02 April 2024 | International Solidarity Movement | Deir al Balah, Gaza
Following the offloading of a desperately needed 100+ tons of humanitarian aid into a Deir al Balah aid storage warehouse, a seven-person, three-vehicle World Central Kitchen convoy was traveling a deconflicted coastal road when the first Israeli army targeted strike hit one of their vehicles. As the surviving injured desperately scrambled into the two other vehicles in the convoy, occupation forces fired again, and again until each of the three clearly marked aid transports were destroyed and all seven foreign aid workers dead.
A Vehicle in the WCK Convoy attacked by IOF. Photo Source: Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images
News began flashing across global media as World Central Kitchen confirmed the occupation forces’ precision attack on their volunteer aid workers of which included foreign nationals of the U.K.,Poland, Australia, a Canadian/American dual-citizen, as well as their Palestinian driver; 26 year old Seif Issam Abu Taha. They had been coordinating all movements on the ground with Israeli occupation forces, including the movement of their convoy from Deir al Balah which was almost immediately pursued and horrifically attacked again and again by the IOF to ensure the destruction in-totality of all life inside the three vehicles.
World Central Kitchen statement confirming the murder of aid volunteers
In a statement on its massacre of the aid workers’ convoy which was unarmed, emblazoned with the World Central Kitchen logo on all sides and on the top of their vehicle and posing no threat who had communicated this movement with the IOF, Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged the “tragic mistake” which killed “innocent people” and stated that “such things happen in war.” The killings of clearly marked humanitarian aid workers has been a routine strategy of the IOF who has, to date, murdered 196 volunteers doing critical aid work on the ground in Gaza as genocide, famine and ethnic cleansing across the strip move unabated across the threshold into its seventh month.
The passports of the murdered WCK aid workers. Photo Source: Associated Press
World Central Kitchen, who had been serving over 10,000 life-sustaining meals in Gaza daily, have now ceased all operations in the area as occupation forces continue the daily murder of unarmed Palestinian civilians, journalists, medical staff and aid workers. A large portion of the humanitarian supplies shipment WCK volunteers were preparing to receive through established maritime aid channels is now headed back to Cyprus from where it shipped and was due to be supplied to Palestinians who are currently, and purposefully, being starved to death by Israeli forces.
11 January 2024 | International Solidarity Movement | The Hague, Netherlands
It came through a series of damning statements. A striking case for genocidal intent and acts tantamount to genocide by Israel against the totality of Gaza’s Palestinian population, was presented in a powerful, if gut wrenching, presentation by South Africa’s legal team this morning in a landmark case in the International Court of Justice. The charge, submitted to the ICJ on December 29th, seeks provisional measures for Israel to end its onslaught in Gaza related to clear violations of the 1948 Convention of the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. A final ruling may be years in the making.
A fifteen judge panel heard the case laid out sharply by South Africa’s robust legal team. The most incriminating evidence could arguably be the presentation of the systematic normalization of genocidal rhetoric conveyed by Israel’s highest political offices and understood as state policy by the foot soldiers of the occupation army on the ground who made props and tiktok backdrops of their razing of entire residential blocks, universities and hospitals. Occupation forces on the ground comfortably filmed themselves committing shocking and prolific atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza without any attempt to hide their identities, painting a picture of collectively understood intent and impunity.
Here are the points of the case as laid out by South Africa before the International Court of Justice at the Hague.
Opening the hearing, lawyer Adila Hassim outlined, point by point, a case for Israel’s actions in Gaza as tantamount to genocide including the intentional destruction of infrastructure, the blocking of aid delivery, humanitarian mission denial and the intentional creation of conditions that would ravage survivors of bombardment with forcible starvation and infectious disease. Hassim cut to the bone of the ethnic cleansing project the world has witnessed in horror, “Reproductive violence against Palestinian women, children and babies,” held the intention of Israel’s war purveyors to, “impose measures to prevent birth in a group.”
Hassim carefully laid out the sheer breadth of the devastation Israel has wrought onto Gaza through “large-scale homicidal destruction,” before addressing the court for the closure of her remarks, “In sum, Madame President, all of these acts individually and collectively, form a calculated pattern of conduct by Israel indicating a genocidal intent.”
Lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi followed up with more pointedly platformed statements of genocidal intent by high ranking members of the Israeli government. He referenced the “extraordinary features” of explicit language expressing intent to exterminate the Palestinian population of Gaza. Presenting a litany of exemplary evidence of rhetoric born in high political offices of the Israeli government, he then noted that the sentiments were, in turn, “repeated by Israeli soldiers on the ground in Gaza.”
Making a case for the normalization of rhetoric of intent, Ngcukaitobi presented quote after quote distributed from the upper echelons of Israel’s political and social bodies utilizing explicit exterminatory discourse with regards to the Palestinian population of Gaza, not of Hamas, which he then expertly threaded to statements and actions on the ground by occupation forces; the correlation of violence vocalized and violence committed. “Genocidal utterances, are therefore not in the fringes, they are embodied in state policy.”
Israeli society and occupation forces alike have an understanding of their government’s intent for the destruction of Gaza interwoven so deeply that, as Ngcukaitobi explained, they rose up in anger at talks of a limited trickle of aid entering the embattled Strip because it was a violation of Israel’s promises to starve Gaza’s population.
Arguing the question of jurisdiction and the existence of a dispute between South Africa and Israel, International Law Professor John Dugard assumed the floor and noted the recognition that Gaza “is now turned into a concentration camp where genocide is taking place.” He traced the steps which led from South Africa’s condemnation of Israel’s genocidal acts in the Security Council to the emergency special session of the General Assembly to its filing on December 29th with the ICJ seeking provisional measures for immediate cessation of genocidal acts on Gaza’s Palestinian population.
On outlining the pathway to the ICJ, Professor Dugard concluded his statements on the Republic of South Africa’s charge, “Despite these harsh accusations, Israel has persisted in its genocidal act against the population of Gaza.”
South African advocate Professor Max Du Plessis addressed the court for a statement on “the rights that South Africa seeks to preserve through its application.” He painted a picture of a trapped population existing piecemeal to this point on rights deprivations imposed by the occupying force “for more than half a century” in a world where Israel has operated as though it were “above and beyond the law.”
Arguing South Africa’s intention against turning the court “into a theater for spectacle,” the presentation of videos representative of convention violations were decided against. However, an unobjectionable case was made for provisional measures as the reality on the ground in Gaza reflects, as Professor Du Plessis pointed out, beyond a doubt, genocidal act definitions warned against in the 1948 convention including defined-group persecution of which Palestinians in Gaza represent and are being slaughtered as members thereof. Invoking provisional measures rulings in the cases of Ukraine, Bosnia and Gambia, Du Plessis contended that “Palestinians in Gaza are no less worthy of this court’s considerable protective power… to issue provisional measures.”
He then called Tshidiso Ramogale speaking to the “urgency and irreparable harm” conditions needed for the provisional measures bar to be met. Contexts on the ground in Gaza were expressed before the court in shocking detail. Food insecurity, looming specter of famine and daily births in a war zone.
“It is becoming ever clearer that huge swathes of Gaza; entire towns, villages, refugee camps are being wiped from the map.” From death littered streets to mass amputations to the fact that two mothers an hour are massacred in this aggression, Ramogale constructed rubble-wrought Gaza in the courtroom, in explicit retelling, to support South Africa’s case.
“There is an urgent need for provisional measures to prevent imminent, irreparable prejudice to the rights and issue in this case.” Hers was an aching expression of the real time genocide being narrated by Israel and witnessed by the world at large. “The situation could not be more urgent.”
Also making the case for precedent set by the court in prior rulings, the irreparable prejudice argument was exhibited aptly through stories “expressing scenes from a horror movie” through the stripping and humiliation of rounded up Palestinians to associated harms of infrastructure destruction to impromptu abductions by occupation foot soldiers.
Professor Vaughan Lowe appeared next, making the case that requirements of the convention have been met in order to urgently usher in provisional measures to halt the onslaught and promote the “right of the group to not be physically destroyed” as the death toll arches to 25,000 with masses of Palestinians still missing and presumed trapped in the rubble.
Stated plainly, Professor Lowe asserted that “Israel’s actions have violated its obligations under the genocide convention, they have continued to violate them and Israel has asserted that it intends to continue them.”
Palestinians gather in Ramallah’s Mandela Square in the occupied West Bank in support of South Africa’s genocide charge. Photo credit: ISM
Friday’s hearing will conclude with Israel’s utilization of the 3-hour case presentation allowable by the court to convince a horrified world that their prolific incitement to genocide and genocidal acts committed on the ground against the Palestinian population of Gaza is an act by any other name.
02 January 2024 | International Solidarity Movement | Gaza
To whatever extent extermination rhetoric is a common tool of war, Israeli politicians and public figures have prolifically furnished the relentless and ongoing bombardment of the Gaza Strip with the language of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Those drums are being hammered with an ever accelerating pace as the Israeli government fights to control the narrative that the force of millions across the planet have wrested free. The global conscience has centered the lens squarely on the systemic mechanisms of Palestinian displacement, occupation and siege that uphold the state of Israel.
That frantic grappling for the incautious ear of the world has led to a stunning display of genocidal sentiment and the normalization of language blatantly expressive of the end game ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian population, by prominent Israeli political and social figures. It is a self-fueling phenomenon which has spawned colossal quantities of disturbing social media fare including occupation army troops in Gaza using her devastated wreckage as background props to dances, marriage proposals and choreographed skits mocking the destruction of homes and holy sites alike.
Websites educating on the process of genocide such as Genocide Watch feature the haunting map of organized mass killing, The Ten Stages of Genocide. The 2016 document precedes the listed steps by stating that “Genocide is a process that develops in ten stages that are predictable but not inexorable. At each stage, preventive measures can stop it.” By every account with regards to the massacre of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, Israel is in the extermination phase. One step away from completion.
Ten Stages of Genocide. Source: www.genocidewatch.net
Below is a truncated display of the predominant rhetorical drumbeat to genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza from the lips of occupation forces, Israeli politicians and public figures.
Invoking an old testament verse in a statement on the onslaught in Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu urged the public, “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible – we do remember.” The verse, as has been noted, is “among the most violent.” In full it states, “I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”
Calling for the “annihilation” of Gaza, Moshe Zalman Feiglin, the leader of the libertarian zionist party Zehut has stated publicly that “Gaza should be razed and Israel’s rule should be restored to the place. This is our country.”
Israeli journalist David Mizrahy Verthaim made this admission on X, formerly Twitter, “We need a disproportionate response. If all the captives are not returned immediately, turn the strip into a slaughterhouse. If a hair falls from their head – execute security prisoners. Violate any norm, on the way to victory.”
Via Israeli parliamentary member Ariel Kallner, “Nakba to the enemy now! This day is our Pearl Harbour. We will still learn the lessons. Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 48. A Nakba in Gaza and a Nakba for anyone who dares to join!” He is joined by other public figures in casual use of a nuclear option in Gaza.
In the Knesset, member Galit Distal Atbaryan posted on social media in support of “erasing all of Gaza from the face of the Earth. Gaza needs to be wiped out.”
Likud member in parliament Amit Halevi publicly stated his “goals for this victory. One, there is no more Muslim land in the land of Israel. After we make it the land of Israel, Gaza should be left as a monument, like Sodom.”
A disturbing and now viral tiktok video features a member of occupation forces declaring that, “All people in Gaza need to die,” before admitting to killing two Palestinians followed with a celebratory dance. “I want to kill more, more.” Nothing about this video is stand-alone as across all social media platforms, recorded statements normalizing the murder of Palestinians are in shocking abundance.
Ten Stages of Genocide. Source: www.eachother.org
The brazen use of extermination rhetoric points to Israel’s long understood exemption from consequence for horrific international law and human rights violations as Israeli anti-zionist Neta Golan points out, “Usually people who commit genocide don’t say that they’re going to commit genocide but Israelis have experienced impunity for so long that they think they can announce their intent to commit genocide, commit genocide and get away with it.” She concludes with a sentiment that may have a growing wind behind the actualization of it, “We hope they’re wrong about that.”
Enter South Africa.
Themselves victorious in overthrowing the brutal white-ruled system of racial apartheid in the 1990’s, South Africa’s government has filed charges against Israel for committing genocide in Gaza with the International Court of Justice, both for their brutal bombardment as well as for collective punishment of water, food, fuel and medical siege in the Gaza Strip. Israel will appear before the ICJ in the Hague to answer to these charges. Given the trove of genocidal rhetoric confidently streaming out of Israel, coupled with the real-time documentation by Palestinian journalists and civilians on the ground, it is difficult to imagine the anatomy of a defense to these charges.
These words, and many like them, alongside the actions carrying them out (including the indiscriminate bombing and murder of 22,000 people, three quarters of them women and children) act as proven intent on the part of the perpetrators to carry out genocide.
There is an understanding that is born out of all of these horrors. For the far right, extremist Israeli government, the destruction, cleansing and ultimate plan for the erasure of Gaza has nothing to do with liberating hostages. Hostage negotiators in real time communication with hostage takers act carefully, they walk lightly, they speak softly. They do not incite as their language can ignite the wick of an incendiary escalation of hostility which can lead to the death of those whose release they are working to secure.
Yet occupation authorities have inflamed tensions, antagonized Palestinians across the Gaza Strip and incited violence every step of the way. They have acted with pure provocation and blatant endangering of hostages lives along with the Palestinian civilians and children who they have mass murdered in the indiscriminate bombardment. They have bombed and flooded likely hostage positions on the ground. If hostages were liberated, it would remove the performative pretense behind this wholesale slaughter.
This onslaught is about the intentional extermination of a people and the theft of their ancestral land and resources. It is the mass-killing and replacement of the indigenous Palestinian population and the smothering of their culture.
Striking Palestinians across the occupied West Bank have been joined by millions in countries across the world for the Global Strike for Gaza, which was announced by a coalition of major Palestinian factions. The cadence of the strike declarations accelerated rapidly throughout the day in demand of an immediate ceasefire and an end to the genocide in Gaza.
The global strike action was coordinated in response to the dashing of efforts toward an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. Comfortably seated with his arm stretched high, US Ambassador Alternate Representative of the US for Special Political Affairs in the United Nations Robert A. Wood lit a fire of rage and condemnation across every continent following his signaling that the United States would use its veto power to kill a UN resolution, supported almost thoroughly through the UN security council, to block an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
Entire nations shut down. A strike was born.
Sign on shop in Jordan announcing closure due to strike. Photo Credit: (MEE/Mohammad Ersan)
Across the territory, shops fell silent. Schools remained closed. Government offices shut down. Masses gathered in Ramallah’s Al-Manara Square for what was, by many accounts, the largest crowd gathered in protest in the area in some time. Palestinian children made art work and protestors carried a banner naming Gaza’s martyrs while large protests occurred simultaneously in al Khalil. Shops in occupied East Jerusalem remained shuttered through the day as the global strike action flashed across the planet with several countries joining in nationwide efforts to deal economic blows to the heart of the powers who profit from the continuation of occupation force’s genocide in Gaza.
Silence in the streets of Nablus. Photo Credit: [Zain Jaafar/AFP]Lebanon:
Secretary-general of Lebanon’s Council of Ministers, Mahmoud Mekkiya delivered the announcement to the nation; all governments and national institutions would be shuttered in solidarity with the global call out. In reports out of major Lebanese cities, “workers downed tools” and the call for global strike was supported in calls for nationwide solidarity by the ministers of education and culture and several heads of finance. People across Lebanon engaged in the strike in solidarity with Gaza as well as southern Lebanese villages which have also been impacted in occupation forces bombardment.
Streets were bare across Jordan as a stunning show of solidarity surged through “the transportation sector, aviation, trade, banks, ports, as well as schools and universities.” Thousands gathered in the streets of Amman and across Jordan in massive protests. Handmade signs announcing solidarity strikes were placed across hundreds of shops as the nation grinded to a halt in a powerful cry to end the continued atrocities being committed in Gaza.
Photo Credit: English News.cn (Photo by Mohammad Abu Ghosh/Xinhua)
In observation of the strike, the country saw abandoned streets throughout the day, with images circulating across social media of empty streets and gated shops in the typically bustling city of Istanbul.
Photo Credit: Palestine Online @OnlinePalEng
While many countries held full nationwide shutdowns in honor of the strike call, others which did not, saw massive protests in major cities across the world. Entire communities vocally joined the strike in solidarity. #StrikeForGaza was trending across social media, businesses announced individual shutdowns, millions across the world did not report to work or school and millions more refused all financial transactions for the day, no physical purchases, no shopping, no online orders. Boycott actions are a powerful tool to cost companies standing on the side of genocide, occupation and apartheid millions of dollars in profit. Momentum continues to build for an end to the bombardment which has now claimed nearly 20,000 lives. Thousands of the missing lie among the rubble.
One day prior to the global strike, the world marked the 75th anniversary of International Human Rights Day as the bombs continued to fall on Gaza.
October 10 2018 | Wafa Aludini, International Solidarity Movement | Gaza, occupied Palestine
On the morning of October 10, 2018, ten activists from around the world delivered messages of support to the Great March of Return in the Eastern Gaza Strip via Skype, as a part of a ‘virtual rally’ entitled “Words Over Walls.”
The speakers hailed from countries as diverse as the US, UK, Brazil, South Africa and Norway. They included authors Mike Peled, Denny Cormier, Robert Martin, Mike Farah, and Peter Cohen and International Solidarity Movement volunteer Kristin Foss. Participants expressed their solidarity with the Marchers, their tactics and their goals. Musician and composer Mike Farah then sang an original song about the Palestinian’s Right of Return.
“All people of conscience, all people who have a heart, regardless of nationality or religion, must stand with the brave people of Gaza and support their demand to be free and to return to their land and homes in Palestine. The siege on Gaza must be broken and the prison walls that surround Gaza must come down. Palestine must be free,” said author Mike Peled.
“[I’m] just an Australian man who wanted to see the truth, so I went to Palestine and was struck by the blatant abuse of Palestinians by Israel and the loving and welcoming by the Palestinian people,” said activist Robert Martin: “Everything I had read was wrong, the media had lied and I was embarrassed that I had believed [it].”
Additionally, group of anti-Zionist Israelis went near the fence to show solidarity with the Great Return March. They met and spoke with Palestinians activists but were separated by the Israeli siege fence and the Israeli Occupation Forces, who forced them to leave.
The Palestinian Media Youth Group, also known as the “16th October Group,” wishes to thank all of the speakers and hopes to see them soon in a free Palestine. 16th October is a youth Group from Gaza that works with internationals to reveal what is happening in Occupied Palestine, and to expose the brutality of the occupation.
