Palestinian Massacre Disguised as Rescue

• CrossFireArabia
• June 10, 2024

By Dr Marwan Asmar  

It’s a criminal act under the eyes of the world. Israel’s Nusseirat massacre with the active cooperation of American help is grotesque by any standard for the 250 Israeli strikes made on the camp during this flagrant military operation.

The number of innocent Palestinians killed kept climbing up on the day of the massacre, Saturday, with the final death toll reaching 274 martyrs. These included 64 children, 57 women and 37 elderly people. Shameful is the fact, the massacre was carried out by Israeli soldiers, Shabak agents and members of the police who had been planning this for weeks.

The number of injuries was equally horrific as 698 people were injured during this killing spree that was backed from the air, sea and with ground tanks helping the infiltrators who went into the camp camouflaged in an aid truck and a car with Israeli tanks behind. Among the injured were 153 children, 161 women 54 elderly people according to the Gaza Government Media Office.

The shooting begun after the disguised aid lorry and a vehicle stopped in the middle of the housing area just outside the central market and begun the bloody mayhem. The lorry was at first thought to carry displaced people with their belongings but soon got out their machine guns and started shooting.  According to the Media Office soldiers were disguised in civilian clothing in ambulances with medical and health signals.

Hostages

The massacre was all made to rescue four Israeli hostages taken by Hamas on 7 October when they pushed through the barrier fence that blocked Gaza from the so-called Israeli territories. The four hostages, three men and a woman, were part of the 250 Israelis and foreigners that were taken back to Gaza by members of the Islamic organization on the fateful month and day.

Their rescue was seen as a major victory by Israel after 245 days of war destroying the Gaza Strip and killing its civilian population, earmarked at over 36,000 dead. The Israeli media was jubilant, ignoring the fact the operation was nearly botched with a major fight in getting to the four captives resulting in at least one Israeli soldier and at least three other captives getting killed, one of them an American citizen, though massive Israeli gunfire.

This fact is not yet receiving much attention in the media because it is given by a credible source from Hamas but it has become known the Nusseirat “rescue” operation was a heinous, diabolical affair for the Israeli occupation army bombed 89 houses and residential buildings inhabited by residents in the early hours of committing this massacre.

Eye witness reports say many of the houses were bombed over the heads of their residents without prior warning. Residents were shocked at the sudden bombs and missiles stuck from the air. These were made simultaneously to distract civilians from the underground operation to get to the four hostages reportedly held in different building and flats.

Women, children, men and old people, passerby were all in the line of fire for this was a busy area in between houses and the central market in West Nusseirat.

It is being described as another area genocide with a great impact on central Gaza and executed with dozens of warplanes, quadcopters, helicopters and drones with espionage and intelligence purposes, and tanks in more than four axes and directions, the Gaza Media office stated.

At the time of writing the Government Media office said it is yet to confirm which soldiers from different countries were used in the mass attacks on the camp but there is already confirmation that thousands of American soldiers have been stationed in Israel shortly after 7 October and are providing technical and logistical advice to the Israeli army.

Disturbing however, and as reported is the fact that the aid truck that was used to enter the Nusseirat camp was from the recently constructed American pier where US officials previously said they made this construct to make it easier to bring food to the starving Gazans imposed by Israel.

Social media commentators couldn’t but help make the comparison of the treatment between the Israeli hostages and those “limp” Palestinians coming out of Israeli prisons, spotlighting Noa Argamani with her father in a happy state.

One blogger commented on how Noa was treate and how Israelis treat Palestinians in their  prisons. The latter are old and haggard because they are denied basic things, are beaten, tortured and denied food.

Dr Marwan Asmar is a writer based in Amman covering Middle East affairs

Israeli Tank Crushes Soldiers’ Cars With Friendly-fire Deaths Spike

• CrossFireArabia
• June 8, 2024

An Israeli tank ran over vehicles belonging to reserve soldiers in the car park of the Karem Abu Salem crossing-point. If this points to anything, it shows the growing nervousness of the Israeli soldiers, especially since this accident occurred on the Israeli side of the crossing point going into the Gaza Strip.

The incident has been reported by Israel’s Channel 12, Friday, and is trending on the social media. The tank crushed the vehicles completely as reported by the Jerusalem Post showing a photo of the vehicles at the scene.

Brigadier General Elias Hanna of Al Jazeera says this is a minor incident compared to the Israeli soldiers who have been killed by friendly-fire since the war on Gaza started after 7 October.

He said on Al Jazeera satellite channel since the Israeli troop deployment on the streets of Gaza, at least 46 soldiers were reported killed in friendly-fire accidents in the terrain of Gaza.

This number of friendly fire accidents maybe deliberately under-reported by Israeli army sensors. These accidents shows the seriousness of the problem coming weeks after when five soldiers were killed by their own fire in Jabalia in north Gaza while battling Hamas and Palestinian resistance fighters.

Bloggers on the social media say the number of Israeli soldiers increased to at least 50. One blogger says the soldiers “are killing their own by mistake,” and such fatal shooting is “mostly because of unpreparedness and shooting out of fear” as newly reserved soldiers have “neither the experience nor the balls.”

Another points to the fact, with the figures up till 30 May that “almost one in five soldiers are shot by their own side.”

He may have been quoting an earlier article from NPR and written last January, that’s four months into the war on Gaza, that nearly one fifth of Israeli soldiers’ deaths in Gaza related to “friendly-fire accidents, accounting for 36 of the 188 soldiers killed” then with experts saying this is “one of the highest such percentages in recent military history.”

Experts quoted by NPR suggests that the high friendly-fire deaths relate to the “urban combat” and “highly-dense area” of Gaza coupled, the “very loose rule of engagement” adopted by the Israeli army, the lack of experience of Israeli reserves fighting in urban combat and the fact that many soldiers fighting in Gaza are from their late teens to their young 20s.

These factors increase friendly-fire accidents, particularly in this war and with the political leaders breathing down the army these soldiers have had very little training, especially in combat areas like Gaza.

The result of such deaths increased the funerals and mourners in Israel with many Jews increasingly opposed to the war and with 100s of Jewish parents writing to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to excuse their sons from serving in Gaza.

The figures of those injured in friendly fire accidents are under-reported still but theses may cause alarm as the Jabalia case shows when seven other soldiers were also injured with the five killed.

UNICEF: 9 out of 10 Children in Gaza Go Hungry

• CrossFireArabia
• June 6, 2024

Nine out of 10 children in Gaza suffer from sever malnutrition according to UNICEF. The malnutrition manifested itself after the 7 October, 2023 war when Israel promised it would impose a “complete siege” on Gaza denying the 2.2 million population electricity, food, water and fuel.

“Five rounds of data collected between December 2023 and April 2024 have consistently found that nine out of 10 children in the Gaza Strip are experiencing sever food poverty, surviving on two or fewer fewer group per day,” a UNICEF report quoted by Palestinian news agency Wafa.

UNICEF added months of agression – this is the start of the nine month of war that Israel waged on Gaza – has resulted in the complete destitution and displacement of people who are being forced to move from one area to another in the enclave as their houses are being bombed.

To meet the minimum level of dietary diversity for healthy development, “children must consume foods from at least 5 of the 8 food groups determined by the dietary diversity score used by UNICEF and WHO,” as pointed out in Al Jazeera.  

The hunger and malnutrition is being exacerbated by the intence bombing the Gaza Strip has been subjected to in this war that saw Israel drop 70,000 tons of explosives on the enclave.

Tel Aviv’s “indiscriminate attacks” on Palestinian children and women are “clearly Israeli war crimes,” said the head of a Norwegian non-governmental organization, as quoted by the Anadolu Turkish news agency.

“It is obscene to continue waging war through refugee camps. Even if Hamas committed the war crime of hiding fighters among displaced civilians, these continued, indiscriminate attacks killing scores of children and women are clearly Israeli war crimes, he said on the X platform.

His comments came after at least 39 displaced Palestinians were killed, Thursday, in Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering thousands of displaced people in the Nuseirat refugee camp, the central Gaza Strip, according to Gaza authorities.