“There Is No Safe Place in Gaza”: Palestinians Speak Out During Israeli Assault

On Could 18, hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza joined the “Palestine Flag March” to protest Israel’s “Flag March” taking place the identical day. On “Flag Day,” tens of hundreds of ultraright-wing Israeli settlers, who illegally stay on stolen land, attacked Palestinians and journalists, chanting “Loss of life to Arabs” and “Your village shall be burned.”

“The Israeli Flag March means nothing, they stroll in our streets, and the land denies their existence,” Gaza resident Amna al-Banna informed Mondoweiss. “Elevating the Israeli flag in Jerusalem won’t make folks ignore that it’s Palestinian land, and that Israel occupies it.”

On Could 13, Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad had reached an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire settlement following a five-day Israeli navy onslaught towards the folks of Gaza. Though Palestinians fired some rockets into Israel, the dying toll was lopsided.

Throughout the Israeli assault, dubbed “Operation Defend and Arrow,” Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) killed 33 Palestinians, together with six kids, and injured no less than 147 Palestinians. The airstrikes broken 2,041 homes, destroyed 31 buildings, and rendered 93 households homeless and 128 houses uninhabitable.

The Biden administration not solely refused to sentence Israel for the devastation it wreaked in Gaza; it blocked the United Nations Security Council from issuing an announcement condemning the Israeli airstrikes in addition to the rockets fired from Gaza.

This was the sixth such assault on Gaza because the Israeli blockade of the strip (which is a criminal offense underneath worldwide regulation) was permanently imposed in 2007. Two million Palestinians stay within the Gaza Strip, usually known as “the world’s largest open-air prison” as a result of Israel controls the ingress and egress of all Gazans.

“A pal in Gaza mentioned to me not too long ago, ‘What’s worse than dying in Gaza resides [in Gaza],’” Palestinian author and writer Michel Moushabeck wrote in a latest article for Truthout.

The Gaza Palestine Listening to: Worldwide Folks’s Tribunal on U.S. Imperialism

A number of hours earlier than the Could 13 ceasefire was introduced, the Gaza Palestine Hearing of the “International People’s Tribunal on U.S. Imperialism: Sanctions, Blockades and Coercive Economic Measures” convened. A number of the co-organizers of the tribunal embrace the Nationwide Attorneys Guild, Worldwide Affiliation of Democratic Attorneys, Alliance for World Justice, CODEPINK, Franz Fanon Basis, Confederation of Attorneys of Asia and the Pacific, Al-Awda: The Palestine Proper to Return Coalition, and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Analysis.

As a juror for the tribunal, I attended the listening to and was shocked by the highly effective statements of people that testified from Gaza because the Israeli bombs had been falling on their neighborhoods.

In 2021, Riyad Iskhuntana’s residence was the goal of a direct Israeli bombing. “My 4 children and my spouse had been killed within the condo that I lived in, and so they had been killed in a brutal manner. In a single second, I misplaced my 4 children and my spouse,” he testified. “And I remained underneath the rubble for 12 hours with my youngest daughter, not realizing if my children had died or not. However ultimately they had been all useless besides me and my youngest daughter.”

Iskhuntana spoke in regards to the traumatic IOF bombing of Gaza on Could 12. “Yesterday,” he mentioned, “my neighbor additionally was bombed, and this even deteriorated the psychological situation of myself and my daughter past what we had lived via in 2021. One of many psychological points that we’re experiencing is that we started to neglect issues, and now with the restarting of the bombings once more, the trauma is again. And we’re scared and trembling on a regular basis.”

“I’m chatting with you because the enemy’s planes are bombing all civilian locations,” Iskhuntana added. “All of the rockets are getting much more aggressive. There isn’t a such factor as civilian or navy goal; it’s all civilian targets being focused. Nothing is secure and safe.”

Malak Nidal is a 16-year-old woman who’s in tenth grade. “There isn’t a secure place in Gaza,” she testified. “I want to remain at dwelling and die in my dwelling, higher than dwelling on this space,” Nidal mentioned. “I’m speaking with you now when we have now struggle, and I don’t know if I’m going to die now on this second. The airplane is over my head, and we hear numerous noise proper now whereas I’m talking with you.”

Wafa-al-Udaini is a outstanding Palestinian journalist. “I coated a number of Israeli aggressions right here in Gaza,” she testified. “All the time, it was so dangerous for me to go outdoors and interview folks as a result of, as Palestinian journalists primarily based right here in Gaza, we don’t have immunity. And really, for the occupation, we’re a goal as a result of they need, certainly, to silence the reality.”

Al-Udaini added that lots of her colleagues had been murdered, injured and maimed whereas reporting on the occasions in Gaza. “To date, no person holds Israel accountable for his or her crimes towards the Palestinian journalists.” She famous that cameras and digital camera equipment will not be allowed to enter Gaza, which poses a significant impediment to the work of photojournalists.

“Each Palestinian in occupied Palestine is a goal,” Al-Udaini mentioned. “The principle mission for the occupation right here in Palestine truly is simply to finish or eradicate any existence of Palestinians.” Since 2007, “the Israeli occupation authorities imposed a land, air and floor siege on the folks of Gaza, which is taken into account like a collective punishment.”

Collective punishment is taken into account a struggle crime underneath the Fourth Geneva Conference.

Gazans Assist “Freedom Fighters” Who Resist the Occupation

The folks in Gaza help the “freedom fighters” who “handle to withstand the occupation by all means they’ve,” Al-Udaini testified. “Everybody, each youngster, you simply go on the street and ask the folks, ask the kids in regards to the resistance. All of them honor the resistance and the liberty fighters as a result of they consider that they’re the one ones who can defend them from the occupation.”

Yasser al-Dirawi is a Palestinian lawyer who wrote his thesis in regards to the authority of the prosecutor of the Worldwide Felony Court docket (ICC). “I apologize, the web is weak and bought disconnected due to an Israeli assault that simply occurred to us,” he mentioned whereas testifying. “The bombs are falling subsequent to us. I’m feeling the vibrations taking place to my civilian neighbors.”

Al-Dirawi testified, “[The Israelis] don’t distinguish between a toddler, a girl, an aged. They kill all civilians with none distinction between totally different targets.” (Concentrating on civilians constitutes a struggle crime prohibited by the Fourth Geneva Conference.) “There isn’t a distinction between civilians or non-civilians, and there’s no distinction between kids and non-children, ladies and never ladies.”

The lawyer described the lack of the folks of Gaza to import agricultural merchandise and seeds “which accurately led to the destruction of the agricultural sector and the lack of the fishermen and the fishing business to outlive,” including that “it has a part of revenge on the individuals who stay in Gaza.” The blockade of Gaza additionally prevents the importation of medication and medical tools, he mentioned.

“The financial state of affairs general in Gaza is a humanitarian disaster,” al-Dirawi acknowledged. “This can be a focused challenge. The U.S. is the first supporter of the blockade. We name it the ‘United States of Imperialism’ that helps the Israelis.” Al-Dirawi famous that two days earlier than this listening to, the U.S. had squelched any criticism of Israel’s assault within the UN Safety Council.

Two years in the past, former ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda opened a proper investigation into struggle crimes dedicated in Gaza since 2014, however there was little progress within the probe, due to U.S. strain on the ICC.

Once I requested al-Dirawi whether or not he thought Karim Khan, the present ICC prosecutor, would file struggle crimes costs towards Israeli leaders, he mentioned that Khan was appearing with “intentional slowness.” Al-Dirawi contrasted Khan’s delay in investigating Israel together with his rapid graduation of “a really critical” investigation of struggle crimes dedicated through the struggle in Ukraine. Though al-Dirawi has despatched copious proof and testimonies to Khan for the Israel investigation, he has obtained no formal response.

On Could 13, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights called on ICC prosecutor Khan to problem a public assertion condemning the Israeli aggression in Gaza and expedite the investigation into the state of affairs in Palestine. To this point, Khan has not responded.

On Could 15, Palestinians commemorated the seventy fifth anniversary of al-Nakba (Arabic for “the disaster”), when Israelis ethnically cleansed practically 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland and destroyed over 500 Palestinian villages and cities through the creation of the state of Israel.

Additionally on Could 15, for the primary time in historical past, the UN Normal Meeting (which is comprised of 193 UN member states) formally condemned the Nakba. The International Commission to Support Palestinians’ Rights, primarily based in Gaza, known as it “a singular and unprecedented step,” including that it ought to be “translated into enabling the Palestinian folks to train their proper to independence and return.”

The U.S., which unconditionally supplies Israel with $3.8 billion yearly in navy help, didn’t attend the Normal Meeting’s commemoration of the Nakba.