Thousands protest in Israel, putting pressure on Israeli leaders to accept cease-fire Protesters in Tel Aviv, Israel, and around the world Saturday called on Israeli leaders to accept the latest road map for a cease-fire and the return of hostages in the Gaza Strip, a day after U.S. President Joe Biden said it was time for the Israel-Hamas war to end. https://www.wral.com/story/demonstrators-call-on-netanyahu-to-accept-cease-fire/21461821/
Netanyahu May Face a Choice Between a Truce and His Government’s Survival The Israeli prime minister has been put on the spot by President Biden’s announcement outlining a proposal for a truce. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/02/world/middleeast/netanyahu-biden-truce-proposal.html
Israel Will Get New Fighter Jets From the US as War in Gaza Grinds On Israel will get the jets at a rate of three to five per year under the terms of the $3 billion agreement. Photographer: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images By Galit Altstein and Anthony Capaccio June 4, 2024 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...om-the-us-as-war-grinds-on?srnd=homepage-asia Israel will start receiving a fresh batch of F-35 fighter jets from the US in 2028 after the two sides finalized a deal that affirmed their close alliance despite friction over the war in Gaza. Israel will get the jets, made by Lockheed Martin Corp., at a rate of three to five per year under the terms of the $3 billion agreement, which was first announced last year and completed on Tuesday. The deal “reflects the strength of the strategic alliance between Israel and the United States,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a statement. “At a time when some of our adversaries aim to undermine our ties with our greatest ally, we only further strengthen our alliance.” The acquisition will expand Israel’s fleet of the stealth aircraft to 75. It underscores President Joe Biden’s commitment to Israel’s defense even as concerns have grown about Israel’s prosecution of its war in Gaza against Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the US and the European Union, following the group’s Oct. 7 attack. In a report last month, the State Department said it was “reasonable to assess” that Israel had used US weapons in a way that violated international humanitarian law. Even so, the US won’t stop the flow of weapons and bombs to a key ally, the report said. Shortly before that report came out, President Joe Biden announced the US was withholding a shipment of bombs to dissuade Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from expanding an incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah. The US has long argued that a full offensive in Rafah would be a humanitarian disaster but has since backed off its criticism as Israel has pressed ahead.
UNRWA: War on Gaza has caused ‘catastrophic damage’ to environment https://www.aljazeera.com/ Marking World Environment Day, the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees has highlighted the harm Israel’s assault has done to the environment in the Gaza Strip in a post on X. UNRWA said the war has caused “catastrophic damage to the natural environment” that Palestinians depend on for water, clean air, food and livelihoods. It added that restoring environmental services to Gaza will take “decades” and can begin only when a ceasefire and an end to the war are achieved. In late January this year, research found that the carbon footprint of Israel’s war on Gaza exceeded the annual emissions of 20 small countries.
Israel phasing out use of desert detention camp after CNN investigation detailing abuses By Abeer Salman, Tamara Qiblawi, Allegra Goodwin and Barbara Arvanitidis, CNN Wed June 5, 2024 https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/05/middleeast/israel-top-court-sde-teiman-hearing-intl/index.html A leaked photograph of an enclosure where detainees in gray tracksuits are seen blindfolded and sitting on paper-thin mattresses. CNN was able to geolocate the hangar in the Sde Teiman facility. Obtained by CNN Jerusalem CNN — Israel has transferred hundreds of Palestinian detainees out of the shadowy detention facility of Sde Teiman in Israel’s Negev desert, a state attorney told Israel’s Supreme Court on Wednesday during a first-ever hearing about the facility where prisoners from Gaza have allegedly been held under conditions of extreme abuse. State attorney Aner Helman told the court that 700 inmates had been moved to Ofer military facility in the occupied West Bank, with another 500 set to be transferred in the weeks to come. Around 200 detainees will remain in Sde Teiman, said Helman, who added that the state would provide an update on their status within three days. The hearing comes in response to a petition by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and other human rights groups, which drew heavily on CNN reporting about the makeshift prison to make a case for it to be shut down. During a tense exchange, one of the Supreme Court justices, Judge Barak Erez, pressed the state’s legal team on the legality of the way the facility was being run. “The question is whether or not the Israeli law for the imprisonment of unlawful combatants applies or not. That you did not answer,” said Erez. Avi Segal, an attorney representing the right-wing, Israeli legal organization Shurat HaDin which had asked to join the procedure, said the hearing was based on “newspaper rumors.” “The court should be worried about setting up a hearing, and even asking for a response to petitions based on newspaper rumors,” said Segal. CNN’s investigation, in which Israeli whistleblowers as well as Palestinian former detainees and eyewitnesses described horrific conditions at the facility, including continuous blindfolding and handcuffing, sparked an international outcry. The White House called the allegations detailed in CNN’s report “deeply concerning” and said it was reaching out to Israeli officials for answers. Germany’s Foreign Office condemned the reported practices and said it was campaigning for the International Committee of the Red Cross to access the camp and other prisons. In the wake of CNN’s investigation, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Unlawful Combatants, Alice Jill Edwards, called for Israel to investigate allegations of torture and mistreatment of detained Palestinians. Last week, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said the military launched a probe into the allegations of mistreatment at Sde Teiman, as well as at Anatot and Ofer, two other military detention camps for Palestinians from Gaza. The committee tasked with examining the conditions of Palestinian detainees from Gaza is set to submit its recommendations to Halevi this month. “They cannot keep holding people there, not even for a short while, not even only 200, and not even one week,” ACRI’s attorney Roni Pelli told CNN after the hearing. On May 10, CNN released an investigation into Sde Teiman, a military base in the Negev desert which has doubled as a detention center for Palestinians detained over the course of Israel’s war in Gaza which was launched after the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel. Three Israeli whistleblowers told CNN that Palestinian detainees at the facility were constantly blindfolded and held under extreme physical restraint. Doctors sometimes amputated prisoners’ limbs due to injuries sustained from continuous handcuffing, one whistleblower said. The account tallied with details of a letter authored by a doctor working at Sde Teiman published by Ha’aretz in April. According to the accounts, the camp some 18 miles from the Gaza frontier is split into two parts: enclosures holding scores of detainees from Gaza, and a field hospital where wounded detainees are blindfolded, strapped to their beds, wearing diapers and fed through straws. In a May 20 response to a petition led by the rights group Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), the Israeli government said it is set to “reduce the number of inmates held in military facilities in general and the facility of Sde Teiman in particular, with the intention that this facility will be used as a reception, interrogation and initial sorting facility, for keeping prisoners for short periods only.” Responding to CNN’s request for comment on all the allegations made in its May 10 report, the Israeli military, known as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said in a statement: “The IDF ensures proper conduct towards the detainees in custody. Any allegation of misconduct by IDF soldiers is examined and dealt with accordingly. In appropriate cases, MPCID (Military Police Criminal Investigation’s Division) investigations are opened when there is suspicion of misconduct justifying such action.” “Detainees are handcuffed based on their risk level and health status. Incidents of unlawful handcuffing are not known to the authorities.” The IDF did not directly deny accounts of people being stripped of their clothing or held in diapers. Instead, the Israeli military said that the detainees are given back their clothing once the IDF has determined that they pose no security risk. CNN’s Ami Kaufman contributed to this report.
It is amusing to see UNRWA whining that the war in Gaza has caused ‘catastrophic damage’ to environment -- when their employees are some of people responsible for the damage. UNRWA employees directly took part in the October 7th massacre and have provided strong support for Hamas terrorist activities throughout Gaza. It is long overdue for UNRWA to be completely replaced. UNRWA is not an aid agency, it is more like an illegal drug dealer: It must be replaced Such an agency has no justification to be part of the UN system, nor to be supported by anyone, definitely not by the taxpayers of democracies. https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-804989
US votes to punish ICC over Israel by Staff reporter The US House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to punish the International Criminal Court for seeking to charge Israeli leaders with war crimes in Gaza. ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan has sought arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as three top leaders of the Palestinian militant group Hamas. While the court has not yet approved the request, American lawmakers have moved to make sure it does not. "The idea that they would issue an arrest warrant for the prime minister of Israel, defense minister of Israel at the time where they're fighting for their nation's very existence against the evil of Hamas as a proxy of Iran is unconscionable to us," Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said on Tuesday. "And as I said a couple of weeks ago, the ICC has to be punished for this action." The proposal passed with 247 votes in favor and 155 opposed. Every Republican and 42 pro-Israel Democrats voted yes. The rest of President Joe Biden's party voted no, however, because they were opposed to the sanctions that were at the heart of the Republican proposal. Sponsored by Texas Republican Chip Roy, the bill would see the US impose travel and financial sanctions against ICC officials, giving the US president unilateral authority to end them if the court stops investigating Americans or their allies, or "permanently ends" investigations into protected individuals. Some Democrats warned that the sanctions could impact some of Washington's allies which - unlike the US - have ratified the Rome Statute and accepted the ICC's jurisdiction. "It would sanction the leaders of some of our strongest allies: the UK, Italy, Germany, Japan. That's dangerous stuff," said Congressman Gregory Meeks, the New York Democrat who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "It's so broad that it becomes very dangerous for us." Supporters of the bill from both parties have said that passing it would "send an important message" to the world that the US stands with Israel. It is unlikely to become law without Biden's approval and support from Democrats in the Senate, however. US outrage over the mere possibility the ICC could charge the Israeli leadership has drawn accusations of hypocrisy, as Washington cheered the court last year when it went after Russian President Vladimir Putin. "There is Roman law, there is common law. And there is American law - decadent arthouse, transitioning into liberal postmodern bipolarity," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Telegram, commenting on the House vote.
Israel’s war on Gaza live: ‘People turned to pieces’ in Nuseirat strike By Stephen QuillenandMersiha Gadzo Published On 6 Jun 2024 At least 40 people have been reported killed and dozens injured in an Israeli attack on a school sheltering displaced people and houses in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. The Israeli military has confirmed that its fighter jets targeted a UNRWA school in the area. Government Media Office spokesman Ismail al-Thawabta says Al-Aqsa Hospital is currently at three times its clinical capacity as dead and wounded in the attack continue to arrive. Belgian FM condemns Israeli attack on UNRWA school Hadja Lahbib has called for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip after an Israeli attack on a UNRWA school in Nuseirat killed at least 40 people in the early hours of this morning. “The devastating airstrike on a UNRWA school in #Gaza is an appalling and unacceptable act of violence,” she wrote on X. “All parties must respect civilian infrastructure … This tragedy reminds us of the urgency to end the violence.”