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Category: human rights violations

  • “Are They ‘Hamas’?” 12,300 Children Killed by Israeli Forces in Gaza

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

    People mourn as they receive the dead bodies of victims of an Israeli airstrike on February 12, 2024 in Rafah, Gaza.  (Photo by Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images)

    Gruesome new data shows that kids make up around 43% of the death toll from Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip.

    Israeli forces have killed more than 12,300 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip in just over four months, a staggering toll that’s likely to grow as the Netanyahu government ramps up its assault on and prepares to invade the overcrowded city of Rafah.

    New figures that Gaza health authorities provided to The Associated Press show that children make up roughly 43% of the total death toll in the Palestinian enclave since October 7. Women and children combined account for three-quarters of the death toll, according to the new data.

    “Are they ‘Hamas’?” Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, asked in response to the numbers, referring to Israel’s claim that it is targeting militants despite the massive and growing body of evidence to the contrary.

    An Amnesty International report released Monday examining four recent Israeli airstrikes on Rafah. Amnesty said that “in all four attacks,” it did not find “any indication that the residential buildings hit could be considered legitimate military objectives or that people in the buildings were military targets.”

    Virtually all of Gaza’s 1 million-plus children have been traumatized in some way by Israel’s monthslong war on the Gaza Strip: Around 17,000 have been separated from their families, more than 1,000 have had one or both of their legs amputated, and more than 610,000 are currently trapped in Rafah, a small city that was previously considered a relative safe zone for people fleeing Israeli bombs and bullets.

    “Israel is erasing generations in Gaza and its soldiers are killing children in numbers competing with the cruelest of wars,” Israeli journalist Gideon Levy wrote in a column last month. “This will not and cannot be forgotten. How can a people ever forget those who killed its children in such a manner? How can people of conscience around the world remain silent?”

    “This is the gravest test of all. Will they uphold international law and children’s right to life? Or will they stand by while the lives, bodies, and futures of more children are decimated?”

    Children were among the dozens of Palestinians killed Monday in a wave of Israeli airstrikes conducted as the U.S.-armed Israel Defense Forces raided an apartment building to rescue two hostages.

    Jason Lee, Save the Children’s country director for the occupied Palestinian territory, said last week that “much of the international community has failed tests of their commitment to protect children so far.”

    “This is the gravest test of all,” Lee said of Rafah. “Will they uphold international law and children’s right to life? Or will they stand by while the lives, bodies, and futures of more children are decimated?”

    The United Nations Children’s Fund, known as UNICEF, similarly appealed to the international community to act to prevent catastrophe for children and others in Rafah.

    “We need an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza, and the safe and immediate release of all hostages—especially children—who have suffered so much,” Catherine Russell, UNICEF’s executive director, said Friday. “A humanitarian cease-fire will save lives. It will allow for the expansion of the humanitarian response, and help provide the best protection for children whose lives and futures are hanging in the balance.”

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

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    “This bill provides Netanyahu $10 billion more in unrestricted military aid for his horrific war against the Palestinian people. That is unconscionable,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders.

    Israel’s Gaza Campaign Is the Gravest Moral Crisis of Our Time

  • Julian Assange: Day X

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    Day X is here: The last chance in the British courts to stop Julian Assange’s extradition

    The UK High Court has confirmed that a public hearing will take place on Tuesday 20 February and Wednesday 21 February 2024. The two-day hearing may be the final chance for Julian Assange to prevent his extradition to the United States. If extradited, Julian faces a sentence of 175 years for exposing war crimes committed by the United States in the Afghan and Iraq wars.

  • 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).

  • ‘More culture war nonsense from the government as children go hungry and the planet burns’

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/more-culture-war-nonsense-from-the-government-as-children-go-hungry-and-the-planet-burns

    Police during an Extinction Rebellion demonstration blocking Vauxhall Bridge in central London, April 10, 2022

    Right to protest comes under fresh attack as Tories unveil new measures and fines

    THE right to protest came under fresh attack today as the Tory government unveiled new measures directed at demonstrators.

    Rattled by the repeated huge solidarity marches with Palestine in recent months, ministers presented amendments to criminal justice legislation designed to make protesting harder.

    Among the acts now to be criminalised are wearing masks at a demonstration, climbing on war memorials or the use of flares or fireworks.

    Protesters engaging in any of these activities now risk fines of up to £1,000.

    Nor will they any longer be able to use the right to protest as a defence if they cause serious disruption, a change driven by the refusal of a jury to convict anti-racists charged with hauling down the statute of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol.

    …

    Leading human rights lawyer and peer Shami Chakrabarti said: … “This is more culture war nonsense from the government while children go hungry and the planet burns.”

    …

    Suella Braverman, who lost office trying to ban a Gaza ceasefire protest on Armistice Day, has demanded further measures.

    These would include giving ministers, rather than the police, the power to ban marches they do not approve of; prohibit the use of particular slogans or phrases and proscribe groups deemed “extremist” even if they are entirely peaceful.

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/more-culture-war-nonsense-from-the-government-as-children-go-hungry-and-the-planet-burns

  • ‘Scandal’: Israeli Dossier ‘Provides No Evidence’ for Claims Against UNRWA Staff

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

    Palestinians gather for a demonstration in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on January 30, 2024. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)

    “People in Gaza are starving, and because of spurious allegations made in a dodgy dossier, they will experience worse hunger.”

    An Israeli dossier that more than a dozen countries have cited to justify cutting off funding to the United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency “provides no evidence” that a small number of the key U.N. aid body’s employees were involved in the October 7 Hamas-led attack, according to an investigation released Monday by the British outlet Channel 4.

    The dossier merely states that “from intelligence information, documents, and identity cards seized during the course of the fighting, it is now possible to flag around 190 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist operatives who serve as UNRWA employees.”

    “More than 10 UNRWA staffers took part in the events of [October 7],” reads the six-page dossier, which Israel provided to UNRWA donor countries—including the agency’s top contributor, the United States—shortly after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) handed down an interim decision ordering Israel to take concrete steps to prevent genocide in the Gaza Strip.

    The ICJ instructed the Israeli government to ensure that sufficient humanitarian assistance flows to desperate and starving Gazans, but Israel’s allegations against UNRWA employees led at least 16 countries to suspend funding for the agency, the most critical aid body operating in the Palestinian enclave. Around a million displaced Gazans are currently sheltering at facilities run by UNRWA, which has 13,000 employees across the strip.

    The UNRWA is reportedly set to lose $65 million by the end of February as donors’ funding cuts take effect, imperiling the agency’s operations in Gaza and across the Middle East.

    Channel 4 noted Monday that all 13,000 of UNRWA’s Gaza employees’ names “have been checked against the U.N. terrorism list and, as recently as last May, were vetted and approved by Israel.”

    The UNRWA quickly fired nine of the employees named by Israel. On Monday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres established “an independent review group to assess whether the agency is doing everything within its power to ensure neutrality and to respond to allegations of serious breaches when they are made.”

    The Daily Beast also obtained a copy of the Israeli dossier and—similar to Channel 4—reported Tuesday that it “includes little evidence to back up” Israel’s allegations against UNRWA employees.

    Ashish Prashar, a spokesperson for Gaza Voices, said in response to the new reporting that “we now know that the document used to suspend funding to UNRWA ‘provides no evidence.’”

    “This is the latest campaign in a decades-long attack on UNRWA by Israel and a subset of the broader campaign to eliminate the Palestinian refugee issue,” said Prashar. “People in Gaza are starving, and because of spurious allegations made in a dodgy dossier, they will experience worse hunger. This scandal should lead to resignations from officials in the U.S., UK, Germany, and elsewhere who all suspended funding to a besieged people experiencing a genocide as a result of a baseless accusation by the génocidaires themselves.”

    “The fact that the U.S., U.K., and several other Western governments instantly attacked UNRWA on the orders of a genocidal foreign government (based on bogus claims) should make you very worried about your own democracy.”

    Jeremy Scahill, a senior correspondent at The Intercept‘s criticized the Biden administration and The Wall Street Journal for characterizing the dossier as “some smoking gun.”

    During a press conference last week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the allegations in the dossier “highly, highly credible.”

    The same day as Blinken’s remarks, the Journal ran a story stating that “around 10%” of UNRWA’s Gaza employees have ties to Islamist militant groups,” pointing to an “intelligence dossier.”

    But questions about the reliability of the purported intelligence cited in the Israeli dossier have been swirling since the details of its contents began to trickle out in the press late last month. Citing one unnamed senior Israeli official, Axios reported that “the intelligence is a result of interrogations of militants who were arrested during the Oct. 7 attack.”

    Israeli forces have repeatedly been accused by U.N. experts and human rights groups of using torture to extract forced confessions from Palestinian detainees.

    “The fact that the U.S., U.K., and several other Western governments instantly attacked UNRWA on the orders of a genocidal foreign government (based on bogus claims) should make you very worried about your own democracy,” Craig Mokhiber, a former U.N. official who resigned over the global institution’s failure to stop Israel’s assault on Gaza, wrote Tuesday.

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

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