Zarah Sultana calls for Capitalism to be replaced
Zarah Sultana, Your Party MP for Coventry South speaks at Your Party’s founding conference.
Thousands rally in Paris on International Day of Solidarity with Palestinians
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Thousands of people marched through the streets of Paris on Saturday, Nov. 29, to mark the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Anadolu reports.
Demonstrators called for an immediate ceasefire and urged a boycott of Israel as they moved through the French capital.
Protesters carried Palestinian flags and held banners reading “Boycott Israel,” “Genocide, apartheid, occupation… Justice for Gaza,” “Stop the genocide in Gaza,” and “78 years of Nakba, 2 years of genocide.”
The UN designated this day in 1977 as an international occasion to express support for the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, foremost among them the right to self-determination, national independence, sovereignty, and the return of refugees to the homes from which they were displaced in 1948.
Israel has killed nearly 70,000 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 170,000 others in its genocide in Gaza since October 2023.
In November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
The Israeli army has also escalated its attacks in the West Bank since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023.
More than 1,085 Palestinians have since been killed, and 10,700 others injured in attacks by the army and illegal settlers in the occupied territory. More than 20,500 people have also been arrested.
In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Nearly 9,300 Gaza children under 5 suffer from severe acute malnutrition: UN agency
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Nearly 9,300 Gaza children under 5 suffer from severe acute malnutrition: UN agency
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Nearly 9,300 children under 5 in Gaza were diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition in October, UNICEF warned on Saturday, Anadolu reports.
“High levels of malnutrition continue to endanger the lives and wellbeing of children in the Gaza Strip, compounded by the onset of winter weather accelerating the spread of disease and increasing the risk of death among the most vulnerable children,” the UN agency said in a statement on its website.
According to UNICEF, nutrition screenings carried out by the agency and its partners last month “identified almost 9,300 children under 5 years of age with acute malnutrition in October.”
The agency said large quantities of winter supplies remain stuck at Gaza’s borders and called for the safe, rapid and unobstructed delivery of humanitarian aid into the territory.
“As winter weather sets in, thousands of displaced families remain in makeshift shelters without warm clothes, blankets or protection from the elements, while heavy rains have washed waste and sewage through floodwaters and into populated areas,” it added.
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said that “despite progress, thousands of children under the age of five remain acutely malnourished in Gaza, while many more lack proper shelter, sanitation and protection against winter,” the statement noted.
READ: UN committee warns of ‘organized, widespread’ ill-treatment in Israel’s actions since October 2023
“Too many children in Gaza are still facing hunger, illness and exposure to cold temperatures, conditions that are putting their lives at risk. Every minute counts to protect these children,” she said.
Russell also called for the opening of all crossings into the Gaza Strip, with simplified and expedited clearance procedures and the clear prioritization of the entry of humanitarian supplies, allowing humanitarian relief to move through all feasible supply routes, including via Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and the West Bank.
The warning came despite the ceasefire, which took effect in October, as Gaza faces growing humanitarian pressures. The government media office said Wednesday that a recent winter storm damaged about 22,000 tents sheltering displaced families and left more than 288,000 households without protection from cold and rain.
Authorities in Gaza estimate that the territory needs roughly 300,000 tents and prefabricated housing units to meet the most basic shelter requirements for Palestinians, after Israel destroyed civilian infrastructure during two years of war.
Since October 2023, the Israeli army has killed nearly 70,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, and injured more than 170,900 people in the over two-year war that has left much of the enclave in ruins.
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10 Palestinians injured by illegal Israeli settlers in West Bank attack
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At least 10 Palestinians suffered injuries after illegal Israeli settlers attacked the village of Khalayel al-Louz near Bethlehem, in the northern occupied West Bank, Anadolu reports.
The Palestinian Red Crescent reported one gunshot wound to the thigh and nine cases of beating, adding that medics moved three people to a hospital and treated the rest at the scene.
Illegal settlers entered the village, targeted several homes, and set fire to plastic greenhouses used for farming, locals told Anadolu.
Separately, the Israeli army withdrew its forces from the town of Tammun and the al-Faraa refugee camp near Tubas, while continuing its operation in the city and in the towns of Aqaba and Tayasir.
Tammun Mayor Samir Bisharat told Anadolu that troops vacated houses they had turned into military posts and released all detainees except six, who were transferred to Israeli detention centers.
Israeli forces continued to target Tubas and nearby towns with movement restrictions and new military positions, local sources told Anadolu.
READ: Camera exposes Israeli forces kill two Palestinians after their surrender in occupied West Bank
Nidal Odeh, director of ambulance and emergency services in Tubas, told Anadolu that the troops have injured about 130 people since the operation started early Wednesday, including dozens beaten by soldiers.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society said Israeli forces detained 162 people during the operation and later released most of them after field interrogations and mistreatment.
The Israeli army has escalated its attacks in the West Bank since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023.
More than 1,085 Palestinians have since been killed, and 10,700 others injured in attacks by the army and illegal settlers in the occupied territory. More than 20,500 people have also been arrested.
In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Italy holds third general strike in three months, against war budget and for Palestine
Original article by Ana Vračar republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
Workers in Italy have launched their third general strike in under three months, demanding an end to Meloni’s war agenda and budget.
Italy is on general strike for the third time in less than three months, following a call by the grassroots union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB). Pickets, industrial actions, and demonstrations were organized in over 40 cities, with massive rallies demanding an end to rearmament plans and the war budget shaped by Giorgia Meloni’s government.
On Friday, workers stressed that their mobilization is tied both to worsening material conditions at home and to international events, specifically the struggle of the Palestinian people – whose fate, they insist, is inseparable from Europe’s expanding war economy. As a result, those striking today reiterated their commitment to join the national march for Palestine in Rome, taking place on Saturday, November 29.
“The Meloni government’s rearmament budget is in line with the warmongering policies pursued in recent years, but it also represents a further leap in quality, with public services being sacrificed on the altar of the war economy, all while inflation continues to rise and wages have been stagnant for decades,” USB and the dockworkers’ collective CALP wrote in one of the strike calls.
“We want at least €2,000 in base pay, retirement no later than 62, an end to subcontracting, reduced working hours with no loss of pay, guaranteed housing rights, new public-sector hiring, and free, universal public health care,” USB added. “These are urgent needs in an exhausted country, needs that are incompatible with the government’s warmongering.”
Italy’s social situation is “a political choice,” workers say
Like other European governments, Meloni’s administration has aligned itself with the European Union’s armament agenda. According to trade unions, this will mean billions for the military and related industries while essential public services fall apart. CALP described the new budget as one that freezes wages, ignores inflation, and prioritizes banks and capital gains. “While prices keep rising, salaries stay stagnant and pensions are cut every year,” the collective stated. “We work more, earn less, and live worse. This isn’t a crisis: it’s a political choice, and workers are the ones paying for it.”
Read more: Belgian workers reject Arizona’s austerity in three-day strike wave
Calls for the government’s dismissal could be heard across today’s actions, together with refusals to accept the shift toward militarization and military enrollment. Groups including left party Potere al Popolo and student collectives CAU and Cambiare Rotta marched with striking workers, blocking roads and picketing companies set to profit from military budgets while healthcare and education are left underfunded.
Messages of support arrived from abroad as well. UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese and Freedom Flotilla participants Greta Thunberg and Thiago Ávila announced they would join the 28-29 November mobilizations in person. Artists including Roger Waters, as well as international trade unions and Palestine solidarity coalitions, expressed solidarity with the strike. “USB’s strikes have shed a bright light on the shameful complicity of the Italian government and Italian corporations in enabling Israel’s genocide, illegal occupation and apartheid against Palestinians,” the BDS National Committee wrote. “They have shown the power of the people and inspired many across the globe.”
In a letter to USB, the Galician Unions Confederacy (CIG) emphasized the strike’s relevance in the context of the EU’s ReArm Europe strategy and the rise of the far right. “We reject the policies promoted by the EU and its member states, which fuel a warmongering escalation and commit to increasing military budgets at the expense of public services and social support,” CIG stated. “And we are concerned about the fascist drift toward which Europe is heading, of which the Meloni government is a clear example.”
Read more: Is fascism back in Europe? A conversation with the Zetkin Forum
Unlike the general strike in October, in which the confederation CGIL joined USB’s call in a rare moment of unity, the call for today’s action came from grassroots unions alone, with CGIL planning its own strike in mid-December. This, however, did not diminish USB’s determination. “Calling the third general strike in just over two months is not a decision to be taken lightly or symbolically,” they wrote.
Instead, they reiterated that today’s strike was intended to table concrete demands and alternatives. The strike, USB added, should not be perceived as a one-off protest but as “an event that represents not only a stage of mobilization, but also a decisive political step to give a voice to those who can’t make ends meet, those working for starvation wages, and those watching their futures crushed by wars, inequality, and the choices of a government hostile to workers.”
Original article by Ana Vračar republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.