SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
institute for middle east understanding
'Heartbreakingly Devastating': US Reportedly Plans to Approve $680 Million in Arms to Israel
"The Biden administration seems to be ready and willing to keep piling more and more, despite Gaza descending into what President Biden just yesterday described as 'hell,'" said Amnesty International USA.
Nov 27, 2024
Just hours after a
cease-fire between the Israeli government and Lebanese group Hezbollah took effect, the Financial Times revealed that "U.S. President Joe Biden has provisionally approved a $680 million weapons sale to Israel," which has also spent the past nearly 14 months decimating the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip.
Citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, the British newspaper reported that "U.S. officials recently briefed Congress on the plan to provide thousands of additional joint direct attack munition kits to Israel, known as JDAMS, as well as hundreds of small-diameter bombs."
The Biden administration's decision to advance the sale was subsequently confirmed by Reuters, which reported that "the package has been in the works for several months. It was first brought to the congressional committees in September then submitted for review in October."
Human rights advocates critical of Israel's assaults on Lebanon and Gaza—which has led to a genocide case at the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant—responded with alarm to the new reporting.
"If these reports are true, it's heartbreakingly devastating news," said Amnesty International USA. "These are the weapons that our research has shown were used to wipe out entire families, without any discernable military objective."
Amnesty highlighted a trio of resolutions from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would have halted some arms sales to Israel. Although they failed to pass the Senate last week, the group was among several that noted over the course of three votes, 17, 18, and 19 senators supported halting weapons sales, "sending a clear signal that U.S. policy must change."
"Yet, the Biden administration seems to be ready and willing to keep piling more and more, despite Gaza descending into what President Biden just yesterday described as 'hell,'" Amnesty added Wednesday. "Sending more weapons that have been used to maim and kill with impunity doesn't just put in jeopardy Palestinian lives and the elusive cease-fire the president is seeking, but also President Biden's own legacy."
The Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project declared Wednesday that "President Biden is spending the final days of his presidency going against the will of most Americans, U.S. law, and international law."
"The weapons included in this package have been used by Israel in numerous apparent war crimes," the organization noted. "On July 13, 2024, Israel attacked a so-called 'safe zone' in al-Mawasi, in which internally displaced Palestinians were sheltering, killing at least 90 people and injuring hundreds more. A
CNN investigation found that Israel carried out this attack with at least one JDAM."
John Ramming Chappell, an adviser on legal and policy issues at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, similarly
stressed that "these are the very same weapons that for months Israeli forces have used to kill Palestinian civilians and violate international humanitarian law."
"Continuing arms transfers risks making the United States and US officials complicit in war crimes," he said. "These arms sales are unlawful as a matter of both U.S. and international law. They are immoral. The congressional committees of jurisdiction can and must place a hold on the sales."
Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, pointed out that "aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity is itself a crime for which U.S. officials may (and should) face prosecution at the ICC."
Neither the U.S. nor Israel is a state party to the Rome Statute of the ICC, though Palestine is. Both the Biden administration and President-elect Donald Trump's pick for national security adviser have attacked the warrants for Israeli leaders.
In a speech to Israelis on Tuesday, Netanyahu said that one of the reasons for the cease-fire in Lebanon "is to give our forces a breather and replenish stocks. And I say it openly, it is no secret that there have been big delays in weapons and munitions deliveries. These delays will be resolved soon. We will receive supplies of advanced weaponry that will keep our soldiers safe and give us more strike force to complete our mission."
According to the Financial Times:
U.S. officials have denied there is any explicit link between the cease-fire deal and approval for the latest weapons delivery. While the cease-fire deal includes a so-called side letter from the U.S. to Israel, setting out Washington's support for a certain freedom of Israeli action, people familiar with the text said it included no guarantees of weapon sales.
U.S. officials also deny that there have been deliberate delays to weapons shipments, aside from shipments of 2,000-pound bombs, which Biden paused earlier this year over concerns about their use in densely populated areas of Gaza.
The Times of Israelreported that Biden's State Department declined to confirm the advancement of the package but said that U.S. support for Israel in the face of Iran-backed threats is "unwavering" and all weapon transfers are carried out in line with federal law.
"We have made clear that Israel must comply with international humanitarian law, has a moral obligation and strategic imperative to protect civilians, investigate allegations of any wrongdoing, and ensure accountability for any abuses or violations of international human rights law or international humanitarian law," the State Department said.
As of Wednesday, officials in Gaza said the death toll had hit at least 44,282 Palestinians with another 104,880 people injured.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Killing of Woman Harvester Underscores 'War-Like' Israeli Assault on West Bank Olive Growers
"The olive season has turned into a season of killing for the Palestinian people, whether at the hands of the Israeli army or armed settlers," said one observer.
Oct 18, 2024
The killing of a 59-year-old woman who eyewitnesses said was shot in the back by a member of the Israel Defense Forces while she was harvesting olives on her land in the West Bank on Thursday highlighted what one United Nations official called a "war-like" assault by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the illegally occupied Palestinian territory.
Hanan Abu Salameh was working with relatives in her family's olive grove in the village of Faqqua, located east of Jenin in the northern West Bank, when IDF soldiers posted on the nearby separation barrier along the Israeli border opened fire on them, Faris Abu Salameh, the slain woman's son, toldMiddle East Eye.
Abu Salameh—who saw his mother get shot—said his family and other villagers had permission from Israeli occupation authorities to harvest olives on their lands if they stayed at least 100 meters (328 feet) from the wall.
"We were much further than that from the wall," he said. "All of a sudden they started shooting randomly. We started collecting our things to leave and moved away. My father waved his white hat in the air hoping they would stop. They shot her in the back as we were fleeing the shooting."
The IDF said Friday that it has suspended a deputy commander of the battalion in which the soldier who allegedly shot Abu Salameh served.
"An investigation has been opened by the military police investigating the incident," the IDF said in a statement. "The commander of the force at the time of the incident has been suspended from her position until the end of the investigations."
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that it has received reports that settlers have carried out 32 attacks against Palestinians and their property, including farms, this month alone. The agency also said that about 600 olive trees—which take 10 years or more to reach maturity—have been destroyed, stolen, or vandalized by Israeli settler-colonists.
"It is, frankly, very concerning that it's not only attacks on people, but it's attacks on their olive groves as well," OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke said at a Geneva press conference on Friday. "The olive harvest is an economic lifeline for tens of thousands of Palestinian families in the West Bank."
According to the Palestinian Farmers' Union, olives are the number one agricultural product in the West Bank. Between a quarter and one-third of the West Bank's population is estimated to work with olive trees and associated products, including oil and soap. Israeli occupation forces have severely and systematically restricted Palestinians' access to their own land, causing serious economic losses.
"Israeli forces have been using lethal, war-like tactics in the West Bank, raising serious concerns over excessive use of force and deepening people's humanitarian needs," Laerke added.
Israeli attacks on olive farmers began on the very first day of this year's harvest season earlier this month, when dozens of masked settlers wounded at least 11 Palestinians including women and children. Settlers including members of the violent extremist group Hilltop Youth have also stolen land from Palestinians in the West Bank.
The United States and other nations have imposed sanctions on a handful of the most violent Israeli settlers after incidents including multiple deadly pogroms during which IDF troops have protected and sometimes joined the attackers.
However, the U.S. is also Israel's number one international backer, providing the key Mideast ally with tens of billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic cover including vetoes of multiple U.N. Security Council cease-fire resolutions.
This, even as Israel is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its conduct in a war of annihilation that has left more than 150,000 Palestinians in Gaza dead, maimed, or missing and millions more forcibly displaced, homeless, starved, and sickened.
In the West Bank, more than 750 Palestinians have been killed and thousands more wounded by Israeli soldiers and settlers since last October, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah. During that same period, more than 40 Israeli soldiers and civilians have been killed by Palestinians resisting what David Ben-Gurion, the first Israeli prime minister, acknowledged in the 1930s was the "usurpation" of their land by Jewish colonizers.
"The West Bank is Palestinian land," the California-based advocacy group Institute For Middle East Understanding (IMEU) said on social media Friday. "Israeli soldiers have no legal right to be there, yet they have relentlessly invaded Palestinian towns and cities, killing and displacing those who rightfully live there."
More than 700,000 Israelis live in over 140 settlements in the occupied West Bank. Under international law including the Fourth Geneva Convention, both Israel's 57-year occupation of Palestine and its settlements are illegal. In July, the ICJ
issued an advisory opinion that Israel's occupation is an illegal form of apartheid that must end immediately.
"The Biden administration has a duty under U.S. and international law to stop arming Israel as it continues its violence across Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon," IMEU added. "Every weapon the U.S. provides enables Israel to kill more civilians and prolong this devastation."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Where Can People Go?': Israel Kills 28 in Latest Attack on Gaza School-Turned-Shelter
"By striking these supposed shelters, Israel is intensifying the already catastrophic situation for civilians, many of whom have nowhere left to escape," a human rights group said.
Oct 10, 2024
An Israeli airstrike on a school in central Gaza killed at least 28 people on Thursday, including civilian men, women, and children.
The victims were among the million displaced Palestinians seeking shelter in the city of Deir Al-Balah in Gaza more than one year into Israel's assault on the enclave. The attack came after Israel issued new evacuation orders for northern Gaza on Monday as it escalated its bombardment and invasion of the area, in particular the Jabalia refugee camp.
"By striking these supposed shelters, Israel is intensifying the already catastrophic situation for civilians, many of whom have nowhere left to escape," Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said on social media in response to the airstrike.
"This is not just another attack—it's a systematic assault aimed at wiping out entire Palestinian family lines."
Or, as Iftekhar Hammouda, a woman sheltering at the school askedCNN, "Where can people go? Where do they flee? They hit us at our homes, at our tents, on the streets, and at the schools."
The Palestine Red Crescent Society wrote on social media that it had responded to an attack on the Rafida School that killed 28 people and wounded 54.
The death toll was later verified by local hospitals, according to CNN. A rescue worker told the news agency that relatives were searching for their loved ones "in pieces."
Unverified video footage posted online included graphic images of wounded survivors as well as rescue workers handling body parts of those ripped apart by the bombing described as a "horrific massacre."
One of the survivors searching for family, Ayman Abou Khousa, told CNN, "We are dying every day," adding, "The world has sold us out."
Al Jazeera described the scene at Al-Aqsa Hospital, where the wounded were taken for treatment:
The situations continue to be very difficult inside the emergency department where medical staff are pretty much unable to provide any necessary medical intervention to save lives.
The bomb that was dropped by the F-16 packed with nails, packed with pieces of metals and shrapnel that cut through the flesh and caused severe bleeding.
Many of the victims arriving at the hospital, their blood filled up the courtyard of the hospital the moment the door of the ambulance vehicle opened.
In a statement reported by Reuters, the Israeli military said Thursday's bombardment was a "precise strike on terrorists" who had established a command center in the school. The Israel Defense Forces have long justified their attacks on civilian infrastructure by claiming Hamas uses schools and hospitals as staging grounds for attacks, a charge Hamas denies.
Hammouda told CNN that there was no Hamas presence at the school. Gaza's Government Media Office said the majority of those wounded or killed in the attack were women and children.
"The occupation army was aware that this school included thousands of displaced children and women who were displaced from their homes and whose civilian neighborhoods were bombed," the media office said in a statement reported by Al Jazeera. "It chose the time of the bombing at the peak time when these children and women were moving to get their daily food."
The office continued: "We condemn the Israeli occupation's commission of this new massacre and the ongoing massacres against civilians, children, and women, and we call on all countries of the world to condemn these ongoing crimes against the displaced, against civilians, against children and women."
Israel has bombed almost 85% of the schools in Gaza since it launched its offensive on the strip following Hamas' attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Recent attacks include two airstrikes last month on a United Nations school in central Gaza that killed at least 18 and a bombing of a school in Gaza City in August that killed at least 12.
"Since Israel began committing genocide in Gaza, it has bombed at least 190 shelters. Places meant to be safe havens have become death traps for families forcibly driven from their homes," The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) wrote on social media.
"In the past year, Israel has deliberately targeted areas where families have taken refuge, knowing they include children and the elderly," the nonprofit continued. "This is not just another attack—it's a systematic assault aimed at wiping out entire Palestinian family lines."
IMEU added that the U.S. government was currently complicit in these attacks: "The U.S. continues to supply Israel with weapons, giving it the means to carry out these war crimes which are made possible by American support. The president must act to end Israel's genocidal campaign now."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular