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C0RI0LANUS

(1,806 posts)
Thu Dec 19, 2024, 12:04 PM Thursday

Human Rights Watch (HRW): Israel Using Water as Weapon of War Against Palestinians in Gaza Strip


Palestinians struggling to collect drinkable water in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. (Photo: Hatem Khaled / Reuters)

Calling it an “act of genocide,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports that since October 2023 Israeli authorities have deliberately obstructed Palestinians’ access to the adequate amount of clean water required for survival in the Gaza Strip. Full report with graphs and photos linked at bottom.

“If we can't find drinkable water, we drink the sea water,” a displaced Palestinian father testified to HRW. “It happened to me many times when I had to drink the sea water. You don’t understand how much we are suffering.”

Moreover, for years ecologists have accused Israel of using sewage as a weapon against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to spread disease and misery. See report linked at bottom.


A Gaza residential street is inundated by sewage. (Photo: Rosa Schiano / International Solidarity Movement)

Meanwhile, over the past 24 hours the IDF killed 32 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, including children, and at least four in the Tulkarem refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.


Palestinians mourn over the body of loved ones killed after an IDF strike at Al-Ahli Arab hospital (AKA the Baptist Hospital) in Gaza City. (Photo: Omar Al-Qattaa / AFP)

During this 14-month pogrom, the Gaza Health Ministry reports that a minimum of 45,129 Palestinians have been killed and 107,338 wounded or maimed, including non-combatant women and children. The number of deaths is likely to be far higher as many bodies are believed to remain buried underneath the rubble across the devastated Strip. The IDF claims that 17,000 of the deceased were militants. The retribution ratio for the 7 Oct 2023 raid that killed 1,200 Israelis is 40:1. The 250 innocent Israelis were seized to conduct a prisoner swap for any number of the thousands of Palestinians being held incommunicado without trial or hearing in security detention by the IDF. See full report linked at bottom.

This week Amnesty International projected “End Gaza Genocide” on the EU HQ building in 24 languages:




In a report released earlier this month, Amnesty International concluded that Israel’s devastating war on Gaza meets the legal threshold for genocide. Apologists for the brutal Likud regime have feebly attempted to parse the language of this damning report, but as the Immortal Bard wrote: "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

Amnesty has called on EU leaders meeting to halt all arms transfers to Israel, ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements, and ensure justice and accountability for Israeli crimes.


(The above photo courtesy of the Washington Post was verified as genuine by snopes.com)

The avuncular-looking Avi Dichter must have heard your plea, young lady.


Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter (Likud) said: "We're rolling out Nakba 2023." (Photo: Abir Sultan / Flash90)

The IDF certainly has, Sir.

Is Amnesty International (AI), Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague, Holocaust survivor Rene Lichtman, the government of Ireland, or US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) incapable of describing ethnic cleansing or genocide-- or are they antisemitic for calling out the patently and blazing obvious?

Fortunately, not everyone in the world is blind to suffering, especially us at Democratic Underground.




For years, the US Democratic Party position for peace in the Middle East was based on crafting a Two-State Solution.









Sources:

https://www.hrw.org/report/2024/12/19/extermination-and-acts-genocide/israel-deliberately-depriving-palestinians-gaza

https://theecologist.org/2013/nov/02/gaza-sewage-weapon-war

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-international-concludes-israel-is-committing-genocide-against-palestinians-in-gaza/

https://www.un.org/unispal/document/anatomy-of-a-genocide-report-of-the-special-rapporteur-on-the-situation-of-human-rights-in-the-palestinian-territory-occupied-since-1967-to-human-rights-council-advance-unedited-version-a-hrc-55/

https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a79363-report-special-committee-investigate-israeli-practices-affecting

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-12/ty-article/israeli-security-cabinet-member-calls-north-gaza-evacuation-nakba-2023/0000018b-c2be-dea2-a9bf-d2be7b670000

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/12/19/live-israel-kills-14-in-northern-gaza-as-it-continues-to-deny-un-access

https://amnesty.ca/human-rights-news/israel-opt-horrifying-cases-of-torture-and-degrading-treatment-of-palestinian-detainees-amid-spike-in-arbitrary-arrests/

https://www.snopes.com/

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Grins

(7,934 posts)
1. Oh, good! Another reason for me to hate Israel!
Thu Dec 19, 2024, 12:26 PM
Thursday

And by “Israel,” I mean Netanyahu and his murderous Likud!

C0RI0LANUS

(1,806 posts)
2. Grins, of course we know that. Nobody at DU hates Israel because of the loathsome "Crime Minister."
Thu Dec 19, 2024, 01:18 PM
Thursday

That would be tantamount to a Canadian saying he or she hates America because of the odious Donald Trumpf.

Thanks to these two right-wing, brutal, and inhuman despots, they have turned their countries into Pariah States, like Afghanistan and North Korea.

Current Pariah States: Dark Blue
Former Pariah States: Light Blue




See list at: https://www.worlddata.info/pariahstates.php





Mosby

(17,620 posts)
3. The "Retribution Ratio" is a fabricated metric designed to demonize Israel
Thu Dec 19, 2024, 02:46 PM
Thursday
The retribution ratio for the 7 Oct 2023 raid that killed 1,200 Israelis is 40:1. The 250 innocent Israelis were seized to conduct a prisoner swap for any number of the thousands of Palestinians being held incommunicado without trial or hearing in security detention by the IDF.


The only examples in law that speak about a "retribution ratio" is in sentencing guidelines, HRW is using this in a completely novel way to demonize Israel.

Look at the language they chose to use, calling a ultra violent massacre a "raid". I think we are all aware at this point of the astonishing brutality and psychopathic behavior evinced by the perpetrators of these horrific crimes committed on 10/7.

HRW should explain how they know that these Hamas psychos took hostages for prisoner swaps, because we know some were taken to be sex slaves. Moreover, this criminal gang has rejected multiple offers to release the hostages in exchange for the release of Palestinian criminals, all but one has been refused, and nothing on the horizon indicates that Hamas has any intention of releasing hostages, and may not have any control anyway, because other criminal elements in the Palestinian OTs maintain physical control of the hostages.

The hostages need to be released, and Hamas needs to surrender and give up its weapons.

Aussie105

(6,450 posts)
7. Sounds to me like your life and thinking stopped on 10/7.
Thu Dec 19, 2024, 06:01 PM
Thursday

Everything that has happened since is justified by this one act of brutality.

Every act of brutality by Israel since then is fully justified by 10/7, right?
And it will be, forevermore.

When you withhold food, water, medical supplies, habitat, safety, etc indiscriminately from a population it is genocide.
When the deaths are deliberate and indiscriminate, it is genocide.

But yeah, 10/7, you can't get past that, right?
Bibi and his hardliners love you! Rest of the world, not so much.

Mosby

(17,620 posts)
9. Here's a Hamas produced video of them digging up water pipes
Fri Dec 20, 2024, 10:22 AM
Yesterday

To use for missles. They shoot these indiscriminately into southern Israel, every one is a war crime.




This is why they have to bring in water by truck.

C0RI0LANUS

(1,806 posts)
4. The Mathematics of Military Power
Thu Dec 19, 2024, 03:47 PM
Thursday

During the Vietnam War, SECDEF Robert McNamara stressed the importance of "body counts."





USSECDEF Robert McNamara testifying about the "body counts" of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters.

The US military kill ratio against the enemy in SE Asia was 10:1. The IDF kill ratio in Gaza
is 40:1. Human Rights Watch did not create this term.




Link:

https://medium.com/@toddstrasser/the-kill-ratio-cd6e51f56c2d

AloeVera

(2,005 posts)
5. Are we waiting for them to start dropping like flies?
Thu Dec 19, 2024, 04:44 PM
Thursday

In one month, under current inhumane conditions, thousands more could die from lack of water, food, medical aid and from diseases like cholera and hepatitis due to lack of clean water and sanitation, pneumonia from lack of shelter - even polio, since there are still around 10,000 kids in the besieged north who did not get the second dose due to a refusal to provide the necessary safe corridors.

The HRW report focuses on the restriction of water and finds a systematic restriction of water supplies. I'd like someone to explain to me how the following actions relate to self-defence:
- solar panel arrays that powered 4 out of 6 wastewater treatment plants destroyed by IDF military bulldozers
- out of 54 water reservoirs, 11 completely destroyed and 20 more damaged
- the 3 pipelines supplying water were cut by Israel and allowed to only partially reopen; same with the 3 desalination plants
- a new pipeline built by UAE bombed/damaged
- a video on social media showed IDF combat engineers filming themselves blowing up a water reservoir in Rafah

Clearly none of this is related to Israel's need to "defend itself". Clearly what this is about is intentionally "inflicting on Palestinians conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part". Ergo, GEN-O-CIDE.

What are we waiting for???

AloeVera

(2,005 posts)
6. Wow, thanks! Sure hope our pro-Israel friends here and in the U.S. Congress will find the time to do some reading.
Thu Dec 19, 2024, 04:57 PM
Thursday

A lot of inconvenient truths might make for uncomfortable reading. But this IS a reality-based community and we want facts and truth, and we all believe all lives matter and are equal, and all people are entitled to the right to life and human rights. Above all, we would do everything in our power to stop a GEN-O-CIDE - that goes without saying!

Right?

C0RI0LANUS

(1,806 posts)
8. Hi Aloe Vera. I'm glad you appreciated my OP. This man-made tragedy is just appalling.
Thu Dec 19, 2024, 07:11 PM
Thursday

Here is a terrific resource that may be helpful in analyzing members of the US Congress and how they vote. Make it a favorite:

https://trackaipac.com/

You will see:

NY Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez = 0 AIPAC dollars.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders = 0 AIPAC dollars.






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