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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Israel massacres civilians to maximize pressure on Hamas</h1>
<p class="gmail-node__submitted">
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-author"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy">Maureen Clare Murphy</a></span>
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-blog"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blog/rights-and-accountability">Rights and Accountability</a></span>
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-publication-date"><span class="gmail-date-display-single">17 July 2024</span></span> </p>
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<p>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.</p><small>
<span>APA images</span></small>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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, <a href="https://x.com/UNRWA/status/1812882185973825759">said</a> on Monday.</p>
<p>Israel <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/15/israel-strikes-five-schools-in-week-of">attacked five schools in Gaza in eight days</a>, massacring dozens of Palestinians.</p>
<p>On Saturday, in one of the deadliest single attacks of the genocide, now in its tenth month, Israel <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-kills-least-90-palestinians-gaza-safe-zone">killed at least 90 Palestinians</a> in al-Mawasi.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Around half of those killed in the al-Mawasi attack were women and children, <a href="https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5615">according to</a>
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,” <a href="https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6409/Gaza:-Security-Council,-General-Assembly-must-immediately-compel-Israel-to-cease-its-widespread-military-assaults-on-shelter-centres">according to</a> the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>At least 539 people sheltering in UNRWA facilities have been killed since October, the UN agency said on Tuesday.
</p>
At least 141 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza during the past 24 hours, the Palestinian health ministry <a href="https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5617">reported</a> on Sunday, and another 80 people were <a href="https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5617">reported</a> killed on Monday.
<p>Israel continued to shed Palestinian blood like water <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-strikes-across-gaza-kill-least-13-people-palestinian-health-officials-2024-07-16/">on Tuesday</a>, killing at least 57 people.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.
</p>
In that case too Israel claimed that it attacked “terrorists” it said were operating in the school.
<h2>“Pattern of conduct”</h2>
<p>Following Saturday’s massacre in al-Mawasi, three prominent human
rights organizations – Al Mezan, Al-Haq and the Palestinian Center for
Human Rights – <a href="https://mezan.org/en/post/46483">said</a> that the attack is “part of a pattern of conduct in which Israel is destroying Palestinian life in Gaza.”</p>
<p>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.
</p>
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.
<p>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.
</p>
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 <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule7">distinction</a>, <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule14">proportionality</a> and <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule22">precaution</a>,
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.
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.”
</p>
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.”
<h2>Impunity prolongs genocide</h2>
<p>Human rights groups in Palestine and beyond, as well as <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/arms-transfers-un-experts-20jun24/#:~:text=The%20transfer%20of%20weapons%20and,demand%20to%20stop%20transfers%20immediately.">independent UN human rights experts</a> have called for a halt on weapons transfers to Israel and other forms of sanctions, as well as <a href="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/">criminal trials in international courts</a>.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><em>Middle East Eye</em> <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-considers-fresh-legal-bid-question-icc-jurisdiction-over-israel">reported</a>
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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://x.com/AJA_Palestine/status/1813221091986579907">blamed</a> the Biden administration for “the systematic killing of our people.”</p>
<h2>Pressure</h2>
<p>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,” <a href="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">according to</a> Amos Harel, a columnist with the Israeli daily <em>Haaretz.</em></p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>That view was reflected by an unnamed Israeli government source who <a href="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">told <em>Haaretz</em></a>
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.”</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/16/politics/cia-director-hamas-gaza-war/index.html">reported on by CNN</a>.</p>
<p>But that perspective was challenged by Yossi Melman, another <em>Haaretz</em> analyst, who <a href="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#">wrote</a>
that the Israeli military’s “operations in Lebanon and Gaza seem to
show that the assassinations themselves have become an end in
themselves.”</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>Without agreement to end the war, “there will be no hostage deal,” Melman said.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<h2>Failed strategy</h2>
<p>History shows that the tactic of assassinating leaders and murdering
civilians to be utterly futile, or even counterproductive from Israel’s
perspective.</p>
<p>In 1997, Israel’s Mossad spy agency carried out a botched assassination attempt on Hamas leader <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/khaled-meshaal">Khaled Meshaal</a> in Amman, leading to a short-lived diplomatic crisis with Jordan.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The same is true in Lebanon.</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/day-278-roundtable-resisting-zionist-genocide">capable of deterring Israel</a> from mounting a full-scale attack on Lebanon.</p>
<p>Indeed, it is Israel that appears to have suffered the most militarily. This week its army admitted a severe <a href="https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hyrynafdc">shortage of tanks and ammunition</a> due to the war in Gaza. And facing a shortage of soldiers, it is <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/facing-manpower-shortage-government-raises-mandatory-idf-service-to-3-years/">moving to extend</a> mandatory service for reservists.</p>
<h2>Desire to break resistance fuels genocide</h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Israel has since its violent <a href="https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/126449">founding</a> used massacres of civilians, <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/book-review-joe-sacco-draws-life-historys-footnotes/3572">including (if not especially) in Gaza</a>, as its major strategy against those who resist it. This was codified into the so-called <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/dahiya-doctrine">Dahiya doctrine</a>,
named for Beirut’s southern suburb where Israel systematically targeted
civilian infrastructure during its 2006 war on Lebanon.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>In the context of Gaza, this strategy is informally dubbed “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/05/14/israel-gaza-history/">mowing the grass</a>” by Israeli leaders – the horrifying idea that periodic massacres will buy Israel a period of calm until the <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/gaza-pays-price-jewish-state-palestine">next massacre</a> becomes necessary to <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/gaza-massacre-price-jewish-state">maintain a Jewish state in Palestine</a>.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h2>Hamas’ position, Netanyahu’s obstruction</h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>An unnamed Palestinian official described as close to the negotiations <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-strikes-across-gaza-kill-least-13-people-palestinian-health-officials-2024-07-16/">told Reuters</a>
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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Netanyahu’s stalling tactics are seemingly buoyed as international attention has <a href="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">turned away</a>
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.</p>
<p>With the US and UK <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/us-blames-hamas-while-israel-prolongs-gaza-war">committed to regime change in Gaza</a>,
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.
</p>
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,” <a href="https://x.com/amalsaad_lb/status/1811058508445467050">according to</a> analyst Amal Saad.
<p>Emphasizing that Hizballah is following Hamas’ lead, Nasrallah <a href="https://x.com/upholdreality/status/1811582786014171253">said</a> that “we are with you until the very end.”</p>
<p><em>Ali Abunimah contributed background information and analysis regarding Israel’s assassination policy.</em></p><br>
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