Maureen Clare Murphy
The Electronic Intifada / July 14, 2024
Israel massacred dozens of Palestinians in airstrikes in Al-Mawasi, the supposed “safe zone” along the coast in southern Gaza, and in Beach refugee camp near Gaza City on Saturday.
At least 90 Palestinians were killed and 300 injured in the attack on Al-Mawasi, according to the health ministry in Gaza, and at least 20 Palestinians were killed after Israel bombed worshippers gathered for noon prayers outside the ruins of a mosque in Beach refugee camp.
On Friday, the Israeli military killed four workers at an aid warehouse in Gaza, claiming that it had targeted Husam Mansour. Israel alleged that Mansour was a militant who worked at an aid organization to raise money for Hamas – an unsubstantiated claim similar to those made by Israel against other humanitarians in Gaza working for international charities who were killed and jailed with impunity.
The Al-Khair Foundation, a UK-based charity, stated that Mansour was a “cornerstone” of its team in Gaza and that his death “is not just a loss to our organization but a devastating blow to the humanitarian efforts in the region.”
The deaths of the aid workers came one day after Samantha Power, the head of the State Department agency USAID, said that Israel promised to improve safety for humanitarian workers in Gaza, where famine has taken hold as a result of Israel’s blockade.
At least 38,345 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since 7 October, though the actual tally is likely substantially higher. Thousands remain missing in the rubble or their deaths as a result of secondary mortality such as hunger, thirst and disease resulting from Israel’s military campaign are not reflected in the fatality count.
Saturday’s deadly attacks came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to be sabotaging what may be a final push to reach a deal with Hamas that would see an exchange of captives and lead the way for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Hamas condemned the “horrific massacre” in densely populated Al-Mawasi, the open area where Israel ordered Palestinians to move after declaring one-third of Gaza a combat zone last week.
Israel reportedly dropped five 2,000-pound bombs in al-Mawasi, resulting in one of the deadliest attacks – if not the deadliest – since nearly 300 people were killed in a raid in Nuseirat refugee camp on 8 June.
Four Israeli captives were freed by the military in the Nuseirat raid, during which Israeli forces posed as civilians and gunned down Palestinians in the camp’s crowded market and streets. The office of the UN human rights chief said it was “profoundly shocked” by that operation in which the basic principles of the laws of war were blatantly disregarded.
‘False victory’
Israel attempted to justify the massacre in Al-Mawasi on Saturday by claiming that it targeted Muhammad Deif, the elusive head of the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, and the commander of Qassam’s Khan Younis Brigade.
One of Israel’s most wanted figures, Deif survived several previous attempts on his life, including a 2014 attack that killed the military leader’s wife and their two young children.
Netanyahu acknowledged during a press conference on Saturday evening that it was unclear whether Deif and the Qassam Brigades commander were killed, which Hamas denied.
Khalil al-Hayya, deputy chair of Hamas, said in response that Netanyahu had hoped to “announce a false victory” and said that the blood of Deif is no more precious than that of the youngest Palestinian child.
Al-Hayya suggested that Israel was killing more people in Gaza to undermine negotiations with Hamas and that Netanyahu was grasping for an illusion of victory before his address to US Congress later this month.
Earlier in the day, following the Al-Mawasi attack, Hamas said that this was “not the first time the occupation has claimed to target Palestinian leaders, and later it is proven to be a lie.”
“These false claims are merely a cover-up for the scale of the horrific massacre,” the resistance group added in a statement published on Telegram.
‘Justification always the same’
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, observed that “the justification is always the same: ‘targeting Palestinian militants.’”
Hamdah Salhut, an Al-Jazeera correspondent, said that the Israeli military repeatedly employs such claims, “saying civilians are being used as ‘human shields’ for Hamas figures, using that as justification for killing dozens of civilians.”
Assal Rad, an academic who closely observes the Western media’s framing of the genocide in Gaza, said that the Israeli justification is used by media outlets to treat the massacre of civilians in a “safe zone” as “an afterthought in their headlines,” if they are even mentioned at all:
Amjad al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network, told Al-Jazeera that the al-Mawasi massacre was “the message from Israel to the world that again and again and again they are targeting Palestinian civilians wherever they are.”
‘Massive attack on the north’
Following the massacre in al-Mawasi, the UN human rights office condemned Israel’s continued use of “weapons with area effects in populated areas of Gaza.”
A statement from the office noted that the deadly strikes on Saturday came “right after another massive attack on the north, which lasted for a week, resulting in further destruction and casualties.”
Israel laid waste to Shujaiya, on the eastern outskirts of Gaza City, in a two-week raid during which it claimed to have killed a Hamas battalion deputy chief and commander in the area and uncovered a command center in a facility belonging to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees.
Following the military’s withdrawal, residents returned to find that troops had destroyed the majority of buildings in the area, including residences, schools and medical clinics.
A spokesperson for the civil defense in Gaza said that the bodies of more than 60 people had been recovered in Shujaiya, and that many more were missing under the rubble of destroyed homes.
Dozens of people were also killed in Tal al-Hawa in southern Gaza City, the civil defense spokesperson said on Thursday.
On Wednesday, Israel once again ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate. Many Palestinians vowed to stay in Gaza City, no matter the cost.
Itay Epshtain, an international law expert, said that “this is not a permissible evacuation but an act of forcible transfer” that “shows the open-ended nature of hostilities in Gaza.” Epshtain noted that “Israel appears interested as ever in a protracted conflict.”
The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that its field workers “are investigating reports that the Israeli army forces committed extrajudicial killings and unlawful executions of numerous residents, the majority of whom were women” during its incursion into areas of western Gaza City between Monday and Friday.
Quadcopters fired on rescue workers
The UN office said that the strikes on Al-Mawasi on Saturday allegedly hit tents housing displaced people, a food kitchen and a desalination plant where people had gathered to collect water, “leading to tens of fatalities.”
Israeli military “quadcopters reportedly targeted emergency rescue workers, killing at least one civil defense worker and injuring several others,” the human rights office added.
The UN office once again pointed to “a pattern of willful violation of the disregard of [international humanitarian law] principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution” and “a rampant disregard for the safety of civilians.”
Even if Palestinians belonging to armed groups were present among civilians, “this would not remove [the Israeli military’s] obligations” to comply with the fundamental principles of the laws of war, the UN office said.
Video of the immediate aftermath of the Israeli attack in Al-Mawasi shows injured and dead people who appear to be civilians, including someone wearing a civil defense vest, lying in the streets as a black plume of smoke rises from an area adjacent to a tent encampment:
Another video shows people attempting to dig victims out of a massive crater with their bare hands. A man’s left arm and shoulder is seen protruding from the sandy soil as a child says, “that’s my father, has he been martyred?”
A witness says in the same video that “all of Gaza is wanted” by the occupation.
The man adds that there was a fire belt – a series of heavy bombs dropped in the same place – without warning on the tent encampment. When rescuers arrived, F-16 jets “bombed the paramedics and civil defense team,” he says.
The head of the World Health Organization said that Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, which received 134 people severely injured in the Al-Mawasi attack, “is extremely overwhelmed by the influx of patients.”
Netanyahu stalls negotiations
After the deadly attack in Al-Mawasi, Ghassan Abu Sitta, a British Palestinian surgeon who was working in Gaza during the first weeks of the genocide, said that “Israel committed this massacre to foil the ceasefire negotiations.”
Egypt officials told Reuters on Saturday that the indirect talks between Hamas and Israel “have been halted after three days of intense negotiations failed to produce a viable outcome … blaming Israel for lacking a genuine intent to reach an agreement.”
Earlier in the week, an unnamed “former senior Egyptian official with knowledge of the negotiations” told The Washington Post that “Netanyahu does not want peace. That is all.”
The official added that Netanyahu “will find excuses … to prolong this war” until the US elections, in which Republican candidate and former president Donald Trump, who was slightly injured after gunshots rang out during a campaign event on Saturday, may be voted into a second term.
Whatever Netanyahu’s motivation, Israeli defense officials have told the Haaretz newspaper that the prime minister has “repeatedly torpedoed” progress towards a deal with Hamas to free the remaining captives held in Gaza since 7 October.
The officials said that “in his attempt to derail negotiations, Netanyahu relied on classified intelligence and manipulated the sensitive information.”
In recent days, an unnamed senior official told Hebrew-language media that Netanyahu’s new demand to build “a mechanism to prevent the movement of armed operatives” within Gaza threatened to derail a deal.
“This is the moment of truth for the hostages,” the official told Channel 12 news. “We can reach an agreement within two weeks and bring the hostages home.”
But Netanyahu’s new demand “will stall the talks for weeks and then there may not be anyone to bring home,” the official said.
US resumes weapons shipments
While US President Joe Biden said on Thursday that he was “determined to get this deal done and bring an end to this war, which should end now,” his national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters that “there’s still miles to go before we close, if we are able to close” on an agreement.
With the US putting no real pressure on Israel, and continuing to supply weapons, more massacres of Palestinians in Gaza are all but guaranteed.
The US said in recent days that it will resume the shipments of 500-pound bombs to Israel after pausing a transfer of those weapons and 2,000-pound munitions in May to deter a major Israeli offensive in Rafah, southern Gaza, which went ahead anyway.
The Washington-based human rights watchdog DAWN said that the “partial lifting of the one solitary pause on munitions to the [Israeli military] in the face of overwhelming evidence of war crimes is a criminal offense under international law.”
The group’s advocacy director called on the International Criminal Court to investigate US officials for their complicity in “genocidal atrocities in Gaza.”
Karim Khan, International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, announced in May that he was pursuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas leaders Muhammad Deif, Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh.
Maureen Clare Murphy is senior editor of The Electronic Intifada
