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october 7 attacks
One Year After October 7, Jewish Peace Group Says: 'We Cannot Only Mourn'
"We must fight like hell for the living," said the anti-occupation group Jewish Voice for Peace. "Today, we recommit ourselves to that fight."
Oct 07, 2024
Monday marked a day of mourning for those appalled by the deadly Hamas-led attack that took place exactly one year ago and the devastating Israeli response, which continues in the present with no end in sight.
But while mourning is necessary, it is not enough, said the anti-Zionist advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) in its statement on the somber anniversary.
"We believe that every life is precious," said JVP, which has spent the past 12 months organizing tirelessly in support of a cease-fire and hostage-release agreement and against U.S. complicity in Gaza, where nearly the entire population is displaced, hungry, and at growing risk of disease due to Israel's relentless airstrikes and siege that began hours after the Hamas-led attack.
"Every life taken, every parent, child, grandchild killed this past year was someone else's entire world," the group continued. "We mourn the at least 42,000 Palestinians killed by the Israeli military, knowing the true death toll is likely far higher. We mourn the 1,200 Israelis killed in Hamas' attacks. And we mourn the 2,000 Lebanese killed by Israeli bombardment."
"But we cannot only mourn, with millions under current threat—we must fight like hell for the living," said JVP. "Today, we recommit ourselves to that fight: for an end to U.S. bombs and funding to the Israeli military, for a cease-fire and the release of 100 Israeli and 10,000 Palestinian hostages, and for an end to Israeli genocide and apartheid. To a future of liberation for all."
IfNotNow, a youth-led American Jewish group, echoed that sentiment.
"October 7 is not where the story begins or ends, and the pain we feel today has spanned generations. We reject the lie that decades of occupation, apartheid, and siege that has subjugated Palestinians will ever keep Jews or Israelis safe," the group said in a statement posted to social media. "To truly honor the lives lost, we must commit to building a world where freedom and safety are not reserved for some, but for all."
"Mourn the dead. Fight for the living," the group added. "Not another bomb. Free them all."
Israel's yearlong, U.S.-backed bombing campaign has left much of Gaza in ruins: According to United Nations estimates, Israel's airstrikes have left roughly 40 million tons of debris and rubble that could take a decade and a half to clear.
Officially, Israel's assault has killed just over 41,900 people in Gaza, more than half of them women and children. But the Gaza health ministry's tally is likely a dramatic underestimate, given that tens of thousands of people are missing and believed to be dead under the enclave's destroyed homes and buildings.
A group of American medical professionals who served in Gaza wrote to U.S. President Joe Biden last week that "it is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 118,908, an astonishing 5.4% of Gaza's population."
Biden's role in fueling Israel's catastrophic military campaign—which has relied heavily on American weaponry and diplomatic support—was a major subject of reflection on the one-year anniversary of the war's start.
"The Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023 were an abominable crime. The Israeli government had both the right and responsibility to protect its people. Biden was right to respond with support and solidarity," Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy (CIP) and a former foreign policy adviser to U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, wrote for The New Republic on Monday.
"It was also right to expect him, at some point over the last year, to pivot to real pressure to end the war and save human lives. He never did," Duss noted. "By taking the option of suspending military aid off the table, Biden signaled from the outset that his red lines were meaningless. His stubborn refusal to impose any costs on Netanyahu (except for a token suspension of a few shipments of bombs that was quickly superseded by massive deliveries of new weapons) is what all but ensured that his May cease-fire proposal would wither and die."
Duss' organization published a brief Monday outlining five steps it is urging the Biden administration to take to bring Israel's war on Gaza to an end, prevent the entire region from plunging into all-out war, and lay the groundwork for a sustainable peace.
The steps are:
- Finally use U.S. leverage to press for a full cease-fire;
- Fully enforce U.S. law and arms policy to ensure accountability and adequate humanitarian aid delivery;
- Focus diplomacy toward a just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on multilateral rather than bilateral normalization efforts;
- Take meaningful anti-occupation, anti-annexation steps; and
- Substantially expand support for the Palestinian people and Palestinian leaders who seek peace with Israel.
"We see the anguish of Israelis who lost loved ones and whose government has prioritized clinging to power above the return of hostages taken among other atrocities in the Hamas-led attacks against Israeli communities one year ago," said Nancy Okail, CIP's president and CEO. "We cannot look away from the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians killed, wounded, orphaned, and malnourished as a result of Israel's ongoing and often indiscriminate assault on Gaza."
"And we are outraged," Okail added, "as the United States government continues to arm this carnage in violation of its own laws, hobbling the diplomacy it is engaged in to end the fighting and stop its spread to Lebanon and beyond."
"These last 12 months are not only a marker of the brutal violence inflicted on Palestinians but an indictment of our collective humanity."
Since October 7, the Biden administration has sent Israel over 50,000 tons of weaponry and other military equipment. A report released Monday by the Costs of War project estimates that the U.S. government has approved $17.9 billion in "security assistance for Israeli military operations in Gaza and elsewhere since October 7."
That aid, along with the assistance of other world powers and the inertia of global institutions, has helped Israel's military inflict incalculable physical and psychological damage on Gaza's population, which is overwhelmingly young.
"These last 12 months are not only a marker of the brutal violence inflicted on Palestinians but an indictment of our collective humanity," said the Association of International Development Agencies, a coalition of more than 80 aid organizations. "It reflects the failure of the international order—particularly powerful nations whose inaction and enabling of Israel's actions have compounded Palestinian suffering and shattered international norms. This failure extends far beyond Gaza, undermining the very foundations of what the global community has strived to uphold since its establishment."
Amnesty International secretary-general Agnès Callamard, who previously served as a U.N. special rapporteur, also decried the violence of the past year and the inability to secure a cease-fire as "a collective failure of humanity."
"This anniversary is a sobering reminder of the urgent need to address the root causes, cut the supply of arms to all parties, and end longstanding impunity that have seen Israeli forces, Hamas, and other armed groups flout international law for decades without fearing any consequences," said Callamard. "The world must never forget the victims and the anguish of the affected families. Humanity must prevail."
This story has been updated to characterize Jewish Voice for Peace as an anti-Zionist group, not just anti-occupation.
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Israeli Newspaper Confirms IDF Employed 'Hannibal Directive' on October 7
IDF soldiers were reportedly ordered to "turn the area around the border fence into a killing zone."
Jul 07, 2024
The Israeli newspaper Haaretzreported Sunday that Israel's military repeatedly employed a protocol known as the "Hannibal Directive" during the October 7 Hamas-led attack in an attempt to prevent the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers—even if it meant putting the lives of army captives and civilians at risk.
Haaretz found based on documents and interviews with soldiers and senior Israeli officers that Hannibal—an operational order developed in 1986 that "directs the use of force to prevent soldiers being taken into captivity" by enemy militants—was used "at three army facilities infiltrated by Hamas, potentially endangering civilians as well."
During the first hours of the Hamas-led attack, according to Haaretz, Israeli soldiers were given an order: "Not a single vehicle can return to Gaza."
"At this point, the IDF was not aware of the extent of kidnapping along the Gaza border, but it did know that many people were involved," the newspaper continued. "Thus, it was entirely clear what that message meant, and what the fate of some of the kidnapped people would be."
The full text of the Hannibal Directive has never been published. But according to a Haaretz story about the directive from more than two decades ago, part of it states that "during an abduction, the major mission is to rescue our soldiers from the abductors even at the price of harming or wounding our soldiers."
"Light-arms fire is to be used in order to bring the abductors to the ground or to stop them," it adds. "If the vehicle or the abductors do not stop, single-shot (sniper) fire should be aimed at them, deliberately, in order to hit the abductors, even if this means hitting our soldiers. In any event, everything will be done to stop the vehicle and not allow it to escape."
Israeli authorities have acknowledged "multiple incidents of our forces firing on our forces" on October 7. In April, Israel's military said that one of the hostages taken by Hamas militants during the October attack was likely killed by Israeli helicopter fire.
But the IDF, which has killed more than 38,000 people in Gaza since October 7, has declined to say whether Hannibal was used during the Hamas-led attack.
Haaretz stressed Sunday that it "does not know whether or how many civilians and soldiers were hit due to these procedures, but the cumulative data indicates that many of the kidnapped people were at risk, exposed to Israeli gunfire, even if they were not the target."
The first of the known uses of the Hannibal Directive on October 7 came "when an observation post at the Yiftah outpost reported that someone had been kidnapped at the Erez border crossing, adjacent to the IDF's liaison office," Haaretz reported.
"'Hannibal at Erez' came the command from divisional headquarters, 'dispatch a Zik.' The Zik is an unmanned assault drone, and the meaning of this command was clear," the newspaper found.
The directive was employed at least two additional times during the attack, according to Haaretz, which cited one unnamed source in Israel's Southern Command as saying that the country's forces were instructed to "turn the area around the border fence into a killing zone, closing it off toward the west."
The newspaper continued:
One case in which it is known that civilians were hit, a case that received wide coverage, took place in the house of Pessi Cohen at Kibbutz Be'eri. Fourteen hostages were held in the house as the IDF attacked it, with 13 of them killed. In the coming weeks, the IDF is expected to publish the results of its investigation of the incident, which will answer the question of whether Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram, the commander of Division 99 who was in charge of operations in Be'eri on October 7, was employing the Hannibal procedure. Did he order the tank to move ahead even at the cost of civilian casualties, as he stated in an interview he gave later to The New York Times?
Haaretz's reporting comes weeks after a United Nations investigation concluded that the IDF "had likely applied the Hannibal Directive" on October 7, killing more than a dozen Israeli civilians.
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ICJ Rejects Nicaragua's Request to Block German Arms Sales to Israel
However, the World Court did not grant Germany's request to dismiss the case‚ in which Nicaragua accuses Berlin of enabling Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Apr 30, 2024
The top United Nations court on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected Nicaragua's request for an emergency order directing Germany to halt arms sales to Israel as it wages what the tribunal previously called a "plausibly" genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza.
International Court of Justice (ICJ) judges voted 15-1 against the Nicaraguan motion, finding an absence of legal conditions for issuing an order blocking Germany from selling arms to Israel.
"Based on the factual information and legal arguments presented by the parties, the court concludes that, at present, the circumstances are not such as to require the exercise of its power... to indicate provisional measures," ICJ President Nawaf Salam wrote in the ruling.
However, the court did not grant Germany's request for an outright dismissal and will hear arguments on the merits of the Nicaraguan case, a process expected to take months to complete.
Carlos José Argüello Gómez, the head of Nicaragua's legal team and its ambassador to the Netherlands, said after the ruling that the court's decision "doesn't mean that Germany hasn't violated... international law."
"Germany has—from our point of view—violated international law" by providing weapons for Israel, Argüello contended.
Nicaragua’s representative Carlos Jose Arguello Gomez says ICJ ruling doesn't mean that Germany has not violated international law by providing military aid to Israel.
🟠 LIVE updates: https://t.co/FqbkLyF2ZA pic.twitter.com/3cnPizIXps
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) April 30, 2024
Nicaragua asserts that Germany—which provided nearly 30% of Israel's exported arms last year—is complicit in Israeli war crimes and is enabling genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Palestinian and international officials say that more than 123,000 Palestinians have been killed, maimed, or left missing by Israel's relentless 207-day onslaught and siege, which has also displaced around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people and driven at least hundreds of thousands of people to the brink of starvation. The majority of those killed have been women and children.
"Germany is failing to honor its own obligation to prevent genocide or to ensure respect of international humanitarian law," Argüello argued during case hearings earlier this month.
According to the Lawyers' Collective—a Berlin-based group that is suing to stop German arms sales to Israel—Germany's government issued €326.5 million ($348.7 million) worth of weapons export licenses for Israel last year, the majority of which were approved after October 7, 2023. That's a tenfold increase from 2022. The group says these transfers violate Germany's obligations under the War Weapons Control Act, which requires arms exports to comply with international humanitarian law.
Germany counters that its weapons sales to Israel have decreased since the October 7 attack and emphasizes what it says are the defensive nature of recent arms transfers. Berlin also says it has robust internal mechanisms and processes to consider the human rights implications of German arms sales.
Top German diplomat Tania von Uslar-Gleichen, who is leading Germany's legal team at the ICJ, said during hearings that Nicaragua's allegations "have no basis in fact or law."
Reacting to the ICJ ruling, the German Foreign Office said that "Germany is not a party to the conflict in the Middle East. On the contrary, we are working day and night for a two-state solution."
"We are the largest donor of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians," the ministry added. "We are working to ensure that aid reaches the people in Gaza."
The German government has been intensely criticized for its stauch support for Israel and for violently cracking down on pro-Palestinian protests since October. Numerous observers contend that Germany's actions are driven by historical guilt over the Holocaust, with some critics claiming the German government is weaponizing that guilt in order to demonize Palestinians and their defenders.
Israel—which is not a party to the case—vehemently denies genocide charges, arguing it is defending itself in the wake of the Hamas-led attacks that left more than 1,100 people dead and around 240 others taken hostage. Israeli forces are believed to have killed numerous Israelis on October 7 and an unknown number of hostages since then during the bombardment and invasion of Gaza.
In addition to Nicaragua's motion, the ICJ is considering a case brought by South Africa and supported by over 30 nations asserting that Israel's Gaza assault is genocidal because it is "intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial, and ethnical group."
On January 26, the tribunal issued a provisional ruling that found Israel is "plausibly" committing genocide in Gaza and ordered the country to prevent genocidal acts. Critics accuse Israel of ignoring the order by continuing to block humanitarian aid from reaching Gazans as children and other vulnerable people starve to death.
Citing "the worsening conditions of life faced by Palestinians in Gaza, in particular the spread of famine and starvation," the ICJ last month issued another provisional order directing Israel to allow desperately needed aid into the embattled enclave and reiterating its earlier order to prevent genocidal acts.
Also last month, the U.N. Human Rights Council
published a draft report that found "reasonable grounds to believe" that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
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