The Official Israel-Gaza Thread

[Hood Critic]

Who are the experts backing ICC warrants against Israel, Hamas leaders?

Amal Clooney was on the panel advising the ICC prosecutor who applied for arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Hamas leaders.

www.aljazeera.com

 

[bnew]

Norway, Ireland and Spain say they will recognize a Palestinian state, deepening Israel's isolation

Norway, Ireland and Spain say they will recognize a Palestinian state. The historic but largely symbolic move further deepens Israel’s isolation more than seven months into its grinding war against Hamas in Gaza.

apnews.com

Norway, Ireland and Spain say they will recognize a Palestinian state, deepening Israel’s isolation​

Norway, Ireland and Spain said they are recognizing a Palestinian state in a historic move that drew condemnation from Israel and jubilation from the Palestinians. Israel immediately ordered back its ambassadors from Norway and Ireland. It came after several European Union countries recently indicated they plan to make the recognition, arguing a two-state solution is essential for lasting peace in the region.

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BY JOSEPH WILSON, MELANIE LIDMAN AND JOSEPH KRAUSS
Updated 11:15 AM EDT, May 22, 2024


TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Norway, Ireland and Spain said Wednesday they would recognize a Palestinian state, a historic but largely symbolic move that further deepens Israel’s isolation more than seven months into its grinding war against Hamas in Gaza. Israel immediately denounced the decisions and recalled its ambassadors to the three countries.

Palestinian leaders welcomed the announcements as an affirmation of their decades-long quest for statehood in east Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip — territories Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war and still controls.

While some 140 countries — more than two-thirds of the United Nations — recognize a Palestinian state, Wednesday’s cascade of announcements could build momentum at a time when even close allies of Israel have piled on criticism for its conduct in Gaza.

It was the second blow to Israel’s international reputation this week after the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said he would seek arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister. The International Court of Justice is also considering allegations of genocide that Israel has strenuously denied.

Israel summoned the three countries’ envoys, accusing the Europeans of rewarding the militant Hamas group for its Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the European ambassadors would watch grisly video footage of the attack.

In that assault, Hamas-led militants stormed across the border, killing 1,200 people and taking some 250 hostage. The ICC prosecutor is also seeking arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders. Israel’s ensuing offensive has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.

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AP AUDIO: Norway, Ireland and Spain say they will recognize a Palestinian state, deepening Israel’s isolation​

AP correspondent Charles de Ledesma reports on European nations recognizing the state of Palestine.

“History will remember that Spain, Norway and Ireland decided to award a gold medal to Hamas murderers and rapists,” Katz said.

In response to the announcements in Europe, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir paid a provocative visit Wednesday to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound — a flashpoint in Jerusalem that is sacred to Muslims and Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount. The move could escalate tensions across the region.

“We will not even allow a statement about a Palestinian state,” he said.

The three Irish Government leaders from left, Minister Eamon Ryan, Taoiseach Simon Harris and Tanaiste Micheal Martin speak to the media in Dublin, Ireland, Wednesday May 22, 2024.(Damien Storan/PA via AP)

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez speaks in the Spanish Parliament in Madrid, May 22, 2024. (Eduardo Parra/Europa Press via AP)

Netanyahu’s government opposes Palestinian statehood and says the conflict can only be resolved through direct negotiations, which last collapsed over 15 years ago.

The international community has long viewed the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel as the only realistic way to resolve the conflict, and in past weeks several European Union countries have indicated they plan to recognize a Palestinian state to further those efforts.

In contrast, the United States and Britain, among others, have backed the idea of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel but say it should come as part of a negotiated settlement.

The formal recognition by Norway, Spain and Ireland — which all have a record of friendly ties with both the Israelis and the Palestinians, while long advocating for a Palestinian state — is planned for May 28.

Their announcements came in swift succession. Norway, which helped broker the Oslo accords that kicked off the peace process in the 1990s, was the first, with Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre saying “there cannot be peace in the Middle East if there is no recognition.”

The country plans to upgrade its representative office in the West Bank to an embassy.

Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris called it a “historic and important day for Ireland and for Palestine,” saying the announcements had been coordinated and that other countries might join.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who announced his country’s decision before parliament, has spent months touring European and Middle Eastern countries to garner support for recognition and a cease-fire in Gaza.

“This recognition is not against anyone, it is not against the Israeli people,” Sánchez said. “It is an act in favor of peace, justice and moral consistency.”

European countries are recognizing a Palestinian state

• While dozens of countries have recognized a Palestinian state, none of the major Western powers has done so. The decisions from Norway, Ireland and Spain may generate momentum.
  
• The recognitions mark a significant accomplishment for the Palestinians, who believe it confers international legitimacy on their struggle, especially amid international outrage over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
  
• Here’s more on how and why the new European announcements could be important.
  
  

President Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, welcomed the decisions and called on other nations to “recognize our legitimate rights and support the struggle of our people for liberation and independence.”

Hamas, which Western countries and Israel view as a terrorist group, does not recognize Israel’s existence but has indicated it might agree to a state on the 1967 lines, at least on an interim basis. Israel says any Palestinian state would be at risk of being taken over by Hamas, posing a threat to its security.

The announcements are unlikely to have any impact on the war in Gaza — or the long-running conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Israel annexed east Jerusalem and considers it part of its capital, and in the occupied West Bank it has built scores of Jewish settlements that are now home to over 500,000 Israelis. The settlers have Israeli citizenship, while the 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule.

Netanyahu has said Israel will maintain security control of Gaza even after any defeat of Hamas, and the war is still raging there. An Israeli airstrike early Wednesday killed 10 people, including four women and four children, who had been displaced and were sheltering in central Gaza, according to hospital authorities.

Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said “recognition is a tangible step towards a viable political track leading to Palestinian self-determination.”

But for it to have an impact, he said, it must come with “tangible steps to counter Israel’s annexation and settlement of Palestinian territory – such as banning settlement products and financial services.”

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide defended the importance of the move in an interview with The Associated Press, saying that while the country has supported the establishment of a Palestinian state for decades, it knew that recognition is “a card that you can play once.”

“We used to think that recognition would come at the end of a process,” he said. “Now we have realized that recognition should come as an impetus, as a strengthening of a process.”

 

[ADevilYouKhow]

Families of female Israeli hostages release graphic abduction footage to pile pressure on Netanyahu — CNN

Families of seven female Israeli troops captured by Hamas during the October 7 attacks have released graphic footage of their abduction as they pile pressure on the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to secure their release.

apple.news

 

[Dillah810]

Norway, Ireland and Spain say they will recognize a Palestinian state, deepening Israel's isolation

Norway, Ireland and Spain say they will recognize a Palestinian state. The historic but largely symbolic move further deepens Israel’s isolation more than seven months into its grinding war against Hamas in Gaza.

apnews.com

 

[bnew]

 

[Pull Up the Roots]

Spoiler

On May 17, legislation was introduced and referred to the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Cosponsored by Chief Deputy Whip Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) and U.S. Representative Max Miller (R-OH), H.R. 8445 went largely under the radar, a strange outcome given the real effect it will have on furthering U.S. support for the Zionist project – in this case through direct support for those wishing to serve in the Israeli Occupational Military.

What H.R. 8445 aims to do is make a series of amendments to programs that are ordinarily only available to members of the U.S. military – the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) and Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA). These amendments would do something unprecedented: Extend these programs to American citizens serving in the Israel Occupational Forces.

The SCRA, the result of the Bush administration’s efforts to update the 1940 Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief Act (SSCRA), was passed in 2003. Its primary focus is granting active duty U.S. servicemembers legal and financial protections so that they can do the bidding of U.S. empire a little more worry-free. This act’s benefits include protections against default judgments in civil legal cases, reduced interest rates on any pre-service loans to a maximum of 6 percent, protections against home foreclosure, and more.

USERRA, enacted in 1994, is a multifaceted act that ensures U.S. servicemembers can return to their former places of employment after their service ends (with some exceptions) while banning employment discrimination because of past, current, or future military obligations.

In effect, H.R. 8445 is a measure designed to ensure U.S. legal and financial protections are being extended directly to U.S. citizens on the ground in Occupied Palestine as they assist in the ongoing colonization, ethnic cleansing, and genocide of Palestinians. The amendments it proposes formally bring U.S. citizens fighting in a foreign military into the fold, opening up further incentives for becoming an active participant in the Gaza genocide.

This effort is not necessarily surprising as the U.S. is putting its full weight into protecting and advancing the interests of its colonial outpost across the Atlantic. The Zionist project has long been sustained in part by settlers from the U.S., with more than 23,000 U.S. citizens serving in the IOF as of February 2024. This figure is bolstered further by the reality that an estimated 600,000 Americans were living in areas under Israeli control, including illegal West Bank settlements, prior to October 7. These settlers play key roles in advancing Zionist, and by extension U.S. imperial interests. As such, it is no surprise that they have been consistently enabled to travel and settle in Occupied Palestine, being joined by billions of dollars in U.S. military and economic aid.

This act also only furthers a reality in which U.S. citizens are functionally incentivized to act as mercenaries for the Zionist colony, all while shielding them from the ramifications of their actions when they return home. The protections of the SCRA effectively ensure that U.S. citizens fighting in the IOF abroad are protected from foreclosure, get preferential interest rates for loans, and more – all benefits traditionally used to recruit U.S. citizens into its own military forces. It is the U.S. government’s way of telling U.S. citizens that it will look out for them should they put their bodies on the line for the Zionist colony.

 

[Pull Up the Roots]

The systematic torture of Gazans in Israel's secret prisons

In-depth: Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians in makeshift detention centres and jails as part of its war on Gaza - and torture and abuse are rife.

www.newarab.com

On 11 May, CNN exposed Israel’s harrowing treatment of dozens of Gazan prisoners held hostage in the Sde Teiman desert camp-turned-detention centre.

In the report, which stirred widespread condemnation, whistle-blowers revealed that Gazan hostages were subjected to “extreme physical restraint” and “stripped down of anything that resembles human beings”.

When The New Arab interviewed several of the 76 Gazan prisoners released just days after the CNN report was published, it became apparent that these abuses were not exclusive to that one prison.

Sami al-Ghoula, a 53-year-old father of eight, describes the torture to have been unending for the two months he was detained. Rounded up on 14 March from Al-Shifa Hospital where he and his family had been displaced, he was handcuffed and had his face covered before being shoved with other detainees into Israeli military vehicles and taken to warehouses made of corrugated iron, metal nets, and barbed wires - known locally as brixat.

“The torturing and beating started from the first instant and did not stop. I was tortured and severely beaten at all times: alone and in groups; with sticks, fists, and punches; electrocuted all over my body and attacked by dogs. I was subjected to insults and obscenities almost always. I had my hands tied and my face covered almost all the time,” al-Ghoula told TNA on the day of his release.

Human rights organisations have for decades reported on Israel’s widespread use of torture of Palestinian prisoners. However, in the weeks and months following 7 October, leaked visual content and testimonies showed both a spike in arbitrary arrests and - according to Amnesty International - “gruesome scenes of Israeli soldiers beating and humiliating Palestinians while detaining them blind-folded, stripped, with their hands tied, in a particularly chilling public display of torture and humiliation of Palestinian detainees”.

The sheer number of arrests and brutality with which Israel treats Gazan prisoners is driven by “revenge, desperation and a frantic need for information”, Qadura Fares, head of the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, told The New Arab.

“The prisoners are subjected to the highest levels of torture and pain in order to obtain information which Israel has failed to obtain after eight months of war on Gaza.”

 

[Pull Up the Roots]

Hostages of Israeli revenge in the Gaza Strip: Testimonies of 100 released Palestinian detainees reveal crimes of torture, cruel treatment

The report is based on statements, testimonies, and in-person interviews

euromedmonitor.org

x.com

x.com

 

[88m3]

that would be a cool to read about from someone who isn't writing with such a heavy slant!

 

[Pull Up the Roots]

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8445

https://reschenthaler.house.gov/imo/media/doc/protecting_americans_in_the_idf_act.pdf

 

[Pressure]

that would be a cool to read about from someone who isn't writing with such a heavy slant!

I figured you would have tapped out when two of the most frequent posters in this thread said they supported Hamas, are fed up, and don’t believe Israel has a right to exist.

shyt, one of them even invoked MLK despite his own words

 

[MAKAVELI25]

Netanyahu bytch ass always quoting 9/11 as his comparison and justification for what he is doing… Saying the ICC issuing him an arrest warrant is like issuing George Bush for 9/11 is funny as fukk.. I’m convinced Israel was 100% responsible for 9/11 and used the Saudi’s as a cover

What evidence is there of Israel's involvement in 9/11?

 

[FAH1223]

 

[88m3]

ICJ wants HAMAS to unilaterally release the hostages

 

[Robbie3000]

Not only is the IDF a bunch of monsters, they are FANs and 69 Gods.