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rafah
The Elders Demand 'Decisive Measures' to End Gaza 'Genocide and Famine'
"We saw evidence of food and medical aid denied entry, and heard witness accounts of the killing of Palestinian civilians, including children," said former Irish Prime Minister Mary Robinson and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark.
Aug 12, 2025
The group of global leaders known as The Elders on Tuesday demanded "decisive measures" to end the famine and "unfolding genocide" in Gaza that has led to international outcry month after month with no end in sight.
In a statement, the organization founded by the late South African President Nelson Mandela revealed that two of its members, former Irish Prime Minister Mary Robinson and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, recently visited the Rafah border crossing in Egypt that is formerly a key entry point for humanitarian aid to be delivered into Gaza that has now become only a trickle.
Robinson and Clark said that the situation in Gaza was dire and they accused the Israeli government of overseeing "human-caused famine in Gaza" as well as "an unfolding genocide." They then outlined evidence that Israel was responsible for the catastrophe going on inside the territory.
"We saw evidence of food and medical aid denied entry, and heard witness accounts of the killing of Palestinian civilians, including children, while trying to access aid inside Gaza," they said. "The deliberate destruction of health facilities in Gaza means children facing acute malnutrition cannot be treated effectively. At least 36 children starved to death just in the month of July."
Robinson and Clark also noted that no shelter materials have been allowed into Gaza since this past March, and they added that "we saw huge numbers of tents ready for delivery but blocked by the Israeli authorities."
The two leaders called for cease-fire talks to begin immediately between Israel and Hamas, while also specifically calling for Hamas to release any remaining hostages it kidnapped during its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. They also recommended that arms sales to Israel be "suspended immediately" and that "targeted sanctions should be imposed on Prime Minister Netanyahu and all members of his security cabinet."
They also chided other nations for maintaining economic relations with Israel even as starvation unfolds in Gaza.
"The uncomfortable truth is that many states are prioritizing their own economic and security interests, even as the world is reeling from the images of Gazan children starving to death," they said.
The Elders' call for action comes on the same week that the Gaza Health Ministry announced that the number of children in Gaza who have died from severe hunger has passed 100, with the vast majority of such deaths occurring over the last three weeks.
Additionally, international charity Save the Children last week said that 43% of pregnant and breastfeeding women who showed up to its clinics in Gaza last month were malnourished, which represented a threefold increase since March, when the Israeli military imposed a total siege on the area.
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Letters From Rafah: A Life Under Siege
Where is humanity? Does anyone still see us? Has the world really become this cold and dispassionate, or has it always been that way?
Apr 11, 2025
Below are excerpts from letters sent to me by my friend, Hudia, of Rafah. I have saved everything she has sent me since October 2023. The entries below are taken from messages she has sent since Israel's resumption of bombing on March 18, 2025. Hudia writes to me in Arabic. I have translated and edited them for style and clarity with her permission.
March 21, 2025
The war is more terrifying than before. It seems to have reached a level of savagery and madness we've never experienced before. The bombing doesn't stop; it goes on relentlessly day and night. Some days I want to scream when I hear it. Every day there are more home demolitions, and we hear missile sounds that are new to us. Israel is testing out its newest weapons on us to see how well they blast us into pieces of flesh or vaporize us altogether; to see, perhaps, if one bomb can turn a concrete building into dust faster than another. The power of the explosions is enormous and can be heard in Jerusalem and its environs. This time around—since Israel began its war on us again—my fear has doubled—for myself, my children, my family, for everyone. The bombing is everywhere; the killing and the places being bombed are entirely arbitrary and unpredictable. Our fate lies in the hands of chance.
March 22, 2025
One of the most devastating things about this madness is that we no longer recognize the places where we used to live. We might see a video clip of a street in Gaza—a street whose markets and shops, colors, flavors, and scents we had memorized; a street that had witnessed thousands of our memories in the city. But that video clip is all that is left. Now that street has become so unrecognizable it's as if they have taken away our ability to remember. They did not leave behind a single marker to remind us of where we are. Even the trees are gone. Perhaps they think by erasing our memories they will have erased our identity. They are wrong: It just makes us swallow our past whole until we become one and the same with it.
Every day we stand ankle deep in the remains of our people, in streams of blood and debris. What tears my heart the most are the bodies of dead children. They haunt me in my dreams. I need a truce with myself to force me away from the news; a temporary truce so I can embrace what is still living after death rains down from the skies. I need to smell air without the putrid smell of rotting flesh and gunpowder. I need to see scenes other than corpses and skeletons spread everywhere; other than people with amputated limbs moving about on some violent stage where the theme is destruction.
Do you want to know how I feel? Look at the miles of rubble and debris. That's how I feel.
By God, I am so tired of seeing tents everywhere, and little children gathering in queues for food and water. I can no longer bear seeing all these things and the sickly faces of people in the streets. I want to run away from this pain. But, let me tell you honestly that in many ways the bitterness of betrayal is even harsher than the pain of this aggression—the slaughter, displacement, and starvation. We have been completely abandoned. No one is going to step in and help us. We are alone.
March 23, 2025
[NOTE: On March 23, news of Israel's execution of 15 Red Crescent and Civil Defense workers in the Tel al-Sultan area of Rafah had not yet reached the U.S. Hudia wrote in her letters to me what she heard from people in Tel al-Sultan on the day it happened and thereafter. Much that she describes was never reported in the news. Outlets such as Middle East Eye and Al Jazeera; and human rights organizations such as Al Mezan, with whose fieldworker I spoke, collected eyewitness reports and documented as much as possible.]
POEM
They buried them alive with bullets.
They stood over the hole,
piling the bodies on top of each other.
There was barely time to scream.
the spray silenced everything in seconds.
The earth swallowed them up
leaving only the sky as a witness.
The reports are terrible. The Israelis ordered the residents of Tel al-Sultan to evacuate, but didn't give them any time to pack up or coordinate plans. They had to leave immediately. Within minutes, they were fired upon by quadcopters, drones, and tanks. It was chaos.
Soldiers set up a makeshift checkpoint for people to pass through. Most were able to pass, but some were detained in a muddy area off to the side. We don't know what happened to them. We heard that somewhere they separated the men, put them in pits, and executed them. But we didn't know exactly who they meant. The ambulance crews that came to help have vanished.
Many people are still trapped in Tel al-Sultan, and no one knows anything about their fate yet either. As people were running to escape the area, anyone trying to help them was also shot so the dead and wounded were left in the streets.
Tonight, they bombed Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. An Israeli airstrike killed a Hamas member and 16-year-old boy. This dirty war is as dirty as the world itself for allowing Israel to violate everything.
March 27, 2025
Good morning, my friend. What happened in Rafah is horrific and beyond comprehension. I don't know if we'll ever have the full truth of what the Israelis did. What is now coming out about the executed Paramedics and Civil Defense members is just the tip of the iceberg. We have reached the peak of madness. Nobody cares what's happening here. I think we are going into the unknown.
I can no longer sleep, day or night. It is after 3:00 am, and I am up writing this to you. Tomorrow I will flee again with my son's family to the Khan Younis area. I will take my tent and put it directly on the sea. Maybe there I will fall asleep. I am so tired of everything.
March 30, 2025
Yes, I am now living in one of those tents you've been seeing again and again on the open beach area of al-Mawasi. Life here is very difficult. Water trucks come, and we carry water from the street to the tents so we can clean the dishes and wash the clothes by hand. This doesn't solve the problem of sand and dust, our two constant companions. Of course, there is no gas. We cook everything over a fire, including bread.
The crossings have been closed for about a month. Nothing is entering Gaza. The markets are completely empty of almost everything, and the agricultural areas east of the strip are under Israeli control. It is possible to find only a few vegetables and fruit at food stands here and there along the streets, and most cannot afford to buy them because the prices are so high. We mostly rely on canned food when it is available. People here are hungry, scared, and sick. The general health of the people has declined because there is so little nutritious food to eat. This makes people less able to endure the hardships. So many will die with this added weakness. I am sure this is one of Israel's goals in the overall scheme to wipe us out.
April 1, 2025
I can't stand to listen to the news reports any longer. They sound like reels of dry statistics, one after another. They don't mention the empty chair at the dining table, the best friend who has disappeared, or the parents searching for their child's limbs in the rubble. They don't tell you about the families going with less and less each day, trying to keep up brave faces for their children; or how a mother feels when she passes by children playing football, which her child loved, but who died without fulfilling his share of dreams.
That news "ticker tape" at the bottom of your screen doesn't mention how many men here pretend to be strong before weeping at night from pain and longing. It lists numbers of dead, dying, wounded, and forever incapacitated, but it is those who keep going who are the future's story. They are beyond exhausted but go about their daily tasks like automatons except that they are absorbing this reality, this world of pure violence and expedited trauma, in which we are supposed to live like human beings. It is these people, plodding along half-dazed through this giant cemetery, who have internalized the reality of what Gaza has become.
April 5, 2025
Yesterday, my uncle was martyred after his tent was bombed in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis. He succumbed to his wounds. I am suffering from severe depression this time, fear and anxiety for everyone. I cannot sleep at all.
April 8, 2025
The plan to expel us is taking a serious turn, especially after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent visit to America. I don't know what I will do. With the new "Morag corridor," Israel has completely separated Rafah from Khan Younis and I believe after they've completed the destruction of Rafah, they will force us there, close to the Egyptian border, in preparation for mass expulsion. Then Rafah will be merged with the "buffer zone" around the strip and taken over by Jewish settlers. My city will have disappeared into history. This is the only logical conclusion I can come up with given the demolition of the remaining buildings in Rafah.
I spoke to my brother yesterday in Amsterdam. I informed him about our uncle Muhammad's martyrdom. I haven't spoken to him for a while, but I know how he is from the tone of his voice. He always tries to make me think he's fine and that everything is normal, but I know it's not—and I know he's not. He's panicking, I can feel it, and afraid for everyone, and so am I. The situation is terrifying, suffocating, and worrying. I always tell him everyone is still fine, and that I hope everyone will remain "fine." I speak to everyone in my family here daily, hoping that we and the others here will survive this holocaust, but I no longer know if we will.
You know, I used to love the sea and would sit out by it at night on the beach, drinking coffee and smoking my cigarettes. Now the sea is in front of me, but I can barely stand to look at it. It has become ominous, as if waiting to swallow us whole. The beautiful Mediterranean now terrifies me. What a strange paradox.
My friend, I know you're always thinking of me, and I always read our conversations, old and new. I'm so grateful for your continued support.
April 9, 2025
A hundred tents here, 50 more over there—in every corner there are more tents, and each one tells a story of pain.
I've asked myself a million times how people can live like this; how do they sleep, how do they endure the heat and cold, the oppressiveness of these "homes," the utter lack of privacy? Where is humanity? Does anyone still see us? Has the world really become this cold and dispassionate, or has it always been that way?
These are not just tents. These are souls, shattered families, and shattered dreams all under a thin fabric that conceals neither the pain nor the indignity of what we have become. Do you want to know how I feel? Look at the miles of rubble and debris. That's how I feel; you just can't take a picture of my soul.
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Israel Preparing to Seize Ethnically Cleansed City of Rafah as Part of Permanent Buffer Zone
"The entire city of Rafah is being swallowed up," warned one Israeli human rights group. "The massive death zone... continues to grow by the day."
Apr 09, 2025
The Israel Defense Forces is preparing to permanently seize the largely depopulated Palestinian city of Rafah—comprising about 20% of Gaza's land area—and incorporate what was once the embattled enclave's third-largest city into a borderland buffer that IDF troops have described as a "kill zone" rife with alleged war crimes.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Wednesday that "defense sources" said an area from the so-called Philadelphi corridor along Gaza's border with Egypt and the Morag corridor—the name of a Jewish colony that once stood between Rafah and Khan Younis—will be incorporated into the buffer zone that runs along the entire length of the Israeli border.
The affected area includes the entire city of Rafah—which is thousands of years old—and surrounding neighborhoods, which were home to more than 250,000 people before Israeli launched what United Nations experts have called a genocidal assault on Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023.
As Haaretz's Yaniv Kubovitch reported:
Expanding the buffer zone to this extent carries significant implications. Not only does it cover a vast area—approximately 75 square kilometers (about 29 square miles), or roughly one-fifth of the Gaza Strip—but severing it would effectively turn Gaza into an enclave within Israeli-controlled territory, cutting it off from the Egyptian border. According to defense sources, this consideration played a central role in the decision to focus on Rafah...
It has yet to be decided whether the entire area will simply be designated a buffer zone that is off-limits to civilians—as has been done in other parts of the border area—or whether the area will be fully cleared and all buildings demolished, effectively wiping out the city of Rafah.
In recent weeks and for the second time during the war, IDF troops forcibly expelled hundreds of thousands residents from Rafah and other areas of southern Gaza in an ethnic cleansing campaign reminiscent of the 1948 Nakba, or "catastrophe" in Arabic, through which the modern state of Israel was founded. Most Gaza residents today are Nakba survivors or descendants of Palestinians who fled or were expelled from other parts of Palestine in 1948.
Earlier this month, Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—a fugitive from the International Criminal Court wanted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza—and Defense Minister Israel Katz announced plans to seize "large areas" of southern Gaza to be added to what Katz called "security zones" and "settlements."
Jewish recolonization of Gaza is a major objective of many right-wing Israelis. Last month, Katz announced the creation of a new IDF directorate tasked with ethnically cleansing northern Gaza, which Israeli leaders euphemistically call "voluntary emigration." Katz said the agency would be run "in accordance with the vision of U.S. President Donald Trump," who in February said that the United States would "take over" Gaza after emptying the strip of its over 2 million Palestinians, and then transform the enclave into the "Riviera of the Middle East." Trump subsequently attempted to walk back some of his comments.
Earlier this week, the Israeli human rights group Breaking the Silence published testimonies of IDF officers, soldiers, and veterans who took part in the creation of the buffer zone. Soldiers recounted orders to "deliberately, methodically, and systematically annihilate whatever was within the designated perimeter, including entire residential neighborhoods, public buildings, educational institutions, mosques, and cemeteries, with very few exceptions."
Palestinians who dared enter the perimeter, even accidentally, were targeted, including civilian men, women, children, and elders. One officer featured in the report told The Guardian: "We're killing [men], we're killing their wives, their children, their cats, their dogs. We're destroying their houses and pissing on their graves."
Most of Gaza's more than 2 million residents have been forcibly displaced at least once since Israel launched the war, which has left more than 180,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Widespread starvation and disease have been fueled by a "complete siege" which, among other Israeli policies and actions, has been cited in the ongoing South Africa-led genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
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Amnesty Urges War Crimes Probe of 'Indiscriminate' Israeli Attacks on Gaza Camps
The human rights group said Israeli forces "failed to distinguish between civilians and military objectives by using unguided munitions in an area full of civilians sheltering in tents."
Aug 26, 2024
In an investigation focusing on a pair of Israeli massacres of forcibly displaced Palestinians in Gaza, Amnesty International on Monday urged the International Criminal Court—whose chief prosecutor has already applied for warrants to arrest Israeli and Hamas leaders—to open a war crimes probe of the attacks, which it said were likely "indiscriminate" and "disproportionate."
"On May 26, 2024, two Israeli airstrikes on the Kuwaiti Peace Camp, a makeshift camp for internally displaced people in Tal al-Sultan in west Rafah, killed at least 36 people—including six children—and injured more than 100," noted Amnesty, which early in the assault on Gaza found "damning evidence" of Israeli war crimes including indiscriminate killing of civilians.
The Tal al-Sultan attack, which hit an Israeli-designated "safe zone," ignited an inferno that burned people alive inside the tents in which they were sheltering. One survivor told Amnesty that "there were so many dead people all around us," many of them "in pieces and in pools of blood."
"The military could and should have taken all feasible precautions to avoid, or at least minimize, harm to civilians."
The Amnesty report states that the airstrikes, "which targeted two Hamas commanders staying amid displaced civilians, consisted of two U.S.-made GBU-39 guided bombs" and that "the use of these munitions, which project deadly fragments over a wide area, in a camp housing civilians in overcrowded temporary shelters likely constituted a disproportionate and indiscriminate attack, and should be investigated as a war crime."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the Tal al-Sultan massacre a "tragic mistake."
"On May 28, in the second incident investigated, the Israeli military fired at least three tank shells at a location in the al-Mawasi area of Rafah, which was designated by the Israeli military as a 'humanitarian zone,'" Amnesty continued. "The strikes killed 23 civilians—including 12 children, seven women, and four men—and injured many more."
"Amnesty International's research found that the apparent targets of the attack were one Hamas and one Islamic Jihad fighter," the publication notes. "This strike, which failed to distinguish between civilians and military objectives by using unguided munitions in an area full of civilians sheltering in tents, likely was indiscriminate and should be investigated as a war crime."
Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International's senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns, said in a statement that "while these strikes may have targeted Hamas and Islamic Jihad commanders and fighters, once again displaced Palestinian civilians seeking shelter and safety have paid with their lives."
"The Israeli military would have been fully aware that the use of bombs that project deadly shrapnel across hundreds of meters and unguided tank shells would kill and injure a large number of civilians sheltering in overcrowded settings lacking protection," she added. "The military could and should have taken all feasible precautions to avoid, or at least minimize, harm to civilians."
Israel—whose 325-day bombardment, invasion, and siege of Gaza has left more than 144,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and millions more suffering forced displacement, starvation, and disease—is currently on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands.
In January, the ICJ ordered Israel to "take all measures within its power" to uphold its obligations under Article II of the Genocide Convention. Israel's far-right government and military have been accused by human rights groups of ignoring the order.
As Israeli forces launched a major ground invasion of Rafah four months later, the ICJ issued another order for Israel to "immediately halt its military offensive" in the city, where around 1.5 million forcibly displaced and local Palestinian residents were sheltering. Instead of heeding the order, Israel ramped up its assault on Rafah.
At the International Criminal Court, Prosecutor Karim Khan is urging the tribunal to promptly act upon his May application for warrants to arrest Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders—at least one of whom, political chief Ismail Haniyeh, was subsequently assassinated by Israel.
Guevara-Rosas on Monday reminded Israel of its legal responsibility to protect noncombatants.
"The avoidable deaths and injuries of civilians is a stark and tragic reminder that, under international humanitarian law, the presence of fighters in the targeted area does not absolve the Israeli military of its obligations to protect civilians," she said.
"All parties to the conflict must take all feasible precautions to protect civilians," Guevara-Rosas added. "This also includes the obligation of Hamas and other armed groups to avoid, to the extent feasible, locating military objectives and fighters in or near densely populated areas."
The new Amnesty report was published on the same day that Human Rights Watch called upon the ICC to investigate alleged and documented incidents of Israeli forces torturing imprisoned Palestinian medical workers, including at the notorious Sde Teiman prison, where guards are accused of war crimes including murder, rape, and torture.
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Despite Gaza War Crimes Accusations, Biden Sends Israel More 500-Pound Bombs
Since October, the U.S. has sent Israel more than 20,000 heavy bombs, which have been used in some of the deadliest massacres in Gaza.
Jul 10, 2024
The Biden administration has ended a two-month pause on the shipment of 500-pound bombs to Israel despite the frequent use of U.S.-supplied weapons by Israeli forces to commit alleged war crimes and genocide in Gaza.
Citing an unnamed Biden administration official, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the bombs "are in the process of being shipped" to Israel and should arrive in the coming weeks.
In May, the Biden administration suspended transfers of 500- and 2,000-pound bombs manufactured by aerospace giant Boeing over fears the devastating munitions would be used in airstrikes on Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than a million Palestinians had sought refuge.
By that time, Israel had already dropped hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs—which the U.S. military avoids using in civilian areas because they can destroy entire city blocks—on Gaza, including in an October 31 attack on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp that killed more than 120 civilians.
"This is what U.S. funding and weapons do."
Last month, the United Nations Human Rights Office said Israel's use of 2,000-pound bombs and other U.S.-supplied weapons likely violated international law by deliberately targeting civilians in disproportionate attacks. Israeli military commanders have also been criticized for using artificial intelligence-based target selection to approve bombings they know will cause high civilian casualties.
The Biden official told the Journal that the pause on 2,000-pound bomb shipments will remain in effect.
"Our main concern had been and remains the potential use of 2,000-pound bombs in Rafah and elsewhere in Gaza," they said. "Because our concern was not about the 500-pound bombs, those are moving forward as part of the usual process."
But Israeli forces have killed many civilians with smaller bombs too. The New York Times reported Wednesday that multiple weapons experts including a a former U.S. Army explosive ordnance disposal technician identified a fragment from a Boeing-made GBU-39 250-pound bomb used in Tuesday's attack on a refugee tent encampment outside the al-Awda school in southern Gaza that killed and wounded scores of civilians, including many women and children.
Palestinian and international agencies say Israel's 278-day Gaza assault and siege have left at least 137,500 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing. Israel's conduct in the war is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case. International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan is also seeking to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders for crimes including extermination.
Despite overwhelming evidence of Israeli war crimes, the Biden administration remains Israel's most steadfast supporter, providing billions of dollars in military aid, approving more than 100 arms shipments, and offering diplomatic cover in the form of United Nations Security Council vetoes and what critics call genocide denial.
Reuters reported last month that since October the U.S. has sent Israel 14,000 2,000-pound bombs, 6,500 500-pound bombs, 3,000 Hellfire missiles, 1,000 bunker-buster bombs, 2,600 air-dropped small-diameter bombs, and other munitions.
Citing the al-Awda massacre, Jewish Voice for Peace Action said Wednesday that "this is what U.S. funding and weapons do."
"Arms embargo NOW," the group added.
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Over 20,000 Children Missing in Gaza, With 'Unknown Number' in Mass Graves: Report
"No parent should have to dig through rubble or mass graves to try and find their child's body," said the Save the Children's regional director for the Middle East.
Jun 24, 2024
The humanitarian group Save the Children estimated Monday that around 21,000 kids are missing in the Gaza Strip as Israel's military continues its assault on the enclave, reducing much of the Palestinian territory to rubble.
Roughly 4,000 kids are likely buried under that debris, according to Save the Children, while at least 17,000 are unaccompanied, an "unknown number" are in mass graves, and others have been "detained and forcibly transferred out of Gaza, their whereabouts unknown to their families amidst reports of ill-treatment and torture."
A child protection specialist with Save the Children said that the group finds more unaccompanied children every day in Gaza, where parents and entire families have been wiped out by Israel's relentless bombing campaign and ground invasion.
"We work through partners to identify separated and unaccompanied children and trace their families, but there are no safe facilities for them—there is no safe place in Gaza," said the Save the Children specialist. "Besides, reuniting them with family members is difficult when ongoing hostilities restrict our access to communities, and constantly force families to move."
"Neighbors and extended family members who have taken in lone children are struggling to meet their basic needs, such as shelter, food, and water," they added. "Many are with strangers—or completely alone—increasing the risk of violence, abuse exploitation, and neglect."
"We desperately need a cease-fire to find and support the missing children who have survived, and to prevent more families from being destroyed."
More than 14,000 children have been killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since October 7, and many others have experienced devastating psychological and physical trauma, including the loss of limbs. Dozens of children have also been starved to death in recent months as Israel's blockade hinders the flow of lifesaving humanitarian assistance.
Conditions for children have further deteriorated since Israel's invasion of Rafah, which has forced roughly a million people to flee the city. Last month, Israeli forces used U.S.-made bombs in an attack on a Rafah camp sheltering displaced people, killing dozens—including women and children. The United Nations Human Rights Office said that infants were "torn apart" in the attack and people were "trapped inside burning plastic tents, leading to a horrific casualty toll."
Save the Children stressed Monday that its count of Gaza's missing kids is far from conclusive, given the difficulty of collecting accurate information in areas under near-constant attack. The group noted that "confirming identification of a body by the next of kin is almost impossible when whole families have been wiped out and entry restrictions mean the equipment and experts needed cannot get in."
Jeremy Stoner, Save the Children's regional director for the Middle East, said that "families are tortured by the uncertainty of the whereabouts of their loved ones."
"No parent should have to dig through rubble or mass graves to try and find their child's body. No child should be alone, unprotected in a war zone. No child should be detained or held hostage," said Stoner. "Children who are missing but living are vulnerable, face grave protection risks, and must be found. They must be protected and reunited with their families. For the children who have been killed, their deaths must be formally marked, their families informed, burial rites respected, and accountability sought."
"As many have pointed out, Gaza has become a graveyard for children, with thousands of others missing, their fates unknown," he added. "There must be an independent investigation and those responsible must be held accountable. We desperately need a cease-fire to find and support the missing children who have survived, and to prevent more families from being destroyed."
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'They've Done It Again': Israeli Strikes Kill Dozens in Tents Near Rafah
U.S. President Joe Biden "must stop sending weapons to Israel," said one critic. "This is egregious."
Jun 21, 2024
The Israel Defense Forces on Friday yet again shelled tents of displaced Palestinians near the city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 25 and wounding another 50, local health and emergency officials said.
"According to Ahmed Radwan, a spokesperson for Civil Defense first responders in Rafah, witnesses told rescue workers about the shelling at two locations in a coastal area that has become filled with tents," The Associated Press reported.
"The locations of the attacks provided by the Civil Defense appear to be just outside an Israeli-designated safe zone," the news agency noted. "The Israeli military said the episode was under review but that 'there is no indication that a strike was carried out by the IDF' inside the safe zone, using an acronym for the Israeli forces. It did not offer details on the episode or say what the intended targets might have been."
The AP shared firsthand accounts from survivors of the Al-Mawasi attack, as did Al Jazeera:
"We had just eaten and were about to sleep and take some rest, and the next we knew was the sound of resounding explosions destroying our places! We find ourselves alone not knowing what to do. We still can't process what happened!" a survivor told Al Jazeera.
"Oh Lord, look at us, oh world, see our condition. There are a lot of injured still inside. We are no longer able to do anything. What is happening to us? The fire is consuming us from every direction."
Another survivor said that "today, before the afternoon, a bomb was thrown near the Red Cross. My husband went out after hearing the sound of the explosion. The second bomb was near the Red Cross building. All the young men went there because some people were injured."
"My husband went, and I looked for him but couldn't find him," the witness added. "Everyone was forced to flee in their clothes without taking their belongings. Some people took us with them in their car. We don't know what happened after that."
The International Committee of the Red Cross in Israel and the occupied territories announced on social media Friday that "the ICRC office—which is surrounded by hundreds of displaced civilians living in tents—was damaged by nearby shelling in Gaza" that the group said "caused a mass casualty influx" at its hospital, which received 22 of those killed and 45 of the people injured.
The Friday attack follows a pair of bombings that killed dozens of Palestinians and injured hundreds in and near Rafah late last month. Like with the attacks last month—which analyses suggest involved U.S.-supplied weaponry—there were swift calls for the Biden administration and other governments to cut off support for the Israeli assault on the Hamas-governed enclave.
"Israel has run out of buildings, schools, and hospitals to bomb and is once again targeting displaced civilians in tents," said AJ+ senior editor Kareem Yasin. "Any Western government excusing or denying these intentional attacks is complicit."
The Israeli war on Gaza—launched after the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel—has killed more than 37,430 Palestinians and injured over 85,650 others, according to local officials. Survivors face devastated civilian infrastructure and limited food, water, shelter, and medical supplies, as Israel limits the flow of humanitarian aid.
South Africa is leading a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as well as three Hamas leaders.
"They've done it again," U.S.-based policy analyst Omar Baddar said of Israel Friday. "Nearly every day for the past 260 days, Israel has committed another massacre against Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Fathers, mothers, siblings, children, their bodies burnt or torn apart, while our government gives more weapons for these atrocities."
Even before October 7, the United States gave Israel billions of dollars in annual military aid—but such support has increased during the war. U.S. President Joe Biden previously called an Israeli assault on Rarah a "red line," but as the IDF has killed Palestinians in and around the Gaza city, the White House has signaled that his boundary has not yet been crossed.
Biden "must stop sending weapons to Israel," Nina Turner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy, declared in response to the Friday attack. "This is egregious."
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Amid Cease-Fire Talk, Israel's Siege Still Causing Child Starvation in Gaza
"Blocking humanitarian aid and creating the conditions for famine is not only an act of extreme cruelty—using starvation as an act of war," U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders said. "It is a war crime."
Jun 13, 2024
The United Nations relief agency for Palestinians said Thursday that Israeli authorities continue to hinder aid efforts by failing to approve requests for delivery and permits, as two other U.N. agencies separately issued dire warnings about large-scale starvation in Gaza this week.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said Israel has frequently denied the agency's aid-related requests, The Guardian reported. The World Health Organization said Thursday that there have been 32 cases of deaths from malnutrition in Gaza—mostly of children below five years old—since October 7 and warned of the “catastrophic hunger and famine-like conditions” faced by a significant proportion of Gazans.
The WHO statement followed a U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) warning that humanitarian access in southern Gaza had "declined dramatically" and that 3,000 malnourished children there are "at risk of death," having been cut off from life-saving care due to the Israeli military offensive in Rafah.
"Horrific images continue to emerge from Gaza of children dying before their families' eyes due to the continued lack of food, nutrition supplies, and the destruction of healthcare services," Adele Khodr, a UNICEF regional director, said in a statement.
With #Israel blocking some 2,000 aid trucks at #Rafah crossing, WHO is reporting "catastrophic hunger" and "famine-like conditions" in besieged #Gaza. pic.twitter.com/NEEeBWHADB
— Palestine Info Center (@palinfoen) June 13, 2024
The U.N. Security Council passed a cease-fire resolution on Monday that bolstered the three-phase peace plan of President Joe Biden. Neither Israel nor Hamas has yet publicly accepted the full range of terms outlined in the resolution.
The U.N. agency reports on child starvation came alongside renewed calls for Israel to open humanitarian corridors in Gaza. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in announcing $404 million in new humanitarian relief funds for Palestinians, said on Tuesday that while Israel has taken steps to address "obstacles to the delivery of assistance," it "can and must do more."
Many international agencies and humanitarian groups have gone further in their condemnation of Israeli's aid policy, arguing that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is using starvation as a weapon of war, as Common Dreams has reported.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) echoed that concern on Wednesday on the U.S. Senate floor.
"Blocking humanitarian aid and creating the conditions for famine is not only an act of extreme cruelty—using starvation as an act of war—but it is a violation of both American and international law," he said. It is a war crime."
Using starvation as a weapon is a war crime.
We know that children in Gaza are dying of malnutrition.
As long as Israel continues to prevent aid groups and journalists from entering the most desperate areas of Gaza, we will not know the full extent of the famine there. pic.twitter.com/c6kOpo9epE
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) June 12, 2024
In January, the International Court of Justice, the U.N.'s top court, ruled that Israel must prevent acts of genocide and "take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."
Human rights groups such as Amnesty International have reported that Israel hasn't complied with the ruling, and this week's reports add to the evidence that Israel is noncompliant.
"We are getting very few positive responses to our requests for aid delivery and permits to move around Gaza," Tamara Alrifai, UNRWA's director of external relations, told The Guardian.
Some Israeli officials have accused UNRWA of ties to Hamas and to terrorism, but an independent review led by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna found that Israel hadn't provided evidence of the claims.
Israel's hostility to aid workers, more than 200 of whom have been killed in the war, has led to massive disruption to humanitarian efforts. "Israel continues to severely restrict supplies of food, water, medicine, and fuel to the territory," Al Jazeera reported Wednesday.
The problems for the malnourished children in southern Gaza are particularly pronounced.
"Unless treatment can be quickly resumed for these 3,000 children, they are at immediate and serious risk of becoming critically ill, acquiring life-threatening complications, and joining the growing list of boys and girls who have been killed by this senseless, man-made deprivation," UNICEF's Khodr said.
Treating malnourished children requires the continuous use of therapeutic food and formula for six to eight weeks, as well as other medical support, according to UNICEF. But with Rafah under siege and insufficient supplies, that's very difficult to provide.
"We need better operating conditions on the ground, with more safety and less restrictions," Khodr said. "But ultimately, it is a cease-fire that children need most."
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Despite Mainstream Headlines, Israel’s Tents Massacre Was Not a ‘Tragic Mistake’
Most establishment U.S. media repeated Israel’s false claims that the tents massacre was an accident, weaving disinformation messaging into toned-down descriptions of the scene.
Jun 12, 2024
Over the Memorial Day weekend, Israel bombed starving Gazan refugees crowded in tents in Rafah, where Israel had told them to go. As Jeffrey St. Clair (CounterPunch, 5/31/24) wrote, leaflets dropped in Rafah a few days before told them to go to “Tel al-Sultan through Beach Road,” an area set up by the UNRWA refugee agency and designated a United Naitons humanitarian safe zone. The leaflet added, “Don’t blame us after we warned you.”
Nevertheless, without warning, Israel hit the camp with at least eight missiles spreading fire though the encampment of plastic tents (Quds News, 5/26/24). Some refugees burned to death, mostly women and children, leaving them dismembered and charred.
The world saw the terror of the massacre on international and social media. Images showed the area of the strike engulfed in flames as Palestinians screamed, cried, ran for safety, and sought to help the injured. “They told people to move there then killed them,” Richard Medhurst (5/28/24) posted.
Repeating and discussing the ever-changing Israeli disinformation of denial, discussing weapons and official statements, also allows U.S. corporate media to avoid easily observed patterns of Israel’s ongoing massacres, in addition to drawing public attention away from the suffering.
A boy cries in horror and fear as he watches his father’s tent burn with him inside. A man holds up the body of his charred, now-headless baby, wandering around, not knowing what to do or where to go. An injured, starving child convulses in pain as a medic struggles to find a vein for an IV in her emaciated arm (Al Jazeera, 5/27/24).
Al Jazeera (cited by Quds News, 5/26/24) quoted a Civil Defense source, “We believe that the occupation army used internationally prohibited weapons to target the displaced in Rafah, judging by the size of the fires that erupted at the targeted site.”
U.S. news media reported the tent massacre, some more truthfully than others. But most establishment media repeated Israel’s false claims that it was an accident, weaving disinformation messaging into toned-down descriptions of the scene. With confused syntax, they omitted words like “genocide,” “massacre,” and “starvation.” Most left out the language of international law that is best able to explain the unprecedented crimes against humanity that Israel is committing. Corporate reporting left the tent massacre devoid of context and empathy, ignored actions that need to be taken, and ultimately facilitated the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians.
Embedded With an Illegal Invasion
When NBC News (5/28/24) reported from Gaza that “Israeli tanks reached the city center for the first time, according to NBC News‘ crew on the ground,” it failed to say that the NBC crew was embedded with Israel’s invading force.
The same sentence continued that Israel was “defying international pressure to halt an offensive that has sent nearly 1 million people fleeing Rafah.” But Israel was not just “defying… pressure”; it was in violation of a direct order from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to halt its attack on Rafah. Yet NBC reporters rode into Rafah with an army that was ignoring international law to commit further genocide in Gaza.
Compare NBC’s words to those used by Ramy Abdu (5/26/24), chair of Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, who posted, “In the deadliest response to the International Court of Justice’s decision, the Israeli army targeted a group of displaced persons’ tents in Rafah, killing approximately 60 innocent civilians so far.”
In a post, Francesca Albanese (5/26/24), U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in Palestine, included International actions that needed to be implemented:
The #GazaGenocide will not easily end without external pressure: Israel must face sanctions, justice, suspension of agreements, trade, partnership and investments, as well as participation in int’l forums.
Such sanctions are rarely discussed in establishment media, but are becoming more urgent, given The New York Times report (5/29/24) that Israel intends to extend the genocide through the remainder of 2024. Though the Times reported on the global outrage and demonstrations against the Rafah massacre, the words “genocide” and “massacre” were not used, nor was there any mention of the possibility of sanctions against Israel.
Targeting ‘Hamas,’ Not Civilians
Instead of sourcing the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, or any humanitarian actors in the region, NBC (5/28/24) quoted a U.N. National Security Council spokesperson:
Israel has a right to go after Hamas, and we understand this strike killed two senior Hamas terrorists who are responsible for attacks against Israeli civilians…. But as we’ve been clear, Israel must take every precaution possible to protect civilians.
Israel’s claim that it killed two Hamas leaders became the rationale for the strike, which was repeated extensively on corporate media. Over NBC‘s images of burning tents and killing scenes, the header read, “Dozens killed in Gaza tent camp in an airstrike targeting two Hamas commanders.”
The dead were connected to Hamas whenever possible. At the bottom of the video, the subtitles listed numbers of dead, followed with, “according to the emergency services in Hamas-run Gaza.”
Human rights attorney and Rutgers academic Noura Erakat (5/27/24) exposed the attempt to link murdered children to Hamas. Over the picture of a burned baby, she posted these harsh words:
Have you ever seen a burnt baby? Can you imagine her final, gaping screams? And all Israel had to tell you was “Hamas,” so you look at her and shrug. Your willful ignorance is genocidal.
CounterPunch (5/31/24) quoted Jeremy Konyndyk, former head of disaster relief for U.S. Agency for International Development, saying, “Bombing a tent camp full of displaced people is a clear-cut, full-on war crime” who added, “Even if Hamas troops were present, that does not absolve the IDF of the obligation to protect civilians. It does not turn a tent camp into a free fire zone.”
‘A Tragic Incident’
On NBC (5/28/24), under the footage of the burning horrors of Rafah, the chyron read, “Netanyahu: Deadly Strike a Tragic Incident.”
In response to Israel’s “accident” claim, journalists, activists, and social media users, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), reacted with incredulity and withering criticism of those who asserted it. That was the reaction Axios reporter and CNN analyst Barak Ravid (5/27/24) received when he posted, “Breaking: Netanyahu says the airstrike in Rafah on Sunday was ‘a tragic mistake,’ and adds that it will be investigated.” Katie Halper (5/27/24) replied to Ravid with, “Nice to see you using your position as a journalist to do comms for the Israeli government.”
And Tlaib (5/27/24) commented:
This was intentional. You don’t accidentally kill massive amounts of children and their families over and over again and get to say, “It was a mistake.” Genocidal maniac Netanyahu told us he wants to ethnically cleanse Palestinians.
She ended with the question, “When are you going to believe him?”
Sana Saeed (5/27/24), media critic for Al Jazeera+, posted the front pages of four print publications that repeated Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s accident claim. The New York Times used “Tragic Accident,” while “Tragic Mistake” was preferred by Time magazine, Forbes, and The Associated Press. Over the headlines, she called them “propagandists for genocide masquerading as journalists.”
‘What Israel Shared With Us’
But CNN (5/28/24) seemed to be vying for Most Valuable Propagandists by elaborating on the unlikely details offered by the IDF to describe the official Israeli version of what happened. It began with Netanyahu speaking to the Knesset: “Despite our best effort not to harm those not involved, unfortunately a tragic error happened last night. We are investigating the case.”
After four paragraphs of details of the massacre—“burned bodies, including those of children, could be seen being pulled by rescuers from the wreckage”—CNN returned to the justifications. The long, breathless chain of details began:
A U.S. official told CNN Monday that Israel had told the Biden administration it used a precision munition to hit a target in Rafah, but that the explosion from the strike ignited a fuel tank nearby and started a fire that engulfed a camp for displaced Palestinians and led to dozens of deaths.
But the claims could not be confirmed; “It’s what Israel shared with us,” the official said.
But the attack on Rafah was in no way a single “precision” “hit,” as numerous sources reported that multiple bombs hit the camp. And Al Jazeera (5/27/24) reported that Israeli drone strikes also hit the Kuwaiti Hospital, the only functioning hospital in the area, killing two medics. It also pointed out that no notice to evacuate came before the strike.
Ever-Changing Disinformation
In an X post (5/27/24), Intercept co-founder Jeremy Scahill noted the shifting narrative coming from Israel:
Netanyahu now admits Israel carried out the horrifying bombings that incinerated human beings in Rafah last night and turned a refugee camp into hellfire. I assume all the people who claimed it was actually a failed Hamas rocket attack will now rush to correct themselves.
As we observed after the flour massacre (FAIR.org, 3/22/24), Israel’s string of differing false statements immediately following a massacre is an IDF propaganda strategy designed to confuse and delay. Focusing on changing falsities distracts from the massacre and turns the cameras away from the horrible images of U.S.-supplied weapons slaughter. In this way, massacres become normalized.
Repeating and discussing the ever-changing Israeli disinformation of denial, discussing weapons and official statements, also allows U.S. corporate media to avoid easily observed patterns of Israel’s ongoing massacres, in addition to drawing public attention away from the suffering. But on social media, the raw footage and cries of outrage by users indicate that the manufactured emotional distance collapses online.
Some users expressed extreme distress after prolonged viewing of such imagery. One Palestinian organizer (5/27/24) said:
I’m shaking uncontrollably since last night. I can’t get the beheaded baby that was burned alive. The woman’s screaming out of my head. The decomposed bodies of babies out of my head. The girl whose body was stuck to a wall. Hind’s final message to PRCS…. And now. How do you watch all this and not feel your soul dead?
The daughter of Palestinian refugees posted (5/27/24):
The flour massacre, the tents massacre, the hospital massacre, the refugee camp massacre, the “safe corridor” massacre, the endless massacres, in homes, on the streets, in tents, on foot—eight months of massacre after massacre after massacre.
Another user (5/27/24) asked, “Why do so many Israeli mistakes involve launching multiple missiles at people they’ve assured are in safe zones?”
‘Willful Media Blackout’
It was the Israeli newspaper Haaretz (2/29/24) that exposed U.S. corporate media reporting as repeated propaganda in a piece titled, “In Netanyahu’s Israel, the Rafah Horror Was Neither ‘a Mishap’ nor Exceptional.” The editorial scoffed at the use of “tragic mishap” to describe the “horrific incident.” It observed that “it took Netanyahu 20 hours to produce the disgraceful statement, which, as usual, lacked any shred of regret over the death of ‘noncombatants.’”
Haaretz derided the “willful media blackout regarding the scope of death and destruction over the last eight months.” Skeptical about the assertion that “it was not expected to cause damage to noncombatant civilians,” the paper observed that, if true, “this involves an ongoing failure at the strategic level.”
By May 29, U.S. corporate media began to report extensively that the Israeli bombs dropped on Rafah that burned Palestinian refugees alive were made in the U.S. A munitions fragment was filmed by Palestinian journalist Alam Sadeq, and was posted on X (5/27/24) by former U.S. Army explosive expert Trevor Ball two days earlier. Much was made of the fact that the ordinance was smaller than the usual 2,000-pound bombs used to destroy Gaza, and were the preferred bombs the Biden administration had sent to Israel.
Over the last eight months, U.S. establishment media have helped Biden “explain away” such atrocities.
As The New York Times (5/29/24) put it, “U.S. officials have been pushing Israel to use more of this type of bomb, which they say can reduce civilian casualties.” The lengthy report included a drawing of the bomb, the details of its manufacture, and assertions that its use by Israel indicated they tried to kill fewer civilians. Gone were any mention of the “tragic mistake,” and the “exploded fuel tank,” forgotten as yesterday’s fake news.
But a lengthy back-and-forth about how the fire could have started failed to point out the obvious, which comes only at the very end when a retired U.S. Air Force sergeant observes, “When you use a weapon that’s intended as precision and low–collateral damage in an area where civilians are saturated, it really negates that intended use.”
As Israel’s atrocities continue to mount in Gaza, the LA Progressive (6/7/24) wrote that though Biden claimed to care about the loss of civilian life in Gaza, and that an Israeli attacked on Rafah would be a “red line,” “events of the past weeks have demonstrated that none of these claims are in fact true.” It added that a month ago, Hamas agreed to an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire agreement “that looked a lot like the cease-fire agreement now being promoted by the Biden administration,” but Israel responded by rejecting that agreement as well.
In addition, Israel closed off the border area between Israel and Egypt, cutting off any aid or supplies from coming into famine-ravaged Gaza. The authors concluded, “What has transpired is a horrifying series of massacres against civilians, which the Biden administration continues to try to downplay, excuse and explain away.”
Over the last eight months, U.S. establishment media have helped Biden “explain away” such atrocities. They have not stopped repeating Israel’s propaganda, and have acted as willing conduits for Israeli disinformation. It is past time they stopped doing so, and started reporting on what is actually happening on the ground in Gaza, not through the eyes of the IDF.
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The Rafah Tents Massacre Exemplifies Israeli and US Disdain for Palestinian Life
This reality is a disastrous tragedy for Palestinians, defining the United States for generations in a negative light and ultimately harming Washington’s soft power and any genuine effort to do good in the region.
Jun 07, 2024
“Today, my body was a TV’d massacre that had to fit into sound bites and word limits filled enough with statistics to counter measured response. And I perfected my English and I learned my U.N. resolutions,” Rafeef Ziadah recited in a presentation of her now-famous 2011 poem, “We Teach Life, Sir.”
Palestinians have long been melted down into various data points, often relegating them to vague and dehumanizing categories in the so-called “modern” world. Israel’s latest invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza and the May 26 massacre of roughly 45 Palestinians—where most were burned alive in the strike on their displacement tents—exemplifies this reality as Israeli leaders and the United States continue to show disdain for Palestinian life. This reality is a disastrous tragedy for Palestinians, defining the United States for generations in a negative light and ultimately harming Washington’s soft power and any genuine effort to do good in West Asia and the Arab world at large.
No one should confuse this utter disdain for Palestinian lives as a new phenomenon. A now-viral lecture clip by Refaat Alareer, a Palestinian poet and writer killed in Gaza in December 2023, highlighted Israel’s approach to Palestinian life not long before his death. Our Harsh Logic, a book authored by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) veterans group Breaking the Silence, highlights Israel’s tacit elimination strategy against Palestine and Palestinians.
The grotesque images of a beheaded child and lifeless, charred bodies of the victims—including a father and his young son burned alive while embracing each other—should constitute Biden’s red line.
According to the group and additional Israeli veterans hoping to shine a light on their country’s atrocities, Israel arbitrarily kills Palestinians based on whimsical criteria like a person’s gate, the color of their car, or what number they are in line as part of its larger plan to eradicate Palestinians. Central to this strategy is Israel’s claims that these atrocities are “accidental” when murders occur.
This strategy is prominent in Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, which has killed, maimed, and starved Palestinians to “thin” the population. Israeli leaders clearly defined this effort early in the invasion. Major human rights groups—including those in Israel—have identified atrocity after atrocity in this regard, from strikes on churches and mosques to massive bombardments of entire neighborhoods.
In nearly every instance, Israel has played a game of deception, first denying the strikes took place and later conducting dead-end “investigations” into the matter. Israeli investigative journalists even managed to identify artificial intelligence mechanisms in place for targeting, which incorporates the criteria identified in Our Harsh Logic on an industrial scale with far fewer protections for innocent civilians.
In this context, Israel’s massacre in the designated safe zone of Tal al-Sultan—just outside of Rafah—marks one of the darkest moments since Israel invaded Gaza last October. This strike killed 45 people, burning alive mostly women and children stuck in their United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) displacement tents. The Israeli attack was less than 200 meters from a major UNRWA shelter and Israel likely knew of explosive materials near their target that risked igniting surrounding tents.
Like clockwork, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attempted to claim it was an “accident” the next day, arguing that the “tragedy” would be investigated. Yet, the bombings of tents and safe zones continue—including in the same area as the May 26 massacre.
Such an incident amid a broader Israeli assault on Rafah raises serious questions about U.S. President Joe Biden’s so-called red line on a Rafah invasion. The grotesque images of a beheaded child and lifeless, charred bodies of the victims—including a father and his young son burned alive while embracing each other—should constitute Biden’s red line.
Yet Washington refuses to budge, reflecting the lack of a serious red line when it comes to Israel. Such inaction carries consequences, ultimately resulting in the United States’ ongoing decline in popularity across the Arab world—a problem that may become generationally irredeemable without a major course correction.
Indeed, the region understands the double standards defining U.S. foreign policy, as if the differences in response to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza are not obvious enough. To be sure, Arab publics have long experienced the realities of a “human rights and democracy for me, but not for thee” approach to the region. Accountability for atrocities often ends in West Asia and the broader so-called “Global South,” as witnessed in places like Syria, Yemen, and Libya. Democratic backsliding in Tunisia and Egypt offers additional examples of how Washington and the West reserve people-centric policies for their societies and not for those countries where they desire a more extractive relationship.
Yet even when the United States works to advance human rights and democracy initiatives in the region, its inaction on Israel and Palestine ultimately leaks into its broader regional efforts. Any good Washington hopes to provide through such initiatives faces setbacks as local partners refuse U.S. money on principle. The people selected to implement U.S. contracts—key allies to advance a brighter future for the region—understand the hypocrisy of any such cooperation.
This ultimately harms both the region and U.S. interests, highlighting the sheer absurdity of Biden’s approach to Israel’s genocidal war. Washington’s regional popularity is taking a beating at a time when it proclaims to be fighting a protracted battle between good and evil—purportedly those who support human rights, democracy, and dignity versus repression, autocracy, and shame. Yet any casual observation of U.S. action and inaction on Palestine suggests the United States sits on the wrong side of that equation—effectively operating in a “might makes right” mindset.
As such, no one wins. Palestinians suffer under the boot of Israeli fascism while the broader region continues to function along the lines of autocracy and repression. Meanwhile, the United States sheds any semblance of benevolence—as if it had much in the first place—as the region confirms its negative views of the principal supporter of their repressive regimes and Israel.
One could define the outcome of U.S. soft power as poetic justice if it were not for the tragedy of it all—for Palestinians in particular. Yet Rafeef perfectly encapsulated this feeling in her poem:
I wish I could wail over their bodies.
I wish I could just run barefoot in every refugee camp and hold every child, cover their ears so they wouldn’t have to hear the sound of bombing for the rest of their life the way I do.
Today, my body was a TV’d massacre
And let me just tell you, there’s nothing your U.N. resolutions have ever done about this.
And no sound bite, no sound bite I come up with, no matter how good my English gets, no sound bite, no sound bite, no sound bite, no sound bite will bring them back to life.
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