Not seen since Vietnam’: Israel dropped hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs on Gaza, analysis shows By Tamara Qiblawi, Allegra Goodwin, Gianluca Mezzofiore and Nima Elbagir | Visuals by Renée Rigdon, Alex Newman and Ian Berry | Video by Barbara Arvanitidis, Mark Baron and Alex Platt Fri December 22, 2023 CNN In the first month of its war in Gaza, Israel dropped hundreds of massive bombs, many of them capable of killing or wounding people more than 1,000 feet away, analysis by CNN and artificial intelligence company Synthetaic suggests. Satellite imagery from those early days of the war reveals more than 500 impact craters over 12 meters (40 feet) in diameter, consistent with those left behind by 2,000-pound bombs. Those are four times heavier than the vast majority of the largest bombs the United States dropped on ISIS during the war against the extremist group in Syria and Iraq. Weapons and warfare experts blame the extensive use of heavy munitions such as the 2,000-pound bomb for the soaring death toll. The population of Gaza is packed together much more tightly than almost anywhere else on earth, so the use of such heavy munitions has a profound effect. “The use of 2,000-pound bombs in an area as densely populated as Gaza means it will take decades for communities to recover,” said John Chappell, advocacy and legal fellow at CIVIC, a DC-based group focused on minimizing civilian harm in conflict. Israel has come under pressure internationally over the scale of the devastation in Gaza, with even staunch ally US President Joe Biden accusing Israel of “indiscriminate bombing” of the coastal strip. Israeli officials have argued that its heavy munitions are necessary to eliminating Hamas, whose fighters killed more than 1,200 people and took more than 240 hostages on October 7. They also claim that Israel is doing all it can to minimize civilian casualties. “In response to Hamas’ barbaric attacks, the IDF is operating to dismantle Hamas’ military and administrative capabilities,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement in response to CNN’s reporting. “In stark contrast to Hamas’ intentional attacks on Israeli men, women and children, the IDF follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm.” Hamas relies on a sprawling tunnel network that is believed to crisscross the Gaza Strip. Proponents of Israel’s campaign in Gaza argue that the heavy munitions act as bunker busters, helping to destroy Hamas’ underground infrastructure. But 2,000-pound bombs are normally used sparingly by Western militaries, experts say, because of their potential impact on densely populated areas like Gaza. International humanitarian law prohibits indiscriminate bombing. Marc Garlasco a former US defense intelligence analyst and former UN war crimes investigator, said the density of Israel’s first month of bombardment in Gaza had “not been seen since Vietnam.” Garlasco, now a military adviser at PAX, a Dutch non-governmental organization that advocates for peace, reviewed all the incidents analyzed in this report for CNN. “You’d have to go back to the Vietnam war to make a comparison,” said Garlasco. “Even in both Iraq wars it was never that dense.” The heavy munitions, mostly manufactured by the US, can cause high casualty events and can have a lethal fragmentation radius – an area of exposure to injury or death around the target – of up to 365 meters (about 1,198 feet), or the equivalent of 58 soccer fields in area. Weapons and warfare experts blame the extensive use of heavy weaponry, such as the 2,000-pound bomb for the soaring death toll. According to authorities in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, about 20,000 people have been killed since October 7. Most of the dead are women and children, according to those figures.
US, Israel vows severe response to Iranian missile strikes October 2, 2024 https://dailyausaf.com/en/world/us-israel-vows-severe-response-to-iranian-missile-strikes/ JERUSALEM: Israel threatened Wednesday to retaliate after Iran fired a barrage of missiles at its territory, with Tehran warning it would hit “all infrastructure” in Israel if it comes under attack. Israel vowed it would make Iran “pay” after the attack late Tuesday and pledged to immediately strike “the Middle East powerfully”. President Joe Biden said the United States was “fully supportive” of Israel after the missile attack, adding that he would discuss a response with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Asked by reporters what the response towards Iran would be, Biden replied: “That’s in active discussion right now.” Sirens sounded across Israel after Iran unleashed the missiles — most of which Israel said were intercepted by Israeli air defences or by allied air forces. Iranian state media reported 200 missiles had been fired at Israel including hypersonic weapons for the first time, which the Revolutionary Guards said had targeted “three military bases” around Tel Aviv and others elsewhere. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on social media platform X that Tehran’s “action is concluded unless the Israeli regime decides to invite further retaliation”. The Revolutionary Guards earlier said the attack was in response to Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah last week as well as the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in a Tehran bombing widely blamed on Israel. Israeli medics reported two people lightly injured by shrapnel. In the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian was killed in Jericho “when pieces of a rocket fell from the sky and hit him”, the city’s governor Hussein Hamayel told AFP. It was Iran’s second direct attack on Israel after a missile and drone attack in April in response to a deadly Israeli air strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus. ‘Severe consequences’ US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin slammed an “outrageous act of aggression” by Iran, while Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters there would be “severe consequences”. Netanyahu said: “Iran made a big mistake tonight and will pay for it.” Iran reacted by threatening to fire “with bigger intensity” if its territory is attacked, with Major General Mohammad Bagheri warning Tehran would target “all infrastructure” in Israel. Following the missile barrage, Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari vowed to act against Iran. The air force “will continue to strike (tonight) in the Middle East powerfully,” he said. The military subsequently announced it was bombarding Hezbollah targets in Beirut, with a Lebanese security source telling AFP that Israel had hit the city’s southern suburbs at least five times overnight. Black smoke billowed over southern Beirut on Wednesday morning, AFP footage showed. Sirens meanwhile blared in multiple places in northern Israel, warning of incoming fire, with no immediate reports of casualties. UN chief Antonio Guterres led international calls to stem the “broadening conflict in the Middle East”, saying in a statement: “This must stop. We absolutely need a ceasefire.” While Iran-backed groups across the region had already been drawn into the Gaza war, sparked by Palestinian group Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, Tehran had largely refrained from direct attacks on its regional foe. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said his country had exercised its “legitimate rights” and dealt “a decisive response… to the Zionist regime’s aggression”. Israel, Iraq and Jordan — which lie between Iran and Israel — closed their airspace, as did Lebanon before reopening. US boosts forces The escalation came after the Israeli military said early Tuesday that troops had started “targeted ground raids” in south Lebanon, across Israel’s northern border. The move came despite growing calls for de-escalation after a week of air strikes that killed hundreds in Lebanon. Lebanon’s disaster management agency said 1,873 people had been killed since Israel and Hezbollah began trading cross-border fire after the Gaza war erupted on October 7, 2023. Iran has said Nasrallah’s killing would bring about Israel’s “destruction”, though its foreign ministry said Monday that Tehran would not deploy any troops to confront Israel. The Pentagon said Washington was boosting its forces in the Middle East by a “few thousand” troops.
Tit for tat, never ending. Politicians lying as per usual. Behaving like little children, no restraint, no self discipline. The words "Peace" was just hollow rhetoric all along. Bunch of fucking idiots in the Middle East and America. But America is just a big a shit stirrer as Israel, all these hollow calls for peace while supplying drug addict Israel with a never ending stream of bombs and military support whilst turning a blind eye to jewish settlers attacking Palestinians. Biden will keep supplying bombs, Netanyahu more than happy to launch them. I'm looking forward to the on going fiasco circus continuing when Trump or Kamala take over.
None of this America's business. Of wait, I forgot, we gotta prop up religious cultism, the necessary drug to addle sheeples brains, to keep the sheeple stupid and harmless.
Sometimes the headline says it all. Only Fatality From Mass Iranian Missile Attack Is Palestinian Man From Gaza https://www.algemeiner.com/2024/10/...attack-is-palestinian-man-in-jericho-reports/
Peace be damned! Iran, Israel, US escalate threats after Tehran’s missile attack on Israel By Maya Gebeily October 2, 2024 Key points Iran launched more than 180 ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation for Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, using hypersonic Fattah missiles for the first time. Israel and the US responded with missile interceptors, and while damage occurred, no injuries were reported in Israel; however, a man was killed near Jericho from falling rocket debris. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed retaliation, while the US condemned the attack and promised to help Israel defend itself. The UN, European Union, and US urged for de-escalation, while oil prices surged by 5 per cent amid fears of a wider conflict between Iran and Israel. Iran warned that any Israeli retaliation would result in a “more crushing and ruinous” response, emphasising that the missile attack was only the “first wave” of their capabilities. Jerusalem/Beirut: Iran fired more than 180 ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation for Israel’s campaign against Tehran’s Hezbollah allies in Lebanon, drawing vows of a sharp response from both Israel and the United States. Alarms sounded across Israel and explosions could be heard in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and the Jordan River valley on Wednesday (AEST). Israelis piled into bomb shelters and reporters on state television lay flat on the ground during live broadcasts. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the attack “a big mistake”. Israel’s military later sounded the all-clear and said residents were free to leave their shelters. Israel said more than 180 missiles were launched into Israel from Iran and Israeli air defences intercepted them. US Navy warships fired about a dozen interceptors against Iranian missiles headed towards Israel, the Pentagon said. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said the assault was in retaliation for recent Israeli killings of militant leaders and aggression in Lebanon and Gaza. Its forces used hypersonic Fattah missiles for the first time, and 90 per cent of its missiles successfully hit their targets in Israel, the Revolutionary Guards said. It warned the attack on Israel represented only a “first wave”, without elaborating. A cleric clenches his fist as he celebrates Iran’s missile strike against Israel in an anti-Israeli gathering in Tehran.Credit: AP A senior Iranian official told Reuters the order to launch missiles at Israel had been made by the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei remains in a secure location, the senior official added. Iran exercised “self-defence” against Israel and its action had concluded unless the “Israeli regime decides to invite further retaliation,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said whilst telling Washington not to interfere. “A warning was conveyed via Switzerland telling Americans that it was our right to self-defence and that we do not intend to continue [the attack].” He said Iran’s action came after exercising tremendous restraint to give space for a ceasefire in Gaza. “Our action is concluded unless the Israeli regime decides to invite further retaliation. In that scenario, our response will be stronger and more powerful,” Araghchi added. Earlier US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin said Washington was “well-postured” to defend its “personnel, allies, and partners in the face of threats from Iran and Iran-backed terrorist organisations” in the Middle East. This image taken from video shows projectiles being intercepted over Jerusalem, Israel.Credit: AP US President Joe Biden expressed full US support for Israel and described Iran’s attack as “ineffective”. He said there was an active discussion about how Israel would respond. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Israel appeared to have defeated the attack without loss of life. “This is a significant escalation by Iran, a significant event, and it is equally significant that we were able to step up with Israel and create a situation in which no one was killed in this attack in Israel,” Sullivan said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Credit: AP “We have made clear that there will be consequences, severe consequences, for this attack, and we will work with Israel to make that the case.” Sullivan did not specify what those consequences might be, but he stopped short of urging restraint by Israel as the US did in April when Iran carried out a much smaller drone and missile attack on Israel. US news website Axios, citing Israeli officials, reported the Netanyahu government would launch a “significant retaliation” within days that could target oil production facilities inside Iran and other strategic sites. Projectiles fly through the sky in central Israel as a siren sounds a warning of incoming missiles fired from Iran towards Israel.Credit: AP Netanyahu vowed retaliation: “Iran made a big mistake tonight and it will pay for it.” He said the missile attack was a failure and that Iran would soon learn a painful lesson, just as its enemies in Gaza, Lebanon and other places have learnt. “Whoever attacks us, we attack them,” he said. French President Emmanuel Macron said he strongly condemned Iran’s new attacks, adding that in a sign of its commitment to Israel’s security France has mobilised its military resources in the Middle East. The statement from his office gave no details on what additional military assets had been sent to the region and the Defence Ministry was not immediately available for comment. The European Union also condemned the attack, and the UN Security Council scheduled a meeting on the Middle East for Wednesday (Thursday AEST). No injuries were reported in Israel. But the Palestinian civil defence authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank said a man was killed near Jericho and falling rocket debris had caused damage and started fires in the area. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said its operation was defensive and was only directed at Israeli military and security facilities. Earlier, Iran’s state news agency said Tehran targeted three Israeli military bases. Iran urged UN Security Council action. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned what he called “escalation after escalation”, saying: “This must stop. We absolutely need a ceasefire”. Israel in a post on X, formerly Twitter, criticised Guterres for not holding “Iran responsible for firing 181 ballistic missiles at 10 million Israeli civilians”. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also called for an immediate regional ceasefire. “The dangerous cycle of attacks and retaliation risks ... spiralling out of control,” he posted on X. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the UK supported Israel’s right to self-defence, stating that “Iran has menaced the Middle East for far too long”. Israelis take cover on the side of a road as a siren sounds a warning of incoming missiles.Credit: AP Iran said if Israel retaliated, Tehran’s response would be “more crushing and ruinous”. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a social media post: “This is just part of our capability. Do not get into a confrontation with Iran.” On Wednesday, Israel renewed its bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs, a stronghold of the Iran-backed Hezbollah, with at least a dozen airstrikes against what it said were the armed group’s facilities. Large plumes of smoke were seen rising from parts of the suburbs. Israel issued new evacuation orders for the area, which has largely emptied after days of heavy strikes. Hezbollah said it confronted Israeli forces infiltrating the Lebanese town of Adaisseh early on Wednesday and forced them to retreat. Israeli strikes also killed at least 32 people in southern Gaza as the military launched ground operations in the hard-hit city of Khan Younis, Palestinian medical officials said on Wednesday. Reuters reported at least 60 people were killed in strikes on the Gaza Strip. Israel has continued to strike what it says are militant targets across Gaza nearly a year after Hamas’ October 7 attack ignited the war, even as attention has shifted to Lebanon, where it is battling Hezbollah, and to Iran. The European Hospital in Khan Younis said it received the bodies after heavy Israeli airstrikes and ground operations in the city. It said the dead include several women and children, and that dozens of people were wounded. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Meanwhile, Israel police said six people were killed in a shooting in Israel’s Tel Aviv. It was unclear if it was an incident related to Iran’s attack. Police said two suspects opened fire on a boulevard in Jaffa, a mixed Arab-Jewish neighbourhood in the city’s south. Twelve people were wounded in the shooting. Police called the attack an act of terrorism and said the two suspects were killed. Oil prices shot up 5 per cent on fears of a wider war between the two arch-enemies. The previous round of Iranian missiles fired at Israel in April – the first ever – were shot down with the help of the US military and other allies. Israel responded at the time with airstrikes in Iran, but wider escalation was averted. Emergency services are seen near the site of a shooting by gunmen at a light rail station in Tel Aviv, Israel. Credit: Getty Images The Pentagon said the scope of Iran’s airstrikes was about twice the size of April’s assault. Nearly 1900 people have been killed and more than 9000 wounded in Lebanon in nearly a year of cross-border fighting, most in the past two weeks, according to Lebanese government statistics on Tuesday. Israeli soldiers raise their fists from a moving APC in northern Israel near the Israel-Lebanon border on Tuesday.Credit: AP Reuters, with AP
Sinwar's right-hand man has been eliminated... the event happened three months ago. Cleaning up the neighborhood by eliminating the terrorists. IDF assassinates right-hand man of Sinwar Rawhi Mushtaha, head of the Hamas government in Gaza, has been killed alongside two other senior figures, Sameh al-Siraj and Sami Oudeh https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/10/03/idf-hamas-sinwar-gaza-rawhi-mushtaha/
What did Al Jazeera’s investigation into Israeli war crimes in Gaza reveal? The I-Unit investigated thousands of videos and photos posted to social media by Israeli soldiers. By Richard Sandersand Al Jazeera Investigative Unit Published On 3 Oct 20243 Oct 2024 When they entered Gaza on October 27, after three weeks of aerial bombardment following Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, Israeli troops took their iPhones with them. “We live in an era of technology, and this has been described as the first livestreamed genocide in history,” Palestinian novelist Susan Abulhawa told Al Jazeera’s investigative unit (I-Unit). These videos and photos form the foundation of the I-Unit’s new film, which investigates Israeli war crimes primarily through the medium of the evidence Israeli soldiers themselves have provided. It is, according to Rodney Dixon, an international law expert featured in the film, “a treasure trove which you very seldom come across … something which I think prosecutors will be licking their lips at”. How was this investigation conducted? As journalists in the West sought to portray the war on Gaza as complex and nuanced, a flood of social media posts from Israeli soldiers suggested they regarded it as anything but. The I-Unit decided to investigate these posts. It expected to have to dedicate considerable resources to geolocation – the use of satellite maps and other sources to identify specific locations – and to the use of facial recognition software to scan the internet to identify the soldiers featured in the photos and videos. What it found, however, was that, for the most part, soldiers posted material in their own names on publicly accessible platforms and often gave details of when and where the incidents depicted took place. The I-Unit began collecting these videos and photos, compiling a database of more than 2,500 social media accounts. It showed the footage to a range of military and human rights experts, including Dixon, Charlie Herbert, a retired major-general in the British Army, and Bill Van Esveld, the associate director for the Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch. It also employed teams on the ground to film the testimony of witnesses and made use of Israeli drone footage collected by Al Jazeera Arabic. What did the investigation find? The behaviour displayed in the photos and videos ranges from crass jokes and soldiers rifling through women’s underwear drawers to what appears to be the murder of unarmed civilians. It will be for prosecutors to decide the guilt or otherwise of the soldiers, but both Dixon and Van Esveld told Al Jazeera that several of the incidents documented merited investigation by international investigators. Most of the photos and videos fell into one of three categories: wanton destruction, the mistreatment of detainees and the use of human shields. All three may be violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) and war crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Wanton destruction The videos frequently show soldiers smashing up and destroying property and possessions. Others show houses being set alight. The most commonly recurring feature was the detonation of buildings. “The fact that they’ve been able to rig these buildings up with explosives shows very clearly that there’s no current threat from those buildings,” Herbert told Al Jazeera. “There’s no justification for destroying a structure if the enemy isn’t in it,” said Van Esveld. “You can’t go around wantonly, unnecessarily destroying … civilian property … It’s banned,” he added. “And if you do enough of it, it’s a war crime.” What does IHL say about the destruction of property? Article 8(2)(a)(iv) of the Rome Statute prohibits “extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly”. Israeli soldiers have posted many videos on social media showing them destroying buildings in Gaza [Al Jazeera] Mistreatment of detainees Some of the videos show large numbers of detainees stripped to their underwear, being held in stress positions and mocked for having soiled themselves. One shows naked and near-naked detainees, bound and blindfolded, being kicked and dragged around on the floor. In one video, a French-Israeli soldier films a detainee being pulled from the back of a truck and says: “Look, I’m going to show you his back. You’re going to laugh at this. He was tortured.” “Torture is one of the most serious international crimes … Very often, though, it’s difficult to get evidence … This kind of material where you have persons on camera admitting that they have participated in torture would be very useful to any investigator or a prosecutor,” Dixon told Al Jazeera. Soldiers’ videos are complemented by witness testimony gathered by the I-Unit’s team in Gaza. The film includes three accounts of beating and abuse. “They took my son, the eldest, who had just been married,” said Abu Amer. “He was tortured. I could hear his screams as they were suffocating him and beating him in the adjacent room. There was nothing we could do with the rifles pointed at our heads. We could not make a move.” Abu Amer says a soldier told his son: “Nothing prevents us from killing you. We could just kill you all. That’s normal. No one will deter us, and no one will call us to account.” Women were also abused. Hadeel Dahdouh said a soldier kicked her in the stomach. “He beat me on the back with the gun and on the head with a piece of metal in his hand. I said to him, ‘loosen the handcuff’, but he would only tighten it further.” Another Palestinian from Gaza, Fadi Bakr, said he was forced to lie on a decomposing corpse by a soldier who threatened to executive him. Later, at the Sde Teiman detention centre in Southern Israel, he said he saw guards using a dog to rape a young male inmate. What does IHL say about the mistreatment of detainees? Article 8 (2)(a)(ii) of the Rome Statute prohibits “torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments”; while Article 8 (2)(b)(xxi) prohibits “committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment”. Human shields The I-Unit interviewed six individuals who testified to being used as human shields by Israeli troops. Abu Amer described how during clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters, the Israeli soldiers “took us, the men, and placed us near the balcony. They placed their weapons above our heads and fired at the young men on the other side.” He says he was then forced to inspect buildings for booby traps and ambushes while a soldier monitored him from a balcony with a machinegun. “He said, try anything and I’ll shoot you.” Footage gathered by Al Jazeera Arabic supports this. It shows a detainee being forced to inspect empty buildings while being monitored by a drone. Separate footage shows bloodied detainees being fitted with cameras so they can enter buildings troops have not yet secured. A photo taken by an Israeli soldier in Gaza City in November – and posted online – shows two detainees walking in front of a tank with a soldier behind them. In an interview, one of the men later described how they were coerced and used as human shields. At the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in February a young man was forced to act as a messenger by the Israelis, ordering displaced people to evacuate the building. The man was then shot dead by a sniper in front of his mother. Using people to perform military tasks is “in many ways the definition of using persons as a human shield”, Dixon explained. The I-Unit obtained video of Palestinians being used as human shields [Al Jazeera] The I-Unit interviewed the victim’s mother and another witness. What does IHL say about the use of human shields? Article 8 (2)(b)(xxiii) of the Rome Statute prohibits “utilizing the presence of a civilian or other protected person to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military operations”. Are there any particular units that feature prominently in the photos and videos? The 8219 Combat Engineering Battalion – also known as the Gadhan Commando – features prominently in videos posted online. It destroyed hundreds of buildings in Gaza City and then progressed to the south of the Strip where, between December 28 and June 9, it entirely destroyed Khirbet Khuza’a, a town of 13,000 people close to the fence separating Gaza from Israel. “We … destroyed a whole village as a revenge for what they did to Kibbutz Nir Oz on 7/10,” wrote Captain Chai Roe Cohen of the 8219 battalion’s C Company in an Instagram post on January 7. Nir Oz lies just on the other side of the fence from Khirbet Khuza’a and was attacked on October 7, with about one-quarter of its residents killed or taken captive. “The revenge rhetoric that we’ve heard from some Israeli soldiers … is disturbing. Atrocities don’t justify atrocities,” Van Esveld told Al Jazeera. The 8219 was commanded during its operations in Gaza by Lt Col Meir Duvdevani. “The International Criminal Court will … look for those who are high up the chain of command … and evidence coming directly from commanders about the orders that they gave and the way in which they command and control the troops would be vital evidence,” said Dixon. The I-Unit also scrutinised a video placed online by a soldier called Shalom Gilbert, a member of the 202 Paratroopers Battalion. The video shows three unarmed men being killed by snipers. “Just because a civilian is walking in an area where combat is going on does not make them fair game … If they get involved in hostilities at a particular moment, yes, they lose their civilian status. They can be targeted. But then you have to show the evidence that they are presenting a threat to you … It’s potentially a matter that the International Criminal Court would want to look at,” said Dixon. The 202 contained a sniper team, known as the Ghost Unit, comprising 21 individuals. Western complicity The Israeli government is currently under investigation for genocide at the International Court of Justice. This raises the possibility that any countries that have lent assistance to Israel’s war effort may also be open to charges. Between 2019 and 2023, 69 percent of Israeli arms imports came from the United States and 30 percent from Germany. Both have continued to supply weaponry throughout this conflict, although German supplies have dipped since the beginning of this year. The film features reporting by Declassified UK, which shows the central role played by the British base at RAF Akrotiri on the island of Cyprus. The British have been running surveillance flights over Gaza since early December, supposedly to facilitate the rescue of Israeli captives. In the film, Declassified’s Matt Kennard argued that this “doesn’t explain” the flights. There were “only two British hostages in Gaza … There was up to 1,000 hours of [surveillance] footage by March.” The R1 Shadow planes the British use have target acquisition capacity. “When you start acting in a conflict to a level that the people on the ground who are doing the fighting are using your information as they fight,” you may become “a party to the conflict”, Van Esveld explained. “If you continue to know and continue to supply weapons and targeting information, if you’re supplying targeting information, despite knowing what the result is, and the result is a gross human rights violation, then you also get to complicity. So, you know, the deniability that you’re deeply involved in what’s going on in Gaza begins to evaporate,” he added. The I-Unit asked the United Kingdom government about its surveillance flights. It told us: “The UK is not a participant in the conflict between Israel and Hamas … 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 … Only information related to hostage rescue is passed to the Israeli authorities.” It added: “Our priority remains achieving a ceasefire in Gaza so hostages can be released, civilians protected and aid flood in.” Source: Al Jazeera