Owen Jones: Architects of Israel’s genocide will stand trial for what they’ve done
‘A new kind of political party’
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/new-kind-political-party
Former Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn M.P. (left) and Zarah Sultana, MP for Coventry South on the picket line outside London Euston train station, August 18, 2022Corbyn and Sultana commit to launching new socialist party
JEREMY CORBYN and Zarah Sultana have reaffirmed their intention to launch a new political party of the socialist left to challenge a system rigged against working people.
The two former Labour MPs issued a joint statement today committing to the new party after three weeks of sometimes tense and challenging discussions since Ms Sultana quit the Labour Party.
They pledged the creation of “a new kind of political party — one that belongs to you” and looked ahead to a founding conference at which members would “decide the party’s direction, the model of leadership and the policies that are needed to transform society.”
The founding process will also determine the name of the new party. It is understood that the process will be overseen by a working group to be established by the Independent Alliance of MPs, of which Corbyn and Sultana are both members.
Polling shows that the party will pose a serious threat to Labour, with one survey putting the two neck-and-neck on 15 per cent.
In alliance with the Greens, currently in the midst of their own leadership contest, it could overhaul Labour as the main electoral expression of the left in British politics.
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“The system is rigged when the government says there is no money for the poor, but billions for war. We cannot accept these injustices, and neither should you.”
The statement continued: “We will only fix the crises in our society with a mass redistribution of wealth and power. That means taxing the very richest in our society.
“That means an NHS free from privatisation and bringing energy, water, rail and mail into public ownership,” it added, and “investing in a massive council-house building programme” — recalling some of the most popular policies of Labour under Corbyn.
The Corbyn-Sultana statement also takes aim at “the government’s complicity in crimes against humanity. Now, more than ever, we must defend the right to protest against genocide.
“That is why we will keep demanding an end to all arms sales to Israel and for the only path to peace — a free and independent Palestine.
“The great dividers want you to think that the problems in our society are caused by migrants or refugees. They’re not. They are caused by an economic system that protects the interests of corporations and billionaires.
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See the original article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/new-kind-political-party
Owen Jones: British ministers are betting they won’t face justice for complicity over Gaza. It’s a big risk to take
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The government’s official position of genocide denial contradicts the consensus of actual genocide scholars who dedicate their lives to the field. That includes Israeli academics such as Omer Bartov, a pre-eminent professor of Holocaust and genocide studies, who said that as a former IDF officer he agonised over reaching his conclusion: “But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognise one when I see one.”
Those who have facilitated or justified this abomination have no excuses, no place to hide. More than a year ago, South Africa’s legal team composed a dossier detailing statements of genocidal and criminal intent issued by Israeli leaders and officials: it was 121 – pages long, and is now completely out of date. There is more video footage of civilians being slaughtered and civilian infrastructure being destroyed than any other war crime as it was happening in history.
Yet not only does Britain supply Israel with those crucial F-35 components, its government refuses to describe a single Israeli act as a “war crime”, because it knows that then imposes sweeping legal obligations. Britain continues its annual trade with Israel, which last year was worth £5.8bn. Days after its tokenistic gesture of suspending trade treaty talks, Britain’s embassy in Israel celebrated the arrival of the UK trade envoy. When Britain imposed sanctions on two far-right Israeli ministers, it did so on the grounds of their “horrendous extremist language”, rather than actions, because the latter implicates the British government. They refuse to impose meaningful sanctions on Israel itself.
By proscribing Palestine Action, the government has assured that it is opponents of genocide who face being hauled before the dock in the here and now. Our foreign secretary no doubt believes that the impunity traditionally enjoyed by western leaders and Israel itself will protect him and his colleagues for ever. That assumes the winds will never change. There is no statute of limitation for complicity in genocide. Israel’s crime is not yet complete. Lammy must believe that his freedom is safe for ever: that there will be no knock on his door in five, 10, 20 years. That is quite the bet.
Being bombed, starved to death, or killed while seeking food: Israel’s options for Palestinians in Gaza
Original article by Aseel Saleh republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
The death toll of Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza since October 7, 2023, exceeded 59,100, including over 100 starved to death, and more than 1000 assassinated at aid distribution centers.
Almost 22 months into its genocidal aggression on the Gaza Strip, Israel has carried out all types of massacres on the population of the besieged enclave, including deadly airstrikes, starvation, and the targeted killing of aid seekers.
Every civilian space in Gaza is a target for Israeli warplanes, even kindergartens
Since October 7, 2023, non-stop deadly airstrikes have been carried out by Israel across war-torn Gaza, targeting densely populated residential areas, places of worship, areas already designated as “safe zones“, hospitals, schools sheltering displaced people, and, most recently, a kindergarten.
On Monday, July 21, Israeli fighter jets struck a kindergarten in Gaza city. Several people were reported injured in the horrific assault. Footage circulated via several media outlets, showing terrorized children being evacuated from the building.
Multiple other Israeli airstrikes were launched that same day on other civilian sites in Gaza city. The central areas of Deir Al-Balah, Nuseirat Refugee camp, and Wadi Gaza were also subjected to aerial raids.
The southern city of Khan Younis, and the northern city of Jabalia were also among the areas hit by Israeli warplanes and drones. The series of strikes carried out on Monday resulted in the death of dozens of Palestinian people.
Scores of other people were also killed in a new wave of Israeli strikes across Gaza on Tuesday, July 22.
IOF continues to shoot and abduct civilians in Gaza
A number of Palestinians were killed on Monday by Israeli gunfire in two separate offensives in Gaza. The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) shot dead a Palestinian woman in her home in Deir al-Balah.
Meanwhile, a number of civilians were shot dead by Israeli special forces during a raid near the Red Cross Hospital in the southern city of Rafah.
Journalist Tamer Al-Zaanin was killed, while his fellow colleague Ibrahim Abu Ashiba sustained injuries in the lethal attack that resulted in the abduction of senior Palestinian health official Dr. Marwan Al-Hams.
Dr. Al-Hams is the director of field hospitals in the Gaza Strip, and the head of Abu Yousef Al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza denounced the abduction of Al-Hams as “a grave violation” of international humanitarian law.
For its part, Gaza’s Government Media Office described the operation as “a full-fledged war crime”.
Israel has used starvation as a weapon of genocide
The last few days saw a drastic increase in the number of people who died in Gaza due to malnutrition and starvation, which resulted from Israel’s aid blockade.
At least 101 people have been starved to death, including 80 children, throughout nearly 22 months of Israel’s brutal war. Most of these fatalities were reported in recent weeks, according to Palestinian health officials.
The humanitarian disaster sharply escalated in early March 2025, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a total blockade on the entry of humanitarian aid into the besieged strip. However, Israel has used starvation as a weapon against civilians from the beginning of the genocide.
In a report published on May 28, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that Israel has “deliberately engineered and implemented a systematic starvation policy” since it started its genocidal aggression on the Gaza strip on October 7, 2023.
The Geneva-based human rights organization accused Israel of “using hunger as a weapon of genocide against civilians”, and designing starvation tactics to “collectively degrade and completely subjugate” the Palestinian people in Gaza.
As a result of mounting international pressure against the expansion of the military operation and the aid blockade on Gaza, Netanyahu decided to allow a limited quantity of food into the enclave in late May.
However, the distribution of that minimal aid was controlled by the infamous US-Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which has turned food distribution sites into death traps, where at least 1000 people have been massacred.
Local militias of mercenaries were also recruited by Israel, to loot UN aid under IOF protection and sell some on the illicit market. These militias are even accused of being complicit in massacring hundreds of starved people at GHF’s aid delivery points.
Widespread international condemnation of the catastrophic situation in Gaza
United Nations
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned the mass shootings and killings of aid seekers in Gaza as “an atrocious and inhumane act”.
Guterres deplored the growing reports about children and adults suffering from malnutrition, and “the accelerating breakdown of humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where the last lifelines keeping people alive are collapsing.”
28 countries call for an immediate end to Gaza war
A joint statement was signed on Monday by the foreign ministers of 28 nations, calling for an immediate end to the aggression on Gaza.
The signatory countries, which include Israeli allies, are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Cyprus, Greece, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.
“We, the signatories listed below, come together with a simple, urgent message: the war in Gaza must end now,” the statement reads.
“The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths. The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity. We condemn the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food. It is horrifying that over 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid,” the statement continues.
“The Israeli Government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable. Israel must comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law,” the ministers of the signatory countries warned.
Death toll of people killed in Gaza since October 2023 exceeds 59,100
Gaza’s Health Ministry announced on Tuesday that at least 59,106 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since it began its genocidal aggression on the besieged strip in October 2023.
The tally includes those starved to death, and aid seekers who were assassinated at food delivery centers.
Original article by Aseel Saleh republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
100+ Aid Groups Decry Global Inaction as Israeli Siege Starves Gaza
Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“States can and must save lives before there are none left to save.”
A coalition of more than 100 aid organizations issued a dire warning Wednesday about worsening humanitarian conditions on the ground in the Gaza Strip, where starvation continues to spread under the Israeli government’s suffocating blockade.
The groups, including Save the Children and Oxfam, called on the international community to pressure Israel to “open all land crossings; restore the full flow of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items, and fuel through a principled, U.N.-led mechanism; end the siege, and agree to a cease-fire now.”
“Just outside Gaza, in warehouses—and even within Gaza itself—tons of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items, and fuel sit untouched with humanitarian organizations blocked from accessing or delivering them,” the groups said in a joint statement. “The government of Israel’s restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death.”
The aid groups said their colleagues in Gaza are among those impacted. “With supplies now totally depleted,” they said, “humanitarian organizations are witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes.”
The statement was released amid harrowing evidence that the manufactured hunger emergency in Gaza is rapidly intensifying, with at least 21 Palestinian children dying of starvation over just the past several days. Since May, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food aid, mostly near hubs run by the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). A spokesperson for the Trump State Department declared Tuesday that GHF operations have “been a tremendous success” despite the repeated massacres at its sites and still-spreading famine across the enclave.
“Palestinians are trapped in a cycle of hope and heartbreak, waiting for assistance and cease-fires, only to wake up to worsening conditions,” the aid coalition said Wednesday. “It is not just physical torment, but psychological. Survival is dangled like a mirage. The humanitarian system cannot run on false promises. Humanitarians cannot operate on shifting timelines or wait for political commitments that fail to deliver access.”
The groups decried inadequate deals—such as the European Union’s recent agreement with Israel to increase the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza—and “symbolic gestures” like food airdrops as “a smokescreen for inaction.”
In the absence of “real change on the ground,” the groups said, “children starve while waiting for promises that never arrive.”
“They cannot replace states’ legal and moral obligations to protect Palestinian civilians and ensure meaningful access at scale,” the coalition said. “States can and must save lives before there are none left to save.”
The aid groups’ warnings echoed those of U.N. officials such as World Food Program emergency director Ross Smith, who said Tuesday that the hunger crisis in Gaza “has reached new and astonishing levels of desperation.
“We have a third of the population who are not eating for multiple days in a row—this includes women and children,” said Smith. “We see severe, acute malnutrition surging. Almost 100,000 women and children are suffering from severe, acute malnutrition and need treatment as soon as possible.”
“People are dying from lack of humanitarian assistance every day,” Smith added. “And we are seeing this escalate, day by day.”
Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
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