ALERT Main Israel/Hamas/Gaza Thread

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UN rights council to investigate crimes during Gaza conflict
UN Human Rights Council will also investigate ‘systematic’ abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel.

A Palestinian boy walks near his makeshift tent amid the rubble of houses which were destroyed by Israeli air raids in Gaza [Mohammed Salem/Reuters]

A Palestinian boy walks near his makeshift tent amid the rubble of houses which were destroyed by Israeli air raids in Gaza [Mohammed Salem/Reuters]
27 May 2021

The UN Human Rights Council has agreed to launch an open-ended international investigation into violations during the 11-day conflict between Israel and Palestinian groups in Gaza, and into “systematic” abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories and inside Israel.
By a vote of 24 states in favour, nine against, with 14 abstentions, the 47-member forum adopted a resolution after an all-day special session on Thursday brought by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations.

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The resolution calls for the creation of a permanent Commission of Inquiry – the most potent tool at the council’s disposal – to monitor and report on rights violations in Israel, Gaza, and the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. It would be the first such COI with an “ongoing” mandate.
According to the text, the commission is also to investigate “all underlying root causes of recurrent tensions, instability and protraction of conflict” including discrimination and repression.

The investigation should focus on establishing facts and gather evidence for legal proceedings, and should aim to identify perpetrators to ensure they are held accountable, it said.
Israel said it would not cooperate with the probe.
“Today’s shameful decision is yet another example of the UN Human Rights Council’s blatant anti-Israel obsession,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. “This travesty makes a mockery of international law and encourages terrorists worldwide.”

A spokesman for the Palestinian group Hamas which governs Gaza welcomed the investigation, calling its own actions “legitimate resistance”, and urging “immediate steps to punish” Israel.
The Palestinian Authority welcomed the resolution, saying it amounted to “international recognition of Israel’s systemic oppression and discrimination against the Palestinian people”.
“This reality of apartheid and impunity can no longer be ignored,” it added.
The United States said that it deeply regretted the decision.

“The action today instead threatens to imperil the progress that has been made,” said the statement issued by the US mission to the UN in Geneva.

Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey, reporting from in New York, said the special session of the human rights council was called “after an unprecedented level of international scrutiny and pressure for action” in the wake of the most recent violence.
“While [the body] has no power to punish those they find guilty, it does mark an unprecedented level of scrutiny for Israel in a situation that it has found itself in the past.”
Opening the session, the UN’s human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said that Israel’s recent attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip that killed more than 200 Palestinians may constitute “war crimes”.

“Although reportedly targeting members of armed groups and their military infrastructure, the Israeli attacks resulted in extensive civilian deaths and injuries, as well as large-scale destruction and damage to civilian objects,” said Bachelet, highlighting the scale of the destruction in Gaza, which has been under a 14-year-old Israeli blockade.
“If found disproportionate, such attacks might constitute war crimes,” Bachelet told the 47-member Geneva forum.
She also said Hamas’s “indiscriminate” firing of rockets at Israel was “a clear violation of international humanitarian law”.
“However, the actions of one party do not absolve the other from its obligations under international law.”
She cautioned violence could erupt again unless the “root causes” are addressed.

The 11-day offensive on the Gaza Strip, which began on May 10, killed at least 254 Palestinians, including 66 children, and wounded more than 1,900 people, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
At least 12 people, including three foreign workers and two children, were killed in Israel by rockets fired by Hamas and other armed groups from Gaza during the same period.

The fighting broke out after weeks of growing tensions over Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem.
The threat of forced expulsion of Palestinian families in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah led to widespread protests, which drew a severe Israeli crackdown and raids on Al-Aqsa Mosque – considered the third-holiest site in Islam.
Palestinian factions in Gaza, including Hamas, fired rockets into Israel in response. Israel then launched a military offensive on Gaza.

Youmna Al Sayed, reporting for Al Jazeera from Gaza, said Palestinians have been calling out for the international community to hold Israel accountable,”considering the targeting of civilians in a densely populated area and residential buildings” and for destroying buildings housing media offices in the Gaza Strip.
“[Palestinians] want the international community to take action and not just condemn the Israeli crimes [committed] on civilians and the Gaza Strip,” Al Sayed said.

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jward

passin' thru
Is it "really" a fail if they kill inside gaza and the dead babies get all the positive press? In this here up side down world, those are judged the "successes" : (
 

northern watch

TB Fanatic
Israel Defense Forces Prepare for Another Hamas Offensive

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Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip in May / Getty Images

Jack Beyrer• May 27, 2021 5:15 pm
Free Beacon

Israel Defense Forces are preparing for renewed attacks from Hamas one week after a ceasefire was reached.

While Israel's political leaders have praised the ceasefire as a successful deterrence of Hamas, IDF officers have privately expressed worries that the terrorist group may reinitiate the conflict, according to Haaretz. Israel's attacks damaged only 10 percent of Hamas’s rocket launching network, and the Iran-backed terrorist group has thousands of missiles left. Without a long-term political agreement between the two, Israeli defense officials say, the fighting will resume.

The officials say an agreement could be reached if Hamas exchanged two captured Israelis and the bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed in 2014 for humanitarian aid to Gaza meant to rebuild destroyed infrastructure. Hamas may also advocate for the return of prisoners held in Israel.

But Israeli military officials worry the humanitarian aid may lead to further attacks. Humanitarian funding in the hands of Hamas, instead of civilian authorities, will strengthen the terrorist group’s leverage, and Iran has expressed interest in sending aid directly to Hamas’s military.

Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz on Thursday extended the IDF leader's term for another year, saying the move "is crucial for Israel’s security" at a time "of regional shifts and complex challenges."

There is also historical precedent for initial ceasefire efforts falling apart. The last major crisis in Gaza—armed conflict between IDF and Hamas in 2014—required multiple rounds of peace talks before fighting completely stopped.

Israel Defense Forces Prepare for Another Hamas Offensive - Washington Free Beacon
 

northern watch

TB Fanatic
Biden Admin Can’t Guarantee Taxpayer Aid Won’t Enrich Hamas
State Department's allocation of $100 million in Palestinian aid prompts concerns

Hamas2-736x487.jpeg

Hamas militants / Getty Images

Adam Kredo
Free Beacon
May 27, 2021 5:10 pm

As the Biden administration allocates more than $100 million in U.S. taxpayer aid to the Palestinian government and aid groups, critics are raising concerns that the State Department cannot ensure this aid won't reach the Iranian-backed terror group Hamas.

State Department officials have thus far declined to outline what mechanisms, if any, it has put in place to stop a tranche of aid money from reaching Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and is responsible for initiating a deadly conflict with Israel this month. The State Department admitted this week that it could not guarantee the tranche of money will be kept from Hamas.

"As we've seen in life, as we all know in life, there are no guarantees," a senior department official said.

U.S. aid money has reached Hamas and Palestinian terrorists in the past, prompting the Trump administration to stop sending aid in 2018. One of Secretary of State Antony Blinken's first moves after taking office was to resume the aid without preconditions. That appears to be the case again as the administration commits millions more to the Gaza Strip and United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which allows Hamas to use its facilities. Multiple Republican foreign policy leaders and a top former Trump administration official described the moves as reckless. They said the State Department's first priority should be putting stringent barriers in place to ensure no aid money gets to Hamas and its affiliated militant groups.

"The Biden Administration has a fundamental obligation to do whatever it can to prevent American taxpayer dollars from winding up in the bank accounts of terrorists. It is in no way acceptable for the State Department to flippantly offer that this is all a matter of fate well beyond their control," Rep. Darrell Issa (R. Calif.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Washington Free Beacon.

Issa also called out the administration for declining to provide further explanation about its "no guarantees" remark.

"This reinforces the imperative of Congress' core oversight function, and I hope that the White House provides quick clarification and commits to redoubling all its efforts to ensure that American aid is never handed over to those who would use it to take other people's lives," Issa said.

Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the Treasury Department and the vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that most established aid channels are rife with corruption and in need of serious reform. The Biden administration can ensure money does not reach terrorists only if it sets out to wholly reform organizations, such as UNRWA, that work alongside the notoriously corrupt Palestinian authority.

"There needs to be approved aid organizations that are trusted by all sides. This probably means that new organizations should be created, with strong oversight mechanisms to prevent what has happened for more than a decade. The current channels have clearly failed," Schanzer said. "But the real problem is not the aid channels: The real problem here is Hamas's control of Gaza. As long as this Iran-backed terrorist group retains its iron grip, it will be extremely difficult to help the population without inadvertently funding Hamas."

Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, who led efforts to stop American aid dollars from reaching Palestinian terrorists, told the Free Beacon that "America should not be funding problems we’d like to solve." Hamas and UNRWA, she said, "are big problems that make Middle East peace harder. Biden will end up funding both and get less peace."

Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, described the Biden administration's admission as "very disturbing" and said officials should immediately and "unequivocally tell us that American aid won't go to terrorists."

"The State Department needs to safeguard taxpayer dollars and make sure we're not funding a war against Israel," Banks said.

Blinken just wrapped up a multi-stop tour through the Middle East to promote a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and announce $110 million in U.S. aid to the Palestinians. This aid includes $5.5 million in immediate disaster relief funding for the Gaza Strip and another $75 million throughout the year. More than $32 million will be awarded to UNRWA.

Blinken, in remarks earlier this week, said the administration is pursuing a "coordinated international effort to ensure immediate assistance reaches Gaza in a way that benefits the people there and not Hamas." He did not describe how the administration would uphold this pledge.

The White House National Security Council declined to comment.

Biden Admin Can't Guarantee Taxpayer Aid Won't Enrich Hamas (freebeacon.com)
 
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jward

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Evan Kohlmann
@IntelTweet

11m

The editor-in-chief of the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar has claimed in an interview aired on Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV that Hezbollah, Iran's IRGC, and Hamas established a unified headquarters in Beirut for overseeing operations during the recent Israel/Gaza conflict.
The Al-Akhbar editor "added that officers from Hezbollah, IRGC, and Hamas coordinated the military confrontation in Gaza, adding that the Commander of IRGC's Al-Quds Force, General Esmail Qaani, visited Lebanon twice to attend the chamber meetings."
During the interview, it was alleged that Hezbollah had transferred weapons and ammunition to Gaza, evacuated Palestinian militant leaders from Gaza, and used drone aircraft to provide intelligence on Israeli military activities to Palestinian militant groups.
 

jward

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Middle East
‘The world is edging toward a major war’

34 seconds ago
Add Comment
by Bob Unruh, WND News Center


This story was originally published by the WND News Center

A former assistant secretary of state under Colin Powell is warning that, “The world is edging toward a major war.”
It’s because of the “18,000 rockets” that terrorist Hamas has launched against Israel in the last week or so.
“That is not an accident. It is provocation,” Robert Charles, who served in the White House for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, wrote at Real Clear Defense.

Charles is a 10-year naval intelligence officer, an author of multiple books and a spokesman for the Association of Mature American Citizens.
“The only question is – who pushed that button? Knowing Israel defends itself, who wants conflict? Candidates are several. Implications are profound, identifiable, and dangerous.”
He said it is larger than, as the legacy media has suggested, just a resurgent conflict between Palestinians and Israel.
“Gaza, controlled by Hamas since the 2007 coup, is the source of the missiles, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad claiming credit. But to stop there is naïve. The source of this attack is the confluence of other moving parts – geopolitical influences that need to be candidly confronted by the Biden administration.”

The “preeminent spoiler” in the Middle East right now, he said, is Iran, which is “looking for distractions, a way to complete nuclear weapons, then take whole nations hostage, empowering radical Islam.”
Further, he said, the rogue regime “is also desperate to break the pro-peace momentum created by President Trump through bilateral deals with Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Bahrain, and progress with Oman, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia. Peace in the Middle East – centered on bilateral deals with Israel – would isolate Iran.”

He said Biden should stop negotiating with Iran, which is happening in Vienna, and commit to President Trump’s sanctions and rally Europe to the cause.
But there are other potential instigators, too.
Opportunism, for example, he said.
He described the Biden-Harris administration as weak and ill-prepared, without a coherent foreign or national security strategy.

And there is China’s agenda, which already is expressing itself in the Middle East.
China recognizes that if the U.S. is engaged in a defense of Israel, it could view that as the perfect moment to “overrun Taiwan.”
“Russia also is an opportunist, whether complicit in the attacks on Israel. In the Middle East, instability helps Russia, which hopes to supplant the U.S. – and Western values – across the region, partnering with Iran, Syria, Libya, Egypt, select Gulf States, and Afghanistan. When the US pulls back, it goes weak – Russia is there,” he added.
And the most dangerous element, he said, is that some parts of the Democrat Party inside the U.S. now “would welcome the abandonment of Israel.”

“While this is hard to conceive – a shift of this magnitude within the Democratic Party – it is hard to deny. Just as portions of the Democratic Party shifted left to centralized government, the opposition of First, Second, and Tenth Amendment rights and alienates blue collar and minority supporters, they are shifting on foreign affairs,” he said.
His warning is that “a non-trivial part of the Democratic Party is now actively anti-Israel, pro-Islamic thinking, at least in the Middle East, and seems unmoved by the prospect of terrorists overrunning Israel.”

He said, “This leads one to wonder – the way John Kerry secretly briefed Iran – what is going on? Voices that should be standing up for Israel in this White House and Congress – are not. This is shocking, given the history of Israel, our alliance, their cultural past, the importance of the Holy Land to Americans, and the nation’s physical isolation. Where is Biden? Harris? Schumer? Pelosi? Where is the counterforce within the Democratic Party saying to their radical left ‘stop the madness, sit down, … Western values, Israel’s existence, role in the world, defense of stability is essential’? Nowhere. Why?”
The present course of Biden’s White House, he said, will result on a loss for America, Europe and democracies around the world.

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jward

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ʜᴇᴢʙᴏʟʟᴀʜ ᴡᴀᴛᴄʜ
@HezbollahWatch



Replying to
@HezbollahWatch
#Hezbollah will find loopholes & penetrate, Gen. @Giora_Eiland warns. IDF will have to go inside #Lebanon—4 km or deeper—& set up a defense far from #Israel. "What's important is that we internalize it's inevitable we will need to carry out immediate ground action," he said.
View: https://twitter.com/HezbollahWatch/status/1399453429228052481?s=20


During any future war w/ #Hezbollah, #Israel will work for the widespread population evacuation from southern #Lebanon as to increase pressure on the party & limit civilian casualties, Limor wrote. On the other hand, the Israeli Air Force will be under attack, at all its bases.
View: https://twitter.com/HezbollahWatch/status/1399494326275686402?s=20
 

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Guy Elster
@guyelster

10m

#BREAKING PM Netanyahu says Israel will prevent nuclear weapons from Iran even if it means a confrontation with US
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Amichai Stein
@AmichaiStein1

35m

Netanyahu at the head of the Mossad exchange ceremony: If we have to choose, and I hope it does not happen, between friction with our great friend the US and the elimination of the existential threat (Iran), the elimination of the existential threat is much more importent
 
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Israel Conflict News
@IsraelGazaICN

6m

Kann: Islamic Jihad spokesman Daoud Shahab said they were calling on ceasefire mediators to pressure Israel not to hold the flag parade in order to prevent the situation from exploding and burning the region again. In an interview with the Al-Masira news agency of the Houthi
rebels in Yemen, he added that "the escalation that has been taking place in Jerusalem and the West Bank since the ceasefire cannot be accepted."
 

jward

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EndGameWW3
@EndGameWW3

2h

Update: Israeli media: Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi asks Netanyahu to hold an urgent meeting to discuss scenarios of escalation in Jerusalem and warns against an outbreak of the situation regarding Al-Aqsa.
 
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