US defends Israel’s war in Gaza and blames Hamas for all civilian casualties

A Palestinian boy mourns his father who was killed by an Israeli strike. (Reuters)
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Updated 10 November 2023
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US defends Israel’s war in Gaza and blames Hamas for all civilian casualties

  • David Satterfield, Washington’s special envoy for Middle East humanitarian issues, says amount of aid entering the territory falls well short of the bare minimum needed for survival
  • ‘We are standing strongly with Israel (but) how the campaign is conducted matters. And it must be conducted in a way that minimizes, to the maximum extent possible, civilian casualties,’ he adds

CHICAGO: David Satterfield, the recently appointed US special envoy for Middle East humanitarian issues, on Thursday blamed Hamas for all civilian casualties during the current conflict in Gaza.

He also acknowledged that humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians in the territory is currently far below “the bare minimum” needed for survival.

During a briefing attended by Arab News, Satterfield said about 100 aid trucks are now entering Gaza each day but this falls well short of the 150 a day that would constitute the minimum required to address the growing humanitarian crisis there.

He declined to answer questions about reports of escalating violence by Israeli forces in the West Bank, but reiterated that Washington supports Israel’s military campaign to root out Hamas in Gaza.

“Our focus has been on moving humanitarian assistance to meet, as much as we can under the present circumstances, the needs of Palestinian civilians in south and central Gaza on as sustained and sustainable a basis as possible,” Satterfield said.

“I want to note here that we started just two-and-one-half, three weeks ago at zero. We have moved the level of assistance up now to around 100 trucks a day. We are looking at a higher level of assistance to move the proper, according to UN agencies, needed basic humanitarian assistance into south Gaza.

“Three weeks ago we had no fuel accessible to the UN implementers in the south. Fuel is now available from within Gaza for their use for desalination plants, for provision to hospitals in the south and center, and for the movements of the UN implementers themselves.

“And we are working to make certain that there will be further fuel available for the UN, UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East), the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross), World Food Program, as this moves ahead.

Describing the current humanitarian assistance provided to Palestinians as “just a start,” Satterfield added: “We understand even 150 trucks a day just meets the bare minimum to provide basic survival humanitarian assistance. Much more is needed beyond that.”

Asked about the growing number of Palestinians killed during more than four weeks of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, Satterfield said that civilian deaths are the result of 15 years of Hamas militancy in the territory and declined to address the specific issue of Israeli military operations.

More than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in the past month by the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, including as many as 4,000 children, according to health authorities in Gaza, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said this week that the territory “is becoming a graveyard for children.”

Satterfield said US President Joe Biden is working closely with Israeli authorities “to impress the need to conduct the campaign in a manner which minimizes civilian casualties to the maximum extent possible, which allows clearly recognized deconflicted humanitarian sites to be spared from attack. “But, I have to say, for 15, for 16 years, Hamas has deliberately embedded itself in, around and under many of those humanitarian sites. It increases the complexity of any campaign of this kind enormously.”

He added: “We wish to see Israel able to achieve a goal which is not just its right but is its responsibility: to end the threat which this terrorist group (Hamas) poses to Israelis, to end the threat that they have posed to the civilians of Gaza, for whose welfare they care not a whit.

“But how it is done makes all the difference in the world. And humanitarian assistance is a vital, vital requirement throughout.”

Satterfield said the US aid effort is focused on providing support to civilians in central and southern Gaza who have fled the Israeli military operations in the north. Washington does not support Palestinians being forced to leave Gaza, he added.

“The future of Gazans is in Gaza and not in any other place,” he said. “We do not, as a matter of fundamental principle, support or wish to see displacement of Gaza’s population.

“Those now in the south must have every opportunity to return to the north when it is safe to do.”

Satterfield said the US envisions that the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank will ultimately assume authority over Gaza, and that the Biden administration continues to support a two-state solution, the details and process for which “will have to be worked out.”

He reiterated Biden’s support for Israel and said the country “has a responsibility to its own people to end the threat posed by Hamas.”

He added: “We are standing strongly with Israel as it works to achieve that goal. But we have been equally clear … that how the campaign is conducted matters. And it must be conducted in a way that minimizes, to the maximum extent possible, civilian casualties.

“We believe as well, and have made clear, the maximum degree of humanitarian assistance needs to be made available, in as safe and as secure a fashion as can be done, to as many people in Gaza as is possible.

“These are difficult things to achieve, given the nature of what Hamas has done in Gaza over the past 15 years. But they have to be dealt with together, the campaign done in a manner that minimizes civilian casualties and maximum provision of humanitarian assistance."

Reports suggest that more than 1.5 million Palestinians have fled their homes in the face of the Israeli military barrage. Satterfield acknowledged a four-to-five-hour daily humanitarian pause in hostilities that was announced by the US and Israel earlier on Thursday and said he hoped it would allow more humanitarian aid to enter the territory and reach Palestinians in south and central Gaza who have fled the violence in the north.

He declined to comment on the threat of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah escalating along the border between the countries, other than to say that Hezbollah and Tehran “understand the president’s very blunt message, which was, for those in the region contemplating a potential spread of this conflict: don’t, don’t, don’t.”


Syrian state news agency reports Israeli strike in Aleppo region

Updated 09 November 2024
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Syrian state news agency reports Israeli strike in Aleppo region

  • The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported that the strikes had targeted military installations

 

DAMASCUS: Syrian state media reported an Israeli strike Saturday on the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib that injured soldiers and caused damage.
“At around 00:45 after midnight, the Israeli army launched an air aggression from the direction of southeast Aleppo, targeting a number of sites in the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib,” the official SANA news agency said.
The report added that the attack had “resulted in the injury of a number of soldiers and some material losses,” without providing further details.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported the strikes had targeted military installations.
The war monitor also said members of the Iranian revolutionary guards and pro-Tehran factions were based in the area.
Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria, mainly targeting army positions and Iran-backed fighters including from Hezbollah.
The Israeli military has intensified its strikes on Syria since it launched its war on Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon.
Israeli authorities rarely comment on the strikes but have repeatedly said they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence in Syria.
 

 


 


UN probe says women, children comprise the majority of Gaza war dead

Updated 09 November 2024
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UN probe says women, children comprise the majority of Gaza war dead

  • The report detailed a raft of violations of international law since Oct. 7

GENEVA: The UN on Friday condemned the staggering number of civilians killed in Israel’s war in Gaza, with women and children comprising nearly 70 percent of the thousands of fatalities it had managed to verify.
In a fresh report, slammed by Israel, the United Nations human rights office (OHCHR) detailed a raft of violations of international law since Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 attack in Israel sparked the war in the Gaza Strip.
Many could amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly even “genocide,” it warned, demanding international efforts to prevent “atrocity crimes” and ensure accountability.
“Civilians in Gaza have borne the brunt of the attacks, including through the initial ‘complete siege’ of Gaza by Israeli forces,” the UN said.
“Conduct by Israeli forces has caused unprecedented levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness and disease.”
It pointed to “the Israeli government’s continuing unlawful failures to allow, facilitate and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and repeated mass displacement.”
Israel’s mission to the UN in Geneva “categorically” rejected the report, decrying “the inherent obsession of OHCHR with the demonization of Israel.”
“Gaza is now a rubble-strewn landscape,” Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN rights office’s activities in the Palestinian territories, said via video-link from Amman.
“Within this dystopia of destruction and devastation, those alive are left injured, displaced and starving.”
Friday’s report also found that Hamas and other armed groups had committed widespread violations that could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, including seizing hostages, killings, torture and sexual violence.
Those violations, it said, were especially committed in connection with the October 7, 2023 attack, which resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly of civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
The report also tackled the contentious issue of the proportion of civilians among the nearly 43,500 people killed in Gaza so far, according to the health ministry in the Palestinian territory.
UN agencies have been relying on death tolls provided by the authorities in Hamas-run Gaza due to lack of access. This has sparked harsh criticism from Israel but the UN has repeatedly said the figures are reliable.
The rights office said it had now managed to verify around 10,000 of the more than 34,500 people reportedly killed during the first six months of the war.
“We have so far found close to 70 percent to be children and women,” Sunghay said, highlighting the stringent verification methodology that requires at least three separate sources.
He said the findings indicated “a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.”
He said 4,700 of the verified fatalities were children and 2,461 were women.
The rights office found that about 80 percent of all the verified deaths in Gaza had occurred in Israeli attacks on residential buildings or similar housing.
Children between the ages of five and nine made up the largest group of victims, with the youngest victim a one-day-old boy and the oldest a 97-year-old woman, it said.
Israel says its operations in Gaza target militants and are in line with international law.
But Friday’s report stressed that the verified deaths largely Gaza’s demographic makeup rather than that of combatants.
This, it said, clearly “raises concerns regarding compliance with the principle of distinction and reflect an apparent failure to take all feasible precautions to avoid, and in any event to minimize, incidental loss of civilian life.”
UN rights chief Volker Turk called on all countries to work to halt the violations and to ensure accountability, including through universal jurisdiction.
“It is essential that there is due reckoning with respect to the allegations of serious violations of international law through credible and impartial judicial bodies,” he said.
“The violence must stop immediately, the hostages and those arbitrarily detained must be released, and we must focus on flooding Gaza with humanitarian aid.”


After Hamas rejection of hostage deal, US asked Qatar to expel the group

Updated 09 November 2024
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After Hamas rejection of hostage deal, US asked Qatar to expel the group

  • Negotiators from Israel’s Mossad spy agency have repeatedly met mediators in Doha over the last year and Qatari government officials have shuttled back-and-forth to Hamas leaders in the political office

WASHINGTON/DOHA: The US has told Qatar that the presence of Hamas in Doha is no longer acceptable in the weeks since the Palestinian militant group rejected the latest proposal to achieve a ceasefire and a hostage deal, a senior administration official told Reuters on Friday.
“After rejecting repeated proposals to release hostages, its leaders should no longer be welcome in the capitals of any American partner. We made that clear to Qatar following Hamas’s rejection weeks ago of another hostage release proposal,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Qatar then made the demand to Hamas leaders about 10 days ago, the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said. Washington has been in touch with Qatar over when to close the political office of Hamas, and it told Doha that now was the time following the group’s rejection of the recent proposal.
Three Hamas officials denied Qatar had told Hamas leaders they were no longer welcome in the country.
Qatar, alongside the US and Egypt, has played a major role in rounds of so-far fruitless talks to broker a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages the militant group is holding in the enclave.
The latest round of Doha talks in mid-October failed to reach a ceasefire, with Hamas rejecting a short-term ceasefire proposal.
The spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for confirmation or comment.
Last year, a senior US official said Qatar had told Washington it was open to
reconsidering the presence of Hamas
in the country once the Gaza war was over.
This came after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
told leaders
in Qatar and elsewhere in the region that there could be “no more business as usual” with Hamas after the group led the Oct. 7 attacks on Southern Israel.
Qatar, an influential Gulf state designated as major non-NATO ally by Washington, has hosted Hamas’ political leaders since 2012 as part of an agreement with the US Doha has come under criticism from within the US and Israel over its ties to Hamas since Oct. 7.
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has said repeatedly over the last year that the Hamas office exists in Doha to allow negotiations with the group and that as long as the channel remained useful Qatar would allow the Hamas office to remain open.
Negotiators from Israel’s Mossad spy agency have repeatedly met mediators in Doha over the last year and Qatari government officials have shuttled back-and-forth to Hamas leaders in the political office.

 

 


US defense chief holds first call with new Israeli counterpart

Updated 09 November 2024
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US defense chief holds first call with new Israeli counterpart

  • Katz was sworn in before parliament the previous day
  • The US defense chief also discussed “the need to improve the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza“

WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin discussed Lebanon and Gaza on Friday in his first call with his new Israeli counterpart Israel Katz, the Pentagon said.
Katz was sworn in before parliament the previous day, after his predecessor’s shock dismissal by the prime minister over a breakdown in trust during the war in Gaza — a conflict that began with a devastating Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.
Austin “held an introductory call today with the new Israeli minister of defense, Israel Katz, and congratulated him on his recent appointment,” Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder said in a statement.
He told Katz that Washington is committed to a deal that allows Lebanese and Israeli citizens displaced by more than a year of cross-border violence to return to their homes, as well as to the return of hostages seized by Palestinian militant group Hamas, Ryder said.
The US defense chief also discussed “the need to improve the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza,” after he and Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israel in a letter earlier this month that it needed to allow more aid into the small war-wracked coastal territory.


Palestinian leader tells Trump ready to work for Gaza peace

Mahmud Abbas told Donald Trump he was ready to work toward a “just and comprehensive peace” in Gaza. (Reuters)
Updated 09 November 2024
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Palestinian leader tells Trump ready to work for Gaza peace

RAMALLAH: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas expressed readiness to work toward a “just and comprehensive peace” in Gaza during a phone call with US President-elect Donald Trump on Friday, his office said.
Trump’s victory came with the Middle East in turmoil after the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, triggered by the unprecedented attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Congratulating Trump on his victory, Abbas expressed “readiness to work with President Trump to achieve a just and comprehensive peace based on international legitimacy,” his office said in a statement.
It said that Trump also assured Abbas that he will work to end the war.
“President Trump stressed that he will work to stop the war, and his readiness to work with president Abbas and the concerned parties in the region and the world to make peace in the region.”
While Trump struck a note of peace during his campaign, he also touted his status as Israel’s strongest ally, even going so far as to promise Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he would “finish the job” against Hamas in Gaza.