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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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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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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) Live Updates: First Hostages Return to Israel as Gaza Cease-Fire Takes Hold
The initial stage of a truce between Israel and Hamas prompted celebrations in Gaza and hope for an end to the 15-month war. Three women were the first Israeli hostages to be released. In exchange, Israel has agreed to release dozens of Palestinian prisoners.
By Isabel Kershner, Hiba Yazbek, Aaron Boxerman and Bilal Shbair, Reporting from Jerusalem and Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Jan. 19, 2025
Here’s the latest on the cease-fire.
Three hostages were released from Gaza on Sunday and reunited with family members in Israel, the Israeli military said, as a long-awaited cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas went into effect. The truce prompted celebrations in Gaza, relief for families of Israeli captives and hope for an end to a devastating 15-month war.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office identified the freed hostages as Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher. They were captured during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks in Israel that set off the war. Israel was expected to release 90 Palestinian prisoners, all women or minors, later on Sunday in exchange for the hostages.
As the truce took effect on Sunday morning, joyful Palestinians honked car horns and blasted music in the central Gaza city of Deir al Balah, where celebratory gunfire rang out and children ran around in the streets.
And as Israeli officers said their forces had begun to withdraw from parts of Gaza, including two towns north of Gaza City, Hamas sought to signal that it was still standing and moving to reassert control, with masked gunmen parading through cities. The Hamas-run police force in Gaza, whose uniformed officers had all but disappeared from the streets to avoid Israeli attacks, said that it was deploying personnel across the territory to “preserve security and order,” according to the government media office.
Achieving the agreement on a delicate, multistage cease-fire required months of talks mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States. The start of an initial, six-week phase on Sunday was delayed by almost three hours, with Israel saying it had not formally received the names of the first three hostages to be released.
During the delay, the Israeli military continued striking in Gaza. The Palestinian Civil Defense, an emergency service, said that at least 19 people had been killed and more than three dozen were wounded in the attacks. It wasn’t possible to confirm the figures independently. The truce finally came into effect at 11:15 a.m. local time (4:15 a.m. Eastern), and in the first several hours no additional attacks were reported in Gaza.
Here’s what we’re covering:
· Hostage and prisoner releases: Israel and Hamas have agreed to observe a 42-day truce, during which Hamas is expected to stagger the release of 33 of the roughly 100 hostages it still holds, some of whom are believed to be dead. In exchange, Israel is expected to begin releasing more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
· Gaza’s destruction: The start of the cease-fire capped a 470-day war that has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians and injured more than 110,000 others, according to the Gaza health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Much of Gaza has been destroyed, and most of its roughly two million people have been displaced at least once by the war, which began after Hamas invaded southern Israel, killing roughly 1,200 people and capturing 250 hostages.
· Humanitarian aid: United Nations trucks carrying humanitarian supplies began entering Gaza just 15 minutes after the cease-fire took effect, according to Jonathan Whittall, the head of the U.N. humanitarian office for the Palestinian territories. The cease-fire deal calls for 600 trucks to be allowed to bring aid to Gazans daily, although it was not clear how the supplies would be distributed.
· Next phase: Big diplomatic hurdles lie ahead. Israel and Hamas reached the cease-fire agreement in part by putting off their most intractable disputes until a nebulous “second phase” that neither side is sure it will reach.
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2) With fighters on the streets, Hamas tries to show it’s back in charge in Gaza.
By Adam Rasgon, Reporting from Jerusalem, Jan. 19, 2025
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/01/19/world/israel-hamas-gaza-ceasefire
As the cease-fire in Gaza was coming into effect on Sunday, masked gunmen, crowded into white pickup trucks, paraded through the streets of Gaza while supporters chanted the name of Hamas’s military wing. By sending its fighters out in an unmistakable show of force, Hamas was trying to deliver an unequivocal message to Palestinians in Gaza, to Israel and to the international community: that despite heavy losses during the war among Hamas’s fighters, police officers, political leaders and government administrators, it remains the dominant Palestinian power in Gaza.
“The message is that Hamas is ‘the day after’ for the war,” said Ibrahim Madhoun, an analyst close to Hamas based in Turkey, using a phrase that refers to the future administration of Gaza.
“They’re conveying that Hamas must be a part of any future arrangements, or at least, be coordinated with,” he added.
On Sunday, the Hamas-run government media office announced that thousands of police officers were beginning to deploy throughout the territory to “preserve security and order.” Government ministries and institutions, the media office said, were prepared to start working “according to the government plan to implement all the measures that guarantee bringing back normal life.”
At the Nasser Medical Complex in the southern city of Khan Younis, at least three uniformed police officers were standing as the Palestinian national anthem played in the background, according to a video posted on social media and verified by The New York Times.
Later on Sunday, dozens of uniformed, gun-toting Hamas militants were seen in Saraya Square in Gaza City next to a car holding Israeli hostages before they were handed over to the Red Cross. The militants were attempting to push away crowds of people pressing toward the car.
Even as Hamas attempts to project that it still controls Gaza and plans to play a key role in its administration, its future there remains uncertain. Israeli officials have said they have not given up on their stated war goal of dismantling Hamas’s military wing and government, strongly suggesting that they could resume the war against the militant group after the freeing of some hostages.
Gideon Saar, the Israeli foreign minister, said on Sunday that Hamas’s rule was dangerous for Israel’s security and emphasized that Israel had not agreed to a permanent cease-fire that leaves Hamas in power.
“We are determined to achieve the objectives of the war,” he said.
While some analysts could eventually remove Hamas from power, other say it would struggle to resume the war in the face of international pressure. And even if it does, those analysts say, Israeli forces will face immense challenges in uprooting Hamas from Gaza without carrying out a direct occupation.
Ali Jarbawi, a political science professor at Birzeit University, said Hamas’s parades through Gaza on Sunday were more than a message to the international community that it was in control. They also reflect the reality on the ground, he said.
“Hamas was there before the war and they’re there now,” he said.
Aritz Parra contributed reporting.
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3) Live Updates: As Cease-Fire Takes Hold, Gazans Return to Destroyed Homes
Gazans were surveying the vast damage to their neighborhoods on Monday as anxious Israelis awaited news about the condition of the hostages.
By Patrick Kingsley, Reporting from Jerusalem, Jan. 20, 2025
Here’s the latest on the cease-fire.
Palestinians began to absorb the scale of damage to their neighborhoods in Gaza on Monday afternoon, while Israelis waited anxiously for news about the condition of three newly released hostages, as a day-old cease-fire between Hamas and Israel continued to hold.
Gazans picked their way through vast swaths of rubble, trying to salvage undamaged belongings — a sofa, a mattress, a chair, a crate — from the wreckage of their former homes and neighborhoods that have been decimated by 15 months of war. The Gazan Civil Defense, an emergency service, announced that nearly half of its employees had been killed, wounded or detained during the war.
The scenes embodied the bittersweet emotions felt on either side of the Israel-Gaza border. Palestinians celebrated Israel’s release of 90 Palestinian prisoners early Monday, hours after Hamas freed three Israeli hostages in Gaza, setting off joyous reunions with their families. The exchange capped the first of what is hoped will be a series of weekly hostage-for-prisoner swaps over the next six weeks.
As the truce came into effect on Sunday, celebrations replaced explosions and hundreds of humanitarian aid trucks began rolling into Gaza. The three hostages returned to jubilant embraces with relatives and friends at an Israeli hospital, while fireworks and cheering crowds greeted the newly freed Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
But the joy was shadowed by uncertainty and expectations of prolonged hardship to come, with no comprehensive plan in place for how Gaza will be rebuilt. Gazans returning to Rafah, a southern city, found it mostly flattened by fighting; the mayor said that 60 percent of homes had been destroyed and 70 percent of the city’s sewage system.
And after months of restrictions and lawlessness in Gaza that reduced humanitarian aid to a trickle, aid agencies have warned that they need unimpeded access for supplies to reach those in need.
In Israel, little was announced about the health of the hostages released on Sunday, while nothing is known about the identities of four hostages expected to be freed next weekend in exchange for additional Palestinian prisoners. If the deal holds, 33 of the roughly 100 remaining hostages still in Gaza, living and dead, and more than 1,000 imprisoned Palestinians held in Israel will be released over the first six weeks of the cease-fire. But the fate of more than 60 other hostages and thousands of other Palestinian detainees depends on the deal’s extension.
“This is a moment of tremendous hope — fragile, yet vital,” Tom Fletcher, the United Nations undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, said on social media.
Here’s what else to know:
· Trump inauguration: Some officials have suggested that a looming deadline helped close the gap to reaching a cease-fire deal after months of sputtering talks: President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration on Monday. That deadline helped negotiators put pressure on both Israel and Hamas to accelerate their decision-making after months of agonizing delay.
· Hostage and prisoner releases: One aspect of the cease-fire agreement was strikingly lopsided: the number of Israeli hostages released compared with the number of freed Palestinian prisoners. Further exchanges will likely follow a similar formula. [Israel holds thousands of Palestinians prisoners as apposed to the 100 remaining Israeli prisoners in Gaza out of the total of approximately 251 taken by Hamas October 7. BW]
· Hamas projects strength: Armed Hamas fighters returned to the streets of Gaza on Sunday. The Hamas-run police force, whose uniformed officers had all but disappeared to avoid Israeli attacks, said that it was deploying personnel across the territory to “preserve security and order.”.
· Gaza’s destruction: The cease-fire halted a 470-day conflict that has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians and injured more than 110,000 others, according to the Gaza health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Many of Gaza’s roughly two million people have been displaced at least once by the war.
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4) West Bank settlers attack Palestinian villages, angry about prisoner releases.
By Natan Odenheimer, Jan. 20. 2025
As three hostages were reunited with their families in Israel after 15 months of captivity in Gaza, settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank attacked at least three Palestinian villages, according to residents and the Israeli military.
Palestinian residents of the villages said that the attackers were masked and burned homes and vehicles, accounts that were backed up by video footage on social media verified by The New York Times. The Israeli military said in statements that the villages had been subject to “violent riots” and “violent confrontation” but did not mention arson attacks.
The military said that it had detained two suspects and handed them over to the Israeli police. The police did not respond to a request to confirm the episodes or the detentions.
Honenu, a legal organization that has represented settlers, on Monday issued a statement on behalf of one of its lawyers, Daniel Shimshilashvili, saying that two people accused by the police of setting fire to the homes of Palestinians in the West Bank had been released after a court hearing. It did not name the two.
The violence against Palestinians in the West Bank comes as many far-right Israelis have been protesting the cease-fire agreement between Hamas and Israel, hoping to disrupt implementation of the deal.
On Sunday, WhatsApp groups administered by Israeli settler groups were full of angry comments about the release of Palestinian prisoners to the West Bank and calls to block their entry with organized protests. Many users said that the released prisoners, some convicted of mass-casualty attacks on Israelis, posed a threat to citizens of Israel.
In Sinjil, a village south of Nablus, dozens of men, some carrying slingshots, rampaged through the village throwing stones and setting houses on fire, according to residents and videos verified by the Times. One clip showed vehicles burning in the village.
“People screamed as their homes were burning,” said Ayed Jafry, 45, a resident of Sinjil. He said that several people were injured, including an 86-year-old man.
On Sunday morning, a WhatsApp group for settlers posted a video of an Israeli man outside a shop with shattered glass, in Funduq, a Palestinian town.
“The next stage is destroying it,” he declared.
In a video taken from a CCTV camera in Turmus Aya, at least 20 masked men can be seen throwing stones and entering the village, as Israeli police cars appear in the distance. Villagers said the officers stayed clear of the violence and did not try to stop it.
Lafi Adeeb, the mayor of Turmus Aya, said that the police didn’t enter the village but that the military eventually dispersed the riot using tear gas. “I was shocked,” he said, because “this is the first time the army stopped the settlers here.”
Palestinian villagers in Turmus Aya and Sinjil, some of whom are U.S. citizens, alerted the American embassy in Israel about the attacks, and a senior U.S. diplomat called the office of Defense Minister Israel Katz to inform him, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic information.
Nader Ibrahim and Fatima AbdulKarim contributed reporting.
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5) I Was an Undocumented Immigrant. I Beg You to See the Nuance in Our Stories.
By Jose Antonio Vargas, Jan. 20, 2025
Mr. Vargas is the author of “Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen,” and host of “Define American,” a YouTube show.
Jesse Rieser for The New York Times
Almost 14 years ago, I risked the life I had built for myself in the United States by coming out publicly as an undocumented immigrant.
This past Christmas, I took an even greater risk: To find my way to a stable legal status in this country, I had to leave the place I have called my home for over 30 years. I had no promise of being able to return.
In front of me was an opportunity I almost stopped hoping to find. For me, like many undocumented immigrants, immigration reform — on both a wide scale and a personal one — can seem impossible. On the campaign trail all year we heard endless plans that too often vastly oversimplified the reality of immigration. In this country, immigrants, with their complex, nuanced lives, have seen their stories flattened through misinformation and fear.
Those of us who try our best to navigate the legal system run up against arcane, sometimes nonsensical, even arbitrary rules. We need lawyers, friends and allies to help us.
I was born in the Philippines. When I was 12 my mother sent me to live with her parents, both naturalized U.S. citizens who lived in California. Under family petition laws, U.S. citizen grandparents can’t sponsor their foreign-born grandchildren. I later learned that my grandfather had paid a coyote to bring me to the United States. With the help of educators and mentors, I graduated from San Francisco State University and established myself in my career as a journalist. Over time I learned the limitations of my status: first when I applied for a driver’s license, and later when I applied for jobs.
I was a 20-year-old student when the Dream Act — which stands for Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors — was first introduced in Congress in 2001. At least 20 versions of the legislation have since reached Capitol Hill. None have become law. Each has proposed a path to legalization for immigrants like me who were brought to the United States as children.
In 2012, under pressure from undocumented youths who organized and protested at his rallies, President Barack Obama announced Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, an executive order protecting those called Dreamers from deportation and granting them two-year temporary work permits.
I was just over four months too old to qualify.
Against the counsel of several immigration lawyers, I wrote my story for The Times Magazine in 2011. I wanted to show readers the path of an undocumented person who came to this country as a minor, to put a face to the many undocumented people in the work force who are forced to exist at the margins of society.
Acknowledging my legal status was a risk. But what truly sank my chances at citizenship was revealing that throughout my young adulthood I lied to get employment: I checked off the “I-9” box, falsely claiming U.S. citizenship. That choice — made without thought or counsel — meant I found myself trapped in a legal cul-de-sac which greatly limited my options to change my status. I was ineligible for a work visa and would be ineligible for citizenship, even if I ended up marrying a citizen. That transgression seemed to have closed all doors.
The limbo I was stuck in persisted until this past summer, when the Biden administration announced a policy update: Undocumented immigrants with a college degree that was obtained in the United States and an employment-based visa could apply for a waiver, known as a D-3, to re-enter the country. In immigrant legal circles, D-3 is spoken of as a “godlike” waiver, excusing a wide range of grounds of inadmissibility to the United States. In short, lawyers told me, a D-3 waiver could allow me to work around the problems raised by my false claim to citizenship and give me a chance at finally becoming documented.
My most trusted friends urged me to pursue the waiver. My immigration lawyer proposed that I apply for what’s known as an O visa — a nonimmigrant visa for people who “have extraordinary ability or achievement” — along with the D-3 waiver.
It was, yet again, a gamble.
My O visa was approved on Dec. 13. The earliest appointment I could schedule was Dec. 26 — at the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana, Mexico.
On Christmas Day, less than 24 hours after my appointment was confirmed, I left the United States for the first time since 1993. Without approval of my D-3 waiver, I would be stuck in Mexico. I brought a stack of greeting cards with me to send to loved ones in the worst-case scenario. They read: “You are my home.”
In my consular interview, I answered everything honestly. I am 43 years old. I have spent 31 years living in America’s gray zone. This was my only shot — a complicated, unlikely shot — at living in the only country I have ever really known, with legal status. I brought with me every piece of documentation I had to show I have tried, throughout my life, to contribute to myself and this society. My college degree. Character testimonies. Tax forms.
Three days later, my D-3 waiver was approved. I was finally documented. That said, an O visa is not a green card. It does not make me a permanent resident. It does not directly put me on a path to U.S. citizenship. It is temporary — but it can be renewed.
As questions of who deserves to be in the United States and who we define as American take center stage, we have lost sight of how complicated it is to find a path to citizenship in this country and how many obstacles exist.
It took months and enormous resources, strategizing and support, just for me to get a work visa. I am just one man, and this is just one story. Consider now the estimated 11 million other undocumented people in America, how many hurdles they face and how little we support them. They don’t have my platform. Many haven’t had my chance at education. And, still: I nearly didn’t make it.
Complicated as it was, I couldn’t begin to chart a similar path for the next person. Immigrants are not a monolith.
Why do politicians treat us like one?
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6) Airborne Lead and Chlorine Levels Soared as L.A. Wildfires Raged
The findings give new insight into the dangers of urban wildfires that burn plastics and other chemicals in homes and property.
By Hiroko Tabuchi, Jan. 20, 2025
Researchers used a new network of sensors to track chemicals in the Los Angeles air in real time. Credit...Loren Elliott for The New York Times
At the height of the Los Angeles County wildfires, atmospheric concentrations of lead, a neurotoxin, reached 100 times average levels even miles from the flames, according to early detailed measurements obtained by The New York Times. Levels of chlorine, which is also toxic at low concentrations, reached 40 times the average.
The spiking levels underscore the added danger from wildfires when cars, homes, and other structures burn, researchers said. Lead is often present in paint and pipes used in older homes, while chlorine and other chemicals are generated when plastic melts or combusts.
These fires were “a wake-up call,” said Haroula Baliaka, a Ph.D. candidate in atmospheric chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, who is part of a new nationwide effort to monitor airborne chemicals in real time. They are “no longer just about burning trees and grass,” she said. “They are urban wildfires, fueled by the very materials that make up our homes and cities.”
As climate change, combined with new development, increases the chances that wildfires strike more densely populated parts of the world, concerns over toxic releases are likely to grow.
For Los Angeles, the toxic smoke means that the eventual death toll from the fires, as well as longer-term health burdens, is likely to grow. Breathing in lead can damage the brain and nervous system, particularly in children. Levels of lead in the air seen during the fires were more than three times the safety limits set by the Environmental Protection Agency. Chlorine can damage the lungs and respiratory tract.
Overall, high levels of particle pollution in wildfire smoke have been linked to increased risk of cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses and death.
A study published last year found that wildfire smoke may have killed as many as 12,000 Californians prematurely in 2018, when the Camp fire burned the town of Paradise and other communities in Northern California. Wildfire smoke is starting to erode the world’s progress in cleaning up pollution from tailpipes and smokestacks, as climate change supercharges fires, scientists have said.
The latest measurements come from a new federally funded, national monitoring network called ASCENT, begun last year to measure a wide range of air pollutants in real time. The readings from the Los Angeles area fires were captured at the network’s monitoring station in Pico Rivera, several miles from the active fires.
Wildfires are becoming a bigger focus for scientists that study air pollution, said Nga Lee Ng, who also uses the given name Sally, an atmospheric scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and network’s principal investigator. The urban nature of many of these fires means the smoke “is going to have very different components, a lot more toxic particles,” Professor Ng said.
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7) Joe Biden Grants Clemency To Leonard Peltier
The ailing Native American rights activist has been in prison for nearly 50 years after the U.S. government lied to put him there.
By Jennifer Bendery, Jan. 20, 2025
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-leonard-peltier-clemency_n_67608b04e4b0d06419ec6367
WASHINGTON ― With literally minutes left in his presidency, Joe Biden on Monday granted clemency to Leonard Peltier, the ailing Native American rights activist whom the U.S. government put in prison nearly 50 years ago after a trial riddled with misconduct and lies.
In a statement as President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration was underway, Biden announced he is “commuting the life sentence imposed on Leonard Peltier so that he serves the remainder of his sentence in home confinement.”
Peltier has been in prison ever since the federal government accused him of murdering two FBI agents in a 1975 shoot-out on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
There was never evidence that Peltier committed a crime, and the U.S. government never did figure out who shot those agents. But federal officials needed someone to take the fall. The FBI had just lost two agents, and Peltier’s co-defendants were all acquitted based on self-defense. So, Peltier became their guy.
His trial was rife with misconduct. The FBI threatened and coerced witnesses into lying. Federal prosecutors hid evidence that exonerated Peltier. A juror acknowledged on the second day of the trial that she had “prejudice against Indians,” but she was kept on anyway.
The government’s case fell apart after these revelations, so it simply revised its charges against Peltier to “aiding and abetting” whoever did kill the agents ― based entirely on the fact that he was one of dozens of people present when the shoot-out took place. Peltier was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life terms.
Peltier, now 80, has maintained his innocence the entire time he’s been in prison, which has almost certainly led to him being denied parole. He’s mostly blind and uses a walker to get around. Due to frequent lockdowns at his maximum security prison in Florida, he’s spent most of his later years confined to inches of space in a cell. His serious health problems include diabetes, which sent him to the hospital in July with “open wounds and tissue death on his toes and feet,” per the Lakota Times. He was hospitalized again in October.
Biden had been under increasing pressure from tribal leaders, U.S. senators, members of Congress and others within his own party to release Peltier.
“The power to exercise mercy in this case lies solely within your discretion, and we urge you to grant Mr. Peltier clemency, allowing him to return home and live out his remaining days among his own people,” dozens of Democratic lawmakers wrote to the president in December.
Virtually every international human rights leader in modern history, including Pope Francis and Nelson Mandela, has called for Peltier’s release over the years ― as have some of the same people who put Peltier in prison in the first place. Former U.S. Attorney James Reynolds, who prosecuted Peltier decades ago, has since said it was a mistake, that there was never evidence to convict Peltier and has been personally urging Biden to grant him clemency.
“I write today from a position rare for a former prosecutor: to beseech you to commute the sentence of a man who I helped put behind bars,” Reynolds wrote to Biden in 2021.
“With time, and the benefit of hindsight, I have realized that the prosecution and continued incarceration of Mr. Peltier was and is unjust,” he said. “We were not able to prove that Mr. Peltier personally committed any offense on the Pine Ridge Reservation.”
The million-dollar question has always been: Why is Peltier still in prison?
The answer is because of unwavering resistance from the FBI, which decided decades ago that it would oppose Peltier ever being released.
As Peltier’s former attorney put it in 2021, it boils down to “politics.”
“In order to get clemency, you have to get the FBI on board. They have an inherent conflict. You have to get the U.S. Attorney’s Office on board. They lied to get him in prison. They have an inherent conflict,” Kevin Sharp told HuffPost at the time. “They’re not going to say, ‘Oops, sorry.’”
“It’s this holdover with the FBI,” he added.
Look no further than the bureau’s arguments against Peltier’s release, which are outdated, full of holes and remarkably easy to disprove.
The FBI still hasn’t publicly addressed the wider context of that 1975 shoot-out, either. The bureau itself was intentionally fueling tensions on that reservation as part of a covert campaign to suppress the activities of the American Indian Movement, a grassroots movement for Indigenous rights. Peltier was an active AIM member and an FBI target.
In its Monday statement, the White House gave several reasons why Biden decided to grant clemency to Peltier. Notably, it specifies the president did not pardon Peltier, which suggests forgiveness for a crime, but instead commuted his sentence, which carries no forgiveness. It also references Peltier’s “underlying crimes,” which were never proven. This can certainly be read as the White House throwing a bone to the FBI.
“He is now 80 years old, suffers from severe health ailments, and has spent the majority of his life (nearly half a century) in prison,” reads the statement. “This commutation will enable Mr. Peltier to spend his remaining days in home confinement but will not pardon him for his underlying crimes.”
Biden has taken significant actions to strengthen Native American communities and tribes during his presidency. His decision to release Peltier ― which prominent Indigenous rights groups and people, including Biden’s own interior secretary, Deb Haaland, have strongly advocated for ― caps off a legacy he’s quite proud of related to righting past wrongs against Native Americans.
In a rare interview with HuffPost in 2022, Peltier said he knew what he would say to Biden if he had a few minutes alone with him.
“I’m not guilty of this shooting. I’m not guilty,” Peltier said he’d tell the president. “I would like to go home to spend what years I have left with my great-grandkids and my people.”
The Native American elder is likely to return home to South Dakota, where his supporters on Pine Ridge Reservation have purchased and prepared a house for him to move into in the event of his release from prison.
“We are ready to welcome him home with open arms, to show him the care and support he deserved for his whole life,” Nick Tilsen, CEO of NDN Collective and a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation, said in a recent op-ed. “He deserves to live out his last days with dignity and surrounded by loved ones.”
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8) Trump Starts Immigration Crackdown, Enlisting the Military and Testing the Law
The president’s Day 1 actions included directives that fly in the face of legal limits on involving the military in domestic operations and the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship.
By Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Hamed Aleaziz and Eileen Sullivan, Reporting from Washington, Published Jan. 20, 2025, Updated Jan. 21, 2025
Margelis Tinoco, from Colombia, reacts after learning on Monday that appointments through a program called C.B.P. One for her and her family would be canceled. Credit...Paul Ratje for The New York Times
President Trump’s flurry of executive actions on immigration in the hours after taking office was the leading edge of an effort to roll back four years of policies put in place by the Biden administration and reimpose an agenda that would fundamentally upend the United States’ global role as a sanctuary for refugees and immigrants.
In a series of orders he signed on Monday evening, Mr. Trump moved to seal the nation’s borders against migrants and systematically crack down on undocumented immigrants already in the United States, part of a policy barrage that included a national emergency declaration to deploy the military to the border and a bid to cut off birthright citizenship for the children of noncitizens.
While some of the orders were likely to face steep legal challenges and might be difficult or impossible to enforce, the directives sent an unmistakable message that Mr. Trump was serious about fulfilling his frequent campaign promises of clamping down on the border, and escalating an anti-immigration agenda that he has made the centerpiece of his political identity.
“With these actions we will begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense,” Mr. Trump said from the Capitol Rotunda after taking his oath of office. “All illegal entry will immediately be halted and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.”
Just minutes after Mr. Trump took the oath, his administration shut down a government program created by his predecessor that allowed migrants to secure appointments for admission into the United States through legal ports of entry through an app. Switching off the program, known as C.B.P. One, plunged about 30,000 migrants who had existing appointments to enter the United States into limbo, and indicated that it would now be far more difficult.
Hours later in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump moved to block asylum seekers and seal the border against those looking for protection in the United States. The Trump administration argued the illegal border crossings posed a national security and public health concern. Rather than citing a specific threat of disease, Mr. Trump simply said that migrants did not provide border authorities with “comprehensive health information,” posing a public health risk.
He declared a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border to allow him to circumvent Congress and unlock federal funding for border wall construction and other enforcement efforts. Mr. Trump appeared to go further than simply having the military support border authorities with construction. He also signed an order that gave the military an explicit role in immigration enforcement and directed the Defense Department to come up with a plan “to seal the borders and maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the United States by repelling forms of invasion.”
The directive would likely clash with an 1870s law called the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally limits the use of regular federal troops for domestic policing purposes.
“That is really dangerous and wrong-headed,” said Elizabeth Goitein, a senior director at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law, who added that the order directed the military to treat the border not as a law enforcement matter but as a full-scale military campaign.
Mr. Trump took the steps even as the current state of the border is fairly calm, with crossings having fallen sharply after the Biden administration took major steps to limit migration.
Still, the executive actions, many of which Mr. Trump had previewed in recent years, are an attempt to make good on a promise to curtail immigration and enact mass deportations.
In another order issued on Monday, Mr. Trump declared that his government would no longer treat all U.S.-born children as citizens, signaling his intention to essentially ignore the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship. The order directed federal agencies, starting in 30 days, not to issue citizenship documents to U.S.-born children of an undocumented mother, or a mother on a temporary visa, if the father is not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
The move would amount to an extraordinary change of the 157-year-old 14th Amendment, and within hours it prompted a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union.
Mr. Trump cannot abolish birthright citizenship on his own. Any change to the Constitution requires supermajority votes in Congress, and then ratification by three-quarters of the states. But denying certain immigrants’ children of citizenship documents would effectively mean that they could be barred from using public services, which could have the same effect as abolishing the right.
“What the Trump administration is readying goes well beyond immigration policy,” said Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America’s Voice, a pro-immigration think tank. “The push to gut 150 years of settled law and hard-won progress by attacking birthright citizenship, for example, seeks to reshape America’s future by moving this nation backwards.”
In front of thousands of supporters at Capital One Arena on Monday, Mr. Trump signed an order that rescinded an array of former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s immigration policies, including one that established a task force to reunite families separated by Mr. Trump’s zero-tolerance policy. Another restored Mr. Trump’s efforts to withhold federal funds from local agencies that refuse to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Mr. Trump is likely to issue more orders on immigration in the coming days, but there were already signs of substantial changes to the system in the immediate hours after his inauguration.
At the El Chaparral border crossing in Tijuana, Mexico, dozens of migrants stared at their phone screens trying to check whether their appointments were still valid and instead found a crushing message: “existing appointments have been canceled.”
“I am in shock,” said Maura Hernandez, who had arrived with her four small children and had an appointment scheduled for Tuesday.
“I don’t know what is going to happen to us,” she said, adding that they had fled their home amid rampant insecurity.
That was just one aspect of Mr. Trump’s Day 1 moves.
In one executive order, Mr. Trump also raised the prospect of imposing travel bans, similar to his first term. He directed his administration to take 60 days to identify countries where thoroughly vetting visitors and visa applicants is not feasible and poses a potential risk to national security. In those instances, the administration should consider whether there should be a full or partial ban on admitting people from those countries into the United States.
Mr. Trump also suspended refugee resettlement and enhanced the vetting of those seeking to come to the United States from overseas. He signed an executive order to end “catch and release,” which refers to the practice of releasing migrants into the United States to await a court appearance after they cross the border. The details of that order, like many of Mr. Trump’s actions, remain unclear.
Mr. Trump also designated drug cartels as terrorist organizations, enhancing his administration’s ability to target them.
The Biden administration had moved in June to bar asylum for migrants crossing into the country illegally. The order remained in place and border numbers dropped precipitously in recent months. Border agents used the order to quickly turn back migrants apprehended after crossing without authorization.
“All illegal aliens seeking entry into the United States should turn back now,” Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s deputy chief of staff and the architect of his anti-immigration agenda, wrote Monday on social media. “Anyone entering the United States without authorization faces prosecution and expulsion.”
Mr. Trump also said he would restore the so-called Remain in Mexico policy, which forced migrants to wait in the country until the date of their immigration case in court. The policy was a centerpiece of Mr. Trump’s first-term border crackdown. The Trump administration, however, will need the cooperation of Mexico to fully roll out the policy.
In a news conference Monday morning, Juan Ramón de la Fuente, Mexico’s foreign affairs minister, said that his country disagrees with the Remain in Mexico policy being reinstated, and that Mexico would have no obligation to process U.S. asylum requests if it were. Still, he said the country would find ways to operate “in the best way possible.”
Paulina Villegas contributed reporting from Tijuana, Mexico, Emiliano Rodríguez Mega from Mexico City and Eric Schmitt from Washington.
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9) Israel Embarks on an ‘Extensive’ Military Operation in the West Bank
The announcement came shortly after President Trump rescinded Biden-era sanctions on Israeli settlers and Jewish extremists raided Palestinian villages in protest against the cease-fire in Gaza.
By Isabel Kershner and Fatima AbdulKarim, Jan. 21, 2025
Reporting from Jerusalem and Ramallah in the occupied West Bank
A man inspecting the damage on Tuesday after his shop in Jinsafut in the West Bank was set on fire by Israeli settlers. Credit...Jaafar Ashtiyeh/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Israeli security forces on Tuesday embarked on a military operation in Jenin, a Palestinian city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as Israel turned its focus to an area seen as a hotbed of militancy just days after a temporary cease-fire took hold in Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in a statement that the operation, the latest in a string of West Bank raids over the past year, was aimed at “eradicating terrorism” and would be “extensive and significant.” The Palestinian Authority’s health ministry reported that eight people had been killed and at least 35 injured during the first hours of the operation.
For Mr. Netanyahu, the operation in the West Bank could serve as a distraction from Gaza, where Hamas gunmen paraded through the streets even before the cease-fire started on Sunday, a show of force signaling that it had survived the 15-month war despite Mr. Netanyahu’s vows to destroy it.
But with its strength severely diminished in Gaza, Hamas has intensified its efforts to arm militants in the West Bank to open another front against Israel, analysts said, making an Israeli offensive there almost inevitable.
The Jenin operation comes amid sharply rising tensions in the West Bank, as the militants have grown in power and settler violence against Palestinian civilians has soared.
On Monday, President Trump rescinded sanctions imposed by the Biden administration last year on dozens of far-right Israeli individuals and settler groups accused of violence against Palestinians and the seizure or destruction of Palestinian property.
The move came shortly after Mr. Trump took office, even as Jewish extremists raided several Palestinian villages, setting fire to vehicles and properties, according to Palestinian officials and the Israeli military.
The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited control over parts of the West Bank and is a rival of Hamas, has been carrying out its own operation against armed militants in Jenin in recent weeks after largely leaving security in the area to Israel. Deadly Israeli raids and drone strikes in the northern West Bank over the past year have chewed up streets and left many Palestinian civilians in fear.
Residents and witnesses in Jenin said on Tuesday that a local private hospital, Al-Amal, was surrounded by Israeli forces and had come under fire.
“It’s as if they came to us straight from Gaza with large vehicles, aggressive gunfire and drones,” said Kamila Mahmoud, 22, a resident of Jenin, in a telephone interview.
Residents said that Palestinian Authority security officers and medics were among the injured. Brig. Gen. Anwar Rajab, the spokesman for the Authority’s security forces, said one Palestinian officer was killed.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to questions about the accounts.
Presaging the raid in Jenin, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, Israel’s military chief, said in a statement on Monday, the day after the cease-fire in Gaza came into effect, that Israel “must be ready for significant counterterrorism operations” in the West Bank in the coming days “to pre-empt and apprehend the terrorists before they reach our civilians.” Mr. Halevi announced his resignation on Tuesday, citing in part the military’s failure to protect Israel from the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led assault that prompted the Gaza war.
Nearly half a million settlers and roughly 2.7 million Palestinians live in the West Bank. The Palestinians, and much of the world, have long envisioned the territory as part of a future independent Palestinian state, alongside Israel, and consider the Jewish settlements to be illegal.
Though Mr. Trump has sent mixed signals, his administration is expected to be staunchly pro-Israel. Some settler leaders have nurtured close ties over the years with Trump associates like Mike Huckabee, Mr. Trump’s pick as the next ambassador to Jerusalem.
Hard-line members of Israel’s right-wing government had been requesting the removal of the Biden administration sanctions, one of a long list of executive orders that Mr. Trump signed immediately after his inauguration. Palestinian officials strongly criticized the move, saying it was likely to encourage further violence.
The cancellation coincided with a second consecutive night of violence in the West Bank as extremist settlers protested the cease-fire. Yisrael Ganz, the leader of an umbrella council representing all the settlements, welcomed Mr. Trump’s decision but said he condemned all violence, even if it was perpetrated by a “handful” of settlers.
Far-right members of Mr. Netanyahu’s government oppose the cease-fire, the first phase of which calls for a six-week truce and the incremental exchange of 33 hostages held in Gaza for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
Pressure from Mr. Trump and his envoy, Steve Witkoff, was instrumental in helping seal the deal between Israel and Hamas, as were Biden administration officials and other mediators. Mr. Trump had warned that there would be “all hell to pay” if Israeli hostages were not released by his inauguration.
But asked on Monday if he thought the cease-fire in Gaza would hold, Mr. Trump said that he was “not confident” and signaled a lack of interest in the conflict. “That’s not our war,” he said. “It’s their war.”
“But I think they’re very weakened on the other side,” he added, apparently referring to Hamas.
Hamas has become increasingly isolated with its allies decimated in Lebanon, toppled in Syria and weakened in Iran. Seeking to ignite another front against Israel, Hamas issued a statement on Tuesday calling on the Palestinian masses to mobilize and confront the Israeli forces in the West Bank.
“That’s the only front where they see a potential,” said Ehud Yaari, an Israel-based fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Noting that Israel had already raided Jenin more than a dozen times over the past year, Mr. Yaari said that Israel had no choice but to mount a large-scale operation there because the Palestinian Authority’s efforts appeared to be failing. Hamas was supplying the West Bank gunmen with funds and more sophisticated weapons, and attacks against Israel were intensifying, he noted.
General Rajab, the spokesman for the Palestinian Authority’s security forces, said the Israeli raids were “aimed at undermining the security campaign being conducted by the Palestinian Authority” and “intentionally sabotaging Palestinian efforts to enforce law and order” by creating chaos.
Settler extremists have also been trying to destabilize the West Bank and said they would try to block Palestinian prisoners released under the terms of the Gaza cease-fire deal from returning to their homes. Israeli security chiefs have labeled the settler attacks on Palestinians as Jewish terrorism.
One of the Palestinian towns that came under settler attack on Monday was Al-Funduq, in the northern West Bank, where Palestinian gunmen who are believed to have come from another town shot at a civilian bus and cars, killing three Israelis earlier this month.
Louay Tayem, the mayor of Al-Funduq, said that dozens of Israeli settlers began raiding the village, as well as neighboring Jinsafut, at around 9:15 p.m. on Monday and that the assault continued for roughly three hours before the settlers were finally dispersed by Israeli security forces. They smashed car windows, torched a plant nursery and two bulldozers, and attempted to set a house on fire, he said in a phone interview.
Two Israeli men were shot and seriously wounded during one of the assaults on Monday, according to Israel’s emergency services, apparently by Israeli security forces who came under attack. The Israeli authorities said they were investigating.
Aaron Boxerman and Myra Noveck contributed reporting from Jerusalem and Rawan Sheikh Ahmad from Haifa, Israel.
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