Benjamin Netanyahu

‘This Is Unforgivable’: Israeli Airstrike Kills 7 World Central Kitchen Workers

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

Relatives and friends mourn Saif Abu Taha, a staff member of the U.S.-based aid group World Central Kitchen who was killed by an Israeli airstrike on April 2, 2024. (Photo: Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images)

“This is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organizations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war,” said the aid group’s CEO.

World Central Kitchen said Tuesday that a targeted Israeli airstrike killed seven members of its aid team in Gaza as they left a warehouse in the city of Deir al-Balah, where they had just unloaded more than 100 tons of food set to be distributed to starving Palestinians.

The Washington, D.C.-based aid organization said the seven killed included a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada as well as Australian, Polish, and British nationals and one Palestinian staffer later identified as Saif Abu Taha.

“This is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organizations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war,” Erin Gore, the group’s CEO, said in a statement. “This is unforgivable.”

WCK said its convoy of vehicles—including two armored cars branded with the group’s logo—was hit by an Israeli strike while traveling in what was supposed to be a deconflicted zone. The group said it coordinated the convoy’s movements with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), leading WCK to conclude that the attack was not an accident.

“I am heartbroken and appalled that we—World Central Kitchen and the world—lost beautiful lives today because of a targeted attack by the IDF,” Gore said Tuesday. “The love they had for feeding people, the determination they embodied to show that humanity rises above all, and the impact they made in countless lives will forever be remembered and cherished.”

Photographs and video footage from the scene and its aftermath show utter carnage. Rescue teams that arrived at the scene and removed the WCK staffers’ bodies from the wreckage displayed the passports of those killed, identifying Zomi Frankcom of Australia, Damian Sobol of Poland, and other victims of the Israeli strike.

(Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The IDF pledged to carry out “an in-depth examination at the highest levels”—a promise that, given the Israeli military’s record, is likely to prove empty.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that the strike “unintentionally hit innocent people,” but Haaretz reported that the attack “was launched because of suspicion that a terrorist was traveling with the convoy”—an indication that the strike itself, targeting vehicles carrying aid workers, was intentional.

The Israeli military has repeatedly attacked aid workers with impunity in recent months, killing staffers of United Nations agencies, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent, Doctors Without Borders, and other organizations.

WCK is known for coordinating emergency food relief in disaster zones around the world. The group has collected and delivered hundreds of tons of food to Gaza in recent weeks as famine has spread across the enclave due to the Israeli government’s blockade.

Following the deadly attack on its staffers, WCK said it would pause its operations in the region immediately.

“We will be making decisions about the future of our work soon,” the group said in a statement.

Celebrity chef José Andrés, the group’s founder, wrote in a social media post late Monday that he is “heartbroken and grieving for their families and friends and our whole WCK family.”

“These are people…angels…I served alongside in Ukraine, Gaza, Turkey, Morocco, Bahamas, Indonesia,” he wrote. “They are not faceless…they are not nameless. The Israeli government needs to stop this indiscriminate killing. It needs to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid workers, and stop using food as a weapon. No more innocent lives lost. Peace starts with our shared humanity. It needs to start now.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who has been accused of abetting genocide in Gaza, confirmed that Australian citizen Zomi Frankcom was among those killed by the Israeli strike and demanded “full accountability.”

“This is a tragedy that should never have occurred,” Albanese told reporters, saying he had summoned the Israeli ambassador to Australia.

Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council, said the Biden White House is “heartbroken and deeply troubled by the strike.”

“Humanitarian aid workers must be protected as they deliver aid that is desperately needed, and we urge Israel to swiftly investigate what happened,” she added.

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

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Continue Reading‘This Is Unforgivable’: Israeli Airstrike Kills 7 World Central Kitchen Workers

‘Rogue, Authoritarian State’: Netanyahu Vows to Ban Al Jazeera Under New Law

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

Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh works in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on December 12, 2023. (Photo by Mahmud HAMS / AFP) 
(Photo: Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images)

“After murdering multiple Al Jazeera journalists, Israel is now moving to expel the news organization entirely,” said one advocacy group.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged Monday to “immediately” move to ban Al Jazeera from broadcasting from Israel after the Knesset approved legislation that gives the country’s government the power to shut down the operations of foreign media outlets deemed a threat to national security.

In a social media post, Netanyahu called the Qatari-owned network a “terrorist channel” and said he would use the new law to halt its activities in Israel.

“I welcome the law promoted by Communications Minister Shlomo Karai with the support of coalition members led by coalition chairman Ofir Katz,” wrote Netanyahu.

Under the new law, the Israeli communications minister can ban foreign outlets with the prime minister’s permission. The measure, which also gives Israeli authorities the power to confiscate a foreign media outlet’s equipment, passed the Knesset in an overwhelming 71 to 10 vote.

The law’s passage comes days after Al Jazeera broadcast video footage of Israeli soldiers gunning down two unarmed Palestinians in northern Gaza, one of whom was waving a piece of white fabric in a gesture of surrender. The footage showed Israeli bulldozers subsequently burying the two bodies under the sand of the beach where the killings took place.

“Israel continues to act as a rogue, authoritarian state with total impunity.”

Al Jazeera has a bureau in Jerusalem and offices in the West Bank and Gaza, and it has covered Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip closely and critically, regularly reporting and broadcasting footage and eyewitness accounts of Israeli atrocities. Al Jazeera is one of the few international media outlets to broadcast live from Gaza during Israel’s latest war on the Palestinian enclave.

The outlet’s correspondents have been among the dozens of journalists killed, wounded, or detained by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 7.

Wael Dahdouh, Al Jazeera‘s Gaza bureau chief, was wounded by an Israeli missile attack in December. Israeli forces have killed five members of Dahdouh’s family—including his son, Hamza, who was also an Al Jazeera journalist.

“After murdering multiple Al Jazeera journalists, Israel is now moving to expel the news organization entirely,” Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East wrote in response to the new law’s passage. “Israel continues to act as a rogue, authoritarian state with total impunity.”

Al Jazeerareported Monday that the Netanyahu government has been threatening to shutter the outlet and other publications for months under the guise of wartime security.

In a statement ahead of Monday’s vote, the Association for Civil Rights expressed opposition to the proposed crackdown on foreign media outlets, arguing that the measure’s “real purpose is not security-related but political: to allow the government to impose sanctions on foreign broadcasting tools whose broadcasts are not to its liking.”

“In addition to the grave infringement on freedom of expression and freedom of the press, it also prohibits the court from overturning a non-proportional decision, effectively tying the court’s hands from intervening in decisions regarding the closure of media outlets,” the group said. “This is a direct continuation of the judicial overhaul, harming the courts and media outlets, all while cynically using war and security justifications.”

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

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Demanding ‘Immediate Removal’ of Netanyahu, Tens of Thousands Protest in Israel

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

Demonstrators sit on the main road and block it at a demonstration for a hostage deal near the Knesset, on March 31, 2024, in Jerusalem, Israel. 
(Photo: Yahel Gazit/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

“Our country is being led by a gang of nut cases that jeopardize not only our existence but our well-being,” one demonstrator said.

Tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Saturday and Sunday, in what were described as the largest protests in the country since Hamas’ October 7 attack on southern Israel and Israel’s war on Gaza that followed.

Participants carried signs reading, “Hostage deal now,” and arguing for Netanyahu’s “immediate removal,” according toThe New York Times. They demanded early elections and a cease-fire deal that would see the remaining hostages freed from Gaza, calls that came as indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel resumed in Egypt on Sunday.

“Our country is being led by a gang of nut cases that jeopardize not only our existence but our well-being,” 70-year-old protester Shaul Dwek told The Washington Post. “This is not the way we grew up and these are not the values that we hold.”

“After six months, it seems like the government understands that Bibi Netanyahu is an obstacle.”

Netanyahu faced months of internal protests before the October 7 attacks over his government’s planned overhaul of the judiciary to weaken the oversight powers of the Supreme Court. However, protests have been muted since Hamas killed 1,139 people on October 7 and took around 250 hostages into Gaza. Since then, Israel and the Netanyahu government have faced global protests and credible accusations of genocide over the war they launched in retaliation, which has killed nearly 33,000 people and subjected the survivors to famine and mass displacement.

In Israel, the war itself is still popular, according to The Associated Press. However, protesters are concerned about Netanyahu’s personal corruption and the degree to which he is prioritizing the release of hostages. While around half were released during a temporary cease-fire and prisoner exchange in 2023, the Israeli government estimates that around 130 are still being held in Gaza, including 34 who have died, The Guardian reported.

“The people of Israel were deep in sorrow and pain after 7 October, that is why it took so long, but when they understood there is no other option, this government is not functioning and is hurting us economically, diplomatically, in our security and in our values […] that is why people are out,” Naama Lazimi, a Labor party member of the Knesset who attended Sunday’s protest, said, as The Guardian reported.

The weekend’s protests were organized by a coalition of hostage family members and civil society and opposition groups, according to The Washington Post.

“The families of the hostages have reached a breaking point with Netanyahu,” Josh Drill, who heads a group called Change Generation that demands a new government and the freeing of the hostages, told the Post.

Family members also spoke out directly.

“We believe that no hostages will come back with this government because they’re busy putting sticks in the wheels of negotiations for the hostages,” Boaz Atzili, whose cousin and cousin’s wife were both taken hostage, told AP. “Netanyahu is only working in his private interests.”

Atzili’s cousin’s wife was freed, but his cousin died in Gaza.

Einav Moses, meanwhile, still has a father-in-law being held in Gaza.

“After six months, it seems like the government understands that Bibi Netanyahu is an obstacle,” Moses told the AP. “Like he doesn’t really want to bring them back, that they have failed in this mission.”

On Saturday, protests were concentrated in Tel Aviv, but also took place in other cities including Jerusalem and Haifa. On Sunday, the main demonstration was held outside the Knesset in Jerusalem, which organizers said was the largest in Israel since October 7.

“Reservists rushing between the Kaplan Street demonstrations and the ruins of Gaza or its skies, peppered with bombers or predator drones, are also respondents to a poll, whose answer is unambiguous.”

Protesters blocked the main highway in Tel Aviv on Saturday and lit bonfires in the streets, The Washington Post reported. Police sprayed them with water cannons and arrested 16, including family members of hostages. On Sunday, demonstrators also blocked roads in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Some protesters set up tents and prepared to stay until Wednesday, according to The New York Times.

“I will camp here in front of the Knesset until the PM resigns,” demonstrator Yaacov Godo, who lost a son on October 7, told The Guardian.

Israel is not scheduled to hold elections again until spring 2026, but Netanyahu’s coalition currently trails the opposition in the polls.

However, Israeli journalist Amira Hass, who covers the Occupied Territories for Haaretz, argued in a column for that paper that the majority of Israelis continue to support Netanyahu by backing the devastation wrought on Gaza.

“Reservists rushing between the Kaplan Street demonstrations and the ruins of Gaza or its skies, peppered with bombers or predator drones, are also respondents to a poll, whose answer is unambiguous,” Hass said, referring to a major Tel Aviv thoroughfare.

Hass wrote that the Israeli government’s plan for Palestinians amounted to forcing them to choose between accepting second-class status, leaving their homes entirely, or war and death.

“This is the plan now carried out in Gaza and the West Bank, with most Israelis serving as active and enthusiastic accomplices, or passively acquiescing in its realization, regardless of their revulsion for this government and its members,” Hass concluded. “The vast majority still believe that war is the solution.”

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

Continue ReadingDemanding ‘Immediate Removal’ of Netanyahu, Tens of Thousands Protest in Israel

‘Obscene’: Biden Quietly OKs More 2,000-Pound Bombs, Warplanes for Israel

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

Search and rescue efforts for those trapped under rubble continue after Israel bombed the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza on December 25, 2023.
 (Photo: Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Arming a war criminal makes you a war criminal,” one critic admonished the U.S. president.

Despite growing worldwide calls for an arms embargo, the Biden administration in recent days has approved the transfer of billions of dollars worth of new weapons shipments to Israel, including warplanes and 2,000-pound bombs that have been dropped on densely populated areas of Gaza with devastating results.

The Washington Post reported Friday that the administration has “quietly” authorized arms shipments including more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, as well as 25 F-35A fighter jets and engines worth approximately $2.5 billion. The transfers are the latest of more than 100 arms shipments authorized by the Biden administration since the October 7 attacks on Israel.

“‘Quietly,'” Palestinian American writer and political analyst Yousef Munayyer scoffed in response to the report. “This is cowardly from the administration. If you are going to be full backers of genocide, own it. We see you and history sees you as well.”

“It is scary to think of the world U.S. support for Israel is creating. A world with no rules, no limits in war, where norms don’t exist, and where genocide is supportable,” he added. “Good luck getting anyone to listen to you about international law after this.”

Edward Ahmed Mitchell, deputy executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, said in a statement: “We strongly condemn the Biden administration’s unbelievable and unconscionable decision to secretly send hundreds of new 2,000-pound bombs and other weapons to support Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocide. Arming a war criminal makes you a war criminal.”

According to the Post:

The 2,000-pound bombs, capable of leveling city blocks and leaving craters in the earth 40 feet across and larger, are almost never used any more by Western militaries in densely populated locations due to the risk of civilian casualties.

Israel has used them extensively in Gaza, according to several reports, most notably in the bombing of Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp October 31. U.N. officials decried the strike, which killed more than 100 people, as a “disproportionate attack that could amount to war crimes.” Israel defended the bombing, saying it resulted in the death of a Hamas leader.

The Biden administration’s arms shipments to Israel continue despite urgent pleas from United Nations officials, international human rights groups, and some progressive U.S. lawmakers to stop arming Israel’s 175-day Gaza onslaught, during which Israeli bombs and bullets have killed more than 32,600 Palestinians—mostly women and children—while wounding over 75,000 others and damaging or destroying hundreds of thousands of homes, schools, hospitals, mosques, and other structures.

The International Court of Justice in January found that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza and ordered the country to prevent genocidal acts. However, Israel has been accused of ignoring the ICJ order, and amid ongoing atrocities—including the forced starvation of Palestinians—the court on Thursday issued another order demanding that Israel allow desperately needed humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Last December, when the death toll in Gaza stood at approximately 18,000, President Joe Biden implored the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing” of Palestinian civilians in the embattled enclave.

However, U.S. support for Israel—which already included nearly $4 billion in annual military aid—has continued unabated, with the Biden administration seeking an additional $14.3 million in armed assistance and repeatedly bypassing Congress to fast-track emergency weapons shipments.

“The U.S. cannot beg Netanyahu to stop bombing civilians one day and the next send him thousands more 2,000-pound bombs that can level entire city blocks,” U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said on social media Friday. “This is obscene. We must end our complicity: No more bombs to Israel.”

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told the Post that “the Biden administration needs to use their leverage effectively and, in my view, they should receive these basic commitments before greenlighting more bombs for Gaza. We need to back up what we say with what we do.”

Biden administration officials have claimed they don’t have any leverage over Israel, drawing ridicule from observers who point to the indispensable military and diplomatic support the U.S. provides.

The staggering death and destruction wrought by Israel’s assault on Gaza has drawn criticism from even staunch supporters of the key U.S. ally.

Referring to the worsening famine in Gaza—which one U.S. State Department official acknowledged anonymously to Reuters on Friday—New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote on social media: “Really, POTUS? With Gaza facing starvation and Netanyahu defying you over Rafah, you ship billions of dollars in additional weapons to Israel, including 2,000-pound bombs, without end-use restrictions? Bibi is rolling you.”

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

Continue Reading‘Obscene’: Biden Quietly OKs More 2,000-Pound Bombs, Warplanes for Israel

Sanders Rips ‘Absurd’ US Claim That Israel Is Not Violating International Law

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

Children in Rafah, Gaza gather to receive food distributed by aid organizations on March 15, 2024.
 (Photo: Jehad Alshrafi/Anadolu via Getty Images

“The State Department’s position makes a mockery of U.S. law and assurances provided to Congress,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday said the U.S. State Department’s determination that Israel is not violating international law with its assault on the Gaza Strip is “absurd on its face,” pointing to the mass death, destruction, and starvation that Israeli forces have inflicted on the territory’s population over the past six months.

“Thirty-two thousand Palestinians in Gaza have been killed and almost 75,000 injured, two-thirds of whom are women and children,” Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement. “Some 60% of the housing units have been damaged or destroyed, and almost all medical facilities have been made inoperable. Today, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children are facing starvation because [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu won’t let in sufficient humanitarian aid, while thousands of trucks are waiting to get into Gaza.”

“The State Department’s position,” said Sanders, “makes a mockery of U.S. law and assurances provided to Congress.”

The senator’s statement came after State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters during a press briefing earlier Monday that the Biden administration has not found Israel “to be in violation of international humanitarian law, either when it comes to the conduct of the war or when it comes to the provision of humanitarian assistance.”

Miller was responding to a question about assurances the administration has received from the Israeli government that its use of American weaponry has complied with international law and that it has permitted U.S. humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, where the entire population is facing acute hunger.

Under a new Biden administration policy known as NSM-20, recipients of American military aid are required to provide the U.S. government with “credible and reliable” written assurances that they are using such assistance “in a manner consistent with all applicable international and domestic law and policy.”

Late last week, a group of U.S. senators—including Sanders—warned the Biden administration that deeming Israeli assurances credible would “be inconsistent with the letter and spirit of NSM-20” and “establish an unacceptable precedent” for the application of the policy “in other situations around the world.”

“Until Biden is ready to impose real policy consequences on Netanyahu’s government, the famine will continue.”

It is a violation of U.S. law to continue sending military assistance to a country that is obstructing the delivery of American humanitarian aid. Last month, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich blocked a U.S.-funded flour shipment from entering the Gaza Strip, and Israeli forces have repeatedly fired on convoys attempting to deliver aid to desperate Gazans.

Prominent human rights groups have been calling on the U.S. to impose an arms embargo on Israel for months, pointing to documented examples of the Israeli military using American weaponry to commit atrocities in Gaza.

But the Biden administration has refused to even apply concrete restrictions on American military aid. Over the weekend, U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law a measure that approves $3.8 billion in unconditional military assistance for the Israeli government and imposes a one-year ban on funding for the primary humanitarian aid organization in Gaza.

Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International and a former USAID official, said Monday that Israel’s assurances to the U.S. are “not remotely credible” and argued the Biden administration is undermining efforts to combat the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza by accepting the Israeli government’s claims.

The U.S., he said, is “talking a big game about fighting the famine that its bombs and diplomatic cover have helped create.” Resorting to “gimmicky” efforts such as airdrops and temporary ports while a U.S. ally obstructs humanitarian aid “is not how you fight a famine,” Konyndyk argued.

“Fundamentally Biden must choose: between continuing to enable Netanyahu, or ending the famine. There’s no way to split the difference,” said Konyndyk. “Until Biden is ready to impose real policy consequences on Netanyahu’s government, the famine will continue.”

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

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Continue ReadingSanders Rips ‘Absurd’ US Claim That Israel Is Not Violating International Law