Mondoweiss – January 9, 2024
Fighting continues to expand into Lebanon
as Israel assassinates senior Hezbollah commander
Hamas political leader calls on Muslim states to arm fighters in Gaza, as Netanyahu visits northern border town with Lebanon following killing of senior Hezbollah commander.
BY MUSTAFA ABU SNEINEH
Casualties
- 23,210+ killed* and at least 59,167 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
- 384 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.
- 519 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 2,193 injured.**
- *This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on January 9. 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
- Israel says it is planning to fight for the rest of 2024 in Gaza Strip as troops retreat from some areas in north Gaza.
- Israel kills Wisam al-Taweel, senior Hezbollah commander in Al-Radwan elite force, in southern Lebanon.
- Hezbollah hits Kiryat Shmona, a settlement built on the depopulated Palestinian village Al-Khalisa in northern Israel, with anti-tank missiles before Netanyahu’s visit.
- King Abdullah of Jordan warns that Israel created a generation of orphans in the Gaza Strip.
- The PA’s Ministry of Education reports that since October 7, Israeli forces killed 4,257 students in Gaza and 39 in the West Bank, injuring 8,059 pupils.
- Doctors Without Borders says an Israeli artillery shell hit a shelter housing MSF employees and their families in Khan Younis, injuring a child and several others.
- B’Tselem rights group says Israel’s policy is to deny Palestinians food, leaving them to rely on outside aid.
- Hamas fires barrage of rockets on Tel Aviv, while Al-Mujahideen Brigades publishes video showing an attack on Israeli forces barricaded inside a building in Gaza. Islamic Jihad’s Al-Quds Brigades release video message in English and Hebrew of one of Israeli captives in Gaza.
- Israeli military spokesperson says forces found a weapon production site in Gaza used to manufacture long-range missiles which could hit northern Israel.
- Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, says that “the time has come [for Muslim states] to support the resistance with weapons.”
- Israeli forces kill three Palestinian resistance fighters in Tulkarem, and blow up two homes in Jerusalem.
- Israel kills senior Hezbollah commander as Gaza war spills into Lebanon
Israel is planning to fight for the rest of 2024 in the Gaza Strip, according to the military spokesperson, as war has now expanded into the northern front with Lebanon following the assassination of a senior Hezbollah commander, Wisam al-Taweel, on Monday.
Al-Taweel is a unit leader in Hezbollah’s elite force, Al-Radwan, who has fought in every major battle against Israel since 1989. He took part in the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers in 2006 near the fence north of occupied Palestine, an event that started a full-blown Israeli war against Lebanon.
He is the most senior Hezbollah commander to be killed by Israel since October 8, when the Lebanese resistance movement weighed in on the fighting as Israel carpet-bombed the Gaza Strip.
Al-Taweel is the brother of Fadi Hassan Al-Taweel, a leader in Hezbollah who was also killed in 1987, and he is also the uncle of Hussien Hani Al-Taweel and Mohammed Hani Al-Taweel who were killed in southern Lebanon and Syria, respectively.
Over the weekend, Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets on Meron airbase, Israel’s surveillance and air control headquarters, located on Mount Jarmaq in the Galilee.
Hezbollah released a video showing rockets destroying surveillance domes and landing inside Meron airbase. It is unclear the full extent of the damage caused by the attack as Israel is yet to publish details. This came as retaliation for Israel’s killing of Hamas deputy leader Saleh Al-Aruri in Beirut last week.
At least 150 Hezbollah fighters have been killed in battles in southern Lebanon since October, while Israel says 13 Israelis have been killed. Thousands of Israelis have abandoned their homes close to the fence to Lebanon and moved to hotels and other towns.
On Monday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a visit to Kiryat Shmona, a nearly deserted settlement near the fence with Lebanon in northern Israel.
“Hezbollah made a big mistake with us in 2006 and it is making one now. It thought that we were like a spiderweb,” he told army soldiers stationed in the north.
Early on Monday, Hezbollah hit Kiryat Shmona, a settlement built on the depopulated Palestinian village Al-Khalisa, with anti-tank missiles before Netanyahu’s arrival.
“We will do everything to restore security to the north and allow your families, because many of you are from here, to return home in safety and to know that we are not to be trifled with,” Netanyahu pledged.
On Tuesday morning, Hezbollah launched a kamikaze drone attack on the northern command of the Israeli force in the town of Safed, Israel’s army radio reported, in response of killing al-Taweel.
Later on Tuesday, an Israeli drone strike on a vehicle killed three Hezbollah fighters near the town of Al-Ghandouriyah.
King Abdullah of Jordan: “Israel created a generation of orphans in Gaza”
In the past 24 hours, Israel killed 126 Palestinian martyrs and injured 241 more in 12 massacres across Gaza, according to the Ministry of Health.
Since October 7, at least 23,210 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli bombardment, and 59,167 were injured. Thousands remain missing under the rubble, the ministry added on Tuesday.
King Abdullah of Jordan warned that Israel has created a generation of orphans in the Gaza Strip, following a meeting with U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken on Sunday, who is visiting Jordan, Israel, and other Arab states this week; his fourth visit to the region since October.
“More children have died in Gaza than in all other conflicts around the world this past year. Of those who have survived, many have lost one or both parents, an entire generation of orphans,” King Abdullah said on Monday during a speech at the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Rwanda, a country which went through a heinous genocide in the 1990s.
“How can indiscriminate aggression and shelling bring peace? How can they guarantee security, when they are build on hatred?” he added.
On Tuesday, the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Ministry of Education reported that since October 7, Israeli forces have killed 4,257 students in Gaza and 39 in the occupied West Bank, while injuring 8,059.
The majority of schools in Gaza, whether governmental or run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), have been damaged, vandalized, or destroyed by Israeli forces.
On Monday, protesters interrupted U.S. President Joe Biden during a speech at the historic Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, calling him to push for a ceasefire in Gaza.
“If you really cared about the lives lost here, then you should honor the lives and call for a ceasefire in Palestine,” a pro-Palestine protester heckled Biden during his speech, before protesters shouted in unison: “Ceasefire now.”
Israeli forces target vicinity of Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza and MSF shelter
On Tuesday morning, Israeli forces heavily bombed the central Gaza Strip, including the vicinity of Al-Aqsa Hospital, which received 57 bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli raids.
Wafa news reported that in the past 24 hours, Israeli forces bombed Khan Younis, Gaza City, Rafah, Al-Zawaida, and Al-Nuseirat refugee camp.
In Khan Younis’s Qizan Al-Najjar area, Israeli forces killed a number of Palestinians and prevented ambulances from reaching the area, while it bombed the vicinity of Nasser Medical Hospital and launched a fire belt in Al-Zawaida town, causing immense damage to buildings.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said that an Israeli artillery shell hit their shelter’s walls in Khan Younis, which housed MSF employees and their families, on Monday afternoon.
“Four people were injured, including the 5-year-old daughter of an MSF staff who is in critical condition. The staff and their families have moved to another location,” MSF said on X.
The international group added that staff are “trying to understand what happened… MSF did not receive evacuation orders. We condemn this latest attack which shows yet again that no one and nowhere is safe in Gaza.”
Wafa correspondent said that Israeli forces bombed a house in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, while a house and a vehicle were directly bombed in Al-Nuseirat refugee camp.
B’Tselem: Israel’s policy is to deny Palestinians food
The Israeli rights group, B-Tselem, reiterated in a report what UN officials were warning of, that 2.2 million Palestinians are of risk of famine and malnutrition.
B’Tselem said that Israel’s policy is to deny Palestinians food, leaving them to rely on outside aid.
“Most cultivated fields have been destroyed [by Israel], and accessing open areas during the war is dangerous in any case,” B’Tselem said.
“Factories and warehouses have been bombed or shut down due to lack of supplies, fuel and electricity; stockpiles in private homes and stores have long since run out,” it added.
In addition, Israeli police removed a number of Israeli captives’ families near Karem Abu Salem crossing, who were attempting to block trucks from entering the Gaza Strip to deliver humanitarian aid on Monday morning.
“We will not allow any more aid enter through the crossing until we get all of our sick and wounded hostages back!” one of them said.
Haniyeh: Muslim states should supply weapons to fighters
On Tuesday, Hamas showed they still have the capability to fire rocket barrages on Tel Aviv. In addition, the Al-Mujahideen Brigades published a video of attacking an Israeli force barricaded inside a building in Gaza, while Islamic Jihad’s Al-Quds Brigades released a video message in English and Hebrew of one of the Israeli captives in Gaza.
Osama Hamdan, the spokesperson of Hamas, said on Monday that Israeli forces retreated from some areas in north Gaza and are stationed in the western parts of Beit Lahia, north of the Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces announced that nine soldiers were killed between Sunday and Monday in battles with Palestinian fighters, raising the death toll to 519 soldiers since October 7.
The Israeli military spokesperson also said that forces found a weapons production site in Gaza used to manufacture long-range missiles which could hit northern Israel and is connected to a network of tunnels.
On Tuesday, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh said during a speech in Doha that Muslim states should supply weapons to Palestinian fighters in Gaza.
“We see countries of the world pouring weapons into the occupation [Israel]… The time has come [for Muslim states] to support the resistance with weapons, because this is… not the battle of the Palestinian people alone,” Haniyeh said.
Israeli forces kill three Palestinian resistance fighters in Tulkarem
Israeli military raids of Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank had killed three Palestinians and arrested dozens in the past 24 hours.
In Tulkarem, Israeli forces killed three Palestinian resistance fighters on Monday night, and an Israeli jeep was recorded by security camera driving over the dead body of one of the Palestinians.
The PA’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the act was a “horrific documented brutality.”
“The Ministry views this heinous crime as a translation of the racist incitement practiced by the pillars of the Israeli right and the extreme right, who treat all Palestinians as suspects who must be killed,” the ministry said.
Wafa news reported that Israeli forces killed Youssef Ali Al-Khouli, 22, Ahed Salman Musa, 23, and Tariq Amjad Shaheen, 24, in Tulkarem.
Israeli forces left carnage in the city and Tulkarem camp, destroying roads, shops, and burning vehicles. Wafa said that an Israeli special force stormed the Aktaba neighborhood on Monday night and fired at a vehicle on Al-Qaisi Mosque street before shooting and killing the three Palestinians nearby.
Israeli forces arrested Mahmoud Mutie Salit, after being injured, and Iyad Omar Amara, 38, from Tulkarem. It also arrested a number of Palestinians from the towns of Jenin and Qalqilya.
In occupied Jerusalem, Israeli authorities blew up two family homes of Murad, 38, and Ibrahim al-Nimr, 30, in Sur Baher town.
The Nimr brothers carried a shooting attack in Jerusalem in November killing three Israelis and injuring 12 others, before they were killed by Israeli forces.
Murad had spent ten years in Israeli jail, while his brother Ibrahim spent eight years. In December, Israeli forces stormed their homes in Sur Baher and welded the door and windows to prevent their families from using the properties.
Global Research - January 08, 2024
100+ Global Rights Groups Urge Support for South Africa’s Genocide Case Against Israel at ICJ
By Julia Conley
More than 100 international groups signed onto a letter released Wednesday by a newly formed Palestinian rights coalition, urging governments across the globe to formally support South Africa’s International Court of Justice case against Israel, accusing the government of genocidal violence in Gaza.
The International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine is circulating the letter, which asks governments to file Declarations of Intervention before or after the ICJ’s hearing on South Africa’s claim. The case is scheduled to be heard on January 11-12.
“Declarations of Intervention in support of South Africa’s invocation of the Genocide Convention against Israel will increase the likelihood that a positive finding of the crime of genocide will be enforced by the United Nations,” said the coalition.
Groups that have joined the call include Progressive International, World Beyond War, the Palestinian Assembly for Liberation (PAL, PEN International-Palestine, and the National Lawyers Guild.
“South Africa is correct in charging that under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Israel’s actions ‘are genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent… to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial, and ethnic group,” the letter reads.
The letter was released days after South Africa filed its claim, asking the ICJ to declare that Israel has breached its obligations under the Genocide Convention, to which it is a party.
The death toll in Gaza has reached at least 22,313, with at least 57,296 people wounded and thousands feared dead under rubble. Since Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on October 7, with support from the U.S., Israel has bombed hospitals, refugee camps, and residential buildings, all while claiming it is taking steps to protect civilian lives and targeting Hamas.
High-level Israeli government officials have also made numerous statements explicitly calling to wipe out Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, either through warfare or by forcibly displacing them.
South Africa detailed several of the statements in its 84-page complaint, including President Isaac Herzog’s claim that the entire population of Gaza, including roughly 1 million children, are “responsible” for Hamas’ attack and are therefore legitimate military targets; Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant’s statement that he had “released all restraints” on the military to fight Gaza’s “human animals”; Energy Minister Israel Katz’s demand that “all the civilian population in Gaza is ordered to leave immediately”; and Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Nissim Vaturi saying, “Now we all have one common goal—erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the Earth.”
“Finding evidence to establish intent is normally the obstacle to classifying genocide,” said Guardian columnist Owen Jones of South Africa’s documentation on Tuesday. “You read through the endless statements and are left with no doubts on intent.”
Suzanne Adely, president of the National Lawyers Guild, said that
“the increasing global isolation of Israel and the U.S. and their European allies is an indicator that this is a key moment for popular movements to move their governments in the direction of taking these steps and being on the right side of history.”
The U.S. alone vetoed a resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza at the United Nations Security Council last month, and was joined by just nine other countries in voting against a cease-fire at the U.N. General Assembly, while 153 countries supported the resolution.
“It’s imperative that more states follow South Africa’s historic leadership demanding Israel is held accountable under international law,” said Adely. “One clear and immediate way to do that is to file Declarations of Intervention supporting South Africa’s filing.”
The letter was released days after Haaretz reported that Israeli officials have been warned by legal advisers that a ruling in favor of an injunction against Israel is possible at the ICJ.
On Democracy Now! on Tuesday, international law expert Francis Boyle, who has successfully argued cases before the ICJ, said South Africa has a strong chance of winning its case.
“Based on my careful review of all the documents so far submitted by the Republic of South Africa, I believe South Africa will win an order against Israel to cease and desist from committing all acts of genocide against the Palestinians,” said Boyle. “And under Article I of the Genocide Convention, all contracting parties, 153 states, will then be obliged, quote, ‘to prevent,’ unquote, the genocide by Israel against the Palestinians.”
Boyle noted that former U.S. State Department official Joan Donoghue is the president of the ICJ, and will likely use her authority “to shape the proceedings in favor of Israel.”
“However, I have also been advised that the Republic of South Africa is, as of now, nominating a judge ad hoc,” Boyle said. “That is their right under the statute of the International Court of Justice. I don’t have a name yet, but I would hope the South African judge ad hoc will do his or her best to try to keep Donoghue straight.”
Collective pressure from other countries, said Palestinian attorney Lamis Deek, could be “a sharp turning point for Palestine” at the ICJ.
“Through the ICJ, South Africa is poised to strike a decisive blow against this brutal genocide and torture campaign led by Israel in coordination with the United States,” said Deek, whose firm convened PAL’s Commission on War Crimes, Justice, Reparations, and Return. “We need more states to file supporting interventions—and we need the court to feel the watchful eye of the masses so as to withstand what will be extreme U.S. political pressure on the court.”
“International humanitarian laws and institutions are meant to be, and must be seen as, tools for the people, not distant abstractions,” he added. “People can—and should—play a strategic and powerful role by integrating this advocacy into their solidarity work, not only until their governments file supporting interventions but until the ICJ delivers justice.”*
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Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
The Conversation – January 8, 2024
An overlooked and undercounted group of Arab American and Muslim voters may have outsized impact on 2024 presidential election
Though domestic issues tend to motivate most U.S. voters, the war in the Middle East may be the dominant issue in mind for an increasingly important voting block: Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans.
Since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, members of these communities have watched the rising death toll and heard vivid accounts of the horrors befalling Palestinians in Gaza as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to bombard the enclave with the support of the Biden administration.
For some Arab Americans, a community that overwhelmingly voted Democratic in the 2020 presidential election, that support may have negative consequences on Biden’s attempt to regain the White House in 2024. In fact, numerous Middle Eastern and Muslim American leaders have called for their communities to “abandon Biden” in the upcoming presidential election.
The question, then, is what effect such defections could have on Biden’s chances of winning reelection.
Our mission is to share knowledge and inform decisions.
As a whole, the number of Middle Eastern or Muslim Americans is quite small. According to the 2020 census – the first year such data was recorded – 3.5 million Americans reported being of Middle Eastern and North African descent, about 1% of the total U.S. population of nearly 335 million citizens.
But the outcome of the 2024 presidential election may come down to results in a few swing states where Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans are concentrated, such as Michigan, Virginia, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Arizona.
In the 2020 presidential election, for instance, Biden won the state of Michigan by a total of 154,000 votes. The state is home to overlapping groups of more than 200,000 registered voters who are Muslim and 300,000 who claim ancestry from the Middle East and North Africa.
Working around statistical erasure
As a social scientist, I specialize in statistical analysis and research on how race, ethnicity and religion affect political outcomes in the U.S. I know from firsthand experience that any effort to gauge the attitudes and behaviors of Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans requires a bit of analytic gymnastics.
For starters, since 1977, the U.S. government has categorized those with ancestral ties to the “original peoples of Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East” as “white,” according to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.
That stipulation is found in that agency’s Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting and is used in U.S. census reports.
As a result, members of this community are subsumed within an expansive grouping of “whites” that effectively renders them invisible in nearly all administrative data and public opinion polls.
Similarly, Muslims are not captured in official data, as the U.S. does not record its citizens’ religious affiliations.
Even public opinion surveys that record religious denomination typically offer little to no insight into this community. When it comes to more prevalent religious groups – Catholics, Protestants, white evangelicals – their opinions are frequently reported and the subject of many polls.
But Muslims are nearly always relegated to the “other non-Christian” religious category, along with similarly small faith communities.
This is not to say that relevant data on Muslims and Middle Easterners in the U.S. is unavailable. For example, Emgage, a nonprofit Muslim advocacy group, collected such data on eligible voters and turnout in a dozen states during the 2020 presidential election.
By combining the data from Emgage with data collected by AP VoteCast, the Cooperative Election Survey and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, one can reach a few general conclusions about these communities.
Impact of defections on 2024 presidential campaign
The Arab American Institute, an advocacy group, says that since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict, Arab American support for the Democratic Party has plummeted from 59% in 2020 to just 17%.
Among Muslim Americans the drop is worse, from 70% in 2020 to about 10% at the end of 2023.
If these poll numbers hold true until Nov. 7, the 2024 presidential election would be the first time in nearly 30 years that the Democrats were not the party of choice for Arab American voters.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that these voters would go to the GOP. In 2020, then-President Donald Trump proved to be an unpopular choice among Arab and Muslim American voters, in large part due to his executive order 13769.
Signed on Jan. 27, 2017, the order immediately prohibited the entry of immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen and came to be known by critics as the Muslim ban. Though the order survived numerous legal challenges, it was eventually overturned by Biden shortly after he took office in January 2021.
Trump has already promised during campaign stops to reinstate his policy.
Not surprisingly, Biden won overwhelming majorities in these communities in 2020.
But it is not out of the realm of possibility that the votes cast by Middle Easterners and Muslims for the Republican and Democratic candidates for president in 2024 drop by 50% from 2020, as those voters decide to stay home or vote for a third-party candidate.
In Michigan, for example, that could mean Biden would lose about 55,000 votes, or about a third of the 154,000-vote margin of victory he earned over Trump in 2020.
Michigan is not the only state where no-shows in these communities could jeopardize Biden’s prospects for victory.
Decreased turnout among Middle Eastern, North African and Muslim Americans alone would be enough to erase Bidenﾒs 2020 margins of victory in Arizona – 10,457 votes – and nearly do the same in Georgia, where Biden won by 12,670 votes.
Of course, Arab Americans are not the only ones likely to penalize Biden at the ballot box next November over his foreign policy. But even if they were, the numbers show that a presidential election may swing on a lesser-known but potentially crucial voting bloc.
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