Casualties
- 29,195+ killed* and at least 69,170 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
- 380+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
- Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147.
- 575 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.**
*This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on Telegram channel. Some rights groups put the death toll number closer to 35,000 when accounting for those presumed dead.
** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.”
Key Developments
- Palestine’s Foreign Minister presents case at ICJ, accuses Israel of apartheid in Gaza, West Bank, and Jerusalem.
- ICJ expected to render a non-binding legal opinion on Israel’s occupation.
- Israel avoids sending representative to ICJ, files five-page written statement saying ICJ case “aimed at harming” Israel.
- U.S. circulates Security Council resolution supporting temporary ceasefire in exchange for release of Israeli captives held by Hamas.
- Israeli forces commit nine massacres overnight in various areas of Gaza, according to Ministry of Health, killing at least 103 Palestinians and injuring 124 others.
- Dr. Ashraf Al-Qidra says 18 patients evacuated from Nasser medical complex to field hospitals, 118 patients remain inside it.
- Israeli forces build fortified east-to-west corridor south of Gaza City, cutting Gaza Strip in two halves and blocking Palestinians from traveling north on Salah al-Din Street.
- Israel demolishes buildings to make way for 1-kilometer buffer zone around Netzarim Corridor, including the Turkish Hospital, Al-Aqsa University’s campus, and the entire villages of Mughraqa and Juhor al-Dik.
- UN experts conclude Israeli forces carried out violations and sexual abuse against Palestinian women and girls in Gaza and occupied West Bank.
- Brazil recalls ambassador from Tel Aviv after Brazilian president’s comparison of Israel’s actions in Gaza to Nazi Germany.
Palestine presents case at ICJ to end Israeli occupation
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) held a hearing for the second day on Tuesday to look into Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.
More than 50 nations will address the UN’s highest court, including South Africa, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, Bangladesh, and Belgium.
However, Israel has shunned sending a representative to the Hague, instead filing a five-page written statement, saying that the ICJ’s case “aimed at harming Israel’s rights to defend itself from existential threats.”
The unprecedented hearings at the ICJ will continue untill February 26, expected to result in a non-binding legal opinion by the judges on Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands captured in June 1967.
Israeli media also avoided covering the ICJ hearings. Gideon Levy, an analyst, told Al-Jazeera, “Whatever is inconvenient or unpleasant to Israel, you can always trust the Israeli media to hide it from its viewers and readership.”
On Monday, Palestine’s Foreign Minister, Riyad Al-Maliki, presented the Palestinian case at the ICJ, accusing Israel of perpetrating a colonial and apartheid regime in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and Jerusalem, where nearly six million Palestinians live.
“The Palestinians have endured colonialism and apartheid. There are those who are enraged by these words. They should be enraged by the reality we are suffering,” Maliki addressed the court.
“Successive Israeli governments have given the Palestinian people only three options: displacement, subjugation or death,” he said. “But our people are here to stay; they have a right to live in freedom and dignity in their ancestral land. They will not forsake their rights.”
Palestinians called upon the ICJ to declare the Israeli occupation illegal.
The hearing at the ICJ is separate from a case filed by South Africa accusing Israel of committing genocidal actions in the Gaza Strip. In late January, the ICJ issued a measure ordering Israel to “prevent” genocide in Gaza.
However, Israeli forces have since killed more than 3,000 Palestinians. Western and Arab officials warned of Israel’s imminent plan to invade Rafah in southern Gaza, where 1.4 million Palestinians are sheltering, and turn the city into a bloodbath.
U.S. to veto ceasefire resolution at UN Security Council
On Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. is expected to veto a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
On the other hand, the U.S. has circulated a rival resolution supporting, for the first time since October, a temporary ceasefire and the lifting of all restrictions on delivering humanitarian aid into Gaza, on the condition that all Israeli captives held by Hamas be released.
As diplomats discussed the Palestinian question in the past 24 hours, Israeli forces committed nine massacres in various areas of the Gaza Strip, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, killing at least 103 Palestinian martyrs and injuring 124 people.
An unknown number of Palestinians remain “under rubble and on the roads. The occupation prevents ambulance and civil defense crews from reaching them,” the ministry added.
Patients evacuate Nasser Hospital under Israeli siege
Israeli forces have kept a tight military grip around the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza following last week’s storming of the facility and the arrest of patients and medical staff.
“Eighteen patients were evacuated from Nasser Medical Complex to field hospitals, and 118 patients are still inside [it],” said Dr. Ashraf Al-Qidra, the ministry’s spokesperson.
“The situation inside the Nasser Medical Complex…has gone beyond a disaster and constitutes a direct threat to the lives of staff and patients. Medical staff and patients have no electricity, water, food, milk for children, oxygen [cylinders], and appropriate medical care for difficult cases,” he added in an urgent call for help from the international aid groups.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said it evacuated 14 patients from Nasser Hospital on Tuesday morning and released a video of staff entering the complex, which had no electricity, using head torches and carrying patients on stretches to ambulances. The WHO added that 180 patients and 15 doctors remain inside Nasser Hospital while “negotiations [with Israel] are ongoing for their evacuation.”
On Monday, Tor Wennesland, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, visited Rafah and met with several displaced Palestinian families. The UN said “more needs to be done” to deliver humanitarian supplies and aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
The UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said, “The UN needs the tools to deliver on the ground, including the need for Israel to allow entry of items critical to UN operations and to improve deconfliction.”
Yet Israel has left no square mile safe for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The so-called “safe zones” and “deconflicted zones” it designated in south Gaza, mainly Rafah, are now under the threat of military attack and bombardment.
Israel builds fortified highway cutting Gaza Strip in two
Overnight, Israeli forces bombed various areas in the Gaza Strip with airstrikes and artillery shells.
In northern Gaza, Israeli forces killed at least 15 Palestinians in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood near Gaza City and close to Salah al-Din Street.
Israeli forces are building a fortified east-west corridor just south of Gaza City, which will cut the Gaza Strip into two halves and block Palestinians from traveling north on Salah al-Din Street, the main central highway connecting northern Gaza with the south.
Israel razed and demolished numerous houses and buildings to make way for a 1-kilometer buffer zone around the “Netzarim Corridor,” including the Turkish Hospital, the Al-Aqsa University campus, and the entire villages of Mughraqa and Juhor al-Dik in the eastern Gaza Strip.
Israel aims to finish constructing the highway before the beginning of Ramadan on March 10 and ahead of its planned invasion of Rafah.
Wafa news agency reported that an Israeli attack on the al-Zaytoun neighborhood overnight in northern Gaza pushed Palestinians to western areas near Al-Shifa Hospital and the al-Rimal neighborhood.
In Khan Younis, Israeli forces launched air raids on residential neighborhoods, killing at least six Palestinians and injuring 15, Wafa reported.
In central Gaza’s Nuseirat, Bureij, and Maghazi refugee camps, Israeli airstrikes killed and injured nearly 20 Palestinians, while in Rafah, Israel bombed the city center. In Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, three people were killed, and several of those injured were transferred to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
UN: Israeli forces sexually abused Palestinian women and girls
On Monday, UN experts concluded in a report that Israeli forces carried out violations and sexual abuse against Palestinian women and girls in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.
Israeli forces executed Palestinian women and children arbitrarily, in some cases while they were holding a white cloth or in shelters, according to the UN.
Israel has detained hundreds of women from the Gaza Strip and West Bank since October 7. According to the UN, they were subjected to “inhuman and degrading treatment, denied menstruation pads, food and medicine, and severely beaten.”
“Furthermore, on at least one occasion, Palestinian women detained in Gaza were allegedly kept in a cage in the rain and cold, without food,” the UN report added.
The report revealed that some women and girls were subjected to sexual abuse at the hands of male Israeli soldiers.
“[Abuses] such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers. At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence,” the UN experts said.
Diplomatic row between Israel and Brazil
Brazilian President Lula da Silva recalled Brazil’s ambassador from Tel Aviv on Monday following a diplomatic spat.
Lula likened Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip to Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jewish communities in Europe, which prompted condemnation from Israeli officials and calls for Lula to apologize.
“What is happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people has no parallel in other historical moments,” Lula said over the weekend.
“In fact, it did exist when Hitler decided to kill the Jews,” he added.
On Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, summoned the Brazilian ambassador in Tel Aviv and told him: “We will not forget nor forgive. It is a serious anti-Semitic attack. In my name and the name of the citizens of Israel, tell President Lula that he is persona non grata in Israel until he takes it back.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Brazilian president’s comments were “disgraceful and grave.”
Brazil is the latest country to recall its ambassador from Tel Aviv since October, which also includes South Africa, Chad, Belize, Honduras, Jordan, Colombia, Turkey, Bahrain, and Bolivia, the latter of which announced the cutting of all ties with Israel.
Israeli settlers attack house in Sinjil; authorities demolish building in Jerusalem
Israeli forces arrested 20 Palestinians from various towns in the occupied West Bank overnight. In occupied Jerusalem, Israeli authorities demolished a building under construction in the neighborhood of Beit Hanina on Tuesday morning.
Wafa reported that the eight-story property belonged to Farid Abu Zahariya, who has no permit to build on the land given that Israel rejects the majority of Palestinian applications for construction permits in Jerusalem while advancing plans to expand settlements for Jewish Israelis.
In the village of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, Israeli settlers attacked and vandalized the house of Mahmoud Awashra, hurling stones, smashing its windows, and spraying racist graffiti.
It is the US doing all this because it would simply not be possible otherwise. Shame on the US and every American who defends this evil colonial genocide.
A fortified corridor to the oilfields of the Mediterranean! It will need checkpoints if Palestinians are to travel between the new Bantustans of Southern Gaza and Northern Gaza. No more nonsense about Israel not occupying Gaza (well, maybe).
What went wrong?
The conflict in Gaza has become “an era-defining catastrophe.” It’s increasingly clear what — and who — is to blame….The truth is that this nightmare was depressingly predictable. When I surveyed over a dozen experts about the war back in October, they warned that Israel had a dangerously loose understanding of what the war was about. The stated aim of “destroying Hamas” was at once maximalist and open-ended: It wasn’t clear how it could be accomplished or what limit there might be on the means used in its pursuit….Israel’s conduct in the war so far has vindicated these fears. The embrace of an objective at once so massive and vague has dragged Israel down the moral nadir documented in Abraham’s reporting, with unclear and perhaps even self-defeating ends. It is a situation that Matt Duss, the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, terms “an era-defining catastrophe.”…The blame for this failure lies with Israel’s terrible wartime leadership: an extremist government headed by Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, a venal prime minister currently on trial for corruption who has placed his personal interests over his country’s even during wartime…“You couldn’t have had a worse government to respond to a worse moment,” says Dov Waxman, the director of UCLA’s Center for Israel Studies. “People like to separate the war from the government that’s running it, but I think you can’t.”…. many Israelis, traumatized by the events of October 7, did not fully appreciate how intermingled Hamas — the de facto government of Gaza — was with Gazan society. It’s an organization made up of not only tens of thousands of fighters, but also many civilian functionaries and a vast physical infrastructure. Truly destroying such an entity cannot reasonably be accomplished through force of arms alone — at least not without a yearslong military campaign and an unthinkable amount of civilian death…shockingly, Israel has no clear plan for what comes next. .
https://www.vox.com/24055522/israel-hamas-gaza-war-strategy-netanyahu-strategy-morality
The World Must Force Peace on Israel
By Gideon Levy
February 18, 2024
“Now is the time for the United States, and in its wake the international community, to make a decision: Will the endless cycle of violence between Israel and the Palestinians continue, or are we going to try to put a stop to it? Will the United States continue to arm Israel and then bemoan the excessive use of these armaments, or is it finally prepared to take real steps, for the first time in its history, to change reality? And above all, will the cruelest Israeli attack on Gaza become the most pointless of all, or will the opportunity that came in its aftermath not be missed, for a change?
There is no point in appealing to Israel. The current government, and the one that is likely to replace it, does not and never will have the intention, courage or ability to generate change. When the prime minister responds to American talks about establishing a Palestinian state with words indicating that he “objects to coerced moves,” or that “an agreement will only be reached through negotiations,” all one can do is both laugh and cry.
Laugh, because over the years Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has done all he can to foil negotiations; cry, because Israel is the one employing coercion – the nature of its policy toward the Palestinians is coercion carried out in one big unilateral, violent, aggressive and arrogant move. All of a sudden, Israel is against acts of coercion? Irony hides its head in shame.”
https://informationclearinghouse.blog/2024/02/18/the-world-must-force-peace-on-israel/11/
Looks like the most “moral” military (as we all knew all along), is not only “immoral”, but evil, and mentally sick. They have dehumanized and humiliated these poor women, and put up those incriminating videos on social media.
Now expect the zionists to announce they will “investigate” the matter themselves, and exonerate the criminals.
“UN experts speak out about sexual assault and mistreatment of Palestinian women and girls by IDFExperts expressed ‘shock’ and ‘distress’ at allegations that IDF officers had raped, assaulted, and strip-searched female prisoners
A United Nations human rights panel has called for an independent investigation into reports that Palestinian women and girls have been sexually abused by Israeli soldiers.
In a collective statement on Monday, the seven experts said they were “distressed” by reports that male Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officers had raped, assaulted, and strip-searched female prisoners in Gaza.
They highlighted reports that IDF soldiers had taken photos of prisoners in degrading situations and uploaded them to the internet, as well as claims that an unknown number of Palestinian women and children had gone missing after being detained.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/idf-sexual-abuse-palestine-gaza-b2498888.html