CrossFireArarbia

How do You Document an Israeli Genocide?

CrossFireArabia
December 22, 2024

We have received several inquiries from our readers, some asking, while others protesting, that the numbers of casualties resulting from the Israeli genocide in Gaza, which we update on a daily basis, underestimates the actual number of people killed.

But is this the case?

At the start of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, Western officials and media immediately began questioning the numbers produced the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza.

Even media that is purportedly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause would often qualify that the Ministry of Health in Gaza is affiliated with Hamas, as to indicate that they are not responsible for the accuracy of the information produced by the ministry.

Ultimately, this culminated in the statement by US President Joe Biden, who claimed on October 26, 2023, that he had “no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using” for the death toll in Gaza.

Quickly, however, western media propaganda began faltering before the horrific images witnessed in Gaza on a daily, in fact, hourly basis.

With time, the Palestinian version of events prevailed, to the extent that on February 2, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin answered a pinned-pointed question at a Senate hearing about how many Palestinian women and children had been killed by Israel by saying: “It is over 25,000.”

Since then, the Ministry of Health numbers became the accepted as the official numbers of the ongoing Israeli atrocities.

But how does the Ministry of Health obtain its numbers?

It is understandable that the Ministry of Health’s numbers are greatly underestimated. This is because the ministry only confirms a casualty, be it dead or injured, when a person arrives at any given hospital or clinic that is supervised by the ministry. Only when an official record is established, a casualty is counted as such.

This explains why anywhere between 10,000 to 11,000 continue to be counted as missing. But even the number is greatly undercounted, because, according to the methods of the ministry, someone would have to officially be registered as missing by a relative, in order for that number to be added to the ever-growing list.

There are many who have gone missing, without being officially counted as such simply because either whole families have been killed together or many of the survivors have no access to the Ministry of Health itself, or the Red Cross to report the loss of loved ones.

Documenting Genocide – How Many People Did Israel Kill in Gaza? https://t.co/ZNJPpchPVd
— Joe Catron (@jncatron) December 22, 2024

Additionally, there are many thousands who have perished due to easily curable diseases, polluted water, starvation, lack of access to basic treatments – these include cancer patients, heart patients, among other chronic or terminal illnesses – and those who have died and have been buried without being accounted for as victims of the Israeli genocide.

This takes us to the Lancet’s numbers. On July 10, the Lancet Medical Journal reported that due to its accumulative and indirect effects, “it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza”. That number, however, covered the period between October 7, 2023, and July 31, 2024.

Other numbers have also popped up, suggesting that even the Lancet has underestimated the casualties due to new variables, thus estimating the casualties at 200,000 or more.

"We are here forever, until victory, until settlement. There's no Jabalia, it's over"

This horrific video, of the ruins of Jabalia, shot by an Israeli soldier, already circulated a couple of days ago, I just added subtitles. pic.twitter.com/VW1d9ncwC5
— B.M. (@ireallyhateyou) December 21, 2024

So why is the Palestine Chronicle – and many other outlets – continue to use Ministery of Health numbers?

Though we agree that the number of casualties is much closer to the new projections above, we chose to follow the official data produced by Palestinian doctors and medical workers who are reporting from the heart of the genocide.

This is not to suggest that outside sources have no credibility, – to the contrary – but it is only fit, and moral to allow the Palestinians not only to convey their own truths about the Israeli genocide, but also to account for their own dead as well. At the end of the war, final numbers will be produced, and we will report on that as well.

Additionally, a clear distinction should be made between projections and confirmed numbers. The former looks at many variables, including, in the case of the Lancet, starvation, lack of access to healthcare, and rapid spread of diseases. The latter, however, estimates based on a criterion, as mentioned above, where the dead and wounded would have to be accounted for by name and in official documents.

Therefore, while we frequently report on the projections, the casualty numbers that we confirm are the ones by the Gaza Ministry of Health.

The Palestine Chronicle

Culture

Sobering Thought!

CrossFireArabia
December 22, 2024

Opinion

‘Can You Look in The Mirror After You Have Bombed an Entire Neighborhood?’

CrossFireArabia
December 22, 2024

By Dr Ahmad Tibi

In the midst of the Spanish Civil War, some time in 1937, fascist dictator Francisco Franco’s regime bombed the Basque town of Guernica, with the help of Germany and Italy. In less than four hours, and after bombs weighing a total of 22 tons were dropped on it, the town was completely destroyed.

Hundreds were killed in the bombardment, which shocked the entire world and became a symbol of the cruelty of those times. Guernica was immolated in the fire of fascistic propaganda and in historical memory it is testimony to the fragility of justice during war. Pablo Picasso’s famous masterpiece, “Guernica,” has become a symbol of the destruction and horror of war.

In the bombing of Guernica, no pilot refused to obey orders. They flew – and carried out their job as dictated. Obedient soldiers. Eighty-seven years later, it is the same old song. No Israeli pilot has stood up and said “No.” “This is the limit.”

The bombardments in the Gaza Strip have hit and damaged hospitals, schools, kindergartens, mosques and churches, bakeries, public buildings and entire neighborhoods – leaving behind tragedies too numerous to elaborate – and not a single pilot has said “No.”

The pilots, who in their private lives are apparently considered by themselves and their surroundings moral men of integrity and values, sons of parents, fathers of children, good friends to their buddies – have made themselves a major part of the well-oiled killing machine that knows no mercy. Or limits.

During the past 14 months, and after multiple Guernicas in Gaza – human morality is facing yet another test. Since the war began, tens of thousands of children, women and men have lost their lives, and entire towns – like Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and Jabalya – have been wiped off the face of the earth in bombings by the IDF.

Cities comparable in population size to Herzliya and Dimona have been bombed into rubble. And the world, with its silence and its armaments and materiel support, is supporting this. The media in Israel wobbles between total denial and depicting the actions as heroic, justified, essential deeds.

How can a pilot be proud of this? How does he sleep at night? Killing 17,000 children and wounding about 100,000. Killing masses of civilians is not “self defense” even in the face of the horrors of the killing of dozens of children alongside hundreds of other civilians in the Gaza border communities.

Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza has become a “ghost town” due to Israel’s ongoing attacks, with 70% of the camp’s buildings completely destroyed, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Haaretz stated in a report on Sunday that “none of the army’s other military operations… pic.twitter.com/sRtxFG9GTL
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) December 22, 2024

We have arrived at an absurd rule: Nothing justifies October 7 – but in the name of October 7 everything is justifiable. There is no security justification for such massive bombing. No military action can justify bombing helpless human beings, or the eradication of Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun and Jabalya from the face of the earth. This ethnic cleansing is reminiscent of the ethnic cleansing of 530 villages in 1948.

In the Israel of 2024, after 14 months of nearly constant bombardment, day and night – the voice of refusal has gone silent and is unheard. In the Jewish Israeli public, voices of protest and resistance are hardly audible.

The planes thunder and morality is silenced – and there are even those who are demanding yet more bombing and even more destruction. The few who refused to be conscripted this year – for example, Ido Ilam – and kudos to him for that – can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and the letters of refusal and resistance actions on the fingers of two, but no more than that.

Conscientious objection is entirely a personal gesture: It is a political act of resistance to the system. It is a refusal to commit war crimes in the name and for the sake of the system, a refusal to be part of a process of destruction and ruin. A refusal to kill. A refusal to steal. To destroy. To burn down a home. To rob. To deprive. And to ruin. But refusal only because of a judiciary reform is not enough.

Without refusal to take part wholesale military destruction, human society sinks ever deeper into its moral darkness, which has no limits.

“The West,” which for years fought for the values of democracy and human rights, is choosing to turn a blind eye to the horrors of Gaza. Under cover of “the right to self-defense” – as though Israel were not a regional military superpower and lacked might and means – the West is allowing it almost unlimited freedom of action and giving it a green light to destroy Gaza and deepen the occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights.

The ethnic cleansing taking place before our very eyes, and which is being broadcast live on social media, is made possible under the auspices of the Western countries that are enlightened only in their own eyes.

And the administration of the Democrats in the United States, led by President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, will be remembered forever in disgrace, alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as the destroyers of Gaza, perpetrators of ethnic cleansing and mass murder of women and children.

What will they say about this a few decades hence? What will you tell your children? Your grandchildren?

Ultimately, every individual’s morality – including a pilot’s morality – is measured by his deeds. What he agrees to do and what he refuses to do. Are you prepared to press the button that will kill scores of children? That will burn to death three generations of a single family? Can you look in the mirror after you have bombed an entire neighborhood?

Do you love the person the mirror reflects back to you in the morning? Gaza, like Guernica, did not ask to be a moral test and a symbol of the human cruelty of these times. Above all, it is a place, a home to millions of people – men, women and children – who want to live outside the walls of the biggest prison in the world. A prison that has become the biggest graveyard in the world.

Netanyahu: We have destroyed Hamas brigades in #Gaza !
pic.twitter.com/LvOwhUGGsc
— Nour Naim| نُور (@NourNaim88) October 5, 2024

Gaza, like Guernica, reminds us how important it is to resist and refuse to participate in injustice – loudly and clearly, even at a steep personal price. Where there is resistance, there is hope, and where there is hope there is a future for all of us.

Dr Ahmad Al Tibi is a Palestinian-Israeli politician and has been a member of the Knesset since 1999. This opinion was reproduced from the Israeli Haaretz.

News

Ghost Town: 70% of Jabalia Homes Reduced to Rubble

CrossFireArabia
December 22, 2024

Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza has become a “ghost town” due to Israel’s relentless attacks, with 70 percent of the camp’s buildings completely destroyed, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Haaretz, which briefly had access to the camp in besieged northern Gaza, said in a report on Sunday that the number is an estimate by the Israeli army.

None of the army’s other operations in Lebanon and other parts of Gaza “can compare, in the scale of the destruction, to what has happened over the last two and a half months” in the camps.

“As far as the eye can see lie miles and miles of destroyed homes. It’s hard to look away from the devastated remains of Jabalia’s refugee camp in northern Gaza,” Amos Harel, a military affairs analyst, wrote in Haaretz.

“I could see that even the few buildings that are still standing were badly damaged,” Harel said.

“The IDF (army) operated here twice before, in December 2023 and May 2024. But this time, the camp was taken apart,” Amos said.

“Jabalia has become a ghost town. Outside, you mainly see pack after pack of stray dogs roaming around and hunting for scraps of food.”

According to the army’s data, quoted by Haaretz, some 96,000 Palestinian civilians were forcibly displaced from the densely populated camp during the military’s operation.

Haaretz added, citing the army, that more than 2,000 Palestinians have been killed and roughly 1,500 have been arrested in the camp over the same period.

The army claims most of the people killed in the camp were armed, the report also said according to the Quds News Network.

Features

How Israel is Destroying a Hospital

CrossFireArabia
December 22, 2024

The hospital bears the name of one of the leaders of the Palestinian revolution and the most prominent symbols of the Fatah movement

– Since the start of the military operation in northern Gaza on 5 October, the hospital was subjected to dozens of attacks

Major damage reported at Kamal Adwan Hospital, northern Gaza, following the Israeli occupation army's detonation of an explosive robot in the hospital's vicinity, alongside intense targeting of nearby civilian homes. pic.twitter.com/8DQcUFZgB6
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) December 22, 2024

– The hospital director said the Israeli army treats this health facility as a “military target”

In the heart of the town of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, where the Israeli army is committing crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing, the Kamal Adwan Hospital continues to operate with minimal of capabilities as the last stronghold of steadfastness in the face of the Israeli war machine.

#BREAKING| Israeli occupation forces are torching Palestinian homes in the vicinity of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. pic.twitter.com/h2Gz648GmG
— Days of Palestine (@DaysOf_Pal) December 22, 2024

The hospital bears the name of one of the leaders of the Palestinian revolution and the most prominent symbols of the Fatah movement, and constitutes a last resort for patients and the wounded in the north who have not found an alternative that provides them with the minimum of medical and humanitarian services.

Since the Israeli army’s attack on the northern governorate on 5 October, which coincided with a comprehensive military siege, the hospital has been subjected to dozens of targeting operations with missiles and gunfire, as a health official said the Israeli army treats it as a “military target”.

Despite this, the hospital’s medical staff, consisting of two doctors at most and a small number of nurses, continued to perform their humanitarian duty, and refused to obey the army’s multiple orders to evacuate its buildings and leave the governorate despite the ongoing crimes against them.

Beit Lahia, like many other parts of the Gaza Strip, was subjected to a policy of “urban annihilation” of its architectural and cultural fabric through the implementation of comprehensive erasure operations and the complete destruction of homes, residential neighborhoods and infrastructure, and the elimination of the means of survival for Palestinians, according to a statement by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.

Timeline

The Kamal Adwan Hospital, the largest hospital in the Northern Governorate, which used to provide services to more than 400,000 people, is currently operating under conditions and lacking capabilities due to the Israeli targeting of it since October 2023, which Anadolu Agency monitored as follows:

Since the beginning of the war, the Israeli army continued to launch intensive raids on the hospital’s surroundings, in addition to blowing up buildings and residential areas next to it, which resulted in much damage in addition to deaths and injuries inside and outside the hospital.

2023:

– 14 October: An Israeli warning to evacuate the hospital of displaced persons, medical staff and patients.

– 4 December: An Israeli bombardment of the northern gate of the hospital results in the killing of 4 Palestinians

#Save_Kamal Adwan Hospital https://t.co/AR79OPiyU1
— 4827 (@sizoki1111) December 22, 2024

– 6 December: The Gaza Ministry of Health announces the forcible removal of Kamal Adwan Hospital from service and “with tank muzzles”.

– 8 December: Israeli tanks besiege the hospital, and army snipers climb onto surrounding buildings and fire towards the courtyards and patients’ rooms.

– 12 December: The Israeli army stormed the hospital after a tight siege and forced about 2,500 displaced people to evacuate the hospital after two days and arrested a number of medical staff

– 16 December: The army withdrew from the hospital after destroying the southern part of it, displacing the displaced people inside it, abusing its patients and suppressing the medical staff

2024

– Mid-January: Kamal Adwan Hospital partially resumed operations according to human rights reports

– March: Dozens of children died, some of them in Kamal Adwan Hospital due to famine in the north and a shortage of medical supplies and medicines.

– 19 May: The hospital went out of service again after heavy Israeli shelling targeted its surroundings and army vehicles advanced towards it and besieged it for days

– 28 May: Israeli shelling of a building in the hospital and the destruction of the electricity generators inside it.

– June: The hospital partially resumed operations with limited medical facilities and supplies

– 8 October: The Israeli army orders hospitals in the Gaza Strip, including Kamal Adwan, to evacuate within 24 hours, amidst a siege by military vehicles

– 19 October: The Israeli army shells the entrance to the Kamal Adwan Hospital laboratory, killing a Palestinian and wounding others

– 20 October: The Israeli shelling of the hospital resumes, and heavy gunfire is directed at its buildings, targeting its water tanks and electricity network

– 22 October: Israeli warnings to evacuate the hospital are renewed

– 25 October: The Israeli army storms the hospital and detains hundreds of patients, medical staff and displaced persons who have taken refuge inside its buildings

– 26 October: The army withdraws from the hospital, leaving behind Palestinian deaths and widespread destruction inside and outside, a day after storming it

– 31 October: The Israeli army shells the hospital, burning medicines and medical supplies it received from the World Health Organization days earlier

– 3 November: Israeli artillery shelling injures a number of children in the hospital’s nursery and shooting at its generators and water tanks

– 4 November: Israeli shelling of the hospital’s facilities and the injury of a number of Palestinian medical staff and patients

– 6 November: The death of wounded due to the lack of surgical specialties in the hospital, which began operating without electricity due to a lack of fuel

– 11 November: An Israeli drone shelled the hospital’s reception and emergency department, injuring 3 medical staff

– 22 November: Renewed Israeli shelling of Kamal Adwan Hospital, injuring a doctor and patients, and disrupting the electricity generators and the oxygen station

– 3 December: Israeli shelling of the hospital with bombs launched by “Quadcopter” drones, injuring 3 medical staff

– 4 December: The army shelled the hospital four times and the oxygen station stopped, threatening the lives of patients inside it

– 5 December: The Israeli army targeted the hospital several times, killing two Palestinians, one of whom was a child, and injuring two others

– 6 December: The Israeli army stormed the hospital for hours and forced Patients and medical staff evacuated and a number of them were arrested

– 7 December: The Israeli army targeted the hospital with a number of shells, resulting in the injury of medical staff and patients, the destruction of water, oxygen and fuel tanks, a power outage and the outbreak of fires in its facilities

How about doing something real to #StopIsrael other than worrying?

btw, it's not "bombardment near Kamal Adwan Hospital", the Israeli genociders fired directly at the ICU and the maternity ward last night. And they killed a 10 year old girl while she was leaving the hospital!! https://t.co/4tdTaUIGAq
— 𓂆 eman qasim🔻 (@EmanQasim) December 22, 2024

– 14 December: Explosive robots were detonated in the vicinity of the hospital, damaging its buildings and causing panic among patients and displaced persons

– 16 December 16: Israeli Quadcopter drones targeted the hospital