Israel Intensifies Attacks Across Gaza, Lebanon as US Focused on Elections | Palestine Policy Roundup 11.08.24
Welcome to the Palestine Policy Roundup, a weekly publication of the IMEU Policy Project.
DC DEVELOPMENTS
📣 AS RECESS WINDS DOWN, THOUSANDS PLEDGE TO TAKE ACTION TO BLOCK WEAPONS TO ISRAEL
As the Congressional recess winds down and Members of Congress prepare to return to Washington, more than 10,000 people have signed onto the IMEU Policy Project’s pledge to take action to support Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRDs), introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, to block weapons deliveries to Israel. These weapons deliveries were notified by the Biden administration in August. This will be the first-ever vote in Congress to block weapon sales to Israel.
Sanders’ JRDs specifically seek to block the sale of Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMs, 120mm tank rounds, 120mm high explosive mortar rounds, Medium Tactical Vehicles, and new F-15 aircraft and upgrades for Israel’s existing fleet of F-15s. Many, if not all, of these weapons have been used by Israel to further its campaign of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and US-provided weapons have been used in many potential war crimes committed by Israel. Congress must stop these weapons sales and uphold US law and policies on weapons transfers by ending all weapons to Israel.
💡 POLICY ASK: The IMEU Policy Project strongly encourages Senators to cosponsor Sen. Sanders’ joint resolutions of disapproval and strongly encourages Representatives to introduce companion JRDs in the House.
📖 LEARN MORE about these weapons transfers and how they have been used in apparent war crimes in the IMEU Policy Project’s policy memo on the need for these JRDs.
IN THE NEWS
☑️ VP KAMALA HARRIS FALLS SHORT AS INCUMBENTS WHO SUPPORT PALESTINIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ARE RE-ELECTED
Vice President Kamala Harris lost the presidential election this week because she failed to turn out the voters who propelled President Joe Biden to victory in 2020. That is in part because Democratic leadership, including VP Harris and President Biden, failed to listen to their core voters who were demanding an end to US support for Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Poll after poll, including one commissioned by the IMEU Policy Project, found that VP Harris was leaving votes on the table by refusing to break with President Biden’s disastrous policies toward Gaza and Israel, and by refusing to call for an end of weapons to Israel. The IMEU Policy Project’s poll found that VP Harris would have gained far more Democratic and independent voters in the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona than she would have lost by pledging to withhold weapons from Israel and end US complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
While the election is over, there is still time for the Biden administration to heed the demands of millions of Americans. In his final days in office, President Biden must comply with US law and administration policy and end weapons transfers to Israel. Members of Congress also must continue to pressure the Biden administration to end weapons to Israel and must exercise their oversight authority over the administration during the final days of this term.
Across the country, supporting the human rights of Palestinians continued to be good politics. Many Members of Congress who received top scores on the IMEU Policy Project’s scorecard won their re-election campaigns, including those in swing states. Rep. Rashida Tlaib was reelected with 70% of the vote in her Michigan district, while Reps. Mark Pocan, Hank Johnson, and Summer Lee won their reelection bids in Wisconsin, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, respectively.
🚨 MORE THAN 3,000 LEBANESE KILLED BY ISRAEL SINCE 2023 AS WIDESPREAD DESTRUCTION DISPLACES MORE THAN ONE MiLLION
Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported this week that more than 3,000 Lebanese have been killed by Israeli attacks over the last 13 months. This is more than double the number of Lebanese killed during Israel’s last attacks on Lebanon in 2006. 1.2 million Lebanese, at least 20% of the country’s total population, have been displaced by Israeli attacks across the country.
While Israel has attacked many parts of Lebanon, much of its destruction has been particularly concentrated in the southern part of the country, according to an analysis published by the Associated Press. The widespread and sometimes nearly complete destruction of a line of 11 villages in the region has also raised concerns that Israel is preparing to create a “buffer zone” just as many fear it may also do in northern Gaza. The report found that between 100 and 500 structures have been destroyed or damaged in these highlighted villages by Israeli airstrikes or strikes by Israeli forces.
Israel’s bombing campaign has continued across Lebanon this week as the US turned its attention to the elections. Israeli strikes around the Bekaa valley killed 40 Lebanese on Tuesday while Israeli airstrikes continued in the southern suburbs of Beirut. An Israeli strike on an apartment building in the town of Barja in central Lebanon killed 30 Lebanese. That strike was carried out without warning by Israeli forces, and occurred in a part of Lebanon that had not yet been targeted by Israel. UNIFIL peacekeepers were also wounded by an Israeli strike on their vehicle in Sidon, which is near Barja. These attacks continue to demonstrate that Israel is going beyond its stated reasons for attacking Lebanon and expanding its bombing campaign across the country.
PALESTINE/ISRAEL DEVELOPMENTS
🍎 ISRAEL CONTINUES TO OBSTRUCT AID TO GAZA AS IT MOVES FORWARD ON UNRWA BAN
In an address before UN members this week, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini warned that “Without intervention by member states, UNRWA will collapse, plunging millions of Palestinians into chaos” and urged the UN to prevent the implementation of Israel’s ban on the agency. His comments come as Israel announced this week that it canceled the cooperation agreement with the UN that allowed for the agency’s relationship with Israel. The Israeli Knesset passed two bills last week that would shut down UNRWA operations within Israel and in the occupied territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.
This ban would have severe effects on Palestinian refugees, especially in Gaza. UNRWA not only distributes aid, but also provides services such as education and healthcare for 6 million Palestinian refugees in the occupied territories and in Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. Half of these refugees live within the West Bank and Gaza. More than 500,000 Palestinian children were enrolled in UNRWA schools and 1.7 million Palestinians received humanitarian assistance from the agency in 2021.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, speaking to the UN General Assembly, said: “In Gaza, dismantling UNRWA will collapse the UN humanitarian response, which relies heavily on the agency’s infrastructure. In the absence of a capable public administration or state, only UNRWA can deliver education to more than 650,000 girls and boys in Gaza. In the absence of UNRWA, an entire generation will be denied the right to education.”
Israeli forces attacked a polio vaccination center and UNICEF employee working on the polio vaccination campaign this week. The attack injured three children and disrupted the vaccination campaign as more than 100,000 children awaited the crucial second dose of the vaccine. The second round of the campaign was set to begin late last month, but was delayed because of intense Israeli strikes and associated mass displacement as Israeli forces continued to attack northern Gaza. While the vaccination campaign later continued, 15,000 children under the age of 10 will not receive the second dose of the vaccine in Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and Jabalia as Israel continues its blockade of northern Gaza.
The ban on UNRWA and attacks on the polio vaccination campaign are some of the latest incidents in Israel’s obstruction of aid to Gaza. During the first three weeks of October, only 704 truckloads of aid entered the occupied territory–the lowest amount in 2024 so far. Before Israel’s genocidal campaign, 500 truckloads of aid entered Gaza every day, and the need for aid has only grown over the course of Israel’s total destruction of critical infrastructure.
This amount of aid is also far below the amount outlined in the recent letter sent by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to Israel last month. The deadline for Israel to comply with the demands made in that letter, which are still not nearly enough to address the needs of Palestinians in Gaza, is next week.
This week, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in response to questions about the letter that as of this week the stipulations in the letter have not been met and that Israel has failed to implement all the actions Blinken and Austin recommended. While the Biden administration should have immediately suspended weapons to Israel as soon as it made the determination that Israel was obstructing aid to Gaza, if Israel continues to fail to meet the stipulations in the letter the administration must immediately comply with US laws and administration policy and end all weapons transfers to Israel.
🚫 ISRAELI FORCES WILL NOT ALLOW PALESTINIANS TO RETURN TO NORTHERN GAZA AS DOZENS KILLED BY ISRAELI STRIKES
In a media briefing on Tuesday, an Israeli military official said that Israeli forces do not intend to allow Palestinians who have been forcibly displaced from northern Gaza to return to their homes, and that no aid will be allowed to enter the northern part of Gaza because there are no civilians left there. While a spokesperson for the Israeli military has since distanced the military from these comments and claimed that the official’s words were taken out of context, Palestinians and international humanitarian groups alike point to evidence that suggests Israel is carrying out the so-called “generals’ plan” through its siege of northern Gaza and constant attacks on the area. Legal experts have highlighted how forcible displacement of northern Gaza’s population and its siege on the area may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
As Israel continues its assault on northern Gaza, UN officials released a statement which describes the situation there as “apocalyptic” and warns that “[t]he entire Palestinian population in North Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence.” Israeli forces have carried out strikes across the area, killing 50 Palestinian children in strikes on the Jabalia refugee camp last weekend. Israeli forces also killed 20 Palestinians in a strike on a home where displaced Palestinians were sheltering in Beit Lahiya on Monday, similar to an attack last week in the same area that killed nearly 100 Palestinians.
Israeli forces also killed at least 22 Palestinians in attacks on the Jabalia refugee camp and in Beit Lahiya in strikes on Thursday, and 12 more Palestinians were killed in a strike on a school in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City where displaced Palestinians were sheltering. Israeli forces have also reportedly issued more evacuation orders in northern Gaza and are “bombing everywhere”, according to a resident who spoke with Reuters.
📺 WATCH: A video captured by a UN vehicle driving in northern Gaza captured the scale of the devastation caused by Israel’s assault there, featuring torn up roads and massive piles of rubble among bombed-out buildings.
Israeli forces attacked again this week Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the last remaining medical facilities in northern Gaza. Israeli jets and drones reportedly injured medics and patients on the upper floors of the hospital where the children’s ward is located. This attack comes not long after another attack on the hospital by Israeli forces, during which medics and patients were detained and which left the hospital with less than half of its staff.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: Al-Jazeera journalist Hani Mahmoud reported: “The hospital does not operate as a health facility now. It’s more of accommodating injuries and the dead who are brought to the hospital…The entire northern part of the strip is left without any proper healthcare facility, the whole healthcare system is gone, is completely collapsing…and civilians are left without any proper access to that.”
Image: WAFA (Q2915969) in contract with a local company (APAimages), via Wikimedia Commons