⚡️🧵 NEW at Drop Site:
In February 2024, the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem suppressed an internal report meant for wider circulation among senior Biden administration officials, saying it “lacked balance.” Reuters recently reported that the internal cable included photos from northern Gaza warning the area had become an “apocalyptic wasteland,” but U.S. ambassador to Israel Jack Lew and his deputy, Stephanie Hallett, blocked the images from distribution.
Jonathan Whittall @_jwhittall, who was on the UN fact-finding trip and is the former head of UN OCHA in the OPT, now shares a selection of those photos with Drop Site for the first time.
The images were taken during the January 2024 visit, which followed a three-month total siege on northern Gaza. Whittall says the mission’s purpose was to reflect reality, not political balance. “Many of these scenes had already been captured by Palestinian journalists, but they too had been dismissed as biased,” he writes. 🧵
📸 Photo 1: A partially destroyed school with piles of garbage and rubble lining the streets in Jabaliya. The school had no clean water or sanitation available and was being used as an emergency shelter by displaced Palestinians. January 31, 2024. (Photo by Jonathan Whittall.)
📸 Photo 2: The same partially destroyed school in Jabaliya. January 31, 2024.
📸 Photo 3: The inside of the school in Jabaliya with burnt out vehicles and rubble in the courtyard.
📸 Photo 4: Displaced families use pieces of cloth and plastic sheeting to protect themselves from the cold in the rubble of their destroyed homes in Jabaliya. January 31, 2024.
📸 Photo 5: A destroyed water tanker on a street in Beit Lahia. January 31, 2024.
📸 Photo 6: The bodies of two Palestinians killed by Israeli forces lie next to tank tracks close to the Netzarim corridor dividing northern and southern Gaza. The bodies are partially eaten by dogs and cats.
Photo 7: A partially destroyed school in Beit Hanoun. February 1, 2024.
📸 Photo 8: A destroyed school with a mural of a white dove still standing in Beit Hanoun.
📸 Photo 9: A partially destroyed school surrounded by rubble in Beit Hanoun. February 1, 2024.
📸 Photo 10: Destroyed buildings in Beit Hanoun. February 1, 2024.
📸 Photo 11: A partially destroyed building in a depopulated neighbourhood of Beit Hanoun. February 1, 2024.
Photo 12: A destroyed neighbourhood in Beit Hanoun where street dogs were roaming the bombed-out buildings looking for bodies. February 1, 2024.
📸 Photo 13: A wall in a Palestinian home in Beit Hanoun that soldiers from the Golani brigade had used as a base. On the wall, written in Hebrew, is the word “Revenge” with the date October 7, 2023 below it. February 1, 2024.
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