Mondoweiss – January 10, 2024
‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 96: Israel to face genocide charges at ICJ, battles rage on in northern Gaza
Hamas rejects Blinken's visit to Ramallah, saying there are “no differences between Israel and the Americans,” as U.S. and UK naval forces shoot down 21 Yemeni drones over the Red Sea. Meanwhile, Corbyn is set to join South Africa’s ICJ delegation.
Y MUSTAFA ABU SNEINEH
Casualties
23,357+ killed* and at least 59,410 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
385 Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147.
520 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 2,193 injured.**
*This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on January 10. Some rights groups put the death toll number closer to 30,000 when accounting for those presumed dead.
**This figure is released by the Israeli military.
Key Developments
Former UK opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn to attend ICJ hearing as part of South African delegation to hold Israel accountable over genocidal actions in Gaza.
White House describes South Africa’s lawsuit in ICJ as “meritless and counterproductive,” EU countries remain silent.
Nissim Vaturi, backbench Likud member in Knesset, says no regrets over writing “burn Gaza now” in November.
Israeli forces destroy hundreds of historical and cultural sites in Gaza and kill dozens of Palestinian intellectuals, writers, artists, and academics, according to PA’s Ministry of Culture.
Hamas’s Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades ambush Israeli infantry unit in Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City, firing anti-tank shells at Israeli military vehicle.
Abu Hamza, spokesperson of Islamic Jihad’s Al-Quds Brigades, tells Israeli settlers, “Netanyahu’s promises for you to return to Gaza’s envelope are a mirage.”
Hezbollah denies that commander of air unit killed by Israel on Tuesday.
British and American naval forces allege destroying 21 combat drones and missiles launched by Yemen’s military forces, led by Ansar Allah.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visits Ramallah to meet PA President Mahmoud Abbas, says U.S. supporting “concrete measures” to realize Palestinian state.
Hamas rejects Blinken’s visit and says it “is to support the security of the occupation. There are no differences between Israel and the Americans.”
Israel to confront International Court of Justice over genocide in Gaza
Israeli officials are gearing up for the hearing in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) tomorrow after South Africa filed a lawsuit in December accusing Tel Aviv of committing genocidal actions against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The ICJ hearings will broadcast live on Thursday and Friday. Unrestrained U.S. backing of Israeli military actions and bombardment in Gaza has immunized Tel Aviv from any scrutiny under UN resolutions.
The ICJ ruling could end up as another international law that Israel does not respect. However, there is a high expectation for the Hague-based court to hold Israel accountable this time and implement a permanent ceasefire.
Former UK opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn will attend the ICJ hearing as part of the South African delegation. Corbyn, a longtime supporter of Palestinians and anti-apartheid activist, criticized the UK government’s position for not calling for a ceasefire.
“Every day, another unspeakable atrocity is committed in Gaza,” he said.
“Millions of people around the world support South Africa’s efforts to hold Israel to account. Why can’t our government?”
The UN special rapporteur, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, wrote on X that the ICJ should consider as evidence the Decentralised Damage Mapping Group’s report about the destruction of Palestinian homes and infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.
“ICJ should consider this as evidence of genocide when coupled with public statements documented before it by South Africa,” he wrote. “Between 45.3 to 55.9 percent of buildings in the Gaza Strip were “likely damaged or destroyed.”
Moreover, between 71.1 to 82.7 percent of buildings in the area around Gaza City in northern Gaza were “likely damaged or destroyed,” he added.
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said that his country will assert its right to self-defense at the ICJ hearing.
“[We] will present proudly our case of using self-defence under our most inherent right under international humanitarian law,” he said. In the past, Israel refused to engage in legal proceedings by UN courts over brutal actions against Palestinians.
The ICJ has generated several statements from Palestinian, western, and even Israeli groups.
Countries that have voiced support for Palestine in the ICJ to end Israeli atrocities in the Gaza Strip include Turkey, Jordan, Malaysia, Bolivia, and the 57-member bloc of The Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC).
Only the US has objected to South Africa’s lawsuit at the ICJ. The White House described it as “meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis,” while EU countries remained silent.
Israeli MP says no regrets over ‘burn Gaza now’ tweet
Yet, some Israeli officials are still sticking with their calls for genocide in Gaza ahead of the Hague hearing.
On Wednesday morning, Nissim Vaturi, a backbench Likud member in the Knesset told a local radio that he had no regrets for writing on X “Burn Gaza now” in November.
“I stand behind my words. It is better to burn down buildings rather than have soldiers harmed. There are no innocents there… One hundred thousand remain. I have no mercy for those who are still there. We need to eliminate them,” Vaturi said.
On Tuesday evening, at least 15 members of the Nofal family were killed in an Israeli air strike in the Tal Al-Sultan neighborhood in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip. Wafa news reported that the Kuwaiti Hospital received dozens of injured people following the air raid.
UNRWA warns humanitarian conditions in Rafah on verge of collapse
The UN refugee agency for Palestinians (URWA) warned that the humanitarian conditions in Rafah are on the verge of collapse as tens of thousands of Palestinians are crowded inside tents in the city’s main square.
UNRWA estimates that Rafah currently hosts 1.4 million Palestinians who fled from north Gaza, Khan Yunis and Deir Al-Balah. Pre-war population in Rafah was 300,000 inhabitants.
UNRWA’s spokesperson, Adnan Abu Hasna, told WAFA that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are being pushed by Israeli forces near the Egyptian border.
He added that UNRWA is running 155 schools-turned-shelters, but that the humanitarian conditions are on the verge of collapse.
“Gaza is the worst place on earth, and the Strip is being transformed into an uninhabitable place,” he said.
“The displaced are being pushed into this area, which is on the verge of explosion, especially since the conditions are miserable at all levels of daily living, social and economic, as well as at the level of providing aid,” he said.
Abu Hasna added that Israel’s relentless bombardment of north and central Gaza is hindering efforts to deliver aid to these areas.
“What is happening not only exceeds the capabilities of UNRWA, but it exceeds the capabilities of states, as an entire people is being displaced to the city of Rafah,” Hasna said.
Israeli forces bomb Palestinian houses and commit 14 massacres
In the past 24 hours, Israeli forces shot dead six Palestinians who were walking on the coastal road in Al-Sheikh Ajleen, southwest of Gaza City.
In Deir Al-Balah refugee camp, in central Gaza, Israeli warplanes bombed a house, killing and injuring several Palestinians, while artillery forces shelled eastern and southern parts of Khan Younis.
In Al-Bureij and Al-Maghazi refugee camps in central Gaza, Israeli artillery killed at least 20 Palestinians overnight. Israel also bombed the house of the Asalia family in Jabalia, north of Gaza.
In Al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, Israel’s navy force bombed the camp’s outskirts, injuring dozens of Palestinians in the Al-Waha and Sudaniya areas, Wafa reported.
At least 58 Palestinians were killed in central Gaza alone in Israeli bombardment, a Wafa correspondent added.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Wednesday that at least 23,357 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli bombardment, and 59,410 were injured, while thousands remain missing under the rubble.
In the past 24 hours, Israel committed 14 massacres in Gaza, killing at least 147 Palestinians and injuring 243 others, the ministry added.
Israel destroys hundreds of historical and cultural sites in Gaza
Israel’s aggression on Gaza destroyed and damaged more than two hundred cultural and heritage sites, and took the lives of dozens of Palestinian writers, intellectuals, academics, and artists.
Among them was the academic and poet Refaat Al-Areer, who contributed to Mondoweiss in the past. At least 41 Palestinian artists and workers in the creative field were also killed by Israel in Gaza, according to a report by the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Ministry of Culture.
The ministry said that four of the slain artists were under the age of 18. Israel destroyed, completely or partially, 24 cultural centers and 195 historical sites, including 10 mosques and churches.
Israeli forces also damaged eight publishing and printing houses, and three art and media production studios.
Atef Abu Seif, the PA’s Minister of Culture, said Israel was targeting museums, theaters, public libraries, universities, schools, artistic murals, and book collections.
“[This is] a miserable attempt to obliterate national identity, erase the collective memory of our people, and destroy all evidence of their existence and connection to the land,” Abu Seif, who is a novelist from Gaza, said.
“Palestinian culture is the genetic gene of our national identity and is the essence and foundation of our historical narrative,” he added.
Hamas fighters ambush Israeli infantry, while U.S. shoots down Yemen’s combat drones
On Tuesday, Hamas’s Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades released a video portraying an ambush of an Israeli infantry unit in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City. Hamas fighters also fired an anti-tank shell at an Israeli military vehicle which came to rescue the unit.
The Qassam Brigades said that it also downed an Israeli Skylark reconnaissance drone in eastern Al-Zaytoun, one of the first areas Israeli forces invaded in late October.
Abu Hamza, the spokesperson of the Islamic Jihad’s Al-Quds Brigades, said in a video message on Tuesday evening that Palestinian resistance will continue unabated.
“We tell settlers that [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s promises for you to return to Gaza’s envelope are a mirage,” Abu Hamza said.
Israel’s military spokesperson said that one Israeli soldier was killed in the battles in Gaza in the past 24 hours, and a total of 520 military personnel were killed since October 7.
The Saudi-funded newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat said in a report, citing sources in the Palestinian resistance, that the initial cross-fence attack on Israeli military bases and settlements on October 7 was carried out by 70 Hamas elite fighters.
Hamas fighters were reportedly shocked at the ease with which they crossed the heavily fortified and expensively built Israeli fence around Gaza, whereupon the Hamas leadership allegedly decided to push more fighters into the settlements later on Saturday as a backup force and to secure the transfer of Israeli captives inside Gaza.
The 70 Hamas fighters had trained for the Al-Aqsa Flood operation since 2014. Hamas officials were warned of a dramatic operation to take place early in October, but without being briefed of the details.
In southern Lebanon, Hezbollah denied that the movement’s air unit commander was killed by Israel, following an attack on the Israeli northern military command base on Tuesday.
Ali Hussien Al-Burji was killed in an airstrike on his car on Tuesday, and an Israeli military spokesperson said he was in charge of Hezbollah’s drones.
On Wednesday, British and American naval forces said that they destroyed a total of 21 combat drones and missiles launched by Yemen’s military forces led by the Ansar Allah group (commonly known as “Houthis”).
The U.S. Navy announced that it shot down 18 drones and three missiles over the Red Sea, which was the 26th attack launched by Ansar Allah in the region in a bid to stop ships from sailing to Israeli ports.
Blinken visits Ramallah as Israeli forces raid West Bank towns
The U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visited Ramallah on Wednesday to meet Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, and said that the U.S. is supporting “concrete measures” to realize a Palestinian state.
The PA has been powerless to stop settlers attacks or raids by Israeli forces on Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank.
Blinken said that “extremist settler violence carried out with impunity, settlement expansion, demolitions, evictions, all make it harder, not easier for Israel to achieve lasting peace and security.”
Hamas rejected Blinken’s visit.
“The aim of the visit is to support the security of the occupation. There are no differences between Israel and the Americans,” Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said.
Overnight, Israeli forces arrested dozens of Palestinians from Jenin, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Tulkarem, and Hebron.
East of Bethlehem, Israeli forces stormed a health clinic in the village of al-Rashaida, vandalizing and destroying its medical equipment.
The clinic serves 4,500 Palestinians in the area, including the Palestinian communities of Arab Al-Rawa’i and Arab Al-Walida, Wafa reported.
Israeli extremist settlers from the illegal outpost of Ma’ale Amos attacked Palestinian livestock and crops and blocked shepherds from using the lands east of Bethlehem, on several occasions since October.
Israeli forces also stormed Jenin city and Jenin refugee camp overnight, bulldozing roads. The Israeli raid lasted 11 hours, according to Wafa, and several Palestinians were arrested.
The Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Club said Israeli forces arrested 26 Palestinians in the past 24 hours.
As of the end of December, there were 8,800 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, 80 of whom are women.
Sunsetting the War on Terror — Or Not
By by Karen J Greenberg
This week marks the 22nd anniversary of the opening of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, the infamous prison on the island of Cuba designed to hold detainees from this country’s Global War on Terror. It’s an anniversary that’s likely to go unnoticed, since these days you rarely hear about the war on terror — and for good reason. After all, that response to al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks, as defined over the course of three presidential administrations, has officially ended in a cascade of silence. Yes, international terrorism and the threat of such groups persist, but the narrative of American policy as a response to 9/11 seems to have faded away. Two and a half years ago, the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal from the 20-year-long Afghan War proved to be a last gasp (followed the next summer by the killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri, successor as al-Qaeda’s leader after Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011).
But Guantánamo, a prison that, from its founding, has violated U.S. codes of due process, fair treatment, and the promise of justice writ large isn’t the only unnerving legacy of the “war” on terror that still persists. If indefinite detention at Guantánamo was a key pillar of that war, defying longstanding American laws and norms, it was just one of the steps beyond those norms that still persist today.
In the days, weeks, and even years following the attacks of September 11th, the U.S. government took action to create new powers in the name of keeping the nation safe. Two of them, more than two decades after those attacks, are now rife with calls for change. Congress created the first just a week after 9/11 (with but a single no vote). It authorized unchecked and unending presidentially driven war powers that could be used without specified geographical limits — and, strangely enough, that power still remains in place, despite recent congressional efforts to curtail its authority. The second, the expansive use of secret surveillance powers on Americans, is currently under heated debate.
War Powers
The very first new authority created in the name of the war on terror was the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, or AUMF, passed by Congress one week after the 9/11 attacks. It gave the president the power “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations, or persons.”
Unlike past declarations of war or authorizations for war in American history, it was staggeringly vague. It named no actual enemy or geographical locations. It made no reference to what conditions would end the hostilities and the power of that authorization. It was in essence “a blank check” for presidential war powers, as Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA), the single member of Congress to vote no on its passage, warned at the time and has reiterated over the years.
It was also a game-changing authorization. Not only did it lack specifics, but it stripped Congress of its constitutionally authorized power to declare war. In the war on terror, Congress would defer to the president who could decide on his own when and where to launch attacks.
Over the course of the last two-plus decades, that 2001 AUMF has been used repeatedly to do exactly what Barbara Lee feared — namely, broaden the president’s power to commit acts of war against not just the terrorist groups who conspired in the 9/11 attacks, but groups in countries far and wide. According to the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute, as of 2021, it had been used in at least 22 countries, including Afghanistan, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Iraq, Kenya, Niger, Pakistan, the Philippines, Somalia, and Yemen.
Twenty-two-and-a-half years later, in April 2023, Congressman Gregory Meeks, (D-NY), ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, acknowledged that the 2001 AUMF had indeed become, in the words of fellow Democrat Annie Kuster (D-NH), “a blank check for presidents from both parties to wage war around the world.”
There have been calls for the repeal of that AUMF over the years, including from — you undoubtedly won’t be surprised to learn — Representative Lee (repeatedly). This past fall, several such bills were introduced in both the House and Senate, including a bipartisan version by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY).
In the spring of 2023, Representative Meeks submitted his bill to replace the 2001 AUMF with a new one. In doing so, he sought to reestablish Congress’s constitutionally granted power to declare war, emphasized the statutory obligation of the president to brief Congress after launching any attack, and added that the president must brief Congress on a regular basis as to the uses of the AUMF.
In addition, he inserted language aimed at curtailing the Act’s expansiveness, including a requirement that the enemies to whom it could be applied be specifically named. He suggested three: the original al-Qaeda; the Islamic State Khorasan, based in Afghanistan and known as IS-K; and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. Moreover, his bill called for an annual reconsideration of those enemies and added provisions designed to end the president’s right to authorize the AUMF’s use for new groups by claiming they were just extensions of, or forces associated with, the already named groups. Furthermore, his bill prohibited its use against any unnamed enemy, “whether or not the entity is involved in an armed conflict against a force of a United States ally or partner or is an affiliate, associated force, or successor entity of an entity described in such subsection.”
To further constrain the broadness of that 2001 authorization, Meeks included a sunset clause at the end of four years unless it was reauthorized by Congress.
In a world where wars have broken out in Ukraine and now the Middle East, and where additional hostilities are simmering when it comes to the U.S., Iran, China, and Russia, such language would ensure that a separate congressional declaration of war would have to be approved for any enemy the U.S. decided to attack.
In these many ways, the new version of the AUMF would rein in the aberration of those war powers that came into being in the aftermath of 9/11.
And yet the time to redesign the authority of presidential war powers, as created more than 22 years ago by the war on terror, has still not arrived. Meeksﾒs bill, like Rand Paulﾒs, gained remarkably little traction. Likewise, a bill from those relatively few congressional representatives calling for a full repeal of that AUMF rather than a replacement of it failed to make it to a vote.
Surveillance
In addition to indefinite detention at Guantánamo and the authorization of endless, expansive war-making, ever more expansive intelligence collection, at home as well as abroad, has been a foundational pillar of the war on terror — and, like the AUMF, bringing it under some control has been mired in debate and controversy in recent months. In 2023, some members of Congress tried to put limits on part of a controversial law, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act, passed in the summer of 2008 in the waning months of George W. Bush’s presidency. It authorized the collection and sharing of foreign intelligence for the purpose of deterring national security threats.
The problem was not the stated purpose of Section 702 — to acquire information on foreigners abroad who might pose a threat to the United States — but the domestic uses to which it’s been put. The act allows foreigners abroad to be surveilled without a warrant. But since its inception, it’s also been used for warrantless investigations of Americans whose communications have been caught up in sweeping searches of the communications of foreigners — investigations that have become known as “back-door searches.”
Constitutional scholars and civil liberties advocates have fought against Section 702 from its inception, arguing that such searches violate the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures without a warrant based on probable cause of criminal activity. As Elizabeth Gotein of the Brennan Center for Justice explains, “Section 702 lets the government collect the communications of non-Americans located abroad without a warrant. But because Americans talk to people outside the country, the surveillance inevitably sweeps in our private phone calls, emails, and text messages, too — information that the government would normally need a warrant to access.”
In addition, experts note that, over time, the broad authority to collect the communications of Americans has been abused in alarming ways by the authorities. Gotein points out that 702-based warrantless searches have scrutinized the “communications of Black Lives Matter protesters, members of Congress, a local political party, a state court judge, journalists, and in one case, more than 19,000 contributors to a congressional campaign.” For their part, intelligence officials seeking a continuation of Section 702 point out that recent reforms have led to more responsible use of the authority.
Now, for the third time since its passage, Section 702 is up for renewal. December 31, 2023, was the legal deadline for a vote on it. Unlike the two prior times, however, the renewal date came and went without a vote. Instead, substantial opposition by legal experts and others led to several competing bills calling for Section 702’s reform.
One of the proposed bills, the Government Surveillance Reform Act, introduced by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah, as well as representatives Warren Davidson (R-OH) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) in the House, proposed that a warrant requirement be added to the search requirements when looking at the location data of Americans, web browsing and search records, vehicle data, and the like. In Lee’s version, any queries about the communications collected in a 702 search would, in accordance with the Fourth Amendment, require a warrant for material involving Americans. The new bill would amount, in Gotein’s words, to closing “the backdoor search loophole.”
The Biden administration has, however, taken a notably aggressive stance against changes to the law, especially when it comes to the introduction of the warrant requirement. Numerous high-ranking officials have spoken out publicly, insisting that the warrant requirement would imperil their ability to keep the nation safe. In his written testimony before Congress, FBI Director Chris Wray insisted that it was “an essential tool” in the counterterrorism toolbox. In fact, he told Congress, it was potentially “the critical link that allows us to identify the intended target or build out the network of attackers so we can stop them before they strike and kill Americans.” Andrew McCabe, acting director of the FBI after Donald Trump fired Director Jim Comey, put it even more starkly in a podcast devoted to the issue, labeling Section 702 “arguably the most significant national security tool in the intelligence community.” He then insisted that the requirement for a warrant was “completely unworkable.”
So fraught was the congressional loggerhead over Section 702 that the deadline for a decision proved unworkable. Instead, Congress inserted an extension to mid-April 2024 in this year’s defense spending bill, signed into law by President Biden three days before Christmas.
It’s likely that, as with the 2001 AUMF, the attempt to change Section 702 will fail. Powers once given, it seems, only prove ever harder to relinquish and, all too sadly, the overreach engendered by the war on terror has by now become an accepted part of the American (and congressional) way of life.
Guantánamo
And then there’s the most glaring symbol of the never-ending, often extralegal legacy of the war on terror, the continued existence of that grim prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Twenty-two years ago, the Bush administration set up that offshore detention facility for war-on-terror detainees, placing it beyond the reach of military, federal, or international law. Since then, on numerous occasions, new protections for the rights of prisoners there have been put into place, but none of them have addressed one fundamental wrong — namely, the decision that the federal court system was incapable of prosecuting those accused of engaging in terrorism against the United States, including those who conspired in the 9/11 attacks.
Despite candidate Bidenﾒs assertion that, unlike Donald Trump, he would support the closure of Guantánamo, his appointment of a special representative to oversee the transfer of its prisoners to federal prisons, and the actual transfer of 10 detainees, substantial efforts to finally shut down the prison have been noticeably absent. Once a facility that held 780 men captured in the war on terror, it now holds 30 individuals, 16 of whom have been cleared for transfer elsewhere, pending appropriate security arrangements. Another 10 are scheduled for trial by military commissions but their trials are not expected to begin anytime soon.
Whether it’s an endlessly expansive authorization for eternally conducting war around the world, the redefinition of surveillance powers to include Americans under the guise of a foreign threat, or the seemingly lackadaisical acceptance of Guantánamo as an institution, there is certainly one lasting lesson from the war on terror. Once powers previously outlawed or at least restrained in the name of fair, just, and responsible laws and norms become codified and implemented, the road back to normalcy is tantamount to impossible.
Perhaps the best we can hope for is that wiser heads will prevail in the days to come. It is, however, a terrifyingly fragile approach, given the outlook for the 2024 election.
Karen J. Greenberg, a TomDispatchﾠregular, is the director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law. Her most recent book is Subtle Tools: The Dismantling of American Democracy from the War on Terror to Donald Trump, now out in paperback. Sara Sirota helped with research for this article.
https://tomdispatch.com/sunsetting-the-war-on-terror-or-not/
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