Palestinians prepare for 'Great Return' March in West Bank and Gaza: Main thread

[HAIDER]

They should definitely try this in the West Bank, it might work a bit better since technically they are permitted to travel in occupied West Bank but not freely. If they do mass peaceful march to demonstrate against the many checkpoints everywhere in West Bank it will sent a message to Israel that it needs to end the occupation.

Its matter of time , may be after 10 years Palastinian population need space to accommodate and space needed beyond these walls. Since last 20 years mass migration has stopped and recent Gaza and West Bank population is not movable to create a population balance in IOT. So, the population explosion is building and Israel has adopted only one solution , confined within the walls.... which is only short term solution.

 

[Solomon2]

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http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/hamas-exploits-people-gaza-article-1.3949773
How Hamas exploits the people of Gaza: Protests clarify their cynical tactics
DENNIS ROSS
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Monday, April 23, 2018, 10:10 AM

Hamas has never put the people of Gaza first. Hamas rejects Israel’s existence and treats all of the land as an Islamic trust. The Palestinian people are instruments in the struggle to reclaim it.

For the struggle, for the cause, the people can be sacrificed.

Why else would Hamas build tunnels to protect its weapons and its fighters but not its people during conflict with Israel? Why else, when Gazans desperately needed reconstruction, would its leaders divert short supplies of cement, electric wiring and iron away from badly needed housing construction to build the tunnels?

Why else would it store, deploy and fire its rockets in or next to schools, mosques and hospitals? In conflicts with Israel, Hamas seeks to maximize Palestinian civilian casualties — preferably women and children. That brings international opprobrium on Israel and makes it harder to engage in its self-defense.

Recent mass marches on the border fence with Israel are a case in point. The Hamas leadership in Gaza announced that starting March 30 and continuing every Friday until what they call Nakba (catastrophe) day, demonstrations at the Israel border fence would take place. The symbolism was lined up perfectly for mobilizing public passions.

But, of course, that was not the real story. Life in Gaza is terrible, and Israel is not to blame: There are four hours a day of electricity, insufficient to power sewage treatment plants. Roughly 96% of the water is undrinkable. Unemployment runs close to 50%, medicines in the hospitals are consistently in short supply and people cannot leave and feel imprisoned. With little money to pay for anything, trucks from Israel carrying material goods and humanitarian supplies are down from 1,000 a day to less than 200.

True, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, has deepened the economic deprivation by no longer paying Israel to provide electricity to Gaza and cutting payments to former PA employees there. His purpose was to pressure Hamas, and he did — so much so that Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ leader in Gaza — sought to hand governing responsibility back to the PA.


While reconciliation talks resumed, Abbas saw them as a trap because Hamas refused to disband its Qassam brigades or disarm its fighters — and with the recent assassination attempt on the PA’s prime minister, Rami Hamdallah, he is threatening further economic sanctions on Hamas.

For the Hamas leadership, with popular dissatisfaction growing, the only thing to be done was divert attention to Israel and, thereby, pressure Abbas who cannot appear indifferent to Palestinians being killed by Israelis. As one European diplomat told me, Hamas leaders acknowledge privately that Abbas is the source of their current difficulties, but shifting the focus to Israel is a proven, if cynical, tactic.

Hamas knows that the world will see Palestinian casualties and tie them to the wretched conditions in Gaza — conditions that are blamed on Israel’s blockade of the Strip.

Of course, it is Israel and Egypt that control what can go into and out of Gaza. Unlike Israel, Egypt keeps its border closed to the movement of people and goods into and out of Gaza except on rare occasions.

Hamas leaders have little interest in breaching the Egyptian border, knowing the casualties would be high and the international response minimal.

The risk now is escalation and another conflict between Hamas and Israel, leaving Gaza even more devastated. With its leaders believing they have little to lose, just one thing could change the Hamas calculus: the prospect of real change on the ground in Gaza.

The Trump administration needs to translate its recent pledging conference for projects in Gaza into a plan of action and a public challenge.

Since it lacks credibility with Palestinians, it would be smart to get Europeans and Arabs to issue a joint public statement declaring that they are ready, immediately, to implement projects on electricity generation, water and sewage treatment and reconstruction, provided there is no risk of escalation with Israel. No one is going to fund infrastructure projects that will be destroyed in another conflict.

It is time to create a stark public choice for Hamas: stop escalating tensions, and important rebuilding work will begin. Hamas leaders may treat the Palestinian public as pawns, but they are not indifferent to public pressure. It is time to create it.

Ross is counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

 

[Solomon2]

...The experts “reiterated Israel’s obligation as occupying power to uphold international human rights law and international humanitarian law, emphasising that in the context of law enforcement, security forces may only resort to lethal force when faced with a situation involving an imminent threat to life or risk of serious injury.”

Except that's not the situation, as can be seen from the pictures showing attacks upon Israeli defenses and territory. Rather, each and every death appears to be traceable to action in the context of active hostilities against Israel, so a different set of rules apply:

"...rioting civilians can be considered as directly participating in hostilities if they are performing acts of violence which are specifically designed to harm directly the State having to face the riot in support of its enemy. This would be the case, for example, if a riot is led by the enemy in order to destroy the military equipment of the State’s armed forces or in order to divert attention of the armed forces and conduct a military operation in a nearby village. In this exceptional situation, the rioters are actually civilians directly participating in hostilities and become targetable under a conduct of hostilities paradigm."

- International Committee of the Red Cross, The Use of Force in Armed Conflicts: Interplay Between The Conduct of Hostilities and Law Enforcement Paradigms, 2012, footnote 70.​

In a "law enforcement paradigm" international human rights law considers lethal force a last resort, whereas in a "conduct of hostilities paradigm" lethal force may be applied proportional to the desired military objective - in this case, the protection of Israeli property, personnel, and defenses. And there isn't evidence suggesting the IDF has carelessly or systematically violated these two paradigms that it has to juggle at the Gaza border.

While on the other side Hamas violates IHL every day: targeting Israeli civilians, attempting arson, attacking the border, oppressing its own people, and of course creating massive pollution from burning tires that damages the health of its captive population while delivering no demonstrable military advantage.

 

[Solomon2]

Israeli group seeks ICC action against Hamas for using children as shields
Shurat Hadin Israel Law Center names three senior Hamas figures as war criminals, says Hamas should be made to answer in International Criminal Court • Case based on Rome Statute clause stating recruiting children under 15 to militant groups is war crime.

Yair Altman

A Palestinian child during a riot on the Israel-Gaza border last week


The Shurat Hadin Israel Law Center is seeking International Criminal Court action against Hamas over the terrorist group's use of children as human shields in the riots that have taken place over the past month on the Israel-Gaza Strip border.

The lawsuit is based on a clause in the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC's work, which says that recruiting children under the age of 15 to any militant organization is a war crime.

The suit names former Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal, current deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri, and moneyman Zahar Jabarin as guilty of war crimes, saying that as all three are nationals of Jordan, which is a signatory to the Rome Statute, they are subject to the court's jurisdiction.

"The death of a 15-year-old boy near the Gaza border last week was a direct result of the war crimes committed by Hamas leaders against their own people," said Shurat Hadin Director Nitzana Darshan-Leitner.

"It is not Israel that should face an investigation, or fend off criticism by the European Union and a demand by the U.N. for an investigation into the death of [Palestinian] children – it is Hamas leaders who send these children to be human shields, to be killed in battle. They are the ones who should be made to answer for their actions before the International Criminal Court," she said.

 

[Falcon29]

3 Palestinians dead, more than 600 injured in 5th Friday of demonstrations in Gaza

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli army forces killed three Palestinian protesters on Friday, and left more than six-hundred injured in another deadly day of the "Great March of the Return" demonstrations on the Gaza border.

Of the 611 injured, 154 were struck by live ammunition from Israeli forces, according to Gaza's health ministry.

Al Jazeera's reported that "Thousands of people stood right at the border, then we heard the Israeli forces opening live fire."

Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesman of Gaza's health ministry, said that the Israeli army successfully targeted several medical service points with an unknown gas that left demonstrators that were exposed with convulsions.

The demonstrations, entering their fifth-week, have left a total of 45 Palestinians dead, with a reported 5,500 injured. There have been no reports of Israeli fatalities.

.....
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https://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=780069

 

[SubWater]

3 Palestinians dead, more than 600 injured in 5th Friday of demonstrations in Gaza

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli army forces killed three Palestinian protesters on Friday, and left more than six-hundred injured in another deadly day of the "Great March of the Return" demonstrations on the Gaza border.

Of the 611 injured, 154 were struck by live ammunition from Israeli forces, according to Gaza's health ministry.

Al Jazeera's reported that "Thousands of people stood right at the border, then we heard the Israeli forces opening live fire."

Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesman of Gaza's health ministry, said that the Israeli army successfully targeted several medical service points with an unknown gas that left demonstrators that were exposed with convulsions.

The demonstrations, entering their fifth-week, have left a total of 45 Palestinians dead, with a reported 5,500 injured. There have been no reports of Israeli fatalities.

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https://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=780069

RIP

 

[Solomon2]

Palestinian charged with asking IDF to shoot him to get Hamas stipend
Hamas member Mustafa Banna allegedly asked soldiers during Gaza border clashes to shoot him so he could get $500 payment and stipend from the terror group; he entered Israel and was arrested.
Ilana Curiel|Published: 05.02.18 , 10:25

A Palestinian who allegedly asked IDF soldiers to shoot during the violent protests on the Gaza border last month, so he could receive a $500 payment and a monthly stipend from Hamas, according to an indictment filed against him on Tuesday.

Mustafa Banna, 20, was charged with security offenses, including entering a closed military zone, membership in a terror organization, providing measures to commit a crime and arms offenses.

According to the indictment, Banna is a Hamas member who joined the terror group in 2017 following in the footsteps of his uncle, who was already a member of Hamas.



Clashes on the Gaza border (Photo: MCT)

Among other things, Banna is suspected of taking part in the digging of one of Hamas's tunnels in the Saja’iyya area. He was also allegedly part of the medical unit that treated Hamas members injured while digging the tunnels.

According to the indictment, Banna joined the Hamas-organized protests over the right of return on the Gaza border in early April. He allegedly came close to the Gaza border fence in an effort to get shot and wounded by IDF soldiers.

He made it all the way to the fence, but soldiers fired into the area instead of at him and ordered him to leave the buffer zone. Banna ignored the soldiers' instructions and asked one of the soldiers to shoot him.

A Hamas force that arrived at the scene also called on Banna to return to the safe zone, but he refused.

He entered Israel despite being told by the soldiers that if he did so he would be arrested and jailed.

According to the indictment, Banna wandered without justification near a "limited area" and tried to hinder soldiers keeping the order in performing their duty, which could hurt national security.
First published: 05.02.18
_____

h/t: Israellycool, who commented: "It was almost the perfect plan: get shot and create more bad PR for the Zionist enemy, and receive money.

There was just one hitch...we don’t just shoot people who do not pose a threat or are not perceived to do so. I guess he’d been hanging out with Hamas for too long."

 

[Falcon29]

Breaking: 6 killed in explosion in central Gaza, 4 of whom members of Hamas armed wing

Hamas armed wing says its members were on an intelligence mission that observing an serious security matter being prepared by Israel. Says will reveal further details ....

http://www.maannews.net/Content.aspx?id=948445

 

[SALMAN F]

Pollywood at its best they don't even know how to fake things

 

[Falcon29]

Hamas blames Israel for deadly Gaza blast, vows revenge

Hamas on Sunday blamed Israel for a deadly explosion which killed six of its fighters overnight, vowing revenge.

Local media initially reported the blast in central Gaza as a "work accident," implying the militants were killed while producing or handling explosives.

But Hamas now says the militants, including two commanders, were killed "dismantling booby-trapped spying equipment planted by Israel during the past decade in Gaza."

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https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/n...mes-israel-for-deadly-gaza-blast-vows-revenge

 

[Gomig-21]

@Solomon2 , I know this isn't the general consensus among all Israelis, but I'm thinking it's pretty prevalent.
What do you make of this? And why are they so ignorantly stubborn?

https://twitter.com/x/status/993048256039931904

 

[jewishm]

@Solomon2 , I know this isn't the general consensus among all Israelis, but I'm thinking it's pretty prevalent.
What do you make of this? And why are they so ignorantly stubborn?

https://twitter.com/x/status/993048256039931904

these kids are american ashknzis . they came with their american accent and culture.
thats why i said mizrahi jewish leadership are way better then ashknzi one.
simply because mizrahi jews are middle eastenrs and north africans.

 

[SALMAN F]

@Solomon2 , I know this isn't the general consensus among all Israelis, but I'm thinking it's pretty prevalent.
What do you make of this? And why are they so ignorantly stubborn?

https://twitter.com/x/status/993048256039931904

Actually Palestinians are trouble makers where ever they go from terrorism in Iraq to black September in Jordan and civil war in Lebanon don't forget the plane haijakings and blowing started by them along with car bombings and suicide attacks

 

[Gomig-21]

these kids are american ashknzis . they came with their american accent and culture.
thats why i said mizrahi jewish leadership are way better then ashknzi one.
simply because mizrahi jews are middle eastenrs and north africans.

That's what I'm guessing Solomon is, which is why I asked him. Looking for the reason there's that much deliberate ignorance among those punks. And this has been going on for over 30 years BTW. This is nothing new. I know a few Askhnazi Jews here in the US and they don't exhibit this silly hatred, at least not in front of me. Seems they're empowered in Israel.

 

[SALMAN F]

https://twitter.com/x/status/979799979681296385

When I say Israel is just the other side of ISIS, this is what I mean. Sniping a young man while he is praying.

This video is fake be careful before you post anything