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Thousands of people carrying Palestinian flags and banners march as they protest Israel’s attacks on Gaza and Germany’s arms support to Israel in Unter den Linden Street, Berlin, Germany on April 13, 2024 [Halil Sagirkaya/Anadolu via Getty Images]
The German federal ministry has dismissed a lawyer in Berlin due to her opposition to the Israeli assault on Gaza, the Palestinian Information Centre reported.
On Saturday lawyer Melanie Schweizer posted a video on X stating: “Yesterday I got fired as a civil servant working at the Federal Ministry in Germany. Why? In a nutshell because I was speaking out against the genocide in Palestine committed by Israel, against the German support thereof, against the violence and crimes happening there.” Highlighting the German government and police’s efforts to silence pro-Palestine voices, she added: “This is where we’re at in Germany. This is a blatant attack on our constitutional rights to freedom.”
She called on supporters of Gaza to make their stance clear and “keep speaking up, keep using your voice, losing your job is not the worst that can happen to you, losing your life is. Losing your freedom right is.”
Yesterday I got fired as a civil servant in Germany. Why? In a nutshell because I was criticizing Israel for its ongoing genocide in Palestine and Germany‘s complicity. pic.twitter.com/z3mYVabBtn
— Melanie Schweizer | MERA25 🇩🇪 (@Melaniebelizi) March 1, 2025
Many European and American companies have previously dismissed employees over their stance on the war on Gaza and their opposition to genocide.
In October 2024, Microsoft dismissed two employees after they organised a sit-in at its headquarters in Washington, D.C., in solidarity with the victims of the Israeli assault on Gaza.
On 22 January, the Washington Post reported that Google had dismissed more than 50 employees last year after they protested against the “Nimbus” contract, citing concerns that the technology could support military and intelligence programmes used by the Israeli occupation army in its war on Palestinians in Gaza.
In September 2024, the Noguchi Museum in New York announced the dismissal of three employees for allegedly violating the dress code by wearing keffiyehs, which have become a symbol of solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
An Israeli soldier carries a U.S.-supplied 155mm artillery shell near a self-propelled howitzer deployed at a position near the border with Lebanon in the upper Galilee region of northern Israel on October 18, 2023. (Photo: Jalaa Marey/ AFP via Getty Images)
Like the Biden administration, Trump is claiming an “emergency” in order to bypass Congress.
As Palestinians released from Israeli imprisonment recount torture and other abuse suffered at the hands of their former captors, the Trump administration on Friday approved a new $3 billion weapons package for Israel.
The new package, reported by Zeteo‘s Prem Thakker, includes nearly $2.716 billion worth of bombs and weapons guidance kits, as well as $295 million in bulldozers. The Trump administration said that “an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale,” allowing it to bypass Congress, as the Biden administration did on multiple occasions. However, the weapons won’t be delivered until 2026 or 2027.
The Trump-Vance State Department just approved $3.01 billion in arms & equipment sales to Israel$2.04 billion in bombs$675.7 million in bombs & weapon guidance kits$295 million in bulldozersAdministration said "an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale," waiving congressional review
From October 2023 to October 2024, Israel received a record $17.9 billion worth of U.S. arms as it waged a war of annihilation against the Gaza Strip that left more than 170,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and millions more displaced, starved, or sickened. Israel is facing genocide allegations in an International Court of Justice case brought by South Africa. The International Criminal Court has also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Reporting on the new package came after U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Monday announced an effort to block four other arms sales totaling $8.56 billion in offensive American weaponry to Israel.
Meanwhile, some of the approximately 1,000 Palestinians released by Israel as part of a prisoner swap described grim stories of abuse by Israeli forces. The former detainees, who were arrested but never charged with any crimes, “have returned visibly malnourished and scarred by the physical and psychological torture they say they faced in Israeli prisons,” according to The Washington Post. Some returned to what were once their homes to find them destroyed and their relatives killed or wounded by Israeli forces.
Eyas al-Bursh, a doctor volunteering at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City when he was captured by Israeli troops, was held in Sde Teiman and the Ofer military prison in the illegally occupied West Bank for 11 months.
“The places where we were held were harsh, sleep was impossible, and we remained handcuffed and blindfolded,” al-Bursh told the Post.
“We endured psychological and physical torture without a single day of respite—whether through beatings, abuse, punches, or even verbal insults and humiliation,” he added.
The Israel Defense Forces told the Post that it “acts in accordance with Israeli and international law in order to protect the rights of the detainees held in the detention and questioning facilities.”
However, farmer Ashraf al-Radhi, who was held for 14 months—including at the notorious Sde Teiman prison in Israel’s Negev Desert—told the Post that “we witnessed all kinds of humiliation.”
According to the newspaper:
Radhi said he “wished for death” during his detention, which included long periods when he was blindfolded, handcuffed, andcrammed into a filthy cell with dozens of other prisoners. The 34-year-old said he had no access to a lawyer; no idea why he was there; or what, in his absence, had become of his family.
Rahdi also said that Mohammed al-Akka, a 44-year-old detainee held with him, died last December. Al-Akka is one of dozens of Palestinian prisoners who have died in Israeli custody, some from suspected torture and, in at least one case, rape with an electric baton. A number of Israeli reservists are being investigated for the alleged gang-rape of a Sde Teiman prisoner.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
General Aviv Kohavi led the IDF for four years up to January 2023. (Photo Ilan Assayag / Alamy)
DECLASSIFIED UK Exclusive: Former IDF chief of staff met with Britain’s top journalists to promote Israel’s war on Gaza.
Israel’s former top military officer, General Aviv Kohavi held private meetings with the editors of major British news organisations one month after the Gaza bombing began, Declassified can reveal.
The meetings took place with Katherine Viner, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, Richard Burgess, director of news content at the BBC, and Roula Khalaf, editor of the Financial Times.
Further meetings were due to be held with Sky News chairman David Rhodes at the Israeli embassy, and then shadow foreign secretary David Lammy, between 7 and 9 November 2023, according to Kohavi’s itinerary.
By this time, Israeli forces had killed over 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and Israeli officials had made several public statements of genocidal intent. Kohavi had only stepped down from running Israel’s military months earlier.
During his tenure, he justified attacks on journalists, saying the soldiers who shot reporter Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank “showed courage” and that he had not one “gram of regret” for flattening the Associated Press (AP) office in Gaza.
The information about General Kohavi’s visit comes in documents obtained in Israel under the Freedom of Information Act by lawyer Elad Man and seen by Declassified.
They reveal how Kohavi’s tour of Britain was planned with support from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), and Ministry of Defence.
The trip was specifically designed to take advantage of a perceived “reversal in the attitude of Western countries toward Israel [in light of] the severity of the events… of October 7”.
To this end, Kohavi was tasked with cultivating support for Israel as it escalated its brutal military offensive in Gaza.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
800 demonstrators shut down Maersk headquarters (Photo via Palestinian Youth Movement/X)
Nearly 1,000 activists stage demonstration at the entrance to the headquarters of shipping giant Maersk in protest of weapons transport to Israel
On February 24, nearly 1,000 activists staged a demonstration to shut down the headquarters of Danish shipping giant Maersk in Copenhagen.
BREAKING
Today in Copenhagen 800 people from all over Europe shut down the main Maersk HQ for the day as part of the CRAC Camp under the Mask Off Maersk slogan “Cut Ties from Genocide”.
Police were outnumbered but quite brutal to those participating in the action. The crowd… pic.twitter.com/4II83Eo8Jt
The pro-Palestine demonstrators were protesting Maersk’s shipment of arms to Israel, under the slogan of the international “Mask off Maersk” campaign, as part of a protest camp organized by the CRAC Collective. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg participated in the demonstration, saying that “we take it on ourselves because we know that these big companies are all about profit.”
The Palestinian Youth Movement launched the international “Mask off Maersk” campaign last year, targeting one of the largest shipping companies in the world. Maersk has shipped millions of tons of military cargo from the US to Israel since October 7, playing a key role in the Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people.
Pro-Palestine demonstrators have launched actions against Maersk globally, including outside the Port of Elizabeth in New Jersey, a major site of weapons shipments to Israel. The campaign won a major victory in November of last year when Spain blocked two Maersk ships carrying military cargo bound from Israel from docking at the port of Algeciras.
Demonstrators blocked the entrance to Maersk’s headquarters for over four hours, demanding that the logistics giant stop transporting military shipments to the Zionist state, and end all contracts with the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
Thunberg called on Maersk to “terminate all contracts and investment that support the genocide and occupation of Palestine.”
