International Court of Justice (ICJ)
Complaint against State of Israel for GENOCIDE.
20.1.2024 : Beliefs are important because they lead to actions, therefore be careful what you believe. If you think you are God's chosen people (even if you don't believe in God); If you think other people are animals; If you think you have the right to steal and occupy other people's property; If you think you can assault, injure and kill others with impunity, you will surely end up doing it. If you do not condemn such things, you condone them and if you condone them you are as guilty as those that do. You deserve to be treated as blatant hypocrites when claiming to support human rights and 'Christian' values. We almost expect such hypocrisy from our politicians but how about the leaders of religion? Are they so cowed and contaminated by ecuminicalism and the need to be 'nice', that they remain silent in the face of barbarism? How can leaders of a humane society condemn an eighty year old 'holocaust' but ignore one happening here and now without negating all that they claim to believe? You tell me.
Words are insufficient to describe the evil being played out by that stinking regime or the complicity of America and the West in it. I am not a supporter of war or violence but the only way to stop the barbarity in the end is force of arms and military resistance. Sadly only when Israeli young combatants and civilians also die in their thousands, will Israel take stock. They only get away with their diabolical activity because America doesn't tell them to stop and because of their military superiority, largely paid for and supplied by America. I have been warning of this for years. If the 'moral' west doesn't express outrage at what is happening, it tells us something deeply profound and disturbing about the way our own societies are going, largely under the radar. All the signs are there if you care to look.
Casualties:
- 22,722 killed* and at least 58,166 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
- 322 Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
*This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on January 6. Due to breakdowns in communication networks within the Gaza Strip, the Ministry of Health in Gaza has been unable to regularly and accurately update its tolls since mid-November. Some rights groups say the death toll is higher than 30,000 when accounting for those presumed dead.
Key Developments
- Israel continues to bombard Gaza relentlessly, killing 122 Palestinians and injuring 256 more in the span of 24 hours.
- Gaza’s government media office reports allegations that Israeli forces desecrated graves, seized bodies in al-Tuffah cemetery.
- The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor estimated that 4% of Gaza’s population is either dead, wounded, or missing, as UNICEF warns that 90 percent of children under the age of two are subjected to ‘severe food poverty.’
- World Health Organization records almost 600 attacks on Gaza’s healthcare sector since October 7.
- UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths: “We continue to demand an immediate end to the war, not just for the people of Gaza and its threatened neighbors, but for the generations to come who will never forget these 90 days of hell and of assaults on the most basic precepts of humanity.”
- Meanwhile, Israel’s Knesset hosts calls for UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, to be shuttered.
- The international community reacts strongly to Israeli ministers’ calls for Palestinians to be expelled from Gaza, with Scotland’s first minister saying: “That is the textbook definition of ethnic cleansing.”
- Congo, Rwanda, and Chad deny reports that their governments have been in talks with Israel to host thousands of Palestinian refugees.
- Hezbollah fires dozens of rockets toward northern Israel and occupied Lebanese territories, calling it “the first response” to the assassination of Hamas senior leader Saleh al-Aruri, while Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warns that time is running out to de-escalate hostilities with Lebanon.
- “Destruction” is one of the three pillars of peace, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu writes in a Jerusalem Post Op-Ed.
- Turkey formally arrests 15 people suspected of having ties with Israel’s Mossad.
Gaza: The war must end, aid groups implore
As the three-month mark since October 7 nears, humanitarian and rights groups are ramping up their pleas for the war to come to an end, as Israeli-inflicted bombardments, death, injury, sickness, and famine plague the entire population of Gaza.
According to WAFA news agency, Israeli airstrikes hit the areas of al-Zawaida, al-Maghazi, Khuza’a, Beit Lahia, and Khan Younis since Friday, adding that Israeli snipers were targeting civilians trying to flee in central Gaza.
Israeli forces reportedly targeted the vicinity of a number of medical centers, including the European, Al-Amal, and Nasser hospitals in Khan Younis, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in Deir al-Balah. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “hospitals in Gaza and other vital medical infrastructure have been attacked nearly 600 times” since October 7 – averaging more than six attacks per day on Gaza’s strained healthcare system.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health on Saturday, Israeli forces killed at least 122 Palestinians and injured 256 more in the span of 24 hours, raising the total toll to 22,722 killed and 58,166 wounded since October 7. Thousands more are believed to be either missing or stuck under the rubble.
According to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, 4 percent of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million inhabitants – or around 90,000 people – “are now dead, wounded, or missing,” noting that the onslaught has been a “mass-disabling event.”
Meanwhile, Palestinian resistance groups reported ongoing fighting with Israeli ground forces in the areas of Gaza City, Khan Younis, Bani Suheila, and al-Maghazi.
The Government Media Office reported on Saturday that Israeli bulldozers had flattened through a cemetery in the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of al-Tuffah, destroying graves, running over corpses, and allegedly seizing the bodies of 150 recently deceased Palestinians. “This raises suspicions of another crime, namely the theft of organs of the martyrs,” the office said in a statement. Palestinians have long accused Israel of harvesting the organs of dead Palestinians without their families’ consent, claims that have been corroborated in the past by Israeli doctors.
Almost exactly three months to the day since October 7, humanitarian and human rights groups are multiplying desperate calls for an end to the multifaceted and relentless devastation in Gaza caused by Israel’s merciless pummelling of the small occupied territory.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Al Mezan, and Al-Haq denounced in a statement on Friday Israel’s deliberate attacks on internally displaced people in Gaza.
“The plight of 1.9 million displaced Palestinians, with hundreds of thousands subjected to repeated evacuations amid continuous Israeli bombing, has reached an intolerable level, leaving an indelible mark of shame on the world. Many in Gaza have been compelled to move multiple times, in harsh cold weather, leaving behind all their belongings. They are crammed into limited geographical areas without healthcare and at a time when communicable diseases and epidemics are spreading. People endure starvation and thirst, while Israeli relentless attacks persist,” the rights groups said.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on X that France and Jordan had airdropped aid into Gaza, while British Foreign Secretary David Cameron reiterated on Friday his calls for the entry of more humanitarian aid.
According to UNICEF, 90 percent of children under two in Gaza are now subject to “severe food poverty,” while cases of diarrhea in children under the age of 5 have skyrocketed to 3,200 new cases per day, compared to an average of 2,000 per month prior to October, due to the absence of sufficient hygiene facilities and products and Israel’s destruction of critical infrastructure in Gaza.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) meanwhile reported that Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza was “severely flooded with water and waste […] the consequence of damage to the Abu Rasheed reservoir pumping station and infiltration from the lagoon in Jabalia.” “This poses life-threatening risks of contamination and outbreak of communicable diseases among already vulnerable communities residing in overcrowded conditions,” OCHA wrote.
OCHA Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths delivered an impassioned plea on Friday calling for the international community to bring the deadly conflict to an end.
“We continue to demand an immediate end to the war, not just for the people of Gaza and its threatened neighbors, but for the generations to come who will never forget these 90 days of hell and of assaults on the most basic precepts of humanity,” Griffiths wrote.
“This war should never have started. But it’s long past time for it to end.”
Hezbollah fires rockets, as Israeli forces injure dozens in the West Bank
One day after a much anticipated speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in the wake of Israel’s assassination of Hamas senior leader Saleh al-Aruri in the suburbs of Beirut, the Lebanese resistance movement fired a volley of rockets towards northern Israel and the occupied Shebaa Farms on Saturday.
Hezbollah said it had launched more than 60 rockets early on Saturday, calling it “the first response to the crime of assassinating the great leader Saleh al-Aruri.” Israeli media reported that rocket sirens were continuing to sound across northern Israel throughout the morning.
Lebanese media meanwhile reported that the Israeli army had carried out a number of strikes in southern Lebanon, injuring at least one person.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant meanwhile warned on Friday that time was running out to de-escalate tensions with Hezbollah and prevent the outbreak of a full-blown war on the northern front.
“We prefer the path of an agreed-upon diplomatic settlement, but we are getting close to the point where the hourglass will turn over,” the Times of Israel quoted him as saying.
Hezbollah is only one of several non-state actors in the region to have taken up arms in support of Palestinians in recent months. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq group claimed on Friday to have launched yet another rocket attack on a U.S. military base in Erbil, while a “maritime security event” was reported on Saturday in the Red Sea, where the Yemeni Houthi group has been launching a series of attacks on commercial vessels in solidarity with Gaza, disrupting a major global trade route.
In the occupied West Bank, local Palestinian resistance groups reported armed confrontations with Israeli forces in Balata refugee camp, Qalqilya, Nablus, Ya’bad, and Tulkarem.
WAFA news agency reported that Israeli soldiers and settlers injured several Palestinians, including a 12-year-old boy, in Tulkarem, Anabta, Shweika, Ya’bad, Tura, Surif, Qabatiya, Madama, and Qatana. Israeli forces reportedly detained two women in Shweika, both wives of Palestinians currently or formerly imprisoned by Israel.
International community rejects Israeli ministers’ calls for Gaza ethnic cleansing
Meanwhile, the international community has been slamming calls by far-right Israeli ministers to expel the majority of Gaza’s population to other countries.
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh has reportedly been in contact with senior European Union officials expressing fears that Israel may take advantage of the international community’s humanitarian initiative, such as the transfer of wounded Palestinians for treatment abroad, to permanently displace large swathes of the population.
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna was quoted by WAFA as saying that the calls by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir were “irresponsible and keep us away from a solution.”
“Gaza is a Palestinian land that wants to become part of the future Palestinian state,” she said, seemingly in response to high-level, unilateral discussions within Israeli leadership about the future of Gaza.
While states such as Bahrain and Japan also expressed concern, Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf strongly condemned any plans for Israel to expel Palestinians from Gaza. “That is the textbook definition of ethnic cleansing and must be called out,” he said.
Meanwhile, the governments of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Chad have publicly denied Israeli media reports alleging that the three countries were in talks with Israel to take in thousands of Palestinians.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Turkey on Saturday on the first leg of his latest Mideast tour, where he met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and reportedly discussed the situation in Gaza.
In a statement on Saturday, Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh said the Palestinian group hoped “that Mr. Blinken has drawn lessons from the past three months and realized the magnitude of the mistakes made by the United States in its blind support of the Zionist occupation […] We also hope that his focus this time will be on ending the aggression as a step towards ending the occupation of all Palestinian land.”
Yet former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, who was visiting Israel on Friday, said it was “so important that the U.S. makes it clear that we are with Israel today, we will be with Israel tomorrow and we will be with Israel every day until the threat of Hamas is eliminated.”
Both Donald Trump, under whom Pence served, and current U.S. President Joe Biden have been staunch supporters of Israel.
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