Israel Gaza news: Israeli airstrike kills Rafah family as US approves $26bn in aid package

Jack Straw was the first foreign secretary to visit Iran after the 1979 revolution and is used to negotiating with its leaders – even, on one occasion, from a train loo. Here, he explains why Netanyahu and Khamenei are throwing each other a lifeline to stay in power, and warns we could all pay a terrible price…

A unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is expected to be sanctioned by the Biden administration this week after a ProPublica investigation claimed that the State Department sat for months on evidence of serious human rights abuses.

The investigation published by the non-profit investigative outlet ProPublica on Wednesday revealed that an internal State Department investigation had, months ago, identified several Israeli police and military units facing credible accusations of violating human rights – some even faced allegations of torture. It’s an investigation required by law, with the panel having been set up as part of the so-called “Leahy law”, which prohibits US funding from going to military or security units found to have committed atrocities.

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A bipartisan super-majority came together yesterday to approve $95bn in aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, paving the way for the long-stalled package to reach Joe Biden’s desk for signature.

The final vote stood at 79 to 18.“Today the Senate sends a unified message to the entire world: America will always defend democracy in its hour of need,” Chuck Schumer said.

“Make no mistake, America will deliver on its promise to act like a leader on the world stage, to hold the line against autocratic thugs like Vladimir Putin,” he added. “We are showing Putin that betting against America is always, always a grave mistake.”

Three members of a family from Rafah lost their lives and four others sustained injuries following an Israeli military strike on their home in southern Gaza, according to Al Jazeera, which cited information from Civil Defence personnel.

This comes after Israeli strikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Sunday that killed 18 people overnight, including 14 children.

Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary general, said the level of violation of international order witnessed in the past year was “unprecedented”.

“Israel’s flagrant disregard for international law is compounded by the failures of its allies to stop the indescribable civilian bloodshed meted out in Gaza,” she said. “Many of those allies were the very architects of that post-World War Two system of law.”

The United Nations called Tuesday for “a clear, transparent and credible investigation” of mass graves uncovered at two major hospitals in war-torn Gaza that were raided by Israeli troops.

Credible investigators must have access to the sites, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters, and added that more journalists need to be able to work safely in Gaza to report on the facts.

Earlier Tuesday, U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk said he was “horrified” by the destruction of the Shifa medical center in Gaza City and Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis as well as the reported discovery of mass graves in and around the facilities after the Israelis left.

He called for independent and transparent investigations into the deaths, saying that “given the prevailing climate of impunity, this should include international investigators.”

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Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi warned Israel that any attack on Iranian territory could result in potentially jeopardizing the existence of the “Zionist regime”.

“If the Zionist regime once again makes a mistake and attacks the sacred land of Iran, the situation will be different, and it is not clear whether anything will remain of this regime,” Raisi said during his visit to Pakistan on Tuesday.

“Today the greatest violators of human rights are the Americans and Westerners, and their claim of defending human rights is also empty,” he said, attacking the West for claiming to defend human rights but at the same time supporting Israel’s war in Gaza.

“The people of Iran and Pakistan both defend the oppressed Palestinian nation. Islamic Iran will continue to defend the resistance and the oppressed nation of Palestine with pride,” he added.

The organisation said it was reviewing claims more than 300 bodies were discovered at two different burial sites outside the Nasser and al-Shifa hospitals, some of whom were women and elderly people.

It warned of potential “serious violations” of humanitarian law after the bodies were found buried “deep in the ground and covered with waste”. The Israeli military said the claim was “baseless and unfounded”.

“Among the deceased were allegedly older people, women and wounded, while others were found tied with their hands and stripped of their clothes,” a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights spokesperson said.

“This of course indicates serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, and these need to be subjected to further investigations.”

Some Senate Democrats are talking the talk but not walking the walk on foreign aid to Israel.

The US Senate is debating a $95 billion foreign aid package after several months of infighting and delays by their House counterparts. The package would allocate $26.38 billion to fund Israeli defense systems – something progressive Senator Bernie Sanders isn’t too happy about.

Mr Sanders announced this week he is introducing amendments to significantly cut the amount of aid Israel would receive, saying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has created a “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza.

Many of Mr Sanders’ Democratic colleagues have expressed similar concerns about civilian deaths and humanitarian aid — but not enough to consider amendments or delay the multi-billion-dollar deal, they told The Independent just minutes before the US Senate voted to strike down the possibility of adding any amendments to the aid package.

“I think it’s beyond belief that, on an issue where the majority of the American people don’t want to continue to support Netanyahu’s war machine slaughter of women and children in Gaza, that we couldn’t even get an amendment to deal with that,” Mr Sanders told The Independent.

My colleagues Katie Hawkinson and Eric Garcia have the full report: