12 june 2019

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) on Wednesday called on the International Committee of the Red Cross to intervene and provide protection for medical personnel in the Gaza Strip.
The PCHR in a press statement condemned the ongoing Israeli attacks on medical teams, who are responsible for rescuing and treating the wounded participating in the Great March of Return on the eastern Gaza Strip border.
On Monday, 10 June 2019, an ambulance officer named Mohammed al-Jadili succumbed to wounds he sustained while on duty to evacuate wounded protesters, the PCHR said. Thus, the number of medical personnel causalities has risen to 4 killed and 203 injured since the beginning of the Great March of Return on 30 March 2018.
"It should be noted that the Israeli forces continue to target medical personnel, centers and transports along the Gaza Strip borders while on duty to rescue and evacuate those wounded in the demonstrations," the human rights center added.
It affirmed that the Israeli forces used excessive and lethal force against them despite posing no danger to the soldiers' lives.
The PCHR called on the international community to take immediate action and put pressure on Israel to stop its grave violations against Palestinian civilians, including medical teams in the Gaza Strip who are protected under international law.
It also stressed that Israel should be held accountable and prosecuted by investigating the crimes committed against unarmed Palestinian demonstrators and medical crews.
The PCHR in a press statement condemned the ongoing Israeli attacks on medical teams, who are responsible for rescuing and treating the wounded participating in the Great March of Return on the eastern Gaza Strip border.
On Monday, 10 June 2019, an ambulance officer named Mohammed al-Jadili succumbed to wounds he sustained while on duty to evacuate wounded protesters, the PCHR said. Thus, the number of medical personnel causalities has risen to 4 killed and 203 injured since the beginning of the Great March of Return on 30 March 2018.
"It should be noted that the Israeli forces continue to target medical personnel, centers and transports along the Gaza Strip borders while on duty to rescue and evacuate those wounded in the demonstrations," the human rights center added.
It affirmed that the Israeli forces used excessive and lethal force against them despite posing no danger to the soldiers' lives.
The PCHR called on the international community to take immediate action and put pressure on Israel to stop its grave violations against Palestinian civilians, including medical teams in the Gaza Strip who are protected under international law.
It also stressed that Israel should be held accountable and prosecuted by investigating the crimes committed against unarmed Palestinian demonstrators and medical crews.

Thousands of Palestinian citizens on Tuesday marched in the funeral of a Palestinian medic who succumbed to wounds he sustained after being shot by the Israeli forces in the Great March of Return in May. video video
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said that Mohammed al-Jadili, 36, was shot by an Israeli sniper in the face while providing medical help to demonstrators in the Great March of Return on Gaza border on 3 May.
The marchers raised Palestine flags and chanted slogans calling for holding Israel accountable for its crimes against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health accused the Israeli occupation army of deliberately targeting medical teams and obstructing their humanitarian work in Gaza protests.
It called on the international community and human rights organizations to protect unarmed citizens in all Palestinian cities who are subjected to various forms of killing by the Israeli occupation army.
The ministry said that the Israeli army, in the Great March of Return that started on 30 March 2018, has killed four medics and injured 685 others.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said that Mohammed al-Jadili, 36, was shot by an Israeli sniper in the face while providing medical help to demonstrators in the Great March of Return on Gaza border on 3 May.
The marchers raised Palestine flags and chanted slogans calling for holding Israel accountable for its crimes against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health accused the Israeli occupation army of deliberately targeting medical teams and obstructing their humanitarian work in Gaza protests.
It called on the international community and human rights organizations to protect unarmed citizens in all Palestinian cities who are subjected to various forms of killing by the Israeli occupation army.
The ministry said that the Israeli army, in the Great March of Return that started on 30 March 2018, has killed four medics and injured 685 others.
10 june 2019

Mohammad Sobhi al-Jodeili, 36
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has confirmed that a medic, identified as Mohammad Sobhi al-Jodeili, 36, died from serious wounds he suffered, on May 3, 2019, after Israeli soldiers shot him with a rubber-coated steel bullet in the face in the Gaza Strip. video
The PRCS stated that the medic, from the al-Boreij refugee camp in central Gaza, suffered fractures in his nose, face and skull.
The soldiers shot him in Abu Safiyya area, in Jabalia, in the northern part of the coastal region, while he was providing medical care to wounded Palestinians during the Great Return March processions.
He received treatment at one of the make-shift hospitals before he was moved to a medical center in Gaza, and later was moved to the al-Ahli hospital in Hebron, in the southern part of the West Bank, due to the seriousness of his wounds.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has confirmed that a medic, identified as Mohammad Sobhi al-Jodeili, 36, died from serious wounds he suffered, on May 3, 2019, after Israeli soldiers shot him with a rubber-coated steel bullet in the face in the Gaza Strip. video
The PRCS stated that the medic, from the al-Boreij refugee camp in central Gaza, suffered fractures in his nose, face and skull.
The soldiers shot him in Abu Safiyya area, in Jabalia, in the northern part of the coastal region, while he was providing medical care to wounded Palestinians during the Great Return March processions.
He received treatment at one of the make-shift hospitals before he was moved to a medical center in Gaza, and later was moved to the al-Ahli hospital in Hebron, in the southern part of the West Bank, due to the seriousness of his wounds.
7 june 2019

The Chief Military Advocate General of the Israeli army, Sharon Afek, and the US Department of Defense General Counsel, Paul Ney, shared a platform at the ‘International Conference on the Law of Armed Conflict’, which took place in Herzliya, Israel between May 28-30.
Their panel witnessed some of the most misconstrued interpretations of international law ever recorded. It was as if Afek and Ney were making up their law on warfare and armed conflict, with no regard to what international law stipulates.
Unsurprisingly, both Afek and Ney agreed on many things, including that Israel and the US are blameless in all of their military conflicts, and that they will always be united against any attempt to hold them accountable for war crimes by the International Court of Justice (ICC).
Their tirade against the ICC mirrors that of their leaders. While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s anti-ICC position is familiar, last April, US President Donald Trump virulently expressed his contempt for the global organisation and everything it represents.
“Any attempt to target American, Israeli, or allied personnel for prosecution will be met with a swift and vigorous response,” Trump said in writing on April 12.
While Trump’s (and Netanyahu’s) divisive language is nothing new, Afek and Ney was entrusted with the difficult task of using legal language to explain their countries’ aversion for international law.
Before the Herzliya Conference, Afek addressed the Israel Bar Association convention in Eilat on May 26. Here, too, he made some outlandish claims as he absolved, in advance, Israeli soldiers who kill Palestinians.
“A soldier who is in a life-threatening situation and acts to defend himself (or) others (he) is responsible for, is receiving and will continue receiving full back-up from the Israeli army,” he said.
The above assertion appears far more sinister once we remember Afek’s views on what constitutes a “life-threatening situation”, as he had articulated in Herzliya a few days later.
“Thousands of Gaza’s residents (try) to breach the border fence,” he said, concerning the non-violent March of Return at the fence separating besieged Gaza from Israel.
“The Israel Defense Forces military advocate general, Maj. Gen. Sharon Afek, and the general counsel of the U.S. Department of Defense, Paul Ney:
The International Criminal Court in The Hague has no jurisdiction to deal with our military conduct. https://t.co/VT0w4qUSZD”
— Bassam Shweiki (@BassamShweiki) May 31, 2019
The Gaza protesters “are led by a terrorist organisation that deliberately uses civilians to carry out attacks,” Afek said.
Afek sees unarmed protests in Gaza as a form of terrorism, thus concurring with an earlier statement made by then-Israeli Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, on April 8, 2018, when he declared that “there are no innocents in Gaza.”
Israel’s shoot-to-kill policy, however, is not confined to the Gaza Strip but is also implemented with the same degree of violent enthusiasm in the West Bank.
‘No attacker, male or female, should make it out of any attack alive,’ Lieberman said in 2015. His orders were followed implicitly, as hundreds of Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and Jerusalem for allegedly trying to attack Israeli occupation soldiers or armed illegal Jewish settlers.
Unlike democratic political systems everywhere, in Israel, the occupation soldier becomes the interpreter and enforcer of the law.
Putting this policy into practice in Gaza is even more horrendous as Israeli snipers are often killing unarmed protesters from long distances.
Even journalists and medics have not been spared the same tragic fate as the hundreds of civilians who were killed since the start of the protests in March 2018.
Last February, the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on Gaza’s protests concluded that “it has reasonable grounds to believe that during the Great March of Return, Israeli soldiers committed violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Some of those violations may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity, and must be immediately investigated by Israel.”
In his attack on the ICC at the Herzliya Conference, Afek contended that “Israel is a law-abiding country, with an independent and strong judicial system, and there is no reason for its actions to be scrutinised by the ICC.”
The Israeli General goes on to reprimand the ICC by urging it to focus on “dealing with the main issues for which it was founded.”
Has Afek even read the Rome Statute? The first Article states that the ICC has the “power to exercise its jurisdiction over persons for the most serious crimes of international concern, as referred to in this Statute.”
Article 5 elaborates the nature of these serious crimes, which include: “(a) The crime of genocide; (b) Crimes against humanity; (c) War crimes; (d) The crime of aggression.”
Israel has been accused of at least two of these crimes – war crimes and crimes against humanity – repeatedly, including in the February report by the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry.
Afek may argue that none of this is relevant to Israel, for the latter is not “a party to the Rome Statute,” therefore, does not fall within ICC’s legal jurisdiction.
Wrong again.
Article 12 [pdf] of the Rome Statute allows for ICC’s jurisdiction in two cases; first, if the State in which the alleged crime has occurred is itself a party of the Statute and, second, if the State where the crime has occurred agrees to submit itself to the jurisdiction of the court.
While it is true that Israel is not a signatory of the Rome Statute, Palestine has, since 2015, agreed to submit itself to the ICC’s jurisdiction.
Moreover, in April 2015, the State of Palestine formally became a member of the ICC, thus giving the court jurisdiction to investigate crimes committed in the Occupied Territories since June 13 2014. These crimes include human rights violations carried out during the Israeli war on Gaza in July-August of the same year.
Afek’s skewed understanding of international law went unchallenged at the Herzliya Conference, as equally misguided interpreters of international law flanked him.
However, nothing proclaimed by Israel’s top military prosecutor or his government will alter the facts. Israeli war crimes must not go unpunished; Israel’s judicial system is untrustworthy, and the ICC has the legal right and moral duty to carry out the will of the international community and hold to account those responsible for war crimes anywhere, including Israel.
~ Middle East Monitor/Days of Palestine
(Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books the last of which is “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story.”)
Their panel witnessed some of the most misconstrued interpretations of international law ever recorded. It was as if Afek and Ney were making up their law on warfare and armed conflict, with no regard to what international law stipulates.
Unsurprisingly, both Afek and Ney agreed on many things, including that Israel and the US are blameless in all of their military conflicts, and that they will always be united against any attempt to hold them accountable for war crimes by the International Court of Justice (ICC).
Their tirade against the ICC mirrors that of their leaders. While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s anti-ICC position is familiar, last April, US President Donald Trump virulently expressed his contempt for the global organisation and everything it represents.
“Any attempt to target American, Israeli, or allied personnel for prosecution will be met with a swift and vigorous response,” Trump said in writing on April 12.
While Trump’s (and Netanyahu’s) divisive language is nothing new, Afek and Ney was entrusted with the difficult task of using legal language to explain their countries’ aversion for international law.
Before the Herzliya Conference, Afek addressed the Israel Bar Association convention in Eilat on May 26. Here, too, he made some outlandish claims as he absolved, in advance, Israeli soldiers who kill Palestinians.
“A soldier who is in a life-threatening situation and acts to defend himself (or) others (he) is responsible for, is receiving and will continue receiving full back-up from the Israeli army,” he said.
The above assertion appears far more sinister once we remember Afek’s views on what constitutes a “life-threatening situation”, as he had articulated in Herzliya a few days later.
“Thousands of Gaza’s residents (try) to breach the border fence,” he said, concerning the non-violent March of Return at the fence separating besieged Gaza from Israel.
“The Israel Defense Forces military advocate general, Maj. Gen. Sharon Afek, and the general counsel of the U.S. Department of Defense, Paul Ney:
The International Criminal Court in The Hague has no jurisdiction to deal with our military conduct. https://t.co/VT0w4qUSZD”
— Bassam Shweiki (@BassamShweiki) May 31, 2019
The Gaza protesters “are led by a terrorist organisation that deliberately uses civilians to carry out attacks,” Afek said.
Afek sees unarmed protests in Gaza as a form of terrorism, thus concurring with an earlier statement made by then-Israeli Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, on April 8, 2018, when he declared that “there are no innocents in Gaza.”
Israel’s shoot-to-kill policy, however, is not confined to the Gaza Strip but is also implemented with the same degree of violent enthusiasm in the West Bank.
‘No attacker, male or female, should make it out of any attack alive,’ Lieberman said in 2015. His orders were followed implicitly, as hundreds of Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and Jerusalem for allegedly trying to attack Israeli occupation soldiers or armed illegal Jewish settlers.
Unlike democratic political systems everywhere, in Israel, the occupation soldier becomes the interpreter and enforcer of the law.
Putting this policy into practice in Gaza is even more horrendous as Israeli snipers are often killing unarmed protesters from long distances.
Even journalists and medics have not been spared the same tragic fate as the hundreds of civilians who were killed since the start of the protests in March 2018.
Last February, the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on Gaza’s protests concluded that “it has reasonable grounds to believe that during the Great March of Return, Israeli soldiers committed violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Some of those violations may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity, and must be immediately investigated by Israel.”
In his attack on the ICC at the Herzliya Conference, Afek contended that “Israel is a law-abiding country, with an independent and strong judicial system, and there is no reason for its actions to be scrutinised by the ICC.”
The Israeli General goes on to reprimand the ICC by urging it to focus on “dealing with the main issues for which it was founded.”
Has Afek even read the Rome Statute? The first Article states that the ICC has the “power to exercise its jurisdiction over persons for the most serious crimes of international concern, as referred to in this Statute.”
Article 5 elaborates the nature of these serious crimes, which include: “(a) The crime of genocide; (b) Crimes against humanity; (c) War crimes; (d) The crime of aggression.”
Israel has been accused of at least two of these crimes – war crimes and crimes against humanity – repeatedly, including in the February report by the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry.
Afek may argue that none of this is relevant to Israel, for the latter is not “a party to the Rome Statute,” therefore, does not fall within ICC’s legal jurisdiction.
Wrong again.
Article 12 [pdf] of the Rome Statute allows for ICC’s jurisdiction in two cases; first, if the State in which the alleged crime has occurred is itself a party of the Statute and, second, if the State where the crime has occurred agrees to submit itself to the jurisdiction of the court.
While it is true that Israel is not a signatory of the Rome Statute, Palestine has, since 2015, agreed to submit itself to the ICC’s jurisdiction.
Moreover, in April 2015, the State of Palestine formally became a member of the ICC, thus giving the court jurisdiction to investigate crimes committed in the Occupied Territories since June 13 2014. These crimes include human rights violations carried out during the Israeli war on Gaza in July-August of the same year.
Afek’s skewed understanding of international law went unchallenged at the Herzliya Conference, as equally misguided interpreters of international law flanked him.
However, nothing proclaimed by Israel’s top military prosecutor or his government will alter the facts. Israeli war crimes must not go unpunished; Israel’s judicial system is untrustworthy, and the ICC has the legal right and moral duty to carry out the will of the international community and hold to account those responsible for war crimes anywhere, including Israel.
~ Middle East Monitor/Days of Palestine
(Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books the last of which is “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story.”)
31 may 2019

A number of Palestinian citizens were injured on Friday when the Israeli occupation forces opened fire at the peaceful demonstrators taking part in the Great March of Return in the Gaza Strip.
The PIC reporter said, quoting the Ministry of Health, that 11 Palestinians were injured by Israeli gunfire, while dozens others choked on tear gas.
Hundreds of Palestinians marched along the border between the Gaza Strip and the 1948 occupied territories on the 60th Friday of the Great March of Return to mark the International Quds Day.
The Palestinians of the Gaza Strip on 30 March 2018 launched the Great March of Return to demand the refugees' right of return and call for an end to the blockade on the coastal enclave.
Since the start of the border protests, the Israeli occupation army has killed 317 Palestinians and injured over 31,000.
The PIC reporter said, quoting the Ministry of Health, that 11 Palestinians were injured by Israeli gunfire, while dozens others choked on tear gas.
Hundreds of Palestinians marched along the border between the Gaza Strip and the 1948 occupied territories on the 60th Friday of the Great March of Return to mark the International Quds Day.
The Palestinians of the Gaza Strip on 30 March 2018 launched the Great March of Return to demand the refugees' right of return and call for an end to the blockade on the coastal enclave.
Since the start of the border protests, the Israeli occupation army has killed 317 Palestinians and injured over 31,000.
25 may 2019

The Palestinian Health Ministry has reported that Israeli soldiers injured, Friday, sixteen Palestinians during the Great Return March processions, ongoing for the 59th week, in the besieged Gaza Strip.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said the injuries varied between rubber-coated steel bullets and gas inhalation, including some who were shot with high-velocity gas bombs.
It added that a journalist, and a female medic volunteer, were among the injured Palestinians.
All the wounded Palestinians received the needed treatment in make-shift clinics, without the needed to move them to hospitals.
Israeli soldiers have killed 307 Palestinians, including medics and journalists, and injured more than 29000, since the Great Return March procession started in the Gaza Strip, on Palestinian land Day, March 30th, 2018.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said the injuries varied between rubber-coated steel bullets and gas inhalation, including some who were shot with high-velocity gas bombs.
It added that a journalist, and a female medic volunteer, were among the injured Palestinians.
All the wounded Palestinians received the needed treatment in make-shift clinics, without the needed to move them to hospitals.
Israeli soldiers have killed 307 Palestinians, including medics and journalists, and injured more than 29000, since the Great Return March procession started in the Gaza Strip, on Palestinian land Day, March 30th, 2018.
21 may 2019

Mohammad Abdul-Jawad Zo’rob, 30
A young Palestinian man died, on Tuesday morning, from complications resulting to wounds he suffered in April of the year 2018, after Israeli soldiers shot him during the Great Return March processions in the Gaza Strip.
His family said their son, Mohammad Abdul-Jawad Zo’rob, 30, from Rafah in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, was shot by Israeli army fire on April 27th, 2018.
They added that he suffered various complications since then, and developed tumors that eventually led to his death, especially amidst the lack of medical supplies in the besieged and impoverished Gaza Strip.
He was shot with an expanding bullet, and underwent several surgeries, but also suffered several infections in the wound area, leading to cancer.
Israeli soldiers have killed 307 Palestinians, including medics and journalists, and injured more than 29000, since the Great Return March procession started in the Gaza Strip, on Palestinian land Day, March 30th, 2018.
A young Palestinian man died, on Tuesday morning, from complications resulting to wounds he suffered in April of the year 2018, after Israeli soldiers shot him during the Great Return March processions in the Gaza Strip.
His family said their son, Mohammad Abdul-Jawad Zo’rob, 30, from Rafah in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, was shot by Israeli army fire on April 27th, 2018.
They added that he suffered various complications since then, and developed tumors that eventually led to his death, especially amidst the lack of medical supplies in the besieged and impoverished Gaza Strip.
He was shot with an expanding bullet, and underwent several surgeries, but also suffered several infections in the wound area, leading to cancer.
Israeli soldiers have killed 307 Palestinians, including medics and journalists, and injured more than 29000, since the Great Return March procession started in the Gaza Strip, on Palestinian land Day, March 30th, 2018.
19 may 2019

A cluster of 30 incendiary balloons, launched from the besieged Gaza Strip, landed in an Israeli military base in southern Israel, on Saturday.
According to Hebrew-language news outlets, a cluster of about 30 balloons with explosive objects attached to them, were found in an Israeli military base by Israeli forces and claimed that Palestinians launched them from Gaza.
Sources added that Israeli forces immediately called the explosives unit team to transfer and handle it in a secure location.
No injuries nor damages were reported.
Palestinians in Gaza view the incendiary kites as a form of protest against Israel's 12-year blockade of Gaza and for Palestinian refugees right of return to their homes and lands which are now known as Israel.
According to Hebrew-language news outlets, a cluster of about 30 balloons with explosive objects attached to them, were found in an Israeli military base by Israeli forces and claimed that Palestinians launched them from Gaza.
Sources added that Israeli forces immediately called the explosives unit team to transfer and handle it in a secure location.
No injuries nor damages were reported.
Palestinians in Gaza view the incendiary kites as a form of protest against Israel's 12-year blockade of Gaza and for Palestinian refugees right of return to their homes and lands which are now known as Israel.