war crimes

Tens of thousands to surround White House on June 8 in protest of Rafah invasion

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Original article by peoples dispatch republished under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Photo: Craig Birchfield

The people of the United States challenge Biden’s complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza, demand Biden end aid to Israel

Tens of thousands of people will are mobilizing to surround the White House on June 8 in protest of Biden’s complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza, principally the brutal invasion of Rafah, which takes more and more Palestinian lives each day. 

Biden had claimed in the past that the invasion of Rafah by Israel would be a red line, and even threatened to withhold weapons shipments (while actually halting some shipments of bombs) over the threat of invasion. 

“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah—they haven’t gone in Rafah yet—if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities—that deal with that problem,” Biden said during a CNN interview on May 8.

Nevertheless, Biden did nothing after Israel’s threats of invasion escalated into reality. The recent tent massacre horrified billions across the globe after Israel bombed forcibly displaced Palestinian families—using US-made munitions. To this day, Biden continues his unconditional support for Israel.

Despite Biden’s earlier statements, he recently claimed that the recent massacre did not cross any of his “red lines.” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday that “as a result of this strike on Sunday, I have no policy changes to speak to.”

“The Israelis are going to investigate it. We’re going to be taking great interest in what they find in that investigation. And we’ll see where it goes from there,” Kirby said.

Ahead of the mass mobilization, Layan Fuleihan of the People’s Forum said, “Biden has blood on his hands!” She added, “Genocide is a red line! Over 13,000 children murdered by Israel, is a red line! We will march in Washington D.C. to remind him that the people of this country refuse to be complicit in these war crimes!”

The mass demonstration on June 8 has been called by a diverse range of Palestinian diaspora formations as well as anti-imperialist groups. These include the Palestinian Youth Movement, National Students for Justice in Palestine, U.S. Palestinian Community Network, the People’s Forum, Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, Palestinian Feminist Collective, the ANSWER Coalition, U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, Arab Resource and Organizing Center, International Jewish Anti Zionist Network, Writers Against the War on Gaza, Healthcare Workers for Palestine, and Palestine Popular University.

“How many more homes have to be destroyed, how many children need to be killed, until this government takes definitive action to stop Israel’s war crimes. We are tired of hearing that Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are ‘concerned about the civilian death toll’. If they were really concerned about what Israel was doing, they would suspend all aid and tell Israel to accept one of the many ceasefire deals that is on the table. This genocide needs to end, and Biden has the power to do it,” said Celine Qussiny of the Palestinian Youth Movement.

“On June 8th, tens of thousands will show Biden that the people are his red line — we refuse to allow him to continue the genocide against the people of Gaza! Instead of a red line, Biden gave a green light to Netanyahu’s invasion of Rafah by agreeing to send more U.S. bombs and missiles. While the government that speaks in our name arms the genocidal Israeli regime to the teeth, the people want freedom for Palestine,” said Brian Becker, National Director of the ANSWER Coalition. 

Original article by peoples dispatch republished under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingTens of thousands to surround White House on June 8 in protest of Rafah invasion

LUKE AKEHURST: ARCH ISRAEL LOBBYIST PICKED FOR LABOUR SAFE SEAT

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https://www.declassifieduk.org/luke-akehurst-arch-israel-lobbyist-picked-for-labour-safe-seat/

Luke Akehurst (far right) on a trip to Israel last year. (Photo: LFI)

‘One of the best in the inside’: Israel’s point man in Labour set to become an MP after selection stitch-up.

Keir Starmer’s Labour party has parachuted a professional lobbyist for Israel into the safe seat of North Durham for the UK general election. 

Luke Akehurst, the director of We Believe in Israel, has spent over a decade working as a campaigner for that country’s interests and has close ties to the Israeli embassy in London.

An Israeli diplomat was secretly recorded praising Akehurst as “a great campaigner” who was “one of the best in the inside” of the Labour party.

Akehurst, who is not Jewish, was once described by a fellow Israel lobbyist as “outrageously pro-Zionist”.

His selection comes just weeks after the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor applied for warrants to arrest Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant.

Akehurst, who has deleted over 1,000 tweets in recent days, has repeatedly defended Israel’s assault on Gaza in his social media posts.

He also sits on Labour’s National Executive Committee, which currently has emergency powers to pick candidates. Akehurst apparently lives in Oxfordshire, about 250 miles away from North Durham.

Labour has held the constituency by a large majority since its creation in 1983.

On the same day his candidacy was announced, Faiza Shaheen was suddenly deselected as a Labour candidate for Chingford over liking posts on social media.

One of the posts described how “professional organisations” mobilise pressure on people who are “even mildly critical of Israel”.

…

“It was almost my dream job to run a pro-Israel campaigning organisation”, he told one journalist.

Since then, Akehurst has been among the most vociferous supporters of Israel in British public life.

He has fought strongly against the Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, and consistently defended Israel’s military onslaughts against Palestinians.

Akehurst has particularly close ties with the Israeli embassy in London.

He has spoken at conferences alongside Israeli officials, and travelled with embassy staff to campaign events across the country.

In 2017, Al Jazeera’s ground-breaking documentary The Lobby showed Israeli embassy official and suspected intelligence officer Shai Masot discussing Akehurst in glowing terms.

“He’s a great campaigner”, Masot said. “He’s one of the best in the inside… in all the party. Seriously, there is not a lot of people like him”.

…

Article continues at https://www.declassifieduk.org/luke-akehurst-arch-israel-lobbyist-picked-for-labour-safe-seat/

Keir Starmes is quoted "I support Zionism without qualification." He's asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances whatever Zionists do.
Zionist Keir Starmes is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.

Continue ReadingLUKE AKEHURST: ARCH ISRAEL LOBBYIST PICKED FOR LABOUR SAFE SEAT

Amid Outrage Over Rafah Massacre, Second IDF Attack on Camp Kills 21

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

Israeli tanks move near Israel’s border with the southern Gaza Strip on May 25, 2024.
 (Photo: Amir Levy/Getty Images)

“How much more can the Palestinians survive this?” asked one researcher. “Safe zones targeted, refugees killed with merciless brutality.”

As humanitarians and world leaders condemn an Israel Defense Forces bombing and resulting fire in a Rafah “safe zone” that killed 45 people and wounded hundreds more, the Israeli military on Tuesday killed at least 21 more at another refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip.

“Four tank shells hit a cluster of tents in Al-Mawasi, a coastal area that Israel had advised civilians in Rafah to move to for safety,” Reuters reported, citing health officials in the Hamas-governed Palestinian enclave. “At least 12 of the dead were women.”

Gaza-based journalist Hind Khoudary said on social media Tuesday: “I have a live hit on Al Jazeera in a bit and all I’m thinking about is how I will report on this massacre again. My heart is pounding so fast. My [fingers] are shaking. I want to cry.”

According to Agence France-Presse, IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told reporters on Tuesday that “I don’t know about this incident. We are putting this incident under investigation, and we will update you in advance.”

Hagari also addressed a probe into the Rafah attack—which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “tragic mistake”—during a Tuesday press briefing, saying that “on Sunday night, we eliminated senior Hamas terrorists in a targeted strike on a compound used by Hamas” and “due to unforeseen circumstances, a fire ignited tragically taking the lives of Gazan civilians nearby.”

“Contrary to reports, we conducted the strike outside the area that we designated as a humanitarian area and called civilians to evacuate to. Our strike was over a kilometer-and-a-half away from the Al-Mawasi humanitarian area. What we call the safer zone,” Hagari said. “Our munition alone could not have ignited a fire of this size… We are looking into all possibilities including the option that weapons stored in a compound next to our target, which we did not know of, may have ignited as a result of the strike.”

The IDF’s claims about the Sunday massacre have not quelled outrage around the world—including from U.S. lawmakers urging President Joe Biden to suspend weapons and diplomatic support for Israel’s war, which has killed over 36,000 Palestinians, injured another 81,000, and left thousands more missing and believed dead beneath the rubble, according to Gaza health officials.

Palestinians who have so far survived the Israeli assault on Gaza for more than seven months are struggling to find food, water, shelter, and medical care. The IDF has destroyed civilian infrastructure—including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques—across the enclave and severely restricted the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Both deadly IDF attacks on displaced Palestinians in and near Rafah came in the wake of the International Court of Justice last week directing Israel to “immediately halt its military offensive or any other action in the Rafah governorate,” which followed the ICJ’s January order that the country “take all measures within its power” to uphold its obligations under the Genocide Convention.

Middle East Eye reported Tuesday that Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a Palestinian presidential spokesperson, “called the new attack a massacre, and called for the implementation of the International Court of Justice decision last week for Israel to halt its offensive on Rafah,” which began earlier this month.

Responding to the Tuesday attack on social media, London-based researcher Naks Bilal said that “without humanitarian intervention it is impossible to see how this does not stop.”

“How much more can the Palestinians survive this? Safe zones targeted, refugees killed with merciless brutality,” Bilal added. “Focus energy on calling for intervention, or there will be no Palestinians.”

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

Continue ReadingAmid Outrage Over Rafah Massacre, Second IDF Attack on Camp Kills 21

Group Files New ICC Complaint Over Journalists Killed by Israel in Gaza

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

Palestinian journalists stage a protest to draw attention to Palestinian press killed while covering the war in the Gaza Strip on February 26, 2024 in Rafah.
 (Photo: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images)

Reporters Without Borders says it has “reasonable grounds for thinking that some of these journalists were deliberately killed and that the others were the victims of deliberate IDF attacks against civilians.”

The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders announced Monday that it has filed a third complaint at the International Criminal Court alleging “war crimes against journalists in Gaza,” where over 100 media professionals have been killed by Israeli forces since October 7.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is asking the ICC to investigate the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) killing of eight Palestinian journalists and wounding of another between December 15 and May 20 and, more broadly, the over 100 media workers slain during the course of Israel’s 234-day assault on Gaza.

RSF said it “has reasonable grounds for thinking that some of these journalists were deliberately killed and that the others were the victims of deliberate IDF attacks against civilians” and accused Israel of “an eradication of the Palestinian media.”

“Impunity endangers journalists not only in Palestine but also throughout the world,” RSF advocacy and assistance director Antoine Bernard said in a statement. “Those who kill journalists are attacking the public’s right to information, which is even more essential in times of conflict. They must be held accountable, and RSF will continue to work to this end, in solidarity with Gaza’s reporters.”

Journalists in RSF’s latest complaint include Mustapha Thuraya and Hamza al-Dahdouh, freelancers working for Al Jazeera in Rafah when they were killed by a targeted Israeli drone strike on their vehicle on January 7, and Hazem Rajab, who was injured in the strike.

According to RSF:

The complaint also cites the cases of Hadaf News website reporter Ahmed Badir, who was killed by an airstrike at the entrance to Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah on 10 January; Kan’an News Agency correspondent Yasser Mamdouh, who was killed near Al-Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis on 11 February; Ayat Khadoura, an independent video blogger killed by an Israeli strike on his home on 20 November shortly after posting a video; Yazan Emad Al-Zwaidi, a cameraman with the Egyptian satellite TV news channel Al Ghad, who was killed on 14 January when an Israeli strike hit the group of civilians he was with in Beit Hanoun; Ahmed Fatima, a journalist with the Al Qahera News TV channel, who was killed during a bombardment in Khan Yunis on 13 November; and Rami Bdeir, a reporter for the Palestinian New Press media outlet, who was killed during an Israeli bombardment in Khan Yunis on 15 December.

Another advocacy group, the Committee to Protect Journalists, previously condemned what it called an “apparent pattern of targeting journalists and their families,” noting cases in which media workers were killed while wearing press insignia and after being threatened by Israeli officials.

Monday marked the ninth anniversary of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2222, which concerns the protection of journalists in conflict zones and “emphasizes the responsibility of states to comply with the relevant obligations under international law to end impunity and to prosecute those responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law.”

Last month, Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, said: “Killing journalists is a war crime that undermines the most basic human rights. Justice starts with the cessation of injustice.”

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

Continue ReadingGroup Files New ICC Complaint Over Journalists Killed by Israel in Gaza