Israel points to the civilian toll of the US wars in Gaza
The Israel Defense Forces in Gaza: The Last Day of Operation, and a Large-Scale Attack on the Gazan Refugee Camp
Israeli officials say they can’t afford to launch attacks on Hamas if they want them to store weapons in civilian areas or within the population of 2.2 million. The officials say Hamas is guilty of murdering Israeli civilians.
The goal of the Israel’s response was to eliminate Hamas and the bombardment on Gaza included a ground invasion.
On Sunday, Israeli forces reached the coast of Gaza, splitting the besieged area in half and essentially cutting off the north from the south, the military said.
In the last day and a half, the soldiers of the division have killed around 50 terrorists and eliminated many more in close-quarter combat.
Phone, 4G cellular networks as well as internet services were cut off in Gaza for several hours. By Monday morning local time, the networks appeared to have been at least partially restored.
Israeli bombs hit refugee camps. One attack on the Maghazi refugee camp early Sunday, killed at least 33 people and wounded dozens, health officials in the region said.
Many Palestinians have been moving south as the Israelis continue their military operations in Gaza City.
Only a small number of people were able to move to the southern part of the Strip this weekend according to the monitors on the ground.
The ones that have managed to flee have mostly traveled by foot for miles — adults carrying babies or pushing wheelchairs with the elderly, and holding the hands of children lugging bags full of whatever belongings they could grab. Some waved white pieces of cloth to show they were civilians.
NPR spoke with a group traveling in Gaza who said they had to walk past dead bodies rotting in the street as bombs dropped in the distance. They didn’t give their names because of security concerns.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Mission to the Land of the Dead: The 1945 Bombing of Copenhagen by the Royal Air Force and the Implications for American-Made Weapons
He made a surprise visit to Iraq on Sunday and met with the Prime Minister for more than an hour. Blinken also made trips to Israel and Jordan and had a sit-down with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah in the West Bank.
President Biden and his aides have been careful not to even hint in public that Israel could be violating any laws of war. And the State Department continues to approve sales of weapons to Israel while refraining from making any assessments of the legality of Israel’s actions. Some diplomats are uneasy with that, especially since the department formally pledged earlier this year to investigate episodes of civilian casualties involving American-made weapons.
“In 1944, the Royal Air Force bombed the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen — a perfectly legitimate target,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in an address to his nation on Oct. 30. The British pilots missed and instead of hitting the Gestapo headquarters they hit a children’s hospital. And I think 84 children were harmed and burned to death. That is not a war crime. You don’t blame Britain for doing that. The bombing in 1945 is believed to have killed 86 children and 18 adults.
Mr. Netanyahu added that the attack “was a legitimate act of war with tragic consequences that accompany such legitimate action. You didn’t tell the Allies not to stamp out Nazism because of the tragic consequences.
Israeli officials invoked American attacks against the Islamic State in the Iraqi city of Falluja during the US occupation of Iraq in 2004.
Israeli officials privately evoked the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings in reference to the Secretary of State’s visits to Israel after the Hamas attacks.
