Ryan Grim@ryangrim
🚨.
@DropSiteNews
was leaked a UN assessment showing that Israel's attack on Gaza has killed
UN staff and their family from:
-UNICEF
-The UN Development Program
-UNRWA
-World Food Program
-World Health Organization
366 total killed
linked:
RYAN GRIM
Leaked UN report: Israeli war has killed 366 UN staff and family members as
Netanyahu prepares to address Congress
The confidential report is the first to detail the toll faced by the families of UN
workers in Gaza
RYAN GRIM
JUL 24, 2024
Israel’s assault on Gaza had killed at least 172 dependents of United Nations
staff by the end of June, according to a confidential UN report obtained by
Drop Site, in addition to 195 staff members.
The previously unreported data reflects the extraordinary toll not just for
employees of the United Nations but for their families, and emerges as Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to address a joint session of
Congress Wednesday.
Netanyahu, the subject of a potential arrest warrant from the U.N.’s
International Criminal Court, will meet while in the United States with
outgoing President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump, and
presidential hopeful/Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris, while meeting with
Netanyahu privately, has declined to appear behind him during his address.
At least 21 lawmakers, including some establishment figures such as Sen.
Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., will be boycotting
Netanyahu’s address.
The data put together by the U.N.’s Crisis Coordination Centre also includes a
breakdown by agency, finding five U.N. Development Program dependents,
four UNICEF dependents, three World Food Program family members, and
two World Health Organization dependents have been killed. 158
dependents of staff for UNRWA, or the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for
Palestine Refugees, have been killed.
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In May, the U.N. reported that 188 staff members of UNRWA had been killed
by then, but has not previously disclosed the extent of the familial casualties.
Among staff, the killings are similarly concentrated among UNRWA
employees. The report was circulated internally July 1, before the U.N.’s
International Court of Justice announced its landmark finding that Israel’s
occupation of Gaza and the West Bank is illegal and must be ended. The UN
did not respond to a request for comment.
Israeli attacks on U.N. staff have continued since. This weekend, a U.N.
spokesperson said that a U.N. convoy was fired on by Israeli forces despite
tight coordination ahead of time. State Department spokesperson Matt Miller
said Monday the U.S. had requested information from Israel about its latest
strike on the convoy, adding that he appreciated the “enormous sacrifice and
enormous risk humanitarian workers put themselves under.” Miller said that
Secretary of State Antony Blinken had met Monday with a top U.N. official
and discussed the issue. Asked if the U.S. was prepared to dole out
consequences if Israel continued killing aid workers, he said, “I don’t have
anything to read out on that at this time.”
The UN report is the latest in a series of alarming findings regarding Israel’s
actions in Gaza. Most recently, the UN Special Rapporteur reported
"reasonable grounds to believe" that Israel’s actions in Gaza may constitute
genocide, a finding echoing International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ruled
in January that “the Court considers that the plausible rights in question in
these proceedings, namely the right of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to be
protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts identified in
Article III of the Genocide Convention and the right of South Africa to seek
Israel’s compliance with the latter’s obligations under the Convention, are of
such a nature that prejudice to them is capable of causing irreparable harm.”
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However, Israel’s massacre in Gaza continues unabated. On July 22, Israel
killed 89 people and injured at least 250 in a new assault on Khan Younis
after ordering 400,000 people to leave their homes and refugee camps in the
rapidly shrinking “safe zones” of Gaza, 83 percent of which is now a “no-go
zone.” Bombings in the no-go zone have also not stopped; in the past 12
hours, dozens have been killed in Al Sabra, Jabalia, and Gaza City
neighborhoods.
On Tuesday, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said in an interview with
Breaking Points that Michigan voters supportive of Palestinian rights, Muslim
and non-Muslim alike, were holding out hope that a Harris administration
would be less ideologically rigid in its support for Israel’s war. “The door is
open,” he said, adding that representatives of the Harris team had already
begun reaching out to local Muslim leaders to set up meetings.
Republican candidate Trump, meanwhile, has left little hope there would be a
significant departure from Biden’s policy were he to be elected. Basem Naim,
a member of the political bureau of Hamas in Gaza, told Drop Site’s Jeremy
Scahill that Trump’s recent belligerence was a reminder that there is little
difference between the two parties on the question of Israel and Palestine.
“Sad to hear such statements, because it reflects that the complicit
American policies towards the conflict here is a non-partisan issue and
regardless who will win the election the blind and disgraceful support of USA
to Israel will continue,” Naim said in a comment issued following Trump’s
speech at the Republican National Convention, before Biden dropped out.
“But we can very confident[ly] reassure Mr. Trump, that the Democrats have
already done the maximum to help their puppet in the region and they both
have failed to achieve any of their goals, therefore use your time to put a new
strategy to rescue your puppet from its ominous demise, a new strategy
based on justice and genuine rights of all people to freedom, dignity, and self
determination.”
Robust protests inside the Cannon House Office Building were held on
Tuesday by Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, with more planned for
Wednesday to coincide with Netanyahu’s speech.
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