Day: 3 October 2024

Yemeni media announced that the US-British aggression launched 4 raids on Al-Hodeidah Governorate without specifying the extent of the losses.

Source: National Iraqi News Agency

SALFIT: Israeli occupation forces stormed the village of Marda, located in the occupied West Bank province of Salfit, this evening, where they assaulted a local resident and confiscated two vehicles.

Local sources reported to WAFA that Israeli troops broke into the village and positioned themselves in its center, closing off several shops. During the raid, they detained and physically assaulted a citizen after subjecting him to search procedures.

Source: Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA

Hezbollah targeted a gathering of Zionist enemy soldiers in Al-Thaghra area in the outskirts of the town of Adaisseh on the Lebanese-Palestinian border with a missile salvo.

Source: National Iraqi News Agency

TULKARM: At least 18 Palestinian citizens were killed and several others injured tonight in an Israeli massacre which targeted a popular café in the Tulkarm refugee camp, located in the northern occupied West Bank.

According to our correspondent, Israeli warplanes fired at least one missile at the café in the Al-Hamam neighborhood while numerous civilians were present. The deadly strike resulted in the murder of 18 individuals and left others with varying degrees of injuries.

Civil defense and ambulance vehicles rushed to the scene to assist the victims, transporting the injured to the Thabet Government Hospital in Tulkarm.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported that its teams transported the bodies of some of the victims, along with one injured person, to hospital.

This massacre, considered the largest in the West Bank in over 24 years, is part of a broader context of ongoing Israeli attacks in the region, which have escalated since the onset of the Israeli genocidal onslaught against the Palesti
nian population in October of last year.

Tulkarm and its neighboring camps, Tulkarm and Nour Shams, have experienced multiple incursions by Israeli occupation forces, along with airstrikes that have resulted in numerous fatalities, injuries, and significant damage to infrastructure over the last few months.

Source: Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA

The Lebanese Hezbollah announced that it targeted a gathering of the Zionist enemy forces in “Al-Bassa” settlement with a missile salvo.

Source: National Iraqi News Agency

RAMALLAH: The Palestinian Water Authority reported today that the water and sewage sectors in Gaza have suffered significant damages as a result of the ongoing Israeli aggression over the past year. According to officials, over 85% of water and sewage facilities have either completely or partially ceased operations due to the destruction of vital infrastructure.

Ziad Fuqaha, the Acting Head of the Palestinian Water Authority, stated that the assault has critically affected infrastructure, with many essential facilities requiring comprehensive rehabilitation, including wastewater treatment plants, desalination facilities, pumping stations, wells, water tanks, and main transport lines.

He pointed out that the ongoing electricity cuts have compounded challenges in the water sector, along with a severe shortage of fuel necessary to operate backup generators for water facilities. The halt in the supply of maintenance parts and essential materials, coupled with significant debris and destruction of infrastructure
, has further complicated efforts to secure necessary coordination for the safety of personnel and equipment at work sites.

Fuqaha indicated that the current aggression has affected all three water sources in Gaza, estimating that the production from these sources has decreased to approximately 30-35% of pre-war levels. The groundwater, sourced from 300 wells throughout the region, typically supplied around 262,000 cubic meters daily, but many of these wells have suffered extensive damage. Current production stands at about 93,000 cubic meters per day due to ongoing interventions.

Desalination plants have also been impacted, with the North Gaza plant, which has a capacity of 10,000 cubic meters per day, completely out of operation. The Central and South Gaza plants, with capacities of 5,500 and 20,000 cubic meters per day, respectively, are currently functioning at a reduced capacity of around 5,000 cubic meters per day.

Source: Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA

The Hebrew newspaper Maariv reported today, Thursday, that the Iranian missile attack caused severe damage to the Nevatim military air base in the Negev desert.

The newspaper said: “The damage to the Nevatim base as a result of the Iranian missile attack will negatively affect the Israeli air defense.

Source: National Iraqi News Agency

BRUSSELS: Since 7 October 2023, only shades of black have been visible in Palestine. In 12 months, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), a worldwide organization representing 600,000 media professionals in 150 countries, has recorded at least 138 journalists’ deaths during the course of the war in Gaza. Of these, 127 were Palestinians, five Lebanese, four Israeli, and one Syrian. This death toll represents the bloodiest period in the history of journalism.

By way of comparison, the other major conflict in the world between Ukraine and Russia has resulted in the deaths of 18 Ukrainian journalists after 32 months of conflict. The IFJ’s investigations, with the help of its Palestinian affiliate, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS), clearly show that many of these victims were targeted by the Israeli army – a practice the International Court of Justice demanded the cessation of in October 2023, as international law requires.

This war in Gaza – now spread to Lebanon – is the will of the gove
rnment of one man, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu. He is trampling international conventions and even took the liberty of boasting about his military actions against civilians at the United Nations General Assembly. His pretext is ‘fighting terrorism’.

Yet since the American conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, analysis shows that indiscriminate warfare and arbitrary strikes in the cause of combatting terrorism are totally counterproductive. Evidence suggests that they reinforce radical ideologies and amplify the actions of the very organizations they are intended to oppose. Not only that, but these indiscriminate attacks on civilians create at least two generations of hatred and resentment against their aggressors and their descendants.

Since October 2023, the IFJ has made repeated appeals to the United Nations. We have demanded a ceasefire to allow civilians to leave the Gaza Strip (an area of around 365 km², a third the size of Paris). We have called for humanitarian and logistical aid to be del
ivered as close as possible to the population, including protective equipment for journalists.

And we have joined the call for foreign journalists and media workers to be allowed into the enclave to document the war. Nothing has happened. The Netanyahu government remains impervious, despite the incessant actions of UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

In brazen defiance, Israel has ordered the continuation of strikes by its army, financed mainly by the United States (68%) and Germany (30%).

DEHUMANIZATION

One consequence of this small-minded professionalism has been a kind of self-censorship, resulting in the total dehumanization of the Palestinian people. They have no one but themselves to relate the story of their daily nightmare. When internet connections are authorized or in working order, the only way for the world to be kept informed is through publications on the social networking platforms of Gazan journalists.

The vast majority of the world’s media are effectively cut off from a huge news stor
y whose daily horrors pass them by. Their only available sources are the journalists who are members of the PJS and the IFJ, who take all the risks to film and photograph with their phones. They are the only ones who are able to fulfil their mission, providing information from the battlefront, even though they lack all but the bare essentials, for which they must pay premium prices on the black market.

On the Israeli side, the dehumanization of Palestinian civilians is orchestrated by the journalists themselves. In an interview with AFP, one of Channel 14’s Israeli journalists, Hallel Bitton-Rosen, stated bluntly that her work focuses on ‘supporting the fighting forces that are protecting the country and its citizens from the vile terrorists who perpetrated the terrible massacre.’ Is this self-censorship or propaganda?

Fortunately, many journalists who deserve that title are taking on their mission with professionalism and relaying the work of their colleagues in Gaza, while cross-checking their sources wit
h the official communications of the two belligerents.

SOLIDARITY CENTRES FOR THE MEDIA

For its part, the International Federation of Journalists and its member unions have raised several hundred thousand euros for journalists in Gaza via its International Safety Fund. At the end of July, we opened the first media solidarity centre in the south of the enclave, in the Khan Younis region. The number of centres has now risen to three, with the help in particular of UNESCO, but it is nowhere near enough. Gazan journalists are determined to tell their story, and for so long as that is the case, it is the IFJ’s duty to support them in doing this in whatever way we can.

A few days away from the first anniversary of the terrible 7 October attack, it is clear that this war has the potential to expose the tragic shortcomings of the United Nations, just as the Second World War did the League of Nations. The UN Security Council is paralysed, sclerotic, and powerless in the face of an Israeli government that enjoys sca
ndalous impunity.

When the dust settles from the rubble of Gaza, the historians of the 2030s will pass harsh judgement on the international community, if it still deserves that name, so divided is the world, particularly the world’s great ‘powers’. The West and the Arab world have, at best, issued weak and disconnected declarations, and at worst have financed the arming of the Israeli government. The international community must accept its responsibilities – and the sooner the better.

‘Apart from our IFJ colleagues, we no longer expect anything from anyone,’ lamented a Palestinian journalist in Gaza in September. ‘There have been so many deaths that we have nothing left to lose, not even our lives. If hell exists, I think I’m living in it right now. It’s a real massacre. It is beyond the imagination of anyone who is not here.’

Source: Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA