The War Crimes of Israel: acting like a terrorist state would

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“I’ve been asked, more than once, why I don’t speak up about what’s going on in Palestine. Well, here’s my position. Too many innocents have been killed there. 20,000, versus 1,600 in Israel. Israel needs to take another course of action. Genocide is NEVER the answer. NEVER.” – Michelle @Michell33650674

Human rights are not gifts of governments, rather they are due to all equally, as all are born free in rights and dignity.

“This is over the top. It is repugnantly antisemitic by misusing a serious religious concept and terminology to slander Jewish people. (Jewish Attitudes Toward Non-Jews) “Goyim” = “nations” – John Hoopes @KUHoopes

My response, I appreciate your help as always, John. I posted it trying to help my fellow far-leftists to stop being racist. I have seen a few posts of Jewish hate cartoons, known as “The Happy Merchant or Jew Face,” which is a Hate Symbol. And was trying to inspire them to stop doing it.

A few people have posted the racist Jewish cartoon “Jew Face”

Stop posting antisemitism caricatures of Jewish people when the enemy is the state of Israel. We can be against the government of Israel and not be antisemitic. Jews are people, and Israel is a state. Hating people is wrong, Hating a state is justified. Posting racism and thinking you are pro-Palestinian is not helping justice by engaging in injustice; it is just promoting racism. I Edited the meme so it is not racist.

I think Israel is a war-criminal terrorist state engaging in ethnic cleansing and genocide. I also see Hamas as a terrorist group that has also committed war crimes. I care for the people, not terrorist states or terrorist groups.

“I support the Jewish and Palestinian people. The government of Israel and Hamas are guilty of crimes against humanity. Innocent people should not suffer for their crimes.” – Myspoon1984 @Myspoon1984

The idea of being anti-Israel and not anti-Jewish is common, especially since many Jews themselves oppose Israel.

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The War Crimes of Israel: acting like a terrorist state would

Israeli war crimes

“Israeli war crimes are the violations of international criminal law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, which the Israel Defense Forces, the military branch of the state of Israel, has been accused of committing since the founding of Israel in 1948. These have included murder, intentional targeting of civilians, killing prisoners of war and surrendered combatants, indiscriminate attacks, collective punishment, starvation of civilians, the use of human shields, torture, pillage, forced transfer, breach of medical neutrality, targeting journalists, attacks against civilian and protected objects, wanton destruction, and incitement to genocide. “Israel ratified the Geneva Conventions on July 6, 1951, and on January 2, 2015, the State of Palestine acceded to the Rome Statute, granting the International Criminal Court (ICC) jurisdiction over war crimes committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).” ref

“Human rights experts argue that actions taken by the IDF during armed conflicts in the OPT fall under the rubric of war crimes. Special rapporteurs from the United Nations, organizations including Human Rights Watch, Médecins Sans Frontières, Amnesty International, and human rights experts have accused Israel of war crimes. Since 2006, the Human Rights Council has mandated several fact finding missions into violations of international law, including war crimes, in the OPT, and in May of 2021 established a permanent, ongoing inquiry. Since 2021, the ICC has had an active investigation into Israeli war crimes committed in the OPT. Israel has refused to cooperate with the investigations.” ref

1948 Arab–Israeli War

“Between 10 and 70 massacres occurred during the 1948 war. According to Benny Morris the Yishuv (or later Israeli) soldiers killed roughly 800 Arab civilians and prisoners of war in 24 massacres. Aryeh Yizthaki lists 10 major massacres with more than 50 victims each. Palestinian researcher Salman Abu-Sitta lists 33 massacres, half of them occurring during the civil war period. Saleh Abdel Jawad lists 68 villages in which the indiscriminate killing of prisoners and civilians took place while no threat was posed to Yishuv or Israeli soldiers.” According to Rosemarie Esber, both Israeli archives and Palestinian testimonies confirm killings occurred in numerous Arab villages.” ref

“Most of these killings occurred as villages were overrun and captured during the Second phase of the Civil War, Operation Dani, Operation Hiram and Operation Yoav. Morris said that the “worst cases” were the Saliha massacre with 60 to 70 killed, the Deir Yassin massacre with around 112, the Lydda massacre with around 250, and the Abu Shusha massacre with 60–70. In Al-Dawayima, accounts of the death toll vary. Saleh Abd al-Jawad reports 100–200 casualties, Morris has estimated “hundreds” and also reports the IDF investigation which concluded 100 villagers had been killed. David Ben-Gurion gave the figure of 70–80. Saleh Abd al-Jawad reports on the village’s mukhtar account that 455 people were missing following the al-Dawayima massacre, including 170 women and children.” ref

Suez Crisis

“During the Suez Crisis in 1956, the IDF carried out massacres and summary executions at Khan Yunis and Rafah, and the Israeli Border Police carried out a massacre at Kafr Qasim.” ref

Six-Day War

“During the Six Day War in 1967, the IDF was accused of killing captured Egyptian soldiers, fleeing soldiers, and civilians. Gabby Bron, a journalist for Yedioth Ahronoth, said he witnessed ten executions of Egyptian prisoners that were first forced to dig their own graves. Michael Bar-Zohar said that he had witnessed the murder of three Egyptian POWs by a cook, and Meir Pa’il said that he knew of many instances in which soldiers had killed POWs or Arab civilians. Israeli historian Uri Milstein stated here were many incidents in the 1967 war in which Egyptian soldiers were killed by Israeli troops after they had raised their hands in surrender. “It was not an official policy, but there was an atmosphere that it was okay to do it,” Milstein said. “Some commanders decided to do it; others refused.” ref

“But everyone knew about it.” Allegations that Egyptian soldiers fleeing into the desert were shot were confirmed in reports written after the war. Israeli historian and journalist Tom Segev, in his book “1967”, quotes one soldier who wrote, “our soldiers were sent to scout out groups of men fleeing and shoot them. That was the order, and it was done while they were really trying to escape”. “In September 1995, The New York Times reported that the Egyptian government had discovered two shallow mass graves in the Sinai at El Arish containing the remains of 30 to 60 Egyptian civilian and military prisoners allegedly shot by Israeli soldiers during the 1967 war. Israel declined to pursue charges, owing to its 20-year statute of limitations.” ref

“The Israeli Ambassador to Cairo, David Sultan, asked to be relieved of his post after the Egyptian daily Al Shaab said he was personally responsible for the killing of 100 Egyptian prisoners, although both the Israeli Embassy and Foreign Ministry denied the charge. After his retirement, Brigadier-General in reserve, Arieh Biroh admitted in interviews to killing 49 Egyptian prisoners of war in the Sinai. In June 2000, Egypt’s Al-Wafd newspaper reported that a mass grave was discovered in Ras Sedr, containing remains of 52 prisoners killed by Israeli paratroopers during the war, who had killed the surrendered unit. The report said that some skulls had bullet holes in them, indicating execution. Initial reports in Israeli newspaper Haaretz were censored.” ref 

“The New York Times reported that as many as 300 unarmed Egyptians were killed in the 1967 and 1956 wars. Israeli military historian Aryeh Yitzhaki estimated from army documents that, in the 1967 war, Israeli soldiers killed about 1,000 Egyptians after they surrendered. James Bamford, an author that has extensively chronicled the history and operations of the National Security Agency, posits that massacres of civilians and bound prisoners may have served as a casus belli for the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty. Bamford theorizes that the Israeli Defense Forces were concerned that the USS Liberty, a signals intelligence collection ship, may have collected evidence of the massacre and was thus attacked in an effort to suppress the evidence.” ref

1982 Lebanon War

“In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon to drive out the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and the IDF occupied southern Lebanon. Following the siege of Beirut, the PLO forces and their allies negotiated passage from Lebanon with the aid of United States Special Envoy Philip Habib and the protection of international peacekeepers. By expelling the PLO, removing Syrian influence over Lebanon, and installing a pro-Israeli Christian government led by President Bachir Gemayel, Israel sought to sign a treaty which Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin promised would give Israel “forty years of peace”. However, after the assassination of Gemayel in September, Israel’s position in Beirut became untenable and the signing of a peace treaty became increasingly unlikely. Outraged by the assassination, Phalangists called for a revenge attack.” ref

“On September 16, the IDF allowed Lebanese militias to enter Beirut’s Sabra neighbourhood and the adjacent Shatila refugee camp. From approximately 18:00 on 16 September to 08:00 on 18 September, the militias carried out a massacre while the IDF had the Palestinian camp surrounded. The IDF had ordered the militias to clear out the fighters of the PLO from Sabra and Shatila as part of a larger Israeli maneuver into western Beirut. As the massacre unfolded, the IDF received reports of atrocities being committed, but did not take any action to stop it. Israeli troops were stationed at the exits of the area to prevent the camp’s residents from leaving and, at the request of the militias, fired flares to illuminate Sabra and Shatila through the night. Between 460 and 3,500 civilians—mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shias—were killed in the massacre. Many of the victims were tortured before they were killed. Women were raped and some victims were skinned alive. Others had limbs chopped off with axes.” ref

“On 16 December 1982, the United Nations General Assembly condemned the massacre and declared it to be an act of genocide. In February 1983, an independent commission chaired by Irish diplomat Seán MacBride (the then-assistant to the Secretary-General of the United Nations) launched an inquiry into the violence and concluded that the IDF, as the erstwhile occupying power over Sabra and Shatila, bore responsibility for the militia’s massacre. The commission also stated that the massacre was a form of genocide. That same month, the Israeli government launched the Kahan Commission to investigate the cause and circumstances of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, and found that Israeli military personnel had failed to take serious steps to stop the killings despite being aware of the militia’s actions. The Israeli commission deemed that the IDF was indirectly responsible for the events, and forced erstwhile Israeli defense minister Ariel Sharon to resign from his position “for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge” during the massacre.” ref

First Intifada

“On October 10, 1990, amid elevated tensions over the Sukkot march, a crowd of Palestinians began throwing rocks at Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. In response, 40 Israeli Border Police opened fire with automatic weapons on the Palestinian crowd, killing at least 21 and injuring at least 150. There were no Israeli deaths. In a resolution on October 12, the UN condemned the violence committed by the Israeli forces, and proposed an investigation. Israel rejected the resolution and refused to cooperate with an investigation. Failing to get agreement from Israel, the Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar on October 31 published his report.” ref 

“In the report, he stated:

The Secretary-General has thus been unable to secure independent information on the spot, about the circumstances surrounding the recent events in Jerusalem and similar developments in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Widespread coverage has, however, been given by the international press to the clashes that occurred at Al-Haram Al-Shareef and other Holy Places of Jerusalem on 8 October 1990. According to reports, which vary, some 17 to 21 Palestinians were killed and more than 150 wounded by Israeli security forces, and more than 20 Israeli civilians and police were wounded by Palestinians. While there are conflicting opinions as to what provoked the clashes, observers on the spot, including personnel of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), stated that live ammunition was used against Palestinian civilians. Attention is drawn, in this connection, to the fact that a number of inquiries have been conducted. Apart from the [Israeli] Commission of Investigation referred to in paragraphs 3, 4 and 7 above, several Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations have conducted inquiries of their own. The findings of two of them, B’Tselem and Al-Haq, were communicated to the Secretary-General, on 14 October and 28 October 1990, respectively, and are being issued separately as addenda to the present report.” ref

“Following the report, United Nations Security Council Resolution 681 on December 20, 1990, referring to Resolutions 672 and 673, called on Israel to apply the Fourth Geneva Convention to Palestinians in the occupied territories. In their Annual 1990 World Report Human Rights Watch condemned the Israeli report on the incident as “only mentioning in passing the ‘uncontrolled use of live ammunition’ by police, giving scant attention to what should have been a central issue: the use of excessive force, including shooting into a crowd with bursts of automatic-weapon fire.” Palestinians stated they only threw rocks after being attacked with tear gas and live weapons, in an effort to defend themselves and stop the soldiers.” ref

Second Intifada

“Between 2 and 11 April 2002, a siege and fierce fighting took place in the Palestinian refugee camp of the city of Jenin. The camp was targeted during Operation Defensive Shield after Israel determined that it had “served as a launch site for numerous terrorist attacks against both Israeli civilians and Israeli towns and villages in the area.” The Jenin battle became a flashpoint for both sides, and saw fierce urban combat as Israeli infantry supported by armor and attack helicopters fought to clear the camp of Palestinian militants. The battle was eventually won by the IDF, after it employed a dozen Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozers to clear Palestinian booby traps, detonate explosive charges, and raze buildings and gun-posts; the bulldozers proved impervious to attacks by Palestinian militants.” ref

“During Israeli military operations in the camp, Palestinian sources alleged that a massacre of hundreds of people had taken place. A senior Palestinian Authority official alleged in mid-April that some 500 had been killed. During the fighting in Jenin, Israeli officials had also initially estimated hundreds of Palestinian deaths, but later said they expected the Palestinian toll to reach “45 to 55.” In the ensuing controversy, Israel blocked the United Nations from conducting the first-hand inquiry unanimously sought by the Security Council, but the UN nonetheless felt able to dismiss claims of a massacre in its report, which said there had been approximately 52 deaths, criticising both sides for placing Palestinian civilians at risk.” ref

“At the same time, human rights organizations charged Israel with war crimes and crimes against humanity. In November, Amnesty International reported that there was “clear evidence” that the IDF committed war crimes against Palestinian civilians in Jenin and Nablus. The report accused Israel of blocking medical care, using people as human shields, shooting and killing unarmed civilians, including one in custody, bulldozing houses with residents inside, in one case knowingly crushing a severely disabled man to death, in another case killing eight members of a family, the reckless killing of civilians with explosives charges on doors, mass arbitrary detentions and beatings of prisoners, which resulted in one death, and preventing ambulances and aid organizations from reaching the areas of combat even after the fighting had reportedly stopped. Amnesty criticized the UN report, noting that its officials did not actually visit Jenin.” ref

^“The Observer reporter, Peter Beaumont, wrote that what happened in Jenin was not a massacre, but that the mass destruction of houses was a war crime, covered by Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention in its prohibition on “the extensive destruction or unlawful appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity committed either unlawfully or wantonly.” Some reports noted that Israel’s restriction of access to Jenin and refusal to allow the UN investigation access to the area were evidence of a coverup, a charge echoed by Mouin Rabbani, Director of the Palestinian American Research Center in Ramallah.” ref

2006 Lebanon War

“In a 249-page report regarding the 2006 Lebanon War, the Human Rights Watch asked the secretary-general of the United Nations to establish an international commission of inquiry to investigate reports of violations of the laws of war by Israel, including possible war crimes. In a report, Amnesty International also said that during the month-long conflict in Lebanon, Israel deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure and committed war crimes.” ref

2008–2009 Gaza War

Collective punishment

“The United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict found that Israel, at least in part, targeted the people of Gaza as a whole. The Mission gave its opinion that ″the operations were in furtherance of an overall policy aimed at punishing the Gaza population for its resilience and for its apparent support for Hamas, and possibly with the intent of forcing a change in such support.″ ref

Disproportionate force

“Israel was widely criticized by human rights groups for using heavy firepower and causing hundreds of civilian casualties. A group of soldiers who took part in the conflict echoed the criticism through both the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence and a special report by Israeli filmmaker Nurit Kedar that was shown on Britain’s Channel 4 in January 2011. Israel was accused of having a deliberate policy of disproportionate force aimed at the civilian population. Israel has said that operational orders emphasized proportionality and humanity while the importance of minimising harm to civilians was made clear to soldiers. Some IDF soldiers, however, reported that they had been encouraged to shoot indiscriminately and disproportionately, and were ordered to “cleanse the neighbourhoods, the buildings, the area.″ ref

IDF use of human shields

“On 24 March 2009, a report from the UN team responsible for the protection of children in war zones was released: it found “hundreds” of violations of the rights of children and accused Israeli soldiers of using children as human shields, bulldozing a home with a woman and child still inside, and shelling a building they had ordered civilians into a day earlier. One case involved using an 11-year-old boy as a human shield, by forcing him to enter suspected buildings first and also inspect bags. The report also mentioned the boy was used as a shield when Israeli soldiers came under fire. The Guardian has also received testimony from three Palestinian brothers aged 14, 15, and 16, who all claimed to have been used as human shields.″ ref

“The UK newspaper The Guardian conducted an investigation of its own, which, according to the paper, uncovered evidence of war crimes including the use of Palestinian children as human shields. An Israeli military court later convicted two Israeli soldiers of using human shields, which was outlawed by the Israeli Supreme court in 2005. The UN fact-finding mission investigated four incidents in which Palestinian civilians were coerced, blindfolded, handcuffed and at gunpoint to enter houses ahead of Israeli soldiers during military operations. The mission confirmed the continued use of this practice with published testimonies of Israeli soldiers who had taken part in the military operations. The mission concluded that these practices amounted to using civilians as human shields in breach of international law. Some civilians were also questioned under threat of death or injury to extract information about Palestinian combatants and tunnels, constituting a further violation of international humanitarian law.″ ref

White phosphorus

“From 5 January, reports emerged of use by Israel of white phosphorus during the offensive, which was initially denied by Israel. There were numerous reports of its use by the IDF during the conflict. On 12 January, it was reported that more than 50 phosphorus burns victims were in Nasser Hospital. On 16 January the UNRWA headquarters was hit with phosphorus munitions. As a result of the hit, the compound was set ablaze. On completion of the three-day Israeli withdrawal (21 January) an Israeli military spokeswoman said that shells containing phosphorus had been used in Gaza but said that they were used legally as a method to provide a smokescreen. The IDF reiterated their position on 13 January saying that it used weapons “in compliance with international law, while strictly observing that they be used according to the type of combat and its characteristics”.″ ref 

“On 25 March 2009, the United States-based human rights organization Human Rights Watch published a 71-page report titled “Rain of Fire, Israel’s Unlawful Use of White Phosphorus in Gaza” and said that Israel’s usage of the weapon was illegal. Donatella Rovera, Amnesty’s researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories said that such extensive use of this weapon in Gaza’s densely populated residential neighbourhoods is inherently indiscriminate. “Its repeated use in this manner, despite evidence of its indiscriminate effects and its toll on civilians, is a war crime,” she said. The Goldstone report accepted that white phosphorus is not illegal under international law but did find that the Israelis were “systematically reckless in determining its use in built-up areas”. It also called for serious consideration to be given to the banning of its use as an obscurant.″ ref

“Colonel Lane, a military expert testifying in front of the fact-finding mission in July 2009, said that white phosphorus is used for smoke generation to hide from the enemy. He stated, “The quality of smoke produced by white phosphorus is superb; if you want real smoke for real coverage, white phosphorus will give it to you.” Professor Newton, expert in laws of armed conflict testifying in front of the committee, said that in an urban area, where potential perils are snipers, explosive devices and trip wires, one effective way to mask forces’ movement is by white phosphorus. In certain cases, he added, such choice of means would be less harmful for civilian population than other munitions, provided that the use of white phosphorus withstands the proportionality test.″ ref

“In discussing the principle of proportionality he said that the legality of using white phosphorus in an urban setting could only be decided on a case-by-case basis taking into account “the precise circumstances of its use, not in general, generically, but based on that target, at that time”. He stressed that the humanitarian implications were vital in this assessment giving the example that using white phosphorus on a school yard would have different implications to its use on another area. He also said that in his view white phosphorus munition is neither chemical nor incendiary weapon and is not intended to cause damage.″ ref

“He said its use was not prohibited by the Chemical Weapons Convention. An article by Mark Cantora examining the legal implications of the use of white phosphorus munitions by the IDF, published in 2010 in the Gonzaga Journal of International Law, argues that Israel’s use of white phosphorus in Gaza was technically legal under existing international humanitarian laws and “Therefore, it is imperative for the international community to convene a White Phosphorus Convention Conference in order to address these issues and fill this substantial gap in international humanitarian law.″ ref

Dense inert metal explosives (DIME)

“Dense inert metal explosive (DIME) is a type of bomb developed to minimize collateral damage. Casualties show unusual injuries. A military expert working for Human Rights Watch said judging by the nature of the wounds and descriptions given by Gazans made it seem likely that Israel used DIME weapons. A Norwegian doctor who worked at Gaza’s Shifa Hospital said that pressure waves generated by missile hits are likely the cause and produced by DIME weapons. Another Norwegian doctor said they had ″clear evidence that the Israelis are using a new type of very high explosive weapons which are called Dense Inert Metal Explosive″.″ ref

“Colonel Lane, military expert testifying in front of the fact-finding mission in July 2009, told the committee that through his studies, no actual proof was found that DIME rounds were used, but tungsten, iron, and sulfur were found in samples analyzed in a forensic lab. He is of the view that some weapons systems used in the conflict had some sort of DIME component to reduce the effect on the ground. Colonel Lane explained that the idea behind a Focused Lethality Munition (FLM), which is an example of a DIME munition, is that the fragments produced stay within a safety radius of about 6 meters, so anybody outside that radius is safe, while those within the area of dispersal will be affected severely. He commented on the documentations where medics described unusual amputations saying that he was no medical expert, but the use of a metal like tungsten and cobalt at short distances would likely have that effect.″ ref

“The Goldstone Report wrote that the Mission found that the allegations that DIME weapons were used by Israeli armed forces required further clarification and they were unable to ascertain their usage, though it received reports from Palestinian and foreign doctors who had operated in Gaza during the military operations of a high percentage of patients with injuries compatible with their impact. It stated that the “focused lethality” reportedly pursued in DIME weapons could be seen as enhancing compliance with the principle of distinction between civilian and military objects. The report added that as it currently stands, DIME weapons and weapons armed with heavy metal are not prohibited under international law, but do raise specific health concerns.″ ref

“An Amnesty International report called on Israel to confirm or deny its use of DIME to facilitate the treatment of those injured in the conflict. After reports of similar cases in 2006, the IDF had denied the use of DIME weapons. After Israeli forces fired shells near a UN school in Gaza killing around 30 people, Israel’s military said the shelling was in response to mortar fire from within the school and asserted that Hamas were using civilians as cover. They stated that the dead near the school included Hamas members of a rocket launching cell. Two residents of the area confirmed that a group of militants were firing mortar shells from near the school and identified two of the victims as Hamas militants.″ ref

Accusations of misconduct by IDF soldiers

“Testimonies from Israeli soldiers allegedly admitting indiscriminate killings of civilians, as well as vandalizing homes, were reported in March 2009. Soon after the publication of the testimonies, reports implying that the testimonies were based on hearsay and not on the firsthand experience started to circulate. At the same time, another kind of evidence was collected from several soldiers who took part in the fighting, that rebutted claims of immoral conduct on the military’s part during Gaza War. Following investigations, the IDF issued an official report, concluding that alleged cases of deliberate shooting at civilians did not take place. Nine Israeli rights groups reacting to the closure of the investigation issued a joint statement calling for an “independent nonpartisan investigative body to be established to look into all Israeli army activity” in Gaza.″ ref

“In July 2009, the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence published testimony from 26 soldiers (two junior officers and the rest enlisted personnel) who took part in the Gaza assault, claiming that the IDF used Gazans as human shields, improperly fired incendiary white phosphorus shells over civilian areas and used overwhelming firepower that caused needless deaths and destruction. The report did not represent a cross-section of the army, but rather they were troops who had approached the group or were reached through acquaintances of NGO members. The accusations were made by anonymous people who claimed that they were reserves soldiers and whose faces had been blurred in the filmed talks. An Israeli military spokesperson dismissed the testimonies as anonymous hearsay and questioned why Breaking the Silence had not handed over its findings before the media had been informed.″ ref

“The Israeli military stated that some allegations of misconduct had turned out to be second or third-hand accounts and the result of recycled rumours. Breaking the Silence state that their methodology includes the verification of all information by cross-referencing the testimonies it collects and that published material has been confirmed by a number of testimonies, from several different points of view. A representative stated “the personal details of the soldiers quoted in the collection, and the exact location of the incidents described in the testimonies, would readily be made available to any official and independent investigation of the events, as long as the identity of the testifiers did not become public.” A soldier who described using Gazans as human shields told in an interview to Haaretz that he had not seen Palestinians being used as human shields but had been told by his commanders that this occurred.″ ref

“In response to the report, a dozen English-speaking reservists who served in Gaza delivered signed, on-camera counter-testimonies via the SoldiersSpeakOut group, about Hamas’ “use of Gazans as human shields and the measures the IDF took to protect Arab civilians”. The special report by Israeli filmmaker Nurit Kedar shown on Channel 4 detailed similar allegations by former IDF soldiers that included vandalism and misconduct by Israeli troops.″ ref

“Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, in his address to the UNHRC asserted that during the conflict, the Israel Defense Forces “did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare” and that Palestinian civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas’ way of fighting, which involved using human shields as a matter of policy, and deliberate attempts to sacrifice their own civilians. He added that Israel took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas and aborted potentially effective missions to prevent civilian casualties.″ ref

Prosecutions

“The first Israeli soldier to be prosecuted for actions committed during the war was a Givati Brigade soldier who stole a Visa credit card from a Palestinian home and used it to withdraw NIS 1,600 ($405). He was arrested and tried before the Southern Command Military Court on charges of looting, credit card fraud, and indecent conduct. He was found guilty and sentenced to seven and a half months in military prison. In a report submitted to the UN in January 2010, the IDF stated that two senior officers were disciplined for authorizing an artillery attack in violation of rules against their near populated areas. Several artillery shells hit the UNRWA compound in Tel al-Hawa.″ ref 

“During the attack on 15 January 2009, the compound was set ablaze by white phosphorus shells. The officers involved were identified as Gaza Division Commander Brigadier-General Eyal Eisenberg and Givati Brigade Commander Colonel Ilan Malka. An IDF internal investigation concluded that the firing of the shells violated the IDF orders limiting the use of artillery fire near populated areas and endangered human life. IDF sources added later that the shells had been fired to create cover to assist in the extrication of IDF troops, some of whom were wounded, from an area where Hamas held a superior position. An Israeli Government spokesman stated that in this particular case they had found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing and so had not referred the case to criminal investigation.″ ref

“In October 2010, Colonel Ilan Malka was interrogated by Israeli military police over the Zeitoun killings, and a criminal investigation was opened. Malka was suspected of authorizing an airstrike on a building that left numerous members of the Samouni family dead. His promotion to the rank of Brigadier-General was suspended due to the investigation. Malka told investigatiors that he was unaware of the presence of civilians. He was eventually reprimanded over the incident, but it was decided not to indict him. No other charges were brought over this incident. The IDF denied that they were targeting civilians and The New York Times reported that Hamas members had launched rockets at Israel about a mile away from the residents, an area “known to have many supporters of Hamas”. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights called the result “disgraceful” and Btselem stated the need for an external investigator to look into IDF actions during Cast Lead.″ ref

“In June 2010, Chief Advocate General Avichai Mandelblit summoned a recently discharged Givati Brigade sniper for a special hearing. The soldier was suspected of opening fire on Palestinian civilians when a group of 30 Palestinians that included women and children waving a white flag, approached an IDF position. The incident, which occurred on 4 January 2009, resulted in the death of a non-combatant. Mandelblit decided to indict the soldier on a charge of manslaughter, despite contradictory testimony and the fact that IDF investigators could not confirm that the soldier was responsible for the death. In July 2010, the officer who authorized the airstrike on the Ibrahim al-Maqadna Mosque was subjected to disciplinary action, as shrapnel caused “unintentional injuries” to civilians inside. The IDF said that the officer “failed to exercise appropriate judgement”, and that he would not be allowed to serve in similar positions of command in the future. Another Israeli officer was also reprimanded for allowing a Palestinian man to enter a building to persuade Hamas militants sheltering inside to leave.″ ref

“In November 2010, two Givati Brigade Staff Sergeants were convicted by the Southern Command Military Court of using a Palestinian boy as a human shield. The soldiers had been accused of forcing nine-year-old Majed R. at gunpoint to open bags suspected of containing bombs in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood. Both soldiers were demoted one rank and given three-month suspended sentences. According to the U.S. State Department‘s 2010 Human Rights Report, the Military Advocate General investigated over 150 wartime incidents, including those mentioned in the Goldstone Report. As of July, the Military Advocate General launched 47 criminal investigations into the conduct of IDF personnel, and completed a significant number of those.″ ref

“On 1 April 2011, Judge Richard Goldstone, the lead author of the UN report on the conflict, published a piece in The Washington Post titled ‘Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and war crimes’. Goldstone noted that the subsequent investigations conducted by Israel “indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy” while “the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying.” He further expressed regret “that our fact-finding mission did not have such evidence explaining the circumstances in which we said civilians in Gaza were targeted, because it probably would have influenced our findings about intentionality and war crimes.″ ref 

“The other principal authors of the UN report, Hina Jilani, Christine Chinkin and Desmond Travers, have rejected Goldstone’s reassessment arguing that there is “no justification for any demand or expectation for reconsideration of the report as nothing of substance has appeared that would in any way change the context, findings or conclusions of that report with respect to any of the parties to the Gaza conflict”. Robert Fisk reported that Goldstone had been pressured by Israel and members of his family to recant his original report, was harassed by the Jewish community of South Africa, and “was in a state of great personal distress.″ ref

2014 Gaza War

“Israel received some 500 complaints concerning 360 alleged violations. 80 were closed without criminal charges, 6 cases were opened on incidents allegedly involving criminal conduct, and in one case regarding 3 IDF soldiers in the aftermath of the Battle of Shuja’iyya, a charge of looting was laid. Most cases were closed for what the military magistrates considered to be lack of evidence to sustain a charge of misconduct. No mention was made of incidents during the “Black Friday” events at Rafah.″ ref

“According to Assaf Sharon of Tel Aviv University, the IDF was pressured by politicians to unleash unnecessary violence whose basic purpose was ‘to satisfy a need for vengeance,’ which the politicians themselves tried to whip up in Israel’s population. Asa Kasher wrote that the IDF was pulled into fighting “that is both strategically and morally asymmetric” and that like any other army it made mistakes, but the charges it faces are “grossly unfair”. The Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence, reporting on its analysis of 111 testimonies concerning the war by some 70 IDF soldiers and officers, cited one veteran’s remark that “Anyone found in an IDF area, which the IDF had occupied, was not a civilian,” to argue that this was the basic rule of engagement.″ ref

“Soldiers were briefed to regard everything inside the Strip as a threat. The report cites several examples of civilians, including women, being shot dead and defined as “terrorists” in later reports. Since leaflets were dropped telling civilians to leave areas to be bombed, soldiers could assume any movement in a bombed area entitled them to shoot. In one case that came under investigation, Lt Col Neria Yeshurun ordered a Palestinian medical centre to be shelled to avenge the killing of one of his officers by a sniper.″ ref

Civilian deaths

“Many of those killed were civilians, prompting concern from many humanitarian organisations. An investigation by Human Rights Watch concluded that Israel had probably committed war crimes on three specific incidents involving strikes on UNWRA schools. Amnesty International stated that: “Israeli forces have carried out attacks that have killed hundreds of civilians, including through the use of precision weaponry such as drone-fired missiles, and attacks using munitions such as artillery, which cannot be precisely targeted, on very densely populated residential areas, such as Shuja’iyya. They have also directly attacked civilian objects.” B’tselem has compiled an infogram listing families killed at home in 72 incidents of bombing or shelling, comprising 547 people killed, of whom 125 were women under 60, 250 were minors, and 29 were over 60. On 24 August, Palestinian health officials said that 89 families had been killed.″ ref

“Nine people were killed while watching the World Cup in a café, and 8 members of a family died that Israel has said were inadvertently killed. A Golani soldier interviewed about his operations inside Gaza said they often could not distinguish between civilians and Hamas fighters because some Hamas operatives dressed in plainclothes and the night vision goggles made everything look green. An IDF spokesperson said that Hamas “deploys in residential areas, creating rocket launch sites, command and control centers, and other positions deep in the heart of urban areas. By doing so, Hamas chooses the battleground where the IDF is forced to operate.″ ref 

“The highest-ranking U.S. military officer, Army General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that “Israel went to extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties”. Later in his speech he said, “the Pentagon three months ago sent a ‘lessons-learned team’ of senior officers and non-commissioned officers to work with the IDF to see what could be learned from the Gaza operation, to include the measures they took to prevent civilian casualties and what they did with tunneling.” Col. Richard Kemp told The Observer, “IDF has taken greater steps than any other army in the history of warfare to minimise harm to civilians in a combat zone.″ ref

Warnings prior to attacks

“In many cases, the IDF warned civilians prior to targeting militants in highly populated areas to comply with international law. Human rights organizations including Amnesty International, confirmed that in many cases, Palestinians received warnings prior to evacuation, including flyers, phone calls and roof knocking. A report by Jaffa based NGO Physicians for Human Rights, released in January 2015, said that Israel’s alert system had failed, and that the roof-knock system was ineffective. The IDF was criticized for not giving civilians enough time to evacuate. In one case, the warning came less than one minute before the bombing. Hamas has told civilians to return to their homes or stay put following Israeli warnings to leave. In many cases, Palestinians evacuated; in others, they have stayed in their homes. Israel condemned Hamas’s encouragement of Palestinians to remain in their homes despite warnings in advance of airstrikes.″ ref 

“Hamas stated that the warnings were a form of psychological warfare and that people would be equally or more unsafe in the rest of Gaza. Amnesty International said that “although the Israeli authorities claim to be warning civilians in Gaza, a consistent pattern has emerged that their actions do not constitute an “effective warning” under international humanitarian law.” Human Rights Watch concurred. Many Gazans, when asked, told journalists that they remained in their houses simply because they had nowhere else to go. OCHA’s spokesman has said “there is literally no safe place for civilians” in Gaza. Roof knocking has been condemned as unlawful by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as well as the United Nations Fact Finding Mission in the 2008 war.″ ref

Destruction of homes

“Israel targeted many homes in this conflict. UNWRA official Robert Turner estimated that 7,000 homes were demolished and 89,000 were damaged, some 10,000 of them severely. This has led to many members of the same family being killed. B’Tselem documented 59 incidents of bombing and shelling, in which 458 people were killed. In some cases, Israel has stated that these homes were of suspected militants and were used for military purposes. The New York Times noted that the damage in this operation was higher than in the previous two wars and stated that 60,000 people had been left homeless as a result. The destruction of homes has been condemned by B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International as unlawful, amounting to collective punishment and war crimes.″ ref

“Israel destroyed the homes of two suspects in the case of the abduction and killing of the three teenagers. The house demolition has been condemned by B’Tselem as unlawful. Palestinians returning to their homes during the ceasefire reported that IDF soldiers had trashed their homes, destroyed home electronics such as TV sets, spread feces in their homes, and carved slogans such as “Burn Gaza down” and “Good Arab = dead Arab” in walls and furniture. The IDF did not respond to a request by The Guardian for comment.″ ref

“On 5 November 2014, Amnesty International published a report examining eight cases where the IDF targeted homes, resulting in the deaths of 111 people, of whom 104 were civilians. Barred from access to Gaza by Israel since 2012, it conducted its research remotely, supported by two contracted Gaza-based fieldworkers who conducted multiple visits of each site to interview survivors, and consulted with military experts to evaluate photographic and video material. It concludes, in every case, that “there was a failure to take necessary precautions to avoid excessive harm to civilians and civilian property, as required by international humanitarian law” and “no prior warning was given to the civilian residents to allow them to escape.″ ref

“As Israel did not disclose any information regarding the incidents, the report said it was not possible for Amnesty International to be certain of what Israel was targeting; it also said that if there were no valid military objectives, international humanitarian law may have been violated, as attacks directed at civilians and civilian objects, or attacks which are otherwise disproportionate relative to the anticipated military advantage of carrying them out, constitute war crimes. The report was dismissed by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs as “narrow”, “decontextualized”, and disattentive of alleged war crimes perpetrated by Hamas. Amnesty, it asserted, was serving as “a propaganda tool for Hamas and other terror groups.” Anne Herzberg, legal adviser for NGO Monitor, questioned the accuracy of the UN numbers used in the report, saying that they “essentially come from Hamas.″ ref

Shelling of UNRWA schools

“There were seven shellings at UNRWA facilities in the Gaza Strip which took place between 21 July and 3 August 2014. The incidents were the result of artillery, mortar or aerial missile fire which struck on or near the UNRWA facilities being used as shelters for Palestinians, and as a result at least 44 civilians, including 10 UN staff, died. During the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, many Palestinians fled their homes after warnings by Israel or due to air strikes or fighting in the area. An estimated 290,000 people (15% of Gaza’s population) took shelter in UNRWA schools.″ ref

“On three separate occasions, on 16 July, 22 July and on 29 July, UNRWA announced that rockets had been found in their schools. UNRWA denounced the groups responsible for “flagrant violations of the neutrality of its premises”. All of these schools were vacant at the time when rockets were discovered; no rockets were found in any shelters which were shelled. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stated that “Hamas chooses where these battles are conducted and, despite Israel’s best efforts to prevent civilian casualties, Hamas is ultimately responsible for the tragic loss of civilian life. Specifically in the case of UN facilities, it is important to note the repeated abuse of UN facilities by Hamas, namely with at least three cases of munitions storage within such facilities.″ ref

“The attacks were condemned by members of the UN (UNRWA’s parent organization) and other governments, such as the U.S., have expressed “extreme concern” over the safety of Palestinian civilians who “are not safe in UN-designated shelters.” The Rafah shelling in particular was widely criticized, with Ban Ki-moon calling it a “moral outrage and a criminal act” and US State Department calling it “appalling” and “disgraceful”. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said that both Hamas militants and Israel might have committed war crimes. A Human Rights Watch investigation into three of the incidents concluded that Israel committed war crimes because two of the shellings “did not appear to target a military objective or were otherwise indiscriminate”, while the third Rafah shelling was “unlawfully disproportionate”. On 27 April 2015, the United Nations released an inquiry which concluded that Israel was responsible for the deaths of at least 44 Palestinians who died in the shelling and 227 were injured.″ ref

Infrastructure

“On 23 July, twelve human rights organizations in Israel released a letter to Israeli government warning that “Gaza Strip’s civilian infrastructure is collapsing”. They wrote that “due to Israel’s ongoing control over significant aspects of life in Gaza, Israel has a legal obligation to ensure that the humanitarian needs of the people of Gaza are met and that they have access to adequate supplies of water and electricity.” They note that many water and electricity systems were damaged during the conflict, which has led to a “pending humanitarian and environmental catastrophe”. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that “almost every piece of critical infrastructure, from electricity to water to sewage, has been seriously compromised by either direct hits from Israeli air strikes and shelling or collateral damage.″ ref

“Between five and eight of the 10 power lines that bring electricity from Israel were disabled, at least three by Hamas rocket fire. On 29 July, Israel was reported to bomb Gaza’s only power plant, which was estimated to take a year to repair. Amnesty International said the crippling of the power station amounted to “collective punishment of Palestinians”. Human Rights Watch has stated that “[d]amaging or destroying a power plant, even if it also served a military purpose, would be an unlawful disproportionate attack under the laws of war”. Israel immediately denied damaging the power plant, stating there was “no indication that [IDF] were involved in the strike … The area surrounding the plant was also not struck in recent days.” Contradicting initial reports that it would take a year to repair, the power plant resumed operation on 27 October.″ ref

Attacks on journalists

“17 journalists were killed in the conflict, of which five were off-duty and two (from Associated Press) were covering a bomb disposal team’s efforts to defuse an unexploded Israeli artillery shell when it exploded. In several cases, the journalists were killed while having markings distinguishing them as press on their vehicles or clothing. IDF stated that in one case it had precise information that a vehicle marked “TV” that was hit killing one alleged journalist was in military use. Several media outlets, including the offices of Al-Jazeera, were hit. The International Federation of Journalists has condemned the attacks as “appalling murders and attacks”. Journalists are considered civilians and should not be targeted under international humanitarian law. The Israeli army said it does not target journalists, and that it contacts news media “in order to advise them which areas to avoid during the conflict”.″ ref 

“Israel has made foreign journalists sign a waiver stating that it is not responsible for their safety in Gaza, which Reporters Without Borders calls contrary to international law. The Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, who in August 2014 condemned the killing of Al Aqsa TV journalist Abdullah Murtaja, withdrew her comments after it was revealed that Murtaja was also a combatant in Hamas’s Al Qassam Brigade, and said she “deplore[d] attempts to instrumentalize the profession of journalists by combatants” ITIC published a report analyzing a list of 17 names published by Wafa News Agency based on information originating from Hamas-controlled Gaza office of the ministry of information that supposedly belong to journalists killed in the operation. The report says that 8 of the names belong to Hamas or Islamic Jihad operatives, or employees of the Hamas media.″ ref

“Israel bombed Hamas’s Al-Aqsa radio and TV stations because of their “propaganda dissemination capabilities used to broadcast the messages of (Hamas’s) military wing.” Reporters Without Borders and Al-Haq condemned the attacks, saying “an expert committee formed by the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor for the former Yugoslavia, to assess the NATO bombing campaign of 1999, specified that a journalist or media organization is not a legitimate target merely because it broadcasts or disseminates propaganda.” The U.S. government classifies Al-Aqsa TV as being controlled by Hamas, a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist,” and states that it “will not distinguish between a business financed and controlled by a terrorist group, such as Al-Aqsa Television, and the terrorist group itself.″ ref

Human shields

“The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay accused Israel of having “defied international law by attacking civilian areas of Gaza such as schools, hospitals, homes and U.N. facilities. “None of this appears to me to be accidental,” Pillay said. “They appear to be defying – deliberate defiance of – obligations that international law imposes on Israel.”” The Jaffa based NGO Physicians for Human Rights stated in a report in January 2015 that the IDF had used human shields during the war. IDF criticized the report’s conclusions and methodology which “cast a heavy shadow over its content and credibility”. Defense for Children International-Palestine reported that 17-year-old Ahmad Abu Raida was kidnapped by Israeli soldiers who, after beating him up, used him as a human shield for five days, forcing him to walk in front of them with police dogs at gunpoint, search houses and dig in places soldiers suspected there might be tunnels. Several of the key claims could not be verified because his Hamas-employed father said he forgot to take photographs of the alleged abuse marks and discarded all the clothing IDF soldiers supposedly provided Abu Raida when he was freed.″ ref

“The IDF confirmed that the troops suspected Ahmad of being a militant based on the affiliation of his father (a senior official in Gaza’s Tourism Ministry) with Hamas and so detained him during the ground operation. The IDF and Israeli authorities challenged the credibility of DCI-P noting their “scant regard for truth”. The IDF Military Advocate General opened criminal investigation into the event.″ ref

2018–2019 Gaza border protests

“In late February 2019, a United Nations Human Rights Council‘s independent commission found that of the 489 cases of Palestinian deaths or injuries analyzed, only two were possibly justified as responses to danger by Israeli security forces. On 18 March 2019, a three-person United Nations commission urged Israeli authorities to “step up” their investigations into Israeli troops shootings of Palestinian demonstrators during the protests. The U.N. investigators believe that the shootings “may have constituted war crimes and crimes against humanity.” The commission of inquiry presented the United Nations Human Rights Council a full 250-page report.″ ref

2021 Israel–Palestine crisis

“Human Rights Watch accused Israel of conducting three airstrikes against civilian targets on May 10, May 15, and May 16 and said there were no military targets in the vicinity at the time of the airstrike. A total of 62 Palestinian civilians were killed in these three airstrikes. Israel disputed these allegations, but IDF Spokesperson Hidai Zilberman said that Israel’s actions in Gaza are “as far from pinpoint accuracy as you can get. They’re making Gaza City shake.” B’Tselem stated that Israel’s bombing of residential high rises was a war crime, both because they were inhabited by civilians and because their destruction offered no military advantage, adding that “the message conveyed in the IDF Spokesperson’s statement is that no matter how Israel responds or how horrific the results – its actions will be legitimate.″ ref

“This stance is unreasonable, unlawful and empties the fundamental norms of international humanitarian law, which Israel is obligated to uphold, of meaning.” According to the OHCHR, 128 Palestinian civilians were killed by the IDF in the conflict, including 40 women and 63 children, with another 2000 injured, including 600 children and 400 women. In 2021, Amnesty International which documented ‘four deadly attacks by Israel launched on residential homes without prior warning’, asked the International Criminal Court to immediately investigate these attacks that may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.″ ref

2023 Israel–Hamas war

“Numerous allegations of war crimes were levied against Israel for its actions against civilians during its 2023 war with Hamas. The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory stated there was “already clear evidence” of war crimes and would share evidence with judicial authorities, including the International Criminal Court‘s authorities currently investigating war crimes committed in the Occupied Territories. Critics argue the Biden administration of the United States gave tacit approval to Israeli war crimes.″ ref

Collective punishment

“Several actions taken by the Israeli army were characterized as collective punishment, a war crime prohibited by treaty in both international and non-international armed conflicts, more specifically Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and Article 6 of Additional Protocol II. Doctors Without Borders international president Christos Christou said millions of civilians in Gaza faced “collective punishment” due to Israel’s blockade on fuel and medicine. A group of United Nations special rapporteurs termed Israeli airstrikes on Gaza a form of collective punishment, stating the airstrikes are “absolutely prohibited under international law and amounts to a war crime.” In fact, Israel’s president Isaac Herzog accused the residents of Gaza of collective responsibility for the war. In response to accusations of collective punishment, Israel Katz, the Israeli Minister of Energy, wrote, “Indeed, Madam Congresswoman. We have to draw a line… They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world.”

Blockade

“On October 9, 2023, Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, announced a complete siege on Gaza, which involved cutting off essential supplies like electricity, food, water, and gas. This tactic raised concerns about violations of the laws of war, since civilians were being denied basic necessities. The United Nations warned that any siege endangering civilian lives by depriving them of essential goods was prohibited under international humanitarian law. Tom Dannenbaum, an expert on siege law at Tufts University, described Israel’s outspoken policy of total blockade and deprivation as “an abnormally clear-cut instance of starving civilians as a means of war, an unambiguous violation of human rights”. The starvation of civilians, including through the denial of relief supplies, is a war crime.″ ref

Water access

“As part of Israel’s blockade on Gaza, all access to water was shut off. Article 51 of the Berlin Rules on Water Resources bars combatants from removing water or water infrastructure to cause death or to force its movement. On October 14, the UNRWA announced Gaza no longer had clean drinking water, and two million people were at risk of death from dehydration. On October 15, Israel agreed to resume water supply in southern Gaza; however, aid workers and a government spokesperson reported no water was available. The EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell described Israel’s cutting off water as “not in accordance with international law.″ ref

Effects on children

“Children were disproportionately impacted by Israel’s attack on Gaza. On 13 November, UNICEF stated more than 700,000 children in Gaza were displaced. The Palestine Red Crescent Society stated displaced children were suffering, due to power outages, lack of basic essentials, and “scenes of pain and fear.” Catherine M. Russell, the executive director of UNICEF, toured Gaza on 15 November, stating many children were buried under rubble and lacking medical care. Dr. Ahmed al-Fara, the head of pediatrics at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, stated due to the lack of clean water, he was witnessing the “most serious epidemic of gastroenteritis” among children he had ever seen. UNICEF spokesperson Toby Fricker stated, “There is no safe place for children anywhere across the strip right now.” Save the Children reported serious signs of mental health issues among children in Gaza.″ ref

Forcible transfer

“On October 13, 2023, the Israeli army ordered the evacuation of 1.1 million people from North Gaza. The evacuation order was characterized as a forcible transfer by Jan Egeland, the Norwegian former diplomat involved with the Oslo Accord. A “forcible transfer” is the forced relocation of a civilian population as part of an organized offense against it and is considered a crime against humanity by the International Criminal Court. In an interview with the BBC, Egeland stated, “There are hundreds of thousands of people fleeing for their life — [that is] not something that should be called an evacuation. It is a forcible transfer of people from all of northern Gaza, which according to the Geneva convention is a war crime.” UN Special rapporteur Francesca Albanese warned of a mass ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Raz Segal, an Israeli historian and director of the Holocaust and Genocide Studies program at Stockton University, termed it a “textbook case of genocide.” Israeli airstrikes reportedly bombed and killed civilians complying with the evacuation order.″ ref

White phosphorus

“On October 12, 2023, Human Rights Watch said the Israeli army had used white phosphorus munitions in Gaza. The IDF said this allegation was “unequivocally false”. White phosphorus burns upon contact, can cause deep and severe injuries, potentially leading to multiple organ failure, and even minor burns can be fatal. According to Human Rights Watch, the use of white phosphorus is “unlawfully indiscriminate when airburst in populated urban areas, where it can burn down houses and cause egregious harm to civilians,” and “violates the requirement under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injury and loss of life.” According to Amnesty International weapons investigator Brian Castner, whether this constitutes a war crime depends on “the intended target of this attack, and the intended use”. Its use is consideed an incendiary weapon, which are banned under international law in areas with high population density. Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, and nearly half of the population are children.″ ref

“Amnesty International reported that the IDF fired white phosphorus shells into the populated town of Dhayra, Lebanon, on October 16, hospitalizing nine civilians and setting fire to civilian objects. Aya Majzoub, the Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, described the attack as a violation of international law that needed to be investigated as a war crime, and that it “seriously endangered the lives of civilians, many of whom were hospitalized and displaced, and whose homes and cars caught fire.″ ref

Indiscriminate attacks

“The United Nations announced Israeli air operations had targeted residential towers, buildings, schools, and UNRWA premises, resulting in thousands of civilian casualties in Gaza. Human rights experts described Israel’s indiscriminate airstrikes as a war crime, an accusation that Israel has denied. UNRWA called on Israel to not bomb 270,000 sheltered Palestinians, stressing that international law forbids their targeting. The IDF said it was controlling attacks to provide a safe evacuation path. IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari stated that “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.″ ref

Al-Shati refugee camp airstrike

Two Anarchists: Cory Johnston and Damien Marie AtHope, address the Israel and Palestine conflict

ref

Hamas is also “anti-communist”

But someone removed “anti-communism” from Hamas on Wikipedia

“Hamas, an acronym of its official name, Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (Arabic: حركة المقاومة الإسلامية, romanized: Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah, lit. ‘Islamic Resistance Movement’), is a Palestinian Sunni Islamist political and military movement governing parts of the occupied Gaza Strip.” ref

“Hamas was founded by Palestinian imam and activist Ahmed Yassin in 1987, after the outbreak of the First Intifada against the Israeli occupation. It emerged from his 1973 Mujama al-Islamiya Islamic charity affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2006, Hamas won the Palestinian legislative election by campaigning on clean government without corruption, combined with affirmation of Palestinians’ right to armed struggle against the Israeli occupation, thus winning a majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council. In 2007, Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip from rival Palestinian faction Fatah, which it has governed since separately from the Palestinian National Authority. This was followed by an Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip with Egyptian support, and multiple wars with Israel, including in 2008–09, 2012, 2014, and 2021. The ongoing 2023 war began after Hamas launched an attack, killing both civilians and soldiers, and taking hostages back to Gaza. The attack has been described as the biggest military setback for Israel since the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, which Israel has responded to in an ongoing ground invasion of Gaza.” ref

“Hamas promotes Palestinian nationalism in an Islamic context. While initially seeking a state in all of Mandatory Palestine, Hamas began acquiescing to 1967 borders in the agreements it signed with Fatah in 2005, 2006, and 2007.  In 2017, Hamas released a new charter that supported a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders without recognizing Israel. Hamas’s repeated offers of a truce (for a period of 10–100 years) based on the 1967 borders are seen by many as consistent with a two-state solution. Others say that Hamas retains the long-term objective of establishing one state in former Mandatory Palestine. The 1988 Hamas charter was widely described as antisemitic. The revised 2017 Hamas Charter stated that Hamas’s struggle was with Zionists, not Jews.” ref

“Hamas has carried out attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians, including suicide bombings and indiscriminate rocket attacks. These actions have led human rights groups to accuse it of war crimes, and Argentina, Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, Paraguay, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union to designate Hamas as a terrorist organization. In 2018, a motion at the United Nations to condemn Hamas was rejected.” ref

“When Israel occupied the Palestinian territories in 1967, the Muslim Brotherhood members there did not take active part in the resistance, preferring to focus on social-religious reform and on restoring Islamic values. This outlook changed in the early 1980s, and Islamic organizations became more involved in Palestinian politics. The driving force behind this transformation was Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian refugee from Al-Jura. Of humble origins and quadriplegic, he became one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s leaders in Gaza. His charisma and conviction brought him a loyal group of followers, upon whom he depended for everything from feeding him and transporting him to and from events to communicating his strategy to the public. In 1973, Yassin founded the social-religious charity Mujama al-Islamiya (“Islamic center”) in Gaza as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.” ref

“Israeli authorities in the 1970s and 1980s showed indifference to al-Mujama al-Islamiya. They viewed it as a religious cause that was significantly less militant against Israel than Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organization; many also believed that the infighting between Islamist organizations and the PLO would lead to the latter’s weakening. Thus, the Israeli government did not intervene in fights between PLO and Islamist forces. Israeli officials disagree on how much governmental indifference (or even support) of these disputes led to the rise of Islamism in Palestine. Some, such as Arieh Spitzen, have argued that “even if Israel had tried to stop the Islamists sooner, he doubts it could have done much to curb political Islam, a movement that was spreading across the Muslim world.” Others, including Israel’s religious affairs official in Gaza, Avner Cohen, believed that the indifference to the situation fueled Islamism’s rise, stating it was “Israel’s creation” and failure. Others attribute the rise of the group to state sponsors, including Iran. In 2018, The Intercept published an article claiming that “Israeli officials admit they helped start the group.” ref

“In 1984, Yassin was arrested after the Israelis found out that his group collected arms, but released in May 1985 as part of a prisoner exchange. He continued to expand the reach of his charity in Gaza. Following his release, he set up al-Majd (an acronym for Munazamat al-Jihad wa al-Da’wa), headed by former student leader Yahya Sinwar and Rawhi Mushtaha, tasked with handling internal security and hunting local informants for the Israeli intelligence services. At about the same time, he ordered former student leader Salah Shehade to set up al-Mujahidun al-Filastiniun (Palestinian fighters), but its militants were quickly rounded up by Israeli authorities and had their arms confiscated.” ref

“The idea of Hamas began to take form on December 10, 1987, when several members of the Brotherhood convened the day after an incident in which an Israeli army truck crashed into a car at a Gaza checkpoint, killing four Palestinian day-workers, the impetus of the First Intifada. The group met at Yassin’s house to strategize on how to maximize the incident’s impact in spreading nationalist sentiments and sparking public demonstrations. A leaflet issued on December 14 calling for resistance is considered its first public intervention, though the name Hamas itself was not used until January 1988. Hamas was formally recognized by the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood after a key meeting in Amman in February 1988. Yassin was not directly connected to the organization, but he gave it his blessing.” ref

“Creating Hamas as an entity distinct from the Muslim Brotherhood was a matter of practicality; the Muslim Brotherhood refused to engage in violence against Israel, but without participating in the intifada, the Islamists tied to it feared they would lose support to their rivals the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the PLO. They also hoped that by keeping the militant activities of Hamas separate, Israel would not interfere with the Muslim Brotherhood’s social work.” ref

“To many Palestinians, Hamas represented a more authentic engagement with their national aspirations. This perception arose because Hamas offered an Islamic interpretation of the original goals of the secular PLO, focusing on armed struggle to liberate all of Palestine. This approach contrasted with the PLO’s eventual acceptance of territorial compromise, which involved settling for a smaller portion of Mandatory Palestine. Hamas’s formal establishment came a month after the PLO and other intifada leaders issued a 14-point declaration in January 1988 advocating for the coexistence of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. In August 1988, Hamas published the Hamas Charter, wherein it defined itself as a chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood and stated its desire to establish “an Islamic state throughout Palestine.” ref

“Hamas’s first combat operation against Israel came in spring 1989 as it abducted and killed Avi Sasportas and Ilan Saadon, two Israeli soldiers. At the time, Shehade and Sinwar were incarcerated in Israeli prisons, and Hamas had set up a new group, Unit 101, headed by Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, whose modus operandi was to abduct soldiers. The discovery of Sasportas’s body triggered, in the words of Jean-Pierre Filiu, “an extremely violent Israeli response”; hundreds of Hamas leaders and activists, including Yassin, were arrested. Hamas was outlawed on September 28, 1989. This mass detention of activists, together with a further wave of arrests in 1990, effectively dismantled Hamas and, devastated, it was forced to adapt; its command system became regionalized to make its operative structure more diffuse, and to minimize the chances of being detected.” ref

“Anger following the Temple Mount killings in October 1990, in which Muslim worshippers had tried to prevent Jewish extremists from placing a foundation stone for the Third Temple on the Temple Mount and Israeli police used live fire against Palestinians in the Al-Aqsa compound, killing 17, caused Hamas to intensify its campaign of abductions. Hamas declared every Israeli soldier a target and called for a “jihad against the Zionist enemy everywhere, in all fronts and every means.” ref

“Hamas reorganized its units from al-Majd and al-Mujahidun al-Filastiniun into a military wing called the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades led by Yahya Ayyash in 1991 or 1992. The name comes from the militant Palestinian nationalist leader Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam who fought against the British and whose death in 1935 sparked the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. Its members sometimes called themselves “Students of Ayyash”, “Students of the Engineer”, “Yahya Ayyash Units”, or “Yahyia Ayyash’s Disciples.” ref

“Ayyash, an engineering graduate from Birzeit University, was a skillful bomb maker and greatly improved Hamas’s striking capability, earning him the nickname al-Muhandis (“the Engineer”). He is thought to have been one of the driving forces in Hamas’s use of suicide bombings, reportedly arguing: “We paid a high price when we used only slingshots and stones. We need to exert more pressure, make the cost of the occupation that much more expensive in human lives, that much more unbearable.” Until his assassination by Shin Bet in 1996, almost all bombs used on suicide missions were constructed by him.” ref 

“In December 1992, Israel responded to the abduction and killing of Nissim Toledano, a border policeman, by exiling 415 members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to Southern Lebanon, at the time occupied by Israel. There, Hamas established contacts with Hezbollah, Palestinians living in refugee camps, and learned how to construct suicide and car bombs. In addition to the deportations, Israel imposed a two-week curfew on the Gaza Strip, which cost the economy approximately $1,810,000 per day. The deportees were allowed to return nine months later. The deportation provoked international condemnation and a unanimous UN Security Council resolution condemning the action. Hamas ordered two car bombs in retaliation for the deportation.” ref

“In April 1993, Hamas launched its first suicide attack, the Mehola Junction bombing, near the Mehola settlement in the West Bank. The attacker drove his car between two buses–one military and one civilian. Only the driver and an Arab worker were killed in the attack. The bomb design was flawed, but Hamas soon learned how to manufacture more lethal bombs. In the first years of the Intifada, Hamas violence was restricted to Palestinians; collaborators with Israel, and people it defined as “moral deviants,” that is, drug dealers and prostitutes known to enjoy ties with Israeli criminal networks, or for engaging in loose behavior, such as seducing women in hairdressing salons with alcohol, behavior Hamas considered was encouraged by Israeli agents.” ref 

“Hamas leaders likened their rooting out of collaborators to what the French resistance did with Nazi collaborators in World War II. In 1992 alone, they executed more than 150. In Western media, this was reported as typical “intercommunal strife” among Arabs. Hamas’s actions in the First Intifada expanded its popularity. In 1989, fewer than 3% of the Palestinians in Gaza, where Hamas was most popular, supported Hamas. In the days leading up to the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, 16.6% of Gazans and 10% of West Bank Palestinians identified politically with Hamas—a number that still paled in comparison to Fatah, which enjoyed the support of 45% of the Palestinians in the occupied territories.” ref

“The Oslo process began in September 1993, when Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat signed the Declaration of Principles, known as the Oslo I Accord. This led to the creation of the Palestinian National Authority (PA), which was backed by Arafat but strongly opposed by Hamas. The PA was staffed mainly by members of Fatah and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. The peaceful posture adopted by Hamas’s rivals created an opportunity to set itself apart as the representative of the resistance movement.” ref

“Hamas first began suicide attacks specifically targeting civilians in response to the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre carried out by the American-Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein, who on 25 February 1994, during Ramadan, killed 29 unarmed civilians by throwing hand grenades and firing at a group of worshippers during prayer at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. There was a strong sense that the Israeli military was complicit in the massacre because Goldstein wore military fatigues during his attack and carried an assault rifle issued by the IDF, the nearby IDF forces failed to intervene to stop the attack, and indeed an additional 19 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the riots that ensued in protest of the massacre. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin condemned the massacre, but refused to withdraw Jewish settlers from Hebron, fearing a violent confrontation with the settler community. Hamas announced that if Israel did not discriminate between “fighters and civilians”, then it would be “forced … to treat the Zionists in the same manner. Treating like with like is a universal principle.” ref

“Prior to the Hebron massacre, Hamas did not deliberately attack civilian targets. But following the massacre, it felt that it no longer had to distinguish between military and civilian targets. The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West Bank, Sheikh Ahmed Haj Ali, later argued that “had there not been the 1994 Ibrahimi Mosque massacre, there would have been no suicide bombings.” Al-Rantisi in an interview in 1998 stated that the suicide attacks “began after the massacre committed by the terrorist Baruch Goldstein and intensified after the assassination of Yahya Ayyash.” Musa Abu Marzouk put the blame for the escalation on the Israelis: “We were against targeting civilians … After the Hebron massacre we determined that it was time to kill Israel’s civilians … we offered to stop if Israel would, but they rejected that offer.” ref

“According to Matti Steinberg, former advisor to Shin Bet and one of Israel’s leading experts on Hamas, the massacre laid to rest an internal debate within Hamas on the usefulness of indiscriminate violence: “In the Hamas writings there is an explicit prohibition against indiscriminate harm to helpless people. The massacre at the mosque released them from this taboo and introduced a dimension of measure for measure, based on citations from the Koran.” ref

“On April 6, a suicide bomber blew up his car at a crowded bus stop in Afula, killing eight Israelis and injuring 34. An additional five Israelis were killed and 30 injured as a Palestinian detonated himself on a bus in Hadera a week later. Hamas claimed responsibility for both attacks. The attacks may have been timed to disrupt negotiations between Israel and PLO on the implementation of the Oslo I Accord. A bomb on a bus in downtown Tel Aviv in October 1994, killed 22 and injured 45.” ref

“In late December 1995, Hamas promised the Palestinian Authority (PA) to cease military operations. But it was not to be as Shin Bet assassinated Ayyash, the 29-year-old leader of the al-Qassam Brigades on January 5, 1996, using a booby-trapped cellphone given to Ayyash by his uncle who worked as an informer. Nearly 100,000 Gazans, about 11% of the total population, marched in his funeral. Hamas resumed its campaign of suicide bombings which had been dormant for a good part of 1995 to retaliate the assassination.” ref

“In September 1997, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the assassination of Hamas leader Khaled Mashal who lived in Jordan. Two Mossad agents entered Jordan on false Canadian passports and sprayed Mashal with a nerve agent on a street in Amman. They were caught however and King Hussein threatened to put the agents on trial unless Israel provided Mashal with an antidote and released Yassin. Israel obliged, and the antidote saved Mashal’s life. Yassin was returned to Gaza where he was given a hero’s welcome with banners calling him the “sheikh of the Intifada”. Yassin’s release temporarily boosted Hamas’ popularity, and at a press conference, Yassin declared: “There will be no halt to armed operations until the end of the occupation … we are peace-seekers. We love peace. And we call on them [the Israelis] to maintain peace with us and to help us in order to restore our rights by peace.” ref

“Although the suicide attacks by the al-Qassam Brigades and other groups violated the 1993 Oslo accords (which Hamas opposed), Arafat was reluctant to pursue the attackers and may have had inadequate means to do so. While the Palestinians were used to the idea that their young were willing to die for the struggle, the idea that they would strap explosives to their bodies and blow themselves up was a new and not well-supported development. A poll taken in 1996 after the wave of suicide bombings Hamas carried out to retaliate against Israel’s assassination of Ayyash showed that most 70% opposed the tactic, and 59% called for Arafat to take action to prevent further attacks. In the political arena, Hamas continued to trail far behind its rival Fatah; 41% trusted Arafat in 1996, but only 3% trusted Yassin.” ref 

“In 1999, Hamas was banned in Jordan, reportedly in part at the request of the United States, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority. Jordan’s King Abdullah feared the activities of Hamas and its Jordanian allies would jeopardize peace negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, and accused Hamas of engaging in illegitimate activities within Jordan. In mid-September 1999, authorities arrested Hamas leaders Khaled Mashal and Ibrahim Ghosheh on their return from a visit to Iran, and charged them with being members of an illegal organization, storing weapons, conducting military exercises, and using Jordan as a training base. The Hamas leaders denied the charges. Mashal was exiled and eventually settled in Damascus in Syria in 2001. As a result of the Syrian civil war he distanced himself from Bashar al-Assad’s regime in 2012 and moved to Qatar.” ref

“In contrast to the preceding uprising, the Al-Aqsa or Second Intifada began violently, with mass demonstrations and lethal Israeli counter-insurgency tactics. Prior to the incidents surrounding Ariel Sharon‘s visit to the Temple Mount (September 2000), Palestinian support for violence against Israelis and for Hamas had been gauged to be 52% and 10%, respectively. By July of the following year, after almost a year of savage conflict, polling indicated that 86% of Palestinians endorsed violence against Israelis and support for Hamas had risen to 17%.” ref

“The al-Qassam Brigades were among the many militant groups that launched both military-style attacks and suicide bombings against Israeli civilian and military targets in this period. In the ensuing years almost 5000 Palestinians and over 1100 Israelis were killed. While there was a large number of Palestinian attacks against Israelis, the Palestinians’ most effective form of violence were suicide attacks; in the first five years of the intifada a little more than half of all Israeli deaths were victims of suicide attacks. Hamas performed about 40% of the 135 suicide attacks during the period.” ref

“Whatever the immediate circumstances triggering the uprising, a more general cause, writes US political science professor Jeremy Pressman, was “popular Palestinian discontent [that] grew during the Oslo peace process because the reality on the ground did not match the expectations created by the peace agreements.” Hamas would be the beneficiary of this growing discontent in the 2006 Palestinian Authority legislative elections.” ref

“According to Tristan Dunning, Israel has never responded to repeated offers by Hamas over subsequent years for a quid pro quo moratorium on attacks against civilians. It has engaged in several tadi’a (periods of calm), and proposed a number of ceasefires. In January 2004, Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin, prior to his assassination, said that the group would end armed resistance against Israel for a 10-year hudna in exchange for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, and that restoring Palestinians’ “historical rights” (relating to the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight) “would be left for future generations”. His views were quickly echoed by senior Hamas official Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, who added that Hamas envisaged a “phased liberation.” Israel’s response was to assassinate Yassin in March in a targeted Israeli air strike, and then al-Rantisi in a similar air strike in April.” ref

In 2005, Hamas signed the Palestinian Cairo Declaration, which confirms “the right of the Palestinian people to resistance in order to end the occupation, establish a Palestinian state with full sovereignty with Jerusalem as its capital, and the guaranteeing of the right of return of refugees to their homes and property.” Hamas had boycotted the 1996 Palestinian general election and the January 2005 Palestinian presidential election (won by Mahmoud Abbas), but decided to participate in the 25 January 2006 Palestinian legislative election, the first to take place after the death of Yasser Arafat (11 November 2004). The EU figured prominently in the proposal that democratic elections be held in the Palestinian territories.” ref 

“In the run-up to the polling day, the US administration‘s Condoleezza Rice, Israel’s Tzipi Livni, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair all expressed reservations about allowing Hamas to compete in a democratic process. Hamas ran on a platform of clean government, a thorough overhaul of the corrupt administrative system, and the issue of rampant lawlessness, though also the Palestinians’ right to “armed struggle” to “end … and defeat the occupation” was prominently mentioned in their electoral program. The Palestinian Authority (PA), notoriously accused of corruption, chose to run Marwan Barghouti as its leading candidate, who was serving five life sentences in Israel. The US donated two million dollars to the PA to improve its media image. Israel also assisted the PA by allowing Barghouti to be interviewed in prison by Arab television and by permitting 100,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem to vote.” ref

“Crucially, the elections took place shortly after Israel had evacuated its settlements in Gaza. The evacuation, executed without consulting Fatah, gave currency to Hamas’ view that resistance had compelled Israel to leave Gaza. In a statement Hamas portrayed it as a vindication of their strategy of armed resistance (“Four years of resistance surpassed 10 years of bargaining”) and Mohammed Deif attributed “the Liberation of Gaza” to his comrades’ “love of martyrdom.” ref

“Hamas, intent on reaching power by political means rather than by violence, announced that it would refrain from attacks on Israel if Israel were to cease its offensives against Palestinian towns and villages. Its election manifesto dropped the Islamic agenda, spoke of sovereignty for the Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem (an implicit endorsement of the two-state solution), while making no mention about its claims to all of Palestine. It mentioned “armed resistance” twice and affirmed in article 3.6 that there existed a right to resist the “terrorism of occupation.” A Palestinian Christian figured on its candidate list.” ref

“In the 25 January 2006 Palestinian legislative election, Hamas won 74 or 76 seats of the 132 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council, an absolute majority. Fatah only won 43, four seats went to independents supporting Hamas. The elections were judged by international observers to have been “competitive and genuinely democratic.” The EU said that they had been run better than elections in some member countries of the EU, and promised to maintain its financial support. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates urged the US to give Hamas a chance, and that it was inadvisable to punish Palestinians for their choice, a position also endorsed by the Arab League a month later.” ref

“After these elections, the Hamas leader sent a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush, declaring, among other things, that Hamas would accept a state on the 1967 borders including “a truce for many years.” However, the Bush administration did not reply. Early February 2006, Hamas also offered Israel a ten-year truce “in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories: the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem,” and recognition of Palestinian rights including the “right of return”. But Hamas leader Mashal added that Hamas was not calling for a final end to armed operations against Israel, and it would not impede other Palestinian groups from carrying out such operations.” ref

“Also, after these elections, the Quartet on the Middle East (the United States, Russia, the European Union (EU), and the United Nations) stated that assistance to the Palestinian Authority would only continue if Hamas renounced violence, recognized Israel, and accepted previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements, which Hamas refused to do. The Quartet then imposed a freeze on all international aid to the Palestinian territories; by the time Haniyeh presented his Hamas government in late March, the U.S.-led boycott against the PA was in full force. As for the part of the EU, which in January 2006 had declared (see above) the Palestinian elections to have been free, their abrupt freezing of financial assistance to the Hamas-led government (following the example set by the US and Canada) in late April 2006 was a violation of its own core principles regarding free elections. The EU instead undertook to channel funds directly to people and projects, and pay salaries only to Fatah members, employed or otherwise.” ref

“After unsuccessful attempts to form a coalition government with Fatah, Hamas on 27 March 2006 then assumed the administration of Gaza on its own, and introduced radical changes. Hamas had inherited a chaotic situation of lawlessness. The (new) economic sanctions imposed by Israel, the US, and the Quartet (since Hamas’ victory in the elections) had further crippled the PA’s administrative resources, leading to the emergence of numerous mafia-style gangs and terror cells modeled after Al Qaeda. Writing in Foreign Affairs, Daniel Byman later stated:

After it took over the Gaza Strip Hamas revamped the police and security forces, cutting them 50,000 members (on paper, at least) under Fatah to smaller, efficient forces of just over 10,000, which then cracked down on crime and gangs. No longer did groups openly carry weapons or steal with impunity. People paid their taxes and electric bills, and in return authorities picked up garbage and put criminals in jail. Gaza – neglected under Egyptian and then Israeli control, and misgoverned by Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and his successors – finally has a real government.” ref

“After the formation of the Hamas-led cabinet on March 20, 2006, tensions between Fatah and Hamas militants progressively rose in the Gaza strip as Fatah commanders refused to take orders from the government while the Palestinian Authority initiated a campaign of demonstrations, assassinations, and abductions against Hamas, which led to Hamas responding. Israeli intelligence warned Mahmoud Abbas that Hamas had planned to kill him at his office in Gaza. According to a Palestinian source close to Abbas, Hamas considers President Abbas to be a barrier to its complete control over the Palestinian Authority and decided to kill him. In a statement to Al Jazeera, Hamas leader Mohammed Nazzal accused Abbas of being party to the besieging and isolation of the Hamas-led government.” ref

“On June 9, 2006, during an Israeli artillery operation, an explosion occurred on a busy Gaza beach, killing eight Palestinian civilians. It was assumed that Israeli shellings were responsible for the killings, but Israeli government officials denied this. Hamas formally withdrew from its 16-month ceasefire on June 10, taking responsibility for the subsequent Qassam rocket attacks launched from Gaza into Israel.” ref

“On June 25, two Israeli soldiers were killed and another, Gilad Shalit, captured following an incursion by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Popular Resistance Committees and Army of Islam. In response, the Israeli military launched Operation Summer Rains three days later to secure the release of the kidnapped soldier, arresting 64 Hamas officials. Among them were 8 Palestinian Authority cabinet ministers and up to 20 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council. The arrests, along with other events, effectively prevented the Hamas-dominated legislature from functioning during most of its term. Shalit was held captive until 2011, when he was released in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. Since then, Hamas has continued building a network of internal and cross-border tunnels, which are used to store and deploy weapons, shield militants, and facilitate cross-border attacks. Destroying the tunnels was a primary objective of Israeli forces in the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict.” ref

“In February 2007 Saudi-sponsored negotiations led to the Hamas & Fatah Mecca Agreement to form a unity government, signed by Mahmoud Abbas on behalf of Fatah and Khaled Mashal on behalf of Hamas. The new government was called on to achieve Palestinian national goals as approved by the Palestine National Council, the clauses of the Basic Law and the National Reconciliation Document (the “Prisoners’ Document”) as well as the decisions of the Arab summit.” ref

“In March 2007, the Palestinian Legislative Council established a national unity government, with 83 representatives voting in favor and three against. Government ministers were sworn in by Mahmoud Abbas, the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, at a ceremony held simultaneously in Gaza and Ramallah. In June that year, renewed fighting broke out between Hamas and Fatah. In a leaked comment by Major General Yadlin to the American Ambassador Richard H Jones at this point (June 12, 2007), Yadlin emphasized Hamas’s electoral victory and an eventual Fatah withdrawal from Gaza would be advantageous to Israeli interests, in that the PLO’s relocation to the West Bank would allow Israel to treat the Gaza Strip and Hamas as a hostile country.” ref 

“In the course of the June 2007 Battle of Gaza, Hamas exploited the near total collapse of Palestinian Authority forces in Gaza to seize control of Gaza, ousting Fatah officials. President Mahmoud Abbas then dismissed the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority government and outlawed the Hamas militia. At least 600 Palestinians died in fighting between Hamas and Fatah. Human Rights Watch, a US-based group, accused both sides in the conflict of torture and war crimes.” ref

“Human Rights Watch estimates several hundred Gazans were “maimed” and tortured in the aftermath of the Gaza War. 73 Gazan men accused of “collaborating” had their arms and legs broken by “unidentified perpetrators” and 18 Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel, who had escaped from Gaza’s main prison compound after Israel bombed the facility, were executed by Hamas security officials in the first days of the conflict. Hamas security forces attacked hundreds of Fatah officials who supported Israel. Human Rights Watch interviewed one such person:

There were eight of us sitting there. We were all from Fatah. Then three masked militants broke in. They were dressed in brown camouflage military uniforms; they all had guns. They pointed their guns at us and cursed us, then they began beating us with iron rods, including a 10-year-old boy whom they hit in the face. They said we were “collaborators” and “unfaithful”. They beat me with iron sticks and gun butts for 15 minutes. They were yelling: “You are happy that Israel is bombing us!” until people came out of their houses, and they withdrew.” ref

“In March 2012, Mahmoud Abbas stated that there were no political differences between Hamas and Fatah as they had reached agreement on a joint political platform and on a truce with Israel. Commenting on relations with Hamas, Abbas revealed in an interview with Al Jazeera that “We agreed that the period of calm would be not only in the Gaza Strip, but also in the West Bank,” adding that “We also agreed on a peaceful popular resistance [against Israel], the establishment of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders and that the peace talks would continue if Israel halted settlement construction and accepted our conditions.” Progress was stalled, until an April 2014 agreement to form a compromise unity government, with elections to be held in late 2014. These elections did not take place and following a new agreement, the next Palestinian general election was scheduled to take place by the end of March 2021, but did not happen.” ref

“On 24 April 2008, Hamas through Egyptian mediators proposed to Israel a six-month truce inside the Gaza Strip, thus excluding the West Bank from his proposal. Israel on 25 April 2008 rejected the proposal, reluctant that such an agreement would strengthen Hamas against their rivals in the Palestinian Territories, Fatah, based on the West Bank, at that time running the Palestinian National Authority and as such currently negotiating peace with Israel. Also Israel rejected the proposal because Israel presumed that Hamas would use the truce to prepare for more fighting rather than peace.” ref

“On June 17, 2008, Egyptian mediators announced that an informal truce had been agreed to between Hamas and Israel. Hamas agreed to cease rocket attacks on Israel, while Israel agreed to allow limited commercial shipping across its border with Gaza, barring any breakdown of the tentative peace deal; Hamas also hinted that it would discuss the release of Gilad Shalit. Israeli sources state that Hamas also committed itself to enforce the ceasefire on the other Palestinian organizations. Even before the truce was agreed to, some on the Israeli side were not optimistic about it, Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin stating in May 2008 that a ground incursion into Gaza was unavoidable and would more effectively quell arms smuggling and pressure Hamas into relinquishing power.” ref

“While Hamas was careful to maintain the ceasefire, the lull was sporadically violated by other groups, sometimes in defiance of Hamas. For example, on June 24 Islamic Jihad launched rockets at the Israeli town of Sderot; Israel called the attack a grave violation of the informal truce, and closed its border crossings with Gaza. On November 4, 2008, Israeli forces, in an attempt to stop construction of a tunnel, killed six Hamas gunmen in a raid inside the Gaza Strip. Hamas responded by resuming rocket attacks with a total of 190 rockets in November according to Israel’s military.” ref

“When the six-month truce officially expired on December 19, Hamas launched 50 to more than 70 rockets and mortars into Israel over the next three days, though no Israelis were injured. On December 21, Hamas said it was ready to stop the attacks and renew the truce if Israel stopped its “aggression” in Gaza and opened up its border crossings. On December 27 and 28, Israel implemented Operation Cast Lead against Hamas. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said “We warned Hamas repeatedly that rejecting the truce would push Israel to aggression against Gaza.” According to Palestinian officials, over 280 people were killed, and 600 were injured in the first two days of airstrikes. Most were Hamas police and security officers, though many civilians also died. 

“According to Israel, militant training camps, rocket-manufacturing facilities and weapons warehouses that had been pre-identified were hit, and later they attacked rocket and mortar squads who fired around 180 rockets and mortars at Israeli communities. Chief of Gaza police force Tawfiq Jabber, head of the General Security Service Salah Abu Shrakh, senior religious authority and security officer Nizar Rayyan, and Interior Minister Said Seyam were among those killed during the fighting. Although Israel sent out thousands of cell-phone messages urging residents of Gaza to leave houses where weapons may be stored in an attempt to minimise civilian casualties, some residents complained there was nowhere to go because many neighborhoods had received the same message. Israeli bombs landed close to civilian structures such as schools, and some alleged that Israel was deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians.” ref

“Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire on January 17, 2009. Hamas responded the following day by announcing a one-week ceasefire to give Israel time to withdraw its forces from the Gaza Strip. Israeli, Palestinian, and third-party sources disagreed on the total casualty figures from the Gaza war, and the number of Palestinian casualties who were civilians. In November 2010, a senior Hamas official acknowledged that up to 300 fighters were killed, and “In addition to them, between 200 and 300 fighters from the Al-Qassam Brigades and another 150 security forces were martyred.” These new numbers reconcile the total with those of the Israeli military, which originally had said there were 709 “terror operatives” killed.” ref

“On August 16, 2009, Hamas leader Khaled Mashal stated that the organization was ready to open dialogue with the Obama administration because its policies were much better than those of former US president George W. Bush:

As long as there’s a new language, we welcome it, but we want to see not only a change of language, but also a change of policies on the ground. We have said that we are prepared to cooperate with the US or any other international party that would enable the Palestinians to get rid of occupation.” ref

“Despite this, an August 30, 2009, speech during a visit to Jordan in which Mashal expressed support for the Palestinian right of return was interpreted by David Pollock of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy as a sign that “Hamas has now clearly opted out of diplomacy.” In an interview in May 2010, Mashal said that if a Palestinian state with real sovereignty was established under the conditions he set out, on the borders of 1967 with its capital Jerusalem and with the right of return, that will be the end of the Palestinian resistance, and then the nature of any subsequent ties with Israel would be decided democratically by the Palestinians. In July 2009, Khaled Mashal, Hamas’s political bureau chief, stated Hamas’s willingness to cooperate with a resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, which included a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders, provided that Palestinian refugees be given the right to return to Israel and that East Jerusalem be recognized as the new state’s capital.” ref

“In 2011, after the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, Hamas distanced itself from the Syrian regime, and its members began leaving Syria. Where once there were “hundreds of exiled Palestinian officials and their relatives,” that number shrunk to “a few dozen”. In 2012, Hamas publicly announced its support for the Syrian opposition. This prompted Syrian state TV to issue a “withering attack” on the Hamas leadership. Khaled Mashal said that Hamas had been “forced out” of Damascus because of its disagreements with the Syrian regime. In late October, Syrian Army soldiers shot dead two Hamas leaders in Daraa refugee camp. On November 5, 2012, the Syrian state security forces shut down all Hamas offices in the country.” ref 

“In January 2013, another two Hamas members were found dead in Syria’s Husseinieh camp. Activists said the two had been arrested and executed by state security forces. In 2013, it was reported that the military wing of Hamas had begun training units of the Free Syrian Army. In 2013, after “several intense weeks of indirect three-way diplomacy between representatives of Hamas, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority,” no agreement was reached. Also, intra-Palestinian reconciliation talks stalled, and, as a result, during Obama’s visit to Israel, Hamas launched five rocket strikes on Israel. In November, Isra Almodallal was appointed the first spokeswoman of the group.” ref

“In 2014, in the presence and mediation of the Emir of Qatar in Doha, the Fatah leadership headed by Abbas met with the Hamas leadership headed by Khaled Mash’al. The full minutes of the talks were published in an official Emirati document. In essence, the message of the Hamas leadership was clear: “If you in Fatah are convinced that you can get a state from Israel along the 1967 lines through negotiations, go for it. We will not interfere.” ref

“During the 2014 Gaza War, Israel launched Operation Protective Edge to counter increased Hamas rocket fire from Gaza. The conflict ended with a permanent cease-fire after 7 weeks, and more than 2,200 dead. 64 of the dead were Israeli soldiers, 7 were civilians in Israel (from rocket attacks), and 2,101 were killed in Gaza, of which, according to UN OCHA, at least 1,460 were civilians. Israel says 1,000 of the dead were militants. Following the conflict, Mahmoud Abbas president of the Palestinian Authority, accused Hamas of needlessly extending the fighting in the Gaza Strip, contributing to the high death toll, of running a “shadow government” in Gaza, and of illegally executing scores of Palestinians. Hamas has complained about the slow delivery of reconstruction materials after the conflict and announced that they were diverting these materials from civilian uses to build more infiltration tunnels.” ref

“In 2016, Hamas began security co-ordination with Egypt to crack down on Islamic terrorist organizations in Sinai, in return for economic aid. In early 2017, Hamas established the Supreme Administrative Committee to oversee Gaza’s ministries. Abbas decried the move as Hamas creating a shadow government and trying to entrench its control in Gaza. On 17 September 2017, Hamas announced it was dissolving the committee in response to Egypt’s efforts as part of the Fatah–Hamas reconciliation process. In October 2017, Fatah and Hamas signed yet another reconciliation agreement. The partial agreement addresses civil and administrative matters involving Gaza and the West Bank. Other contentious issues such as national elections, reform of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and possible demilitarization of Hamas were to be discussed in the next meeting in November 2017, due to a new step-by-step approach.

“A UN report cited that Hamas, among numerous other organizations, participated in planning the 2018-2019 “the Great March of Return” along the Gaza border with Israel. The report states that the armed wings of the political parties were not represented on the committees. The planning committee included a diversity of representatives from all sectors of Palestinian society, including cultural and social organizations, student unions, and women’s rights groups. The report states that “while the members of the committee held diverse political views, they stated that their unifying element was the principle that the march was to be ‘fully peaceful from beginning to the end’ and demonstrators would be unarmed.” At least 183 unarmed Palestinian protestors, including 1 woman and 35 children, were killed by the IDF firing live ammunition, and 7,623 were injured by live ammunition, fragmentation, rubber-coated bullets, and direct tear-gas canister hits. 6 Palestinians in the report, including teenagers, were shot with live ammunition for throwing stones at IDF soldiers in protest. A total of 4 IDF soldiers were injured by stones.” ref

“In February–March 2021, Fatah and Hamas reached an agreement to jointly conduct elections for a new Palestinian legislative assembly, in accordance with the Oslo Accords. Hamas committed to upholding international law, transferring control of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, and allowing it to negotiate with Israel to establish a Palestinian state along the 1967 ceasefire lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital. According to Menachem Klein, Israeli Arabist and political scientist at Bar-Ilan University, Mahmood Abbas subsequently canceled the elections after capitulating to severe pressure from Israel and the United States.” ref

“In May 2021, after tensions escalated in Sheikh Jarrah and the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, Israel and Hamas clashed in Gaza once again. After eleven days of fighting, at least 243 people were killed in Gaza and 12 in Israel. During this conflict Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Aqsa Brigades, started planning the operation which would break out on 7 October 2023.” ref

2023 Israel–Hamas war

“On October 7, 2023, early morning, Hamas launched a barrage of rockets on Israeli towns and cities, followed by an invasion, breaching the Gaza–Israel barrier. For months prior to the attack, Hamas had been leading Israeli intelligence to believe that they were not seeking conflict. Hamas militants proceeded to massacre hundreds in Israeli civilian communities, including Kibbutzim, villages and towns, and hundreds of civilians celebrating at the Nova music festival. In total, 1,139 people were killed in Israel, making this the deadliest attack by Palestinian militants since the foundation of Israel in 1948. Approximately 250 Israeli civilians and soldiers were taken as hostages to the Gaza Strip, including 30 children. International human rights groups, medical personnel, and journalists have chronicled the militants’ onslaught, detailing the killing, including the decapitation and burning, of women, children, and the elderly, alongside young men and soldiers. There are numerous reports of rapes and sexual assaults by Hamas militants, allegations that Hamas has denied.” ref

“Senior Hamas official Khaled Mashal said that the group was fully aware of the consequences of attack on Israel, stating that Palestinian liberation comes with “sacrifices. On October 24, Ghazi Hamad, Hamas’ spokesperson, said that Hamas will repeat the October 7 attack time and again until Israel is annihilated, since Israel constitutes a catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nation. The Israeli military responded by imposing a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, followed by an extensive aerial bombardment campaign on Gazan targets. Israel then launched an ongoing large-scale ground invasion of Gaza with the stated goal of destroying Hamas and controlling Gaza afterwards.” ref

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Two Anarchists: Cory Johnston and Damien Marie AtHope, address the Israel and Palestine conflict (VIDEO)

Two Anarchists: Cory Johnston and Damien Marie AtHope, address the Israel and Palestine conflict (Blog Post)

Archaeology Disproves the Bible

My best Video talking about My thoughts on “Religion and Deity Evolution” with Questions and Answers

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People don’t commonly teach religious history, even that of their own claimed religion. No, rather they teach a limited “pro their religion” history of their religion from a religious perspective favorable to the religion of choice. 

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Do you truly think “Religious Belief” is only a matter of some personal choice?

Do you not see how coercive one’s world of choice is limited to the obvious hereditary belief, in most religious choices available to the child of religious parents or caregivers? Religion is more commonly like a family, culture, society, etc. available belief that limits the belief choices of the child and that is when “Religious Belief” is not only a matter of some personal choice and when it becomes hereditary faith, not because of the quality of its alleged facts or proposed truths but because everyone else important to the child believes similarly so they do as well simply mimicking authority beliefs handed to them. Because children are raised in religion rather than being presented all possible choices but rather one limited dogmatic brand of “Religious Belief” where children only have a choice of following the belief as instructed, and then personally claim the faith hereditary belief seen in the confirming to the belief they have held themselves all their lives. This is obvious in statements asked and answered by children claiming a faith they barely understand but they do understand that their family believes “this or that” faith, so they feel obligated to believe it too. While I do agree that “Religious Belief” should only be a matter of some personal choice, it rarely is… End Hereditary Religion!

Opposition to Imposed Hereditary Religion

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref 

Animism: Respecting the Living World by Graham Harvey 

“How have human cultures engaged with and thought about animals, plants, rocks, clouds, and other elements in their natural surroundings? Do animals and other natural objects have a spirit or soul? What is their relationship to humans? In this new study, Graham Harvey explores current and past animistic beliefs and practices of Native Americans, Maori, Aboriginal Australians, and eco-pagans. He considers the varieties of animism found in these cultures as well as their shared desire to live respectfully within larger natural communities. Drawing on his extensive casework, Harvey also considers the linguistic, performative, ecological, and activist implications of these different animisms.” ref

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We are like believing machines we vacuum up ideas, like Velcro sticks to almost everything. We accumulate beliefs that we allow to negatively influence our lives, often without realizing it. Our willingness must be to alter skewed beliefs that impend our balance or reason, which allows us to achieve new positive thinking and accurate outcomes.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

“These ideas are my speculations from the evidence.”

I am still researching the “god‘s origins” all over the world. So you know, it is very complicated but I am smart and willing to look, DEEP, if necessary, which going very deep does seem to be needed here, when trying to actually understand the evolution of gods and goddesses. I am sure of a few things and less sure of others, but even in stuff I am not fully grasping I still am slowly figuring it out, to explain it to others. But as I research more I am understanding things a little better, though I am still working on understanding it all or something close and thus always figuring out more. 

Sky Father/Sky God?

“Egyptian: (Nut) Sky Mother and (Geb) Earth Father” (Egypt is different but similar)

Turkic/Mongolic: (Tengri/Tenger Etseg) Sky Father and (Eje/Gazar Eej) Earth Mother *Transeurasian*

Hawaiian: (Wākea) Sky Father and (Papahānaumoku) Earth Mother *Austronesian*

New Zealand/ Māori: (Ranginui) Sky Father and (Papatūānuku) Earth Mother *Austronesian*

Proto-Indo-European: (Dyḗus/Dyḗus ph₂tḗr) Sky Father and (Dʰéǵʰōm/Pleth₂wih₁) Earth Mother

Indo-Aryan: (Dyaus Pita) Sky Father and (Prithvi Mata) Earth Mother *Indo-European*

Italic: (Jupiter) Sky Father and (Juno) Sky Mother *Indo-European*

Etruscan: (Tinia) Sky Father and (Uni) Sky Mother *Tyrsenian/Italy Pre–Indo-European*

Hellenic/Greek: (Zeus) Sky Father and (Hera) Sky Mother who started as an “Earth Goddess” *Indo-European*

Nordic: (Dagr) Sky Father and (Nótt) Sky Mother *Indo-European*

Slavic: (Perun) Sky Father and (Mokosh) Earth Mother *Indo-European*

Illyrian: (Deipaturos) Sky Father and (Messapic Damatura’s “earth-mother” maybe) Earth Mother *Indo-European*

Albanian: (Zojz) Sky Father and (?) *Indo-European*

Baltic: (Perkūnas) Sky Father and (Saulė) Sky Mother *Indo-European*

Germanic: (Týr) Sky Father and (?) *Indo-European*

Colombian-Muisca: (Bochica) Sky Father and (Huythaca) Sky Mother *Chibchan*

Aztec: (Quetzalcoatl) Sky Father and (Xochiquetzal) Sky Mother *Uto-Aztecan*

Incan: (Viracocha) Sky Father and (Mama Runtucaya) Sky Mother *Quechuan*

China: (Tian/Shangdi) Sky Father and (Dì) Earth Mother *Sino-Tibetan*

Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian: (An/Anu) Sky Father and (Ki) Earth Mother

Finnish: (Ukko) Sky Father and (Akka) Earth Mother *Finno-Ugric*

Sami: (Horagalles) Sky Father and (Ravdna) Earth Mother *Finno-Ugric*

Puebloan-Zuni: (Ápoyan Ta’chu) Sky Father and (Áwitelin Tsíta) Earth Mother

Puebloan-Hopi: (Tawa) Sky Father and (Kokyangwuti/Spider Woman/Grandmother) Earth Mother *Uto-Aztecan*

Puebloan-Navajo: (Tsohanoai) Sky Father and (Estsanatlehi) Earth Mother *Na-Dene*

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref 

Sky Father/Sky Mother “High Gods” or similar gods/goddesses of the sky more loosely connected, seeming arcane mythology across the earth seen in Siberia, China, Europe, Native Americans/First Nations People and Mesopotamia, etc.

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Expressions of Atheistic Thinking:

• Around 2,600 years ago, Ajita Kesakambali, ancient Indian philosopher, who is the first known proponent of Indian materialism. ref
• Around 2,535 to 2,475 years ago, Heraclitus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor or modern Turkey. ref
• Around 2,500 to 2,400 years ago, according to The Story of Civilization book series certain African pygmy tribes have no identifiable gods, spirits, or religious beliefs or rituals, and even what burials accrue are without ceremony. ref
• Around 2,490 to 2,430 years ago, Empedocles, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. ref
• Around 2,460 to 2,370 years ago, Democritus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher considered to be the “father of modern science” possibly had some disbelief amounting to atheism. ref
• Around 2,399 years ago or so, Socrates, a famous Greek philosopher was tried for sinfulness by teaching doubt of state gods. ref
• Around 2,341 to 2,270 years ago, Epicurus, a Greek philosopher known for composing atheistic critics and famously stated, “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him god?” ref

This last expression by Epicurus, seems to be an expression of Axiological Atheism. To understand and utilize value or actually possess “Value Conscious/Consciousness” to both give a strong moral “axiological” argument (the problem of evil) as well as use it to fortify humanism and positive ethical persuasion of human helping and care responsibilities. Because value-blindness gives rise to sociopathic/psychopathic evil.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope (Said as “At” “Hope”)/(Autodidact Polymath but not good at math):

Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist, Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Jeweler, Poet, “autodidact” Philosopher, schooled in Psychology, and “autodidact” Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Pre-Historian (Knowledgeable in the range of: 1 million to 5,000/4,000 years ago). I am an anarchist socialist politically. Reasons for or Types of Atheism

My Website, My Blog, & Short-writing or Quotes, My YouTube, Twitter: @AthopeMarie, and My Email: damien.marie.athope@gmail.com