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Palestinians wait in crowded queue for long hours to buy bread from the only bakery since Israeli forces allow limited quantities of flour and fuel to enter in Khan Yunis, Gaza on November 18, 2024. Photo by STR APAIMAGES
Israel’s Genocide Day 423: Israeli siege of north Gaza intensifies as it enters 60th day
Casualties
· 44,466 + killed* and at least 105,358 wounded in the Gaza Strip, 59% of whom are women, children and elderly.
· 801+ Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. This includes at least 146 children.**
· 3,961 Lebanese killed and more than 16,520 wounded by Israeli forces since October 8, 2023***
· Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,189.
· Israel recognizes the death of 890 Israeli soldiers, policemen and intelligence officers and the injury of at least 5,065 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 December 2, 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 December 1, 2024.
*** This figure was released by the Lebanese Health Ministry, updated on December 1, 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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It’s Movement Time
It’s movement time.
As the Trump presidency take shape, there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. Disbelief meshes with despair, and some are quite frankly desolate.
Dry your tears, blow your noses, and join movements of resistance to this madness. Blacks in America have never known a time when resistance wasn’t necessary, including life under a Black president.
For centuries for generations, people have had to struggle for freedom, for respect, for justice. Why should this time be any different?
The ancestors, like the revered Frederick Douglass, lambasted Abraham Lincoln as a fool or coward who wouldn’t fight the civil war with thousands of willing Black troops. Said Douglass, “if there is no struggle, there is no progress.” Said Douglass, “Power concedes nothing without demand.”
So let us struggle. Let us build movements that lift our hearts. Let us remake our history with the brick and mortar of struggle.
—Prison Radio, November 21, 2016
https://www.prisonradio.org/commentary/it-is-movement-time/
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
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We need a united, independent, democratically organized mass movement for peace, justice and equality in solidarity with similar movements worldwide if we are to survive the death agony of capitalism and its inevitable descent into fascism and barbarism before it destroys the world altogether!
—Bonnie Weinstein
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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.
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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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) I’m One of the Last Doctors in This Hospital in Gaza. I’m Begging the World for Help.
By Hussam Abu Safyia, Dec. 2, 2024
Dr. Abu Safyia is a pediatrician and the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.
Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza is one of the few remaining hubs for medical services in the area. Since Israel’s war in Gaza began, it has also been a site of conflict itself. The Israeli military has accused Hamas of using the hospital as a base, which Gaza officials have denied, and has raided it repeatedly since Oct. 7, 2023. Parts of the facility have been damaged and destroyed from both direct attacks and bombardments occurring nearby. In late October, most of the staff members were detained or expelled by Israel’s military. Few doctors and nurses remain, and they care for sometimes upward of 100 patients.
One of those doctors is the hospital’s current director, Hussam Abu Safyia, a pediatrician who is also the lead physician in Gaza for the humanitarian organization MedGlobal. In October 2023, he wrote a guest essay for Opinion describing the dire situation he was witnessing as casualties mounted during the first month of Israel’s offensive. Since then, the situation at the hospital has become much worse. Dr. Abu Safyia, who isn’t a surgeon, has had to operate on patients because of the lack of trained surgeons. He has had to decide who gets treatment and who doesn’t, given the dwindling resources available. And he has had to navigate a tense situation with the surrounding Israeli forces. He has had to do all this while grieving his son, who was killed in late October of this year and is buried on the hospital’s grounds. Last month, MedGlobal reported, Dr. Abu Safyia was wounded by shrapnel resulting from an Israeli airstrike and required surgery.
For a week in October and November, Dr. Abu Safyia sent Times Opinion audio and video messages describing the day-to-day situation at the hospital and the difficulties he and his remaining staff face. Here are edited excerpts, most of them translated from the Arabic.
Oct. 30
Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I walked into the operating room to perform surgery, on the stomach of a 4-year-old child whose house was destroyed by bombing. He was bleeding a lot from his stomach, but I somehow managed to perform the operation and thank God I was able to save that child’s life.
We are working beyond our areas of specialization because we no longer have a qualified surgical team. We have called upon the world for protection for over 50 days but unfortunately there has been no response. I’m confounded by this world that claims to believe in humanity and democracy but does not respond. Not even the World Health Organization has any protection here.
The human mind cannot imagine all the death and body parts and blood that surround us around the clock. But it remains our responsibility to keep on providing humanitarian services.
Oct. 31
The situation is very, very catastrophic. Today the hospital was struck. This attack caused damage to the third floor and a storeroom for goods and medical supplies. It destroyed water tanks and oxygen containers designated for the dialysis unit. The engineering and maintenance section was also damaged, which has led to a paralysis of our health services. Four members of the medical staff were wounded as they tried to put out the fire, unprotected and without adequate materials to extinguish the flames. Sadly, they suffered burns of varying degrees.
I still have approximately 85 patients, 19 of whom are children, including two newborns. We are now in a phase of simply trying to save as many lives as possible. We watch the wounded die one after another because of the lack of adequately trained medical staff.
Nov. 1
These are very difficult days we’re going through right now. The siege is still total over the entirety of the northern Gaza Strip. Barely any medical supplies or medical relief teams are allowed to enter. There are dozens of patients here still awaiting operations, including bone surgery, general adult and children’s surgery and burn reconstruction surgery.
We are no longer able to prioritize incoming cases that might require immediate medical attention over others that are arriving around the clock because of the Israeli assaults and bombings in the area. Most of the wounded who actually make it here come on foot. Some, by the time they arrive, have nearly bled out and are in extremely serious condition.
Once again, we are asking the whole world and the international community to provide real protection for this health care system. There must be a safe humanitarian corridor that is appropriate for the health care system and that would allow in medical relief teams and medical necessities.
Nov. 3
Throughout the night, there have been continuous bombardments and bombings of buildings around the hospital. The explosions have caused significant damage, even affecting the hospital itself. Most of the doors have been blown out, and many of the windows are shattered. This has instilled a sense of terror and fear among the patients.
We have not received any medical personnel, and upon following up on this matter, we learned that specialized medical staff weren’t allowed to enter northern Gaza.
We currently have 120 patients. Today we received six boxes of medical supplies that we did not request. And the food we just received is seven boxes of canned food that will last the hospital one day.
This is the scene inside Kamal Adwan Hospital, where patients and children are running in the midst of bombardment of the hospital and the water tanks. Can we imagine seeing this scene at Boston Children’s Hospital or Great Ormond Street Hospital in London or Children’s National Hospital in Washington?
Nov. 4
It is the 29th day of the siege on the northern Gaza Strip. The hospital was attacked yesterday at the same time that the World Health Organization was here to evacuate some patients who would not have been able to leave otherwise. People sought shelter by hiding wherever they could. We still have not received any explanation regarding what happened or why it happened. This deplorable attack resulted in a number of injuries to patients, including women.
Just a little while ago we were in the operating room. There was a 13-year-old girl who was already wounded with shrapnel in the abdomen. During this latest attack, she was injured again — a very serious injury to the stomach. She just had an operation and God willing her condition will stabilize in the coming hours.
Droves of people continue to show up at the emergency room. Those who are able to get here might receive medical care, but those who are not able to get here find their fate elsewhere. There are still people buried under the rubble. There are no tools to remove the rubble in order to find whoever is underneath. One finds it difficult to describe what we’re living through, to be honest.
Nov. 6
We are still besieged inside the hospital. The hospital was struck for three straight days. The attacks were frightening. The storage rooms and the pharmacy were destroyed.
Sadly, this was a ferocious attack that resulted in many injured, including children who were under sedation because they were undergoing surgery at the time. A number of medical workers who had been providing care in the emergency room were wounded.
We feel as if the rest of the world is wrapped up in a different world than the one we are in. We are suffering and paying the price of the genocide that is happening to our people here in the northern Gaza Strip.
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2) Russian Warplanes Join Strikes Against Rebels in Syria
In just a few days, a patchwork of rebel forces has seized control of a broad stretch of land in the west and northwest of Syria.
By Aryn Baker, Dec. 2, 2024
A damaged street after an airstrike in Idlib, Syria, on Sunday. Credit...Bilal Al Hammoud/EPA, via Shutterstock
Russian and Syrian fighter jets struck targets across territory seized by rebels in northwestern Syria on Monday, according to Syrian state media and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The forceful response made clear that Russia, one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s staunchest allies, intended to keep supporting him in the face of a sudden rebel advance.
Both Russia and Iran, another key ally of the Syrian leader, also expressed support through diplomatic channels on Monday for Mr. Al-Assad, whom they have propped up with military aid since the Syrian civil war first threatened his autocratic rule in 2011.
It is not yet clear whether they will be able to help hold off the rebels. On the other side, the rebels’ startling gains appeared to embolden the opposition in exile, with one of its leaders demanding on Monday that Mr. al-Assad commit to a political transition.
The opposition leader, Hadi al-Bahra, spoke from Turkey as rebels continued their advance through Aleppo, once Syria’s largest city, and the surrounding areas.
In just a few days, the patchwork of forces has seized control of a broad stretch of land in the west and northwest of the country, according to the rebels and the Observatory, a British-based war monitor.
While Mr. Al-Bahra does not speak for the rebels, their capture of Aleppo has seemingly reinvigorated his group’s longstanding demands for a democratic transition.
Mr. Al-Bahra heads a group of political and military organizations known as the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces that oppose Mr. Al-Assad. The group claims to represent a majority of opposition parties, but it has become increasingly irrelevant as the Syrian civil war has dragged into its second decade.
He told a news conference broadcast from his base in Istanbul that the rebel offensive was supported by a population weary of crimes committed by Mr. al-Assad along with his Iranian and Russian backers.
The fighting will continue, he said, until the Syrian leader acquiesces — a prospect that Mr. Al-Bahra said the opposition was prepared for.
Negotiations could start “tomorrow,” he added.
Mr. Al-Bahra demanded the implementation of the stalled 2015 United Nations Security Council resolution 2254, which lays out a road map for Syria’s political transition, starting with a cease-fire. It is, he said, “the only sustainable political solution in Syria.”
“We have the right to use whatever means to ensure its implementation,” he said.
Jacob Roubai contributed reporting.
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3) Israel Builds Bases in Central Gaza, a Sign It May Be There to Stay
In recent months, soldiers have demolished more than 600 buildings to create a buffer area and expanded a network of bases, a New York Times analysis of satellite imagery and video footage shows.
By Aaron Boxerman, Aric Toler, Riley Mellen and Patrick Kingsley, Dec. 2, 2024
A photograph posted to an Israeli combat engineer’s Instagram account showing a sign along the Netzarim corridor’s main road bearing the message “Drive safely — good luck.” Credit...@gdud749/Instagram, via Younis Tirawi
The Israeli military has been expanding its presence in central Gaza in recent months, fortifying military bases and demolishing Palestinian buildings, according to Israeli officials and satellite images, a move that suggests that it may be preparing to exert long-term control over the area.
Since the early months of the war in Gaza, Israeli forces have occupied a four-mile road, known as the Netzarim corridor, that bisects the enclave, to keep hundreds of thousands of displaced Gazans from returning north. That has slowly grown into an 18-square-mile block of territory controlled by Israeli forces, according to the Israeli military and a New York Times analysis of satellite images and video footage.
Over the past three months, soldiers have demolished more than 600 buildings around the road in an apparent attempt to create a buffer zone. They have also rapidly expanded a network of outposts equipped with communications towers and defensive fortifications.
The buildup suggests a shift for Israel, which had largely avoided holding Gazan territory, creating a vacuum that has allowed Hamas to reassert control in some parts of Gaza. The military said that the expansion was for operational reasons.
The expansion has also raised speculation about Israel’s plans for Gaza’s future. Israelis leaders have vowed to maintain security control in Gaza even after the war, without saying clearly what that might entail. Israeli military analysts say the increase in infrastructure along the Netzarim corridor might serve that purpose.
Control of the corridor, which cuts across Gaza from the Israeli border to the Mediterranean Sea, has given Israel the ability to regulate travel across the length of the enclave, keeping hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians in the south. In recent months, the Israeli military has extended its power over territory on either side of the corridor, roughly 4.3 miles wide and 4.3 miles long, to make it easier for Israeli forces to hold onto the area, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said in an interview.
Israel captured and occupied Gaza in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, maintaining Jewish settlements and military bases there. The country withdrew its troops and settlers in 2005.
Some Israeli ministers have said that the military control in Gaza should pave the way for renewed Jewish settlement, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has ruled that out for now. The former Israeli settlement of Netzarim — for which the military corridor is named — lies within the area now fully under Israeli control.
The Times analysis of satellite images over the past three months shows that the Israeli military has at least 19 large bases throughout the area and dozens of small ones. While some were built earlier in the war, the imagery also shows that the pace of construction appears to be accelerating: Twelve of the bases were either built or expanded since early September.
Many are paved and walled off, with barracks, access roads and parking for armored vehicles. They are often surrounded by defensive ditches, mounds and obstacles to obstruct vehicles.
Colonel Shoshani said the expanded ground occupation was simply for operational reasons. “Anything that has been built there can be taken down within a day,” he said.
The extent of the fortifications suggest, however, that Israel is at the very least preparing for a protracted battle in Gaza. Avi Dichter, an Israeli government minister, said Israel was “going to stay in Gaza for a long time.”
“We are definitely not at the beginning of the end, because we still have a lot of work to do,” Mr. Dichter told reporters in Jerusalem.
Amir Avivi, a retired brigadier general who is regularly briefed by Israel’s security establishment, said many of the country’s military leaders now believed “withdrawing and separation are no longer options.”
“That’s why they’re building all of this,” said General Avivi, who leads a forum of hawkish former security officials. “At the end of the day, the facts speak for themselves.”
In November, Mr. Netanyahu toured the Netzarim corridor in a relatively rare visit to the Gaza Strip. Israeli troops in the area were “doing amazing work,” the prime minister said in a statement. “They have achieved excellent results toward our important objective — Hamas will not rule in Gaza,” he added.
The Biden administration has opposed long-term Israeli control in Gaza, which it hopes will become part of a future Palestinian state. President-elect Donald J. Trump has called on Israel to “finish up” the war, without stipulating what terms he might deem acceptable for a postwar Gaza.
One of the largest Israeli bases, which is at the intersection of the Netzarim corridor and the main highway running north-south, has steadily expanded through the year. It now contains extensive infrastructure, such as two communications towers and a large checkpoint, according to satellite footage.
Israeli forces leveled at least 620 residential buildings, greenhouses and other structures from Sept. 3 to Nov. 21, according to the Times analysis. Israeli soldiers from the military’s 749th Combat Engineering Battalion posted videos on social media of demolitions that they had carried out.
The Times verified 11 of the videos, which are filmed by drones and provide a bird’s-eye view of Israel’s efforts to remake the geography south of Gaza City. They were first published widely by Younis Tirawi, a Palestinian journalist who downloaded them from the soldiers’ social media accounts.
Asked why the military had demolished buildings, Colonel Shoshani said at least some had been used by Palestinians militants as lookout posts and hiding places. With much of the area flattened, Hamas fighters would now be less likely to sneak up on Israeli troops patrolling on the Netzarim corridor or on Israeli outposts, Israeli military analysts said.
Israeli soldiers began paving and fortifying the Netzarim corridor late last year, soon after the military’s ground invasion of Gaza began. Israel launched its campaign against Hamas in Gaza after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, in which the Israeli authorities say roughly 1,200 people in Israel were killed and 250 taken hostage. By June, most structures within a half-mile north and south of the road were gone, creating what the Israel military considered to be a buffer zone.
The Gazan village of Al Mughraqa, nearly four miles south of Gaza City, was the hardest hit during that period. More than 10,000 people lived in Al Mughraqa before the war, surrounded by fragrant lemon orchards and tilling fields of tomatoes and cucumbers.
By August, the village was nearly destroyed, along with its vegetation. Only a handful of buildings in the village still stand, according to satellite images and former residents. Israel’s military said Hamas had entrenched itself in the area, necessitating the construction of “defensive infrastructure” to consolidate control.
The village’s Palestinian residents can only dream of returning to their land, said Bashir Abu Kmeil, 50, who fled with his wife and children for southern Gaza earlier in the war.
At first, the village’s Palestinian residents were able to return to check up on their homes and land, Mr. Abu Kmeil said. But as the Israeli presence in the area grew more entrenched, they feared that even approaching the rubble would prove to be a death sentence, he said.
Now, “there’s nothing but devastation left,” he said.
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4) U.N. Agency Suspends Aid Deliveries Through Key Gaza Crossing
The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees blamed Israel for failing to ensure safe conditions for delivering relief supplies from the Kerem Shalom crossing.
By Liam Stack, Reporting from Tel Aviv, Dec. 2, 2024
Aid is distributed by UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, in Nuseirat, Gaza, in early November. Credit...Abdel Kareem Hana/Associated Press
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees has said it is suspending aid deliveries through the main crossing into Gaza because of lawlessness and violence, accusing Israel of failing to ensure safe conditions for aid workers to provide humanitarian assistance.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the agency, known as UNRWA, said in a statement on Sunday that it would stop sending aid through the crossing despite a deepening hunger crisis in Gaza because it had become “unnecessarily impossible” to do so safely.
“The road out of this crossing has not been safe for months,” Mr. Lazzarini said.
He said “political decisions” by Israel had limited the amount of aid getting into Gaza and also created a dangerous and chaotic environment for delivering the relatively few supplies that have entered through the crossing, Kerem Shalom.
Mr. Lazzarini said Israel had failed to provide safe passage on roads designated for use by aid trucks, and that Israel’s military had targeted local police officers, leading to a “breakdown of law and order.” Gaza’s police force answers to what remains of the Hamas-run government in the territory.
“The responsibility of protection of aid workers and supplies is with the State of Israel as the occupying power,” Mr. Lazzarini said. “They must ensure aid flows into Gaza safely and must refrain from attacks on humanitarian workers.”
Responding to the announcement on Monday, the Israeli military agency that oversees aid distribution in Gaza sought to downplay the impact of the suspension, saying that relief delivered by UNRWA made up just 7 percent of all the aid delivered in the territory in November.
The Israeli agency, known as COGAT, said more than 1,000 truckloads of aid was “collected from the various crossings and distributed throughout the Gaza Strip” in the last week.
“We will continue to work with the international community to increase the amount of aid making its way into Gaza,” the agency said in a statement.
Israel has frequently blamed U.N. agencies for not doing more to distribute aid in Gaza, and has accused UNRWA in particular of fomenting anti-Israel sentiment. In January, Israel accused a dozen of the agency’s employees of participating in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks that set off the war in Gaza, leading the agency to fire them. A U.N. investigation later found that Israel had not provided evidence to back up its claims that many UNRWA employees had ties to Hamas.
In October, Israel’s parliament passed two laws barring UNRWA operations in the country, a move that could create further logistical challenges for the agency’s work in Gaza. Those laws are set to go into effect early next year.
The decision to stop UNRWA aid shipments was made after armed gangs robbed a group of aid trucks that entered Gaza on Saturday, a hijacking that came after a larger convoy was looted at gunpoint on Nov. 16, Mr. Lazzarini said.
Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for UNRWA, said the southern part of the territory had seen “a huge increase in looting and in criminal activity in recent months.”
“Even when we are able to collect aid from the border, it never makes it to our warehouses in Khan Younis,” Ms. Wateridge said, referring to a city in southern Gaza that is a hub for relief distribution. “If you are lucky then some days you might come back with half a truck of supplies, but you started with anything from five trucks or 12 trucks or 100 trucks.”
She said the agency believed some of the looting was driven not by organized crime but by desperation among the more than two million Palestinians living in the territory.
Ahmed Saleh, 44, a civil servant with the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank-based rival to Hamas, said aid restrictions and looting had left people in his neighborhood of Gaza City with few options.
“Most of the items, especially food, have disappeared. It is bread that we all fight for now,” said Mr. Saleh, adding that only one bakery was still operating in his neighborhood. “I line up for hours along with hundreds of starving people — men, women and children.”
Gaza has teetered on the edge of famine for almost a year. Israel, which controls Gaza’s borders, has imposed fluctuating restrictions on the entry of food, water, medicine and other goods since the war against Hamas began more than a year ago. It recently banned the import of nearly all commercial goods, saying Hamas was benefiting from their sale.
Last month, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Yoav Gallant, the former defense minister, saying they had “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity.” The warrants drew a furious response from Mr. Netanyahu and from Israelis across the political spectrum, some of whom accused the court of antisemitism.
Over the weekend, Moshe Yaalon, a former Israeli defense minister who has become a critic of Mr. Netanyahu, said he believed Israel was committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
The Biden administration, while generally supporting Mr. Netanyahu’s war aims, has criticized Israel for the lack of aid entering Gaza. In October, the United States threatened to withhold military aid to Israel if more goods did not enter Gaza within 30 days and demanded that at least 350 aid trucks enter each day.
Israel failed to meet that goal, but the Biden administration did not follow through on its threat to cut off military support.
Abu Bakr Bashir contributed reporting.
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5) South Korean Leader Declares Martial Law
President Yoon Suk Yeol made the extraordinary announcement after months of deadlock with his political opposition. A general said public rallies were banned and news outlets were under “martial law command.”
By Choe Sang-Hun and John Yoon, Reporting from Seoul, December 3, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/12/03/world/south-korea-martial-law
A TV screen showing the announcement by President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea in Seoul on Tuesday. Credit...Ahn Young-Joon/Associated Press
President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea declared emergency martial law on Tuesday, in an extraordinary reaction to the political deadlock that has hobbled his tenure.
It was the first time a South Korean president had declared martial law since the military dictatorship ended in the country in the late 1980s. Mr. Yoon accused the opposition of plotting “insurgency” and “trying to overthrow the free democracy.”
Opposition lawmakers started gathering at Parliament and the police were clashing with protesters outside the National Assembly. In images broadcast by local networks, some demonstrators appeared to be trying to enter the building as police officers tried to block them.
“End martial law! End martial law!” protesters chanted.
Elected president in 2022, Mr. Yoon has been in a near-constant political standoff with the opposition, which controls the National Assembly.
In a nationally televised speech on Tuesday night, he denounced the opposition for repeatedly using its majority in the National Assembly to impeach members of his cabinet and block the passage of his government’s budget plans.
This has “paralyzed the administration,” Mr. Yoon said. “The National Assembly, which should have been the foundation of free democracy, has become a monster that destroys it.”
Lee Jae-myung, the opposition leader, rejected Mr. Yoon’s reasoning.
“There is no reason to declare martial law. We cannot let the military rule this country,” Mr. Lee said. “President Yoon Seok Yeol has betrayed the people. President Yoon’s illegal declaration of emergency martial law is null and void.”
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6) Fighting Worsens Already Dire Conditions in Northwestern Syria
Years of war and a powerful earthquake had led to crushing poverty, displacement and breakdowns in services. But over the last several days, the region’s misery deepened.
By Muhammad Haj Kadour and Vivian Yee, Dec. 3, 2024
Muhammad Haj Kadour reported from Idlib, Syria. Vivian Yee reported from Cairo.
Damage from an airstrike in Idlib, a rebel-held city in northern Syria, on Monday. Russian and Syrian fighter jets have targeted the area in recent days. Credit...Omar Haj Kadour/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Hospitals have been ripped apart by airstrikes. Nearly 50,000 people have fled their homes, and tens of thousands lack running water. Civilians are being laid out in body bags on hospital floors after shells struck their neighborhoods.
Scenes from the bloodiest days of Syria’s civil war, which had lain largely dormant for several years, are now repeating themselves in the country’s northwest as pro-government forces try to beat back a surprise rebel offensive, according to aid workers, a war monitor and the United Nations, who warned of a rapidly worsening humanitarian situation.
Conditions were already dire for civilians in the area: Years of war and a powerful February 2023 earthquake had led to crushing poverty, displacement and breakdowns in services. But over the last several days, the region’s misery deepened as Russian and Syrian fighter jets have repeatedly struck Idlib and Aleppo in northwestern Syria and rebels fought to capture more territory.
The United Nations said more than 50 airstrikes had hit Idlib Province in northwestern Syria on Sunday and Monday. Four health facilities, four schools and two camps housing people displaced from earlier phases of the conflict suffered damage, it said.
Mr. Dujarric said that 24 health care centers in Idlib and western Aleppo province had suspended operations amid the fighting, adding that humanitarian activities had been largely paused out of concern for aid workers’ safety.
Stéphane Dujarric, a U.N. spokesman, said in a briefing Monday night that a strike on a water station had also cut off access for at least 40,000 people. And the Norwegian Refugee Council, which provides aid in the region, said its humanitarian workers were reporting that bakeries and shops had shut down in Aleppo, leading to food shortages.
In the city of Idlib, which the rebels fully control, several hospitals showed damage on Tuesday from what staff said were pro-government airstrikes a day earlier. At SAMS Maternity Hospital and Ibn Sina Children’s Hospital, heavily damaged incubator units for premature infants were seen.
Dr. Mohammed Hussam Kaddouh, the director of Idlib University Hospital, said on Tuesday that his facility was one of two that was knocked completely out of service by strikes.
“The strikes directly targeted the hospital,” Dr. Kaddouh said. “Right now we’re mainly relying on the remaining medical centers outside of Idlib.”
One strike hit the hospital’s eastern wing in front of the emergency room’s entrance, Dr. Kaddouh said, and another its northern wing. On Tuesday, large shards of glass were still visible in front of a reception desk. Units that housed patients were torn apart, their ceilings displaying gaping holes, with debris strewed through hallways and patient rooms.
One missile slammed through two reinforced concrete roofs and landed in the hospital’s basement, according to Dr. Kaddouh, who said no one was injured in the strikes because people inside were able to evacuate in time.
University Hospital typically serves about 1,100 patients a day and nearly 30,000 a month, Dr. Kaddouh added. Its cardiology and obstetrics and gynecology departments are the only ones in the city, he said; now patients must leave the city to find those services.
At least 44 civilians have been killed in fighting in Idlib and northern Aleppo between the start of the offensive last week and Sunday, according to the United Nations, which said the numbers were verified by local health authorities. At least 162 more were reported injured, nearly two-thirds of them women and children, it said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said at least 26 more people were killed in pro-government airstrikes across the region on Monday. On Tuesday, it reported that 20 civilians in the western city of Hama were killed when rebel factions shelled government-held neighborhoods as they tried to capture the city, and another two civilians were killed in airstrikes on the city of Khan Sheikhoun.
About 5.1 million people live in northwestern Syria, according to U.N. figures, including 3.5 million who were displaced to Idlib from other parts of the country and two million who have been living in camps or other temporary shelters. Thousands fled the recent war in Lebanon for northwestern Syria, adding to the pressure on a region where many already struggled to get food and shelters warm enough for winter.
The latest fighting has driven at least 48,500 people to flee their homes or shelters, and the number was rising rapidly, the United Nations warned.
Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting from New York, and Rania Khaled from Cairo.
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7) Netanyahu Welcomes Trump’s Demand to Free Hostages Before Inauguration
President-elect Donald J. Trump has threatened to take unspecified action unless the hostages held in Gaza are released before he takes office in January.
By Adam Rasgon, Reporting from Jerusalem, Dec. 3, 2024
A makeshift memorial for hostages kidnapped on Oct. 7. in Tel Aviv last month. Credit...Stoyan Nenov/Reuters
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has welcomed President-elect Donald J. Trump’s demand that hostages taken in the Hamas-led attack on Israel be released from Gaza before his inauguration in January, and his threat that there will be “hell to pay” in the Middle East if they are not.
Mr. Trump’s social media post on Monday did not elaborate on what action would be taken if the hostages were not released by Jan. 20, when he will be sworn in. Still, some Israeli officials appeared to be reassured by Mr. Trump’s remarks, which suggested the onus was more on the militants holding the hostages than on Israel to free the captives.
“I want to thank President Trump for his strong statement yesterday,” Mr. Netanyahu said on Tuesday at a meeting of government ministers. “This is a very decisive statement that clarifies that there is one party responsible for this situation and that is Hamas,” he added.
Mr. Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Monday that “there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity” if the hostages are not released before his inauguration.
“Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America,” he said. “RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!”
According to Israeli authorities, about 250 hostages were captured in the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct, 7, 2023, and about 100 of them remain in Gaza, with at least a third believed to be dead. Alongside Israel and international mediators, including Qatar and Egypt, the Biden administration has been working toward a cease-fire deal that would include the release of the hostages, although those talks have been stalled for months.
It was not clear what action Mr. Trump might take to make good on his threat. Over the past year, Israel’s military has killed many of Hamas’s leaders and thousands of its fighters, while reducing much of Gaza to rubble.
Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s hard-line finance minister who has opposed past proposals for a cease-fire in Gaza, also praised Mr. Trump’s comments. Mr. Smotrich has said Israel should not agree to end the war in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed.
“How refreshing it is to hear clear and morally sound statements that do not create a false equivalence or call for addressing ‘both sides,’” Mr. Smotrich said.
“This is the way to bring back the hostages: by increasing the pressure and the costs for Hamas and its supporters, and defeating them, rather than, giving in to their absurd demands,” he added.
Basem Naim, a Hamas official, said the militant group was seeking a permanent cease-fire and an exchange of Palestinian prisoners for hostages, and blamed Mr. Netanyahu for a lack of progress toward a cease-fire.
“At many times, we were extremely close to signing on a deal, but due to his savage actions and decisions, these deals broke down,” he said in a statement on Tuesday. He added that Hamas believed Mr. Trump’s message was directed at Mr. Netanyahu and the Israeli government.
Hamas has long insisted on a permanent end to the war and a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. Mr. Netanyahu has vowed to continue fighting until Hamas is destroyed in the enclave and has suggested Israeli forces would have to remain in parts of the territory during any cease-fire.
Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly changed his conditions for a deal with Hamas, and his critics in Israel have accused him of prioritizing his political survival over freeing the hostages.
Benny Gantz, a prominent member of Israel’s political opposition, said Mr. Trump’s statement was “powerful and important,” and that it was now “time for our brave actions.” His comments appeared to suggest that Israel needed to do more to reach an agreement with Hamas.
Mr. Gantz has said in the past that Israeli political considerations have contributed to delays in striking a deal, resulting in the deaths of hostages.
Ameera Harouda contributed reporting.
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8) Google Worried Israeli Contract Could Enable Human Rights Violations
The tech giant, which has defended the deal to employees who oppose supplying Israel’s military with technology, feared the project might damage its reputation.
By Nico Grant, Reporting from San Francisco, Dec. 3, 2024
“Under the terms of the deal, Google expected to get the largest share of money from Israel’s Ministry of Defense, an estimated $525 million from 2021 to 2028, which dwarfed the $208 million it expected to receive from the rest of the country’s central government.
“The company anticipated total revenue of $1.26 billion over seven years, including business from Israeli local governments and some of the country’s health care providers, the documents showed.”
In April, some Google employees staged sit-ins at two Google offices, criticizing Project Nimbus. Credit...Natalie Keyssar for The New York Times
In May 2021, Google announced it had agreed to participate in a $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with the Israeli government and military, saying it was “delighted to have been chosen to help digitally transform” the country.
But four months earlier, officials at the company had worried that signing the deal, called Project Nimbus, would harm its reputation, according to documents prepared for executives that were reviewed by The New York Times.
Google’s lawyers, policy team employees and outside consultants — who were asked to assess the risks of the agreement — wrote that since “sensitive customers” like Israel’s Ministry of Defense and the Israeli Security Agency were included in the contract, “Google Cloud services could be used for, or linked to, the facilitation of human rights violations, including Israeli activity in the West Bank.”
The files, which have not been previously reported on, showed that despite Google’s public defense of Nimbus over the last three years, the company once had concerns about the contract similar to those of some employees, who have argued that it pulled Google into a long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
The documents also offer fresh insight into how the tech giant assessed a contract heralded as a gateway to the Israeli cloud computing market. Though the deal, for seven years, was tiny for a company with $258 billion in sales in 2021, it was an important government contract for Google’s cloud computing business, which was struggling to compete with much larger cloud businesses at Amazon and Microsoft. (Amazon also supplies computing services to Israel under the Nimbus deal.)
Google provided Israel with the processing power needed to run applications and A.I. tools, the documents showed, including technology that analyzes images and videos to detect objects. The company also supplied services to store and analyze large amounts of data, along with more mundane software like Google’s videoconferencing system.
The contract was a boon for Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud’s chief executive, who took the helm of Google Cloud in 2019. And while the Nimbus deal was contested at the time, it was a precursor to Silicon Valley’s increasingly enthusiastic pursuit of military and intelligence customers. In 2022, the Pentagon awarded its $9 billion Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability contract to Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Oracle.
But the Nimbus deal has been a lightning rod for arguments inside Google, especially since the start of the war in Gaza last year. Some employees claim Google’s technology could be playing a role in the conflict. The company has denied that, saying Nimbus “is not directed at highly sensitive, classified or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.”
“We have been very clear that the Nimbus contract is for workloads running on our commercial cloud by Israeli government ministries, who agree to comply with our terms of service and acceptable use policy,” a Google spokeswoman said in a statement. An Amazon spokesman declined to comment.
A spokeswoman for Israel’s Ministry of Finance said in a statement that Nimbus would help Israel solidify its position as a leading technology hub and improve the day-to-day lives of Israelis, and that the use of A.I. and machine learning would fuel new technologies and start-ups that people worldwide would enjoy.
She declined to comment on how the Israeli military was using the technology.
Israeli and Palestinian supporters have been engaged in bitter debates on Google’s internal forums. In April, some employees staged sit-ins at two Google offices, criticizing Nimbus on company whiteboards and posted signs. The police arrested eight of the protesters, and Google ultimately fired around 50 workers for participating in protests.
In October, the company barred employees from writing unauthorized messages on whiteboards and displaying signs around the office, according to an internal message viewed by The Times. Signs, posters and materials that do not promote Google-sponsored events and initiatives, or do not contribute to a “safe, productive and inclusive environment,” will be removed and may result in “corrective action” for employees, the company said.
Roberto González, a San Jose State University professor who has written about the military businesses of tech companies, said that in the last three years, big tech companies had grown increasingly comfortable with military and intelligence work.
Recently, pushback against these types of contracts has “really come to the fore with the war in Gaza and with the criticisms of the Israeli military in particular on issues around human rights,” Dr. González said.
Google has a history of employee activism against what workers believe could be the militarization of their technology. In 2018, Google workers protested Project Maven, an agreement to help the Pentagon identify people in drone videos. Google shut down the effort the next year when the contract expired.
The worker opposition to Maven prompted Google to create principles about how it would deploy its artificial intelligence. It ruled out using its technology for weapons, surveillance or human rights violations.
Three months before Google signed the Nimbus contract, the company’s consultants suggested that it prohibit the sale and use of its artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to Israel’s military and other sensitive customers.
Google had taken that approach in other countries but ultimately did not in Israel, according to the documents. The Google spokeswoman said the company was “proud to have a large number of public sector cloud customers around the world” and followed “a consistent process for reviewing and entering these contracts,” including compliance with its A.I. principles and other policies.
The company also worried that it would be forced to accept “onerous” risks, such as the possibility that it could run into conflicts with foreign or international authorities if they sought Israeli data and that it might have to “breach international legal orders” under the deal terms, according to the documents.
While it was considering the Nimbus deal, Google engaged its primary human rights consulting firm, Business for Social Responsibility.
Besides recommending that Google not provide A.I. to the Israeli military, BSR consultants worried that Google would have little understanding of how Nimbus customers in Israel were using its technology. It recommended that Google perform “due diligence” to ensure the services were being used as intended.
Finally, the consultants recommended that Google incorporate its A.I. principles into the contract, which would commit Israel not to use Nimbus for surveillance or weapons or to harm people, according to the documents.
But when Google negotiated next with the Israeli government, it did not get everything it asked for. The government did not add the A.I. principles to the contract. But it did say Google had the right to suspend customers if they violated the company’s terms of service and acceptable use policy, which forbids clients to use technology to undermine individuals’ legal rights, break the law or spread computer viruses, the documents showed.
Under the terms of the deal, Google expected to get the largest share of money from Israel’s Ministry of Defense, an estimated $525 million from 2021 to 2028, which dwarfed the $208 million it expected to receive from the rest of the country’s central government.
The company anticipated total revenue of $1.26 billion over seven years, including business from Israeli local governments and some of the country’s health care providers, the documents showed.
It was a tiny amount for a giant company, but it gave Google credibility with military and intelligence customers that workers had opposed.
Google demonstrated to these customers that it was “open for business,” Dr. González said. “Employee concerns or protests are not going to stand in the way of the company doing these deals.”
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9) France’s Looming Dilemma: No Confidence, No Government, No Budget
A vote by Parliament could force the prime minister to resign, leaving his budget legislation in limbo.
By Adam Nossiter, Dec. 3, 2024
Prime Minister Michel Barnier of France could face a no-confidence vote as soon as Wednesday, which, if it passes. would force him to resign. Credit...Mohammed Badra/EPA, via Shutterstock
France’s prime minister, Michel Barnier, is facing a no-confidence vote that could leave the country without a functioning government or a budget as it enters the new year.
Does that mean France is hurtling toward a constitutional crisis, or an American-style government shutdown in which civil servants are unpaid and departments are unfunded? Not exactly.
France’s Constitution offers several scenarios that could keep the country’s affairs more or less in order. French institutions are relatively strong, and the country’s laws provide for continuity in the absence of a government and a budget. But it will also pay a price: Investors are already selling off French stocks and bonds, raising its borrowing costs.
How did France get here?
Mr. Barnier was appointed in September by President Emmanuel Macron, who ignored parliamentary election results that were disastrous for his party and its allies. Instead of naming a politician from the leftist coalition that won the most votes in the election, Mr. Macron called on Mr. Barnier, a figure from the traditional centrist right. The leftist coalition was furious.
Since then, Mr. Barnier has been living “the hell of Matignon,” a phrase used by generations of political commentators to describe the difficulties of reigning from Matignon Palace, seat of the government, where a prime minister has some power, but hardly all of it.
On Monday, Mr. Barnier pushed a budget bill through the lower house of Parliament without a vote — a risky move that led to no-confidence motions filed by both French left-wing parties and Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party.
The fate of Mr. Barnier and of his cabinet, both appointed by Mr. Macron just three months ago, now rests in their hands.
What happens next?
The no-confidence vote is expected to take place on Wednesday and is likely to pass. Mr. Barnier would then have no choice but to resign, and the government would enter caretaker mode.
Mr. Macron’s previous government also drifted along in caretaker mode from July to September. It was empowered under the Constitution to handle “current affairs” but was limited in its powers.
No legal texts detail exactly what those limits are, but French jurists agree that a caretaker government can’t propose new laws or issue new decrees. But it can take care of government business like paying workers and distributing pensions, for instance. The cabinet no longer meets.
It will then be up to Mr. Macron, once again, to appoint a new prime minister. He can take his time, and he can appoint whomever he likes — and not necessarily someone from the majority party in Parliament.
What about the budget?
The budget itself would enter a kind of limbo. Without a functioning government, the budget proposed by Mr. Barnier, with around $60 billion of tax increases and spending cuts, would be dead on arrival. If Mr. Macron acts quickly and appoints a new prime minister before the end of the year, a new government budget could be submitted, and the Parliament would have 70 days to examine it.
But that would still mean France would not have a spending law by the new year. Under French law, the government could simply propose a “special measure” reapplying the 2024 budget, by Dec. 19. The civil servants would be paid and taxes would remain at their current level.
If Parliament refuses to go along or does not hold a vote, Mr. Macron could invoke his extraordinary constitutional powers and simply impose a budget. But jurists agree that the political consequences of such an untested move could be severe, especially at a time when the French president is increasingly challenged for failing to respect the voice of French voters.
What happens to Macron?
Under France’s constitution, Mr. Macron will remain as president until his term expires in 2027, but it seems almost certain that his stature will be even more diminished. Some politicians on both the left and the right are already calling for his resignation, but he has resisted those calls. He is term limited, and cannot seek another stint in office.
Aurelien Breeden contributed reporting.
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10) U.S. Moves to End a Minimum Wage Waiver for Disabled Workers
A plan by the Biden administration would end a provision that allowed employers to pay workers with disabilities less than the federal minimum wage.
By Danielle Kaye, Dec. 3, 2024
“The number of workers with disabilities earning less than the minimum wage dropped to 122,000 in 2019 from 296,000 in 2010, according to a report published last year from the Government Accountability Office.
“Since 2019, more than half of workers employed under this program earned less than $3.50 an hour, according to the report.”
The Biden administration on Tuesday moved to end a program that had for decades allowed companies to pay workers with disabilities less than the minimum wage. Credit...Carlos Kosienski/Sipa USA, via Associated Press
The Biden administration on Tuesday moved to end a program that has for decades allowed companies to pay workers with disabilities less than the minimum wage.
The statute, enacted as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, has let employers obtain certificates from the Labor Department that authorize them to pay workers with disabilities less than the federal minimum wage, currently $7.25. The department began a “comprehensive review” of the program last year, and on Tuesday it proposed a rule that would bar new certificates and phase out current ones over three years.
“This proposal would help ensure that workers with disabilities have access to equal employment opportunities, while reinforcing our fundamental belief that all workers deserve fair competition for their contribution,” Taryn Williams, assistant secretary of labor for disability employment policy, said on a call with reporters.
As of May, about 800 employers held certificates allowing them to pay workers less than minimum wage, affecting roughly 40,000 workers, said Kristin Garcia, deputy administrator of the Labor Department’s wage and hour division.
Those figures reflect a steep decline in employers’ reliance on the program in recent years: The number of workers with disabilities earning less than the minimum wage dropped to 122,000 in 2019 from 296,000 in 2010, according to a report published last year from the Government Accountability Office.
Since 2019, more than half of workers employed under this program earned less than $3.50 an hour, according to the report.
The Labor Department’s proposed rule, even if it is finalized, faces several hurdles. It is likely to confront legal challenges and could be reversed under the incoming Trump administration. There has been debate about whether the department has authority to alter the program or if that power rests solely with Congress.
Many disability rights advocates have pushed for years to end the practice, arguing that it perpetuates economic inequality and prevents those with disabilities from affording basic goods without government assistance or other forms of financial support. Several states have banned or restricted the practice.
Certificates allowing employers to pay less than the minimum wage are “inherently based on a deeply flawed, false, ableist notion that disabled workers’ labor and contributions are less valuable than the labor and contributions of their nondisabled peers,” Maria Town, president of the American Association of People With Disabilities, said in a statement. “The ideas on which these certificates are based have no place in our modern society and work force.”
Some parents of adults with disabilities, however, have urged for the program to remain in place, raising concern about a potential loss of work opportunities or Social Security benefits.
Opportunities for workers with disabilities to obtain full minimum wage employment have “dramatically expanded” in recent decades, said Ms. Garcia of the Labor Department. These changes to the employment landscape factored into the department’s conclusion that issuing certificates for pay below the minimum wage was no longer necessary, she said, adding that the proposed rule would increase purchasing power and independence for workers with disabilities.
The department said it would review public comments on the proposal until Jan. 17.
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11) May It Please the Court: Trans Health Saved My Life
By Chase Strangio, Dec. 3, 2024
Mr. Strangio is a co-director of the L.G.B.T.Q. & H.I.V. Project at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Illustration by Shoshana Schultz/The New York Times
On Wednesday I will present oral argument before the Supreme Court in United States v. Skrmetti, a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender adolescents.
I, along with my colleagues at the American Civil Liberties Union and other co-counsel, represent three transgender adolescents, their parents and a Tennessee doctor who is barred from treating her transgender patients under the age of 18 with the hormone therapy she is permitted to prescribe for purposes other than to treat gender dysphoria. In Tennessee, doctors can prescribe puberty-blocking medication and hormone therapy for many medical reasons. Under the Tennessee law that is now being challenged before the Supreme Court, they are barred from doing so to allow an adolescent to identify, live or appear in a way inconsistent with the person’s sex assigned at birth.
The question before the court is whether a law that prohibits such medical treatment is discriminatory under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Our position, and the position of the United States (at least until Jan. 20), is that it does.
My presence at the Supreme Court as a transgender lawyer will have been possible because I have had access to the very medical treatment at the center of the case. Though some doubt the lifesaving properties of this care, I know them personally. And so do my clients.
Though the question before the court is a relatively narrow one, the stakes are high, particularly as Donald Trump takes office in the wake of a presidential campaign in which transgender people and our health care played an outsize rhetorical role. If there is to be a judicial check on the incoming president’s efforts to federally ban health care for transgender minors and restrict it for transgender adults — as he has promised to do — this case provides a critical vehicle.
In some sense, I am speaking not only to the nine justices who will decide this case but also to a country confused, skeptical and unnecessarily fearful of trans health care.
Unlike the young people I represent, I grew up at a time when I had no information about transgender people. The first transgender man that I remember learning about was Brandon Teena, a 21-year-old from Nebraska who was raped and murdered in 1993. (That hate crime became the center of the 1999 film “Boys Don’t Cry.”) I was 11 when Mr. Teena was murdered, and the precarity of his life haunted my adolescence and young adulthood. I could not comprehend what a future might look like as I grappled with my own identity; it seemed like there would be no future at all.
Nearly two decades ago, when I was in my early 20s, I finally came out as transgender in what felt like a much more accepting world than that of my childhood. Despite feeling more hopeful, I was still confronted by many legal and cultural barriers: Transgender people were legally at the margins, marriage for same-sex couples was banned almost everywhere, and my goal of being an attorney representing transgender people in court felt hindered by my fear that I would never be seen as a legitimate courtroom advocate.
That fear was reinforced as I entered the legal profession. In Boston in 2007, one of my law school professors at Northeastern told our class that we needed to abide by traditional gender norms in court. She instructed that women should wear skirts to appear before juries, and after a presentation in class she told me that I was too “soft-spoken” to be seen as an effective male advocate. Outside class, I found my appearance was regularly the subject of mockery. During an internship at a public defender’s office in New York City, some court officers and judges referred to me as “Doogie Howser” and asked my supervisors if it was take your kid to work day. I was perceived as too boyish to be either a woman or an adult man. After one job interview, I later learned, staff members questioned whether I would be “taken seriously” in court. Fearing my gender would be a distraction and that my future clients would pay the price, I stayed away from the courtroom for years after graduation.
That self-doubt ultimately waned because I had access to medical treatment to affirm my gender. I found peace in my body, which allowed me to find peace in the world. My only regret was how long it took for me to get that medical care and how many years I suffered without it.
For much of my career, the cases I litigated did not touch on health care for adolescents. There were fights to end bans on marriage equality, to protect trans students in school, to increase access to identification, to protect people in prison and to stop Mr. Trump’s ban on trans people in the military. Then, in 2021, a single law categorically banning any medical treatment related to gender transition for minors passed in Arkansas despite then-Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s veto. There was a similar law passed in 2022 in Alabama, and then the floodgates opened. Now at least two dozen states ban medical care when it is prescribed to treat adolescents with gender dysphoria. With the new administration coming, fears of federal bans on this care are no longer far-fetched.
When I enter the courtroom this week, my job is to explain why it is unconstitutional to single out medications for prohibition only when they are used to treat transgender adolescents with gender dysphoria. That argument hinges on the fact that by banning testosterone for someone assigned female at birth but not applying that same restriction to someone assigned male at birth, Tennessee treats people differently based on sex.
The reasons cisgender and transgender people receive hormone therapy are often the same. A cisgender boy who is a “late bloomer” might receive testosterone so that he can undergo a typical male puberty alongside his peers. A transgender boy receives testosterone for the same reason. The difference between them is simply the sex they were assigned at birth and whether undergoing male puberty conforms to our expectations of what someone with that sex at birth should do.
This case has implications far beyond the courtroom. Will our sex assigned at birth dictate how we can live and identify? Must biology be destiny? Or will the court see that this argument over health care for transgender people is the next phase in a long struggle to shed ourselves of constraining sex stereotypes? That has been a central part of my journey through law and life — both seeing myself and helping others see me beyond the limiting expectations that were assigned to me at birth.
This week, I will not just be presenting legal arguments to the justices. I will also be embodying them.
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12) Stalin Silenced These Ukrainian Writers. The War Made Them Famous Again.
The Soviet regime killed a generation of literary artists in the 1930s. Their legacy is being reclaimed as Ukraine fights to preserve its cultural heritage.
By Constant Méheut, Reporting from Kyiv and Kharkiv, Ukraine, Dec. 4, 2024
A performance of “You [Romance],” a play chronicling the lives of the “Executed Renaissance” directed by Oleksandr Khomenko, in Kyiv, Ukraine, in October. Credit...Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times
In Ukraine, they are known as the “Executed Renaissance,” pioneering literary artists whose lives were snuffed out by Stalin’s brutal purges in the 1930s.
Living together in an apartment building and embracing experimental art forms, these writers, poets and directors spearheaded a flourishing of Ukrainian culture and identity about a century ago.
But that golden age was short-lived. The Soviet regime soon began to surveil, arrest and ultimately execute about half of the writers in an effort to stifle Ukrainian culture. For decades, their works were banned and their legacy nearly erased.
Until now.
In the face of Russia’s invasion, the story of the Executed Renaissance has been given new resonance as many Ukrainians seek to reclaim their cultural heritage. The lives of the writers are being told in a musical, a feature movie and a memoir. There is even a fashion line themed around them, with sweatshirts riddled with bullet holes to symbolize their killings.
“It’s a big trend,” said Yaryna Tsymbal, the author of “Our Twenties,” an anthology of Ukrainian literature from the 1920s. She said the demand for projects about the artists came “from everywhere: publishing houses, magazines, theaters.”
The sudden interest after a century of silence reflects a broader phenomenon in wartime Ukraine. Many people have embraced Ukrainian culture — like folk songs, poetry and overlooked painters — to affirm their identity and counter Moscow’s attempts to erase their country’s cultural heritage.
But the story of the artists has particularly struck a chord with Ukrainians, because they have viewed it as a warning of what could happen if Ukraine loses the war: the silencing of their culture, once again.
“What they seek in this story of the Executed Renaissance is the inspiration to keep fighting,” said Oleksandr Khomenko, the director of the musical. “They don’t want history to repeat itself.”
At the center of this story is Slovo House, a writers’ residence named after the Ukrainian for “word.” Completed in 1929 in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, then the capital of Soviet Ukraine, it was a modern building in which each apartment had its own bathroom and telephone, a luxury at the time, said Tetiana Pylypchuk, the head of the Kharkiv Literature Museum.
The 60 or so writers who lived there with their families partly financed the project, but its completion relied on Soviet approval and funding, scholars say. At the time, the Communist leadership in Moscow sought to build loyalty across the Soviet Union by promoting national cultures, in a reversal of czarist-era Russification policies.
Ukrainian culture thrived as a result, and Slovo House, with its vibrant community of writers and playwrights living under one roof, symbolized this renaissance. There was Mykola Khvyliovyi, a charismatic novelist who wrote of breaking free from Moscow’s yoke, and Mykhail Semenko, a poet whose futurist verses revitalized Ukrainian literature.
Another resident, the avant-garde director Les Kurbas, drew admirers from across the Soviet Union with theater productions blending live performances with film projections.
“These were truly gifted artists,” Ms. Pylypchuk said. “It was a pivotal period for Ukrainian culture.”
But that all did not last.
The Kremlin realized that promoting Ukrainian culture was driving Ukrainians away from the Soviet project rather than creating the kind of loyalty it had originally hoped for. Stalin complained about Mr. Khvyliovyi, who expressed his yearning for independence with a slogan that later became famous: “Away from Moscow!”
In 1933, around the same time Moscow imposed a human-made famine on Ukraine known as the Holodomor, Stalin began a crackdown on Ukrainian culture.
Slovo House, once a vibrant creative hub, became a deathtrap.
The Soviet secret police began arresting the residents of Slovo House one by one. On May 13, 1933, Mr. Khvyliovyi gathered fellow writers in his apartment to discuss the situation. During the meeting, he went into his room and shot himself in the head.
“Khvyliovyi did that to send a warning, to show what was coming,” said Taras Tomenko, the director of “Slovo House: Unfinished Novel,” a feature film about the artists’ residency that was one of the most-watched Ukrainian movies this year.
Some 30 Slovo House writers were executed, and a few others sent to penal colonies, Ms. Tsymbal said. Their work was banned and disappeared from public view, replaced by Kremlin-approved Russian-language books and plays.
Ms. Tsymbal recalled how, while studying at Harvard in 1998, she discovered the existence of a novel by Mike Johansen, one of the killed Slovo House writers. The university had kept in its archives a 1930 copy of the book, which had never been reprinted in Ukraine, she said. It has since been published again in Ukraine.
Even after Ukraine’s independence, Russian literature, songs and movies continued to dominate. Interest in Slovo House was so low that when Mr. Tomenko first pitched his idea for his film in 2012, “nobody cared,” he said.
“At that time, Ukrainian culture wasn’t even on the radar,” he added.
Russia’s cultural dominance was such that Mr. Khomenko, the musical’s director, long thought that Ukrainian writers were “boring,” he acknowledged. He said he “grew up loving Russian literature,” staging plays in Kyiv, the capital, about Russian writers.
Then came Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Trapped in Russian-occupied territory for the first month of the invasion, with no cellphone network in the countryside house where he had taken refuge, Mr. Khomenko said, he “had a lot of time to reconsider his past choices,” realizing that he had spent years promoting the culture of a country that was now erasing his own.
Back in Kyiv in April 2022, he made a decision to focus on the Ukrainian artists he had long overlooked. He set his sights on the Slovo House residents, recognizing in them a compelling, untold story. Along with friends, he recorded an album inspired by their tragic lives, called “You [Romance],” before turning it into a musical.
On a recent evening in Kyiv, a packed theater resonated with the cheers of spectators who had flocked to watch the musical, which mixes rock, pop and rap music. The musical has attracted more than 85,000 people since April, organizers said.
“I didn’t know the story of the Slovo House before this performance,” said Anastasiia Lisohub, 26, her eyes swollen from the tears she shed during the scenes depicting the artists’ executions. “These writers were incredibly modern.”
But pride in the writers has also come with a painful realization of all that was lost. Many Ukrainians say that if this generation of writers had not been killed, the country’s trajectory, especially its long subjugation to Moscow, might have been different.
“Ukraine would have flourished,” said Nataliia Kovalchuk, 40, as she left a screening of the movie about Slovo House. “If they were alive today, what kind of culture would we have? How different we would be? It chills me to the bone.”
Like many in Ukraine, Ms. Kovalchuk now fears that history is repeating itself.
Dozens of Ukrainian cultural figures have been killed in today’s war, stifling the country’s cultural potential. They have been called the “New Executed Renaissance.” At the end of the Slovo House musical in Kyiv, actors wore black T-shirts emblazoned with the names of recently killed artists, drawing a direct link between the two artistic generations.
Slovo House itself is also helping build a bridge between the two periods.
The building itself still stands, though it has long ceased being a writers’ residency and is now made up of ordinary apartments. In 2020, the Kharkiv Literature Museum purchased one, offering temporary stays to artists and cultural researchers. Despite near-daily Russian bombings on Kharkiv, which have damaged the building, the program continues.
In August, Khrystyna Semeryn, a Ukrainian researcher, joined the program to work on a series of articles on topics including Ukrainian scientists killed during the war, Jewish heritage in Ukraine and the history of German settlers in the country.
“I’m very inspired here,” she said with a smile. “This legacy of the 1920s, it reverberates through you.”
Oleksandra Mykolyshyn and Daria Mitiuk contributed reporting.
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13) How Universities Cracked Down on Pro-Palestinian Activism
Stricter rules and punishments over campus protests seem to be working. Universities have seen just under 950 protest events this semester, compared with 3,000 in the spring.
By Isabelle Taft, Nov. 25, 2024
Students gathered on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin for a pro-Palestinian protest in October. There have been fewer protests around the country this semester, according to one count. Credit...Charlotte Keene/The Daily Texan
Colleges and universities have tightened rules around protests, locked campus gates and handed down stricter punishments after the disruptions of pro-Palestinian demonstrations and encampments last spring.
The efforts seem to be working.
Universities have seen just under 950 protest events this semester so far, compared to 3,000 last semester, according to a log at the Nonviolent Action Lab at Harvard University’s Ash Center. About 50 people have been arrested so far this school year at protests on higher education campuses, according to numbers gathered by The New York Times, compared to over 3,000 last semester.
When students have protested this fall, administrators have often enforced — to the letter — new rules created in response to last spring’s unrest. The moves have created scenes that would have been hard to imagine previously, particularly at universities that once celebrated their history of student activism.
Harvard temporarily banned dozens of students and faculty members from libraries after they participated in silent “study-ins” — where protesters sit at library tables with signs opposing the war in Gaza — though a similar protest did not lead to discipline in December 2023. At Indiana University Bloomington, some students and faculty members who attended candlelight vigils were referred for discipline under a new prohibition on expressive activity after 11 p.m. University of Pennsylvania administrators and campus police officers holding zip ties told vigil attendees to move because they had not reserved the space in compliance with new rules.
And at Montclair State University in New Jersey, police officers often outnumber participants in a weekly demonstration where protesters hold placards with photos of children killed in Gaza and the words “We mourn.”
“They say it’s to keep us safe, but I think it’s more to keep us under control,” said Tasneem Abdulazeez, a student in the teaching program.
The changes follow federal civil rights complaints, lawsuits and withering congressional scrutiny accusing universities of tolerating antisemitism, after some protesters praised Hamas and called for violence against Israelis.
Some students and faculty have welcomed calmer campuses. Others see the relative quiet as the bitter fruit of a crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech. They worry President-elect Donald J. Trump, who as a candidate called for universities to “vanquish the radicals,” could ratchet up the pressure.
In many cases, universities are enforcing rules they adopted before the school year began. While the specifics vary, they generally impose limits on where and when protests can occur and what form they can take.
Todd Wolfson, the president of the American Association of University Professors and an associate professor of media studies at Rutgers, said the restrictions have made people afraid.
“They feel like they’re being watched and surveilled,” he said. “I think there’s a strong degree of self-censorship that’s taking place.”
But Jewish students who felt targeted by protesters have praised the rules — and the speed at which universities are enforcing them — for helping to restore order and safety. Naomi Lamb, the director of Hillel at the Ohio State University, said the school’s new protest policies seem to be working well.
“I appreciate the response of administrators to ensure that there is as little antisemitic action and rhetoric as possible,” she said.
Some of the tactics protesters used last semester have been met with stringent responses this school year. At the University of Minnesota, 11 people were arrested after they occupied a campus building. Last school year, some universities let protesters occupy buildings overnight and even for days at a time.
At Pomona College, the president invoked “extraordinary authority” to bypass the standard disciplinary process and immediately suspend or ban some pro-Palestinian protesters who took over a building on Oct. 7 of this year. A college spokeswoman said the unusual move was justified because the occupation had destroyed property, threatened safety and disrupted classes, and noted that students were given opportunities to respond to the allegations against them.
At some campuses, protesters have taken up new tactics to challenge the new restrictions.
Study-ins like those at Harvard have also taken place at Ohio State, Tulane University and the University of Texas at Austin. Students typically wear kaffiyehs and tape signs to their laptops with messages like “Our tuition funds genocide.”
“It’s kind of designed to put the administration in this bind of either you ignore it, or you enforce rules but you look like kind of a jerk,” said Jay Ulfelder, research project manager at Harvard’s Nonviolent Action Lab.
A Harvard spokesman said that a January 2024 statement from university leadership made clear that demonstrations are not permitted in libraries or other campus areas used for academic activities.
During Sukkot, the Jewish holiday that celebrates the harvest, members of the anti-Zionist organization Jewish Voice for Peace set up “solidarity sukkahs” at about 20 schools including Northwestern and the University of California, Los Angeles. The sukkahs, or huts, commemorate the structures the Israelites lived in while wandering in the desert for 40 years and are often decorated with gourds, fruit and lights. JVP members added signs saying “Stop Arming Israel.”
The sukkahs were removed at nine universities, according to JVP, with administrators citing new rules prohibiting unauthorized structures.
When facilities workers arrived with power tools to tear down the sukkah at Northwestern, JVP members told them it was wrong to do so before the end of the weeklong holiday, said Paz Baum, a senior.
“They do not care about our ability or right to practice our religion,” Ms. Baum said. “They only care about limiting Palestinian speech.”
The new restrictions may not be the only factor behind diminished protest activity this semester. Some protest groups have embraced more violent rhetoric — praising Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, for example — alienating some students who had sympathized with their cause.
Some things have not changed, however: There is still little consensus about what it means for a campus to be safe and when speech critical of Israel crosses the line into antisemitism.
At Montclair State, where pro-Palestinian demonstrators have criticized the number of police officers and administrators at their events, President Jonathan Koppell said he was trying to strike a balance between “competing priorities.”
In an interview, Dr. Koppell said the officers stationed at protests are necessary to protect everyone on campus, including the protesters. He noted that demonstrations on campus have been peaceful and people have “engaged responsibly.”
He added that some community members want him to prohibit the pro-Palestinian gatherings altogether, something he has resisted.
“You have a desire for some people to be able to say whatever they what, wherever they want, whenever they want,” Dr. Koppell said. “And you have some people who would like to see an environment where there’s an absolute limitation on people’s ability to protest.”
“Anybody who wants an absolute in either direction is going to be unhappy,” he added.
Even as universities crack down, administrators and faculty say the federal government under Mr. Trump could try to force further changes at institutions.
Still, much remains unclear about what could happen. His pick to lead the Department of Education, Linda McMahon, has less education experience than is typical of education secretaries in the past and has publicly said little about campus protests.
Abed A. Ayoub, the executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said he did not think Mr. Trump could make campuses more hostile to pro-Palestinian protests than they already are.
“Are they going to continue with their crackdown on anti-Israel speech? I think they will,” he said, referring to universities. “That’s not because Trump is in office. They started this. It’s been happening.”
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14) Beit Lahiya Is Being Wiped Out: Israel Burns Last Refuge for Displaced Families, Plants Barrel Bombs Among Houses
QNN Team, December 3, 2024
Gaza (Quds News Network)- Israeli forces have escalated their assault on Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, targeting the city’s 60,000 residents in a campaign that threatens to wipe out the population.
The bombardment has targeted residential areas, schools, and hospitals, turning what was once a haven for displaced families into a warzone.
Residents in Beit Lahiya report that Israeli drones and helicopters have been relentlessly firing at homes. Barrel bombs have been planted in neighborhoods, causing widespread destruction and killing dozens of besieged civilians.
Israeli forces have also surrounded Abu Tammam school, the last remaining displacement shelter in the area. This schools is now under siege, with no access to food, water, or medical aid. Israeli forces also started burning parts of the school even as about 4000 civilians are trapped inside.
At Kamal Adwan Hospital, the situation is dire. Israeli drones have attacked the hospital multiple times, injuring three medical staff members, one of whom is in critical condition. Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the hospital director, condemned the attacks, calling them “barbaric and unjustified.” He confirmed that drones dropped bombs filled with shrapnel, endangering patients and staff. “We are exhausted by this brutality,” he said. “Every day, we are systematically targeted.”
The Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza described the situation in Beit Lahya as catastrophic. Speaking to Al Jazeera, the spokesperson stated that Israeli forces are committing ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza. “We cannot provide medical or rescue services due to the relentless attacks,” he said. Many victims remain trapped under rubble, with no way for rescue teams to reach them.
In the past 24 hours, two massacres have been reported in Gaza. Hospitals have received the bodies of 36 victims, along with 96 wounded, but the actual toll is likely higher. Civilians in northern Gaza have endured two months without proper food or clean water. Their homes are no longer livable, and the humanitarian crisis deepens by the hour.
Since October 7, 2023, Israeli attacks have killed 44,502 Palestinians and injured 105,454, according to health officials. Beit Lahiya, once a sanctuary for those displaced by earlier strikes, now faces complete obliteration.
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