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18th Annual CODEPINK Mother’s Day Bridge Walk for PEACE!
Sunday, May 12, Noon
11:45: Gather at the Welcome Center Plaza, on the East (Hill) side of the San Francisco end of bridge.
(IMPORTANT: Arrive 30-40 min. EARLY, as “The Authorities” purposely close nearby parking lots to discourage participation!)
NOON: March Begins
1:30 P.M.: Short Rally after the March on the bridge.
In light of U.S. complicity in the ongoing genocide and forced starvation of the people of Gaza, we will put Palestine front and center. With over 12 thousand children killed and tens of thousands of children hungry and near famine in Gaza alone, not to mention the urgent crisis for the children of Sudan, Ukraine, and Haiti, this is an urgent call for the global family to rise up for humanity.
· FOOD NOT BOMBS! DEMILITARIZE NOW!
· FOOD to GAZA, not Weapons to Israel.
· NO TAX $$ for GENOCIDE
· Not Another Nickel, Not Another Dime, No more Money for Israel’s Crimes.
· Diplomacy Not War!
Let’s again pay tribute to the original meaning of “Mother’s Day,” a global call to ABOLISH WAR:
We’ll read: Julia Ward Howe’s (1870) Mother’s Day Proclamation
Bring your mamas and grandmamas, sons, daughters, and grandchildren—the entire family, and friends too! War is not healthy for children and other living things!
Bring your Kaffiyeh’s, Palestinian Flags, and signs that speak for you.
(Note: Authorities may restrict you from taking flags on the bridge—wear it as a cape!)
Signs larger than 2x3 ft. may also be restricted.
Bring a simple treat to share to celebrate 18 years of CODEPINK bridge walks, and our Bay Area community’s commitment to peace and justice.
We’ll sing John Lennon’s Imagine, one of Bay Area Troubadour Francis Collin’s favorite songs!
Francis Collins Presente!
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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 April 22, 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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Daniel Hale UPDATE:
In February Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale was transferred from the oppressive maximum-security prison in Marion, Illinois to house confinement. We celebrate his release from Marion. He is laying low right now, recovering from nearly 3 years in prison. Thank goodness he is now being held under much more humane conditions and expected to complete his sentence in July of this year. www.StandWithDaniel Hale.org
More Info about Daniel:
“Drone Whistleblower Subjected To Harsh Confinement Finally Released From Prison”
https://thedissenter.org/drone-whistleblower-cmu-finally-released-from-prison/
“I was punished under the Espionage Act. Why wasn’t Joe Biden?” by Daniel Hale
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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
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1) Trapped and Starving, 2 Families in Gaza Try to Keep Their Children Alive
The United Nations says famine is likely to set in by May. For those living under Israel’s attacks and a crippling blockade, every day is a race against time.
By Vivian Yee and Bilal Shbair, April 23, 2024
Vivian Yee reported from Cairo, and Bilal Shbair from Gaza.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/world/middleeast/gaza-famine-starvation-children.html
Mohammed, weak and struggling, in March. Credit...Scopal, via ReutersBorn in wartime, the baby had not eaten in more than a day, his father said — no formula, no nothing. His parents had already spent the last of their money on food, sold his mother’s gold jewelry to buy milk and begged water from other evacuees to mix the powdered formula. Now even that was gone.
The baby, Jihad, and his parents, Nour Barda and Heba al-Arqan, were trapped now in a storage closet with five other people at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza last month as Israeli troops attacked. They had some Palestinian thyme and foraged wild greens to eat, but only that, and just enough water to moisten their mouths once in a while, Mr. Barda told a Times reporter. Gunfire jackhammered outside. The Israeli military had surrounded the building and told anyone sheltering inside to stay put.
Al-Shifa was the same hospital where Jihad had been born five months earlier — five months of searching all day for a little food, of nearly getting knifed over a little flour. All his parents could do now was sit and watch their son go hungry. Hungry herself, Ms. al-Arqan had no breast milk to give.
After two days, they had had enough. Jihad had not eaten in 28 hours. Holding one of Jihad’s dirty white T-shirts up on a broomstick, holding the baby close, they made their way toward the Israeli soldiers.
They left for southern Gaza that same day, they said, alongside other civilians fleeing the hospital raid. Israel’s invasion of the northern part of the territory, where the family lived before the war and had been sheltering ever since, meant there was nothing left for them there but starvation.
In Gaza, where Israel has cut off most of the territory’s prewar water and food supplies and war has made farming nearly impossible, the United Nations says famine is likely to set in by the end of May. Aid groups and many governments blame heavy-handed Israeli restrictions on aid to Gaza. Israel, which had previously charged the United Nations with failing to distribute aid adequately, promised recently to ramp up deliveries after facing enormous outside pressure.
Oxfam, an aid group, has calculated that hundreds of thousands of people in northern Gaza, which has been closed for months to all but a small dribble of aid, are trying to survive on an average of 245 calories a day.
When people in Gaza begin starving to death on a large scale, experts say, it will happen first to the north, and first to the most vulnerable: children with preexisting medical conditions; older adults; and the infants, born under siege, who have never known a full meal.
“What forced me to put up my hands and go down to the soldiers in the hospital was that there was a risk my little baby was going to starve,” said Mr. Barda, 24.
Children in Gaza are already dying for lack of food. At least 28 children younger than 12 had died of malnutrition in hospitals as of April 17, according to local health officials, including 12 less than a month old. Dozens more, those officials say, have most likely died outside of medical centers.
Desperate Choices
Born before the war, Muhanned al-Najjar was not yet teething when the fighting broke out.
After his family took shelter at a school near their home in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, Hanaa al-Najjar, his mother, said she fed Muhanned powdered formula that had originally come from the United Nations, buying it from resellers because no aid had reached her. Same for the water she needed to mix it: about 80 cents a bottle, bought on the street.
The formula ran out while Israeli forces were surrounding the area in February, so Ms. al-Najjar began feeding Muhanned bread dipped in canned beans and lentil soup distributed by aid groups. There were no freshly prepared meals, no vegetables. Day after day, it was only the cans — a diet that pediatricians warn cannot properly nourish children, who need fresh food and vitamins.
Muhanned had been a healthy baby, Ms. al-Najjar said. But, at about 20 months old, he lost his appetite. He stopped eating much. He stopped walking much. He might have drunk more water, his mother said, but the most she could give him was about two teacups a day.
In February, Israeli forces ordered the shelter evacuated. As the family left, Ms. al-Najjar said, the soldiers detained her husband. She and their four children searched for refuge without him, eventually ending up in a tent in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city. The New York Times could not verify the circumstances of her husband’s detention.
Muhanned and Ms. al-Najjar’s older son, Mohammed, 7, soon had fevers, she said, so she enlisted her husband’s brother, Jameel, to help find treatment. From hospital to hospital they went — six hours at Al-Emirati, four at Al-Awda clinic, seven at Al-Kuwaiti — before arriving at the European Gaza Hospital, where, she said, doctors told them the boys were dehydrated as well as feverish.
Mohammed seemed to improve by the time the boys were discharged after four days of receiving replacement fluids. Muhanned, however, seemed no better, refusing the bread and oranges his mother offered.
The baby’s case was “beyond difficult,” said Dr. Montaser al-Farra, a pediatrician who treated him. Muhanned weighed about 11 pounds, half of what he was supposed to, Dr. al-Farra recalled. Parts of him were oddly swollen, others skeletal, indicating a severe protein deficiency. (Ms. al-Najjar agreed to allow a video of Muhanned in this condition to be published.)
Dr. al-Farra said he was seeing many children in a similar state. “You can find malnutrition in every house and tent,” he noted.
Muhanned was so shrunken that the staff could not find a vein in his hand big enough to insert a line for the intravenous fluids. They used his leg instead.
Nowhere to Go
Five months before Jihad Barda’s parents fled Al-Shifa Hospital, carrying their baby and waving his T-shirt as a white flag, they had arrived there for his birth. It was Oct. 20. Jihad, their first child, weighed 5 pounds 8 ounces. His name, after an uncle, means “struggle” or “striving.”
Every day in the months after his son’s birth, from 9 a.m. until sunset, all Mr. Barda did was search for food. He could never find enough. Markets had closed. Farmers had abandoned their crops. Bakeries were shuttered. Aid thinned.
People in northern Gaza got so desperate that the few aid trucks that did arrive usually caused a lawless frenzy. Whenever Mr. Barda tried to join the crowds pulling bags of flour off the trucks, the throng reminded him of bees swarming an enemy. You had to be brave to fight your way to the front among all the men armed with knives, he said. He rarely succeeded.
“Everyone is risking their lives for the sake of a little bag of flour,” he recalled. In those moments, he said, he felt as if he was doomed either to be crushed under the trucks’ wheels or killed by Israeli forces.
At one point over the winter, Mr. Barda said he succeeded in grabbing two bags of flour from a convoy. Then someone threatened him, saying that unless he gave one up, the stranger would take both by force.
In February, Mr. Barda was lunging for a bag of flour from a U.N. truck when he collided with another man who was cutting the ropes holding down the aid. In the chaos, the blade sliced Mr. Barda’s finger, spattering his prize with blood. But it was a good day. His family managed to make the 25-kilogram bag last two months.
Before the war, Mr. Barda worked as a baker at a pastry chain, but even if he still had wages, the informal street markets that have sprung up around Gaza City are wildly expensive. Desperate for food and baby formula, he said, he sold Ms. al-Arqan’s jewelry — two rings and a bracelet — for about $325, a pittance compared to what they would have fetched before the war.
He caught one lucky break: Rice looted from destroyed stores was briefly affordable on the black market. He bought two sacks for about $13.
When Ramadan arrived in March, Mr. Barda and Ms. al-Arqan decided to take refuge at Al-Shifa, the hospital where Jihad had been born when things were bad but not unthinkable. By then, they had nothing left to eat except za’atar, the Palestinian thyme, which they had for breakfast, and khobeza, a wild green that Gazans have been foraging for meals, which they ate at night. For 10 days in a row, Mr. Barda said, they ate nothing else.
On the 11th day, out of food and with no water to mix Jihad’s formula, they made the decision to go. That day, Jihad weighed a little under nine pounds, far less than what is considered normal for that age.
After they left Al-Shifa, Mr. Barda said, they threw away the dirty white baby shirt that had served as their flag of surrender.
Fading Hope
At a field hospital in Rafah in mid-March, doctors gave Muhanned al-Najjar fortified milk and a peanut-based nutritional supplement and told his mother to bring him back in a week for a checkup.
Two days later, he was able to eat some of a peanut packet and drink some milk, along with more water than usual: a good sign. Ms. al-Najjar said she left him sleeping for a few hours in her sister-in-law’s tent, where the flies would not bother him.
When she came back, she said, something seemed off. She tried to give Muhanned a little fortified milk. His small face went white.
She screamed and ran to find her brother-in-law. They tried two hospitals before doctors admitted Muhanned into the intensive care unit at the European Gaza Hospital, where he was given oxygen, she said. The staff told her to come back the next day, taking her sister-in-law’s phone number in case they needed to reach her.
When Ms. al-Najjar returned, Muhanned was dead. The hospital had called her sister-in-law with the news, but Ms. al-Najjar’s relatives had been unable to bring themselves to tell her. She was able to see her son once more before he was buried in a makeshift cemetery near the hospital.
She had not heard from her husband since his detention in February. There was no way to tell him what had happened.
“I feel lost,” she said. “My kids are at a loss not having their dad with us in this hard time.”
Amid her grief, she still had to worry about Mohammed, her 7-year-old. After another stint in the hospital, he wasn’t eating much, just like Muhanned in those last weeks. And Muhanned — he was already gone.
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2) A review of UNRWA prompts new calls to restore its funding.
By Patrick Kingsley and Matt Surman, April 23, 2024
The damaged UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City in February. Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
U.N. officials and some donor nations are renewing calls to revive funding for the main U.N. agency aiding Palestinians, after a review found that Israel had not provided evidence to support its claim that many employees of the agency are members of terrorist organizations.
More than a dozen countries, including the United States, suspended funding to the agency, known as UNRWA, after Israel claimed in January that a dozen agency employees had participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks or their aftermath, and that one in 10 staff members in Gaza was a member of Hamas or its ally, Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The United Nations had commissioned an independent review of the agency in January, before Israel circulated its claims, but those charges gave added significance to the inquiry, whose findings were released on Monday. The report issued a series of recommendations for the agency to protect its neutrality, but said that “Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence” for its accusation that a significant number of agency employees are members of terrorist organizations.
The review did not address Israel’s accusation that 12 of the agency’s 13,000 employees in Gaza had participated in the Oct. 7 attack or its aftermath, a claim that the United Nations says remains under internal investigation. The United Nations has fired 10 of the 12 employees accused by Israel.
Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesman for the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, said on Monday that Mr. Guterres had accepted the report’s recommendations and appealed for donors “to actively support UNRWA, as it is a lifeline for Palestine refugees in the region.”
Caroline Gennez, the minister of development for Belgium, which did not cut off funding to the agency, said that the report showed that UNRWA had “always acted adequately.”
“I call on all donors to resume their support,” she wrote on social media. “Now.”
Ireland’s foreign minister, Micheál Martin, was quoted by the national broadcaster, RTÉ, as saying that he hoped that some countries that had suspended support would now resume it. Ireland, which has strongly condemned Israel’s campaign in Gaza, increased aid to UNRWA as other countries were cutting it, he noted.
“We were very clear from the word go that you could not replace or undermine UNRWA’s role in terms of giving vital aid, teaching, education,” he said.
Among the more than a dozen countries that suspended payments over Israel’s accusations, several — including Australia, Canada and Japan — have already resumed funding UNRWA, citing the spiraling humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and steps taken by the agency to improve accountability.
The United States has said it would wait for the results of U.N. investigations before deciding whether to resume donations to UNRWA. Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesman, told reporters on Monday that the Biden administration was reviewing the U.N.-commissioned report and had no assessment yet of its conclusions.
“Certainly, we welcome the fact that the secretary general has accepted the recommendations,” Mr. Miller said, adding that the United States had “long made clear that there needs to be reforms at UNRWA.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for UNRWA to be closed and replaced “with responsible international aid agencies.” Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Monday called on donor countries to avoid sending money to the organization.
UNRWA has argued that Israel has targeted it with a “deliberate and concerted campaign” to undermine its operations when its services are most needed.
The European Union, one of the largest donors to UNRWA, announced in March that it was substantially increasing funds to the agency, saying that Palestinians were facing terrible conditions and should not be made to pay for Hamas’s crimes.
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3) U.S. universities struggle to calm campuses torn by the Gaza war.
By Alan Blinder, April 23, 2024
Students protesting at Yale University on Monday. Credit...Adrian Martinez Chavez for The New York Times
Administrators at some of the most influential American universities — including New York University, Yale and Columbia — were struggling, and largely failing, on Monday to calm campuses torn by the war in Gaza.
During the turmoil on Monday, which coincided with the start of Passover, protesters called on their universities to become less financially tied to Israel and its arms suppliers. Many Jewish students agonized anew over some protests and chants that veered into antisemitism, and feared again for their safety.
Some faculty members denounced clampdowns on peaceful protests and warned that academia’s mission to promote open debate felt imperiled. Alumni and donors raged.
And from Congress, there were calls for the resignation of Columbia’s president, Nemat Shafik, from some of the same lawmakers Dr. Shafik tried to pacify last week with words and tactics that inflamed her own campus.
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4) Israel’s foreign minister thanks the Senate for passing a hard-fought aid bill.
By Matt Surman, April 24, 2024
"The package bars any of the funding from going to UNRWA, the main United Nations agency that provides aid to Palestinians in Gaza."
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/24/world/israel-gaza-war-hamas
The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, speaking after a foreign aid bill was approved. Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times
Israel on Wednesday welcomed approval by the U.S. Senate of an aid package that includes $26.4 billion for Israel and for civilians in conflict zones, including Gaza, a vote that came as strains in the allies’ relationship have intensified over Israel’s tactics in its war with Hamas.
Israel Katz, Israel’s foreign minister, said in a statement that the bill’s passage was “a clear testament to the strength of our alliance” that “sends a strong message to our enemies.”
The aid is part of a long-stalled $95.3 billion package that had faced vehement opposition from some Republicans over support for Ukraine, which is also part of the legislation. The Senate’s action on Tuesday, on a vote of 79 to 18, was a victory for President Biden, who was expected to sign the bill into law as soon as Wednesday.
The relationship between the United States and Israel has grown increasingly tense over Israel’s unrelenting military offensive in Gaza, with the death toll there surpassing 34,000, according to the health authorities there.
Israel has stood by plans to invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than a million displaced people are sheltering, even as the Biden administration has warned that such a move would pose severe risks to civilians.
The United States is by far the biggest supplier of weapons to Israel, and even though the Biden administration has faced growing calls to restrict or stop the arms shipments, it has largely maintained its military support.
The package approved Tuesday would send roughly $15 billion in military aid to Israel and prioritizes defensive capabilities, including more than $5 billion to replenish the Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Iron Beam defense systems. An additional $2.4 billion is directed to U.S. military operations in the Middle East.
Another $9 billion would go to “worldwide humanitarian aid,” including for civilians in Gaza. The package bars any of the funding from going to UNRWA, the main United Nations agency that provides aid to Palestinians in Gaza. The United States suspended its contributions to the agency this year over Israeli allegations that a dozen of its employees had participated in the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel or their aftermath.
But the package does not put any conditions on military aid, a sticking point for some left-wing Democrats who have become more vocal in calling for the Israeli military to modify its tactics to better protect civilians.
Democratic lawmakers who have led the push against U.S. aid to Israel, particularly in the House, have condemned the Oct. 7 attacks and said they strongly support Israel and its right to self-defense, but oppose supplying it with more offensive weapons.
The aid that is getting into Gaza is falling far short of the needs of its desperate population. Countries including the United States have tried to find air and sea routes to get more relief supplies in. Experts say land deliveries are the most efficient method, but aid groups say those face immense hurdles in part because of Israeli security checkpoints and bombardment.
Catie Edmondson and Robert Jimison contributed reporting.
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5) Germany commits to more aid for UNRWA after a U.N. report.
By Christopher F. Schuetze reporting from Berlin, April 24, 2024
Displaced Palestinians cooking as they shelter in a UNRWA-affiliated school in Deir al Balah, central Gaza, on Tuesday. Credit...Ramadan Abed/Reuters
Germany said on Wednesday that it would resume funding for the main U.N. agency aiding Palestinians in Gaza, known as UNRWA, after an independent review found that Israel had not provided evidence of an allegation that led many donor nations to withdraw support for the agency.
The announcement was likely to cause further strain in Germany’s longstanding close ties with Israel, which have deteriorated because of differences over the war in Gaza.
Germany, which gave more than $200 million to UNRWA in 2023, is the agency’s second largest donor after the United States, which has also withdrawn its funding and has yet to say whether it will restore it.
“The German government has looked closely at the allegations made by Israel against UNRWA and has been in close contact with the Israeli government, the United Nations and other international donors,” read a statement issued by Germany’s foreign and development ministries on Wednesday.
The statement said that Germany expected the agency to take on the recommendations from the independent review led by a former French foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, to protect its neutrality.
The review was commissioned by the United Nations in January, just before Israel alleged that a dozen of the agency’s 13,000 employees in Gaza had participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attacks or their aftermath, and that many were members of Hamas or its allies. In findings released on Monday, the review did not address whether some employees had taken part in the attack but said Israel had provided no evidence that many UNRWA workers belonged to militant groups.
Israel harshly criticized the report and repeated its claim that UNRWA should be disbanded.
After Israel’s claims in January, Germany joined more than a dozen countries, in pausing new funding for the agency, though it noted no new funds were scheduled. Several countries, including Australia, Canada and Sweden, have since resumed funding for UNRWA. The United States and Britain, among several others, have not done so, with the State Department saying this week that it was reviewing the report on UNRWA.
Germany’s support for Israel is considered central to the modern German state, part of its national effort to atone for the Holocaust. Chancellor Olaf Scholz was one of the first Western leaders to arrive in Tel Aviv following the Oct. 7 attacks.
But that support has come under strain over the worsening conditions for civilians in Gaza under Israeli bombardment. Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said in February that “words can hardly describe the situation of the people in Gaza,” and she has repeatedly warned against an Israeli invasion of Rafah, the southernmost Gaza city where more than a million civilians have sought shelter from the war.
Last week, when Ms. Baerbock made her seventh trip to Israel since the war began, her meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu turned tense, Israel’s Channel 13 News reported. Mr. Netanyahu showed Ms. Baerbock pictures of full market stands and people bathing on the beach in Gaza, the channel reported, an apparent effort to show that conditions in Gaza were not that bad.
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6) Israel says it is deploying two more brigades to Gaza.
By Liam Stack reporting from Jerusalem, April 24, 2024
Israeli soldiers near the Israeli-Gaza border in southern Israel, last week. Credit...Ohad Zwigenberg/Associated Press
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that it had mobilized two reserve brigades for “defensive and tactical missions in the Gaza Strip.”
A military statement announcing the deployment did not specify where in Gaza the brigades would be deployed. The military declined a request for comment.
Its statement said that the reserve units, which it identified as the 2nd Reserve Brigade of the 146th Division and the 679th Reserve Brigade of the 210th Division, normally operate on Israel’s northern border, where cross-border strikes with Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia have raged for more than six months.
The military said the reservists had already conducted training exercises to prepare for operations in Gaza.
The deployment comes ahead of a widely expected Israeli ground assault on Rafah, the southern Gazan city that has swelled in recent months with more than a million displaced people.
Active fighting has slowed in southern Gaza since earlier this month, when the Israeli military said that its 98th Division had left the city of Khan Younis in order “to recuperate and prepare for future operations.” That left no Israeli troops operating in southern Gaza.
Brigades vary in size, up to roughly 4,000 troops, and the Israeli military does not disclose how many troops it has deployed in Gaza.
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7) Jewish protesters in New York assail Schumer for military support of Israel.
By Camille Baker and Claire Fahy, April 24, 2024
Hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators rallied during a Passover Seder event near the home of Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, on Tuesday evening. Credit...Adam Gray for The New York Times
As Senator Chuck Schumer of New York prepared for a final vote to pass an aid package that would provide $26 billion to Israel and billions more to Ukraine and Taiwan, approximately 200 protesters were arrested, according to the police, after blocking traffic in his Brooklyn neighborhood on the second night of Passover to call for an end to the United States’ military support of Israel.
Though Mr. Schumer, the Democratic majority leader, was in Washington, demonstrators rallied on Tuesday in Grand Army Plaza, one block away from his Brooklyn home, a common site of protests since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war. As the sun set, hundreds of people gathered around a circular banner representing a Seder plate, which included the words “Jews say stop arming Israel” alongside images of foods eaten during the Seder meal.
“This will not be a Seder as usual. These are not usual times,” Morgan Bassichis, a member of the progressive group Jewish Voice for Peace, said to attendees.
After a series of speakers addressed the rally, a large portion of the crowd moved into the street between the north edge of Prospect Park and the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch, blocking the flow of traffic and prompting drivers to lean on their horns. Police officers who had been monitoring the event warned the demonstrators that they would be arrested if they did not move; when they stayed put, officers wielding zip-tie handcuffs moved in and began making arrests. Roughly 200 protesters, some wearing reflective vests over black T-shirts that read “Jews Say Cease Fire Now,” were led away in pairs.
The protest, organized by pro-Palestinian Jewish groups, marked what has been a distinctly different Passover celebration for Jewish people in New York City and beyond, as college campuses and family dinner tables feel the ripple effects of the Israel-Hamas war.
Stefanie Fox, executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace, said the protest was held during Passover in order to send a message to Mr. Schumer as the Senate moved toward a final vote on aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. Roughly $9 billion of that $95 billion package is dedicated to “worldwide humanitarian aid,” including for civilians in Gaza. (The package later passed in a 79-to-18 vote.)
“Everything in our tradition compels us to bring everything we have to stopping these historic atrocities being done in our names and with our tax dollars,” Ms. Fox said in an interview on Monday.
Mr. Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the United States, recently called for elections to replace Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, once the war winds down. His rebuke of the Jewish state’s leader last month — in a speech in which he also spoke of his love for the state of Israel and his horror at the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7 — exposed the widening gap between Israel and the United States, its most important ally, analysts said.
“Senator Schumer just very recently spoke very harshly about Prime Minister Netanyahu on the Senate floor,” Beth Miller, the political director for Jewish Voice for Peace, said at the protest on Tuesday. “For him to do that with one hand, and then on the other hand reward Prime Minister Netanyahu by pushing forward this military funding package, shows that he is not serious about actually shifting U.S. policy to leverage change.”
One attendee, Calvin Harrison, 29, a community organizer who lives in Manhattan, said he was at Grand Army Plaza “because I’m a Jew and I was raised to believe that Judaism is about justice.”
“Passover is a celebration of liberation for the future,” he went on. “We can’t celebrate liberation for ourselves while we’re oppressing Palestinians.”
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8) Israel carries out airstrikes and orders new evacuations in parts of Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza.
By Anushka Patil, April 24, 2024
Palestinians walking amid the debris of buildings destroyed during Israeli strikes in Beit Lahia earlier this year. Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The Israeli military said on Tuesday that it had carried out several airstrikes in Beit Lahia, one of the northernmost cities in the Gaza Strip, as Palestinians under orders to “immediately” leave parts of the city scrambled to find safety.
The Israeli strikes killed at least one person and injured several others in Beit Lahia and damaged and set fire to several houses in nearby Gaza City, according to Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency. The strikes were carried out in response to rockets launched from the area toward southern Israel, all of which were successfully intercepted, the military said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee, a spokesman for the Israeli military, had issued an “urgent warning” to residents to immediately leave some neighborhoods in Beit Lahia for “known shelters” elsewhere in the city.
“You are in a dangerous combat zone,” Colonel Adraee wrote in Arabic on social media. The Israeli military, he added, intended to use “extreme force against terrorist infrastructure and subversive elements in the region.”
The announcement was the latest in a series of confusing and often impracticable evacuation orders that the Israeli military has issued to civilians in northern Gaza, who are on the brink of famine and hemmed in by roads and buildings heavily damaged by Israeli bombardment.
The Israeli military has often issued warnings like the one on Tuesday just before a raid by ground troops. It announced nearly four months ago that it was moving its troops out of northern Gaza because Hamas no longer controlled those areas. But in recent weeks, Israeli forces have returned to mount ground operations in several parts of the North where the military said Hamas fighters had resurfaced, including the Al-Shifa Hospital complex.
The Israeli military said its airstrikes in northern Gaza on Tuesday had targeted the launch sites of rockets fired earlier that morning toward the city of Sderot and the kibbutz of Zikim in southern Israel, as well as “additional targets” including “military structures and a launcher containing rockets that were ready to fire toward Israel.”
The military also released footage in which one of its airstrikes appeared to hit the Al-Siddiqin Mosque in Beit Lahia, a move the military claimed was intended to destroy an “operational tunnel shaft.”
Multiple human rights watchdogs, including the United Nations human rights office, Amnesty International and the research group Forensic Architecture, have said that evacuation orders Israel has issued in Gaza could amount to the forcible displacement of civilians and could violate international law.
A study released last month by Forensic Architecture found that the orders repeatedly directed displaced civilians to parts of Gaza that lacked the “essentials for survival” required by international law, and where the civilians often still came under direct attacks by the Israeli military.
While the Israeli military has said that its evacuation orders are part of a humanitarian effort, the study said they have instead “served to facilitate what numerous international experts have called Israel’s genocidal actions.”
Aric Toler and Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.
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9) Signs Suggest That Invasion of Rafah Is All but Inevitable
Israel says an assault on Gaza’s southernmost city is vital to dismantling Hamas and has proposed evacuating civilians. But more than a million people have taken refuge in the city.
By Steven Erlanger, April 24, 2024
Steven Erlanger, a former Jerusalem bureau chief, has traveled through Rafah, in Gaza, and along Gaza’s border with Egypt in the past.
The rubble of a building this month after Israeli strikes in Rafah, in southern Gaza, where more than a million displaced people have fled. Credit...Mohammed Abed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
After weeks of delays, negotiations and distractions, Israel appeared to hint this week that its assault of Rafah — a city teeming with displaced persons above ground and riddled with Hamas tunnels below — was all but inevitable.
In what some analysts and residents of the city saw as a sign of preparations for an invasion, an Israeli military official on Tuesday gave some details that include relocating civilians to a safe zone a few miles away along the Mediterranean coast. Just a day earlier, Israeli warplanes bombed Rafah, increasing fears among some of the civilians sheltering there that a ground assault would soon follow.
Such indicators that Israel may be preparing an invasion, said Marwan Shaath, a 57-year-old resident of Rafah, “are terrifying and mean they may really be close to starting an operation.” Mr. Shaath, who lives in Gaza but is employed by Hamas’s Palestinian rivals in the occupied West Bank, added, “Our bags have been packed for months now for the time of the evacuation.”
Israel insists that a push into Rafah is necessary for achieving its goals of eliminating the militants sheltering in a network of tunnels beneath the city, capturing or killing Hamas leaders presumed to be there and ensuring the release of the remaining hostages captured during the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.
But more than one million Gazans, many of them previously displaced from other parts of the territory by Israeli bombardment, are sheltering in the city in makeshift tents. In the case of an invasion, one Israeli military official said, civilians would probably be moved to Al-Mawasi, a designated humanitarian zone. But the zone is already overflowing with displaced people, who warn that it lacks the infrastructure, including clean water and latrines, to handle such an enormous influx.
“Where do these million people go?” asked Ali Jarbawi, a former Palestinian Authority official who teaches at Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank. “We haven’t seen signs of the Israelis’ evacuating people.”
Mr. Shaath, the Rafah resident, said that despite being prepared to go he was in no rush. “At the end of the day, Mawasi is 25 minutes walking from where I live,” he said, adding that he would not evacuate “until the operation really begins and my residential block is labeled a fighting area.”
Exactly when such an operation might start remains an open and critical question.
Hamas, analysts said, is bottled up in southern Gaza, heavy fighting has mostly subsided, a cease-fire remains a possibility and delaying helps placate the Americans, who have called for a detailed plan to protect civilians ahead of an invasion.
Some analysts have even suggested Israel may never invade Rafah and that the threat alone is a means to leverage Hamas amid cease-fire and hostage negotiations. When pressed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said this month that a date had been set for the invasion, but he provided no other details. Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, reportedly denied such a plan to his American counterpart, Lloyd J. Austin III.
Beyond just moving against Rafah, any strategy for southern Gaza must also include broader plans, analysts said: both for securing the narrow ribbon of land along the Egyptian border, through which weapons have been smuggled; and the even thornier question of who will govern the enclave when the fighting is over.
Most officials and analysts said an assault on the city was not a matter of if, but of when.
The Israelis have to finish off “Rafah in order to realize the first and most important objective of the war,” said Kobi Michael of the Institute for National Security Studies and the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, both think tanks in Israel. That includes plans “to dismantle the main centers of gravity, civilian and military, of Hamas, to prevent it from re-establishing itself as a military and political authority,” he said.
For his part, President Biden has not strayed from his support of Israel in pursuing that primary goal — dismantling Hamas as a military and political power in Gaza — or of Israel’s other main objective, securing the release of about 100 hostages still believed to be in the territory. But the president has become increasingly vocal in his calls for Israel to reduce civilian casualties and to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.
“We cannot support a major military operation in Rafah,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told reporters last week while in Italy. Protecting civilians during such an operation, he added, would be “a monumental task for which we have yet to see a plan.”
To that end, Israel’s proposed expansion of Al-Mawasi for use as a humanitarian zone could be viewed as an effort to placate the United States and other countries regarding civilian deaths in Rafah.
On Tuesday, Volker Turk, the United Nations’ human rights chief, said world “leaders stand united on the imperative of protecting the civilian population trapped in Rafah.”
Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security adviser in Israel and a critic of the government, said, “An operation in Rafah is necessary to complete the destruction of Hamas’s major military capabilities and is probably inevitable.”
But, he added, there is no urgency to attack now and it could behoove the Israelis to be seen as heeding Washington’s advice and waiting. Egypt, too, is urging caution, fearing that major strikes would send Palestinians fleeing over its border.
Even more important strategically than Rafah, Mr. Michael said, is the roughly 8.7-mile strip of largely unpopulated land along the border with Egypt, known as the Philadelphi Corridor. Israelis believe that much of the extraordinary arsenal and the building supplies Hamas accumulated in Gaza came through Egypt, mostly through smuggling tunnels, Mr. Michael said, as did Yossi Kuperwasser, a reserve brigadier general and former Israeli intelligence officer.
“We must shut down all the infrastructure of the tunnels underneath Rafah used to smuggle money, weapons and people into Gaza,” Mr. Michael said. “If we end the war without blocking the tunnels, we would enable Hamas or any other terrorist organization in the strip to rebuild their military capacities.”
In a recent report, the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv called on Israel to make “brave decisions” and to develop “a plan for the hermetic closure of the Philadelphi Corridor, in close cooperation with Egypt and the United States.”
“The main goal,” the report found, is not the conquest of Rafah but “to prevent arms and weapons smuggling.”
The current protocol between Israel and Egypt, agreed on when Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, assigns Egypt to secure the border with a force of 750 soldiers equipped to combat terrorism and smuggling. Israeli officials say that the accord is outdated, not least because Hamas took control of the enclave in 2007, and Mr. Netanyahu has vowed to restore security along the border. Egypt says that it has taken significant action to secure the area and eliminate the tunnels, and that some smuggling into Gaza occurs from Israel as well.
“There are now three barriers between Sinai and the Palestinian Rafah, with which any smuggling operation is impossible, neither above nor below the ground,” Egypt’s chief spokesman, Diaa Rashwan, said on Tuesday.
Nevertheless, the United States is brokering an agreement between Egypt and Israel to build a more technologically advanced barrier on the Egyptian side of the border, which would be financed by Washington and could be monitored from afar by the United States and Israel.
Should Israel take Rafah and secure the border, the question of who will govern Gaza after the fighting ends remains unanswered. “The key to rendering Gaza safe for Israelis, and for that matter for Gazans, lies in what follows the fighting,” said Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College, London.
“From the start the lack of a credible political dimension to Israel’s strategy has been its most evident flaw,” Mr. Freedman wrote in an email. Israel, he added, has failed to appreciate the impact of heavy civilian casualties on its reputation and has also failed to produce a plan for Gaza’s government and its reconstruction, “essential if Hamas is not to return to its former position.”
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10) Starbucks and Union Set to Restart Contract Talks After Bitter Standoff
The company and Workers United, which represents more than 10,000 of the chain’s employees, broke off negotiation nearly a year ago.
By J. Edward Moreno, April 24, 2024
Representatives from the Workers United union and Starbucks plan to meet for the first time since May 23 to negotiate a framework for a contract. Credit...Joshua Bessex/Associated Press
Starbucks and the union that represents over 10,000 of its workers are set to return to the bargaining table on Wednesday for the first time in nearly a year, a pivotal moment in the yearslong battle between the coffee giant and its organized workers.
Company representatives and 150 representatives from the union, Workers United, are set to meet at an undisclosed location in Atlanta to begin negotiating a framework for union contracts for each of the over 400 unionized stores.
The last time the two sides sat down was May 23, and they have spent months blaming each other for the impasse. During that time, workers have staged several strikes and tried to win seats on Starbucks’s board, and the company has sued the union over its use of the Starbucks logo.
The feuding eased in February when the two sides issued a joint statement saying they were returning to the bargaining table. Michelle Eisen, a longtime barista at a Starbucks in Buffalo that was the first company-owned store to unionize during the current campaign, said she was optimistic that the company would bargain in good faith.
“It’s been a long couple of years, and it feels like there’s some levity now and a little more lightness in general,” Ms. Eisen said. “All signs point in a positive direction.”
Reflecting the new attitude, over 250 union members plan to attend Wednesday’s session virtually, a way for workers to ensure that all voices are heard. Last year, the union said, Starbucks insisted that the talks be held completely in person.
The union is asking for higher wages and better safety standards, among other issues. Once the two sides agree on an overall framework, individual contracts will be put up to ratification votes by each store. The separate contracts will allow the company and workers to raise issues that may vary by region or type of store, like one that has a drive-through window versus one at a mall.
Starbucks workers began organizing in 2021 with three Buffalo-area stores. Since that campaign began, the National Labor Relations Board has filed numerous complaints accusing Starbucks of taking steps to resist organizing efforts, which the company has denied.
When Starbucks and the union announced that they would return to the bargaining table, the company said it would provide unionized workers with benefits it introduced in 2022 but withheld from union stores, including credit card tipping.
“The union forced management to the bargaining table,” said Eric Blanc, a professor at Rutgers University who studies labor movements. “The scale of the union-busting campaign and its verbosity is unmatched in modern labor history. The fact that the workers were able to overcome that is truly historic.”
Starbucks became willing to resume talks with the union nearly a year after Laxman Narasimhan arrived as chief executive. He took over from the longtime chief executive Howard Schultz, who has said a union was incompatible with Starbucks’s business model.
In March, a coalition of labor unions including Workers United ended its campaign to add its members to the Starbucks board, saying in a statement that it was “time to acknowledge the progress that has been made and to allow the company and its workers to focus on moving forward.”
The union alliance also said it had a “meaningful dialogue” with shareholders who said they believed the company was moving to improve its relationship with its workers.
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