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rashida tlaib
'Unspeakable Cruelty': Israeli Strikes on Gaza Hospital, Refugee Camps Kill Dozens
"When will our country stop funding this madness?" asked U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. "When?"
Oct 14, 2024
Dozens of Palestinians were killed and many more wounded Sunday and Monday by Israeli attacks on a Gaza hospital and multiple refugee camps, where victims included people queueing for food and a group of children at play.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said at least 10 Palestinians were killed and at least 70 others wounded Monday by Israel Defense Forces shelling of hungry people waiting for flour at a food distribution center in the Jabalia refugee camp, where dozens of homes were reportedly destroyed since Saturday.
Medics said the victims from Monday's strike included many women and children. An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson said the IDF operates "only against terrorists" and that the attack is being investigated.
Earlier on Monday, at least four people were killed and dozens more wounded in an IDF airstrike on the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital compound in Deir al-Balah, where Palestinians forcibly displaced by Israel's yearlong assault on Gaza were sheltering. The strike caused an inferno that raged through the densely packed tent encampment. Video footage of the attack recorded by journalist Saleh al Jafarawi showed at least one person burning alive as horrified bystanders looked on unable to help.
"We woke up to smoke, flames, fire, and burning pieces falling on the tents from every direction," survivor Om Ahmad Radi toldAl Jazeera. "The explosions terrified us in our tents and outside where we live behind al-Aqsa Hospital."
"The fire trucks couldn't get here," Radi added. "There were so many burned and charred bodies all over the place. The amount of fire and explosions was enormous. We witnessed one of the most horrible and brutal nights."
The Gaza Ministry of Health said most victims were women and children. An IDF spokesperson claimed without evidence that the airstrike targeted a "command and control center" used by Hamas, the Palestinian group that led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Responding to the attack on social media, U.S. Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-Mo.)
said that "Israeli forces launched missiles at al-Aqsa Hospital, where displaced Palestinians were sheltering in tents and receiving the very limited healthcare services available."
"ISRAELI FORCES BURNED THEM ALIVE! Can you see the hand?" she said, referring to a graphic image of one of the victims. "This is the extermination of a whole people!"
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.)—the only Palestinian American member of Congress— called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "genocidal maniac" who "is burning Palestinians alive, bombing hospitals, starving people, and killing aid workers."
Last week, an independent panel of United Nations experts said that Israel "has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza's healthcare system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities."
On Sunday, an IDF artillery attack targeting a school in the Nuseirat refugee camp housing forcibly displaced Palestinians killed at least 22 people including 15 children and injured at least scores more.
"There seems to be no end to the horrors that Palestinians in Gaza are forced to endure," U.N. Acting Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Joyce Msuya
said in a statement Monday. "There really is no safe place in Gaza for people to go."
Earlier Sunday, at least five Palestinian children were killed and at least a dozen others, including women and children, were injured as Israeli forces bombed a group of children playing in the al-Shati refugee camp, according toThe Palestine Chronicle. Some observers said the massacre evoked memories of a 2014 Israeli attack that killed four boys playing soccer on a beach in Gaza City.
Hamas condemned the al-Shati attack as "a horrific crime and a moral degradation that exceeds all limits and norms." The armed group—whose political wing has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades—called for "filing lawsuits before all competent courts, most notably the International Criminal Court," whose chief prosecutor is seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders—at least one of whom, political chief Ismail Haniyeh, has been assassinated by Israel—for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity including extermination.
Israel is also
on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.
Gaza Government Media Office Director-General Ismail Al-Thawabta said over the weekend that Israeli forces have killed more than 300 Palestinians in northern Gaza since the start of the latest IDF offensive there earlier this month. Al-Thawabta accused Israel of waging a "criminal war of extermination" and said it is blocking fuel and other critical supplies from reaching hospitals in northern Gaza.
Since the October 2023 attack, Israeli forces have killed or maimed more than 150,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including over 10,000 people who are missing and feared dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out buildings, according to Gazan and international officials. Nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced, and at least hundreds of thousands of others have been starved or sickened.
Thousands more people have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank of Palestine and in Lebanon, where Hezbollah fighters have launched thousands of rockets and other projectiles at Israel, killing and wounding hundreds.
On Sunday, the United States—which has provided Israel with tens of billions of dollars worth of
military aid and diplomatic cover including vetoes of multiple U.N. Security Council cease-fire resolutions—said it would deploy around 100 troops to the key Mideast ally to operate an advanced anti-missile system, sparking further fears of a wider regional war that would likely include an attack on Iran.
"When will our country stop funding this madness?" Tlaib asked Monday. "When?"
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US-Armed Israeli Military Kills American Citizen in Lebanon
"The State Department is leaving Americans behind and failing to protect their own citizens," said U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who represented Hajj Kamel Ahmad Jawad.
Oct 03, 2024
Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon killed a United States citizen earlier this week as the Biden administration faced growing backlash for failing to evacuate Americans from the country, which is under intense assault from a military armed to the teeth by the U.S.
Hajj Kamel Ahmad Jawad was killed by an Israeli strike on Tuesday in his hometown of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, according to a statement from his family. Jawad was a resident of Dearborn, Michigan and a constituent of U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).
"In his last days, he chose to stay near the main hospital in Nabatieh to help the elderly, disabled, injured, and those who simply couldn't financially afford to flee," Jawad's family said. "He served as their guardian, provided them with food, mattresses, and other comforts, and anonymously paid off their debts."
The Biden White House confirmed Jawad's death in a statement Wednesday—but did not acknowledge that an Israeli strike killed him.
"We are deeply saddened by the death of Kamel Ahmad Jawad and our hearts go out to his family and friends," said a White House spokesperson. "His death is a tragedy, as are the deaths of many civilians in Lebanon."
Earlier Wednesday, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said it is "our understanding that [Jawad] was a legal permanent resident, not an American citizen"—a statement contradicted by Jawad's family and Tlaib's office, which toldReuters he was a U.S. citizen.
"His life is one of over 50,000 lost at the hands of Israeli aggression across the Middle East," Jawad's family said. "The fact that he was an American citizen should not make his story more important than others."
"Americans of Lebanese descent have been treated as lesser U.S. citizens than Israeli U.S. citizens. It is as if we don't exist."
More than 1,000 people—roughly a quarter of them women and children—have been killed by Israeli attacks on Lebanon since mid-September. The U.S. has backed Israel's assault on Lebanon and sent additional troops to the region to bolster its Israeli ally.
As Israeli forces continue to pummel Beirut and proceed with their ground invasion, the Biden administration has faced outrage for failing to swiftly evacuate U.S. citizens from Lebanon; thousands of Americans live and work in the country.
While other countries—including Germany, China, and Canada—have moved to evacuate their citizens from the country, the U.S. has been accused of lagging behind.
During a press briefing on Wednesday, U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the administration has been working over the past several days "to make seats available or to find seats available on existing commercial flights."
"We have been able to identify over 800 seats over that time," said Miller. "A number of them have been used by American citizens... Not in all cases have they been filled. And then today we were able to organize a flight from Beirut to Istanbul to allow other American citizens to leave."
In a social media post late Wednesday, Tlaib said her office has "been desperately trying to help" 148 residents from her district evacuate Lebanon. Zeteonoted that Tlaib said in an Instagram video that it is a "disgrace" that her staff has had to "beg" the Biden administration to help evacuate her constituents.
"One of my constituents was already killed in an Israeli airstrike," said Tlaib, referring to Jawad. "The State Department is leaving Americans behind and failing to protect their own citizens."
One American citizen identified as Karam toldAl Jazeera that she "called the U.S. embassy in Beirut for help fleeing the violence," but "was told to find a way out of the country by herself," the outlet reported.
"Karam, who chose to be identified by her nickname out of fear of retaliation, drew a contrast with how the US State Department swiftly chartered special flights and a ship to evacuate American citizens in Israel after Hamas' October 7 attack last year," Al Jazeera noted.
"Americans of Lebanese descent have been treated as lesser U.S. citizens than Israeli U.S. citizens," she said. "It is as if we don't exist."
Abbas Alawieh, co-founder of the Uncommitted National Movement and a Lebanese American, said Wednesday that U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have "repeatedly" turned down requests to meet with Americans like him who have family members in Lebanon.
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'So Sick': War Profiteer Stocks Jump as Iran Strikes Israel
"Remember that members of Congress are permitted to own stock in war manufacturing, so when they vote to send more bombs or send our loved ones to war, they profit personally," said Rep. Rashida Tlaib.
Oct 01, 2024
Mirroring Wall Street's response to Israel launching its assault on the Gaza Strip nearly a year ago, stocks of companies that make money off of war soared on Tuesday after Israelis initiated a ground invasion into Lebanon and Iran sent scores of ballistic missiles toward Tel Aviv and other targets.
Zeteo's Prem Thakker highlighted the performance by three key American multinationals—Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and RTX, formerly known as Raytheon—and noted that it came "while the wider market is down today."
CNBC similarly attributed the market's Tuesday trends to "growing tensions in the Middle East" and reported that another U.S. defense contractor, L3Harris Technologies, "advanced 3%."
Responding to Thakker's observations on social media, U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) called the trends "so sick."
"Remember that members of Congress are permitted to own stock in war manufacturing, so when they vote to send more bombs or send our loved ones to war, they profit personally," added Tlaib, a critic of war in general but especially Israel's recent violence.
Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, has condemned the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza—launched after a Hamas-led attack on Israel—as genocidal. Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.
As of Tuesday, officials in Hamas-governed Gaza put the death toll at 41,638, with 96,460 people injured, though thousands remain missing in the remnants of devastated civilian infrastructure across the coastal enclave.
In addition to bombing and starving Palestinians in Gaza, Israel—which receives billions of dollars in annual U.S. military support—has stoked fears of a wider regional war with a July assassination of a Hamas leader in the Iranian capital of Tehran and its recent escalation in Lebanon, home to the political and paramilitary group Hezbollah.
The White House said Tuesday that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for the November election, "are monitoring the Iranian attack against Israel from the White House Situation Room and receiving regular updates from their national security team. President Biden directed the U.S. military to aid Israel's defense against Iranian attacks and shoot down missiles that are targeting Israel."
Meanwhile, there has been growing criticism of seemingly unconditional U.S. support for Israel's right-wing government in Congress. However, as Sludge pointed out Tuesday, some lawmakers are set to benefit from companies that are doing well thanks to the bloodshed and instability in the Middle East.
Sludge cited recent reporting by co-founder David Moore, who detailed how "at least 50 members of Congress or other members of their households hold stock in defense contractors, companies that receive hundreds of billions of dollars annually from congressionally crafted Pentagon appropriations legislation."
"The total value of the federal lawmakers, defense contractors stock holdings could be as much as $10.9 million," wrote Moore, who analyzed 2023 financial disclosures and stock trades. "The most widely held defense contractor stock among senators and representatives is Honeywell, an American company that makes sensors and guiding devices that are being used by the Israeli military in its airstrikes in Gaza."
Tlaib has introduced the Stop Politicians Profiting from War Act, which would ban members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependent children from trading defense stocks or having financial interests in companies that do business with the U.S. Department of Defense.
This post has been updated with a reference to the Stop Politicians Profiting from War Act.
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