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Israel’s Genocide Day 363: Israel admits to military losses in South Lebanon fighting against Hezbollah
Israel has killed 150 people across Gaza since Iran launched its retaliatory ballistic missile attack against Israel.
By Qassam Muaddi, October 3, 2024
Casualties
· 41,788 + killed* and at least 96,794 wounded in the Gaza Strip. 32,280 of the slain have been identified, including 10,627 children and 5,956 women, representing 60% of the casualties, and 2,770 elderly as of August 6, 2024. Some 10,000 more are estimated to be under the rubble*
· 722+ Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. This includes at least 146 children.**
· 1,974 Lebanese killed and more than 9,384 wounded by Israeli forces since October 8, 2023***
· Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,140.
· The Israeli army recognizes the death of 716 Israeli soldiers and the injury of at least 4,100 others since October 7.****
* Gaza’s branch of the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed this figure in its daily report, published through its WhatsApp channel on October 3, 2024. Rights groups and public health experts estimate the death toll to be much higher.
** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. This is the latest figure according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health as of October 1, 2024.
*** This figure was released by the Lebanese Health Ministry, updated on October 3, 2024. The counting is based on the Lebanese official date for the beginning of “the Israeli aggression on Lebanon,” when Israel began airstrikes on Lebanese territory after the beginning of Hezbollah’s “support front” for Gaza.
**** These figures are released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reported on August 4, 2024, that some 10,000 Israeli soldiers and officers have been either killed or wounded since October 7. The head of the Israeli army’s wounded association told Israel’s Channel 12 that the number of wounded Israeli soldiers exceeds 20,000, including at least 8,000 who have been permanently handicapped as of June 1. Israel’s Channel 7 reported that according to the Israeli war ministry’s rehabilitation service numbers, 8,663 new wounded joined the army’s handicap rehabilitation system since October 7 and as of June 18.
Source: mondoweiss.net
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On this Wrongful Conviction Day, Leonard Peltier, the longest-serving Indigenous political prisoner, is incarcerated in lockdown-modified operations conditions at USP Coleman I, operated by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).
Yet, in this moment of silence, Leonard speaks.
To honor his birthday and all those who are unjustly convicted and incarcerated, the Leonard Peltier Official Ad Hoc Committee has released a video of Leonard Peltier that is going viral. Narrated by renowned scholar Ward Churchill and set to a video created by award-winning filmmaker Suzie Baer, the film most importantly centers Leonard’s personal reflection on his 80th year.
Jenipher Jones, Mr. Peltier's lead counsel, commented, "This powerfully moving film captures the essence of who I know Leonard to be. I am grateful to Professor Churchill and Suzie Baer for their work and longstanding advocacy of Leonard. As the recent execution of Marcellus Williams-Imam Khaliifah Williams shows us, we as a society bear a responsibility to uplift the cases of all those who are wrongfully convicted and also hold the government accountable to do that for which it professes to exist. We must challenge our impulses of blind blood-thirst for guilt and the use of our legal systems to carry out this malignant pathology. There is absolutely no lawful justification for Leonard's incarceration."
“Leonard Peltier is Native elder whose wrongful incarceration is shameful. His continued imprisonment exemplifies the historical cruelty of the US Government toward Native people. The US BOP's treatment of Leonard Peltier is unlawful, and he deserves his freedom.” —Suzie Baer
Leonard's Statement: Peltier 80th Statement.pdf:
https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21ABHSRNdyB8SKn0I&id=DFF2DD874157D44A%21118178&cid=DFF2DD874157D44A&parId=root&parQt=sharedby&o=OneUp
To view the film, please visit:
https://tinyurl.com/Peltier80thPresentation
We hope to have additional updates on Leonard soon. In the meantime, please engage our calls to action or donate to his defense efforts.
Miigwech.
Donate/ActNow:
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.
U.S. Parole Commission Denies Leonard Peltier’s Request for Freedom; President Biden Should Grant Clemency
In response to the U.S. Parole Commission denying Leonard Peltier’s request for parole after a hearing on June 10, Paul O’Brien, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, made the following statement:
“Continuing to keep Leonard Peltier locked behind bars is a human rights travesty. President Biden should grant him clemency and release him immediately. Not only are there ongoing, unresolved concerns about the fairness of his trial, he has spent nearly 50 years in prison, is approaching 80 years old, and suffers from several chronic health problems.
“Leonard Peltier has been incarcerated for far too long. The parole commission should have granted him the freedom to spend his remaining years in his community and surrounded by loved ones.
“No one should be imprisoned after a trial riddled with uncertainty about its fairness. We are now calling on President Biden, once again, to grant Leonard Peltier clemency on humanitarian grounds and as a matter of mercy and justice.”
Background
· Leonard Peltier, Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement (AIM), was convicted of the murders of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975. He has always maintained his innocence. Amnesty International joins Tribal Nations, Tribal Leaders, Members of Congress, former FBI agents, Nobel Peace Prize winners and former U.S. Attorney James Reynolds, whose office handled Peltier’s prosecution and appeal, in urging his release.
· Parole was also rejected at Peltier’s last hearing in 2009. Due to his age, this was likely the last opportunity for parole.
· A clemency request is pending before President Joe Biden. President Biden has committed opens in a new tab to grant clemency/commutation of sentences on a rolling basis rather than at the end of his term, following a review of requests by the White House Counsel’s Office and the Department of Justice.
Amnesty International has examined Peltier’s case extensively for many years, sent observers to his trial in 1977, and long campaigned on his behalf. Most recently, Amnesty International USA sent a letter to the U.S. Parole Commission urging the commission to grant him parole.
https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/u-s-parole-commission-denies-leonard-peltiers-request-for-freedom-president-biden-should-grant-clemency/
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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Beneath The Mountain: An Anti-Prison Reader (City Lights, 2024) is a collection of revolutionary essays, written by those who have been detained inside prison walls. Composed by the most structurally dispossessed people on earth, the prisoner class, these words illuminate the steps towards freedom.
Beneath the Mountain documents the struggle — beginning with slavery, genocide, and colonization up to our present day — and imagines a collective, anti-carceral future. These essays were handwritten first on scraps of paper, magazine covers, envelopes, toilet paper, or pages of bibles, scratched down with contraband pencils or the stubby cartridge of a ball-point pen; kites, careworn, copied and shared across tiers and now preserved in this collection for this and future generations. If they were dropped in the prison-controlled mail they were cloaked in prayers, navigating censorship and dustbins. They were very often smuggled out. These words mark resistance, fierce clarity, and speak to the hope of building the world we all deserve to live in.
"Beneath the Mountain reminds us that ancestors and rebels have resisted conquest and enslavement, building marronage against colonialism and genocide."
—Joy James, author of New Bones Abolition: Captive Maternal Agency
Who stands beneath the mountain but prisoners of war? Mumia Abu-Jamal and Jennifer Black have assembled a book of fire, each voice a flame in captivity...Whether writing from a place of fugivity, the prison camp, the city jail, the modern gulag or death row, these are our revolutionary thinkers, our critics and dreamers, our people. The people who move mountains. —Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
Filled with insight and energy, this extraordinary book gifts us the opportunity to encounter people’s understanding of the fight for freedom from the inside out. —Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of Golden Gulag and Abolition Geography
These are the words each writer dreamed as they sought freedom and they need to be studied by people inside and read in every control unit/hole in every prison in America. We can send this book for you to anyone who you know who is currently living, struggling, and fighting
Who better to tell these stories than those who have lived them? Don’t be surprised with what you find within these pages: hope, solidarity, full faith towards the future, and most importantly, love.
Excerpt from the book:
"Revolutionary love speaks to the ways we protect, respect, and empower each other while standing up to state terror. Its presence is affirmed through these texts as a necessary component to help chase away fear and to encourage the solidarity and unity essential for organizing in dangerous times and places. Its absence portends tragedy. Revolutionary love does not stop the state from wanting to kill us, nor is it effective without strategy and tactics, but it is the might that fuels us to stand shoulder to shoulder with others regardless. Perhaps it can move mountains." —Jennifer Black & Mumia Abu-Jamal from the introduction to Beneath The Mountain: An Anti Prison Reader
Get the book at:
https://www.prisonradiostore.com/shop-2/beneath-the-mountain-an-anti-prison-reader-edited-by-mumia-abu-jamal-jennifer-black-city-lights-2024
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Russia Confirms Jailing of Antiwar Leader Boris Kagarlitsky
In a secret trial on June 5, 2024, the Russian Supreme Court’s Military Chamber confirmed a sentence of five years in a penal colony for left-wing sociologist and online journalist Boris Kagarlitsky. His crime? “Justifying terrorism” — a sham charge used to silence opponents of Putin’s war on Ukraine. The court disregarded a plea for freedom sent by thirty-seven international luminaries.
Kagarlitsky, a leading Marxist thinker in Russia’s post-Soviet period, recently addressed socialists who won’t criticize Putin:
“To my Western colleagues, who…call for an understanding of Putin and his regime, I would like to ask a very simple question. [Would] you want to live in a country where there is no free press or independent courts? In a country where the police have the right to break into your house without a warrant? …In a country which…broadcasts appeals on TV to destroy Paris, London, Warsaw, with a nuclear strike?”
Thousands of antiwar critics have been forced to flee Russia or are behind bars, swept up in Putin’s vicious crackdown on dissidents. Opposition to the war is consistently highest among the poorest workers. Recently, RusNews journalists Roman Ivanov and Maria Ponomarenko were sentenced to seven, and six years respectively, for reporting the military’s brutal assault on Ukraine.
A massive global solidarity campaign that garnered support from thousands was launched at Kagarlitsky’s arrest. Now, it has been revived. This internationalism will bolster the repressed Russian left and Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s imperialism.
To sign the online petition at freeboris.info
—Freedom Socialist Party, August 2024
https://socialism.com/fs-article/russia-jails-prominent-antiwar-leader-boris-kagarlitsky/#:~:text=In%20a%20secret%20trial%20on,of%20Putin's%20war%20on%20Ukraine.
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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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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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:
Kevin Cooper #C65304
Cell 107, Unit E1C
California Health Care Facility, Stockton (CHCF)
P.O. Box 213040
Stockton, CA 95213
www.freekevincooper.org
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) An Israeli strike targeting a West Bank Hamas leader killed civilians, including a family of 4, residents say.
By Raja Abdulrahim and Fatima AbdulKarim, October 4, 2024
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad confirmed the loss of local leaders in an Israeli strike on Thursday on Tulkarm, in the West Bank. But residents said most of the dead were civilians. Credit...Raneen Sawafta/Reuters
An Israeli airstrike tore through a bustling cafe and adjacent homes in a Palestinian city in the West Bank on Thursday night, killing at least 18 people, according to health officials, and leaving a swath of destruction. Residents said a family of four was among the dead, and on Friday, desperate people were still searching for loved ones in the rubble.
The Israeli military said that the strike killed the head of Hamas in the city, Tulkarm, whom it accused of leading attacks on settlers in the West Bank and supplying weapons to other fighters. Both Hamas and another armed group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, confirmed that their local leaders had been killed in the strike. But most of the dead were civilians, according to residents, among them Abu Zahra’s family, including 7-year-old Sham and 5-year-old Karam, who lived above the cafe.
“Our family and the entire camp is already devastated,” said Anas Kharyoush, a cousin of the children’s mother, 28-year-old Saja Abu Zahra, referring to the neighborhood’s origin as a refugee camp for Palestinians displaced from their homes by the wars surrounding Israel’s establishment. “They are not the first martyrs in our family, and this is not the first airstrike in our neighborhood, but it’s the most devastating.”
The explosion was so fierce that the remains of those killed had to be gathered in blankets and sheets and taken to a hospital for bereft family members to identify, according to residents and videos of the aftermath. And the search for the missing continued.
“Mothers are desperate to know about their children, and families are still looking for their loved ones,” said Diala Hadaydah, a paramedic who lives in the neighborhood, who rushed to the scene moments after the strike.
The Israeli military did not respond to questions about the number of civilians killed in Thursday’s strike.
The strike in the densely packed area came amid increasingly deadly Israeli raids on Palestinian towns and cities across the Israeli-occupied West Bank, in what the military labels counterterrorism operations.
Tulkarm, which has a history of armed resistance against the nearly six-decade Israeli occupation of the West Bank, has been the frequent target of such raids. For more than nine days, starting in late August, Israeli bulldozers ripped through roads, infrastructure and businesses there, as well as in nearby Jenin.
Palestinians say they are terrified in their own homes, fearful of onslaughts from the ground — from tanks, armored vehicles or more bulldozers — and from the sky. The Israeli military has said the raids are an effort to crack down on Palestinian armed groups and combat rising attacks against Israelis and settlements.
Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law but have continued to expand, threatening Palestinian livelihoods in cities, towns and farming villages.
Violence in the West Bank has been increasing since the war began in Gaza last Oct. 7, but the toll has been far higher among Palestinians. As one gauge, a United Nations report in mid-September, counting conflict fatalities from January 2023 onward, put Israeli fatalities at 41 and Palestinian fatalities at 722.
In the strike on Tulkarm on Thursday, witnesses said that an Israeli warplane fired at least one missile at the cafe while it was occupied by civilians. The use of a warplane there was unusual. Though Israel has increasingly been conducting once-rare airstrikes in the West Bank since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, they have usually been carried out by armed drones.
Ms. Hadaydah, the paramedic, said the sound of the explosion was unlike anything she had ever heard before. She rushed to the scene and saw the scattered remains of body parts, burned beyond recognition. Ms. Hadaydah said only five bodies were intact.
“I saw teeth, I saw skin, I saw bodies hanging from electricity cables,” Ms. Hadaydah said. “It looked just like Gaza”
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2) Israel Strikes Across Lebanon as Attacks Expand
Israel’s attacks against Hezbollah had largely been concentrated in the south and near Beirut. But Hamas, an ally of Hezbollah, said an Israeli strike in northern Lebanon had killed one of its commanders.
By Liam Stack and Victoria KimLiam Stack reported from Tel Aviv, and Victoria Kim from Seoul., October 5, 2024
Leo Correa/Associated Press
The Israeli military launched attacks across Lebanon on Saturday, and said it had killed two Hamas officials in the country as Israel’s war against Hezbollah and its allies expanded.
Airstrikes hit areas of central, northern and southern Lebanon. The Israeli military said it had struck “weapons storage facilities, command centers and additional terrorist infrastructure” near the capital, Beirut. That appeared to refer to the Dahiya, an area where Hezbollah holds sway and where clouds of smoke were seen rising on Saturday.
A huge Israeli strike around the same area earlier in the week targeted Hashem Safieddine, the presumed successor of Hassan Nasrallah, the recently assassinated leader of Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia. It was not clear whether Mr. Safieddine had been killed.
Israel’s systematic targeting of Hezbollah leaders and their allies appeared to reach deep into Lebanon on Saturday. The armed group Hamas, which is based in Gaza, said that one of its commanders had been killed in an Israeli strike in the Lebanese city of Tripoli, near the country’s northern edge. Hours later, Israel said it had also killed a second high-ranking Hamas commander in Lebanon.
As Israel kept up its campaign, Hezbollah on Saturday fired what Israel’s military said was an estimated 90 rockets into northern Israel. Most appear to have been intercepted by air defense systems, and there were no immediate reports of injuries.
Concern has been building over whether the broadening war would further draw in Iran, which supports both Hamas and Hezbollah and launched a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel earlier in the week. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Friday that Iran could carry out additional attacks on Israel “if necessary.”
Here is what else to know:
· Iranian diplomacy: Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, arrived in Syria early Saturday, according to Iranian state media. Mr. Araghchi appears to be on a diplomatic tour, and on Friday visited Beirut in an apparent effort to convey Iran’s readiness to support a joint cease-fire in Lebanon and in Gaza.
· Gaza evacuations: The Israeli military announced a new evacuation warning in the Gaza Strip for the first time in several weeks, advising residents of Nuseirat and Bureij in the central part of the enclave to flee. Israel has largely been focused on Lebanon since September, although in August it issued evacuation warnings in Gaza that covered roughly 250,000 people.
· White House remarks: President Biden said on Friday that Israel had not decided how to respond to Iran’s recent attacks but that if he were the Israeli leader, “I would be thinking about other alternatives” to attacking Iran’s oil facilities.
· American death: The State Department said it was “aware and alarmed” about reports of the death in Lebanon of Kamel Ahmad Jawad, an American citizen. His family said in a statement this week that Mr. Jawad, who was from Dearborn, Mich., had been killed in an Israeli airstrike.
· Hospital closures: At least four hospitals across southern Lebanon are now out of service as a result of Israel’s bombardment, according to Lebanon’s state-run news agency. The St. Therese Hospital near the Dahiya has also suspended services, saying that Israeli strikes inflicted “huge damage.”
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3) A Michigan father was killed in an Israeli airstrike, his family says.
By Kate Selig, Oct. 5, 2024
Kamel Ahmad Jawad remained calm, even as Israeli missiles rained down around him in his hometown in southern Lebanon, thousands of miles from his other home, Dearborn, Mich.
That’s what his family recounted in a statement about Mr. Jawad on Tuesday. When the impact of an airstrike knocked him down while he was on the phone with his daughter, he got back up, found his phone and told her he needed to finish praying. Then, he got back to helping others, the family added.
That was his last day alive. Mr. Jawad, an American citizen, husband and father, and resident of Dearborn, was killed on Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. during an Israeli airstrike, his family said.
“I would often ask him if he was scared, and he repeatedly told me that we should not be scared because he is doing what he loves the most: helping others live in the land he loved the most,” his daughter Nadine Jawad, a Rhodes scholar and Stanford medical school graduate, wrote in the statement.
When Mr. Jawad’s wife was reached on Friday, she said the family declined to comment further.
The airstrike was part of Israel’s intense bombardment and ground invasion in Lebanon, intended to target Hezbollah forces in that country and stop Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel. The military campaign has caused widespread destruction and displacement. At least 1,600 people have been killed by the airstrikes, and over 1.2 million people have been displaced across the country, according to Lebanese authorities.
A State Department representative wrote in a statement on Friday evening that it had confirmed that Mr. Jawad was a U.S. citizen and that it was “aware and alarmed” of reports of his death.
“We extend our condolences to the family,” the statement said.
His friends and family described Mr. Jawad as a man deeply committed to his faith and to helping others, especially through his frequent trips to Lebanon, where he quietly paid off debts of people living there and supported those without the means to flee. He was also known for his devotion to his family — he is survived by his wife and four children — and his passion for soccer.
“He was this old-school, legendary father figure,” said Hussain Makke, 33, a preacher and teacher of Islamic sciences. Mr. Makke said he was living with his parents in London after his home in Lebanon was destroyed.
Mr. Makke stayed with Mr. Jawad’s sister in Dearborn several years ago. Mr. Makke’s father was also friends with Mr. Jawad and completed the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, with him.
Hamzah Raza, another friend of Mr. Jawad’s who is living in Maryland, described him in a statement on social media as someone who loved people and loved helping people.
Mr. Raza, 27, a religious studies Ph.D. student, recalled in his post how, a week before Mr. Raza went to Lebanon, he told Mr. Jawad that he wanted to buy some books there.
Mr. Raza wrote that Mr. Jawad told him, “Just send the names of the books and I will get them for you. I want you to have as much time as you can seeing the country.”
As the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah escalated, so, too, did Mr. Jawad’s efforts to help people in Lebanon, Mr. Makke said.
He added that during a recent series of Israeli airstrikes, Mr. Jawad saved his nephew, who was one of Mr. Makke’s students at a seminary in southern Lebanon. Mr. Jawad’s nephew did not have any family in the area, and Mr. Jawad drove to him and took the nephew to Beirut, perhaps saving his life, Mr. Makke said.
Mr. Makke said that a video taken from that experience shows Mr. Jawad laughing and smiling, even though the two were driving under airstrikes.
“He made it into an action movie,” he said. “He knew how to keep morale high, to not feel scared.”
But while Mr. Jawad also could have flown home, he chose to remain behind: “In his last days, he chose to stay near the main hospital in Nabatieh to help the elderly, disabled, injured and those who simply couldn’t financially afford to flee,” the statement from his family said.
His family noted in the statement that Mr. Jawad’s death was one of many across the Middle East.
“The fact that he was an American citizen should not make his story more important than others,” his daughter wrote.
According to a fund-raiser in Mr. Jawad’s memory, he sent a voice note to his children before his death.
“Peace be upon you,” he told them. “Everything is OK, but if something happens to me, your duty is to the poor.”
Kirsten Noyes and Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.
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4) The U.S. military conducts strikes against the Houthi militia in Yemen.
By Ephrat Livni and Ismaeel Naar, Oct. 4, 2024
Smoke rises after strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen. Credit...Osamah Abdulrahman/Associated Press
The United States Central Command said on Friday that it struck Houthi targets in Yemen, including “Houthi offensive military capabilities,” in an effort to secure international waterways.
The Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen has been striking ships in the Red Sea in solidarity with Hamas, another Iranian-backed militia, since last year, disrupting commercial shipping. Central Command said on social media that it struck 15 targets in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.
“These actions were taken to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for U.S., coalition, and merchant vessels,” the post said.
The Houthi-affiliated al-Masirah TV reported four strikes on Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, seven on the port city of Hodeidah and at least one strike on Dhamar, south of the capital.
The attack on Sanaa came as the Houthis and their supporters were holding their weekly “million-man march” protest, which this week was focused on Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike near Beirut, Lebanon, last Friday.
The Houthi-run Yemen News Agency, SABA, reported that Hashem Sharaf al-Din, a Houthi official, said that he considered the strikes “a desperate attempt” to intimidate the Yemeni people and he vowed not to be deterred by them.
But the Houthi attacks on commercial vessels have increasingly drawn the ire of international actors and condemnation by diplomats. The Red Sea is a key trade route between Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Since the strikes began, many vessels have been forced to reroute. Those that have not have sometimes paid severe consequences.
Ships have been hit and sustained damage, and some sailors have been abducted and held captive for many months, while others have died or been injured in the Houthi attacks. In August, a Houthi strike on a Greek oil tanker threatened to devolve into an environmental disaster as the burning ship remained at sea for weeks, with militia members threatening tugboats attempting to salvage the vessel. The ship was towed to safety in mid-September.
The attacks on commercial shipping have been met with counter strikes by the United States military and British troops before. Between January and May, the two countries’ militaries conducted at least five joint strikes against the Houthis in response to the attacks on shipping.
United States Central Command regularly announces actions against the militant group. In August, after the Houthis said they targeted American warships, the U.S. military struck back. Last week, the Houthis made a similar claim, and now appear to have drawn the same response.
The latest strikes by the United States come as tensions in the Middle East have risen significantly following Israel’s killing of Mr. Nasrallah, its expanded operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon and an escalating conflict with Iran, which launched a salvo of about 200 missiles at Israel on Tuesday in retaliation for the assassinations of some of its proxy groups’ leaders.
On Sunday, the Israeli military also struck in Yemen in response to several recent Houthi missile strikes targeting Israel.
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5) Pro-Palestinian Group Is Relentless in Its Criticism of Israel, and It Isn’t Backing Down
Within Our Lifetime, a group formed by New York students, has galvanized pro-Palestinian activists who are calling for the end of Israel — and facing accusations of antisemitism.
By Sharon Otterman, Oct. 5, 2024
Protesters at a rally organized by the pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime outside a campaign event for Kamala Harris in Harlem in August. Credit...Adam Gray for The New York Times
Without even entering Grand Central Terminal’s soaring main hall on one Thursday evening in July, Nerdeen Kiswani and her pro-Palestinian protest group, Within Our Lifetime, managed to shut it down.
All it took was a flier, posted online, calling on her followers to meet by the iconic clock in the New York train station at 5:30 p.m. The police got there first, barricading the entire space to commuters and tourists. Three helicopters and a drone circled in the sky.
Ms. Kiswani, a 30-year-old Palestinian American with a law degree, moved the protest outside. Wearing a tan hijab partly secured with a pair of oversize sunglasses, she stood on a bench and surveyed the disruption she and the other demonstrators had sparked — honking traffic, rows of police officers in riot gear, a group of pro-Israel counterprotesters setting off air horns to interrupt her.
“I guess they accomplished our goal for us,” she shouted to the protesters, who echoed back her words to amplify them. “Because our goal was to raise awareness about the U.S.-funded Israeli genocide in Gaza.”
After her speech, the crowd began chanting along with her: “Judaism, yes, Zionism no! The state of Israel has got to go!”
New Yorkers have become familiar with the tactics of Ms. Kiswani and Within Our Lifetime, the group she co-founded in 2015, even if they don’t know her by name. Their marches have shut down the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges and snarled Midtown traffic. Their chants of “Long live the Intifada!” outside an exhibition memorializing victims of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, drew condemnation from as high as the White House. Protesters in her orbit sometimes burn Israeli flags and fly the flags of Hamas and Hezbollah.
Ms. Kiswani says that she supports the liberation of the Palestinian people “by any means necessary,” including armed resistance. This has made her a reviled target for Jewish and Zionist groups like the Anti-Defamation League and Canary Mission, and a familiar figure to the N.Y.P.D.
“If you’re going to fight against essentially a killing machine, you can’t just do it with love and vibes and peace slogans alone,” Ms. Kiswani said in a recent interview. “People need to be able to defend themselves.”
Officially, the group has a few dozen members, and its demonstrations can attract a few hundred people. But some marches, often held together with other anti-Zionist groups, have attracted thousands of people and led to dozens of arrests.
As a sign of its reach, Within Our Lifetime’s Instagram account had some 180,000 followers before Meta shut it down in February. A Meta spokeswoman said the account was suspended for violating guidelines that bar the glorification or support of “dangerous organizations or individuals,” which includes U.S.-designated terrorist organizations.
Some say Within Our Lifetime has discredited the pro-Palestinian movement with hateful, violent messages. Ms. Kiswani has escalated its rhetoric, said Oren Segal, vice president of the ADL Center on Extremism, “so that it’s no longer strange or fringe to see blatant terrorist group flags and symbols at events.”
On its social media channels, Within Our Lifetime has mourned figures like Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah chief assassinated by Israel last month, and called them martyrs.
But as the war in Gaza grinds on, it has brought new attention to Ms. Kiswani, led some to replicate her efforts around the country and forced political leaders to contend with raw anger on the streets.
A New Generation
Ms. Kiswani bills herself as part of a bolder, new generation of Palestinian American activists who are calling for what she says earlier generations also wanted, but feared to say in public: the replacement of the state of Israel with a state called Palestine, covering all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
“We may look more moderate, or whatever, if we talk about a two-state solution,” she said. “But that’s been dead on arrival for years now. It’s already a one-state solution. It’s a state that’s controlled by Israel in every sense.”
There was no point in softening her message, she said. “People from our community who tried to appease politicians, they were still marginalized. They were still called terrorists,” she added. “So if we’re going to receive that backlash regardless of what we say or do, then we might as well make the full demands of what we want for our people, which is complete and total liberation.”
Ms. Kiswani and the groups that protest with her helped inspire last spring’s campus protests that bedeviled and led to the departure of multiple university leaders. (Ms. Kiswani showed up to the Columbia University encampment on her wedding day in April, still wearing her traditional red and white dress.)
They have also become a concern for Democrats who fear divisions over the war in Gaza might chip away at voters during a presidential election with tight margins.
“They tell us voting for the lesser of two evils is the right thing to do,” Ms. Kiswani told a crowd in August, standing atop a stack of police crowd-control barricades outside a campaign event for Vice President Kamala Harris in Harlem. “So we divest from this system.”
Ms. Kiswani insists she is not antisemitic. Instead, she says she opposes Zionists, those who believe Israel should exist as a Jewish state in its ancient homeland. But Jewish groups like the Anti-Defamation League say that distinction is a smoke screen, because Zionism is a core part of the identity of most Jews.
Within Our Lifetime’s anti-Zionism is so vitriolic that it has alienated some prominent critics of Israel’s war in Gaza, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat. As protesters waved Hamas flags outside of a Nova Music Festival commemoration in June, Ms. Kiswani called the festival, where hundreds were killed on Oct. 7, “the place where Zionists decided to rave next to a concentration camp.”
The next day, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said the protest was “atrocious antisemitism — plain and simple.”
But Ms. Kiswani also has an increasing number of people willing to protest behind her.
“The world is not doing anything to stop the slaughter of all these thousands and thousands of children,” said Carolyn Antonucci, 64, who came from Connecticut to march at a Within Our Lifetime event on Labor Day with a crowd of thousands that stretched for blocks on Park Avenue. “So I mean, who am I to say what the right thing to do is?”
Sarah Schulman, a playwright who is on the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist organization, has known Ms. Kiswani for years and said her point of view makes sense given her experiences.
“I think that the thing people really need to ask themselves when they look at her is, if this was me, and this was my family that was being brutalized and murdered, would I be doing this?” Ms. Schulman said.
In Exile With ‘Nothing to Lose Anymore’
Ms. Kiswani is a daughter of Palestinian refugees from Beit Iksa, a village in the West Bank. Born in Jordan and raised in Brooklyn, where her family opened a restaurant, she attended an Islamic private school for most of her childhood.
She switched to a public high school and then went to the College of Staten Island, a school under the City University of New York system, where she studied human rights and international relations with a focus on the Middle East. There, she co-founded a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter. At Hunter College, where she took many of her classes, she continued her activism.
In 2015, Ms. Kiswani said, she was blocked by Israel from visiting her relatives in the West Bank, though she had visited before. The security officers, holding her for 16 hours at the border, cited her work organizing in college.
“I felt like I had nothing to lose anymore,” she said.
Not long after, she and other activists formed NYC Students for Justice in Palestine, a coalition across CUNY schools. In 2018, they renamed the group Within Our Lifetime, to better reflect the urgency of their push to “revitalize the revolutionary spirit of Palestinians living in exile.” Their marches, featuring incendiary chants, sparked intense criticism from pro-Israel groups.
After she enrolled at CUNY Law School, Ms. Kiswani was named “Antisemite of the Year” in 2020 by a group called Stopantisemitism.org. Despite that, she was elected as class graduation speaker in 2022. Her fiery speech, critical of both Israel and what she described as American imperialism, got national attention.
Ms. Kiswani said she runs Within Our Lifetime as a volunteer while studying for the bar exam. The group is not registered as a nonprofit, and has no paid staff. It was fund-raising through the WESPAC Foundation, a nonprofit based in White Plains, N.Y., that helps pro-Palestinian groups. But the arrangement was disrupted by litigation, including a lawsuit accusing Within Our Lifetime of creating a hostile environment for Jewish students, Ms. Kiswani said. Nada Khader, the foundation’s executive director, declined to comment.
Within Our Lifetime does not release a formal membership list because of the dangers of harassment and doxxing. But individuals who have identified themselves as organizers include Fatima Mohammed, who called for a revolution against “capitalism, racism, imperialism and Zionism” in her 2023 CUNY Law graduation speech, and Abdullah Akl, who in March led a chant in Arabic calling for strikes on Tel Aviv.
One internal N.Y.P.D. document detailing notable arrests during the campus protests last spring listed several who had participated in Within Our Lifetime actions. It included James Carlson, a 40-year-old lawyer described by the police as a “longtime figure in the anarchist world” who was indicted in September on charges of burning another person’s Israeli flag at a protest outside Columbia. Ms. Kiswani said she hadn’t heard of him.
The group’s marches tend to follow a playbook: First, lesser-known leaders warm up the crowd, then Ms. Kiswani steps up and speaks. She’s tall, which helps make her recognizable. “I’m 5-11, so I think I just stand out,” she said.
At her signal, protesters take off at a rapid clip through the city, leaving police officers rushing to keep up. She is occasionally arrested, but reappears at the next demonstration, in her distinctive hijabs and bright lipstick.
She often seems to leave before confrontations with the police escalate. After a rally outside of a Harris campaign event in Harlem, for example, Ms. Kiswani told protesters about an after-party at a restaurant about 10 blocks north. There, the scene devolved into chaos.
Chanting “Harris, Harris you’re a liar! You set Palestine on fire!” a crowd of demonstrators stormed into the restaurant as diners cowered. Police officers descended to restore order. Fourteen people were arrested.
By that point, Ms. Kiswani was nowhere to be found.
Vandalism and Fears of Violence
Ms. Kiswani's chants are broadly protected by the First Amendment. Her protests don’t use amplified sound, so in New York City, they don’t require permits. But Mr. Segal of the Anti-Defamation League argued that her words could incite violent or destructive action.
“The more that you normalize activities that seek to isolate, marginalize and demonize a certain group of people, the more likely it is that people on the fringes of the movement that you are leading are going to take it to the next level,” he said.
Sometimes, there were physical clashes with counterprotesters supporting Israel. Outside Columbia’s gates in February, Noah Lederman, a Jewish student, was pushed against a wall when several protesters at a Within Our Lifetime march spotted his T-shirt with the Israeli flag, he said. After he broke free and started to run away, a protester yelled a threat.
Ms. Kiswani was defiant when a protester from a Within Our Lifetime rally in June boarded a city subway and shouted for Zionists to raise their hand and leave the train, in an episode that led the city police to file misdemeanor charges.
“We don’t want Zionists in Palestine, NYC, our schools, on the train, ANYWHERE,” Ms. Kiswani wrote on X in response to the uproar. “This is free speech, it is saying we don’t want racists here.” Later, in an interview, she said the protester had been joking.
About two weeks after a Within Our Lifetime march targeted the Brooklyn Museum in May, arguing it was complicit in Palestinian genocide, the homes of the museum’s Jewish director and board members were splashed with red paint and hateful slogans. An anonymous group claimed responsibility — Within Our Lifetime marches attract a variety of leftist revolutionary activists — and the police later arrested two people. Neither was part of Within Our Lifetime, Ms. Kiswani said.
Ms. Kiswani has studied revolutionary movements and says that armed resistance has always been a part of them. (Her use of “by any means necessary” is an echo of Malcolm X, she said.)
She said she was freed, in a way, by growing up in a post-Sept. 11 New York City, where Muslims “were used to being called terrorists at school.” If she would be thought of as a terrorist no matter what, she said, why worry about it?
“That kind of propaganda doesn’t work on our generation anymore,” she said.
Julian Roberts-Grmela and Nate Schweber contributed reporting.
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6) Gaza’s Schools Are for Learning, Not for Dying
By Mosab Abu Toha, Oct. 6, 2024
Mr. Abu Toha is a poet, a short story writer, an essayist and the founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza.
Bashar Taleb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Before war broke out in Gaza, I spent five years teaching English to middle schoolers there. Now I cannot imagine myself returning to teach at schools where students have spent the past year sitting and sleeping on classroom floors with their families, seeking refuge from a relentless assault.
These children were not learning math or language. They were learning the names of Gazan neighborhoods as each was bombed. They were not practicing sports. They were practicing survival, carrying buckets of water for hundreds of feet and running from one classroom to another, from one school to another, from one tent to another, from one city to another, hoping not to be run over by a tank or crushed under bombed-out walls and ceilings.
Across Gaza, hundreds of schools have been turned into shelters, and many of them have been attacked by Israeli forces, who say Hamas fighters use them as command centers. These attacks have killed hundreds of people, according to local health authorities. One Israeli airstrike hit a school in the Nuseirat refugee camp, home to about 12,000 displaced people, for the fifth time in September, killing 18 people.
How can a teacher — me or anyone else — return to teach children and pretend these same places have not been zones of death and suffering? During previous military conflicts in Gaza, it was mainly students who received psychological support. The question of offering support for teachers was rarely raised. But after nearly a year of war, how can traumatized teachers, teachers who may have lost close family members and friends or who even were injured, deal with traumatized students?
How can trauma be treated when it is never-ending? In Gaza there is no post-traumatic stress, because there is never a time without trauma. It was already an environment filled with chronic traumatic stress disorder before this war. After this year, the trauma will grip generations to come. Thousands of children have lost their lives since the Israeli war on Gaza began on Oct. 8, 2023. Others lost body parts. Others lost their parents. Others lost everyone. Over the last year, doctors working in Gaza began using the abbreviation W.C.N.S.F., for “wounded child, no surviving family.”
The last time I was in a school classroom was in November, to take refuge in one in the Jabaliya camp in northern Gaza. I was there with my wife, Maram, and our children, Yazzan, 8; Yaffa, 7; and Mostafa, 4.
Two of Maram’s uncles, as well as her parents and siblings, shared a classroom with four other families. The room was divided into five parts, with Maram’s uncles and parents sharing a somewhat bigger section. We used to eat in their section. It was not more than 27 square feet. The space also contained a 66-gallon water tank, mattresses and kitchenware.
School desks served as partitions to make the tiny rooms and blackboards served the same function in other classrooms. If there were no blackboards, it was probably because parts of them were used for cooking fires. The last time cooking gas trucks entered the north was in October 2023.
In Jabaliya, I remember searching the rubbled streets and lanes of the market for cardboard boxes, usually dirty, or sticks for cooking fires. I would return to the school with something, feeling very accomplished — not as a student or a teacher, but rather as a collector of useful stuff for family survival.
On Nov. 19, before my family and I made our way to the United States, we took a journey toward the southern part of the Gaza Strip, hoping to reach the Rafah border crossing to leave for Egypt. As we reached a checkpoint on Salah al-Din Road, I was detained by the Israeli Army and put in a detention center with dozens of other Palestinians for three days. I was blindfolded, handcuffed and forced to stay on my knees. I was not allowed to speak, or to ask about my family. Upon release I took up another journey, this time to find my wife and kids. I was not sure whether they were still alive.
On the road heading south — anyone moving north would have been shot then — I found them. They were sheltering in another school close to Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah. I joined them and we stayed with two of my wife’s uncles in a tent pitched on the school campus. Rainwater sometimes flooded our tent.
Moving from one school to another as refugees is not like moving up from an elementary school to a middle school. To still live in your own house in Gaza feels like living in a mansion, though it can be dangerous. To live in a classroom feels like living in a hotel room. To live in tents on a school campus feels like living in a hotel lobby.
We eventually made it to Cairo, where in early December I watched a video of the school where we sheltered in Jabaliya being besieged by Israeli tanks and soldiers. It was around that time that a sniper killed one of Maram’s uncles, who was deaf and mute, at the gate of another school in Beit Lahia, where he was sheltering with his wife and their two babies. That school later burned down. It was the same school where Yazzan and Yaffa attended third and first grade before Oct. 7, 2023.
About 625,000 children in Gaza have missed a whole school year because of the war, not to mention the trauma they have suffered. Although in recent weeks the United Nations Relief and Works Agency has been trying to start the new school year inside shelters, the effort is almost pointless given the fact that schools continue to be bombed and Israeli evacuation orders continue to keep people on the move.
While it will take many long years to remove the rubble in Gaza, much less rebuild it, I fear it will take a whole lifetime, if ever, to rebuild a sense of hope in children in a world that has failed them. Governments have been unable to save the children of Gaza and their families, despite a never-ending stream of videos and photos and news reports clearly showing their suffering, day after day.
My eldest sister, Aya, has been complaining to me on the phone lately. It’s never easy to connect with my family in Gaza from my temporary home in Syracuse, N.Y., where I received an appointment as a visiting scholar at Syracuse University. During the short calls, the sound of whirring drones and distant bombing gets mixed with coughing.
“But this is bad for your baby,” I tell her. She is nine months pregnant. Aya barely has had access to fresh food for her entire pregnancy. She, like most Gazans, relies on canned food and some rare and pricey groceries.
Meanwhile, my wife and I prepared our children for their first days at their new American school. We all sat on the couch with my iPad, scrolling down and up through backpacks and water bottles and in a few minutes we placed an order.
If there is to be any hope for the future, the children of Gaza need a better reality, one closer to what I see American children enjoy. They need healthy food and clean water, a safe place to sleep at night. And they need classrooms where they can learn.
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7) A new Israeli map labels nearly all of northern Gaza ‘new evacuation zones.’
By Adam Rasgon, Reporting from Jerusalem, October 6, 2024
A Palestinian family arrives in Gaza City after evacuating the Jabaliya area on Sunday. Omar Al-Qattaa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The Israeli military appeared to label the vast majority of northern Gaza as an evacuation zone on Sunday, hours after launching a major raid that it said was targeting Hamas in the area.
The move suggested that Israel planned to step up pressure on war-weary residents of northern Gaza to relocate to the southern part of the territory as it continues to fight Hamas in the north.
“In preparation for a new stage in the war, the army is publishing a new evacuation zones map,” read an image posted on the X account of Avichay Adraee, the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman.
The post looked similar to evacuation orders that the military has issued in the past, and was interpreted as such by some people.
The title of the accompanying map refers to “new evacuation zones,” with two lines highlighting routes to central Gaza. But the language in the post was contradictory and unclear as to whether the zones would be enforced now or in the future, “as necessary.”
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are believed to be in northern Gaza, and Israel has prevented displaced people in other parts of the territory from returning there.
Mr. Adraee said later in the day that the announcement was intended only to lay the groundwork for any future evacuation of the north.
Reached by phone, he said that the military hadn’t issued new evacuation orders and that the map merely divided northern Gaza into new blocks that Israel could call on to evacuate in the future.
That was little consolation to some people from northern Gaza, who were uncertain of whether they should leave their homes.
Israel first invaded northern Gaza after weeks of carrying out an intense aerial assault on the enclave in the wake of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks. Since then, it has withdrawn to nearby posts and focused its efforts on other parts of the enclave — only to return again for new operations against Hamas, which has regrouped in its absence. That cycle has repeated, leaving civilians caught in the crossfire in perilous conditions.
Kamel Ajour, 52, a bakery owner in Gaza City, noted that previous evacuation orders had specifically said people needed to leave the area immediately.
“The map is dubious,” he said. “It’s confusing for people.”
Others in Gaza felt similarly. “It’s not clear what it is asking people to do now,” said Yahya al-Masri, 28, who has family in Gaza City.
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8) At a Tennessee Plastics Plant, Sorrow and Uncertainty in Helene’s Wake
More than a week after workers fled flooding outside their factory, much remains unclear, including how many died.
By Edgar Sandoval, Reporting from Erwin, Tenn., Oct. 6, 2024
Bertha Mendoza was one of the factory employees whose body was recovered. Her husband Elias Mendoza, left, and her son Guillermo Mendoza hold a photo of her. Credit...Christian Monterrosa for The New York Times
The few details that are known about Bertha Mendoza’s last moments are heartbreaking.
On the morning of Sept. 27, after remnants of Hurricane Helene flooded the parking lot of a plastics factory in the small town of Erwin, Tenn., Ms. Mendoza, her younger sister and a group their co-workers clung to the bed of a pickup trying to flee from the rising waters.
When the situation became dire, Ms. Mendoza, a 56-year-old mother of four, managed to call her husband and some of her children to tell them she loved them, said her oldest son, Guillermo Mendoza.
“She was able to say farewells, and in one of her last conversations with my father, she said, ‘I love you, and please tell my children that I love them,’” Mr. Mendoza said in an interview in his two-story wooden home in Erwin. “I thank God that even in those last moments, my mom is in danger, and she still thinks about her children.”
It was part of one of the most horrific incidents spawned by Helene, the Category 4 hurricane that hit the coast of Florida on Sept. 26. Initial reports said that an estimated 11 workers, some of whom were immigrants, were washed away outside the factory in Erwin, which sits along the banks of the Nolichucky River and is about 120 miles from Knoxville.
But nine days after the tragedy, little clarity has emerged about what happened, what role the company, Impact Plastics Inc., played and even how many employees may have died.
Ms. Mendoza’s body was found two days after the flood near a bridge not far from the factory, where she worked in quality control. Her sister, Araceli Mendoza, survived.
Family members of the victims and survivors have told advocates of immigrants that the workers were told not to leave the factory even as the downpour began.
“It was unclear if or when employees were allowed to leave,” said Hamp Price, a spokesman with the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition, an immigrant rights group.
Organizers with the group were told that the workers “didn’t have evacuation instructions at all,” in either English or Spanish, Mr. Price said. There were also reports of Spanish speakers trying, in vain, to communicate with English speakers during the chaotic evacuation.
At least three workers were found dead and three others remain missing, advocates said.
Since the storm hit, the local authorities said they have recovered bodies of four people who died in the storm, and six people remain unaccounted for. It is unclear how many of them originated from the factory, said Myron Hughes, a spokesman with the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency’s All-Hazards Incident Management Teams.
Various agencies, including the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said they were investigating what played out at the plant.
Erwin, a small mountain town of about 6,000 people, has seen a large influx of Latinos in recent years. They make up about 8 percent of the population, lured by work in strawberry and tomato fields and in factories like Impact Plastics’. The town also attracts tourists who come to hike about 150 miles of forest trails and visit the Nolichucky River that overlooks the Cherokee National Forest.
In a pair of lengthy statements, managers with the company refuted allegations made by the workers and their advocates. The managers said that the workers were never told they were required to stay in the building during the storm, and that they were told to evacuate as soon as the plant lost power that morning.
Company management said that some of the workers lingered in the parking lot after they were given the green light to go home.
When flooding from the storm overtook the factory’s parking lot, a group of workers tried to flee on a pickup truck that belonged to the business next door, Impact Plastics said. But after the rising water caused the truck to flip over, five of the workers and a contactor disappeared, the company said in its statement. Five other workers who had climbed onto the truck made it to safety, the company said.
Greg Coleman, a lawyer representing the Mendoza family and some of the other victims, said in his own statement that he is aware of the version of events released by the company that “appear to place blame on the victims who lost their lives, and by extension their families and those injured.”
“The true facts are continuing to be investigated, and that will be the true story,” he said, adding that his clients and witnesses “have differing opinions from that of the company narrative.” But for now, Mr. Coleman said he and his firm, Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman PLLC, want to focus on helping families heal.
Members of the Mendoza family were left to grieve and figure out what happened.
“It’s hard to process, but at the same time we have seen God through our community, through our church. Everyone has been so supportive,” Mr. Mendoza said.
The Mendozas were one of the first families to move to Erwin. Ms. Mendoza’s husband, Elias Mendoza, 59, first came to the area to work in the fields. He said that once he had secured legal residency, he brought his wife and two children from a small Mexican town in Michoacán.
At first, moving to the mountain region of Tennessee proved challenging for Ms. Mendoza, he said. “There were not a lot of Latinos back then, and she didn’t speak English,” he said.
In the coming years, she began to adjust. She had two more children in Tennessee and befriended other Latinos at a Baptist church in the area. Her sister Araceli told her about work at the plastics factory, where Ms. Mendoza worked on and off over the years.
Guillermo Mendoza, her eldest son, who is a pastor, a school board member and an educator, credits his mom’s dedication for his success in the community.
“My mother was really supportive my whole life,” Mr. Mendoza said. “She wanted a better life for her children than the life she had growing up.”
Ms. Mendoza enjoyed cooking traditional Mexican dishes for her family, including tamales, tres leches cake, mole and homemade tortillas. She also loved recording videos with her four grandchildren.
The Mendozas always looked forward to the month of September. Ms. Mendoza recently celebrated a birthday on Sept. 2. Guillermo Mendoza turned 33 on Sept. 22., and his younger brother and his son were both born on Sept. 23.
“It was an unspoken rule. We said no more births in September,” Mr. Mendoza said.
Sept. 27, the day Ms. Mendoza died, is also the anniversary of Guillermo and his wife’s wedding. After the tragedy, September will be “a difficult month going forward,” he said softly.
Ms. Mendoza’s husband still returns home every night looking for his wife of nearly 40 years.
Most nights, Mr. Mendoza said, he turns over in bed and looks for her. On the last few nights, he has reached to her side of the bed, only to be reminded that it’s empty.
“That’s hard. When I see her clothes, I feel something that is hard to explain,” he said.
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