If Americans Knew – IsraelPalestineNews: Israel is “obligated” to bring food into the Gaza Strip; Gazan journalist killed; Israel approves 700 East Jerusalem housing units; Israeli Pres Herzog in genocide denial; Netanyahu wants cash from Emirates – the reply: “Ask Zelensky for money,”
Israeli security chiefs have reportedly warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu several times in recent days that the West Bank is on the brink of a major eruption in violence. The Times of Israel reports,
The heightened concern comes amid economic disorder after Israel withheld of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues that belong to the Palestinian Authority, in addition to refusing to allow some 150,000 Palestinian workers return to their jobs in Israel and the settlements.
The taxes – managed by Israel under interim accords from the 1990s and usually handed over monthly – make up more than half of the PA’s budget. More than 130,000 civil servants rely on the tax transfer to pay their salaries.
“We may end up with a third Intifada [in the West Bank] because of the discontent resulting from the economic difficulty and lack of entry of workers to Israel,” the IDF commanders were quoted as saying.
The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Foreign Affairs agrees, saying in a statement that Israel’s military actions, coupled with settler attacks in the West Bank, including in occupied East Jerusalem, are threatening to “push the West Bank into an uncontrollable cycle of violence”.
“Israel is carrying out extrajudicial assassinations and raiding all areas in the West Bank,” said the ministry’s statement. “It is trying to replicate the destruction it has wrought on Gaza in the West Bank, especially in the refugee camps.”
The Israeli human rights watchdog B’Tselem issued a paper detailing how Israel’s policy has led to “people waiting in long lines for paltry handouts and hungry residents charging at aid trucks,” and stresses,
Israel can, if it so chooses, change this reality. The images of children begging for food, people waiting in long lines for paltry handouts and hungry residents charging at aid trucks are already inconceivable. The horror is growing by the minute, and the danger of famine is real. Still, Israel persists in its policy.
Changing this policy is not just a moral obligation. Allowing food into the Gaza Strip is not an act of kindness but a positive obligation under international humanitarian law: starvation as a method of warfare is prohibited, and when a civilian population lacks what it needs to survive, parties to the conflict have a positive obligation to allow rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian aid – including food.
These two rules are considered customary law and violating them constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
GAZA: Israel has killed another journalist: Hiba Abadleh and her 8-year-old daughter Judy were killed in an airstrike that targeted their house in Gaza.
OCHA: About 350,000 people with chronic illnesses and about 485,000 people with mental health disorders continue to experience disruptions in their treatments.
WEST BANK: The killing of three young men by Israeli forces on Monday and the mutilation of one of their bodies “has nothing to do with humanity,” said Faisal Salama, who heads the Tulkarem camp services committee.
A disturbing video shared by the Palestinian Foreign Ministry shows Israeli soldiers running over Tariq Amjad after shooting him dead.
“They killed him in cold blood even though he was unarmed and did not pose a threat to them, and they desecrated his body,” Salama said, adding, “Everything is now permissible for the Israeli forces to do. Netanyahu’s government has declared an open war on everything Palestine.”
RECOMMENDED READING (+972 Mag): The ‘mistaken’ killing of three Israeli hostages was a tragedy long foretold
EAST JERUSALEM: Israel has published its approval of the Givat Shaked settlement plan for 695 housing units on lands in the Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Safafa in East Jerusalem. This joins a spate of settlement advancements in EJ since Oct 7, including several plan approvals and a publication of tenders. Israeli NGO Ir Amin pointed out,
While settlement advancements were on the rise in 2023, the state has exploited the war to further rev up its activities to establish new facts on the ground. In 2023, over 18,300 housing units were advanced for East Jerusalem settlements.
In contrast, residential development for Palestinians in Jerusalem has been continually neglected despite them constituting ~ 40% of the city’s population. Such systematic neglect violates their fundamental right to housing and serves as a mechanism of displacement.
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GENOCIDE ALLEGATIONS: Israeli President Isaac Herzog says “there is nothing more atrocious and preposterous” than the lawsuit filed in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of genocidal actions against Palestinians in the Gaza war. Reuters reports:
In making its case, South Africa names Herzog and other Israeli officials it says have expressed genocidal intent against Palestinians. It cites remarks made by the president days after the Hamas attack, in which he said it was not only militants but “an entire nation” that was responsible for the violence and that Israel will fight “until we break their backbone.”
“We will be there at the International Court of Justice and will present proudly our case of using self-defense under our most inherent right under international humanitarian law,” said Herzog.
Elsewhere, more than 900 popular movements, unions, political parties, and other organizations have signed an open letter calling on states to support South Africa’s Genocide Convention case against Israel.
Notably, while Israeli (and pro-Israel) politicians for the most part denounce the genocide allegation, they have not so far addressed the documented charges.
The Emirati president Mohammed bin Zayed reportedly rebuffed a request by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pay “unemployment” stipends to Palestinian workers from the occupied West Bank whom Israel barred from entering its territory after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. Axios reports,
“Ask Zelensky for money,” bin Zayed reportedly told Netanyahu, sarcastically suggesting that the Ukrainian president could foot the bill with all of the international support Kyiv has been getting since Russia’s invasion.
“The notion that Arab countries will come in to rebuild and pay the bill for what’s currently happening is wishful thinking,” said one Emirati official.
RECOMMENDED READING (Jonathan Cook) The West will stand in the dock alongside Israel at the genocide court
"This pain will not stop us from continuing the road… because those who were martyred sacrificed a lot so that I continue on this path"
Al Jazeera reporter Wael Dahdouh sends a message for everyone, who is backing him in his grieve. pic.twitter.com/LHLLVgQLfH
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) January 8, 2024
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – JANUARY 7:
Palestinian death toll since October 7: at least 23,079* (~22,739 in Gaza* (at least 9,600 children), and at least 340 in the West Bank, about 77 of them children). This does not include an estimated 8,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 30,676 Palestinian deaths.
*IAK does not yet include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile is being disputed; although much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, experts are still looking into the incident. Israel is blocking an international investigation.
About 1.9 million people have been displaced (about 85% of the population).
Palestinian injuries since October 7: at least 63,264** (including at least 59,167 in Gaza** and 4,097 in the West Bank). **NOTE: it is impossible to provide an accurate number of injuries in Gaza due to the ongoing bombardment and communication disruption.
It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties in Gaza**.
Reported Israeli death toll since October 7: ~1,139 (8 killed in West Bank, 187 in Gaza), including 32 Americans, and 8,730 injured, approximately 36 children).
NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel may have been caused by Israeli soldiers; additionally, since Israel has a policy of universal conscription, it is unknown how many of those attending the outdoor rave a few miles from Gaza on stolen Palestinian land were Israeli soldiers.
Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here.
For more news, go here and here. Broadcast news from the region is here.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org
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