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A History of ILWU’s Labor Solidarity
Actions from Apartheid South Africa to the Zionist Genocidal War Against Palestinians
The history of ILWU, the longshore union, has been one of the most militant unions when it comes to solidarity actions. Is the recent ILWU Convention reversing that history?
July 30, 2024, 7:00 P.M., PST
No Registration Necessary
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3290219617?pwd=OTFGZUVKcDd4bzVkVjl5ZS94QmdoQT09#success
Presentations by:
· Brian McWilliams—ILWU International Past President
· Anthony Levieges—Activist member of ILWU Ship Clerks Local 34
· Jack Heyman—Retired member of ILWU Longshore Local 10 and supporter
of the Internationalist Group
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Please consider amplifying the new AFT4Palestine divestment campaign's launch tweet:
https://x.com/Aft4Palestine/status/1813973522995396761 (and follow us on social media too!)
We are already getting hit by the right-wing press and AFT leadership is getting thousands of emails (we have been told) so we need some grassroots help getting our campaign message out going into the AFT convention next week!
And if by any chance any of you will be at the AFT convention next week in Houston, please get in touch! We need volunteers to help with the floor campaign and we will also have a AFT4Palestine-ers meet up.
https://www.aft4palestine.org/take-action
Tell AFT: Divest from Genocide, Apartheid, & Scholasticide
The AFT currently holds only one bond of a foreign government in the form of an Israel Bond. Through its investment in Israel Bonds, our union is lending unrestricted funds to the Israeli government that can be used to fund any and all violence and human rights violations–with no guardrails. With resolution #34, we are asking AFT to support justice in Palestine by divesting from its Israel Bond.
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Casualties
· 39,157 + killed* and at least 90,403 wounded in the Gaza Strip. 28,903 Palestinians have been fully identified, and around 10,000 more are estimated to be under the rubble.*
· 589+ Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank including eastern Jerusalem. These include 138 children.**
· Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,140.
· 687 Israeli soldiers have been recognized as killed, and 4096 as wounded by the Israeli army since October 7.***
* Gaza’s branch of the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed this figure in its daily report, published through its WhatsApp channel on July 25, 2024. Some rights groups estimate the death toll to be much higher when accounting for those presumed dead.
** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health on July 24, this is the latest figure.
*** These figures are released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” The head of the Israeli army’s wounded association told Israel’s Channel 12 the number of wounded Israeli soldiers exceeds 20,000 including at least 8,000 permanently handicapped as of June 1. Israel’s Channel 7 reported that according to the Israeli war ministry’s rehabilitation service numbers, 8,663 new wounded joined the army’s handicap rehabilitation system since October 7, as of June 18.Source: mondoweiss.net
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Write to:
Leonard Peltier 89637-132
USP Coleman 1
P.O. Box 1033
Coleman, FL 33521
Note: Letters, address and return address must be in writing—no stickers—and on plain white paper.
U.S. Parole Commission Denies Leonard Peltier’s Request for Freedom; President Biden Should Grant Clemency
In response to the U.S. Parole Commission denying Leonard Peltier’s request for parole after a hearing on June 10, Paul O’Brien, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, made the following statement:
“Continuing to keep Leonard Peltier locked behind bars is a human rights travesty. President Biden should grant him clemency and release him immediately. Not only are there ongoing, unresolved concerns about the fairness of his trial, he has spent nearly 50 years in prison, is approaching 80 years old, and suffers from several chronic health problems.
“Leonard Peltier has been incarcerated for far too long. The parole commission should have granted him the freedom to spend his remaining years in his community and surrounded by loved ones.
“No one should be imprisoned after a trial riddled with uncertainty about its fairness. We are now calling on President Biden, once again, to grant Leonard Peltier clemency on humanitarian grounds and as a matter of mercy and justice.”
Background
· Leonard Peltier, Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement (AIM), was convicted of the murders of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975. He has always maintained his innocence. Amnesty International joins Tribal Nations, Tribal Leaders, Members of Congress, former FBI agents, Nobel Peace Prize winners and former U.S. Attorney James Reynolds, whose office handled Peltier’s prosecution and appeal, in urging his release.
· Parole was also rejected at Peltier’s last hearing in 2009. Due to his age, this was likely the last opportunity for parole.
· A clemency request is pending before President Joe Biden. President Biden has committed opens in a new tab to grant clemency/commutation of sentences on a rolling basis rather than at the end of his term, following a review of requests by the White House Counsel’s Office and the Department of Justice.
Amnesty International has examined Peltier’s case extensively for many years, sent observers to his trial in 1977, and long campaigned on his behalf. Most recently, Amnesty International USA sent a letter to the U.S. Parole Commission urging the commission to grant him parole.
https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/u-s-parole-commission-denies-leonard-peltiers-request-for-freedom-president-biden-should-grant-clemency/
Write to:
Leonard Peltier 89637-132
USP Coleman 1
P.O. Box 1033
Coleman, FL 33521
Note: Letters, address and return address must be in writing—no stickers—and on plain white paper.
Sign our petition urging President Biden to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier:
https://www.freeleonardpeltier.com/petition
Email: contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info
Address: 116 W. Osborne Ave. Tampa, Florida 33603
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Beneath The Mountain: An Anti-Prison Reader (City Lights, 2024) is a collection of revolutionary essays, written by those who have been detained inside prison walls. Composed by the most structurally dispossessed people on earth, the prisoner class, these words illuminate the steps towards freedom.
Beneath the Mountain documents the struggle — beginning with slavery, genocide, and colonization up to our present day — and imagines a collective, anti-carceral future. These essays were handwritten first on scraps of paper, magazine covers, envelopes, toilet paper, or pages of bibles, scratched down with contraband pencils or the stubby cartridge of a ball-point pen; kites, careworn, copied and shared across tiers and now preserved in this collection for this and future generations. If they were dropped in the prison-controlled mail they were cloaked in prayers, navigating censorship and dustbins. They were very often smuggled out. These words mark resistance, fierce clarity, and speak to the hope of building the world we all deserve to live in.
"Beneath the Mountain reminds us that ancestors and rebels have resisted conquest and enslavement, building marronage against colonialism and genocide."
—Joy James, author of New Bones Abolition: Captive Maternal Agency
Who stands beneath the mountain but prisoners of war? Mumia Abu-Jamal and Jennifer Black have assembled a book of fire, each voice a flame in captivity...Whether writing from a place of fugivity, the prison camp, the city jail, the modern gulag or death row, these are our revolutionary thinkers, our critics and dreamers, our people. The people who move mountains. —Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
Filled with insight and energy, this extraordinary book gifts us the opportunity to encounter people’s understanding of the fight for freedom from the inside out. —Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of Golden Gulag and Abolition Geography
These are the words each writer dreamed as they sought freedom and they need to be studied by people inside and read in every control unit/hole in every prison in America. We can send this book for you to anyone who you know who is currently living, struggling, and fighting
Who better to tell these stories than those who have lived them? Don’t be surprised with what you find within these pages: hope, solidarity, full faith towards the future, and most importantly, love.
Excerpt from the book:
"Revolutionary love speaks to the ways we protect, respect, and empower each other while standing up to state terror. Its presence is affirmed through these texts as a necessary component to help chase away fear and to encourage the solidarity and unity essential for organizing in dangerous times and places. Its absence portends tragedy. Revolutionary love does not stop the state from wanting to kill us, nor is it effective without strategy and tactics, but it is the might that fuels us to stand shoulder to shoulder with others regardless. Perhaps it can move mountains." —Jennifer Black & Mumia Abu-Jamal from the introduction to Beneath The Mountain: An Anti Prison Reader
Get the book at:
https://www.prisonradiostore.com/shop-2/beneath-the-mountain-an-anti-prison-reader-edited-by-mumia-abu-jamal-jennifer-black-city-lights-2024
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Boris Kagarlitsky is in Prison!
On February 13, the court overturned the previous decision on release and sent Boris Kagarlitsky to prison for five years.
Petition in Support of Boris Kagarlitsky
We, the undersigned, were deeply shocked to learn that on February 13 the leading Russian socialist intellectual and antiwar activist Dr. Boris Kagarlitsky (65) was sentenced to five years in prison.
Dr. Kagarlitsky was arrested on the absurd charge of 'justifying terrorism' in July last year. After a global campaign reflecting his worldwide reputation as a writer and critic of capitalism and imperialism, his trial ended on December 12 with a guilty verdict and a fine of 609,000 roubles.
The prosecution then appealed against the fine as 'unjust due to its excessive leniency' and claimed falsely that Dr. Kagarlitsky was unable to pay the fine and had failed to cooperate with the court. In fact, he had paid the fine in full and provided the court with everything it requested.
On February 13 a military court of appeal sent him to prison for five years and banned him from running a website for two years after his release.
The reversal of the original court decision is a deliberate insult to the many thousands of activists, academics, and artists around the world who respect Dr. Kagarlitsky and took part in the global campaign for his release. The section of Russian law used against Dr. Kagarlitsky effectively prohibits free expression. The decision to replace the fine with imprisonment was made under a completely trumped-up pretext. Undoubtedly, the court's action represents an attempt to silence criticism in the Russian Federation of the government's war in Ukraine, which is turning the country into a prison.
The sham trial of Dr. Kagarlitsky is the latest in a wave of brutal repression against the left-wing movements in Russia. Organizations that have consistently criticized imperialism, Western and otherwise, are now under direct attack, many of them banned. Dozens of activists are already serving long terms simply because they disagree with the policies of the Russian government and have the courage to speak up. Many of them are tortured and subjected to life-threatening conditions in Russian penal colonies, deprived of basic medical care. Left-wing politicians are forced to flee Russia, facing criminal charges. International trade unions such as IndustriALL and the International Transport Federation are banned and any contact with them will result in long prison sentences.
There is a clear reason for this crackdown on the Russian left. The heavy toll of the war gives rise to growing discontent among the mass of working people. The poor pay for this massacre with their lives and wellbeing, and opposition to war is consistently highest among the poorest. The left has the message and resolve to expose the connection between imperialist war and human suffering.
Dr. Kagarlitsky has responded to the court's outrageous decision with calm and dignity: “We just need to live a little longer and survive this dark period for our country,” he said. Russia is nearing a period of radical change and upheaval, and freedom for Dr. Kagarlitsky and other activists is a condition for these changes to take a progressive course.
We demand that Boris Kagarlitsky and all other antiwar prisoners be released immediately and unconditionally.
We also call on the authorities of the Russian Federation to reverse their growing repression of dissent and respect their citizens' freedom of speech and right to protest.
Sign to Demand the Release of Boris Kagarlitsky
https://freeboris.info
The petition is also available on Change.org
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*Major Announcement*
Claudia De la Cruz wins
Peace and Freedom Party primary in California!
We have an exciting announcement. The votes are still being counted in California, but the Claudia-Karina “Vote Socialist” campaign has achieved a clear and irreversible lead in the Peace and Freedom Party primary. Based on the current count, Claudia has 46% of the vote compared to 40% for Cornel West. A significant majority of PFP’s newly elected Central Committee, which will formally choose the nominee at its August convention, have also pledged their support to the Claudia-Karina campaign.
We are excited to campaign in California now and expect Claudia De la Cruz to be the candidate on the ballot of the Peace and Freedom Party in November.
We achieved another big accomplishment this week - we’re officially on the ballot in Hawai’i! This comes after also petitioning to successfully gain ballot access in Utah. We are already petitioning in many other states. Each of these achievements is powered by the tremendous effort of our volunteers and grassroots organizers across the country. When we’re organized, people power can move mountains!
We need your help to keep the momentum going. Building a campaign like this takes time, energy, and money. We know that our class enemies — the billionaires, bankers, and CEO’s — put huge sums toward loyal politicians and other henchmen who defend their interests. They will use all the money and power at their disposal to stop movements like ours. As an independent, socialist party, our campaign is relying on contributions from the working class and people like you.
We call on each and every one of our supporters to set up a monthly or one-time donation to support this campaign to help it keep growing and reaching more people. A new socialist movement, independent of the Democrats and Republicans, is being built but it will only happen when we all pitch in.
The Claudia-Karina campaign calls to end all U.S. aid to Israel. End this government’s endless wars. We want jobs for all, with union representation and wages that let us live with dignity. Housing, healthcare, and education for all - without the lifelong debt. End the ruthless attacks on women, Black people, immigrants, and LGBTQ people. These are just some of the demands that are resonating across the country. Help us take the next step:
Volunteer: https://votesocialist2024.com/volunteer
Donate: https://votesocialist2024.com/donate
See you in the streets,
Claudia & Karina
Don't Forget! Join our telegram channel for regular updates: https://t.me/+KtYBAKgX51JhNjMx
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Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!
FREE HIM NOW!
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical Defense Fund, Official 2024
Mumia has instructed PrisonRadio to set up this fund. Gifts donated here are designated for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Medical and Legal Defense Fund. If you are writing a check or making a donation in another way, note this in the memo line.
Send to:
Mumia Medical and Legal Fund c/o Prison Radio
P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94103
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Updates From Kevin Cooper
A Never-ending Constitutional Violation
A summary of the current status of Kevin Cooper’s case by the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
On October 26, 2023, the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP wrote a rebuttal in response to the Special Counsel's January 13, 2023 report upholding the conviction of their client Kevin Cooper. A focus of the rebuttal was that all law enforcement files were not turned over to the Special Counsel during their investigation, despite a request for them to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office.
On October 29, 2023, Law Professors Lara Bazelon and Charlie Nelson Keever, who run the six member panel that reviews wrongful convictions for the San Francisco County District Attorney's office, published an OpEd in the San Francisco Chronicle calling the "Innocence Investigation” done by the Special Counsel in the Cooper case a “Sham Investigation” largely because Cooper has unsuccessfully fought for years to obtain the police and prosecutor files in his case. This is a Brady claim, named for the U.S. Supreme court’s 1963 case establishing the Constitutional rule that defendants are entitled to any information in police and prosecutor's possession that could weaken the state's case or point to innocence. Brady violations are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. The Special Counsel's report faults Cooper for not offering up evidence of his own despite the fact that the best evidence to prove or disprove Brady violations or other misconduct claims are in those files that the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office will not turn over to the Special Counsel or to Cooper's attorneys.
On December 14, 2023, the president of the American Bar Association (ABA), Mary Smith, sent Governor Gavin Newsom a three page letter on behalf of the ABA stating in part that Mr.Cooper's counsel objected to the state's failure to provide Special Counsel all documents in their possession relating to Mr.Cooper's conviction, and that concerns about missing information are not new. For nearly 40 years Mr.Cooper's attorneys have sought this same information from the state.
On December 19, 2023, Bob Egelko, a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an article about the ABA letter to the Governor that the prosecutors apparently withheld evidence from the Governor's legal team in the Cooper case.
These are just a few recent examples concerning the ongoing failure of the San Bernardino County District Attorney to turn over to Cooper's attorney's the files that have been requested, even though under the law and especially the U.S. Constitution, the District Attorney of San Bernardino county is required to turn over to the defendant any and all material and or exculpatory evidence that they have in their files. Apparently, they must have something in their files because they refuse to turn them over to anyone.
The last time Cooper's attorney's received files from the state, in 2004, it wasn't from the D.A. but a Deputy Attorney General named Holly Wilkens in Judge Huff's courtroom. Cooper's attorneys discovered a never before revealed police report showing that a shirt was discovered that had blood on it and was connected to the murders for which Cooper was convicted, and that the shirt had disappeared. It had never been tested for blood. It was never turned over to Cooper's trial attorney, and no one knows where it is or what happened to it. Cooper's attorneys located the woman who found that shirt on the side of the road and reported it to the Sheriff's Department. She was called to Judge Huff's court to testify about finding and reporting that shirt to law enforcement. That shirt was the second shirt found that had blood on it that was not the victims’ blood. This was in 2004, 19 years after Cooper's conviction.
It appears that this ongoing constitutional violation that everyone—from the Special Counsel to the Governor's legal team to the Governor himself—seems to know about, but won't do anything about, is acceptable in order to uphold Cooper's conviction.
But this type of thing is supposed to be unacceptable in the United States of America where the Constitution is supposed to stand for something other than a piece of paper with writing on it. How can a Governor, his legal team, people who support and believe in him ignore a United States citizen’s Constitutional Rights being violated for 40 years in order to uphold a conviction?
This silence is betrayal of the Constitution. This permission and complicity by the Governor and his team is against everything that he and they claim to stand for as progressive politicians. They have accepted the Special Counsel's report even though the Special Counsel did not receive the files from the district attorney that may not only prove that Cooper is innocent, but that he was indeed framed by the Sheriff’s Department; and that evidence was purposely destroyed and tampered with, that certain witnesses were tampered with, or ignored if they had information that would have helped Cooper at trial, that evidence that the missing shirt was withheld from Cooper's trial attorney, and so much more.
Is the Governor going to get away with turning a blind eye to this injustice under his watch?
Are progressive people going to stay silent and turn their eyes blind in order to hopefully get him to end the death penalty for some while using Cooper as a sacrificial lamb?
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Kevin Cooper #C65304
Cell 107, Unit E1C
California Health Care Facility, Stockton (CHCF)
P.O. Box 213040
Stockton, CA 95213
www.freekevincooper.org
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
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The writers' organization PEN America is circulating this petition on behalf of Jason Renard Walker, a Texas prisoner whose life is being threatened because of his exposés of the Texas prison system.
See his book, Reports from within the Belly of the Beast; available on Amazon at:
https://www.amazon.com/Reports-Within-Belly-Beast-Department-ebook/dp/B084656JDZ/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
Petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/protect-whistleblowers-in-carceral-settings
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Daniel Hale UPDATE:
In February Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale was transferred from the oppressive maximum-security prison in Marion, Illinois to house confinement. We celebrate his release from Marion. He is laying low right now, recovering from nearly 3 years in prison. Thank goodness he is now being held under much more humane conditions and expected to complete his sentence in July of this year. www.StandWithDaniel Hale.org
More Info about Daniel:
“Drone Whistleblower Subjected To Harsh Confinement Finally Released From Prison”
https://thedissenter.org/drone-whistleblower-cmu-finally-released-from-prison/
“I was punished under the Espionage Act. Why wasn’t Joe Biden?” by Daniel Hale
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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
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1) Campus Protests Led to More Than 3,100 Arrests, but Many Charges Have Been Dropped
The spate of pro-Palestinian protests and encampments engulfed academic institutions of all sizes in nearly every part of the country.
By Isabelle Taft, Alex Lemonides, Lazaro Gamio and Anna Betts, July 21, 2024
A Pro-Palestinian encampment in Dunn Meadow at Indiana University Bloomington in April. Credit...Jeremy Hogan for The New York Times
As pro-Palestinian demonstrations rocked college campuses this spring with protests of the war in Gaza, many university administrators found themselves eager to quell the action however they could. Some negotiated with the demonstrators. Many sent in the police.
When Columbia University called in the police in April to break up an encampment, it was the first major detainment of protesters. Since then, more than 3,100 people have been arrested or detained on campuses across the country. Most were charged with trespassing or disturbing the peace. Some face more serious charges, like resisting arrest.
But in the months since, many of the charges have been dropped, even as some students are facing additional consequences, like being barred from their campuses or having their diplomas withheld.
Delia Garza, the prosecutor in Travis County who dropped criminal trespassing charges against more than 100 people arrested at the University of Texas at Austin, said that such charges were rarely a priority for prosecutors, since they are minor and nonviolent offenses. Ms. Garza, a Democrat, said she also calculated that jurors in her community would very likely determine that students protesting on their own campus were simply exercising First Amendment rights.
At some universities, the decision to drop the charges was met with disappointment. “Actions that violate laws and institutional rules should be met with consequences,” Mike Rosen, spokesman for the University of Texas at Austin, said.
Many charges were also dropped among the thousands of people who were arrested in the racial justice protests of 2020, with some prosecutors saying they would focus only on defendants who were caught destroying property or looting, not those who were merely demonstrating.
“The goal isn’t to punish people,” said Hermann Walz, a defense lawyer and former prosecutor and who teaches criminal law at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. “It’s to clear the streets.”
According to data collected by The New York Times, protesters were detained this year at more than 70 schools in at least 30 states, from Arizona State University, with its 80,000 students, to the University of Mary Washington in Virginia, with a student body of under 4,000.
Historians who study student movements say the United States hasn’t seen such a large number of people arrested in campus protests in 50 years. While millions of students participated in protests against the Vietnam War, there were about 4,000 arrests at campus protests in the spring of 1969, during the most intense period of activity.
The pro-Palestinian activism “is a relatively small movement,” said Robert Cohen, a historian at New York University, “but the arrests are almost comparable to the height of the Vietnam protests.”
Here’s a closer look at three schools where the number of arrests was significant.
Indiana University Bloomington
57 Arrests
Bryce Greene, a 26-year-old doctoral student at Indiana University Bloomington, which has more than 40,000 students, said students there saw encampments at other schools and decided to protest in solidarity.
“This war is an American war,” Mr. Greene said, citing U.S. military and financial support for Israel. “So we have a responsibility as Americans and people within American institutions to fight back.”
After Mr. Greene and other students erected tents in Dunn Meadow, a green space on campus that in 1969 was designated as a public forum for free expression, the university called in the police. Administrators had learned of the planned protest and abruptly changed campus rules to prohibit temporary structures without prior permission.
Nearly 60 people, mostly students, were arrested and charged with trespassing. The local prosecutor’s office has dropped those charges, calling the arrests “constitutionally dubious.” (One person was charged with felony battery for biting an officer.)
The university had also issued campus bans to the people arrested but eventually dropped them for all but a handful of protesters, including Mr. Greene. He faced a five-year ban from campus, but the Indiana University Police Department lifted it after Mr. Greene appealed.
University of Texas at Austin
136 Arrests
The University of Texas at Austin was among the first schools in a southern, Republican-controlled state where the police arrested protesters. There, university leaders informed protest organizers that their event “may not proceed as planned.”
When students gathered anyway, on April 24, Gov. Greg Abbott directed state police to deploy to the campus, and officers wielding batons arrested dozens of people. They were all charged with trespassing.
The local prosecutor’s office dropped all the trespassing charges, citing problems with the evidence. Some of those arrested that day are facing campus discipline, including having transcripts and diplomas withheld.
Five days later, 80 more people were arrested after students set up tents. Benjamin Kern, a rising senior studying hydrology and water resources, said he joined the encampment knowing that he would very likely go to jail for doing so, but he assumed the charges would be dropped. He said he wanted to show support for the Palestinian people and opposition to his university’s investments in weapons manufacturers.
“I believe as a student, I have a right to go to my university and ask for change,” he said.
On June 26, Ms. Garza, the Travis County attorney, announced that she had decided to drop all of the trespassing charges against the people arrested on April 29, including Mr. Kern’s.
Ms. Garza said that the body camera footage she saw showed a chaotic scene, with police officers in riot gear pushing students as an order to disperse could be heard in the background. She said it would be “incredibly difficult” to prove that the people arrested had heard that order and refused to comply.
Mr. Kern and others arrested at the University of Texas are still facing campus disciplinary proceedings and could face punishments ranging from a written warning to expulsion.
University of Virginia
27 Arrests
The largest number of people arrested on any single day was about 400 across nine campuses on April 30. But protests continued even as many campuses headed into final exams and graduation. In early May, there were 130 arrests at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and 33 at the University of Pennsylvania.
At the University of Virginia on May 4, as students were preparing for final exams, administrators called in the police to break up an encampment. Police officers in riot gear used chemical irritants to get protesters to disperse and eventually arrested 27 people.
The local prosecutor dropped the charges facing seven people after he determined there wasn’t enough evidence. He offered the rest an agreement: Their charges would be dismissed in August if they didn’t have any outstanding criminal charges at that time.
Eleven students faced disciplinary proceedings at the university; four of them were seniors whose diplomas were withheld, including Cady de la Cruz, 22, who just completed her degree in anthropology. She said she joined the encampment to protest what she saw as an ongoing genocide in Gaza and her university’s ties to it. As of early July, she said she had not received information about when she would get a hearing on the status of her diploma, and was worried the process could stretch into the fall.
Ms. De la Cruz said she was not sure what that could mean for her job search. “I can’t easily step out of the university,” she said. “There’s this tether keeping me back.”
A spokesperson said the university did not comment on student disciplinary proceedings.
The arrests and onset of summer vacation have not fully quelled protest action. At Indiana University, students are still sleeping in tents on Dunn Meadow. Mr. Greene, the doctoral student, said that before his ban from campus was lifted, he went to the encampment every day but never left the sidewalk, which is city property.
Shaila Dewan contributed reporting.
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2) Israeli Strike on Yemeni Port Will Harm Civilians, Not Houthis, Experts Say
Israel’s counterattack on the Houthis, which set a vital Yemeni port ablaze, will do little to deter the militia, Yemeni and international experts said.
By Vivian Nereim and Shuaib Almosawa, July 21, 2024
Vivian Nereim reported from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Shuaib Almosawa from Bengaluru, India.
Outdoor paintings were part of an exhibition in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Sana last month. Houthi leaders say their attacks on Israel are an attempt to force it to stop bombing Gaza. Credit...Yahya Arhab/EPA, via Shutterstock
The Israeli bombing of a vital Yemeni port controlled by the Houthi militia is not expected to deter the group from further attacks but is likely to deepen human suffering in Yemen, regional experts said.
Israeli officials said the barrage of airstrikes that hit the Red Sea port city of Hudaydah on Saturday was a counterattack after the Houthis launched a drone that struck Tel Aviv on Friday, killing one Israeli and wounding several others.
The Israeli strikes in Hudaydah killed three people and injured 87, according to the health ministry in the capital, Sana, which the Houthis control. The port is the main conduit by which food imports, fuel and aid enter impoverished northern Yemen, where more than 20 million people live.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, Israel’s military spokesman, said that Israel carried out the bombardment “to stop the Houthi’s terror attacks” and that it had hit “dual-use" targets including energy infrastructure.
Yemeni scholars and former American officials who study the country said that the Israeli strikes would do little harm to the Houthis. Instead, they said, the attack was likely to exacerbate suffering in Yemen, which is experiencing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises after a decade of war.
“The target of the strike does more to hurt the average Yemeni than the Houthis’ ability to launch attacks on the Red Sea or Israel,” said Adam Clements, a retired U.S. Army attaché for Yemen.
The Houthis, an Iran-backed militia, took over Yemen’s capital in 2014 and then swept through much of the country. A Saudi-led coalition, aided by American military assistance and weapons, began a military intervention in an attempt to depose the militia and restore an internationally recognized government.
The Houthis not only survived the grinding war that ensued but also thrived, creating an impoverished quasi state that they rule with an iron fist. Hudaydah was a site of fierce fighting during that war, as the Saudi-led coalition tried to wrest control of the strategic port city from the Houthis. But they were forced to pull back under international pressure as Yemen descended into near famine.
Hisham Al-Omeisy, a Yemeni political analyst who was imprisoned by the Houthis in 2017, said the Israeli strikes “will not deter nor put a dent on Houthi operations.”
The militia has long framed its narrative around opposition to Israel and the United States and has “always wanted to drag Israel into a direct confrontation,” he said.
Since the war in Gaza began last year, Houthi fighters have fired hundreds of missiles and drones toward Israel, most of which have been intercepted, and have attacked ships passing through the Red Sea. The militia’s leaders have framed their campaign as an attempt to force Israel to stop its bombardment of Gaza and to allow the free flow of aid to Palestinians.
An Israeli attack gives Houthi leaders an opportunity to stoke their “foreign enemy” rhetoric and legitimize their claim of being the defenders of Arabs and Muslims, bolstering their recruitment and their grip on power, Mr. Al-Omeisy said.
A Houthi spokesman, Mohammed Abdul Salam, wrote on the social media platform X that bombing energy infrastructure was proof of Israel’s desire to “intensify the people’s suffering.”
The Hudaydah port is a key source of tax revenue for the Houthis. But it is also a vital piece of infrastructure that Yemenis who reside in the Houthi-controlled north rely on for aid, food imports and other goods.
The Israeli strikes hit a power station as well as gas and oil depots around the port, according to a Houthi spokesman and two regional officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Rebuilding those structures is likely to be costly and time-consuming, said Mohammed Albasha, a senior Middle East expert at Navanti Group, a research organization. He predicted “severe fuel shortages throughout northern Yemen” that could hurt essentials like diesel generators for hospitals.
And damaging the power station in summer, when temperatures can surpass 100 degrees, “will further exacerbate the suffering of the local population,” he said.
On Saturday night, Muneer Ahmed, a 46-year-old father of five in Hudaydah, said that long lines were already forming at gas stations around the city, driven by fears of a fuel shortage.
“The strikes were so intense that they reminded us of the early days of war,” Mr. Ahmed said.
After the attack, he rushed to move his elderly father, who was near the strikes, to safety. Fishermen and others who earn a living in the port were fleeing as fire engines and ambulances sped toward the scene, he said.
Admiral Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, said on Saturday that forces struck the area around the port because “it is a supply route for the transfer of Iranian weapons from Iran to Yemen and a significant source of income for Houthi terrorism.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said the drone attack on Tel Aviv showed that offensive action was necessary to “curtail the Houthis.”
The Saudi-led coalition made similar arguments when it tried to gain control of Hudaydah, but the United States and other countries pressed it to stop. A U.N.-negotiated agreement in 2018 halted fighting around the city because of the humanitarian consequences.
According to an internal memo drafted by military officials and viewed by The New York Times, Israeli security officials asserted that the port was a legitimate military target and that most humanitarian assistance arriving at that port was controlled by the Houthis, who used it to buy political support and punish opponents. They argued that the international community should reroute aid from Hudaydah to the southern port of Aden.
Humanitarian aid organizations have accused the Houthis of diverting aid in the past but have generally continued to send aid despite that, citing the dire need. The Houthis have denied stealing aid.
Any plan to distribute aid for northern Yemen through Aden would face significant hurdles. Hudaydah’s port is better equipped to receive large amounts of goods and is closer to population centers.
While Aden is nominally controlled by Yemen’s internationally recognized government, the city is effectively ruled by an armed separatist group backed by the United Arab Emirates. Both the government and the separatist group consider themselves at war with the Houthis, and aid does not flow freely across the border.
The Israeli attack came after a bombing campaign of more than six months by a U.S.-led coalition targeting Houthi sites across Yemen.
Farea Al-Muslimi, a Yemeni research fellow at Chatham House, the London research group, said the Israeli strikes “will not have a significant impact on the Houthis ballistic weapons or drone capabilities.”
The Houthis are likely to respond with further attacks on Israel and potentially on U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, he said.
Like other scholars who study Yemen, he said that the Israeli attack was likely to worsen the plight of civilians, describing the approach as similar to the Israeli military’s campaign to eliminate Hamas in Gaza: in his words, “burn the forest to hope to kill the snake.”
“Destroying energy infrastructure certainly won’t help the plight of Yemeni civilians,” said Dana Stroul, the Pentagon’s former top Middle East policy official and now a scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “It’s important to remember that life under Houthi rule is already miserable.”
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3) Bangladesh Scales Back Policy on Public-Sector Hiring That Sparked Unrest
A court ruling has sharply reduced a quota system for filling government jobs, after protests over the issue turned violent and were brutally suppressed.
By Anupreeta Das and Saif Hasnat, July 21, 2024
Anupreeta Das reported from New Delhi, and Saif Hasnat from Bangladesh.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/21/world/asia/bangladesh-quota-court-ruling.html
Large demonstrations in Bangladesh, like this one in Dhaka, the capital, began early this month. Protests against a quota system for public-sector jobs have erupted many times in the past two decades. Credit...Munir Uz Zaman/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The Supreme Court of Bangladesh on Sunday drastically reduced the number of government jobs reserved for war veterans and their descendants, a momentous decision spurred by violent student protests that had resulted in the deaths of more than 100 people and brought the country to a standstill.
Under the court’s orders, Bangladesh will now reserve only 5 percent of government jobs for the children and grandchildren of those who fought for the country’s independence from Pakistan in 1971, according to Shah Monjurul Hoque, a lawyer representing student groups. That is down from a quota of 30 percent for the group.
The court ruling also orders the reduction of quotas for some other groups, and abolishes quotas for women and those from certain districts. It cuts the quota of jobs for ethnic minorities to 1 percent, down from 5 percent, but leaves in place the 1 percent of jobs that are already reserved for those with disabilities.
In all, the ruling shrinks the number of reserved jobs to 7 percent from 56 percent, a move that will open up many more civil service jobs to university students, who had called the old system unfair and demanded its overhaul.
Since July 1, thousands of students have been protesting the reinstatement of the quota system, which had been abolished once, in 2018, before being restored this year.
The protests escalated into violence when the student wing of the Awami League, the political party of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, began attacking the protesters. Last week, the government deployed the police and paramilitary forces to contain the violence, but the students did not back down. On Friday, the government declared a curfew and brought in the army to quell the protests.
The quota system was put in place by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding leader of Bangladesh, who led the fight for independence from Pakistan. Mr. Rahman, the father of Ms. Hasina, reserved government jobs as a reward for those who fought in the war. In 1997, and then again in 2010, the quotas had been expanded to include the children and grandchildren of so-called freedom fighters.
Students had labeled it an unfair system and called for most of the government jobs to be filled on merit alone. In June, the high court had reintroduced the quotas after descendants of the freedom fighters made their case. When the protests began, the Supreme Court paused their reinstatement, pending a ruling, which arrived on Sunday.
In delivering its verdict, the top court also asked students to return to class, Mr. Hoque said.
“As the demands of students are met, they should stop the protests,” Am Amin Uddin, Bangladesh’s attorney general, told reporters after the verdict.
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4) As Israel Shrinks Safe Zone in Gaza, Aid Workers Report Dozens of Casualties
By Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Iyad Abuheweila, July 22, 2024
Palestinians fleeing Khan Younis in southern Gaza after an evacuation order was issued by the Israeli military on Monday. Credit...Haitham Imad/EPA, via Shutterstock
Israel ordered residents of part of Khan Younis in southern Gaza to evacuate on Monday ahead of a military operation, as aid workers reported that dozens of people in the city had been killed or wounded in Israeli strikes, suggesting further misery for a city deeply scarred after nine months of war.
The new evacuation orders extended into a portion of an area that Israel had designated as a humanitarian zone. But the military said it was shrinking the boundaries of the zone because Hamas had used part of it to fire rockets toward Israel.
Mohammed Saqer, the director general of nursing at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, said hundreds of injured people had streamed into the hospital, which lacked mattresses, blankets, syringes and other essentials.
“The situation is appalling,” Dr. Saqer said in an interview.
The Palestine Red Crescent said its teams in the area had dealt with 12 people who had been killed and 50 wounded. The Gazan health ministry said 37 dead bodies were brought to Nasser Hospital, and at least 120 other people had been wounded, adding that others were almost certainly buried under rubble. The ministry’s figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
The Israeli military said on Monday that it had ordered the evacuation of eastern Khan Younis because it was “about to forcefully operate against” Hamas in the area. Residents were told to seek temporary shelter closer to the coast in an area that Israel has designated as a humanitarian zone.
The military said it would “continue to act against the Hamas terrorist organization, which uses the Gazan civilians as a human shield for its terrorist activities and infrastructure.”
Almost all of Gaza’s 2.2 million people have been forced to flee their homes and many have relocated repeatedly since October, when Hamas led an attack on Israel that killed around 1,200 people and triggered the war.
Since then, more than 39,000 people have been killed in Gaza and nearly 90,000 others have been injured, according to Palestinian health authorities.
Khan Younis was the site of a major Israeli military ground operation in the spring aimed at dislodging Hamas’s military wing and destroying tunnels that Israel said Hamas had built. At that time, Israel also told residents to flee, and many went south to the city of Rafah on Gaza’s border with Egypt. Residents who returned to Khan Younis in April said that parts of the city had been so badly damaged as to be almost unrecognizable.
KEY DEVELOPMENTS
Israel says two hostages are dead, and other news.
· Two Israeli men kidnapped on Oct. 7 have died in Hamas captivity, the Israel military said in a statement on Monday, citing intelligence reports. The two are Yagev Buchshtab, 35, who was abducted from Kibbutz Nirim along with his wife, Rimon, who was released as part of a hostage deal in November; and Alex Dancyg, who was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz and would have turned 76 on Sunday. The circumstances of the deaths were being examined “by all the professional authorities,” the military said, and the bodies were held by Hamas. The announcement brings to 46 the number of remaining hostages in Gaza believed to be dead, according to the Hostage Families Forum, out of 120.
· Israel will vaccinate its troops in Gaza against polio, its military said on Sunday, after the virus was detected in sewage samples there. The World Health Organization said last week that a poliovirus variant had been found in samples from Khan Younis in southern Gaza and Deir al Balah in central Gaza. Polio is a highly infectious disease that largely affects children under 5 and can cause paralysis. Though the W.H.O. has so far not reported any symptomatic polio cases in Gaza, the enclave has seen a rapid increase in diseases associated with population displacement and compromised hygiene, including diarrhea, acute respiratory infections, scabies, chickenpox and hepatitis A.
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5) A Deadly Robbery Reveals a Pattern of Targeting Latinos in Alabama’s Capital
Latinos in Montgomery, Ala., said they had been sounding the alarm for months, describing the killings at a grocery store as the culmination of unchecked violence.
By Christina Morales, July 22, 2024
Christina Morales traveled to Montgomery, Ala., where she talked to more than a dozen Latino business owners, community activists and residents in Spanish.
Ramiro Romero López Temaj and his son, Billy Daniel López GarcÃa.
On the afternoon of June 4, Billy Daniel López GarcÃa was making plans for the future. He took his girlfriend to a jewelry store and surprised her with a silver promise ring. He vowed to propose after her 20th birthday.
Before heading out to celebrate, the couple went to check on Mr. López GarcÃa’s father at the family’s grocery store, Tienda Los Hermanos, which sells products from their native Guatemala.
They had been deeply unsettled by a string of violent robberies at other nearby Latino-owned businesses in Montgomery, Ala. — a restaurant worker shot in the hip after he took out the trash, an armed man terrifying customers at a Mexican ice cream store.
Only minutes before closing time, two armed men entered Tienda Los Hermanos, opened fire and killed Mr. López GarcÃa, his father and a family friend.
“The United States is very dangerous,” Mr. López GarcÃa’s girlfriend, Michelle Nambo Beltran, said. “It was Danny’s dream to be here,” she added, but “coming here cost him his life.”
The shooting — the deadliest outburst of gun violence in the city this year — shocked many in Montgomery. But in interviews, Latino residents, activists and business owners said they had been sounding the alarm for months, describing the killings at Tienda Los Hermanos as the predictable culmination of an unchecked pattern of robberies and burglaries.
“We’re all afraid,” said Maria Morales, who with her husband owns a Mexican ice cream shop, La Moraleja. The store has been robbed three times since they opened it last year; the first time was in April, when robbers pointed guns at two of their teenage daughters.
Robberies have surged this year across Montgomery, with city data showing that there were almost 300 robberies in the first half of this year, compared with about 403 in all of 2023. If the trend continues, the city could have 50 percent more robberies this year than in 2023.
Though the city says it does not track crimes by the victims’ race or ethnicity, officials have acknowledged that Latino businesses in particular have been targeted, in part because they often trade primarily in cash.
“We see you, we hear you and we’re not going to stand for this,” Mayor Steven Reed said during a news conference the day after the shooting.
The pattern of robberies preying on Latinos has been seen elsewhere, too. In 2023, a man pleaded guilty for his role in a robbery spree that targeted businesses owned by Latinos in North Philadelphia, and Latino street vendors in Chicago were the victims of armed thefts. For years, the police in Durham, N.C., have also dealt with robberies aimed at Latinos.
In Montgomery, residents say the situation is exacerbated by police response times that stretch past an hour, a lack of Spanish-speaking officers and concerns among some undocumented immigrants that engaging with the authorities could lead to deportation.
Montgomery — Alabama’s capital and home to about 200,000 residents — has struggled to recruit police officers in recent years, as have many other cities amid the increased scrutiny on policing after the murder of George Floyd. (Birmingham, Ala., is creating a citizen patrol force to assist its understaffed police department.)
Mayor Reed has acknowledged that the city needs more police officers, and has pointed to an upcoming 15 percent raise for frontline officers as a sign that the city is working to fix the issue.
Many of the robberies remain unsolved, though a suspect has been charged in the killings of Mr. López GarcÃa; his father, Ramiro Romero López Temaj; and George Elijah Jr., a family friend and the person who had sold the promise ring to Mr. López GarcÃa. The police are still seeking another suspect, and a reward for information leading to arrests has increased several times and is now at $40,000.
There are about 10,000 Latinos living in and around Montgomery; it’s a growing community that includes new arrivals from Mexico and Central America as well as an earlier wave of people who relocated from states like California after the 2008 financial crisis. They have been drawn by Alabama’s lower cost of living and opportunities to work in construction, auto manufacturing, hospitality and tourism.
The businesses that serve them are largely clustered along a busy freeway, about eight miles from the State Capitol and near several mobile home communities where immigrants live.
Officials and residents said it appeared that criminals were preying upon these businesses because their customers, some of whom are undocumented, often exist in the cash economy.
“They know that Latinos can’t defend themselves,” said José Vázquez, whose stepfather was shot in the hip in May at Tipico de Mexico, their family-run restaurant.
In Montgomery, residents said they had been robbed or burglarized at home, on the street and even in the parking lot of the Our Lady Queen of Mercy Catholic Church. Several activists said that these crimes were most likely underreported because previous episodes where the police had questioned a person’s immigration status had sowed deep distrust within the Latino community.
The police have tried to quell some of these concerns, with John W. Hall, the acting chief, saying in a statement that the department’s “sole concern is to assist victims of crime.”
“We want to build trust and reassure you that you can approach us, not just to report a crime, but also to collaborate with us in its resolution, without any fear of us checking your status,” he said.
Mr. Vázquez of Tipico de Mexico also acknowledged that help may have arrived earlier if all of the robberies had been reported. “We have some fault in this,” he said.
But some residents who reported robberies described feeling dismissed by officers because they didn’t speak English, while others said the police sometimes took as long as an hour to respond.
Over the past few months, Jose Luis Cano was the victim of several burglaries that he did not report to the police. Someone broke into his home, he said, and he recently witnessed a thief taking the stereo from his car.
“We live with fear here,” he said.
On a recent day, several of the businesses that line the freeway were largely deserted. Owners estimated that their traffic was down at least 20 percent since the deaths at Tienda Los Hermanos.
They now keep their doors closed all day, only letting in customers they recognize, and are vigilant toward anyone roaming around their stores. Some have hired security or are carrying pistols themselves, and are encouraging their regular customers to do the same.
Mercedes Adiles, an intern at a local Christian summer camp, used to treat her five children to ice cream at La Moraleja. Now, “we plan to not come out a lot,” she said. “You can be there at the wrong time.”
Some business owners said staff members were hesitant to return. Keon Thomas, an employee at La Moraleja, wanted to close the ice cream shop after he and a customer were robbed on Memorial Day.
“I was scared,” he said. “I didn’t want to come in at all.”
The only business with much of a crowd lately has been Tienda Los Hermanos. A steady stream of people have come to leave their condolences or a donation for the victims’ families, bringing a welcome sense of community after the tragedy.
On July 1, that spirit was punctured once again. Burglars twice broke into the store, stealing a safe.
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6) Palestinian Factions Declare Unity in Beijing, but Skepticism Is High
By Adam Rasgon and Alexandra Stevenson reporting from Jerusalem and Hong Kong, July 23, 2024
Destroyed buildings in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, on Tuesday. Credit...Omar Al-Qattaa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Fatah and Hamas signed a joint statement in Beijing on Tuesday in a grand show of unity, with the leaders of the rival Palestinian factions standing beside China’s foreign minister for a photo opportunity in an ornate hall.
Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, declared that “historic moments” were underway. Mahmoud al-Aloul, the deputy leader of Fatah, showered praise on China for standing beside the Palestinian people.
Their joint statement supports the formation of a temporary government for Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank that all parties agree upon. But for many Palestinians, without concrete steps to make that plan a reality, the gathering in the Chinese capital was little more than a performance — and one they had seen before.
“What happened in China isn’t significant,” said Jehad Harb, an analyst of Palestinian affairs. “There aren’t any indications that Hamas and Fatah intend to end the split between them.”
Hamas and Fatah have been deeply divided for years, each trying to present itself as the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people and wary that the other will undermine its power. In 2007, the parties engaged in a civil war in which Hamas forcibly took over Gaza from the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, which retains limited autonomy over parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Multiple past attempts to broker unity between the rival parties have resulted in joint statements and agreements, but all of those efforts have failed.
“These statements aren’t worth the ink needed to write them,” said Abd Al-Rahman Basem al-Masri, 25, a resident of Deir al Balah in central Gaza. “We’ve seen these things before and we’ve lost hope in them.”
The joint statement on Tuesday, which was also signed by other smaller Palestinian factions, said the new government should begin working on uniting Palestinian institutions in the West Bank and Gaza, reconstructing Gaza and preparing for national elections, though it does not lay out a clear timeline.
Mohammad Shtayyeh, a senior Fatah official and the former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, said he thought the statement was “serious,” but he emphasized that more discussions were required to advance reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.
“There’s no alternative to Palestinian unity,” he said in an interview. “What has happened in China is stating the obvious.”
“It’s a matter of principles,” he said, adding that “a lot of talks and details” were needed for implementation.
Palestinian experts have said cooperation between Hamas and Fatah was critical to discussions about a postwar future in Gaza. If they can form a government of independent figures without formal ties to Hamas, it could make it easier for much of the Western world to participate in rebuilding the territory. The United States, Britain and other nations consider Hamas a terrorist group.
The statement does not address a key sticking point: security control over Gaza. Fatah has demanded that all weapons be under the authority of one unified security force and government, while Hamas has said it will not dismantle its military wing, the Qassam Brigades. Mr. Shtayyeh, who stepped down as prime minister in March, acknowledged frustration among Palestinians, describing the division between Hamas and Fatah as a “black chapter in the history of Palestine.”
“Palestinians on the street are very angry and disappointed that these talks have been ongoing for 17 years now,” he said. “The general public wants results, they don’t want papers. They want practical steps in the right direction.”
For China, meanwhile, bringing Hamas and Fatah together represented an opportunity to promote its image as a peace broker and an important player in the Middle East. The declaration on Tuesday followed Beijing’s success in negotiating a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran last year. It also comes as China has deepened its financial ties in the region in areas like technology and artificial intelligence.
Official Chinese state media hailed the meeting, saying it was “bringing precious hope to the suffering of the Palestinian people.”
The Palestinian factions attended the meeting mostly to placate China, Mr. Harb said, noting that they want to be in the good graces of a world power.
The images of China as a key international actor were not just for an overseas audience.
“The Chinese government does put significant weight on symbolic interactions, and certainly they are trying to lay out a tableau for everyone to look at domestically to say, ‘Yes, the Chinese government is important and is a force for good in the world,’” said William J. Hurst, a professor of Chinese politics at the University of Cambridge.
Zixu Wang contributed reporting from Hong Kong.
KEY DEVELOPMENTS
Israeli raids in West Bank kill at least 3, Palestinian officials say, and other news.
· At least three people were killed Tuesday during Israeli military raids against Palestinian militant groups in the occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian officials. Israeli troops were operating in the city of Tulkarm, in the central West Bank, Mustafa Taqataqa, a local governor, said. He said the number of casualties was unclear because medics were unable to reach combat areas. The Israeli attack included a drone strike in the city, which the Israeli military said had targeted several militants. Once relatively quiet, Tulkarm has become a battle zone in recent months, with Israeli soldiers conducting over 50 operations against Palestinian armed groups there. The raids have torn up roads and created a climate of fear among the city’s residents.
· The International Criminal Court will allow dozens of governments and other parties to file arguments as it considers whether to grant a prosecutor’s request for arrest warrants for war crimes for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Hamas leaders. In court documents, the I.C.C. asked groups, individuals and countries — including Germany, South Africa and the United States — to file their briefs by Aug. 6. The court, which has jurisdiction to prosecute people for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, has not set a date for its decision, but allowing the arguments is likely to stretch out the timeline. Both Israel and Hamas have denounced the warrant application.
· Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said during a visit to Washington that conditions for a cease-fire deal with Hamas were “ripening.” Mr. Netanyahu told the families of hostages in a meeting on Monday that Israel was “placing very, very heavy pressure on Hamas,” leading the armed group to compromise on its position, according to a statement from the prime minister’s office. The families of the remaining 120 living and dead hostages in Gaza have increasingly criticized Netanyahu as not doing enough to bring home their loved ones.
· Washington is bracing for protests to coincide with Mr. Netanyahu’s visit. A number of Jewish, Palestinian and other activist groups calling for a cease-fire in Gaza or a hostage deal are planning rallies on Capitol Hill and near the White House this week to coincide with the Israeli prime minister’s visit and speech to Congress on Wednesday. Some Democratic members of Congress have already said they will skip Mr. Netanyahu’s speech to show their unhappiness with his conduct of the war.
· Israeli athletes will get 24-hour French police protection at the Paris Olympics amid heightened security concerns. Israeli athletes are targeted more than other delegations, Gerald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, said in a television interview on Sunday, pledging to ensure that the team would feel welcome and could compete without fear. The announcement followed reports that a far-left French minister, Thomas Portes, said there should be protests against the Israeli athletes, citing the war in Gaza. Israeli news outlets have reported that some athletes have received threatening messages recalling the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, in which a Palestinian militant group, Black September, killed 11 Israelis.
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7) The Israeli military is using tanks and fighter jets to strike in Khan Younis.
By Matthew Mpoke Bigg reporting from Jerusalem, July 23, 2024
Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Monday. Credit...Abdel Kareem Hana/Associated Press
Israel’s military said on Tuesday that it was pushing ahead with operations against Hamas in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, using tanks and fighter jets to strike what it said were weapons storage facilities and observation posts, a day after aid workers reported that dozens of people had been killed and hundreds of others wounded in the area.
The military, which is seeking to dismantle Hamas, invaded Khan Younis in December, and by spring it said that it had defeated the armed group’s forces in the city. That its troops have returned there this week suggests that Israel’s commanders perceive that Hamas had not been fully defeated or has regrouped.
The military said on Tuesday that it was again “eliminating terrorists in tank and aerial strikes.” It also said that a projectile fired by Hamas toward Israel from the area of Maghazi in central Gaza “fell and hit a school in the area of Nuseirat,” a town in the same part of the enclave. The military did not say whether there were casualties. It was not immediately possible to confirm the claim, and the main U.N. agency that aids Palestinians, UNRWA, said that it had no information about the reported incident.
The Israeli military had ordered residents to evacuate parts of Khan Younis on Monday, and video and photos showed terrified people, many on foot, running for safety. More than 150,000 people had fled by late Monday afternoon, according to UNRWA, which cited information from a charity, Alwaleed Philanthropies.
Israel had established what it described as a humanitarian zone just west of the city around the coastal village of Al Mawasi and encouraged Palestinians in Gaza to go there for safety. But on Monday the military said that it had shrunk the area of that zone, asking people, many of whom had set up makeshift shelters, to leave again because it said Hamas fighters had been launching rockets from the area.
The decision was made because of “intelligence indicating that terrorists were operating and firing rockets in these areas, as well as efforts by Hamas to reassemble its forces there,” the military said in a statement.
The claim could not be independently confirmed, but Hamas has used urban areas in Gaza to conceal its operations, running tunnels under neighborhoods and holding hostages in city centers. The group’s members, who are from Gaza, have long lived among the civilian population.
People in Gaza “search for safety to no avail because no place is safe,” said Juliette Touma, the communications director of UNRWA, who also said that people had been forced to move once a month.
The situation was particularly dire at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. The Gazan health ministry said on Monday that 70 bodies had been brought there and that 200 others had been wounded. The figures could not be confirmed independently, and they do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Javid Abdelmoneim, the medical team leader for Doctors Without Borders at the hospital, said in an impassioned video posted on social media on Tuesday that staff members were at a breaking point because of the overwhelming medical needs, not least patients with burns. Stocks of blood were at critically low levels, he said, adding that he feared the hospital would be forced to close entirely.
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8) Hepatitis A and other diseases have surged among Gaza’s displaced people, the U.N. says.
By Adam Sella and Matthew Mpoke Bigg, July 24, 2024
Children walking near stagnant wastewater on their way to a food distribution point in Deir al Balah, in central Gaza, last week. Credit...Bashar Taleb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Sally Thabet, 40, said she had done all she could to protect her three daughters from illness after they fled their home in Gaza City, taking refuge in the town of Deir al Balah. But living in a former minimart, sharing a toilet with 20 others and washing dishes with dirty seawater, no amount of hand sanitizer could help.
One by one her girls fell sick with what doctors diagnosed as hepatitis A, a viral liver infection that is transmitted through person-to-person contact or contaminated food or water, and can spread quickly in unsanitary conditions.
“Amoon was the first to be diagnosed two months ago,” she said last week, adding that the 10-year-old girl developed a stomachache, stopped eating, started vomiting and looked pale. “I couldn’t see how yellowish she was because it is very dark inside the store.” Her other two children, Kenzy 15, and Kandi, 11, followed soon after.
More than 100,000 people in Gaza have contracted acute jaundice syndrome, or suspected hepatitis A, since the war between Hamas and Israel began on Oct. 7, the World Health Organization said last week.
It is just one disease that has spread rapidly in Gaza as most of the territory’s 2.2 million people have fled their homes, forced to live in squalid, crowded camps and makeshift shelters, while basic needs like clean water, sewage treatment, trash collection, soap and fuel for cooking have grown scarce.
There are also nearly one million cases of acute respiratory infections, half a million cases of diarrhea and 100,000 cases of lice and scabies, the W.H.O. said. On Friday, the agency’s chief, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that even polio, a disease that has been eradicated in much of the world, was present in Gaza. A variant of poliovirus has turned up there in six samples of water or wastewater, he said, meaning that some people there are infected, though no symptomatic cases have been reported.
Dr. Hanan Balkhy, the W.H.O. director for the eastern Mediterranean region, told members of the news media: “In the Gaza Strip, where garbage and sewage fill the streets, cases of acute respiratory infections, diarrheal illnesses, acute jaundice syndrome and skin infections are surging. The situation is indeed dire.”
People with hepatitis A usually recover fully within weeks or a few months, but some become seriously ill and a small number die. (It is unrelated to the more serious and long-lasting hepatitis B and C, which spread through blood contact.)
In the developed world, diarrheal illnesses and diseases like hepatitis A are relatively rare, and often not very serious. But in chaotic and crowded places with poor sanitation and malnutrition, they become much more common and dangerous. Since the war began, aid workers have warned of the threat of more serious epidemics in Gaza like cholera, which can quickly lead to mass mortality, but so far those have not materialized.
The disease spread in Gaza has coincided with Israeli airstrikes and ground combat in and around hospitals and clinics, damaging nearly all of them and forcing many to close. The large number of people treated for war injuries — almost 90,000, Gaza’s health ministry says — and the surge in illness have overwhelmed Gaza’s diminished medical system.
Dr. Balkhy said that more than 1,000 attacks on health care have been reported since Oct. 7. Israel’s military says that Hamas has stationed fighters and military equipment in hospitals as well as beneath them to take advantage of the cover they provide, a charge that Hamas and hospital officials dispute.
The Israeli military has launched two operations at Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, fighting deadly battles with militants there. An investigation by The New York Times found evidence that Hamas had stored weapons in tunnels beneath the hospital but could not confirm the Israeli claim that it was a Hamas command and control center.
Before the war, Gaza’s health care system was “reasonably well functional,” said Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, the W.H.O.’s representative to Gaza and the West Bank. Now, fewer than half of its facilities remain even partly operational, he said, and its health care work force is severely depleted.
Israel has promoted the establishment of new field hospitals to expand medical infrastructure for civilians in Gaza, according to COGAT, the arm of the Israeli military that implements policy in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
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9) Gaza’s death toll was largely accurate in the early days of the war, a study finds.
By Lauren Leatherby, July 15, 2024
A truck held the bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes in central Gaza in October. Credit...Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times
A new study analyzing the first 17 days of Israel’s bombardment in the Gaza Strip found that the Gaza Ministry of Health’s death toll, a subject of debate at the time, was reliable.
The study, conducted by Airwars, a British organization that assesses claims of civilian harm in conflicts, added to previous research suggesting that the Health Ministry’s figures in the early days of the war were credible.
In late October, the Health Ministry published the names of about 7,000 people who had been killed in the first 17 days of the war. Of the thousands of Israeli airstrikes and other explosions during that time period, only a fraction — 350 events — were analyzed by Airwars for the study released Wednesday. Airwars said it was able to independently identify 3,000 names, most of which matched the ministry’s list.
As a result, Airwars said, it felt confident the ministry’s casualty reporting system at the beginning of the war was reliable and that it was working to analyze additional strikes and explosions.
Airwars reported that more recent ministry figures had become less accurate after the destruction of the territory’s health system.
The war has, however, clearly devastated the civilian population in Gaza. On Wednesday, the ministry, whose death toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, said that more than 39,000 people had been killed.
The ministry is ultimately overseen by Hamas, and Israeli officials have expressed skepticism about its accuracy. Early in the war, before the Health Ministry released its list, President Biden said he had “no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using,” though he and other American officials have since expressed more confidence in them, urging Israel to do more to protect civilians.
Israel says that it tries to avoid civilian casualties, but notes that Hamas often bases its forces in densely populated urban areas.
Airwars focused its research only on the early days of the conflict. It said that there were many other strikes and explosions apart from the nearly 350 it documented during the period.
About 75 percent of the names documented by Airwars appeared on the health ministry’s October list, a rate that showed that “both capture a large fraction of the underlying reality,” said Mike Spagat, a professor at Royal Holloway College at the University of London who reviewed the findings and advised on the research process.
Many international officials and experts familiar with the way the health ministry verifies deaths in Gaza — drawing on information from morgues and hospitals across the territory — say its numbers are generally reliable. But there is evidence that the quality of the data has declined, as infrastructure has collapsed in many parts of the territory. In December, after many hospitals had closed, the health ministry announced it was supplementing its hospital and morgue-based tally with “reliable media sources.”
In its analysis, Airwars verified that at least some militants were included on the list of those killed in the first three weeks of the war. Israel’s military said in July that it had killed or captured around 14,000 combatants in Gaza since the war began, a number that cannot be independently confirmed.
In one instance, an Israeli airstrike on Oct. 19 targeted and killed Maj. Gen. Jihad Muheisan, commander of the Hamas-run National Security Forces, along with 18 members of his family, including nine children and six women, Airwars found. General Muheisan and all but one of the 18 were included on the Health Ministry’s list.
Because Airwars only analyzed incidents in which civilians were reportedly harmed, researchers said they could not estimate how many militants were included on the health ministry’s list.
Other studies have also backed the reliability of the ministry’s early death toll.
Johns Hopkins researchers found that there was no evidence that it was inflated through early November. And researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who analyzed ID numbers from the October list found there was “no obvious reason” to doubt the data.
Airwars used the same methodology in its Gaza analysis as it has for conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Libya and others, said Emily Tripp, the group’s director.
The pace of those killed in Gaza in October stands out, she said. Airwars tracked more allegations of harm to civilians in October than in any month in its decade of monitoring, according to the report, including the U.S.-led fight against Islamic State and Russia’s bombardment of Syria. About a quarter of those included at least 10 civilians reportedly killed, which is much higher that other conflicts it has monitored.
“We have, per incident, more people dying than we’ve seen in any other campaign,” Ms. Tripp said. “The intensity is greater than anything else we’ve documented.”
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10) This was the message that Netanyahu took to Congress.
By Ephrat Livni, July 25, 2024
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel spoke to U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday. Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times
Israel’s leader traveled some 5,000 miles and did not give an inch.
Addressing a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back on condemnations of Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza and lavished praise and thanks on the United States for its support.
He offered a retort to harsh international criticism that Israel had done far too little to protect civilian lives in Gaza and was starving the population there. And he remained defiant in the face of the global pressure over a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, giving little hint that Israel would back down from the fight anytime soon.
Here are some of the highlights.
He name-checked both Biden and Trump.
Mr. Netanyahu was careful to walk a middle path, thanking both Democrats and Republicans, including President Biden and the Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, for their support.
“I know that America has our back,” he said. “And I thank you for it. All sides of the aisle. Thank you, my friends.”
He expressed particular appreciation for Mr. Biden’s “heartfelt support for Israel after the savage attack” led by Hamas on Oct. 7. But he also made a point of praising Mr. Trump, who as president was more receptive to some of his expansionist policies.
He denied that Israel was starving Gazans.
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has requested arrest warrants for war crimes and crimes against humanity for Mr. Netanyahu and the leaders of Hamas. But Mr. Netanyahu rejected accusations by the court’s prosecutor that Israel was deliberately cutting off food to Gazans.
“Utter, complete nonsense, a complete fabrication,” he declared.
Israel, he said, has enabled more than 40,000 aid trucks to enter Gaza during the war.
However, U.N. aid officials say Israel is responsible for most obstacles to getting aid to desperate Palestinians. Mr. Netanyahu said members of Hamas were stealing the goods.
He rejected blame for the heavy civilian loss.
More than 39,000 people have been killed in Gaza during the war, according to the Gaza health authorities, who do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. But Mr. Netanyahu again rejected Israeli responsibility. He denied deliberately targeting noncombatants and said the Israel Defense Forces had worked hard to protect them.
“The I.D.F. has dropped millions of fliers, sent millions of text messages and hundreds of thousands of phone calls to get Palestinian civilians out of harm’s way,” he said.
But those directives often confuse Gaza civilians who struggle to find any safe place to shelter amid the incessant airstrikes and bombardments that have lasted for more than nine months.
Mr. Netanyahu again blamed Hamas, saying it “does everything in its power to put Palestinian civilians in harm’s way” by using schools, hospitals and mosques for military operations.
International law requires combatants to avoid using such “civilian objects” for military objectives. But Israel’s critics say that Hamas’s use of civilian sites does not absolve Israel of its obligations under international law to protect civilians, nor does it explain the scale of death and destruction.
He played up diversity in Israeli society.
During the speech, Mr. Netanyahu called on a few Israeli soldiers in the audience to stand up, including one of Ethiopian descent and another who is Bedouin, citing their heroism and their important role in the Israeli military. It appeared to be an effort to convey that Israel and its military are not homogenous.
“The Muslim soldiers of the I.D.F. fought alongside their Jewish, Christian and other comrades in arms with tremendous bravery,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
Ethiopian Jews and Bedouins in Israel are often marginalized, but the prime minister offered a different portrayal.
He sketched out a vague vision of peace.
The Israeli prime minister has been accused by critics in Israel and some diplomats of dragging his feet in reaching a cease-fire deal with Hamas to end the bloodshed, possibly to preserve his own political longevity.
But Mr. Netanyahu said “a new Gaza could emerge” if Hamas was defeated and Gaza “demilitarized and de-radicalized,” adding that Israel “does not seek to resettle Gaza.”
He turned to past world conflicts to make his case, noting that the approach of demilitarization and de-radicalization was used in Germany and Japan after World War II.
There is broad concern, however, that in Gaza the trauma of the war will yield a new generation of radicalization.
The common enemy? Iran, he said.
“If you remember one thing, one thing from this speech, remember this: Our enemies are your enemies,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “Our fight is your fight. And our victory will be your victory.”
Iran, he said, wants to impose “radical Islam” on the world and sees the United States as its greatest enemy because it is “the guardian of Western civilization and the world’s greatest power.”
He argued that Iran-backed militias like Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, whatever their aggression against Israel, are actually fighting a different war.
“Israel is merely a tool,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “The main war, the real war, is with America.”
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11) U.K.’s Policy on Israel, Long Aligned With America’s, Veers Away
Britain’s new government is likely to withdraw objections to the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s pursuit of a warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu, two people told The Times.
By Mark Landler and Stephen Castle, Reporting from London, July 25, 2024
Prime Ministers Rishi Sunak of Britain and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in London. The new British government is more likely to put pressure on Israel over its military response to the Oct. 7 attacks. Credit...Stefan Rousseau/Press Association, via Associated Press
For 10 months, Britain’s Conservative government had moved almost in lock step with the United States in its response to Israel’s war in Gaza. Now, under its new Labour government, Britain is edging away from its closest ally on the conflict.
By the end of this week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is expected to drop the previous government’s objections to the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s pursuit of an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, two people briefed on the government’s deliberations said. The two people spoke on the condition of anonymity given the political sensitivities of the issue.
Last week, Britain said it would restart funding for the main United Nations’ agency that aids Palestinians, UNRWA, having concluded that the agency had taken steps to ensure that it meets “the highest standards of neutrality.” The Israeli government had accused a dozen of the agency’s employees of playing a role in the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel or their aftermath.
Taken together, these steps show a government that is willing to pile more pressure on Mr. Netanyahu for Israel’s harsh military response in Gaza. It also shows that Mr. Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, is paying more heed to international legal institutions than the United States.
In May, President Biden condemned as “outrageous” the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s effort to obtain arrest warrants for Mr. Netanyahu and the Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant. Although the warrants would be largely symbolic measures, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to pass legislation imposing sanctions on court officials.
Analysts noted that Britain’s new government had not imposed concrete measures like halting weapons shipments to Israel. Officials have said they are awaiting the results of a legal review of whether Israel is violating human rights laws.
These early moves suggest that the prime minister, who is the author of a book on European human rights law, is charting his own course on a conflict that has vexed Western leaders, including Mr. Biden, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany. Britain’s close alignment with the United States had caused the Labour Party headaches with many of its own supporters, who agitated for a swifter British call for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.
“Starmer can say, ‘Judge me by what I’m doing. These are the two early decisions I made. How can you criticize those?’” said Daniel Levy, who runs the U.S./Middle East Project, a research organization based in London and New York.
Mr. Starmer has appointed Richard Hermer, a prominent human rights lawyer and close former colleague, as attorney general. Mr. Hermer will be highly influential in advising the prime minister on Israel, signing off on any legal intervention submitted to the International Criminal Court.
Born into a Jewish family and a supporter of Jewish causes, Mr. Hermer advised the Labour Party to oppose the previous government’s effort to pass a law banning local authorities in Britain from boycotting Israeli-affiliated entities. He argued that it would infringe on their free speech.
“He’s an acknowledged expert of huge standing and reputation in human rights law,” said Colm O’Cinneide, professor of constitutional and human rights law at University College London.
While the government has not said how it plans to respond to the International Criminal Court, Mr. Starmer said in May: “The court should be able to come to its decision in due course. I support the court and I support international law.” Rishi Sunak, his predecessor, called the pursuit of arrest warrants for Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant “deeply unhelpful.”
While few analysts expect the new government to stick to the line of the previous one, some believe that, instead of dropping its objection entirely, Britain might choose to submit a more nuanced text to the court.
But Zaki Sarraf, a legal officer for the International Center of Justice for Palestinians, a group that supports the rights of Palestinians, called on the government to take a clear position.
“There can’t be a pick-and-choose approach to this sort of thing,” Mr. Sarraf said in a statement, noting that Mr. Starmer praised the court when it sought an arrest warrant for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. “International law must be applied without fear or favor, and he must support these arrest warrants, too.”
The war in Gaza has put Mr. Starmer and the Labour Party into a tricky political position from the start. Mr. Starmer did not want to show daylight with the Conservative government on a major national security issue before the general election. He had also successfully cleansed Labour of a reputation for antisemitism in parts of its rank-and-file membership under the previous leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who was purged from the party over the issue.
Mr. Starmer initially backed the government’s staunch support of Israel, along with a call for increased humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza. He later called for an immediate cease-fire, as did the government, but not soon enough to satisfy people on his party’s left or many Muslim Labour supporters.
Labour’s careful balancing act did not spare the party a backlash at the polls, even in an election in which it won a landslide victory. Jonathan Ashworth, a Labour figure who would probably have been named to a cabinet post, unexpectedly lost his seat to a pro-Palestinian activist.
Mr. Starmer himself won a reduced share of the vote in his North London seat compared with the 2019 election, in part because of a challenge by an independent who voiced anger with Labour’s stance on Israel.
In a biography of Mr. Starmer, the journalist Tom Baldwin wrote that the Labour leader had “publicly backed the Israeli prime minister’s political opponents, branded his rejection of a two-state solution as ‘unacceptable’ and warned any breaches of international law will mean ‘there are going to be consequences for him when this is over.’”
Britain’s shift comes as the United States itself enters a period of heightened political uncertainty on Israel. The withdrawal of Mr. Biden from the 2024 campaign and the emergence of Vice President Kamala Harris as the presumptive Democratic nominee have raised questions about whether the United States will change its calculus on Israel and the war in Gaza.
“She’s far more frustrated and angrier with Netanyahu than Biden is,” said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East peace negotiator who is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
But Mr. Miller noted that any change in American policy would most likely take the form of greater pressure on Mr. Netanyahu, who addressed a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, to make a cease-fire deal with Hamas.
The White House, he said, would not resume funding to UNRWA or drop opposition to the International Criminal Court because, he said, those steps would provoke a needless election-year fight with Republicans on Capitol Hill.
Patrick Kingsley contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
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12) Newsom Will Order California Officials to Remove Homeless Encampments
The directive from Gov. Gavin Newsom is the nation’s most sweeping response to a Supreme Court decision last month that gave local leaders greater authority to remove homeless campers.
By Shawn Hubler, Reporting from Sacramento, July 25, 2024
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is widely viewed as having presidential aspirations, has channeled $24 billion into homelessness since he took office in 2019. Credit...Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle, via Associated Press
Gov. Gavin Newsom will order California state officials on Thursday to begin dismantling thousands of homeless encampments, according to members of his administration, calling on government leaders to act on a recent Supreme Court decision “with urgency and dignity.”
The executive order, which is expected to affect tens of thousands of people, represents the nation’s most sweeping response to a June ruling that gave governments greater authority to remove homeless people from their streets.
Homeless encampments have vexed California, where housing costs are among the nation’s highest, more than any other state. An estimated 180,000 people were homeless last year in California, the most in the nation, and about 123,000 homeless people on any given night were unsheltered, according to the most recent count. Unlike New York City, most jurisdictions in California do not guarantee a right to housing.
Governor Newsom will advise California cities and counties on how best to ramp up enforcement on a signature issue of his administration, but he cannot force them to take action. He also will mandate that state agencies not simply move campers along, but also work with local governments to house people and provide services into which the state has pumped billions of dollars.
“The state has been hard at work to address this crisis on our streets,” Mr. Newsom said in a statement.
“There are simply no more excuses,” he added. “It’s time for everyone to do their part.”
Mr. Newsom, who is widely viewed as having presidential aspirations, has channeled about $24 billion into homelessness since he took office in 2019. His administration says it helped move more than 165,000 homeless people into temporary or permanent housing two fiscal years ago, the most recent period for which data is available.
The governor’s directive this week follows a Supreme Court decision on June 28 that upheld an Oregon city’s ban on homeless residents sleeping outdoors. The Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit had found in earlier opinions that it was unconstitutional to punish people for sleeping in public spaces when they had no other legal place to spend the night.
Encampments spread as the Ninth Circuit, which covers nine Western states, limited the ability of cities to tackle homelessness with arrests and citations. Many politicians from both parties blamed the rulings, even as cities spent heavily on homeless services and affordable housing to address a suddenly visible problem. Mr. Newsom was among a host of leaders who begged the court to intervene.
The justices granted their request, taking the case that originated in Grants Pass, Ore., and subsequently ruled 6 to 3 along ideological lines that the city had not violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment by ticketing homeless campers. Advocates for homeless people denounced the decision as cruel and predicted that it would incite a “race to the bottom” as cities cracked down.
Some local leaders, including Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles, have echoed that opinion. But others have welcomed the decision.
In San Francisco, Mayor London Breed, a Democrat, said last week that city officials planned to become “very aggressive and assertive in moving encampments” starting next month and might start citing homeless people who refused offers of shelter. The Republican mayor of Lancaster, Calif., said after the ruling that his community was eager to get moving. “I’m warming up the bulldozer,” Mayor R. Rex Parris said.
Most local governments, however, have been torn since the decision over whether to aggressively enforce laws against homelessness. The Supreme Court ruling left many civil protections intact, including prohibitions on excessive fines and violations of due process, and civil liberties groups have warned local governments that they would sue over mistreatment of vulnerable people living on the street.
Research also indicates that clearing encampments may be of limited value. One recent study, by the RAND Corporation, found that dismantling them had little or no long-term effect on a city’s homeless population. Another survey, conducted last year by the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at the University of California, San Francisco, found that 75 percent of homeless adults in California were local residents who had become homeless in the county where they had last been housed.
Administration officials, who spoke on background because the executive order had not yet been issued, said it had been drawn up as a regulatory template for government entities that still must deal with encampments, which continue to sprawl across sidewalks, peek from rural wild lands and crop up nightly along beaches and waterways.
So many people have sought shelter near freeways, for example, that the California Department of Transportation has developed its own protocol and dedicated employees for clearing encampments. From one-person pup tents pitched near offramps to large encampments sheltering dozens of people beneath overpasses, Caltrans, as the department is known, has cleared more than 11,000 campsites since 2021, removing more than 248,000 cubic yards of debris, Newsom administration officials said.
The governor’s directive will order other state agencies — including California State Parks and the Department of Fish and Wildlife, both of which oversee immense tracts of land — to adopt versions of the approach being used at Caltrans. Under that approach, the departments will first target encampments that pose a health and safety risk. The state will provide 48 to 72 hours of advance notice, and state officials will work with local service providers to connect homeless campers with services and housing. Personal property collected at each site will be bagged, tagged and stored for at least 60 days.
Administration officials said that Caltrans could immediately accelerate enforcement and that other state agencies should have the new rules in place within a couple of weeks.
The state cannot legally force cities to adopt the Caltrans system. But Mr. Newsom and state lawmakers can pressure local leaders because they control billions of dollars of funding intended to address homelessness.
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13) The U.K. drops its opposition to an International Criminal Court warrant for Netanyahu.
By Stephen Castle Reporting from London, July 26, 2024
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel attending a session in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem, this month. Credit...Ohad Zwigenberg/Associated Press
Britain on Friday confirmed it was dropping plans to challenge the pursuit of an international warrant against Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in the International Criminal Court, underscoring a shift in foreign policy under the country’s new prime minister, Keir Starmer.
The decision marks a divergence from U.S. policy on Israel, which the previous Conservative government had followed closely.
Two people briefed on the government’s deliberations told The New York Times earlier this week that Mr. Starmer would drop the previous government’s objections to the pursuit of warrants by the end of this week.
Downing Street said on Friday that Mr. Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, had decided that Britain would not make a submission to the court as Mr. Sunak’s government had planned.
“This was a proposal by the previous government which was not submitted before the election, and which I can confirm the government will not be pursuing, in line with our longstanding position that this is a matter for the court to decide on,” said an official spokeswoman for Mr. Starmer.
“The government believes strongly in the rule of law and separation of powers,” she added.
In May, Karim Khan, the international criminal court prosecutor, announced he had applied for warrants for Mr. Netanyahu and for the Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity during Israel’s military operation in Gaza, including the starvation of civilians.
Mr. Khan simultaneously applied for warrants for three Hamas leaders, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Mr. Sunak described the request for warrants against Israeli officials as “deeply unhelpful,” and a senior government minister, Andrew Mitchell, told Parliament: “We do not think that the I.C.C. has jurisdiction in this case.” In early June, the government applied to the international court for the right to submit objections, and was asked to submit its arguments by July 12. That deadline was extended until Friday after Mr. Sunak called a general election.
The decision not to intervene in the international court proceedings marks the second departure by the new British government from U.S. policy on Israel since Britain’s general election earlier this month.
Last week, David Lammy, Britain’s new foreign secretary, said he would restore funding to the main United Nations relief agency that aids the Palestinians, UNRWA.
The government is also reviewing whether to continue sales of weapons to Israel, a decision that will rest on official legal advice on whether Israel has broken international law in Gaza.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry declined to comment.
Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the U.K., welcomed the decision not to intervene in the I.C.C. case, describing it as a “significant step in aligning the U.K. with the rule of law.”
Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting
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14) Some airdropped aid packages, intended for Gaza, have fallen far off-target.
By Rawan Sheikh Ahmad, July 26, 2024
Aid packages being airdropped from a U.S. plane into the Gaza Strip in March. Credit...Hussein Malla/Associated Press
Some have landed by mistake in Israeli villages. Others have fallen into the sea. Still more have hit and damaged Palestinians’ private property.
Aid packages dropped by foreign air forces over Gaza were intended to alleviate food shortages in the territory, amid widespread hunger and obstacles to distributing food by land. Instead, many packages have missed their targets, damaged cars and homes, caused riots among people fighting over their contents, and even landed outside Gaza — embodying, rather than solving, the problems with aid distribution.
Since March, countries including the United States, Egypt and Jordan have parachuted 9,667 food packages intended for Gaza in 118 airdrops, COGAT, the Israeli military unit responsible for coordinating aid delivery, said last week. The aim has been to stave off famine in the area after the destruction of roads, a breakdown in law and order, Israeli airstrikes and Israeli restrictions on aid workers have made it harder to move food around the enclave.
But at least three packages have landed in Netiv Ha’Asara, an Israeli village at the northern border with the Gaza Strip that was raided by Hamas at the start of the war.
Twelve Palestinians drowned in March while trying to reach aid from an airdrop that fell into the Mediterranean off Gaza’s coast, according to the Gazan authorities. Another package hit one of Gaza’s few remaining functional farms, damaging a greenhouse that was growing vegetables, a video showed.
“What can I say, they need to be directed more accurately,” said Aviran Farin, a spokesman for the regional authority that oversees Netiv Ha’Asara. Mr. Farin described finding dates, rice, canned food and snacks that had been intended for Gaza but ended up in the village.
Another airdrop made it to northern Gaza but hit the home and car of Wajdy Mousa, a software engineer. The package wrecked the vehicle and attracted crowds of desperate Gazans, who surged into Mr. Mousa’s backyard looking for food, Mr. Mousa said in a phone interview. Some were armed with knives to rip open the packages, prompting Mr. Mousa and his family of 12 to huddle inside their locked home for safety.
“I am against these airdrops without any hesitation,” Mr. Mousa said. “They endanger people’s safety and provide no real benefit.”
Some Palestinians disagree, arguing that airdrops, although they are imperfect and insufficient to meet Gazans’ needs in a situation that humanitarian groups still describe as dire, are better than nothing.
“There is no ideal way to deliver aid in a war zone,” said Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Palestinian-American analyst who grew up in Gaza and has written for U.S. and Israeli news media about the merits of airdrops.
There have been “issues, mistakes, and horrors,” Mr. Alkhatib said, but the alternative is worse.
“Risking some lives to feed tens of thousands of people or waiting for a resolution to the entrenched security and logistical problems at the border crossings?” he asked. “Not doing anything allows the problem to get out of hand.”
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15) Israeli forces press forward in Khan Younis. At least 30 people are reported killed in 24 hours.
By Anjana Sankar, July 26, 2024
Palestinian children received aid at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Credit...Bashar Taleb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
At least 30 people were killed and dozens more injured over a 24-hour period on Wednesday and Thursday in the Gaza Strip, local health officials said, as the Israeli military pushed deeper into parts of Khan Younis that it had previously designated as humanitarian zones for civilians fleeing the fighting.
The Israeli military, which began a renewed offensive in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis earlier this week, said it was targeting Hamas forces whom it accused of embedding fighters among civilians.
Many of the victims were taken to the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, where photos taken by a photographer for Agence France-Presse showed bloodied children being rushed in for care.
Mohammad Saqer, the director of nursing at Nasser Hospital, said he had treated three children for severe blast wounds, which he said were most likely from bombardment. Dr. Saqer, who has worked at the medical center for 18 years, said few shipments of medicine and fuel were arriving at the hospital, making treatment difficult.
“So many dead, so many wounded, not enough beds,” Dr. Saqer said. “The situation’s disastrous. We’re rationing electricity, turning off air conditioning, trying to save what we can.”
Patients at the facility have been forced to share beds, and the hospital was “under enormous strain as the killing, wounding and maiming of people continues relentlessly in southern Gaza,” the aid group Doctors Without Borders wrote on social media earlier in the week.
The United Nations said that 150,000 people fled Khan Younis on Monday alone, the day the renewed Israeli offensive began, and that “large-scale displacement” from the area was ongoing.
In Al-Mawasi, the coastal town where the Israeli military ordered Khan Younis residents to go, there is “no space for even a single tent due to the overwhelming number of people desperate for safety,” the Palestinian Red Crescent said. The group said that one of its ambulances came under fire on Thursday as medics were trying assisting injured civilians.
Fighting in recent days has centered around three towns near the city of Khan Younis — Bani Suaila, Al Zanna and Al Qarara. On Wednesday, the Israeli military discovered the bodies of five Israelis in Al Qarara who had been killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The bodies were found in a tunnel used by militants.
“Hamas exploited the humanitarian area and used it to hold our hostages captive,” the military said in a statement on social media. Hamas did not issue a response on its social media channels.
Israeli officials say 115 hostages remain in Gaza, including roughly 40 who are presumed dead.
The military said on Thursday that Hamas had launched several rockets toward Israel from the humanitarian area in Khan Younis earlier in the day. But the strike did not reach Israel and at least one rocket hit a U.N.-run school in Al Qarara, killing two people and injuring several others, the military said.
Schools have not been operating during the war and most of them have become shelters for displaced people. UNRWA, the United Nations’ main relief group for Palestinians that runs schools, did not confirm the attack.
The Israeli military said its forces operating in Khan Younis had killed dozens of Hamas militants over the past day and struck more than 60 terror targets.
Gaza’s health ministry said Israeli military strikes on areas in eastern Khan Younis killed at least 14 people early Thursday, with airstrikes reported in southern Gaza and tanks advancing in central Rafah.
Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defense, said Israeli forces had killed at least 17 people on Thursday in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, and in Khan Younis, Israeli snipers shot and killed at least one person while he was moving down Salah al-Din Street, Gaza’s main north-south route, he said. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the incident.
Anushka Patil and Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.
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