Joe Biden

‘All Eyes on Rafah’ as Global Protests Against Looming IDF Assault Continue

Spread the love

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

An Israeli woman holds a sign opposing Israel’s looming invasion of Rafah, Gaza during a February 13, 2024 protest outside the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv.  (Photo: Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)

Demonstrators turned out from Cardiff to Tel Aviv as Palestinians in the Gaza city endured heavy Israeli bombing while bracing for an all-out ground invasion.

Global emergency protests against Israel’s expected invasion of Rafah continued Tuesday, a day after demonstrators took to the streets of cities around the world to say “hands off” the southern Gaza city whose population has swelled more than fivefold due to the influx of Palestinian war refugees.

Hundreds of protesters turned out in the cold and rain of Cardiff, Wales Tuesday afternoon, with demonstrations planned for later in the day in cities including Manchester, England and Houston, Texas.

“We do not care if it is raining—it’s raining bombs in Rafah over a million Palestinians, squeezed into an area barely the size of an airport,” protest co-organizer Black Lives Matter Cardiff & Vale said on social media.

In Tel Aviv, a crowd of left-wing Israelis protested outside the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense, holding signs with messages including “Stop Bombing Gaza” and “Stop Funding Genocide.”

Tuesday’s demonstrations followed Monday protests around the world including outside both the White House in Washington, D.C. and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s residence on Downing Street in London. Rallies and marches also took place in cities including Rome, New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Vancouver, and at U.S. President Joe Biden’s campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, where 21 Sunrise Movement climate activists were arrested.

Airstrikes on Rafah are intensifying as the Israel Defense Forces appear poised to launch a major ground invasion of the besieged city on the Egyptian border. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and wounded in Rafah since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Friday order to the IDF to create an evacuation plan for the 1.5 million people in the city, most of them refugees from other parts of Gaza.

South African officials said Tuesday that Israel’s bombing of Rafah and stated intent to invade the city are violations of the International Court of Justice’s order for Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent acts of genocide. The court found in a preliminary ruling that Israeli forces were “plausibly” committing genocide, as alleged in the South Africa-led case.

The looming invasion of Rafah comes amid a wider war on Gaza in which more than 100,000 Palestinians have been killed, maimed, or left missing by Israeli bombs and bullets since October 7, when Hamas led deadly attacks on southern Israel and kidnapped over 240 Israelis and others. Around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced and a majority of the besieged strip’s homes have been damaged or destroyed by Israel’s relentless onslaught.

Senior officials from Israel, the U.S., Egypt, and Qatar met in Cairo on Tuesday to resume negotiations for an extended cease-fire in Gaza in exchange for the release of the approximately 130 hostages held by Hamas.

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

Continue Reading‘All Eyes on Rafah’ as Global Protests Against Looming IDF Assault Continue

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

Spread the love

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.

US Bombs Yemen After Years of Undermining Democracy in Yemen and Destabilizing… Yemen

Come Visit Beautiful Gaza!

Biden Memo on US Arms Transfers Called ‘Too Little Too Late’

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

NYC activists defy police repression and continue mobilizing for Palestine

Spread the love

Original article republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Protesters with the #ShutItDown4Palestine movement took the streets of New York City once again on February 4 to demand an end to all US funding of Israel and a permanent ceasefire

New York City police cracked down on pro-Palestine activists with the #ShutItDown4Palestine movement for the third week in a row and arrested several protesters, including march organizers. The crackdown comes as Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza completes four months. Israeli forces have killed over 27,000 Palestinians in the enclave including over 11,000 children.

People across the United States have mobilized week after week to demand an end to US complicity in Israel’s war on the people of Palestine and an immediate ceasefire. Major public opinion polls show that a majority of US voters from both parties support a ceasefire, yet the Biden administration has refused to call for one.

Organizers have vowed to continue protesting, in spite of the crackdown, until there is a ceasefire and Palestine is free.

Original article republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingNYC activists defy police repression and continue mobilizing for Palestine