Hamas launched a surprise operation on an unprecedented scale against Israel early Saturday, which the resistance group’s military chief Muhammad Deif said was codenamed “Al-Aqsa Flood”.
The day marks a tremendous strategic failure and defeat for Israel, even as it bombs Gaza in retaliation.
After hours of public silence, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu <a href="https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1710575754524737960">said</a> that Hamas would pay an “unprecedented price” as fighting continued in several locations near Gaza between Palestinian resistance fighters and Israeli forces.
Palestinian fighters infiltrated Israel from Gaza as thousands of rockets were launched from the territory over multiple hours. Hamas claims to have captured dozens of Israelis.
Palestinian civilians entered Israel from Gaza as well. The vast majority of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people are refugees from lands around the periphery of the coastal enclave, which has been under a punishing Israeli siege for sixteen years and military occupation for more than a half-century.
Video shows Palestinians bulldozing the militarised border fence along the periphery of Gaza, which is commonly described as an open-air prison due to Israel’s siege. Videos recorded from Israeli communities near the Gaza boundary showed unprecedented scenes of armed fighters spread out through the streets.
Other videos appeared to show an injured or killed Israeli soldier being pulled out of a vehicle in Gaza. Another graphic video was said to show the body of an Israeli on the back of a truck in Gaza. Numerous videos show Israeli soldiers and possibly civilians detained by Palestinians.
Additional videos showed Palestinian fighters with what appears to be a captured Israeli military vehicle in Gaza after returning from the surprise attack as an ecstatic crowd gathers around them.
At least one Israeli tank was destroyed and at least one Israeli soldier was shown on video being pulled out of a tank and taken into Gaza.
A man seen in a video standing near the burning weapon claimed that its entire crew was captured by Palestinian fighters.
Palestinian resistance fighters completely took over an Israeli military base. Videos filmed by resistance fighters and broadcast on Al Jazeera and circulated online show dead soldiers, abandoned positions, Israeli armoured vehicles and tanks.
Video disseminated by the military wing of Hamas shows the bodies of a dozen Israeli soldiers.
Any surviving Israeli soldiers appear to have fled the base, a substantial installation fortified with concrete walls.
Carrying only light weapons, Palestinian forces riding mopeds appear to have executed an astonishing tactical success against what is described as one of the world’s strongest militaries.
The military wing of Hamas also published a video of its elite “Saqr” squadron deploying using paramotors, a type of light aircraft. The unit is said to have taken part in today’s assault although the video may show a training operation filmed earlier.
Another video shows a captured man, seemingly not seriously harmed, in a vehicle in Gaza.
Palestinian fighters reportedly infiltrated a police station in Israel, where a shootout was underway at around 9 am local time.
Four people were <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/mayor-of-southern-bedouin-town-says-at-least-4-killed-by-rocket-fire/">reported</a> killed in rocket strikes in Bedouin villages in southern Israel and one Israeli woman was killed as a result of rocket fire.
The Bedouin villages where people were killed most likely did not have shelters.
Israel <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-october-7-2023/">declared a state of emergency</a> in the south and centre of the country, including Tel Aviv and Israeli media appear to be <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/a-colossal-failure-as-gazas-hamas-terrorists-infiltrate-catch-israel-unprepared/">subject to military censorship</a>.
Resistance decided to act
Muhammad Deif, the Hamas military chief, <a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/today-the-people-claim-their-revolution-this-is-what-al-qassam-commander-said-in-his-speech/">said</a> that “we have decided to put an end to all of the occupation’s crimes”, including attacks on worshippers and provocations at al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ politburo, said that provocations at al-Aqsa in recent days were the principal reason for the surprise attack.
Deif also said that calls for a prisoner exchange “were met with refusal, and daily violations continue in the West Bank”.
Deif also announced that “starting from today, security coordination ends”, referring to the Palestinian Authority functioning as a policing arm of the Israeli occupation by <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/abbas-picks-where-israel-left-jenin">cracking down on resistance activists in the West Bank</a>.
The Palestinian Authority has <a href="https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/10/frustration-bubbles-among-palestinians-over-israeli-saudi-normalization">engaged</a> with Saudi Arabia to leverage a normalisation deal between the Gulf kingdom and Israel pushed by the US, a process rejected by Hamas and the rest of the resistance axis.
Deif urged Palestinians in Jerusalem and in Israel to join the fight and for “Islamic resistance in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen” to march towards Palestine.
Some mosques in East Jerusalem <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/some-east-jerusalem-mosques-call-for-residents-to-join-hamas-assault/">reportedly</a> urged Palestinians to mobilise.
Hamas <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-stares-failure-face-again/37756">refrained</a> from engaging in direct battle with Israel after it assassinated three Islamic Jihad leaders in surprise airstrikes on Gaza earlier this year.
But Hamas considers Jerusalem, with al-Aqsa at its heart, as a <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/hamas-happy-israel-decimated-islamic-jihad/36131">national cause</a> for which it has gone to war with Israel in the past, <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/may-2021-attack-gaza">most recently in May 2021</a>.
Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/defense-minister-gallant-hamas-made-grave-mistake-with-surprise-widespread-attack/">said</a> on Saturday that Israel “will win this war”.
He added that Israeli “soldiers are fighting the enemy at all the infiltration sites”, but residents of Israeli communities infiltrated by Palestinians <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/resident-of-kibbutz-infiltrated-by-terrorists-sends-whispered-plea-for-for-help-please-send-troops/">told media</a> that they had been abandoned by the authorities.
Kobi Shabtai, Israel’s chief of police, said on Saturday morning that “we’re in a state of war. We are under a massive attack from the Gaza Strip” with more than 21 scenes of confrontation in the south of the country.
As Israel’s security cabinet convened on Saturday, Palestinians in Gaza stocked up on provisions in anticipation of yet another major military operation in the territory.
Hundreds of Palestinians living along Gaza’s boundary with Israel fled their homes, fearing Israeli strikes.
Massive failure
Images of Palestinians taking the vaunted Israeli military totally by surprise will be seen in Israel and around the world as a massive strategic failure no matter what Israel does next.
It comes almost 50 years to the day after Egypt inflicted an historic strategic surprise. On 6 October 1973, Egyptian forces executed a massive amphibious assault across the Suez Canal, aiming to liberate the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had occupied along with the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Syria’s Golan Heights in 1967.
Defying expectations, Egypt breached the so-called Bar-Lev Line, military fortifications Israel considered impregnable, but which were overrun by Egyptian forces in a matter of hours.
Although Israel managed—with the help of a huge American military airlift—to turn the tide of the war and re-occupy most of the liberated Egyptian territory, the recriminations and sense of failure ultimately led to the end of Prime Minister Golda Meir’s tenure and political career.
The events of Saturday are already being described as a “colossal failure” by Israeli analysts.
On Saturday morning, Eli Maron, a former Israeli navy chief, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/a-colossal-failure-as-gazas-hamas-terrorists-infiltrate-catch-israel-unprepared/">said</a> during a television interview: “All of Israel is asking itself: Where is the [Israeli military], where is the police, where is the security?”
“It’s a colossal failure; the hierarchies have simply failed, with vast consequences”, Maron added.
The Palestinian resistance has blown away all expectations of its capabilities, despite being at a massive resource disadvantage compared to Israel.
Even as the military situation unfolds, it is already clear that 7 October 2023 will have profound political implications across the region, especially as Israel and Saudi Arabia appear closer than ever to formalising their longstanding secret ties.
Netanyahu has been fond of saying that normalisation with Riyadh would be a “quantum leap” that would transform the region in Israel’s favour.
Last month, he <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/22/middleeast/israel-benjamin-netanyahu-cnn-interview-intl/index.html">asserted</a> that a deal with the Saudis would “change the Middle East forever”. It would, he said, bring down “walls of enmity” and create “a corridor of energy pipelines, rail lines, fibre optic cables, between Asia through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and the United Arab Emirates”.
The shocking and unprecedented scenes unfolding now have dashed that fantasy.
One unmistakable message that Hamas is sending is that whether or not Arab regimes like Saudi Arabia normalise their relations with Israel, the question of Palestine cannot be brushed under the carpet.
The Palestinian people refuse to be buried under Israeli tyranny, out of sight and out of mind forever, while the region’s regimes throw a party.
First published at the <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/hamas-fighters-gaza-storm-israel-capture-and-kill-soldiers/38631">Electronic Intifada</a>.

Maureen Clare Murphy

Ali Abunimah

Hamas fighters from Gaza storm Israel

“The village of Huwwara needs to be wiped out. I think that the State of Israel needs to do that—not, God forbid, private individuals”, Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-03-01/ty-article/.premium/palestinian-village-of-hawara-needs-to-be-wiped-out-israels-finance-minister/00000186-9d56-df48-ab96-bd576aac0000">said</a> on 1 March.
This genocidal call came just days after hordes of Israeli settlers, protected by the army, attacked the occupied West Bank village, burning Palestinian homes and cars and ransacking businesses.
One Palestinian was killed in the rampage, which was the settlers’ revenge for the <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/us-hands-lit-torch-israeli-arsonists/37246">killing of two of their fellow colonists</a> in the village on Sunday by unknown assailants.
Smotrich is a senior Israeli minister who has just been <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/smotrich-handed-sweeping-powers-over-west-bank-control-over-settlement-planning/">handed sweeping powers</a> over the occupied West Bank.
His call for wiping out Huwwara came in response to a question on an Israeli television show about why he had “liked” a tweet from another settler leader who had <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-02-27/ty-article/.premium/israels-ben-gvir-vows-to-crush-enemies-after-settlers-west-bank-revenge-riot/00000186-9262-db08-a986-de76609a0000">urged</a> that “the village of Huwwara should be wiped out today”.
And in a similar spirit, <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/zvika-fogel">Zvika Fogel</a>, an Israeli general and a lawmaker in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition, had <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/why-huwwara-pogrom-was-inevitable">praised the pogrom</a> in the Palestinian village.
“A closed, burnt Huwwara—that’s what I want to see”, Fogel said.
And on 26 February, the day of the Huwwara pogrom, Smotrich himself <a href="https://twitter.com/bezalelsm/status/1629853422831775746">incited Israel</a> to “mercilessly” attack Palestinian cities with tanks and helicopters for the killing of the two settlers.
He urged that Israel should show through vengeful violence that “the owner of the house”—meaning Jews—“has gone mad” in order to deter Palestinians from any sort of resistance.
Palestinians know there is nothing new about such incitement, but it is now at a point where Israel’s top officials are free to call for and act on their genocidal impulses completely secure in the knowledge that the so-called international community will do absolutely nothing to restrain them.
And wiping out whole towns and villages isn’t new either: Zionist militias destroyed hundreds of them during 1948, as they expelled and murdered Palestinians during the Nakba in order to establish Israel over the ruins of their lives and society.
Ever since, the Israeli settler-colony has been destroying Palestinian homes and communities and stealing their land under the guise of “legal” procedures that have no legitimacy whatsoever.
That’s what makes Smotrich’s call so dangerous: Israel is perfectly capable of doing it. His supposed objection to the Huwwara pogrom is not to the pogrom itself, but that it is the role of the state to perpetrate atrocities against Palestinians.
In reality, however, there is no difference between the settler mob and the Israeli state: they are one and the same.
Just a few weeks ago, Israeli President Isaac Herzog received a <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/herzog-takes-off-for-brussels-ahead-of-holocaust-address-to-eu/">warm reception</a> from European Union leaders in Brussels on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The annual commemoration is an occasion for many pious speeches admonishing everyone to learn the “lessons of history”, so that nothing like the German-led European Christian genocide of European Jews can ever happen again.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen <a href="https://neighbourhood-enlargement.ec.europa.eu/news/international-day-holocaust-remembrance-we-must-never-forget-fate-millions-jewish-people-president-2023-01-26_en">declared</a>: “We cannot remain silent when injustice takes place, when massacres are committed”.
“We have to call out anti-Semitism, antigypsyism and all forms of hatred and discrimination—be it on the grounds of racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, gender, sexual orientation, age or disability”, the German politician added.
And European Parliament President Roberta Metsola <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/reclaiming-holocaust-memory-zionism">told Herzog</a> that the legislative body was upholding the “timeless promise of never again” by taking positions against Russia and Iran—although she said nothing about Israel’s crimes against Palestinians.
That silence is typical of European leaders, who maintain it now when their precious “lessons of history” demand that they cry out in the face of the escalating genocidal rhetoric and actions from the leaders of their beloved Israel.
The best the EU has managed was a tepid <a href="https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/israelpalestine-statement-spokesperson-latest-wave-violence_en">statement</a> expressing how “highly concerned” it is about “spiralling violence in the occupied Palestinian territory”.
Displaying its usual bias against Palestinians, the EU characterised the killing of settlers as “terror”, but pointedly refrained from using this word to refer to lethal attacks by the settlers or Israeli occupation forces against Palestinians.
Nowhere did the EU mention the incitement by Israeli leaders or warn of consequences.
Following Israel’s <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-kills-11-daytime-raid-nablus">daytime attack</a> on the West Bank city of Nablus last month, which killed a dozen Palestinians, ECCP—a coalition of more than 40 Palestine solidarity organisations in Europe—<a href="https://www.eccpalestine.org/statement-on-israels-latest-assault-on-palestinians-in-nablus/">demanded</a> that European governments take action.
They called for the EU to end Israel’s privileged access to <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-cronin/israel-likely-bag-16-billion-eu-science-grants">EU research funds</a>, ban all economic transactions with Israeli settlements and impose sanctions on Israel over its violations of human rights and international law, including a two-way arms embargo.
The EU is perfectly capable of doing all these things—as it has done to Russia over its military intervention in the war in Ukraine.
Last month, the EU—apparently for the first time ever—<a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-02-26/ty-article/.premium/european-union-sanctions-former-israeli-diplomat-over-pro-russia-propaganda/00000186-8cec-d5bf-adb6-afee46220000">imposed sanctions</a> on a former Israeli diplomat.
But not surprisingly, it had nothing to do with anything he did on behalf of Israel. Rather, it was because the EU accused the Russian-born former Israeli official of advancing “the most controversial claims of Russian officials and propagandists” relating to Ukraine.
“The aggravated spate of settler attacks and calculated collective punishment of Palestinians and the destruction of civilian properties in Huwwara is a direct consequence of the international community’s inaction to take effective and meaningful measures to end Israel’s illegal occupation, and settler-colonial apartheid regime”, Al-Haq, a prominent Palestinian rights group, <a href="https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/21265.html">said</a> on 1 March.
Al-Haq also urged third countries and international bodies “to match statements of condemnation with arms embargoes, economic sanctions and countermeasures against Israel; and targeted individual sanctions against Israeli settlers and Israeli settler organisations”.
The group also called on countries to revoke the charitable status given to organisations that raise funds for settlers in many countries, including the United States, Canada and across Europe.
In Washington, the State Department effectively shrugged when one reporter asked about the incitement from “outright fascistic” members of the Israeli government.
“None of these members are the prime minister of Israel”, State Department spokesperson Ned Price <a href="https://www.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-february-27-2023/#post-424481-IsPal">said</a>. “We work directly with the prime minister, with his team, with our direct counterparts.”
Price later went slightly further, describing Smotrich’s latest comments as “irresponsible, “repugnant” and “disgusting”, and he called on Netanyahu to “publicly and clearly reject and disavow” them.
The US has an immediate opportunity to put its money where its mouth is, as Smotrich plans to head to the US for a visit later this month.
Democracy for the Arab World Now, a Washington-based advocacy group founded by murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, called on the US to <a href="https://dawnmena.org/us-revoke-visa-deny-entry-to-israeli-minister-bezalel-smotrich-over-incitement-to-violence/">revoke Smotrich’s visa</a>.
DAWN says Smotrich’s call to wipe out Huwwara may amount to “incitement to genocide”.
“The Biden Administration should not allow senior government officials inciting atrocities against Palestinian civilians to spread their violent and hateful rhetoric in the United States, just as it has banned government officials inciting violence against civilians from several African countries”, said Sarah Leah Whitson, the group’s executive director.
There’s little reason however to think that the US will go beyond its verbal admonition.
As for ECCP, it asserts that the EU’s “lack of reaction and its continued unconditional ties to and cooperation with the Israeli apartheid state is in contradiction to its core values”.
That sentiment is understandable, but at this point we can only conclude that the EU’s support for Israel’s increasingly brazen barbarism against the Palestinian people is no contradiction of its “core values”.
Rather, it is a true and sincere expression of them.
First published at the <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-calls-genocide-met-shrugs-washington-and-brussels">Electronic Intifada</a>.

West shrugs at Israeli incitement to violence against Palestinians

The Israel lobby in Australia is trying to block Palestinian American poet Remi Kanazi from receiving a visa to speak in the country.
Kanazi is scheduled to participate in the annual Marxism conference in Melbourne next month and to undertake a performance tour in Australia.
Kanazi told The Electronic Intifada that on 27 March he applied for an Electronic Travel Authority – an online authorisation to travel to Australia.
Within hours he received an email informing him: “An automated assessment has been made. Unfortunately your application is one of a small number of applications that cannot be approved due to checks required by the Australian Government”.
Kanazi said he plans to follow the instructions contained in the email in order to continue his application through an Australian consulate, and hopes to visit the country as planned.
Yet as Kanazi goes through the process he faces a campaign of defamation and pressure by anti-Palestinian activists smearing him as an anti-Semite and a supporter of “terrorism” – standard tactics of Israel and its lobby groups seeking to silence Palestinians and those who advocate for their rights.
Widely published, Kanazi has in fact used his poetry and political commentary for years to convey a strong anti-racist message and to express solidarity with peoples’ liberation struggles in Palestine, the United States and around the world.
More than 1,200 people have responded to the smear campaign by signing a petition urging the Australian government to grant Kanazi’s visa.
Exploiting Christchurch massacre
The website news.com.au reported that the Anti-Defamation Commission had written to immigration minister David Coleman to highlight “a number of Mr. Kanazi’s social media posts and statements supporting terrorists and demonizing Israel”.
The pro-Israel group also boasts on its website about its “bid to stop visa” for “BDS supporter” Kanazi – a reference to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights.
Pro-Israel lobbyists also sought to exploit the massacre of 50 people by a white supremacist at two mosques in New Zealand to advance their agenda.
Anti-Defamation Commission chair Dvir Abramovich said that Kanazi “has no business being here spreading his toxic agenda” in the “aftermath of the Christchurch massacre”.
The anti-Palestinian group cited Kanazi’s support for Rasmea Odeh, the Palestinian who in 1969 survived torture and sexual assault in Israeli military detention before she signed a forced confession for alleged involvement in two bomb attacks in Jerusalem, one of which killed two civilians.
Convicted by an Israeli military court, Odeh spent 10 years in prison before her release in an exchange.
Odeh herself has long been a target of the Israel lobby, and recently had her visa to speak in Germany revoked – a decision for which Israel’s government claimed credit.
“The Anti Defamation Commission weaponised the white supremacist mass murder of 50 Muslims, including at least six Palestinians, to attack me. Furthermore, groups like the ADC shamelessly back Israeli apartheid and whitewash the stripping away of Palestinian land, resources and dignity”, Kanazi told The Electronic Intifada.
“If you dare challenge Israel’s well-documented human rights abuses, which include torture and forced confessions, they will try to smear you into silence. Palestinians and a growing chorus of voices who stand for Palestinian freedom will not back down in the face of these pressure tactics”, Kanazi added. “We know that millions of people in Australia and around the world stand with us, and that history is on our side.”
Covert campaign
Kanazi has previously been the target of a covert campaign.
The Israel on Campus Coalition, a group that secretly coordinates its campaign of “psychological warfare” with Israel’s ministry of strategic affairs, was revealed last year by The Forward and ProPublica to have run anonymous Facebook ads smearing Kanazi in advance of his appearances on US campuses.
The Israel on Campus Coalition’s efforts are part of a broader Israel-coordinated secret campaign exposed in Al Jazeera’s leaked undercover documentary The Lobby–USA.
But Kanazi is not the first Palestinian speaker to face challenges entering Australia.
In 2016, this writer was also denied an Electronic Travel Authority when invited by the organizers of the Marxism conference. He was asked by Australian authorities to apply for a different type of visa meant for speakers and conference participants.
That application faced unexplained delays, but after Australians mounted a public campaign, the visa was granted a day before departure, and the tour proceeded.
This writer also faced cancelation of a scheduled appearance at the University of Sydney, an apparent act of censorship that was reversed after a public outcry.
The following year, Australia revoked the visa of Bassem Tamimi, who at one time was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
Tamimi was told in a letter from the immigration department that it “recently became aware of information that indicates there is a risk that members of the public will react adversely to your presence in Australia regarding your views of the ongoing political tensions in the Middle East”.
Bassem Tamimi is the father of teenage girl Ahed Tamimi, who in December 2017 would be imprisoned by the Israeli army for shoving and slapping armed occupation soldiers invading her family’s property shortly after soldiers shot and grievously injured her 15-year-old cousin.
The Tamimi family has faced years of violent reprisals and persecution for its nonviolent campaign of resistance to the theft of land by Israeli settlers in their occupied West Bank village of Nabi Saleh.
But the goal of Israel and its lobby has been to turn this reality on its head, by portraying victims of Israeli military occupation as perpetrators, smearing opponents of official Israeli racism, genocidal incitement and apartheid as racists, and labelling any opposition to Israel’s military occupation as “terrorism” and anti-Semitism.
“The conflation of support for Palestinian resistance with anti-Semitism is a common trope”, Vashti Kenway, a Marxism conference organiser said, noting similar false accusations against British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and US lawmaker Ilhan Omar.
“This is slander and operates to silence Palestinian voices”, Kenway added. “Standing up for the human right of Palestinians to resist their occupation and the war waged against them is entirely justified.”
Nasser Mashni, of the group Australians for Palestine, condemned the denial of Kanazi’s initial application: “This decision is an act of selective, politically motivated censorship. It is clear the government is deliberately silencing and preventing human rights defenders and Palestinian voices for justice, from being heard in Australia”.
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First published at <a href="https://electronicintifada.net">https://electronicintifada.net</a>.

Smear campaign trying to block visa for Palestinian American poet Remi Kanazi

Gaza is on the brink of a “systemic collapse” as the electricity crisis deepens, the International Committee of the Red Cross is warning.
“Severe power and fuel shortage has reached a critical point in Gaza, endangering essential services including healthcare, wastewater treatment and water provision”, the ICRC said on 16 May.
“ICRC doesn’t issue statements often”, Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director for Human Rights Watch commented. “When they do, you listen.”
ICRC added that without immediate intervention, “a public health and environment crisis is looming”.
People in Gaza currently have only six hours of electricity each day, as the territory’s only functioning power plant has no secure supply of fuel.
Last month, the UN said that Gaza’s hospitals were already working “at minimal capacity” and the World Health Organization warned that all of Gaza’s public hospitals could be forced to suspend critical services, putting thousands of lives at risk.
Now the ICRC is saying that “a systemic collapse of an already battered infrastructure and economy is impending”.
Gaza has for years been operating on a severe energy deficit. Its daily supply of electricity –from Israel, Egypt and its sole, partially functioning power plant – meets only about half the requirements of its two million residents.
The crisis deepened last month when the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah decided to stop paying Israel for the electricity it supplies to Gaza.
The step is likely part of the PA’s decade-long effort to force Hamas to cede control in Gaza. The PA, controlled by Mahmoud Abbas, works closely with Israeli occupation forces, while Hamas has continued to engage in armed resistance – a fundamental difference that lies at the heart of their ongoing division.
Gaza’s infrastructure and society have been battered by a decade-old Israeli siege and three successive military assaults – the most recent in 2014 killed approximately one in every 1,000 Gaza residents and left thousands more injured.
During April, the number of exits from Gaza by Palestinians through the Israeli-controlled Erez crossing fell to the lowest level since June 2014, the month before the Israeli military assault.
According to the Israeli human rights group Gisha, the sharp drop is part of a trend “toward the gradual tightening of the closure and further reduction in the already limited options for Palestinian travel in and out of Gaza”.
Years ago, the ICRC declared that Israel’s blockade of Gaza is illegal.
“The whole of Gaza’s civilian population is being punished for acts for which they bear no responsibility”, the ICRC stated in 2010. “The closure therefore constitutes a collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law.”
“The dire situation in Gaza cannot be resolved by providing humanitarian aid”, it added.
Yet in the total absence of accountability for Israel’s violations, humanitarian aid has repeatedly been used to keep Gaza at the edge of subsistence and out of the headlines.
The United Nations has gone even further, becoming directly complicit in administering the illegal blockade through the so-called Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism.
The recently launched Gaza Unlocked campaign notes that when the media do report about Gaza, stories “primarily focus on violence and politics, while stories of how the blockade impacts everyday life remain largely untold”.
The campaign aims to mobilise public pressure on politicians to end the Israeli blockade.

Gaza on brink of ‘systemic collapse’

Palestinians are expressing disappointment at the abandonment and sabotage of efforts to have Israel suspended from world football’s governing body over its <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/patrick-strickland/will-israel-be-kicked-out-fifa-abusing-palestinian-players">systematic abuses of Palestinian players</a>.
But campaigners are vowing to continue to work to isolate Israel.
Despite repeated vows not to back down, Jibril Rajoub, head of the Palestinian Football Association, pulled a motion to suspend Israel from FIFA in what the Guardian termed “a chaotic last minute climbdown”.
Bait and switch
Instead, the delegates from 209 member countries overwhelmingly adopted a motion muscled onto the agenda by FIFA’s scandal-ridden president Sepp Blatter to create a committee to monitor Palestinian football and Israeli abuses – a sporting version of the “peace process” that has gone nowhere for decades.
Blatter’s move, just hours before he was re-elected to FIFA’s presidency, came over objections from the Palestinian officials, who thought that delegates would be allowed to vote on a motion to refer the status of Israeli clubs based in settlements in the occupied West Bank to the UN.
The Palestinians, according to The Guardian, were “comprehensively outmanoeuvred by feverish Israeli lobbying and the opposition of senior FIFA officials, including Blatter”.
Powerhouse Germany’s football association joined forces with Israel to defeat the Palestinian effort, <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4662695,00.html">according to Israeli media</a>.
“Disappointed”
Responding to today’s events, Zaid Shuaibi, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), the broad coalition of Palestinian civil society organisations that works to support the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, said:
“The Palestinian BDS National Committee is disappointed that the entire FIFA congress, including the Palestinian Football Association, have not lived up to their obligations and stated principles.”
“FIFA and its membership have delayed the suspension of Israel, but they cannot delay the growth of the international boycott of Israel or prevent the continued isolation of Israel because of its human rights abuses and war crimes against the Palestinian people”, Shuaibi added.
“We warmly thank the many activists and supporters of the Palestinian struggle who mobilised in support of the suspension of Israel from FIFA.”
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/red-card-israeli-racism">Red Card Israeli Racism</a>, a UK-based group that campaigns for a boycott of Israeli football bodies, has been protesting outside the FIFA congress meeting in Zurich.
“We’ve been writing letters to FIFA members, pointing out the arguments for Israel’s suspension”, Geoff Lee, a member of the campaign, <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/patrick-strickland/will-israel-be-kicked-out-fifa-abusing-palestinian-players">told Patrick Strickland earlier this week</a>.
“Israel may punish me”
In a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/29/opinion/fifa-should-give-israel-the-red-card.html">New York Times op-ed on Thursday</a>, Palestinian footballer Iyad Abu Gharqoud urged that Israel should be given the “red card.”
“Players, coaches and referees are blocked from moving between the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and frequently are barred from tournaments”, Abu Gharqoud wrote. “Israel has also violated FIFA rules by allowing teams from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank to play in Israel’s leagues. In addition, the Israeli fans of the Beitar Jerusalem club are notorious for chanting ‘Death to the Arabs’ at matches – racist abuse that the Israel Football Association’s token disciplinary measures have failed to deter.
“Today, our players are frequently arrested and detained”, Abu Gharqoud added. “Last year, two of our most talented young players were shot and wounded by Israeli forces at a checkpoint.”
Abu Gharqoud laid out the case for sanctioning Israel in the sports arena in the same manner as apartheid South Africa a generation ago:
“Until the day that Palestinians and Israelis are equal under the law, FIFA has a moral duty to exclude Israel from the World Cup and European Championships. Israeli officials may punish me for saying so, but it will be only through their exclusion from international soccer that Israeli citizens will realise that the subjugation of the Palestinian people comes at a growing political and cultural cost.”
The sense of disappointment over today’s debacle matched the excitement in recent days – expressed on social media – that FIFA would provide a rare venue for Israel to be held accountable.
[First published at <a href="http://www.ElectronicIntifada.net">ElectronicIntifada.net</a>.]

FIFA betrays Palestine

The death toll from Israel’s assault on Gaza continues to rise rapidly. At least 61 people, at least 12 of them children, were killed on Friday alone, the second day of Israel’s ground invasion of parts of the Gaza Strip, and the twelfth and bloodiest day since Israel began bombarding the territory with airstrikes and land-based and naval artillery.
Eight members of a single family, the youngest six months old, were killed when a missile struck their home.
By Friday evening Gaza time, 296 people had been killed and more than 2,200 injured since the Israeli bombardment began, <a href="http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=714213">according to Ma’an News Agency</a>
But any death toll reported in the media is quickly out of date, as the numbers keep rising.
Eighty percent of the fatalities are civilians and half of the injured are women and children, <a href="http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/humanitarian_Snapshot_18July2014_oPt_V1.pdf">according to</a> the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
At least 58 of the dead are children, <a href="http://felesteen.ps/details/news/120487/%D8%AD%D8%B5%D9%8A%D9%84%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D8%B9%D8%A9-33-%D8%B4%D9%87%D9%8A%D8%AF%D8%A7-%D8%A8%D8%AA%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%B5%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89-%D8%BA%D8%B2%D8%A9.html">according</a> to Dr. Ashraf al-Qidra, the health ministry spokesperson in Gaza.
Gaza residents and journalists have reported heavy and indiscriminate shelling across the coastal strip.
Journalist Mohammed Omer is using his <a href="https://twitter.com/Mogaza">Twitter feed</a> to provide an almost real-time account of the horrifying toll of the Israeli attack.
Several Gaza residents have told The Electronic Intifada that they are without electricity for most of the time.
Massive destruction continues: 1,780 housing units have been destroyed or severely damaged in Israeli bombing, <a href="http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/humanitarian_Snapshot_18July2014_oPt_V1.pdf">according to</a> OCHA.
Eighty-four schools and six health facilities have been damaged in the attacks and another 13 health facilities are unable to operate, OCHA states in its latest update.
The number of Palestinians seeking shelter at UN-run schools has risen to 33,500, or 11,000 more than the previous day.
Human Rights Watch <a href="http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/07/15/israelpalestine-unlawful-israeli-airstrikes-kill-civilians">said</a> this week that Israeli air attacks it investigated “have been targeting apparent civilian structures and killing civilians in violation of the laws of war.”
The group called on Israel to “end unlawful attacks that do not target military objectives and may be intended as collective punishment or broadly to destroy civilian property.”
Children killed
Early on Friday, five-month-old baby Faris Juma al-Mahmoum was killed and his mother and 18 others were injured by “<a href="http://www.wattan.tv/ar/news/99247.html">heavy and indiscriminate</a>” Israeli shelling in the border area east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
Salmiya Ghiyad, aged 70, and 22-year-old Amr al-Mahmoum <a href="http://felesteen.ps/details/news/120487/%D8%AD%D8%B5%D9%8A%D9%84%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D8%B9%D8%A9-33-%D8%B4%D9%87%D9%8A%D8%AF%D8%A7-%D8%A8%D8%AA%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%B5%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89-%D8%BA%D8%B2%D8%A9.html">were also killed</a> in the indiscriminate shelling of the area.
Imad and Qassim Alwan, both children, were killed as a result of artillery shelling in eastern Gaza City, <a href="http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=714213">Ma’an News Agency reported</a>.
Rizk Ahmad al-Hayk, aged 2, died in air strikes in Shawwa Square in Gaza City, while Sarah Muhammad Bustan, 13, was killed in the al-Tuffah neighbourhood in Gaza City, Ma’an said.
On Friday afternoon, three siblings were killed when their apartment building in the al-Nada housing estate was shelled in the town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza.
They were named as Ahmad Ismail Abu Musallam, aged 14, Walaa Ismail Abu Musallam, aged 13, and Muhammad Ismail Abu Musallam, aged 15.
On Friday evening, eight members of the Abu Jrad family, including four children were killed when a missile struck their home in Beit Hanoun, <a href="http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=714213">Ma’an News Agency reported</a>.
The children’s names were given as Haniyah Abd al-Rahman Abu Jrad, Samih Naim Abu Jrad, Musa Abd al-Rahman Abu Jrad, 6 months, and Ahlam Musa Abu Jrad.
Hospital attacked
On Thursday night, amid heavy shelling, frail and elderly patients were evacuated under fire from the al-Wafa hospital.
In an <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/doctors-evacuate-patients-after-israel-bombs-hospital">interview</a> with The Electronic Intifada, hospital director Dr. Basman Alashi said that Israeli forces began relentless shelling of the building just before nine in the evening.
Ground invasion meets resistance
One Israeli occupation soldier was killed during the ground assault in Gaza, which Israel claims is aimed at tunnels used by Palestinian resistance fighters.
The Israeli army said that the occupation soldier was killed at around 3am on Friday morning in the northern part of Gaza. Israeli <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4545757,00.html">media reported</a> that “the army is investigating the possibility he was killed by friendly fire.”
The Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said in a <a href="http://felesteen.ps/details/news/120493/%D9%82%D9%88%D8%A9-%D8%A5%D8%B3%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%A6%D9%8A%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%AE%D8%A7%D8%B5%D8%A9-%D8%AA%D9%82%D8%B9-%D8%A8%D9%83%D9%85%D9%8A%D9%86-%D9%84%D9%83%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A6%D8%A8-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%85.html">communique sent to local media</a> that its forces engaged the Israeli invaders in the north of the Gaza Strip and had succeeded in setting off a bomb under an Israeli tank.
Qassam also said that it engaged in “face to face” fighting with an Israeli special forces unit east of Rafah, in the south.
Some corroboration for Qassam’s account of the battle came from Israel’s Ynet on Friday which <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4546071,00.html">reported</a> that “Two of the IDF [Israeli army] soldiers wounded Friday in an explosion against their vehicle in Gaza have had a downturn in their condition.”
Ceasefire efforts
Ceasefire negotiations, supported by the United States and brokered by Egypt’s Israel-allied military regime, have yet to produce results.
On Thursday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon meekly chastised Israel for the slaughter.
“I regret that despite my repeated urgings, and those of many regional and world leaders together, an already dangerous conflict has now escalated even further,” Ban <a href="http://www.trust.org/item/20140717210315-1xyy2">said</a>.
“I urge Israel to do far more to stop civilian casualties,” he added.
On Friday, Israel defended its slaughter in Gaza at an emergency session of the UN Security Council called by Jordan.
Ban was set to fly to the region on Saturday “<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/un-chief-leave-saturday-mideast-visit-194347098.html">to express solidarity with the Israelis and Palestinians</a>” and to engage in talks aimed at securing a ceasefire.
Meanwhile, Israel’s government approved plans to call up 18,000 more reservists amid threats to <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/israel-okays-draft-18-000-more-reservists-213620058.html">expand its bloody assault</a>.
[First published at <a href="http://www.electronicintifada.net">electronicintifada.net</a>.]

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FIFA betrays Palestine

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