.

Additionally, since 2014, Netanyahu-led governments have practically turned a blind eye to the incendiary balloons and rocket fire from Gaza.

Meanwhile, Israel has allowed suitcases holding millions in Qatari cash to enter Gaza through its crossings since 2018, in order to maintain its fragile ceasefire with the Hamas rulers of the Strip.


A Palestinian man receives financial aid at a supermarket in Gaza City, on September 15, 2021, as part of the UN’s Humanitarian Cash Assistance program, supported by the state of Qatar. (Mahmud Hams/AFP)

Most of the time, Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset. Far-right MK Bezalel Smotrich, now the finance minister in the hardline government and leader of the Religious Zionism party, said so himself in 2015.

According to various reports, Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

While Netanyahu does not make these kind of statements publicly or officially, his words are in line with the policy that he implemented.


Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas looking on as he receives Palestinian athletes in Ramallah in the West Bank on August 4, 2023. (Wissam KHALIFA/PPO/AFP)

The same messaging was repeated by right-wing commentators, who may have received briefings on the matter or talked to Likud higher-ups and understood the message.

Bolstered by this policy, Hamas grew stronger and stronger until Saturday, Israel’s “Pearl Harbor,” the bloodiest day in its history — when terrorists crossed the border, slaughtered hundreds of Israelis and kidnapped an unknown number under the cover of thousands of rockets fired at towns throughout the country’s south and center.

The country has known attacks and wars, but never on such a scale in a single morning.

One thing is clear: The concept of indirectly strengthening Hamas — while tolerating sporadic attacks and minor military operations every few years — went up in smoke Saturday.

Just a few days ago, Assaf Pozilov, a reporter for the Kan public broadcaster, tweeted the following: “The Islamic Jihad organization has started a noisy exercise very close to the border, in which they practiced launching missiles, breaking into Israel and kidnapping soldiers.”


The body of a person killed by Hamas terrorists lies covered inside a bullet-riddled car in the southern city of Sderot on October 7, 2023 (Oren ZIV / AFP)

The difference between Islamic Jihad and Hamas doesn’t matter much at this point. As far as the State of Israel is concerned, the territory is under the control of Hamas, and it is responsible for all the training and activities there.

Hamas became stronger and used the auspices of peace that Israelis so longed for as cover for its training, and hundreds of Israelis have paid with their lives for this massive omission.

The terror inflicted on the civilian population in Israel is so enormous that the wounds from it will not heal for years, a challenge compounded by the dozens abducted into Gaza.

Judging by the way Netanyahu has managed Gaza in the last 13 years, it is not certain that there will be a clear policy going forward.

[admin]

The outside world must walk Israel back from the abyss. It cannot be part of the choir of incitement. A former Israeli adviser and a former Palestinian adviser say individual member states must push harder for an end to the wanton destruction
by Daniel Levy and Zaha Hassan
Irish Times
Sat Oct 14 2023 - 06:20
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2023 ... ncitement/


A Palestinian girl holds two children in Gaza City: There has been a glaring absence of reference to the humanity of Palestinians. Photograph: Bashar Taleb/AFP via Getty Images

These are painful and dangerous times. Following Hamas’s launch on October 7th of an attack on Israel that has resulted in the confirmed killing of 1,300 Israelis so far, Israel on Friday gave 24 hours for half of the Palestinian population of Gaza – 1.1 million people – to move south to make way for what they warned would be the entry of a large ground force, having called up 300,000 reservists. Last Monday, Israel cut food, fuel, water and electricity to Gaza.

Israel’s aerial assault on Gaza has pulverised residential neighbourhoods already struggling to recover from previous large-scale bombardments in 2008-2009, 2012, 2014 and 2021.

At time of writing, at least 1,800 Palestinians have been killed, including 440 children. Palestinians in Gaza have nowhere to go. Even if they did, trying to move the critically wounded and the hundreds of other patients who have flooded Gaza’s main hospitals would turn those centres into morgues, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. We do not say this lightly: if the international community does not intervene to stop what is coming, we could be watching a combination of mass killing and forced expulsion in real time.

We both unequivocally condemn the targeting of civilians, no matter who they are, as a violation of the laws of war. Full stop. International law defines the conduct of war and the parameters for what constitutes legitimate self-defence. It does not say “anything goes” or that one war crime justifies another. It is also clear that occupied people have the right to resist structural violence associated with military occupation – again, within the confines of legal prohibitions.

We have both spent endless hours, most of our professional careers, warning of the dangers that lie ahead if attention is not paid to the root causes for the untenable situation existing between Palestinians and Israelis. In 2021, we co-authored a report that called on the United States to prioritise rights and the security of individuals and marginalised communities in its policy approach towards Palestine/Israel and to recalibrate US engagement toward international law and normative behaviour, including holding Israel accountable when it is in violation of these norms.

Closing off all diplomatic, political and legal avenues to Palestinians for advancing their rights and for pushing back against Israeli impunity we feared would eventually erupt into violent confrontation that would have devastating consequences for both Palestinians and Israelis. Neither of us is in the mood for “we told you so”.


According to Human Rights Watch, the Israeli siege and strikes on the civilian population of Gaza are a war crime. Video: Reuters

Before last week, Israelis enjoyed a high degree of normality. For Palestinians, normal has been defined by 56 years of military occupation that has morphed into apartheid. In Gaza, it has also included 16 years of siege and blockade.

We are now staring into an abyss. Surely it is possible, if one accepts the humanity and equality of all people without discrimination or distinction, to hold three truths simultaneously. First, the militant attack on Israeli civilians was unconscionable, inhumane and in violation of international law. Second, Israel’s collective punishment against Palestinian civilians and its actions in Gaza are unconscionable, inhumane and a violation of international law. And, third, one must address the context of occupation and apartheid in which this is unfolding if one is to maintain integrity and be able to plot a strategy going forward in which both Palestinians and Israelis can live in freedom and security. If we can hold these three truths, then it will be possible to prevent further casualties, secure the release of prisoners and step back from the precipice.

The priority now must be to stop the death and destruction in Gaza. Further bombings and a ground invasion will only exacerbate the crisis and increase the likelihood of war expanding to the West Bank (where the Israeli army and settler killings of Palestinians have accelerated), to Israel’s northern border and possibly beyond. Israel has chosen to act in this manner, not Hamas. The bombs falling are Israeli and the decision to cut essential supplies is Israeli.

A humanitarian corridor must be opened between Israel and Egypt for food and supplies to get into Gaza. Trying to force Palestinians out of Gaza into Egypt is not a humanitarian gesture. Egypt is resisting for now but pressure may increase on it and other Arab countries to open borders to displaced Palestinians. As a largely refugee population forced out of what became the state of Israel during the Nakba (or catastrophe) between 1948-1949, Palestinians in Gaza are rightly concerned about never being allowed to return to the strip once evacuated.

Israeli political leaders are openly threatening a second Nakba. The language being used is itself extremely escalatory, even genocidal. What is needed is an outside world that can walk Israel back from the abyss.

Western leaders have spoken thus far with tremendous empathy about the humanity of Israelis. As well they should. However, there has been a glaring absence of any reference to the humanity of Palestinians – it should not be hard to acknowledge Palestinian pain, suffering and endless dispossession. This sin of omission in the language coming from the US and many European leaders is encouraging the committing of war crimes. Western leaders should be on notice and desist from being part of the choir of incitement.

If the EU and its institutions are incapable of stepping up collectively, then leaders in individual member states must push harder for an end to this wanton destruction – perhaps as coalitions of the willing from among the Global North and the Global South.

Zaha Hassan is a human rights lawyer and fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Previously she was the co-ordinator and senior legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team during Palestine’s bid for UN membership, and a member of the Palestinian delegation to Quartet-sponsored exploratory talks between 2011 and 2012

Daniel Levy is the president of the US/Middle East Project and a former Israeli negotiator with the Palestinians at Taba under prime minister Ehud Barak and at Oslo B under prime minister Yitzhak Rabin

[admin]

‘They Wanted to Dance in Peace. And They Got Slaughtered’: Israel's Supernova festival celebrated music and unity. It turned into the deadliest concert attack in history
by David Browne, Nancy Dillon, Kory Grow
Rolling Stone
Oct. 15, 2023 9:18 AM
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/musi ... 234854306/

Librarian's Comment: As reportage emerges revealing that Netanyahu's right wing cabal had developed a long-friendly financially supportive and militarily tolerant relationship with the Hamas forces that committed the massacre of Israelis, it's worth taking a look at who the primary victims were. I think it's a safe bet that the young people attending Supernova were not voting for Netanyahu, and clearly were not right-wing orthodox Jews with restricted diets and of course, a ban on secular dancing. This was probably the largest group of young, pro-peace Israelis that you could find in the entire country on that day. So, just assuming for the sake of engaging in reasonable speculation that Netanyahu wanted to give Hamas an opportunity to kill a large number of Israelis who he did not like anyway, the massacre of these youthful ravers may also be laid at his door. Clearly he deployed forces to protect the New York transplants known as "settlers" to allow them to continue their killing of Palestinian people, and their destructive revels in Palestinian border towns, while backed by IDF soldiers who made sure that Palestinians could not protect their property or themselves from these rampaging bands of renegade New Yorkers. That also meant that the soldiers were not there to guard against the incursion that made it so easy to roll in and kill hundreds of ravers, and made sure that military forces were deployed so far away that they couldn't prevent the catastrophe from unfolding in its full lurid horror. Finally, we now know that Netanyahu's cabal happily canoodling with Hamas in what it believed was a partnership to undermine the PLO, turned a blind eye to Hamas's military buildup and organization, allowing the well-planned, and apparently well-informed assault to take place.

LARA FRIEDMAN: Yeah. I mean, look, the taking of hostages, the taking of civilian hostages by Hamas — I mean, the October 7th attack was heinous in every aspect. The aspect of taking the hostages brought this home to Israelis in a way that is just — I don’t think anyone who has not spent time in a small country where everyone is — you know, there’s one degree of separation. This is incredibly real and incredibly personal for everyone in Israel.

What is notable is, in past experiences where there have been hostages taken, Israel has sort of turned over every rock possible, done everything possible to get them back. You have negotiations. You have contacts. You have — think of Gilad Shalit. I mean, the entire country mobilizes to get the hostage back — “hostage,” singular, “hostages,” plural. In this context, after October 7th, the issue of hostages is raised constantly by the Israeli government as a reason for why it has to do what it’s doing in Gaza, notwithstanding the fact that carpet bombing Gaza, using deep, deep penetrating bombs that are trying to get at the tunnels, seems like a very likely way to kill your own hostages. There has been a clear signal given — and if you listen to the — if you look at the Israeli media, the contacts that the families of hostages have had with the Netanyahu government, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that there isn’t actually a lot of desire on the part of the Israeli government to get the hostages back.

There have been numerous — and it’s been public — from other governments, from negotiators, there have been numerous offers by Hamas to exchange hostages, to release hostages in certain circumstances. There was, you know, a 24 — for a brief ceasefire. And so far, the argument seems to be, from the Israeli side, “We won’t do that, because anything we do would be a victory for Hamas. And that is — that we can’t let that happen, so releasing the hostages is simply not a priority.”

But talking about the hostages and accusing anyone who talks about ceasefire as not caring about the hostages is a wonderful tactic. All of us who are speaking out on this in social media, on media like this, are accused constantly of, “Well, you don’t care about the hostages.” The answer is, no, I care very much about the hostages. I don’t understand why the Israeli government doesn’t care more about the hostages. I would suggest that the Israeli government’s approach to the hostages makes clear that their objectives in this war are not about freeing the hostages. And that, I think, requires further thought.

-- Middle East Expert Lara Friedman: If Netanyahu Cared About Hostages, Why Did He Launch Ground Invasion?, by Amy Goodman

SEVERAL HOURS AFTER the gates opened for the Israeli music festival Supernova, Amit Bar and her boyfriend Nir Jorno arrived with their friend Ziv Hagbi, excited for the event. The devoted electronic-music fans had traveled from Matzliah, some 60 miles away. “We really waited for this event,” the 27-year-old Bar says. “It was supposed to be a really good one — really fun, lots of people.”

The gathering promised to be the highlight of the year, especially for those who loved psychedelic trance, or psytrance, the intense and celestial dance-music subgenre. “[The music] is based on a philosophy of life,” says veteran British DJ Martin Freeland, who performs as Man With No Name and was scheduled for late Saturday morning. “It’s Woodstock with electronic music. It’s that kind of mentality: a hippie culture, but the music is different. These are the sweetest people. They would never harm anybody.”

Between 3,000 and 4,000 attendees flocked to an open-air space in Israel’s Negev Desert — about three miles from the Gaza border — where 16 DJs from around the world were set to spin in darkness and light for 15 hours straight. The event was timed to the end of Sukkot, a weeklong celebratory Jewish holiday commemorating the harvest and the period after Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt.

Supernova, produced by Israel-based Nova Tribe, also doubled as the Israeli edition of Brazil’s popular Universo Paralello festival, a biannual nine-day event that has hosted electronic, reggae, and hip-hop artists near the country’s southern beaches for 20 years. It was set to take place Oct. 6 and 7, although its producers wouldn’t reveal the exact location to ticketholders — which included many teenagers able to get around the minimum-age requirement of 23 — until shortly before it began. All anyone knew was this: “The event will take place in a powerful, natural location full of trees, stunning in its beauty and organized for your convenience, about an hour and a quarter south of Tel Aviv.” Attendees were prohibited from bringing weapons including guns and sharp objects. The announcement on the ticketing site joyously proclaimed, “We Are On!”

Many Supernova attendees who paid $100 a ticket shared Bar’s optimism. “Nova is like a family,” says 26-year-old Tel Aviv bartender Sofia Nikitin. “I bartend at a lot of festivals, and Nova is something different. People got prepared for this party for weeks. Everyone knows each other. It was like magic.”

But the dream of a communal music high ended in Saturday’s early hours when Hamas insurgents invaded attendees from all directions, killing at least 260 people and abducting dozens as hostages. Mass shootings and terror attacks at concerts are not new: The terrorists who assaulted Paris’ Bataclan in 2015 killed 130 people, including 90 inside the theater, and the mass murderer who opened fire on a country-music festival in Las Vegas in 2017 ultimately killed 60. But Supernova, which was intended to be the first in a series of dance events at that space in Israel, became not just the worst Israeli civilian massacre ever, but the deadliest concert attack in history.

“We arrived at the party at three o’clock in the morning, all the friends met and celebrated life,” festivalgoer Michal Ohana, 27, tells Rolling Stone. “At 6 a.m., the hell started.”

FOR MANY PEOPLE LIKE BAR, the site for Supernova was familiar. Located in an agricultural section of southern Israel near Kibbutz Re’im — a communal settlement with a population of around 430 — the space had hosted similar music events in recent years. The large, grassless area — complete with multicolored, billowing coverings and tents — was perfect for dancing. Two DJ booths each had barricades, and banks of speakers sat, pyramid-style, on wooden platforms. Trees circled the center of the festival, which also included campgrounds. In an effort to be as eco-conscious as possible, plastic cups were banned, and attendees were told to buy a cup and receive free water in exchange. Organizers hired around 30 police officers for security, per The New York Times.

This gathering, though, promised to dwarf any previous festivals. Officially called “Universo Paralello Israel Edition—Supernova Sukkot Gathering,” it licensed the branding of its Brazilian counterpart from Universo Paralello founder Juarez Petrillo, a DJ and producer also known as DJ Swarup. (Petrillo was also on hand at the Israeli festival and was set to perform.) This year, Nova Tribe was using the name.

The all-night party was scheduled to run from just before midnight Friday through approximately 5 p.m. on Saturday. It would present more than a dozen DJs on three stages: Israeli DJs Astral Projection, NoFace, Artifex, and Jackalon alongside Man With No Name, the German group Protonica, Japanese DJ Spectra Sonics, and Swiss DJ Jumpstreet, among others. “You don’t know how much love was at this festival,” Chen Mizrachi, a 34-year-old artist manager who helped with festival logistics, tells Rolling Stone.


Thousands of revelers dancing at the Supernova Music Festival IDO DERBY

Electronic-dance music has flourished in Israel since the late Eighties. Festivals and packed crowds are the norm in Israel, thanks to a temperate climate and a shared desire to chill out. “There’s no DJ in the world who doesn’t like to come to Tel Aviv — the great people, the great weather,” says Raz Gaster, whose Beyond Management company manages some of the Israeli acts at the festival. “You can party more than in every other city in the world.”

The festival reflected the free-spirited nature of the artists on the bill and Israel’s history with musical escapism, which dates back to the Sixties, when traveling hippies discovered the beach-strewn community of Goa, India. The pilgrimage gradually spread to Israel.

Starting at age 18, all men and women in the country are required to serve in the military. In the Eighties, it became something of a ritual for Israeli soldiers, after finishing their duties, to travel to Goa, where they immersed themselves in techno as well as the culture and drugs associated with it. They brought some of that back with them to their home country. “[Psytrance] is up-tempo, four-on-the-floor dance music,” says Freeland. “The minimum tempo [in dance music] is 130 beats per minute, but [psytrance] is up to 150. It’s what we used to describe as acid house, but sped up.” That influence was also seen in the Hindu-inspired tents and decor at Supernova. Attendees, like Bar, expressed the ethos with their colorful, flowing fashions, septum rings, and tattoos.

“We arrived at the party at three o’clock in the morning. At 6 a.m., the hell started.” -- michal ohana

At the festival, a production glitch delayed the start of the music by a few hours. As attendees wandered the grounds and danced, the sense of community was undeniable. “Everyone knows each other,” says Nikitin. “One old lady was giving everyone little notes with good words. She was at every Nova party. Everyone knew her. It was like a family.” (The woman survived the massacre.) Before his own set, NoFace, a.k.a. Lee Chizmario, strolled between DJ booths. “Most of the people I knew,” he says. “There were friends from years past. We all knew each other from when I just started and we’d party together.”

“Israel is not such a big place,” says Bar. “Eventually, it’s the same people going to the same places, and when you dance on a dance floor next to them for 12 hours, you remember the people around you. You remember them the next time you go and dance.” In those early hours, people kissed, hula-hooped, and blissed out to the music.

The idea that anything dangerous or deadly would take place — even given the location so close to Gaza — rarely crossed anyone’s minds. “It’s quite known that we do these events around the Gaza area,” attendee Yoni Diller, the 28-year-old founder of a creative agency in Tel Aviv, tells Rolling Stone. “There’s a lot of open areas. We thought it was safe. Most of us did the army, so we’re not scared. It’s not our first time being in the Gaza area. It’s not supposed to be a dangerous area.”


Artifex (left) during his DJ set, shortly before the attack IDO DERBY, 2



Not everyone felt so secure, however. “All the way, I asked my friend, ‘Why are we so close to Gaza?’ ‘Why are you having a party so close?’” says Ohana, who had returned to Israel from Portugal to see her sister and attend the festival. “I was told that there were security guards and that everything was approved.”

“Every event you have in Israel, no matter if it’s close to the border or not, you must have police,” says Eliran Slider, whose Israel-based FM Booking company handles many psytrance artists, including a few at the festival. “Production pays a lot for security and police.” Slider had to leave for another event, but he, like many, felt there was little to worry about.

IT WAS 6:40 IN THE morning and Artifex, whose visual trademark is shaving his head on each side, was in the middle of his set. The music was so loud that at least some in the crowd had no idea mortars and rockets were hammering in the distance. “At this moment, there was also music, so we couldn’t hear any sirens,” says Nikitin. “I noticed there was a big boom, and I looked up in the sky and saw the missiles and the bombs.”

Before anyone could fully grasp what was happening, Chizmario, who was near the DJ booth, told Artifex to turn down the volume, and a security guard jumped onstage and told everyone to hit the floor and cover their heads with their hands. Chizmario went to the backstage area and told the non-Israeli musicians what was happening. “I tried to explain to the artists, to make them realize it’ll be OK,” he says. “[We’re] used to having alarms about missiles. We didn’t think the shooting part would arrive.”

“The door opens, and we see a wounded girl. Someone shot her in the leg … We tried to help her [and] give her water. She was dying in front of our eyes.” -- yoni diller

When alarms began sounding, it became frighteningly clear that everyone needed to leave the grounds immediately. With Petrillo and several others, Gaster ran to his car and saw other artists doing the same. Driving as fast as possible, Gaster called Freeland in his Tel Aviv hotel room and told him not to go to the festival. At that moment, Gaster thought rockets were the only issue. But once he arrived at a safe-space house about 18 miles away, he began receiving text messages and calls: “They are shooting at us … Everybody’s shooting at us.”

“Then I understood what was happening,” he says. “We didn’t have a clue until we arrived at the house.”

In his own vehicle, with a friend, Chizmario began driving out and soon saw other cars turning around and doubling back. “Maybe they saw something up in the road and got scared, and they all went back,” he says. At one point, as he and his friend took a different road, they ran into men with weapons. “They pointed a gun at us, so we made a U-turn and tried to go another way,” he says. With the help of Waze, they managed to get out.


Various items left in the aftermath of the massacre LEON NEAL/GETTY IMAGES; © MARTIN DIVISEK/EFE/ZUMA



Confusion and chaos followed at the festival site. Within half an hour, attackers — clad in body armor and carrying AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades — arrived in trucks and on motorcycles. As attendees drove out by way of the dirt roads to the north and south, they encountered Hamas fighters armed with guns on the road. Other Hamas militants flew in on motorized paragliders, striking the ground and opening fire, Mizrachi says. When the traffic began bottlenecking, Hamas, which blockaded the two roads in and out of the festival, started firing into cars along those routes. “After a few minutes, we saw cars with broken windows and started to hear the shooting of guns,” says Jorno, who was attempting to drive out. After running back toward festival security, Jorno saw insurgents shooting women and a person in a wheelchair.

“People were panicking,” Diller tells Rolling Stone. “Suddenly we see this car bumping into another car very slowly. The door opens, and we see a wounded girl. Someone shot her in the leg, and her whole left knee was disconnected from her body. She couldn’t brake. Her knee was shot. We tried to help her [and] give her water. She was dying in front of our eyes.”

By 8:00, the Hamas soldiers blockading the roads started hunting down music fans gathered in nearby bomb shelters, The Wall Street Journal reported. “We called the army [over a radio] to let them know we were in the security station, stuck,” Mizrachi says. “We asked, ‘Where are you?’” But Hamas had intercepted the transmission. “We are on the way for you,” a voice told Mizrachi in an Arabic dialect. Upon fleeing, Mizrachi felt a sense of hope when he spotted an Israeli policeman stopping a car. He soon realized that it was a Hamas fighter who had stolen a uniform.

The insurgents blocked the northern exit by 8:30, just two hours after the rockets sprayed overhead. Panicked festivalgoers tried to escape by running across the open fields around the festival, but the militants gunned down many of them. Others tried to hide wherever they could on the festival grounds, in dumpsters and in the surrounding foliage. Video footage and photos from the massacre show hundreds of attendees sprinting in every direction. “We couldn’t imagine that hundreds of terrorists could invade Israel like this,” Amir Ben Natan, a 37-year-old stock trader from Herzliya, says. “I feel like I was hunted. They tried to kill me. Not just me, everyone at the festival. We were helpless. We were unarmed civilians who just wanted to have fun.”

“I feel like I was hunted. They tried to kill me. Not just me, everyone at the festival. We were helpless. We were unarmed civilians who just wanted to have fun.” -- amir ben natan

Separated from her friend, Ohana ran for what felt like hours, ultimately ducking under a tank. She thought she would be the most protected there, but she was still shot in the leg and had shrapnel pierce her stomach. “For six hours, I lay without moving, scared, while they shot at me and threw grenades at us,” she texts Rolling Stone from an Israeli hospital. “I saw the terrorists approaching me. I did Shema Yisrael [a Jewish prayer that begins “The Lord is our God …”] and prayed to God that I would get out of this alive. My friends died by me, and I saw friends kidnapped in front of my eyes.”

When Jorno and Bar jumped out of another vehicle that offered them a ride, they scrambled to a hiding space under a bush. Hagbi seemed to make a right turn out of the car, ending up around 60 feet away. “We had our faces on the sand,” Bar says. “We couldn’t put our heads up.” They wanted to call out to Hagbi but didn’t, fearing they’d give away their location. After a few hours, they saw an Israeli woman in a car and heard Hagbi’s voice. They believe he tried to escape with her.

For a week, the couple held on to the grim hope their missing best friend had been kidnapped instead of just murdered on the spot. “We know he spoke Arabic. We really trust him, that he’ll know how to manage whatever situation he’s in,” Bar said in a phone interview Wednesday.

“He’s a big hero. I’m sure he’s helping people right now. I’m sure he’s not dead, because he’s Ziv,” Jorno added, speaking on the same call.

On Saturday, they got the news they dreaded. “Ziv is already murdered,” Bar texted Rolling Stone. A eulogy posted online by a relative read, “We will remember you laughing … We will remember you having fun … Don’t stop dancing.” Hagbi was 28.


Ziv Hagbi and Amit Bar at Supernova. Hagbi did not survive the attack NIR JORNO

Nikitin initially hid in the forest but fled to a field when a rocket-propelled grenade struck the trees. “It was like in movies. You see all gray, there’s wind in your face, and sound, then you don’t hear anything in your ears, you hear only buzzing,” she says. “I just started to run.” She eventually found Israeli police. Later, she heard how another bartender had covered herself with blood from a gunshot victim to disguise herself as already dead. The friend told Nikitin that Hamas fighters found her anyway and ordered her to open a refrigerator at the bar in which people were hiding. It was a calculated move: If the people hiding in the fridge were armed, they’d shoot the bartender thinking it was Hamas. “Everyone hiding in the refrigerator, they opened it and killed them,” Nikitin relayed. (The bartender survived the attack.)

After the initial shock sent music fans fleeing, Hamas fighters scoured the festival grounds for survivors. One attendee who was playing dead by a car flinched his body enough to show life, so a Hamas militant walked over and fatally shot him at point-blank range. Rather than kill all of the concertgoers, though, Hamas captured an unknown number to bring back to Gaza as hostages. One couple, Noa Argamani and her partner Avinatan Or, were caught on camera as Hamas separated them, placing Argamani on a motorcycle while directing Or away on foot with his arms behind him. (Their status is still unknown.) As the carnage mounted, festivalgoers had to wait about eight hours for help from the Israeli army.

Some of the casualties include Osher Vaknin, who helped organize the festival, as well as an Israeli soccer player, Lior Asulin, and a British man, Nathaniel Young, who was serving in the Israeli army. Vaknin’s twin brother, Michael, remains missing. An American who for days after the massacre was presumed missing, Daniel Ben Senior, 34, had moved from Los Angeles to Israel to take care of family members. “This is the first time in so long she was going to just relax and dance,” her cousin, Riki Ben Senior, told The Washington Post. Her father, Jacob Ben Senior, told CNN that she was working at the festival as a paramedic; later in the week, he confirmed to CNN that she had died.

At 8:11 a.m., California-born Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who had just turned 23 when he attended the festival, texted his mother, Rachel Goldberg, with two messages: “I love you” and “I’m sorry.” Neither she nor his father, Jonathan Polin, have heard from him since. A photo taken inside a bomb shelter showed Hersh with several others, defending themselves until Hamas took all but eight of them. One of the survivors told Hersh’s parents that their son had lost part of his arm, according to the Los Angeles Times. The last photo of him was taken at 12:45 p.m., as he boarded a truck with other captives. He is believed to have been taken hostage as family and friends beg diplomats for help in rescuing him.


Destroyed cars and belongings left at the Supernova Music Festival site LEON NEAL/GETTY IMAGES; SERGEY PONOMAREV/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX



HAMAS’ TERROR ATTACKS WERE more organized, widespread, and sophisticated than any of the festivalgoers sheltering in place could fathom. While the insurgents were attacking the festival, Hamas militants were also infiltrating kibbutzim to the north and south. They launched their attack by firing more than 2,000 rockets and were able to disable the Israeli military’s communications and remote-controlled machine guns using drones, allowing them to blast a hole in the border fence. More than 1,000 Gazan insurgents entered Israel through 30 points in the fence and over it with paragliders, according to The New York Times. They also reached some of their targets by boat.

At 5:55 a.m., Hamas militants arrived at Be’eri, a kibbutz about a 20-minute drive from the festival grounds, where the BBC reports that about 100 people were killed and others taken as hostages over 20 hours. Within the hour, Hamas militants were killing Israelis in their homes elsewhere.

Hamas, which took control of the 139-square-mile Gaza Strip in 2007, attacked 22 Israeli towns in total within miles of the Gaza border. The militants had been rehearsing the widespread onslaught in mock Israeli villages for months. A Hamas operative in Lebanon claimed plans had begun two years ago. They practiced landing their paragliders while holding their guns out, and firing rocket-propelled grenades at buildings.

Within an hour of news breaking about the attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed his country that the state of Israel was now “in a war.”

President Biden expressed horror at the attacks and pledged his support to Israel that day, telling Netanyahu, “My administration’s support for Israel’s security is rock solid and unwavering.” In another statement, Biden condemned Hamas as terrorists. “This attack was a campaign of pure cruelty — not just hate, but pure cruelty — against the Jewish people,” the president said. “One of the worst chapters in human history that reminded us all that — that expression I learned from my dad early on: ‘Silence is complicity.'”

“I prayed to God that I would get out of this alive. My friends died by me, and I saw friends kidnapped in front of my eyes.” -- michal ohana

More than 1,300 Israelis have died in the conflict so far, alongside 29 Americans. An additional 3,300 Israelis have been injured, according to NBC News. Hamas militants have taken an estimated 150 people hostage, including Americans. “There are a number of U.S. citizens who are unaccounted for,” a State Department spokesperson tells Rolling Stone. “The U.S. government is working around the clock … with the Israeli government on every aspect of the hostage crisis.”

Almost immediately after Hamas’ attack, Israel mounted a siege against Gaza, launching airstrikes and depriving 2 million Palestinians in the area of electricity, food, water, and fuel. More than 2,200 Palestinians have died in retaliatory strikes — including more than 700 children — and nearly 9,000 more wounded, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Officials in Gaza have claimed that Israeli bombs have struck mosques and hospitals. Because of the airstrikes — Israel dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza this week — Gazan civilians haven’t been able to rescue people from the rubble. “While panic and the fear of a historic expulsion permeates Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank are watching in horror amidst stringent lockdown conditions, escalating army raids, and settler attacks,” wrote Rolling Stone’s Jesse Rosenfeld from Israel.

The Israeli army has displaced more than a million Palestinian civilians and forced them to leave the northern part of Gaza since last Saturday. A spokesperson for the United Nations said it would be “impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences.”

WHEN ISRAELI SOLDIERS ENTERED what was now a crime scene, they came upon remnants of the festival — discarded water bottles and shoes and some of the tents still standing. While some photos taken during and after the event could pass as a typical music festival like Bonnaroo or Lollapalooza, the aftermath looked apocalyptic. Psychedelic scenery around the stages had fallen over. Smoldering abandoned cars blocked the exits, and bullet casings lined the roads. More than a week later, The New York Times has reported, the shells of cars and pieces of tents remain on the festival grounds.

“It’s crazy to do a massacre like that on innocent people,” Mizrachi says. “Young people with dreams. They just wanted peace, love, and to travel the world.”


Dancing at the festival prior to the attack IDO DERBY

The attendees who died were united in their love of music and community; now, their families and friends were brought together in mourning. Chizmario buried a childhood friend. Nikitin went to a service for her friend and bar manager. Gaster has attended funerals for seven of his friends and colleagues. When the family of Supernova attendee Bruna Valeanu, a 24-year-old who had recently moved with her family from Brazil to Israel, tried to plan her funeral, they needed 10 people to attend, per Jewish tradition, according to CBS News. On social media, they asked for 10 people to show up. Around 10,000 came to grieve.

In a statement issued Oct. 14, festival producer Nova Tribe denounced what it called “a scene of unspeakable tragedy, an inhumane war crime, an unprecedented violation of the most basic human values.

“At this moment, our production team is focused on providing the right and extensive emotional and mental support to everyone involved,” organizers wrote. “We are working tirelessly, day and night, conducting search and rescue operations, helping identify the victims and updating their families. Searching for those located in the disaster area, or other locations, recovering equipment from the site and its surroundings and, above all, ensuring the security of Israel.”

The organizers also promised to uphold the festival’s mission. “We will keep fighting until we reach our objective adorned on our tribe’s flag: to spread light throughout the world.”

Survivors of the massacre are still making sense of what they endured. “Everyone needs to know what happened,” Nikitin says with a broken voice. “It’s the last thing I can do for my friends and for Nova and for all of Israel. It was a peaceful festival. Everyone hugged everyone, and everyone loved everyone.”

“All they wanted was to come and listen to the music,” says Gaster. “They like to party with their friends. They wanted us to come and dance in peace. And they got slaughtered.”


**************************

Hamas attack on Israeli techno festival leaves at least 260 dead and many missing
by Daniel Estrin
Heard on All Things Considered
October 10, 20235:05 PM ET
Transcript

An Israeli techno music festival has become Israel's single deadliest attack on civilians in its history. At least 260 young Israelis were gunned down by Hamas militants. Many more are missing.

SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:

It's Day 4 of a Middle East war. Israelis have been evacuated from the areas that Hamas infiltrated this weekend while heavy rocket fire from Gaza continues. In Gaza, Israel's airstrikes have sent about 200,000 Palestinians fleeing their homes, seeking shelter. Authorities have reported the deaths of a thousand people in Israel and more than 900 in Gaza. Amid all these developments, one event at the start of this weekend is continuing to shock Israelis. A techno music festival became the scene of the deadliest single attack on civilians in Israeli history. NPR's Daniel Estrin has pieced together how it unfolded. A warning that the details are disturbing.

DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: The festival was called the Supernova Universo Parallelo Festival, the Parallel Universe Festival...

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

ESTRIN: ...An outdoor trance music festival advertised as, quote, "the essence of unity and love in a breathtaking location." It was only about a couple miles from Israel's border with the Gaza Strip.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

ESTRIN: This TikTok video shows dancers under festival tents dancing in T-shirts and tank tops when something strange starts descending from the sky - Hamas militants flying in from Gaza on paragliders. They also drove across the border on pickup trucks.

(CROSSTALK)

ESTRIN: Another video shows throngs of Israelis in a dusty field fleeing on foot, in cars. I met one survivor at a hospital, Roee Shalev.

ROEE SHALEV: (Speaking Hebrew).

ESTRIN: He said 50 gunmen on five pickup trucks surrounded them as they ran. He and his girlfriend hid under a truck. The gunmen found them and shot them. He didn't know if his girlfriend would make it. I checked in with him again today, three days after the attack.

SHALEV: (Speaking Hebrew).

ESTRIN: He said he just got word she and their friend didn't survive. He said, I'm left alone to tell their story.

SHALEV: (Speaking Hebrew).

ESTRIN: An emergency rescue service in Israel says at least 260 Israelis' bodies were recovered at the festival. Some Israelis have been taken back to Gaza as prisoners. Shelly Shem Tov's 21-year-old son, Omer, had sent her a live location to track him on his phone.

SHELLY SHEM TOV: We see that Omer is getting inside Gaza, and then we didn't see any more. Nothing from him.

ESTRIN: Until Hamas published a video. The face was blurred, but she recognized his yellow shirt and patterned pants and arm tattoo. Her son's hands were bound behind his back, but he didn't look injured.

SHEM TOV: One of his friends sent us a video that Omer is in a car. They are taking him I don't know where. And it was hell. I was so shocked to see him like that, and I don't know where he is. I don't know what they are doing to him. And I don't have nothing to do.

ESTRIN: Israel's army says this is not the time to unpack how this disaster could have happened on its heavily surveilled border. It's appointed a retired general to coordinate efforts to release the hostages. Army representatives visited Shelly Shem Tov to notify her her son is in Gaza. They didn't say much else. I've spoken to several other parents whose children were at the festival. I asked them what Israel should do. One father, Meir Zohar, pointed his finger at the government.

MEIR ZOHAR: (Speaking Hebrew).

ESTRIN: He said Bibi, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and other leaders should resign. They should be ashamed, he said. There was an insane failure here. He said, like many Israelis do, that Gaza should be wiped out. Another parent, Ahuva Maizel, told me she doesn't seek revenge.

AHUVA MAIZEL: Everybody should quit - want revenge, you know? To revenge - us and them. Something has to happen. Something different has to happen between these two people. Revenge wouldn't bring my daughter back.

ESTRIN: The concert massacre has also touched Bono.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BONO: Those beautiful kids at that music festival.

ESTRIN: This weekend, he performed his song "Pride" with new lyrics commemorating, quote, "stars of David."

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BONO: Stars of David, they took your life, but they could not take your pride. (Singing) Could not take your pride, could not take your pride, could not take your...

ESTRIN: Daniel Estrin, NPR News, Be'er Sheva, Israel.

Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at http://www.npr.org for further information.

*********************************

[admin]

After Al-Ahli Hospital Blast Kills 500, Gaza Doctor Fears for His Life & Safety of His Patients
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 18, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/18 ... _bombing#t

Medical workers in Gaza are racing to treat survivors of a massive explosion Tuesday at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, where displaced people were sheltering from Israel’s unrelenting attacks when, Palestinian officials say, an Israeli airstrike hit the compound, killing hundreds of people. Israel denied responsibility, blaming a failed rocket launch by militants for the blast. Israeli strikes had already damaged the hospital once before, and have killed medical workers and struck other medical facilities since it started bombing Gaza in retaliation for a deadly Hamas raid into Israel on October 7. “As a physician, I’m afraid if I now leave and go to work, my hospital is going to be hit, as well,” says Dr. Hammam Alloh, an internal medicine and nephrology specialist at Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, which is the largest hospital in Gaza. He describes how “almost 40,000” people are seeking refuge outside of hospital buildings in Gaza.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Palestinian officials are accusing Israel of killing over 500 people in an airstrike on a hospital in Gaza City where thousands of civilians had sought refuge. Israel has denied responsibility, claiming the explosion was caused by a failed rocket fired by the militant group Islamic Jihad. Palestinian officials have blasted Israel’s claim, pointing out Israeli military had already hit the hospital just days before.

This is Dr. Fadel Naim, head of the orthopedic surgery department at Al-Ahli Hospital.

DR. FADEL NAIM: [translated] I will describe what I saw myself. I was in the surgery department, and I had just finished a surgery, and I was about to rest before my next surgery. Suddenly we heard the sound of a huge explosion. In the beginning, we thought it was one of the explosions we hear all the time. We didn’t think it was in the hospital. Then people came to the surgery department screaming and yelling, asking us to save them, telling us they were injured and dead people. It was a shock for everyone. The hospital was full of dead people, injured people and body parts. People were crying and screaming. We tried to give first aid, but there were more injuries than we could handle with our limited resources at the hospital. Many people were martyred. Some of them were alive. We saw them alive and breathing, but we could not do anything for them. They died in our arms. We saw them.

AMY GOODMAN: The blast came just hours before President Biden landed in Israel for an unprecedented wartime visit to Israel, where he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to express U.S. support for Israel. Biden placed the blame for the hospital strike on Palestinians.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday. And based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.

AMY GOODMAN: Biden said it appears “it was done by the other team, not you.”

Earlier today, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES: [I call] for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to provide sufficient time and space to help realize my two appeals and to ease the epic human suffering we are witnessing. Too many lives and the fate of the entire region hang on the balance.

AMY GOODMAN: On Tuesday night, Democracy Now!'s Messiah Rhodes spoke with Dr. Hammam Alloh, an internal medicine and nephrology specialist working in Gaza City at the largest hospital, Al-Shifa, which is around five miles away from Al-Ahli Hospital, where over 500 Palestinians died in an airstrike. Dr. Alloh said an earlier Israeli airstrike had hit Al-Ahli Hospital days before Tuesday's devastating blast.

DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: This is a Baptist hospital — am I clear enough? — a Baptist hospital. This is definitely something not related to Islam or to whatever extremist, extremist group some people consider. So, it is a very old hospital, aged more than 100 years. So, it is situated in a very densely populated area. It was hit the day before, but patients, refugees and staff couldn’t simply leave the hospital. So it was —

MESSIAH RHODES: So, you’re saying that the hospital was hit before?

DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. And then, when it was finally hit again, the death toll is rising now to more than 800 lives lost. And what if this is going to happen in other hospitals, in bigger hospitals? The massacre is going to be worse. There will be no safe shelter for all patients. As a physician, I’m afraid if I now leave and go to work, my hospital is going to be hit, as well. And we have — for example, in terms of dialysis, we have only now five hospitals providing hemodialysis service. What if nurses are afraid of going there? What if patients are afraid of going there? What if injured patients, war injured, with war-related injuries, do not go there? This means not slow; this is even fast death, very rapid death.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Hammam Alloh went on to describe how tens of thousands of civilians have sought refuge at the hospitals in Gaza.

DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: In Al-Shifa Hospital, there are almost 40,000 persons in the — outside the hospital buildings. They came looking for safer shelter away from their high-risk areas. Those are in addition to the patients now living in the hospital hallways. Wherever you go, no matter what part you go to, there are a lot of people sleeping — kids, women, ladies, elderly patients. Some of them are immunosuppressed. They are living in the hospital hallways, so you can barely even walk through the hallway because of people actually living there for more than a week. And you can’t just simply ask them to leave so you can walk freely, because they have no safer shelter. And many of those lost their homes now, so this is their new home.

So, if you could imagine the amount and the magnitude of transmissible diseases and infections, speaking of which, yesterday I met the first patient with a disease called leptospirosis. This is a bad disease that we usually get from poorly hygienic living circumstances, transmitted by rodents and sewage water and dirty drinking water. So, this disease affects badly our kidneys and liver. The patient is in a state of acute renal failure, acute kidney injury. His whole life is threatened. And this is because he was in an UNRWA school as a shelter, but those schools are now very busy, with very unlivable living circumstances. But he had to be there with his family looking for safer shelter away from his threatened house.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Dr. Hammam Alloh, an internal medicine and nephrology specialist working in Gaza City at Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest.

When we come back, we speak to Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi. Stay with us.