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BreakingNews.ie
2 days ago
- Politics
- BreakingNews.ie
Israeli activists ask Government to ‘go deeper' on holding Israel to account
A group of Israeli activists who have travelled to Dublin have called on the Government to take 'concrete action' to hold Israel to account. A former IDF soldier turned activist travelling with the delegation said it has been clear for a while that the destruction of Gaza has become the goal in and of itself. Advertisement Christian Aid and Trocaire hosted a visit from Irish Aid-funded partner organisations B'Tselem and Breaking the Silence. Sarit Michaeli and Nasser Nawaj'ah are members of the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, known as B'Tselem. The Israeli non-profit organisation aims to document human rights violations in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. Ms Michaeli said that Israel will not change its policies on its own and is committed to 'deepening its control' over all Palestinians in the region. Advertisement 'The principle that guides Israeli policy, very sadly and unfortunately, is the principle of Jewish supremacy, which makes Israeli Jews like us superior over Palestinians, not just Palestinian residents of the West Bank, but all Palestinians living in our region,' she said. 'That's like the essence of apartheid as we see it.' She added: 'We appreciate very much Ireland's role up to now and the very small changes that are happening in terms of international responses to what Israel is doing. 'But this needs to continue deeper, and there needs to be more commitment. Advertisement 'There are irreversible, permanent, deep, egregious violations happening on the ground right now that really necessitate a very, very urgent and serious response.' She said there is an obligation on all EU member states to intervene and implement the interim measures issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The Irish Government is to draft legislation to ban the trade of goods with Palestinian lands illegally occupied by Israeli settlements, using the ICJ advisory opinion from July as a legal basis. But it has been criticised for suggesting that the trade of services would not be included in the ban. Advertisement 'There are clear steps in the decision and there's also an opening now with the EU review of the association agreement,' Ms Michaeli said. International community 'The international community involvement isn't just about some sort of kind of goodwill gesture the international community is enacting. It's an obligation. These are also, in some cases, actual legal obligations just to prevent certain international crimes from occurring. 'I don't think the EU has stood up to the moment, to its obligations. On the contrary, I think the fact that we are still in this day and age, we're talking about reaching more or less 60,000 people being killed, having been killed by Israel in Gaza since the horrors of October 7, including the current ongoing starvation of two million people. 'The bottom line is, when you look at this reality, I think that the broader EU response is absolutely and hugely inadequate.' Advertisement She said the decision by the EU to review its association agreement with Israel is a 'shocking delay'. She added: 'It's very hard to grasp how people survive and live in a situation where there is literally no-one to protect them if someone attacks them, which is what these (West Bank) communities are going through. 'Israeli soldiers are being killed constantly in Gaza and this is also something that is raising a lot of opposition internally to the war. But there is no possibility now, internally in at least in my reading, to change things from within, inside Israel on this level. And therefore this brings, again, the need to strengthen international action.' She said that a war of revenge is taking place in Gaza and the end goal is the total destruction of the Palestinian people. 'It's not just about revenge. It's also about pursuing political objections that the Israeli government has been pursuing long before, utilising this as an opportunity,' she added. 'Removing Palestinians from huge swathes of land and wiping out the Palestinians' presence.' Joel Carmel is a former IDF solider and is part of Breaking the Silence, an Israeli veterans' organisation aimed at raising awareness about the Israeli war crimes. The organisation collects testimonies of former soldiers who served in the occupied territories, whether it's the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, and uses those testimonies in order to shed light on what the occupation looks like from the inside. Mr Carmel previously served in the IDF's Cogat unit (Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories) on the Gaza border. 'I was serving in this in this unit, Cogat, which is basically responsible for the application of Israeli government policy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. 'I went overnight from being a cadet to being responsible more or less for the freedom of movement of tens of thousands of people in the area and in northern West Bank. 'The deeper I went and the further I got through my service, it became clearer to me that there's not really a way that you can influence from the inside when you're part of such a big system which is so geared towards making it impossible for Palestinians to live their lives freely. Occupation 'I feel that by doing this, I'm at least I'm doing my part in a way, to make up for what I was part of.' He said: 'As someone living in Israel, you can very easily live your life, not even knowing that the occupation exists. 'I think it's time that we as an Israeli society, first and foremost, but the world in general, should be able to differentiate between those two things, because it shouldn't be normalised the way it has been.' He added: 'The reason that the IDF are still there, supposedly, is because of the hostages. Even though we're very much doing what we're doing in Gaza at the expense of the hostages, and we're seeing more of them being killed because of Israeli action in Gaza. 'The end game here is to clear the Gaza strip of Palestinians in exactly the same way that was their idea is to clear Area C in West Bank in order to set up settlements. 'For a while now, it's been clear that destruction in Gaza has become a goal in and of itself, not just a means to an end. And we see that in all sorts of ways.' Mr Nawaj'ah, who is from the village of Susiya in the West Bank, has been campaigning since he was teenager. Now a Palestinian human rights defender and a field researcher, he said settler violence in the region is getting worse. He said that Ireland's response to Gaza has been as a humanitarian and moral one, and is important within the EU. 'We don't know how many villages are being annexed and we are taking our last breath,' he said. 'Settlers have been increasing and soldiers have been attacking homes and villages every day, late at night. 'They are successful in annexing villages and forcing people out of their homes. 'The state of Israel gives them a shield and cover to do these things. Ireland Eamon Ryan calls Government's LNG position a 'cost... Read More 'A lot of the lands in the Jordan Valley have been transferred to settlers, who bring their sheep and cows. 'We are helpless as the Israeli army do not intervene in favour of Palestinians. 'The war in Gaza has its end goal, which is to basically lead to ethnic cleansing, which is a goal of the current right-wing Israeli government.'
The Guardian
24-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Israel investigates use of Palestinians as human shields by its forces in Gaza
Israel is investigating ''several cases'' involving soldiers who have forced Palestinians to act as human shields in Gaza, sending them into buildings and tunnels to check for bombs and gunmen. 'The use of Palestinians as human shields, or otherwise coercing them to participate in military operations, is strictly prohibited in IDF [Israel Defense Forces] orders,' the Israeli army said in a statement. 'Allegations of conduct that does not comply with these directives and procedures are examined. In several cases, investigations by MPCID [Israeli military police criminal division] were opened following suspicions of involving Palestinians in military missions.' Earlier on Saturday, the Associated Press reported that several Palestinians and Israeli soldiers had said troops were systematically forcing Palestinians to act as human shields in Gaza – a dangerous practice that has 'become ubiquitous during 19 months of war', they said. Seven Palestinians described being used as shields in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and two members of Israel's military said they engaged in the practice, which is prohibited by international law. Rights groups have expressed alarm, saying it's become standard procedure increasingly used in the war. 'These are not isolated accounts; they point to a systemic failure and a horrifying moral collapse,' Nadav Weiman, the executive director of Breaking the Silence – a whistleblower group of former Israeli soldiers that has collected testimonies about the practice from within the military, told AP. 'Israel rightly condemns Hamas for using civilians as human shields, but our own soldiers describe doing the very same.' One alleged victim, Abu Hamadan, said he was detained in August after being separated from his family, and soldiers told him he'd help with a 'special mission'. He was forced, for 17 days, to assist searching houses and inspecting every hole in the ground for tunnels, he said. Soldiers stood behind him and, once it was clear, entered the buildings to damage or destroy them, he said. The two Israeli soldiers who spoke to the AP – and a third who provided testimony to Breaking the Silence – said commanders were aware of the use of human shields and tolerated it, with some giving orders to do so. Some said it was referred to as the 'mosquito protocol' and that Palestinians were also referred to as 'wasps' and other dehumanising terms. The soldiers, who said they were no longer serving in Gaza, claimed the practice sped up operations, saved ammunition and spared combat dogs from injury or death. In October, the Guardian collected testimonies from former Palestinian detainees which were largely consistent with the reporting by AP. The IDF said the investigations were ongoing but provided no more details. The forcible use of Palestinian detainees to enter houses and tunnels in Gaza first came into public view in footage broadcast by Al Jazeera television in June and July. An investigation by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in August gathered testimony from Israeli soldiers who said the Palestinians used as shields were known as 'shawish', a word of Turkish origin meaning 'sergeant'. The soldiers suggested that it was an institutionalised tactic approved by senior officers. In 2002, Israel's high court issued an injunction prohibiting the IDF from using what was known as the 'neighbour procedure', detaining a Palestinian in an area of unrest and ordering the detainee to knock on the doors of their neighbours and oversee the clearance of their houses. The use of human shields lived on, however. In 2010, two IDF staff sergeants were demoted for forcing a nine-year-old Palestinian boy to open a number of bags suspected of containing explosives. The Associated Press contributed to this report
South China Morning Post
24-05-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Israeli army accused of using Palestinians as human shields in Gaza
The only times the Palestinian man wasn't bound or blindfolded, he said, was when he was used by Israeli soldiers as their human shield. Advertisement Dressed in army fatigues with a camera fixed to his forehead, Ayman Abu Hamadan was forced into houses in the Gaza Strip to make sure they were clear of bombs and gunmen, he said. When one unit finished with him, he was passed to the next. 'They beat me and told me: 'You have no other option; do this or we'll kill you,'' the 36-year-old said, describing the two weeks he was held last summer by the Israeli military in northern Gaza. Orders often came from the top, and at times nearly every platoon used a Palestinian to clear locations, said an Israeli officer, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. Several Palestinians and soldiers said that Israeli troops were systematically forcing Palestinians to act as human shields in Gaza, sending them into buildings and tunnels to check for explosives or militants. The dangerous practice had become ubiquitous during 19 months of war, they said. Soldiers walk behind Palestinian detainees being sent into a Gaza City-area house to clear it. Photo: Breaking the Silence/AP In response to these allegations, Israel's military says it strictly prohibits using civilians as shields – a practice it has long accused Hamas of using in Gaza.
The Guardian
09-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
I'm an Israeli professor. Why is my work in Harvard's antisemitism report?
When I first saw the Harvard report on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias, I didn't expect to find myself in it. But I did, albeit without my name, my scholarship, or even my identity as a Jewish Israeli academic being acknowledged. The report was compiled and published in response to widespread pressure from donors and pro-Israel advocacy groups. It claims to document a crisis of antisemitism on campus. But what it actually reveals is Harvard's willingness to redefine Jewish identity in narrow, ideological terms: to exclude and erase Jews who dissent from Zionism. I know this because I am one of them. For several years, I taught in the Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative (RCPI) at Harvard Divinity School. Our program approached peacebuilding through deep engagement with histories of structural violence and power, with Palestine/Israel as our central case study. Our students read widely, traveled to the region, and met with a range of voices – including Jewish Israeli veterans from Breaking the Silence, Palestinian artists resisting cultural erasure, and Mizrahi and Ethiopian Jewish activists challenging racism within Israeli society. It was, by design, intellectually and politically challenging. It exposed students to the complexity of the region and the diverse, often conflicting, ways Jews and Palestinians narrate their pasts and imagine their futures. But according to the authors of Harvard's report, this was not legitimate scholarship nor responsible pedagogy; it was, essentially, simply antisemitic ideological indoctrination. How the report supposedly arrives at and justifies such characterizations of our program illustrates how slanderous distortions are routinely deployed to suppress the arguments and identities of 'the wrong kind' of Jews. The report quotes from public events we hosted as part of RCPI, including a webinar on my book about American Jewish activists who engage in Palestinian solidarity work because of—not in spite of—their Jewish identity. Rabbi Brant Rosen, a Reconstructionist rabbi and founder of Tzedek Chicago, and Dr Sara Roy, a distinguished scholar of Palestine and daughter of Holocaust survivors, offered thoughtful responses. Yet the report reduced that event to a vague description of 'one speaker' praising 'Jewish pro-Palestinian activists,' ignoring that the speaker was me—a Jewish Israeli professor—and that my interlocutors were also Jewish. Rosen's reflections on his disillusionment with Zionism were dismissed as a 'conversion narrative,' as if spiritual or ethical evolution were evidence of antisemitism. In another webinar I moderated, Rosen and the Jewish scholar Daniel Boyarin debated the place of Zionism in synagogue liturgy. Boyarin disagreed with Rosen's liturgical revisions but affirmed their shared ethical commitments. The report cherry-picked Boyarin's comment—'I am deeply in sympathy with your political and ethical positions'—to suggest the event lacked 'viewpoint diversity.' The irony is hard to miss: a conversation between three Jews, from very different traditions, becomes evidence not of diversity, but of its absence. This selective framing is neither accidental nor a one-off act of malice. It reflects a broader pattern: Harvard's decision in January of this year to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which conflates criticism of Israeli policies with antisemitism itself. In doing so, the university has not only taken steps to further suppress important political and ethical speech that confronts the reality of Israeli violence against Palestinians; it also effectively embraced a political litmus test for who counts as a legitimate Jew on campus. It's clear that I'm the 'wrong kind of Jew' at Harvard. At each juncture, my academic and political commitments placed me outside the bounds of acceptability. I was too critical, too engaged, too willing to challenge dominant narratives. And I am far from the only one. The report goes further still. It dismisses not only the work, identities, and experiences of faculty and scholars but also the experiences of our Jewish students, including those who participated in our course's study trip to Palestine/Israel. One Jewish student described the experience as 'formative, painful, and powerful,' recounting the ways Israeli apartheid undermines not just politics but the very possibility of cultural life for Palestinians. The report presents this reflection not as evidence of learning, but as proof of indoctrination. The implication is clear: Jewish students who come to critical conclusions about Israel are not independent thinkers. They've been misled. Manipulated. Infantilized. Ironically, this is itself an antisemitic trope: that Jews cannot think for themselves unless they conform to a sanctioned ideology. The report also erases the rich diversity of Jewish voices we brought into our classrooms. It claims our program focused on 'non-mainstream Jewish perspectives,' dismissing people like Noam Shuster Eliassi, a Mizrahi Jewish Israeli comedian whose work was supported by our fellowship program and is now featured at the Sundance Film Festival. It ignores events that engaged deeply with Mizrahi and Ethiopian Jewish experiences, including our commemoration of the Israeli Black Panthers' Passover Haggadah—a powerful symbol of anti-racist struggle in Israeli history. And it entirely omits our programming on antisemitism itself, including a discussion of alternative definitions of antisemitism like the Jerusalem Declaration, which, unlike IHRA, carefully distinguishes between criticism of Israel and hatred of Jews. In short, Harvard's report does not just mischaracterize a program. It attempts to redraw the boundaries of Jewish legitimacy. It sends a chilling message to students and faculty: if you are a Jew who questions Zionism, you are suspect. If you engage in solidarity with Palestinians, you do not belong. If your scholarship complicates the tidy moral narrative of a beleaguered Israel, you are not just unwelcome—you are dangerous. This is not a defense of Jewish safety. It is an effort to police Jewish dissent. But I refuse to be policed. I will continue to teach, write, and organize alongside Jews and Palestinians fighting for freedom, justice, and dignity. I will continue to challenge institutions that claim to defend against antisemitism while perpetuating other forms of racism and repression. And I will do so not despite being a Jew, but because I am one. Atalia Omer is professor of religion, conflict, and peace studies in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. She is a core faculty member of the Keough School's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.
Nahar Net
08-04-2025
- Politics
- Nahar Net
Israel controls 50% of Gaza after razing land to expand its buffer zone
by Naharnet Newsdesk 07 April 2025, 12:33 Israel has dramatically expanded its footprint in the Gaza Strip since relaunching its war against Hamas last month. It now controls more than 50% of the territory and is squeezing Palestinians into shrinking wedges of land. The largest contiguous area the army controls is around the Gaza border, where the military has razed Palestinian homes, farmland and infrastructure to the point of uninhabitability, according to Israeli soldiers and rights groups. This military buffer zone has doubled in size in recent weeks. Israel has depicted its tightening grip as a temporary necessity to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages taken during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that started the war. But the land Israel holds, which includes a corridor that divides the territory's north from south, could be used for wielding long-term control, human rights groups and Gaza experts say. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that even after Hamas is defeated, Israel will keep security control in Gaza and push Palestinians to leave. The demolition close to the Israeli border and the systematic expansion of the buffer zone has been going on since the war began 18 months ago, five Israeli soldiers told The Associated Press. "They destroyed everything they could, they shot everything that looks functioning ... (the Palestinians) will have nothing to come back, they will not come back, never," a soldier deployed with a tank squad guarding the demolition teams said. He and four other soldiers spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. A report documenting the accounts of soldiers who were in the buffer zone was released Monday by Breaking The Silence, an anti-occupation veterans group. A handful of soldiers -- including some who also spoke to AP -- described watching the army turn the zone into a vast wasteland. "Through widespread, deliberate destruction, the military laid the groundwork for future Israeli control of the area," said the group. Asked about the soldiers' accounts, the Israeli army said it is acting to protect its country and especially to improve security in southern communities devastated by the Oct. 7 attack, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage. The army said it does not seek to harm civilians in Gaza, and that it abides by international law. Carving Gaza into sections In the early days of the war, Israeli troops forced Palestinians from communities near the border and destroyed the land to create a buffer zone more than a kilometer (0.62 miles) deep, according to Breaking The Silence. Its troops also seized a swath of land across Gaza known as the Netzarim Corridor that isolated the north, including Gaza City, from the rest of the narrow, coastal strip, home to more than 2 million people. When Israel resumed the war last month, it doubled the size of the buffer zone, pushing it as far as 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) into Gaza in some places, according to a map issued by the military. The buffer zone and the Netzarim Corridor make up at least 50% of the strip, said Yaakov Garb, a professor of environmental studies at Ben Gurion University, who has been examining Israeli-Palestinian land use patterns for decades. Last week, Netanyahu said Israel intends to create another corridor that slices across southern Gaza, cutting off the city of Rafah from the rest of the territory. Israel's control of Gaza is even greater taking into account areas where it recently ordered civilians to evacuate ahead of planned attacks. Neighborhoods turned into rubble Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians used to live in the land that now makes up Israel's buffer zone, an area that was key to Gaza's agricultural output. Satellite images show once-dense neighborhoods turned to rubble, as well as nearly a dozen new Israeli army outposts since the ceasefire ended. When the ceasefire was announced in January, Nidal Alzaanin went back to his home in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza. His property stood on the edge of the buffer zone and lay in ruins. All that remains is a photo of him and his wife on their wedding day, a drawing of his son's face on a porcelain plate and the carcass of a 150-year-old sycamore tree planted by his great-grandfather. His greenhouse was reduced to twisted scraps of metal. The 55-year-old farmer pitched a tent in the rubble, hoping to rebuild his life. But when Israel resumed its campaign and seized his land, he was again uprooted. "It took 20 years to build a house and within five minutes they destroyed all my dreams and my children's dreams," he said from Gaza City, where he now shelters. Israel's bombardment and ground offensives throughout the war have left vast swaths of Gaza's cities and towns destroyed. But the razing of property inside the buffer zone has been more methodical and extensive, soldiers said. The five soldiers who spoke to the AP said Israeli troops were ordered to destroy farmland, irrigation pipes, crops and trees as well as thousands of buildings, including residential and public structures, so that militants had nowhere to hide. Several soldiers said their units demolished more buildings than they could count, including large industrial complexes. A soda factory was leveled, leaving shards of glass and solar panels strewn on the ground. Soldier alleges buffer zone was a 'kill' zone The soldiers said the buffer zone had no marked boundaries, but that Palestinians who entered were shot at. The soldier with the tank squad said an armored bulldozer flattened land creating a "kill zone" and that anyone who came within 500 meters of the tanks would be shot, including women and children. Visibly shaken, he said many of the soldiers acted out of vengeance for the Oct. 7 attack. "I came there because they kill us and now we're going to kill them. And I found out that we're not only killing them. We're killing them, we're killing their wives, their children, their cats, their dogs, and we destroyed their houses," he said. The army said its attacks are based on intelligence and that it avoids "as much as possible, harm to non-combatants." Long-term hold? It is unclear how long Israel intends to hold the buffer zone and other territory inside Gaza. In announcing the new corridor across southern Gaza, Netanyahu said Israel aims to pressure Hamas to release the remaining 59 hostages, of whom 35 are believed dead. He also said the war can only end when Hamas is destroyed and its leaders leave Gaza, at which point Israel would take control of security in the territory. Then, Netanyahu said, Israel would implement U.S. President Donald Trump's call to move Palestinians from Gaza, what Israel calls "voluntary emigration." Some Israel analysts say the purpose of the buffer zone isn't to occupy Gaza, but to secure it until Hamas is dismantled. "This is something that any sane country will do with regard to its borders when the state borders a hostile entity," said Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at two Israeli think tanks, the Institute for National Security Studies and the Misgav Institute. But rights groups say forcibly displacing people is a potential war crime and a crime against humanity. Within Gaza's buffer zones, specifically, it amounts to "ethnic cleansing," because it was clear people would never be allowed to return, said Nadia Hardman, a researcher at Human Rights Watch. Israel called the accusations baseless and said it evacuates civilians from combat areas to protect them.
