Quick🧵Debunking #Israel's "Human Shields" lie used as a blanket excuse to justify killing ANY Palestinian civilians:
e.g. IDF officials admit they 100% knew children & women would die in their strikes. They went for it anyways & called them "collateral damage" & "human shields"
2\ Amnesty found ZERO evidence of Palestinian combatants forcefully taking civilians as human shields or preventing them from evacuating targeted areas
The #Israeli org Breaking the Silence interviewed 100s of IDF soldiers, but never encountered evidence of those "human shields"
3\ #Israel's own courts, however, found evidence of Israeli soldiers taking Palestinians as human shields at gun point
IDF calls it the "neighbor procedure"
Amnesty, HRW, BTselem... all found evidence of Israel taking Palestinian human shields since the occupation began in 1967
4\ #Israel deems ALL Palestinians in Gaza "human shields" by virtue of just living in the same neighborhoods with possible Hamas or PIJ members (even non-combatants)!
Can Hamas equally claim that it has a right to target Israeli cities b/c IDF soldiers live among civilians?
5\ An #Israeli "evidence" for "human shields" is a 2014 Hamas leader praising Gazans who refused to evacuate their home so that Israel bombs it to the ground.
HRW said this doesn't amount to the crime of human shields but rather a form of "peaceful protest" & defending homes!
6\ Amnesty concluded that even guerrilla warfare tactics in a densely populated urban space such as "storing munitions in civilian buildings of launching attacks from the vicinity of civilian buildings" do NOT amount to the crime of "Human Shields" under International Law.
7\ "Human Shields" are still civilians who don't lose their protected status whatsoever. Targeting them is still a War Crime.
#Israel's "Human Shields" canard is vile, racist & dehumanizing. It implies that Palestinians don't value their lives & have no agency! It's a 100% lie!
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This "aid" plan is so dystopian, starved Gazans are saying one has to be completely insane to step a foot into those militarized compounds run by American mercenaries in an area fully controlled by the IDF
Gazans, the UN & EU diplomats all see it as a dangerous & criminal trap🧵
1\ Divide & rule: under this "aid" plan, Israel decides who gets food in Gaza & who starves to death
Anyone receiving aid would be "screened" by Israel with an undisclosed secret process
I.e. if you ever wrote a post critical of the genocide, the IDF could blacklist your name
2\ Using food as a bait: to receive the food package from that militarized compound, one has to go through an Israeli checkpoint teeming with genocidal soldiers. The checkpoint is powered with facial recognition tech.
Any male between 12-100 years-old is at risk of abduction
🧵The 1st to predict this inevitability in 1934 was Jewish-German psychologist Erich Neumann, who wrote upon meeting Zionists in Palestine:
"Everything [here] leads to fascism... I fear that all our repressed passions, all our ambitions for power and revenge, all the brutality hidden in us, will come to fruition here... This could result in the 'shadow' finally being released & here in Palestine for the 1st time it could be seen & erupt, because there is no external pressure here. It will certainly not be pleasant"
2\ In 1948, Albert Einstein & Hannah Arendt noticed it quickly & warned that Israel's Haherut party (today Netanyahu's Likud) was akin to "Nazi & Fascist parties" in its "organization, methods, political philosophy & social appeal".
3\ Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz introduced the term "Judeo-Nazis" in the 1980s, where he warned that continued military occupation of the Palestinian territories would lead to the moral degradation of Israel's army:
🚨Israel's demand of disarming Hamas is a red herring designed to sabotage any ceasefire talks🧵
Hamas has virtually no offensive weaponry left (e.g. rockets, tunnels crossing into Israel)
They have light weaponry (e.g. rifles & anti-tank missiles)
Another Oct 7 is impossible!
2\ Hamas currently does NOT have the capacity to threaten Israel itself (e.g. rockets)
But they DO have the capacity to maintain a long insurgency *inside* Gaza against the IDF (not Israel itself)
Any serious Israeli analyst would tell you the chances of another Oct 7 are zero!
3\ Israel & Hamas share an interest in exaggerating Hamas' remaining capabilities. Israel wants to falsely portray Hamas as a major "existential threat" to justify continued genocide
Hamas wants to present a victory image that it's still in good shape after everything Israel did alwatanvoice.com/arabic/news/20…
Getting many questions about the demonstrations in Gaza
So here's my full assessment of the protests; their potential & limitations; genuineness & spontaneity vs outside influence; motives & goals; & their ability to actually challenge Hamas or bring the war close to an end🧵
1\ The protests seem to have started spontaneously in small numbers & limited areas. Their grievances are genuine; people are tired, desperate for the genocide to end at any cost, many want Hamas to step down from gov to take away Israel's pretext for the siege & killing
But...
2\ The protests quickly drew the interest & influence of external actors, keen to exploit Gazans' despair & pain, & this may end up undermining the movement instead of helping
e.g. Israel demanding Gazans take to the street or face death, land theft & forever war will backfire
"Pay for slay" is a deeply racist Israeli trope that Palestinians are so deplorable, they'd want to get killed or imprisoned for life only for a few pennies!
The collaborationist Palestinian Authority NEVER paid anyone to attack Israel!
Israel has an identical prisoner fund🧵
2\ The PA paid financial support to Palestinians maimed or detained by Israel & families of those killed
Israel has an identical fund: "Prisoners of Zion & Families of Martyrs". It gives benefits to those imprisoned or killed for "Zionist activity" abroad or in mandate Palestine
3\ Why did the PA need this fund?
Because Israel has detained over 1 million Palestinians since 1967. All either tried in kangaroo military courts with a conviction rate of 99,7% (conviction rate of settler attacks on Palestinians is 1.8%) or never even put on trial or charged!
🚨🚨Netanyahu violates the ceasefire deal & declares Israel won’t allow displaced Gazans to return to the North today
The agreement👇 clearly says Israe should allow this unrestricted return of 1 million Gazans on day 7 (today) after the release of 7 female hostages (4 today, 3 last Sunday)
2\ Netanyahu is asking now for an additional female hostage, Arbel Yehoud, to be released today before allowing people back to the north
It’s unknown if Arbel is even alive. If she’s dead, it means her body would only be released at the end of phase 1 (as Israel itself demanded)
3\ Netanyahu claims Hamas was supposed to release female civilian hostages (I.e Arbel) today first before the 4 female soldiers
But if that’s the case, then why did Israel say nothing yesterday? Why only object now after the 4 soldiers returned to Israel?