(October 15, 2024)
One rogue nation cannot declare war on the UN itself and continue to get away with it
Archiv: Weltöffentlichkeit / World Public Opinion
Israeli air strike on multi-storey building in Beit Lahiya kills 72
An Israeli air strike on a multi-storey residential building in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, left dozens of Palestinians killed and wounded on Sunday morning.
The government media office in Gaza put the number of those killed at 72. It said the strike hit a residential building that housed members of six families.
Earlier on Sunday, an Israeli air strike killed at least 10 people in al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, when a missile hit a house, medics said.
Indonesian parliament asks UN to revoke Israel membership
The Committee for Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation of the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR RI) has urged the United Nations to revoke Israel‘s membership over Tel Aviv‘s military maneuvers that have claimed many victims.
„Expel Israel from the UN because the genocide carried out by the Israeli military continues, and more and more victims are falling,“ the committee‘s chairperson, Mardani Ali Sera, said in a statement released on Thursday.
Suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement
Paris, 12 March 2024. Respect for human rights is an essential element of the EU’s association agreements with partner countries. Article 2 states that „relations between the Parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement“. Violation of the so-called „essential elements“ clauses allows the EU to denounce or suspend the agreements in whole or in part under Article 60 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. In the light of the deaths and suffering endured by the Palestinian people, the European Union has the duty and the means to act to prevent Israel’s crimes in Gaza and to reduce the extent of human suffering.
Suspend political dialogue with Israel: Borrell’s proposal comes to the table of EU countries
(November 14, 2024)
A political legacy on the part of the EU diplomacy chief, who has come to the end of his term, but one that is unlikely to be seized upon by the 27: for any amendment to the Association Agreement that governs EU-Israel relations, the rule of unanimity is required.
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese calls David Lammy a ‚genocide denier‘
)November 14, 2024)
The United Nations special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories has accused British Foreign Secretary David Lammy of being a „genocide denier“ and said the UK has done „nothing“ to prevent atrocities in Gaza.
In an interview with Middle East Eye in London on Wednesday, Francesca Albanese took aim at Lammy in response to comments he made in late October denying that Israel is committing genocide.
„I hadn‘t realised that Mr Lammy was a lawyer,“ she said, referring to Lammy‘s legal background.
„As a politician, you might say that for political convenience,“ she suggested, adding that would still make someone „a genocide denier“.
Arab-Bedouin Village in Negev Razed to Make Way for New Jewish Community
Amid war in Gaza and Lebanon, Umm al-Hiran, an “unrecognized” Arab-Bedouin village in the Negev Desert, southern Israel, was demolished early Thursday, November 14, to make way for a planned new Orthodox Jewish community called Dror. Earlier, cops arrested three members of Umm al-Hiran’s leadership at their home.
According the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Bedouin Villages in the Negev, which represents the impoverished southern communities, some 9,000 Arab-Bedouins are at risk of losing their homes as 14 of the villages will be replaced with a similar number of Jewish ones.
Libanon: Bisher 220 Minderjährige bei Angriffen Israels getötet
Insgesamt sind den Angaben zufolge im Libanon durch israelische Angriffe 3.386 Menschen getötet und 14.417 verletzt worden. Unter den Todesopfern waren demnach auch 658 Frauen.
Lebanon death toll reaches 3,445
On Thursday alone, 59 people were killed, the ministry said.
Israel launches air strikes on Dahieh in southern Beirut
The Israeli Air Force on Friday said it carried out „intelligence-based“ air strikes on what it describes as Hezbollah „infrastructure“ in Dahieh, in southern Beirut.
Israeli strikes target Damascus suburb
“Israeli aggression targets Mazzeh area in Damascus,” the official Sana news agency‘s newsflash read.
The attack follows a deadly wave of strikes in and around the Syrian capital on Thursday which killed 23 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.
Elon Musk Met With Iran’s U.N. Ambassador, Iranian Officials Say
Elon Musk, a close adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump, met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday in New York in a session that two Iranian officials described as a discussion of how to defuse tensions between Iran and the United States.
The Iranians said the meeting between Mr. Musk and Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani lasted more than an hour and was held at a secret location. The Iranians, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss policy publicly, described the meeting as “positive” and “good news.”
JCPOA: A New Gold Standard for Non-Proliferation Agreements
(June 7, 2017)
The established pattern of constraints on Iran’s nuclear program could be held as the gold standard for the rest of the international community. This option is readily available to the United States and the partners with which it negotiated the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA): China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the European Union. The international community should draw on that agreement and turn its standards into general, global ones, applying them to all countries seeking to enrich uranium or attempting to use plutonium for any purpose.
Former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is Trump‘s pick for director of national intelligence
(November 13, 2024)
„Trump ended up with some neocons around him who were trying to undermine his objectives so they could feed their goals of continuing to keep us in a perpetual state of war,“ Gabbard said, discussing his first administration. „This administration has us facing multiple wars on multiple fronts and regions around the world and closer to the brink of nuclear war than we ever have been before,“ Gabbard said when she endorsed Trump during a campaign event in Michigan.
„This is one of the main reasons why I‘m committed to doing all that I can to send President Trump back to the White House, where he can, once again, serve us as our commander in chief.“
Trump picks Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be his Department of Health and Human Services secretary
President-elect Donald Trump has picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be his next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, a choice that would add to Trump’s list of provocative picks whose confirmation processes will test the loyalty of Senate Republicans.
Trump on Thursday announced the selection, confirming CNN’s earlier reporting, saying he was thrilled to share the pick.
Gaza death toll rises to 43,764
Gaza‘s health ministry said that 28 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on the enclave in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 43,764 since 7 October, 2023.
Additionally, 103,490 people have been wounded since the start of the war.
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
(Adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948.)
Article I
The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.
Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Article III
The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.
Article IV
Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.
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Article IX
Disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application or fulfilment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III, shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to the dispute.
‘Unacceptable’ – British PM, Foreign Secretary Claim Israel Not Committing Genocide
Lammy recently alleged that the term genocide referred to “when millions of people lost their lives in crises like Rwanda, the Second World War in the Holocaust” and that using it to describe Gaza “now undermines (its) seriousness”.
(…)
“Will the Prime Minister share (Lammy’s) definition of genocide with this House?” the lawmaker asked Starmer.
The prime minister answered by saying that “it would be wise to start a question like that by reference to what happened in October of last year”.
“I’m well aware of the definition of genocide, and that is why I’ve never described this as and referred to it as genocide,” he added.
Nearly two percent of Gaza’s population killed by US-Israel war machine
(August 12, 2024)
The bureau said in a statement that Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians. “This constitutes around 1.8 percent of the total population in the territory,” PCBS said.
According to the data, approximately 24 percent of those killed by Israel in Gaza are youths.
UK urged to share Gaza spy planes footage with ICC war crimes probe
(October 30, 2024)
The defence ministry told Middle East Eye: “As a matter of principle, we only provide intelligence to our allies where we are satisfied that it will be used in accordance with International Humanitarian Law, and in this instance, only information relating to hostage rescue is passed to the Israeli authorities.”
(…)
Brendan O’Hara, the Scottish National Party’s spokesperson for the Middle East, told MEE it was “inconceivable”, given the scale of the destruction and death in Gaza, that the flights “do not contain footage which would be of significant interest to the investigators from the International Criminal Court”.
(…)
Labour MP Rachael Maskell told MEE: “It is crucial that any intelligence of breaches of international law are shared with the courts so they can assess the evidence and secure justice.”
“I trust that the UK government is working with the international courts to aid them in their work.”
Revealed: UK military has flown 200 spy missions over Gaza in support of Israel
(May 8, 2024)
British spy planes have recorded up to 1,000 hours of footage over Gaza, including from the day Israel assassinated three UK aid workers.
U.N. to bolster UNIFIL for post-truce support in Lebanon, peacekeeping chief says
The United Nations intends to bolster its peacekeeping mission in Lebanon to better support the Lebanese army once a truce is agreed but would not directly enforce a ceasefire, U.N. peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix said on Thursday.
Israeli attacks kill 21 more people in Lebanon as death toll nears 3,400
At least 21 people were killed in Israeli attacks across Lebanon on Wednesday, bringing the overall death toll since last year to 3,386, the Lebanese Health Ministry said on Thursday.
Israeli airstrikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs as death toll rises in Lebanon
Baalbek-Al-Hermel Governor Bashir Al-Khodr confirmed that rescuers pulled 12 bodies from the rubble, all for paramedics, after an Israeli airstrike hit a civil defense center in Baalbek, where over 20 people were sheltering.
The Lebanese Health Ministry reported that an airstrike on the Shaab neighborhood in Baalbek killed eight people, including five women, and left 27 others wounded.
The ministry added that four other people were killed in attacks on several locations in eastern Lebanon.
Israeli strike on Lebanon‘s Baalbek kills 15 rescuers
The death toll from Israel‘s strike on Baalbek, eastern Lebanon has risen to 15 civil defence members, Baalbek governor Bachir Khodr said on X.
Khodr adds that 10 bodies were identified, while the remaining five were recovered in pieces, requiring DNA testing.
„Mercy to the heroic martyrs and patience to their families,“ he said.
Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories
The present report contains information regarding the efforts of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories to implement its mandate and documents human rights concerns in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the occupied Syrian Golan from October 2023 to July 2024. The Special Committee was not able to conduct visits to the occupied territories, but did conduct its annual consultations in Geneva and undertook a visit to Amman, and met with government officials, United Nations organizations and mechanisms, representatives of civil society organizations, youth representatives, human rights defenders, and Palestinian families.
The report raises serious concerns of breaches of international humanitarian and human rights laws in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including starvation as a weapon of war, the possibility of genocide in Gaza and an apartheid system in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. It documents the impact of the conflict escalation since 7 October 2023 on Palestinians’ rights to food; to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment; to physical integrity, liberty and security of persons; as well as the disproportionate effects on the rights of women, children, and future generations more broadly. The report also highlights the ongoing attacks against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and refers to developments in the occupied Syrian Golan. The report provides recommendations to the General Assembly and Member States; to the State of Israel; and to businesses operating with Israel, that in any way contribute to maintaining Israel’s unlawful presence in the occupied territories.
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IX. Conclusions
69. The developments in this report lead the Special Committee to conclude that the policies and practices of Israel during the reporting period are consistent with the characteristics of genocide. The targeting of Palestinians as a group; the life-threatening conditions imposed on Palestinians in Gaza through warfare and restrictions on humanitarian aid – resulting in physical destruction, increased miscarriages and stillbirths – and the killing of and serious bodily or mental harm caused to Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are violations under international law. Civilians have been indiscriminately and disproportionally killed en masse in Gaza, while in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Israeli colonial settlers, military and security personnel have continued to violate human rights and humanitarian law with impunity. Senior Israeli government and military officials must be held accountable, including for using dehumanizing language and inciting violence.
As US Keeps Arms Flowing, UN Panel Says Israeli Assault on Gaza ‚Consistent With Genocide‘
Less than 48 hours after the Biden administration said it does not believe Israel is unlawfully obstructing humanitarian assistance in Gaza, a United Nations special committee issued a report Thursday arguing that the Israeli military‘s actions in the Palestinian enclave bear „the characteristics of genocide.“
Global Fury After State Dept Claims Israel Not Violating US Law by Blocking Gaza Aid
(November 12, 2024)
Last month, the Biden administration—which has approved tens of billions of dollars in military aid for Israel and provided nearly unconditional diplomatic support since October 2023—sent a letter to the Israeli government threatening to cut off U.S. arms transfers if it failed to take „urgent and sustained actions“ to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza within 30 days.
Asked during a Tuesday press conference if the Israeli government has met the letter‘s demands, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said that „we have not made an assessment that they are in violation of U.S. law.“
“Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged”: Israel’s Forced Displacement of Palestinians in Gaza
To All Governments
– Publicly condemn Israel’s forced displacement of the civilian population in Gaza as a war crime and crime against humanity, as well as other violations of international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and international criminal law by Israeli authorities, and urge them to immediately halt those crimes and cooperate with international judicial bodies and investigative mechanisms.
– Increase public and private pressure on the Israeli government to stop violating international humanitarian law in the conduct of hostilities, to fully comply with its obligations and the binding orders and advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice, and to ensure the entry and safe distribution throughout Gaza of adequate aid and provision of basic services. Consider, in that regard, the review and possible suspension of bilateral agreements with Israel, such as the EU-Israel Association Agreement, as proposed by the governments of Spain and Ireland, and the US-Israel Free Trade Agreement.
– Suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel so long as its forces commit violations of international humanitarian law with impunity.
– Enforce domestic legislation limiting the transfer of arms and military assistance for violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.
– Publicly support the International Criminal Court, uphold the court’s independence, and publicly condemn efforts to intimidate or interfere with its work, officials, and those cooperating with the institution.
– Urge the Government of Israel to grant access to independent, international monitors, including from the UN Special Procedures.
– Impose targeted sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against Israeli officials credibly implicated in ongoing serious violations, for the purpose of ending these violations.
– Address long-standing impunity by Israeli authorities and Palestinian armed groups for serious crimes under international law, and support reparations for all victims of gross human rights abuses.
– Support the creation of a register of damages, caused by unlawful Israeli action to persons in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, for the purposes of calculating reparations.
(…)
To the Prosecutor of the International Crimin19al Court
– Investigate Israeli authorities’ forced displacement and prevention of the right to return as a crime against humanity.
Israel is committing ‘ethnic cleansing’ amid mass forced displacements in Gaza, HRW report says
Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including pursuing a deliberate policy of forcibly displacing people and denying them the right to return home, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Thursday. The report also labelled the likely permanent dispossession of Gazans in areas cleared by Israel to serve as buffer zones and security corridors as “ethnic cleansing”.
43736 dead in Gaza strip since beginning the extermination war
Palestinian Health Ministry stated the Israeli enemy has perpetrated three massacres over the past 24 hours in Gaza strip, claiming lives of 24 Palestinians and injuring 112 others.
“Number of victims from the continuous Israeli aggression for the 405th consecutive day has risen to 43,736 martyrs, and 103,360 wounded.” the Ministry said in a statement on Thursday adding that there are numbers of bodies are still stuck under the rubble where Occupation forces prevent the ambulance and civil staff from reaching them.
At least 16 people killed by Israel strikes across Lebanon
At least 16 people were killed and 18 wounded on Wednesday by Israeli strikes on Lebanon, the country‘s health ministry said.
The total casualty toll since 8 October 2023 now stands at 3,386 killed and 14,417 injured.
The ministry said 220 children were among the casualties.
Nearly 100,000 homes damaged in year of Hezbollah-Israel fighting in Lebanon: World Bank
More than a year of clashes that escalated into war in September have cost Lebanon more than $5 billion in economic losses and damaged nearly 100,000 housing units, the World Bank said Thursday.
The World Bank report provided estimates for damage between October 8, 2023, and October 27, 2024, saying „the conflict has caused $5.1 billion in economic losses“ and that it „damaged an estimated 99,209 housing units“ — mainly in Lebanon‘s war-torn south.
15 civilians martyred, 16 others injured in Israeli aggression on Damascus
Damascus, SANA-15 civilians were martyred and 16 others got injured in Israeli aggression on Mazzeh and Qudsaya areas in Damascus.
“At about 15:20 p.m. on Thursday, Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting a number of residential buildings in Mazzeh neighborhood in Damascus and Qudsaya area in Damascus countryside, resulting in the martyrdom of 15 people and the injury of 16 others, including women and children, ” a military source said.
Israel raids villages across the occupied West Bank
Israel has launched raids across the occupied West Bank, storming the town of Beita, south of Nablus, and the town of Taybeh, west of Jenin.
Sudan: Allies of warring generals ‘enabling the slaughter,’ Security Council hears
Ms. DiCarlo condemned not only the RSF attacks but also the indiscriminate airstrikes by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in civilian-populated areas such as the capital Khartoum and El Fasher, a major city in North Darfur hosting thousands of internally displaced which has been besieged for months by the RSF.
“Both warring parties bear responsibility for this violence,” she stressed.
She added that as the rainy season nears its end, both sides continue to escalate their military operations, recruit new fighters and intensify their attacks, fuelled by “considerable” external support and a steady flow of arms.
“To put it bluntly, certain purported allies of the parties are enabling the slaughter in Sudan. This is unconscionable, it is illegal, and it must end.”
(…)
The situation in Sudan has been in a freefall since the war erupted last April.
It is now the world’s worst displacement crisis, with more than 11 million people driven from their homes – nearly three million among them into neighbouring countries as refugees, according to the UN relief coordinating office, OCHA.
The war has also unleashed a severe hunger crisis, affecting millions.
A summit to nowhere
After silently watching Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza for the past one year, the leaders of the Arab and Muslim countries have once more met in Riyadh to discuss the escalating conflict.
The so-called international alliance conceived by Saudi Arabia, with its aim of pressing for the establishment of a Palestinian state, failed to formulate a concrete plan of action to stop the Israeli invasion that has been extended to Lebanon.
Gaza death toll tops 43,700, with 47 killed in past day
Israeli forces have killed at least 47 Palestinians and wounded 182 in the last 24 hours across Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
This brings the death toll in the besieged enclave since 7 October 2023 to 43,712, with more than 103,258 wounded. At least 10,000 people are still missing, likely dead and buried under rubble.
Watch: Marco Rubio says he is against Gaza ceasefire
After being ambushed with demands for him to call for a ceasefire in December last year, he replied: “No, I will not. On the contrary … I want [Israel] to destroy every element of Hamas they can get their hands on.
“These people are vicious animals who did horrifying crimes.” To the activists, he added: “I hope you guys post that, because that’s my position.”