18th Annual CODEPINK Mother’s Day Bridge Walk for PEACE!
Sunday, May 12, Noon
11:45: Gather at the Welcome Center Plaza, on the East (Hill) side of the San Francisco end of bridge.
(IMPORTANT: Arrive 30-40 min. EARLY, as “The Authorities” purposely close nearby parking lots to discourage participation!)
NOON: March Begins
1:30 P.M.: Short Rally after the March on the bridge.
In light of U.S. complicity in the ongoing genocide and forced starvation of the people of Gaza, we will put Palestine front and center. With over 12 thousand children killed and tens of thousands of children hungry and near famine in Gaza alone, not to mention the urgent crisis for the children of Sudan, Ukraine, and Haiti, this is an urgent call for the global family to rise up for humanity.
· FOOD NOT BOMBS! DEMILITARIZE NOW!
· FOOD to GAZA, not Weapons to Israel.
· NO TAX $$ for GENOCIDE
· Not Another Nickel, Not Another Dime, No more Money for Israel’s Crimes.
· Diplomacy Not War!
Let’s again pay tribute to the original meaning of “Mother’s Day,” a global call to ABOLISH WAR:
We’ll read: Julia Ward Howe’s (1870) Mother’s Day Proclamation
Bring your mamas and grandmamas, sons, daughters, and grandchildren—the entire family, and friends too! War is not healthy for children and other living things!
Bring your Kaffiyeh’s, Palestinian Flags, and signs that speak for you.
(Note: Authorities may restrict you from taking flags on the bridge—wear it as a cape!)
Signs larger than 2x3 ft. may also be restricted.
Bring a simple treat to share to celebrate 18 years of CODEPINK bridge walks, and our Bay Area community’s commitment to peace and justice.
We’ll sing John Lennon’s Imagine, one of Bay Area Troubadour Francis Collin’s favorite songs!
Francis Collins Presente!
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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 - Not One More Year
Coleman 1 has gone on permanent lockdown.
The inmates are supposed to be allowed out two hours a day. I have not heard from Leonard since the 18th.
The last time I talked to Leonard, he asked where his supporters were. He asked me if anyone cared about these lockdowns.
Leonard lives in a filthy, cold cell 22 to 24 hours a day. He has not seen a dentist in ten years. I asked him, “On a scale of 1 to 10, is your pain level at 13?” He said, “Something like that.” Leonard is a relentless truth-teller. He does not like it when I say things that do not make sense mathematically.
That is why Leonard remains imprisoned. He will not lie. He will not beg, grovel, or denounce his beliefs.
Please raise your voice. Ask your representatives why they have abdicated their responsibility to oversee the Bureau of Prisons and ensure they adhere to Constitutional law.
Uhuru, The African People’s Socialist Party, has stepped up for Leonard. NOT ONE MORE YEAR.
Fight for Free Speech – YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM8GDeGv90E
Leonard should not have spent a day in prison. Click “LEARN” on our website to find out what really happened on that reservation:
www.freeleonardpeltiernow.org
Write to:
Leonard Peltier 89637-132
USP Coleman 1
P.O. Box 1033
Coleman, FL 33521
Note: Letters, address and return address must be in writing—no stickers—and on plain white paper.
Sign our petition urging President Biden to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier:
https://www.freeleonardpeltier.com/petition
Email: contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info
Address: 116 W. Osborne Ave. Tampa, Florida 33603
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Updates From Kevin Cooper
A Never-ending Constitutional Violation
A summary of the current status of Kevin Cooper’s case by the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
On October 26, 2023, the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP wrote a rebuttal in response to the Special Counsel's January 13, 2023 report upholding the conviction of their client Kevin Cooper. A focus of the rebuttal was that all law enforcement files were not turned over to the Special Counsel during their investigation, despite a request for them to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office.
On October 29, 2023, Law Professors Lara Bazelon and Charlie Nelson Keever, who run the six member panel that reviews wrongful convictions for the San Francisco County District Attorney's office, published an OpEd in the San Francisco Chronicle calling the "Innocence Investigation” done by the Special Counsel in the Cooper case a “Sham Investigation” largely because Cooper has unsuccessfully fought for years to obtain the police and prosecutor files in his case. This is a Brady claim, named for the U.S. Supreme court’s 1963 case establishing the Constitutional rule that defendants are entitled to any information in police and prosecutor's possession that could weaken the state's case or point to innocence. Brady violations are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. The Special Counsel's report faults Cooper for not offering up evidence of his own despite the fact that the best evidence to prove or disprove Brady violations or other misconduct claims are in those files that the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office will not turn over to the Special Counsel or to Cooper's attorneys.
On December 14, 2023, the president of the American Bar Association (ABA), Mary Smith, sent Governor Gavin Newsom a three page letter on behalf of the ABA stating in part that Mr.Cooper's counsel objected to the state's failure to provide Special Counsel all documents in their possession relating to Mr.Cooper's conviction, and that concerns about missing information are not new. For nearly 40 years Mr.Cooper's attorneys have sought this same information from the state.
On December 19, 2023, Bob Egelko, a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an article about the ABA letter to the Governor that the prosecutors apparently withheld evidence from the Governor's legal team in the Cooper case.
These are just a few recent examples concerning the ongoing failure of the San Bernardino County District Attorney to turn over to Cooper's attorney's the files that have been requested, even though under the law and especially the U.S. Constitution, the District Attorney of San Bernardino county is required to turn over to the defendant any and all material and or exculpatory evidence that they have in their files. Apparently, they must have something in their files because they refuse to turn them over to anyone.
The last time Cooper's attorney's received files from the state, in 2004, it wasn't from the D.A. but a Deputy Attorney General named Holly Wilkens in Judge Huff's courtroom. Cooper's attorneys discovered a never before revealed police report showing that a shirt was discovered that had blood on it and was connected to the murders for which Cooper was convicted, and that the shirt had disappeared. It had never been tested for blood. It was never turned over to Cooper's trial attorney, and no one knows where it is or what happened to it. Cooper's attorneys located the woman who found that shirt on the side of the road and reported it to the Sheriff's Department. She was called to Judge Huff's court to testify about finding and reporting that shirt to law enforcement. That shirt was the second shirt found that had blood on it that was not the victims’ blood. This was in 2004, 19 years after Cooper's conviction.
It appears that this ongoing constitutional violation that everyone—from the Special Counsel to the Governor's legal team to the Governor himself—seems to know about, but won't do anything about, is acceptable in order to uphold Cooper's conviction.
But this type of thing is supposed to be unacceptable in the United States of America where the Constitution is supposed to stand for something other than a piece of paper with writing on it. How can a Governor, his legal team, people who support and believe in him ignore a United States citizen’s Constitutional Rights being violated for 40 years in order to uphold a conviction?
This silence is betrayal of the Constitution. This permission and complicity by the Governor and his team is against everything that he and they claim to stand for as progressive politicians. They have accepted the Special Counsel's report even though the Special Counsel did not receive the files from the district attorney that may not only prove that Cooper is innocent, but that he was indeed framed by the Sheriff’s Department; and that evidence was purposely destroyed and tampered with, that certain witnesses were tampered with, or ignored if they had information that would have helped Cooper at trial, that evidence that the missing shirt was withheld from Cooper's trial attorney, and so much more.
Is the Governor going to get away with turning a blind eye to this injustice under his watch?
Are progressive people going to stay silent and turn their eyes blind in order to hopefully get him to end the death penalty for some while using Cooper as a sacrificial lamb?
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Mr. Kevin Cooper
C-65304. 4-EB-82
San Quentin State Prison
San Quentin, CA 94974
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
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The writers' organization PEN America is circulating this petition on behalf of Jason Renard Walker, a Texas prisoner whose life is being threatened because of his exposés of the Texas prison system.
See his book, Reports from within the Belly of the Beast; available on Amazon at:
https://www.amazon.com/Reports-Within-Belly-Beast-Department-ebook/dp/B084656JDZ/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
Petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/protect-whistleblowers-in-carceral-settings
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Daniel Hale UPDATE:
In February Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale was transferred from the oppressive maximum-security prison in Marion, Illinois to house confinement. We celebrate his release from Marion. He is laying low right now, recovering from nearly 3 years in prison. Thank goodness he is now being held under much more humane conditions and expected to complete his sentence in July of this year. www.StandWithDaniel Hale.org
More Info about Daniel:
“Drone Whistleblower Subjected To Harsh Confinement Finally Released From Prison”
https://thedissenter.org/drone-whistleblower-cmu-finally-released-from-prison/
“I was punished under the Espionage Act. Why wasn’t Joe Biden?” by Daniel Hale
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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
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1) Tens of thousands of people have fled Rafah since Monday, the United Nations says.
By Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Iyad Abuheweila, May 9, 2024
Palestinians leaving Rafah, in southern Gaza, on Wednesday. Credit...Mohammed Saber/EPA, via Shutterstock
Tens of thousands of people have fled since an Israeli call this week to evacuate part of the southern Gazan city of Rafah, the United Nations said on Thursday, as Israeli airstrikes intensify and fears grow that an incursion by Israeli ground forces to take over a border crossing could lead to a full-scale invasion.
The mass flight from the east of the city, a major hub for people displaced from their homes along Gaza’s border with Egypt, is just the latest time that people have been forced to flee since Israel launched a war to dismantle Hamas, the armed group that led the deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for the main U.N. agency that aids Palestinians, UNRWA, said on Thursday that an estimated nearly 79,000 people had left Rafah since Monday. She posted a video on social media of small vans loaded with mattresses driving slowly down a street lined with tents.
“Extreme fear from significant bombardment in Rafah overnight & continuing throughout this morning,” Ms. Wateridge wrote, noting that “those staying collecting water” were “surviving.”
Rafah’s population had increased to more than one million in recent months as people fled south. Hundreds of thousands of people live in tents or makeshift shelters. Residents and aid workers describe grim conditions and severe shortages of food, clean water and access to medical supplies.
Riyad al-Masry, a sign language interpreter, said on Thursday that he and his extended family had decided to evacuate from Rafah because they feared an Israeli advance into the city. He said that he had already moved five times since leaving Gaza City when the war began and described the prospect of a sixth upheaval to another tented camp as “torture beyond torture.”
But he said he had little choice because he could hear military clashes and Israeli bombardment, airstrikes and artillery fire. “We are almost in the middle of danger,” he said.
Israel on Monday began what it called a limited operation to secure the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt and destroy Hamas positions after a rocket attack in another area killed four Israeli soldiers the day before. The Israeli authorities warned around 110,000 people in Rafah to flee, calling on them to go to what they characterized as a humanitarian zone on Gaza’s coast where they said they could get food, medicine and other basics.
Many aid workers have argued that the area, which includes the village of Al-Mawasi, is already crowded with people living in tents and is not able to accommodate another influx, not least because it has inadequate water and sanitation.
Many aid agencies are based in Rafah and several said on Wednesday that their operations were imperiled by the proximity of the fighting and by the closure by Israel this week of two southern border crossings, which have been the principal conduits for humanitarian supplies.
Israel said on Wednesday that it had reopened one of those, the crossing at Kerem Shalom, which it had shut down over the weekend, but the United Nations said it was still very difficult for aid to transit.
Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the U.N. humanitarian office in Geneva, described Rafah as a “highly active war zone” and said that this presented “serious challenges” not just in shepherding goods through Kerem Shalom, but also in trying to move them through southern Gaza and further into the enclave.
“We reiterate that the parties’ obligation to facilitate aid does not end at the border or in a drop-off zone,” he said. “Aid must safely reach those who need it.”
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2) Rafah’s hospitals are running out of fuel as Israeli forces move in, the W.H.O. says.
By Anushka Patil, May 9, 2024
Displaced people in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Wednesday. Credit...Mohammed Saber/EPA, via Shutterstock
Time is running out for hospitals and all humanitarian aid operations in southern Gaza as Israel continues to strike Rafah and keep the critical border crossing there closed, the World Health Organization and humanitarian aid agencies have warned.
As of Wednesday, hospitals in southern Gaza had only three days of fuel supplies left, and fuel that the U.N. expected would be allowed into Gaza that day had not been allowed in, according to the director-general of the W.H.O., Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Without fuel, he said on Wednesday, “all humanitarian operations will stop.”
No aid trucks have entered Gaza since Sunday through the two main border crossings, the United Nations said on Wednesday in its own warning about the dire implications of Israel seizing the Rafah crossing with Egypt on Tuesday and closing the Kerem Shalom crossing between Gaza and southern Israel over the weekend. Israel said it had reopened Kerem Shalom on Wednesday, but as of about midnight on Thursday, no fuel or other humanitarian aid had entered Gaza through the crossing, according to UNRWA, the main U.N. agency aiding Palestinians in the enclave.
Already, the Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital — one of three major hospitals in Rafah that has been partially functioning before the Israeli military’s operation this week — has entirely shut down and emptied out, according to Dr. Marwan al-Hams, the hospital’s director.
Speaking by phone from a field hospital in southern Gaza, Dr. al-Hams said that all patients and doctors at Al-Najjar had fled or been transferred to other medical facilities and that a few health workers had risked their lives to return to the hospital complex to try to salvage medical equipment and supplies.
When Israel banned the entry of any fuel into Gaza for several weeks at the start of the war, it plunged the entire enclave into darkness and turned hospitals into places of cascading horrors. Surgeons at the Kamal Adwan Hospital, in northern Gaza, were forced to operate by cellphone flashlight and premature infants who needed incubators died at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
All humanitarian operations across the Gaza Strip are at imminent risk of collapse because of the lack of fuel, international aid groups said at a joint news conference on Wednesday.
“If the fuel is cut off, the aid operation collapses, and it collapses quickly,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International. “That means water can’t be pumped, lights can’t be kept on in hospitals, vehicles cannot distribute aid.”
The lack of fuel is also further threatening the availability of food in Gaza, where local health officials say that dozens of children have already died of starvation.
Rafeek El Madhoun, a program manager for the aid group Rebuilding Alliance, said on Wednesday that some of its kitchens in Gaza had been unable to cook for two days, even as Israeli military operations in Rafah were causing a “crazy increase” in the number of hungry and displaced people arriving in western parts of the city and in central Gaza.
Mr. El Madhoun, who said he has been making daily trips between Rafah and Deir al Balah, roughly 12 miles north, said the coastal road between southern and central Gaza had become increasingly crowded as people fled, and that transportation costs to move supplies from one place to another had tripled.
The immediate and wide-ranging threat to already overwhelmed humanitarian operations in Gaza undermines the Israeli military’s claim that its offensive in Rafah has been “limited,” the director of the W.H.O.’s health emergencies program, Dr. Michael Ryan, said at a separate news conference on Wednesday.
He said that Israel’s “first act” of the Rafah incursion has been to close the two border crossings that serve as a lifeline for Palestinians in Gaza — to “stop the fuel, stop the food, stop the medicine at source, at the border.”
“I don’t call that ‘limited’ and I don’t call that ‘restricted.’ I call that a re-imposition of total blockade on nearly 2.5 million civilians who are already starving, who are already dying from preventable diseases, and who need our protection,” he said.
Iyad Abuheweila contributed reporting.
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3) What we know about the weapons the U.S. sends to Israel.
By Emma Bubola, May 9, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/05/09/world/israel-gaza-war-hamas-rafah
President Biden has paused a shipment of bombs to Israel to prevent them from being used in the assault on the city of Rafah. Administration officials said that 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs are being withheld and that the administration is reviewing whether to hold back future transfers.
The United States is by far the biggest supplier of weapons to Israel, and it accelerated deliveries after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks. It’s hard to determine just how much Israel has received, but here is a closer look at what we know.
What happened after Oct. 7?
Since Oct. 7, the United States has sent tens of thousands of weapons to Israel. For the most part, it accelerated supplies that were already committed under contracts, many of which were approved by Congress and the State Department long ago, according to Bradley Bowman, a military expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington.
“What the U.S. started to do almost immediately was send an extraordinary flow of weapons,” Mr. Bowman, a former U.S. Army officer, said.
According to a report by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, there were so many arms shipments to Israel that a senior Pentagon official said the Department of Defense sometimes struggled to find sufficient cargo aircraft to deliver them.
Pete Nguyen, a Pentagon spokesman, said in an email that recent assistance has included precision-guided munitions, artillery ammunition, medical supplies and “other categories of critical equipment.”
He added that “the United States has surged billions of dollars in security assistance to Israel since the Oct. 7 attacks.”
How much has been made public?
Lawmakers and news media have recently criticized the lack of public information about the sales. The Defense Department so far has only published two news releases, on Dec. 9 and 29, about the approval of emergency military sales to Israel, while it lists much of the military equipment sent to Ukraine in a regularly updated fact sheet.
As laid out in those news releases, the aid sent to Israel from Oct. 7 to Dec. 29 included 52,229 M795 155-millimeter artillery shells, 30,000 M4 propelling charges for howitzers, 4,792 M107 155-mm artillery shells and 13,981 M830A1 120-mm tank rounds.
But the State Department can legally refrain from telling Congress and the public about some new arms orders placed by Israel since Oct. 7 because they fall below a certain dollar amount.
The Washington Post reported that the United States had approved and delivered more than 100 separate foreign military sales to Israel since Oct. 7.
What did they send?
One sale approved in late October allows for the sale to Israel of $320 million in kits for converting unguided “dumb” bombs into GPS-guided munitions, on top of a previous, $403 million order for the same guidance kits.
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies compiled a list of news reports and official information available about the weapons delivered. According to the reports, that included air defense systems, precision-guided munitions, artillery shells, tank rounds, small arms, Hellfire missiles used by drones, 30-mm cannon ammunition, PVS-14 night vision devices and disposable shoulder-fired rockets.
The Pentagon leased its two Israeli-made Iron Dome antimissile batteries back to Israel, according to the website Breaking Defense.
The U.S. also gave Israel access to the U.S. military stockpiles in Israel for immediate needs. An American official said that Israel’s recently requested munitions from those stockpiles have included bombs ranging from 250 to 2,000 pounds, and that many have been 500-pound bombs.
How is it funded?
The military aid to Israel is funded under a 2016 agreement known as a memorandum of understanding that committed the United States to giving Israel $38 billion in weapons over 10 years.
Additionally, President Biden last month signed an aid package that will send about $15 billion in additional military aid.
Israel regularly receives arms from the Defense Department and from American weapons makers directly, which included the unguided and guided bombs that Israel has bought from the United States over the years and dropped on Gaza in recent months, and also fighter jets, air defense missiles and helicopters.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, U.S. military aid to Israel has amounted to $216 billion since Israel’s founding in 1948.
John Ismay contributed reporting.
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4) Fighting in Rafah and the closure of Gaza crossings threaten aid, the U.N. says.
By Farnaz Fassihi, May 9, 2024
Displaced Palestinians seeking water in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Wednesday. Credit...Mohammed Saber/EPA, via Shutterstock
The United Nations has warned that Israel’s military incursion into Rafah and closure of border crossings is a major setback for aid operations in the Gaza Strip, with dire implications for its people.
No aid trucks have entered Gaza since Sunday, the United Nations said on Wednesday, as Israel sent tanks and troops into Rafah and blocked the two southern crossings where most aid has entered, at Rafah on the Egyptian border and near Kerem Shalom on the Israeli frontier.
Israel said that the Kerem Shalom crossing reopened on Wednesday, but did not indicate when the Rafah crossing would reopen. The U.N. disputed Israel’s claim.
The fighting in the Rafah area and the closure of the crossings set aid efforts back, at least temporarily, to the conditions of the first weeks of the war, when an Israeli and Egyptian blockade prevented anything from entering Gaza, producing desperate shortages of food, water, fuel, medicine and other supplies. Israel has described the military action it began on Monday as a limited incursion into Rafah that seized control of the border crossing, not the full-fledged offensive it has vowed to carry out, despite warnings from the United States and aid groups that it would be a humanitarian catastrophe.
U.N. officials said the conditions threaten to halt all its humanitarian operations in Gaza.
As many as a million people displaced from other parts of Gaza, more than half of them children, have sought refuge there, living in squalid conditions and relying on international aid efforts.
“Rafah is the epicenter of humanitarian operations in Gaza,” António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, said on Tuesday. “Attacking Rafah will further upend our efforts to support people in dire humanitarian straits as famine looms.”
Before the war began last October, about 500 aid trucks and additional commercial trucks a day carried supplies into Gaza, home to some 2.3 million people. Even after deliveries resumed, they were a fraction of the prewar level, as Israel kept most crossings closed, insisted on close inspection of every load, and barred some supplies.
After intense international pressure on Israel, including from the United States, the average rose to more than 200 humanitarian aid trucks a day in second half of April and the first days of May, according to the United Nations, still well below what aid agencies said was needed and what the Biden administration had called for. No commercial trucks have entered Gaza since the war started in October.
For months the United Nations and aid groups have also struggled to gain access and safe passage for their staff to work in Gaza, despite intense negotiations with Israel.
Now, U.N. officials say that the limited progress they had made is in jeopardy.
“We are managing the whole aid operation opportunistically as opposed to holistically — if there is something we can grab we will grab it,” said Stéphane Dujarric, the U.N. spokesman, in an interview on Wednesday.
“We want the ability to work without being in the middle of a conflict zone and people we are trying to help being terrified,” he added.
A day earlier the leader of the U.N.’s humanitarian office for the Palestinian territories, Andrea De Domenico, said from Jerusalem in a video briefing with reporters that fuel would run out in days, cutting off communications, shuttering hospitals and halting distribution of food and other essential aid.
Gaza’s electrical grid stopped working early in the war. The only power available now comes from generators, making fuel essential.
The presence of Israeli tanks and fighting around Rafah’s border had made it impossible for the U.N. to access fuel in storage facilities in the area, Mr. De Domenico said. He added that people are fleeing Rafah to areas where there was no shelter, clean water and drainage.
“It is impossible to improve the situation existing in the new displacement sites without the entry of supplies and without the fuel to transport them to the location where the people are concentrating,” said Mr. De Domenico.
If the area around the Rafah crossing becomes a battle zone, U.N. officials said, it would be nearly impossible to deliver and distribute the aid.
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5) The U.S. will block the delivery of weapons that Israel could use to attack Rafah, Biden says.
By Erica L. Green Reporting from Racine, Wis., where President Biden was traveling on Wednesday, May 9, 2024
Palestinians stand in the ruins of a home after an overnight Israeli strike that killed at least two adults and five boys and girls under the age of 16 in Rafah. Credit...Ismael Abu Dayyah/Associated Press
President Biden acknowledged on Wednesday that American bombs have been used to kill Palestinian civilians as he warned that the United States would withhold certain weapons if Israel launches a long-threatened assault in southern Gaza.
In some of his strongest language to date on the seven-month war, Mr. Biden said the United States would still ensure Israel’s security, including the Iron Dome missile defense system and Israel’s “ability to respond to attacks” like the one Iran launched in April.
But he said he would block the delivery of weapons that could be fired into densely populated areas of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians are sheltering.
The president had already halted the shipment of 3,500 bombs last week out of concern that they might be used in a major assault on Rafah — the first time since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7 that Mr. Biden has leveraged U.S. arms to try to influence how the war is waged.
On Wednesday, he said that he would also block the delivery of artillery shells.
“If they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, that deal with that problem,” Mr. Biden said in an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett.
He added: “But it’s just wrong. We’re not going to — we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells used, that have been used.”
Asked whether 2,000-pound American bombs had been used to kill civilians in Gaza, Mr. Biden said: “Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers.”
Mr. Biden’s remarks underscore the growing rift between the United States and its closest Middle East ally over the war in Gaza, which has killed more than 34,000 people and caused a humanitarian crisis. The United States is by far the biggest supplier of weapons to Israel, and the Biden administration plans to deliver a report to Congress this week assessing whether it believes Israel’s assurances that it has used American weapons in accordance with U.S. and international law.
Mr. Biden had resisted earlier calls to condition aid to Israel. He remains unwavering in his support of Israel’s right to defend itself, even as he speaks out forcefully against the invasion of Rafah and grows frustrated with what he once described as Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing.”
But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has rebuffed the U.S. warnings, saying that Israel would move forward with eradicating Hamas even if it has to do so alone.
This week, the Israeli war cabinet voted unanimously to move forward with a Rafah assault, and Israeli forces warned more than 100,000 civilians to evacuate as it started what it called “targeted strikes” against Hamas.
U.S. officials said this week that Israel had said its operation thus far in Rafah was “limited” and “designed to cut off Hamas’s ability to smuggle weapons into Gaza,” but continued to express their concern with an escalation.
Mr. Biden said he did not consider Israel’s operations in Rafah to date to qualify as a full-scale invasion because they have not struck “population centers.”
But he said he considered them to be “right on the border,” adding that they were causing problems with key allies such as Egypt, which has been integral to cease-fire negotiations and opening border crossings for humanitarian aid.
Mr. Biden said he had made it clear to Mr. Netanyahu and his war cabinet that they would not get support if they moved forward with an offensive in densely populated areas.
“We’re not walking away from Israel’s security,” he said, “we’re walking away from Israel’s ability to wage war in those areas.”
Mr. Biden was also asked about Gaza protests on college campuses — specifically chants calling him “Genocide Joe” — that have erupted in recent weeks.
Asked if he hears the message of those young Americans, Mr. Biden said:
“Absolutely, I hear the message.”
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