*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
January 14, 1:00 P.M.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
We are all Palestinian
Listen and view this beautiful, powerful, song by Mistahi Corkill on YouTube at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQwuhbLczgI
Greetings,
Here is my new song and music video, We are all Palestinian, linked below. If you find it inspiring, please feel free to share with others. All the best!
Mistahi
We are all Palestinian
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Labor for Palestine
Thousands of labor representatives marched Saturday, December 16, in Oakland, California. —Photo by Leon Kunstenaar
Video of December 16th Labor rally for Palestine.
Bay Area Unions and Workers Rally and March For Palestine In Oakland
https://youtu.be/L9k79honqIA
Over 1,000 trade unionists from around Northern California rallied and marched in Oakland to oppose the genocide in Gaza. It was announced during the rally that despite bureaucratic obstacles SEIU 1021 which has over 50,000 members had endorsed the rally and resolution. Unions formally endorsed included AFSCME 3299, OEA, UESF, SEIU 1021, ILWU Local 10, Inlandboatmen’s Union SF Region-ILWU, UNITE HERE Local 2, IFPTE Local 21, SF Public Defenders (workers, not union or unit), Stanford Graduate Workers, Trader Joes United (Rockridge), IWW Bay Area, IWW 460-650 - Ecology Center
National or statewide unions or units (with Bay Area members) that have called for a ceasefire: UAW (international), UAW Local 2865 (statewide), UAW Local 2320, APWU, Starbucks Workers United, California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, CIR/SEIU (national) SEIU-USWW (statewide), Staff Union of CIR/SEIU (unit of CWA local 1032).
The rally was sponsored by Bay Area Labor For Palestine and there was also another Labor For Palestine Rally in New York.
For More Information:
bayarealabor4palestine@gmail.com
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Stand With Palestinian Workers: Cease the Genocide Now—Stop Arming Israel!
“We need you to take immediate action—wherever you are in the world—to prevent the arming of the Israeli state and the companies involved in the infrastructure of the blockade.” —An Urgent Call from Palestinian Trade Unions: End all Complicity, Stop Arming Israel (October 16, 2023)
The undersigned U.S. workers, trade unionists, and anti-apartheid activists join labor around the world in condemning the Israeli siege on Gaza that has killed or maimed thousands of Palestinians—many of them children—and stand with Palestinians’ “right to exist, resist, return, and self-determination.”
The latest Israeli attacks reflect more than a century of ongoing Zionist settler-colonialism, dispossession, ethnic cleansing, racism, genocide, and apartheid—including Israel’s establishment through the uprooting and displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians during the 1947-1948 Nakba. Indeed, eighty percent of the 2.3 million people in Gaza are refugees from other parts of historic Palestine.
Israel’s crimes are only possible because of more than $3.8 billion a year (or $10-plus million per day) in bipartisan U.S. military aid that gives Israel the guns, bullets, tanks, ships, jet fighters, missiles, helicopters, white phosphorus, and other weapons to kill and maim the Palestinian people. This is the same system of racist state violence that, through shared surveillance technology and police exchange programs, brutalizes Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) and working-class people in the United States and around the world.
In response, we demand an immediate end to the genocide, and embrace the recent urgent call from Palestinian Trade Unions: End all Complicity, Stop Arming Israel:
1. To refuse to build weapons destined for Israel. To refuse to transport weapons to Israel.
2. To pass motions in their trade union to this effect.
3. To take action against complicit companies involved in implementing Israel’s brutal and illegal siege, especially if they have contracts with your institution.
4. Pressure governments to stop all military trade with Israel, and in the case of the U.S., funding to it.
We further reaffirm the call on labor bodies to respect previous Palestinian trade union appeals for solidarity by adopting this statement, and/or the model resolution below to divest from Israel Bonds, sever all ties with the Israel’s racist labor federation, the Histadrut, and its US mouthpiece, the Jewish Labor Committee, and respect the Palestinian picket line for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS).
Please sign and forward widely!
To endorse the following statement as a trade unionist, please click here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd2tpd2c62Sh5YEVDOr2vmGWTuQArt-6OPQMDwd2wUnfNi_rQ/viewform
To endorse as other, please click here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdzWaP1U_KOHlH-ou1R3OD8zsuI5BWW1b9H4gtPoFK_lIQB3g/viewform
Initial Signers on behalf of Labor for Palestine
(Organizational affiliations listed for identification only)
Suzanne Adely, Labor for Palestine, US Palestinian Community Network, Arab Workers Resource Center; Food Chain Workers Alliance (staff); President, National Lawyers Guild; Monadel Herzallah, Arab American Union Members Council; Ruth Jennison, Department Rep., Massachusetts Society of Professors, MTA, NEA; Co-Chair, Labor Standing Committee River Valley DSA; Delegate to Western Mass Area Labor Federation; Lara Kiswani, Executive Director, Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC); Block the Boat; Michael Letwin, Former President, Association of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW Local 2325; Jews for Palestinian Right of Return; Corinna Mullin, PSC-CUNY International Committee; CUNY for Palestine; Clarence Thomas, Co-Chair, Million Worker March; Executive Board, ILWU Local 10 (retired.)
The list of signers will be updated periodically.
info@laborforpalestine.net
laborforpalestine.net
The Labor for Palestine model resolution can be found at:
https://laborforpalestine.net
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Jewish Doctor Speaks Out on Israel and Palestine
Dr. Gabor Maté, Hungarian-Canadian physician and author describes his own life experience and expresses his view on the situation in Israel and Palestine.
“I’m personally a Holocaust survivor as an infant, I barely survived. My grandparents were killed in Auschwitz and most of my extended family were killed. I became a Zionist; this dream of the Jewish people resurrected in their historical homeland and the barbed wire of Auschwitz being replaced by the boundaries of a Jewish state with a powerful army…and then I found out that it wasn’t exactly like that, that in order to make this Jewish dream a reality we had to visit a nightmare on the local population.
“There’s no way you could have ever created a Jewish state without oppressing and expelling the local population. Jewish Israeli historians have shown without a doubt that the expulsion of Palestinians was persistent, pervasive, cruel, murderous and with deliberate intent—that’s what’s called the ‘Nakba’ in Arabic; the ‘disaster’ or the ‘catastrophe.’ There’s a law that you cannot deny the Holocaust, but in Israel you’re not allowed to mention the Nakba, even though it’s at the very basis of the foundation of Israel.
“I visited the Occupied Territories (West Bank) during the first intifada. I cried every day for two weeks at what I saw; the brutality of the occupation, the petty harassment, the murderousness of it, the cutting down of Palestinian olive groves, the denial of water rights, the humiliations...and this went on, and now it’s much worse than it was then.
“It’s the longest ethnic cleansing operation in the 20th and 21st century. I could land in Tel Aviv tomorrow and demand citizenship but my Palestinian friend in Vancouver, who was born in Jerusalem, can’t even visit!
“So, then you have these miserable people packed into this, horrible…people call it an ‘outdoor prison,’ which is what it is. You don’t have to support Hamas policies to stand up for Palestinian rights, that’s a complete falsity. You think the worst thing you can say about Hamas, multiply it by a thousand times, and it still will not meet the Israeli repression and killing and dispossession of Palestinians.
“And ‘anybody who criticizes Israel is an anti-Semite’ is simply an egregious attempt to intimidate good non-Jews who are willing to stand up for what is true.”
—Independent Catholic News, October 16, 2023
https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/48251
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
TERRORISM IN THE EYES OF THE IMPERIAL BEHOLDER - a poem
the French word
for rabies
is
la rage -
rage or outrage
and
the French have a saying -
a man who wants to get rid of his dog
accuses it of spreading rabies
the people of Gaza
treated as inhuman animals
worse than dogs
are charged
with terrorism
come to think of it
what an honor !
world war two's resistance
against nazi extermination
was designated
as terrorism
by the Axis allies
what an honor !
Mandela
was monitored
as a terrorist
by the CIA
What an honor !
Tortuguita
peacefully meditating
near Israeli-funded cop city
was executed
in cold blood
on suspicion
of domestic terrorism
What an honor !
in the spirit of Mandela
in the spirit of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising
in the spirit of Tortuguita
in the spirit of Attica
may the anti colonial outrage
of the People of Palestine
contaminate us all -
the only epidemic
worth dying for
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
The ongoing Zionist theft of Palestinian land from 1946 to now.
77 years of brutal oppression must end!
End all U.S. aid to Israel now!
For a democratic, secular Palestine!
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Free Julian Assange
Immediate Repeated Action Needed to Free Assange
Please call your Congressional Representatives, the White House, and the DOJ. Calls are tallied—they do count. We are to believe we are represented in this country. This is a political case, so our efforts can change things politically as well. Please take this action as often as you can:
Find your representatives:
https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member
Leave each of your representatives a message individually to:
· Drop the charges against Julian Assange
· Speak out publicly against the indictment and
· Sign on to Rashida Tlaib's letter to the DOJ to drop the charges:
202-224-3121—Capitol Main Switchboard
Leave a message on the White House comment line to
Demand Julian Assange be pardoned:
202-456-1111
Tuesday–Thursday, 11:00 A.M.–3:00 P.M. EST
Call the DOJ and demand they drop the charges against Julian Assange:
202-353-1555—DOJ Comment Line
202-514-2000 Main Switchboard
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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
Poetic Petition to Genocide Joe Before He Eats His Turkey
Mr Genocide Joe
you have helped broker
a Thanksgiving truce
in Gaza
where your zionist partners
in war crimes
say they will stop
slaughtering "human animals"
for four days
but
Mr Genocide Joe
closer to home
you have your own hostages
taken in the cointelpro wars
who still languish
in cages
treated worse than animals
inhumanely
so
as you pardon
two turkeys
in the White House today
as you get ready to eat your military turkey
and have it too
it would at last be time
to unchain
at least two of your own "human animals" -
Mumia Abu-Jamal
and
Leonard Peltier
(c) Julia Wright. November 25, 2023. All Rights Reserved to Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Leonard Peltier’s Letter Delivered to Supporters on September 12, 2023, in Front of the Whitehouse
Dear friends, relatives, supporters, loved ones:
Seventy-nine years old. Mother Earth has taken us on another journey around Grandfather Sun. Babies have taken their first breath. People have lived, loved, and died. Seeds have been planted and sent their roots deep below red earth and their breath to the Stars and our Ancestors.
I am still here.
Time has twisted one more year out of me. A year that has been a moment. A year that has been a lifetime. For almost five decades I’ve existed in a cage of concrete and steel. With the “good time” calculations of the system, I’ve actually served over 60 years.
Year after year, I have encouraged you to live as spirit warriors. Even while in here, I can envision what is real and far beyond these walls. I’ve seen a reawakening of an ancient Native pride that does my heart good.
I may leave this place in a box. That is a cold truth. But I have put my heart and soul into making our world a better place and there is a lot of work left to do – I would like to get out and do it with you.
I know that the spirit warriors coming up behind me have the heart and soul to fight racism and oppression, and to fight the greed that is poisoning our lands, waters, and people.
We are still here.
Remember who you are, even if they come for your land, your water, your family. We are children of Mother Earth and we owe her and her other children our care.
I long to turn my face to the sky. In this cage, I am denied that simple pleasure. I am in prison, but in my mind, I remain as I was born: a free Native spirit.
That is what allows me to laugh, keeps me laughing. These walls cannot contain my laughter – or my hope.
I know there are those who stand with me, who work around the clock for my freedom. I have been blessed to have such friends.
We are still here and you give me hope.
I hope to breathe free air before I die. Hope is a hard thing to hold, but no one is strong enough to take it from me.
I love you. I hope for you. I pray for you.
And prayer is more than a cry to the Creator that runs through your head. Prayer is an action.
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse
DOKSHA,
LEONARD PELTIER
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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:
Mr. Kevin Cooper
C-65304. 4-EB-82
San Quentin State Prison
San Quentin, CA 94974
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)
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Letter from Kevin “Rashid” Johnson
November 6, 2023
I’m back at Red Onion. I have no lines of communication. They have me in the B-3 torture cellblock again where there is no access to a kiosk and they’re withholding my tablet anyway. Even if I had it, it’s no use with no kiosk to sync it to and send/receive messages.
This was a hit. Came from DOC HQ in response folks complaining about my being thrown in solitary at Sussex and the planted knife thing. Kyle Rosch was in on it. The warden and AW here said he’s having me sent back out of state. In any case I don’t want be in this racist trap.
They cut all my outstanding medical referrals to send here cuz there’s no major medical facility in this remote region. I was pending referral to the cardiac clinic at MCV hospital (Medical College of Virginia), which is on the other side of the state. Also was pending referral to urology there. They were supposed to do testing for congestive heart failure and kidney problems related to my legs, feet, and ankles chronic swelling, and other undiagnosed issues: chronic cough, fluid weight gain, sweats, fatigue, chest pain. They just cut these referrals all of which I have copies of from my medical files.
They’ve been removing documents from my file too. Like the order I had for oversize handcuffs—which I was gassed the morning I was transferred here for asking the transferring pigs to honor. They took the order out of my file to try to cover their asses. I and others have copies of that too. At this point things are hectic. I’m back in old form now. I was somewhat in hiatus, trying to get the medical care I needed and not provoking them to avoid the bs while that was going on. But the bs has found me once again : ). I need all possible help here. At a level a bit more intense than in the past cuz I need that diagnostic care they cut the referrals for and it’s not available in this remote area. They’d have to send me back to Sussex or another prison near MCU in the VDOC’s Central or Eastern Region. I’m in the most remote corner of the Western Region. My health is not good! And they’re using the medical quack staff here to rubber stamp blocking my referrals.
Although that lawyer may have given you a message from me, she is not helping me in any way. So no-one should assume because a lawyer surfaced that she is working on anything to aid me. Just have to emphasize that cuz past experience has shown that folks will take a lawyer’s seeming presence as grounds to believe that means some substantial help is here and their help is not needed. Again, I need all possible help here….My health depends on this call for help in a more immediate sense than the cancer situation. I’m having breathing and mobility problems, possibly cardiac related.
All power to the people!
Rashid
We need to contact these Virginia Department of Corrections personnel to protest::
VADOC~ Central Administration; USPS—P.O. Box 26963; Richmond, VA 23261
David Robinson Phone : 804-887-8078, Email~david.robinson@vadoc.virginia.gov
Virginia DOC ~ Director, Chadwick S Dotson, Phone~ (804) 674-3081 Email~Chadwick.Dotson@.vadoc.virginia.gov
Virginia Department of Corrections Interstate Compact Liaison
Kyle Rosch, Phone: 804-887-8404, Email: kyle.rosch@vadoc.virginia.gov
VADOC ~Central Administration
Rose L. Durbin, Phone~804-887-7921Email~Rose.Durbin@vadoc.virgina.gov
Red Onion~ Warden, Richard E White, USPS—10800 H. Jack Rose Hwy., Pound, VA 24279
Phone: (276) 796-3536;(or 7510) Email~ rick.white@vadoc.virginia.gov
Red Onion State Prison, Assistant Warden
Shannon Fuller Phone: 276-796-7510 Email: shannon.fuller@VADOC.virginia.gov
Write to Rashid:
Kevin “Rashid” Johnson #1007485
Red Onion State Prison
10800 H. Jack Rose Hwy
Pound, VA 24279
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Sign the petition:
https://dontextraditeassange.com/petition/
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Tell Congress to Help #FreeDanielHale
|
|
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
1) U.N.’s Top Court Hears Genocide Case Against Israel
By Roni Rabin, Jan. 11, 2024
South Africa on Thursday made itswould impose a complete siege on the territory because it was fighting “human animals.”
On the first day of a two-day hearing at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, South African representatives said the statements of Israeli officials like Mr. Gallant communicated the intent to commit genocide. Israel categorically denies the genocide accusation and will present its defense on Friday.
To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, according to the U.N. genocide convention, to which Israel is a signatory. Intent is often the most difficult element to prove in such cases, however.
As the hearing concluded, South Africa, which brought the case against Israel, asked the court to issue an emergency provision calling on Israel to immediately suspend all military operations in Gaza, including rescinding evacuation orders and allowing people there to receive food, water, shelter and clothing.
Decisions by the court, the United Nations’ top judicial body, are binding, but there are few means of enforcement. A final ruling could take years to arrive.
The genocide accusation carries particular significance in Israel, which was founded in the wake of the near-wholesale destruction of European Jewry during World War II, and became a haven for Jews expelled from Arab lands. A spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Lior Haiat, called Thursday’s proceedings “one of the greatest shows of hypocrisy in history,” and repeated Israel’s argument that it is Hamas that should face charges of genocide.
He called Hamas “a racist and antisemitic terrorist organization that calls in its convention for the destruction of the state of Israel and the murder of Jews.” And he said the genocide case brought by South Africa — whose post-apartheid government has long supported the Palestinian cause — overlooked the atrocities committed by Hamas in its Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in southern Israel.
South Africa “completely ignored the fact that Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel, murdered, executed, massacred, raped and abducted Israeli citizens, simply because they were Israelis, in an attempt to carry out genocide,” he said.
The hearings at the court are the first time that Israel has chosen to defend itself in person in such a setting, attesting to the gravity of the indictment and the high stakes for the country’s international reputation and standing.
Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks killed about 1,200 people and led to about 240 being taken hostage, according to Israeli officials. Israel has responded with airstrikes and a ground invasion that have killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, according to health officials in Gaza, whose count does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Most of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents have been displaced since the fighting began, increasing the danger of disease and hunger, according to international organizations.
South Africa’s justice minister, Ronald Lamola, condemned the atrocities committed by Hamas on Oct. 7 but said the scale of Israel’s military response in Gaza was not justified. He told the court that the Israeli offensive had created conditions for Gazans that were designed “to bring about their physical destruction.”
Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, another South African attorney making arguments in the case, said the statements of Israeli officials like Mr. Gallant — who said after the Hamas attack that Israel would let “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” into Gaza — were tantamount to a directive to physically destroy Gazans and “communicated state policy.”
“This admits of no ambiguity,” Mr. Ngcukaitobi said. “It means to create conditions of death of the Palestinian people in Gaza, to die a slow death due to starvation and dehydration or to die quickly because of a bomb attack or sniper, but to die nevertheless.”
Israeli leaders have said that South Africa’s allegations pervert the meaning of genocide and the purpose of the 1948 genocide convention. They point to millions of messages, sent by various means, telling Gaza’s civilians to evacuate to safer areas ahead of bombings, and say they are constantly working to increase the amount of aid entering Gaza.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
2) Here’s what to know about the genocide case against Israel.
By Isabel Kershner and John Eligon, Jan. 11. 2024
Mourning relatives killed in bombardment in Rafah on Wednesday. Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The case that South Africa has brought at the International Court of Justice at The Hague accuses Israel of actions in Gaza that are “genocidal in character.” More than 23,000 people have died, according to the Gazan health ministry, since Israel launched airstrikes and a ground invasion in response to Hamas’s terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, which Israel says killed about 1,200 people.
Israel’s military insists that it is prosecuting the war against Hamas in Gaza in line with international law. The death toll in Gaza, Israeli officials say, is attributable in part to the use by Hamas of residential areas and civilian structures, including schools and hospitals, to launch attacks, store weapons and hide fighters.
To hear the Gaza case, the international court’s regular 15-judge panel has been expanded to 17, with one additional judge appointed by each side. To fill those seats, Israel named Aharon Barak, a former president of its Supreme Court who fled Nazi-occupied Lithuania as a boy, and South Africa named Dikgang Moseneke, a former deputy chief justice of its Constitutional Court.
Israel’s legal team at The Hague is led by Malcolm Shaw, a British expert chosen for his experience in litigation at the World Court. The South African team is led by John Dugard, a highly regarded scholar of international law and a former United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.
In a statement on Thursday, Hamas welcomed South Africa’s decision to bring the case and said it looked forward to “a decision that does justice to victims” and calls on Israel to “stop the aggression.”
The United States, Israel’s most important ally, has denounced South Africa’s petition. John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesman, described it as “meritless, counterproductive, completely without any basis in fact whatsoever.”
The court’s decisions are typically binding, though it has few means of enforcing them. In 2004, the court issued a nonbinding opinion that Israel’s construction of its security barrier inside the territory of the occupied West Bank was illegal and that it should be dismantled. Twenty years later, the system of walls and fences is still standing.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
3) ‘Thank you, South Africa’: Palestinians welcome genocide case against Israel.
By Hiba Yazbek reporting from Jerusalem, Jan. 11, 2024
Palestinians rallied around a statue of Nelson Mandela in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Wednesday. Credit...Marco Longari/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
As South Africa began laying out its case at the International Court of Justice on Thursday accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, Palestinians across the West Bank welcomed the move, which many saw as an extension of South Africa’s longstanding support for their struggle. But some in Gaza doubted that the proceedings would bring an end to their suffering.
Hundreds of Palestinians on Thursday gathered to mark the occasion in some Israeli-occupied West Bank cities, according to Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s news agency. Some held signs that read “Thank you, South Africa.”
In Ramallah, the authority’s administrative capital, dozens gathered at Mandela Square on Wednesday night. Footage posted by Palestinian news media showed crowds singing the South African national anthem while waving Palestinian and South African flags in front of a 20-foot statue of Nelson Mandela — a gift from Johannesburg and a symbol of the solidarity of the South African people with the Palestinian cause.
“It’s very powerful that it’s coming from South Africans against the state of Israel, from a country that previously had an apartheid regime against a country that is currently practicing apartheid,” said Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer who was once a legal adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Palestinians have long believed what some international human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have said in recent years:that Israel is perpetrating a form of apartheid, the racist legal system that prevailed in South Africa until the early 1990s, an assessment that the Israeli government has condemned as a baseless attack.
Ms. Buttu said that she wished the case had come earlier “only because it could have prevented Israel’s killing of so many more people.” But she added that “it’s not at all coming too late, because it’s clear to me that Israel intends to continue this for as long as they possibly can.”
The Palestinian Authority’s foreign affairs ministry thanked South Africa in a statement on Thursday and called the proceedings “a historic event in the process of the joint Palestinian and South African struggle in the face of injustice and genocide.”
Nour Odeh, a Palestinian political analyst and former spokesperson for the authority, said that listening to the hearing on Thursday “moved me to tears repeatedly,” adding in a post on X that she was “forever grateful” to South Africa for “standing up for our humanity.”
But in Gaza, where Israeli bombardment has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, according to Gazan health officials, and displaced 1.9 million others, according to the United Nations, some fear that the proceedings will do little to stem the mounting death toll and dire humanitarian crisis.
“I hope that this case will bring this war to an end,” said Alaa Essam, a 36-year-old from central Gaza. “But I am afraid Israel won’t listen.”
Abdul Qader Al-Atrash, a 32-year-old resident of Gaza, said that while most people in the strip were aware of the proceedings, many were not following the case with much hope that it could improve things for them. “It’s all nonsense — it’s been over 90 days and we’re just hearing words,” he said in a phone interview on Thursday.
“Nothing will change,” Mr. Al-Atrash said. “The only thing on our minds right now is how will we get water for our family, where will we charge our phones, and if we will have anything to eat tomorrow.”
Ameera Harouda contributed reporting from Doha, Qatar, Abu Bakr Bashir and Anushka Patil from London and Rawan Sheikh Ahmad from Haifa, Israel.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
4) The International Criminal Court will investigate attacks that killed journalists.
By Gaya Gupta, Jan. 11, 2024
Colleagues of the Palestinian journalist Mohammed Abu Hatab attended his funeral after he was killed in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, in November. Credit...Yousef Masoud for The New York Times
As part of the International Criminal Court’s investigation into allegations of crimes in the Gaza Strip, its chief prosecutor will review attacks that killed journalists in the Israel-Hamas war, his office said in a statement on Wednesday.
The court, which was formed by the Rome Statute two decades ago to investigate, prosecute and try people accused of war crimes, genocide and other atrocities, is more broadly looking into allegations of war crimes by Israel and by Palestinian militant groups in Gaza and the West Bank.
Under international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute, journalists are protected as civilians. Israel is not a member nation of the court and does not recognize its jurisdiction, so the impact of the I.C.C.’s investigation is unclear.
“The Prosecutor has previously underlined his concern about the increasing number of attacks on journalists globally and emphasized that such attacks may constitute Rome Statute crimes,” said the statement from the office of the prosecutor, Karim Khan.
The media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders has filed two complaints with the court over the past 10 weeks, calling on the court to investigate and prosecute cases of journalists who were killed in the war.
In the group’s first complaint, filed last October, it said that eight Palestinian journalists had been killed by attacks that had caused “disproportionate harm” to civilians. It also characterized the death of an Israeli journalist covering the attacks of Oct. 7 as the “willful killing of a person protected by the Geneva Conventions,” which would be a war crime.
In the group’s second complaint, filed late last month, it said that seven Palestinian reporters who were killed might have been targeted.
The Israeli military has insisted that it has been acting in accordance with international humanitarian law. The Israeli military has also said that it has never targeted journalists and that operating in war zones carries risks.
“Israel is fighting Hamas terrorists, not the Palestinian population. And we are doing so in full compliance with international law,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday in a video posted on social media.
Speaking from Ramallah, the West Bank, at the beginning of December, Mr. Khan said that the court’s investigation was moving forward.
Since the start of the war, which began after Hamas invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel invaded Gaza in retaliation, 79 journalists and media workers have been killed, according to data from the Committee to Protect Journalists, another media watchdog group. Of those, 72 were Palestinian, according to the data.
Traci Carl contributed reporting.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
5) Palestine Red Crescent Society says an Israeli strike hit an ambulance in Gaza, killing six.
By Anushka Patil, Jan. 11, 2024
Medics with the Palestine Red Crescent Society reacting after four of their colleagues were killed in an Israeli strike on their ambulance in Deir al Balah, central Gaza, on Wednesday. Credit...Mohammed Al-Masri/Reuters
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said a missile from an Israeli drone destroyed one of its ambulances in central Gaza on Wednesday, killing four crew members as well as the two patients it was transporting.
The ambulance was struck at 3:35 p.m. local time as it was approaching Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the city of Deir al Balah, the Red Crescent said.
“Our colleagues were intentionally targeted while inside an ambulance clearly marked with the Red Crescent emblem,” the aid group said.
The Israeli military did not respond to requests for comment.
Another Israeli airstrike landed in the immediate vicinity of Al-Aqsa hospital earlier Wednesday, killing several people, Al Jazeera reported. The strikes deepened a crisis at what the United Nations has called the only functioning hospital left in central Gaza.
The Red Crescent said the crew members killed on Wednesday were Yusuf Abu Ma’mar, the driver of the ambulance; Fadi Al-Maani, a medic; Islam Abu Riyala, an emergency medical worker; and Fuad Abu Khamash, a volunteer photographer. The two wounded people they were transporting also died, the aid group said.
Footage captured by a Palestinian photojournalist, Motaz Azaiza, showed the harrowing aftermath of the strike that hit the ambulance, as friends and colleagues of the victims howled in grief. Tattered remnants of the Red Crescent emblems that the ambulance crew had been wearing were placed on top of their mangled remains.
The ambulance crew had responded to a call to help two people who had gunshot wounds, said Nebal Farsakh, a spokeswoman for the Red Crescent. The crew had treated their injuries and were moving to transfer them to the hospital. The ambulance had just turned off a main thoroughfare, Salah al-Din Street, and onto a back road toward the hospital when it was hit, she said.
Ms. Farsakh said the slain photographer, Mr. Abu Khamash, had volunteered to document the aid group’s efforts to provide medical care to Gazans under Israeli bombardment.
Ms. Farsakh said Mr. Abu Khamash was the first person she tried to contact on Wednesday when she learned that one of the group’s ambulances had been hit, hoping that he could help verify the news.
“Then I figured out that he is among the ones that were killed,” she said. “I just — it’s heartbreaking.”
The U.N. human rights office on Wednesday said in a statement that it was “deeply concerned” that the Israeli military had “placed civilian lives at serious risk” by striking targets in Deir al Balah, after advising thousands of displaced Gazans to relocate to the area for their safety.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
6) Looming Starvation in Gaza Shows Resurgence of Civilian Sieges in Warfare
A U.N.-affiliated panel said the territory could tip into famine very soon. International laws to protect people from human-made famines offer little help.
By Stephanie Nolen, Jan. 11, 2024
Stephanie Nolen has covered the impact of armed conflict on public health from four continents.
Palestinians lined up to collect drinking water in Rafah, southern Gaza, last week. Credit...Saleh Salem/Reuters
The number of people facing possible starvation in the Gaza Strip in the coming weeks is the largest share of a population at risk of famine identified anywhere since a United Nations-affiliated panel created the current global food-insecurity assessment 20 years ago.
After Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, Israel responded with air and ground assaults and a sealing of the territory, which have left the 2.2 million people who live there deprived of sufficient food, water and supplies. The U.N. has concluded that without significant intervention, Gaza could reach the level of famine as soon as early February.
Limited amounts of food and other aid are entering Gaza from Israel and Egypt at border points with rigorous inspections; the ongoing bombardment and ground fighting make distribution of that aid extremely difficult.
Scholars of famine say it has been generations since the world has seen this degree of food deprivation in warfare.
“The rigor, scale and speed of the destruction of the structures necessary for survival, and enforcement of the siege, surpasses any other case of man-made famine in the last 75 years,” said Alex de Waal, an expert on humanitarian crises and international law at Tufts University who wrote “Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine.”
The situation in Gaza is the latest in a series of recent crises that have reversed progress against famine. Mass death from starvation declined steadily from the 1980s well into the 21st century. But over the past seven years, food crises associated with conflict (such as those in Yemen, Syria and the Tigray region of Ethiopia) and those stemming from environmental conditions and climate change (such as in Somalia) have resulted in the loss of more than a million lives.
Gaza is unique, experts say, because the people who live there are sealed in the territory with no recourse to seek food elsewhere.
Israel has vigorously denied allegations that it is responsible for the shortage of food in Gaza.
“There is a sufficient amount of food in Gaza,” Col. Elad Goren, the head of the Israeli agency that oversees policy for the Palestinian territories, known as COGAT, said at a recent news briefing.
“Israel has not, and will not, stand in the way of providing humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza that are not a part of terror,” he continued. “We have not refused a single shipment of food, water, medical supplies or shelter equipment.”
If Gazans do not have access to food, Colonel Goren said, it is because of failures by humanitarian organizations.
“The organizations desperately need to increase their capabilities of receiving and distributing the aid,” he said. “This includes better work processes, more facilities and trucks. There is also a need for additional manpower.”
The World Food Program said that before the war, about 500 trucks a day carried supplies including food to Gaza, which has been under a partial blockade by Israel and Egypt since Hamas took control there in 2007. Last week, the organization said an average of 127 trucks were permitted to cross the main Israeli checkpoint each day. Distributing that limited aid is nearly impossible because of the destruction of communications, shortages in fuel and ongoing Israeli bombardment, the World Food Program and other agencies say.
“Our staff does not feel safe distributing, and people don’t feel safe going to the distributions,” Shaza Moghraby, a spokeswoman for the program, said. “They are lining up for food praying not to be bombed.”
The handful of entry points operate intermittently because of bombing, Ms. Moghraby said, and the Israeli military’s inspection and bureaucratic process means that only a limited number of aid deliveries are cleared each day.
“The need is exponentially higher now because people are relying solely on humanitarian aid for their sheer survival,” said Juliette Touma, spokeswoman for UNRWA, the agency supporting Gaza.
The assessment of the risk of famine in Gaza was made by 30 experts from 19 agencies, convened by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. The initiative, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, monitors access to food in roughly 50 places around the world at a time.
In crisis zones, it watches for three criteria: if 30 percent of the children are severely malnourished or wasted; if the mortality rate exceeds double the normal level; or if 20 percent of the population has a “catastrophic” lack of food. If any of these thresholds is exceeded, the panel convenes a so-called Famine Review Committee to determine the likelihood of a famine.
Because “the F-word” is so contentious, said Cormac Ó Gráda, a historian of famine and professor at University College Dublin, the hope is that declaring a famine will spur significant intervention — and that even a declaration of imminent risk of famine may propel action.
“If a famine happens, somebody is to blame — and if you can get some international body, which is seen as scientific and objective, admitting that there is a famine, then it is very, very serious for the people who are seen to have caused the famine,” Professor Ó Gráda said. “So the Israelis certainly would not want the U.N. or somebody like the U.N. to declare that there is a famine in Gaza.”
Starvation of civilians was a military tactic in World War II, when more than three million Soviets perished during the Nazi “Hungerplan” and when the U.S. Navy and Air Force ran a campaign officially called Operation Starvation, which blockaded the delivery of food to Japan. From 1958 to 1961, at least 25 million people died in the famine associated with the Great Leap Forward in China.
The famines in Nigeria during its civil war in the late 1960s; in Sarajevo during the Bosnian war in the early 1990s; in Syria’s civil war that began 13 years ago; and in Ethiopia since 2020 are comparable with Gaza as sieges of civilian populations during conflict, Professor de Waal said.
He and other experts contended that whatever the stated reasons, the underlying cause reflected deliberate choices by those with power.
“Famine is normally caused by people, by the decisions of political elites,” said Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, a scholar of international human rights and the author of “State Food Crimes.” Reports from Gaza suggest a deliberate decision in Israel to restrict food, she said.
“It’s a political decision or it’s a military decision,” she said, but added, “I’m prepared to accept that possibly there are other factors involved, such as Hamas corruption, Hamas diverting food and so on.”
While hunger crises in regions such as South Sudan and Tigray have unfolded with little media attention, there is intense international scrutiny on Gaza. Statements made early in the war by members of the Israeli government about the intention to deprive the entire population of Gaza of food have drawn the attention of human rights prosecutors.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, said in a post on X on Oct. 17, “As long as Hamas does not release the hostages in its hands, the only thing that needs to enter Gaza are hundreds of tons of explosives from the Air Force, not an ounce of humanitarian aid.”
The debate about the current circumstance in Gaza — whether it is the result of a deliberate strategy to target civilians or is an unintended and unavoidable consequence of Israel’s assault on Hamas — shows why it is challenging to address through international law.
Prohibition of the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare entered international law in 1977, with an additional protocol to the Geneva Convention.
In 1998, the Rome Statute created the International Criminal Court and made it a war crime to use starvation of civilians as a military tactic in international conflict. The crime is described as intending to deprive a civilian population of food, and also of water, medicine and shelter. The United States and Israel were two of the seven countries that voted against the creation of the court.
There have been no prosecutions in the international court over starvation because most of the human-created famines since then have taken place within national borders.
In 2018, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2417, which condemned the use of starvation in conflict and said cases in which armed conflict threatened to create widespread food insecurity should be “swiftly” referred to the Security Council.
However, the Security Council has yet to consider human-made famines: Allies of the countries accused of causing them have consistently acted to keep the issue from debate. The United States repeatedly criticized the Syrian government at the Security Council for its use of starvation, but it took a milder tone when its allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates blockaded Yemen, causing widespread hunger.
Experts say it is difficult to apply international justice to famines because they are often caused by blockades in conflict, when the blockading party can claim that it must stop sustenance from reaching an insurgent or terrorist group. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the idea that the need to act against terrorists takes priority over the protection of civilians has often dominated international relations, Professor de Waal said.
Catriona Murdoch, a legal expert on starvation with the advocacy organization Global Rights Compliance, said that the question of whether there is deliberate intent to deprive a civilian population of food and the other “objects indispensable to survival” described in the U.N. resolution underpins whether a food crisis is a potential crime against humanity. It is not necessary for a famine to occur for an offense to be prosecutable, she said, if intent is proven.
International justice organizations can gather evidence from Gaza now for consideration in a potential prosecution later, when international institutions are more functional.
“These types of investigations take years and years to come to fruition,” Ms. Murdoch said.
Adam Sella contributed reporting from Tel Aviv.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
7) Inspections, Bottlenecks and Safety Concerns Hinder Gaza Aid
Obstacles at two border crossings are exacerbating a growing humanitarian crisis, according to two U.S. senators and officials with the U.N. and other groups.
By Vivian Yee, Adam Sella and Roni Caryn Rabin, Jan. 11, 2024
Vivian Yee reported from Cairo, Adam Sella from the Kerem Shalom border crossing, and Roni Caryn Rabin from Tel Aviv.
Palestinians lining up for free food in Rafah, in the Gaza Strip, on Tuesday. A humanitarian crisis in the territory is worsening, aid officials say. Credit...Hatem Ali/Associated Press
The trucks carrying aid for Gaza stop for exhaustive inspections by Israeli authorities. They can pass through two border crossings only during limited hours. Inside the territory, vehicles travel over a landscape of rubble and ruined roads to distribute the aid to desperate, hungry crowds.
These obstacles are contributing to a growing humanitarian crisis, according to aid officials and two U.S. senators who recently visited Rafah, one of the two crossings into Gaza that is open for aid trucks. Aid groups and the U.N. warn that the risk of famine is widening, that the territory’s health care system is collapsing and that contagious diseases are spreading rapidly.
Israel has been bombarding and besieging Gaza since Oct. 7, when Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups raided Israel, killing about 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials. The war has damaged the roads the trucks use to travel and crippled the communications networks that are essential for coordinating aid distribution. Israel’s siege has dried up almost all the fuel and cut off electricity.
Fighting and Israeli airstrikes have killed about 23,000 people in Gaza, according to health officials in Gaza, including more than 150 aid workers, according to the U.N. and aid groups, who say the war prevents others from being able to report for duty.
Aid groups say the trucks sometimes come under fire from Israeli forces, despite their efforts to coordinate the convoys with the Israeli military in advance.
“The humanitarian community has been left with the impossible mission of supporting more than two million people, even as its own staff are being killed and displaced, as communication blackouts continue, as roads are damaged and convoys are shot at,” Martin Griffiths, the top U.N. humanitarian chief, said in a statement last week.
A spokesman for Israel’s military, Nir Dinar, rejected claims that aid convoys had come under Israeli fire.
Warehouses meant to store aid have become shelters for displaced Gazans; desperate Gazans loot the warehouses that remain and pull food from trucks.
The Gazan civilians who take the supplies “are desperate and angry and need food,” said Dr. Guillemette Thomas, a medical coordinator based in Jerusalem for Doctors Without Borders, echoing warnings by U.N. officials who say a larger and more sustained flow of aid is needed.
Israeli officials, who insist that there is enough food and water for civilians in Gaza, have blamed the United Nations, saying it should find more staff, extend workers’ hours and deploy more trucks to distribute the aid. The officials say the military coordinates with aid groups to arrange safe passage for convoys, and announces daily pauses in the fighting for Gazans to collect aid.
Under U.S. pressure, Israel reopened a second crossing to Gaza, Kerem Shalom, in mid-December, allowing aid trucks through.
Col. Moshe Tetro, the head of the Israeli government administration that liaises with Gaza, told reporters at the Kerem Shalom crossing on Wednesday that Israel had done its part by increasing its capacity for inspecting aid.
“The bottleneck, as I see it, is the capability of the international organizations inside Gaza to receive this aid,” he said. He added, “I’m sure that when we see the other side being more effective, we will see more movement.”
When Kerem Shalom reopened, Israel committed to allowing in 200 trucks a day. Nearly a month later, however, the total entering Gaza each day falls short of that target: Gaza has received an average of about 129 trucks loaded with food, water and medical supplies each day over the last week, according to U.N. figures. That includes 193 trucks on Wednesday, the biggest convoy since Kerem Shalom reopened.
Those figures also include trucks that crossed through the Rafah border point with Egypt, which was the only point where aid could cross until Kerem Shalom reopened. Before the war, Rafah mainly handled people transiting in and out of Gaza. Kerem Shalom previously served as the conduit for some 500 trucks a day, about 100 of which carried food and other aid. The rest carried fuel and food for sale, medical supplies and other commercial goods.
Now the commercial goods are gone, and nearly all Gaza’s flour mills, bakeries, supermarkets and other stores are closed, leaving only the thin trickle of aid to support the population.
“There are now 2.2 million people wholly reliant on aid to survive, where before many could provide for themselves,” said Tamara Alrifai, a spokeswoman for UNRWA, the main U.N. agency that provides services and aid to Palestinians.
Before reaching Gaza, the agreement governing aid delivery requires each truck to submit to Israeli inspections to weed out anything that could benefit Hamas — a process Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat who recently visited Rafah to meet aid officials, called “totally arbitrary” and “cumbersome.”
At the Kerem Shalom crossing on Wednesday, a few trucks waited to be screened in a maze of driveways and parking lots. Idling in another lot were trucks that had already passed inspection, including seven loaded with rice, pasta, chickpeas and sliced carrots, as well as ready-to-eat meals donated by World Central Kitchen. Most of the trucks were not packed full, possibly to ease the inspection process.
While Colonel Tetro declined to explain how Israel conducts inspections for fear he would “expose our methods to the enemy,” he said the security checks range from canine units and testing samples at special labs to “opening box by box wherever we are suspicious.”
Aid officials say it can take hours for Israeli inspectors to comb through the trucks — and inspectors usually give no reason for refusing items, Mr. Van Hollen said. Even trucks whose contents are cleared in advance by Israeli officials are sometimes turned back after inspection, he said. If a single item is rejected, he said, the truck must be sent back with its cargo and repacked to restart the inspection process.
An Israeli security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of government rules, denied this, saying that only what was prohibited for security reasons was barred from entering Gaza.
Mr. Van Hollen said he had toured a warehouse in Rafah full of aid items that Israel had rejected, including tents, oxygen concentrators, water-testing kits, water filters, solar-powered refrigerators and medical kits used for delivering babies.
The security official said Israel was concerned Hamas could use oxygen concentrators to oxygenate their tunnels, but that inspectors did allow concentrators if they knew which medical facility they were destined for.
Once trucks are cleared by Israel, they must receive a second green light from Egypt — in close coordination with Israel — to cross into Gaza, Mr. Van Hollen said. He said Israeli drones monitor trucks that are screened and waiting to cross, to make sure they do not violate an Israeli rule requiring that trucks be isolated after inspection to prevent new items from being added. A driver leaving the truck to get a cup of coffee while waiting could violate that rule, Mr. Van Hollen said he was told.
Further slowing the aid, both crossings are closed on Friday afternoons and Saturdays, the Israeli weekend, a schedule Israeli officials say the United Nations agreed to, but which aid officials say was an Israeli decision.
Kerem Shalom also closes regularly for other reasons, said Ms. Alrifai, the UNRWA spokeswoman. For example, aid crossings there were suspended for a few days in late December, according to the U.N., because a drone strike killed four people near the checkpoint.
Mr. Van Hollen and the other senator who visited Rafah last week, Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, on Wednesday called for Israel to streamline inspections and ensure aid groups could safely deliver assistance within Gaza.
“First of all, you’ve got to get the goods and the humanitarian supplies into Gaza,” Mr. Van Hollen said. “But it is extremely difficult to get them to the people in need when you’re worried about bombs or artillery or getting killed in other ways.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
8) Indiana University Cancels Major Exhibition of Palestinian Artist
Samia Halaby, an 87-year-old artist, has been outspoken in her support of Palestinians during the Israel-Gaza war.
By Zachary Small, Jan. 11, 2024
“Worldwide Intifadah” (1989). Credit...Samia Halaby
The first American retrospective of Samia Halaby, regarded as one of the most important living Palestinian artists, was abruptly canceled by officials at Indiana University in recent weeks.
Dozens of her vibrant and abstract paintings were already at the school when Halaby, 87, said she received a call from the director of the university’s Eskenazi Museum of Art. The director informed her that employees had shared concern about her social media posts on the Israel-Gaza war, where she had expressed support for Palestinian causes and outrage at the violence in the Middle East, comparing the Israeli bombardment to a genocide.
Halaby later received a two-sentence note from the museum director, David Brenneman, officially canceling the show in Bloomington, Ind., without a clear explanation.
“I write to formally notify you that the Eskenazi Museum of Art will not host its planned exhibition of your work,” Brenneman wrote in the Dec. 20 letter, which was reviewed by The New York Times.
A few months earlier, Brenneman had applauded the artist’s “dynamic and innovative approach to art-making” in promotional materials, where he said the exhibition would demonstrate how universities “value artistic experimentation.”
The show’s cancellation is the latest example of the heavy scrutiny that artists and academics have faced since the war began in October. Magazine editors have been fired, artists have seen their work censored and university presidents have resigned under pressure.
“It is clearly my freedom of expression that is under question here,” said Halaby, who earned a master’s degree at Indiana University and later taught students there. She said concerns about her exhibition had been raised by a museum employee.
The retrospective, which was to open Feb. 10, had taken more than three years to organize in partnership with Michigan State University’s Broad Art Museum; agreements were already signed with grant-making foundations and museums that lent artworks to Indiana University from around the country. Halaby was also preparing to unveil a new digital artwork for the exhibition, in addition to previously unseen works like a 1989 painting called “Worldwide Intifadah.”
Steven Bridges, director of the Broad Art Museum, said his institution was still planning to host the exhibition this year.
A spokesman for Indiana University, Mark Bode, said in a statement on Wednesday that “academic leaders and campus officials canceled the exhibit due to concerns about guaranteeing the integrity of the exhibit for its duration.”
In November, Representative Jim Banks of Indiana sent a letter to the university saying it could lose federal funding if administrators condoned antisemitism on campus. In December, the university suspended a tenured political science professor after the student-led Palestine Solidarity Committee that he advises hosted an unauthorized event.
Halaby became a celebrated artist by combining the approaches of Abstract Expressionism and Russian Constructivism with the social activism of Mexican muralists in the early 20th century.
She described her work as following the traditions of Palestinian “liberation art” and remained politically outspoken throughout her career. She made history in 1972 as the first woman to hold the title of associate professor at the Yale School of Art. She was also on the forefront of digital art, teaching herself how to write computer programs in the 1980s.
Reviewing her work in a 2006 group exhibition on Palestinian artists, the New York Times critic Holland Cotter said one of Halaby’s wall pieces looked “like a cross between a floral bouquet and camouflage material.”
Her paintings now hang in the permanent collections at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Art Institute of Chicago, though most of her exhibition history is with cultural institutions in Europe and the Middle East. She recently had a retrospective featuring more than 200 artworks at the Sharjah Art Museum in the United Arab Emirates.
“The political situation now is extremely tense, and such an exhibition could have brought people together with the nuance of Samia’s work,” Nadia Radwan, an art historian who specializes on artists from the Middle East, said about the canceled show at Indiana University. “She belongs to the Palestinian diaspora, but she is also a very American abstract artist. Her recognition came late in life.”
An online petition demanding that Indiana University reinstate the exhibition has received thousands of signatures. Madison Gordon, the artist’s grandniece and trustee of her foundation, said in the petition that Halaby’s appeals to the university’s president, Pamela Whitten, went unanswered.
“The university is canceling the show to distance itself from the cause of Palestinian freedom,” Gordon wrote. “For 50 years, Samia has been an outspoken and principled activist for the dignity, freedom and self-determination of the Palestinian people.”
Halaby said she was disappointed by the university’s decision. She was raised in the Midwest and believed that having her first major American retrospective there would bring her career full-circle.
“I thought I had found a little bit of something I could call my home in Indiana,” the artist said, “and it turned out to be totally false.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
