By a crushing majority, the 17 judges of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled more than five months ago that Israel was “plausibly” committing genocide in Gaza. The highest court in the world put Israel on trial, accused of the ultimate crime against humanity. Much has happened since that decision – and all of it is even more incriminating against Israel than the evidence considered by the World Court back in January.
The $230 million temporary pier that the U.S. military built on short notice to rush humanitarian aid to Gaza has largely failed in its mission, aid organizations say, and will probably end operations weeks earlier than originally expected.
In the month since it was attached to the shoreline, the pier has been in service only about 10 days. The rest of the time, it was being repaired after rough seas broke it apart, detached to avoid further damage or paused because of security concerns.
“May Gaza burn”: The flood of genocidal rhetoric from Israel’s soldiers – Younis Tirawi
Senior Israeli military commander Gur Rosenblat is explicit: All of Gaza, “not just the Hamas organization,” must be eliminated and its 2 million people driven out. The Strip, he writes on social media, should “cease to exist.”
While Rosenblat, the head of Israel’s Northern Infantry Brigade who also serves as the deputy general director of the country’s Education Ministry, makes clear he’s not speaking in his official capacity in an Oct. 13 Facebook post, he does not attempt to disguise his genocidal calls. “People who are human beasts and their supporters must pay a high price – if not with their lives, then with expulsion,” he writes.
Just three days later, an Instagram account with the username @gvrrvznblt that claims to be Rosenblat, posted a photo with the caption: “Why don’t we kill ten, twenty thousand Gazans a day with shelling for every day they don’t return the abductees [Israeli hostages]…Madness.”
Democracy & Good Governance 