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‘Eradication of Journalism in Gaza’ Continues as Israel Kills Two More Reporters

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

A press helmet is placed over the grave of Hamza Dahdouh, a Palestinian journalist who worked for Al Jazeera and was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Rafah on January 7, 2024. (Photo: Mohammed Talatene/picture alliance via Getty Images)

The international community must “hold Israel accountable for its heinous crimes,” said the Al Jazeera Media Network.

An Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Sunday killed two Palestinian journalists and seriously wounded a third, adding to the war’s grisly toll on media workers.

The Al Jazeera Media Network said in a statement that the Israeli military targeted the journalists’ car as they were driving through the northern part of Rafah. The strike killed Hamza Dahdouh, the 27-year-old son of Al Jazeera‘s Gaza bureau chief, and Mustafa Thuraya, a freelance videographer working with Agence France-Presse. Hazem Rajab was injured in the Israeli strike.

“The assassination of Mustafa and Hamza, Al Jazeera correspondent Wael Dahdouh’s son, whilst they were on their way to carry out their duty in the Gaza Strip reaffirms the need to take immediate necessary legal measures against the occupation forces to ensure that there is no impunity,” the network said, imploring the international community to “hold Israel accountable for its heinous crimes.”

Hamza is the fifth member of Wael Dahdouh’s family killed in Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip. Earlier in the war, Israeli strikes killed Dahdouh’s wife, younger son, daughter, and grandson. Wael himself was wounded by an Israeli drone strike that killed Al Jazeera journalist Samer Abu Daqqa.

“Hamza was everything to me, the eldest boy, he was the soul of my soul,” Wael said in anguished remarks from the cemetery where his son was buried. “These are the tears of parting and loss, the tears of humanity.”

Christophe Deloire, secretary-general of Reporters Without Borders, expressed “shock” in response to news of Dahdouh and Thuraya’s killing.

“This unbearable massacre must stop,” Deloire wrote on social media. “Israel must be held accountable for this eradication of journalism in Gaza. We will continue to refer to the International Criminal Court so that maximum priority is given to crimes against journalists. Justice must be served.”

(Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Since October 7, Israeli forces have killed dozens of media workers in the Gaza Strip, where around 1,000 journalists were working before the assault. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), more journalists were killed in the first 10 weeks of the war “than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year.”

“CPJ is particularly concerned about an apparent pattern of targeting journalists and their families by the Israeli military,” the group said last month. An investigation by Reporters Without Borders concluded that Reuters video journalist Issam Abdallah and his colleagues were deliberately targeted in October 13 strikes in southern Lebanon.

Reporters Without Borders has filed two war crimes complaints with the International Criminal Court since early October. The second complaint, submitted last month, accuses the Israel Defense Forces of intentionally killing seven Palestinian journalists.

“Targeting reporters is a war crime,” the group wrote in a social media post on Sunday.

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

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Protests Urging Gaza Cease-Fire Block NYC Tunnel, Bridges

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Continue Reading‘Eradication of Journalism in Gaza’ Continues as Israel Kills Two More Reporters

Protests Urging Gaza Cease-Fire Block NYC Tunnel, Bridges

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

Protesters block the Holland Tunnel on Monday, January 8, in New York City to call for a cease-fire in Gaza.  (Photo credit: Alexa Wilkinson)

“We are trying to show how it feels to be trapped in a city you can’t leave,” one participant said.

Protesters blocked the Holland Tunnel and three major New York City bridges during Monday’s rush hour to call for a cease-fire in Gaza as Israel’s deadly assault on the besieged enclave enters its fourth month.

Organizers said that they chose to block traffic in order to create a “physical analogue” to the experience of people in Gaza, “where there is no getting out.”

“We are trying to show how it feels to be trapped in a city you can’t leave,” 30-year-old participant Mon Mohapatra told The New York Times.

“We salute the brave individuals and organizations who across the country and the world are taking action to disrupt the flow of capital, by blocking ports and traffic arteries.”

Organizers said in a statement that a thousand people blocked traffic Monday morning for more than two hours at the Holland Tunnel and Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Williamsburg bridges. The action was coordinated by a coalition of groups including the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), Critical Resistance, and Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG).

The action at the Holland Tunnel began around 9:30 am ET, the Port Authority Police Department toldCBS News. The department arrested 120 people for blocking the outbound lane. The New York Police Department’s chief of patrol toldWABC that 325 people were arrested across all four locations.

The organizers said that their actions snarled traffic in SoHo, Tribeca, Hudson Square, the Financial District, and the Lower East Side. Traffic began moving again around the Holland Tunnel by 10:30 am, over the Brooklyn Bridge a little before 11:00 am, and over the Williamsburg and Manhattan bridges a little before 11:30 am, WABC reported.

“In Gaza, of course, people have limited mobility, no freedom of movement, they cannot leave, even if they want to, they move place to place, then those places are bombed,” Rachel Himes, who was arrested at the Holland Tunnel, told The New York Times. “We wanted to create that condition temporarily in Manhattan.”

The action was planned to coincide with the start of the fourth month of Israel’s attack on Gaza, which has killed more than 23,000 people and injured nearly 59,000 since October 7, according to Monday figures from the Gaza Health Ministry.

Demonstrators at all four Manhattan locations dropped banners listing the five demands of the Palestinian Youth Movement:

  1. An immediate cease-fire;
  2. An end to the siege on Gaza;
  3. The release of all Palestinian prisoners;
  4. An end to the occupation of Palestine; and
  5. An end to U.S. aid to Israel.

Demonstrators at the Williamsburg and Manhattan bridges used piping and chains to bolster their blockades, which police had to saw through to clear the protesters, according to The New York Times and CBS. Police “violently assaulted” one participant at the Williamsburg Bridge, according to a video shared by WAWOG on social media.

Monday’s protest builds on months of direct actions both in New York and across the country as protesters have blocked traffic, sat in at train stations, disrupted political events, and blocked ports to call on President Joe Biden to end U.S. support for Israel’s bombardment and invasion of Gaza.

On Saturday, a group of protesters blocked traffic on Seattle’s I-5 highway for more than four hours.

“These direct actions that we are seeing now are tools of protest that intend to disrupt the flow of capital and hit the political and economic elites where it hurts, in order to force an end to the ongoing genocide of Palestinians and siege on Gaza,” Bissan Barghouti of Samidoun Seattle, who helped organize a rally in solidarity with the highway blockade, told Common Dreams. “As Palestinians and those in solidarity with our struggle, we condemn the government and corporate complicity in the massacre of our loved ones in Gaza and across occupied Palestine.”

Barghouti added, “We salute the brave individuals and organizations who across the country and the world are taking action to disrupt the flow of capital, by blocking ports and traffic arteries.”

https://www.instagram.com/jvpseattle/p/C10XVjBPcqe/

In addition to more recent protests, Monday’s New York action took its inspiration from a 1995 ACT UP protest that was the first to block two bridges and two tunnels in New York at the same time.

“We urge other coalitions, collectives, and autonomous organizations to take meaningful action against the genocidal state, its collaborators, its benefactors, and profiteers,” the group behind Monday’s New York protest said in a statement. “Protests and demonstrations across the so-called U.S. must escalate in their willingness to shut down business as usual and arrest the flow of capital in order to end this occupation once and for all. Our skills and goals must be aligned towards an immediate and permanent cease-fire, the end of Zionism, and a free Palestine in our lifetimes.”

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

Continue ReadingProtests Urging Gaza Cease-Fire Block NYC Tunnel, Bridges

UK accused of hypocrisy in not backing claim of genocide in Gaza before ICJ

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https://www.theguardian.com/law/2024/jan/07/uk-accused-of-hypocrisy-in-not-backing-claim-of-genocide-in-gaza-before-icj

Palestinians inspect the damage caused by an Israeli airstrike on Khan Younis on 7 January. Photograph: Mohammed Dahman/AP

Experts say submission to international court of justice on Myanmar six weeks ago makes stance ‘wholly disingenuous’

The UK is facing accusations of double standards after formally submitting detailed legal arguments to the international court of justice in The Hague six weeks ago to support claims that Myanmar committed genocide against the Rohingya ethnic group through its mass mistreatment of children and systematically depriving people of their homes and food.

…

Tayab Ali, the head of international law at Bindmans, said the significance of the UK’s submission on Myanmar “lay in showing the importance the UK attaches to adherence to the [UN] Genocide Convention and in showing the UK took a wide, and not a narrow, definition of acts of genocide, and the intent to commit genocide. It also made clear that the court should take into account risks to life after a ceasefire caused by disabilities, inability to reside in their homes and wider injustices.

“It would be wholly disingenuous if the UK, six week after advancing such a significant and broad definition of genocide in the case of Myanmar, now adopts a narrow one in the case of Israel.”

South Africa is likely to highlight the UK’s arguments about Myanmar, submitted in conjunction with Canada, Germany, Denmark, France and the Netherlands, when it makes its high-stakes accusation of genocide against Israel.

…

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2024/jan/07/uk-accused-of-hypocrisy-in-not-backing-claim-of-genocide-in-gaza-before-icj

Continue ReadingUK accused of hypocrisy in not backing claim of genocide in Gaza before ICJ

Global Muslim lawyer group condemns war crimes in Gaza and calls on governments to stop the sale of weapons to warring parties

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/01/global-muslim-lawyer-group-condemns-war-crimes-in-gaza-and-calls-on-governments-to-stop-the-sale-of-weapons-to-warring-parties/

IAMLA joins UN agencies, UN experts and other lawyers in expressing deep concern that serious violations of international law are being committed in the Middle East conflict.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Lawyers Association (IAMLA), a global body comprising of more than 900 lawyers, former judges, and legal academics, has condemned the mass killing of innocent civilians in the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel.

As part of the Voices for Peace campaign, an initiative to raise voices on behalf of the oppressed and encourage world peace, the Muslim lawyers sent a letter to world leaders in December. The letter calls on all states to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza and warns of serious violations of international law in the commission of war crimes in the conflict. The group says it condemns the ‘abhorrent murder and hostage-taking of innocent civilians by Hamas forces on 07 October as unlawful and contrary to the teachings of Islam.’

They continue how the violations of international law by Hamas forces do not justify violations by Israeli forces.

“We are horrified by the grossly disproportionate bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces which has killed more than 20,000 people, about 70% of whom are said to be women and children,” the lawyers continue. 

…

https://leftfootforward.org/2024/01/global-muslim-lawyer-group-condemns-war-crimes-in-gaza-and-calls-on-governments-to-stop-the-sale-of-weapons-to-warring-parties/

Continue ReadingGlobal Muslim lawyer group condemns war crimes in Gaza and calls on governments to stop the sale of weapons to warring parties

UN Relief Chief Says All-Out War Is ‘Looming Dangerously Close’

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

A picture taken from Rafah on January 6, 2024 shows smoke billowing over Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip during Israeli bombardment.  (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)

“This war should never have started. But it’s long past time for it to end,” said United Nations emergency relief coordinator Martin Griffiths.

The United Nations’ emergency relief coordinator warned Friday that the threat of a broader conflict in the Middle East is growing rapidly as Israel’s assault continues in Gaza, which the U.N. official said has been rendered “uninhabitable” by near-constant airstrikes and a suffocating blockade.

“The specter of further regional spillover of the war is looming dangerously close,” Martin Griffiths, the U.N.’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said in a statement, pointing to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, mounting Israeli attacks in the West Bank, and rocket attacks on Israel. “Hope has never been more elusive.”

Griffiths, a longtime diplomat who has described the situation in Gaza as the worst humanitarian crisis he’s ever witnessed, issued his unsparing statement at the tail end of a week that saw Israel and the United States launch deadly strikes in Lebanon and Iraq, killing a senior Hamas official and the leader of an Iran-aligned militia.

On Saturday, Hezbollah responded to Israel’s drone strike on an office building in the Lebanese capital of Beirut by firing rockets at a military base in northern Israel, heightening fears of an escalatory spiral.

While the Biden administration insists it wants to avert a regional war, it continues to provide Israel with lethal military aid and oppose international efforts to enact a permanent cease-fire that analysts say is necessary to stop the conflict from spreading. The U.S. is also reportedly drafting plans to bomb Yemen in response to Houthi attacks on vessels in the Red Sea.

The Houthis have said the attacks will stop once Israel ends its catastrophic assault on the Gaza Strip.

Griffiths said Friday that the situation in Gaza is shockingly dire, with displaced families “sleeping in the open as temperatures plummet” and the territory’s remaining medical facilities “under relentless attack.”

“The few hospitals that are partially functional are overwhelmed with trauma cases, critically short of all supplies, and inundated by desperate people seeking safety,” said Griffiths. “Infectious diseases are spreading in overcrowded shelters as sewers spill over. Some 180 Palestinian women are giving birth daily amidst this chaos. People are facing the highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded. Famine is around the corner.”

“For children in particular,” Griffiths added, “the past 12 weeks have been traumatic: No food. No water. No school. Nothing but the terrifying sounds of war, day in and day out.”

Much of Gaza has been decimated by Israeli bombs, many of which were supplied by the United States. The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said Friday that around 68,000 housing units in Gaza have been completely destroyed by Israeli airstrikes.

Roughly 4% of Gaza’s population—more than 90,000 people—has been killed, wounded, or left missing by Israeli attacks since October 7, the group estimated.

“It is time for the parties to meet all their obligations under international law, including to protect civilians and meet their essential needs, and to release all hostages immediately,” Griffiths said. “It is time for the international community to use all its influence to make this happen. This war should never have started. But it’s long past time for it to end.”

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

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Continue ReadingUN Relief Chief Says All-Out War Is ‘Looming Dangerously Close’