Gaza

Solidarity Marches Held Across Globe to Demand Cease-Fire in Gaza

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

Pro-Palestinian activists from the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign participate in the National March for Palestine on May 18, 2024, in Dublin, Ireland. 
(Photo: Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Organizers held rallies in the U.S., Europe, and Asia to mark Nakba Day and condemn Israel’s bombing and starvation of Palestinian civilians.

As one United Nations official on Saturday said that “brand new words” are needed to adequately describe the devastation Israel has wrought across Gaza in its U.S.-backed military assault, tens of thousands of people across the globe marched in solidarity with Palestinians to demand an end to the “ongoing Nakba.”

The marches were held to honor Nakba Day, which was marked on May 15—the 76th anniversary of the mass displacement of 700,000 Palestinians who were forced from their homes when Israel declared statehood in 1948. The protesters demanded a cease-fire in Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed at least 35,456 people since October, the majority of them women and children.

Protesters in London carried signs reading, “Solidarity is a verb,” and “The Nakba never ended” as they marched through Whitehall, close to the home and office of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza, who covered the first months of Israel’s bombardment and evacuated Gaza in January, joined the marchers and told the crowd that mass protests around the world have given Palestinians hope.

“I didn’t believe that I would stay alive to stand here in London today in front of the people, who saw me there under the bombing,” said Azaiza. “Occupation is using all the weapons against us, the bombs, the killing, the starvation, the apartheid in the West Bank, and now killing the people and forcing them to leave their lands… I did my best to show you, and I believe you will do more, we all together will do more to stop this genocide.”

In Dublin, Ireland, where politicians have harshly criticized Israel and its supporters for the assault on Gaza and the near-total blockade on humanitarian aid that has pushed parts of the enclave into famine, more than 100 civil society groups supported a march organized by the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Irish Palestinian Zak Hania, a researcher and translator who was trapped in Gaza until earlier this month when he was finally granted permission by Egyptian and Israeli authorities to leave, thanked the crowd for choosing “to stand with justice and to stand with an oppressed people.”

“I am proud to be an Irish Palestinian,” said Hania. “I am proud to see all of you. It is part of my healing… We inherited a dream from our parents. We are trying for all our lives to fulfill our dreams and our parents’ dreams. My parents are dead, but I will work to fulfill their dreams. Their dream is to have a free Palestine.”

Other protests included a rally outside the German embassy in Bangkok, a march of about 400 people in Washington, D.C., and a demonstration in Brooklyn where police violently arrested at least 34 people, according to The New York Times.

Nerdeen Kiswani, founder of pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime, told the Times she witnessed “police indiscriminately grabbing people off the street and the sidewalk. They were grabbing people at random.”

Independent journalists posted videos on social media of police officers punching and kicking protesters.

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The latest show of global outrage toward the Israeli government and the Western leaders who have supported its assault on Gaza came as U.N. humanitarian aid officer Yasmina Guerda told U.N. News about her latest deployment to Rafah, where 900,000 people have now been forced to flee following Israel’s incursion in the city.

“We would need to invent brand new words to adequately describe the situation that Palestinians in Gaza find themselves in today,” said Guerda. “No matter where you look, no matter where you go, there’s destruction, there’s devastation, there’s loss. There’s a lack of everything. There’s pain. There’s just incredible suffering. People are living on top of the rubble and the waste that used to be their lives. They’re hungry. Everything has become absolutely unaffordable. I heard the other day that some eggs were being sold for $3 each, which is unthinkable for someone who has no salary and has lost all access to their bank accounts.”

“Access to clean water is a daily battle,” she added. “Many people haven’t been able to change clothes in seven months because they just had to flee with whatever they were wearing. They were given 10 minutes notice and they had to run away. Many have been displaced six, seven, eight times, or more.“

The daily reality described by Guerda is continuing to unfold as the Israeli forces have prevented 3,000 aid trucks from entering Gaza in the past two weeks, according to the Government Media Office in the enclave. The closure of the Rafah and Karem Abu Salem crossings for the past 13 days, since Israel launched its new offensive in Rafah, has also prevented nearly 700 injured and sick people from leaving Gaza for treatment.

“This constitutes a clear danger in light of the collapse of the health system,” said the office.

On Sunday, U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths warned that the blockade on aid is leading to “apocalyptic” consequences, with the famine that has taken hold in parts of northern Gaza close to spreading across the enclave.

“If fuel runs out, aid doesn’t get to the people where they need it, that famine, which we have talked about for so long, and which is looming, will not be looming any more,” said Griffiths. “It will be present.”

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

Continue ReadingSolidarity Marches Held Across Globe to Demand Cease-Fire in Gaza

As US Aid Shipments Begin, Gaza Pier Denounced as ‘PR Move’

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

U.S. and Israeli troops assemble the Trident Pier off the shore of the northern Gaza Strip on April 26, 2024. 
(Photo: U.S. Army Central Command)

“It’s completely absurd,” said one humanitarian worker. “The solution to the problem here is obvious.”

As humanitarian shipments began trickling into Gaza via a U.S.-built temporary floating pier, Palestinians and aid workers on Friday renewed criticism of what they called an expensive and largely ineffectual publicity stunt that is no substitute for a cease-fire and opening of more land crossings into the besieged coastal enclave.

U.S. Army Central Command said that “trucks carrying humanitarian assistance began moving ashore” at around 9:00 am local time Friday as part of “an ongoing, multinational effort to deliver additional aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza via a maritime corridor.”

The $320 million Trident Pier—which consists of a floating offshore barge and 1,800-foot causeway to the shore—is expected to eventually accommodate up to 150 trucks per day. According to United Nations agencies, an average of 200 trucks entered Gaza each day last month, far fewer than the prewar daily mean of more than 500 truckloads that U.S. and U.N. officials say are required to meet the needs of a population facing critical shortages of food, water, medicine, and other lifesaving supplies.

“We don’t want ships. We want the border crossing to open for people to come and go. We want safety.”

However, as famine grips northern Gaza—with malnutrition and dehydration killing dozens of people, mostly children—and at least hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians starve, Israel has been accused of blocking aid from those who desperately need it and using starvation as a weapon of war.

“We don’t want ships. We want the border crossing to open for people to come and go. We want safety. We want official borders,” Hassan Abu Al-Kass, a forcibly displaced Palestinian man, toldThe New York Times on Thursday.

Al-Kass compared the pier to the humanitarian aid airdropped by U.S. and other troops over Gaza, whose officials say that more than 20 people have been killed by the parachuting parcels, either by crushing or drowning while trying to reach offshore drops.

“Those planes, as well, that they bring here with the parachutes, and they throw food at us like dogs, like beggars, that does not work,” he said. “It falls on houses. It falls on people. It brings us problems.”

One unnamed humanitarian aid worker told U.S. investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill: “It’s completely absurd. The solution to the problem here is obvious and we need to end the occupation… Once the siege is lifted, humanitarian aid can roll in. A pier is a PR move.”

Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, said Thursday that “to stave off the horrors of famine, we must use the fastest and most obvious route to reach the people of Gaza—and for that, we need access by land now.”

Washington Post columnist Ishaan Tharoor noted on social media Thursday that “no major humanitarian organization has asked for this pier, and most see it as a costly distraction that will do little to make a dent in meeting Gaza’s overwhelming humanitarian needs.”

“For that,” he added, “you need a cease-fire and open border crossings and less military obstruction.”

According to a report published last month, officials at the United States Agency for International Development concluded in a confidential memo to Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Israel is violating a White House directive by blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. Critics pointed to the leaked memo as more evidence that the Biden administration is breaking the law by supporting Israel’s assault on Gaza—which Palestinian and international officials say has killed, wounded, or left missing more than 125,000 people—with arms and diplomatic cover.

Parties to the South African-led genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, as well as human rights groups, accuse Israel of flouting the ICJ’s January 26 preliminary ruling ordering the Israeli government to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza and ensure immediate delivery of humanitarian aid. Israel rejects charges of genocide and blocking aid.

Hundreds of U.N. and other aid workers—overwhelmingly Palestinians—have also been killed or wounded by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 7. Israeli troops have been accused of deliberately attacking both humanitarian workers and Palestinians trying to receive aid, including in the February 29 “Flour Massacre,” in which nearly 900 starving Gazans were killed or wounded while waiting for food distribution south of Gaza City.

Critics have slammed U.S. President Joe Biden for offering token aid to Gazans with one hand while lavishing Israel with billions of dollars of weaponry used to kill Palestinians with the other.

Earlier this month, Biden said he would stop sending bombs, artillery shells, and other arms to Israel in the event of a major invasion of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians forcibly displaced from other parts of the embattled Gaza Strip are sheltering alongside around 280,000 local residents.

However, as Israeli air and ground attacks pound the southern city, killing civilians including 22 members of one family in a single strike, Biden—who previously implored Israel to stop its “indiscriminate bombing” of Palestinian noncombatants—informed Congress this week that his administration will soon send another $1 billion in arms and ammunition, including tank and mortar rounds, to the Israel Defense Forces.

This, despite the Biden administration last week acknowledging “reasonable” evidence that Israel is using U.S.-supplied weapons in the commission of war crimes in Gaza, with the caveat that “we are not able to reach definitive conclusions” on the matter.

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

Continue ReadingAs US Aid Shipments Begin, Gaza Pier Denounced as ‘PR Move’

Israel’s Assault on Gaza Proves the Nakba Never Ended

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Original article by AMY GOODMAN DENIS MOYNIHAN republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Palestinian children are pictured near makeshift tents in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on March 7, 2024. 
(Photo: Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

What followed the initial displacement and killing of Palestinians in 1948 has been one of the most violent, costly, and protracted conflicts in the modern era.

Palestinians and allies marked the 76th anniversary of the Nakba, May 15—the day after the state of Israel was formally declared. “Nakba” is Arabic for “catastrophe,” and is used to describe the murder, dispossession, and forced displacement Palestinians suffered in the years up to and including 1948. As many as 900,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes. Thousands were killed, massacred by Israeli militias like the Irgun and the Stern Gang or while fleeing on foot with no food or water, and some while engaged in armed resistance. What has followed since 1948 has been one of the most violent, costly, and protracted conflicts in the modern era.

Israel’s assault on Gaza has been termed a genocide by an increasing number of United Nations member states and international legal experts. Egypt joined South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where an emergency hearing was called this week, following Israel’s ground invasion of Rafah. In Gaza, the official death toll is now over 35,000 Palestinians. Israel’s siege is also responsible for widening famine in Gaza.

“What we are seeing now, what unfolds in front of our eyes, is a genocidal situation, by which people are targeted, whether they are children, babies, in hospital, or in schools. This is a massive operation of killing, of ethnic cleansing, of depopulation,” renowned Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, who as an Israeli soldier fought in the 1973 war, said on the Democracy Now! news hour. “The Nakba has never really ended for the Palestinians, so it’s a new horrific chapter in the ongoing Nakba that the Palestinians are suffering.”

Ironically, Israeli nationalists, many who deny that the Nakba occurred at all, are now calling for a second one.

Professor Pappé was just detained when he flew into Detroit, and described on Facebook two hours of FBI questioning before being released. He said they asked, “Am I a Hamas supporter? Do I regard the Israeli actions in Gaza a genocide? What is the solution to the ‘conflict’ (seriously, this is what they asked!) Who are my Arab and Muslim friends in America?”

This week, on Nakba Day, Professor Abdel Razzaq Takriti, a Palestinian historian and endowed Arab studies chair at Rice University, said on Democracy Now!:

“The Nakba is continuing. We have to understand that this is a colonial continuum. This is a structural process. It is not an event. And what we’re seeing now in Gaza is very much connected to what happened in 1948.”

Professor Takriti assigned historical blame on the United Nations, the United States, and Britain:

“You had a very aggressive settler-colonial movement develop in Palestine under British rule. It was armed under British rule. It was trained under British rule.”

Professor Takriti continued, “The Israeli project is very much intertwined with American foreign policy toward the Palestinian people. They don’t see us as human beings. They want to destroy us. But they know that they have to present it in self-defense terms so that it’s palatable to the broader public… this is just a racist, criminal project that is leading and causing immense pain and suffering.”

South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice is seeking to do just that. On Thursday, human rights attorney Adila Hassim spoke at the ICJ emergency hearing, her voice betraying emotion as she recited grim statistics:

Children have suffered particularly severely. More than 14,000 have been killed. Thousands more have been injured or lost family members, while an estimated 17,000 children are unaccompanied or separated. Make no mistake. These conditions are a direct result of Israel’s military onslaught on the besieged enclave with full knowledge of the destructive consequences of this humanitarian crisis. In these circumstances, the thwarting of humanitarian aid cannot be seen as anything but the deliberate snuffing out of Palestinian lives, starvation to the point of famine, obstructing aid in the face of famine, and killing of at least 200 aid workers.

Hassim concluded, “Israel must be stopped.”

Ironically, Israeli nationalists, many who deny that the Nakba occurred at all, are now calling for a second one. “Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 48,” wrote Knesset member Ariel Kellner. On Tuesday, at an Israeli Independence Day march, far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir addressed thousands, saying, “First, we must return to Gaza now! We are coming home to the Holy Land! And second, we must encourage emigration. Encourage the voluntary emigration of the residents of Gaza!”

Israel’s mass slaughter in Gaza must end immediately. Ultimately, the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and U.S. support for the occupation, also must end. It’s not good for Israel or its national security. It’s devastating for Palestinians. It’s illegal and immoral.

Original article by AMY GOODMAN DENIS MOYNIHAN republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingIsrael’s Assault on Gaza Proves the Nakba Never Ended

Suella Braverman blanked by students at Gaza protest camp in excruciating video

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/suella-braverman-blanked-by-students-at-gaza-protest-camp-in-excruciating-video/

Suella Braverman has been ridiculed after an excruciating attempt to engage with students at a protest camp in support of Palestine outside the University of Cambridge. 

Visiting the camp on Thursday with GB News presenter Patrick Christys, the Tory MP was met with a wall of silence as she and the presenter attempted to talk with activists. 

The former Home Secretary tried a number of times to ask questions, but was met on all occasions with no response during the humiliating two and half minute encounter.

She introduced herself with, “Hi, I’m Suella I’m keen to find out your views and what you’re protesting about.” But protesters didn’t give them the response they were after, instead they just stood and stared back. 

Braverman persisted asking questions such as, “I’m interested in why you’re covering your faces. Is it a Covid or a health measure?” and “I’m really keen to hear what your message is to Israel.”

…

https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/suella-braverman-blanked-by-students-at-gaza-protest-camp-in-excruciating-video/

Continue ReadingSuella Braverman blanked by students at Gaza protest camp in excruciating video

‘Enough Is Enough’: South Africa Urges ICJ to Halt Israeli Assault on Rafah

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

South African legal adviser Cornelius Scholtz (L) and South African Ambassador to the Netherlands Vusi Madonsela attend a hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Israel’s incursion in Rafah, Gaza, in The Hague on May 16, 2024. (Photo: Lina Selg/ANP/AFP via Getty Images)

Israel’s assault on Rafah provides “evidence of the crime of genocide,” one legal expert said. “This attack is the final blow that is intended to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza.”

South African officials on Thursday made their case before the International Court of Justice to stop Israel’s brutal invasion of Rafah, warning once again that Israeli officials have displayed clear “genocidal intent” and “genocidal conduct” in their military campaign in Gaza.

The case for the ICJ to stop the attack on Rafah was made by a number of lawyers, legal experts, and ambassadors, with the South African representatives outlining the bare facts of Israel’s military campaign, blocking of humanitarian aid, and statements of intent, just as they did when the court heard South Africa’s original claim that Israel is committing genocide.

That case, argued in January, resulted in a preliminary ruling in which the court said South Africa had made a “plausible” case and ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

On Thursday, South Africa urged the ICJ to see that Israel has not followed that order.

“It is difficult to imagine that the situation could get worse” than it was in January, international law professor John Dugard told the court. “But unfortunately, it has… Israel has now commenced its long-threatened assault on Rafah. It has ordered the evacuation of Palestinians in Rafah to the barren sand dunes of Al-Mawasi. It has closed critical border crossings to humanitarian aid, medical supplies, goods, and fuel, upon which the population depends.”

“Israel’s actions are in violation of fundamental international humanitarian law, but in addition, they provide evidence of the crime of genocide,” Dugard continued. “This attack is the final blow that is intended to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza.”

Watch the livestream of the ICJ hearing below:

The South Africans made their case as the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said Thursday that an estimated 600,000 people have now been forcibly displaced from Rafah by Israel.

Despite tepid warnings from the U.S.—the biggest international funder of the IDF—for Israel to avoid attacking “population centers,” the IDF this week has moved into dense residential neighborhoods in central Rafah.

The U.S. has also called for Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, but the IDF’s seizure of the Rafah crossing between the enclave and Egypt last week led the World Food Program (WFP) on Thursday to warn that food and fuel rations “will run out in a matter of days.” Dozens of Palestinians have been starved to death so far by Israel’s blocking of relief shipments.

“The threat of famine in Gaza never loomed larger,” said the WFP as South Africa made its case in The Hague.

Three months after giving a 22-minute speech detailing the numerous statements of genocidal intent made by top Israeli officials since the Gaza assault began in October, South African lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi during Thursday’s hearing, used the more recent words of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who publicly described the aim of the Rafah invasion as “total annihilation.”

In his presentation before the court, Ngcukaitobi invoked Smotrich’s language by arguing that the Rafah incursion “is the last stage of ‘total annihilation’ of Palestinian life.”

“For Palestinians to be able to continue to exist as a protected group under the Genocide Convention, they need a place from which to rebuild,” he continued. “Rafah is that place, the last stand… Without Rafah, the possibility to rebuild will be lost forever.”

In her speech, Irish lawyer Blinne Ni Ghralaigh outlined other developments in Gaza since the ICJ issued its preliminary ruling that illustrate the need for the court’s “invaluable intervention.”

Ni Ghralaigh detailed the destruction of hospitals like Al-Shifa, where mass graves have been found with the remains of women, children, and medical workers, and warned that “the same fate now awaits Rafah’s remaining hospitals, doctors, and medics.”

She also pointed to evidence that the IDF is treating evacuated areas as “extermination zones,” where soldiers are ordered to kill any remaining people, and its use of an error-prone AI system to target Palestinians.

The South African legal team said the court must order Israel “to immediately take all effective measures to ensure the access of persons able to investigate ongoing atrocities,” and called on the ICJ to “at least modify its provisional measures” from March, when it demanded that Israel allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

“The court has the power to modify or make an explicit order for Israel to cease its military operations in Rafah, Gaza, and to withdraw from the Gaza Strip,” said Ni Ghralaigh, pointing out that the provisional measure from March could only take full effect if a cease-fire agreement was reached.

“No such resolution is in place. The court must itself, therefore, create the circumstances necessary for its provisional measures to take full effect. It must order Israel to cease its military operations system finally,” she said. “Enough is enough.”

Israel is expected to address the ICJ at a second day of hearings on Friday.

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

Continue Reading‘Enough Is Enough’: South Africa Urges ICJ to Halt Israeli Assault on Rafah