‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 117: Israel besieges Nasser Hospital for tenth consecutive day Mustafa Abu SneinehJanuary 31, 2024 Palestinians wait in line in front of bakeries for hours to buy bread that is available in limited quantities in Deir al-Balah, January 30, 2024. (Photo: Naaman Omar/APA Images) Palestinians wait in line in front of bakeries for hours to buy bread that is available in limited quantities in Deir al-Balah, January 30, 2024. (Photo: Naaman Omar/APA Images) Casualties 26,900+ killed* and at least 65,949 wounded in the Gaza Strip. 387+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147. 560 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.** *This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on Telegram channel. Some rights groups put the death toll number closer to 32,000 when accounting for those presumed dead. ** This figure is released by the Israeli military. Key Developments Palestinians bury bodies of 100 people in mass grave in Rafah city following weeks of being held in Israel. Wafa reports Palestinian medics found organs missing from martyrs’ bodies, accuse Israeli authorities of stealing them. Al-Amal and Nasser Hospitals under siege by Israeli tanks in Khan Younis for tenth consecutive day. PRCS says Israeli forces kill security employee in Al-Amal Hospital while standing near backdoor. Nasser Hospital warns electrical generators will stop within two days due to fuel shortages, waste accumulates inside facility as Israeli forces refuse to allow it to be transported out. Israeli forces start flooding some tunnels in Gaza by pumping large amounts of sea water. BBC says Israeli bombardment destroyed or damaged more than half of Gaza’s buildings between October 12 last year and January 29. The Washington Post reports U.S. “has not independently verified Israel’s claims” about UNRWA employees’ alleged involvement in October 7 attack. Nine UNRWA employees could return to work if found innocent, were “pre-emptively dismissed” and have “right of recourse,” according to UNRWA spokesperson. Israel’s Netanyahu says truce and exchange deal with Hamas won’t happen on his watch. Israeli authorities in Jerusalem force Palestinian to demolish his own house in Jabal al-Mukabbir. 100 Palestinian bodies buried in a mass grave in Rafah Palestinians buried the bodies of 100 people in a mass grave in Rafah city on Tuesday afternoon, following weeks of being held in Israel. Advertisement Mondoweiss publishes news and analysis about Palestine for people taking action. Donate today. Wafa news agency reported that some of the Palestinian martyrs could not be identified due to decomposition, while medics accused Israeli authorities of stealing organs from some of them. Israeli forces handed the bodies at Kerem Abu Salem crossing, south of the Gaza Strip, and Palestinians laid the bodies in a long grave, wrapped in dark navy sheets, and used a bulldozer to cover them with soil. Wafa reported that it is unclear when and where Israel killed those Palestinians since October. It added that Israeli forces rampaged through Palestinian cemeteries and took several bodies of those buried there. As Israeli forces advanced into Al-Shifa Hospital in November, the army exhumed graves in north Gaza and took 110 bodies to inspect whether any of them were Israeli captives. According to the BCC, Israeli forces have destroyed nearly half a dozen graveyards in the Gaza Strip since October, including the cemeteries of al-Faluga, Beit Lahia, al-Shuja’iyya and Beit Hanoun, among others. Wafa reported that Palestinian medics found missing organs from the martyrs’ bodies and accused Israeli authorities of stealing them. Israeli tanks besiege Al-Amal and Nasser Hospitals in Khan Younis Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Wednesday that Israeli forces killed 150 Palestinians and injured 313 others in 16 massacres in the past 24 hours. The number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli aggression on Gaza now stands at 26,900 martyrs, and 65,949 were injured since October. For the tenth consecutive day, both the Al-Amal and Nasser Hospitals are under siege by Israeli tanks and forces in Khan Younis, south of Gaza, the second-largest city in the enclave. There are 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip, but only 14 of them are partially operating — nine of them in southern Gaza, including al-Amal and Nasser Hospitals. Gaza’s Ministry of Health spokesperson Dr. Ashraf al-Qidra said yesterday that there were 150 medical staff, 450 injured patients, and 3,000 displaced Palestinians trapped in the Nasser Hospital, and that they are at risk of Israeli fire if they attempt to leave. Wafa reported that Israeli forces also fired bullets at anyone who moved in the vicinity of the al-Amal Hospital, which is run by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS). Israeli forces stormed the al-Amal Hospital courtyard on Tuesday and the PRCS offices. “Israeli tanks are currently stationed in A-Amal hospital front yard, firing live ammunition and smoke grenades at the displaced individuals and PRCS staff,” PRCS wrote on X on Tuesday afternoon. “We deeply worry for the safety of our teams, the wounded, the sick, and thousands of displaced people in the building. Fires have broken out in tents within the confines of the PRCS Headquarters,” it added. PRCS said on Wednesday that Israeli forces shot and killed a security employee in al-Amal as he was standing near a rear door. “Intense and ongoing targeting in the vicinity of Amal Hospital and the launch of smoke grenades,” PRCS wrote on X on Wednesday morning. The Nasser Hospital has warned that electrical generators will stop within two days due to fuel shortages and that waste has accumulated inside the facility as Israeli forces refuse to allow it to be transported out. Israel begins flooding Gaza tunnels Israeli forces announced on Tuesday evening that they started flooding tunnels in Gaza where “suitable,” pumping large amounts of sea water into them. Following a report in December about the Israeli plan to flood Gaza tunnels used by Palestinian resistance fighters, concerns were raised regarding the damage salted seawater could cause to the soil, environment, and fresh water in the Gaza Strip, which would affect the livelihoods of nearly 2.3 million Palestinians. The Guardian reported then that flooding under Gaza would amount to “ruining the basic conditions for life in Gaza” and cause “an ecological catastrophe,” which would constitute one element of the crime of genocide. Israel destroyed half of Gaza’s buildings In the past 24 hours, Israel continued to bombard Gaza from land and air. Wafa reported that at least six Palestinians were killed in Khan Younis by Israeli artillery and airstrikes. Israel also bombed the neighborhoods of al-Daraj, al-Zaytoun, Sina, and al-Rimal, on the outskirts of Gaza City. Palestinian medics and ambulances faced difficulties reaching these areas to retrieve the bodies of Palestinians and rescue the injured. In the Tal al-Zaatar neighborhood in Jabalia, Israel artillery targeted al-Awda Hospital while bombing the vicinity of al-Dawa Mosque, north of Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. In Khan Younis, Israeli forces bombed the al-Namsawi (The Austrian) neighborhood and the city center. Wafa reported that Israeli bulldozers razed and swept parts of Al-Shuhada Street in Gaza City under the protection of tanks and air forces. An Israeli airstrike killed at least 11 Palestinians in Deir al-Balah on Tuesday evening. The BBC released a report saying that more than half of the Gaza Strip buildings were destroyed or damaged in the Israeli bombardment campaign. The report covers the period from October 12 last year till January 29, based on satellite imagery. “Across Gaza, residential areas have been left ruined, previously busy shopping streets reduced to rubble, universities destroyed and farmlands churned up, with tent cities springing up on the southern border to house many thousands of people left homeless,” BBC reported. Since December, Khan Younis saw immense destruction by Israeli forces. BBC analysis revealed that “between 144,000 and 175,000 buildings across the whole Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed. That’s between 50% and 61% of Gaza’s buildings.” Nearly two million Palestinians have been internally displaced, the majority having fled from northern and central Gaza to Rafah city, which borders Egypt in the south. Israeli bombardment chased them there, however, and in recent weeks, rain and cold weather has made daily life miserable for thousands of families amid a lack of sufficient food, fresh water, and efficient sources of heating. ‘Withdrawing funds from UNRWA is perilous‘ The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned again of the abrupt ending of donations by the U.S. and other states, which would lead to the shutting down of humanitarian operations in the Gaza Strip. Last week, the U.S., the biggest donor to UNRWA, said it was suspending the money it pledged to the UN agency after Israel claimed that 12 UNRWA employees were involved in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7. UNRWA said that it fired nine of the employees, and a tenth is still being identified, while the remaining two were killed in the October attack. “Withdrawing funds from UNRWA is perilous and would result in the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, with far-reaching humanitarian and human rights consequences in the occupied Palestinian territory and across the region,” UNRWA said in a statement on Tuesday. UNRWA employs 30,000 workers, 13,000 of them in the Gaza Strip, and the rest are in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the West Bank. Israeli politicians have long aimed to weaken and bring UNRWA to an end long before October 7, as the agency highlighted the plight of millions of Palestinian refugees and their right of return to their homes and lands inside modern-day Israel. The Washington Post reported that the U.S. “has not independently verified Israel’s claims [about UNRWA’s employees], which are based on intercepted communications, phone location data, interrogations of Hamas fighters and documents that the Israeli military has recovered in Gaza.” It added that one of the reasons the U.S. rushed to end donations to UNRWA is to compel the agency to conduct a thorough investigation “or risk permanently losing funding from Western governments whose donations are critical to its survival.” However, U.S. officials acknowledge that there is no alternative to UNRWA to supply humanitarian aid in Gaza. The case is not sealed yet, and the nine UNRWA employees could return to work if they are found innocent, as they were “pre-emptively dismissed” and have “the right of recourse,” an UNRWA spokesperson told Al-Jazeera. Israel’s Netanyahu says truce and exchange deal with Hamas won’t happen As details of a potential truce and captive exchange deal leaked to the media, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assured Israelis that such a deal will not take place on his watch. According to the potential deal, a 45-day pause of fighting would be announced by Israel and Palestinian resistance movements, during which Hamas will release 35 Israeli captives in return for 4,000 Palestinian prisoners. Netanyahu said on Tuesday evening, “we will not remove the IDF from the Gaza Strip and we will not release thousands of terrorists.” “None of this will happen. What will happen? Absolute victory!” he added during a speech at the Bnei David academy in the illegal settlement of Eli in the occupied West Bank. The deal is yet to be confirmed, and Hamas is studying it before replying through Qatar and Egypt. Yair Lapid, an opposition figure who served for a stint as prime minister, said that there will be “a safety net” in the Knesset for Netanyahu’s government to help advance “any deal that brings the hostages home.” Lapid’s words came after several right-wing ministers threatened to collapse the government if Netanyahu pushed ahead with the deal, which if successful, will be the biggest since 1985. Israeli forces have arrested 1,000 Palestinians from Jenin since October Israeli forces arrested 16 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank, including two women, on Wednesday. During the arrest campaign, carried out during the night, military forces raided Azzun, Nablus, Bethlehem, Beit Fajjar, Qalandia refugee camp, Ramallah, and Jaba near Jenin. According to the Prisoner’s Club, Israel arrested 1,000 Palestinians from the Jenin area since October, making up nearly a sixth of the total 6,420 detainees. On Tuesday, Israeli authorities in occupied Jerusalem forced Jamil Sarri to self-demolish his house in the Jabal al-Mukabbir neighborhood, rendering his family homeless. The house of 100 square meters was built without an Israeli permit, and if authorities demolished it, Sarri would have to have paid the costs of the demolition. Israel rejects 98 percent of Palestinian applications for building permits in Jerusalem while continuing to build and plan for the construction of thousands of new settler housing units. BEFORE YOU GO – At Mondoweiss, we understand the power of telling Palestinian stories. For 17 years, we have pushed back when the mainstream media published lies or echoed politicians’ hateful rhetoric. Now, Palestinian voices are more important than ever. Our traffic has increased ten times since October 7, and we need your help to cover our increased expenses. Support our journalists with a donation today. https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-117-israel-besieges-nasser-hospital-for-tenth-consecutive-day/ https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/01/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-117-israel.html

Israel’s strategy is “cold and calculated, and lacks any sense of decency” – Day 60 [email protected] December 5, 2023 ethnic cleansing, Gaza, hamas, humanitarian aid, Israel, tunnel Israel’s strategy is “cold and calculated, and lacks any sense of decency” – Day 60 UNICEF spokesperson says alleged Gaza safe zones are ‘zones of death’ In a Sky News interview, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder says Israel’s proclaimed ‘safe zones’ in Gaza are ‘zones of death’ with increased risk for disease. Elder says Israeli authorities are fully aware of the dire consequences in the alleged safe zones, and that the decision to push 80% of the population into a zone that is 4% the size of Gaza is ‘cold’ and ‘calculated’ and lacks ‘any sense of decency’. Khan Younis and Rafah: Monday night was terrifying for residents of Khan Younis and Rafah, and 1.5 million evacuees. Since early yesterday evening, there has been non-stop heavy artillery shelling, relentless air strikes and mass bombardment. The vast majority of residential homes and public facilities – schools, hospitals, medical centers and shops – in the eastern side of Khan Younis, have been completely destroyed. At the same time, people were ordered to evacuate in the middle of the night and early hours of this morning under heavy bombardment. As ambulances tried to get to the eastern side of Khan Younis to Abasan al-Kabira and Bani Suheila, where people were stranded and caught under the heavy bombardment, they were shot at and could not evacuate any of the injured or bring out any of those who were killed overnight. The Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis has called for blood donations due to the high number of severely injured patients arriving every hour. Twenty-six out of 35 hospitals in Gaza are currently out of service, and 52 out of 72 primary healthcare clinics have been shut down. Palestinian officials in Gaza say Israeli jets dropped phosphorus bombs north and east of Khan Younis. (Use of white phosphorus in civilian areas is considered a war crime due to its extremely dangerous effects on the human body. White phosphorus ignites instantly when in contact with oxygen. It can burn through the human body, including through bone, causing severe, excruciating damage. It can also cause extreme harm when inhaled, with risks of suffocation, cardiovascular failure, coma, death, and other lifelong effects. The substance burns at temperatures of up to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit.) Nasser hospital staff are stretched to their limits as casualties mount in southern Gaza, says UNICEF. Fifty-two of 72 primary healthcare clinics have shut down in Gaza. [Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters] (photo) Central Gaza: Israeli jets targeted the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza this morning. Bombing began around 6:05am (04:05 GMT) while most residents were asleep, leading to a total “state of panic”. At least 15 houses were “completely destroyed” more than 15 people were killed, including children. Many wounded are still trapped under the rubble. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has shared footage of the moment an Israeli artillery tank targeted the vicinity of two ambulances in Gaza. PRCS said the two ambulances were attending to casualties in Deir el-Balah, southern Gaza. Northern Gaza: Gaza’s health ministry is warning of a “massacre” at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, where Israeli tanks and snipers are reportedly surrounding the facility and “shooting at anyone who moves”; Israeli forces have already killed 108 civilians and injured dozens in the hospital’s vicinity. Munir al-Bursh, director-general of the Health Ministry in Gaza, said, The Israeli occupation forces have laid siege to the facility from all sides. Patients and those who took shelter here are gripped with fear and overwhelmed by horror. The Israeli forces are attacking with the aim of forcibly removing all those inside the hospital. These are patients, victims and displaced civilians. We, the medical staff, are holding our ground. We are standing by our patients. We will continue to serve our people by all means left here at Kamal Adwan Hospital. UN says no place is safe: The United Nations warns that creating “so-called safe zones” for civilians to flee to within the Gaza Strip is impossible amid Israel’s bombing campaign. The Israeli army, which initially focused much of its offensive on the north of the enclave, has now dropped leaflets on parts of the south, telling Palestinian civilians there to flee to other areas. “The so-called safe zones … are not scientific, they are not rational, they are not possible, and I think the authorities are aware of this,” said UNICEF spokesperson James Elder. Journalists face grave threats: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports that 63 journalists and media workers have been killed since October 7. The overall death toll includes 56 Palestinians, four Israelis and three Lebanese nationals. Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, said, CPJ emphasizes that journalists are civilians doing important work during times of crisis and must not be targeted by warring parties. Journalists across the region are making great sacrifices to cover this heart-breaking conflict. Those in Gaza, in particular, have paid, and continue to pay, an unprecedented toll and face exponential threats. Humanitarian update UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said the resumption of the Israeli military operation and its expansion further in southern Gaza is repeating horrors from past weeks. He added, The latest developments are further strangling the humanitarian operation, with limited supplies going in and complex logistical and coordination arrangements that slow down and at times obstruct the flow. The Israeli Authorities continue to restrict the flow of humanitarian supplies, including fuel, forcing the UN to only use the ill-equipped crossing point with Egypt. We call on the State of Israel to reopen Kerem Shalom and other crossings and facilitate the unconditional, uninterrupted and meaningful delivery of lifesaving humanitarian assistance. The failure to do so violates international humanitarian law. On 4 December, 100 aid trucks carrying humanitarian supplies and 69,000 litres of fuel entered from Egypt into Gaza, about the same as the previous day. This is well below the daily average of 170 trucks and 110,000 litres of fuel that had entered during the humanitarian pause implemented between 24 and 30 November. On 4 December, for the second consecutive day, Rafah was the only governorate in Gaza where limited aid distributions, primarily of flour and water, took place. On 4 December at about 20:30, the main telecommunication provider in Gaza announced that all telecom services had shut down due to cuts in the main fibre routes. This followed a partial shutdown in Gaza city and northern Gaza a few hours earlier due to ongoing hostilities. Humanitarian agencies and first responders have warned that blackouts jeopardize the already constrained provision of life-saving assistance. Al-Azhar University of Gaza before and after Israel bombed the institution Al-Azhar University of Gaza before and after Israel bombed the institution. The university was built in 1991 (photo) Other Gaza updates Agriculture destroyed: Human Rights Watch (HRW) has found that orchards, greenhouses and farmland have been razed due to Israel’s ground invasion in the north of Gaza. In Beit Hanoun in northeast Gaza, what was once green agricultural land has now become “brown and desolate”, increasing concerns about food insecurity and the loss of livelihoods. The razing continued during the seven-day truce and satellite imagery showed the destruction of farmland by Israel’s use of bulldozers to carve new roads for its armored vehicles. Israel set to possibly flood Gaza’s tunnel system: the Wall Street Journal reports: Israel has assembled a system of large pumps it could use to flood Hamas’s vast network of tunnels under the Gaza Strip with seawater, a tactic that could destroy the tunnels and drive the fighters from their underground refuge but also threaten Gaza’s water supply, U.S. officials said. The Israel Defense Forces finished assembling large seawater pumps roughly one mile north of the Al-Shati refugee camp around the middle of last month. Each of at least five pumps can draw water from the Mediterranean Sea and move thousands of cubic meters of water per hour into the tunnels, flooding them within weeks. Sentiment inside the U.S. was mixed. Some U.S. officials privately expressed concern about the plan, while other officials said the U.S. supports the disabling of the tunnels and said there wasn’t necessarily any U.S. opposition to the plan. The Israelis have identified about 800 tunnels so far, though they acknowledge the network is bigger than that. Because it isn’t clear how permeable the tunnels are or how much seawater would seep into the soil and to what effect, it is hard to fully assess the impact of pumping seawater into the tunnels, said Jon Alterman, senior vice president at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s hard to tell what pumping seawater will do to the existing water and sewage infrastructure. It is hard to tell what it will do to groundwater reserves. And it’s hard to tell the impact on the stability of nearby buildings,” Alterman said. RECOMMENDED READING: ICRC president describes human suffering in Gaza as ‘intolerable’ Attacks on southern Gaza promise to be “worse” than north: Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, has been saying that what will come to the southern part of the Gaza Strip will not only be equal to what we saw in the north but, actually, even worse. He says the army is going to continue its ground operation inside of the northern part of the Gaza Strip. He also said that Israeli troops are going to remain stationed there until every single Hamas target – infrastructure and fighters – is eliminated. Palestinians mourn the death of loved ones who were killed by Israeli bombardment in the southern Gaza Strip Palestinians mourn the death of loved ones who were killed by Israeli bombardment in the southern Gaza Strip (photo) RECOMMENDED READING: Is Israel’s Gaza bombing also a war on the climate? West Bank, Jerusalem, and Israel news Israeli settlers break into Jerusalem’s Aqsa mosque: Dozens of fanatic Israeli settlers Tuesday morning broke into the compounds of al-Aqsa Mosque under heavy protection from the Israeli police. The extremist settlers divided into groups, raided the holy Islamic Mosque from al-Maghariba gate and took provocative tours in its compounds. The settlers performed Talmudic rituals in the eastern part of the Mosque. Jerusalem Palestinian killed: A Palestinian was Tuesday morning killed, while his brother was detained, by Israeli forces during a raid in Qalandia camp, north of occupied Jerusalem. Witnesses said that the occupation forces violently stormed Manasra’s and blew up the door of the house just as he was about to open it, with a bomb that disintegrated his body. The occupation forces later detained his brother before they withdrew. Israel says Jerusalemite children released in recent prisoner swap can’t go back to school: Families of the child prisoners released in the recent exchange deal said that the schools’ administrations affiliated with the so-called Israeli Ministry of Education and the occupation municipality in Jerusalem refused the return of their children to school. 2 Palestinians killed Monday night: Two Palestinian youths was Monday evening killed after they were shot by Israeli occupation forces in the town of Sa’ir, northeast of Hebron. The Ministry of Health said that Anas Ismail al-Froukh, 23, and Mohammad Saa’di al-Frouk, 22, died due to their severe injuries by Israeli forces. Major new settlement plan approved for occupied East Jerusalem: Ir Amim, an organization that focuses on the Israel-Palestine conflict in Jerusalem, says that amid the ongoing war in Gaza, Israel is seeking to expand the settler presence in occupied East Jerusalem. “Today, officials shockingly announced the approval of the Lower Aqueduct plan – the first major new settlement plan to be fully approved in East Jerusalem since [the settlement of] Givat Hamatos in 2012,” the group said. This plan has disastrous ramifications, the group said, predicting “It will extend the Israeli settlement wedge along East Jerusalem’s southern boundary, further sealing [it] off from the southern West Bank, while fracturing the Palestinian space and depleting more vacant land for Palestinian development.” Israel says three more soldiers were killed during fighting on Tuesday and four others were seriously injured in various battles in northern Gaza. More than 80 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the ground invasion of the Palestinian enclave, the UN said on Tuesday, citing official Israeli sources. It was not known if the latest deaths announced by Israel were part of that total. RECOMMENDED VIEWING: Watch: Debunking Israel’s “mass rape” propaganda The firing of rockets by Palestinian armed groups towards Israeli population centers has continued over the past 24 hours, with no reported fatalities. (Information on rocket attacks is here.) It appears that the last time a rocket killed an Israeli was October 7-8, as reported by Ha’aretz and the Times of Israel. 15 Israelis were killed – 10 of them Palestinian Israelis who reportedly had no access to bomb shelters. Rockets have killed a total of 35 Israelis over the 22 years they’ve been fired,. Elsewhere Resigned US State Department official reveals details of child rape case in Israeli prison, calls for accountability: In a CNN interview, former US State Department official Josh Paul discloses a troubling incident involving the alleged rape of a 13-year-old Palestinian boy in an Israeli prison. The State Department’s inquiry into the case resulted in Israeli officials shutting down the charity involved in bringing the case to light. Paul condemned ongoing atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank and called for accountability. He questioned the US foreign policy’s impact on global perceptions and whether the US is using its ‘leverage’ to end the Israeli onslaught on Gaza. Josh Paul resigned from the US State Department in October over the Biden administration’s decision to continue sending weapons and ammunition to Israel following the Israeli war on Gaza. More pro-Israel legislation: A week after US lawmakers expressed frustration in having to vote for yet another pro-Israel resolution, the House is expected to vote again this week to declare anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, in a new bill which critics say will further undermine free speech protected by the US constitution. House Resolution 894 — introduced by Jewish Republicans, Representative David Kustoff (Tenn.) and Max Miller (Ohio) – “clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.” The bill embraces the highly controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) so called working definition of anti-Semitism, which, while not explicitly mentioning anti-Zionism, includes “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination” and “claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor,” as anti-Semitic. Some Democratic senators say that Israel’s military must adopt substantive measures to lessen civilian deaths in Gaza as part of receiving the supplemental $14.3 billion in US aid for Israel’s war, but only a few call for a ceasefire (Bernie Sanders is not among them). House Resolution 786 calling for a ceasefire has 17 cosponsors. (Bernie Sanders is not among them.) Poll shows split support in US for Israel’s war on Gaza: A survey by US polling agency Gallup shows among members of US President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party, only 36 percent support the war as opposed to 71 percent among opposition Republican Party members. Biden received a 32 percent approval rating for his handling of the Gaza conflict. Also, four in 10 Americans surveyed say the US is sending too little aid to the Palestinians in Gaza. Statistics as of Dec. 4: Palestinian death toll: OCHA reports at least 15,688* (~15,428 in Gaza** (4,257 women and 6,387 children), and at least 260 in the West Bank). This does not include an estimated 7,000 more still buried under rubble. Euro-Med Monitor reports 20,360 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. Israel killed more Palestinians in a little over a month after Oct. 7 than in all the previous 22 years combined. Palestinian injuries: 44,595** (including at least 42,000 in Gaza** and 3,365 in the West Bank). **NOTE: it is impossible to offer 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**. About 1.8 million people have been displaced (nearly 80% of the population). Reported Israeli death toll ~1,200 (7 killed in West Bank, 80 in Gaza), including 32 Americans, and 5,431 injured, approximately 30 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.**** Live broadcast news from the region is here. RELATED READING: US poised to give Israel $18 billion in aid this year Gaza Civilians, Under Israeli Barrage, Are Being Killed at Historic Pace Israel has lost control of the narrative – October 7 truths coming out Essential facts and stats about the Hamas-Gaza-Israel war What media reports fail to tell you about October 7 More Palestinians killed in past 34 days than in the past 22 years combined https://israelpalestinenews.org/israel-strategy-cold-calculated-lacks-decency-day-60/

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Italy Liguria How Portofino lives. Italy. How does Liguria Portofino live April 23, 2021, 473 Read full Cape Portofino Mediterranean closes the seawater and rises 600 meters above it. Comfortable on the hills and at the foot of the Cape, in the green gardens, in the villages, in the houses, the small entertaining city hotels of the same name, Portofino, are hidden and quietly seen. https://markethive.com/alidervash/blog/italyliguriahowportofinolives