Protesters march with a banner that reads “Popular Front”, during a demonstration in Marseille, southern France, June 15, 2024
HUNDREDS of thousands of people marched against the far right in Paris and other French cities at the weekend.
Trade unionists and supporters of the quickly assembled Popular Front — an alliance of left forces announced on Friday to contest snap elections called by President Emmanuel Macron — chanted “Liberty for all, equality for all, fraternity for all” in a variant of France’s famous revolutionary motto.
Police estimated 250,000 marchers through a rain-swept Paris on Saturday and deployed more than 20,000 officers to watch them. Thousands marched in dozens of other locations, with placards denouncing not just Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally — which leads in polls for the first round of parliamentary elections — but Mr Macron’s anti-refugee legislation. Cries of “Free Palestine” echoed through the streets.
The Popular Front brings together the revolutionary left in Jean-Luc Melenchon’s France Unbowed and the French Communist Party with the Greens and the Socialist Party. Its founding statement calls for “rupture” with the status quo in the first 100 days of government and declares that “the arrival of the National Rally in power is no longer inevitable.”
Palestinian child, injured in the Israeli attack on Abu Aisha family house is taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on June 14, 2024. (Photo by Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)
A joint statement calls on “all States to ensure full co-operation with the Court for it to carry out its important mandate of ensuring equal justice for all victims of genocide, war crimes, [and] crimes against humanity.”
Ninety-three nations on Friday, all them state parties to the Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court, reiterated their support for the ICC as it assesses an application for arrest warrants of high level Israeli government officials accused of perpetrating war crimes in Gaza.
The 93 countries—including Canada, Bangladesh, Belgium, Ireland, Afghanistan, Costa Rica, Chile, Germany, France, Mongolia, Mexico, New Zealand, and scores of other—cited separate ICC statements defending its mandate for independence and upheld in their joint statement “that the Court, its officials and staff shall carry out their professional duties as international civil servants without intimidation.”
Though neither nation is named in the joint statement, both the United States and Israel have publicly condemned ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan for his May 20 arrest warrant applications for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” in the Gaza Strip.
Khan also submitted arrest warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, and Ismail Haniyeh for their alleged roles in the October 7 attack on southern Israel. Following Khan’s announcement in May, U.S. President Joe Biden said, “Whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence—none—between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”
In April it was reported that the U.S. government was working behind the scenes to block the ICC from issuing any arrest warrants targeting Israel officials. Neither Israel nor the U.S. is party to the Rome Statute, though the United Nations has recognized the ICC’s jurisdiction over the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), where the alleged war crimes by the occupying power, Israel, took place.
After Khan made his application for warrants, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said, “We’ve been really clear about the ICC investigation. We do not support it.” On June 4, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, along with 42 Democrats, passed a measure that would sanction ICC officials if the arrest warrants for any Israeli officials were approved or carried out.
Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, was among those who applauded Friday’s public statement.
Rajagapol thanked the signatory nations “for defending the ICC and standing up against the bullies, including the relics from the U.S. Senate whose idea of engaging with the world is to use threats,” a possible reference to Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) who denounced Khan’s applications as “outrageous,” applauded the House approval of sanctions, and vowed further punishment for the ICC.
Such punitive measures and high-profile threats directed at the ICC appeared to be the exact kind of intimidation Friday’s joint pledge of support is responding to.
93 governments sign this statement of support for the International Criminal Court after others criticized the prosecutor's request for arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials and it emerges that the Israeli government had threatened the prosecutor to avoid investigation. pic.twitter.com/4BwBUsOOzR
“The ICC, as the world’s first and only permanent international criminal court, is an essential component of the international peace and security architecture,” the statement reads. “We therefore call on all States to ensure full co-operation with the Court for it to carry out its important mandate of ensuring equal justice for all victims of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression, grave crimes that threaten the peace, security and well-being of the world.”
With their show of unified support for the ICC and its mandate, the countries said they aim to “contribute to ending impunity for such crimes and preventing their recurrence while defending the progress we have made together to guarantee lasting respect for international humanitarian law, human rights, the of law and the enforcement of international criminal justice.”
The NHS overtook the economy as voters’ biggest concern in February, according to polling by Ipsos. Small wonder when waiting lists have hit 7.5 million: there can hardly be a person in the country who doesn’t have a friend or relative who has been affected.
And the Conservatives bear a heavy responsibility.
In the decade up to the pandemic, real-terms healthcare spending per head rose on average by just 0.4 per cent a year — in four years it actually fell, despite rising pressures on the service.
That compares very poorly to the record of the last Labour government, which raised spending by 5.7 per cent a year on average from 1997-2010. It even compares badly to that of the Thatcher and Major Conservative governments, which averaged a 2.1 per cent annual increase.
But we should be more cautious than Poulter about endorsing Keir Starmer’s solution.
Starmer and shadow health secretary Wes Streeting have pointedly refused to offer the increases in NHS budgets that the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown governments delivered. Streeting is emphatic that he will not “pour money into a 20th-century model,” instead demanding reforms which, in increasing reliance on the private sector, both mimic existing Conservative policy and are unlikely to make a difference to waiting lists (because private healthcare in Britain recruits from the NHS, so overall capacity will not grow).
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Britain’s public services are collapsing under the strain of decades of neoliberal policy. In the NHS, hospitals have been undermined through outsourcing services to the private sector as well as by the cost of PFI debt — both issues with their origins in the Blair years.
To restore our NHS to health, we need a reversal of privatisation and outsourcing and a forced end to all PFI contracts, as well as a significant increase in overall funding to bring us closer to healthcare spending levels in France or Germany.
A crowd of starving Palestinians, including children, waits to receive food distributed by charity organizations amid Israel’s blockade at the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza on March 27, 2024. (Photo by Mahmoud Issa/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“The Israeli government’s use of starvation as a weapon of war has proven deadly for children in Gaza.”
The Israeli government is starving children to death in the Gaza Strip with its deliberate and systematic obstruction of food aid, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Tuesday, citing firsthand accounts from doctors and families in the besieged enclave.
At least 32 people, including 28 children, have died of malnutrition and dehydration so far in northern Gaza, which is facing famine conditions due to Israel’s illegal blockade.
HRW’s new report builds on its December assessment that Israel was “using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare” in Gaza, with disastrous consequences for the territory’s civilian population.
“The Israeli government’s use of starvation as a weapon of war has proven deadly for children in Gaza,” said Omar Shakir, HRW’s Israel and Palestine director. “Israel needs to end this war crime, stop this suffering, and allow humanitarian aid to reach all of Gaza unhindered.”
For its new report, HRW interviewed doctors who have treated malnourished patients and family members of children who have starved to death in recent weeks. The group also reviewed photographs and video footage showing emaciated children who have died of malnutrition.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the head of the pediatrics unit of a northern Gaza hospital targeted by Israeli forces, said that 26 children in his facility alone have died from starvation-related health complications. Safiya told HRW that at least 16 of the children were under five months old, and one of them was just two days old.
The mother, he said, “had no milk to give him.”
“Israel’s allies like the U.S., U.K., France, and Germany need to press for full-throttle aid delivery by immediately suspending their arms transfers.”
Already badly hindered by Israel’s siege, aid deliveries to Gaza have been further disrupted by Israeli attacks on humanitarian workers and convoys. Israeli forces’ killing of seven World Central Kitchen workers last week led several aid groups to suspend their operations in Gaza.
While Israel agreed in the wake of the deadly attack—and in the face of massive international pressure—to reopen a key border crossing in northern Gaza, aid groups say far more is needed to prevent mass starvation.
“Governments outraged by the Israeli government starving civilians in Gaza should not be looking for band-aid solutions to this humanitarian crisis,” Shakir said Tuesday. “Israel’s announcement that it will increase aid shows that outside pressure works. Israel’s allies like the U.S., U.K., France, and Germany need to press for full-throttle aid delivery by immediately suspending their arms transfers.”
Israel’s six-month war on Gaza has been catastrophic for the territory’s children. According to one recent analysis, over 2% of Gaza’s child population—nearly 26,000 kids—has been killed or wounded during the assault, with at least 1,000 children losing one or both of their legs.
The war has also taken a devastating psychological toll on Gaza’s kids, many of whom have been displaced repeatedly and seen family members maimed or killed by Israeli bombs.
“The emotional distress of dodging bombs and bullets, losing loved ones, being forced to flee through streets littered with debris and corpses, and waking up every morning not knowing if they will be able to eat has also left parents and caregivers increasingly unable to cope,” Save the Children said last month.
Speaking to HRW, the father of newborn twin girls said that one of his babies died of malnutrition at northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital eight days after she was born.
“He said that he struggled to feed his family prior to the girls’ birth, but that they only had bread to eat, without meat or protein,” the human rights organization noted in its new report. “He said that after the twins’ birth, his wife could not produce milk to breastfeed the girls and that store-bought milk was scarce.”
One mother of a 6-year-old boy with cystic fibrosis told HRW that “because of the Israeli blockade, she struggled to obtain the necessary medication and provide adequate nourishment.”
“By mid-January, Fadi’s health had deteriorated to the point where he could no longer walk, prompting his hospitalization,” HRW said. Late last month, the boy was evacuated from Kamal Adwan Hospital to receive treatment at a facility in Cairo.
Lama Fakih, HRW’s Middle East and North Africa director, said Tuesday that Israeli officials upholding the blockade that is starving children in Gaza “are committing war crimes.”
“Governments should impose targeted sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against responsible officials,” said Fakih.
But the U.S., Israel’s top ally and arms supplier, is refusing to take concrete action even as damning evidence of Israeli war crimes mounts.
Asked during a Monday press briefing “how many Palestinian citizens should be killed, whether by fire or starvation, so you can seriously intervene,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that “we do not want to see a single Palestinian killed.”
“And that is why we have made clear that Israel needs to do more to improve its deconfliction and coordination measures,” Miller said, brushing off the idea of imposing strict conditions on U.S. military aid. The Biden administration is currently pressing Congress to sign off on an $18 billion sale of F-15 fighter jets to Israel.
Earlier in Monday’s briefing, Miller said the U.S. has “not yet at this time concluded that Israel has violated international humanitarian law.”
Demonstrators demanding a Gaza cease-fire protest outside Penn Station in New York City on December 18, 2023. (Photo: caren/X)
“We must stand up and not be silent to this injustice,” said one rabbi taking part in the demonstration.
A coordinated wave of demonstrations against what activists called Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza targeted New York City transit hubs Monday afternoon, with protesters demanding an immediate cease-fire as heavy Israeli bombardment of the besieged strip pushed the death toll from 73 days of attacks to nearly 20,000.
Protesters marched from Grand Central Station to the Port Authority Bus Terminal and then on to Penn Station, where at least hundreds of activists gave police the slip and occupied Moynihan Hall. Many participants prayed for peace before leaving the station.
“We must stand up and not be silent to this injustice,” Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss toldamNewYork Metro outside Grand Central Station. “We hurt and cry with the people who are dying and suffering under the stranglehold of the Zionist occupation. We want the world to know that we hurt because we are Jews, we will not be silent because we are Jews.”
#BREAKING Pro-Palestinian Protesters rushed the entrance of Penn Station as cops ran closely behind them, they are now occupying Moynihan Hall inside.
Independent photojournalist Katie Smith followed the entire demonstration—which was coordinated by the group Within Our Lifetime—documenting incidents including police “violently engaging with protesters” and a confrontation between the actor Alec Baldwin and activists.
According to Smith, activists later marched to a building in Greenwich Village where a fundraiser for the Israel Defense Forces was reportedly being held.
Monday’s actions followed recent protests in New York, including a Manhattan march led by artists remembering the life and work of Refaat Alareer—a Gaza poet and professor killed last week in an Israeli airstrike—and calling on Israel to free political prisoners including the members of Freedom Theater recently arrested in Jenin in the illegally occupied West Bank.
In recent days, large protests for Gaza have also taken place in U.S. cities including Houston, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., as well as in cities in countries including the U.K., Canada, France, Belgium, Norway, and Germany.
In California, workers at Google and allies held a Thursday die-in at the tech giant’s San Francisco office “to demand the company stop powering Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza” through the $1.2 billion Project Nimbus cloud computing contract.
More protests are planned for this week, including a nationwide action by Mennonites on Tuesday and a rally by over 80 groups on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. that same day.
Sponsored by the Action Center on Race and Economy, Adalah Justice Project, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, and the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, Tuesday’s D.C. event is being held to “demand a permanent cease-fire in Gaza and oppose the Biden administration’s proposed military aid package sending billions of taxpayer dollars to Israel, U.S. southern border militarization, and immigration enforcement.”
