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Israel Isn’t Violating International Law; Hezbollah Is Putting Civilians at Risk
Smoke billows over Khiam, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as pictured from Marjayoun, near the border with Israel, Oct. 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Karamallah Daher
A PBS Newshour report on October 22 about the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah incorrectly claimed that Israel’s “attacking medical workers and striking health care facilities are war crimes.” But this is not an accurate statement of international law, nor would anyone with an understanding of how law works claim it to be so. Both the Geneva Conventions and Customary International Humanitarian law provide that medical facilities lose their protected status when they are used for military purposes.
The International Committee of the Red Cross’s customary international humanitarian law database, Rule 28, states, “Medical units exclusively assigned to medical purposes must be respected and protected in all circumstances. They lose their protection if they are being used, outside their humanitarian function, to commit acts harmful to the enemy.” (Emphasis added.)
And Article 21 of the Geneva Conventions states, “The protection to which fixed establishments and mobile medical units of the Medical Service are entitled shall not cease unless they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy. Protection may, however, cease only after a due warning has been given, naming, in all appropriate cases, a reasonable time limit and after such warning has remained unheeded.” (Emphasis added.)
Even a previous PBS report has acknowledged that, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, “hospitals can lose their protections if combatants use them to hide fighters or store weapons.”
This has to be the case, otherwise it would incentivize warring parties to turn their hospitals into military bases, and provide a mechanism for those parties to attack others with impunity. And, indeed, for these reasons, US forces or US-backed forces attacked hospitals in Iraq on at least four occasions. Despite this, PBS’ Geoff Bennett introduced the segment by Leila Molana-Allen with the unqualified assertion that “Israeli airstrikes around Beirut have increasingly targeted health care facilities and health care workers,” and Molana-Allen failed to qualify her description of international law, creating a false impression of Israeli actions in Lebanon.
Further, within the report, Molana-Allen says, “and now, hospitals as well as homes are under attack. Yesterday Israel’s authorities said they believed a Hezbollah cash trove sat under Beirut’s El Sahel hospital, but said they wouldn’t strike it. Instead, they hit a different one. Just before midnight, an airstrike was launched on the entrance of Beirut’s Rafik Hariri hospital, flattening four buildings in front of it….” (Emphasis added.)
But as multiple news sources made clear, the hospital itself was not the target of the attack, and in fact, it wasn’t even hit — though it seems to have suffered collateral damage from the blast. The BBC reported “the Israeli military said it hit a ‘Hezbollah terrorist target,’” and that the buildings that were hit were about 160 feet from the hospital. Even The New York Times reported that the strike was on “residential buildings across from,” the hospital.
But it appears as though Molana-Allen is trying to make it seem like the hospital itself was struck, when she says, “this is the capital’s main specialist public hospital, where children injured in the bombings are receiving surgery. Rescuers dug for hours through the mangled carcass of concrete and iron searching for survivors.”
One interview subject, a Lebanese medic, is quoted saying, “they [the IDF] don’t differentiate at all between military personnel, civilians, or paramedics. Anyone trying to do their duty is at risk.” Yet, the speaker has no way to know what the military objectives of any particular strike are.
The segment also featured a video clip of what Molana-Allen claims is, “an 11-story apartment block leveled in less than a second. Dozens of homes and lives demolished.” But, though she does note that residents were warned to flee, she makes no effort to explain why the building was a target. In fact, the IDF press office has confirmed to CAMERA that the building was part of Hezbollah’s infrastructure.
The IDF has said for years that “Hezbollah militants and arms are systematically embedded in civilian areas and urban population centers.”
And on October 16, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller acknowledged, “We understand that Hezbollah does operate at times from underneath civilian homes, inside civilian homes. We’ve seen footage that has emerged over the course of the past two weeks of rockets and other military weapons held in civilian homes.”
Of course it is tragic when civilian homes or medical facilities are caught up in fighting, and even more so when civilians lose their lives, but Hezbollah, like Hamas, has embedded itself within the civilian population. Any blame for such death and destruction must be properly laid at the feet of those who store weapons in residences, and who forced the opening of this front in the war with 11 months of rocket attacks on northern Israel that displaced tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes, including the July 27 attack that killed 12 Israeli Druze teenagers.
Neither the slain Israeli children nor the many displaced Israeli civilians were mentioned in this report. At fault as well is UNIFIL, which failed in its mission to protect both Israeli and Lebanese civilians by restraining Hezbollah, yet which also isn’t even mentioned in Molana-Allen’s report.
Karen Bekker is the Assistant Director in the Media Response Team at CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis, where a version of this article first appeared.
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Israel for First Time Claims Responsibility for Killing of Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran
Iranians attend the funeral procession of assassinated Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran, Aug. 1, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Monday acknowledged for the first time that Israel killed Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.
“These days, when the Houthi terrorist organization is firing missiles at Israel, I want to convey a clear message to them at the beginning of my remarks: We have defeated Hamas, we have defeated Hezbollah, we have blinded Iran’s defense systems and damaged the production systems, we have toppled the Assad regime in Syria, we have dealt a severe blow to the axis of evil, and we will also deal a severe blow to the Houthi terrorist organization in Yemen, which remains the last to stand,” Katz said during an event honoring defense ministry personnel.
Israel will “damage their strategic infrastructure, and we will behead their leaders. Just as we did to Haniyeh, [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar, and [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah in Tehran, Gaza, and Lebanon [respectively] — we will do it in Hodeidah and Sana’a,” Katz continued. “Whoever raises a hand against Israel will have their hand cut off, and the long arm of the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] will strike them and settle the score.”
Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis are all internationally designated terrorist organizations backed by Iran. Katz’s comments came after the Houthi rebels in Yemen fired a ballistic missile at Tel Aviv over the weekend. The Houthis have also been attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea for more than a year, saying they are acting in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza and will prevent all ships from heading to Israeli ports.
Haniyeh, the exiled political chief of Hamas, was killed in an explosion in Iran’s capital city on July 31. Iran had accused Israel of carrying out the assassination and vowed revenge; however, for months the Israeli government had neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for Haniyeh’s death.
Haniyeh was based in Qatar and had been the face of Hamas’s during the Israel-Hamas war, which the Palestinian terroris group launched with its invasion of and massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.
Following Haniyeh’s death, Sinwar was named the terrorist group’s overall leader after being its top official in Gaza. Sinwar, who masterminded the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in October.
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‘Should Scare Every American’: Top Trump Adviser Mike Waltz Explains Dangers of Iran Getting Nuclear Weapons
US Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) speaks on Day 1 of the Republican National Convention (RNC) at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US, July 15, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mike Segar
US Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), who was recently tapped to serve as the White House national security adviser for the incoming Trump administration, outlined in a new interview why Iran’s nuclear program could pose a major threat to the United States and must be stopped.
During an interview with Daily Wire co-founder and conservative podcast host Ben Shapiro, Waltz said that his constituents often do not understand how Iran’s nuclear ambitions impact American interests. The lawmaker explained that Iran obtaining nuclear weapons could kick-start an arms race and geopolitical firestorm in the Middle East, potentially forcing the US to become more involved in the region militarily.
“No. 1, if Iran gets a nuke, the Saudis are going to want a nuke, the Turks are going to want a nuke, and the Middle East exploding, not literally but figuratively, in a nuclear arms race should scare every American,” Waltz said.
Though Waltz conceded that nuclear proliferation in the Middle East would not necessarily result in “World War III,” he asserted that it would be “catastrophic for the world.”
The lawmaker added that a nuclear-armed Iran would endanger Israel, which he described as America’s “critical ally, morally and historically and geopolitically,” and that the US should take threats by Iranian leadership to eliminate Israel seriously.
“We should believe [Iran’s so-called ‘supreme leader,’ Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] who intends to wipe Israel off the face of the earth if they have nukes,” Waltz said.
Waltz also praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “exposing Iran’s air defenses so that they literally are naked right now and on their back foot.” He appeared to be referring to Israel’s precision airstrikes on Iranian military and air defense sites in October which devastated the regime’s air-defense system and ballistic missile program. The strikes were in response to Iran’s ballistic missile barrage against Israel weeks earlier.
Waltz went on to say that the incoming Trump administration plans on “hitting” Iran’s finances throughout the Middle East and stopping the flow of money “out of Tehran into Beirut and into [Iran’s] proxies in Syria.”
Iran has supported several terrorist proxies throughout the Middle East, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon — both of which have been devastated by Israeli military operations in recent months. The Iranian regime also backed the recently ousted Assad regime in Syria, where Israel launched limited operations to ensure security at its northeastern amid uncertainty about Syria’s future.
“I hope that all of this has Hamas so isolated. They really thought the cavalry was coming from the north with Hezbollah. Now, that has been shown not to be true; Hamas has every exit blocked except one, and that is to release our hostages if you want to live,” Waltz said.
Harsh US sanctions levied on Iran under the Trump administration from 2017-2021 crippled the Iranian economy and led its foreign exchange reserves to plummet. US President-elect Donald Trump and his Republican supporters in the US Congress have criticized the Biden administration for renewing billions of dollars in US sanctions waivers, which had the effect of unlocking frozen funds and allowing the country to access previously inaccessible hard currency.
US intelligence agencies have for years labeled Iran as the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism, noting it devotes significant sums of money and weapons each year to supporting proxies across the Middle East such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
The post ‘Should Scare Every American’: Top Trump Adviser Mike Waltz Explains Dangers of Iran Getting Nuclear Weapons first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Far-Left Lawmakers Call for End of Probe Into Spain for Barring Ships Bringing Arms to Israel
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) addresses attendees as she takes part in a protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza outside the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, US, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
A cohort of American progressive lawmakers has called for the US Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) to drop its investigation into Spain for reportedly denying port entry to cargo vessels transporting US weapons to Israel.
Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib (MI), Cori Bush (MO) and Summer Lee (PA) on Friday sent a letter to the FMC, expressing “deep concern” over its recently announced investigation into Spain’s decision to “deny port entry to ships carrying weapons bound for the Israeli government.” The three congresswomen lauded Spain for enacting an arms embargo against Israel, citing what they called the “ongoing genocide” of Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel has been fighting Hamas since the terrorist group invaded the Jewish state on Oct. 7, 2023.
“This investigation is a reckless insult to our allies in Spain, which has only sought to enforce in good faith its sovereign national policies and uphold international law, including its treaty obligations to prevent genocide,” the congresswomen wrote.
The lawmakers then lambasted the US for “violating these same obligations and its own domestic laws” by continuing to support Israeli “human rights abuses, war crimes, and credible evidence of genocide. Tlaib, Bush, and Lee did not mention Israel’s efforts to avoid civilian casualties or Hamas’s strategy of using civilian sites for terrorist operations. However, they nonetheless argued that Washington should join Madrid in punishing Jerusalem for its military campaign in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
The FMC, an independent agency of the US government, said it opened its probe into Spain earlier this month after receiving information that the NATO ally had refused to allow at least three cargo vessels — two of which were US-flagged — into its ports.
“The commission is concerned that this apparent policy of denying entry to certain vessels will create conditions unfavorable to shipping in the foreign trade,” the FMC said in a notice published in the Federal Register, official journal of the US federal government, on Dec. 5.
Two of the three incidents noted by the commission involved vessels run by the Danish shipping giant Maersk in November. The other occurred in May, when Spanish officials said they refused permission for the Danish Marianne Danica ship because it was “carrying weapons to Israel” and added they will not allow ships carrying arms for Israel to stop at its ports moving forward.
“Reports that the Government of Spain has denied access to certain US-flagged vessels raise serious concerns. Section 19 of the Merchant Marine Act, 1920, 46 U.S.C. § 42101, authorizes the commission to identify and offset unfavorable shipping conditions in U.S. foreign trade that result from the laws or regulations of a foreign government,” FMC commissioner Louis Sola said in a statement last Thursday. “If confirmed, Spain’s actions could constitute a violation of the law, and could result in substantial offsetting fines on Spanish-flag vessels, limitations on cargo carried between Spain and the United States, and other remedial actions within the commission’s discretion.”
Spain could be fined up to $2.3 million per voyage if the country is found to have interfered with commerce in such a way.
“Disruptions to international trade systems not only threaten global shipping networks, but also compromise the consumer markets they support,” Sola added. “Spain’s uniliteral restrictions on US-flagged vessels could raise questions about the core principles of non-discriminatory practices.”
Spain has been one of Europe’s fiercest critics of Israel following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
In October, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez urged other members of the European Union to suspend the bloc’s free trade agreement with Israel over its military campaigns against Hamas in Gaza and the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Sanchez’s demand came three days after the Spanish premier urged other countries to stop supplying weapons to the Jewish state.
Spain stopped its own defense companies from shipping arms to Israel in October 2023.
In May, Spain officially recognized a Palestinian state, claiming the move was accelerated by the Israel-Hamas war and would help foster a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli officials described the decision as a “reward for terrorism.”
Spain, like many other countries around the world, experienced a surge in antisemitic incidents targeting the Jewish community following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre.
Meanwhile, US lawmakers Tlaib, Bush, and Lee have been among the most outspoken opponents of Israel in the US Congress, falsely accusing the Jewish state of “genocide” and pushing Jerusalem to accept a ceasefire just weeks after the Hamas atrocities of last Oct. 7.
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