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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) 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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2) 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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3) 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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4) How Gaza Protesters Are Challenging Democratic Leaders
From President Biden to the mayors of small cities, Democrats have been trailed by demonstrators who are complicating the party’s ability to campaign in an election year.
By Lisa Lerer, Reid J. Epstein and Katie Glueck, April 7, 2024
Hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered outside President Biden’s high-dollar fund-raiser at Radio City Music Hall last month, and several made their way inside, repeatedly disrupting the event. Credit...Andres Kudacki for The New York Times
In Detroit, a congressman’s holiday party devolved into chaos and a broken nose after demonstrators protesting the war in Gaza appeared with bullhorns.
In Fort Collins, Colo., the mayor abruptly ended a meeting during which protesters demanding a cease-fire in Gaza glued their hands to a wall.
And in places as disparate as a historic church in South Carolina and Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan, President Biden has been heckled and drowned out by demonstrators objecting to his support for Israel.
Protests over the Biden administration’s handling of the war are disrupting the activities of Democratic officials from city halls to Congress to the White House, complicating their ability to campaign — and, at times, govern — during a pivotal election year.
Mr. Biden successfully avoided a messy primary fight, facing no viable opposition within his party. But the Gaza conflict has stoked intraparty tensions nonetheless, raising Democratic concerns that a sustained movement protesting a war thousands of miles away could depress turnout at home in November.
“If you are now organizing people to walk away from supporting the president, then you are now de facto supporting and helping Trump,” Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a Democrat who has disappointed progressives with his unflinching support of Israel, said in an interview this past week. “If you’re going to play with fire that way, then you need to own the burn.”
Many supporters of the Palestinian cause argue that Mr. Biden must earn their votes — and that the death toll and suffering in Gaza should transcend concerns about electoral politics.
“With all of the political threats of Donald Trump in the horizon, it should tell you something about how deeply people feel about what’s happening,” said the Rev. Michael McBride, a founder of Black Church PAC who has pressed for a cease-fire.
The national effort to pressure U.S. leaders to limit their support for Israel has focused almost exclusively on Democrats, with former President Donald J. Trump rarely — if ever — attracting significant criticism from pro-Palestinian demonstrators at his home or public appearances. Mr. Trump has said little of substance about the conflict, other than that Israel should “finish up” the war.
Heated protests and tight security
Mr. Biden has increasingly taken a harder stance with Israel’s government, threatening on Thursday to condition future support on how it addresses civilian casualties and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
But he is still confronting fierce criticism.
At a White House gathering for Ramadan this past week, a Palestinian American doctor — one of the few Muslim community leaders who agreed to attend — walked out in protest after telling Mr. Biden that Israel’s looming ground invasion of Rafah would be a “blood bath and a massacre.”
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have spent weeks protesting outside Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken’s house, spilling pitchers of fake blood and shouting at him and his family.
And even innocuous photos posted on social media by the White House — of children at the Easter Egg Roll or newly planted tulips — are flooded with comments accusing the administration of being complicit in mass killing and starvation in Gaza.
In recent weeks, Biden campaign officials have escalated their efforts to control access to his events. On the eve of Mr. Biden’s high-dollar Radio City fund-raiser last month, dozens of ticket buyers whom the Biden campaign flagged as potential Gaza demonstrators received notices from the campaign voiding their purchases, according to campaign officials and members of Jewish Voice for Peace, a progressive anti-Zionist group that has protested at Biden events.
“Unfortunately, we are unable to accommodate you at this time and have refunded all tickets associated with your email address,” the unsigned email read. “This decision is final.”
Carole Shreefter, a retired ultrasound technician from Upper Manhattan, paid $250 for a ticket near the back of the first mezzanine. A member of Jewish Voice for Peace, Ms. Shreefter, 78, said she had planned to disrupt the event by shouting at Mr. Biden and his two Democratic predecessors onstage about the war in Gaza.
She passed two checkpoints and was inside the theater’s lobby when she was told her seat had been changed. Ms. Shreefter said she had been redirected outdoors to what Biden officials called the “solutions tent.” There, she was told that she would not be allowed inside.
“I said, ‘What’s going on?’” Ms. Shreefter said in an interview. “‘I’ve been waiting here for hours in the rain. I have my ticket, everything is here.'”
Lauren Hitt, a Biden campaign spokeswoman, said the “solutions tent” had been staffed by officials from the Biden Victory Fund, an allied group, and from Radio City Music Hall. Its primary purpose, she said, was to help people with ticketing problems, not to remove potential troublemakers.
Some demonstrators did make it inside the hall, where they repeatedly interrupted Mr. Biden’s joint appearance with former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
One protester, Hannah Ryan, 33, a photographer from Brooklyn, said she had been flagged by the campaign, asked a battery of questions about people she knew and how she had acquired her ticket, and had then been allowed in. She shouted at Mr. Obama, who told her and other protesters, “You can’t just talk and not listen.”
Georgia Johnson, a registered Democrat from Manhattan, said she voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 but was reluctant to back his re-election bid unless the administration adopted a less supportive position toward Israel.
“A lot of people here, they’re tired of having to choose between what they feel is the lesser of two evils,” Ms. Johnson, 28, said as she joined the hundreds of protesters gathered outside the event. “What he’s doing doesn’t feel like the lesser of two evils to me. It feels like something very evil.”
‘I’ve met with them. I’ve taken their phone calls.’
Other elected Democrats have also struggled to avoid protesters.
In Santa Ana, Calif., Representative Lou Correa’s family and neighbors have grown increasingly frustrated with the loudspeaker, bullhorns and shouts from demonstrators who gather as early as 6:30 a.m. on his suburban street.
Mr. Correa, a Democrat who is often in Washington during the protests, asked the local City Council to support an emergency ordinance requiring activists demonstrating at private homes to remain 300 feet away. The proposal failed to pass.
“I’ve met with them — I’ve taken their phone calls, I respond to their emails, and now they say they’re at my house because they want to meet with me, that I won’t come out,” said Mr. Correa, who added that he supported negotiations to end the war and a two-state solution to the broader conflict. “Look, I’m an elected. I get it. But why is it in the neighborhood? Why is it the family? Why is it my neighbors? That’s what I don’t understand.”
Some of the most contentious clashes have taken place on deeply Democratic terrain. A recent City Council meeting in Berkeley, Calif., turned ugly, with protesters interrupting a Holocaust survivor at a meeting where members discussed a bill marking Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Representative Shri Thanedar, a Democrat from Michigan, said he had been shocked when more than two dozen attendees at his holiday party at a crowded restaurant in Detroit removed their jackets to reveal pro-Palestinian shirts. As they began chanting through a bullhorn, physical altercations broke out. One older woman was sent to a hospital with a broken nose.
“To see the deaths happening in Gaza is heartbreaking,” said Mr. Thanedar, who supports a “negotiated cease-fire” that would release Israeli hostages and end the military campaign. “But if they’re trying to draw attention to that, hurting elderly people isn’t necessarily going to help them get the support that they need.”
And in Danbury, Conn., the president of the City Council described being surprised by demonstrators demanding a cease-fire call from the city of roughly 90,000 people.
“In my mind, where are you addressing that concern?” said Peter Buzaid, the council president. “You would go to the senator’s office. You could go to the congressman’s office, you’d protest outside the White House. Right? You might go to the U.N. It’s not something that I thought would happen at our local council chambers.”
Mayor Jeni Arndt of Fort Collins said she recognized how emotionally fraught the war was, but she questioned what effect local action on the issue would have.
“I don’t think Antony Blinken’s going to be like, ‘Oh, the mayor of Fort Collins just said this,’” she said. “If it’s not impactful to the members of our community and it divides, I don’t think I should do that.”
Lowering the temperature
In some places, the protest tactics have been successful.
In Ann Arbor, Mich., a cadre of demonstrators had been coming to City Council meetings for years to demand a resolution denouncing Israel’s policy toward Palestinians. Six years ago, Mayor Christopher Taylor was shouted down while trying to read a gun violence awareness resolution by demonstrators demanding to know why he was not mentioning people being killed in Gaza.
Mr. Taylor, the mayor since 2014, has long argued that Israel and other foreign policy issues were not the city’s concern. But in the face of unending protests since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, he and the council acquiesced and passed a resolution calling for a cease-fire. The temperature lowered, and most of the protesters stopped disrupting council meetings.
“Foreign policy is far from our remit, but special circumstances can arise,” Mr. Taylor said. “When community groups are in deep pain, we speak in support of those who are suffering.”
Even Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a hero of progressives who broke with the administration to oppose giving additional military aid to Israel, faced interruptions from protesters on an overseas trip.
Mr. Sanders has encouraged the protesters in the U.S. to back Mr. Biden, arguing that Mr. Trump would be worse on the issue of Palestinian rights. But he also acknowledged the pain and frustration of the current moment.
“You have had hundreds of thousands of people marching in the streets in this country because they are absolutely outraged at the humanitarian disaster that is currently taking place in Gaza,” he said. “They are right.”
Julian Roberts-Grmela contributed reporting.
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5) The war is now the longest involving Israel since the 1980s.
By Patrick Kingsley Reporting from Jerusalem, April 7, 2024
Palestinians on the roof of a destroyed mosque on Friday in Rafah, the last major stronghold of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Credit...Haitham Imad/EPA, via Shutterstock
Six months since it began, Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza appears to have reached an impasse that analysts and diplomats say has no resolution in sight, even as experts warn of famine, Gaza’s health system collapses and the death toll continues to climb.
Mediators have found it difficult to advance negotiations for a truce in Gaza, with Israel reluctant to agree to a cease-fire that allows Hamas to regroup in parts of Gaza, and Hamas wary of proposals that do not ensure its long-term survival.
Though Israel has routed Hamas in much of Gaza, and fighting seems to have slowed, the conflict 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 they had already conquered and vacated, like Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Elsewhere, the vacuum has led to a breakdown in civil order, making it harder to safely distribute badly needed aid. Scores of Palestinians have been killed around aid convoys, amid chaos and Israeli fire.
The stasis has been prolonged by Hamas’s determination to hold onto Rafah, the city in southern Gaza that has become its last major stronghold, and by Israel’s decision to hold off on a promised ground invasion that U.S. officials have warned would create an humanitarian disaster.
By dragging on for so long, the war has become the longest involving Israel since the 1980s. And the ramifications extend far beyond the Gazan border — including increasing domestic pressure on President Biden, who has continued to supply arms to Israel even as he expresses greater alarm over its actions, and the threat of the violence spilling over into a regional conflict between Israel and allies of Hamas, like Iran.
The war has also derailed U.S.-led efforts for Israel and Saudi Arabia to normalize diplomatic relations and prompted protests in Arab states allied with the United States.
At the start of the year, some mediators thought it might be possible to secure a grand deal to end the war; transfer power in Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, the organization that runs parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank; seal Saudi-Israeli diplomatic ties; and create a pathway toward a sovereign Palestinian state.
But the longer the war has continued, the more quixotic that vision has seemed. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, does not want to cede control of Gaza to the authority, and Saudi Arabia says it will not normalize relations before a Palestinian state is created.
“The war is not over and one cannot see a path forward to end it in a way that would bring about stability and humanitarian relief on the scale that is needed in any foreseeable future,” said Shibley Telhami, an expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the University of Maryland.
Analysts say that the longer the deadlock continues, the higher the chances of serious mistakes, like the Israeli strike that killed seven aid workers on Monday in what Israel called a case of misidentification.
“The longer the fighting continues without a viable plan to stabilize Gaza and provide basic services, the greater the chances of more mishaps that kill aid workers operating in what is effectively an anarchic environment,” said Michael Koplow, an analyst at Israel Policy Forum, a research group based in New York.
Adam Rasgon contributed reporting.
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6) To Battle Wartime Hunger, Gazans Turn to a Humble Leafy Green
Palestinians have long gathered and cooked khobeza, a spinach-like wild plant that sprouts after rains. Now, it has become a lifeline.
By Ben Hubbard and Bilal Shbair, April 7, 2024
Ben Hubbard reported from Istanbul, and Bilal Shbair from Deir al Balah, Gaza.
Selling khobeza leaves in Rafah, in southern Gaza, in February. The plant is making up an outsize portion of many Gazans’ diets by providing a lower-cost way to blunt hunger. Credit...Mohammed Abed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
As the Israeli military campaign to destroy Hamas pummeled his neighborhood in northern Gaza, reducing buildings to rubble and forcing residents to flee, the Palestinian laborer realized that he was running out of food.
The shops had closed, the markets had emptied and fighting prevented supplies from reaching them. So he and his remaining neighbors gathered a plant known as khobeza that grew near their homes and cooked it to sustain themselves, he said.
“It supported us more than everyone else in the world,” the laborer, Amin Abed, 35, said recently by phone from Gaza. “People survived the darkest chapters of the war on khobeza alone.”
For many generations, the people of the Holy Land have foraged for khobeza, a hearty green with a taste and texture somewhere between spinach and kale that sprouts in knee-high thickets along roadsides and empty patches of dirt after the first winter rains. Cooks sauté it in olive oil, season it with onions or boil it into soup to make tasty, low-cost meals.
Now, this green, a variety of mallow, is making up an outsize portion of many Gazans’ diets by providing an inexpensive way to blunt hunger. At a time when most other food is largely unavailable or prohibitively expensive, Gazans can harvest khobeza themselves and cook it by itself, or with a few other ingredients.
As Israel has imposed a near-complete blockade on the territory, aid groups and United Nations officials have increasingly warned that the amount of food entering Gaza cannot feed its roughly 2.2 million people, pushing ever larger numbers of Gazans toward catastrophic hunger. Malnutrition-related deaths have become more common, and an international group of experts warned last month that the entire population of Gaza faced acute food shortages and that famine-like conditions were “imminent” in the north, where aid is scarce.
“People don’t grasp how empty and dire the situation is there, from the price of a bag of flour to a bag of onions,” said Reem Kassis, a Palestinian writer who included a khobeza recipe in her most recent cookbook.
The plant, which is also eaten in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Israeli-occupied West Bank and elsewhere, grows wild and has a relatively mild flavor. In normal times, it is often seasoned with lemon juice or chili pepper.
Ms. Kassis said her mother’s family cooked it as a thick stew, filled with caramelized onions and drops of dough. Her father sautéed the plant in olive oil and drizzled it with lemon juice.
“It is considered a humble meal, not something you would serve your guests,” Ms. Kassis said. “In the absence of anything else, it is nutritious. You can stretch it, you can add dough or bread, you can add onions.”
In Gaza, where ingredients are scarce, many families boil it into a thin soup that can be shared among large numbers of people.
“We have been eating khobeza since the time of our ancestors,” said Sulaiman Abu Khadija, 32, an agricultural worker. “One generation passed it to another.”
Mr. Abu Khadija, his wife and their three children live in Deir al Balah, in central Gaza, and he sometimes walks far to reach open land where he can pick khobeza.
“Many people have eaten it during this war because there are no options for different vegetables,” he said. “It is easy to get anywhere and can be cooked quickly and simply.”
His family makes soup, boiling the leaves and then changing the water to ensure that the food is clean, he said.
While he knew the plant well before the war, he said some city dwellers who had been displaced from northern Gaza were unfamiliar with it, but pleasantly surprised when they tasted it.
It is often eaten hot, but some Gazans, like Mr. Abu Khadija, consider it more delicious cold.
The plant is not widely consumed in Israel, but it grows extensively there, and some chefs consider it a treasured local ingredient.
Moshe Basson, the executive chef and owner of the Eucalyptus restaurant in Jerusalem, said he had seen a video on social media that said it showed Gazans eating “weeds.”
“This is not a weed,” he recalled thinking. “This has to be khobeza.”
His cookbook features recipes that use khobeza, he said, and his current menu includes stuffed khobeza leaves and khobeza sautéed with garlic, olive oil and mushrooms, he said.
He was not at all surprised to see Gazans eating the plant.
“It is a medicine,” he said. “It is full of nutrition and for me as a chef, it is tasty.”
In their history, Israelis, too, have turned to khobeza in times of need.
During the war surrounding Israel’s foundation in 1948, Arab forces imposed a punishing siege on Jerusalem, and Jews trapped inside the city sent their children to forage for khobeza, also known as chalamit in Hebrew.
In the end, the Jews held out and the siege failed.
In this war, with Israeli jets raining bombs on Gaza and Israeli troops on the ground in parts of the territory, even foraging for khobeza can be perilous.
“No aid or anything else comes down to us,” said Rawan al-Khoudary, 22, referring to airdrops of food carried out by the United States and other countries.
As food grew scarce where she lives in northern Gaza, she said, her husband often went to agricultural land near the frontier with Israel to gather eggplants and khobeza. But during one trip, her cousin’s husband was shot and killed by someone the family believes was an Israeli sniper.
Now, they pick khobeza elsewhere.
“We make it into soup, we make it into stew, we make it into whatever we can,” she said. “We are living on khobeza.”
Abu Bakr Bashir contributed reporting from London, and Hiba Yazbek from Jerusalem.
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7) Ninth Week of Forced-Labor Stoppage in Alabama Prison
Natalia Marques reports on incarcerated organizers in St. Clair prison led by the Free Alabama Movement who are refusing to engage in prison labor, April 5, 2024
Activists in solidarity with incarcerated organizers outside of St. Clair prison. (Birmingham DSA)
On Saturday will begin the ninth week a group of activists will gather outside St. Clair Correctional Facility, near Birmingham, Alabama, to show solidarity with incarcerated organizers, who have been refusing to engage in prison labor since Feb. 6.
Organizers want to sustain the shutdown, which entails a full stoppage of all labor inside the prisons that prisoners are forced to do, for at least 90 days.
The organizers, led by the Free Alabama Movement, are living under the boot of the most violent state prison system in the United States — a nation known for having the largest prison population in the world and regularly employing torture and archaic methods of execution against its prisoners.
The Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) has become notorious for running a regime of violence against prisoners, while employing those same prisoners in a system of legalized slavery.
Incarcerated organizers in Alabama claim that ADOC keeps parole rates artificially low in order to keep as many prisoners in the labor force as possible.
The Free Alabama Movement has organized many statewide prison shutdowns throughout the years.
In 2022, prisoners initiated work stoppages at every single major correctional facility in the state.
In 2016, the Free Alabama Movement organized a shutdown with participation from reportedly 57,000 prisoners — potentially the largest prison shutdown in U.S. history.
Prisoners are now trying to replicate many of the same tactics as the previous shutdowns, by sustaining and trying to expand the shutdown of St. Clair, which began on Feb. 6, for at least 90 days. The goal is to spread the shutdown to all ADOC facilities.
Shutdown, Not a Strike
FAM organizers are intentional about their language, employing the term “prison shutdown” rather than “prison strike.”
According to Cecilia Prado, of the Tennessee Student Solidarity Network, which has been organizing in solidarity with FAM, incarcerated organizers “are participating in work stoppages and boycotts, but they do not call it a prison strike, because they know that people on the outside usually have the idea of prison strikes being related to wages, or to better benefits.”
Prisoners “do not want just better benefits,” Prado says. Instead, FAM organizers want to dismantle the entire system of prison labor, which they label as slavery.
“They want the massive financial incentive of the prison labor economy to go away, because it’s behind the fact that Alabama prisons are the most deadly, most crowded in the country.”
Organizations who have stood in solidarity with FAM include the Tennessee Student Solidarity Network, Birmingham Stands, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the Birmingham Democratic Socialists of America, as well as students from nearby universities such as Middle Tennessee State University, Fisk University, Auburn University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Nashville State University, and Vanderbilt University.
Links With Genocide in Gaza
Throughout the prison shutdown, FAM organizers have used their platforms to show solidarity with various struggles, including the struggle in Palestine. On March 2, Young Palestinians Of Birmingham joined the Tennessee Student Solidarity Network and other organizations standing in solidarity with FAM organizers outside of St. Clair.
“The Young Palestinians of Birmingham supports the Free Alabama Movement in their struggle against the prison industrial complex, which is one of several systems that support the Zionist occupation of Palestine and ongoing genocide in Gaza,” Hamza, the president of YPB, told Peoples Dispatch.
“The St. Clair Correctional Facility in particular is the largest source of economic output from prison labor in Alabama. If the system can be shut down— if prison labor can be brought to an end — not only can incarcerated workers demand justice for the abuse and repression they experience at the hands of an oppressive system, but it would also be a major hit to the companies that supply ‘Israel’ with the weapons it needs to continue its extirpation of Palestinians in their native land.”
“Arms manufacturers like Raytheon and Lockheed-Martin not only profit from contracts with the U.Ss military, but also with the Zionist military. These companies create the jets and rockets that the occupation is armed with. The bombs that kill children in Gaza are made in America. Furthermore, these same corporations, along with many others, make billions of dollars from forced prison labor. Incarcerated workers are paid pennies to do work for companies that play a direct part in sustaining the occupation of Palestine and the ongoing genocide,” Hamza said.
Natalia Marques is a correspondent for Peoples Dispatch.
This article is from Peoples Dispatch.
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