Peace in Gaza, at last

Cease fire deal signed gives hope at last

January 2025

The cease fire deal signed yesterday, ahead of a full peace deal, timed to start the day before Donald Trump’s inauguration as president, is very welcome. It has taken a long time in coming. Haaretz reports that Netanyahu was ‘bulldozed’ into the deal by the Trump team. We must sincerely hope that it lasts. Gisha in a statement says it is ‘hopeful but not optimistic‘. It is worth pondering on the destruction caused and the following are the best estimates of the deaths, injuries and other losses during the conflict:

Palestinians killed in Gaza: 46,707

Children confirmed killed in Gaza: 13,319

Palestinians reported buried under rubble in Gaza: 11,000

Palestinians injured in Gaza: 110,265

Palestinians displaced in Gaza: 1.9 million (90% of the population)

Attacks on healthcare facilities during the war: 654

Health workers killed: 1,060

Schools damaged or destroyed: 534 (95% of schools)

Children out of formal education: 660,000 (all school-age children)

Homes damaged or destroyed: 436,000 (92% of total)

People killed inside Israel on 7 October 2023: about 1,200

People abducted to Gaza from Israel on 7 October 2023: 251

Hostages still in Gaza in January 2025: 101 (37 believed dead)

These are taken from a piece in today’s Guardian newspaper (16 January) which is a full summary of the damage done to the territory.

We shall be holding a Vigil today, Saturday 18th in the Market Place near the Library starting at 5pm as usual. We will hold what we hope may be our last Vigil the following Saturday 25th.

Gisha is an Israeli human rights organisation.

January 16, 2025 0

Questionable logic by David Lammy

David Lammy suggests insufficient numbers killed in Gaza to merit calling it genocide

January 2025

As part of a statement to the House of Commons on 28 October 2024, in an answer to a question about claims by some Labour MPs about the alleged policy of genocide, annihilation and extermination of Palestinians in Gaza, the Foreign Secretary David Lammy said: “These are legal terms, and they must be determined by international courts. I agree with [Nick Timothy MP] that those terms were largely used when millions of people lost their lives in crises such as Rwanda and the Holocaust of the second world war. The way that people are now using those terms undermines their seriousness [Citation: HC Deb, 28 October 2024, C556].

Genocide is not about numbers killed

Lammy is completely wrong about this. Genocide is not defined by numbers killed. Article II of the Genocide Convention makes clear it is about killing members of a group (a); causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group (b) and deliberately inflicting on to a group conditions calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part (c). Numbers killed is not mentioned. Is Lammy suggesting that if yet more are killed, some kind of threshold will be reached at which point they will deem it genocide?

The minister will be well aware of the many reports concerning actions in Gaza. Organisations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B’Tselem, Médicins sans Frontières, the UN and various agencies of the UN, have all produced copious details about what is happening there.

David Lammy also states that the current situation began on October 7th 2023 with the Hamas raid into Israel killing over 2,000 Israelis and taking over 200 hostages. There is no dispute about the horror of this attack and that Hamas committed a war crime. But the history of this conflict did not begin on October 7th but in 1948.

The debate is about the Israeli response and the killing of large numbers of civilians, women and children and whether this level of killing is proportionate to the threat they face. The death toll is now around 46,000. Despite this evidence ‘the government is unable to conclude whether Israel’s bombing campaign and military operations in general violate International Humanitarian Law‘.

There have been many calls for the UK to end arms sales to Israel. The government has suspended 30 licences but parts for the F-35 continued to be made. It is this aircraft which is used to bomb Gaza. It has allowed many ‘open licences’ which does not identify weaponry and according to CAAT ‘leaves holes you can fly and F-35 through’ (CAAT News, Issue 271).

The government is frightened of upsetting the Americans by stopping F-35 parts being made in the UK. With Donald Trump to become the president in a few days, cancelling the contract is politically impossible for them. It also shows the power of the arms industry to call the shots as far as government policy is concerned. In the same debate Lammy claims that ‘we have one of the most robust export licensing regimes in the world’. Despite this, evidence shows that large amounts of military equipment is finding its way to Israel. His statement to the House is a nonsense.

January 14, 2025 2

Vigil 58

Fifty eighth Vigil in Salisbury

January 2025

Around 30 attended the latest Vigil in the market place in Salisbury (a number of regulars were unwell). Gaza has disappeared from the news consumed as it is with the fires in California and various utterances of Elon Musk. But the violence still continues. The latest figures suggest around 46,000 are now dead the majority of whom are women and children. The Israelis say the figures are unreliable but they do not permit foreign journalists to enter Gaza. The Lancet in a fresh estimate of deaths think the figures are in the region of 55,000 to 78,000. A detailed analysis has recently been published.

We shall be present again next Saturday 18th January at 17:00 for half an hour.

A video of last evening’s Vigil thanks to Peter Gloyns for producing it.

Middleeasteye. Picture of Gaza City

Vigil

New Year Vigil

Peace Vigil still going after a year of unceasing violence

January 2025

Another year and we held our 57th Vigil in Salisbury yesterday (4 January). A bitterly cold evening and snow threatened. Over 30 attended and we were pleased with some passers-by stopping to join us for a brief while.

The death toll is now around 46,000. It was reported that 6 infants died of cold.

Peace talks are set to resume, but they are unlikely to make much progress before President Trump takes office in a few weeks.

We are pleased to attach a video from yesterday made by Peter Gloyns;

The Vigil goes on

.. and so does the fighting with a hospital destroyed this week

December 2024

The fighting still goes on in Gaza and the death toll is over 45,000 many of whom are women and children. This week, the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza was ordered to evacuate and has been largely destroyed by the IDF. It is claimed the hospital is a ‘terrorist hub’. There are reports of bombing next to the hospital denied by the IDF. As foreign media is denied access, the claims cannot be verified. The World Health Organisation said it was ‘appalled’ by the move and it does seem to be part of the undeclared plan to empty the area of all Palestinians. This is denied by the Israeli government.

We held our vigil again this evening (28 December) with over 30 in attendance. About 50 passers by took notice.

The prospects do not look good. Last weeks talk of peace talks do not look to be progressing well. Commentators are saying that Netanyahu has strengthened his position despite the court case. He has Donald Trump to look forward to who is pro-Israel and, importantly, pro the hard right in the Knesset. The new US Ambassador is very pro-Israel and speaks of the region in biblical terms.

A video of the vigil can be viewed here

54th Vigil

Powerful video of this Vigil

December 2024

The 54th Vigil was held in Salisbury on Saturday 14th with good attendance. There is a powerful video produced by Peter Gloyns with images from Gaza. The death toll continues to rise and is now in the region of 45,000 with no sign of a let up.

Last week saw the fall of Assad in Syria who has fled to Moscow. The speed of HTS’s swoop on Damascus and the fall of the much hated regime has surprised the world. We hope of course that the Syrian people will have a future with a normal government that will be tolerant of minorities and will not rule by fear. Assad, supported by Russia, was spectacularly brutal. He used chemical weapons on his people and also dropped deadly barrel bombs on many towns and cities, particularly Aleppo. His regime tortured thousands many of whom were murdered in large numbers.

It is sad to note that no sooner had the regime fallen than Israeli forces used the hiatus to seize land in Syria. The UN has asked them to leave Syrian territory. They have entered the buffer zone. Now should be a time for the nation to come together and start the lengthy process of rebuilding the state. Peace and human rights should be the norm now. They have been plagued by outside interference from Turkey, Iran and the US with Russia a willing helper to enable them to establish a port in the Mediterranean.

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December 16, 2024 0

Shameful media coverage

British media coverage of the Gaza conflict has been shameful

December 2024

A major human rights organisation publishes a detailed report on the activities of the IDF in Gaza with copious evidence that it amounts to genocide. An Israeli academic, also in an extremely detailed and well referenced report, alleges the same thing. A UN report points in the same direction. Since the events in Gaza, with 44,000 dead and many thousands missing, are of international importance, how they are reported is of great concern. Yet the coverage by our mainstream media has been exceedingly poor and the journalism of a very poor standard.

Coverage is important in terms of shaping public opinion. Since our politicians pay very close attention to how they are regarded by the media it matters for the shaping of policy and how they react to events in conflicts such as Gaza. The UK continues to supply weapons and offer aid to the Israelis precisely because they can and there is precious little media opprobrium.

How then would you expect a report produced by Amnesty International to be reported by a responsible

newspaper or broadcaster such as the BBC? You might expect that they would first of all spend a few minutes on what the report actually said commenting on its detailed nature and the evidence it has produced. You might also note that key aspects of the report were sent to the Israelis to ask for their response ahead of publication. Then you might, for the sake of balance, speak to a representative of the Israeli government or the IDF for a response. You would also expect that the report was actually reported on since the horror of events there are all too evident. So how did our media measure up to these expectations? In short – poorly.

Reporting is seriously wanting

A piece by Media Lens examines the reporting of the genocide in the British media and finds it seriously wanting. They note that in a sane world politicians such as David Lammy and Sir Keir Starmer would be under severe pressure to take a more robust line with Israel. They would call what is going on ‘genocide’ and would find calls to end arms sales all but irresistible.

They note the Daily Telegraph began with Israel’s denunciation of the report which was not in any way a detailed point-by-point rebuttal, just an accusation that Amnesty were ‘fanatics’. Sketchy details of the report appeared at the end of the piece. The Daily Mirror placed it on page 8 or 10 (according to edition). The Guardian reported it online. However, and shamefully, the Daily Mail, The Sun, The Times, and the Daily Express ignored it altogether. The BBC was also poor giving more time to the perpetrators than to the report itself. Media Lens claim that ‘the BBC’s balance and impartiality: [was] a brazen attempt to to protect Israel’s reputation from the truth during an ongoing genocide’.

They claim that the BBC’s much-vaunted impartiality has been increasingly exposed as a charade. They also claim that the BBC’s complicity in genocide and failure to give more than a passing mention of the reports on their news bulletins should be a matter of very serious concern by senior BBC managers.

Israel’s response

It has to be wondered why, in the face of such non-reporting by sizeable chunks of the British media, they should feel the need to respond at all. Media Lens quotes Mark Goldfeder of the US National Jewish Advocacy Center as saying Amnesty redefined the legal term of genocide to suit their accusation, stripping the term of its actual meaning in the process. He claims that they admit this themselves halfway through the report. It did not. The bias in our media is a regular feature of articles in Byline Times.

The failure of British media to give a proper account of the detailed reports, particularly as their own reporters are not allowed into Gaza, is shameful. It means a chunk of the British population is largely unaware of the true horror of what is happening. They are led to believe the events were a direct result of the horrific attack by Hamas on 7th October 2023 when the origins are much deeper. They are regularly told when a hospital is flattened or a refugee camp is bombed, that Hamas is using it as a ‘human shield’ with almost no evidence provided to substantiate this, even after a year. We are told by reporters that there are miles of tunnels packed with arms yet no footage has appeared to evidence that. If it was true, would not the IDF be keen to display it? They are led to believe that the actions of the IDF are a response to violence when the reality – sometimes from the mouths of Israel’s politicians – is to drive out all the Palestinians from the territory.

The British public is being seriously let down.

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December 12, 2024 0

Israel: bearing witness

Israeli citizen accuses Israel of genocide

December 2024

We do not usually produce three posts on broadly the same topic in quick succession. However, the document available below is unusual. It is written by a Jewish man living in Israel. Our previous posts come from organisations outside the country. One post was from Amnesty and another from the UN Rapporteur. Israeli government sources routinely dismiss these reports as being anti-Semitic or based on lies. It is harder to say that in this case. Entitled Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War by Dr Lee Mordechai, it is immensely detailed and copiously referenced. Indeed, a third of many pages is consumed with references.

It is impossible to summarise such is the detail contained in his work. One aspect is worth drawing attention to is the attitude of Israelis themselves. They are largely supportive of the IDF and 60% of Israelis do not want aid to be sent in. There is a considerable degree of denial evident in polls and surveys of public attitudes. We sometimes refer to the Ha’aretz newspaper which is coming under considerable pressure and is one of the few sources of balanced reporting.

We say again: what you read and see in UK media is a fraction of the horror being perpetrated here. Remember also the UK continues to support and send arms to Israel

December 7, 2024 0

Amnesty Report: Israel’s Alleged Genocide in Gaza

Amnesty International publishes report alleging that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza

December 2024

Amnesty has published the results of a comprehensive study of Israeli actions in Gaza and has concluded that they amount to the crime of genocide and contrary to Article II of the Geneva Convention. This is essentially killing members of a group and causing serious physical or mental harm to a group. Genocide is distinguished from other forms of war crime by the concept of intent. The report is comprehensive and is over 300 pages long. It took into account a wide range of evidence including video, interviews, IDF footage, analysis of Israeli politician’s statements and other factors.

Amnesty International complemented these interviews with its analysis of visual and digital evidence. This included an extensive range of evidence like satellite imagery, video footage, and photographs. These were posted on social media or obtained directly by its researchers. It authenticated and, where possible, geolocated video footage and photographs. It reviewed an extensive collection of media reports, statements, reports and data sets published by UN agencies and humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza, as well as Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups. It reviewed statements by senior Israeli government and military officials and official Israeli bodies, including spokespersons of the Israeli military and the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a unit within Israel’s Ministry of Defense tasked with administering civilian matters in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).

Judging intent is always difficult although there are many statements from politicians which are quite open on this point. Other factors include:

Attacks using a wide range of ordinances including 2,000 lb bombs. Some is wide area ordinance which clearly cannot be targeted,
many attacks are carried out between 11pm and 4am when people are asleep,
some attacks are carried out without warnings,
the buffer zone surrounding Gaza has been increased by 16% with explosive charges laid. This has seriously degraded the agricultural potential of this land,
waste water management systems and associated pipework has been destroyed,
the largest displacement of people (1.1 million) since the 1948 Nakba,
promises about allowing increased numbers of aid trucks have not been met.

The ferocity of the attacks and the scale of destruction in Gaza with a death now around 44,000 is horrifying. The report needs to be read in full to grasp the extent of the evidence which has been painstakingly assembled. It has many similarities to the UN report we posted a day or so ago.

Amnesty International sought to include a response from Israeli authorities to this report and the Israeli Foreign Ministry has said ‘The deplorable and fanatical organization Amnesty International has once again produced a fabricated report that is entirely false and based on lies.’ It is a pity a more reasoned or forensic response is not available.

The US has also issued a statement disagreeing with Amnesty’s conclusions. It is also reported that Amnesty in Israeli does not support the conclusions, although according to Haaretz, there seem to be differences of opinion.

Readers will have to examine the copious evidence provided by both Amnesty and the UN to come to their own conclusions on this matter. The attack by Hamas on 7 October was a fearful act with 223 hostages taken and 1,200 killed some brutally. It was clearly a war crime. It caused immense shock in Israel who enjoyed massive military and security superiority. It can be argued that the country has the right to defend itself. The question here is whether the scale of destruction and the death toll of women and children is justified. Is the seizure of land proportionate? Are the forced displacements (sometimes several times over) and destruction of medical facilities and other infrastructure justified? Or does it, as this and other reports claim, amount to a deliberate attempt to crush an entire population?

A key question is proportionality. Has the response been proportionate? It would seem from the evidence it hasn’t been. Another question is effectiveness. Will it achieve security and peace with its neighbours? Unlikely. It will leave a legacy of bitterness which will erupt at some future time. The complete elimination of Hamas is impossible.

Most important of all is the moral dimension which seldom gets an airing. Western nations – most particularly the US but the UK as well – are shielding Israel and enabling it to continue the horror unabated. The notion of a ‘rules based order’ which came into being after WWII has been abandoned. Israel has gone to great lengths to prevent coverage from reaching our screens. It has banned both the UN and journalists from entering Gaza. Nevertheless, we have seen what is happening on our screens on a more or less daily basis. We cannot say we do not know. Is the Labour government compromised? It has a sizeable number of MPs, including the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, who are members of Labour Friends of Israel. The group has declined to confirm who funds them. History will judge them harshly.

Sources: Amnesty International, Electronic Intifada, Share the World’s Resources; Guardian, Haaretz; Israel Foreign Ministry; Declassified UK; Labour Friends of Israel.

December 6, 2024 0

UN report on Gaza

UN rapporteur’s report deeply shocking

December 2024

Amnesty International hosted a webinar on 3 December in which the UN Rapporteur on the occupied Palestine territories Francesca Albanese, discussed her report on the area. The report sets out in excruciating detail the extent of destruction in both Gaza and the West Bank and concludes that the extent and comprehensive nature of the destruction amounts to genocide. Parts of the report are distressing to read and anyone accessing it should be aware of the distress it might cause.

The prevailing narrative that much of the Western media have followed, directly or implicitly, is that the current conflict in Gaza is a direct response to the attack by Hamas on 7 October 2023. The IDF is engaged in defensive actions to locate and destroy Hamas operatives and the tunnel network from which they operate. The destruction of hospitals, schools and a host of other buildings is because these buildings are being used by Hamas as covers for their terrorist activities. The thousands of Gazans killed is because they are being used as human shields by Hamas. Little evidence has been provided of this. Thus Israel is acting in a reasonable way to protect its territorial integrity against a ruthless terrorist organisation bent on destroying the state. This is the narrative that Israel has deployed with considerable success. Many believe that if the remaining hostages were released, hostilities would cease and Gaza could return to some kind of normality.

The UN report debunks this narrative comprehensively. It reveals that there are solid grounds for believing that Israel’s intention, as revealed in a leaked Ministry of Intelligence concept paper in October 2023, was to drive all the Gazans out of the territory into the Sinai desert.

There has always been an intention for a Greater Israel (Eretz Yisrael). It is indeed ironic that one of the criticisms of Hamas contained in the disputed phrase ‘from the river to the sea’ to mean driving all the Jews out of Israel from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean, is precisely what Israel is trying to do to the Palestinians.

Descriptions of how Palestinians have been treated are horrific. Around 13,000 thousand children and 700 babies have died many shot in the head or torso (paragraph 14). There have been systematic attacks on food supplies and agriculture which ‘indicate an intent to destroy its population through starvation’ (20). 83% of food aid has been prevented from reaching Gaza.

Unreported, and truly shocking, is the network of Israeli torture camps where thousands have been detained in appalling conditions and many just ‘disappeared’. Many are bound to beds, blindfolded and in nappies (diapers), denied medical treatment, starved, subject to severe beatings, electrocution, and sexual assaults by both humans and animals (22).

West Bank

Violence in the West Bank has increased markedly. Israeli soldiers have carried out over 5,500 raids and conducted over 1,000 attacks. Children have been killed with 169 shot in the head or torso (27). Settler numbers have increased from 256,400 to 714,600 post the Oslo Accords. There has been a campaign of mass arrests and 9,400 are currently detained.

One of the most telling statements in the report is: The cultivation of a political doctrine that frames Palestinian assertions of self-determination as a security threat to Israel has served to legitimize permanent occupation. The deliberate dehumanization of the Palestinians has accompanied systematic ethnic purges from the period 1947–1949 to today. Ideological hatred of Palestinians as such has pervaded segments of society and the Israeli State apparatus (57).

Albanese in her talk said that land is central to Palestinian identity. It is being systematically being removed from them. The central issue is colonialism she says and Britain played a key part in this. She makes the point that Palestinians had nothing to do with the Holocaust but are today suffering from its aftermath.

Journalists are not allowed into Gaza and the UN rapporteur was not allowed in either.

Israel has successfully persuaded Western leaders and much of the media that their actions are somehow a response to violence. They have also been successful in selling the idea that it all started with the attacks of October 7th. Western leaders have gone along with this narrative, giving Israel support both diplomatic and military, enabling them to continue and now intensify their activities in Gaza and the West Bank. In reality, there has long been a plan to create a Greater Israel and finally to dispose of the Palestinian population by a combination of violence, destruction, starvation and genocide. Critics are demonised as ‘anti Israel’ or ‘anti-Semitic’ which has served them well to silence or inhibit them.

In an interesting discussion on YouTube the point was made by one speaker that the word ‘context’ is banned by some media organisations. Guidance to New York Times journalists shows the extent of censorship when it comes to the coverage with a wide range of words they are discouraged from using.

Gaza has exposed multiple weaknesses in the world order. History will judge our leaders harshly for their supine approach to Israel and their pusillanimous support for the Palestinians.

The Vigil will be held on Saturday at 5pm in the Market Square in Salisbury and lasts 30 minutes. Please join us.

Piece edited after posting.

December 4, 2024 1

Category: Israel

Peace in Gaza, at last

Cease fire deal signed gives hope at last