Daily Archives: 10 February 2024

Israeli Plan to Evacuate Rafah by Force Sparks Warnings of ‘Ethnic Cleansing’

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Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Palestinian children wait in line to receive food in Rafah, Gaza on February 09, 2024.  (Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)

One Palestinian human rights group called Israel’s evacuation orders “a pretext to push Gaza’s population closer to the border with Egypt in preparation for their mass deportation.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday ordered the Israel Defense Forces to craft a plan to “evacuate” the population of Rafah, a small city near Gaza’s border with Egypt that’s packed with at least 1.4 million people—most of whom fled there to escape Israeli bombs and troops.

Human rights advocates immediately sounded alarm, stressing that the forcible transfer of civilians is a crime against humanity and that there’s nowhere safe for Gazans to flee as Israeli forces bomb the area and snipers fire on civilians in Khan Younis, a city to Rafah’s north.

“Make no mistake—the entirety of Gaza is a ‘combat zone,'” Frankie Leach, head of media at ActionAid U.K., wrote Friday.

Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, was among those asking where the 1.4 million people currently in Rafah are supposed to move.

“Does he plan a mass deportation to Egypt (a blatant war crime)?” Roth wrote on social media.

The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, a Palestinian organization, called Israel’s evacuation orders “a pretext to push Gaza’s population closer to the border with Egypt in preparation for their mass deportation.”

“Time is running out: The international community must act now to halt the ground invasion of Rafah,” the group added.

Humanitarian aid organizations and United Nations officials have been bracing for an Israeli invasion of Rafah for weeks, warning that any large-scale attack on the densely populated city would be a grave violation of international law.

“A full-scale military operation in Rafah would have devastating consequences for civilians in Gaza who have endured more than four months of trauma, extreme hunger, lack of water, disease, and extremely limited medical resources due to the conflict and siege of the enclave,” CARE International said Friday. “Such an escalation would also bring existing humanitarian operations to a standstill, impacting all of Gaza. The limited aid that is currently able to trickle into the enclave does so from Rafah, and most humanitarian organizations currently operate from there.”

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said late Thursday that an Israeli ground assault on Rafah “would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences.”

“The only thing that will stop this situation spinning even further out of control is an immediate and permanent cease-fire.”

Netanyahu’s office claimed in a statement Friday that “it is impossible to achieve the war objective of eliminating Hamas and leaving four Hamas battalions in Rafah.”

“On the other hand, it is clear that a massive operation in Rafah requires the evacuation of the civilian population from the combat zones,” the statement continued. “That is why the prime minister directed the IDF and the defense establishment to bring to the cabinet a dual plan for both the evacuation of the population and the disbanding of the battalions.”

Yousef Munayyer, a Palestinian American political analyst, wrote in response that “the Israeli PM is ordering ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian refugees amassed in Rafah.”

During the first week of its latest assault on the Gaza Strip, Israel instructed the entire population of northern Gaza—roughly 1.1 million people—to evacuate to the south, then proceeded to bomb evacuation routes and supposed “safe zones.”

Now Israel’s military is preparing to move on the enclave’s last-remaining refuge for displaced people. In recent days, Israeli forces have ramped up airstrikes on the Rafah, destroying houses and killing civilians—including children.

Overcrowding in Rafah, a city that’s about a quarter the size of Baltimore, has become so severe that many people are sleeping on the streets and outside of hospitals in makeshift tents. Hundreds of people have been forced to share a single toilet, and many are starving.

“Now, they may be forced to flee once more as Israeli forces prepare to invade the area. A military assault on the city would lead to thousands of new civilian deaths and injuries,” Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) said in a statement Friday. “Urgent action must be taken now if this new crisis in Rafah is to be averted. World leaders need to use all tools at their disposal to demand an immediate and permanent cease-fire, and protection for civilians in Gaza. We reiterate our continuous warnings about the very real prospect of mass displacement of Palestinians into Egypt.”

Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at MAP, wrote in response to Netanyahu’s order that “we’ve warned of this since week one.”

“This is what impunity gets you,” Talbot added.

The U.S., Israel’s top ally and arms supplier, has said it would oppose an Israeli military incursion into Rafah unless adequate steps were taken to protect civilians.

But aid groups warned that it’s impossible to protect civilians without an immediate end to Israel’s bombing and ground assault.

“Where on earth is Gaza’s exhausted and starving population supposed to go?” asked Riham Jafari, advocacy and communications coordinator at ActionAid Palestine, in a statement on Friday. “People are now so desperate that they’re eating grass in a last attempt to stave off hunger. Meanwhile, infections and diseases are running rampant amid such overcrowded conditions.”

“The only thing that will stop this situation spinning even further out of control,” Jafari added, “is an immediate and permanent ceasefire—it’s the only way to stop more lives being lost and to allow enough lifesaving aid to enter the territory.”

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingIsraeli Plan to Evacuate Rafah by Force Sparks Warnings of ‘Ethnic Cleansing’

Experts Call on ICC to ‘Prosecute Israelis Responsible for Bombing Hospitals’

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Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Palestinians receiving dialysis treatment are pictured at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al Balah, Gaza on February 8, 2024. (Photo: Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“There is a particularly cruel circular logic at play here: Israeli forces, as they bomb and besiege Gaza, are creating an urgent need for medical care among civilians while simultaneously denying them access to it.”

A pair of human rights experts on Friday urged the International Criminal Court to prosecute any Israelis who have played a part in the assault on Gaza’s healthcare system, which is in tatters after months of relentless airstrikes, shelling, and a suffocating blockade.

“Since Hamas’ horrific October 7 attack, Israel has repeatedly targeted healthcare facilities, ambulances, and access roads,” Annie Sparrow, a practicing clinician in war zones, and Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, wrote in an op-ed for Foreign Policy.

“It has arrested healthcare workers, blockaded fuel needed for generators, and withheld critical medical and surgical supplies—all of which are intended to undermine Gaza’s healthcare system,” they added. “There is a particularly cruel circular logic at play here: Israeli forces, as they bomb and besiege Gaza, are creating an urgent need for medical care among civilians while simultaneously denying them access to it.”

Sparrow and Roth called on the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is currently investigating alleged war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel, to “prosecute Israelis responsible for bombing hospitals, denying access to medicines and vaccines, and causing excessive civilian harm.”

“These attacks could be part of a plan to make Gaza uninhabitable and drive Palestinians out, an outcome that senior Israeli ministers—whose support Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs to remain in power—continue to promote,” they wrote.

The near-total collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system under Israel’s assault, combined with the scarcity of clean water and other necessities, has left millions of Gazans at growing risk of disease. There is no longer a single fully functional hospital in the Gaza Strip, according to the United Nations.

“Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system is not only an important part of the genocide charges [brought by South Africa]—it is also a blatant war crime that should be prosecuted outright by the International Criminal Court,” Sparrow and Roth wrote Friday, noting that while the International Court of Justice “resolves disputes between states, the ICC adjudicates criminal prosecutions of individuals.”

“Targeting healthcare achieves little militarily while amplifying the death toll and suffering caused by indiscriminate bombardment,” the pair continued. “Such attacks flout the core purpose of international humanitarian law—to relieve civilian suffering—and are thus often an omen of broader atrocities to come.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) said Friday that it has documented more than 350 attacks on healthcare in the Gaza Strip since October 7. The attacks killed at least 645 people and injured 818 more, according to newly released WHO data.

“These attacks have affected 98 healthcare facilities, including 27 hospitals damaged out of 36, and affected 90 ambulances, including 50 which sustained damage,” WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic told reporters in Geneva.

The WHO’s new figures came shortly before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed Israel’s military to craft a plan to forcibly “evacuate” civilians from Rafah, a densely crowded city whose hospitals are overwhelmed with injured patients and displaced people.

Netanyahu’s order intensified concerns that an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah is imminent.

Catherine Russell, head of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), warned that a Rafah assault could be catastrophic for the enclave’s already starving and desperate population.

“We need Gaza’s last remaining hospitals, shelters, markets, and water systems to stay functional,” Russell told The Associated Press. “Without them, hunger and disease will skyrocket, taking more child lives.”

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

dizzy: Comment after the article attempting to comply with the CC licence. Depose senile cnut Genocide Joe.

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Continue ReadingExperts Call on ICC to ‘Prosecute Israelis Responsible for Bombing Hospitals’

Almost 10,000 social rent homes were lost last year in England

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Original article by Ruby Lott-Lavigna republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Flats originally built for social housing | Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images

More social rent homes were sold or demolished than built last year, new government figures show

The number of social rent homes in England continues to plummet with almost 10,000 lost last year, according to new government statistics.

The country’s housing crisis continues to deepen amid a lack of supply and soaring rents, with evictions and homelessness surging.

According to figures released yesterday by the Department of Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities (DLUHC), a net 9,379 homes for social rent were lost in 2022/23.

Social rent homes – historically known as council houses, though they are no longer solely provided through councils – are already massively oversubscribed. There are 1.2 million people on housing waiting lists across the country and people can languish on these for decades before being offered a home. Last year openDemocracy revealed that in 2022 2,300 people had died while on the waiting list.

Labour MP Nadia Whittome, who sits on parliament’s housing select committee, told openDemocracy: “I see the devastating impact of the lack of social housing in my inbox and my advice surgeries every week. Without social homes, too many people simply have nowhere else to go – they cannot afford to rent privately.

“At a time when we desperately need to increase the number of social homes, it’s outrageous that government policy means we’re losing them instead. The homelessness crisis is being fuelled by Right to Buy and the failure to build social housing.”

The latest figures show 18,799 social homes in the “low-cost rental” category were sold last year, while another 3,224 were demolished – totalling 22,023. According to the government, 86% (about 18,940) of these losses were social rent homes, with the remainder classed as so-called “affordable” rent, “intermediate” rent or “London affordable” rent.

With just 9,561 social rent homes completed in the same year, that brings the total losses to 9,379.

Social housing used to be the second most common type of home in the UK after home ownership. But following Margaret Thatcher’s Right to Buy policy introduced in 1980, the country has seen a huge sell-off of homes into private ownership. Councils sold 10,896 through Right to Buy last year.

These statistics come as the supposed landmark private renters bill, the Renters Reform Bill, has been delayed again, with no update on when one of its key tenets, banning ‘no-fault’ section 21 evictions, will come in. News of the delay coincided with the publication of damning statistics that show the number of these evictions has rocketed by a third in 12 months.

Section 21 evictions are the number one cause of homelessness in the UK and figures released by the Ministry of Justice show 30,230 landlords began section 21 court proceedings in 2023 – a 28% rise on 2022. There was also a surge in the number of these evictions where bailiffs were involved.

Housing minister Lee Rowley was recently criticised for a misleading boast about a “significant increase” in all types of social housing under the Conservative government, while being questioned about a policy that only affected social rented homes.

Rowley is yet to correct his statements.

Separate statistics from the government’s own Regulator of Social Housing shows there has been a decrease of 225,102 genuine social rented homes since 2012, though this is offset by the addition of 361,560 so-called “affordable” rent homes.

“Affordable” rent homes are rented for up to 80% of market rates and remain out of reach for many of the people on housing wait lists. Poverty campaigners, the Chartered Institute of Housing, and even a Conservative MP have criticised the government’s use of “affordable” homes figures to massage the dire state of social rented stock.

Conservative MP Bob Blackman told openDemocracy that building more social homes at social rents was essential.

“I feel disappointed,” he told openDemocracy. “I’m not worried about the number of homes sold, or the numbers demolished. What I’m concerned about is that we’re not replacing them. That’s the problem.”

Blackman insisted the Conservative government had not failed on social housing, but added: “I agree that we haven’t built enough whatsoever.”

A spokesperson fro DLUHC told openDemocracy: “Our £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme is delivering thousands more affordable homes to rent and buy right across the country.

“Last year also saw the highest levels of completions of social rent since 2013. The total stock of [all types of affordable housing] has grown by 151,000 since 2010, whereas in the previous 13 years it fell by 420,000. Despite the economic climate we remain on track to build one million homes this parliament and our long-term plan for housing will allow us to go even further to deliver the homes we need.”

Original article by Ruby Lott-Lavigna republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Continue ReadingAlmost 10,000 social rent homes were lost last year in England

Watchdog urged to probe Labour’s failure to declare value of HSBC donation

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Original article by Ethan Shone republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. 

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer speaks at the Labour Business Conference on 1 February 2024  | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Party accused of breaching Electoral Commission rules by failing to publish value of staffer seconded from banking giant

The Electoral Commission has been urged to investigate Labour over its year-long failure to declare the value of a donation from banking giant HSBC.

HSBC seconded one of its staff members to Keir Starmer’s party in February 2023, in an arrangement that sees the bank continue to pay the staffer’s wages while they carry out work for Labour.

More than a year later, the party has still not published the value of this in-kind donation – an apparent breach of the Electoral Commission’s rules.

The former chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life warned it is “absolutely crucial” that Labour follows the rules around declarations, and said the commission “should be looking at this”.

The HSBC staffer, whom openDemocracy is choosing not to name, works in shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds’ office in a part-time role focused on engaging with businesses.

They have appeared on every edition of the official register of MPs’ staff and researchers, which is updated monthly, since February 2023.

The register lists people who have parliamentary passes through their work for MPs, as well as any outside interests they may have, or benefits they have received over a certain value.

Prior to joining HSBC in October 2021, the staffer was previously a consultant at Westminster lobbying firm Portland Communications. They joined Portland in January 2020 from Labour, where they held a number of senior roles over 15 years, most recently working in the party’s HQ as the head of policy development and engagement.

Labour has accepted many in-kind donations of seconded staff members from banks, lobbyists and consultancies in recent years, but this is the first time it has failed to declare the value of such an arrangement.

Before Starmer took over the party’s leadership in 2020, Labour had banned such secondments over concerns that they amounted to “institutional corruption”, according to James Schneider, who was director of strategic communications for former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Schneider, now communications director at campaign group Progressive International, told openDemocracy: “If Labour policy is written by people who were, are or expect to be corporate lobbyists in the future, it will represent those corporate interests, not its members, unions or the public.

“In this way, the revolving door between corporate lobbying and Westminster is a form of legalised corruption that insulates the rich and powerful from democratic demands.”

He added: “With this seedy revolving door fully reinstated in Labour HQ, it’s no surprise that the party is busy rejecting policies that would benefit the many not the few.”

Political parties complete quarterly returns detailing all their donations received, with Electoral Commission rules stipulating that in-kind donations of staff time must be declared in the quarter that the arrangement began.

When openDemocracy contacted Labour about this story, the party said it had declared the donation and it would be published in the next set of returns, which relate to quarter four of 2023.

Sir Alistair Graham, who chaired the Committee on Standards in Public Life between 2004 and 2007, told openDemocracy “the Electoral Commission should be looking at this”.

Graham continued: “In the run-up to a general election when the leader of the Labour Party has stressed how he wants to demonstrate that the party will have the highest ethical standards of any government, it is absolutely crucial that they are seen to follow the rules.

“If the bank is facilitating the secondment then it is a donation which should be declared to the Electoral Commission, and the member of parliament who is supervising this secondment should really have declared it on the MPs’ register of interests.

“They’ve now got as their [chief of staff] Sue Gray, who used to be in charge of ethical standards in the Cabinet Office, so she should be overseeing that the rules are abided with and there’s full disclosure to the Electoral Commission.”

Last week openDemocracy revealed that Labour has accepted cash and in-kind donations worth £2m from banks, financiers and firms linked to the City of London since 2022.

Natwest and the lobbying firm Lowick seconded members of staff to Reynolds’ office in 2022 while he was the shadow City minister, and Reynolds’ successor in the role, Tulip Siddiq, currently has a financial services specialist seconded to her office from lobbying firm Global Counsel.

Tom Brake, director of democratic standards campaign organisation Unlock Democracy, said: “Any party receiving multi-million-pound donations from a particular industry, whether it is banking or building, has to be hyper-vigilant both about the transparency of any donations and the risk that that sector is unduly influencing Party policy.

“The Electoral Commission needs to examine whether the Labour Party has failed the first test, and the Labour Party needs to prove how it has avoided falling foul of the second.”

A HSBC spokesperson said “We are apolitical. We work with different political parties to advocate for our customers and build their understanding of the issues facing financial services. We have constructive conversations with both the government and the opposition in the UK.”

Labour declined to offer a comment or provide further details about the arrangement.

Original article by Ethan Shone republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. 

Continue ReadingWatchdog urged to probe Labour’s failure to declare value of HSBC donation