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War & Peace
In 60 Minutes Interview, Ex-State Dept. Officials Spotlight US Complicity in Gaza Assault
"There is a linkage between every single bomb that is dropped in Gaza and the U.S.," said one former official.
Jan 13, 2025
In a Sunday interview with 60 Minutes, former State Department officials spoke with journalist Cecilia Vega and offered a window into how the United States has greased the wheels of carnage in Gaza.
Hala Rharrit, an American diplomat who spent 18 years working on human rights and counterterrorism in the Middle East and elsewhere, left her post last spring—becoming the first State Department diplomat to publicly resign over the Biden administration's policies backing Israel's siege on Gaza, according to Democracy Now!.
Rharrit would send daily reports to senior leadership in Washington containing "gruesome images and her warnings," according to 60 Minutes. "I would show the complicity that was indisputable. Fragments of U.S. bombs next to massacres of... mostly children," Rharrit recounted.
Here's what else Rharrit had to say:
Cecilia Vega: When you tried to speak out, vocalize what you saw.... like you were told to shut up?
Hala Rharrit: Yes. I would show images of children that were starved to death. In one incident, I was basically berated, "Don't put that image in there. We don't wanna see it. We don't wanna see that the children are starving to death."
Cecilia Vega: Who told you that?
Hala Rharrit: A colleague.
The United States has offered largely unchecked support for Israel since Hamas fighters attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, prompting Israel to launch attacks on the Gaza Strip. The U.S. has provided Israel with at least $17.9 billion in military aid to its ally in the Middle East, and in early January the State Department informed Congress of a planned $8 billion arms sale. Local health officials in Gaza say the death toll in the enclave stands at over 46,000. However, a recently published peer-reviewed analysis estimates that Israel's assault on Gaza had actually killed 64,260 people between October 7, 2023 and June 30, 2024—a figure significantly higher than the one reported by the enclave's health ministry.
Meanwhile, multiple human rights organizations have said that Israel's conduct in Gaza constitutes genocide or acts of genocide.
60 Minutes tallies that 13 officials in the White House, Army, and State Department have publicly resigned in protest.
"There is a linkage between every single bomb that is dropped in Gaza and the U.S. because every single bomb that is dropped is dropped from an American-made plane," Josh Paul, a former director in the State Department's Bureau of Political - Military Affairs who resigned shortly after October 7, told 60 Minutes.
"After October 7th, there was no space for debate or discussion. I was part of email chains where there were very clear directions saying, 'Here are the latest requests from Israel. These need to be approved by 3:00 pm,'" said Paul, who was involved in signing off on U.S. security assistance to other countries.
Andrew Miller, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian affairs, resigned last June to spend more time with his family, but has since gone public with concerns about U.S.'s role in the war—the highest ranking official to do so thus far, according to 60 Minutes.
In reference to 2,000-pound bombs that the U.S. has supplied to Israel, Miller said that "the Israelis were using those bombs in some instances to target one or two individuals in densely packed areas. And in enough instances, we saw that was in question, how Israel was using it. And those weapons were suspended."
The U.S. suspended a shipment of 2,000 pound bombs to Israel in spring 2024, though in general weapons have continued to flow.
Reacting to Miller’s comments that Israel bombed densely packed areas, one observer wrote Sunday: “60 Minutes is finally exposing the supply chain of genocide.”
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UN Experts Urge US Senate to Reject ICC Sanctions Bill Passed by House
"It is shocking to see a country that considers itself a champion of the rule of law trying to stymie the actions of an independent and impartial tribunal set up by the international community, to thwart accountability."
Jan 11, 2025
Four independent United Nations experts on Friday urged United States senators to oppose legislation passed earlier this week in the House of Representatives that would sanction members of the International Criminal Court after the tribunal issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders for alleged crimes against humanity in Gaza.
H.R. 23, the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act—introduced by Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Brian Mast (R-Fla.)—passed the House on Thursday with strong bipartisan support. Forty-five Democrats joined all 198 Republicans who voted in favor of the bill, which, if passed by the Senate and signed by the president, would "impose sanctions with respect to the International Criminal Court (ICC) engaged in any effort to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute any protected person of the United States and its allies."
A similar bill was passed by the House earlier this year failed to clear the Democrat-controlled Senate. The upper chamber is now under Republican control.
Responding to the proposal, Margaret Satterthwaite, the U.N. special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers; Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967; George Katrougalos, independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order; and Ben Saul, special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, said in a statement:
It is shocking to see a country that considers itself a champion of the rule of law trying to stymie the actions of an independent and impartial tribunal set up by the international community, to thwart accountability. Threats against the ICC promote a culture of impunity. They make a mockery of the decades-long quest to place law above force and atrocity.
The tireless work of brave legal professionals at the ICC is the main driver for accountability. The work of its prosecutors becomes the foundation upon which our efforts to uphold the integrity of the system of international law is resting. We call upon all state parties to the ICC and on all member states in general, to observe and respect international standards, as it relates to legal professionals working to bring accountability for the most grave international crimes.
Although neither the Israel or the United States is a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty underpinning the ICC that's been ratified by 125 nations, Palestine is a signatory to the treaty and crimes committed there by non-signatories can still be prosecuted.
In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant—who ordered the "complete siege" of Gaza that experts say is to blame for the rampant starvation, sickness, and deprivation of basic human necessities such as food, water, medicine, and shelter that has resulted in Palestinians, mostly babies and children, dying of preventable causes including malnutrition, disease, and hypothermia.
The warrants were for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza. The ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, as well as the kidnapping and abuse of Israeli and international hostages.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, Israel's 463-day assault on Gaza has killed more than 46,500 Palestinians in Gaza. However, this could be a vast undercount. A peer-reviewed study published this week by the esteemed British medical journal The Lancetfound that, between October 7, 2023 and June 30, 2024 alone, more than 64,000 Gazans were killed by Israeli forces.
The International Court of Justice is currently weighing a
genocide case against Israel brought by South Africa and supported by numerous nations, most recently Ireland.
The Biden administration and most of Congress oppose the ICC warrants, as does Republican President-elect Donald Trump, whose pick for national security adviser, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), has threatened a "strong response" to the ICC for its move to bring the Israeli leaders to justice.
The U.N. experts asserted that "international standards provide that lawyers and justice personnel should be able to perform all of their professional functions without intimidation, hindrance, harassment or improper interference; and should not suffer, or be threatened with, prosecution or administrative, economic or other sanctions for any action taken in accordance with recognized professional duties, standards, and ethics."
"We urge U.S. lawmakers to uphold the rule of law and the independence of judges and lawyers," they added, "and we call on states to respect the court's independence as a judicial institution and protect the independence and impartiality of those who work within the court."
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US Pediatricians Ask Blinken to Intervene as Israel Extends Detention of Gaza Doctor
An Israeli court has ordered Kamal Adwan Hospital director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya—whose distressed mother reportedly died earlier this week—to be held without charge until February 13.
Jan 10, 2025
The largest professional association of U.S. pediatricians is asking the State Department to intervene on behalf of a Gaza hospital director detained by Israel, where a court on Thursday ordered an extension of his imprisonment until mid-February.
The Gaza-based Al Mezan Center for Human Rights said Friday that the Ashkelon Magistrates' Court extended the detention of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a 51-year-old pediatrician who is the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, without charges until February 13, and without access to legal counsel until January 22.
Israeli troops forcibly detained Abu Safiya on December 28 amid a prolonged siege and assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital, from which he refused to evacuate as long as patients were there. Former detainees recently released from the Sde Teiman torture prison in southern Israel said they met Abu Safiya there. According to testimonies gathered by the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, Abu Safiya was tortured before his arrival at Sde Teiman and inside the notorious lockup.
Al Mezan said that Abu Safiya's attorney believes he is now being jailed at Ofer Prison in the illegally occupied West Bank.
Palestinian media reported earlier this week that Abu Safiya's mother died of a heart attack. MedGlobal, the Ilinois-based nonprofit for which Abu Safiya works as lead Gaza physician, said she died from "severe sadness" over her son's plight.
Dr. Sue Kressley, president of the 67,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), sent a letter Thursday to Secretary of State Antony Blinken to "seek the assistance of the U.S. government to inquire about the whereabouts and well-being" of Abu Safiya, and to voice concern "for the children who are now without access to pediatric emergency care in northern Gaza," where 15 months of relentless Israeli attacks and siege have obliterated the healthcare system.
As Common Dreams has reported, children in northern Gaza are being killed not only by Israeli bombs and bullets, but also by exposure to cold weather after Israeli troops forcibly expelled their families from homes and other places of shelter while "cleansing" the area.
Kressley's letter asks Blinken to explain what the Biden administration is doing to determine Abu Safiya's whereabouts and why he is being held, what condition he is in, a status report on northern Gaza's hospitals and their capacity for care, and what the U.S. is doing to "improve access to pediatric care in Gaza."
On Friday, the Council on American Islamic-Relations (CAIR) welcomed the AAP letter in a statement asserting that "Secretary Blinken could pick up the phone and demand" that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza—"release Dr. Abu Safiya and all those illegally detained and facing torture and abuse at the hands of Israeli forces."
"The Biden administration's silence on the kidnapping of Dr. Abu Safiya, and on the torture and mistreatment of Palestinian detainees by Israeli forces, sends the message that Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim lives and dignity are of no consequence to U.S. officials," CAIR added.
In the United Kingdom, the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) on Thursday demanded that the U.K. government "take urgent action to protect healthcare workers and patients and ensure the immediate release of all arbitrarily detained medical staff."
"The Israeli military has escalated their systematic targeting of Palestinian healthcare workers, with hundreds currently arbitrarily detained under inhuman conditions," MAP said. "These detentions are part of Israel's systematic dismantling of Gaza's health system, which is making Palestinian survival impossible."
MAP Gaza director Fikr Shalltoot said in a statement: "We at MAP are extremely concerned for the life and safety of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and all Palestinian healthcare workers detained by Israeli forces. These detentions, alongside systematic assaults on hospitals in North Gaza, have left tens of thousands of people without access to healthcare and forced them to flee southwards."
"Dr. Abu Safiya spent weeks and months sending distress calls about Israeli military attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital, and the dangers posed to his colleagues and patients," Shalltoot added. "His warnings were met with deafening silence from the international community. It is long overdue for the U.K. and other nations to act decisively to protect Palestinians from ethnic cleansing, ensure the safety of healthcare workers, and hold Israel accountable."
Back in the U.S.—where healthcare professionals staged a nationwide "SickFromGenocide" protest earlier this week—members of medical advocacy groups including Doctors Against Genocide, Jewish Voice for Peace-Health Advisory Council, and Healthcare Workers for Palestine-Chicago who recently returned from volunteering in Gaza held a press conference Friday in Chicago demanding the release of Abu Safiya and the "protection of hospitals and healthcare workers" in the embattled enclave.
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Gaza Journalists Demand End to Israel's Impunity for 'Genocide Against Us'
"We have been let down by the international community, particularly the international media organizations," said Abubaker Abed, sharing a message from Palestinian journalists.
Jan 09, 2025
Palestinian journalists gathered outside al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah this week to call attention to Israeli forces' genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip, their slaughter of those reporting on the ground, and the global community's failure to hold Israel accountable for the bloodshed.
On Thursday, the day after the event, Abubaker Abed, a Palestinian sports journalist now covering Israel's war on Gaza, shared on social media a short video of his remarks in English, which he said were delivered on behalf of all the reporters in blue vests who surrounded him and the podium.
Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Palestinian reporters across Gaza have covered what Abed called "the most well-documented and first livestreamed genocide in history," as Israel—armed by the United States—has launched airstrikes and ground raids, and stopped humanitarian aid and international media from entering the coastal enclave.
Abed said that "we've been reporting tirelessly, extensively, and thoroughly on this genocide. It's indeed a genocide against us, which we've been documenting in makeshift tented camps and workplaces... You've seen us shedding tears over our loved ones, colleagues, friends, and family members. You've seen us killed in every possible way. We've been immolated, incinerated, dismembered, and disemboweled—and recently, we've been freezing to death."
"What more ways should you be seeing us killed, then, so that you can move and act and stop the hell inflicted upon us? There are no words to describe what we've been going through, because you've seen our bodies, how they've become fragile, skinny, and fatigued, but we never stopped," he continued, highlighting how Palestinian journalists have worked "to help the population that has seen every sort of torture and tasted every type of death," while the world has refused to "stop Israel's impunity against us."
"Our message is very clear: We are journalists, and we are Palestinian journalists. We have been let down by the international community, particularly the international media organizations," Abed declared. "We haven't seen any sort of support—a single word of support. Even the press vests we're wearing right now mark us as a target. They do not protect us at all, because we are Palestinians. Maybe if we were Ukrainians or of any other citizenship, with blond hair and blue eyes, the world would rage and rant for us. But because we are Palestinians, we have only one right, which is to die and be maimed."
"We are just documenting a genocide against us," he concluded. "After almost a year and a half, we want you to stand foot-by-foot with us, because we are like any other journalists, reporters, and media workers all across the globe—no matter the origin, the color, or the race. Journalism is not a crime. We are not a target."
Some journalists around the world reposted Abed's video and called out their colleagues for ignoring Israel's decimation of Gaza or reporting on it in ways favorable to the far-right Israeli government and its supporters, including the United States.
"The past 15+ months have been one of the most shameful periods in the history of Western journalism,"
said Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of Drop Site News, which has published Abed's reporting from Gaza. "The refusal of so many journalists to speak out in defense of our Palestinian colleagues in Gaza as they and their families have been hunted down and killed is a bloody stain."
The New Yorker editor Erin Overbey similarly said that "the staggering silence of Western journalists this past year as their Palestinian colleagues have been targeted, intimidated, and killed by Israeli forces during the genocide in Gaza will go down as one of the most shameful periods in media/journalism and human rights history."
British writer Owen Jones
said: "How to describe the refusal of Western journalists to speak out about the biggest slaughter of journalists in the history of human civilization? Damning. Racist. Nauseating. You will never be forgiven. History will damn those who stayed silent—every last fucking one."
Hamza Yusuf, a London-based British Palestinian writer, said that "we will never forget that whilst Palestinian journalists in Gaza were being systematically slaughtered by Israel, their industry peers at best looked on with indifference and at worst used their positions and their coverage to whitewash Israel's crimes. Blood on their hands."
As of Thursday, health officials in Gaza put the death toll from Israel's 15-month assault at 46,006, with at least 109,378 other Palestinians wounded, the vast majority of the enclave's population displaced, and civilian infrastructure in ruins. Israel faces global accusations of genocide, including in a case at the International Court of Justice.
Figures for press deaths have varied. The International Federation of Journalists—which works with its affiliate, the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate, to verify information—has documented the killings of 148 Palestinian media workers while the Committee to Protect Journalists has a list of 152 confirmed fatalities, at least 13 of which the group classifies as murders by Israeli forces.
At the end of last year, Al Jazeerapublished a long-form article titled "Know Their Names" and reported that "from October 7, 2023, to December 25, 2024, at least 217 journalists and media workers had been killed in Gaza. Five more were killed on December 26 when an Israeli airstrike targeted a news van near al-Awda Hospital."
"Eighty percent of the journalists and media workers killed were between the ages of 20 and 40, a stark statistic that captures the young age of those who risk their lives to document the conflict," according to
Al Jazeera. "They were reporters and writers, photographers and video directors, analysts and editors, sound engineers and voiceover artists, and even founders of media outlets. Their stories remind us of the heavy price paid by those who strive to document humanity's darkest moments."
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