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Protests to Demand Netanyahu’s Arrest as Fugitive Israeli PM Welcomed by Trump

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

Pro-Palestine protesters hold a banner calling for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a July 24, 2024 demonstration in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Joe Piette/flickr/cc)

“Benjamin Netanyahu should not be welcomed to the United States! He should be arrested for war crimes,” said CodePink.

The women-led peace group CodePink is set to hold bicoastal demonstrations this week as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his backers in the U.S. government ignore an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for the right-wing leader, who stands accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Netanyahu arrived Monday in the United States, which has not ratified the Rome Statute governing the ICC, after crossing the airspace of European nations that are signatories to the treaty. The Israeli leader and Republican U.S. President Donald Trump are scheduled to hold a joint news conference Tuesday afternoon after meeting in the White House.

Later in the week, Netanyahu is set meet with Trump administration officials and congressional leaders, who recently spearheaded bipartisan passage of House legislation to sanction ICC officials for seeking to hold Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, accountable for waging a war whose conduct is also the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case.

“No matter who is in power, the imperialist leaders continue to fully support and fund the Zionist entity’s escalating genocide of the Palestinian people,” CodePink said in an online announcement of a Tuesday afternoon protest in Washington, D.C., and referring to Israel.

https://twitter.com/medeabenjamin/status/1886459550548554196?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1886459550548554196%7Ctwgr%5E7d91b767533aafbf74d5cf44a74d08cef994750c%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fcodepink-arrest-netanyahu

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“While both Trump and Netanyahu continue to publicly advocate for total ethnic cleansing, we must ensure that they do not convene in our city without the people taking a stand,” the group added. “We reject war criminals being welcomed into our city. Join us on Tuesday to reject this meeting, which will inevitably advance their genocidal plans.”

Groups including CodePink, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Americans for Justice in Palestine Action, the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations, and American Muslims for Palestine are also planning a Tuesday afternoon press conference to demand Netanyahu’s arrest.

CodePink is also set to hold a demonstration outside Berkeley, California City Hall on Wednesday afternoon.

“War criminal Benjamin Netanyahu should not be welcomed to the United States! He should be arrested for war crimes,” the Bay Area chapter of CodePink asserted. “We are speaking out against the meeting between Trump and Netanyahu and taking a stand against the U.S. funding of the Zionist genocide of the Palestinian people.”

In addition to calling on the U.S. to “end all military aid to Israel,” CodePink Bay Area condemned the Trump administration’s plan to imprison tens of thousands of migrants in the notorious military prison at Guantánamo Bay. The White House confirmed Tuesday that U.S. officials have begun sending migrants from the United States to Guantánamo

Amnesty International said Tuesday on social media that “by welcoming Israeli PM Netanyahu, wanted by the ICC to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the United States is showing contempt for international justice.”

“The Biden administration flouted any efforts at international justice for Palestine. Now, by not arresting Netanyahu or subjecting him to U.S. investigations, President Trump is doubling down, welcoming him as the first foreign leader to visit the White House since the inauguration,” the group continued.

“The U.S. has a clear obligation under the Geneva Conventions to search for and try [to] extradite persons accused of having committed or ordered the commission of war crimes,” Amnesty added. “There must be no ‘safe haven’ for individuals alleged to have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

https://twitter.com/hrw/status/1886678670644752576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1886678670644752576%7Ctwgr%5E7d91b767533aafbf74d5cf44a74d08cef994750c%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fcodepink-arrest-netanyahu

Human Rights Watch chief advocacy officer Bruno Stagno said in a statement Tuesday that “if President Trump wants to break with the Biden administration’s complicity in the Israeli government’s atrocities in Gaza, he should immediately suspend arms transfers to Israel.”

“Trump said the hostilities in Gaza were ‘not our war’ but ‘their war,’ but unless the U.S. ends its military support, Gaza will also be Trump’s war,” Stagno added.

The National Iranian American Council (NIAC), meanwhile, expressed alarm at reporting that the Trump administration is preparing to ramp up his “maximum pressure” policy against Iran in an effort to stop the country from developing nuclear weapons and cripple its oil exports.

“Benjamin Netanyahu has played every single modern U.S. president to act against American interests and likes to boast, ‘I know America, America is a thing that can be moved easily,'” NIAC president Jamal Abdi said Tuesday. “Only time will tell whether Trump will succeed in his efforts to end and prevent wars and be a dealmaker in the Middle East, or if [Netanyahu] will move Trump into a war with Iran that will torpedo his presidency and ensure another generation of American military adventures.”

“Today, Trump has a rare and historic opportunity for peace—if he stands up to Bibi,” Abdi asserted, using Netanyahu’s nickname. “He has a chance to stabilize the Middle East and do what his predecessors tried and failed to accomplish: ending the forever wars that have bogged down the U.S. and American troops in the region for a generation.”

“Or, he could bow to Bibi and allow the U.S. to be dragged into a catastrophic regional war that would torpedo his presidency and America’s interests,” Abdi added. “Netanyahu and fellow hawks will surely welcome the ‘return’ of the so-called ‘maximum pressure’ approach on Iran—even though it never went away—and work to ensure that it is implemented as harshly as possible to drive Iran away from the negotiating table and push the U.S. and Iran toward a disastrous war.”

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

Continue ReadingProtests to Demand Netanyahu’s Arrest as Fugitive Israeli PM Welcomed by Trump

Disappearance of 4 Afro-Ecuadorian children after detention by military has sparked mass indignation

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https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/12/27/disappearance-of-4-afro-ecuadorian-children-after-detention-by-military-has-sparked-mass-indignation

Rally outside prosecutors office in Guayaquil demanding the immediate return of the four disappeared children. Photo: CDH Guayaquil.

The case has revived an existing social trauma about the disappearance of children, especially poor and Black ones, at the hands of the State. There is a general feeling of pain and uncertainty among the population.

Four children in Guayaquil, Ecuador were disappeared after they were arrested by state forces on December 8. The news of their parents desperately searching for their underage children has dominated the news in Ecuador for the last several weeks even amid the festive season. On December 8, Ismael and Josué Arroyo (15 and 14 years old), Saúl Arboleda (15 years old), and Steven Medina (11 years old) were detained by a military contingent patrolling the area where the boys were playing football. The four young Afro-Ecuadorian boys have not been seen since then.

What is known about the disappearance of the children?

According to the relatives of the victims, the children went to play a football game in the neighborhood of Las Malvinas, south of Guayaquil. At some point after the game, soldiers came and arrested the four of them. A now widely circulated video,clearly shows how the military captured and beat the child detainees, and then took them away in a white van. While Ecuador also has a police force to carry out arrests and general internal public safety tasks, in the last Popular Consultation carried out in the country, people voted to grant the army special powers to carry out internal security controls. The military’s powers have vastly increased since President Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency in the country in January 2024.

One of the children’s parents, Luis Arroyo, reported that shortly after their detention, he received a call from his son asking for help and to be rescued. That call was the last time he heard his son’s voice. A key witness, who reportedly lent his cell phone to the boy to call his father, reported that the child had been beaten by the military and was naked.

After several days without answers, it was reported that four charred corpses were found in Taura, near a military base. The parents have already been summoned to the city morgue to confirm if they are their children. However, the state of decomposition and calcination of the bodies is so advanced that it is not possible to know with the naked eye if the remains correspond to the four missing children. Currently, forensic analyses are being carried out to determine the correspondence between the missing children and the remains that were found. Several experts have stated that, if such correspondence is confirmed, the crime could be defined as an “extrajudicial execution”.

…

Article continues at https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/12/27/disappearance-of-4-afro-ecuadorian-children-after-detention-by-military-has-sparked-mass-indignation

Continue ReadingDisappearance of 4 Afro-Ecuadorian children after detention by military has sparked mass indignation

Activist arrested after going on hunger strike in protest of UK support for Israel

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https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241211-activist-arrested-after-going-on-hunger-strike-in-protest-of-uk-support-for-israel

Demonstration held in support of Palestinians and Lebanese, in London, United Kingdom on November 30, 2024 [Raşid Necati Aslım – Anadolu Agency]

Lizzie Greenwood, a Manchester activist and former Workers’ Party candidate, has been arrested by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) as she recovers from a 35-day hunger strike protesting the UK government’s funding and arming of Israel.

The arrest follows a reported forced entry into a prior residence and harassment of her father at his home.

According to a post on Instagram, GMP also detained five other activists in recent days, who were later released without charge. Despite the absence of evidence, those arrested have had personal belongings, including phones and vehicles, confiscated indefinitely, and face restrictive police curfews.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DDWWQUHNGJ1/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=b5bdaa27-51e6-48d1-bee3-67928a408840

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Activists of Central Manchester for Palestine said these measures are part of an escalating campaign to intimidate and isolate supporters of Palestinian rights.

Greenwood, who began her hunger strike on 27 October and ended it after 35 days, described the protest as a moral obligation. In a previous video posted to her social media, she stated: “This is a cause that I feel willing and obligated to die for.”

She said her strike was driven by a commitment to prevent atrocities similar to the Holocaust. “I will not be made complicit. I object with every fibre of my being. And if it takes my health and my life to make that known, so be it,” stated Greenwood.

Since 5 October, Israel has launched a large-scale ground operation in northern Gaza allegedly to prevent the Palestinian resistance from regrouping. Palestinians, however, accuse Israel of seeking to occupy the area and forcibly displace its residents.

Since then, almost no humanitarian aid, including food, medicine and fuel, has been allowed into the area, leaving most of the population there – currently estimated at 80,000 – on the verge of famine.

Greenwood has accused the UK government of prioritising funding Israel while neglecting British citizens enduring cost of living crises, mental health struggles and housing shortages.

Israel has launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip killing more than 44,800 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and injuring over 106,000.

The second year of the genocide in Gaza has drawn growing international condemnation, with officials and institutions labelling the attacks and blocking of aid deliveries as a deliberate attempt to destroy a population.

On 21 November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its deadly war on Gaza.

READ: Israel Prime Minister takes stand for 2nd day in his corruption trial

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
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 ReadingActivist arrested after going on hunger strike in protest of UK support for Israel

Israel Has Killed Over 1,000 Doctors and Nurses in Gaza

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

Hussam Abu Safiyeh, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, is treated by colleagues for his injuries following an Israeli strike that hit the medical compound in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on November 23, 2024. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)

“These people, they target everyone, but I swear, this will not stop us from continuing our humanitarian work,” said a Gaza hospital director injured in an Israeli strike.

More than 1,000 doctors and nurses are among at least 44,211 people killed in Israel’s 13-month assault on the Gaza Strip, officials in the Hamas-governed Palestinian enclave said Sunday.

“Over 310 other medical personnel were arrested, tortured, and executed in prisons,” Gaza’s Government Media Office also said in a statement, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency. “The Israeli army also prevented the entry of medical supplies, health delegations, and hundreds of surgeons into Gaza.”

“Hospitals have been a declared target for the Israeli army, which bombed, besieged, and stormed them, killing doctors and nurses, injuring others after directly targeting them,” the office said. The statement came after the director of the main partially functioning hospital in northern Gaza was injured in an Israeli strike.

https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1860734112010567768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1860734112010567768%7Ctwgr%5E096925c55d8a13c3c6e33290bdf05c75ba7aad34%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fisrael-has-killed-over-1000-doctors-and-nurses-in-gaza

Hussam Abu Safiyeh is the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital—which, according to Al Jazeera, Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked, damaging “the facility’s generators, fuel tanks, and main oxygen station.”

The wounded director said: “These people, they target everyone, but I swear, this will not stop us from continuing our humanitarian work. We will keep on providing this service no matter what it costs us.”

Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, in addition to killing tens of thousands of Palestinians, Israeli forces have injured at least 104,567 others. Along with attacking hospitals, they have destroyed many homes, schools, and religious sites, and displaced most of the enclave’s 2.3 million people.

Israel—which has been armed by the Biden administration and bipartisan U.S. Congress—faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice over its conduct in Gaza. Additionally, the International Criminal Court earlier this week issued arrest warrants for Israel’s current prime minister and former defense minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri.

Last month, 99 U.S. healthcare providers who have volunteered in Gaza since last fall sent U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris a letter detailing “the massive human toll from Israel’s attack” and urging them to “end this madness now!”

“It is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 118,908, an astonishing 5.4% of Gaza’s population,” the Americans wrote. “With only marginal exceptions, everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both. This includes every national aid worker, every international volunteer, and probably every Israeli hostage: every man, woman, and child.”

“We quickly learned that our Palestinian healthcare colleagues were among the most traumatized people in Gaza, and perhaps in the entire world,” they continued. “All were acutely aware that their work as healthcare providers had marked them as targets for Israel. This makes a mockery of the protected status hospitals and healthcare providers are granted under the oldest and most widely accepted provisions of international humanitarian law.”

They added that “we wish to be absolutely clear: Not once did any of us see any type of Palestinian militant activity in any of Gaza’s hospitals or other healthcare facilities. We urge you to see that Israel has systematically and deliberately devastated Gaza’s entire healthcare system, and that Israel has targeted our colleagues in Gaza for torture, disappearance, and murder.”

Despite such appeals and accounts, the outgoing Biden-Harris administration has declined to cut off weapons to the Israeli government and earlier this week most U.S. senators from both major parties rejected a trio of resolutions from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would have blocked some American arms sales to Israel.

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

Continue ReadingIsrael Has Killed Over 1,000 Doctors and Nurses in Gaza

Just Stop Oil founders arrested in dawn raids

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Just stop oil founders Indigo Rumbelow and Roger Hallam were arrested in separate raids this morning after police forced entry to their homes, searched belongings and confiscated papers. 

Just Stop Oil protesting in London 6 December 2022.
Just Stop Oil protesting in London 6 December 2022.

Just Stop Oil said: 

“We will not be intimidated by our criminal government. Not content with cheering on war crimes in Gaza, by maxing out our oil and gas reserves they are complicit in the greatest crime in human history. New oil and gas will result in unimaginable suffering and destroy the lives and livelihoods of billions of people. No one has ever voted for this, there has never been a democratic mandate to destroy the habitable world. 

“Just Stop Oil supporters are deeply committed to stopping all new oil and gas. If our government refuses to do what is right to protect humanity, then people will step up to do what needs to be done. 

“The painful truth right now is that our politicians and corporations have no intention of acting in accordance with the fundamental interests of either our young people or the country as a whole. Whether those in charge realise that they are committing the crime of genocide, is not the question. For this is how it will be seen by the next generation and all future generations. Our friends in police custody and languishing in prison understand this very well as do we.”

Comment by dizzy: Roger Hallam appears to get arrested and imprisoned regularly.

Video is from November 2022. Just Stop Oil are no longer blocking the M25 motorway.

16.40 update: Just Stop Oil are claiming that Indigo Rumbelow and Roger Hallam were arrested as a result of short speeches they gave at a festival this summer. Here are those speeches.

19.40 Uncertain why he was arrested over that speech, he didn’t seem to say anything outrageous. For example, he didn’t encourage people to engage in violence. Is it that the UK government is so intolerant? Are there some really nasty laws now prohibiting debate?

Indigo Rumbelow’s speech …

19.50 Indigo talks really well. Recommended.

19/10/23 I’ve seen a video of Roger Hallam getting arrested where charges of conspiracy were discussed – so it would seem that they were not arrested for giving these speeches.

Continue ReadingJust Stop Oil founders arrested in dawn raids