Tony
Greenstein was the first speaker followed by British Palestinian Ghada Karmi who lived
through the Nakba in 1948, then Haim
Bresheeth, an Israeli anti-Zionist and JNP Steering Committee member.Last to speak was Rania Khalek from Breakthrough News.
Rania is from Lebanon although she was speaking from the United States. Rania,
gave a brilliant description of the situation.
Haim Bresheeth
The quality of all the speakers was very
high. Unfortunately Ali
Abunimah from Electronic Intifada
was not able to be present because he has gone down with food poisoning.I wish him a speedy recovery.
Tonight Sky News, unusually for the British
media, did what the BBC has never done, which is to conduct an investigation
into one of Israel’s worst atrocities, the murder of a 5 year old girl and the paramedics
sent to rescue her, after the Israeli
military had given the ambulance clearance.
Tony Greenstein
This has been a repeated phenomenon of Israel’s
genocidal war in Gaza. So often has it happened, most famously with the murder of the 7 members of the
World Food Kitchen, that one can now say with certainty that Israel’s ‘deconfliction’
mechanism is used as a deliberate means of entrapping its victims.
When health workers were asked whether
they would prefer to sleep in an area that the Israeli military had been given
the co-ordinates for and agreed with, they said ‘no’.
The short video into the murder of
Hind
Rajab in the Tel al-Hawa district of Gaza City demonstrates that despite
the evidence – satellite photos showing the position of the Israeli tanks, a
press release on the military’s own website admitting they were in the area, which
they then deleted when it incriminated them and the recordings of the Hind and
her sister speaking to the Red Crescent, the Israeli military simply denied
what was plainly obvious.
This is the press release that Israel issued boasting of its operations in the Tel al-Hawa area
When the press release showed the Israel army to be a liar they simply deleted it - yet the US is happy for Israel to conduct its own investigations
And why shouldn’t the Israeli military
lie. It knows that whatever happens, however many it murders, the United States
Administration has its back. There is no war crime, no atrocity that the Biden regime
won’t turn a blind eye to. And why not?Did they not persecute Julian Assange for revealing a fraction of their
war crimes in Iraq?Why should the United
States not tolerate similar behaviour in its favourite attack dog? That is why
when the US says its passed the investigation to the Israeli authorities we can take it as
read that they aren’t in the least concerned.
To those who say that the BBC is more
progressive because it is state owned my answer is that this only means it
reflects more accurately the genocidal views of our rulers. Although it
occasionally has better stuff on its website, none of this leaks into its
mainstream news or current affairs broadcasts.
Almost obscenely, for the anniversary of
Israel’s genocide in Gaza the BBC commissioned a special tribute film Surviving
October
7th: We Will Dance Again. It’s not the story of how Palestinians have
survived the genocide of the past year, but the Israeli victims of the breakout
from Israel’s open air prison in Gaza.
The idea of conducting a serious investigation
into e.g. the bombing
of Al Ahli hospital when 500 Palestinians were murdered as Israel began to
target hospitals or the story of the destruction
of Al Shifa Hospital never occurred to the BBC because Palestinians are less
than human.
It is as if, in the wake of a slave
revolt in the Caribbean the BBC had made a film about how traumatic it was for
the slave holders. If the BBC had existed at the time it probably would
have.The BBC consciously provides the
narrative to enable Israel and the United States to continue the genocide. It
has the blood of thousands of Palestinians on its hands as surely as those who
pulled the trigger.
My Open Letter to the BBC's Complaints Department
The least people can do is to refuse to pay their BBC license. There is
nothing the BBC can do. Its investigators have no power of entry. All you need
is a minimal amount of courage. You don’t have to announce it to anyone. Just do
it and ignore the 3 monthly reminders the BBC sends out. That way you won’t
have to contribute to Hugh Edwards £200,000 pay-off. If a million people in
Britain were to no longer pay their license fee to the genocide enablers at the
BBC they would soon get the message. You don’t have to enter an Elbit arms
factory or do anything risky, just stop paying the bastards.
US rapper
Macklemore releases track in memory of Hind Rajab and in support of the brave, principled students at Columbia University
Hind’s Hall - Macklemore (uncensored)
When @YouTube age restricts a video, it kills the view count and means it won’t come up as a suggested video. It age-restricted @macklemore song on Gaza “Hind’s Hall.” I believe that YouTube wields this tool for censorship. pic.twitter.com/ujEEf3X9XZ
Youtube deliberately restricts the video - Google has billion dollar military contracts with Israel
Rapper Macklemore has brought
out Hind’s Hall, a reference to the Columbia University building that
students renamed after the 6 year old girl murdered by Israel. YouTube
instantly censored it by warning people that they might be offended by the
truth.
US National Security spokesman John Kirby has said
there is no evidence of “deliberate” Israeli war crimes in Gaza. To paraphrase
Paul Simon’s The Boxer the man sees
what he wants to see and disregards the rest.
The evidence in this case is so clear that anyone who denies what
happened is no different to a holocaust denier. Kirby, Genocide Joe and Slimy
Sunak are genocide deniers.
As Israel pursues its genocidal and ethnic cleansing agenda in Rafah the United
States is show to be morally naked before the world. All it can do is repeat ‘anti-Semitism’ as if it were an
incantation. You'd have to be brain dead to fail to understand
that ‘anti-Semitism’ has been weaponised against those with a conscience.
Moments before invading, Zionist soldiers blast a ram’s horn and chant “Let us destroy Rafah.”
That there are all too many Jewish people who are prepared to provide the
moral alibi for Israel’s genocidal crimes in Palestine is to their eternal discredit.
They more than anyone else have legitimised anti-Semitism by their willingness
to act as cover for the barbaric crimes of Israel’s war mongers.
From left: Hind Rajab, 6, Bashar Hamada, 44, and his daughter Layan, 15, were killed, along with four other family members, as well as paramedics Yousef Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun. (Mohammed Hamada and Palestine Red Crescent Society )
Bezalel Smotrich calls for the wiping out of Gaza’s towns
Only a week ago Israel’s Finance Minister and West Bank Gauleiter,
Bezalel Smotrich, called
for Gaza to be wiped out. There were no hysterical newspaper headlines, no
condemnations from world leaders still less from within Israel. Nor did Board of Deputies or UK Lawyers for Israel have anything to say.
All the pious professions of outrage about Russia's invasion of Ukraine can now be seen for
the hypocritical cant they are.
By 5 March nearly
600 children had been killed in two years of war in Ukraine. In Gaza,
counting those under the rubble, at least 20,000 children have been killed in
just 7 months. Yet the US continues to give Israel unwavering diplomatic
support, financial and military, as the corrupt and repressive Arab regimes look
on, providing Israel with backdoor support through a landline from Abu Dhabi
and the Emirates via Jordan to Israel.
The death
of Hind Rajab was particularly heinous. The article below by the Washington
Post is comprehensive. It exposes Israel’s lies and deceit over the murder of
Hind and the paramedics sent to rescue her.
Both the BBC
and Washington
Post reports make it clear that what occurred was a clear and premeditated war
crime by the Israeli military. Although the BBC won’t be devoting any air time
to this as it is still covering the break-out of October 7. Nevertheless the report
on its website is devastating as Hind phones the Palestinian Red Crescent, who
dispatch two paramedics.
The fact that Israeli tanks fired on a civilian car is evidence in itself
that John Kirby is a liar.But when the
paramedics approached, having been given clearance by the Israeli army, the
tank opened fire killing both Hind and the paramedics. John Kirby however is unable to see anything that contradicts his genocidal denialism.
Slimy Sunak when he exited Downing Street to condemn
George Galloway’s by-election victory mentioned the Israeli casualties, one
third of them military, on October 7th. Somehow this racist creep ‘forgot’
to mention the thousands of civilian casualties since then.
It is clear from the Washington Postarticle that Israel lies, lies and lies again without any shame whatsoever.
Tony Greenstein
For 3½ long hours on Jan. 29, the cellphone in 6-year-old Hind Rajab’s hands was the closest thing she had
to a lifeline. Alone in the back seat of a car outside a Gaza City gas station,
she was drifting in and out of consciousness, surrounded by bodies, as she told
emergency dispatchers that Israeli tanks were rumbling closer.
From the operations room of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), roughly 50 miles
away in the city of Ramallah, the team on duty had done their best to save the
child. Paramedics were on their way, the dispatchers kept telling her: Hold on.
Bob Dylan’s Masters of War could have been written with Biden and Sunak in mind
The paramedics were driving to their deaths.
Twelve days later, when a Palestinian civil defense crew finally reached
the area, they found Hind’s body in a car riddled with bullets, according to
her uncle, Samir Hamada, who also arrived at the scene early that morning. The
ambulance lay charredroughly 50 meters (about 164 feet) away from the
car, its destruction consistent with the use of a round fired by Israeli tanks,
according to six munitions experts.
In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said it had conducted a
preliminary investigation and that its forces were “not present near the vehicle or within the firing range” of the
Hamada family car. Nor, the IDF said, had it been required to provide the
ambulance permission to enter the area. The State Department said it has raised
the case repeatedly with the Israelis.
“The Israelis told us there had,
in fact, been IDF units in the area, but the IDF had no knowledge of or
involvement in the type of strike described,”
spokesman Matthew Miller said.
A Washington Post investigation found that Israeli armored vehicles were
present in the area that afternoon. The Post additionally found that the
gunfire audible as Hind and her cousin Layan begged for help and the extensive
damage caused to the ambulance were consistent with Israeli weapons. The
analysis is based on satellite imagery, contemporaneous dispatcher recordings,
photos and videos of the aftermath, interviews with 13 dispatchers, family
members and rescue workers, and more than a dozen military, satellite,
munitions and audio experts who reviewed the evidence, as well as the IDF’s own
statements.
Murder of Hind Raja and 2 ambulance workers
After this story published, Miller said:
“The death of Hind Rajab is an
unspeakable tragedy — something that never should have occurred and never
should occur. … So what we are going to do is take the information that is
contained in that Washington Post story, we’re going to go back to the
government of Israel and ask them for further information. We would still
welcome a full investigation into this matter, and how it occurred in the first
place.”
PRCS as well as representatives from Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor and
the Civil Defense who visited the scene on Feb. 10 provided visuals to The
Post, which it verified by independently confirming the location using
satellite imagery, open-source maps and eyewitness interviews. (Euro-Med Human
Rights Monitor)
The Post’s review also found that the ambulance was discovered along a
route provided by COGAT, an arm of the Israeli Defense Ministry that generally
coordinates safe passage for medical vehicles with the IDF. COGAT initially
referred specific questions about the ambulance to the IDF. In mid-March, Elad
Goren, head of Coordination and Liaison Administration at COGAT, told The Post
that the agency “coordinated everything …
including the ambulance that wanted to go and find Hind,” but said he was “not aware” of the specifics. COGAT did
not respond to repeated requests to clarify.
The IDF denied that any coordination had taken place, repeating its
assertion that its forces were not in the area. It did not comment on two
detailed timelines of the incident, or on the expert findings, provided by The
Post.
It was not possible to reach Hamas’s military wing for comment on the
incident.
Humanitarian officials have warned that a system of coordination with Israel’s
military, designed to protect their aid deliveries and lifesaving ambulance
maneuvers, is broken. Israeli strikes on a World Central Kitchen convoy that killed seven aid workers
in Gaza on April 1 and stirred global outrage came after failed deconfliction
efforts.
More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed during
Israeli military operations in Gaza, according to local health authorities.
Amid a war of unyielding horror, Hind’s case touched a nerve around the world,
in large part because her recorded cries for help offered a glimpse into the
terrors faced by civilians.
9:32 a.m.
Generations of the Hamada family had
lived on al-Wahda Street in the northern part of Gaza City for decades.
Everything changed on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants stormed border
communities in southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, including civilians
in their homes and young people at a concert, and taking at least 240 hostages
back to Gaza. The assault drew a punishing response from Israel, which insists
its campaign is necessary to destroy Hamas’s military capabilities.
More than 75 percent of Gaza’s
population of 2.2 million has been displaced by the fighting, many residents
multiple times, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The Hamada family fled their houses; some went
south, while others sheltered closer to home, in the nearby Tel al-Hawa
neighborhood in western Gaza City.
But late on Jan. 28, Israeli forces
returned to western Gaza City in numbers. Posts on social media show
heavy gunfire and airstrikes in that part of the city just after midnight local
time. At 9:32 a.m., the IDF issued a call in
Arabic on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, asking
residents in the west of Gaza City — including the Tel al-Hawa area — to
evacuate immediately.
Hind’s uncle, Bashar, and his wife
packed her into the car along with her four cousins, Bashar’s brother Samir
said. They planned to drive north, out of the evacuation zone and back toward
the family home in northern Gaza City.
