The Israel Green Shirts aka IDF have conducted “systematic and horrifying” genocidal military operations in and near the Gaza City hospital, including extrajudicial executions and the deliberate killing of civilians, Euro-Med Monitor added.
The organization reported that its field team received “identical testimonies” concerning the killings and executions of Palestinian children as young as 4 years old.
It added: “Some of the fatal shootings occurred during an Israel army siege while the victims’ families were inside their homes; others occurred when the victims attempted to escape via routes that the Israel Green Shirts had designated as ‘safe’ after forcibly evacuating them from their homes and places of residence.” (Read the Euro-Med Monitor report here.)
EXECUTION, BURIAL OF UNARMED MEN – Al Jazeera Arabic aired video showing Israeli soldiers shooting dead two Palestinians while they walked in an open area along the coast, apparently trying to return to northern Gaza.
One of the men repeatedly waves what looks to be a white towel. The footage also shows Israeli soldiers burying the two with a bulldozer after they were killed.
Trigger Warning: The footage is graphic and may not be advisable for some viewers.
مشاهد حصرية للجزيرة لإعدام جنود إسرائيليين مدنيين فلسطينيين أثناء محاولتهم العودة لشمال قطاع غزة#الأخبار #حرب_غزة pic.twitter.com/QER98mv2n6
— قناة الجزيرة (@AJArabic) March 27, 2024
Translation: Al Jazeera exclusive scenes of Israeli soldiers executing Palestinian civilians as they attempted to return to the northern Gaza Strip.
THE WAR’S AWFUL TOLL ON CHILDREN – Reuters reports: An international team of doctors visiting a hospital in central Gaza was prepared for the worst. But the gruesome impact Israel’s war against Hamas is having on Palestinian children still left them stunned.
One toddler died from a brain injury caused by an Israeli strike that fractured his skull. His cousin, an infant, is still fighting for her life with part of her face blown off by the same strike.
An unrelated 10-year-old boy screamed out in pain for his parents, not knowing that they were killed in the strike. Beside him was his sister, but he didn’t recognize her because burns covered almost her entire body. (Read the full article here.)
MALNUTRITION DEATH – A Palestinian child has Thursday died due to famine and the lack of treatment, bringing the number of victims of malnutrition in the Gaza Strip to 30, medical sources confirmed.
THE WORLD IS WATCHING – Professor Richard Falk, a former UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Palestine, said the shooting of the two Palestinians on the coast in Gaza by Israeli forces was “vivid confirmation of continuing Israeli atrocities”.
The visual evidence of the killings also highlights the “unambiguous character of Israeli atrocities that are being carried out on a daily basis”, Falk told Al Jazeera.
“The eyes and ears of the world have been assaulted in real-time by this form of genocidal behavior. It is a shocking reality that there has been no adverse reaction from the liberal democracies in the West. It is a shameful moment in Western, international moral behavior,” he said.
MISSING REPORTER – Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has demanded that the Israeli army shed light on the whereabouts of Gaza journalist Bayan Abusultan.
RSF says Abusultan was last seen on March 19, “among those sequestered in the raid on al-Shifa hospital in Gaza.”
Abusultan has been offline since reporting witnessing her own brother being shot by Israeli forces.
Israeli forces just murdered my only brother in front of my eyes.
— Bayan 𓂆 (@BayanPalestine) March 19, 2024
أخويا شهيد.
“STAY AWAY FROM AID SITES” – Gaza’s health ministry issued an appeal for residents in central and northern Gaza not to go to the al-Rashid and Kuwait Roundabout areas to collect aid parcels because of the danger from Israeli attacks.
The appeal comes after two people waiting for aid at the Kuwait Roundabout were severely wounded after being shot by Israeli snipers, according to Wafa news agency.
In a statement on Telegram, the ministry asked people not to gather around humanitarian relief convoys but to wait for aid to be distributed through “popular committees”.
HOSPITAL CRISIS CONTINUES – OCHA reports: In Gaza city, Al Shifa Hospital remains besieged for the 10th day, amid intensive exchanges of fire between the Israeli military and armed Palestinians.
According to the MoH in Gaza, besieged doctors and patients at the hospital have repeatedly appealed to the international community to urgently intervene, noting that the Israeli army has confined medical staff, ill and wounded persons to the human resources building, which is not set up for health care provision, and has prevented them from leaving.
(Also see updates on the other besieged Gaza hospitals here.)
WEST BANK DEATH – IMEMC reports: On Wednesday evening, a Palestinian young man, Walid Louay Walid Al Osta, age 19, succumbed to his critical injury as a result of the Israeli drone bombing of the Jenin refugee camp on Wednesday morning.
Al-Osta succumbed to critical injuries he sustained on Wednesday morning, when an armed Israeli drone fired a missile at a group of young men in front of a house in the Al-Damj neighborhood in the Jenin camp.
Two other young men were killed in the same attack; Israeli forces also shot and killed Ayman Youssef Hassan Azouqa, 19.
BIDEN ADMIN CONTRADICTING ITSELF – Al Jazeera reports: Nearly six months into the war, the United States says it has not determined that Israel has violated international humanitarian law.
Washington’s assertion, made public this week as part of an oversight process on US weapons transfers to allies, has spurred bewilderment and condemnation from human rights groups.
“It’s absurd,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of Democracy for the Arab World Now. “It invites global mockery and disdain to hear such a statement issued in front of the world by the Biden administration.”
US laws prohibit arming countries engaged in human rights abuses. But advocates say the administration of President Joe Biden is bending the facts and denying well-documented Israeli violations to appear to be in compliance with the rules.
Whitson noted that Biden himself has described Israel’s bombing of Gaza as “indiscriminate”, which would make it a war crime, and that Washington has openly recognized that Israel is impeding aid to the territory. (Read the full article here.)
AMERICANS DON’T APPROVE OF ISRAEL’S ACTIONS – Al Jazeera reports: A Gallup poll released on Wednesday found that 55 percent of respondents disapproved of the Israeli military’s actions in the Gaza Strip, up from 45 percent who said they disapproved in November, a month after Israel began its operation.
Among Democratic Party voters, the percentage was even higher, with 75 percent of respondents expressing a negative view of Israel’s actions, while 60 percent of independents also said they disapproved.
“The Gallup poll reflects a clear disconnect between the Biden administration’s policies and the views of a majority of Americans, particularly Democrats, on Israel’s actions in Gaza,” said Raed Jarrar, advocacy director at Democracy for the Arab World Now, a think-tank in Washington, DC.
“This divergence suggests a pressing need for the administration to realign its foreign policy with the values and expectations of its constituents,” Jarrar told Al Jazeera in an email. (Read the full article here.)
Minister of Communications, Shlomo Karhi, stated,: “The law will be approved next Monday in the Knesset’s plenary session, and then we will begin taking urgent measures against a number of foreign channels that harm the security of the state.”
MISTRUST FOR US PIER – Andalou Agency reports: Palestinians are describing a temporary pier being constructed by the US on the shores of Gaza City as an “occupation port.”
The US Defense Department said that the construction of the temporary pier could take up to 60 days, after which 2 million meals per day would be provided to Gaza.
For six months, Palestinian requests for equipment to remove the debris of destroyed homes, to retrieve the bodies of the deceased, and to aid the wounded have gone unanswered. But recently, Israel has sent numerous bulldozers and trucks to Gaza for US use, and have transported thousands of tons of rubble from demolished homes – along with body parts – to the shore for use in the construction of the new pier.
Palestinian political analyst Usame Abdulhadi accused the US and Israel of not being honest about the project. “This pier will be built to strengthen Israel’s sovereignty on the coast, to render the Rafah Border Crossing ineffective, to end Palestinian sovereignty, and to encourage the migration of the people of Gaza,” Abdulhadi warned.
STATE DEPT OFFICER ANNELLE SHELINE’S PUBLIC RESIGNATION – From CNN: “For the past year, I worked for the office devoted to promoting human rights in the Middle East. I believe strongly in the mission and in the important work of that office.
However, as a representative of a government that is directly enabling what the International Court of Justice has said could plausibly be a genocide in Gaza, such work has become almost impossible. Unable to serve an administration that enables such atrocities, I have decided to resign from my position at the Department of State…
“Across the federal government, employees like me have tried for months to influence policy, both internally and, when that failed, publicly. My colleagues and I watched in horror as this administration delivered thousands of precision-guided munitions, bombs, small arms and other lethal aid to Israel and authorized thousands more, even bypassing Congress to do so.
We are appalled by the administration’s flagrant disregard for American laws that prohibit the US from providing assistance to foreign militaries that engage in gross human rights violations or that restrict the delivery of humanitarian aid.
“The Biden administration’s own policy states, “The legitimacy of and public support for arms transfers among the populations of both the United States and recipient nations depends on the protection of civilians from harm, and the United States distinguishes itself from other potential sources of arms transfers by elevating the importance of protecting civilians.” Yet this noble statement of policy has been directly in contradiction with the actions of the president who promulgated it.”
In October, Josh Paul resigned from the State Department in protest against American support for Israel’s attack.
HOW TO BE A GOOD GERMAN – The New Arab reports: Future German citizenship tests will include questions about the creation of Israel and Berlin’s alleged obligations to the Middle Eastern nation.
In the new test, which applicants must pass to acquire German nationality, candidates could be asked the founding year of Israel or Germany’s alleged particular historical obligation to it, according to the Spiegel weekly.
The punishments for Holocaust denial, the name of the Jewish place of worship, and the membership requirements for Jewish sports clubs would also be among the possible questions, according to the magazine.
“Anti-Semitism, racism and other forms of contempt for humanity rule out naturalization,” German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told Spiegel in its Thursday edition.
“Anyone who does not share our values cannot get a German passport,” Feaser said in the report first published on the magazine’s website. (Read the full article here.)
BIBI’S OLIVE BRANCH – Al Jazeera reports: Israel has asked to reschedule a meeting with US officials to discuss its military plans in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, according to a US official.
Monday, Netanyahu called off a planned visit to Washington by a senior Israeli delegation after the US allowed passage of a Gaza ceasefire resolution at the UN
On Wednesday, a US official said Netanyahu’s office “has said they’d like to reschedule the meeting dedicated to Rafah. We are now working with them to set a convenient date.”
Middle East Monitor adds: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with US Senator Rick Scott at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem. At the meeting, Netanyahu said the US decision to abstain in the UN Security Council vote on a ceasefire resolution in Gaza was ‘very, very bad’ and his decision to not send an Israeli delegation to Washington in response to the US not vetoing the resolution was to send ‘a message’ to Hamas.
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