4/16/2024

Bay Area United Against War Newsletter, April 17, 2024



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Family housing in Rafa.

See Gaza Strip Access Restrictions.pdf since 2007 at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gaza_Strip_Access_Restrictions.pdf

Palestinians killed and wounded by Israel:
As of April 17, 2024the total number of Palestinians killed by Israel is now over 33,899,* 76,664 wounded, and more than 468 Palestinians have been killed and 4,600 wounded by Israel in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.***  The Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) and the Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission released a new tally of Palestinians detained by "Israel", revealing that the number of Palestinian prisoners in the West Bank has risen to more than 6,115.

Israel lowers its estimated October 7 death toll from 1,400 to 1,139—604 Israeli soldiers killed since ground invasion, 6,800 wounded**


Gaza’s Ministry of Health confirmed this figure on its Telegram channel on April 9, 2024. Some rights groups estimate the death toll to be much higher when accounting for those presumed dead.

** 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 April 5, this is the latest figure.


Source: mondoweiss.net

 
FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE!
END ALL U.S. AID TO ISRAEL!
FOR A DEMOCRATIC, SECULAR PALESTINE!

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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

Thousands at stadium sing, "You'll Never Walk Alone," and wave Palestinian flags in Scotland.


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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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0ad3mEylwY

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

Prison Radio is a project of the Redwood Justice Fund (RJF), which is a California 501c3 (Tax ID no. 680334309) not-for-profit foundation dedicated to the defense of the environment and of civil and human rights secured by law.  Prison Radio/Redwood Justice Fund PO Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94141


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Leonard Peltier “Why?” (Henry CrowDog)


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


Self Portrait by 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.

Video at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWdJdODKO6M&feature=youtu.be


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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Daniel Hale UPDATE:  

 

In February Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale was transferred from the oppressive maximum-security prison in Marion, Illinois to house confinement.  We celebrate his release from Marion.  He is laying low right now, recovering from nearly 3 years in prison.  Thank goodness he is now being held under much more humane conditions and expected to complete his sentence in July of this year.     www.StandWithDaniel Hale.org

 

More Info about Daniel:

 

“Drone Whistleblower Subjected To Harsh Confinement Finally Released From Prison” 

https://thedissenter.org/drone-whistleblower-cmu-finally-released-from-prison/

 

“I was punished under the Espionage Act. Why wasn’t Joe Biden?”  by Daniel Hale

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/3/5/joe-biden-the-espionage-act-and-me?ref=thedissenter.org

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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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Articles

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1) Israeli forces carry out raids and arrests in northern Gaza, residents say.

By Hiba Yazbek and Iyad Abuheweila reporting from Jerusalem and Istanbul, April 16, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/16/world/iran-israel-gaza-war-news

A bearded man in a bomber jacket, jeans and sandals leans against a wall surrounded by the rubble of a destroyed building Maghazi, Gaza Strip.

A damaged building in Maghazi, central Gaza, on Monday. Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images


The Israeli military carried out assaults in several towns in northern Gaza on Monday night, according to accounts from residents and Palestinian news media, which described heavy bombardment and ground fighting that drove many families to evacuate the area.

 

Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, reported on Tuesday that Israeli forces were continuing for a second straight day to demand that all families leave the northern town of Beit Hanoun, and had made several arrests in the area.

 

The news agency said on Monday night that Israeli military vehicles had surrounded a school housing displaced families in Beit Hanoun and opened fire, and that several Palestinians had been killed or wounded after an airstrike on a mosque in the nearby Jabaliya area. In central Gaza City, Israeli bombardment early Tuesday left several people killed or injured, the agency said.

 

The reports could not be independently verified. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to questions about the fighting.

 

The objective of Israel’s attacks in northern Gaza — from which its forces had withdrawn earlier this year before returning in recent weeks — was not immediately clear.

 

The United Nations human rights office also said on Tuesday that there had been intense attacks in northern and central Gaza in recent days, pointing to reports that Israeli troops had opened fire on Gazans attempting to return to the north over the weekend, killing at least one Palestinian and injuring at least 11 others.

 

Emad Zaqout, a freelance journalist who lives in Jabaliya, said that Israeli ground forces and tanks were in Beit Hanoun and parts of Jabaliya, where heavy strikes were heard Monday night and early Tuesday as Israeli forces clashed with gunmen.

 

“It was a very heated night until the early hours of the morning,” Mr. Zaquot said in a phone call on Tuesday.

 

Mr. Zaqout said that before entering the area, the Israeli military had used recorded voice messages to order residents to move south, but he said that some had refused and had moved to other parts of northern Gaza instead.

 

The bombardment seemed to subside by Tuesday morning but Israeli tanks were still in the area and more residents were leaving, he said.

 

The Israeli military said on Tuesday that its forces were pressing on with an operation in central Gaza for a sixth day, reporting that it had killed several people it described as “terrorists” and had struck at “terrorist infrastructure.”

 

Nick Cumming-Bruce contributed reporting from Geneva.


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2) A U.N. panel says Israel is obstructing its investigation of the Oct. 7 attack.

By Nick Cumming-Bruce reporting from Geneva, April 16, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/16/world/iran-israel-gaza-war-news

Two officials seated at the United Nations.

Navi Pillay, right, who leads a U.N. commission created to look into possible human rights violations by Israel, with the Egyptian ambassador to the U.N., Ahmed Ihab Abdelahad Gamaleldin, in Geneva on Tuesday. Credit...Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images


Members of a United Nations commission said on Tuesday that Israel was obstructing their efforts to investigate possible human rights violations on Oct. 7 and in the ensuing war between Israel and Hamas. But they said the commission had still shared large amounts of evidence with the International Criminal Court.

 

“We have faced not merely a lack of cooperation but active obstruction of our efforts to receive evidence from Israeli witnesses and victims” related to the Oct. 7 attack, Chris Sidoti, one of three members of the commission, told a briefing for diplomats in Geneva. The commission was formed in 2021 to investigate human rights violations in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

 

Israel has accused the commission of bias, and has said it would not cooperate with what it described as “an anti-Israeli, antisemitic body.”

 

It has not allowed the commission to visit Israel and the Palestinian territories, and in January it instructed Israeli medical personnel who treated released hostages and victims of the Oct. 7 attack not to cooperate with the panel, which is led by Navi Pillay, the former United Nations human rights chief.

 

Ms. Pillay said the commission had investigated crimes committed by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, as well as by Israeli forces in Gaza. She said that in line with the commission’s mandate from the U.N. Human Rights Council to seek accountability for such crimes, it had shared over 5,000 documents, including video and other material, with the I.C.C., which tries individuals on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

 

The I.C.C. opened an investigation into potential crimes in Gaza and the West Bank in March 2021, but it has faced criticism from some lawyers for its lack of visible progress toward prosecutions. The court is not part of the U.N. system.

 

“We look forward to, and expect to see, progress on the I.C.C. investigations this year,” Ms. Pillay said.

 

The commission said that it had started collecting digital evidence early on the morning of Oct. 7, and that during missions to Egypt and Turkey it had interviewed Palestinians evacuated from Gaza for medical treatment and their family members.

 

The commission is set to report its findings on the Gaza conflict to the Human Rights Council in Geneva in June and to the U.N. General Assembly in October. But it has received additional mandates from the council to provide reports on Israeli settler violence and on arms deliveries to Israel, which it aims to deliver next year.



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3) Israeli settlers kill two Palestinians in the West Bank, officials say.

By Aaron Boxerman, April 16, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/16/world/iran-israel-gaza-war-news

A group of men hold a stretcher over their heads, carrying the body of a man wrapped in a red, white and green Palestinian flag.

Jihad Abu Aliya, 25, was killed in a mob attack, according to the village mayor. Credit...Nasser Nasser/Associated Press


Israeli settlers fatally shot two Palestinians in the West Bank on Monday, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials, as tensions continued to spike in the Israeli-occupied territory.

 

The Palestinian Authority Health Ministry identified the two men as Abdelrahman Bani Fadel, 30, and Mohammad Bani Jama, 21. The circumstances of their deaths near the town of Aqraba remained unclear.

 

The Israeli military said the two men had been killed during a “violent exchange” between Israeli settlers and Palestinians that followed a report of a Palestinian attacking an Israeli shepherd. An initial investigation indicated that the gunfire “did not originate” from Israeli soldiers, the military said.

 

The two Palestinians appeared to have been shot by Israeli settlers on the scene, said an Israeli security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was still underway.

 

The killings fed fears that the West Bank could become another front for a country already in its seventh month of war in the Gaza Strip.

 

About 500,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank live alongside roughly 2.7 million Palestinians under Israeli military occupation. Since the war began on Oct. 7, more than 400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces there and in East Jerusalem, according to the United Nations.

 

Over the past few days, a renewed wave of violence has swept through the West Bank.

 

On Friday, a 14-year-old Israeli teenager went missing, prompting Israeli settlers to riot inside a Palestinian village, Al Mughayir. Jihad Abu Aliya, a 25-year-old resident, was fatally shot during a mob attack, according to the village mayor, Amin Abu Aliya.

 

The teenager, Binyamin Achimair, was found dead on Saturday after an intensive search; Israeli officials said he had been murdered in an act of terrorism and vowed to track down the perpetrators. In response, Israeli settlers, some of them armed, conducted a series of mob assaults in Palestinian towns, torching homes and cars, according to Palestinian witnesses.

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Israelis to allow security forces to search for Mr. Achimair’s killers, but he did not denounce the mob attacks against Palestinians. Human rights groups have long charged that Israel turns a blind eye to settler violence and rarely brings perpetrators to justice.

 

In footage distributed on Sunday by Yesh Din, an Israeli rights group that tracks Jewish extremist violence in the West Bank, hooded figures can be seen setting a car ablaze while Israeli soldiers watch nearby without intervening.

 

The United Nations human rights office said on Tuesday that Israeli security forces “must immediately end their active participation in and support for settler attacks on Palestinians.”

 

“Israeli authorities must instead prevent further attacks including by bringing those responsible to account,” said Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the office. “Those reasonably suspected of criminal acts, including murder or other unlawful killings, must be brought to justice,” she added.

 

Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, condemned Mr. Achimair’s killing in a statement on Monday. But he also said Washington was “increasingly concerned by the violence against Palestinian civilians and their property that ensued in the West Bank after Achimair’s disappearance.”

 

“We strongly condemn these murders, and our thoughts are with their loved ones,” Mr. Miller said. “The violence must stop. Civilians are never legitimate targets.”

 

Nick Cumming-Bruce contributed reporting.


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4) U.N. report describes physical abuse and dire conditions in Israeli detention.

By Aaron Boxerman Reporting from Jerusalem, April 17, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/17/world/iran-israel-gaza-war-news

Shirtless, bound and blindfolded men crowded into the bed of a truck.

Israeli soldiers with Palestinian detainees in Gaza in December. The Israeli military reviewed this image as part of the conditions of allowing the photographer to accompany soldiers. Credit...Moti Milrod/Haaretz, via Associated Press


Gazans released from Israeli detention described graphic scenes of physical abuse in testimonies gathered by United Nations workers, according to a report released on Tuesday by UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.

 

Palestinian detainees described being made to sit on their knees for hours on end with their hands tied while blindfolded, being deprived of food and water and being urinated on, among other humiliations, the report said. Others described being badly beaten with metal bars or the butts of guns and boots, according to the report, or forced into cages and attacked by dogs.

 

The New York Times has not interviewed the witnesses who spoke to UNRWA aid workers and could not independently verify their accounts. None of the witnesses were quoted by name. Still, some of the testimonies in the report matched accounts provided to The Times by more than a dozen freed detainees and their relatives in January, who spoke of beatings and harsh interrogations.

 

Israeli forces have arrested thousands of Gazans during their six-month campaign against Hamas, the Palestinian armed group. The Israeli military says it arrests those suspected of involvement in Hamas and other groups, but women, children and older people have also been detained, according to the UNRWA report.

 

The Israeli military and the Israeli prime minister’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the report. But asked about similar accusations of abuse in the past, Israeli officials have said that detainees are held according to the law and that their basic rights are respected.

 

UNRWA staff gathered testimonies from more than 100 released Gazans arriving at the Kerem Shalom crossing over several months. Palestinian medics would occasionally rush freed prisoners who were injured or ill directly to area hospitals, the report said, adding that they sometimes bore “signs of trauma and ill-treatment.”

 

Many of the detainees are taken to military holding facilities inside Israel, from which many of them are then funneled into Israel’s civilian prisons. At least 1,500 detainees had been released by the Israeli authorities at Kerem Shalom as of April 4, the report said.

 

The detainees’ treatment in prison included “being subjected to beatings while made to lie on a thin mattress on top of rubble for hours without food, water or access to a toilet, with their legs and hands bound with plastic ties,” the UNRWA report said.

 

In the report, one freed prisoner described how an Israeli officer threatened to kill her whole family in an airstrike if she did not provide the Israelis with more information. Another said he had been forced to sit on an electrical probe that burned his anus.

 

Some freed Gazans told aid workers that they had been beaten on their genitals, aggressively searched and sexually groped, the UNRWA report said. Women said they had been forced to strip in front of male officers, the report said, suggesting that some of the incidents “may amount to sexual violence and harassment.”

 

When presented with the findings in a draft of the UNRWA report that was leaked last month, the Israeli military said that all mistreatment of detainees was “absolutely prohibited,” adding that all “concrete complaints regarding inappropriate behavior are forwarded to the relevant authorities for review.” It said medical care was readily available for all detainees and that mistreatment of detainees “violates I.D.F. values.”

 

The Israeli military said last month that it was aware of the deaths of 27 Palestinians in its custody, at least some of whom were already wounded. And at least 10 Palestinians, mostly from the West Bank, have died in Israel’s civilian prison system since Oct. 7, according to the official Palestinian prisoners’ commission and Israeli rights groups, including Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, whose doctors attended some of the autopsies.

 

UNRWA, a key provider of humanitarian assistance in Gaza, has come under scrutiny in recent months after Israel accused it of harboring numerous Hamas members in its ranks. Major foreign donors, including the United States, subsequently suspended their funding for the agency, although some have since resumed it.

 

Israel has said that at least 30 of the group’s 13,000 staffers in Gaza participated in the Hamas-led assault on Israel on Oct. 7 or its aftermath.

 

In response to the accusations, UNRWA fired staff members who were accused of being Hamas members. Two investigations have been opened into the allegations — one by the U.N.’s internal investigations body and another by independent reviewers appointed by the U.N. secretary general.

 

In the report released on Tuesday, UNRWA said some of its own staff members had been beaten, threatened, stripped, humiliated and abused while being detained by the Israeli authorities. It said that during interrogations, they were pressured to say that UNRWA had affiliations with Hamas and that its staff members took part in the Oct. 7 attack.


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5) Here’s where Israel’s military offensive in Gaza stands.

By Matthew Mpoke Bigg, April 17, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/17/world/iran-israel-gaza-war-news

A woman weeps over body bags while another comforts her. Several others stand around them.

Mourning over the bodies of relatives in Rafah, in southern Gaza, on Tuesday, April 16, 2024. Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images


Iran’s attack on Israel has shifted focus from the war in Gaza, but Israeli military operations press on there with the aim of eliminating Hamas, the armed group that controlled the territory before the fighting began.

 

Israel’s military launched its assault in Gaza after Oct. 7, when Hamas led an attack that Israeli authorities say killed around 1,200 people. Israel said its aims were to defeat Hamas and free the hostages taken that day, around 100 of whom remain in Gaza. Local health authorities say the war has killed more than 33,000 people, and the United Nations says the population is on the brink of famine.

 

Here is a look at where the military conflict stands:

 

Southern Gaza

 

Israel withdrew its forces from southern Gaza this month, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the military still plans to invade Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, to “complete the elimination of Hamas’s battalions” and to destroy its tunnel networks.

 

The timing of any operation in Rafah, on the border with Egypt, is unclear. President Biden is among many world leaders who have urged Israel not to invade the city because of the harm it could cause civilians. Rafah’s population has swelled to over a million, as people have flocked there for shelter from fighting elsewhere, and border crossings in southern Gaza are a main conduit for humanitarian aid.

 

Northern Gaza

 

Israel began its ground invasion in northern Gaza in late October, urging civilians to leave. Much of the north, including Gaza City, has been destroyed by airstrikes and ground combat. Israel began to pull its forces from northern Gaza in January, saying it had dismantled Hamas’s military structure there.

 

In March, however, Israeli troops mounted an operation at Al-Shifa Hospital, in Gaza City, where it said Hamas fighters had returned. Israeli troops said they had killed about 200 fighters and captured 500 more. The hospital, once Gaza’s largest, was left in ruins.

 

Some analysts said the raid showed that by leaving northern Gaza without a plan in place for governing the area, Israel had made it possible for Hamas to return. At the same time, some civilians who had fled south and attempted to return via a coastal road said this week that Israeli forces had fired on them. Their testimony could not be independently confirmed.

 

Central Gaza

 

The Israeli troops that remain in Gaza are mainly guarding a road that the military has built across the center of the strip to facilitate its operations. The Institute for the Study of War, a research group, said that was consistent with Israel’s plans to shift to a strategy of more targeted raids rather than wider assaults.

 

Israel retains the capacity to launch airstrikes anywhere in Gaza and it has conducted several around the central city of Deir al Balah. This month, Israeli planes attacked a convoy of the World Central Kitchen charity near the city, killing seven aid workers. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has said that Israel regrets the strikes.

 

Across the territory

 

Experts say the Israeli military has had considerable success in dismantling Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has broken the strength of most of its battalions with tens of thousands of airstrikes and ground combat, said Robert Blecher, an expert at the International Crisis Group think tank.

 

Israel has also killed at least one of Hamas’s top commanders and has destroyed some of the tunnels in which the group operates. But Hamas retains significant organizational and military capacity, particularly in southern Gaza where its tunnel network acts as a shield, and its leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, is still at large.

 

“Israel has done a good job of disabling those stronger battalions,” Mr. Blecher said, but he added: “Hamas is going to remain as an insurgent force.”


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6) VW Workers in Tennessee Start Vote on U.A.W., Testing Union Ambitions

The United Automobile Workers hopes contract gains at the Big Three carmakers will provide momentum in a broad effort to organize nonunion plants.

By Neal E. Boudette, April 17, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/business/economy/volkswagen-united-auto-workers-union.html

Two men in red sweatshirts and baseball caps, both with picket signs saying “UAW Stand Up,” stand outside an industrial building. Others stand in the background, some with similar signs. A sign in the foreground says “Proud Union Home.”

The U.A.W. backed its contract demands at the Detroit automakers last year with strikes against all three companies but shut down only selected plants. Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times

Last fall the United Automobile Workers union won big pay increases from the Detroit automakers, and the impact rippled quickly through the nonunion auto plants scattered across the South.

 

Afterward, Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen, Nissan, Hyundai and Tesla raised wages for their own hourly workers in the United States, none of whom are unionized. On production lines in Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and elsewhere, those pay increases have been referred to as the “U.A.W. bump.”

 

Now 4,300 workers at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., will test whether the union can achieve an even greater bump. On Wednesday, they begin voting on whether to join the U.A.W., and the prospects of a union victory appear high. About 70 percent of the workers pledged to vote yes before the union asked for a vote, according to the U.A.W.

 

“I think our chances are excellent,” said Kelcey Smith, 48, who has worked in the VW plant’s paint department for a year and is a member of a committee working to build support for the U.A.W. “The energy is high. I think we are going to nail it.”

 

Volkswagen has presented reasons it believes a union is not needed at the plant, including pay that is above average for the Chattanooga region. But it has also said it encourages all workers to vote in the election, which is to conclude on Friday, and decide for themselves. “No one will lose their job for voting for or against the union,” a company spokesman said.

 

The stakes go beyond the Tennessee plant, Volkswagen’s only U.S. factory. A victory there would add fuel to the U.A.W.’s push to extend its presence to the more than two dozen nonunion auto plants in the United States, mostly clustered in Southern states where union resistance has been strong historically, and where right-to-work laws make it hard for unions to organize workers.

 

The U.A.W.’s chances beyond the Volkswagen factory are unclear. Japanese and South Korean automakers have demonstrated more forceful opposition to the U.A.W. than the German companies. Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, has spoken out against the U.A.W. on several occasions over the last few years.

 

And on Tuesday, the Republican governors of six states — Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas — denounced the U.A.W. drive, saying in a statement that they were “highly concerned about the unionization campaign driven by misinformation and scare tactics that the U.A.W. has brought into our states.”

 

“We have worked tirelessly on behalf of our constituents to bring good-paying jobs to our states,” the governors declared. “These jobs have become part of the fabric of the automotive manufacturing industry. Unionization would certainly put our states’ jobs in jeopardy.”

 

The vote at VW will be followed by another election — as yet unscheduled — at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Ala., where the U.A.W. says a majority of workers have signed up to back the union.

 

The U.A.W. says victories at VW, Mercedes and other plants would bring increased wages, richer benefits and higher living standards for tens of thousands of workers, many of them in the nation’s poorer counties.

 

Widespread unionizing in the Southern plants would also help level a playing field that for nearly half a century has been tilted against the three unionized Detroit manufacturers — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler. In operating nonunion factories, foreign-owned companies have a significant labor-cost advantage over their U.S.-based rivals.

 

“It would be a revolution for the U.A.W. and for the auto industry,” said Harley Shaiken, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, who has followed the U.A.W. for more than three decades. “It would break the glass ceiling for unions in the South, and would mean more purchasing power for working-class people in that region.”

 

The U.A.W. has organized several heavy-truck and bus plants in the South, but for decades has tried and failed to do the same at automobile factories, which are typically larger.

 

The vote at VW will be followed by another election — as yet unscheduled — at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Ala., where the U.A.W. says a majority of workers have signed up to back the union.

 

The U.A.W. says victories at VW, Mercedes and other plants would bring increased wages, richer benefits and higher living standards for tens of thousands of workers, many of them in the nation’s poorer counties.

 

Widespread unionizing in the Southern plants would also help level a playing field that for nearly half a century has been tilted against the three unionized Detroit manufacturers — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler. In operating nonunion factories, foreign-owned companies have a significant labor-cost advantage over their U.S.-based rivals.

 

“It would be a revolution for the U.A.W. and for the auto industry,” said Harley Shaiken, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, who has followed the U.A.W. for more than three decades. “It would break the glass ceiling for unions in the South, and would mean more purchasing power for working-class people in that region.”

 

The U.A.W. has organized several heavy-truck and bus plants in the South, but for decades has tried and failed to do the same at automobile factories, which are typically larger.

 

The VW election is the union’s third try at the plant. Workers rejected U.A.W. representation by a vote of 712 to 626 in 2014, and by an even narrower margin, 833 to 776, in 2019. Opposition from Republican elected officials in Tennessee was vociferous in those campaigns.

 

In the last 10 years, the U.A.W. also lost in a 2017 vote at a Nissan plant in Canton, Miss., and an organizing drive at the Mercedes plant fizzled without an election.

 

In those efforts, the U.A.W. was hampered by a dubious track record and a questionable reputation. Over nearly 30 years, the Detroit automakers closed dozens of plants, eliminating tens of thousands of hourly jobs, despite the U.A.W.’s objections. Some industry executives have blamed high union wages, in part, for pushing G.M. and Chrysler into bankruptcy in 2009. In addition, the union was racked by corruption scandals that resulted in prison sentences for two former presidents and about a dozen other senior U.A.W. officials.

 

In the past two years, however, the U.A.W. has undergone a transformation. Financial reforms and transparency measures overseen by a federal monitor have helped root out corruption. A feisty president, Shawn Fain, was chosen in the union’s first direct election by the membership. In the contract negotiations last year with G.M., Ford and Stellantis, Mr. Fain used a new approach, choosing all three companies as strike targets but shutting down only selected plants, which put pressure on the companies without crippling them or damaging the broader U.S. economy.

 

After six weeks, the union had contracts raising the top wage 25 percent, to more than $40 an hour. Pay for workers lower on the wage scale will rise to the top wage over three years instead of eight. Some will see their pay double. A worker putting in 40 hours a week at the top wage will earn about $83,000 a year. In recent years, profit-sharing bonuses have added about $9,000 to $14,000.

 

On top of that, the new contracts provide wage adjustments if inflation pushes the cost of living higher, improved pensions and retirement benefits, and increased paid time off. U.A.W. workers have also long had company-paid health care with no deductibles or co-payments.

 

Hourly wages at the nonunion auto plants used to start under $20 and top out around $32. The “U.A.W. bump” lifted the range to roughly $22 to $35. Volkswagen said its workers typically earned about $60,000 a year. (The annual mean wage for all occupations in the Chattanooga area was $54,480 in May, according to the U.S. Labor Department.)

 

Seizing on momentum from the Big Three negotiations, Mr. Fain said, the union will spend $40 million through 2026 to support organizing at plants owned by Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes, Subaru, Volkswagen, Mazda, Volvo and Tesla, as well as others owned by the electric vehicle start-ups Rivian and Lucid Motors.

 

VW workers who support the U.A.W. say their wages are pretty good for Tennessee but point 300 miles north to Louisville, Ky., where Ford pays many workers more than $40 an hour to make the Expedition sport utility vehicle, which competes with the VW Atlas made in Chattanooga.

 

“If Ford can pay that much, why can’t Volkswagen pay us the same?” said Isaac Meadows, 40, a father of six who has worked at the VW plant for 14 months. “We have more worth than they’re paying us.”

 

There are concerns beyond the hourly wage. Workers must use paid time off if they want to be paid during two periods when the plant shuts down around the year-end holidays and in summer.

 

Once he covers the shutdowns with vacation days, Mr. Meadows said, he is left with about 16 hours of paid time off to cover any family events or sick days for the rest of the year. “I miss my kids’ dances, sporting events, family gatherings,” he said. “I miss a lot because I’ve got to work.”


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7) The Israeli Censorship Regime Is Growing. That Needs to Stop.

By Jodie Ginsberg, April 17, 2024

Ms. Ginsberg is the chief executive of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/opinion/gaza-journalists-censorship-israel.html

A big black square over a black-and-white illustrated scene of urban devastation.

Dadu Shin


When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, newsrooms across the world scrambled to send their reporters to the front lines. Journalists gave the international public firsthand experience of the conflict. Air raid sirens blared during live on-air reports. Reporters flinched at nearby explosions. They brought the world to the heart of the fighting: “20 Days in Mariupol,” a documentary that showcased an Associated Press report on the attack on the city, won an Oscar last month. That report, among other things, helped debunk Russian claims that the bombing of a maternity hospital, in which three people were killed, was “staged.”

 

No such international coverage has been possible a thousand miles away in Gaza, where war has claimed the lives of more than 33,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel that left some 1,200 Israelis dead, according to the government.

 

Though international media workers rushed to Israel (it has granted accreditation to at least 2,800 correspondents since the war started), none have been allowed into Gaza except on a handful of tightly controlled tours led by the Israeli military. As a result, for the past six months, the world has been almost entirely reliant on the reporting of local Palestinian journalists for on-site information about the impact of the war — along with mostly unverified social media posts that have flooded the information space since its start.

 

The refusal to allow international media to cover Gaza from the inside is just one element of a growing censorship regime that leaves a vacuum for propaganda, mis- and disinformation, and claims and counterclaims that are extraordinarily difficult to verify independently. A CNN report on the so-called Flour Massacre — the deadly aid delivery that the Gazan Health Ministry said killed 100 people and injured 700 — for example, cast doubt on Israel’s version of events. But it took more than a month to piece together that evidence from eyewitness testimonies and after scouring dozens of videos.

 

Outside media access would enable journalists to more rapidly verify Israel’s claims that Hamas is seizing or stopping food aid or that it has used hospitals to shield its fighters. It could also help the world better understand the nature of Hamas’s tunnel system, which Israel says extends under civilian infrastructure, and the level of support for its leadership.

 

Free access could enable us to better understand whether Israel has deliberately fired on children, which it denies, and the extent of the famine that aid agencies report is spreading through northern Gaza. It would shed light on the killings of at least 95 journalists and other media workers that my organization, the Committee to Protect Journalists, has documented since the start of the war — the most dangerous conflict for reporters and media workers since we began keeping records in 1992.

 

Israel champions itself as a democracy and a bastion of press freedom in the region. Its actions tell a very different story. The high rate of journalists’ deaths and arrests, including a slew in the West Bank; laws allowing its government to shut down foreign news outlets deemed a security risk, which the prime minister has explicitly threatened to use against Al Jazeera; and its refusal to permit foreign journalists independent access to Gaza all speak to a leadership that is deliberately restricting press freedom. That is the hallmark of a dictatorship, not a democracy.

 

Israel’s allies, too, pride themselves on their commitment to a free press. The United States, Britain and other Israeli allies like Germany all loudly proclaim their commitment to a pluralistic and independent media. Their governments explicitly support news outlets that broadcast information into and about countries that censor and control information, such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is funded by the U.S. Congress. A government that has made explicit formal commitments to defend media freedom at home and abroad should be equally explicit in calling on Israel and Egypt to allow international journalists access to Gaza.

 

Banning journalists is an often used strategy: Russia heavily restricted international reporters’ entry into Chechnya during its war there, and Syria also largely barred foreign reporters during its civil war. But as one experienced war correspondent told me, “We could always find a way to sneak in.” That has not been possible in this war, with both Egypt and Israel preventing nearly all unsupervised foreign access and concerns abounding that journalists and other noncombatants may be targeted even when clearly marked — as evidenced by the killing of World Central Kitchen aid workers this month despite working in a so-called deconflicted zone and having communicated their movements to Israeli officials.

 

To be sure, governments waging war can make a legitimate argument that conflict zones are too dangerous for journalists and that protecting them would be too hard or even endanger troops. And Hamas in its rule over Gaza was no beacon of press freedom, banning news outlets and arresting journalists. But at least since the middle of the 19th century, with the Crimean War and the American Civil War, armies have given some kind of regular, if controlled, access to battle zones.

 

Journalists in Gaza are reporting under excruciating conditions that few of even the most seasoned war reporters have ever experienced: no food, no shelter, telecommunications blackouts, and routine destruction of professional equipment and facilities.

 

“From the first day, it has been impossible to comprehensively cover the war,” Diaa Al-Kahlout, a Gaza-based journalist, recently told the Committee to Protect Journalists. Bombings and communications blackouts stopped stories from getting out, he said. “What was shared were just bits of breaking news, and the deeper stories were lost or silenced because journalists were targeted, there was no security, and essential supplies like electricity and the internet, and work tools like laptops, were missing.” Mr. Al-Kahlout was himself detained by Israeli forces in a mass arrest and held for 33 days in custody, during which time he said he was interrogated about his journalism and subjected to physical and psychological mistreatment.

 

Israel frequently brands journalists as terrorists and sympathizers, encouraging the public to question these journalists’ veracity. Having journalists from outside Gaza would help counter such claims. Without them, Palestinian journalists will continue to bear the full risks — and responsibility — of reporting this conflict.

 

Governments and military regimes the world over like to say that censorship — including outside of war settings — is necessary to protect national security. In fact, the opposite is true. Without independent witnesses to war, atrocities can be enacted with impunity on all sides. Israel must open Gaza to journalists, and Israel’s allies must insist on it. Justice and democracy depend on it.


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8) A Little Bit of Dirt Is Good for You

Go on, grab a handful of soil or hike a muddy trail: It can benefit everything from your mood to your microbiome.

By Holly Burns, April 17, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/well/live/dirt-health-benefits.html

A child holds a handful of dirt in their palm.

Kids love unstructured play in the dirt, said Mary Phillips. She recommended carving out a dirt patch in the corner of a yard or filling plastic bins with soil and letting them dig tunnels, drive trucks or root around for hidden toys. Credit...Caroline Tompkins for The New York Times


Scientists have long known that a little dirt can be good for you. Research has suggested that people who grow up on farms, for instance, have lower rates of Crohn’s disease, asthma and allergies, likely because of their exposure to a diverse array of microbes.

 

In the 1970s, scientists even found a soil-dwelling bacterium, called Mycobacterium vaccae, that has an anti-inflammatory effect on our brains, possibly both lowering stress and improving our immune response to it.

 

More recently, there’s been an explosion of interest in the human microbiome — with people taking probiotics, seeking food with live cultures and “rewilding” their microflora. At the same time, scientists have been discovering how broad a role dirt microbes can play in our mental and physical health.

 

When we’re touching soil or even just out in nature, “we’re breathing in a tremendous amount of microbial diversity,” said Christopher A. Lowry, a professor of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado Boulder.

 

A recent Finnish experiment found that children attending urban day cares where a native “forest floor” had been planted had both a stronger immune system and a healthier microbiome than those attending day cares with gravel yards — and continued to have beneficial gut and skin bacteria two years later.

 

It’s not just good for kids; adults can also benefit from exposure to soil-dwelling microbes, Dr. Lowry said. So this spring, make a little time to go outside and get grimy.

 

Embrace the dirt while you move.

 

Activities like mountain biking, camping and hiking are easy ways to come into contact with a diverse microbial ecosystem, Dr. Lowry said. “I think we underestimate how much exposure we get from simply being outside.”

 

The U.S. Forest Service allows you to volunteer for projects like trail maintenance and even archaeological excavations. Or you could try a little forest bathing — a mindful, sensory way to walk in nature — and scoop up a handful of dirt.

 

“Spend some time looking at it and inhaling the aromas,” said Amos Clifford, the founder of the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy Guides and Programs and the author of “Your Guide to Forest Bathing.” “Sift it through your fingers, then bring your hands to your face.” If Mr. Clifford comes across a stream as he’s guiding a walk, he invites people to take off their shoes and step into the “mushy, muddy bottom,” feeling the textures.

 

If getting your hands and feet dirty isn’t enough, find a local mud run, where participants race through muck and tackle obstacles along the way.

 

Plant or pick something.

 

Gardening has long been associated with reduced depression, anxiety and stress, and it calls for plenty of time spent working in the dirt.

 

When people ask him how to get started, Leigh Johnstone, a gardener and mental health advocate in Southampton, England, who goes by “The Beardy Gardener” to his 21,000 Instagram followers, asks them one question: “Well, what do you like to eat?”

 

Tomatoes are one of the easiest things to grow, said Mr. Johnstone, because they need very little maintenance and can be planted in a pot or hanging basket on a balcony. He also suggested strawberries and herbs like basil, mint or chives.

 

Or create a habitat garden, which uses native plants to attract and feed wildlife, said Mary Phillips, who leads gardening habitat programs for the National Wildlife Federation. Plant orange milkweed to welcome monarch butterflies and asters to lure honeybees.

 

If you don’t have access to an outdoor space, find a place to pick your own produce on U-Pick Farm Locator or PickYourOwn.org, said Ginny Yurich, the founder of 1000 Hours Outside, a platform that challenges young people to spend more time outdoors. She also suggested signing up to work on a farm through an organization called Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms, which offers opportunities ranging from a day to several weeks.

 

Do like the kids do.

 

Jill Dreves, the founder of Wild Bear Nature Center in Nederland, Colo., has a simple recipe for getting dirty: Make a mud pie.

 

She suggested throwing something similar to a sip and paint event: Ask everyone to bring an old cake pan and get creative with mud.

 

“Bring out some rocks and beads to press into them, collect some pretty leaves, press your hands or feet in,” said Ms. Dreves, who has organized mud pie parties with her staff. “We save that kind of thing for little kids, but really, as adults, we need to be doing more of it.”

 

If you have actual kids to entertain, build a fairy garden, Ms. Yurich said. Gather leaves and moss to create a miniature, magical landscape, using sticks to construct huts, bark for the floor and stones for seating.

 

Mr. Johnstone and his 2-year-old daughter like making bug hotels, which encourage insects to shelter inside. They also make seed bombs, which you can assemble any time of year, then store until spring or autumn to throw around the yard, Mr. Johnstone said.

 

“A lot of people still have this nervousness around touching soil,” he said. But for him, “it makes me happy.”


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