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Sanders Says US Complicity in Gaza ‘Must End’ Ahead of Senate Vote to Block Arms to Israel

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

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), joined by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), speaks at a news conference on November 19, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

“The United States government is currently in violation of the law, and every member of the U.S. Senate who believes in the rule of law should vote for these resolutions,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders.

A group of U.S. senators led by Bernie Sanders of Vermont held a press conference Tuesday urging their colleagues to support resolutions that would block the sale of tank rounds, bomb kits, and other weaponry to the Israeli government, which has repeatedly used such arms to commit horrific war crimes in the Gaza Strip over the past 13 months.

“The truth of the matter is, from a legal perspective, these resolutions are not complicated; they’re cut and dry,” said Sanders (I-Vt.), who introduced the joint resolutions of disapproval in September alongside several other members of the Senate Democratic caucus.

“The United States government is currently in violation of the law, and every member of the U.S. Senate who believes in the rule of law should vote for these resolutions,” Sanders continued, pointing to U.S. statutes prohibiting the sale of weaponry to countries violating internationally recognized human rights or obstructing American humanitarian aid.

Sanders was joined at Tuesday’s press conference by Sens. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), each of whom made their case to fellow senators ahead of a scheduled floor vote on Wednesday.

“What’s unfolding before our very eyes right now is mass starvation and the spread of disease,” said Welch. “Is the United States and its foreign policy… forced to be blind to the suffering before our very eyes?”

Surrounding the senators as they spoke were photographs of destruction and emaciated children in Gaza, where most of the population is displaced and crowded into small segments of the enclave as Israeli bombs rain down and famine takes hold.

Watch the full press conference:

The resolutions will hit the floor for a vote Wednesday with the backing of a broad coalition that includes Jewish Voice for Peace Action, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, J Street, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Oxfam, and other organizations and activists.

“For over a year, the Biden administration has funded the Israeli government’s brutal genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, despite overwhelming opposition from across the country,” said Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, which said it has driven more than 56,200 letters and more than 20,790 phone calls to senators imploring them to support the measures.

“These joint resolutions of disapproval are one of the last chances that Senate Democrats have before Republicans take control in January to uphold human rights, honor the will of the American people, and stand on the right side of history by blocking weapons to the Israeli military,” Miller added.

“It is time to tell the Netanyahu government that they cannot use U.S. taxpayer dollars and American weapons in violation of U.S. and international law, and in violation of our moral values.”

Since the October 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, the U.S. has supplied its ally with more than 50,000 tons of weaponry and approved billions of dollars in additional arms and military equipment to be delivered in years to come. U.S. military support has helped Israel carry out a large-scale military assault on Gaza, killing more than 43,000 people so far—a majority of them women and children.

To sustain the flow of American weapons, the Biden administration has contradicted the findings of its own experts and outside analysts by declaring publicly that it has not found Israel to be illegally blocking U.S. humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, aid groups on the ground say humanitarian assistance has plummeted to an all-time low in recent weeks, with an average of just 37 aid trucks entering Gaza per day in October.

During Tuesday’s press conference, Sanders said the “most important point to be made” ahead of Wednesday’s vote is that “the United States of America is complicit in these atrocities.”

“That complicity must end, and that is what these resolutions are about,” said Sanders. “It is time to tell the Netanyahu government that they cannot use U.S. taxpayer dollars and American weapons in violation of U.S. and international law, and in violation of our moral values.”

This post has been updated to correct when Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced the resolutions.

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

Continue ReadingSanders Says US Complicity in Gaza ‘Must End’ Ahead of Senate Vote to Block Arms to Israel

Tax Dodging by Super-Rich, Big Corporations Costs Nations Half a Trillion Per Year: Study

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

A crowd of demonstrators marches in Saint-Brieuc, France on May 1, 2024. (Photo: Emmanuelle Pays/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images)

“The U.K. and the U.S. are both among the biggest enablers and the biggest losers of this lose-lose tax system,” said the chief executive of the Tax Justice Network.

A study published Tuesday estimates that tax dodging enabled by the United States, the United Kingdom, and other wealthy nations is costing countries around the world nearly half a trillion dollars in revenue each year, underscoring the urgent need for global reforms to prevent rich individuals and large corporations from shirking their obligations.

The new study, conducted by the Tax Justice Network (TJN), finds that “the combined costs of cross-border tax abuse by multinational companies and by individuals with undeclared assets offshore stands at an estimated $492 billion.” Of that total in lost revenue, corporate tax dodging is responsible for more than $347 billion, according to TJN’s calculations.

“For people everywhere, the losses translate into foregone public services, and weakened states at greater risk of falling prey to political extremism,” the study reads. “And in the same way, there is scope for all to benefit from moving tax rule-setting out of the OECD and into a globally inclusive and fully transparent process at the United Nations.”

The analysis estimates that just eight countries—the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Japan, Israel, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand—are enabling large-scale tax avoidance by opposing popular global reform efforts. Late last year, those same eight countries were the lonely opponents of the United Nations General Assembly’s vote to set in motion the process of establishing a U.N. tax convention.

According to the new TJN study, those eight countries are responsible for roughly half of the $492 billion lost per year globally to tax avoidance by the rich and large multinational corporations, despite being home to just 8% of the world’s population.

“The hurtful eight voted for a world where we all keep losing half a trillion a year to tax-cheating multinational corporations and the super-rich,” Alex Cobham, chief executive of the Tax Justice Network, said in a statement Tuesday. “The U.K. and the U.S. are both among the biggest enablers and the biggest losers of this lose-lose tax system, and their people consistently demand an end to tax abuse, so it’s absurd that the U.S. and U.K. are seeking to preserve it.”

“It’s perhaps harder to understand why the other handful of blockers, like Australia, Canada, and Japan, who don’t play anything like such a damaging role, would be willing to go along with this,” Cobham added.

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TJN released its study as G20 nations—a group that includes most of the “hurtful eight”—issued a communiqué pledging to “engage cooperatively to ensure that ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed.” Brazil, which hosted the G20 summit, led the push for language calling for taxation of the global super-rich.

The document drew praise from advocacy groups including the Fight Inequality Alliance, which stressed the need to “transform the rhetoric on taxing the rich into global reality.”

The communiqué was released amid concerns that the election of far-right billionaire Donald Trump in the U.S. could derail progress toward a global solution to pervasive and costly tax avoidance.

The new TJN study cites Trump’s pledge to cut the statutory U.S. corporate tax rate from 21% to 15% and warns such a move would accelerate the global “race to the bottom” on corporate taxation.

“People in countries around the world are calling in large majorities on their governments to tax multinational corporations properly,” Liz Nelson, TJN’s director of advocacy and research, said Tuesday. “But governments continue to exercise a policy of appeasement on corporate tax.”

“We now have data from these governments showing that when they asked multinational corporations to pay less tax, the corporations cheated even more,” Nelson added. “It’s time governments found the spines their people deserve from their leaders.”

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

Continue ReadingTax Dodging by Super-Rich, Big Corporations Costs Nations Half a Trillion Per Year: Study

US finds that Israel is not impeding assistance to Gaza

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Original article republished from MEMO under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

Palestinians wait in line to receive aids at the school where UNRWA distributes food parcels in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on November 07, 2024. [Ashraf Amra – Anadolu Agency]

President Joe Biden’s administration has concluded that Israel is not currently impeding assistance to Gaza and, therefore, is not violating US law, the State Department said on Tuesday, although Washington acknowledged the humanitarian situation remained dire in the Palestinian enclave, Reuters reports.

US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and Defence Secretary, Lloyd Austin, in a 13 October letter gave their Israeli counterparts a list of specific steps that Israel needs to take within the next 30 days to address the worsening situation in Gaza. Failure to do so may have possible consequences on US military aid to Israel, they said in the letter.

But, on Tuesday, the deadline mentioned in the letter, State Department deputy spokesperson, Vedant Patel, repeatedly declined to say if the specific criteria were fulfilled. Instead, he told reporters that Israel has taken steps to address the demands and that Washington would continue to assess the situation.

“We’ve seen some progress being made. We would like to see some more changes happen. We believe that had it not been for US intervention, these changes may not have ever taken place,” Patel said, adding that Washington will continue to assess Israel’s compliance with US law.

READ: UN: 85% of humanitarian aid requests to Northern Gaza blocked or delayed by Israel

International aid groups said Israel had failed to meet the series of US demands intended to improve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza by the Tuesday deadline.

Patel, fielding repeated questions from reporters in the briefing, declined to explain why Washington chose to make the assessment based on Israel’s measures to address the problems instead of actual results on the ground, which US officials have repeatedly said would be their measuring stick.

Earlier this month, the State Department said the results on the ground as of 4 November were not good enough.

On Tuesday, Patel said Israel had taken some steps, including reopening the Erez Crossing, waiving certain customs requirements and opening additional delivery routes within Gaza.

For more than a month, Israeli forces have been pushing deeper into north Gaza, surrounding hospitals and shelters and displacing new waves of people in an operation they say is designed to prevent Hamas fighters regrouping.

Biden, whose term ends soon, has offered strong backing to Israel since Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel last October, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages.

However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.

More than 43,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza over the past year and Gaza has been reduced to a wasteland of wrecked buildings and piles of rubble where more than 2 million Gazans seek shelter as best they can.

READ: Israel fails to meet US aid demands to ease Gaza catastrophe, aid groups say

Original article republished from MEMO under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

Global Fury After State Dept Claims Israel Not Violating US Law by Blocking Gaza Aid

Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that his active support and that of UK's air force has been essential in Israel's mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs <a href="https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/">https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/</a> and <a href="https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA">https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA</a>
Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that his active support and that of UK’s air force 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/O74hZCKKdpA
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government's support for Israel's Gaza genocide and the UK government and military's active participation in genocide.
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide and the UK government and military’s active participation in genocide.
Continue ReadingUS finds that Israel is not impeding assistance to Gaza

57 Groups to Senate: Vote to Block Weapons for Israel

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

Injured Palestinians, including children, are brought to Al Ahli Baptist Hospital for medical treatment following an Israeli attack on the Omar Al Mukhtar market in Gaza City, Gaza on November 11, 2024. (Photo: Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Despite clear evidence showing that Israel is committing war crimes and blocking humanitarian aid, the U.S. is still unconscionably selling billions of dollars of offensive weapons to Israel,” said one advocate.

Ahead of historic U.S. Senate votes on military aid for Israel that are expected next week, dozens of civil society groups on Monday launched a grassroots campaign aimed at pushing lawmakers to support blocking more than $20 billion in offensive weapons transfers.

Demand Progress, the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), Action Corps, and the Center for Constitutional Rights were among the groups that launched the No More Weapons for Israel’s War campaign, asking the groups’ millions of supporters across the U.S. to demand that their senators to support the joint resolutions of disapproval (JRD) that are scheduled for a vote this month.

The JRDs were introduced by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) in September. The resolutions could block transfers of certain U.S. weapons, such as joint direct attack munitions (JDAMs), tanks, and artillery shells, which have been linked to civilian casualties in Gaza since Israel began its assault on the enclave more than 13 months ago.

“For the last 13 months, the Biden administration has refused to use the leverage at its disposal to end to the war in Gaza and alleviate an ever-increasing humanitarian catastrophe,” said Cavan Kharrazian, senior policy adviser for Demand Progress. “Despite clear evidence showing that Israel is committing war crimes and blocking humanitarian aid, the U.S. is still unconscionably selling billions of dollars of offensive weapons to Israel.”

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Kharrazian noted that passing the JRDs is “even more urgent now,” following the election last week of President-elect Donald Trump, a “notorious ally” of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Sanders pointed out when he introduced the JRDs in September that the weapons that would be impacted by the vote have been shown by “a mountain of documentary evidence” to be killing and maiming civilians in Gaza.

Amnesty International submitted a report to the federal government earlier this year detailing several Israeli attacks on civilian infrastructure including homes in which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) used U.S. weapons to kill large numbers of civilians.

An attack using JDAMs manufactured by Boeing killed 43 civilians, nearly half of whom were children, in October 2023. Four strikes used bombs and other weapons made in the U.S. and killed at least 95 civilians, including 42 children.

A Guardian analysis last month also found that U.S. weapons were used by the IDF when it conducted an airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon, killing at least 22 people and wounding more than 115.

The Biden administration has repeatedly claimed that it is pushing Israel to limit civilian casualties, but has been condemned by human rights advocates and progressive lawmakers for continuing to provide offensive weapons despite mounting evidence that more civilians are being killed each day. Last week, the United Nations said it had found that 70% of people killed by the IDF in Gaza between November 2023 and April 2024 were women and children, despite persistent claims by the U.S. and Israel that it is targeting Hamas fighters.

“It’s time for the Israeli government to take U.S. demands about de-escalation, civilian protection, and humanitarian aid seriously,” said Tori Bateman, advocacy director for the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “If the United States wants to see the Israeli government change its behavior, then it must change too by being willing to leverage arms sales to achieve a cease-fire, protect civilians, and serve the U.S. national interest. Senators should vote ‘yes’ to block these transfers of offensive weapons to Israel.”

Progressive lawmakers and advocacy groups have pointed out in recent months that $12.5 billion in U.S. military aid has continued flowing to Israel even as the Israeli government has blocked humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, resulting in the spread of disease and widespread hunger, with U.N. experts saying in July that the enclave was facing famine.

Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act prohibits the U.S. from providing weapons to a country that is blocking U.S. humanitarian aid.

“We are grateful Sen. Sanders has introduced the joint resolutions of disapproval and the historic vote to take place in November to block the sale of offensive arms to Israel,” said Yasmine Taeb, legislative and political director for MPower Change Action Fund. “Sending any offensive arms to Israel is a violation of U.S. and international humanitarian law. We urge senators to co-sponsor and vote YES on the JRDs.”

Hassan El-Yayyab, legislative director for Middle East policy for FCNL, called Israel’s war in Gaza “not just a humanitarian catastrophe but a mass atrocity carried out with U.S. bombs and military support, funded by American taxpayers.”

“It’s long overdue for Congress to hold a public debate and vote on ending U.S. complicity in the mass killing and starvation of Palestinian civilians,” said El-Yayyab. “These joint resolutions of disapproval mark a historic moment—the first major effort in Congress to block offensive arms sales to Israel in United States history. Senators must vote yes and press the Biden administration to use all forms of U.S. leverage to finally end the war in Gaza, bring hostages home, and de-escalate tensions across the Middle East.”

In a separate statement on Monday, Chip Gibbons of the civil liberties group Defending Rights & Dissent noted that “war crimes” committed by Israel include “the deliberate assassination of Palestinian journalists, making our government complicit in the worst attack on free expression rights anywhere in the world today.”

“As a domestic civil liberties group, we don’t take stances on international issues,” said Gibbons, the group’s policy director. “But when our government provides weapons that are used to violate human rights, that implicates our core mission.”

The group’s executive director, Sue Udry, applauded Sanders for introducing the JRDs and urged every member of Congress to support them.

“It’s well past time to hold our government accountable to our own laws,” said Udry.

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

Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that his active support and that of UK's air force 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/O74hZCKKdpA
Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that his active support and that of UK’s air force 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/O74hZCKKdpA
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government's support for Israel's Gaza genocide and the UK government and military's active participation in genocide.
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide and the UK government and military’s active participation in genocide.
Continue Reading57 Groups to Senate: Vote to Block Weapons for Israel

As Millions Starve in Gaza, Israel Terminates Agreement With UNRWA

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

Palestinians scramble to receive sacks of flour at a United Nations Relief and Works Agency aid distribution center in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on November 3, 2024. (Photo: Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

“Restricting humanitarian access and at the same time dismantling UNRWA will add an additional layer of suffering to already unspeakable suffering,” said the U.N. agency’s commissioner-general.

Israel’s Foreign Affairs Ministry on Sunday formally notified the United Nations that it has terminated a decades-old legal agreement governing the country’s relations with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, a move that aid workers and advocacy groups say will spell further disaster for Gaza’s besieged and famine-stricken population as winter approaches.

The director-general of the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry announced the decision to scrap the 1967 agreement in a letter to the president of the U.N. General Assembly, a message sent roughly a week after Israeli lawmakers approved legislation banning the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) from operating or providing services “in the sovereign territory of the state of Israel.”

The new letter states that the legislation “will enter into effect following a three-month period.”

The Washington Post reported Monday that Juliette Touma, UNRWA’s communications director, said that “the agency expected to continue its work coordinating the distribution of aid in Gaza and the West Bank at the operational level.”

But aid groups have warned that Israel’s UNRWA ban could inflict fatal damage to humanitarian operations in Gaza and the West Bank, given Israeli control over access to the illegally occupied territories. The legislation Israeli lawmakers passed last week bars the government from issuing work permits to foreign UNRWA staff and prevents the military from coordinating with the aid agency.

“The human cost of this ban is immeasurable,” Mara Kronenfeld, executive director of UNRWA USA, said in a statement last week. “This Israeli Knesset vote banning UNRWA is not merely an attack on the U.N. agency; it’s an attack on the fundamental rights and dignity due to all human beings. The consequences of this ban could result in the loss of tens of thousands, if not more, precious Palestinian lives. Where is the humanity?”

“You can hear children crying, people screaming, people running for their lives, and it has been nonstop for 24 hours. There’s nowhere to go. People are trapped.”

The U.S., Israel’s main ally and arms supplier, urged the Israeli government last week not to implement the newly passed legislation, even though the U.S. has yet to restore its own funding to UNRWA. The Biden administration suspended U.S. funding for UNRWA in January after Israel accused a small number of agency employees of taking part in the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel.

The U.N. fired nine UNRWA workers after an investigation determined that they “may have been involved” in the attack. UNRWA has roughly 13,000 staffers in the Gaza Strip, and the agency is the most important aid group operating in the enclave.

Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, argued that by terminating its agreement with UNRWA, “Israel is also further breaking U.S. law prohibiting the restriction of aid delivery.”

“It’s a definitive rejection of an explicit demand in the Biden administration’s October 13 letter and by law must result in halting U.S. arms and military aid to Israel,” Williams added.

The Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry’s announcement came as Israel’s military continued its bombing campaign and ground attacks across Gaza. Reuters reported that at least a dozen Palestinians were killed by Israeli airstrikes on Monday, including seven people in an attack on houses in northern Gaza.

“It is absolutely terrifying,” Louise Wateridge, an UNRWA spokesperson, told Al Jazeera on Saturday, referring to conditions on the ground in Gaza. “You can hear children crying, people screaming, people running for their lives, and it has been nonstop for 24 hours. There’s nowhere to go. People are trapped.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1852697434419589305

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Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s commissioner-general, said Monday that Israeli authorities allowed an average of just 30 aid trucks to enter Gaza per day last month.

Prior to October 7, 2023, around 500 aid trucks were entering the enclave daily.

https://twitter.com/WFP/status/1853406842669465905?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1853406842669465905%7Ctwgr%5Eb7379071cfb80e00649a46a2d1b2f3af8c737e6f%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fisrael-agreement-unrwa

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“This cannot meet the needs of over 2 million people, many of whom are starving, sick, and in desperate conditions,” Lazzarini said Monday. “Restricting humanitarian access and at the same time dismantling UNRWA will add an additional layer of suffering to already unspeakable suffering.”

“Only political will,” he added, “can put an end to a politically made situation.”

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

Continue ReadingAs Millions Starve in Gaza, Israel Terminates Agreement With UNRWA