Palestine today
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Israeli army targets relief and rescue workers and ambulances.
The Israeli army’s escalated military attacks against civilians and residential areas in Lebanon, particularly in the South and Bekaa regions, along with the issuance of evacuation orders, raising alarm in the region. Urgent international intervention is required to prevent the massacres and other atrocities being carried out by Israel in the Gaza Strip for more than 11 months from occurring in Lebanon as well. Israel’s army carried out over 330 raids in over 117 Lebanese towns and cities today, 23 September 2024, according to the Euro-Med Monitor field team. These raids were directed towards civilian residential areas in southern Lebanon and various areas of the Bekaa region.
In both the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, the Israeli army deliberately denies civilians enough time to escape the areas being bombed, offering them no real protection from the dangers arising from military operations. Instead, Israel randomly and directly targets civilian buildings, including the buildings of surrounding hospitals and schools. For instance, the inhabitants of Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, which spans an area of about 4,429 square kilometres, were given just two hours to evacuate when the Israeli army issued evacuation orders. However, it would take many citizens at least three hours to leave areas within the valley. Moreover, the Israeli army neglected to designate safe zones to which people could escape—just as it has been doing in the Gaza Strip—showing that Israel either ignores the legal obligation to direct people to safe zones, or targets areas it has designated as safe. Since Israel began bombing Lebanon, dangerous conditions as well as significant challenges to the evacuation process have been documented. The Israeli army is required by international humanitarian law to take all reasonable measures prior to any military attack in order to prevent, or at the very least reduce, harm to civilians and civilian property.
Israel kills at least 492 in Lebanon and orders thousands to flee their homes
Israeli strikes pummel south and Beqaa as security source tells MEE Lebanese army will fight alongside Hezbollah if invaded. Massive Israeli air strikes on residential towns in southern and eastern Lebanon killed at least 492 people on Monday, in what has been Lebanon's bloodiest day for decades. At least 35 children, 58 women and two emergency responders were among the dead, Lebanon's health minister said, adding that more than 1,645 others were wounded. In response to the bombardment, Hezbollah fired rockets at military targets in northern Israel and illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. On Friday, an Israeli air strike on a densely populated suburb in southern Beirut killed 45 people, including several children and women. It came days after two days of Israeli attacks detonating booby-trapped pagers and radios belonging to Hezbollah members.
At least 39 people were killed in those attacks, and over 3,000 wounded.
US sending additional troops to Middle East as Israel ramps up attacks across Lebanon
The US announced, Monday, that it is sending a “small number” of additional forces to the Middle East as Israel dramatically increased air strikes across Lebanon prompting unprecedented Hezbollah retaliatory strikes, Anadolu Agency reports. The US has about 40,000 troops stationed in the region, and Pentagon spokesman, Major General, Patrick Ryder, did not specify how many new forces would be sent. Israeli warplanes pounded Lebanon throughout Monday, striking across the south and into the north in what Israel says are strikes intended to hit Hezbollah targets. “The Israeli aggression is a scheme aimed at destroying Lebanese villages, towns and eradicating all green spaces,” said Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Mikati.
German police chase and detain boy at pro-Palestine rally
Video shows German police chasing a 10-year-old boy carrying a Palestinian flag who ran, visibly afraid, when officers approached him during a protest in Berlin, before he was caught and taken into custody.
Israeli middle schoolers harass Palestinian classmate
Video shows Israeli middle schoolers dancing and chanting hate messages at a Palestinian classmate who called for a free Palestine and accused Israeli forces of being “murderers”.
Al Jazeera obtains video of Israeli drone killing in Gaza
Al Jazeera has obtained video showing an Israeli military drone killing a wounded and immobile Palestinian man in Gaza by dropping an explosive on him.
Israel is deliberately targeting journalists in Gaza: Experts
On Friday, December 15, Al Jazeera journalists Samer Abudaqa and Wael Dahdouh were reporting at the Farhana school in Khan Younis when Israel struck from the air. Dahdouh took shrapnel to his upper arm but was able to apply pressure to the wound and escape to a nearby hospital for help. But Abudaqa was unable to move. Rescue teams tried to reach him, but couldn’t due to Israeli bombardment. For more than five agonising hours, as he lay bleeding, campaigns were launched online and in traditional media to save his life. “I made that call on air,” Jonathan Dagher, head of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Middle East Desk, told Al Jazeera from the RSF offices in Paris. “On Al Jazeera, I said: ‘We call upon the Israeli authorities to allow first aid to reach Samer.’”
Despite the repeated calls, medical aid wasn’t able to reach Abudaqa, who died of his wounds that day. Abudaqa is one of at least 130 journalists and media workers, based on RSF’s count, killed by Israel in Gaza since October 7, 2023.
Other media rights groups have different numbers based on their own criteria, while the Government Media Office in Gaza counts the number of dead journalists and media workers at 173. Seventy-five percent of all reporters killed in the world in 2023 were killed between October 7 and the end of last year. Nearly 11 months later, Israel is still killing journalists in Gaza. “If there are no journalists, there’s no one who can independently verify this and tell the world,” Dagher said. “Then the Israeli army becomes the source of information.” Among the more than 130 media workers and journalists who have been killed, says RSF, are 31 credible cases where there is enough information to confirm the journalists were directly targeted because of their profession.
Why is Israel intensifying its crackdown on media coverage?
Israel is expanding curbs on media freedom, with the Al Jazeera Media Network a main target. Israel is intensifying its crackdown on media coverage of its war on Gaza and other assaults.
The Al Jazeera Media Network has again been targeted, this time in the occupied West Bank, with its offices closed down by armed and masked soldiers and its operations suspended for 45 days.
UNRWA: We are facing difficulties in bringing in the necessary winter supplies to the people of Gaza
UNRWA explained in a press statement on Monday that it, along with all humanitarian organisations are facing great difficulties in bringing these supplies into the Gaza Strip, noting that once they arrive, they will be immediately distributed to those in need. UNRWA urgently appealed for an immediate halt to the destruction of homes and shelters, demanding the opening of more crossings to the Gaza Strip to enable humanitarian agencies to deliver basic supplies to thousands of families in need. UNRWA also stressed the need for an immediate ceasefire to ensure the safe and sustainable delivery of aid, and to give families a chance to rebuild their lives safely. Israel is waging a devastating war on Gaza, killing and wounding about 135,000 Palestinians, most of them children and women. More than 10,000 are missing amid massive destruction and famine that has claimed the lives of dozens, in one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.
Every accusation a confession: Israel and the double lie of ‘human shields’
Multiple human rights reports show that Palestinian armed groups do not use human shields, but Israel does. Israel’s false claims about Palestinian human shields are just attempts to justify its own targeting of civilians. Among the most frequently deployed weapons in Israel’s hasbara arsenal is the so-called “human shields” ruse. For decades now, Israel has systematically used this propaganda device as a trick to justify war crimes, to shift the blame for its crimes to others, to overcome the principle of distinction in humanitarian law, to dehumanize Palestinian victims, and to arm its Western proxies and complicit media companies with ammunition to protect Israeli impunity. But a chain of international investigations reveals two clear conclusions about these charges: First, Palestinian armed groups generally do not use human shields. And, secondly, Israel does.
“Human shields” is common parlance for a particular violation of international humanitarian and human rights law. It is strictly prohibited in all circumstances. The classic case is when a group of soldiers force civilians from the other side to march ahead of them into a battle zone or into an unsecured structure, in hopes that the enemy will not shoot at the soldiers for fear of hitting the civilians. But Israel, in its automatic claim of “human shields” each time it kills large numbers of civilians and destroys protected civilian infrastructure, pays no mind to this definition. Instead, it simply extends the phrase to all civilian deaths. On cue and without evidence, complicit Western politicians, their official spokespersons, and media corporations then dutifully repeat Israel’s human shield mantra over and over again.