CARTOON: Biden Has No Plan To Punish Israel For Rafah War Crimes As UN Warns Impending 'Slaughter'
Empty talk, no action and complete lack of compassion or morality.
Cartoon by Mark Taylor / DeMOCKracy.org
"More than half of Gaza’s population—well over 1 million people—are crammed in Rafah, staring death in the face," said the United Nations' emergency relief coordinator.
By Jake Johnson
Common Dreams (2/14/24)
President Joe Biden and other leading American officials have publicly urged Israel not to invade the overcrowded Gaza city of Rafah without ensuring the protection of civilians, but the administration reportedly has no plan to impose consequences if the Netanyahu government launches the ground assault without heeding U.S. warnings.
Three unnamed U.S. officials told Politico's "National Security Daily" newsletter on Tuesday that "no reprimand plans are in the works, meaning Israeli forces could enter the city and harm civilians without facing American consequences."
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote in response to Politico's reporting that "Biden can stop this but chooses not to."
"Instead, he only resorts to calling Netanyahu an 'asshole' behind his back," Parsi added. "This is leadership?"
"More than half of Gaza’s population—well over 1 million people—are crammed in Rafah, staring death in the face: They have little to eat, hardly any access to medical care, nowhere to sleep, nowhere safe to go.“
Around 1.4 million people, most of them displaced from other parts of the Gaza Strip, are currently in Rafah, which is roughly a quarter the size of the U.S. city of Baltimore. Some are desperately trying to flee ahead of an Israeli invasion, gathering their few remaining belongings and leaving the city without any clear direction or assurance of safe passage.
"They need to be protected," Biden said of Rafah's civilians following a White House meeting with the king of Jordan on Monday.
But that same day, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said during a press briefing that "we are going to continue to support Israel" after a reporter asked whether Biden has "ever threatened to strip military assistance from Israel if they move ahead with a Rafah operation" that doesn't protect civilians.
"They have a right to defend themselves against Hamas. And we're going to continue to make sure they have the tools and the capabilities to do that," Kirby said, sidestepping growing evidence that U.S. weapons are fueling the Israeli military's war crimes in Gaza.
The slaughter of children ramping up
Israel's military has ramped up attacks on Rafah in recent days, killing dozens of Palestinians—including an entire family—in a wave of airstrikes on the besieged city earlier this week. The strikes leveled buildings, wiped out makeshift tents that displaced people have been using for shelter, and killed at least 27 children.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear that a ground invasion of Rafah will go ahead despite the Biden administration's pleading and growing protests from the international community. On Tuesday, the South African government implored the International Court of Justice to intervene to prevent an invasion of Rafah, arguing such an assault would violate the legally binding orders the court issued in its interim decision last month.
"We're going to do it," Netanyahu said in an interview that aired over the weekend. "We're going to get the remaining Hamas terrorist battalions in Rafah, which is the last bastion."
Unraveling at alarming speed
Meanwhile, the White House is actively pressuring the U.S. House of Representatives to approve a $95 billion aid package that includes more than $10 billion in offensive military assistance for Israel. The bill passed the Senate Tuesday morning with just three no votes from members of the Democratic caucus, but progressive opposition is likely to be stronger in the House.
"This is not the time for vague generalities about doing more to protect civilian life. We must demand of Netanyahu—STOP," Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) wrote on social media Tuesday, noting that a majority of House Democrats voted against a standalone $17.6 billion aid package for Israel last week.
"The bombing in Rafah that is killing children refugees must end today," Khanna added.
Martin Griffiths, the United Nations' emergency relief coordinator, echoed that message in a statement on Tuesday, warning that "the scenario we have long dreaded is unraveling at alarming speed."
"More than half of Gaza’s population—well over 1 million people—are crammed in Rafah, staring death in the face: They have little to eat, hardly any access to medical care, nowhere to sleep, nowhere safe to go," said Griffiths. "Military operations in Rafah could lead to a slaughter in Gaza. They could also leave an already fragile humanitarian operation at death's door."
"We lack the safety guarantees, the aid supplies, and the staff capacity to keep this operation afloat," he continued. "The international community has been warning against the dangerous consequences of any ground invasion in Rafah. The government of Israel cannot continue to ignore these calls. History will not be kind. This war must end."
(Common Dreams work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.)
ISRAEL: "There is something extremely sickening happening here."
IDF Let Israeli Civilians Film Torture of Palestinian Detainees
By Bret Wilkins
Common Dreams (2/13/24)
Israel Defense Forces officers brought Israeli civilians into detention centers and allowed them to watch and film Palestinian prisoners being tortured, according to survivor testimonies published this week by the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.
Prisoners held at detention centers in Zikim on the northern border of the Gaza Strip and at a site in southern Israel affiliated with Naqab Prison "told Euro-Med Monitor that the Israeli soldiers had purposefully presented them before Israeli civilians, falsely claiming that they were fighters affiliated with Palestinian armed factions and that they had taken part in the October 7 attack on Israeli towns," the group said.
Torture as entertainment
The former detainees said groups of 10-20 Israeli civilians were brought in and allowed to record torture sessions in which the men, stripped nearly naked, were beaten with metal batons, electrocuted, and had hot water poured over their heads. The ex-prisoners said some of the Israelis laughed while filming their torture.
"I was arrested at the checkpoint set up near the Kuwait roundabout, which separates Gaza City from the central region, as part of the Israeli random arrest campaigns. I was subjected to all types of torture and abuse for approximately 52 days," 43-year-old Omar Abu Mudallala told Euro-Med Monitor, adding that his IDF captors "brought Israeli civilians to watch our nude torture."
Abu Mudallala continued:
The Israeli army brought a number of Israeli civilians into our detention centers while beating us and telling them, "These are Hamas terrorists who killed you and raped your women on 7 October," while the Israeli civilians were filming us being beaten, abused, and tortured while making fun of us.
This happened five times while I was being held. The first time was in Barkasat Zikim, where we were blindfolded. However, one of the detainees who speaks Hebrew told us that the soldiers were interacting with Israeli civilians claiming that we were armed fighters. The other four incidents took place in the Negev detention facility, where successive Israeli groups were taken inside tents to witness our abuse and record the torture methods we were subjected to without allowing us to speak or interact with them. Since we were not wearing blindfolds at the time, I saw them all four times with my own eyes.
"One of the detainees who speaks Hebrew tried to explain to the Israeli civilians that we are civilians and we had nothing to do with any military activities, but that also did not help," Abu Mudallala added. "However, he was subjected to severe psychological and physical torture. It was really shameful to bring Israeli citizens to record our torture for being allegedly involved in killing and rape incidents."
Another former prisoner, identified only as 42-year-old D.H., told Euro-Med Monitor that "Israeli civilians were brought to witness the abuse and torture that we were subjected to, which the army deliberately began when they were present."
"These Israelis sometimes brought their dogs with them to bark at us," he added. "They also took pictures of us and posted them on social media apps, particularly TikTok, with the soldiers themselves doing the same."
Euro-Med Monitor asserted that "the vast majority of those arrested from within the Gaza Strip have been subjected to arbitrary detention without being charged or brought to justice, with no legal measures taken against them."
Israeli depravity
"They are also denied a fair trial and are subjected to forced disappearance, torture, and inhumane treatment," the group added. "Israeli practices against Palestinian detainees are blatant violations of international conventions and standards, particularly the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids an occupying authority from transferring prisoners from the occupied territory to detention facilities on its territory, as well as torturing, attacking, or otherwise degrading the human dignity of those detained."
Israeli forces, with their long history of torturing Palestinian prisoners, have been accused during the current war on Gaza of torturing civilian detainees before executing them. Photos and videos of Israeli troops abusing Palestinians—both alive and dead—have been published by perpetrators on social media. Human rights defenders point to such images and their proud display as evidence of Israeli genocide in a war in which more than 100,000 Palestinians have been killed, maimed, or gone missing.
The International Court of Justice found last month in a preliminary ruling that Israel is "plausibly" committing genocide in Gaza, while ordering Israeli forces to "take all measures" to avoid perpetrating genocidal acts.
(Common Dreams work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.)
Biden Drone Says IDF MORE MORAL Than US Military
21-minute video
“The Mideast reminds me of that joke about the optimist and pessimist. The pessimist says ‘Everything is terrible and it can’t get any worse.’ The optimists says, ‘Oh, yes it can.’”
— President Bartlet, The West Wing
