Amnesty International

‘Genocide in Action’ as 60-Day Blockade Plunges Gaza Into Mass Starvation

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Five-month-old Suwar Ashur, one of hundreds of children diagnosed with malnutrition, is being treated at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza on May 1, 2025. (Photo: Doaa Albaz/Anadolu via Getty Images)

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

The two-month-long siege is a “clear and calculated effort to collectively punish over two million civilians and to make Gaza unlivable.”

“This is genocide in action,” said one official with Amnesty International on Friday, referring to Israel’s two-month humanitarian blockade in Gaza which has resulted in death, starvation, and suffering on a nearly unimaginable scale.

The human rights group is demanding that Israel’s allies, including the United States, take immediate action to ensure the Israeli government lifts the total aid blockade that’s plunged the enclave into what the United Nations has called “mass starvation,” with food supplies rapidly dwindling and thousands of children diagnosed with acute malnutrition.

“The international community must not continue to stand by as Israel perpetrates these atrocities with impunity,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty’s senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns.

After a brief cease-fire, Israel reimposed a ban on the entry of commercial goods and aid into Gaza on March 2 and cut off power to the enclave’s desalination plant, after it had been briefly reconnected to electricity. The plant’s blackout has worsened water scarcity that’s plagued Gaza for all of Israel’s 17-year blockade and has left some Palestinians resorting to drinking seawater.

A spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told reporters in Geneva on Friday that the agency is in “constant contact” with Israeli authorities as it advocates for the reopening of border crossings.

“We don’t ask if food is nutritious or not, if it’s fresh or good; that’ a luxury, we just want to fill the stomachs of our children. I don’t want my child to die hungry.”

“Food stocks have now mainly run out, water access has become impossible,” Olga Cherevko said, leaving children “who have been deprived of their childhood for many months… rummaging through piles of trash” in search of food and combustible material to burn for cooking, due to rapidly shrinking supplies of fuel.

“Gaza is inching closer to running on empty,” said Cherevko.

Amnesty interviewed 35 internally displaced people about the forced starvation crisis facing Gaza, which began again shortly before Israel resumed its bombardment of the enclave on March 18—killing at least 2,325 people including 820 children since then.

With the severe food scarcity being “exploited by individuals hoarding or looting supplies, selling them at extortionate prices,” according to Amnesty, most Palestinians are relying on overcrowded charity kitchens where they can wait for hours each day for just one meal.

“We don’t ask if food is nutritious or not, if it’s fresh or good; that’ a luxury, we just want to fill the stomachs of our children. I don’t want my child to die hungry,” one parent told the aid group.

Another described sending their son to wait in line for drinking water “for hours and he had to walk long distances.”

“With the relentless bombardment and danger lurking everywhere, you don’t know,” said the parent. “You may send your child to bring water only for him to return in a body bag. Every day is like this here.”

OCHA has reported that 92% of infants and pregnant and breastfeeding mothers are not meeting their nutrient requirements, while the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) released a statement Friday warning that malnutrition among children is on the rise across the enclave.

“More than 9,000 children have been admitted for treatment of acute malnutrition since the beginning of the year,” said Catherine Russell, executive director UNICEF. “Hundreds more children in desperate need of treatment are not able to access it due to the insecurity and displacement.”

“For two months, children in the Gaza Strip have faced relentless bombardments while being deprived of essential goods, services and lifesaving care. With each passing day of the aid blockade, they face the growing risk of starvation, illness, and death—nothing can justify this,” Russell added.

One doctor at Al-Rantissi pediatric hospital in Gaza City told Amnesty that healthcare workers have observed “the impact of the hunger on the children who come here to receive treatment… You recommend that the parent give the child specific attention, specific food, and you know that what you are recommending is an impossibility.”

The two-month mark of the current siege came as the International Court of Justice held public hearings this week on Israel’s humanitarian obligations in Gaza. The ICJ has previously ordered Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza and to allow humanitarian aid into the enclave.

Amnesty argued that the “cruel and inhumane siege” offers “further evidence of Israel’s genocidal intent in Gaza.”

“Apart from a brief respite during the temporary truce, Israel has relentlessly and mercilessly turned Gaza into an inferno of death and destruction,” Erika Guevara Rosas said. “For the past two months, Israel has completely cut off the supply of humanitarian aid and other items indispensable to the survival of civilians in a clear and calculated effort to collectively punish over two million civilians and to make Gaza unlivable.”

Mohamad Safa, CEO and representative to the U.N. for the non-governmental organization Patriotic Vision, emphasized that the crisis that is gripping Gaza is “not famine,” but rather “forced starvation.”

“”Forced starvation is an act of genocide,” he said.

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian-American member of Congress, repeated her call for an arms embargo on Israel, which counts the U.S. as the largest international funder of its military.

“The government of Israel is starving Gaza to death,” said Tlaib. “It’s a war crime to use starvation as a weapon. The only way to end this genocide is with an arms embargo. Time for my colleagues to end their silence.”

Guevara Rosas accused the international community, especially Israel’s allies, of “contemptible failure to live up to their legal responsibilities to prevent and bring an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.”

“These states’ decades of inaction helped establish pervasive impunity for Israel’s persistent violations and it is now exacting an unprecedented toll of death, destruction, and suffering on Palestinians,” said Guevara Rosas. “States must take action to render Israel’s violations against Palestinians politically, diplomatically, and economically unsustainable—the siege on Gaza must end now.”

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

UK Labour Party government Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel's Gaza genocide providing Israel with army and air force support. They explain that they don't do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
UK Labour Party government Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide providing Israel with army and air force support.

Continue Reading‘Genocide in Action’ as 60-Day Blockade Plunges Gaza Into Mass Starvation

‘We cannot walk on by as we witness the Gaza genocide’

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/we-cannot-walk-we-witness-gaza-genocide

 Heba Shakura mourns her son Islam Abu Mahdi who was killed in an Israeli army air strike, during his funeral at the Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, April 28, 2025

STUC to call on British government to end arms sales to Israel and the Scottish government to end enterprise grants for weapons manufacturers

THE final session of this year’s STUC passed seven motions in solidarity with the people of Palestine and Gaza today.

After attempts at compositing the motions failed, each passed individually, meaning the STUC will now call on the British government to end arms sales to Israel and the Scottish government to ensure no more Scottish Enterprise grants are handed over to weapons manufacturers.

More than £3 million of Scottish government cash has been handed over to manufacturers such as BAE Systems, Leonardo and Raytheon since 2023, while the firms continue to supply the Israeli military’s assault on Gaza. PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote told delegates: “We cannot be bystanders, we cannot walk by on the other side as we witness what is now widely accepted as a genocide. “The ICJ has ruled there is a plausible case, and Amnesty International have now confirmed that.“Fifty-eight years of illegal occupation, decades of settlement building, an ethnic cleansing, Israel’s Gaza onslaught has killed at least 60,000 people since 2023, and the Lancet has estimated the real figure could be 180,000 dead.

…

Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/we-cannot-walk-we-witness-gaza-genocide

UK Labour Party government Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel's Gaza genocide providing Israel with army and air force support. They explain that they don't do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
UK Labour Party government Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide providing Israel with army and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
Continue Reading‘We cannot walk on by as we witness the Gaza genocide’

The UK’s social security system falls way below international human rights standards: new report

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9to9studio/Shutterstock

Koldo Casla, University of Essex

The right to social security is enshrined in several international agreements on human rights. But the UK’s system – even before the disability benefits cuts announced earlier this year – falls way below these standards.

For a new report published today, Amnesty International asked my colleague Lyle Barker and me to review the evidence about the state of the UK’s social security in relation to international human rights law.

The UK has signed and ratified a number of international agreements on human rights. One of these is the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which lays out the right to social security. An accompanying document defines the three key principles of this right as:

  • Availability A social security system established in law, administered publicly, and materially reachable by those who need it.
  • Adequacy Benefits must be suitable, both in amount and in duration, to realise essential socioeconomic rights.
  • Accessibility Everyone should be covered by the social security system, paying particular attention to disadvantaged and marginalised individuals and groups.

The conclusion of our study for Amnesty International is crystal clear: even disregarding the cuts announced in March, the UK’s social security system does not meet these standards.

Availability

Our review of the literature shows a widespread underclaiming of benefits. It has been estimated that in 2024, £22.7 billion in income-related benefits went unclaimed, a £4 billion increase from the previous year.

Gaps in official data hinder a clear understanding of why many people are missing out on the support they are entitled to. But qualitative evidence suggests this is largely due to fear, stigma, bureaucratic and digital hurdles, and eligibility cliff edges for means-tested benefits.

In recent years, the UK government has adopted a contentious and punitive stance toward benefit recipients. Media and political rhetoric have portrayed those who claim benefits as idle or undeserving scroungers.

This stigma harms the mental health and self-esteem of people experiencing poverty. It can result in shame and secrecy, and create barriers to people accessing support they are entitled to.

Our research for Amnesty International concludes that UK claimants do not get enough information and support about their rights to benefits. Combined with the stigma of claiming, the UK is falling far short of making benefits “available” in line with international standards.

Adequacy

Since the austerity policies of the 2010s, the UK’s social security system has become significantly less adequate in supporting vulnerable people and families. The basic rate of universal credit (the main benefit for working-age people on a low income) is at 40-year low in real terms amid a cost of living crisis.

Restrictive policies, such as the benefit cap (introduced in 2013 to set a maximum limit to the total benefits received by a household) and the two-child limit have curtailed access to essential benefits. Although inflation adjustments in the last two years provided some relief, many benefits still fail to keep up with rising living costs.

The two-child limit is the cruellest expression of the inadequacy of the UK’s social security system. Introduced by the Conservative government in 2017, the two-child limit restricts financial support through universal credit to two children. It is likely to be the most significant single cause of child poverty in the UK, including in families where adults work but do not earn enough to make ends meet.

When Labour returned to power, there was much speculation about whether they would reverse the two-child limit. But despite pleas from experts and people with direct experience, the government has persisted in retaining it.

Accessibility

Our study lays out the many barriers to accessibility in the UK’s system. For example, the bureaucratic hurdles in the assessment process, and the disproportionate impact of punitive sanctions on lone mothers and on minority ethnic claimants.

The UK operates a benefits sanction regime, which imposes penalties on claimants who fail to meet certain conditions. These include attending jobcentre appointments or accepting job offers. In general, sanctions and the fear of sanctions erode the trust between benefit claimants and the social security system.

An adult holding a child's hand walk past a jobcentre
Benefits sanctions are just one of the barriers to accessing social security. 1000words/Shutterstock

As it did in its previous review in 2016, in February the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recommended that the UK review the use of benefit sanctions to ensure they are used proportionately and are subject to prompt and independent dispute resolution mechanisms.

Another accessibility concern is the shift to a digital-by-default system in the 2010s. While intended to make accessing benefits more efficient, it has become an administrative barrier.

Many people, particularly the elderly and others who are less digitally literate, struggle to navigate the benefits system. It excludes people without reliable internet access, underscoring a digital divide that prevents meaningful access to social security.

Meeting standards

Given the evidence, it is no surprise that earlier this year, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights urged the UK government to assess the cumulative effects of the austerity measures introduced in the 2010s.

In particular, the committee recommended reversing the two-child limit, the benefit cap and the five-week delay for the first universal credit payment, and increasing the budget allocated to social security. These recommendations were made before the changes announced in the spring statement.

To live up to the internationally recognised right to social security, the UK should recognise in law, policy and practice that social security is a human right. And, that it is essential to the fulfilment of other human rights.

Amnesty International recommends the government set up a commission with statutory powers, to produce a strategy for “wholesale reform” of the social security system. The UK must establish a minimum support level and an essentials guarantee, to ensure beneficiaries can consistently meet their basic needs. A good way to start would be abolishing the two-child limit once and for all.

Koldo Casla, Senior Lecturer, Essex Law School, University of Essex

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Continue ReadingThe UK’s social security system falls way below international human rights standards: new report

Entire Families Wiped Out as Israel Resumes Genocidal Assault on Gaza

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

The shrouded bodies of victims of renewed Israeli aistrikes on Gaza are seen outside Al Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Palestine on March 18, 2025.
 (Photo: Hani Alshaer/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“All of this is made possible by the U.S. government, which has funded and fueled these atrocities,” said Jewish Voice for Peace.

Once again, entire families are being wiped out by Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip after U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly gave the green light for the key American ally to resume its assault on the Palestinian enclave.

Israel unilaterally abrogated the crumbling eight-week cease-fire early Tuesday, unleashing a wave of ferocious strikes on the already flattened Gaza Strip, killing at least 404 people—including 174 children, 89 women, and 32 elders—and wounding at least 562 others, with the death toll expected to rise, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

“We were shocked late at night to see strikes and attacks on Gaza like in the early days of the war,” Momen Qoreiqeh, who lost more than two dozen relatives in an Israeli airstrike on their Gaza City home, told Al Jazeera. “I was with my family and suddenly there was a huge attack on our residential block. The attack killed so many people from my family, some of them we still haven’t recovered from under the rubble.”

“So far we’ve managed to recover about 26 bodies from my family and 20 other people who were with us,” he added.

Ramy Abdu, founder and chair of the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor—which has published numerous reports on alleged Israeli war crimes and acts of genocide in Gaza—said his sister’s family was killed in an Israeli strike on their home in Gaza City.

“This morning, Israel killed my sister, my heart, Nesreen, and her beloved sons and daughters: Ubaida, Omar, and Lian, along with Ubaida’s wife, Malak, and their children, Siwar and Mohammed,” Abdu said on social media.

According to Al Jazeera, the family had survived many Israeli airstrikes over the years.

“Israel may kill us at will, burn us alive, and tear us apart, but it will never succeed in uprooting us from our land,” Abdu wrote in a separate post. “Justice and accountability await—no matter how long it takes.”

Al Jazeera also reported that Dr. Majda Abu Aker, an OB-GYN at a Rafah clinic run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and more than a dozen other people were killed in a strike on her house in Rafah’s al-Jenaina neighborhood. At least 10 of the dead were from the same family; the youngest victim was a girl who was just three days old.

Fifteen people, most of them members of the Barhoum family, were reportedly killed when Israeli forces bombed al-Mawasi.

Six members of the same family were also reportedly killed while trying to flee in a car in Abasan, east of Khan Younis.

Ahmed Abu Rizq, a teacher who survived Tuesday’s airstrikes, described to Al Jazeera the horror and chaos he witnessed at a local hospital, where he saw “blood everywhere” and arriving families carrying the “remains of their children.”

Al-Shifa Hospital director Muhammad Abu Salmiya said that “every minute, a wounded person dies due to a lack of resources,” as Israel has imposed a ” complete siege” on Gaza since October 2023 that has been blamed for widespread starvation and sickness. The South Africa-led genocide case against Israel currently before the International Court of Justice cites the siege, which has been called a “genocidal act” by an independent United Nations commission and human rights groups.

Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, said later in the day that Tuesday’s strikes are “only the beginning” and will continue until Hamas frees all the remaining hostages it took on October 7, 2023 and is destroyed.

During a meeting with the U.S. Zionist lobby group American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar affirmed that Tuesday’s bombings were not a “one-day attack.”

Palestine defenders around the world took to the streets to protest the renewed Israeli onslaught. In London, thousands of demonstrators turned out for an emergency protest organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Protests also took place in cities including Ramallah, Dublin, Berlin, Jerusalem, Manchester, and Belfast, and are planned for Washington, D.C., Chicago, New York, and elsewhere.

United Nations officials condemned Tuesday’s strikes, with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres writing: “I am outraged by the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. I strongly appeal for the cease-fire to be respected, for unimpeded humanitarian assistance to be reestablished, and for the remaining hostages to be released unconditionally.”

Human rights groups also condemned Israel’s renewed aggression, with Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard calling Tuesday “a desperately dark day for humanity.”

“Israel brazenly resumed its devastating bombing campaign in Gaza… again wiping out entire families in a matter of hours,” she said. “Palestinians in Gaza—who have barely had a chance to start piecing together their lives and continue to grapple with the trauma of Israel’s past attacks—have woken up once more to the hellish nightmare of intense bombardment.”

“Today, we are back to square one,” Callamard lamented. “Since March 2, Israel has reimposed a total siege on Gaza blocking the entry of all humanitarian aid, medicine, and commercial supplies, including fuel and food, in flagrant violation of international law. Israel has also cut off electricity to Gaza’s main operational desalination plant. And today the Israeli military has once again started issuing mass ‘evacuation’ orders displacing Palestinians.”

Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch’s Israel and Palestine director, said: “The reported killings of hundreds of Palestinians amid Israel’s renewed assault on Gaza is alarming. The Israeli authorities have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, including forced displacement and extermination, and acts of genocide during the assault on Gaza.”

“Other countries should urgently act to prevent further mass atrocities, including by suspending arms transfers to Israel, supporting the International Criminal Court and executing its arrest warrants, and imposing targeted sanctions on officials responsible for laws-of-war violations,” Shakir added.

The American Human Rights Council (AHRC) condemned “the restart of the Israeli genocidal policy of starving and bombing the Palestinians in Gaza” and noted that “the victims of the Israeli genocidal acts are primarily infants, children, women, and the elderly.”

“AHRC urges the Trump administration to uphold its peace promise,” the group added. “The current Israeli escalation of war crimes and the ongoing Israeli weaponization of food, water, and medicine are resulting in avoidable deaths and suffering. The U.S. can put a permanent end to this war but for political expediency is choosing not to.”

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest U.S. Muslim civil rights group, said that “President Trump must stop the madness after the government of indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu renewed its genocide and slaughtered hundreds of Palestinians, including women and children, during the holy month of Ramadan.”

“Without strong actions to push back against this renewed orgy of slaughter, mass destruction, forced starvation, and ethnic cleansing, the Israeli government will continue to act with impunity and our government will remain as complicit with genocide as it was under the Biden administration,” Awad added.

The U.S. group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)—which has organized numerous protests against the assault on Gaza—said: “This is a campaign of extermination. This is genocide.”

“All of this is made possible by the U.S. government, which has funded and fueled these atrocities,” JVP noted. “Over the last 17 months, the U.S. has spent over $17 billion in military funding to the Israeli government’s campaign of extermination and apartheid against the Palestinian people, and continues to sell the Israeli military more weapons.”

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)—a Quaker organization that has worked in Palestine for decades—said that “there are no words adequate to express the devastation of watching bombs rain down again on people who have already endured more than 17 months of a U.S.-backed genocide.”

“Our hearts are with AFSC staff, families, partners, friends, and all Palestinians in Gaza—we are holding you in the Light and we will continue the relentless struggle to end these atrocities,” the group added.

Progressive U.S. lawmakers also denounced the renewed Israeli assault and demanded an end to American armed aid, with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American member of Congress, writing on social media that “the Israeli apartheid regime has resumed its genocide, carrying out airstrikes all across Gaza and killing hundreds of Palestinians.”

“This comes after a complete blockade of food, electricity, and aid,” Tlaib added. “They will never stop until there are sanctions and an arms embargo.”

Netanyahu has not allowed any food, water, or fuel into Gaza in two weeks. Now he has resumed bombing, killing hundreds of people and breaking the ceasefire that had given Gaza a chance to live again. NO MORE MILITARY AID TO ISRAEL.

— Senator Bernie Sanders (@sanders.senate.gov) 2025-03-18T14:57:48.160Z

The Gaza Health Ministry says that at least 48,964 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces over the past 529 days. At least 112,481 others have been wounded, and an estimated 14,000 more are missing and believed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed buildings.

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

Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
Continue ReadingEntire Families Wiped Out as Israel Resumes Genocidal Assault on Gaza

‘Now Do Netanyahu’: Philippines’ Duterte Arrested Under ICC Warrant for Crimes Against Humanity

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

Protesters demonstrate demanding justice for drug war victims, after the arrest of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, in Quezon City on March 11, 2025. (Photo: Earvin Perias / AFP)

“Duterte’s arrest on an ICC warrant… shows that suspected perpetrators of the worst crimes, including government leaders, can and will face justice,” said one human rights advocate.

On Tuesday, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested by local authorities at Manila’s international airport after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant accusing him of crimes against humanity. News of his arrest prompted some observers to urge the arrest of another public figure who faces ICC charges: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Duterte case will pose a test for the court, according to The New York Times. In the past six months, the ICC has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Min Aung Hlaing, the head of the military junta in Myanmar.

Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote “Perhaps Netanyahu and Gallant will be next…” in response to the news. Danny Shaw, a professor at City University of New York, posted a video of Duterte’s arrest and wrote: “Why don’t they arrest Netanyahu?”

Wim Zwijnenburg, a project leader at the Dutch peace organization PAX, wrote, “now do Netanyahu.”

On Tuesday night, Duterte was placed on a plane that was bound for The Hague, where the court is headquartered, per the Times, citing two people with knowledge of the matter.

The ICC has accused Duterte of crimes against humanity during his time as president and when he was the mayor of the city of Davao. During his tenure as president, from 2016 to 2022, Duterte’s security forces carried out thousands of killings that his government cast as drug-related cases. In a 2017 report, Human Rights Watch described his “war on drugs” as effectively “a campaign of extrajudicial execution in impoverished areas of Manila and other urban areas.” Philippine National Police officers and unidentified “vigilantes” killed over 7,000 people between the start of his term and the release of that Human Rights Watch report, according to the group.

In 2017, Duterte earned praise from U.S. President Donald Trump, who told him in a phone call that he was doing “an unbelievable job on the drug problem,” according to reporting at the time.

“Duterte’s arrest on an ICC warrant is a hopeful sign for victims in the Philippines and beyond. It shows that suspected perpetrators of the worst crimes, including government leaders, can and will face justice, wherever they are in the world,” said Agnes Callamard, secretary general of the human rights group Amnesty International, in a statement Tuesday. “At a time when too many governments renege on their ICC obligations while others attack or sanction international courts, Duterte’s arrest is a huge moment for the power of international law.”

Duterte’s former chief legal counsel and presidential spokesperson, Salvador Panelo, said that the “ICC has no jurisdiction in the Philippines,” in part because “the country withdrew as an ICC member state in 2018,” according to a post on social media.

According to the Times, the court says the case only considers alleged crimes from the time when the country was still part of the court.

https://twitter.com/profdannyshaw/status/1899419873966428541?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1899419873966428541%7Ctwgr%5Ef83fd8e48f3173c6c019b11d71df7843a1ff6404%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fduterte-international-criminal-court-arrest

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According to a copy of he warrant, which was obtained by the Times, three judges of the ICC said they believed Duterte “was responsible for the drug war killings that took place when he was president and mayor of Davao, and that there were reasonable grounds to believe that these attacks were ‘both widespread and systematic.'”

The government itself, in 2022, said that over 6,200 “drug suspects” were killed during Duterte’s war on drugs starting in 2016. Rights groups put the total number of people who died much higher, in the tens of thousands, according to PBS.

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

Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
Continue Reading‘Now Do Netanyahu’: Philippines’ Duterte Arrested Under ICC Warrant for Crimes Against Humanity