The infant triplets of Palestinian mother Nuzha Awad face the threat of dying from malnutrition and lack of medical care due to constant Israeli attacks and blockades as they take shelter in Nuseirat camp in Deir al Balah, Gaza on March 25, 2024. (Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“And it’s moving its way south,” she warned.
United Nations World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said Friday that Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip are experiencing “full-blown famine” after nearly seven months of Israeli bombardment and invasion—and that deadly malnutrition is “moving its way south” through the embattled enclave.
While U.N. agencies have warned since March that famine was imminent in Gaza, McCain’s remarks—which came during an interview with Kristen Welker that is scheduled to air on Sunday’s edition of NBC News‘ “Meet the Press”—make her the most high-profile international official to date to publicly acknowledge a state of famine in parts of the Palestinian territory.
“It’s horror,” said McCain, who is American. “There is famine—full-blown famine—in the north, and it’s moving its way south.”
UN World Food Program @WFPChief: “There is famine — full-blown famine — in the north of Gaza, and it’s moving its way south.”
McCain’s remarks come as hundreds of thousands of Gazans are on the brink of starvation. Dozens of Palestinians—the vast majority of them children and infants—have already died of malnutrition and dehydration in northern Gaza.
According to Palestinian and international officials, Israel’s 211-day assault on Gaza—which many experts including Israelis call genocidal—has killed or maimed more than 123,000 Palestinians since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks, including an estimated 11,000 people who are believed to be dead and buried beneath the ruins of the hundreds of thousands of destroyed or damaged homes and other buildings.
In addition to not allowing adequate humanitarian aid into Gaza, Israeli forces have also repeatedly attacked both aid workers and desperate civilians trying to access the lifesaving provisions.
“What we are asking for and what we continually ask for is a cease-fire and the ability to have unfettered access, to get in safe through the various ports and gate crossings,” McCain said during the interview.
On Saturday, Hamas spokesperson Osman Hamdan said there have been “some forward steps” toward a cease-fire agreement during negotiations in Egypt. Egyptian mediators proposed a six-week cessation of hostilities, the release of an unspecified number of Israeli and international hostages, and a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
However, one Israeli official told ABC News on condition of anonymity Saturday that “Israel will under no circumstances agree to the end of the war as part of an agreement to release our abductees.”
The negotiations come as Israeli forces prepare for an expected ground invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, where more than a million refugees forcibly displaced from other parts of the strip are sheltering alongside around 280,000 local residents. On Friday, the U.N.’s humanitarian agency warned that an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah would put hundreds of thousands of Palestinians “at imminent risk of death.”
Israel has killed over 100 Palestinian journalists in seven months of its war on Gaza while Julian Assange has spent over 1850 days in prison for merely doing his duty
Journalists and independent media outlets are facing an unprecedented decline in press freedom and a rise of state repression all across the world, according to the annual report published by Reporters without Borders (RSF) on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day on May 3.
RSF claims that the physical security of journalists continues to be the main threat to press freedom, noting that over 100 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israel in Palestine in the last seven months of war in Gaza. RSF’s World Press Freedom Index of 2024 notes with worry that in most of the countries, political authorities supposed to protect press freedom, have emerged as the primary threat and the world has seen a “worrying decline in respect for media autonomy.”
RSF’s findings draw attention to the long incarceration of Julian Assange with a threat to his life. Assange’s example presents the significant indictment of the governments in the West who otherwise claim to cherish media freedom.
World Press Freedom Day was first proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in December 1993 on the recommendations of the UNESCO general conference as a reminder to governments across the world of their commitment to free press. The day also underlines the need to take steps to defend the media from attacks on its independence and to commemorate all the journalists and media workers who have lost their lives in the line of duty.
Several reports confirm RSF’s figure of the killing of over 100 Palestinian journalists by Israel in its war against the people of Gaza in the last seven months. Meanwhile, local Palestinian sources claim the figure is above 140. Due to Israel’s genocide, Palestinian territories, with a population of less than seven million, have emerged as the deadliest place on earth for journalists in the last year.
Reminder on the World Press Freedom Day:
🗣️Israeli has KILLED 141 journalists since the start of the ongoing onslaught in #Gaza!
Julian Assange, the co-founder of Wikileakes, will be spending his 1850th day in prison for his work exposing the deliberate killing of civilians by the US forces during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars more than a decade ago.
Assange has been kept in the British jail with repeated threats of extradition to the US, where he would face charges under the Espionage Act that could total a sentence of 175 yearsAssange’s continued incarceration despite his severe mental and physical health issues by some of the most “celebrated governments” on the RSF’s Index, is the best example of intolerance of the governments in the West to the truth.
Activists and friends of Assange have used the occasion of the World Press Freedom Day, reminding that it “was established to celebrate the value of truth and to protect the people who work courageously to uncover it” reiterated their demand of dropping all the charges and his immediate release from prison.
On World Press Freedom Day we call for Julian Assange's immediate release from prison & @POTUS to #DropTheCharges.
— People For Assange (@people4assange) May 3, 2024
In the same countries that try to cover up Assange’s unjust imprisonment while championing press freedom, journalists and media groups also face challenges. Some journalists have lost their jobs altogether, especially with regards to opposition to outlets’ position on Israel’s genocide in Gaza. In recent years, several media organizations have faced forced closures and censorship under the guise of “foreign state influence”. Some of these countries are among the highest ranked in the RSF’s index as well, with Germany, one such offender, apparently improving its rankings.
The threat of losing their jobs has historically forced many journalists in the West to fall in line and manipulate truth. For example, in the case of Israeli genocide in Gaza many journalists fall in line with their outlets role to support the unshakeable US support to Israel and deliberately misrepresent the horrific truth of what is happening.
The fight for press freedom continues but as the threats to the well being of Julian Assange and the journalists in Gaza show us, there can be no free press as long as imperialists continue to vie for global domination.
I need to write an article about whether we are fighting modern Fascists. I think that we are. Should the Israelis and their Zionist supporters be recognised as Neo-Fascists? If Israelis are Neo-Fascists, then their supporters like the UK’s Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer are also Neo-Fascists. Should climate destroyers be recognised as Neo-Fascists? They’re often the same people.
Palestinians, including children, collect remaining belongings from the rubble of destroyed houses after Israeli attacks on May 1, 2024 in Rafah, Gaza. (Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)
A full-scale Israeli assault on the crowded southern Gaza city “would bring catastrophe on top of catastrophe for children.”
That’s how Catherine Russell, executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), concluded a brief video Wednesday about the harrowing conditions across the Gaza Strip, particularly in Rafah, where about 1.5 million of the besieged enclave’s 2.3 million residents have sought refuge from Israel’s devastating assault.
The video was released nearly seven months into Israel’s retaliation for the Hamas-led October 7 attack—which has killed at least 34,596 Palestinians in Gaza, wounded another 77,816, and left thousands more missing—and as a full-scale Israeli assault of Rafah looms.
The war has already taken “an unimaginable toll,” and a major military operation against the crowded southern Gaza city “would bring catastrophe on top of catastrophe for children,” Russell warned. “Nearly all of the some 600,000 children now crammed into Rafah are either injured, sick, malnourished, traumatized, or living with disabilities.”
“Many have been displaced multiple times and lost homes, parents, and loved ones,” the UNICEF chief noted. “There is nowhere safe to go in Gaza. Homes throughout the Gaza Strip lie in ruin. Roads are destroyed and the ground littered with unexploded ordnances.”
“Rafah is also the main hub for the humanitarian response, which includes UNICEF, and the city has some of the last functioning healthcare facilities,” she explained.
Israeli forces launched at least 435 attacks on health facilities or personnel during the first six months of the war, and just 10 of the enclave’s 36 hospitals remain partially functional, according to the World Health Organization. As Common Dreams reported Wednesday, thousands of Palestinian child amputees are struggling to recover due to the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system.
“UNICEF continues to call for the protection of all women and children in Rafah and throughout the Gaza Strip—and the protection of the infrastructure, services, and humanitarian aid they rely on,” said Russell. “We repeat our calls for the unconditional release of all hostages in Gaza who need to be home with their children and families. The violence must end.”
An immediate and long-lasting humanitarian cease-fire;
Safe and unrestricted humanitarian access;
The immediate, safe, and unconditional release of all abducted children, and an end to any grave violations against all children;
Respect and protection for civilian infrastructure; and
Allow patients with urgent medical cases to safely access critical health services or leave.
As Russell called for peace in video form, James Elder, UNICEF’s global spokesperson, penned a Wednesday opinion piece for The Guardian following his recent trips to Gaza. He began with a startling anecdote:
The war against Gaza’s children is forcing many to close their eyes. Nine-year-old Mohamed’s eyes were forced shut, first by the bandages that covered a gaping hole in the back of his head, and second by the coma caused by the blast that hit his family home. He is nine. Sorry, he was nine. Mohamed is now dead.
“From looming famine to soaring death tolls, the latest fear is the much-threatened offensive in Rafah in southern Gaza,” he wrote. “Can it get any worse? It always seems to.”
“Rafah will implode if it is targeted militarily,” Elder stressed. “Water is in desperately short supply, not just for drinking but sanitation. In Rafah there is approximately one toilet for every 850 people. The situation is four times worse for showers. That is, around one shower for every 3,500 people. Try to imagine, as a teenage girl, or elderly man, or pregnant woman, queueing for an entire day just to have a shower.”
On October 31, just weeks after the start of what the International Court of Justice has since determined is Israel’s plausibly genocidal assault, UNICEF called Gaza a “graveyard” for children.
“Can it get any worse? It always seems to.”
“Last month I saw new graveyards in Rafah being constructed. And filled,” wrote Elder. “Every day the war brings more violent death and destruction. In my 20 years with the United Nations, I have never seen devastation like that I saw in the Gaza Strip cities of Khan Younis and Gaza City. And now we are told to expect the same via an incursion in Rafah.”
Elder recalled that “in the north of the territory, close to where a UNICEF vehicle came under fire last month, a woman clutched my hand and pleaded, over and over, that the world send food, water, and medicine. I will never forget how, as I felt her grasp, I tried to explain we were trying, and she continued to plead.”
“Why? Because she assumed the world did not know what was happening in Gaza. Because if the world knew, how could they possibly let this happen?” he continued. “How, indeed. The world has certainly been warned about Rafah. It remains to be seen how many eyes stay, or are forced, shut.”
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators and workers gather and take to the streets to protest against Israeli attacks on Gaza during ”May Day Rally” in New York, United States on May 01, 2024. (Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The people who make, report, and teach history should take note: it has never been kind to those who spread Big Lies. This time will be no different.
Mainstream journalists and politicians have engaged in a campaign of mass slander against U.S. college students protesting the Gaza genocide. Their “antisemitism” Big Lie echoes the racist hate campaigns of the past, inciting hostility toward young people whose only crime is their dedication to justice.
A newly published survey provides some important context for these protests and undermines the smear campaign against the protesters.
Students Are Not Antisemitic
The Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST), a project of the University of Chicago, recently published “Understanding Campus Fears After October 7 and How to Reduce Them,” subtitled “a non-partisan analysis of Antisemitism and Islamophobia among College Students and American Adults.” Robert A. Pape, political scientist and CPOST’s director, writes that its findings “are an opportunity to re-center the national discussion around students and away from politics.” Let’s hope so.
Understandably, Pape and his colleagues focus on the steps that should be taken to make all students feel safe on campus, regardless of religion, ethnicity, or politics. In doing so, their report includes important findings that deserve wider attention.
Their “antisemitism’ Big Lie echoes the racist hate campaigns of the past, inciting hostility toward young people whose only crime is their dedication to justice.
Is there a “climate of antisemitism” on campus? CPOST’s study found that college students are less Islamophobic than the general population, but they are not more antisemitic. The level of student bias against Jews is the same as their bias against Muslims, but no greater.
Why, then, is there a national debate about campus antisemitism and none about the comparable scourge of Islamophobia? What message does that send to the Muslim students whose fears are being ignored?
The Protests Aren’t Antisemitic, Either
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wants a vote on the “Countering Antisemitism Act,” but neither he nor the president have proposed similar safeguards against Islamophobia. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who said that Columbia protesters have begun “to threaten lives and intimidate and harass people,” has an even more draconian antisemitism bill—also without plans to address Islamophobia.
President Biden, like the others, has condemned what he calls “antisemitic protests.” That slur is challenged by the Chicago study. The authors found that “while college students are not more antisemitic than the general population,” they are “more anti-zionist.” They also found that “prejudicial antisemitism and anti-zionism are largely separate phenomena,” with an “overwhelming” absence of any overlap between antisemitism and a negative view of Israel.
We’ve know for decades that the lie which equates anti-zionism with antisemitism serves a political goal by suppressing speech. We now have evidence to back it up.
“From the River to the Sea”
One protest slogan has been cited over and over as “antisemitic,” with accusers claiming it calls for genocide against Jews: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Most students do not use it in anything approaching a genocidal way. The CPOST study found that only 14 percent of Muslim students, or roughly one in seven, interpret that slogan “to mean the expulsion or genocide of Israeli Jews.” That figure is too high, as is the 13 percent of students who believe that violence against Muslims is sometimes justified. But it also tells us that most people who use the slogan are not calling for harm against anyone.
Does antisemitism exist among [protesters]? Since it is pervasive in this society, the answer is yes. But amplifying a comment or two from a couple of isolated individuals is a totalitarian smear tactic.
That makes sense, since the phrase can be interpreted nonviolently in at least two ways. One is that a two-state solution should include the territory ceded to Palestine in 1948, which touched both the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Another is that Israel and Palestine should become a single, democratic, non-racial and non-theocratic state, with rights and safety for all. Under that interpretation, “Palestine will be free” is no more a call to genocide than “South Africa will be free” was a call to kill whites during the anti-apartheid struggle.
The study does note that the slogan makes two-thirds of Jewish students feel unsafe. For that reason, Pape recommends avoiding it.
But we now have confirmation that campus officials, politicians, and the media are misleading the public about that phrase. They’re endangering the protesting students and worsening the fears of pro-Israeli students. They should stop.
Conclusion
The political scientist Bernard Cohen once wrote that, while the press isn’t always successful and telling people what to think, “it is stunningly successful in telling people what to think about.” The student protests are a textbook example. The debate around these protests is focused on the false charge of antisemitism, not on the moral challenge raised by the protesters.
Does antisemitism exist among them? Since it is pervasive in this society, the answer is yes. But amplifying a comment or two from a couple of isolated individuals is a totalitarian smear tactic. Republicans did it with the racist Willie Horton ads in 1988. Trump does it when he highlights crimes allegedly committed by immigrants. And politicians, journalists, and college administrators are doing it today with their charges of protester antisemitism.
CPOST’s moderate recommendations for easing campus fears include, “Clear and immediate communication by college leaders condemning violence and intimidation by students and against students on their campuses.” Instead, those leaders are ordering police violence against protesting students, as they and the political/media elite stoke more fear and hatred against them—even in the wake of the anti-protestor mob violence at UCLA. That isn’t just wrong; it’s a dereliction of duty.
As leaders, these prominent individuals have been entrusted with the care and protection of the nation’s young people. Instead, they’re slandering them and putting them at risk. Why? To distract us from a genocide.
The people who make, report, and teach history should take note: it has never been kind to those who spread Big Lies. It won’t be this time, either.
