Israeli soldiers used Palestinians as human shields in Gaza
Today at 21:30
The only times the Palestinian man wasn't bound or blindfolded, he said, was when he was used by Israeli soldiers as their human shield.
Dressed in army fatigues with a camera fixed to his forehead, Ayman Abu Hamadan was forced into houses in the Gaza Strip to make sure they were clear of bombs and gunmen, he said. When one unit finished with him, he was passed to the next.
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RTÉ News
20 hours ago
- RTÉ News
USAID analysis found no evidence of massive Hamas theft of Gaza aid
An internal US government analysis found no evidence of systematic theft by the Palestinian militant group Hamas of US-funded humanitarian supplies, challenging the main rationale that Israel and the US give for backing a new armed private aid operation. The analysis, which has not been previously reported, was conducted by a bureau within the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and completed in late June. It examined 156 incidents of theft or loss of US-funded supplies reported by US aid partner organisations between October 2023 and this May. It found "no reports alleging Hamas" benefited from US-funded supplies, according to a slide presentation of the findings seen by Reuters. A US State Department spokesperson disputed the findings, saying there is video evidence of Hamas looting aid, but provided no such videos. The spokesperson also accused traditional humanitarian groups of covering up "aid corruption". The findings were shared with the USAID's inspector general's office and State Department officials involved in Middle East policy, said two sources familiar with the matter, and come as dire food shortages deepen in the devastated enclave. Israel says it is committed to allowing in aid but must control it to prevent it from being stolen by Hamas, which it blames for the crisis. The UN World Food Programme says nearly a quarter of Gaza's 2.1 million Palestinians face famine-like conditions, thousands are suffering acute malnutrition, and the World Health Organization and doctors in the enclave report starvation deaths of children and others. The UN also estimates that Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 people seeking food supplies, the majority near the militarised distribution sites of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the new private aid group that uses a for-profit US logistics firm run by a former CIA officer and armed US military veterans. The study was conducted by the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) of USAID, which was the largest funder of assistance to Gaza before the Trump administration froze all US foreign aid in January, terminating thousands of programmes. It has also begun dismantling USAID, whose functions have been folded into the State Department. The analysis found that at least 44 of the 156 incidents where aid supplies were reported stolen or lost were "either directly or indirectly" due to Israeli military actions, according to the briefing slides. Israel's military did not respond to questions about those findings. The study noted a limitation: because Palestinians who receive aid cannot be vetted, it was possible that US-funded supplies went to administrative officials of Hamas, the Islamist rulers of Gaza. One source familiar with the study also cautioned that the absence of reports of widespread aid diversion by Hamas "does not mean that diversion has not occurred". The war in Gaza began after Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and capturing 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Nearly 60,000 Palestinians have been killed since the Israeli assault began, according to Palestinian health officials. Israel says Hamas diverts humanitarian aid Israel, which controls access to Gaza, has said that Hamas steals food supplies from UN and other organisations to use to control the civilian population and boost its finances, including by jacking up the prices of the goods and reselling them to civilians. Asked about the USAID report, the Israeli military told Reuters that its allegations are based on intelligence reports that Hamas militants seized cargoes by "both covertly and overtly" embedding themselves on aid trucks. Those reports also show that Hamas has diverted up to 25% of aid supplies to its fighters or sold them to civilians, the Israeli military said, adding that GHF has ended the militants' control of aid by distributing it directly to civilians. Hamas denies the allegations. A Hamas security official said that Israel has killed more than 800 Hamas-affiliated police and security guards trying to protect aid vehicles and convoy routes. Their missions were coordinated with the UN. Reuters could not independently verify the claims by Hamas and Israel, which has not made public proof that the militants have systematically stolen aid. GHF also accuses Hamas of massive aid theft in defending its distribution model. The UN and other groups have rejected calls by GHF, Israel and the US to cooperate with the foundation, saying it violates international humanitarian principles of neutrality. In response to a request for comment, GHF referred Reuters to a 2 July Washington Post article that quoted an unidentified Gazan and anonymous Israeli officials as saying Hamas profited from the sales and taxing of pilfered humanitarian aid. Aid groups required to report losses The 156 reports of theft or losses of supplies reviewed by BHA were filed by UN agencies and other humanitarian groups working in Gaza as a condition of receiving US aid funds. The second source familiar with the matter said that after receiving reports of US-funded aid thefts or losses, USAID staff followed up with partner organisations to try to determine if there was Hamas involvement. Those organisations also would "redirect or pause" aid distributions if they learned that Hamas was in the vicinity, the source said. Aid organisations working in Gaza also are required to vet their personnel, sub-contractors and suppliers for ties to extremist groups before receiving US funds, a condition that the State Department waived in approving $30m for GHF last month. The slide presentation noted that USAID partners tended to over-report aid diversion and theft by groups sanctioned or designated by the US as foreign terrorist organisations - such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad - because they want to avoid losing US funding. Of the 156 incidents of loss or theft reported, 63 were attributed to unknown perpetrators, 35 to armed actors, 25 to unarmed people, 11 directly to Israeli military action, 11 to corrupt sub-contractors, five to aid group personnel "engaging in corrupt activities," and six to "others," a category that accounted for "commodities stolen in unknown circumstances," according to the slide presentation. The armed actors "included gangs and other miscellaneous individuals who may have had weapons," said a slide. Another slide said "a review of all 156 incidents found no affiliations with" US-designated foreign terrorist organisations, of which Hamas is one. "The majority of incidents could not be definitively attributed to a specific actor," said another slide. "Partners often largely discovered the commodities had been stolen in transit without identifying the perpetrator." It is possible there were classified intelligence reports on Hamas aid thefts, but BHA staff lost access to classified systems in the dismantlement of USAID, said a slide. However, a source familiar with US intelligence assessments said that they knew of no US intelligence reports detailing Hamas aid diversions and that Washington was relying on Israeli reports. The BHA analysis found that the Israeli military "directly or indirectly caused" a total of 44 incidents in which US-funded aid was lost or stolen. Those included the 11 attributed to direct Israeli military actions, such as airstrikes or orders to Palestinians to evacuate areas of the war-torn enclave. Losses indirectly attributed to Israeli military included cases where they compelled aid groups to use delivery routes with high risks of theft or looting, ignoring requests for alternative routes, the analysis said.
Irish Times
a day ago
- Irish Times
Thirty two children from the West Bank watched the All-Ireland in Jordan. This wasn't the plan
The cheering coming from a hotel room in Amman last Sunday sprang from an astonishing source. Gathered in front of a big screen, 32 Palestinian children from the West Bank were watching the All-Ireland final on the GAAGO streaming service. Some were sporting Tipperary jerseys, a gift from a donor. After the final whistle, one of the boys produced a length of string and fashioned it into a clothes line over the bath upon which he hung his precious Gaelic jersey to dry after washing it. Such resourcefulness is second nature to a child who has lived all his life in a refugee camp; as have his parents and his grandparents. The children – avid hurlers and camogie players aged from nine to 16 – should have been in Ireland, but they and 14 adult mentors were refused visas by the Department of Justice . 'But Ireland loves us,' they responded, confused, when the tour organisers, GAA Palestine, told them their visit to 152 waiting host families had to be cancelled . When Mohammed cannot come to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mohammed. A group of volunteers flew from Ireland to Jordan last Friday to give the children an alternative holiday there. One teenager failed to make it across the border from the West Bank because his requisite school certificate had burned to ashes when the Israel Defense Forces attacked his camp. On the day the other 32 left their homes in Ramallah and the Tulkarm, Jenin and Am'ari camps, soldiers shot a 13-year-old boy dead. Amr Ali Qabha had unwittingly walked down a road in Jenin where soldiers were present during violent raids by Israeli settlers. When he rounded a bend and saw them, Amr turned to go back. They shot him seven times – in the neck, abdomen, back, groin and right thigh. As he lay dying, the soldiers prevented an ambulance from going to his aid. READ MORE 'But Ireland loves us,' the children said. That is true, the GAA Palestine volunteers reassured them and showed them videos on their phones of last Saturday's solidarity protests when tens of thousands of people took to the streets of this country. These children need tender loving care. They've lost parents. They have family members in prisons, in detention with no charges. They are refugees all their lives. They are repeatedly displaced. They see the crops being burned, the sheep being killed. They need to be able to spend time without a gun in their face — Volunteer Claire Liddy 'Let them come,' the marchers had chanted. 'They say that for us?' wondered the children. They are not the only ones who are confused by the contradiction between Ireland's policy of solidarity on the Occupied Territories and how it treats the victim-occupants. The Government, admirably, has withstood orchestrated international opprobrium for its decision to officially recognise Palestinian statehood, which culminated in Israel shutting its embassy in Dublin. The Occupied Territories Bill currently before the Oireachtas has elicited accusations of anti-Semitism and warnings of ruination for the Irish economy. The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee , a Southern Baptist pastor and former Fox News talkshow host, dredged the muck of drunken-Paddies stereotypes, unapologetic for his own racism. [ Heartbreak as Palestinian GAA players are refused visas to visit Ireland Opens in new window ] To its credit, the Oireachtas appears resolved to outlaw trade with illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Injecting steel into that resolve is the knowledge that since last January and up until last week, according to United Nations agency OCHA , 162 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. At least 32 of the dead were children. The killings and illegal seizures of Palestinian homes and farms, with the assistance of Israeli soldiers, have been a fact of life throughout the lives of the children watching Tipperary beat Cork last Sunday. As it becomes ever more obvious that Israel is trying to kill as many Gazans as it can while it still can with complicit way-leave by the US, Germany and the EU, Micheál Martin's condemnations have become more forthright and fearless. Yet Ireland's defence of Palestinians' freedom is a strange kind of love. GAA Palestine applied in February for the summer tour visas. It was only at the eleventh hour this month that the Department of Justice notified the organisation the visas were being refused, citing a failure to produce sufficient documents. Stephen Redmond, GAA Palestine's chairman who is currently in Jordan, countered that all required documentations had been submitted; in fact, more than ever before for past tours. One West Bank group having to abandon its plans might be presumed a glitch or merely the pedantry of some stickler officials in the department's visa section, but two suggests a pattern. The Lajee Centre in the West Bank town of Bethlehem has had to postpone its planned tour to Ireland by 40 musicians and dancers this month after failing to obtain timely decisions on their visa applications. It would have been the third visit organised by the cultural centre. The hurt, confusion, upheaval and disappointment caused by these aborted tours can but be imagined. [ Exhausted and imprisoned: how life in the West Bank is getting worse for Palestinians Opens in new window ] 'These children need tender loving care,' volunteer Claire Liddy told me on the phone from the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea on Tuesday, during an outing with the young Palestinian hurlers. 'They've lost parents. They have family members in prisons, in detention with no charges. They live in camps. They are refugees all their lives. They are repeatedly displaced; some twice since May alone. They see the crops being burned [by Israeli settlers], the sheep being killed. They need to be able to spend time without a gun in their face.' Ireland's stringent admission policy for Palestinians also strikes a contrast with how it has treated Ukrainians, who do not require a visitor's visa. Within months of the Russian invasion in February 2022, this country was, rightly, accommodating 42,000 Ukrainian war refugees. Meanwhile, 208 Palestinians have been refused short-stay visas since Israel began its killing rampage in Gaza in October 2023 , according to data published by While there is a distinction to be made between a campaign of all-out war and a prolonged campaign of violent and illegal annexation, the ultimate consequences are the same for those on the receiving end. The common factor between what Israel is doing in Gaza and in the West Bank is an international crime called ethnic cleansing. The methods may differ – aerial bombardment, mass killings and man-made famine in Gaza; systemic discrimination, forced displacement and murders in the West Bank – but they belong to the same grand plan to colonise the Palestinian territories.
The Journal
a day ago
- The Journal
Gary Gannon launches legal action against Central Bank over approval of Israeli bonds
SOCIAL DEMOCRATS TD Gary Gannon has launched legal proceedings against the Central Bank of Ireland over claims that investors in Israeli bonds could be legally complicit in genocide in Gaza. Lawyers for Gannon lodged legal papers against the Central Bank in Dublin this afternoon. The Dublin Central TD alleges that the Central Bank's failure to ban the marketing, distribution and sale of Israeli bonds exposes investors to risks that have not been disclosed to them. Israeli State Bonds have been advertised as a method to support the country's economy and, more recently, websites promoting the investments have emphasised their importance to Israel's military operations in Gaza. Some TDs, as a result, have dubbed the securities as 'Israeli war bonds'. Speaking today, Gannon said the case asks whether Ireland's financial regulatory system 'can remain silent'. 'The Taoiseach has said clearly in the Dáil that what's happening in Gaza is genocide. Arrest warrants have been issued by the International Criminal Court. These are not distant issues – they raise urgent legal and moral questions for Ireland.' he said. 'These bonds are not neutral financial instruments. They are a funding pipeline for a military campaign that includes the bombardment and starvation of thousands of civilians. Letters, seen by the PA news agency, sent to Central Bank governor Gabriel Makhlouf in recent weeks by McGarr Solicitors, acting on behalf of Gannon, claim that these risks were not made known to investors in prospectuses for bonds, which had been approved by the Central Bank. The letter warns Makhlouf that the 'continued issuing and trading of those bonds gives rise to significant investor protection concerns, in light of the complicity of Israel in genocide in Gaza, and the use of the proceeds of the Israeli bonds to facilitate the same'. Today, @GaryGannonTD submitted his case against the Central Bank, which aims to end the facilitation of the sale of Israeli war bonds. The sale of these bonds goes against EU and international law. We need to ensure that "never again" means never again. — Social Democrats (@SocDems) July 24, 2025 It goes on to say that the Central Bank is empowered under EU law to prohibit the marketing, distribution or sale of the Israeli Bonds. 'We call upon it to do so,' the letter adds. There have been ongoing calls for the Central Bank to end its role in approving Israel Bonds for sale in the EU. Advertisement The bank is the designated authority in relation to the sale of Israel bonds in the EU, and has determined the securities meet the standards of the bloc's prospectus regulations. Israel bonds have been advertised as supporting the country's economy and, more recently, websites promoting the securities emphasise their role in supporting Israel's military operations in Gaza. Protesters and opposition parties have called for legislation that would give Ireland the power to refuse the sale of Israeli 'war bonds' over human rights concerns. They say the bonds are intended to fund the war in Gaza, while Ireland has an obligation under the Genocide Convention to use all means likely to have a deterrent effect on those suspected of preparing genocide. Last month, the government rejected a joint-proposal from the opposition which called on the Central Bank to stop facilitating the sale of Israeli bonds within the EU. The motion, put forward by the Social Democrats and supported by Sinn Féin, People Before Profit and the Labour Party, sought the reversal of a previous government decision to block a bill calling for the same measure in May . Gannon issued the letters to the bank about investor protection concerns relating to the bonds, as well as the use of the bonds to finance the war in Gaza at the end of last month. In response, the Central Bank, through its solicitors, said that there is 'no valid legal basis' to support Gannon's purported judicial review proceedings. They claimed that Gannon lacked the right or ability to bring the proceedings and that the bank is satisfied it does not meet the relevant criteria to exercise its powers under EU law. The letter also claims that judicial review proceedings would lead to court time being 'expended unnecessarily and substantial costs being incurred'. However, Gannon said the Central Bank has the power to stop the sale of the bonds. The judicial review was formally issued this afternoon. Gannon said the Central Bank has the power under Article 42 of EU Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation to prohibit the sale of bonds that pose serious investor protection risks. He asked: 'If financing a regime accused of genocide doesn't meet that threshold, what does?' With reporting from Press Association Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
