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Category: USUK

  • Hundreds of thousands expected at pro-Palestine march in London

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    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/03/hundreds-of-thousands-expected-at-pro-palestine-march-in-london

    Demonstrators marching through central London last month in solidarity with Palestinians. Photograph: Vuk Valcic/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

    Hundreds of thousands of pro-Palestine demonstrators are expected to march through central London on Saturday in the UK’s first national demonstration since the UN’s international court of justice ordered Israel to ensure its forces do not commit acts of genocide in Gaza.

    …

    Last Friday, the international court of justice ordered Israel to ensure its forces did not commit acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. In an interim judgment, the president of the court, Joan Donoghue, said Israel must “take all measures within its power” to prevent acts that fall within the scope of the genocide convention and must ensure “with immediate effect” that its forces do not commit any of the acts covered by the convention.

    Earlier this month, the PSC organised a march of hundreds of thousands of people through central London. Little Amal, a 4-metre puppet of a Syrian child refugee, accompanied protesters as they marched towards Parliament Square. The following weekend, hundreds joined a multi-faith peace march in solidarity with people affected by the conflict.

    The Gaza health ministry says at least 27,131 Palestinians have been killed and 66,287 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and about 250 abducted. Satellite images analysed by the United Nations Satellite Centre show that 30% of Gaza Strip’s buildings have been destroyed or damaged. Unicef estimated on Friday that 170,000 children in Gaza were unaccompanied or had been separated from their families.

    This will be the eighth National March for Palestine organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign since October.

    …

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/03/hundreds-of-thousands-expected-at-pro-palestine-march-in-london

    Image of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. UK halts aid to UNRWA in Gaza over Israeli allegations that 12 staff from a total of 13,000 were involved in the 7 October 2024 attack on Israel.
    Image of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. UK halts aid to UNRWA in Gaza over Israeli allegations that 12 staff from a total of 13,000 were involved in the 7 October 2024 attack on Israel.

  • US approves plan to bomb Iraq and Syria

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

    US troops conduct area reconnaissance in Syria (Photo: Spc. Jensen Guillory)

    The country approved plans to widen the scope of the regional war originating in Israel’s genocide in Gaza

    Following an attack by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq against US foreign outpost “Tower 22”, which killed three US soldiers stationed near the Syria-Jordan border, the United States has approved plans for a multi-day strike against Iraq and Syria. 

    The death of three US troops, the first casualties among US forces in a widening conflict in West Asia, drew attention to the hundreds of US military bases and outposts spread throughout the world. 

    In confirming responsibility for the attack, an Islamic Resistance official declared, “If the United States continues to support ‘israel,’ there will be an escalation.” and that “All American interests in the region are legitimate targets.”

    The United States is using the strikes as a way to continue to blame Iran for the wider resistance in West Asia. The strikes will purportedly be against “Iranian targets.” Resistance organizations such as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq are frequently accused of being Iranian “proxies” by US officials and in the mainstream press. 

    Contrary to seeking peace for the hundreds of thousands being slaughtered in Gaza, the United States and the Western world have continually chased escalation. Earlier in January, the US and the UK began an airstrike campaign against Yemen, in retaliation against the nation’s casualty-free blockade of the Red Sea, which Yemeni forces claim to be carrying out in solidarity in Gaza. The only deaths surrounding the blockade have been suffered by Yemenis, and have been as a result of the US and UK’s bombing campaign. 

    The United States and several Western nations have also directly worsened the plight of Gazans by cutting all their funding to the UNRWA, due to dubious accusations made by Israel that some UNRWA were involved in the October 7 operation. 

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

  • Norwegian Foreign Minister warns weapons-exporting states of complicity in Israeli genocide

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    https://skwawkbox.org/2024/01/31/norwegian-foreign-minister-warns-weapons-exporting-states-of-complicity-in-israeli-genocide/

    UK, US and other supporters of Israeli apartheid and oppression are enabling slaughter of Palestinians

    Eide said:

    States exporting weapons to Israel should reassess whether they are effective partners in the genocide in Gaza Strip or not.

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    https://skwawkbox.org/2024/01/31/norwegian-foreign-minister-warns-weapons-exporting-states-of-complicity-in-israeli-genocide/

  • Morning Star: US troops would not be targets if they left a region where they are not welcome

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-us-troops-would-not-be-targets-if-they-left-region-where-they-are-not-welcome

    President Joe Biden speaks at South Carolina’s First in the Nation dinner at the South Carolina State Fairgrounds in Columbia, S.C., January 27, 2024

    THE killing of three US soldiers along the Jordan-Syria border is inseparable from the war in Gaza.

    It risks a spiralling Middle East war, a risk heightened by the reflex blaming of Iran and the clamour for revenge driven by hawkish US politicians in an election year.

    Attacks on US forces will always be presented in mass media as unprovoked. British politicians too will depict them as acts of illegal terrorism which need to be punished to shore up the “international rules-based order.”

    We should therefore be clear: US troops would not be under attack in the Middle East if they were not stationed in the Middle East, often against the wishes of the host countries.

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    Stationing your troops in a country against its wishes is not upholding an “international rules-based order” — it is an act of contempt for international law.

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-us-troops-would-not-be-targets-if-they-left-region-where-they-are-not-welcome

  • Human rights organisations demand weapons embargo to stop fuelling Gaza crisis

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    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/01/human-rights-organisations-demand-weapons-embargo-to-stop-fuelling-gaza-crisis/

    ‘All states have an obligation to prevent atrocity crimes and promote adherence to norms that protect civilians. The international community is long overdue to live up to these commitments.’

    Sixteen leading international human rights and humanitarian organisations have made a joint call to all UN Member States to stop fuelling the crisis in Gaza, to avert further loss of civilian life and humanitarian catastrophe.

    The aid coalition includes Oxfam, Amnesty International, and Save the Children. It is demanding an immediate halt on the transfer of weapons, parts and ammunition to Israel and Palestinian armed groups while there is a risk they are used to ‘commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law.’

    The United Nations’ Palestinian Refugee Agency has warned that around 1.7 million people have been displaced within Gaza. The Gaza Health Ministry says the Palestinian death toll from the conflict is over 25,700, most of which are women and children. Islamic Relief (IR) said the figures show that 4 percent of the population of Gaza was now dead or injured.

    Over 95 percent of Israel’s supply of weapons comes from the US. The UK, Italy and Germany also produce parts which are sold to Israel. The UK is home to Israeli weapon manufacturers, including Elbit Systems, which makes surveillance and armed drones. Both the UK and US administrations have been accused of playing a part in facilitating the destruction of Gaza.

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    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/01/human-rights-organisations-demand-weapons-embargo-to-stop-fuelling-gaza-crisis/