- The Guardian
- Issue #2203
Rights groups have accused Israel of carrying out a massive operation to crush, mix, and transport millions of tonnes of rubble out of the Gaza Strip.
In a new report, ‘Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment,’ the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said the removal of the rubble could be an attempt at demographic engineering and erasing evidence of the genocide the Israelis are accused of carrying out against Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel has killed at least 73,387 Palestinians, mostly women and children, since invading Gaza following the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, during which 1,139 lives were lost.
There are approximately 68 million tonnes of rubble across the Gaza Strip, the result of Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on the enclave.
At least 10 million tonnes of rubble have already been removed, crushed or moved from its original site within areas under Israel’s unlawful military control, which encompass about two-thirds of the enclave.
About 400 heavy pieces of excavation, crushing and transport machinery are also working to demolish the remaining structures in Gaza. Debris is being loaded onto nearly 100 Israeli trucks daily, which are leaving the Gaza Strip for undisclosed sites.
Amnesty International’s Budour Hassan called the bulldozing “an integral part of all attempts to destroy the lands in Gaza City and in the Gaza Strip in general.
“The real fears are that these operations are taking place with the aim of obliterating and hiding evidence.”
Mohammed Salha, director of the NGO Network in the Gaza Strip, said: that moving the rubble “means a deliberate destruction of the crime scene.”
The removal of the debris from the destruction of Gaza also means the bodies of thousands of missing people, estimated by Gaza’s civil defence to be around 8,500, will be lost. Abu Asim, a Palestinian citizen whose family members remain buried in the eastern areas of the Gaza Strip, told Al Jazeera that “the first tragedy was their martyrdom, and the second and daily tragedy is the absence of the evidence with which we will try this occupation for these crimes and atrocities.”
PARASITE OF THE WEEK: is the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. CBA has told workers it will axe 163 jobs – 105 in CBA and 58 from its Bankwest arm, almost all WA-based roles.
CBA informed its staff of the cuts within days of posting a $2.6 billion profit for the March quarter, a 6 per cent increase on its previous quarter’s profits.
Of the 105 CBA jobs, 90 are located in NSW, with the remainder in Victoria, Tasmania, WA, and Queensland.
The Finance Sector Union (FSU) said this brings the total jobs cut across CBA and Bankwest in the last 12 months to almost 800.
In WA, almost 150 jobs at CBA have been lost this year. This follows the 350 jobs that were impacted last year by CBA’s closure of Bankwest’s entire retail branch and ATM network in WA.
FSU National Assistant Secretary Jason Hall said: “While CBA’s profits have swollen in the past year, they have sacked almost 800 workers in piecemeal announcements, no doubt in the hopes that these smaller job numbers wouldn’t be widely noticed.
“CBA has provided insufficient detail about the latest job cuts to enable genuine consultation. The FSU has written to the bank seeking more information on the rationale for the cuts and the impact on remaining teams. CBA and Bankwest workers deserve job security but with announcements of job cuts every couple of months, they are instead wondering when and where the next axe will fall.
“These latest cuts are concentrated in customer service roles, which will directly impact CBA customers and communities who have already lost so many bank services.
“The further cuts at Bankwest are particularly concerning after CBA made a commitment to 500 new roles in WA after its decision to withdraw banking and go completely digital.”
