US approves “historic” $20B arms sale to Israel, as Gazans die

More weapons for Israel; newborn twins killed in Gaza; Israel shoots American activist; two Palestinians killed in West Bank; Israel detains Palestine Olympic head; California mulls anti-free speech on campus bill; Ben Gvir leads provocative march on Temple Mount; EU leader calls for sanctions against Israeli Smotrich for calls to starve Gazans; house arrest for gang-rape suspects; yes, Netanyahu has been messing with ceasefire details;

Iran says Europe’s silence on “inhumane crimes” in Gaza encouraged Israel to continue atrocities while threatening global peace; more.

By IAK staff, from reports.

US State Department Approves Over $20 Billion Arms Package for Israel

AntiWar reports: On Tuesday, the State Department approved a series of potential weapons sales to Israel worth over $20 billion that includes F-15 fighter jets and tank munitions. The approval comes as Israeli airstrikes continue to slaughter civilians in Gaza, including newborn twins who were killed hours before the State Department announced the new support for Israel.

Ha’aretz reports the transaction as “among the most significant arms sales to Israel in American history.”

In total, the US announced five new arms deals for Israel. The biggest is for 50 F-15 fighter jets and related equipment, worth $18.8 billion. Israel will also receive $102.5 million in advanced air-to-air missiles, about 33,000 120mm tank cartridges worth $774 million, 50,000 high-explosive 120mm mortar rounds worth $61.1 million, and $583.1 million worth of medium tactical vehicles.

It’s unclear how much of the massive weapons sale will be funded by US military aid. The announcement came a few days after the State Department said it was releasing $3.5 billion in military assistance for Israel in the form of Foreign Military Financing, a program that gives foreign governments money to buy US weapons.

It will take years before the F-15s and other weapons will be delivered to Israel, although, according to Reuters, the tank rounds would be almost immediately available for delivery. The notification begins a period where Congress could potentially block the sales, but it’s expected to breeze through since only a few dozen progressive Democrats are opposed to arming Israel.

The U.S. has sent Israel more than 10,000 highly destructive 2,000-pound bombs and thousands of Hellfire missiles since the start of the Gaza war in October, U.S. officials told Reuters in June.

Newborn twins killed in Israeli strike in Gaza as father collects their birth certificates

Andalou Agency reports: Newborn twins were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the central Gaza Strip on Tuesday as their father went to collect their birth certificates.

The two babies were born on Saturday in the city of Deir al-Balah, but an Israeli strike on their apartment shattered the family’s joy of their newborns.

“I have just obtained the birth certificates for my newborn babies Aysel and Asser,” their father Mohammad Abu al-Qumsan told Anadolu as tears rolled down his cheeks.

“They were born on August 10. I was outside the house, finalizing the paperwork, and then I got the call… I didn’t expect to find them all gone.”

Israeli hardliner Ben-Gvir “put lives at risk” with Jerusalem prayer call

Reuters reports: Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on Tuesday visited the Al-Aqsa mosque compound known to Jews as Temple Mount, and said Jews should be allowed to pray there, freshly challenging rules covering one of the most sensitive sites in the Middle East.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly denied there would be any change to rules prohibiting Jews from praying at the site, which is holy to Muslims as well.

The Al-Aqsa compound, revered by Jews as a vestige of their two ancient temples, is administered by a Jordanian religious foundation and under rules dating back decades, Jews are allowed to visit, but may not pray there.

“Our policy is to allow prayer,” Ben-Gvir said as he passed a line of Jewish visitors who prostrated themselves on the ground, while others sang and clapped their hands in celebration. The Waqf, the foundation that administers the site, said around 2,250 Jews entered the site on Tuesday.

The spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas denounced Ben-Gvir’s visit as a “provocation” and called on the U.S. to intervene “if it wants to prevent the region from exploding in an uncontrollable manner”.

HA’ARETZ ADDS: What happened on the Temple Mount Tuesday categorically puts lives at risk, and is further evidence of the chaos being caused by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and his irresponsible leadership.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and another minister ascended the Temple Mount (known as Al-Aqsa to Muslims), and dozens of Jewish visitors prayed on the compound in violation of the status quo. All this happened in front of the police who were stationed there, but they refrained from enforcing the ban on Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount.

The fact that Ben-Gvir oversees the police doubles the threat he poses, because the police exist in part to deal with criminals like him. But when the criminal is the very minister in charge of the police, who can you turn to? When the person endangering national security is the minister in charge of preserving it, what do you do?

And the helplessness becomes absolute when you realize the prime minister can’t be relied upon in this situation, since Netanyahu is the one who appointed Ben-Gvir despite very well knowing that he is dangerous.

BREAKING: SETTLERS INVADE AL-AQSA MOSQUE

More than 2000 settlers led by Itamar Ben Gvir stormed Al-Aqsa today on what’s known as “Anniversary of the Temple Mount destruction”.

They desecrated mosque grounds, they sang, they raised israeli flags and performed Talmudic rituals pic.twitter.com/6wQSlOzLqR

— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) August 13, 2024

An American was just shot in the West Bank. The American press can’t be bothered.

DropSite News reports: Last Friday, Amado Sison, an activist from New Jersey with the solidarity group Faz3a, joined fellow demonstrators near the West Bank village of Beita. In an interview with Drop Site after being discharged from the hospital, Sison said he was taking part in a “protective presence” exercise aimed at defending Palestinian citizens living in the West Bank from settler and military violence.

Amado Sison* (pseudonym) is taken away in an ambulance after being shot by Israeli forces in Beita, in the occupied West Bank (Vivi Chen/Supplied)

“The Palestinians were holding a rally and doing chants, when Israeli soldiers at a nearby outpost started shooting tear gas and aiming weapons at us,” said Sison. “

This was only my second demonstration, but some of the more experienced demonstrators shouted that live rounds were being fired and everyone began to run.”

Sison and others ran from the gunfire into a nearby olive grove. It was then that he felt a “blunt impact” in the back of his leg. He initially thought he had been hit by a tear gas canister.

It turned out to have been a live bullet, which entered his thigh and exited from the front of his leg.

In video of the incident taken by Anthony C., an activist with Faz3a, and provided to Drop Site, a group of protesters and local Palestinians can be seen screaming as they attempt to carry a wounded Sison to safety after the shooting.

(Read the full article here.)

West Bank: Two Palestinian young men killed by Israeli forces

WAFA reports: A Palestinian teenager succumbed to serious wounds he sustained earlier Tuesday after being shot by Israeli occupation forces in the town of Anata, east of occupied Jerusalem.

The Jerusalem Governorate Media Department said in a statement that Shadi Wisam Shehada, 17, was shot by the Israeli occupation in the town of Anata while he was working at his privately-owned car wash shop in the area, for allegedly throwing stones at the occupation soldiers.

Another Palestinian young man, Moataz Sarsour, was shot and killed by Israeli occupation forces during a raid on the cities of Ramallah and Al-Bireh at Tuesday dawn.

Shadi Wisam Shehada and Moataz Sarsour, killed by Israeli forces

Israeli authorities detain head of the Palestine Olympic Committee

Middle East Eye reports: Jibril Rajoub, who is also a member of Fatah’s Central Committee, was reportedly detained by Israeli authorities upon his return from the Paris Olympics while en route to the occupied West Bank.

Jibril Rajoub, head of Palestine Olympic Committee

The 71-year-old was searched, had his passport confiscated, and was summoned for questioning at the Ofer military compound near Ramallah on Tuesday.

Rajoub has previously faced threats of imprisonment from some members of the Israeli government due to his efforts to have Israel barred from the Olympics and the football World Cup, citing violations of the Olympic Charter and FIFA regulations against apartheid in sports.

In May, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz threatened to revoke Rajoub’s travel pass.

“We will work to thwart his plans, and if he doesn’t stop, we will imprison him in the Muqataa [presidential compound in Ramallah], where he will be left to play stanga by himself between the walls,” Katz said, referring to a popular Israeli street game involving a football.

Anti-free speech California bill inspired by opposition to pro-Palestine campus protest

The Intercept reports: A bill making its way through the California legislature would stifle free speech on public university and college campuses, specifically around protests against Israel’s war in Gaza and its occupation of Palestine, according to civil rights advocates.

The American Civil Liberties Union in California is ringing the alarm bell on Senate Bill 1287, saying that it will “set a dangerous precedent of chilling speech on campuses across the state.”

The bill, introduced in February by Democratic state Sen. Steve Glazer, would require schools to adopt and enforce rules against harassment, discrimination, or any behavior that “creates a hostile environment on campus.”

The bill’s supporters include a host of pro-Israel advocacy groups. [Glazer has made many trips to Israel and lived in Israel for six months working on a kibbutz.]

Among the bill’s most vocal detractors has been ACLU California Action, which said in a letter sent last week to Glazer’s office that the bill would suppress free speech. In the letter, obtained by The Intercept, the ACLU highlighted areas of the bill that are “overly broad” and vague, such as leaving terms like “harassment,” “discrimination,” and “hostile environment” with no clear definitions that may allow institutions to apply them in ways that prohibit students’ free speech.

Across the U.S., lawmakers on the state and federal level have introduced bills cracking down on campus protests. In Congress, Republican lawmakers proposed a slate of bills, including measures that would revoke visas and deport any international student convicted of a crime related to protests on campus; bar students convicted of a protest-related crime from receiving financial aid; make federal accreditation and funding for schools contingent on their policies toward protests; barring a student of faculty member from student loan forgiveness if they are expelled or fired due to protests; and withholding federal funds from schools that don’t clear encampments.

Rep. Andy Ogles, a Republican from Tennessee who is behind several of the bills, also introduced one that would require a student convicted of a protest-related offense to do community service in Gaza for six months.

(Read the full article here.)

Iran says silence of UK, France, Germany on “inhumane crimes” in Gaza encouraged Israel to continue atrocities while threatening global peace

The Cradle reports: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer in a phone call that the silence of the international community in the face of Israel’s “unprecedented and inhumane crimes” in Gaza encouraged it to continue committing atrocities while threatening regional and global peace and security, IRNA reported on 13 August.

Pezeshkian added that war in any part of the world is not in the interest of any country while emphasizing that a “punitive response to an aggressor is a legal right of states and a way to stop crime and aggression.”

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani issued a similar message Tuesday, saying the Islamic Republic will defend its national security and sovereignty and does not ask for permission to exercise its rights.

Kanaani made the statement in response to a letter published by the UK, France, and Germany, urging Iran not to retaliate for the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on 1 August.

The Foreign Ministry spokesman added that the three European countries have been indifferent to Israel’s continued “genocidal acts and war crimes against defenseless Palestinians.”

He stated that the European nations’ request that Iran not respond to the Hamas leader’s assassination would “encourage the criminals to continue massacre, genocide, and crime against humanity.”

The spokesman said if those mentioned countries were really after peace and stability in the region, they should stand against Israel and seek to end the war on Gaza and the killing of children and women.

Israeli troops accused of gang raping Palestinian detainee released on house arrest

The Cradle reports: The Israeli military attorney’s office and defense lawyers agreed on the release to house arrest of the five soldiers accused of raping a Palestinian man in the notorious Sde Teiman detention camp, Haaretz reported in Hebrew on 13 August.

The Israeli army spokesman said the five soldiers will be released to house arrest for 10 days during the investigation.

On 8 August, a leaked surveillance video from Sde Teiman was broadcast on Israeli news network Channel 12, showing the Israeli soldiers gang-raping the Palestinian man.

Members of the Knesset and Hebrew media have strongly criticized the military for detaining the soldiers, arguing that it is morally acceptable to do anything to Hamas fighters, including rape.

Military police officers who arrested the soldiers have faced death threats.

Israel’s military advocate general, Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi responded to criticism over the arrests by saying they were crucial for shielding Israel from war crimes charges in international courts and ensuring continued weapons deliveries from the US and European nations.

Documents confirm Netanyahu responsible for obstructing Gaza ceasefire

New York Times reports: For weeks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has denied that he is trying to block a cease-fire deal in Gaza by hardening Israel’s negotiating position.

Israeli PM Netanyahu is reportedly "frightened and unusually stressed" by the possibility of an imminent arrest warrant. — Israeli PM Netanyahu is reportedly “frightened and unusually stressed” by the possibility of an imminent arrest warrant.

Mr. Netanyahu has consistently placed all blame for the deadlocked negotiations on Hamas, even as senior members of the Israeli security establishment accused him of slowing the process himself.

But in private, Mr. Netanyahu has, in fact, added new conditions to Israel’s demands, additions that his own negotiators fear have created extra obstacles to a deal.

According to unpublished documents reviewed by The New York Times that detail Israel’s negotiating positions, Israel relayed a list of new stipulations in late July to American, Egyptian and Qatari mediators that added less flexible conditions to a set of principles it had made in late May.

The documents reviewed by The Times make clear that the behind-the-scenes maneuvering by the Netanyahu government has been extensive — and suggest that agreement may be elusive at the talks set to begin this week.

(Read more here.)

Israel defense ministry expects 100,000 disabled veterans by 2030, half to be related to mental health

Ha’aretz reports: A recent forecast by the rehabilitation division of Israel’s Defense Ministry expects there to be 100,000 disabled IDF veterans by the year 2030, with half being related to mental health.

According to the data, since October 7 the rehabilitation division has seen 10,056 wounded individuals. The Defense Ministry is now discussing a strategy to absorb and treat those wounded in the war, on top of approximately 62,000 disabled IDF veterans already being treated by the division before the war.

NOTE: Over 92,000 Gazans have been injured in just ten months – at least 3,000 children have had a limb amputated. Mental health issues are widespread, including nearly every child in Gaza.

Josep Borrell calls for sanctions against Israeli ministers for ‘incitement to war crimes’

The Cradle reports: EU Foreign Policy chief Josep Borrell [from Spain] said on 11 August that the bloc must consider imposing sanctions against Israeli far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich for “incitement to war crimes.”

Borrell urged the Israeli government to clearly dissociate itself from individuals who incite war crimes and to work seriously towards a ceasefire deal.

The high-ranking EU official also denounced Ben Gvir for urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt all humanitarian aid and fuel to the Gaza Strip amidst the ongoing genocide.

Finance Minister Smotrich’s comments about starving two million Gazans by withholding aid in exchange for Israeli captives as “sinister,” in stark contrast to the Israeli minister’s assertion that the approach is “justified and moral.”

MORE NEWS:

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STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – AUGUST 13:

Palestinian death toll from October 7 – August 13: at least 40,590* (39,965 in Gaza* – 11,445 women (30%), 16,251 children as of July 22. [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 – and at least 625 in the West Bank (~145 children). This does not include an estimated 10,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 46,848 Palestinian deaths.

Lancet: “Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death9 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 200,000 Palestinians may have been killed in Gaza.

At least 45 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (27 from Gaza, 18 from West Bank).
At least 41 Palestinians have died due to malnutrition**.
About 1.7 million, or 75% of Gaza’s population are currently displaced.
2.15 million (out of total population of 2.3 million) are projected to face Crisis or worse levels of food insecurity.

Palestinian injuries from October 7 – August 13: at least 97,714 (including at least 92,294 in Gaza and 5,420 in the West Bank, including 830 children). [It remains unknown how man Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.]

Reported Israeli death toll from October 7 – August 13: ~1,486 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 331 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.

† 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.

Hover over each bar for exact numbers.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org