Simply No Red Lines At All

Former Ambassador, Human Rights Activist

There is literally no act so vile that the UK, US and Germany will not support if perpetrated by the terrorist state of Israel.

Yesterday Israel:

• deliberately attacked UN peacekeepers in three separate bases;
• bombed residential central Beirut killing and maiming hundreds;
• abducted, beat up and held an American journalist;
• slaughtered 30 Palestinian refugees in an UNRWA school;
• was found by an official UN Commission Report to be guilty of the crime against humanity of “extermination” in Gaza.

Any single one of these outrages would be roundly condemned if committed by any country at all except Israel, and would lead to repercussions.

But Israel can commit them all in a single day and suffer not one word of obloquy from the leading Western powers (although it does appear that the attack on UN peacekeepers may have snapped Macron’s subservience – whether it’s just a blip remains to be seen).

The UN Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, dated 11 September but released yesterday, is incredibly damning and will be a key document for the ICJ Genocide case against Israel brought by South Africa et al.

It notes 498 Israeli attacks on healthcare facilities in the Gaza strip and – much less known – 500 attacks on healthcare facilities in the West Bank, although individually less severe.

Here are some highlights of the report:

9. Hundreds of medical personnel, including three hospital directors and the head of an orthopaedic department, as well as patients and journalists were arrested by Israeli security forces in Shifa’, Nasr and Awdah hospitals during offensives. In at least two cases, senior medical personnel died in Israeli detention. Reportedly, 128 health workers remain detained by Israeli authorities as at 15 July, including four Palestine Red Crescent Society staff members.

10. As at 15 July, 113 ambulances had been attacked and at least 61 had been damaged. The Commission documented direct attacks on medical convoys operated by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the United Nations, the Palestine Red Crescent Society and non-governmental organizations. Access was also reduced owing to closure of areas by Israeli security forces, delays in coordination of safe routes, checkpoints, searches or destruction of roads.

11. The Commission investigated the 29 January attack in Tall al -Hawa on a Palestinian family and a Palestine Red Crescent Society ambulance that had been called to their aid. The family consisted of two adults and five children, including 15-year-old Leyan Hamada and 5-year-old Hind Rajab. They were attacked while trying to evacuate in their car. The ambulance, carrying two paramedics, Yousef Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun, was dispatched after its route had been coordinated with Israeli security forces. It was hit by a tank shell at a distance of some 50m from the family’s car. Hind was still alive at the time that the ambulance was dispatched. The presence of Israeli security forces in the area prevented access. As a result, the family members’ bodies could not be retrieved from their bullet-ridden car until 12 days after the incident. The ambulance was found destroyed nearby, with human remains inside.

I find it impossible to get inside the head of our Zionist politicians. Have they persuaded themselves that somehow these things did not really happen, or have they convinced themselves that this is a price worth paying in some wider scheme of things?

If so, what precisely is that wider scheme of things?

22. According to the Media Office of the de facto authorities in Gaza, more than 500 bodies were found in mass graves located on hospital grounds, including at Shifa’ and Nasr hospitals. Satellite images from 23 April show at least two possible mass graves at Nasr Hospital. The de facto authorities in Gaza have said that several bodies were found undressed and handcuffed, indicating that the victims might have been executed. One witness involved in the exhumation of bodies near Nasr Hospital told the Commission that he had seen bodies with gunshot wounds in the head or neck. Israeli security forces have denied burying bodies in mass graves, although they acknowledged that soldiers searching for the bodies of hostages had exhumed some mass graves.

It is very well worth reading the entire report. It was very hard to extract highlights for you because it is all worth posting. I skip over a huge amount on the devastating consequences of the destruction of medical facilities, and on torture of detainees. But this next really is a must read:

62. The Commission documented more than 20 cases of sexual and gender-based violence against male and female detainees in more than 10 military and Israel Prison Service facilities, in particular in Negev prison and Sde Teiman camp for male detainees and in Damon and Hasharon prisons for female detainees. Sexual violence was used as a means of punishment and intimidation from the moment of arrest and throughout detention, including during interrogations and searches. Acts of sexual violence documented by the Commission were motivated by extreme hatred towards and a desire to dehumanize the Palestinian people.

63. The Commission found that forced nudity, with the aim of degrading and humiliating victims in front of both soldiers and other detainees, was frequently used against male victims, including repeated strip searches; interrogation of detainees while they were naked; forcing detainees to perform certain movements while naked or stripped and, in some cases, also filmed; subjecting detainees to sexual slurs as they were transported naked; forcing naked detainees into a crowded cell together; and forcing stripped and blindfolded detainees to crouch on the ground with their hands tied behind their back.

64. Several male detainees reported that Israeli security forces personnel had beaten, kicked, pulled or squeezed their genitals, often while the detainees were naked. In some cases, Israeli security forces personnel used such objects as metal detectors and batons. One detainee who had been held in the Israeli security forces personnel Negev prison stated that, in November 2023, members of the Keter unit of the Israel Prison Service had forced him to strip and then ordered him to kiss the Israeli flag. When he refused, he was beaten and his genitals were kicked so severely that he vomited and lost consciousness.

65. The Commission also received credible information concerning rape and sexual assault, including the use of an electrical probe to cause burns to the anus and the insertion of objects, such as sticks, broomsticks and vegetables, into the anus. Some of those acts were reportedly filmed by soldiers. In July, nine soldiers were questioned and several arrested for allegedly raping a detainee and causing life-threatening injury at Sde Teiman.

66. The Commission has determined that detainees were routinely subjected to sexual abuse and harassment, and that threats of sexual assault and rape were directed at detainees or their female family members. One detainee held in Sde Teiman reported that female soldiers had forced him and others to make sounds like a sheep, curse the Hamas leadership and the prophet Muhammad, and say, “I am a whore”. Detainees were beaten if they did not comply. In another case, a soldier took off his trousers and pressed his crotch to a detainee’s face, saying: “You are my bitch. Suck my dick.”

67. Female detainees were also subjected to sexual assault and harassment in military and Israel Prison Service facilities, as well as threats to their lives and threats of rape. The sexual harassment included attempts to kiss and touch their breasts. They reported repeated, prolonged and invasive strip-searches, both before and after interrogations. Women were forced to remove all clothes, including the veil, in front of male and female soldiers. They were beaten and harassed while being called “ugly” and had sexual insults, such as “bitch” and “whore”, directed at them. In one case, a female detainee in an Israel Prison Service prison was denied access to her lawyer after she had informed him of rape threats.

68. The Commission received reports from the Palestinian Authority about the rape of two female detainees. It is attempting to verify the information.

69. Female detainees were photographed without their consent and in degrading circumstances, including in their underwear in front of male soldiers. In one case, a detainee was subjected to repeated and invasive strip-searches following her arrest at a police station in northern Israel. She was beaten, verbally abused, dragged by her hair and photographed in front of an Israeli flag. The photos were posted online.

You will recall that a UN inquiry was by contrast unable to confirm any of the allegations of rape by Palestinian resistance on 7 October 2023 – despite the fact that Israelis are obviously much freer than Palestinians to communicate and provide evidence.

The commission does however go on to state that there is credible information that some Israeli hostages held in Gaza have been subject to sexual abuse.

The heart of the conclusions of the Commission’s report is this:

88. The offensive on Gaza since 7 October has resulted in the destruction of the already weak health-care system in the Gaza Strip, with detrimental long-term effects on the civilian population’s rights to health and life. Attacks on health-care facilities are an intrinsic element of the Israeli security forces’ broader assault on Palestinians in Gaza and the physical and demographic infrastructure of Gaza, as well as of efforts to expand the occupation. The actions of Israel violate international humanitarian law and the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, and they are in stark contravention of the International Court of Justice advisory opinion of July 2024 .

89. The Commission finds that Israel has implemented a concerted policy to destroy the health-care system of Gaza. Israeli security forces have deliberately killed, wounded, arrested, detained, mistreated and tortured medical personnel and targeted medical vehicles, constituting the war crimes of wilful killing and mistreatment and the crime against humanity of extermination. Israeli authorities carried out such acts while tightening the siege of the Gaza Strip, resulting in fuel, food, water, medicines and medical supplies not reaching hospitals, while also drastically reducing permits for patients to leave the territory for medical treatment. The Commission finds that these actions were taken as collective punishment against the Palestinians in Gaza and are part of the ongoing Israeli attack against the Palestinian people that began on
7 October.

I understand that there may be nothing here that you did not already know. But to see it all set out starkly, by a UN Commission which has verified the information, makes it much more difficult for the political class simply to ignore.

I am simply unable to begin to understand, on a personal basis, the politicians who can condone, support and in fact participate in what Israel is doing. It is simply beyond me.

Every time I worry that public interest is faltering and people have become inured to genocide, the Israelis manage to do something still more outrageous. Thankfully social media makes it very hard to hide this.

The political class will never restrain Israel from empathy for the suffering or any sense of moral duty. They may start to do so from a sense of self-preservation.

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