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See Gaza Strip Access Restrictions.pdf since 2007 at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gaza_Strip_Access_Restrictions.pdf** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.”
*** The death toll in West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to PA’s Ministry of Health on March 17, this is the latest figure.
Source: mondoweiss.net
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Boris Kagarlitsky is in Prison!
On February 13, the court overturned the previous decision on release and sent Boris Kagarlitsky to prison for five years.
Petition in Support of Boris Kagarlitsky
We, the undersigned, were deeply shocked to learn that on February 13 the leading Russian socialist intellectual and antiwar activist Dr. Boris Kagarlitsky (65) was sentenced to five years in prison.
Dr. Kagarlitsky was arrested on the absurd charge of 'justifying terrorism' in July last year. After a global campaign reflecting his worldwide reputation as a writer and critic of capitalism and imperialism, his trial ended on December 12 with a guilty verdict and a fine of 609,000 roubles.
The prosecution then appealed against the fine as 'unjust due to its excessive leniency' and claimed falsely that Dr. Kagarlitsky was unable to pay the fine and had failed to cooperate with the court. In fact, he had paid the fine in full and provided the court with everything it requested.
On February 13 a military court of appeal sent him to prison for five years and banned him from running a website for two years after his release.
The reversal of the original court decision is a deliberate insult to the many thousands of activists, academics, and artists around the world who respect Dr. Kagarlitsky and took part in the global campaign for his release. The section of Russian law used against Dr. Kagarlitsky effectively prohibits free expression. The decision to replace the fine with imprisonment was made under a completely trumped-up pretext. Undoubtedly, the court's action represents an attempt to silence criticism in the Russian Federation of the government's war in Ukraine, which is turning the country into a prison.
The sham trial of Dr. Kagarlitsky is the latest in a wave of brutal repression against the left-wing movements in Russia. Organizations that have consistently criticized imperialism, Western and otherwise, are now under direct attack, many of them banned. Dozens of activists are already serving long terms simply because they disagree with the policies of the Russian government and have the courage to speak up. Many of them are tortured and subjected to life-threatening conditions in Russian penal colonies, deprived of basic medical care. Left-wing politicians are forced to flee Russia, facing criminal charges. International trade unions such as IndustriALL and the International Transport Federation are banned and any contact with them will result in long prison sentences.
There is a clear reason for this crackdown on the Russian left. The heavy toll of the war gives rise to growing discontent among the mass of working people. The poor pay for this massacre with their lives and wellbeing, and opposition to war is consistently highest among the poorest. The left has the message and resolve to expose the connection between imperialist war and human suffering.
Dr. Kagarlitsky has responded to the court's outrageous decision with calm and dignity: “We just need to live a little longer and survive this dark period for our country,” he said. Russia is nearing a period of radical change and upheaval, and freedom for Dr. Kagarlitsky and other activists is a condition for these changes to take a progressive course.
We demand that Boris Kagarlitsky and all other antiwar prisoners be released immediately and unconditionally.
We also call on the authorities of the Russian Federation to reverse their growing repression of dissent and respect their citizens' freedom of speech and right to protest.
Sign to Demand the Release of Boris Kagarlitsky
https://freeboris.info
The petition is also available on Change.org
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*Major Announcement*
Claudia De la Cruz wins
Peace and Freedom Party primary in California!
We have an exciting announcement. The votes are still being counted in California, but the Claudia-Karina “Vote Socialist” campaign has achieved a clear and irreversible lead in the Peace and Freedom Party primary. Based on the current count, Claudia has 46% of the vote compared to 40% for Cornel West. A significant majority of PFP’s newly elected Central Committee, which will formally choose the nominee at its August convention, have also pledged their support to the Claudia-Karina campaign.
We are excited to campaign in California now and expect Claudia De la Cruz to be the candidate on the ballot of the Peace and Freedom Party in November.
We achieved another big accomplishment this week - we’re officially on the ballot in Hawai’i! This comes after also petitioning to successfully gain ballot access in Utah. We are already petitioning in many other states. Each of these achievements is powered by the tremendous effort of our volunteers and grassroots organizers across the country. When we’re organized, people power can move mountains!
We need your help to keep the momentum going. Building a campaign like this takes time, energy, and money. We know that our class enemies — the billionaires, bankers, and CEO’s — put huge sums toward loyal politicians and other henchmen who defend their interests. They will use all the money and power at their disposal to stop movements like ours. As an independent, socialist party, our campaign is relying on contributions from the working class and people like you.
We call on each and every one of our supporters to set up a monthly or one-time donation to support this campaign to help it keep growing and reaching more people. A new socialist movement, independent of the Democrats and Republicans, is being built but it will only happen when we all pitch in.
The Claudia-Karina campaign calls to end all U.S. aid to Israel. End this government’s endless wars. We want jobs for all, with union representation and wages that let us live with dignity. Housing, healthcare, and education for all - without the lifelong debt. End the ruthless attacks on women, Black people, immigrants, and LGBTQ people. These are just some of the demands that are resonating across the country. Help us take the next step:
Volunteer: https://votesocialist2024.com/volunteer
Donate: https://votesocialist2024.com/donate
See you in the streets,
Claudia & Karina
Don't Forget! Join our telegram channel for regular updates: https://t.me/+KtYBAKgX51JhNjMx
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We are all Palestinian
Listen and view this beautiful, powerful, song by Mistahi Corkill on YouTube at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQwuhbLczgI
Greetings,
Here is my new song and music video, We are all Palestinian, linked below. If you find it inspiring, please feel free to share with others. All the best!
Mistahi
We are all Palestinian
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Labor for Palestine
Thousands of labor representatives marched Saturday, December 16, in Oakland, California. —Photo by Leon Kunstenaar
Video of December 16th Labor rally for Palestine.
Bay Area Unions and Workers Rally and March For Palestine In Oakland
https://youtu.be/L9k79honqIA
For More Information:
bayarealabor4palestine@gmail.com
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
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Just Like The Nazis Did
By David Rovics
After so many decades of patronage
By the world’s greatest empire
So many potential agreements
Were rejected by opening fire
After crushing so many uprisings
Now they’re making their ultimate bid
Pursuing their Final Solution
Just like the Nazis did
They forced refugees into ghettos
Then set the ghettos aflame
Murdering writers and poets
And so no one remember their names
Killing their entire families
The grandparents, women and kids
The uncles and cousins and babies
Just like the Nazis did
They’re bombing all means of sustaining
Human life at all
See the few shelters remaining
Watch as the tower blocks fall
They’re bombing museums and libraries
In order to get rid
Of any memory of the people who lived here
Just like the Nazis did
They’re saying these people are animals
And they should all end up dead
They’re sending soldiers into schools
And shooting children in the head
The rhetoric is identical
And with Gaza off the grid
They’ve already said what happens next
Just like the Nazis did
Words of war for domestic consumption
And lies for all the rest
To try to distract our attention
Among their enablers in the West
Because Israel needs their imports
To keep those pallets on the skids
They need fuel and they need missiles
Just like the Nazis did
They’re using food as a weapon
They’re using water that way, too
They’re trying to kill everyone in Gaza
Or make them flee, it’s true
As the pundits talk of “after the war”
Like with the Fall of Madrid
The victors are preparing for more
Just like the Nazis did
But it’s after the conquest’s complete
If history is any guide
When the occupying army
Is positioned to decide
When disease and famine kills
Whoever may have hid
Behind the ghetto walls
Just like the Nazis did
All around the world
People are trying to tell
There's a genocide unfolding
Ringing alarm bells
But with such a powerful axis
And so many lucrative bids
They know who wants their money
Just like the Nazis did
There's so many decades of patronage
For the world's greatest empire
So many potential agreements
Were rejected by opening fire
They're crushing so many uprisings
Now they're making their ultimate bid
Pursuing their final solution
Just like the Nazis did
Just like the Nazis did
Just like the Nazis did
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Free Julian Assange
Immediate Repeated Action Needed to Free Assange
Please call your Congressional Representatives, the White House, and the DOJ. Calls are tallied—they do count. We are to believe we are represented in this country. This is a political case, so our efforts can change things politically as well. Please take this action as often as you can:
Find your representatives:
https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member
Leave each of your representatives a message individually to:
· Drop the charges against Julian Assange
· Speak out publicly against the indictment and
· Sign on to Rashida Tlaib's letter to the DOJ to drop the charges:
202-224-3121—Capitol Main Switchboard
Leave a message on the White House comment line to
Demand Julian Assange be pardoned:
202-456-1111
Tuesday–Thursday, 11:00 A.M.–3:00 P.M. EST
Call the DOJ and demand they drop the charges against Julian Assange:
202-353-1555—DOJ Comment Line
202-514-2000 Main Switchboard
Sign the petition:
https://dontextraditeassange.com/petition/
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Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!
FREE HIM NOW!
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical Defense Fund, Official 2024
Mumia has instructed PrisonRadio to set up this fund. Gifts donated here are designated for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Medical and Legal Defense Fund. If you are writing a check or making a donation in another way, note this in the memo line.
Send to:
Mumia Medical and Legal Fund c/o Prison Radio
P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94103
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Leonard Peltier Update—Experiencing the Onset of Blindness
Greetings Relatives,
Leonard is in trouble, physically. He is experiencing the onset of blindness. He is losing strength in his limbs. His blood sugar is testing erratically. This, on top of already severe conditions that have become dire. Leonard has not seen a dentist in ten years. His few remaining teeth are infected. He is locked down, in pain.
As always, Leonard’s fortitude remains astonishing. He is not scared of dying. He does not want to die in lockdown.
Our legal team has an emergency transfer underway. They are going to extraordinary lengths. We must get a top ophthalmologist to him. Thanks to your calls, the BOP did see him. They told him a specialist would be 8 - 10 weeks out.
Leonard does not have eight to ten weeks. He needs emergency care immediately.
If you can, please donate to this GoFundMe. Every penny matters. If you cannot, please share. If you are so inclined, go to www.freeleonardpeltiernow.org and contact the officials listed.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-leonard-peltier-get-medical-care-freedom?utm_campaign=p_cp+fundraiser-sidebar&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer
As always, thank you for your support.
Dawn Lawson
Personal Assistant Leonard Peltier
Executive Assistant Jenipher Jones, Esq.
Secretary Leonard Peltier Ad Hoc Committee
1-800-901-4413
dawn@allfiredup.blue
www.freeleonardpeltiernow.org
Leonard Peltier Update - Not One More Year
Coleman 1 has gone on permanent lockdown.
The inmates are supposed to be allowed out two hours a day. I have not heard from Leonard since the 18th.
The last time I talked to Leonard, he asked where his supporters were. He asked me if anyone cared about these lockdowns.
Leonard lives in a filthy, cold cell 22 to 24 hours a day. He has not seen a dentist in ten years. I asked him, “On a scale of 1 to 10, is your pain level at 13?” He said, “Something like that.” Leonard is a relentless truth-teller. He does not like it when I say things that do not make sense mathematically.
That is why Leonard remains imprisoned. He will not lie. He will not beg, grovel, or denounce his beliefs.
Please raise your voice. Ask your representatives why they have abdicated their responsibility to oversee the Bureau of Prisons and ensure they adhere to Constitutional law.
Uhuru, The African People’s Socialist Party, has stepped up for Leonard. NOT ONE MORE YEAR.
Fight for Free Speech – YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM8GDeGv90E
Leonard should not have spent a day in prison. Click “LEARN” on our website to find out what really happened on that reservation:
www.freeleonardpeltiernow.org
Write to:
Leonard Peltier 89637-132
USP Coleman 1
P.O. Box 1033
Coleman, FL 33521
Note: Letters, address and return address must be in writing—no stickers—and on plain white paper.
Sign our petition urging President Biden to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier:
https://www.freeleonardpeltier.com/petition
Email: contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info
Address: 116 W. Osborne Ave. Tampa, Florida 33603
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Updates From Kevin Cooper
A Never-ending Constitutional Violation
A summary of the current status of Kevin Cooper’s case by the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
On October 26, 2023, the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP wrote a rebuttal in response to the Special Counsel's January 13, 2023 report upholding the conviction of their client Kevin Cooper. A focus of the rebuttal was that all law enforcement files were not turned over to the Special Counsel during their investigation, despite a request for them to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office.
On October 29, 2023, Law Professors Lara Bazelon and Charlie Nelson Keever, who run the six member panel that reviews wrongful convictions for the San Francisco County District Attorney's office, published an OpEd in the San Francisco Chronicle calling the "Innocence Investigation” done by the Special Counsel in the Cooper case a “Sham Investigation” largely because Cooper has unsuccessfully fought for years to obtain the police and prosecutor files in his case. This is a Brady claim, named for the U.S. Supreme court’s 1963 case establishing the Constitutional rule that defendants are entitled to any information in police and prosecutor's possession that could weaken the state's case or point to innocence. Brady violations are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. The Special Counsel's report faults Cooper for not offering up evidence of his own despite the fact that the best evidence to prove or disprove Brady violations or other misconduct claims are in those files that the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office will not turn over to the Special Counsel or to Cooper's attorneys.
On December 14, 2023, the president of the American Bar Association (ABA), Mary Smith, sent Governor Gavin Newsom a three page letter on behalf of the ABA stating in part that Mr.Cooper's counsel objected to the state's failure to provide Special Counsel all documents in their possession relating to Mr.Cooper's conviction, and that concerns about missing information are not new. For nearly 40 years Mr.Cooper's attorneys have sought this same information from the state.
On December 19, 2023, Bob Egelko, a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an article about the ABA letter to the Governor that the prosecutors apparently withheld evidence from the Governor's legal team in the Cooper case.
These are just a few recent examples concerning the ongoing failure of the San Bernardino County District Attorney to turn over to Cooper's attorney's the files that have been requested, even though under the law and especially the U.S. Constitution, the District Attorney of San Bernardino county is required to turn over to the defendant any and all material and or exculpatory evidence that they have in their files. Apparently, they must have something in their files because they refuse to turn them over to anyone.
The last time Cooper's attorney's received files from the state, in 2004, it wasn't from the D.A. but a Deputy Attorney General named Holly Wilkens in Judge Huff's courtroom. Cooper's attorneys discovered a never before revealed police report showing that a shirt was discovered that had blood on it and was connected to the murders for which Cooper was convicted, and that the shirt had disappeared. It had never been tested for blood. It was never turned over to Cooper's trial attorney, and no one knows where it is or what happened to it. Cooper's attorneys located the woman who found that shirt on the side of the road and reported it to the Sheriff's Department. She was called to Judge Huff's court to testify about finding and reporting that shirt to law enforcement. That shirt was the second shirt found that had blood on it that was not the victims’ blood. This was in 2004, 19 years after Cooper's conviction.
It appears that this ongoing constitutional violation that everyone—from the Special Counsel to the Governor's legal team to the Governor himself—seems to know about, but won't do anything about, is acceptable in order to uphold Cooper's conviction.
But this type of thing is supposed to be unacceptable in the United States of America where the Constitution is supposed to stand for something other than a piece of paper with writing on it. How can a Governor, his legal team, people who support and believe in him ignore a United States citizen’s Constitutional Rights being violated for 40 years in order to uphold a conviction?
This silence is betrayal of the Constitution. This permission and complicity by the Governor and his team is against everything that he and they claim to stand for as progressive politicians. They have accepted the Special Counsel's report even though the Special Counsel did not receive the files from the district attorney that may not only prove that Cooper is innocent, but that he was indeed framed by the Sheriff’s Department; and that evidence was purposely destroyed and tampered with, that certain witnesses were tampered with, or ignored if they had information that would have helped Cooper at trial, that evidence that the missing shirt was withheld from Cooper's trial attorney, and so much more.
Is the Governor going to get away with turning a blind eye to this injustice under his watch?
Are progressive people going to stay silent and turn their eyes blind in order to hopefully get him to end the death penalty for some while using Cooper as a sacrificial lamb?
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Mr. Kevin Cooper
C-65304. 4-EB-82
San Quentin State Prison
San Quentin, CA 94974
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
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The writers' organization PEN America is circulating this petition on behalf of Jason Renard Walker, a Texas prisoner whose life is being threatened because of his exposés of the Texas prison system.
See his book, Reports from within the Belly of the Beast; available on Amazon at:
https://www.amazon.com/Reports-Within-Belly-Beast-Department-ebook/dp/B084656JDZ/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
Petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/protect-whistleblowers-in-carceral-settings
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Tell Congress to Help #FreeDanielHale
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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
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1) After 6 Months of War, Some Israelis Ask: Is Netanyahu Dragging It Out?
Despite growing pressure from President Biden, the Israeli prime minister appears in no rush to end the war in Gaza. Some think he has political reasons for extending the stasis.
By Patrick Kingsley, Reporting from Jerusalem, April 5, 2024
Family members mourn their relatives killed in Rafah, Gaza, on April 4, 2024. Credit...Fatima Shbair/Associated Press
Nearly six months since it began, Israel’s war in Gaza is dragging on. So, too, is the tenure of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In Israel, some are now asking: Are the two linked?
To his allies, Mr. Netanyahu’s refusal to agree to a cease-fire in Gaza is a necessary one, made in the national interest and backed by many Israelis. The thinking goes that Israel must cripple Hamas to weaken its hand at cease-fire negotiations.
To his critics, the prime minister is dragging out the war to prevent the collapse of his fragile right-wing coalition and extend his time in office. By this analysis, he has made a domestic calculus that ignores both the growing global anger about the bloodshed — including from Israel’s most powerful ally, President Biden, which erupted into full view on Thursday — and the rising anger from the families of Israeli hostages who seek their relatives’ immediate release.
Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Mr. Netanyahu has long been portrayed as a vacillator who prefers to delay decisions for as long as possible so that he can keep all of his options open.
His strategy is attracting renewed scrutiny because of the scale of what is at stake: Israel’s war in Gaza, which began in response to a Hamas-led raid on Israel on Oct. 7, has since killed more than 32,000 people, according to Gazan health authorities. It has led experts to warn of a looming famine and has stigmatized Israel on the global stage, amid accusations, strongly denied by Israel, that it has pursued a genocide against Gazans.
The debate over Mr. Netanyahu’s intentions has been imbued with still more urgency by an Israeli strike this week that killed seven aid workers in Gaza, escalating international alarm over Israeli military tactics. The Israeli military took responsibility for the strike and said it was a case of misidentification.
The attack prompted President Biden’s strongest response yet since the start of the six-month war. In a tense call with Mr. Netanyahu on Thursday, he threatened to condition future support for Israel on how it addresses American concerns about civilian casualties and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
A summary of the phone call released by the White House said that American policy “will be determined” by Mr. Netanyahu’s response to Mr. Biden’s concerns, although it stopped short of directly saying the president would halt arms supplies or impose conditions for their use.
Within Israel, Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to keep on fighting is also contentious for the effect it may have on the Israelis captured by Hamas on Oct. 7, up to 100 of whom are still thought to be alive. A growing protest movement in Israel wants Mr. Netanyahu to swiftly agree to a hostage deal and cease-fire, even if it means accepting conditions that would give Hamas a greater chance of surviving the war.
Mr. Netanyahu’s allies say that his approach is ultimately in the interests of those hostages: A stronger position on the battlefield gives Israel a stronger hand during hostage negotiations.
The captives are “in our hearts and constantly on our minds,” Ophir Falk, an adviser to Mr. Netanyahu, said in a written response to questions from The New York Times. “Destroying Hamas and freeing the hostages are not mutually exclusive goals. On the contrary, these missions complement one another.”
Mr. Netanyahu’s critics believe he is avoiding a hostage deal because some right-wing factions in his coalition have threatened to quit, thus forcing early elections, if the war ends without Hamas’s destruction. For months, polling has suggested that Mr. Netanyahu’s bloc would lose power in an election, even as a large majority of Israelis support his policy of continuing the war, standing up to American pressure and opposing the creation of a Palestinian state.
“He’s fallen back on his tried-and-true playbook, which is: Don’t make any decisions,” said Michael Koplow, an analyst at Israel Policy Forum, a research group based in New York. “He doesn’t want to spark elections, and making decisions in any direction is likelier to spark elections.”
The stasis is not all down to Mr. Netanyahu. It has been prolonged by Hamas’s determination to hold onto Rafah, the group’s last major stronghold in southern Gaza, and by Hamas’s reluctance to release hostages except after a permanent truce or at least a temporary one that allows people to return to northern Gaza, which could allow it to regroup.
Publicly, Mr. Netanyahu has said he is intent on invading Rafah. But some analysts say that he is in no rush to capture the city, which would signal the end of the war, heightening calls for early elections as well as state inquiries into the Israeli government’s culpability for the Oct. 7 attack.
They also say that Mr. Netanyahu’s political considerations have contributed to the chaos and lack of civil order in the parts of Gaza that Israel has wrested from Hamas control. Although the fighting has slowed in much of the territory, the war is being drawn out by Israel’s reluctance to either hold ground it has captured or transfer its control to an alternative Palestinian leadership, creating a power vacuum.
In some places, that vacuum has allowed remnants of Hamas to regroup, prompting Israeli troops to raid parts of northern Gaza that it had already conquered and vacated, like Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City last month. Elsewhere, a breakdown in civil order and restrictions by Israel have made it harder to safely distribute aid, leading to unrest around aid convoys in which scores of Palestinians have been killed amid Israeli fire and chaos.
“All I see is darkness,” said Shibley Telhami, an expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the University of Maryland. “I see darkness in the short term. And I see even more darkness ahead.”
Foreign allies, including the United States, have pushed Mr. Netanyahu to create order by transferring power in Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, the administration that runs parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, in a move that American officials hope could be the start of a renewed push for a Palestinian state.
Facing resistance to that plan from his far-right allies, Mr. Netanyahu has publicly dismissed the idea. The far right hopes instead to settle Gaza with Israeli civilians who would replace much of the Gazan population.
“In an uncynical reading, he believes he needs the maximum possible time for the military to continue with its campaign to incapacitate Hamas,” said Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli political analyst and pollster. “In a more cynical reading, he wants the war to go on, because that keeps his coalition together and delays any decision about handing over power in Gaza to anyone else.”
By dragging on for so long, the war is now the longest involving Israel in more than four decades, with ramifications far beyond the Gazan border. The war has derailed U.S.-led efforts to normalize diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia; prompted protests and unrest in Arab states allied to the United States, like Jordan; strained Israel’s international legitimacy; and threatened to evolve into a regional conflict.
It has also heightened domestic pressure on Mr. Biden, who has continued to supply arms to Israel even as he expresses greater alarm over its actions.
Mr. Biden’s criticism appeared to have a mixed effect on Mr. Netanyahu. After the call with Mr. Biden on Thursday, the Israeli government said it would increase aid deliveries to Gaza, including through a checkpoint between Israel and northern Gaza that Hamas attacked on Oct. 7 and Israel had refused to reopen ever since.
But Mr. Netanyahu also made comments on Thursday that appeared to implicitly criticize Mr. Biden.
“Give us the tools faster and we’ll finish the job faster,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a separate meeting with Republican lawmakers on Thursday, in what appeared to be a comment directed at Mr. Biden.
“There is a contrary move, an attempt to force, ram down our throats, a Palestinian state, which will be another terror haven,” Mr. Netanyahu added, in another comment aimed at Mr. Biden. “That is opposed by Israelis, overwhelmingly.”
The deadlock extends to the Israel-Lebanon border, where Israel continues to exchange missile fire with Hezbollah. The group joined the fighting in solidarity with Hamas after the Gazan group raided Israel in an attack on Oct. 7 in which roughly 1,200 were killed and some 250 abducted, according to Israeli officials.
Israel says it will not stop striking Lebanon unless Hezbollah withdraws from the border, and Hezbollah is not expected to do so while Israel’s army is itself massed along the same boundary. To pressure Hezbollah, Israel is striking leaders from the group’s benefactor, Iran — most recently in Syria, where an Israeli strike on Monday killed several senior Iranian military officials.
“We will know how to defend ourselves,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a video statement on Thursday, referring to Iran and its proxies. “And we will operate according to the simple principle by which those who attack us or plan to attack us — we will attack them.”
Analysts say such a strategy could easily backfire, prompting bigger retaliations from Hezbollah and Iran that could in turn lead Israel to invade Lebanon. Many of the obstacles to any exit ramp need to be removed simultaneously, rather than in a piecemeal fashion, said Mr. Koplow, the Israel Policy Forum analyst.
“Hezbollah won’t stop firing rockets or negotiate a cease-fire while Israel is fighting in Gaza,” Mr. Koplow said. “Israel won’t stop fighting while hostages are still held by Hamas, but can’t advance in the face of U.S. opposition.”
President Biden’s role in the deadlock has also drawn criticism, for conflicting reasons.
Some analysts say that his growing frustration with Israeli actions has made Mr. Netanyahu less likely to end the war: The prime minister does not want his right-wing base to conclude that he has folded under foreign pressure.
Others like Professor Telhami say that Mr. Biden has not gone far enough, arguing that Israel has been emboldened by U.S. willingness to supply Israel with more weapons and its reluctance to condemn Israel more forcefully.
The president has handed a “blank check to a very far-right Israeli government,” Mr. Telhami said. “When there is no accountability and no consequences, what’s the incentive for the Israeli government not to do what it’s doing?”
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2) Israel disciplines officers for their roles in the drone attack that killed seven aid workers.
By Patrick Kingsley reporting from Jerusalem, April 5, 2024
One of the World Central Kitchen vehicles destroyed in the drone strikes. Credit...Mohammed Saber/EPA, via Shutterstock
The Israeli military announced Friday that two officers had been removed from their posts and three senior commanders reprimanded for their role in the drone strikes that killed seven aid workers in the Gaza Strip this week.
In line with military protocol, the army’s findings will also be sent to the military prosecutors for them to assess over the coming weeks whether anyone should face criminal charges for their role in the attacks on Monday. In the meantime, the military is assessing whether to move the two officers — a reserve colonel and a major — who were stripped of their posts to other roles or to fire them from the military.
A military spokesman, Peter Lerner, said the decision showed the army’s “humility to acknowledge errors, the courage to make amends, and the resolve to learn from them.”
But rights activists said they did not expect any further accountability because the military prosecution system has historically been slow to charge, let alone convict, soldiers accused of crimes.
In the five years between 2017 and 2021, the military prosecution system was made aware of 1,260 instances in which Israeli soldiers were accused of crimes against Palestinians, according to Yesh Din, an Israeli rights group that cited military statistics procured through a freedom of information request. The group said that about a fifth resulted in investigations, but only 11 in criminal indictments, less than 1 percent of the total.
No soldier has been charged for the death of Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist who the Israeli army acknowledged was highly likely to have been accidentally killed in May 2022 by an Israeli soldier. An investigation by The New York Times concluded she was hit by a bullet fired from the approximate location of an Israeli military jeep.
In another high-profile case, an Israeli soldier who was jailed after fatally shooting a Palestinian assailant, who was already severely wounded and lying on the ground, was released in 2018 after serving just nine months of an 18-month prison sentence for manslaughter.
A military investigation “virtually never leads to actual criminal accountability, and in the extremely rare cases where it does, it leads to extremely lenient punishment,” said Sarit Michaeli, a spokeswoman for B’Tselem, another Israeli rights group that has analyzed the Israeli military justice system.
Even if that happens in this case, “the real questions are not going to be asked,” Ms. Michaeli said.
The people killed in the drone strikes worked for World Central Kitchen, a charity that has been providing food to people in Gaza, where famine looms. They were traveling in three vehicles marked with the emblem and name of the group, which said it had coordinated their movements with the Israeli authorities specifically to avoid such an attack.
The military said that the soldiers who authorized the strikes mistakenly believed that the aid workers were traveling with an armed militant.
In response, Ms. Michaeli asked: “How did we reach a situation where some soldiers or officers considered it reasonable to kill seven people in order to hypothetically kill one Hamas operative?”
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3) Israeli helicopter fire probably killed a hostage grandmother on Oct. 7, military says.
By Cassandra Vinograd Reporting from Jerusalem, April 5, 2024
During a protest last year in Prague, Czech Republic, people held posters, some showing Efrat Katz. She was among those seen being kidnapped on Oct. 7. Credit...Michal Cizek/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A grandmother taken captive during the Oct. 7 attack on Israel probably was killed when an Israeli helicopter, responding to the Hamas-led assault, fired on the vehicle in which she was being held, Israel’s military said on Friday.
The revelation about the abduction of the grandmother, Efrat Katz, 67, came on the same day that Israeli military officials detailed failures that led to deadly airstrikes this week on a convoy of aid workers in Gaza.
Ms. Katz’s kidnapping from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7 was captured on video that showed her squashed in the back of a pickup truck along with her daughter and two grandchildren.
The military said Friday that an inquiry into air force actions on Oct. 7 as it responded to the attack found that “one of the combat helicopters that took part in the fighting fired at a vehicle that had terrorists in it” — and which, “in retrospect,” also carried hostages.
“As a result of the fire, most of the terrorists manning the vehicle were killed, and most likely, Efrat Katz was killed as well,” it said in a statement summarizing the inquiry’s findings.
The helicopter crew was not found to be at fault, the statement added, because hostages in the vehicle would have been indistinguishable from the terrorists.
“This is a tragic and unfortunate event that took place in the midst of fighting and conditions of uncertainty,” the air force’s commanding officer, Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar, said.
Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups took more than 200 people captive during the Oct. 7 attack. About 100 hostages, most of them women and children, were released during a cease-fire in November, and at least 30 others are believed to have died in captivity, according to Israeli officials.
In December, the Israeli military said its forces had mistakenly killed three hostages in Gaza. The incident caused deep anguish in Israel, prompting calls for another temporary truce and a deal to allow more hostages to be released. But diplomatic efforts to secure another pause in the fighting have been stalled for months, even as calls for a cease-fire have mounted.
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4) U.N. rights body calls for a halt to arms transfers to Israel.
By Nick Cumming-Bruce reporting from Geneva, April 5, 2024
In recent days, the Biden administration authorized delivery of an arms package that included thousands of bombs to Israel, and it is pressing Congress to allow the sale of $18 billion worth of F-15 fighter jets. Credit...Amir Cohen/Reuters
The United Nations’ top human rights body adopted a resolution on Friday that calls for all countries to stop supplying arms to Israel and puts its key allies under international scrutiny for possible violations of international humanitarian law.
The resolution adopted by the body, the U.N. Human Rights Council, in Geneva on Friday called on countries to halt supplies of arms and munitions to Israel “in order to prevent further violations of international humanitarian law and violations and abuses of human rights.”
The Human Rights Council approved the resolution by a vote of 28 to 6, with 13 states abstaining. The United States and Germany, Israel’s two biggest arms suppliers, voted against the measure.
The resolution has no immediate practical consequences, but its adds significant diplomatic weight to international demands to curb the supply of weapons being used in Gaza. It also lends weight to measures ordered by the International Court of Justice, which has demanded Israel comply with the Genocide Convention and to send more aid to Gaza.
Israel’s ambassador, Meirav Eilon Shahar, condemned the passage of the resolution as a “very dark day in the history of the council.” Noting the resolution had failed to denounce Hamas for attacking Israel on Oct. 7, he said the council had “turned a blind eye” to acts of violence against Israelis.
Later, the Israeli foreign ministry put out a statement noting the council had disregarded the supply of weapons to Hamas by Iran and its allies.
The United States also condemned the resolution, though the U.S. ambassador to the council, Michèle Taylor, echoed President Biden’s mounting impatience with how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has prosecuted the war.
“Israel has not done enough to mitigate civilian harm,” Ms. Taylor said before the vote, calling for an immediate cease-fire and urging Mr. Netanyahu negotiate a deal with Hamas without delay.
The resolution passed Friday also called on the United Nations’ independent commission of inquiry, which is investigating possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Palestinian territories and Israel, to report on the direct and indirect supply of arms to Israel and to analyze the legal consequences of those supplies.
Though the Biden administration has sharpened its criticism of Israel recently, it has not shifted its position on supplying arms to the country. In recent days, the administration authorized delivery of an arms package to Israel that included thousands of bombs. It is also pressing Congress to allow the sale of $18 billion worth of F-15 fighter jets.
On Thursday, President Biden, during a call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to condition future support on how Israel addresses U.S. concerns about treatment of civilians, according to White House officials.
A spokesman for the White House National Security Council, John Kirby, defended American arms sales to Israel this week, saying that the administration had “not found any incidents where Israelis have violated international humanitarian law.”
That view is contested by some legal and human rights authorities. A senior British politician said last week that the government’s lawyers had concluded that Israel had violated international humanitarian law in Gaza, and a group of 600 British lawyers and retired judges wrote to the British government on Wednesday, saying the country’s arms sales to Israel violated international law.
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5) McDonald’s is to buy back 225 franchised outlets in Israel after boycotts.
By Liz Alderman, April 5, 2024
McDonald’s did not disclose terms of the deal but said that the chain’s 5,000 workers in Israel would keep their jobs. Credit...Yves Herman/Reuters
McDonalds has said that it will buy back all of its 225 franchised restaurants in Israel, weeks after the company warned that boycotts and protests over the Israel-Hamas war had hurt its business in the Middle East.
The deal, announced on Thursday, would bring all of the stores under the direct management of McDonald’s Corporation. The company did not disclose terms of the deal but said that the chain’s 5,000 workers in Israel would keep their jobs.
The move highlighted the deepening political polarization that multinational corporations face during the war, including claims and counterclaims by activists and companies about what both sides say are disinformation campaigns.
McDonald’s operations in the region slumped when the franchises in Israel, run by Alonyal Limited, began donating thousands of meals to Israeli soldiers after the deadly Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7.
The donations, described at the time by Alonyal as a show of solidarity to support the military and hospital workers, set off boycotts in neighboring countries, and prompted McDonald’s franchises in Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to issue statements distancing themselves from the Israeli franchise.
In Kuwait and Qatar, McDonald’s franchise owners also pledged hundreds of thousands of dollars for relief efforts in Gaza. A hashtag, #BoycottMcDonalds, rallied consumers in the Middle East and other majority-Muslim countries to stay away from the fast-food giant’s chains, accusing it of “supporting genocide” in Gaza.
The Israeli businessman Omri Padan, who runs Alonyal, said in a statement on Thursday that his company had grown McDonald’s franchises into Israel’s most successful restaurant chain over the course of 30 years.
U.S. companies and franchises operating in the region have seen their financial performance flounder as the war persists. Last month, Starbucks franchise operators across the Middle East and Southeast Asia said they were losing significant business because of boycotts, with some having to lay off employees.
Since the Israel-Hamas war began, Starbucks and other companies have been forced to deflect perceptions that they have supported Israel as it has retaliated against Hamas in operations that have killed large numbers of civilians in Gaza. Starbucks and McDonald’s have issued statements denouncing the claims as false, but that has not cooled the calls for boycotts.
In a post on social media in January, Chris Kempczinski, McDonald’s chief executive, said, “Several markets in the Middle East and some outside the region are experiencing a meaningful business impact due to the war and associated misinformation that is affecting brands like McDonald’s.”
“This is disheartening and ill-founded,” he added.
The controversy immediately affected Mr. Padan’s Israeli franchises, which were the subject of what his company said was a disinformation campaign about whose side he was taking in the Israel-Hamas war.
On Oct. 19, after Mr. Padan pledged to provide 4,000 meals a day to the Israeli Defense Forces, McDonald’s Israel posted on social media that it was the victim of false messages suggesting that the burger chain did not support the military.
At the time, the company wrote that it had donated over 100,000 meals to security forces, hospitals and residents in the area attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7.
In other posts, McDonalds Israel said that Alonyal would open libel suits “against anyone who spreads fake news against it.”
Mr. Kempczinski said in a call with analysts in February that muted growth at international franchised restaurants at the end of last year reflected weakness in majority-Muslim countries as well as in countries with large Muslim populations, including France.
“Our outlook is, so long as this conflict, this war is going on, we’re not making any plans,” Mr. Kempczinski said. “We’re not expecting to see any significant improvement in this. It’s a human tragedy what’s going on. And I think that does weigh on brands like ours.”
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6) New York to Pay $17.5 Million for Forcing Removal of Hijabs in Mug Shots
New York City reached a settlement in a lawsuit brought by two women who were arrested and made to remove their head coverings by the police before being photographed.
By Hurubie Meko, April 5, 2024
Jamilla Clark, left, and Arwa Aziz, who are both Muslim, said they suffered the same embarrassing ordeal after being arrested. Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
New York City has agreed to pay $17.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by two women who said their rights were violated when they were forced to remove their hijabs before the police took their arrest photographs.
The financial settlement filed on Friday, which still requires approval by Judge Analisa Torres of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, is the latest development in the class-action lawsuit filed in 2018 by Jamilla Clark and Arwa Aziz, two Muslim women who said they felt shamed and exposed by the police officers’ actions.
“When they forced me to take off my hijab, I felt as if I were naked; I’m not sure if words can capture how exposed and violated I felt,” Ms. Clark said in a statement. “I’m so proud today to have played a part in getting justice for thousands of New Yorkers.”
In response to the lawsuit, the Police Department in 2020 changed its policy to allow religious people to be photographed wearing head coverings, as long as the coverings were not obstructing their faces.
In a statement on Friday, a spokesman for the city’s Law Department said the lawsuit had “resulted in a positive reform for the N.Y.P.D.”
“The agreement carefully balances the department’s respect for firmly held religious beliefs with the important law enforcement need to take arrest photos,” said the spokesman, Nicholas Paolucci. “This resolution was in the best interest of all parties.”
Damages from the settlement, which total just over $13 million once administrative costs and lawyers’ fees are deducted, will be split among the thousands of people who are expected to file eligible claims.
Ms. Clark, who was arrested on a violation of an order of protection in Manhattan in 2017, said she “wept and begged to put her hijab back on” while standing in Police Headquarters at One Police Plaza with the head scarf around her shoulders, according to the complaint.
Ms. Aziz, who was also arrested on a violation of an order of protection, said she had a similar experience eight months later when she was arrested in Brooklyn. She sobbed as she “stood with her back to the wall, in full view of approximately one dozen male N.Y.P.D. officers and more than 30 male inmates,” the complaint said.
“Forcing someone to remove their religious clothing is like a strip search,” said Andrew F. Wilson, a lawyer with Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP, who is representing the women.
Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, a civil rights group, and a lawyer for the plaintiffs, called the settlement “a milestone for New Yorkers’ privacy and religious rights.”
“The N.Y.P.D. should never have stripped these religious New Yorkers of their head coverings and dignity,” he said.
The Police Department had previously issued interim orders that people who were arrested could be photographed with religious head coverings at precincts or taken to a private area to be photographed at One Police Plaza.
In 2018, the city reached a $60,000 settlement with each of three Muslim women who had been forced to remove their hijabs for arrest photographs and said that their religious rights had been violated.
In response to Ms. Clark and Ms. Aziz’s lawsuit, the Police Department said it would change its patrol guide and begin training officers to “take all possible steps, when consistent with personal safety,” to allow people who are arrested to keep their headwear on in order to respect their “privacy, rights and religious beliefs.”
There are a few exceptions to the policy, including for distinguishing features that could be hidden by a head covering.
The patrol guide now instructs officers that if an uncovered photo must be taken, “the prisoner must be transported to the appropriate borough court section, where the photograph will be taken in a private area by a member of the service of the same gender.”
The policy change was one of a series of adjustments the Police Department has made in recent years related to religious head coverings. In 2016, the department said it would allow officers who wore beards or turbans for religious reasons to keep them.
Lawyers for Ms. Clark and Ms. Aziz estimated that at least 3,600 people could qualify for compensation of $7,000 to $13,000 though the settlement. According to the terms reached with the city, people who were forced to remove their religious head coverings between March 16, 2014, and Aug. 23, 2021, could qualify.
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7) Gaza War Turns Spotlight on Long Pipeline of U.S. Weapons to Israel
President Biden sends arms to Israel under an Obama-era $38 billion aid agreement that runs until 2026. Israel’s purchases include the types of bombs dropped in Gaza.
By Michael Crowley and Edward Wong, April 6, 2024
Michael Crowley and Edward Wong, diplomatic correspondents in Washington, have traveled regularly to the Middle East with the U.S. secretary of state since the Israel-Gaza war began.
“The United States and Israel have had tight military relations for decades, stretching across multiple Democratic and Republican administrations. Israel has purchased much of its critical equipment from the United States, including fighter jets, helicopters, air defense missiles, and both unguided and guided bombs, which have been dropped in Gaza. Legislation mandates that the U.S. government help Israel maintain force superiority — or its ‘qualitative military edge’ — over other Middle Eastern nations. ...… Because of a legal loophole, the State Department does not have to tell Congress and the public about some new arms orders placed by Israel since Oct. 7 since they fall below a certain dollar value. Congressional officials have criticized the secrecy, which stands in contrast to the Biden administration’s public fanfare around arms deliveries to Ukraine. ...For Israel’s immediate needs since Oct. 7, defense officials have drawn from U.S. military stockpiles, including one in Israel."
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/06/us/politics/israel-us-weapons.html
An Israeli Blackhawk, an American-made helicopter, during a drill in northern Israel in February. Credit...Amir Cohen/Reuters
In the fall of 2016, the Obama administration sealed a major military agreement with Israel that committed the United States to giving the country $38 billion in arms over 10 years.
“The continued supply of the world’s most advanced weapons technology will ensure that Israel has the ability to defend itself from all manner of threats,” President Barack Obama said.
At the time, the agreement was uncontroversial. It was a period of relative calm for Israel, and few officials in Washington expressed concern about how the American arms might one day be used.
Now that military aid package, which guarantees Israel $3.3 billion per year to buy weapons, along with another $500 million annually for missile defense, has become a flashpoint for the Biden administration. A vocal minority of lawmakers in Congress backed by liberal activists are demanding that President Biden restrict or even halt arms shipments to Israel because of its military campaign in Gaza.
Mr. Biden has been sharply critical of what he on one occasion called “indiscriminate bombing” in Israel’s war campaign, but he has resisted placing limits on U.S. military aid.
The United States and Israel have had tight military relations for decades, stretching across multiple Democratic and Republican administrations. Israel has purchased much of its critical equipment from the United States, including fighter jets, helicopters, air defense missiles, and both unguided and guided bombs, which have been dropped in Gaza. Legislation mandates that the U.S. government help Israel maintain force superiority — or its “qualitative military edge” — over other Middle Eastern nations.
The process of arms delivery to Israel is opaque, and the pipeline for weapons to the country is long. The United States has sent tens of thousands of weapons to the country since the Oct. 7 killings by Hamas attackers, but many were approved by Congress and the State Department long ago and funded with money mandated by the Obama-era agreement, known as a memorandum of understanding.
“At any given time, delivery on these sales is constantly taking place,” said Dana Stroul, who recently departed as the Pentagon’s top official for Middle East affairs.
Mr. Biden has the power to limit any foreign arms deliveries, even ones previously approved by Congress. Far from cutting off Israel, however, he is pushing a request he made shortly after the Oct. 7 attacks for $14 billion in additional arms aid to the country and U.S. military operations in the Middle East. The money has been stalled in Congress amid disputes over Ukraine aid and U.S. border security and faces growing Democratic concern.
Because of a legal loophole, the State Department does not have to tell Congress and the public about some new arms orders placed by Israel since Oct. 7 since they fall below a certain dollar value. Congressional officials have criticized the secrecy, which stands in contrast to the Biden administration’s public fanfare around arms deliveries to Ukraine.
Since the Hamas attacks, State Department officials have continued to authorize arms shipments to Israel that are tranches of orders, or what officials call “cases,” approved earlier by the department and by Congress — often years ago, and often for delivery in batches over a long period. Officials describe this step as pro forma. The authorizations have occurred almost daily in recent weeks, and are in line with Mr. Biden’s policy of giving full support to Israel.
But Mr. Biden hinted on Thursday about a possible shift. In a phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Mr. Biden warned that U.S. policy could change if Israel did not take more action to protect civilians and aid workers in Gaza, according to a White House summary of the conversation.
Israel regularly receives arms from the U.S. Defense Department, as well as directly from American weapons makers. The largest arms orders are often filled over years in smaller groups of specific items. For such cases, arms buyers like Israel come to the U.S. government saying they are ready to pay for part of an order.
When the Defense Department is supplying the arms — which includes the most expensive weapons systems — the State Department then tells the Pentagon to issue a letter of acceptance to the buyer. That authorization is often a pro forma step, and a buyer signing it means there is now a legal contract to fill that part of the larger order.
The State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, which manages foreign defense relationships and arms transfers, typically acts within two days of hearing about a buyer’s fulfillment request to tell the Defense Department to issue the letter. If defense officials decide to fill the case by placing an order with a U.S. weapons maker, the assembly and shipment would normally take years.
For Israel’s immediate needs since Oct. 7, defense officials have drawn from U.S. military stockpiles, including one in Israel.
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8) Gazans describe a near-constant search for food and wonder if it will get worse.
By Raja Abdulrahim, April 6, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/06/world/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news
Suhail al-Asaad, a body builder, at home in 2022. Credit...Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times
On most mornings before the war, Suhail Al-Asaad, a body builder, could be found at his kitchen counter in Gaza City, eating an omelet of eight egg whites before speed-walking along the waterfront and heading to the gym to lift weights.
That waterfront now lies in ruins. Mr. Al-Asaad and his family, like so many others, were displaced from their home by Israel’s intense bombardment and invasion and now sleep in a tent in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. He spends his days struggling to find food for himself, his wife, their three children and his sick mother.
Breakfast, of any kind, is elusive. Eggs are a luxury.
As famine looms over Gaza’s 2.2 million people, their tenuous survival has become a little harder for many this week. World Central Kitchen, the charity group founded by the chef José Andrés, suspended its relief efforts there after seven of its workers were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Monday. Since the start of the war in Gaza in October, the aid group said, it had delivered more than 43 million meals there.
Mr. Al-Asaad knows many people relied on meals from World Central Kitchen, which often consisted of rice and beans and sometimes meat or chicken. His family rarely got the meals “because the demand was more than the supply,” Mr. Al-Asaad said in an interview on Friday. Those who received them regularly, he added, would struggle to find a replacement.
Under pressure from President Biden, Israel has agreed to open more routes for aid convoys, but it remains unclear when that might happen. Aid agencies and multiple nations say they are working on supplying more food through the two southern border crossings that have been in use, but some Gazans doubt it will be enough to meet the enormous need, with many families now getting little or nothing.
“I can’t describe our situation. We are clinging to life, and that’s it,” said Mohammad al-Masri, a 31-year-old accountant who is also sheltering with his family in a tent in Rafah.
“The aid doesn’t always get to those who are displaced, except for very little,” he said on Friday via WhatsApp. “Mostly it all gets sold in the market,” he added, echoing what many Gazans have said for months.
His family is able to buy some canned meats and vegetables, and get rice and beans from another charity kitchen, he said.
Profiteering and an active black market have made things worse. In mid-March, Mr. Al-Asaad posted a short video on his Instagram page of two eggs — all he could afford — that he had just bought at the local market for 10 Israeli shekels, about 10 times what they used to cost. His family — six people — planned to cook the eggs for that night’s iftar meal, to break the daylong Ramadan fast.
“Eggs cost more than gold,” Mr. Al-Asaad, 45, wrote in the caption.
Like a growing number of Gazans, he has resorted to making a GoFundMe page asking for donations to buy food and clean water.
“We have now entered the sixth month without money, food or even aid, all of which are available on the black market at high prices,” he wrote on his GoFundMe page.
The World Food Program, an arm of the United Nations, says that famine is imminent in northern Gaza. The number of people in the entire besieged enclave facing catastrophic levels of hunger is now at 1.1 million, according to the group.
The World Health Organization, also a U.N. agency, reported this week that at least 27 children had died from malnutrition in Gaza.
Friday was the last Friday, a holy day for Muslims, in Ramadan. It would normally be a day of increased religious observance and preparation for the upcoming Eid al-Fitr festivities marking the end of Ramadan. But Mr. al-Masri said there was none of that feeling in the tent encampment he was living in with hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians.
“Most people fast because there is nothing to eat anyway,” he said. “We didn’t feel like this was Ramadan. There was no sense of Ramadan this year.”
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9) New York City Set to Pay a Record $28 Million to Settle Rikers Island Suit
Eight correction officers and a captain stood by for seven minutes and 51 seconds as Nicholas Feliciano tried to hang himself in a jail cell in 2019.
By Jan Ransom and Ainara Tiefenthäler, April 6, 2024
Nicholas Feliciano suffered brain damage after he tried to hang himself on Rikers Island. Credit...Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP
New York City has agreed to pay more than $28 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the family of Nicholas Feliciano, who suffered severe brain damage after he attempted to hang himself in a Rikers Island jail cell as more than half a dozen correction officers stood by.
If approved by a judge, it will be among the largest pretrial settlements ever to be awarded to a single plaintiff in a civil rights case in New York City.
Mr. Feliciano was 18 and had a long history of psychiatric hospitalizations and suicide attempts when he was sent to Rikers in late 2019 on a parole violation. When he tried to hang himself on Nov. 27 of that year, guards watched as he flailed his arms but did not intervene even after he became limp, video footage obtained by The New York Times shows.
The Bronx district attorney filed felony charges against three of the guards and a captain in 2022. Last year, two of the guards pleaded guilty to official misconduct, a misdemeanor, and avoided jail time. The cases against the captain and the remaining officer are pending.
For the past four years, Mr. Feliciano has received round-the-clock care, first at the Bellevue Hospital Center and then at a rehabilitation facility where he must use a walker to get around, said his grandmother, Madeline Feliciano, 57. He cannot eat without assistance, has short-term memory loss and struggles to remember visits with family and friends or the things he did the day before, she said.
The proposed settlement, Ms. Feliciano said, will help his family care for him at home. A final decision in the case could come as early as next week.
“It is not going to bring Nicholas back to who he was,” she said, adding that, at 22, “he has to live with this injury for rest of his life.”
A Correction Department spokeswoman said the agency has taken steps to reduce self-harm among detainees through renovations to housing areas, including the installation of fencing around units with multiple floors. She said officers are trained to prevent suicides and recognize signs of distress among mentally ill detainees and that specialists are assigned to people who have a history of trying to harm themselves.
But the New York City Board of Correction, a jails oversight panel, said in a recent report that many of the problems that had given rise to Mr. Feliciano’s case have only worsened.
Over the past three years, at least 18 mentally ill detainees have killed themselves or died of drug overdoses or other causes, records and interviews show. And the number of detainees with psychiatric needs has risen: About one in five people held on Rikers has some form of serious mental illness.
The New York Times obtained Department of Correction jail surveillance and body-worn camera footage that was gathered by a law firm, Beldock, Levine & Hoffman, which represented Mr. Feliciano and his family in their lawsuits against the city. Depicting the events leading up to Mr. Feliciano’s suicide attempt in a holding pen, and the inaction of correction staff members, the videos offer a rare look at what can befall mentally ill detainees on Rikers, where they are often subject to harsh conditions, inhumane treatment and inadequate supervision.
‘I’m bleeding, I’m bleeding’
Mr. Feliciano’s lawyer, David B. Rankin, said the Department of Correction failed his client the moment he entered Rikers. Mr. Feliciano, who was diagnosed with clinical depression, was placed in a general population housing area known for gang violence instead of in a mental health unit. He was not initially given the antipsychotic medication he had been taking while at home. Mr. Feliciano’s case, Mr. Rankin said, “shows how the city has no ability to run a jail.”
Mr. Feliciano’s mental health needs had been recorded in meticulous detail, including during his first stint on Rikers in 2018, when at 16, he spent weeks on suicide watch and told staff about his bouts of depression. They were further documented when he received treatment on mental health units, and recorded again when he landed in a city-run juvenile center, where he had to be hospitalized several times for harming himself. He once cut himself, and using his blood, wrote “RIP” across the housing area plexiglass, according to a report by the Board of Correction.
Despite this history of psychiatric problems, Mr. Feliciano was rated as being at zero risk of suicide when he landed on Rikers in November 2019.
On Nov. 27, at about 5:30 p.m., Mr. Feliciano was attacked by several detainees. It was his second violent encounter in two days, occurring as he tried to help a friend who was being assaulted by several people. Video shows Mr. Feliciano bleeding from the left side of his body and mouth. Officers isolated him in a holding pen for hours as he awaited transportation to an urgent care clinic.
Making a noose in plain sight
Mr. Feliciano first appeared to begin searching the ceiling for a weight-bearing object at 11:26 p.m., according to still images of video footage.
Over the next five minutes, he fashions his clothing into a makeshift noose. One officer, Kenneth Hood II, stands directly in front of Mr. Feliciano’s cell for a full minute, watching as Mr. Feliciano ties his clothing to a U-shape hook in the ceiling, tests his weight against it and briefly wraps it around his neck. Then he unties himself, picks up a nearby plate of food and sits on a metal bench.
Alone and shirtless in the cell, Mr. Feliciano appears to tap the fork nervously against the plate. He grows agitated while speaking to a captain and two correction officers, including Mr. Hood, and he jumps up to throw the plate at them. The guards rush from the area.
The captain, Terry Henry, walks back past Mr. Feliciano, seeming to laugh and gesture toward him. Mr. Feliciano walks to the sweater he had attached to a ceiling fixture above the toilet. (It was the same ceiling hook that had been used in a suicide attempt by another mentally ill man, Angel Richards-Bailey, six days earlier, and it was supposed to have been removed by the time Mr. Feliciano was put in the cell, two people with knowledge of the incident said.)
Having already tied one sweatshirt to the ceiling, he climbs atop a partition to attach a second sweatshirt to the cell bars, video shows.
Seven minutes and 51 seconds of inaction
What happened next was documented in a 2019 Times investigation of the incident, but the newly obtained videos offer a firsthand look at the inaction of nine jailers who stood by, walked past or glanced over at Mr. Feliciano’s cell for seven minutes and 51 seconds as he flailed at the end of the sweatshirts.
After climbing atop the privacy partition at 11:41 p.m., Mr. Feliciano wraps the sweatshirts around his neck and jumps down, video shows. Within seconds, he struggles to pull himself up, but the tips of his toes barely touch the floor.
Officer Daniel Fullerton, completing paperwork near a booth, occasionally looks over at cell 11 where Mr. Feliciano is hanging, but he does not intervene, video shows.
Officer Mark Wilson walks to the cell, opens the door, looks at Mr. Feliciano for a moment and then closes the door and walks away, video shows. At 11:43 p.m., officer Jean Lantigua-Peña, papers in hand, looks over at the cell, and officer Nicholas Prensa walks into and out of the area. Neither officer moves to help Mr. Feliciano.
A minute later, two paramedics pushing a man on a gurney enter the frame along with two other correction officers. Over the next three minutes the paramedics, Jimmy Guailacela and Stephen Sham, and correction officers, Sincere Crowell and Peter Moses, look in Mr. Feliciano’s direction several times, but do not come to his aid, the video shows. (Mr. Guailacela was promoted to lieutenant in 2021.)
The man on the gurney, Alfonso Martinez, was a friend of Mr. Feliciano’s, and he said in a previous interview with The Times that he shouted for someone to help but was ignored.
Six minutes after Mr. Feliciano jumped, Officer Hood and Officer Kostantinos Makridis walk past the cell toward a nearby door. Officer Makridis slows down, stops and leans in toward the cell bars to get a closer look at Mr. Feliciano’s motionless body.
Medical Attention
Three guards enter Mr. Feliciano’s cell. Officer Henry cuffs one of his wrists, while Officer Fullerton untwists Mr. Feliciano from the sweatshirts at 11:49 p.m.
They fall back as Mr. Feliciano crumples to the floor. Officer Makridis attempts chest compressions, but he places his hands in the wrong place, on Mr. Feliciano’s abdomen, until Captain Henry corrects him. Officer Makridis continues the compressions for about two minutes, frequently stopping then starting again, as Captain Henry and Officer Fullerton appear to fumble with a defibrillator.
Around this time, jail medical staff enter the cell and take over. At 12:45 a.m., more than an hour after Mr. Feliciano had tried to hang himself, paramedics place him on a stretcher to take him to a nearby hospital.
The Department of Correction’s investigations division later found that all nine of the guards who did not intervene had failed to do their job, records show. Six — Officers Hood, Makridis, Prensa, Fullerton and Wilson and Captain Henry — were suspended without pay for 30 days.
The Bronx district attorney charged four of the guards in 2022. Two of them, Mr. Fullerton and Mr. Wilson pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges. Mr. Fullerton resigned and Mr. Wilson was fired. The other two, Captain Henry and Officer Hood, are still awaiting trial.
After the guards were indicted, the correction officers’ union said that the case against them was “being driven more by politics than by facts.”
Mr. Lantigua-Peña resigned in May 2020. Officers Moses and Crowell were charged with “procedural violations” by the department but were not suspended or put on modified duty and are still working in the jails.
Before they ever encountered Mr. Feliciano, seven of the guards had faced disciplinary charges and complaints from supervisors for offenses ranging from lying on official records and failing to supervise detainees to using excessive force and walking off the job.
Captain Henry, the supervisor who did not intervene as Mr. Feliciano was hanging, had been disciplined in a similar case in 2015, when, as a correction officer, he failed to help a man convulsing on the floor, according to a lawsuit. The man died, and the city settled the lawsuit for $1.59 million.
Captain Henry, who still works in the jails, has had at least 14 complaints or disciplinary charges over the years. Half of those complaints were logged in the years after Mr. Feliciano was on Rikers, jail records show.
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