Gaza Suffers Deadliest Week Since October | Palestine Policy Roundup 07.19.2024
Welcome to the Palestine Policy Roundup, a weekly publication of the IMEU Policy Project.
👀 ICYMI: MEMBERS OF CONGRESS SPEAK OUT
Sen. Bernie Sanders: “Yet, in the midst of this horror and violations of international law, the United States continues to send billions of dollars and thousands of bombs and other weapons to support this war. We, as Americans, are complicit … I intend to do everything I can to block further arms transfers to Israel, including through joint resolutions of disapproval of any arms sales.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal: “Israel is continuing a horrific assault on Gaza, forcing the closure of medical facilities & even restricting the entry of medical equipment. We must do more to stop this. We need an immediate & permanent ceasefire to release the hostages and save lives.”
DC DEVELOPMENTS
❌ SENATORS MUST SUPPORT SEN. BERNIE SANDERS’ JOINT RESOLUTION OF DISAPPROVAL OF ARMS SALES TO ISRAEL
Sen. Bernie Sanders announced last Friday that he will introduce a joint resolution of disapproval against any offensive arms sales to Israel. This announcement comes after the Washington Post reported in June that Sen. Ben Cardin and Rep. Gregory Meeks lifted their holds on a proposed package of $18 billion of weapons to Israel, including 50 F-15 fighter jets, Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits, and air-to-air missiles. The Biden administration has yet to formally notify Congress of this sale.
💡 POLICY ASK: The IMEU Policy Project strongly encourages Senators to support and cosponsor Sen. Sanders joint resolution of disapproval once the Biden administration notifies Congress of the proposed sale. Representatives should also introduce or cosponsor a JRD to halt this weapons package.
As noted in the IMEU Policy Project’s policy memo on the subject, Israel’s use of JDAMs has been linked to potential war crimes against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. In December, Amnesty International found that Israel used JDAMs in “two deadly, unlawful air strikes on homes full of civilians in the occupied Gaza Strip,” which killed 43 people, including 19 children. CNN reported this week that the tail fin of a JDAM was identified at the site of an Israeli strike on a displacement camp in the designated safe zone in Al-Mawasi, which killed ninety Palestinians on Sunday. Congress must reject further US complicity in these atrocities and halt all further weapons transfers to Israel.
📖 LEARN MORE: Read the IMEU Policy Project’s policy memo on why Congress must stop this weapons transfer.
IN THE NEWS
⚖️ ICJ: ISRAELI PRESENCE IN WEST BANK, EAST JERUSALEM MUST END
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza is unlawful, amounts to a “de facto annexation” of Occupied Palestinian Territories, and called for an end to settlement policies “as rapidly as possible”. The court ordered Israel to halt all new settlement construction, evacuate all settlers from existing settlements, return land, property, and assets seized since the beginning of the occupation in 1967, and allow all Palestinians displaced during the occupation to return to their place of residence. The court also called on UN member states to cooperate with the UN to end illegal Israeli practices and to not recognize or support Israeli control over the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
This ruling is separate from the ongoing ICJ genocide case brought against Israel by South Africa, which focuses on Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza. Today’s ICJ ruling stems from the UN General Assembly request for an advisory opinion from the court in 2022. This is a landmark decision by the court, and it affirms what Palestinians have been saying since 1967 about the illegality of Israeli measures in Occupied Palestinian Territories.
🔍 CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS FILES FOIA REQUEST FOR INFO ON BIDEN ADMIN INTERFERENCE INTO ICC ARREST WARRANTS
The Center for Constitutional Rights has filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking internal communication related to the Biden administration’s efforts to interfere with the International Criminal Court’s investigation of crimes committed by Israel during the genocide on Gaza. This request comes as the US is reportedly pressuring the newly elected Labour government in the UK to maintain the challenge against warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant initiated by the former Conservative government. The US may be using the UK as a proxy to delay the warrants as part of the Biden administration’s campaign to stop accountability for Israel at the ICC. The Biden administration must end its campaign against the ICC and uphold accountability for all at the court.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: Brad Parker, Associate Director of Policy at the Center for Constitutional Rights and representative for Palestinian victims before the ICC said: “For decades, despite escalating atrocity crimes by Israeli forces against Palestinians, the United States has persistently undermined and interfered with international justice efforts focused on holding Israeli officials accountable. Now, amid an ongoing genocide, that systemic impunity enjoyed by Israeli officials and provided by the U.S. is threatened. The United Kingdom appears to be doing the Biden administration's bidding in an attempt to forestall the issuance of arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.”
🔑 KEY CONTEXT: When ICC prosecutor Karim Khan announced that he was seeking arrest warrants against Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas leadership, President Biden selectively denounced the seeking of warrants against Israeli leadership.
🖼️ LEARN MORE: As Congress prepares to welcome Netanyahu for a joint address to Congress, check out the IMEU’s social media post highlighting his leadership of the genocide in Gaza. Members of Congress must reject Netanyahu’s speech.
💧 OXFAM REPORTS ISRAEL IS USING WATER AS A WEAPON OF WAR
A new report from Oxfam details how Israel has weaponized water in Gaza through its destruction of water infrastructure, aid obstruction, and cutting Gaza’s external water supply. The report found that these actions have reduced available water in Gaza by ninety-four percent, leaving under 5 liters, or less than one and a half gallons, of water a day per person - less than the amount of water used in a single toilet flush. Israel has damaged or destroyed all wastewater treatment plants in Gaza, and has destroyed all desalination plants and eighty-eight percent of water wells in Gaza City - Gaza’s most populous city prior to the beginning of the Israeli assault - according to the report. In response to this crisis, Oxfam recommends that states call for a permanent ceasefire, support an independent investigation into Israel’s attacks on water and sanitation infrastructure, and uphold international humanitarian law and international law.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: Oxfam Water and Sanitation Specialist Lama Abdul Samad said: “The Israeli Government has been depriving Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza of safe and sufficient water for many years. The widespread destruction and significant restrictions on aid delivery in Gaza impacting access to water and other essentials for survival, underscores the urgent need for the international community to take decisive action to prevent further suffering by upholding justice and human rights, including those enshrined in the Geneva and Genocide Conventions.”
PALESTINE/ISRAEL DEVELOPMENTS
MORE THAN 450 PALESTINIANS KILLED BY ISRAEL IN ONE WEEK AS ISRAEL INTENSIFIES GENOCIDE
More than four hundred-fifty Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza between July 9th and July 15th, marking one of the deadliest weeks for Palestinians in Gaza since the beginning of Israel’s assault. Fifty-seven more Palestinians were killed on Monday, and eighty-one Palestinians were killed on Tuesday, raising the total number of Palestinians killed between July 9th and July 17th to more than six hundred in just nine days.
Israeli forces struck the Al-Mawasi designated safe zone on Sunday, killing at least ninety Palestinians. The initial strike reportedly destroyed one building and targeted an area only fifty-four yards from tents housing displaced Palestinians in the area. The New York Times reported that a second strike on the area targeted emergency responders. This is the tenth attack on the Al-Mawasi designated safe zone since May 6th, when Israel began its invasion of Rafah and displaced more than one million people from the area. More than twenty Palestinians were killed in a strike on a makeshift mosque during noon prayer in the Al Shati refugee camp near Gaza City.
Israel also continued its assault on schools in Gaza, striking eight schools over the course of ten days. According to UNRWA, nearly seventy percent of its schools in Gaza have been hit since October. More than ninety-five percent of these schools were being used as shelter when they were hit. Israeli forces bombed the al-Razi school in Nuseirat on Tuesday, killing at least twenty-five people. Israel also struck the Abu Oraiban School in Nuseirat on Sunday. CNN has reported that a US-made and -supplied Hellfire missile and a GBU-39 bomb were used in the strike. The targeting of schools is a war crime and violates international law.
📸 PHOTOS: View photos of the aftermath of the Israeli strike on the Abu Oraiban school in Nuseirat published by Al Jazeera.
🛑 COMMANDERS FROM BATTALION UNDER LEAHY LAW SCRUTINY ARE TRAINING ISRAELI SOLDIERS, RUNNING OPERATIONS IN GAZA
A CNN investigation identified three former Netzah Yehuda battalion commanders who are training Israeli troops and running operations in Gaza after being promoted through the ranks of Israeli forces. A former member of the unit said: “A lot of us probably did not see Arabs, Palestinians in particular, as someone with rights – okay, like they’re really the occupier of some of the land and they need to be moved,” warning that commanders from the unit perpetuated a culture of violence and promoted “collective punishment of Palestinians.” The investigation also revealed that the State Department’s Israel Leahy Vetting Forum unanimously concluded that three other units committed gross violations of human rights, which should have been enough to disqualify the units from US support. One of those units was involved in the Nuseirat massacre which killed 274 Palestinians in June.
Earlier this year, the Biden administration reportedly considered restricting US funding and weapons from being given to the unit under the Leahy Law after the State Department found that it had not adequately remediated gross violations of human rights in which it was involved, but sanctions were never applied to the unit. The unit was responsible for the killing of Palestinian-American Omar Assad, who suffered a heart attack caused by external stress after he was detained by the battalion. While commanders involved in that incident were removed from their roles, none faced criminal charges.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: Charles Blaha, the former director of the State Department’s Office of Security and Human Rights and former member of the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum told CNN that the forum pays special attention to commanders because “When a commander from a tainted unit goes on to another unit, he can render the new unit ineligible for US assistance too.” In response to CNN’s findings, Blaha said: “the type of violations that the Netzah Yehuda have committed are going to metastasize to the new units because if that person is in charge of training, he is going to promulgate the same lack of ethos regarding human rights.”
This investigation provides further evidence of the failure of the US to apply the Leahy Law to Israel. ProPublica revealed earlier this year that Secretary of State Antony Blinken failed to act on recommendations to sanction Israeli units made by the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum. Charles Blaha noted that “The State Department has never made an independent determination of a gross violation of human rights by an Israeli unit,” choosing instead to only implicate Israeli units in gross violations of human rights after the intervention of Israeli courts. In an article published earlier this year, Blaha outlined how the State Department avoids applying the Leahy Law to Israel, revealing that Israel is subject to a much higher standard of evidence than units from other nations when determining whether a unit has violated human rights and is ineligible to receive US funding and weapons.
The Biden administration must stop this special treatment of Israel and apply the Leahy Law to the Netzah Yehuda battalion, ending all US support for the unit and any units led by its former commanders. The failure to apply the Leahy Law to Israel and the failure to sanction the Netzah Yehuda battalion, even after it was determined to have been involved in gross violations of human rights, undoubtedly facilitates further human rights violations in Gaza and speaks to a broader refusal to hold Israel accountable for those violations. Congress must assert its authority and push the Biden administration to follow laws and policies about weapons transfers, including the Leahy Law, and end weapons transfers to Israel.
📺 WATCH: Watch the CNN report on the investigation.
PALESTINIAN PRISONER REPORTS RAPE, TORTURE IN ISRAELI DETENTION
During a press conference held by the Commission of Detainees Affairs, lawyer Khaled Mhajne reported on his conversations with two Palestinians illegally held by Israel and transferred from Sde Teiman to Ofer prison. Mhajne recounted a case reported by Mohammed Arab, Al Araby TV’s Gaza correspondent, who was detained by Israeli forces in March, who claimed that a detainee was attacked by police dogs, and “raped with a fire extinguisher and had the tube inserted into his butt” which was then activated while in his body. Mhajne also recounted that prisoners are only allowed a single one-minute shower per week in Sde Teiman. In Ofer prison, up to twenty-five detainees are held in unventilated cells approximately five meters in size. A new report published by Amnesty International also documented torture in Israeli detention, and alleged that a 14-year-old was held for more than three weeks with more than one hundred adults in one barrack.