Faiza Shaheen left shocked after being blocked from standing as Labour candidate
Further candidates deselected from Labour causes controversy
Faiza Shaheen announced last night that she will not be standing as a Labour candidate in Chingford and Woodford Green following ‘questions’ over past social media posts.
In an emotional interview, Shaheen told BBC Newsnight on Wednesday that she had been deselected by Labour ahead of the general election. According to Shaheen, she had found out earlier that evening, firstly via the press, while she was out campaigning.
Shaheen has been Labour PPC for the east London constituency since 2018 and had already started drumming up support in the area for her general election campaign, taking on Iain Duncan Smith from the Conservative Party for a second time.
The decision was based on 14 tweets that raised concerns over her suitability as a candidate. Shaheen said one was about her experiences of Islamophobia within the party, and another about liking a sketch by a Jewish comedian that referred to critics of Israel coming under attack. She said she had since apologised at a disciplinary hearing about a tweet that “plays into a trope” about Jewish people.
Speaking to Newsnight, Shaheen said she was in a state of shock at “being treated this badly after being such an active member of the party.”
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Amid Outrage Over Rafah Massacre, Second IDF Attack on Camp Kills 21
Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
(Photo: Amir Levy/Getty Images)
“How much more can the Palestinians survive this?” asked one researcher. “Safe zones targeted, refugees killed with merciless brutality.”
As humanitarians and world leaders condemn an Israel Defense Forces bombing and resulting fire in a Rafah “safe zone” that killed 45 people and wounded hundreds more, the Israeli military on Tuesday killed at least 21 more at another refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip.
“Four tank shells hit a cluster of tents in Al-Mawasi, a coastal area that Israel had advised civilians in Rafah to move to for safety,” Reuters reported, citing health officials in the Hamas-governed Palestinian enclave. “At least 12 of the dead were women.”
Gaza-based journalist Hind Khoudary said on social media Tuesday: “I have a live hit on Al Jazeera in a bit and all I’m thinking about is how I will report on this massacre again. My heart is pounding so fast. My [fingers] are shaking. I want to cry.”
According to Agence France-Presse, IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told reporters on Tuesday that “I don’t know about this incident. We are putting this incident under investigation, and we will update you in advance.”
Hagari also addressed a probe into the Rafah attack—which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “tragic mistake”—during a Tuesday press briefing, saying that “on Sunday night, we eliminated senior Hamas terrorists in a targeted strike on a compound used by Hamas” and “due to unforeseen circumstances, a fire ignited tragically taking the lives of Gazan civilians nearby.”
“Contrary to reports, we conducted the strike outside the area that we designated as a humanitarian area and called civilians to evacuate to. Our strike was over a kilometer-and-a-half away from the Al-Mawasi humanitarian area. What we call the safer zone,” Hagari said. “Our munition alone could not have ignited a fire of this size… We are looking into all possibilities including the option that weapons stored in a compound next to our target, which we did not know of, may have ignited as a result of the strike.”
The IDF’s claims about the Sunday massacre have not quelled outrage around the world—including from U.S. lawmakers urging President Joe Biden to suspend weapons and diplomatic support for Israel’s war, which has killed over 36,000 Palestinians, injured another 81,000, and left thousands more missing and believed dead beneath the rubble, according to Gaza health officials.
Palestinians who have so far survived the Israeli assault on Gaza for more than seven months are struggling to find food, water, shelter, and medical care. The IDF has destroyed civilian infrastructure—including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques—across the enclave and severely restricted the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Both deadly IDF attacks on displaced Palestinians in and near Rafah came in the wake of the International Court of Justice last week directing Israel to “immediately halt its military offensive or any other action in the Rafah governorate,” which followed the ICJ’s January order that the country “take all measures within its power” to uphold its obligations under the Genocide Convention.
Middle East Eye reported Tuesday that Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a Palestinian presidential spokesperson, “called the new attack a massacre, and called for the implementation of the International Court of Justice decision last week for Israel to halt its offensive on Rafah,” which began earlier this month.
Responding to the Tuesday attack on social media, London-based researcher Naks Bilal said that “without humanitarian intervention it is impossible to see how this does not stop.”
“How much more can the Palestinians survive this? Safe zones targeted, refugees killed with merciless brutality,” Bilal added. “Focus energy on calling for intervention, or there will be no Palestinians.”
Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
- ‘Children Are Starving’: Rafah Suffers As Israel Halts All Aid And Escalates Assault ›
- In ‘Grave Breach’ Of International Law, Israel Orders More Evacuations In Rafah ›
- ‘This Is A Crime Against Humanity’: 600,000 Children In Line Of Fire As IDF Moves On Rafah ›
- ‘Unlawful And Catastrophic’: IDF Begins Forced Evacuation Of Rafah ›
- UNICEF Warns Area Israel Pushing Rafah Residents To Is ‘Not Safe’ ›
Group Files New ICC Complaint Over Journalists Killed by Israel in Gaza
Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
(Photo: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images)
Reporters Without Borders says it has “reasonable grounds for thinking that some of these journalists were deliberately killed and that the others were the victims of deliberate IDF attacks against civilians.”
The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders announced Monday that it has filed a third complaint at the International Criminal Court alleging “war crimes against journalists in Gaza,” where over 100 media professionals have been killed by Israeli forces since October 7.
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is asking the ICC to investigate the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) killing of eight Palestinian journalists and wounding of another between December 15 and May 20 and, more broadly, the over 100 media workers slain during the course of Israel’s 234-day assault on Gaza.
RSF said it “has reasonable grounds for thinking that some of these journalists were deliberately killed and that the others were the victims of deliberate IDF attacks against civilians” and accused Israel of “an eradication of the Palestinian media.”
“Impunity endangers journalists not only in Palestine but also throughout the world,” RSF advocacy and assistance director Antoine Bernard said in a statement. “Those who kill journalists are attacking the public’s right to information, which is even more essential in times of conflict. They must be held accountable, and RSF will continue to work to this end, in solidarity with Gaza’s reporters.”
Journalists in RSF’s latest complaint include Mustapha Thuraya and Hamza al-Dahdouh, freelancers working for Al Jazeera in Rafah when they were killed by a targeted Israeli drone strike on their vehicle on January 7, and Hazem Rajab, who was injured in the strike.
According to RSF:
The complaint also cites the cases of Hadaf News website reporter Ahmed Badir, who was killed by an airstrike at the entrance to Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah on 10 January; Kan’an News Agency correspondent Yasser Mamdouh, who was killed near Al-Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis on 11 February; Ayat Khadoura, an independent video blogger killed by an Israeli strike on his home on 20 November shortly after posting a video; Yazan Emad Al-Zwaidi, a cameraman with the Egyptian satellite TV news channel Al Ghad, who was killed on 14 January when an Israeli strike hit the group of civilians he was with in Beit Hanoun; Ahmed Fatima, a journalist with the Al Qahera News TV channel, who was killed during a bombardment in Khan Yunis on 13 November; and Rami Bdeir, a reporter for the Palestinian New Press media outlet, who was killed during an Israeli bombardment in Khan Yunis on 15 December.
Another advocacy group, the Committee to Protect Journalists, previously condemned what it called an “apparent pattern of targeting journalists and their families,” noting cases in which media workers were killed while wearing press insignia and after being threatened by Israeli officials.
Monday marked the ninth anniversary of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2222, which concerns the protection of journalists in conflict zones and “emphasizes the responsibility of states to comply with the relevant obligations under international law to end impunity and to prosecute those responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law.”
Last month, Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, said: “Killing journalists is a war crime that undermines the most basic human rights. Justice starts with the cessation of injustice.”
Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Israel subverts all international laws and rulings in its attack against Rafah
Original article republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
Israel has intensified its attacks on Rafah in complete violation of the interim order of International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Friday, asking it to stop all attacks inside Rafah and open the border for greater humanitarian aid
At least 40 people, mostly women and children, were killed and scores of others were injured when Israel bombed a tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah late in the evening on Sunday, May 26.
The tent camp in Tal al-Sultan was recently built by UNRWA to shelter the Palestinians forced to move by Israeli forces from other parts of Rafah, and was a designated “safe zone,” Wafa News Agency reported.
At least eight Israeli missiles struck the camp in the late evening, when most were sleeping in the tents, causing a massive fire. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) hospitals in the region were already overcrowded and were in no position to handle all the injured in the attack.
Videos and visuals of tents burning and people desperately trying to locate their loved ones in the chaos circulated on social media, along with a ghastly video of a headless body of a child, which volunteers pulled from the rubble.
The attack sparked worldwide condemnation, with even close allies such as France asking Israel to stop the attacks on Rafah.
Several Arab countries demanded immediate UN Security Council intervention to stop the Israeli genocide of Palestinians.
Chris Gunness, spokesperson of UNRWA told Al Jazeera that, “we are now seeing blatant disregard for the genocide convention. There is no exception to the Genocide convention. There are no excuses. This is a crime of crimes.”
Jeremy Cornyn wrote on X, “Palestinian children should wake up feeling excited to go to school and play with their friends. Instead, for those murdered in Rafah, their last moments on this earth were filled with unimaginable fear as bombs rained down on their tents. What a monstrous failure of humanity.
Ever since the beginning of the month, Israel has increased its attacks on Rafah, ignoring all the warnings and appeals made by the world community. It had ordered the evacuation of several eastern parts of Rafah, forcing nearly 800,000 Palestinians to relocate to new areas near the coast which do not even have basic facilities.
Four days ago @IDF told Palestinians in Rafah to move to an area it calls “Block 2371,” designating it a “safe area.” This is the area “Israel” just bombed REFUGEE TENTS, carrying out a massacre. pic.twitter.com/SvxJWEpchE
— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) May 26, 2024
After claiming that the attack on Rafah was a response to Hamas’ attack, Israel termed it “very grave” and announced it has constituted an investigation in the attack on Tal al-Sultan in Rafah.
More than 36,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed by Israel in the 233 days of the war. The Israeli war has also injured over 81,000 other Palestinians so far. At least 160 Palestinians were killed in Israeli bombings in different other parts of Gaza on Sunday alone.
ICJ asks Israel to cease attacks, open Rafah borders
Sunday’s attack was part of its increased assault on Rafah, particularly since the International Court of Justice (ICJ), as a provisional measure, asked Israel to stop such an attack on Friday. According to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, Israel has struck Rafah at least 60 times since the ICJ order.
The ICJ, in its interim order, had asked Israel to stop its attacks and open the border crossing with Egypt, which has been shut by it since May 7, hampering the flow of humanitarian aid in the war ravaged region.
The ICJ issued a provisional measure asking Israel to comply with the Genocide Convention and “immediately halt its military offensive and any other action in Rafah governorate which may inflict upon the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that would bring about its physical destruction in whole and in part.”
The decision was backed by 13 out of the 15 judges in the ICJ.
The court also asked Israel to submit a report on the measures taken to implement the order within a month.
The court was not convinced that Israel has taken enough measures to “enhance the security of civilians in the Gaza strip, and in particular those recently displaced from Rafah” as claimed by Israeli counsel during the hearing on the request made by South Africa in the court.
Though ICJ orders are binding, Israel has refused to abide by them so far. Reacting to the judgment on Friday, Israel called it “outrageous, morally repugnant and disgusting.”
The provisional measures were granted in response to South Africa’s request made on May 10 under its original petition seeking action against Israel for its violations of Genocide Convention during the ongoing war in Gaza.
This was the third interim measure ordered by the ICJ since South Africa filed the petition in December. The Court issued an interim order in January asking Israel to take measures to prevent genocide in Gaza and increase aid delivery. A similar order was passed in March as well.
Rafah is a narrow region in the southernmost tip of Gaza. Its population density has drastically increased, as it now shelters nearly 1.4 million people, over half of the total population of Gaza. Most of these people have been forcibly displaced by Israeli airstrikes and ground offensives in other parts of Gaza since the beginning of the genocidal war in October of last year.
Original article republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.