Israel’s mass killing campaign in Gaza is escalating
- Details
- Written by TAREQ S. HAJJAJ | Mondoweiss TAREQ S. HAJJAJ | Mondoweiss
- Published: 01 November 2024 01 November 2024
The Israeli army has killed 639 Palestinians while injuring over 2,000 people between October 22 and October 31, the Gaza Ministry of Health reports. This number only includes those whose bodies were retrieved by civilians or rescue teams and sent to hospitals or centers affiliated with the Ministry of Health. The number of people who are unaccounted for and are still trapped under the rubble are estimated to be in the dozens but are not included in the official statistics of the Ministry.
While north Gaza, and the areas of Jabalia, Beit Lahia, and Beit Hanoun in particular, have been the most targeted by Israel’s ongoing military assault, the Israeli army has escalated its attacks against civilians across the entire Gaza Strip. Eyewitnesses who spoke to Mondoweiss describe a situation in which both military and “humanitarian” zones (designated as such by the Israeli army) are being targeted with regularity. The overall pattern of Israel’s assaults points to a campaign of mass killing and extermination.
https://mondoweiss.net/2024/11/israels-mass-killing-campaign-in-gaza-is-escalating/
Israeli parliament passes law to ban Unrwa from operating inside country
- Details
- Written by Associated Press in Jerusalem Associated Press in Jerusalem
- Published: 28 October 2024 28 October 2024
Israeli lawmakers have passed legislation that could threaten the work of the main UN agency providing aid to people in Gaza by barring it from operating on Israeli soil.
The bill bans the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, or Unrwa, from conducting “any activity” or providing any service inside Israel.
The legislation, which does not take effect immediately, risks collapsing the already fragile aid distribution process at a moment when the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is worsening and Israel is under increased US pressure to ramp up aid.
The vote was passed 92-10 and followed a fiery debate between supporters of the law and its opponents, mostly members of Arab parliamentary parties.
A second bill severing diplomatic ties with Unrwa was due to be voted on later on Monday.
Taken together, these bills would signal a new low in relations between Israel and Unrwa, which Israel accuses of maintaining close ties with Hamas militants. The changes would also be a serious blow to the agency and to Palestinians in Gaza who have become reliant upon it for aid throughout more than a year of devastating war.
The bills risk crippling the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza. More than 1.9 million Palestinians are displaced from their homes and Gaza faces widespread shortages of food, water and medicine.
Israeli NGOs warn international community it will be complicit if Israel forcibly transfers the population of Northern Gaza
- Details
- Written by B'tselem B'tselem
- Published: 25 October 2024 25 October 2024
Human rights NGOs based in Israel today called on the international community to take action now to prevent Israel from forcibly transferring hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have remained in the Northern Gaza Strip outside of the area, including by denying entry of essential humanitarian aid and fuel. The Israeli ceasefire coalition, the groups Gisha, B’Tselem, PHR-I and Yesh Din, said that there are alarming signs that the Israeli military is beginning to quietly implement the Generals’ Plan, also referred to as the Eiland Plan, which calls for complete forcible transfer of the civilians of the northern Gaza Strip through tightening the siege on the area and starving the population.
The NGOs reiterated the warning that states have an obligation to prevent the crimes of starvation and forcible transfer, and that if the continuation of the “wait and see” approach will enable Israel to liquidate northern Gaza, they will be complicit. All states and relevant international institutions should act now and use all tools at their disposal - legal, diplomatic and economic - to prevent this.
B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories
Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement
Yesh Din – Volunteers for Human Rights
Physicians for Human Rights Israel
The Language of Palestinian Embroidery
- Details
- Written by Peter Miller Peter Miller
- Published: 12 October 2024 12 October 2024
The Language of Palestinian Embroidery
Wafa Ghnaim
November 1, 2024 6pm
The First Unitarian Church of Portland
1211 Main Str.
Wafa Ghnaim is a Palestinian dress historian, researcher, author, archivist, curator, educator and embroideress who began learning embroidery from her mother, award-winning artist Feryal Abbasi-Ghnaim, when she was two years old.
Her first book, “Tatreez & Tea: Embroidery and Storytelling in the Palestinian Diaspora” (2018), documents the traditional patterns and stories passed on to her by her mother. Wafa has since become a leading educator in SWANA dress history and embroidery techniques, as the first-ever Palestinian embroidery instructor at the Smithsonian Museum. Wafa continues her mother’s educational legacy through The Tatreez Institute (Tatreez & Tea), a global arts education initiative she began in 2016 teaching courses in Palestinian, Syrian and Jordanian embroidery techniques and lecturing at leading institutions, museums and universities around the world. Wafa has since been featured in major media outlets, including Vogue Magazine, which named her and her mother “the world’s leading guardians of tatreez”. Her curatorial debut "TATREEZ INHERITANCE" (2023) at the Museum of the Palestinian People in Washington DC highlights traditional Palestinian dresses circulating North America and the importance of reclamation in the diaspora. Wafa released her second publication “THOBNA” (2023) to celebrate Palestinian embroidery as a powerful form of resistance over the past century.
Wafa is currently the Curator for the Museum of the Palestinian People in Washington, D.C. and Senior Research Fellow for The Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art.
Inside the State Department’s Weapons Pipeline to Israel
- Details
- Written by Brett Murphy | Propublica Brett Murphy | Propublica
- Published: 05 October 2024 05 October 2024
Leaked cables and emails show how the agency’s top officers dismissed internal evidence of Israelis misusing American-made bombs and worked around the clock to rush more out while the Gaza death toll mounted.
In late January, as the death toll in Gaza climbed to 25,000 and droves of Palestinians fled their razed cities in search of safety, Israel’s military asked for 3,000 more bombs from the American government. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew, along with other top diplomats in the Jerusalem embassy, sent a cable to Washington urging State Department leaders to approve the sale, saying there was no potential the Israel Defense Forces would misuse the weapons.
The cable did not mention the Biden administration’s public concerns over the growing civilian casualties, nor did it address well-documented reportsthat Israel had dropped 2,000-pound bombs on crowded areas of Gaza weeks earlier, collapsing apartment buildings and killing hundreds of Palestinians, many of whom were children. Lew was aware of the issues. Officials say his own staff had repeatedly highlighted attacks where large numbers of civilians died. Homes of the embassy’s own Palestinian employees had been targeted by Israeli airstrikes.