Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
BREAKING: The International Criminal Court on Thursday issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
This deals an extraordinary blow to Israel’s global standing as it presses on with wars on multiple fronts. [It is also a blow to the credibility of the United States, which has defended Netanyahu’s actions throughout its war on Gaza.]
In issuing the warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, the I.C.C. judges resisted months of public and private pressure from Israeli leaders and their allies, including U.S. officials and some in Europe. Over the summer, numerous states, lawyers, researchers and human rights groups filed briefs arguing for or against the court’s jurisdiction in the matter.
Karim Khan, the prosecutor who applied for the warrants, has said he received death threats. Court officials have also said they have been increasingly targeted by cyberattacks over the past year.
Netanyahu’s office condemned the I.C.C.’s decision to issue the arrest warrants, rejecting what it described as the court’s “absurd and false accusations.”
A spokesperson for White House National Security Council said, “The United States fundamentally rejects the court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials.”
Israeli attacks on northern Gaza have killed at least 88 Palestinians, including 66 near Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya and 22 in Gaza City, Al Jazeera Arabic reports.
Gaza civil defense team killed mid-rescue by Israeli army
The Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip said in a statement on 20 November that its crews were targeted by Israeli forces as they were tending to the victims of an airstrike on a home in the Sabra neighborhood, southwest of Gaza City.
“The occupation aircraft directly bombed our crews while they were trying to retrieve the martyrs and the injured from under the rubble of a house that was bombed in the Sabra neighborhood in southern Gaza City,” Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal said.
“The targeting led to the martyrdom of rescue worker Ali Muhammad Mustafa Omar and the injury of others, bringing the number of Civil Defense martyrs to 87. We condemn this blatant targeting of humanitarian service providers, who are urged to be protected by the Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law,” the spokesman added.
This is the 18th time that Israeli forces “have targeted our teams during their missions to save lives and alleviate the suffering of our people amidst the ongoing aggression.”
US blocks another ceasefire resolution in UN Security Council
The vote on Wednesday came as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues to worsen. The draft resolution called for the “safe and unhindered entry of humanitarian aid and an end to attempts to starve Palestinians.”
Following the vote, the representative from Palestine asked the body, “Is there a UN Charter for Israel that is different from the charter you all have? Tell us. Do they have the right to kill, and the only right we have is to die?”
China’s envoy, Fu Cong, asked, “Does Palestinian lives mean nothing? How many more people have to die before they (US) wake up from their pretend slumber?” he asked rhetorically, adding that repeated vetoes by the US “has reduced the authority of the Security Council and international law to an all time low.”
Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, said the resolution “was not a path to peace, it was a road map to more terror, more suffering and more bloodshed.
“Many of you attempted to pass this injustice. We thank the United States for exercising its veto.”
US Senate votes to release more weapons to Israel
The United States Senate has rejected a bill that aimed to block a US weapons sale to Israel amid the country’s war on Gaza, an outcome that rights advocates say does not take away from a growing push to condition aid to Washington’s top ally.
A resolution to halt the sale of tank rounds failed to advance in a 79 to 18 vote on Wednesday, with prominent progressives and mainstream Democratic senators backing the effort.
Two more resolutions to halt the sale of other weapons also failed after winning fewer than 20 votes.
Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the so-called Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRDs) in September to oppose a $20bn weapons deal approved by the administration of President Joe Biden.
It was the first time ever that a weapons sale to Israel was subjected to such a vote.
Israeli Troops Have Turned North Gaza’s Only Desalination Station Into a Military Base
The Israeli military has apparently taken over North Gaza’s only water desalination station and turned it into a makeshift army base, according to videos posted online by Israeli soldiers.
Footage first posted by an Israeli soldier on Monday reveals the presence of Israeli forces inside the facility.
Additional footage, posted today by an Israeli officer involved in providing food services for soldiers, shows troops using the facility as a military base for their operations in Northern Gaza.
A sign posted on a wall in the desalination facility shows the 162 Division logo atop the words: “Nothing can stand in the way of the Division Logistics Support Unit.”
Another sign with the 162 Division logo says “Operational Compound” beneath it.
The footage also shows military installations and equipment both inside and around the desalination station, including communication devices, rooms, trucks and other items.
The desalination plant-turned army base now marks the northern edge of a newly constructed corridor that isolates the northern Gaza towns of Beit Lahia, Jabalia, and Beit Hanoun, from Gaza City.
The corridor was built as part of an Israeli military campaign of extermination and ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza that was launched in early October.
Israeli troops have besieged the area completely cutting off aid, with humanitarian deliveries ceasing entirely for weeks and hardly any aid making it through since. Up to 131,000 have been forcibly displaced, many to Gaza City, according to the United Nations (continue reading here).
Israeli Forces Kill Two Palestinians, Bomb Vehicles and a Home, Near Jenin
Israeli forces shot and killed two Palestinian young men and injured another, on Wednesday, during a military attack against the village of Kafr Dan, northwest of Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank.
On Wednesday night, occupation forces killed two Palestinian young men after bombing a vehicle and besieging a home in Kafr Dan.
Since the beginning of the Israeli military onslaught against the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have killed 792 Palestinians in the West Bank, including 167 children, and injured 6,450.
The distribution of those killed in the West Bank is as follows; 215 in Jenin, 182 in Tulkarem, 84 in Nablus, 76 in Hebron, 62 in Tubas, 59 in Ramallah, 48 in occupied Jerusalem, 30 in Qalqilia, 20 in Bethlehem, 12 in Jericho, 12 inside Israel, and 4 in Salfit.
RECOMMENDED READING: Israeli Forces Raid Jenin As Fears Mount of Accelerated West Bank Annexation Plan Under Trump
Trump opposes Israeli annexation of West Bank, Republican sources say
Newly-elected United States’ President, Donald Trump, is in opposition to Israel’s reported plans to annex the Occupied West Bank, sources from his Republican Party have revealed.
According to Israeli outlet, Ynet News, a senior Republican Senator close to the President-elect has said that “Trump will not approve annexation” of the West Bank.
Such a move is reportedly seen by the new President as one that would be “a mistake for Israel” which would worsen its international standing – already severely damaged after over a year of the Occupation’s bombardment and invasion of the Gaza Strip.
Trump is also apparently primarily concerned that any official annexation could further disrupt and severely derail efforts to finally reach a normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia – a key priority for the incoming Trump administration, with Republican Senator, Lindsey Graham, particularly working on that goal.
MORE NEWS:
IMEMC Daily Reports.
The Intercept: Bernie Sanders Lost Vote to Block Arms for Israel, Says U.S. Is “Funding the Starvation of Children in Gaza”
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – NOVEMBER 20, 2024:
Palestinian death toll from October 7, 2023 – November 20, 2024: at least 44,848* ( 44,056 in Gaza* – 69% are women and children, according to Gaza’s Media Office). [The Ministry’s figures have been contested by the Israeli authorities, although they have been accepted as accurate by Israeli intelligence services, the UN, and WHO. These data are supported by independent analyses, comparing changes in the number of deaths of UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff with those reported by the Ministry, which found claims of data fabrication implausible.]
This is expected to be a significant undercount since thousands of those killed have yet to be identified. This does not include an estimated 10,000 more in Gaza still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children).
In the West Bank, Israeli soldiers and/or settlers have killed at least 792 Palestinians (~167 of them children).
In July 2024, the Lancet said: “Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.
Ralph Nader earlier estimated 300,000 Palestinians may have been killed in Gaza.
- At least 60 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons.
- At least 43 Palestinians have died due to malnutrition (at least 37 of them children)**.
- About 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million population are currently displaced.
- About 345,000 Gazans are currently experiencing catastrophic levels of food insecurity.
Palestinian injuries from October 7 – November 20, 2024: at least 110,736 (including at least 104,286 in Gaza and 6,450 in the West Bank, including 830 children). [It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.]
Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – November 20, 2024: ~1,582 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 404*** military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza (updated: Nov 19); 39 military and civilians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel) and~10,000 injured.
The death toll in Lebanon since October 8, 2023 is at least 3,583, with 15,244 injuries.
NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis 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.
***The figure does not include the reportedly 56 Israeli soldiers – nearly 16% of the total Israeli military deaths – killed due to friendly fire in Gaza and other military-related accidents.
† For most of the conflict, women and children accounted for about 70% of deaths in Gaza, with children making up a little over 40% of those killed, according to official statistics.
Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org
- Human rights reports on Israel-Palestine (regularly updated)
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