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US risks ‘complicity in war crimes’, says Human Rights Watch – as it happened

 Updated 1m ago

Smoke rises over Gaza.
US vetoes UN call for immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza – video

Rebecca Ratcliffe (now); Léonie Chao-Fong, Richard Luscombe, Tom Ambrose, Kevin Rawlinson, Jamie Grierson and Reged Ahmad (earlier)Sat 9 Dec 2023 02.19 GMT

US risks ‘complicity in war crimes’ by giving Israel weapons and ‘diplomatic cover’, says Human Rights Watch

The US risks “complicity in war crimes” by continuing to provide Israel with weapons and “diplomatic cover” as it commits “atrocities” in Gaza, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.

The HRW UN director, Louis Charbonneau, posted a statement after the US vetoed a security council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in the Palestinian territory.

The veto by the US prevented the council from making some of the call Washington itself has been demanding, including compliance with international humanitarian law, protection of civilians and releasing all civilians held hostage, he wrote. The statement continues:

By continuing to provide Israel with weapons and diplomatic cover as it commits atrocities, including collectively punishing the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza, the US risks complicity in war crimes.

🚨 US just vetoed another #Gaza ceasefire resolution in the UN Security Council. Drafted by UAE with nearly 100 co-sponsors.

13 votes in favor, 1 against (US) and 1 abstention (UK).@hrw reaction follows in a short thread 🧵 pic.twitter.com/EstVHyRcBN— louis charbonneau (@loucharbon) December 8, 2023

.@hrw: By continuing to provide Israel with weapons and diplomatic cover as it commits atrocities, including collectively punishing the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza, the US risks complicity in war crimes. pic.twitter.com/YpbggNjd3y— louis charbonneau (@loucharbon) December 8, 2023

Closing summary

This blog is closing now. You can read our latest news wrap here. Thank you for reading.

It’s just 4.15am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

  • The US has defied appeals from its Arab allies and the UN secretary general to back an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. The US vetoed a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire late on Friday. The vote in the 15-member council was 13-1 with the UK abstaining. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has reportedly asked Congress to approve the sale of 45,000 shells for Israel’s Merkava tanks to be used in its offensive in Gaza.
  • The Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, said the US veto of the ceasefire resolution was “a turning point in history”. In a strongly worded address to the security council after the vote, Mansour said the results of the vote were “regrettable” and “disastrous”, warning that prolonging the war in Gaza “implies the continued commission of atrocities, the loss of more innocent lives, more destruction”.
  • Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, thanked the US and Joe Biden for vetoing a draft security council resolution. Posting to social media, Erdan praised the US president for “standing firmly by our side” and for showing “leadership and values”.
  • Hamas condemned the US veto at the UN security council, describing it as “unethical and inhumane”. “The US obstruction of the ceasefire resolution is a direct participation with the occupation in killing our people and committing more massacres and ethnic cleansing,” said Ezzat El-Reshiq, a member of the group’s political bureau.
  • Human Rights Watch has said the US risks “complicity in war crimes” by continuing to provide Israel with weapons and “diplomatic cover” as it commits “atrocities” in Gaza. The US veto prevented the security council from making some of the call Washington itself has been demanding, including compliance with international humanitarian law, protection of civilians, the rights watch group said in a statement.
  • The UN security vote came after a dramatic warning from UN chief António Guterres that civil order in Gaza was breaking down. With the UN claiming its relief operation was grinding to a halt and its staff being killed, Guterres chose earlier this week to take the extremely rare step of invoking article 99 of the UN charter, which permits him to bring a threat to world security to the attention of the security council.
  • The head of the main UN agency in Gaza (UNRWA) has said it was “the darkest hour” in the organisation’s history. Philippe Lazzarini said the agency is “barely” operational in Gaza, and that its staff – at least 130 of whom have been killed – “take their children to work, so they know they are safe or can die together.” “We are hanging on by our fingertips,” he said.
  • The International Committee of the Red Cross has said it is concerned by images of semi-naked Palestinian men being paraded by the Israeli military in Gaza. While Israeli media initially suggested that the images, apparently filmed by at least one Israeli soldier, showed the surrender of Hamas fighters, several of the men pictured were identified as civilians, including a journalist.
  • The European Commission has announced it will provide €125m (£107.2m, $134m) in humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people in 2024. The funds will go toward supporting humanitarian organisations working in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank, the commission said in a statement on Friday.
  • Tributes poured in for the Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer on Friday after friends said he was killed in a strike on Gaza. Alareer, who fiercely denounced Israel and its policies towards the Palestinians, was one of the leaders of a young generation of writers in Gaza who chose to write in English to tell their stories, with friends describing his defiance in the face of the Israeli army’s assault on the Gaza Strip.
  • More journalists have been killed during Israel’s war with Hamas than in any other conflict in more than 30 years, a leading organisation representing journalists worldwide said. In its annual count of media worker deaths, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said 94 journalists had been killed so far this year and almost 400 others had been imprisoned.
  • Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed remarks by the Palestinian Authority (PA) prime minister that Hamas could serve as a junior partner in governing Gaza after the war. The authority’s prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, said in an interview that the PA is working with US officials on a plan to run Gaza after the current conflict ends. “The Palestinian Authority is not the solution,” the Israeli prime minister responded.
  • More than a dozen member states of the World Health Organization submitted a draft resolution on Friday that urged Israel to respect its obligations under international law to protect humanitarian workers in Gaza. Separately, the UN said late on Thursday that only 14 of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip were functioning in any capacity.

01.41 GMT

More than a dozen member states of the World Health Organization submitted a draft resolution on Friday that urged Israel to respect its obligations under international law to protect humanitarian workers in Gaza.

The text of the draft resolution is due to be examined on Sunday during a special session of the WHO’s Executive Board convened to discuss “the health situation in the occupied Palestinian territory”.

It was proposed by Algeria, Bolivia, China, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

Palestinian representatives have WHO observer status, and were also signatories to the proposal.

The member states expressed their “grave concern about the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, especially the military operations in the Gaza Strip”.

They called for Israel to “respect and protect” medical and humanitarian workers exclusively involved in carrying out medical duties, as well as hospitals and other medical facilities.

Separately, WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told reporters on Friday that Gaza’s health system was on its knees and could not afford to lose another ambulance or a single hospital bed.

“The situation is getting more and more horrible by the day… beyond belief, literally,” he said.

The United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA said late on Thursday that only 14 of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip were functioning in any capacity.

The scenes we are seeing unfold in Israel and Gaza mark a new chapter in the Middle East conflict. The consequences and scale of losses are already devastating, and the recent attack – and the war that now follows – is likely to shape global politics for years to come. 

With correspondents on the ground and reporters updating this liveblog 24/7, the Guardian is well-placed to provide comprehensive, fact-checked reporting, to help all of us make sense of this perilous moment for the region. Reader-funded and free from commercial influence, we can report fearlessly on world events as they develop. 

We believe everyone deserves equal access to accurate news. Help power the Guardian’s journalism and enable us to keep our quality reporting open for everyone. If you can, please support us on a monthly basis from just $2. It takes less than a minute to set up. Thank you.

00.56 GMT

Salvoes of rockets were launched early on Friday at the US embassy in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, AFP has reported, the latest in a flurry of such attacks amid the Israel-Hamas war.

“A multi-rocket attack was launched at US and Coalition forces in the vicinity of Union III and the Baghdad embassy complex” without causing any reported casualties or damage, a US official said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The United States “strongly” condemned the attacks and called on Iraq to bring the perpetrators to justice, the State Department said in a statement.

“The many Iran-aligned militias that operate freely in Iraq threaten the security and stability of Iraq, our personnel, and our partners in the region,” spokesman Matthew Miller said in the statement.

Since mid-October there have been dozens of rocket or drone strikes by pro-Iran groups against US or coalition forces in Iraq, as well as in Syria.

But Friday’s rocket attack was the first against the US embassy in Baghdad since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, raising regional tensions and fears of a wider conflict.

00.25 GMT

Three Hezbollah fighters and a Syrian were killed on Friday in an Israeli drone strike on their car in the south of Syria, according to a report by AFP.

“A Syrian and three Lebanese Hezbollah fighters from the surveillance and missile-launching unit were killed in the Israeli drone strike on their rented car” in Madinat al-Baath town in the province of Quneitra, close to the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Later on Friday Hezbollah said that three of its fighters had been killed, without giving any further details.

Israel has undertaken hundreds of air strikes in its neighbour Syria since the start of the country’s civil war in 2011, targeting the positions of the Syrian army and groups affiliated with Iran, such as Hezbollah.

Those missions have intensified since the start of Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip on October 7, which was triggered by the Islamist group’s unprecedented attack on Israeli soil.

Israel rarely comments on its operations in Syria, but says it wants to prevent Iran, its sworn enemy, from establishing itself on Israel’s doorstep

00.04 GMT

Summary of the day so far

It’s just past 2am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

  • The US has defied appeals from its Arab allies and the UN secretary general to back an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. The US vetoed a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire late on Friday. The vote in the 15-member council was 13-1 with the UK abstaining. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has reportedly asked Congress to approve the sale of 45,000 shells for Israel’s Merkava tanks to be used in its offensive in Gaza.
US vetoes UN call for immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza – video
US vetoes UN call for immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza – video
  • The Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, said the US veto of the ceasefire resolution was “a turning point in history”. In a strongly worded address to the security council after the vote, Mansour said the results of the vote were “regrettable” and “disastrous”, warning that prolonging the war in Gaza “implies the continued commission of atrocities, the loss of more innocent lives, more destruction”.
  • Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, thanked the US and Joe Biden for vetoing a draft security council resolution. Posting to social media, Erdan praised the US president for “standing firmly by our side” and for showing “leadership and values”.
  • Hamas condemned the US veto at the UN security council, describing it as “unethical and inhumane”. “The US obstruction of the ceasefire resolution is a direct participation with the occupation in killing our people and committing more massacres and ethnic cleansing,” said Ezzat El-Reshiq, a member of the group’s political bureau.
  • Human Rights Watch has said the US risks “complicity in war crimes” by continuing to provide Israel with weapons and “diplomatic cover” as it commits “atrocities” in Gaza. The US veto prevented the security council from making some of the call Washington itself has been demanding, including compliance with international humanitarian law, protection of civilians, the rights watch group said in a statement.
  • The UN security vote came after a dramatic warning from UN chief António Guterres that civil order in Gaza was breaking down. With the UN claiming its relief operation was grinding to a halt and its staff being killed, Guterres chose earlier this week to take the extremely rare step of invoking article 99 of the UN charter, which permits him to bring a threat to world security to the attention of the security council.
  • The head of the main UN agency in Gaza (UNRWA) has said it was “the darkest hour” in the organisation’s history. Philippe Lazzarini said the agency is “barely” operational in Gaza, and that its staff – at least 130 of whom have been killed – “take their children to work, so they know they are safe or can die together.” “We are hanging on by our fingertips,” he said.
  • The International Committee of the Red Cross has said it is concerned by images of semi-naked Palestinian men being paraded by the Israeli military in Gaza. While Israeli media initially suggested that the images, apparently filmed by at least one Israeli soldier, showed the surrender of Hamas fighters, several of the men pictured were identified as civilians, including a journalist.
  • The European Commission has announced it will provide €125m (£107.2m, $134m) in humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people in 2024. The funds will go toward supporting humanitarian organisations working in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank, the commission said in a statement on Friday.
  • Tributes poured in for the Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer on Friday after friends said he was killed in a strike on Gaza. Alareer, who fiercely denounced Israel and its policies towards the Palestinians, was one of the leaders of a young generation of writers in Gaza who chose to write in English to tell their stories, with friends describing his defiance in the face of the Israeli army’s assault on the Gaza Strip.
  • More journalists have been killed during Israel’s war with Hamas than in any other conflict in more than 30 years, a leading organisation representing journalists worldwide said. In its annual count of media worker deaths, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said 94 journalists had been killed so far this year and almost 400 others had been imprisoned.
  • Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed remarks by the Palestinian Authority (PA) prime minister that Hamas could serve as a junior partner in governing Gaza after the war. The authority’s prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, said in an interview that the PA is working with US officials on a plan to run Gaza after the current conflict ends. “The Palestinian Authority is not the solution,” the Israeli prime minister responded.

Updated at 00.06 GMT

23.40 GMT

The Israeli military believes it needs another three to four weeks to complete its military offensive in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, according to a report.

Citing a senior Israeli official, Israel’s Walla news reports that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) believes it needs a similar amount of time after that to wrap up the first stage of the war in Gaza, according to the Times of Israel.

The report says that the US has not given Israel a hard deadline, but that Washington has said that time is running out, it said.

According to the report, the Biden administration would be happy for the IDF to complete intensive operations by the end of the month, but Israel believes it needs until the end of January, it said. The official was quoted as saying:

The American message is that they would like to see us finish the fighting sooner, with less harm to Palestinian civilians and more humanitarian assistance for Gaza. We would also like this to happen, but the enemy does not always agree.

Updated at 23.51 GMT

23.25 GMT

The US state department has denied it prevented the Palestinian foreign minister, Riyad Malki, from speaking to reporters during a visit to Washington DC.

Malki, at a joint press conference by the Arab and Turkish diplomats in the US capital, was asked by a reporter about an interview with Palestinian Authority (PA) prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh.

As we reported earlier, Shtayyeh told Bloomberg that he hoped Hamas could serve as a junior partner in governing Gaza after the war.

During the press conference in Washington, Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan quickly intervened, AP reported.

Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan during a press conference with Palestine’s Foreign Minister Riad Al-Malki.
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan during a press conference with Palestine’s Foreign Minister Riad Al-Malki. Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA

The Saudi minister told journalists that the US government had imposed visa “restrictions on his excellency that do not allow him to respond to media questions”. He added that he believed the ban was a “historical” practice and that violating it would bring legal repercussions.

In a statement afterwards, the US state department said: “We have imposed no restrictions that prohibit individuals from speaking to the press.”

Updated at 23.34 GMT

23.14 GMT

Tributes continue to pour in for the prominent Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, who friends said was killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Alareer, 44, was one of the leaders of a young generation of writers in Gaza who chose to write in English to tell their stories in the Palestinian territory.

He taught world literature and creative writing at the Islamic University of Gaza and edited two short story collections, Gaza Unsilenced and Gaza Writes Back: Short Stories from Young Writers in Gaza, Palestine.

Alareer, who fiercely denounced Israel and its policies towards the Palestinians, helped found We Are Not Numbers, which connected young Palestinian writers with mentors to tell stories that go beyond the numbers in the news.

Refaat Alareer on a speaking tour in the US in 2014.
Refaat Alareer on a speaking tour in the US in 2014. Photograph: Tony Heriza/AFSC

Updated at 23.18 GMT

23.01 GMT

The Israeli military said two of its soldiers were seriously wounded in a failed attempt to free Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it killed numerous militants in the overnight operation, but was unable to rescue any hostages.

As we reported earlier, the armed wing of Hamas said an Israeli soldier who was being held hostage was killed in a clash between the militants and an Israeli special forces unit that was conducting a rescue operation. They identified the captive soldier as 25-year-old Sa’ar Baruch. Israel’s military had no comment on the claim.

22.52 GMT

US risks ‘complicity in war crimes’ by giving Israel weapons and ‘diplomatic cover’, says Human Rights Watch

The US risks “complicity in war crimes” by continuing to provide Israel with weapons and “diplomatic cover” as it commits “atrocities” in Gaza, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.

The HRW UN director, Louis Charbonneau, posted a statement after the US vetoed a security council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in the Palestinian territory.

The veto by the US prevented the council from making some of the call Washington itself has been demanding, including compliance with international humanitarian law, protection of civilians and releasing all civilians held hostage, he wrote. The statement continues:

By continuing to provide Israel with weapons and diplomatic cover as it commits atrocities, including collectively punishing the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza, the US risks complicity in war crimes.

source and more https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/dec/08/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-gaza-palestine-idf-civilians-blinken

Categories: America, American History, Americas, Gaza, Gaza, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, United Nations, United States, USA, War, War crimes

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