NOON TODAY!
PIER 32
SAN FRANCISCO
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See Gaza Strip Access Restrictions.pdf since 2007 at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gaza_Strip_Access_Restrictions.pdf** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.”
*** The death toll in West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to PA’s Ministry of Health on March 17, this is the latest figure.
Source: mondoweiss.net
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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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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
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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
For More Information:
bayarealabor4palestine@gmail.com
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
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Just Like The Nazis Did
By David Rovics
After so many decades of patronage
By the world’s greatest empire
So many potential agreements
Were rejected by opening fire
After crushing so many uprisings
Now they’re making their ultimate bid
Pursuing their Final Solution
Just like the Nazis did
They forced refugees into ghettos
Then set the ghettos aflame
Murdering writers and poets
And so no one remember their names
Killing their entire families
The grandparents, women and kids
The uncles and cousins and babies
Just like the Nazis did
They’re bombing all means of sustaining
Human life at all
See the few shelters remaining
Watch as the tower blocks fall
They’re bombing museums and libraries
In order to get rid
Of any memory of the people who lived here
Just like the Nazis did
They’re saying these people are animals
And they should all end up dead
They’re sending soldiers into schools
And shooting children in the head
The rhetoric is identical
And with Gaza off the grid
They’ve already said what happens next
Just like the Nazis did
Words of war for domestic consumption
And lies for all the rest
To try to distract our attention
Among their enablers in the West
Because Israel needs their imports
To keep those pallets on the skids
They need fuel and they need missiles
Just like the Nazis did
They’re using food as a weapon
They’re using water that way, too
They’re trying to kill everyone in Gaza
Or make them flee, it’s true
As the pundits talk of “after the war”
Like with the Fall of Madrid
The victors are preparing for more
Just like the Nazis did
But it’s after the conquest’s complete
If history is any guide
When the occupying army
Is positioned to decide
When disease and famine kills
Whoever may have hid
Behind the ghetto walls
Just like the Nazis did
All around the world
People are trying to tell
There's a genocide unfolding
Ringing alarm bells
But with such a powerful axis
And so many lucrative bids
They know who wants their money
Just like the Nazis did
There's so many decades of patronage
For the world's greatest empire
So many potential agreements
Were rejected by opening fire
They're crushing so many uprisings
Now they're making their ultimate bid
Pursuing their final solution
Just like the Nazis did
Just like the Nazis did
Just like the Nazis did
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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
Sign the petition:
https://dontextraditeassange.com/petition/
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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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Leonard Peltier Update—Experiencing the Onset of Blindness
Greetings Relatives,
Leonard is in trouble, physically. He is experiencing the onset of blindness. He is losing strength in his limbs. His blood sugar is testing erratically. This, on top of already severe conditions that have become dire. Leonard has not seen a dentist in ten years. His few remaining teeth are infected. He is locked down, in pain.
As always, Leonard’s fortitude remains astonishing. He is not scared of dying. He does not want to die in lockdown.
Our legal team has an emergency transfer underway. They are going to extraordinary lengths. We must get a top ophthalmologist to him. Thanks to your calls, the BOP did see him. They told him a specialist would be 8 - 10 weeks out.
Leonard does not have eight to ten weeks. He needs emergency care immediately.
If you can, please donate to this GoFundMe. Every penny matters. If you cannot, please share. If you are so inclined, go to www.freeleonardpeltiernow.org and contact the officials listed.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-leonard-peltier-get-medical-care-freedom?utm_campaign=p_cp+fundraiser-sidebar&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer
As always, thank you for your support.
Dawn Lawson
Personal Assistant Leonard Peltier
Executive Assistant Jenipher Jones, Esq.
Secretary Leonard Peltier Ad Hoc Committee
1-800-901-4413
dawn@allfiredup.blue
www.freeleonardpeltiernow.org
Leonard Peltier Update - Not One More Year
Coleman 1 has gone on permanent lockdown.
The inmates are supposed to be allowed out two hours a day. I have not heard from Leonard since the 18th.
The last time I talked to Leonard, he asked where his supporters were. He asked me if anyone cared about these lockdowns.
Leonard lives in a filthy, cold cell 22 to 24 hours a day. He has not seen a dentist in ten years. I asked him, “On a scale of 1 to 10, is your pain level at 13?” He said, “Something like that.” Leonard is a relentless truth-teller. He does not like it when I say things that do not make sense mathematically.
That is why Leonard remains imprisoned. He will not lie. He will not beg, grovel, or denounce his beliefs.
Please raise your voice. Ask your representatives why they have abdicated their responsibility to oversee the Bureau of Prisons and ensure they adhere to Constitutional law.
Uhuru, The African People’s Socialist Party, has stepped up for Leonard. NOT ONE MORE YEAR.
Fight for Free Speech – YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM8GDeGv90E
Leonard should not have spent a day in prison. Click “LEARN” on our website to find out what really happened on that reservation:
www.freeleonardpeltiernow.org
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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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)
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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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Tell Congress to Help #FreeDanielHale
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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) Ireland will intervene in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the top U.N. court.
By Megan Specia, March 28, 2024
\
A march in support of Palestine in Dublin in November. Credit...Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters
Ireland plans to file an argument in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, according to the Irish government, a move that comes as the country has strongly condemned Israel’s actions against civilians in Gaza.
South Africa has brought a case against Israel in the United Nations court, arguing that Israel is committing genocide, a claim Israel has denied. Ireland did not outline the argument it planned to advance, but the country’s lawmakers have made repeated calls to prioritize the protection of civilians in Gaza.
The United Nations allows countries to “intervene” in proceedings if they are parties to the United Nations’ 1948 Genocide Convention. Micheál Martin, the Republic of Ireland’s foreign minister and deputy leader, said that officials were working on a so-called “declaration of intervention” in the case that, if approved by the Irish government, would be filed with the court in The Hague.
“It is for the Court to determine whether genocide is being committed,” Mr. Martin said on Wednesday. “But I want to be clear in reiterating what I have said many times in the last few months: What we saw on 7 October in Israel, and what we are seeing in Gaza now, represents the blatant violation of international humanitarian law on a mass scale.”
He urged Israel to call a cease-fire, and then listed a number of pressing issues, including “the purposeful withholding of humanitarian assistance to civilians,” “the targeting of civilians and of civilian infrastructure” and “the collective punishment of an entire population.”
“The list goes on,” he said. “It has to stop. The view of the international community is clear. Enough is enough.”
Irish lawmakers were among the first in Europe to call for the protection of people in Gaza last year, a reflection of Ireland’s longstanding support for Palestinian civilians, rooted in part in a shared history of British colonialism. Ireland’s own experience with a seemingly intractable and traumatic sectarian conflict — The Troubles, which came to a close with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement — has also driven that affinity.
The decision to file a declaration of intervention was made in consultation with several partners, including South Africa, Mr. Martin said. The Irish government does not plan to take a side in the dispute, the government told a number of Irish news outlets.
Germany in January became the first country to announce that it would intervene in the case, saying that there was “no basis whatsoever” to South Africa’s claim that Israel was committing genocide in the war. The United States has called the case meritless, and several European countries have rejected it, too.
Irish politicians have made repeated calls for Israel to prioritize the protection of civilians in Gaza over their military aims. Mr. Martin said that the intention is that its declaration would be filed once South Africa has filed its written arguments, a process that is likely to take months.
The allegation that Israel has carried out genocide in Gaza — one of the most serious crimes a country can be accused of — is particularly significant in Israel, which was founded after millions of Jewish people were murdered during the Holocaust.
The U.N. genocide convention, to which Israel is a signatory, defines the crime as one with a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.
The South African government maintains that it is pursuing its case to stop a genocide, but analysts say it is also motivated by longstanding domestic support for the Palestinian cause. Israeli leaders have said that South Africa’s allegations pervert the meaning of genocide and the purpose of the 1948 genocide convention.
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2) The United States and Britain impose sanctions on a Gazan news outlet over ties to Hamas.
By Alan Rappeport Reporting from Washington, March 28, 2024
A woman carrying three infants in the Gaza Strip on March 21, 2024, after fleeing the Al-Shifa medical complex.
The United States and Britain imposed sanctions Wednesday on Gaza Now, a news organization based in the enclave that the allies accused of raising money for Hamas and helping to finance its terrorist activities.
The Treasury Department said that Gaza Now started a fund-raising effort in support of Hamas following its attack on Israel in October. The measures also target the founder of Gaza Now and two companies that donated thousands of dollars to the news outlet.
The sanctions are the latest attempt to disrupt the flow of funds to Hamas since the Oct. 7 attack. The United States estimates that Hamas controls $500 million worth of assets that it uses to finance terrorism, and the Biden administration has been working with American allies to crack down on sanctions evasion.
“Treasury remains committed to degrading Hamas’ ability to finance its terrorist activities, including through online fund-raising campaigns that seek to funnel money directly to the group,” Brian E. Nelson, the Treasury’s under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement.
The sanctions freeze any Gaza Now assets held in the United States or Britain and cut its backers off from much of the global financial system.
Gaza Now operates a website and broadcasts television coverage and commentary over a satellite channel and on social media platforms.
Media organizations are not common targets of U.S. sanctions, but the Treasury Department did in 2022 impose financial restrictions on Russian outlets that were spreading disinformation.
Although the Biden administration has been trying to curtail the finances of Hamas, it has also been using sanctions to curb violence by Israelis accused of attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank.
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3) A majority of Americans disapprove of Israel’s actions in Gaza, a new poll shows.
By Anushka Patil, March 28, 2024
Protesters at the New York Public Library in December called for a cease-fire in Gaza. Credit...Andres Kudacki for The New York Times
A majority of Americans disapprove of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, in a pronounced shift from November, according to a new poll released by Gallup on Wednesday.
In a survey conducted from March 1-20, 55 percent of U.S. adults said they disapproved of Israel’s military actions — a jump of 10 percentage points from four months earlier, Gallup found.
Americans’ approval of Israel’s conduct in the war dropped by an even starker margin, from 50 percent in November, a month after the war began, to 36 percent in March, while the proportion of Americans who said they had no opinion on the subject rose slightly to 9 percent from 4 percent.
The findings are the latest evidence of growing American discontent with Israel over the course of the five months in which it has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including nearly 14,000 children, according to local health officials and the United Nations. Israeli officials say roughly 1,200 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7.
The Gallup poll found that American approval of Israel’s military actions dropped across the political spectrum: While a majority of Republicans still said they approved, that figure dropped from 71 percent in November to 64 percent in March. Independents’ approval dropped to 29 percent from 47 percent, and Democrats’ approval dropped to just 18 percent from 36 percent.
An AP-NORC poll conducted in late January found that half of U.S. adults felt Israel’s military response in Gaza had “gone too far,” up from four in 10 in November. That poll also showed a rise in public disapproval across political parties, by some 15 percentage points for Republicans, 13 for independents and five for Democrats.
Another recent survey from the Pew Research Center — which, like Gallup and AP-NORC, is a well-regarded leader in the polling industry — found notable schisms in public opinion along generational and religious lines. Younger adults and Muslim Americans were significantly more likely than older adults and Jewish Americans to say that the way Israel was carrying out its response to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack was unacceptable, according to the poll conducted from mid-to-late February.
It oversampled Muslim and Jewish Americans, weighted to reflect their respective proportion of the overall population, to more reliably and separately analyze their views.
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4) Health Concerns Mount for Migrant Children at Outdoor Holding Sites
A federal judge is expected to rule soon on whether the government must provide shelter, food and medical care to minors while they await processing.
By Emily Baumgaertner reported from five migrant camps along the U.S.-Mexico border wall in California, March 28, 2024
“A Federal District Court judge in California could rule as early as Friday on whether the government is legally required to shelter and feed the children as they wait.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/28/health/children-migrants-border-health.html
A young asylum seeker from Georgia who has breached the border wall near Tijuana waiting to be apprehended by Border Patrol agents in San Ysidro, Calif. Credit...Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times
To Dr. Theresa Cheng, the scene was “apocalyptic.”
She had come to Valley of the Moon, an open-air holding site in San Diego’s rural Mountain Empire, to provide volunteer medical care to asylum seekers who had breached the United States-Mexico border wall and were waiting to be apprehended by American authorities.
Among the throngs at this and other sites, she found children with deep lacerations, broken bones, fevers, diarrhea, vomiting, even seizures. Some were hiding in dumpsters and overflowing porta-potties. An asthmatic boy without an inhaler was wheezing in the acrid smoke from brush and trash fires, which had been lit for warmth.
With the capacity at immigration processing centers strained, migrants, including unaccompanied children, are waiting for hours — sometimes days — in outdoor holding areas, where a lack of shelter, food, and sanitation infrastructure has triggered an array of public health concerns for the most vulnerable.
“From a public health standpoint, there are communicable diseases and outdoor exposures that would strike anyone down, much less this medically vulnerable population,” said Dr. Cheng, an emergency room physician at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center.
A Federal District Court judge in California could rule as early as Friday on whether the government is legally required to shelter and feed the children as they wait.
In a court filing, lawyers for the Department of Justice argue that because the children have not yet been formally taken into custody by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, they are not obligated to provide such service.
“Minors in these areas — close to the California-Mexico border — have not been arrested or apprehended by C.B.P. and are not in the legal custody of C.B.P.,” the lawyers wrote.
“C.B.P. has been apprehending and transporting minors to safe and sanitary U.S. Border Patrol facilities in a prompt manner. But until that occurs, plaintiffs are not in D.H.S. custody,” they wrote, referring to the Department of Homeland Security.
When asylum seekers enter the United States between official ports of entry, they often present themselves to Border Patrol agents near the wall with the intention of being apprehended. They are taken to a processing facility, where they receive a medical screening, a background check and basic provisions as they begin the legal claims process.
But unlike at those immigration processing facilities, the open-air sites have no shelters, meals or government-affiliated medical staff. Some sites have no restrooms, causing people to defecate outdoors in the open, according to Erika Pinheiro, the executive director of the legal and humanitarian nonprofit Al Otro Lado, who has provided aid at the camps. With limited diapers, wipes and creams from volunteers, babies have been kept in dirty diapers for extended periods of time, according to court exhibits, causing severe diaper rash.
A senior official at Customs and Border Protection acknowledged in an interview that people had at times waited days to enter processing but said that vulnerable groups like children were always prioritized, and that wait times had decreased significantly in recent months. He said the agency had more than tripled the capacity at processing centers in San Diego and that it had increased the number of transport buses and personnel in order to expedite apprehensions.
Still, he said, the system was not built for migrant encounters at the current scale, and the shift of crossings to more remote regions has made the process all the more resource-intensive, since vehicles and personnel must travel further between encampments and Border Patrol stations. He said a major increase in federal funding would be necessary to address the problem fully.
At least seven migrant holding areas have arisen at various points along the California border. One is a large patch of dirt in the desert beside a highway; another is a plateau in mountainous wilderness; another is the narrow gap between two parallel border walls that have been erected just feet from the Mexican city of Tijuana.
None of the holding areas were formally established by immigration officials, but they have become a pillar of their operations — makeshift camps where they instruct asylum seekers to line up for count, remove their shoelaces, strip down to one layer of clothing and wait.
Adriana Jasso, who runs a volunteer aid station against the steel slats of the border wall in San Ysidro, Calif., on behalf of the nonprofit American Friends Service Committee, said the lack of food, water, and baby formula provided by the government has been particularly concerning. “There is no logic if the most powerful country in the history of humanity, the country with the highest concentration of wealth, is not able to provide for basic needs of children,” she said.
Migrant advocacy groups have filed multiple complaints with the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the Department of Homeland Security, and a group of lawyers who represent children in immigration custody as part of a 1997 federal court agreement known as the Flores settlement have taken to the courts over the conditions.
The Flores settlement agreement established the standards of treatment for immigrant children who are detained by the government. It essentially requires that children in immigration custody have rights and protections similar to those of children within the welfare system inside the country, and that they are released from detention to an appropriate sponsor, such as a parent or relative, “without unnecessary delay.”
Plaintiff lawyers in the settlement, including the Oakland-based nonprofit National Center for Youth Law, have filed a new motion to enforce the terms of Flores for young migrants who are still awaiting processing in the open air. They argue that the children waiting against the border wall deserve the same safe and sanitary housing as those already in official custody, since they are forbidden from moving from the camps and have no way of going back.
The burden of medical issues among children in the holding areas is difficult to measure, since volunteers are only permitted at the sites at the discretion of border agents, and a hodgepodge of aid groups does not keep a collective record of wounds treated or electrolytes dispensed.
In a December 2023 email to federal officials, a lawyer wrote that infants in the holding areas had begun vomiting because of severe dehydration, and that some children had been given one granola bar for sustenance per day. Pedro Rios, the director of the American Friends Service Committee’s U.S.-Mexico Border program, said he had encountered migrants who had been eating leaves because they had been there for five days without food, as well as mothers who had stopped producing breast milk because of traumatic stress and infants with no formula to replace it.
Hundreds of children have been gathered at the sites each month since last summer, and Dr. Cheng, who is also a professor of emergency medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, estimated that she had evaluated or treated 100 children in one week alone. She encountered a 5-year-old and 12-year-old who had spent three nights outdoors; an 8- or 9-year-old to whom she gave facial stitches out in the open air; a 13-year-old boy with a traumatic injury, blood pouring from his ears and nose.
Children are not the only migrants with serious health issues. In remote swaths of eastern San Diego County, those who turn themselves in to border authorities have often endured arduous journeys through steep mountainous terrain and desert land, arriving at the holding areas in deteriorated health. Doctors said they encountered a man with a kidney transplant who was running out of immunosuppressants, a woman with a traumatic stroke who could not reach her own shoelaces, and a migrant who had traveled with an oxygen concentrator and had become hypoxic. He eventually died.
Doctors are particularly concerned about cases of hypothermia among children, since many have lower body fat than adults and may be malnourished from their journeys. Migrants have been soaked by heavy rainfall in the waiting areas overnight, which can cause the body temperature to plummet. Two minors were hospitalized for hypothermia last month.
Karen Parker, a retired social worker in Boulevard, Calif., who does volunteer medical triaging at the eastern camps, said that, in addition to broken feet and twisted ankles, she routinely encounters unaccompanied minors having panic attacks. “The stress, the exhaustion, the trauma is making them physically sick,” she said. “I’m looking at them, thinking they are finally here, but their eyes are so vacant.”
The number of people and duration of wait times has fluctuated since last summer. In recent weeks, Mexican military activity has pushed migrants toward the west, a more urban region between Tijuana and California’s San Ysidro where asylum seekers who breach the primary border wall must wait for federal agents in the 280-foot space behind a second one. Fewer gaps in the primary border wall there mean more children are hauled over it or smuggled under it, despite concertina wire. Aid workers have documented an increase in deep head gashes, and local neurosurgeons have reported a rise in traumatic injuries.
In recent weeks, a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old have both fallen from the border wall in their parents’ arms.
“When you hear the babies just crying and crying, right on that other side of this wall, that’s the worst part,” said Clint Carney, the government affairs manager for the nonprofit Survivors of Torture, International, who provides aid through the slats in the border wall.
Local E.M.S. teams have been inundated with calls from the sites, and aid workers said that federal agents had often denied their requests to dial 911, suggesting migrants were faking injuries. Those who encountered serious injuries often called volunteer medical staff to advise them by phone.
When Dr. Cheng got one such call on a recent morning and arrived at the scene to find a 13-year-old boy with a weak pulse and blood pouring from his ears and nose, two border agents were standing nearby but had not taken any steps to assist, she said in court documents.
Dr. Cheng performed CPR, but it took an hour for emergency services to arrive, she said. The boy died.
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5) Germany, a Loyal Israel Ally, Begins to Shift Tone as Gaza Toll Mounts
Supporting Israel is seen as a historic duty in Germany, but the worsening crisis has pushed German officials to ask whether that backing has gone too far.
By Erika Solomon, Reporting from Berlin, March 29, 2024
Days after Hamas launched its Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, was one of the first Western leaders to arrive in Tel Aviv. Standing beside the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, he declared that Germany had “only one place — and it is alongside Israel.”
That place now feels increasingly awkward for Germany, Israel’s second-largest arms supplier, and a nation whose leadership calls support for the country a “Staatsraison,” a national reason for existence, as a way of atoning for the Holocaust.
Last week, with Israel’s deadly offensive continuing in Gaza, the chancellor again stood next to Mr. Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, and struck a different tone. “No matter how important the goal,” he asked, “can it justify such terribly high costs?”
With international outrage growing over a death toll that Gazan health authorities say exceeds 32,000, and the looming prospect of famine in the enclave, German officials have begun to question whether their country’s support has gone too far.
“What changed for Germany is that it’s untenable, this unconditional support for Israel,” said Thorsten Benner, director of the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin. “In sticking to this notion of Staatsraison, they gave the false impression that Germany actually offered carte blanche to Netanyahu.”
Berlin’s hardening tone is partly a response to fears over Israel’s continued insistence that it must enter Rafah in order to pursue Hamas operatives it says are in the southern Gazan city. The change in stance also tracks with the evolving position of Germany’s most important ally, the United States, which has shown increasing displeasure with Israel’s actions, including through an abstention in a U.N. Security Council vote that allowed a cease-fire resolution to pass.
The change in the German stance has made itself felt in a matter of weeks.
In January — just months after the Hamas-led attacks that Israeli officials say killed some 1,200 people — Germany intervened in defense of Israel against South Africa’s charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice. It cited Germany’s history to position itself as a kind of moral authority when it came to backing the Convention against Genocide, and defended Israel against growing criticisms of its handling of the war.
As recently as last month, Mr. Scholz resisted answering questions at the Munich Security Conference about whether Israel had violated international humanitarian law.
But this week, Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said she would be sending a delegation to Israel because as a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, her country “is obliged to remind all parties of their duty to abide by international humanitarian law.”
During a visit to the region, her sixth since the attack, Ms. Baerbock also described the situation in Gaza as “hell” and insisted that a major offensive on Rafah, where more than a million people have sought shelter, must not happen.
“People cannot vanish into thin air,” she said.
Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, responded to Ms. Baerbock’s criticisms in a statement on social media, saying: “We expect our friends to continue supporting Israel during these challenging times and not weaken it against the terrorist organization Hamas.”
Berlin, like Washington, has tried to position itself as a concerned friend, intent on ensuring Israel’s long-term security by not allowing it to go so far that it loses even more international backing. But the stakes are high for Germany, too.
The country needs to maintain friendly relations around the world to pursue its own interests, whether Europe is cutting deals with Egypt to curb migration or seeking support for measures to back Ukraine against Russia. Foreign-policy experts say that by hewing to its strong support of Israel, Germany has also undermined its ability to credibly criticize authoritarian governments like that of Russia’s Vladimir V. Putin for human rights violations.
The sense of diminishing credibility on human rights is particularly strong in the set of developing or underdeveloped countries sometimes referred to as the Global South, a point brought home during a visit to Berlin this month by Malaysia’s prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim.
“We oppose colonialism, or apartheid, or ethnic cleansing, or dispossession of any country, be it in Ukraine, or in Gaza,” Mr. Ibrahim told journalists as he stood beside Mr. Scholz. “Where have we thrown our humanity? Why this hypocrisy?”
Until recently, German public opinion seemed firmly behind the government’s support of Israel’s military campaign. But polls by public broadcasters in recent weeks show that nearly 70 percent of Germans surveyed felt Israel’s military actions were not justifiable; just a few weeks earlier, the number was around 50 percent.
The matter has become inescapable for Mr. Scholz even in town hall sessions with voters.
“I find Germany’s foreign policy contradictory, and even hypocritical,” one woman told Mr. Scholz in the town of Brandenburg an der Havel, outside Berlin, earlier this week.
On the one hand, she said, Germany was calling on Israel not to invade Rafah. On the other, Germany remained one of Israel’s biggest arms suppliers. “We have to really do something to protect these people.”
Berlin's toughened stance over the war is unlikely to indicate any broader turn against Israel. This week, the Interior Ministry said it would include questions about Israel in an updated citizenship test, a reflection of how strongly Germany sees support of Israel as part of its own identity.
And beyond a change in tone, there is little Berlin is likely to do that is not symbolic, policymakers say, unless Washington takes tougher measures. In a written reply to a question from a lawmaker, Sevim Dagdelen, on whether Germany would stop arms deliveries, the government said it would consider them on a “case by case” basis.
The most important decision it could take, said Jürgen Hardt, the foreign policy spokesman for the center-right Christian Democrats in the Parliament, was to restore funding to the main U.N. agency aiding Palestinians, UNRWA. In the wake of allegations that some of the agency’s employees participated in the Oct. 7 attack or its aftermath, Germany said it would suspend the funding. (U.N. officials said they had fired 10 of the 12 employees initially accused and had ordered an investigation into the agency, while imploring nations that suspended aid payments to reconsider.)
Now, Germany appears to be changing its position. This week, Germany said it would again fund the agency in the areas where it operates outside Gaza.
Weeks earlier, German diplomats had sought the removal of the head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, as a precondition to restore funding, according to German and European Union officials familiar with the situation.
But the same officials said they have observed a marked softening of Germany’s stance since then, and that the Germans appeared to have abandoned the request that Mr. Lazzarini be replaced. E.U. and German officials said Germany was likely to release funding for Gaza operations by May.
“That could be one small action,” Mr. Benner, the foreign policy analyst, said. “But I think the damage is already done in terms of German credibility. Now, it’s a mission of damage control.”
Matina Stevis-Gridneff contributed reporting from Brussels.
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6) Syria Blames Israel for Deadly Attack in Aleppo
By Raja Abdulrahim and Victoria Kim, March 29, 2024
Workers clearing debris in February after what the Syrian state news media said was an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in Damascus that killed two people. Credit...Firas Makdesi/Reuters
Airstrikes near the northern Syrian city of Aleppo early Friday killed a number of soldiers, Syria’s state news media and an independent organization reported, in what appeared to be one of the biggest Israeli attacks in the country in years.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that tracks the war in Syria, said that at least 36 soldiers were killed in the overnight strikes and that the toll could rise. The group said the attack appeared to have hit multiple targets, including a weapons depot belonging to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militia that also has a presence in Syria.
Israel’s military did not immediately comment on the strikes, but it has previously acknowledged carrying out hundreds of assaults on Iran-linked targets in Syria. Iran supports and arms a network of proxy militias that have been fighting with Israel, including Hamas — whose political leader was in Iran for high-level meetings this week — and other Palestinian groups.
Attacks across borders have escalated since Israel’s intense aerial bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, in a sign of the rising tensions in the region.
The Israeli military said this month that its forces had struck more than 4,500 Hezbollah targets in Syria and Lebanon in that time period, assaults that it said had killed over 300 Hezbollah members, though that could not be independently confirmed. Hezbollah’s official website and spokesman said that “more than 200” of its fighters had been killed to date.
On Friday, Syria’s state-run official news agency, SANA, did not specify a death toll in what it identified as an Israeli attack but said that several civilians and soldiers had been killed or wounded in strikes on multiple locations near Aleppo around 1:45 a.m.
Separately, the Lebanese state news media reported that an Israeli drone strike had targeted a car on a road in southern Lebanon, killing at least one person.
The Israeli military confirmed that it had carried out the strike in Lebanon, which it said had killed the deputy commander of Hezbollah’s rocket and missile unit. Hezbollah acknowledged the death of Ali Abdulhassan Naim, the man the Israeli military said it had killed, on its Telegram channel but did not elaborate on the circumstances of his killing.
Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, praised “another successful assassination of a Hezbollah commander” and appeared to hint at responsibility for the strike in Syria in a post on Twitter.
“We will pursue Hezbollah every place it operates and we will expand the pressure and the pace of the attacks,” he said, promising more operations in Lebanon, Syria and “in other more distant locations.”
The Israeli military and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire across their border for months, displacing tens of thousands of Lebanese and Israelis from their homes.
On Thursday, the United Nations peacekeeping mission deployed along the Lebanese border with Israel said in a statement that it was very concerned about the surge in violence, which has killed many civilians and destroyed homes and livelihoods.
Israel has also targeted Hamas officials outside Gaza, most notably assassinating Saleh al-Arouri, a top Hamas leader, in early January in an explosion in a Beirut suburb, officials from Hamas, Lebanon and the United States said at the time. Israel did not take responsibility for his killing.
Since the outbreak of Syria’s civil war in 2011, Israel has conducted strikes and targeted killings in the country, which Israeli officials have said are aimed at crippling the military capabilities and supply lines for Iranian-backed proxy forces, including Hezbollah.
Throughout the Syrian conflict, Iran and Hezbollah backed the authoritarian president, Bashar al-Assad, with fighters and military support. Israel views the influence and military buildup of these forces as a threat to its northern border.
In a further complication for Israel, Russia also supports Mr. al-Assad. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel needs the good will of President Vladimir V. Putin to help constrain Iran and continue to strike targets in Syria, while trying to avoid harming the forces Russia maintains there.
Friday’s attack was at least the second deadly attack in Syria in less than a week. On Tuesday, airstrikes in eastern Syria killed several people. The Iranian state news media said that Israel was responsible, while the Syrian state news agency attributed it to American forces. A Pentagon spokeswoman denied that the United States had carried out those strikes.
The Tuesday strikes killed a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, according to Iranian state news media reports. An engineer with the World Health Organization was also killed in the strikes, the agency said in a statement.
Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.
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7) Israel cites its ‘new initiatives’ on getting aid into Gaza, but progress has been slow.
By Adam Rasgon Reporting from Jerusalem, March 29, 2024
Humanitarian aid at a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees distribution center in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah in March. Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Israel said Friday that it was committed to its legal obligations to provide humanitarian aid to desperate civilians in Gaza, pointing to a series of measures to deliver aid by land, air and sea. But progress on the efforts has been slow and aid groups say they are not nearly sufficient to meet the vast need in the enclave.
A day after the United Nations’ top court ruled, in its sharpest language yet, that Israel must ensure the “unhindered” delivery of assistance” to Gaza, the foreign ministry said it would continue to promote “new initiatives” and expand efforts to facilitate the entry of aid into Gaza.
Humanitarian officials have been sounding the alarm over a looming famine, especially in the northern part of the territory, where desperation has prompted people to swarm trucks carrying assistance and aid groups say they have struggled to deliver supplies because of Israeli restrictions and widespread lawlessness.
In its ruling, the U.N. court, the International Court of Justice, said Israel must take “all necessary and effective measures” to guarantee the delivery of aid, including food, water, and medicine. The court does not have any means of forcing Israel to comply with its orders, but it is the highest arbiter of international law, and its decisions carry symbolic weight.
Following urgent calls from the United States and other allies to do more, Israel has endorsed a handful of aid efforts in the last month, including a ship that carried food to Gaza from Cyprus, airdrops by foreign countries and crossings directly from Israel into northern Gaza by a small number of aid trucks.
Relief groups have accused Israel, which insists on inspecting and approving every aid delivery, of restricting the flow. Israel has at times argued that there was plenty of aid reaching Gaza, while insisting that disorganization by aid groups and diversions of shipments by Hamas were to blame for any bottlenecks.
World Central Kitchen, a disaster relief nonprofit, built a jetty in northern Gaza to receive maritime shipments, and the group has dispatched one ship to the enclave so far. The organization says it has prepared second vessel, but it has not yet set sail from Cyprus. As part of an effort to increase maritime shipments, the United States military is building a temporary pier, but that will take weeks.
In recent weeks, many countries have conducted airdrops of aid, but humanitarian officials say they are inefficient and expensive, with each plane carrying only a relatively small amount of aid. They are also risky: This week, Gazan authorities said 12 people had drowned while trying to retrieve assistance that fell into the ocean. Previously, they reported that some people had been killed by falling packages.
The U.N. court also demanded that Israel increase the number of land crossings into Gaza and keep them open as long as necessary.
In addition to two crossings in the south, Israel recently opened a direct entry point in the north, but only a small number of trucks have been able to use the route. Jamie McGoldrick, a top United Nations humanitarian official in Jerusalem, said he was particularly concerned about hunger in northern Gaza, where he said it was exceedingly difficult to deliver supplies.
Many experts have said that a cease-fire is necessary to scale up the delivery of aid significantly, but talks aimed at achieving a stop in the fighting and a release of hostages held by militants in Gaza appeared to be stalling, with Hamas this week rejecting Israel’s most recent counterproposal.
In a small sign of hope for a deal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel approved the departure of security delegations to Cairo and Doha to participate in negotiations on the issue, according to a statement from his office.
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8) Days after the U.N. cease-fire resolution, has anything changed in the war in Gaza?
By Matthew Mpoke Bigg, March 29, 2024
An explosion during strikes in Rafah on Tuesday night. Credit...Said Khatib/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Although the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution on Monday that demands an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, it remains to be seen whether it will have a concrete effect on the war or prove merely to be a political statement.
The measure, Resolution 2728, followed three previous attempts that the United States had blocked. It passed by 14 votes, after the United States abstained from voting and did not employ its veto.
The resolution also calls for the unconditional release of all hostages and the end to barriers to humanitarian aid.
Israel’s government condemned the vote, and early indications are that the U.N.’s action has changed little on the ground or spurred diplomatic progress.
Days after the vote, here’s a look at what has changed and what might happen next:
Has the resolution affected fighting?
Senior Israeli officials said that they would ignore the call for a cease-fire, arguing that it was imperative to pursue the war until it has dismantled the military wing of Hamas, the militant group that led the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Since Monday, there has been no apparent shift in the military campaign. Israel’s air force continues to pound Gaza with strikes, and Hamas is still launching attacks.
Israel’s military is pressing on with a raid at Al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza, the territory’s biggest medical facility, as well as its offensive in Khan Younis, the largest city in the south, where fighting has been fierce.
If Israel doesn’t heed the resolution, what can the U.N. do?
The Security Council has few means to enforce its resolutions. The Council can take punitive measures, imposing sanctions against violators. In the past, such measures have included travel bans, economic restrictions and arms embargoes.
In this case, however, legal experts said that any additional measure would require a new resolution and that passing it would require consent from the council’s five veto-holding members, including the United States, Israel’s staunchest ally.
There may be legal challenges as well. While the United Nations says that Security Council resolutions are considered to be international law, legal experts debate whether all resolutions are binding on member states, or only those adopted under chapter VII of the U.N. charter, which deals with threats to peace. The resolution passed on Monday did not explicitly mention Chapter VII.
U.N. officials said it was still binding on Israel, but some countries disagreed. South Korea said on Monday that the resolution was not “explicitly coercive under Chapter VII,” but that it reflected a consensus of the international community.
Crucially, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, maintained that the resolution was nonbinding. The United States, which holds significant power on the Security Council because of its permanent seat, likely views the passage of the resolution as more a valuable political instrument than a binding order, experts said.
The U.S. abstention sends a powerful signal of its policy priorities even if, in the short term, the Security Council is unlikely to take further steps, according to Ivo H. Daalder, a former American ambassador to NATO.
“Neither Israel or Hamas is going to be swayed by a U.N. resolution,” Mr. Daalder said.
What about aid?
Israel controls the flow of aid into Gaza, and after five months of war, Gazans are facing a severe hunger crisis bordering on famine, especially in the north, according to the United Nations and residents of the territory.
Aid groups have blamed Israel, which announced a siege of the territory after Oct. 7. They say officials have impeded aid deliveries through inspections and tight restrictions.
Israel argues that it works to prevent aid reaching Hamas and says that its officials can process more aid than aid groups can distribute within the territory. Growing lawlessness in Gaza has also made the distribution of aid difficult, with some convoys ending in deadly violence.
Little has changed this week. The number of aid trucks entering Gaza on Tuesday from the two border crossings open for aid roughly matched the average daily number crossing this month, according to U.N. data. That figure, about 150 trucks per day, is nearly 70 percent less than the number before Oct. 7.
How has the resolution affected diplomacy?
Israel and Hamas appear to still be far apart on negotiations aimed at brokering a halt in fighting and an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
Mediators have been in Qatar to try to narrow the gaps. But late Monday, Hamas rejected Israel’s most recent counterproposal and its political leader, on a visit to Tehran this week, said the resolution showed that Israel was isolated diplomatically.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has argued that the resolution set back negotiations, emboldening Hamas to hold out for better terms.
The biggest sticking point in the cease-fire talks had recently been the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released, in particular those serving extended sentences for violence against Israelis, U.S. and Israeli officials have said.
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9) The U.N.’s top court orders Israel to allow ‘unhindered’ aid into Gaza.
By Anushka Patil and Marlise Simons, March 29, 2024
Palestinians carrying pots crowding a food distribution site in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, last week. Credit...Mahmoud Issa/Reuters
In its strongest language yet, the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Thursday ordered Israel to stop obstructing humanitarian aid to Gaza as starvation there spreads, calling for Israel to increase the number of land crossings for supplies and provide its “full cooperation” with the United Nations.
The ruling is part of a case filed by South Africa at the I.C.J., the United Nations’ highest court, that accused Israel of committing genocide, an allegation that Israel has categorically denied. In an interim ruling on Jan. 26, the court ordered Israel to ensure that more aid would be allowed into Gaza. Since then, the “catastrophic living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated further,” necessitating further measures, the court said on Thursday.
Israel, the court ruled, must ensure that its military doesn’t violate Palestinians’ rights under the Genocide Convention, “including by preventing, through any action, the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian assistance.”
South Africa requested this month that the court issue further emergency orders to lift Israeli restrictions on aid amid warnings from experts that Gazans have been facing a looming famine. The South African government welcomed the new orders on Thursday as a “significant” step by the I.C.J., saying the ruling indicated that the court agreed that Israel’s failure to comply with the previous order had worsened conditions in Gaza.
Israel’s foreign ministry said in a statement in response to the ruling that Israel had gone to great lengths to mitigate harm to civilians and to facilitate the flow of aid into Gaza, accusing South Africa of attempting to “exploit” the court to undermine Israel’s right to defend itself.
In its new ruling, the I.C.J. unanimously ordered Israel to “take all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay, in full cooperation with the United Nations, the unhindered provision at scale by all concerned of urgently needed basic services,” including food, water, fuel and shelter as well as medical and sanitation supplies. Israel must also increase the capacity and number of land crossing points and keep them “open for as long as necessary,” the court said.
The ruling touches on some issues that leading aid organizations have called Israeli impediments contributing to the risk of famine in Gaza. Those groups have cited inspection backlogs at the few open border crossings, problems in the Israeli military’s system for coordinating with aid workers, and outright denials of missions to bring in food, fuel and sanitation supplies. Palestinians, U.N. officials and aid workers have voiced concerns about diseases spreading, hospitals collapsing and children beginning to starve to death.
The court said on Thursday that Palestinians in Gaza were “no longer facing only a risk of famine,” as it noted in its interim ruling, “but that famine is setting in.” Among the evidence the court cited was a report from the global authority on food security that found a full-scale famine was imminent in northern Gaza, and a U.N. report that found acute malnutrition among children under 2 years old in that region had doubled over the course of the past month.
The court also noted that at least 31 people across the enclave, including 27 children, had already died from malnutrition and dehydration, according to reports from the U.N. and local health officials.
The judges have not yet taken up the core question of whether a genocide has been taking place in Gaza, a complex charge that would likely take months or years to decide.
Despite the court’s authority and the weight of the allegations before it, the court does not have any means of forcing Israel to comply with its orders. But it is the highest arbiter of international law, and its decisions carry moral and symbolic weight. “If there is noncompliance, the global community must ensure adherence when it comes to the sanctity of humanity,” the South African government said in its statement on Thursday.
Since finding the dangers of genocide “plausible” in January, the court has ordered a series of measures, which amount to temporary injunctions, aimed at protecting Palestinian civilians. Aharon Barak, the ad hoc judge Israel appointed to the court for the genocide case, argued in a separate opinion on Thursday that the court was, with some of the measures it ordered, “leaving the land of law and entering the land of politics.”
Several judges assessed the war in stark terms in separate opinions, including Judge Abdulqawi Yusuf from Somalia, one of the court’s more senior judges and a former president of the court.
“The alarm has now been sounded by the court,” he wrote in his opinion. “All the indicators of genocidal activities are flashing red in Gaza.”
The court’s current president, Nawaf Salam, strongly hinted at the risk of genocide in his opinion. The court, he said, was “faced with a situation in which the conditions of existence of the Palestinians in Gaza are such as to bring about the partial or total destruction of that group.”
But judges also wrestled with what influence they could exert in the conflict. “The court cannot order a cease-fire, as the conflicting parties are not all before it,” Hilary Charlesworth, an Australian judge, wrote, referring to Hamas and other armed groups.
But, she wrote, the court “can at least mitigate” the risk to Palestinians by directing the parties before it: South Africa and Israel.
Johnatan Reiss and Victoria Kim contributed reporting.
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