US took part in raid that murdered 210+ Palestinians in Nuseirat, used ‘aid’ jetty
12/6/24 The linked article was written soon after the event and I’ve not found verification of it’s claims from different sources.
‘Horrific Massacre’: IDF Kills 200+ Palestinians Rescuing 4 Hostages
Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“It’s a nightmare at Al-Aqsa,” said Samuel Johann, MSF coordinator in Gaza. “How many more men, women, and children have to be killed before world leaders decide to put an end to this massacre?”
Palestinian officials said at least 210 people were killed and more than 400 injured as the Israel Defense Forces conducted an operation in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday to rescue four of over 240 hostages taken by Hamas militants last year.
Israeli forces rescued Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv—all attendees or security guards at a music festival that Palestinian militants attacked on October 7—from two locations in Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, according to the IDF. There are 116 hostages still being held in the Hamas-governed enclave, and at least 41 are believed to be dead.
Abu Obaida, a spokesperson for Hamas’ military wing, said Saturday that “the enemy succeeded in releasing some of its hostages by committing horrific massacres, but at the same time, killed some of them during the operation.”
CNNreported that spokespeople for Israel’s police and military said an Israeli policeman from a counterterrorism unit was killed and estimated casualties from the operation at “under 100.” The outlet also noted the higher death toll cited by Gaza officials and spoke with witnesses—including Abu Abdallah, who said that “dogs were eating people’s remains. We pulled out six martyrs, all torn-up children and women, we risked our lives to get them to the hospital.”
As The Associated Pressdetailed:
The bodies of 109 Palestinians including 23 children and 11 women were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where spokesperson Khalil Degran told The Associated Press more than 100 wounded also arrived. He said that overall, 210 dead had been taken there and to Al-Awda Hospital, saying he had spoken to the director there. Al-Awda’s numbers couldn’t immediately be confirmed.
AP reporters saw dozens of bodies brought from the Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah areas, as smoke rose in the distance and armored vehicles rolled by.
A baby was among the dead. Small children wailed, covered in blood. Bodies were placed on the ground outside, their feet bare, as more wounded were rushed in.
“It’s a nightmare at Al-Aqsa,” said Samuel Johann, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) coordinator in Gaza, in a statement. “There have been back-to-back mass casualties as densely populated areas are bombed. It’s way beyond what anyone could deal with in a functional hospital, let alone with the scarce resources we have here.”
In addition to killing more than 36,800 Palestinians and wounding over 83,600—according to Gaza officials—the IDF’s eight-month retaliation for the October 7 attack has devastated civilian infrastructure across the besieged coastal enclave, including hospitals.
“How many more men, women, and children have to be killed before world leaders decide to put an end to this massacre?” Johann asked amid cease-fire and hostage negotiations mediated by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States—which has provided weapons and diplomatic support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war, despite nationwide protests, including on Saturday.
Karin Huster, an MSF medical referent, shared an audio recording about her experience at Al-Aqsa’s emergency department Saturday afternoon: “Total chaos inside; the entire emergency room… was completely packed with patients on the floor coming from the bombings in Nuseirat. There were hundreds of patients, and we did whatever we could to stabilize them… And, thank God we were able to refer a bunch of patients to Nasser Hospital as well as IMC Field Hospital that is not far away from here.”
“Despite the fact that the place was completely overwhelmed, it did an amazing job,” Huster continued. “There is nothing, nothing at all that justifies what I saw today. Nothing. These children—the 3-month-old, the 7-year-old, the 12-year-old that died—the 25-year-old man, the 78-year-old woman, who all have horrendous injuries. Why did they deserve this? And why is the world looking on in silence? …To what level of horror do we need to go before we finally do something, before we finally tell Israel that this is not acceptable?”
Chris Hook, MSF medical referent at Nasser Hospital, shared an audio update from there, saying that “we’ve received, coming close now to about 50 badly injured patients. There’s people with multiple major open fractures of their limbs. We’ve got several unconscious children who are trying to be escorted through CT scan and on to intensive care.”
“A few very bad burns have come through, and already four or five people who’ve required chest tube insertion, and things like this, for major injuries to the chest,” he said, explaining that the hospital has a limited ability to perform CT scans, a shortage of pain killers, and a full intensive care unit. “More patients are arriving. It’s a serious mass casualty incident that is occurring right now.”
Council on American–Islamic Relations national executive director Nihad Awad said in a statement Saturday that “we strongly condemn the Israeli government’s horrific massacre at Nuseirat refugee camp, where Israeli forces, some hidden in a humanitarian aid truck, reportedly slaughtered at least 200 Palestinian civilians while freeing four Israeli hostages who could have and should have been safely released months ago as part of a cease-fire agreement that Benjamin Netanyahu keeps torpedoing so that he can continue the genocide and stay in office.”
“The Biden administration must be transparent about any U.S. involvement in this massacre and whether any Americans were in the units that carried it out,” Awad added. “The administration also must stop funding these daily incidents of mass slaughter and instead use American leverage to stop the genocide, free all hostages and political prisoners, and end the illegal occupation of Palestine that lies at the root of the violence.”
Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
As Gaza Starves, Israeli Minister Ben-Gvir Calls to Reduce Humanitarian Aid
Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
The national security minister’s comments came as the number of Palestinian children who have died of malnutrition reached at least 30.
Humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza remained almost entirely halted by Israeli forces on Friday, but Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, suggested he was dissatisfied with the mounting death toll from starvation and called for a complete blockade to be resumed.
“In our opinion Israel should withhold fuel from Gaza and reduce the humanitarian [aid] that enters,” Ben-Gvir said on social media, adding that he would not support a cease-fire deal put forward by Israel because it “would endanger the future of the state of Israel.”
Ben-Gvir’s comments came as just two crossings into Gaza were open—the Western Erez crossing from Israel into the northern part of the enclave and the Karem Abu Salem crossing, which has had “limited functionality” since May 8.
In recent days the number of aid trucks that have entered through the Karem Abu Salem crossing has plummeted from nearly 200 per day in early May to fewer than 50 per day, with as few as just one truck per day entering since mid-May.
With the Rafah crossing closed to all aid shipments since the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a full-scale invasion of the southern city on May 6, deliveries through the Karem Abu Salem entry point is the best chance that people in Rafah and southern Gaza have for obtaining desperately needed relief.
More than 1 million Palestinians have been displaced to Rafah since Israel began its bombardment of Gaza in October, and the United Nations has said that roughly that number have again fled the city in the past month, trying to escape Israel’s incursion.
More than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s attacks since October, including at least 30 children who have died of starvation. Nearly all of them died in northern Gaza, where World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said “full-blown famine” had taken hold last month.
Along with Israel’s closure of border crossings, Doctors Without Borders said this week that the “systematic obstruction at Israeli-controlled crossing points” has kept trucks from reaching people who need relief. Israeli officials have turned away deliveries that include certain items, like medical kits, that they say could have a “dual use.”
Louise Wateridge a communications officer for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), toldCNN on Friday that intense military action has kept the Karem Abu Salem crossing from operating fully, leaving trucks full of relief deliveries stuck on the Israeli side.
“It’s just a complete waste of vital humanitarian aid, and it’s such a manmade situation,” Wateridge told the outlet.
Amid the ongoing starvation crisis, Ben-Gvir’s call to even further reduce humanitarian aid came a day after he said in a video posted to social media that Israel intends to “occupy all the land” in Gaza, establish settlements like those in the West Bank, and encourage the so-called “voluntary migration” of Palestinians from Gaza—echoing a call from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu which rights advocates denounced as an open endorsement of ethnic cleansing.
Ben-Gvir has opposed a cease-fire deal supported by U.S. President Joe Biden, which calls for Israel’s withdrawal from population centers in Gaza, a release of hostages by Hamas in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian detainees held in Israeli prisons, and Israel’s eventual withdrawal from the enclave entirely.
One researcher on Wednesday objected to Ben-Gvir’s portrayal in corporate media reports as a far-right extremist figure who is pushing Israel’s government toward a fringe movement.
“It’s time for people to stop calling [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich, Ben-Gvir, and Netanyahu ‘fringe,'” they said. “They’re not fringe. They’re quite literally the figureheads of the Israeli establishment.”
Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
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Clarence Thomas Finally Reports Gifts He Says Were ‘Inadvertently Omitted’ From Disclosures
Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“The fact that he omitted the plane to Indonesia and the yacht… leads me to believe he and I have very different interpretations of his disclosure responsibilities, and that’s a problem,” said one campaigner.
Far-right U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has officially—and belatedly—disclosed two luxury vacations gifted him by a billionaire Republican megadonor as eight of the nine high court judges released their financial disclosure statements on Friday.
Thomas’ 2023 disclosure includes food and lodging during 2019 trips to Bali, Indonesia and Bohemian Grove—a secretive, men-only retreat in Mendocino County, California—paid for by billionaire real estate developer Harlan Crow. The trips and other gifts for Thomas—including yacht excursions, flights on private jets, and private school tuition for the justice’s grandnephew—were first revealed by ProPublica last year.
In his 2023 disclosure, Thomas claims information about the 2019 trips was “inadvertently omitted at the time of filing,” and that the justice “sought and received guidance from his accountant and ethics counsel” as he prepared this year’s report.
This fits a pattern: In 2011, Thomas attributed his failure to disclose his wife’s income to a “misunderstanding of the filing instructions.” In 2023, he said he “inadvertently failed to realize” that he needed to publicly disclose a real estate deal with Crow.
“The fact that he omitted the plane to Indonesia and the yacht around Indonesia leads me to believe he and I have very different interpretations of his disclosure responsibilities, and that’s a problem,” Gabe Roth, executive director of the watchdog Fix the Court, toldThe Washington Post.
The justices’ disclosures also show that three members of the court—Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—received six-figure payments for book deals.
“Each justice would be capable of earning 10 times their current salary in the private sector, so it’s reasonable for them to want to boost their income as authors, especially those with inspiring life stories,” said Roth. “This may be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t see anything ethically compromising about it so long as the justices don’t use their offices to hawk books, they speak to ideologically diverse audiences on their book tours, and they recuse from petitions involving their publishers.”
Jackson also took four tickets to a Beyoncé concert worth over $3,700.
“Justice Jackson is ‘Crazy in Love‘ with Beyoncé’s music. Who isn’t?” Supreme Court spokesperson Patricia McCabe told The Washington Post.
But Roth said that “next time… Justice Jackson should pay for her own Beyoncé tickets.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor was paid $1,900 to voice an animated version of herself on the PBS children’s show “Alma’s Way.” Justice Elena Kagan was reimbursed for travel, lodging, and food by Notre Dame Law School following a speech she delivered there last September. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh did not receive any gifts last year, according to their disclosure forms. Justice Samuel Alito was again granted an extension to file.
The justices’ disclosures came a day after Fix the Court published a database listing 672 gifts worth nearly $6.6 million that current and former Supreme Court judges received, mostly since 2004. Thomas accounted for 193 gifts with an estimated value of more than $4 million that were identified by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
The disclosures also came in the same week that Congressman Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) introduced the Supreme Court Ethics and Investigations Act, which would create a Supreme Court Office of Investigative Counsel tasked with investigating ethical improprieties and reporting them to Congress.
A code of conduct officially endorsed by the Supreme Court last November was widely panned as a toothless public relations stunt.
Thomas’ gifts from wealthy donors—and his failure to report them—have driven calls for his recusal from some cases and even his resignation or impeachment.
Responding to Fix the Court’s database, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) noted Friday that former Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas “resigned in shame” in 1969 “over a payment that was less than a tiny fraction of what Clarence Thomas has taken from his billionaire pals.”
“Republicans are protecting this obvious corruption by blocking any attempt to hold Thomas accountable,” Wyden added.
Citing a “moral failure,” the nonpartisan group Veterans for Responsible Leadership asserted Friday that “Clarence Thomas needs to face impeachment.”
“Failing to disclose those gifts is an acknowledgment he knew it was wrong,” the group added. “The character of the court needs to be above reproach, so he must be shown the door.”
Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Greens to stand in 574 seats in England and Wales
Carla Denyer, co-leader of the Green Party, said:
“The Green Party is proud to announce that in this election we will have candidates standing in 574 seats in England and Wales.
“All over the country voters will have the opportunity to vote Green and vote for real hope and real change instead of the half measures and broken pledges on offer from The Conservative and Labour.
“We will be putting our manifesto to voters next week with practical solutions to the cost-of-living crisis, building new affordable homes, protecting our NHS from creeping privatisation and cleaning up our toxic rivers and seas.
“If elected, Green MPs will push the next government for bold action to achieve the real changes that are needed to confront the big challenges our country faces.
“This is a historic moment and the first time we’ve had this many candidates. It reflects the incredible journey we’ve been on over the past five local elections in which we’ve increased our number of councillors nearly five-fold.”