Help Christians to survive in Gaza: LifeFunder
(LifeSiteNews) — At least 78 civilians were killed over the weekend by intense Israeli bombardments of what may likely be the most densely populated city in the world, Rafah, at the southern border of the Gaza Strip. The massacres could constitute the first casualties in an Israeli planned ground offensive that was signaled late last week, a plan that has been met with significant international warnings and protests.
With a pre-war population of 275,000 residents, Rafah has become a final option for approximately 1.5 million Palestinians who have suffered successive waves of displacement by bombings and incursions of the Israeli occupation army.
Corralled within this small region, the throngs of desperate refugees, mostly women and children, have become hemmed in by the Israeli and Egyptian border fences to the east and south, the Mediterranean Sea to the west, and the threatening Israeli army to the north. The vast majority are living in tents and other temporary structures along streets and in fields, or in jammed and filthy, overcrowded shelters.
On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his army to create a plan for evacuating the civilian population of Rafah, and just a few hours later Israeli bombardments of the city began striking residential buildings, killing 28, including at least 10 children.
Additionally, the Health Ministry in Gaza reported at least 67 Palestinians were killed by Israeli air and sea attacks on Rafah early Monday morning.
Due to the concentration of civilians, aid groups struggling to operate in the Strip have warned that any Israeli military advance in this location will bring about a “bloodbath” with humanitarian assistance already on the brink of collapse.
Israel has inhibited a Turkish shipment of food — enough to feed 1.1 million Palestinians for a month — from reaching the besieged enclave, according to the U.N. agency providing such aid. Twenty miles north from Gaza in the Israeli port city of Ashdod, the shipment has remained for weeks, even as an estimated 25 percent of families in Gaza face catastrophic hunger, with some now beginning to die of starvation.
READ: Warnings of ‘mass starvation’ in Gaza as Western powers freeze UN relief funds
Concerned that the mass of Palestinians may be forced south out of the enclave, Egypt has sent around 40 tanks and armored personnel carriers to the border in expectation of the Israeli onslaught. They have also threatened to suspend the Camp David Accords peace treaty they forged with Israel in 1978 if the Israeli army does, indeed, invade Rafah.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry warned Saturday of “very serious repercussions of storming and targeting” the city of Rafah, and Jordan concurred, emphasizing the “dangerous” consequences of such an attack.
Additionally, European Unopm foreign policy chief Josep Borrell remarked that “an Israeli offensive on Rafah would lead to an unspeakable humanitarian catastrophe and grave tensions with Egypt.” And UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said Friday that the international body is “extremely worried about the fate of civilians in Rafah,” affirming they all “need to be protected” and adding the UN also “does not want to see any forced mass displacement of people, which is by definition against their will.”
There have been broad accusations of Israel committing genocide from across the globe, including from many Jewish organizations, expert commentators and individuals.
READ: UN’s top court rules genocide charge against Israel is ‘plausible’
Since their besieging of the Strip after the October 7 attack by Hamas, the Israelis have killed at least 28,730 people, including over 11,000 children and 7,500 women, not counting the estimated 8,000 missing and presumed dead and buried under the rubble. Additionally, 127 journalists have been killed along with 317 healthcare professionals, enormous levels of medical infrastructure has been destroyed, and over 70,000 people have been injured.
#Infographic| Statistics on the Israeli Genocide in the Gaza Strip (07 October 2023-13 February 2024) pic.twitter.com/k79PhUmNsg
— Euro-Med Monitor (@EuroMedHR) February 13, 2024
Surprisingly, a poll released in late October, after weeks of reports and images of the monumental death and damage inflicted on the civilian population of Gaza, showed that only 1.8% of Israelis thought their government was using too much firepower in its assault on the besieged Strip. And perhaps more surprising, 57.5% believed that the daunting assault was utilizing too little firepower. Other polls from December and January have confirmed similar attitudes as have very many statements by Israeli officials themselves that appear to indicate clear genocidal intent.
In fact, the Israeli Defense Force has recently been compelled to admit that it sponsored a propaganda channel on Telegram aimed at Israeli citizens that featured snuff videos taken by their soldiers reveling over “Palestinians being murdered, dehumanized as insects and vermin, their bodies desecrated, and the destruction of Gaza glorified,” according to Breaking Point.
Citing a December report in the Israeli publication Haaretz, commentator Krystal Ball reported on posts in the channel titled “72 Virgins – Uncensored” which, for example, “celebrated everything from a Palestinian being repeatedly run over to a mother grieving over her son to the destruction of places of worship and reduction of Gaza City to rubble.”
Also documented are “genocidal language, gore and war crimes,” as described by Ball. These include an October 11 post that read, “Burning their mother. You won’t believe the video we got. You can hear their bones crunch. We’ll post it right away. Get ready.”
A second one reads, “Garbage juice. Another dead terrorist. You have to watch it with the sound. You’ll die laughing.” Additionally, the channel included “images that horrified the world but apparently delighted the Israeli audience of 72 virgins, men and young boys being detained and humiliated in Gaza,” Ball mourned.
READ: Col. Macgregor: The ‘top priority’ for Israel is to make Gaza ‘unlivable,’ expel all survivors
Another report released Monday from Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reveals these random Israeli arrest campaigns abducted men and boys and then brought in Israeli civilians to watch them undergo torture while “nude.”
According to testimonies from released prisoners, “groups of 10 to 20 Israeli civilians at a time were permitted to watch and laughingly film Palestinian prisoners and detainees in their underwear while Israeli army soldiers subjected them to physical abuse, including beating them with metal batons, electric sticks, and pouring hot water on their heads. The detainees were also verbally abused.”
The human rights outlet clarifies that “the Israeli army’s torture and inhumane treatment of Palestinian prisoners and detainees is illegal under the Rome Statute and constitutes crimes against humanity. The army’s staging of these abuses as entertainment for Israeli civilians and subsequent photography of the victims amounts to a grave violation of the dignity of these individuals, as well as the commission of war crimes.”
“They brought Israeli civilians to watch our nude torture”: IDF torture of Palestinian prisoners is turned into entertainment for Israeli viewers https://t.co/VYKj0QD6Mm
— Euro-Med Monitor (@EuroMedHR) February 12, 2024
Help Christians to survive in Gaza: LifeFunder
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