Human Rights Group Warns US Gaza Plan Will Impose ‘Unlawful Collective Imprisonment’ of Palestinians as New Details Emerge
Original article by Stephen Prager republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“The design of these proposed cities mirrors the historical model of ghettos,” said the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, which said the US plans to cram 25,000 people into areas smaller than a square kilometer.
A prominent international human rights organization is warning that the United States’ plan for postwar Gaza will impose “unlawful collective imprisonment” on the Palestinian civilians who have survived two years of genocide.
In November, several news outlets reported on the Trump administration’s plan to carve Gaza in two: a so-called “green zone” controlled by Israel and a “red zone” controlled by the militant group Hamas.
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The US would construct what it called “Alternative Safe Communities” for Palestinians to live in the Israeli-controlled portion of Gaza, which is over half of the territory under the current “ceasefire” agreement.
The New York Times described these communities as “compounds” of 20,000 to 25,000 people, where Israeli officials reportedly argued they should not be allowed to leave.
The initial reporting raised fears that the US and Israel were constructing what would amount to a “concentration camp,” where Palestinians would be forced to live in squalid conditions without freedom of movement.
On Wednesday, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor released new details on how Palestinians, currently facing mass displacement from their homes in the portion of the strip not occupied by Israel, would be corralled into the green zone under the US proposal.
The Geneva-based group issued a stark warning about the plan, which it said carried “grave risks, including the effective displacement of Palestinians from their homes and the transformation of large parts of Gaza into closed military zones under the direct control of the Israeli army.”
“Entry and exit would be permitted only through security screening, effectively converting these sites into overcrowded detention camps that impose severe restrictions on residents’ freedom of movement and daily life.”
Euro-Med’s report explains that the transfer of Palestinians would be carried out using “various pressure tactics.”
“This is done by creating a coercive environment in the red zone and making access to relative protection and basic services conditional on relocating to designated areas within the green zone, following extensive security screening and vetting,” the report says. “This removes any genuine element of consent and places the process squarely within the scope of forced displacement prohibited under international humanitarian law.”
It also provides new details on the conditions Palestinians would be subject to once they’ve arrived: “The plan includes the establishment of ‘cities’ of prefabricated container homes (caravans) in the green zone, each housing around 25,000 people within an area of no more than one square kilometer and enclosed by walls and checkpoints.”
This means these Palestinian cantons would be over three times as densely populated as the Tel Aviv District, the most crowded in Israel, which has about 8,130 people per square kilometer.
“Entry and exit would be permitted only through security screening, effectively converting these sites into overcrowded detention camps that impose severe restrictions on residents’ freedom of movement and daily life,” the report continues.
This is not the first proposal to use the promise of safety to lure Palestinians into an enclosed space without the right to leave.
Earlier this year, following US President Donald Trump’s call for the people of Palestine to be forcibly removed from the Gaza Strip, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz proposed the creation of a massive “humanitarian city” built on the ruins of Rafah that would be used as part of an “emigration plan” for hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
Under that plan, Palestinians would have been given “security screenings” and once inside would not be allowed to leave. Humanitarian organizations, including those inside Israel, roundly condemned the plan as essentially a “concentration camp.”
Euro-Med said that the design laid out in the new US plan “mirrors the historical model of ghettos, in which colonial and racist regimes confined specific groups to sealed areas surrounded by walls and guard posts, with movement and resources controlled externally, as seen in Europe during World War II and in other colonial contexts.”
Original article by Stephen Prager republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Top Dem Says Video of Military ‘Attacking Shipwrecked Sailors’ Among ‘Most Troubling Things’ He Has Ever Seen
Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“Two individuals in clear distress, without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, were killed by the United States.”
US Rep. Jim Himes, the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, expressed horror on Thursday after watching a video of the September 2 double-tap strike on a suspected drug trafficking vessel off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago.
Speaking to reporters after a briefing on the strike delivered by Adm. Frank Bradley, Himes (D-Conn.) called the video he saw of the attack “one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service.”
Himes proceeded to describe the video, which showed the US military firing missiles at two men who had survived an initial attack on their vessel and who were floating in the water while clinging to debris.
“You have two individuals in clear distress, without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, [who] were killed by the United States,” he said.
Himes then started to walk away before a reporter asked him to describe more of what he saw in the video. The Connecticut Democrat then said the video showed a clear “impermissible action,” according to the laws of armed conflict.
“Any American who sees the video that I saw will see its military attacking shipwrecked sailors,” he said. “Now, there’s a whole set of contextual items that the admiral explained. Yes, they were carrying drugs. They were not in position to continue their mission in any way… People will someday see this video and they will see that that video shows, if you don’t have the broader context, an attack on shipwrecked sailors.”
Himes finished his talk with reporters by saying that Bradley told lawmakers there had not been a “kill them all” or “no quarter” order given to him by higher-ups. Asked by a reporter if he thought the full video should be released to the public, Himes said, “I do.”
Himes’ reaction to the video stood in stark contrast to the reaction of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who praised the military for its actions.
According to HuffPost reporter Jen Bendery, Cotton described the strikes on the two survivors as “righteous strikes” that were “entirely lawful.”
Cotton also claimed that the video showed “two survivors trying to flip a boat, loaded with drugs, bound for the United States, back over, so they could stay in the fight.”
Reports from the US government and the United Nations have not identified Venezuela as a significant source of drugs that enter the United States, and the country plays virtually no role in the trafficking of fentanyl, the primary cause of drug overdoses in the US.
Additionally, many legal scholars have said that a strike on the two men who survived the initial attack on the boat is very likely either an act of murder or a war crime, regardless of whether they were intending to traffic illegal drugs in the US.
Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
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Greens responds to Reform’s £9 million donation
Responding to news that Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party has received a £9 million donation from a single donor, Green Party leader Zack Polanski said
“Reform hoovering up vast sums of private donations isn’t a sign of political strength, but a sign of a weakness in the foundations of our democracy. When a single party can be bankrolled by a handful of wealthy individuals, it drowns out the voices of ordinary people and tilts the entire system towards the interests of those elites.
“This is exactly why we need a cap on political donations. Democracy should never be for sale. Every party should compete on ideas, not on the size of their donor spreadsheet.
“While Reform pockets eye-watering cheques, Greens are building a movement powered and funded by people through thousands of new members.
“When we win elections, it will be because of the tens of thousands of people volunteered, not the people who donated tens of thousands. If we want a politics that serves the public, not billionaire backers, then capping donations is essential. Let’s end the influence of big money and put democracy back where it belongs: in the hands of voters.”
Resistance builds within the United States against Trump’s drive to war with Venezuela
Original article by Devin B. Martinez republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
As Trump continues to lodge threats against the Bolivarian Republic, US Congress and grassroots movements mobilize to stop a new war.
The US government has continued to accelerate its drive to war with Venezuela. While rumors circulate about phone calls and possible talks between US President Donald Trump and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in tandem, the US head of state has continued to launch bizarre and illegal threats and accusations against the South American nation. On Saturday, November 29, Trump unilaterally declared that Venezuelan airspace was closed, despite international law stipulating that only Venezuela has authority over the airspace above its territory and that air traffic above Venezuela has since continued.
While Trump, his Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the Secretary of War Pete Hegseth have claimed land strikes and “action” against Venezuela could begin imminently and that the country should be on alert, as of now, only the aerial attacks on vessels in the Caribbean have continued. To date, the US missile strikes on boats in the Caribbean have killed at least 83 people. Washington claims they were trafficking drugs, without providing evidence.
The unprecedented military buildup in the region now consists of aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), F-35 fighter jets, at least eight war ships, and 15,000 US troops, as well as coordinated US military activity in Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Dominican Republic.
Despite Trump’s brazen appetite for war, it appears that public opinion in the United States is against Trump’s escalation against Venezuela. A recent poll conducted by CBS News/YouGOV found that 70% of people in the US would oppose the US taking military action in Venezuela. At the same time, some, albeit limited, bipartisan initiatives have been taken in Congress to attempt to use congressional authority to block Trump from taking military action. From the legislature down to the grassroots movements, opposition to a US war on the Caribbean nation is growing.
Pressure mounts in Congress against Trump’s threats of war
As the Trump cabinet prepares for fresh international law violations, they are already feeling the backlash of ones already committed. Committees in US Congress have reportedly launched investigations into US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for crimes related to missile strikes on boats in the Caribbean, in which the order was reportedly to “kill everybody”.
“These are serious charges, and that’s the reason we’re going to have special oversight,” said Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, as reported by PBS.
The mounting scrutiny follows a Washington Post report that details Hegseth’s direction to strike a bombed boat a second time, called a “double tap” strike, even as survivors clung to the edge of the burning vessel. In addition to the investigation, several congressional democrats are calling for Hegseth’s resignation.
When questioned about the targeting of boat strike survivors in an interview with The Hill on December 2, Trump distanced himself from the order and Hegseth blamed Admiral Mitch Bradley for the second strike.
“I moved on to my next meeting. A couple hours later I learned that that commander had made the … correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat,” said Hegseth.
Adding to the pressure on Hegseth in particular, the Pentagon’s inspector general released a report on Thursday, December 4, concluding that the defense secretary violated department rules and put US forces at risk when he used a signal chat to share details of airstrikes on Yemen back in April.
The renewed scrutiny comes after a bipartisan coalition in both the Senate and the House attempted to check the US president’s ability to carry out deadly strikes in the Caribbean through the War Powers Act.
As opposition continues to build in the legislature, grassroots movements are also mobilizing against the US war drive on Venezuela.
As threat of war grows, so does the people’s resistance
In the same CBS/YouGov poll, 75% of people in the US said that the government needs to show evidence that the boats it is bombing are carrying drugs. Only 13% of Americans believe that Venezuela is a “major threat” to US national security.
“The Trump administration is wildly out of step with public opinion as he threatens to initiate a new forever war with the aim of looting Venezuela’s vast oil resources,” said Brian Becker, National Director of the ANSWER coalition.
After Trump declared Venezuelan airspace to be “closed”, claiming that land strikes would begin “very soon”, a coalition of organizations, including the ANSWER coalition, The Peoples Forum, the Palestinian Youth Movement, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and others, announced a national day of action on December 6. According to a press release by the coalition, over 50 cities will host protest actions under the slogan “No war on Venezuela – Stop the war before it starts”.
“The Trump Administration’s repeated strikes in the Caribbean have shocked the world as brazen violations of international law,” the coalition asserts.
“Now, Trump is openly threatening to escalate his aggression to land strikes on Venezuelan territory – an unmistakable act of war. This could easily spiral into a ‘boots on the ground’ invasion, and lead to catastrophic death and destruction.”
Organizers expect the day of action to be a “powerful display of the mass opposition” to the US war drive against the Bolivarian nation.
In the wake of decades-long US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the growing resistance in Congress and the streets shows that the people of the United States refuse to be dragged into yet another imperialist disaster.
Original article by Devin B. Martinez republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.