[News] Israel massacres civilians to maximize pressure on Hamas

[Anti-Imperialist News]

electronicintifada.net
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-massacres-civilians-maximize-pressure-hamas>
Israel massacres civilians to maximize pressure on Hamas

Maureen Clare Murphy
<https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy> Rights and
Accountability
<https://electronicintifada.net/blog/rights-and-accountability> 17 July 2024
------------------------------

The bodies of Palestinians killed in an Israeli attack on a house belonging
to the al-Rai family are brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir
al-Balah, central Gaza, on 13 July.
APA images

Israel has escalated its attacks on United Nations facilities and other
sites being used as emergency shelters for Palestinians displaced within
Gaza in an apparent pressure tactic against Hamas and as part of a
decades-long policy of massacring civilians to try to compel a surrender.

“The last week has been one of the deadliest weeks in Gaza since the war
started,” Tamara Alrifai, a spokesperson for UNRWA, the UN agency for
Palestine refugees, said <https://x.com/UNRWA/status/1812882185973825759>
on Monday.

Israel attacked five schools in Gaza in eight days
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/15/israel-strikes-five-schools-in-week-of>,
massacring dozens of Palestinians.

On Saturday, in one of the deadliest single attacks of the genocide, now in
its tenth month, Israel killed at least 90 Palestinians
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-kills-least-90-palestinians-gaza-safe-zone>
in al-Mawasi.

Israel had unilaterally declared al-Mawasi a “humanitarian zone” despite a
lack of infrastructure to support people it ordered to evacuate from other
areas of Gaza.

Israel claimed to have targeted Muhammad Deif, the military chief of Hamas,
and the resistance group’s battalion commander in the strikes on al-Mawasi.

Around half of those killed in the al-Mawasi attack were women and
children, according to <https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5615> the Palestinian
health ministry in Gaza, indicating that most of the fatalities were
civilians. At least 300 others were injured, “many of them women and
children who lost limbs and/or were paralyzed in the attack,” according to
<https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6409/Gaza:-Security-Council,-General-Assembly-must-immediately-compel-Israel-to-cease-its-widespread-military-assaults-on-shelter-centres>
the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

On Sunday, 17 people were killed and dozens more injured in an attack on a
UN school being used as a shelter in Nuseirat refugee camp.

At least 539 people sheltering in UNRWA facilities have been killed since
October, the UN agency said on Tuesday.
At least 141 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza during the past 24 hours,
the Palestinian health ministry reported <https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5617>
on Sunday, and another 80 people were reported
<https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5617> killed on Monday.

Israel continued to shed Palestinian blood like water on Tuesday
<https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-strikes-across-gaza-kill-least-13-people-palestinian-health-officials-2024-07-16/>,
killing at least 57 people.

Among them were 17 people killed in an area housing displaced Palestinians
al-Mawasi, with Israel claiming that it targeted a senior Islamic Jihad
fighter.

At least 23 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a UN school being
used as a shelter in Nuseirat refugee camp. Journalist Muhammad Mishmish
was among those killed, bringing to 160 the number of journalists killed in
Gaza since October, the government media office in the territory said.
In that case too Israel claimed that it attacked “terrorists” it said were
operating in the school. “Pattern of conduct”

Following Saturday’s massacre in al-Mawasi, three prominent human rights
organizations – Al Mezan, Al-Haq and the Palestinian Center for Human
Rights – said <https://mezan.org/en/post/46483> that the attack is “part of
a pattern of conduct in which Israel is destroying Palestinian life in
Gaza.”

The attacks on the shelters housing displaced people are characteristic of
the maximum pressure being exerted on civilians in Gaza as a key tactic of
Israel’s military offensive since 7 October.
The vast majority of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have been displaced
from their homes, in many cases repeatedly, undermining any sense of
security and the ability of aid organizations to meet people’s needs in a
sustained manner.

A near total siege on Gaza and the destruction of its food production
capacity has caused the spread of famine and thirst. The bombing of health
and sanitation facilities has promoted the proliferation of preventable
disease while the systematic targeting of Gaza’s health facilities means
that treatment is scarcely available.
Israel has attempted to justify its attacks on facilities sheltering
displaced people without warning by claiming that members of Palestinian
resistance groups were present – in total disregard for distinction
<https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule7>, proportionality
<https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule14> and precaution
<https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule22>, the
fundamental principles of the laws of war – and has repeatedly accused
Hamas and other resistance groups of embedding among civilians, thereby
using them as human shields.

The three Palestinian rights groups said that “Israel’s commission of such
crimes under the pretext of targeting [Hamas] military leaders is nothing
but an attempt to justify the mass killing of Palestinians, which has been
a recurring pattern over the last 10 months.”

The use of weapons “with enormous destructive power in such a densely
populated and active area, indicates Israel’s clear intention to cause the
maximum damage to Palestinians,” the rights groups added.

The Euro-Med Human Rights monitor echoed the office of the UN human rights
chief by stating that regardless of the adherence of one party to a
conflict, such as Hamas, to international humanitarian law, “the other
party is still legally required to abide by and honor the provisions of the
law.”
The Geneva-based group added that the use of American-sourced weapons in
Israel’s attacks that violate the laws of war “makes the US – and any other
country that supplies Israel with weapons – partners in the killing, which
is occurring at a rate never before seen in the history of modern
warfare.” Impunity
prolongs genocide

Human rights groups in Palestine and beyond, as well as independent UN
human rights experts
<https://www.un.org/unispal/document/arms-transfers-un-experts-20jun24/#:~:text=The%20transfer%20of%20weapons%20and,demand%20to%20stop%20transfers%20immediately.>
have called for a halt on weapons transfers to Israel and other forms of
sanctions, as well as criminal trials in international courts
<https://www.un.org/unispal/document/anatomy-of-a-genocide-report-of-the-special-rapporteur-on-the-situation-of-human-rights-in-the-palestinian-territory-occupied-since-1967-to-human-rights-council-advance-unedited-version-a-hrc-55/>
.

Instead, Israel’s powerful friends are keeping the arms flowing and working
to undermine the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court’s
application for arrest warrants against top Israeli officials, thereby
prolonging the genocide in Gaza.

*Middle East Eye* reported
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-considers-fresh-legal-bid-question-icc-jurisdiction-over-israel>
last week that the US, which is not a state party to the court’s founding
treaty but has supported its investigations of Russian leaders accused of
war crimes in Ukraine, is “considering a legal bid” to challenge the ICC’s
authority to issue arrest warrants against Israeli leaders.

The publication added that the deliberations in Washington “come amid a
lobbying campaign at the highest levels of the Biden administration to
prevent the UK from dropping its legal appeal against the ICC.”

The situation of international impunity preserved principally by the US has
allowed Israel to attack Palestinian civilians as a negotiation tactic in
its indirect talks with Hamas. On Tuesday, following another day of
massacres, Hamas blamed
<https://x.com/AJA_Palestine/status/1813221091986579907> the Biden
administration for “the systematic killing of our people.”
Pressure

The prevailing analysis in Israel is that the assassinations of Hamas
leaders like Muhammad Deif – though the resistance group denies he was
killed on Saturday and Israel is unable to confirm his status – “will
influence Hamas’ behavior in the negotiations over a hostage deal,” according
to
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-07-15/ty-article/.premium/did-israels-assassination-attempt-kill-the-hostage-deal-the-answer-is-in-qatar/00000190-b2e1-d9c3-ad99-bfe351500000>
Amos Harel, a columnist with the Israeli daily *Haaretz.*

“The most widely held view in Israel is that targeted killings, together
with the Rafah offensive and raids elsewhere in Gaza, have added a degree
of military pressure on Hamas and may cause Yahya Sinwar, the
organization’s leader in Gaza, to become somewhat more flexible,” Harel
added.

That view was reflected by an unnamed Israeli government source who told
*Haaretz*
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-07-15/ty-article/.premium/attempt-to-kill-deif-hurt-cease-fire-negotiations-with-hamas-israeli-sources-say/00000190-b792-db47-abb0-bff3bcd40000>
that Hamas’ “non-response” following Saturday’s attack in al-Mawasi
“strengthens our view that our military action … is having an impact.
Increasing the military pressure now will enable us to bring more hostages
back alive.”

The CIA has reportedly made a similar assessment, according to comments
made by director Bill Burns, the Biden administration’s point person in the
indirect talks between Hamas and Israel, during a closed-door meeting
as reported
on by CNN
<https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/16/politics/cia-director-hamas-gaza-war/index.html>
.

But that perspective was challenged by Yossi Melman, another *Haaretz*
analyst, who wrote
<https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-07-16/ty-article-opinion/.premium/israels-policy-of-assassination-for-its-own-sake-achieves-nothing-but-death/00000190-bac3-d3a7-a79e-fad3d8030000#>
that the Israeli military’s “operations in Lebanon and Gaza seem to show
that the assassinations themselves have become an end in themselves.”

Politicians, military brass, the media class and public alike “hold that
targeted killings will solve Israel’s war problems,” according to Melman,
who warns that “people deceive themselves when they place hope in such
tactics.”

Without agreement to end the war, “there will be no hostage deal,” Melman
said.

The interminable war in Gaza, he added, proves that Israel, led by a prime
minister who is solely motivated by his political survival, “has become
indifferent to human life. Also for the lives of its own citizens,
including the hostages.”
Failed strategy

History shows that the tactic of assassinating leaders and murdering
civilians to be utterly futile, or even counterproductive from Israel’s
perspective.

In 1997, Israel’s Mossad spy agency carried out a botched assassination
attempt on Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/khaled-meshaal> in Amman, leading to a
short-lived diplomatic crisis with Jordan.

Tel Aviv has succeeded in assassinating countless senior and lower level
Hamas leaders over the decades, including in 2004 its founder Sheikh Ahmed
Yassin and its Gaza leader Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi. Jamila al-Shanti –
founder of Hamas’ women’s organization, a former lawmaker in the
Palestinian Legislative Council and al-Rantisi’s widow – became the first
member of the faction’s politburo to be killed by Israel when she died in
an airstrike in October 2023.

Despite these murders, the group has only gone from strength to strength,
developing ever more sophisticated military capacities that Israel has for
nearly 10 months failed to seriously dent, despite the unprecedented levels
of death and destruction in Gaza.

The same is true in Lebanon.

In 1992, Israel assassinated Sheikh Abbas al-Musawi, the secretary-general
of Hizballah. He was succeeded by its current leader Hasan Nasrallah, who
has built the organization into such a formidable military force that
it is capable
of deterring Israel
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/day-278-roundtable-resisting-zionist-genocide>
from mounting a full-scale attack on Lebanon.

Indeed, it is Israel that appears to have suffered the most militarily.
This week its army admitted a severe shortage of tanks and ammunition
<https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hyrynafdc> due to the war in Gaza. And
facing a shortage of soldiers, it is moving to extend
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/facing-manpower-shortage-government-raises-mandatory-idf-service-to-3-years/>
mandatory service for reservists.
Desire to break resistance fuels genocide

It is likely frustration over its military failure against the Palestinian
resistance that is driving Israel to escalate its massacres of civilians in
the hope that it can achieve through genocide what it has failed to achieve
on the battlefield: a Palestinian surrender.

Israel has since its violent founding
<https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/126449> used massacres of
civilians, including
(if not especially) in Gaza
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/book-review-joe-sacco-draws-life-historys-footnotes/3572>,
as its major strategy against those who resist it. This was codified into
the so-called Dahiya doctrine
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/dahiya-doctrine>, named for Beirut’s
southern suburb where Israel systematically targeted civilian
infrastructure during its 2006 war on Lebanon.

That did not save Israel from defeat in that war, and it only increased
Hizballah’s resolve to further improve its ability to counter Israel
militarily.

In the context of Gaza, this strategy is informally dubbed “mowing the grass
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/05/14/israel-gaza-history/>” by
Israeli leaders – the horrifying idea that periodic massacres will buy
Israel a period of calm until the next massacre
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/gaza-pays-price-jewish-state-palestine>
becomes necessary to maintain a Jewish state in Palestine
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/gaza-massacre-price-jewish-state>
.

With each episode, Israel has increased the number of people it is willing
to kill, to the point that it is now committing genocide and there appears
to be no limit to how far it is willing to go.
Hamas’ position, Netanyahu’s obstruction

For their part, Palestinians understand that without guarantees of a
permanent end to the genocidal war and an end to their subjugation by
Israel, any ceasefire will only be a prelude to the next massacre. That is
why Hamas negotiators, while keen to end the bloodshed in Gaza, are holding
firm to their fundamental demands.

An unnamed Palestinian official described as close to the negotiations told
Reuters
<https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-strikes-across-gaza-kill-least-13-people-palestinian-health-officials-2024-07-16/>
that “Hamas wants the war to end, not at any price. It says it has shown
the flexibility needed and is pushing the mediators to get Israel to
reciprocate.”

The Palestinian official said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu is preventing an agreement from being reached by “adding more
conditions that restrict the return of displaced people to northern Gaza,
and to keep control over the Rafah border crossing with Egypt,” Reuters
reported on Tuesday.

Netanyahu’s stalling tactics are seemingly buoyed as international
attention has turned away
<https://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/2024-07-16/ty-article/.premium/for-a-moment-gazans-had-hope-the-war-would-end-now-they-feel-theyve-been-abandoned/00000190-bab2-d211-a5da-fffb31440000>
from the plight of civilians in Gaza and as protest by outraged publics has
failed to end their governments’ support for Israel’s extermination of the
Palestinian people.

With the US and UK committed to regime change in Gaza
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/us-blames-hamas-while-israel-prolongs-gaza-war>,
Israel’s genocidal campaign will continue to destroy all aspects of life in
the territory. And each day that goes by without an end to the war
increases the likelihood that it will bleed out into the wider region.
In a speech last week, Hizballah leader Hasan Nasrallah reiterated that the
Lebanese resistance group would only stop firing toward Israel if an
agreement is reached to end the war in Gaza, implicitly rejecting “the
diplomatic off-ramp proposed by the US,” according to
<https://x.com/amalsaad_lb/status/1811058508445467050> analyst Amal Saad.

Emphasizing that Hizballah is following Hamas’ lead, Nasrallah said
<https://x.com/upholdreality/status/1811582786014171253> that “we are with
you until the very end.”

*Ali Abunimah contributed background information and analysis regarding
Israel’s assassination policy.*
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