ceasefire

‘War Criminals’: IDF Strikes Rafah After Hamas Agrees to Cease-Fire

Spread the love

[This article remains relevant despite having been published 2 days ago]

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

Smoke rises from buildings after Israeli strikes on Rafah, Gaza on May 6, 2024.  (Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Why?” asked Israeli lawmaker Ofer Cassif. “Because killing Palestinians is more important for the Israeli government than saving Israelis.”

Israel on Monday launched long-awaited strikes on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip despite Hamas publicly confirming it agreed to a cease-fire and hostage release proposal from Egyptian and Qatari mediators.

The Israel Defense Forces said on social media that “the IDF is currently conducting targeted strikes against Hamas terror targets in eastern Rafah,” the city to which over a million Palestinians have fled since October 7, when Israel launched a retaliatory war that has already killed at least 34,735 people in Gaza and wounded another 78,108.

Earlier Monday, the IDF had dropped leaflets directing residents and refugees in that part of Rafah to relocate to a strip along Gaza’s coast, ignoring warnings from the international community and humanitarian groups that a full-scale Israeli attack on the crowded city would further endanger civilians and relief efforts.

“It is obvious Netanyahu wants this genocidal war to continue indefinitely so that he can remain in power.”

In addition to sparking outrage around the world, the Israeli government’s Rafah attack and rejection of the Hamas-backed proposal was met with criticism from people across Israel. The Associated Press reported that “thousands of Israelis rallied around the country Monday night calling for an immediate deal to release the hostages still held in the Gaza Strip.”

Ofer Cassif, a member of the Knesset who was almost expelled by fellow Israeli lawmakers earlier this year for backing South Africa’s ongoing genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), again called out his own government.

“Israeli tanks and infantry enter east Rafah while planes bomb from above, just hours after Hamas’ decision to accept the hostages/prisoners exchange deal,” Cassif said Monday. “Why? Because killing Palestinians is more important for the Israeli government than saving Israelis. War criminals!”

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that “the War Cabinet unanimously decided this evening Israel will continue its operation in Rafah, in order to apply military pressure on Hamas so as to advance the release of our hostages and achieve the other objectives of the war.”

Along with the prime minister, Israel’s War Cabinet includes Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Benny Gantz, former IDF chief of the general staff, along with three observers.

Netanyahu added that “while the Hamas proposal is far from meeting Israel’s core demands, Israel will dispatch a ranking delegation to Egypt in an effort to maximize the possibility of reaching an agreement on terms acceptable to Israel.”

Reuters reported that “an Israeli official said the deal was not acceptable to Israel because terms had been ‘softened.'”

According to the news outlet, the first part of a three-phase plan that Hamas—which has controlled Gaza for nearly two decades—agreed to includes a 42-day pause in fighting, the release of 33 hostages held by the group and some Palestinians in Israeli jails, a partial IDF withdrawal, and free movement in the besieged enclave.

Phase two would be “another 42-day period that features an agreement to restore a ‘sustainable calm’ to Gaza, language that an official briefed on the talks said Hamas and Israel had agreed in order to take discussion of a ‘permanent cease-fire’ off the table,” Reuters detailed. This phase also includes withdrawing most Israeli troops and Hamas releasing some soldiers and reservists.

The third phase would involve the exchange of bodies; reconstruction of Gaza overseen by Egypt, Qatar, and the United Nations; and ending the complete blockade on the strip, the outlet added.

Shortly before Israel’s Monday night strikes on Rafah began, Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, said that the U.N. chief “reiterates his pressing call to both the government of Israel and the leadership of Hamas to go the extra mile needed to make an agreement come true and stop the present suffering.”

Expressing concern about the then-imminent Israeli operation in Rafah, the spokesperson said that “we are already seeing movements of people—many of these people are in desperate humanitarian condition and have been repeatedly displaced. They search safety that has been so many times denied. The secretary-general reminds the parties that the protection of civilians is paramount in international humanitarian law.”

Other U.N. officials have been warning of what an assault on Rafah will mean for the over 1.4 million Palestinians there, among them 600,000 children. So have humanitarian and political leaders, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who on Monday urged President Joe Biden to stand by his earlier position that attacking the city was a “red line” and “end all offensive military aid to Israel.”

Council on American-Islamic Relations national executive director Nihad Awad issued a similar call Monday evening, warning that “the Israeli government is hellbent on using American financial, military, and diplomatic support to ethnically cleanse what remains of Gaza and commit another massacre.”

“President Biden must stand up to Benjamin Netanyahu and take concrete action to end the genocide now,” Awad continued, nodding to the Israeli leader’s legal trouble. The prime minister faces not only potential consequences on a global scale for what the ICJ has deemed a “plausibly” genocidal war on Gaza but also a corruption trial in his own country.

“It is obvious Netanyahu wants this genocidal war to continue indefinitely so that he can remain in power, avoid jail, and fulfill his racist, far-right Cabinet’s demands for the complete destruction of Gaza and the massacre of its people,” Awad said. “It is long past time for President Biden to end our nation’s complicity in this 21st-century genocide.”

Biden spoke with Netanyahu by phone ahead of the IDF strikes on Monday and “reiterated his clear position on Rafah,” according to a White House readout. They also discussed the hostage negotiations, humanitarian aid, the Holocaust, and antisemitism.

Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, also suggested that the Israeli prime minister wants the bloodshed in Gaza to continue for personal reasons.

“Netanyahu does not want an end to the war because the moment the war ends, his political career ends as well. And his prison sentence will commence,” said Parsi. “Yet, Biden has for seven months deferred to Netanyahu.”

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

Continue Reading‘War Criminals’: IDF Strikes Rafah After Hamas Agrees to Cease-Fire

‘How many more Palestinian children need to be killed before Westminster finally acts?’

Spread the love

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/how-many-more-palestinian-children-need-to-be-killed-before-westminster-finally-acts

World calls on Israel to halt its slaughter of helpless refugees trapped in Rafah

An Israeli tank overlooks the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, May 6, 2024

APPEALS to Israel to halt its merciless slaughter of helpless refugees trapped in the city of Rafah in Gaza rang out nationally and internationally today.

Refugees began streaming out of the town on the Egyptian border after Israel warned 100,000 people to evacuate, saying it was planning to attack.

An emergency demonstration has been called outside Downing Street for Tuesday night.

After another night of bombardment which left more than 20 dead, Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn said: “This is disgusting beyond belief, that Israel continues to bombard one million people stuck in Rafah and has now asked 100,000 to move to ‘humanitarian safe zones’.”

“Thirty-four thousand lives have already been lost. Now is the time to cease fire and stop arms sales to Israel.”

The Stop the War Coalition, which has called this evening’s Downing Street rally at 6pm, said: “As Israel continues its bombing of civilians trapped in Rafah and prepares a ground invasion, knowing nowhere is safe for the 1.7 million Palestinians trapped there, Sunak, Starmer and Biden continue to support Netanyahu’s genocide.

“Rather than pulling their support, including by stopping arms sales, they attack our marches, attack student protests, and attack anyone who calls out Israel’s atrocities.

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/how-many-more-palestinian-children-need-to-be-killed-before-westminster-finally-acts

Continue Reading‘How many more Palestinian children need to be killed before Westminster finally acts?’

Nearly All 600,000 Kids in Rafah ‘Injured, Sick, Malnourished,’ Says UNICEF

Spread the love

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

Palestinians, including children, collect remaining belongings from the rubble of destroyed houses after Israeli attacks on May 1, 2024 in Rafah, Gaza.
 (Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)

A full-scale Israeli assault on the crowded southern Gaza city “would bring catastrophe on top of catastrophe for children.”

“The children in Gaza need a cease-fire.”

That’s how Catherine Russell, executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), concluded a brief video Wednesday about the harrowing conditions across the Gaza Strip, particularly in Rafah, where about 1.5 million of the besieged enclave’s 2.3 million residents have sought refuge from Israel’s devastating assault.

The video was released nearly seven months into Israel’s retaliation for the Hamas-led October 7 attack—which has killed at least 34,596 Palestinians in Gaza, wounded another 77,816, and left thousands more missing—and as a full-scale Israeli assault of Rafah looms.

The war has already taken “an unimaginable toll,” and a major military operation against the crowded southern Gaza city “would bring catastrophe on top of catastrophe for children,” Russell warned. “Nearly all of the some 600,000 children now crammed into Rafah are either injured, sick, malnourished, traumatized, or living with disabilities.”

“Many have been displaced multiple times and lost homes, parents, and loved ones,” the UNICEF chief noted. “There is nowhere safe to go in Gaza. Homes throughout the Gaza Strip lie in ruin. Roads are destroyed and the ground littered with unexploded ordnances.”

“Rafah is also the main hub for the humanitarian response, which includes UNICEF, and the city has some of the last functioning healthcare facilities,” she explained.

Israeli forces launched at least 435 attacks on health facilities or personnel during the first six months of the war, and just 10 of the enclave’s 36 hospitals remain partially functional, according to the World Health Organization. As Common Dreams reported Wednesday, thousands of Palestinian child amputees are struggling to recover due to the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system.

“UNICEF continues to call for the protection of all women and children in Rafah and throughout the Gaza Strip—and the protection of the infrastructure, services, and humanitarian aid they rely on,” said Russell. “We repeat our calls for the unconditional release of all hostages in Gaza who need to be home with their children and families. The violence must end.”

The agency’s five core demands for Gaza are:

  1. An immediate and long-lasting humanitarian cease-fire;
  2. Safe and unrestricted humanitarian access;
  3. The immediate, safe, and unconditional release of all abducted children, and an end to any grave violations against all children;
  4. Respect and protection for civilian infrastructure; and
  5. Allow patients with urgent medical cases to safely access critical health services or leave.

As Russell called for peace in video form, James Elder, UNICEF’s global spokesperson, penned a Wednesday opinion piece for The Guardian following his recent trips to Gaza. He began with a startling anecdote:

The war against Gaza’s children is forcing many to close their eyes. Nine-year-old Mohamed’s eyes were forced shut, first by the bandages that covered a gaping hole in the back of his head, and second by the coma caused by the blast that hit his family home. He is nine. Sorry, he was nine. Mohamed is now dead.

“From looming famine to soaring death tolls, the latest fear is the much-threatened offensive in Rafah in southern Gaza,” he wrote. “Can it get any worse? It always seems to.”

“Rafah will implode if it is targeted militarily,” Elder stressed. “Water is in desperately short supply, not just for drinking but sanitation. In Rafah there is approximately one toilet for every 850 people. The situation is four times worse for showers. That is, around one shower for every 3,500 people. Try to imagine, as a teenage girl, or elderly man, or pregnant woman, queueing for an entire day just to have a shower.”

On October 31, just weeks after the start of what the International Court of Justice has since determined is Israel’s plausibly genocidal assault, UNICEF called Gaza a “graveyard” for children.

“Can it get any worse? It always seems to.”

“Last month I saw new graveyards in Rafah being constructed. And filled,” wrote Elder. “Every day the war brings more violent death and destruction. In my 20 years with the United Nations, I have never seen devastation like that I saw in the Gaza Strip cities of Khan Younis and Gaza City. And now we are told to expect the same via an incursion in Rafah.”

Elder recalled that “in the north of the territory, close to where a UNICEF vehicle came under fire last month, a woman clutched my hand and pleaded, over and over, that the world send food, water, and medicine. I will never forget how, as I felt her grasp, I tried to explain we were trying, and she continued to plead.”

“Why? Because she assumed the world did not know what was happening in Gaza. Because if the world knew, how could they possibly let this happen?” he continued. “How, indeed. The world has certainly been warned about Rafah. It remains to be seen how many eyes stay, or are forced, shut.”

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

Continue ReadingNearly All 600,000 Kids in Rafah ‘Injured, Sick, Malnourished,’ Says UNICEF

This May Day, workers mobilized for Palestine

Spread the love

Original article by Natalia Marques republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Student workers of Columbia organized in UAW 2710 participate in May Day rally. Photo: Wyatt Souers

On International Workers’ Day, workers around the world continued to join hands with the student movement to stand with Palestine

On May Day, workers around the world mobilized for the liberation of Palestine. “This May Day, workers of the world are called to declare their solidarity with Palestine, to denounce the Israeli Genocide, and to call for an end to all aggressions in the region and to all wars,” wrote the International People’s Assembly.

“Beyond the call for a ceasefire we must say no to the transportation of arms and arms caches to Israel. Workers in all industries – especially workers in the transport sector – that can withhold their labor in order to halt the continued slaughter of the people of Palestine are emphatically called to do so!”

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa released a statement calling on workers around the world to mobilize for Palestine. “The working class are the creators of wealth, and it is the united power of the working class that has the power to overthrow hateful, brutal regimes like Apartheid Israel,” wrote the union. “On this Workers Day, we call on workers of the world to unite in defense of Palestine so that its people can be free, from the river, to the sea!”

“The working class in South Africa must celebrate the defeat of Apartheid, because its destruction was due, largely to the unity of workers, who used their labor power to collapse the system through rolling mass action, strikes and protest,” the union added.

Several Palestinian union formations have called the people in the world to action against the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. This includes the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, which in March called on US unions in particular to “be our voice and advocate inside and outside America.”

“What our people are experiencing and what workers and unions in particular, are exposed to is the most horrific catastrophe known to humanity in recent decades,” the PGFTU wrote. “We ask that you convey our message and give voice to the suffering of hungry, starving workers and their families—not just to the American people, not just to your unions, but to the entire world.”

Palestinian trade unions have also responded in support of the student movement for Palestine that has taken the world by storm. “The Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) in Palestine extends our deepest solidarity to you, the revolutionary youth who are changing the world,” reads a statement of support from a prominent Palestine farmworkers’ union, addressed to the students movement around the world that is taking action in solidarity with Gaza. “We write to you from Palestine to tell you that your actions are resonating across oceans. In you, we see the echoes of our struggle, the echoes of our resistance, and the echoes of our hope.”

“Our people, along with all the workers and free people of the world, commemorate the first of May this year, at a time when they are subjected to the most brutal and fierce campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing, surpassing in savagery and bloodiness the fascists and the Nazis, at the hands of a group of murderers calling themselves an army for an invasive replacement entity, under the leadership, partnership, support, cover, and complicity of the American administration and the colonial Western imperial powers, the enemies of humanity,” wrote the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in a pre-May Day statement. “We send a salute of respect and pride to the university students all over the world, especially to the students at American universities, who are protesting against the crimes of the occupation and the support of the American administration for it, and who demand a halt to the aggression against the Palestinian people.”

Within the student movement in the US, university workers are mobilizing their unions to stand with their students in solidarity with Gaza. On April 29, within the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at the City College of New York in New York City, university workers organized under the Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) held a town hall meeting to deliberate on how to use their labor power to support the five demands of the student encampment. The members attending the town hall organized a wildcat sick-out, in which union members will call in sick en masse to disrupt business as usual at the larger City University of New York (CUNY) system. Workers in the United States face a variety of strike prohibitions, including a nationwide ban on striking for political reasons rather than economic issues such as wages and benefits under the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947.

Nevertheless, the PSC faculty at the town hall voted overwhelmingly to stage a sick-out. “At UT Austin, faculty did a one day job action in support of their students. Palestinian trade unions, National SJP, and National Faculty for Justice in Palestine have called for a mass job action on May 1st,” faculty wrote in a statement. “Our students are taking incredible risks to support the Palestinian people. They have asked for our help. We must stand ready to struggle alongside them, and to take these risks.”

Workers organized with the United Auto Workers, which also represents many graduate student workers across the country, staged a rally in Washington Square Park on April 26 in support of their students staging Gaza Solidarity Encampments at NYU, Columbia, and the New School.

Workers engaged in mass mobilizations around the world on May 1.

Thousands took to the streets in major US cities including Washington, DC and Los Angeles. In DC, demonstrators marched to the Gaza Solidarity Encampments at George Washington University.

‼️🇵🇸A massive May Day march in Los Angeles takes the streets for Palestine! pic.twitter.com/YfDrwNiBis

— Party for Socialism and Liberation (@pslnational) May 1, 2024

✊🏽🇵🇸RIGHT NOW: A massive May Day march is en route to the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at George Washington University pic.twitter.com/esXOVUrhqv

— Party for Socialism and Liberation (@pslnational) May 2, 2024

In New York City, unions such as the United Auto Workers and the New York Taxi Workers Alliance expressed explicit support for the Palestinian cause in a march of 20,000, which ended at the New York University Gaza Solidarity Encampment.

Havana, like every year, was flooded with huge crowds on May Day as President Miguel Diaz-Canel sent an explicit message in support of Palestine and the pro-Palestine student movement. “All our solidarity with the students in the United States, who have taken the side of justice, have come out to support the cause of the Palestinian people, and are brutally repressed on their own university campuses. Today our [May Day] is also going through Palestine,” Diaz-Canel wrote.

In Bogota, President Gustavo Petro made a special announcement during the May Day celebration in front of thousands of Colombians: the nation would officially cut all diplomatic ties with Israel.

Original article by Natalia Marques republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingThis May Day, workers mobilized for Palestine

‘Genocidal Actions’ Persist in Gaza as Israel Blocks Aid and US Weapons Flow

Spread the love

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

Palestinian children, holding banners and empty bowls, gather to protest the food shortages in the city due to Israel’s attacks and blockade on humanitarian aid on March 12, 2024 in Gaza City, Gaza. (Photo: Omar Qattaa/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“President Joe Biden must act now to make famine prevention a top priority and be prepared to deploy meaningful U.S. leverage—including pausing arms sales,” said two humanitarian aid group leaders.

A week after Israeli officials promised the Biden administration they would open a border crossing and a port to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, relief organizations and the United Nations reported Friday that life-saving supplies are still being blocked, and warned that the White House must take more decisive action to force Israel to stop starving Palestinians.

The U.N. reported that just 212 aid trucks entered Gaza on Tuesday, far lower than the 467 reported by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who promised to “flood Gaza with aid” after a tense phone call between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden last Thursday.

The phone call came in response to Israel’s bombing of a World Central Kitchen aid convoy that killed seven aid workers. On the call, Biden reportedly threatened to halt weapons deliveries unless a surge in humanitarian aid was allowed into Gaza.

But as The Guardian reported Friday, the Ashdod port has not been opened yet, and instead of opening the Erez crossing last Sunday as promised, Israel has opened another crossing into northern Gaza but has not yet allowed U.N. agencies to use it.

“Netanyahu scammed Biden again: A week after he promised to open the Erez crossing and Ashdod port to increase aid to Gaza, the [Israel Defense Forces] & port authorities say they NEVER received any instructions of this nature,” said Muhammad Shehada, communications chief for Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, citing reporting from Israel’s N12 channel.

The Guardianreports that Israel has set an ultimate target of 500 aid trucks per day to enter Gaza—the same amount that delivered relief to residents before the Israeli bombardment rendered the enclave’s food system, healthcare facilities, and other public services inoperable.

“The call for 500 trucks, with a combination of commercial and humanitarian shipments, is the absolute minimum,” Juliette Touma, communications director for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) toldThe Guardian. “Probably what Gaza needs is at least 1,000 trucks a day.”

The U.N. found that just 141 aid trucks entered the enclave on Wednesday. The Washington Postreported that Israeli authorities have blocked aid deliveries containing items such as chocolate croissants, maternity kits, sleeping bags, stone fruits, and oxygen cylinders.

Jamie McGoldrick, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator, said Friday that “very limited” aid deliveries have continued to contribute to low birth weights in babies who have been born in northern Gaza in recent weeks.

“It’s very easy for Israel to say, ‘We’ve sent you 1,000 trucks so please deliver them inside Gaza,'” McGoldrick said, noting that Israel has held trucks up at checkpoints “for hours” and that many roads are not open to deliveries.

“At no point in time in the last month and more have we had three or even two of those roads working at the same time simultaneously,” said McGoldrick.

The news that Israel has not allowed a “flood” of aid into Gaza since Biden threatened Netanyahu with an end to weapons transfers came days after Samantha Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), admitted to U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) that reports of famine in parts of Gaza are now “credible.”

Save the Children confirmed on April 2 that at least 27 children have died of starvation and disease as a result of Israel’s blockade, and U.N. agencies said in February that 5% of children under age 2 were acutely malnourished.

At least 33,634 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israeli forces since October, with U.S. weapons used in much of the bombardment.

At Foreign Affairs on Friday, Refugees International’s president, Jeremy Konyndyk, and vice president for programs and policy, Hardin Lang, wrote that “as negotiations about a econd cease-fire and hostages-for-prisoners swap gain steam, the United States has a crucial opportunity to press Israel to change course and allow a major famine-prevention effort.”

Namely, they said, Biden must make good on his threat to cut off Israel’s military aid—of which the U.S. is the largest international provider.

“The United States is likely the only outside power that can ensure a famine is avoided, given the leverage it has with its ally Israel,” they wrote. “U.S. President Joe Biden must act now to make famine prevention a top priority and be prepared to deploy meaningful U.S. leverage—including pausing arms sales—if the Israeli government does not comply. Famine would not only constitute a humanitarian cataclysm; it would also represent a geopolitical failure that would damage U.S. credibility in the Middle East for years to come.”

Konyndyk and Lang’s call was echoed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which said Power’s comments must push the president to take action.

“Inducing a famine by besieging an entire population and slaughtering innocent civilians are acts which no one can ignore, let alone justify,” said CAIR national executive director Nihad Awad. “President Biden and his administration are enabling this famine and the deliberate cruelty targeting the Palestinian people in Gaza. He must take action to prevent further atrocities by demanding an immediate cease-fire, securing full access to humanitarian aid, ending all weapons transfers and other funding for Israel, and holding the war criminals in the Netanyahu government accountable for their genocidal actions.”

Also on Friday, a U.S. coalition of groups including the Working Families Party, the Service Employees International Union, and the National Education Association wrote to Biden and urged him to enforce the Foreign Assistance Act, which bars the government from providing military support to countries that restrict humanitarian aid deliveries.

Ending arms transfers “will send a clear message that the Netanyahu government is not above the law and that the U.S. will not stand by while the war kills innocent Palestinians and continues to drive escalation throughout the region,” reads the letter. “U.S. law is unequivocal: Countries that obstruct U.S. humanitarian aid cannot receive U.S. military aid under the Foreign Assistance Act or the Arms Export Control Act.”

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

Continue Reading‘Genocidal Actions’ Persist in Gaza as Israel Blocks Aid and US Weapons Flow