Israeli tanks in Gaza City. Photo credit: Amit Segal.

As a UN inquiry finally concludes that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been fleeing Gaza City to escape the relentless bombardment and the US and UK governments continue to facilitate the massacres and destruction.

Many residents have remained in the city, despite the onslaught, fearing that nowhere else in Gaza is safe.

As Israel escalates its ground invasion of Gaza City, it has also issued threats against participants in the Global Sumud Flotilla who are en route to Gaza to try and break Israel’s siege.

Earlier this month, Israel’s Minister for National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, threatened the flotilla saying it would be intercepted and all the participants would be detained.

Already, a myriad of international organisations and genocide scholars have stated clearly that the massacre of Palestinians and destruction of infrastructure in Gaza constitutes genocide, but those governments that could stop their arms sales to Israel and impose meaningful embargoes continue to facilitate that genocide.

In its report published on September 16, the UN Human Rights Council’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory said it concluded that “the State of Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, namely for the acts enumerated under articles II(a)-(d) of the Genocide Convention: (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.”

Palestinian-American author, racial justice activist, and community organiser Linda Sarsour expressed her frustration, writing on Facebook: “There has been a genocide for almost two years. And those in power have done nothing. They know it’s a genocide. They see what we see …

“I want to see the world move to protect the Palestinian people.

“We are watching the final solution. The total ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people right before our eyes.”

Sarsour added: “Hundreds of thousands of dead bodies. Gaza is a parking lot. Most number of amputated children in the world. Burned bodies in tents. Not a single university stands today. Only makeshift hospitals because every hospital has been destroyed. Forced starvation and children withering away because of lack of food. Dead animals on the sides of the roads.”

Journalist, author, and public speaker, also in the US, Laila El-Haddad, wrote on Facebook: “The world feels exceptionally dark tonight. And I’m struggling to breathe, to stand, to think. I feel like I’m floating through space, like I’ve lost my footing. Ask any other Gazan friend and they likely feel the same. Utterly hopeless and bereft of words to describe this hell we are witnessing and that my family is experiencing right now.

“Our city, beautifully defiant Gaza City, that refuses to play by anyone’s rules, home to generations of my family, is being erased. One block at a time, one family at time, one building at a time, one memory at a time.”

European Commission proposes sanctions

Today (September 17), the European Commission said it had proposed to the European Council the suspension of “certain trade-related provisions of the Association Agreement between the EU and Israel … as well as its proposals for sanctions on Hamas, extremist ministers and violent settlers”.

The commission said the suspension concerned the core trade-related provisions of the agreement, and in practice meant that imports from Israel would lose their preferential access to the EU market.

“These goods will therefore be charged duties at the level applied to any other third country with whom the EU has no free trade agreement,” the commission said.

The commission said it was also putting on hold “its bilateral support to Israel, with the exception of support to civil society and Yad Vashem”.

Concretely, the commission said, this affected future yearly allocations between 2025 and 2027 as well as ongoing institutional cooperation projects with Israel and projects funded under the regional EU-Israel cooperation facility.

It added: “The proposals follow a review of Israel’s compliance with Article 2 of the agreement, which found that actions taken by the Israeli government represent a breach of essential elements relating to respect for human rights and democratic principles,” the commission stated. “This entitles the EU to suspend the agreement unilaterally.”

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said: “The horrific events taking place in Gaza on a daily basis must stop. There needs to be an immediate ceasefire, unrestrained access for all humanitarian aid, and the release of all hostages held by Hamas.”

UK government welcomes Herzog

In the UK, however, the prime minister, Keir Starmar last week welcomed Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, to Downing Street.

In its report, the UN Human Rights Council’s commission of inquiry specifically named Herzog.

The commission said it concluded that “Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, have incited the commission of genocide and that Israeli authorities have failed to take action against them to punish this incitement”.

It added: “The commission has not fully assessed statements by other Israeli political and military leaders, including Minister for National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and Minister for Finance Bezalel Smotrich, and considers that they too should be assessed to determine whether they constitute incitement to commit genocide.”

The UK has denied that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. At the recent independent Gaza Tribunal in London, the director of the Global Legal Action Network, Gearóid Ó Cuinn, highlighted the UK government’s duplicity, noting that it said in parliament that it was for the courts to decide whether Israel was committing genocide, but, in court, said that it wasn’t for the judiciary to decide and the government had made its own assessment.

The UK had withheld critical evidence, including a document on the sniping of children, and had a wholly unfit methodology to assess Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law that it used to make a determination that genocide was not occurring in Gaza, Ó Cuinn said.

The tribunal was set up after the UK government rejected a bill introduced by independent MP Jeremy Corbyn that called on the government to establish an independent inquiry into UK involvement in Israeli military operations in Gaza.

Israel ‘deliberately destroying Palestinian society’

Organisations that have already published reports concluding that Israel was, and still is, committing genocide include two Israeli human rights organisations – B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI).

B’Tselem, also known as the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, states in its report: “An examination of Israel’s policy in the Gaza Strip and its horrific outcomes, together with statements by senior Israeli politicians and military commanders about the goals of the attack, leads to the unequivocal conclusion that Israel is taking coordinated, deliberate action to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip.

“In other words: Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

The PHRI states in its ‘position paper’: “This report documents the Israeli assault for what it is: a deliberate, cumulative, and ongoing dismantling of Gaza’s healthcare system – and of the population’s ability to survive. Its meaning: genocide.”

Other organisations that have stated that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza include the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, the International Federation for Human Rights, and the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention.

Filmmakers support boycott

More than fifty Israeli documentary filmmakers have just signed an open letter condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza.

In a letter dated September 15, the prominent filmmakers declare their support for the international film community’s boycott of Israeli cultural institutions.

The signatories state: “We, a group of documentary filmmakers in Israel, feel profound shame, pain, daily torment, and helplessness in the face of the horrors of mass murder, destruction and internal transfer (for now), and starvation that the State of Israel is carrying out in our name in Gaza.

“We reject with disgust all attempts at denial, silencing, and whitewashing, with the systematic use of euphemisms – preferring to speak of ‘hunger’ instead of ‘starvation’ and ‘war’ instead of ‘genocide’.

In early September, more than 3,000 international film industry professionals, directors, and actors signed a pledge to boycott Israeli state-funded cultural institutions until Israel ends its assault on Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian territories.

Ministers concerned about flotilla’ safety

Photo credit: Gulcin Bekar/Global Sumud Flotilla.

Foreign ministers from 16 countries have meanwhile urged Israel to comply with international law and refrain from “any unlawful or violent act” against the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF).

The foreign ministers of Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Ireland, Libya, Malaysia, the Maldives, Mexico, Pakistan, Qatar, Oman, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, and Turkey expressed their concern about the security of the flotilla.

The GSF meanwhile issued a statement saying: “A devastating day and night of bombing and indiscriminate killing has left 62 victims and countless homes in rubble. This is the tragic reality, two years into a genocide that a UN commission has officially concluded is taking place in Gaza.

“This is based on evidence of incitement and a pattern of military and political conduct. Israel’s policy of wanton violence, which aims to displace and permanently expel the population of Palestine, continues with full backing from the US.

“The world’s red lines have been obliterated. Our response has been insufficient. The Emergency Arab Summit failed to take collective measures and instead of a unified front, the world remains silent.

“This Is Why We Sail.”

The GSF added: “After delays, obstacles, and two drone attacks, we now have more than two dozen ships sailing from Tunisia, together with fleets from Italy and Greece. We are pulling off the largest grassroots maritime mission to Gaza in history.

“As Israel escalates its ground invasion and the UN confirms genocide, our urgency is clear. We remain steadfast and united: we sail to break the siege, to end the genocide, and to stand with Palestine.”

Palestinian political analyst, writer, and human rights advocate Muhammad Shehada, who is currently a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told the Democracy Now news outlet how Palestinians who were fleeing south were being bombed and killed on the way.

“It’s just extermination for the sake of extermination,” he said.

The IDF was swarming Gaza City with a huge number of drones and armoured personnel carriers that had been robotised, Shehada said.

The robotised vehicles had been turned into giant bombs, he said. They were filled to the brim with explosive ammunition, which was detonated from a distance and struck highly populated, overcrowded areas.

Shehada told how one of his friends, Ibrahim, woke up when one of the robotised vehicles exploded underneath the building where he was sheltering with his family and in-laws.

Half of the building collapsed and Ibrahim narrowly escaped death. He grabbed his four-year-old and he and his wife started running.

The family couldn’t find a tent so were now sleeping on the street, with no food. The exodus from Gaza was literally a death march, Shehada said.

That’s why the overwhelming majority of people remained in Gaza City, unable to leave, he said. There was no place to go that would be safe or where they would be able to find shelter.

Also, Shehada said, the Internet had been cut off in northern Gaza and Gaza City, and the bombardment continued.

At least 13 people are reported to have been killed in an Israeli airstrike near what remains of the Al-Shifa medical complex in Gaza City.

The prize-winning poet, short story writer, and essayist from Gaza Mosab Abu Toha, who currently lives in the US, continually documents the horrors of the genocide – the hell on Earth that Israel has, with impunity, created in Gaza.

He tweeted on September 17: “It’s 8:30 p.m. in Gaza now … Israeli forces slaughtered 81 people since the early hours of the morning.”

In its 72-page report, the UN commission of inquiry gives details of the targeting by Israeli forces of Palestinians along evacuation routes and in so-called safe zones.

“The commission found that Palestinians, including women and children, were directly targeted and killed, even in the absence of hostilities in the vicinity and when they were by themselves,” the report states.

One example given by the commission is an attack on October 13, 2023, when not only passing civilian vehicles were targeted “but also clearly marked first responders and medical teams arriving at the scene”.

The commission said that, in all cases it analysed in relation to Israeli attacks along evacuation routes and within designated safe areas, it found that “the Israeli security forces had clear knowledge of the presence of Palestinian civilians along the evacuation routes and within the safe areas but nevertheless they shot at and killed civilians, some of whom (including children) were holding makeshift white flags. Some children, including toddlers, were shot in the head by snipers”.

DONATE TO CHANGING TIMES VIA SIMPLE PAYMENTS

1= 5 euro, x 2 = 10 euro, X 3 =15 euro, etc.

€5.00