Alarm over unexploded ordnance, depleted uranium in Gaza

Gaza pier: futile – or worse?; questions about murdered Gazan journalist; majority of Americans reject arming Israel; weapons to Israel: what we know and don’t know; the dangers of unexploded ordnance and depleted uranium in Gaza; US’s problematic support for a ceasefire – after multiple vetoes; Israeli prisoners, like Gazans, are malnourished; Israeli forces kill 6 Palestinians in West Bank; more on Briahna Joy Gray firing…

By IAK staff, from reports.

US Gaza aid pier not used in Israel’s captives rescue mission: Pentagon

Al Jazeera reports: The United States has stressed that its temporary aid pier in Gaza was not used in the Israeli captive rescue operation in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza that killed more than 270 people.

The Pentagon said on Monday that reports linking the pier to Saturday’s Israeli assault that resulted in the freeing of four captives held by Hamas are “inaccurate”.

“It was near, but I think it’s incidental. Again, the pier, the equipment, the personnel all supporting that humanitarian effort had nothing to do with the [Israeli military] rescue operation,” Pentagon spokesperson Patrick Ryder told reporters.

He added that the Israeli operation – despite its proximity to the US floating dock –  does not put American personnel at a “greater risk”.

“To underscore, the temporary pier on the coast of Gaza was put in place for one purpose only: to help move additional urgently-needed lifesaving assistance to Gaza,” Ryder said.

The Washington Post reported on Sunday that the Israeli military used a helicopter on a beach “not far from” the US pier to evacuate three of the captives and the soldiers who freed them.

The Israeli military intensively bombed the Nuseirat area during the operation, killing at least 274 people, including dozens of women and children, according to Palestinian authorities in Gaza.

Building of US pier ‘futile’: Gaza media office

A child on the beach of Deir al-Balah lost his limbs in an Israeli shelling and still struggles and fights, enjoying this life.
Estimates indicate that the number of children who lost their limbs due to Israeli targeting has exceeded 2500 children.
That’s equivalent to around 10… pic.twitter.com/318LB5ID4b

— Ramy Abdu| رامي عبده (@RamAbdu) June 10, 2024

Israel has kept Rafah crossing closed for over a month amid imminent famine

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has said Israel continues to close Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt “amid imminent acute levels of famine across the Gaza Strip”.

“This enforcement of collective punishment on the Palestinian population in Gaza not only further exacerbates the humanitarian situation in the Strip, but also comes as a direct violation of the International Court of Justice’s May Order on Provisional Measures and international humanitarian law,” the medical charity said on X.

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CNN Report Pokes Holes in Israeli Narrative on Murdered Gaza Journalist:

Palestine Chronicle reports: CNN was the latest international news agency to poke holes in the Israeli version of events concerning the Nuseirat massacre and the rescue operation of four Israeli captives on Saturday.

What is the story?

The Israeli army had accused a local Palestinian journalist, Abdallah Aljamal, of taking hostages inside his apartment in one of the houses that the Israeli army raided, executing most of its civilian inhabitants.

As soon as the allegations were made, linking Aljamal to Aljazeera, many pro-Israeli supporters on social media began an organized campaign attacking any organization that had published Aljamal’s works throughout the years.

Al-Jazeera responded by accurately stating that Aljamal is not one of its staff.

The Palestine Chronicle took the same position as indeed, Aljamal was a freelance writer who contributed articles to the Palestine Chronicle on a voluntary basis, mostly since the start of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Why did Israel single out Aljamal?

 It is unclear why Israel decided to place most of its focus on a local journalist with no militant affiliation.

This may have started with a viral post by Ramy Abdu, chairman of the EuroMed Monitor, who wrote on an X post on June 9 that “In an initial testimony documenting the killings committed by the Israeli army in the Nuseirat camp today, the @EuroMedHR  reported that the Israeli army used a ladder to enter the home of Dr. Ahmed Al-Jamal.”

“The army immediately executed 36-year-old Fatima Al-Jamal upon encountering her on the staircase. The forces then stormed the house and executed her husband, journalist Abdullah Al-Jamal, 36, and his father, Dr. Ahmed, 74, in front of his grandchildren. The army also shot their daughter, Zainab, 27, who sustained serious injuries,” Abdu’s post added.

The word ‘journalist’ in Abdu’s post was immediately exploited by pro-Israeli users, with Visegrad 24 linking Aljamal to Al Jazeera and Eitan Fischberger linking him to the Palestine Chronicle.

The truth is that Aljamal neither worked for Aljazeera nor the Palestine Chronicle. He was a freelance writer whose work has appeared in these, but many other publications throughout the years.

By exploiting the issue, and creating a large and growing narrative of false information, these social media users tried to distract from the fact that at least 274 Palestinians were killed and 800 others were wounded in the Israeli operation.

By doing so, they also hoped to provide a wider justification of the intentional Israeli targeting of Palestinian journalists, 150 of whom have been killed or assassinated since the start of the war. 

What is the true version of events?

It is not yet possible to provide exact details of what has actually taken place, since the Israeli military has killed and wounded everyone in sight and destroyed many homes, containing any possible evidence.

What we are able to tell, however, is that the Israeli story has been inconsistent from the very start.

First, they accused Aljamal’s family of holding a single hostage without providing any evidence.

Second, then they claimed that the family was holding three hostages, again, without providing any evidence.

Third, they also made the claim that Aljamal had an official affiliation with Aljazeera, the Palestine Chronicle and others, which is entirely untrue.

But even more important is what CNN has itself reported on Monday.

In an article entitled ‘Israel alleges journalist held hostages in Gaza, without providing evidence’, CNN wrote that “without providing evidence, the Israeli X account also claimed that Argamani was held in Aljamal’s home, before later saying the three men were held captive there.”

“Aljamal lived on the first floor of a multi-story building, according to Euro-Med. The IDF said the hostages were found on the third floor,” it added.

More information continues to indicate that Israel chose to indict a local journalist for purely strategic reasons, similar to all allegations they have made against other journalists, including those killed in the Shifa Hospital and many other massacres throughout Gaza since October 7.

[This item has been updated with the latest news.]

NOTE: The Committee To Protect Journalists reports that at least 108 journalists have been killed in the Palestinian territories since October 7th, making it the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992. Israel also recently banned Al Jazeera from broadcasting in Israel, and heavily censors reporting by international news organizations.

“Palestinian women, and the organizations they lead, are also at the heart of the current humanitarian response."

With 35% of their offices destroyed and 89% damaged, women-led organisations remain essential in providing life-saving services in #Gaza and the #WestBank. @UN_Women https://t.co/ZMfjE7LYfg

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) June 10, 2024

Majority of US citizens reject arming Israel: Poll

The Cradle reports: The majority of US citizens say the US government should not send weapons to Israel but should send humanitarian aid to Gaza, a poll published on 7 June by CBS News and YouGov shows.

The poll asked, “Regarding the situation with Israel and Hamas, which one of these should the US do or not do now?”

Sixty-one percent of US citizens responded, saying the US should not send weapons to Israel.

Among Democrats, 77 percent said the US should not send weapons, compared to 38 percent of Republicans.

At the same time, 62 percent of US citizens said the US should send humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, while 38 percent opposed it.

The poll highlights the weak influence of US public opinion and the strong influence of the Israel lobby and pro-Israel US officials over US foreign policy.

Despite strong opposition from voters in his own Democratic Party, US President Joe Biden has prioritized sending unprecedented amounts of weapons to Israel since the start of its war on Gaza on 7 October last year.

What We Know About the Weapons the U.S. Sends to Israel

New York Times reports: Since Oct. 7, the United States has sent tens of thousands of weapons to Israel. For the most part, it accelerated supplies that were already committed under contracts, many of which were approved by Congress and the State Department long ago, according to Bradley Bowman, a military expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. [FDD is an Israel advocacy organization.]

“What the U.S. started to do almost immediately was send an extraordinary flow of weapons,” Mr. Bowman, a former U.S. Army officer, said.

According to a report by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, there were so many arms shipments to Israel that a senior Pentagon official said the Department of Defense sometimes struggled to find sufficient cargo aircraft to deliver them.

Pete Nguyen, a Pentagon spokesman, said in an email that recent assistance has included precision-guided munitions, artillery ammunition, medical supplies and “other categories of critical equipment.”

He added that “the United States has surged billions of dollars in security assistance to Israel since the Oct. 7 attacks.”

How much has been made public?

Lawmakers and news media have recently criticized the lack of public information about the sales. The Defense Department so far has only published two news releases, on Dec. 9 and 29, about the approval of emergency military sales to Israel, while it lists much of the military equipment sent to Ukraine in a regularly updated fact sheet.

As laid out in those news releases, the aid sent to Israel from Oct. 7 to Dec. 29 included

• • 52,229 M795 155-millimeter artillery shells;
  • 30,000 M4 propelling charges for howitzers;
  • 4,792 M107 155-mm artillery shells;
  • 13,981 M830A1 120-mm tank rounds.

But the State Department can legally refrain from telling Congress and the public about some new arms orders placed by Israel since Oct. 7 because they fall below a certain dollar amount.

The Washington Post reported that the United States had approved and delivered more than 100 separate foreign military sales to Israel since Oct. 7.

Unexploded ordnance: The growing Gaza challenge that’s not going away

The New Humanitarian reports: At the end of April, the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) estimated that there was 37 million tonnes of debris throughout Gaza. At least 10% of ordnance being fired fails to explode, so that debris is laced with UXO that – even under ideal conditions – would take 14 years to clear, an UNMAS official said.

However, the conditions that mine removal teams will have to work under in Gaza will be far from ideal. Israeli restrictions are likely to disrupt the usual model of clearing UXO, making a vastly difficult task even harder and more complex, according to Gary Toombs, explosive ordnance disposal expert for Humanity and Inclusion, an NGO.

From bans on bringing in vital equipment, to training local staff to dispose of the lethal weapons – some of which are 2000 lb bombs with a 360-meter-wide killing zone (equivalent to more than three football pitches) – clearing Gaza of UXO is fraught with challenges that must be navigated by the UN and NGOs.

“Unexploded ordnance is going to be incredibly problematic, and it’s going to be a lot,” said Toombs, stressing “just the sheer amount of ordnance that has been dropped”.

Toombs, who worked in Gaza for three weeks in March, told The New Humanitarian that the devastation he witnessed exceeded that of other high-intensity urban bombing campaigns – such as Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa, Syria – where he has also operated.

That tallies with the assessment of other experts and historians, who last December – only two and a half months into Israel’s military campaign – were already classifying it as among the most devastating in recent history.

Calls for probe into Israel’s alleged use of depleted uranium in Gaza

UN Security Council adopts US resolution calling for ‘immediate, full and complete ceasefire’ in Gaza

The UN Security Council on Monday adopted a resolution aimed at reaching a comprehensive ceasefire deal in three phases to end the war in Gaza, with US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield telling members “today, we voted for peace.”

Agnes Callamard, head of Amnesty International responded to the news:

The US had previously blocked multiple ceasefire resolutions including by using its veto 3 times. Its shift is long overdue.

With more than 37,000 Palestinians dead, amid a risk of genocide and an engineered famine, its stalling has come at an extremely heavy price.

The US must now use its influence to ensure this ceasefire becomes a reality. It must halt arms transfers to Israel and ensure that Israeli authorities allow unfettered humanitarian aid access throughout Gaza.

Amnesty insists also that accountability for the many crimes committed by all parties must remain on the international agenda. Justice must be delivered.

Hamas responded to the UN vote by stating, “We confirm our willingness to work with our brothers the interlocutors to negotiate indirectly on how to implement these principles that coincide with our people and the resistance’s demands,” Hamas said.

NOTE: Not only has the US vetoed 3 ceasefire resolutions in the last 8 months, in the last five decades, it has blocked at least 53 other UN Security Council resolutions critical of Israel.

When the US abstained and allowed one ceasefire resolution to pass in March (following three resolutions that the US had vetoed, and a fourth that was so watered down that China and Russia vetoed it instead), a State Department spokesperson insisted that it was “non-binding.”

When the International Court of Justice determined that Israel was plausibly committing genocide, and the International Criminal Court decided to seek arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, the US rejected both judgments.

RECOMMENDED READING: Is the United Nations anti-Israel? – a survey of UN resolutions

Here is a summary of the ceasefire proposal:

• • The proposal would begin with an initial six-week ceasefire with the release of captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from populated areas in Gaza and the return of Palestinian civilians to all areas in the territory.
  • Phase one also requires the safe distribution of humanitarian assistance “at scale throughout the Gaza Strip”, which Biden said would lead to 600 trucks loaded with aid entering Gaza every day.
  • In phase two, the draft resolution says that with the agreement of Israel and Hamas, “a permanent end to hostilities, in exchange for the release of all other hostages still in Gaza, and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza” would take place.
  • Phase three would launch “a major multi-year reconstruction plan for Gaza and the return of the remains of any deceased hostages still in Gaza to their families”.
  • If adopted, it would be the first Security Council resolution on a ceasefire plan aimed at ending the eight-month war.

NOTE: Various versions of the US draft resolution have been circulating for days. This version does differ from earlier ones in some significant ways. For one, it explicitly states that Israel has accepted the ceasefire deal – a previous version only said that a ceasefire deal was acceptable to Israel. It also removes any mention of the creation of buffer zones being unacceptable – the US has previously insisted that borders be left intact, precluding any buffer zones.)

Four IDF soldiers killed, six wounded in Rafah explosion

Jerusalem Post reports: Four Israelis from the Givati Brigade were killed Monday night in an incident in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip in which a building collapsed, the IDF announced on Tuesday.

The soldiers threw a concussive charge into a three-story building in the Al-Bura neighborhood in the city of Rafah, which was supposed to trigger any IED booby traps present. The fighters entered, and only then did the explosion occur, collapsing the building.

Report: Doctor treating the four rescued hostages says they are malnourished

Biden admin has discussed potentially negotiating unilateral deal with Hamas to free U.S. hostages

NBC reports: Biden administration officials have discussed potentially negotiating a unilateral deal with Hamas to secure the release of five Americans being held hostage in Gaza if current cease-fire talks involving Israel fail, according to two current senior U.S. officials and two former senior U.S. officials.

Such negotiations would not include Israel and would be conducted through Qatari interlocutors, as current talks have been, said the officials, all of whom have been briefed on the discussions.

White House officials declined to comment.

The Biden administration has said it believes Hamas is holding five American hostages who were abducted during the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel. U.S. officials are also hoping to recover the remains of three additional U.S. citizens who are believed to have been killed on that day by Hamas, which then took their bodies into Gaza.

The officials did not know what the United States might give Hamas in exchange for the release of American hostages. But, the officials said, Hamas could have an incentive to cut a unilateral deal with Washington because doing so would likely further strain relations between the U.S. and Israel and put additional domestic political pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

West Bank: Israeli forces kill 6 Palestinians, including 15 year old

An engineering student was killed Monday by Israeli occupation forces during a raid into Dhanaba suburb, east of Tulkarm.

Local sources said that the occupation forces deployed snipers on the roof of one of the high-rise buildings; they opened fire randomly towards citizens, injuring Abdel Dayem, and then prevented ambulance crews from reaching him, leaving him to bleed to death.

Another Palestinian youth has been killed by Israeli forces today during a raid into al-Far’a camp, south of Tubas: Mahmoud Ibrahim Nabrisi, age 15, succumbed to serious wounds after he was shot by the occupation forces, medical sources said.

Four more Palestinians were killed and eight others were injured Monday night by Israeli forces’ gunfire near the village of Kafr Ni’ma, west of Ramallah.

Security sources told WAFA that an Israeli special force fired live bullets at a vehicle near the village of Kafr Ni’ma, killing four Palestinians. The army confiscated their bodies.

Israel partisans’ campaign to fire Rising co-host Briahna Joy Gray:

LA Progressive reports:

Regarding Nexstar, there’s more to the situation. Quoting Jacobin, “[O]ne thing that has changed on the show is a changeover in ownership of The Hill, which sold to media conglomerate Nexstar Media Group, Inc., for $130 million” in August of 2022. Then, the plot thickens, as “Psagot Value Holdings Ltd., an investment firm based in Tel Aviv, bought 6,100 shares in Nexstar, to the tune of more than one million.” Perhaps this Israel firm has had, at the least, minimal influence on what’s reported on The Hill.

Gray had tweeted: “I have never seen the N word as much in my life as I have in the messages from Zionists in the last 24 hours.”

#WestBank: #RashaHerzallah is the 4th Palestinian woman journalist unjustly detained by Israel in West Bank since October 7. She faces unknown charges. Herzallah joins over 40 journalists currently in Israeli custody. #WPF demands her immediate release.
➡️https://t.co/j4ERU5wmEe pic.twitter.com/o3eFfHSb5a

— #WomenInJournalism (@CFWIJ) June 4, 2024

MORE NEWS:

The New Arab: Israel’s brutal Nuseirat operation nearly ended in failure: report

IMEMC Reports.

Palestinian death toll from October 7 – June 10: at least 37,704* (37,164 in Gaza* – 4,959 women (20%), 7,797 children (32%). This is expected to be a significant undercount since thousands of those killed have yet to be identified – and at least 540 in the West Bank (~131 children). This does not include an estimated 10,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 43,640 Palestinian deaths. (Ralph Nader has estimated 200,000 Palestinians may have been killed in Gaza.)
At least 42 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (27 from Gaza, 14 from West Bank).
At least 37 Palestinians have died due to malnutrition**.
About 1.7 million, or 75% of Gaza’s population are currently displaced.
About 1.1 million (out of total population of 2.3 million) are facing Catastrophic levels of food insecurity.
Palestinian injuries from October 7 – June 10: at least 89,872 (including at least 84,832 in Gaza and 5,040 in the West Bank).
It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.
Reported Israeli death toll from October 7 – June 10: ~1,449 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 295 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza; 16 in the West Bank) and~8,730 injured.
Times of Israel reports: The IDF listed 41 soldiers killed due to friendly fire in Gaza and other military-related accidents – nearly 16%.
NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.
*Previously, IAK did not include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile was being disputed. However, given that much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, Israel had previously bombed the hospital and has attacked many others, Israel is prohibiting outside experts from investigating the scene, and since the UN and other agencies are including the deaths from the attack in their cumulative totals, if Americans knew is now also doing so.
**Euro-Med Monitor reports that Gaza’s elderly are dying at an alarmingly high rate. The majority die at home and are buried either close to their residences or in makeshift graves dispersed across the Strip. There are currently more than 140 such cemeteries. Additionally, according to Euromed, thousands have died from starvation, malnourishment, and inadequate medical care; these are considered indirect victims as they were not registered in hospitals. 
Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here.

• The genocide in Israeli prisons
• Palestinians massacred in “rescue” operation lauded by US
• Israel Secretly Targets U.S. Lawmakers With Influence Campaign on Gaza War
• Israel accused of releasing Palestinian detainee with amputated legs to evade treatment
• Biden policies: Rudderless, incompetent and complicit.
• Cyabra: the Intelligence Cutout Waging Israel’s Online Propaganda War.
• How Israeli prison doctors assist in the torture of Palestinian detainees.
• American Media Keep Citing Zaka — though its October 7 atrocity stories are discredited in Israel.
• To continue the Gaza genocide, Israel and the US must destroy the laws of war.
• “Laws Of War” Biden-Blinken Style.
• Spying & threats: Israel spent 9 years trying to keep the ICC off the trail of Israel’s war crimes.
• Norman Finkelstein blows whistle on “Jewish supremacists”, Israel lobby.
• Stories of love, loss, and courage from Gaza.
• Israel, The ICC, And The Disintegration Of Our Species.
• Gaza’s Stolen Healers: Hundreds of Palestinian Doctors Disappeared Into Israeli Detention.
• German foreign minister says she saw nonexistent Oct. 7 rape video.
• Hostages of Israeli revenge in the Gaza Strip: Testimonies of 100 released Palestinian detainees reveal crimes of torture, cruel treatment.
• Israel’s latest offensives unleash ‘hell’ in Gaza, aid groups say.
• Israel’s national murder-suicide pact: Internalizing the “Hannibal Directive.”
• War on Gaza: Why ICC bid for arrest warrants is a bold and historic move — Richard Falk.
• How Israel twists antisemitism claims to project its own crimes onto Palestinians.
• Unmasking counterprotesters who attacked UCLA’s pro-Palestine encampment.
• Long History of Jewish Dissent Over Israel’s Treatment of Palestinians.
• The Right of Return to Free Palestine.
• Unpacking the Israeli campaign to deny the Gaza genocide.
• Billionaires for Israel started a group with 100 members to secretly work on behalf of Israel. (video).
• OCTOBER 7—The Lies in Brief.