With a year marked by genocide and conflict almost behind us, we welcome the new year with struggle; may it bring us closer to a socialist world where the dreams of humanity can finally awaken.
26 December 2024

Maysa Yousef (Gaza, Occupied Palestinian Territory), Alice in Palestine #1, 2021.
Dear friends,
Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
Pain shudders through the arteries of global society. Day after day passes by as the genocide against the Palestinian people continues and the conflicts in the Great Lakes region of Africa and Sudan escalate. More and more people slip into absolute poverty as arms companies’ profits soar. These realities have hardened society, allowing people to bury their heads and ignore the horrors unfolding across the world. Ferocious disregard for the pain of others has become a way to protect oneself from the inflation of suffering. What can one do with the wretchedness that has come to define life across the planet? What can I do? What can you do?
In 2015, the Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour wrote Qawim ya sha’abi, qawimhum (Resist, My People, Resist Them), for which she was arrested and imprisoned by the Israeli state. A poem that can send you to prison is a powerful poem. A state threatened by a poem is an immoral state.
Resist, my people, resist them.
In Jerusalem, I dressed my wounds and breathed my sorrows to God.
I carried the soul in my palm
for an Arab Palestine.
I will not succumb to the ‘peaceful solution’,
never lower my flags
until I evict them from my homeland
and make them kneel for a time to come.
Resist, my people, resist them.
Resist the settler’s robbery
and follow the caravan of martyrs.
Shred the disgraceful constitution
that has imposed relentless humiliation
and stopped us from restoring our rights.
They burned blameless children;
As for Hadeel, they sniped her in public,
killed her in broad daylight.
Resist, my people, resist them.
Resist the colonialist’s onslaught.
Pay no mind to his agents among us
who shackle us with illusions of peace.
Do not fear the Merkava [Israeli army tanks];
the truth in your heart is stronger,
as long as you resist in a land
that has lived through raids and victory.
Ali called from his grave:
resist, my rebellious people,
write me as prose on the agarwood,
for you have become the answer to my remains.
Resist, my people, resist them.
Resist, my people, resist them.

Choi Yu-jun (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea), Sleeping Beauty, 2018.
‘Hadeel’ in the poem refers to Hadeel al-Hashlamoun (age 18), who was shot dead by an Israeli soldier on 22 September 2015. This murder took place alongside a wave of shootings – many fatal – against Palestinians by Israeli soldiers at checkpoints in the West Bank. On that day, Hadeel came to Checkpoint 56 on al-Shuhada Street in Hebron (Occupied Palestinian Territory). The metal detector beeped, and the soldiers told her to open her bag, which she did. Inside was a phone, a blue Pilot pen, a brown pencil case, and other personal belongings. A soldier yelled at her in Hebrew, which she did not understand. Thirty-four-year-old Fawaz Abu Aisheh, who was nearby, intervened and told her what was being said. More soldiers arrived and aimed their guns at both Hadeel and Fawaz. One soldier fired a warning shot and then shot Hadeel in the left leg.
At this point, a soldier, claiming he saw a knife, fired several shots into Hadeel’s chest, who was photographed standing still moments before. After being left on the ground for some time, she was taken to a hospital, where she died of blood loss and multi-system failure resulting from the gunshot wounds. Human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and B’Tselem said that the question of the knife was moot since Hadeel had been the subject of an ‘extrajudicial execution’ (let alone the fact that testimonies about the knife were inconsistent). Tatour’s depiction of Hadeel’s execution in broad daylight is a powerful reminder of the waves of violence that structure the daily lives of Palestinians.

Maksudjon Mirmukhamedov (Tajikistan), My Mustang, 2020.
A month after Hadeel was killed, I met a group of teenagers in a refugee camp near Ramallah. They told me that they see no outlet for their frustrations and anger. What they do see is the daily humiliation of their families and friends by the Occupation, which drives them to desperation. ‘We have to do something’, Nabil says. His eyes are tired. He looks older than his teenage years. He has lost friends to Israeli violence. ‘We marched to Qalandiya last year in a peaceful protest’, Nabil tells me. ‘They fired at us. My friend died’. Colonial violence bears down on his spirit. Around him young children are executed with impunity by the Israeli military. Nabil’s body twitches with anxiety and fear.
I have thought about those teenagers often, especially over the last year, which has been defined by the escalation of the US-Israeli genocide against Palestinians. I think of them because of the barrage of stories about young people like Hadeel and Nabil’s friend being killed by Israeli troops not just in Gaza, but in the West Bank.
On 3 November 2024, fourteen-year-old Naji al-Baba from Halhul, north of Hebron, came home from school with his father Nidal Abdel Moti al-Baba. They ate molokhia, his favourite, for lunch, and then Naji told his father he was going to play football. Naji and his friends played next to his grandfather’s shop. Israeli soldiers arrived and shot at the boys, hitting Naji in the pelvis, foot, heart, and shoulder. After the funeral, Nasser Merib, the manager of the Halhul Sports Club, where Naji practised, said that he had a strong right foot. ‘He was ambitious and dreamed of becoming international like Ronaldo’. That dream was destroyed by the Israeli occupation.

Chuu Wai (Myanmar), When Amelie & Khin Meets Revolution, 2021.
The death of a young person is an unforgivable act. The death of a child is particularly hard to fathom. Naji could have captained the Palestinian football team. Hadeel could have become an extraordinary scientist. Their families look at the photographs that remain and weep. In Gaza, other families sit in tents with no way to remember their lost children, their bodies obliterated or missing and their pictures turned to ash in the rubble. So much death. So much inhumanity.
If time and struggle allow us, we will be able to properly awaken the dreams of humanity. But the night before dawn will be long and hard. We crave humanity, but we do not expect it to arrive easily. Small voices call out for a new world, and many feet march to build it. To get there will require putting an end to war and occupation and to the ugliness of capitalism and imperialism. We know that we live in pre-history, in the era before true human history will begin. How we long for that socialist world, where Naji and Hadeel will have a future before them and not just a brief interlude in our world.
Happy New Year. May it bring us closer to humanity.
Warmly,
Vijay
https://thetricontinental.org/newslette ... -new-year/
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For First Time – Israel Admits to Assassination of Ismail Haniyeh
December 24, 2024

Palestinian Prime Minister and head of Hamas's political bureau Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza. Photo: The Palestine Chronicle/File photo.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has confirmed, for the first time, that Israel assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
In a threat to the Ansarallah movement in Yemen, Katz said in a speech on Monday, that Israel would “behead the leaders of the Houthis (Ansarallah – PC), just as we did to Haniyeh, Sinwar, and Nasrallah.”
His admission at a Defense Ministry event comes five months after Haniyeh was assassinated in the room of the guesthouse he was staying in. He had attended the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian a day earlier.
Katz’s Threats
“In these days, when the Houthi terror organization is firing missiles at Israel, I want to convey a clear message to them: We have defeated Hamas, we have defeated Hezbollah, we have blinded the defense systems in Iran, and damaged the (missile) production systems,” Katz is quoted by The Times of Israel as saying.
“We have overthrown the Assad regime in Syria, we have dealt heavy blows to the ‘axis of evil,’ and we will also severely strike the Houthi terror organization in Yemen, which remains the last one standing,” he continued.
Katz vowed that Israel would “strike strategic infrastructure and behead its leaders, just as we did to Haniyeh, Sinwar, and Nasrallah, in Tehran, Gaza, and Lebanon — we will do in Hodeidah and Sanaa.”
“Whoever raises a hand against Israel will have their hand cut off, and the long arm of the IDF (Israeli army – PC) will strike them and settle the score,” he reportedly threatened.
Key Negotiations Member
As the head of Hamas’ political bureau, Haniyeh was a key figure in the ceasefire negotiations with Israel.
In August, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) announced that technical investigations confirmed that the assassination of Haniyeh was carried out using a 7.5-kilogram projectile.
“This action was designed and implemented by the Zionist regime and supported by the criminal government of America,” the IRGC said in a statement.
Hamas said at the time that if assassinating Haniyeh “was one of Netanyahu’s goals to change the course of the negotiations, he is delusional.”
Further Assassinations
Israel has until now not publicly claimed responsibility for the assassination of Haniyeh and his bodyguard Wassim Abu Shaaban. Millions of people took part in funeral prayers in absentia for Haniyeh, across several Islamic and Arab countries and elsewhere.
Tel Aviv subsequently assassinated Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah in a Beirut bombing on September 27, followed by the killing of Haniyeh’s successor Yahya Sinwar in October in Gaza.
Israeli media outlets, including Yedioth Ahronoth and Channel 12, noted that Katz’s admission of Haniyeh’s assassination marked the first public acknowledgment of the operation by a senior Israeli official, the Anadolu news agency reported.
Katz’s statements come after a hypersonic ballistic missile strike on Saturday by the Yemeni Armed Forces, affiliated with the Ansarallah movement, which targeted an Israeli military site in Jaffa, near Tel Aviv.
Israeli authorities confirmed that their air defense systems, including the Iron Dome and David’s Sling, failed to intercept the Yemeni missile.
https://orinocotribune.com/for-first-ti ... l-haniyeh/
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Sheltering in Churches, Gaza’s Christians Face Another Christmas Under Fire
Posted by Internationalist 360° on December 24, 2024
Ruwaida Kamal Amer

People react following Israel’s attack on the compound of the Greek Orthodox St. Porphyrius Church in Gaza City, October 20, 2023. (Omar El-Qattaa)
After repeated Israeli attacks on Gaza’s historic churches, displaced Palestinians mourn loved ones and the joy of holidays past.
As the second Christmas under Israeli bombardment draws near, nearly 1,000 Palestinian Christians are sheltering in the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrius and the Latin Monastery in the center of Gaza City. For more than a year now, since the beginning of Israel’s assault on the Strip, they have been living in these two churches with hardly any food, water, or electricity.
Among them is 47-year-old Ramez Suhail Al-Suri, a Palestinian Christian from Gaza City. Before the war, Al-Suri fondly recollected, Christmas was a joyous time for him and his family — his wife, Helen, and his three children, Suhail (14), Julie (12), and Majd (11).
“In Gaza during the holidays, we had a Christmas tree [at home], but we used to go to the market and buy new clothes, chocolate, and decorations so that the children would be happy,” Al-Suri recounted to +972. “We also would participate in church celebrations — we had a lot of joy in our lives.”
As soon as Israel began bombarding the Strip on October 7, Al-Suri and his family, along with other relatives, sought refuge in the Orthodox church. “We know that international and humanitarian laws prohibit the bombing of churches and mosques,” he explained.
But it quickly became clear to them that “the bombing was random and very violent.” When a massive explosion rocked Al-Ahli hospital on Oct. 17, 2023, just 350 meters away from where Al-Suri and his family were sheltering in the church, they could feel the impact. “It was a very terrifying and tragic moment — nearly 500 people were killed. We were worried about this indiscriminate bombing, [since] it was so near.”
Sadly, Al-Suri’s anxieties would be justified just two days later. “That evening, we put our children in their places to sleep [inside the church] and left them there,” Al-Suri told +972. “My wife and I went to see my sick father, who is 87 years old, and was sleeping in another building to be cared for and looked after.”
At around 8:30 p.m., an Israeli airstrike hit the church’s outer building, causing it to collapse and killing 18 people, including Al-Suri’s three children, and wounding several others. “At that moment, I could not believe what I was seeing. I tried to save my children but all three of them were in critical condition and died quickly,” Al-Suri said. “One of my children was lying on the [church’s] fence and I could not carry him, but the rescue teams helped.”

People search for survivors in the aftermath of Israel’s attack on the compound of the Greek Orthodox St. Porphyrius Church in Gaza City, October 20, 2023. (Omar El-Qattaa)
The Oct. 19 strike would only be the first of multiple attacks on Gaza’s churches over the past year, despite their role as shelters for hundreds of displaced Palestinians, including young children, the elderly and the disabled. Less than two months later, in December, Israeli snipers killed mother and daughter Nahida and Samar Anton in the courtyard of the Latin Monastery, also known as the Holy Family Church, and injured seven others who rushed to help them. Then in July, the Israeli army struck the Holy Family School, killing four civilians, and targeted the Greek Orthodox church yet again in a separate airstrike.
Al-Suri’s children all attended the Holy Family School, “one of the most prestigious in Gaza,” he recalled with pride. “They had dreams for their future: Julie wanted to be a dentist, Suhail wanted to be an accountant, and Majd wanted to study business.” All three of them planned to compete in a bible memorization competition in the West Bank last year. “They memorized the book and were waiting for permits to leave Gaza,” he added. “Now they are reading the book in heaven.
“On [Oct. 19], I lost my entire life — my life now has no meaning. I lost three children in a few seconds and now their mother and I are alone,” Al-Suri lamented. “This is what the war on Gaza did to me.”
‘We hope that God will respond to us and stop this war’
The Greek Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrius in Gaza City is one of the oldest active churches in the world. Its foundation dates to the 5th century, while the current structure was completed in the 12th century, with stained-glass windows that boast ornate biblical depictions and thick walls that surround the tomb of St. Porphyrius, the first bishop of Gaza. The building is a legacy of Gaza’s colorful history, having witnessed periods of pagan, Christian, and Muslim rule.

Palestinian refugees break their Ramadan fast at the Church of St. Porphyrius, a Greek Orthodox church in Gaza City, July 25, 2014. (Emad Nassar/Flash90)
Both the Church of St. Porphyrius and the Latin Monastery have also been anchors for Gaza’s dwindling Christian community, whose number hovered slightly above 1,000 before Israel launched its most violent and destructive assault on the Strip to date — and around three times as many prior to Israel’s imposed siege and blockade in 2007. Nor has this been the first year that they have served as shelters: both have historically opened their doors to Gazans of various faiths during the previous four wars Israel waged against the enclave since 2005. During Israel’s 2014 Operation Protective Edge, about 70 Palestinians sheltered in the Orthodox church for days.
Over the past decade and a half, Christmas represented a rare and cherished opportunity for many Gazan Christians to escape the blockaded strip and reunite with family in the West Bank. “We used to obtain approval from the Israeli army to visit the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem,” Al-Suri recounted to +972. “We used to feel the glorious holiday rituals in that city, with its prayers and celebrations.”
Al-Suri’s family would also visit friends and relatives in Ramallah and Jerusalem, where they would make the pilgrimage to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, believed by Christians to be the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial. Al-Suri took great care to organize such visits. “We only got those permits once a year,” he noted.
This Christmas in Gaza, like all other holidays that are meant to be joyous, is “dull, limited to prayer and supplication only,” Al-Suri observed. Helen, his wife, still struggles to comprehend her children’s absence. “She tries to be strong, but I see great sadness in her eyes, and I cannot blame her,” he said. Helen now suffers from high blood pressure and an enlarged heart muscle, which she manages with medication. To help her cope with the loss, Al-Suri recently enrolled her in online accounting studies at Al-Azhar University.

Julie, Majd, and Suhail, the children of Ramez and Helen Al-Suri, who were killed in Israel’s airstrike on St. Porphyrius Church in Gaza City, in 2022. (Ramez Al-Suri)
As soon as he is able, Al-Suri plans to seek asylum for himself, his wife, and his parents — either in Australia, the United States, or Europe. His sisters live abroad and have attempted to help him get out of Gaza, an impossible task since Israel’s closure of the Rafah crossing in May.
“We hope that God will respond to us and stop this war,” Al-Suri pleaded. “What we have experienced of injustice, famine, displacement is enough, and I do not think the Palestinian people are able to bear more suffering.
“I try to help people through humanitarian work in all areas of the Gaza Strip and return to my normal everyday life, but I cannot: my children are in front of my eyes every moment.”
No safe places for worship or shelter
Among the Palestinian Christians who fled Gaza since October 7, 300 have ended up in Egypt. At the beginning of the war, Kamel Ayyad, a 51-year-old Palestinian Christian from Gaza City, was displaced with his family from the western part of the city to its center, and ultimately managed to escape to Egypt in November 2023.
After October 7, Ayyad quickly corralled his immediate family and relatives and, like Al-Suri and his family, took shelter in a house of worship — the Latin Monastery in the Zeitoun neighborhood. “We believed that it was a safe place and nothing would happen to us,” he told +972.

People react following Israel’s attack on the compound of the Greek Orthodox St. Porphyrius Church in Gaza City, October 20, 2023. (Omar El-Qattaa)
Their problems, however, immediately compounded. “There was no food, no water, and no electricity. The church was trying to provide us with what we needed, but the situation was very bad,” Ayyad recalled.
Then, in mid-October, the massacre at the St. Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church sent Ayyad and other Christians who had been sheltering in the Latin Monastery into shock. Many of them arrived at the scene on foot to help with rescue efforts and check on family and friends: “Everyone went out to inspect the place. We found some body parts that we recognized. Among the dead was my cousin Lisa Al-Suri [32], her husband Tariq [37], and her son Issa [12]. An entire family was killed by the Israeli missile.”
For Ayyad, the bombing was a turning point. “It was a great tragedy — sadness spread in the churches,” he recalled. “Everyone became afraid and wanted to leave Gaza. The sight of [bodies] in white shrouds [affirmed that] this is a war that has crossed many lines and spares no one; there are no safe places of worship or shelters for the displaced.” Out of fear for his children’s safety, Ayyad made the decision to leave.
From Egypt, Ayyad, who used to work in the Holy Family Church, reminisces about past Christmas celebrations in Gaza. “December was considered the happiest month for us. Young people came to decorate the church, and the huge tree sat in the middle of the courtyard. Christians and Muslims shared in the celebration.
“Now the church is sad: the displaced are sleeping in the corridors, most of us have lost our homes and workplaces, and the bombing is still ongoing. Nothing has changed at all.” Despite all this, Ayyad says he still hopes to return to Gaza, one day — to “how it was before.”
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/12/ ... nder-fire/
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Tulkarem, Jenin under attack as Fatah bans Al Jazeera in West Bank
An Israeli drone strike and incursion has killed at least two Palestinians in the Tulkarem refugee camp
News Desk
DEC 24, 2024

(Photo credit: AFP)
An Israeli drone strike targeted the occupied West Bank’s Tulkarem on 24 December after Tel Aviv announced a large operation in the city overnight – invading it with heavy reinforcements.
BREAKING | Israel bombs Tulkarem camp in the occupied West Bank amid ongoing invasion. pic.twitter.com/8akgMFbS9S
— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) December 24, 2024
At least one person was killed in the airstrike on the Al-Hamam neighborhood in Tulkarem camp, one of the city’s main refugee camps.
Meanwhile, Palestinian resistance factions announced targeting the Israeli forces invading the camp.
“Since the early hours of dawn, our fighters have continued to confront the occupation forces on the fighting fronts in Tulkarem camp, targeting the enemy forces and military vehicles with heavy volleys of bullets, achieving confirmed casualties,” the Tulkarem Brigade of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement’s Quds Brigades said in a statement on Tuesday.
Earlier, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades said its fighters “discovered a Zionist special force” infiltrating Tulkarem camp’s Hadaida neighborhood, and “engaged in fierce clashes with them using machine guns and explosive devices.”
With the help and strength of Allah, our fighters were able to detonate a powerful IED on a military bulldozer at the entrance of Nour Shams camp. pic.twitter.com/qIGQ8WxzCj
— Warfare Analysis (@warfareanalysis) December 24, 2024
Israeli troops raided Tulkarem camp at dawn on Tuesday. As a result, one Palestinian was shot dead by the army as they entered. The troops prevented ambulances from reaching the victim, according to WAFA news agency.
The bulldozers inflicted heavy damage on infrastructure, destroying public and private property and damaging the water network. Walls were knocked down, and shops were decimated.
“Violent confrontations took place in the camp, with the sounds of huge explosions being heard,” WAFA reported.
Clashes also persisted in the refugee camp of Jenin, where Palestinian Authority (PA) forces are waging a brutal Israeli-backed assault and siege against resistance fighters affiliated with the Quds Brigades.
The Quds Brigades’ Jenin Brigade has vowed not to surrender.
The PA’s Fatah party announced on Tuesday that it is preventing Qatari media outlet Al Jazeera from operating in the West Bank, accusing it of incitement against Ramallah.
“To all Al Jazeera employees working in Palestinian territories, we hope you reflect on your actions and resign from this biased channel that has destroyed and continues to destroy the Arab world,” Fatah said.
“Al Jazeera floods the media with lies, especially in Palestine, siding with a group of hostile mercenaries in the Jenin camp and trying to present them as heroes resisting the occupation,” the party added.
https://thecradle.co/articles/tulkarem- ... -west-bank
Israel 'severely weakened' war protocols to allow rampant killing of civilians in Gaza: Report
Just a few months into the war, the Israeli military killed 15,000 Palestinians and fired more than 30,000 munitions into Gaza
News Desk
DEC 26, 2024

(Photo credit: UNRWA)
The Israeli army has “severely weakened” its protocols to protect civilians during military operations since the start of the war in Gaza, allowing mid-ranking officers to order indiscriminate strikes from the air force, according to a New York Times (NYT) investigation.
According to NYT, officers were granted the authority right after 7 October to risk the killing of up to 20 civilians in each airstrike. The order had “no precedent” in Israel’s military history.
“Mid-ranking officers had never been given so much leeway to attack so many targets, many of which had lower military significance, at such a high potential civilian cost,” NYT said, adding that under this order, “the military could target rank-and-file militants as they were at home surrounded by relatives and neighbors.”
Previously, Israeli strikes were approved only after officers found that no civilians would be hurt. In some cases, the military had granted them the leeway of risking up to five civilian deaths. Nonetheless, this did not stop brutally deadly strikes against civilians in previous conflicts.
An anonymous military officer told NYT that Israel changed its protocol because it believed it was existentially threatened.
“Israel severely weakened its system of safeguards meant to protect civilians; adopted flawed methods to find targets and assess the risk of civilian casualties; routinely failed to conduct post-strike reviews of civilian harm or punish officers for wrongdoing; and ignored warnings from within its own ranks and from senior US military officials about these failings,” according to the investigation.
NYT reviewed dozens of army records and conducted interviews with over 100 Israeli soldiers and officials, including those who had a hand in vetting targets for airstrikes and attacks.
As part of this loosening of protocol, Tel Aviv greatly expanded its set of targets for preemptive strikes and the number of civilians it could risk killing. As a result, nearly 30,000 munitions were fired into the besieged Gaza Strip in the first seven weeks – more than the next eight months of the war combined, NYT said.
“On a few occasions, senior commanders approved strikes on Hamas leaders that they knew would each endanger more than 100 noncombatants – crossing an extraordinary threshold for a contemporary western military,” it added.
This policy has been evident throughout the course of the war in Gaza. One attack in the northern strip in October this year resulted in the killing of at least 100 Palestinians.
In early June, Israel launched an indiscriminate rescue operation in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza to retrieve Noa Argamani and three other Israeli captives. Nearly 300 Palestinians were massacred in the process.
“The military struck at a pace that made it harder to confirm it was hitting legitimate targets. It burned through much of a prewar database of vetted targets within days and adopted an unproven system for finding new targets that used artificial intelligence at a vast scale,” the NYT investigation revealed.
Insufficient models to assess the risk of civilian loss were used repeatedly. In the first two months of the war, 15,000 Palestinians were killed by Israel.
At one point, the military leadership “briefly ordered that its forces could cumulatively risk killing up to 500 civilians a day in preplanned strikes.” This limit was removed two days later, allowing officers to order as many air strikes as they “deemed lawful.”
Israeli newspaper Haaretz confirmed in a report earlier this week that low-ranking officers have been given the authority to order unprecedently deadly attacks.
“We commanders and combatants are participating in the atrocity unfolding in Gaza. Now everyone must face this reality,” an anonymous officer told the newspaper.
The report also discussed the Netzarim corridor, where Israel has split Gaza into two in order to prevent the return of displaced civilians to the north, and where soldiers have established a “kill zone” in which anyone who moves is declared a terrorist.
Soldiers are “operating like independent militias, unrestricted by standard military protocols,” the report stated.
https://thecradle.co/articles/israel-se ... aza-report
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Israeli Occupation Army Sets Fire to Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital

Zionist troops force Palestinian patients out of Kamal Adwan hospital, Dec. 27, 2024. X/ @swilkinsonbc
December 27, 2024 Hour: 8:02 am
‘These are Zionist war crimes committed amid international apathy and the total complicity of the U.S.,’ Hamas denounced.
On Friday, the Israeli occupation army stormed the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, and set its facilities on fire.
“The occupation army is now burning all the hospital’s operating departments while we are still inside. It evacuated all medical staff and displaced people, arresting several medical staff members. There are a large number of injuries among them,” said Husam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, shortly before communication was cut off with personnel inside the hospital.
Zionist troops raided Kamal Adwan Hospital just hours after surrounding it and ordering the evacuation of all patients and their companions. These individuals were gathered in the hospital courtyard, where they were searched, and many were arrested.
Videos circulating on social media show large plumes of smoke rising from the hospital, which has endured intense attacks by the Israeli army over the past two and a half months.
The text reads, “The moment when a Zionist army drone dropped several parcel bombs on the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip. Israel can drop bombs on hospitals every day in Gaza and it doesn’t even make the news in the Western media.”
These assaults are part of a harsh “scorched earth” offensive in northern Gaza that has resulted in more than 3,000 deaths and approximately 1,000 missing persons.
The Gaza-based Health Ministry confirmed that it lost communication with Doctor Husam Abu Safiya and stated that many patients were forcibly evacuated “at gunpoint” to the nearby Indonesian Hospital, which was destroyed a few days ago. Palestinian authorities also reported that Israeli forces forced patients to strip “in the cold” before transferring them to unknown locations.
“The occupation celebrates the end of a year of genocide by crowning its crimes with the destruction of Kamal Adwan Hospital,” the Health Ministry denounced.
To justify its actions, the Israeli occupation army claimed that the Kamal Adwan hospital served as a hideout for members of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).
Meanwhile, this week, Israeli strikes put out of service the only three hospitals that were still partially functioning in the area, the Kamal Adwan, the Indonesian and the Al Awda.
On Thursday, around 50 people, including five doctors, were killed in attacks near Al Awda Hospital, which currently shelters approximately 350 people, including 75 wounded and sick individuals along with their companions, and 180 medical staff members.
“These are Zionist war crimes committed amid international apathy and the total complicity of the U.S. government, a partner in the genocidal campaign in Gaza,” Hamas denounced.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/israeli- ... -hospital/