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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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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) West Bank Settlers Hope Trump Will Back Annexation Dreams
Settler leaders say they are confident that a Palestinian state is off the table, but their expectations are tempered by their experience of Donald Trump’s first term.
By Isabel Kershner, Jan. 6, 2025
To report this article, Isabel Kershner and the photographer Avishag Shaar-Yashuv visited the settlements of Shilo and Eli in the occupied West Bank.
Eliana Passentin delights in her house, which sits nearly 3,000 feet above sea level in a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, with a view from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean coast. The dining room looks out over ancient Shiloh, the Israelites’ first capital in ancient times.
But Ms. Passentin would feel even better if the area was annexed by Israel.
Some of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s staffing choices have raised hopes among settlers that that could happen. Pete Hegseth, Mr. Trump’s contentious choice for defense secretary, went to ancient Shiloh for an episode of his “Battle in the Holy Land” series on Fox Nation. Mike Huckabee, Mr. Trump’s pick as the next ambassador to Jerusalem, has visited several times over the years and has argued that all of the West Bank belongs to Israel.
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. After the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel from Gaza, and with the prospect of a more sympathetic administration in Washington, settler leaders say they are confident that a Palestinian state is off the agenda.
They also hope that Israel will extend its sovereignty over parts, or all, of the territory through annexation — a step it has formally avoided since capturing the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war amid opposition from much of the world.
“We want to live our lives in Israel,” Ms. Passentin said, adding, “I believe the new administration will support whatever Israel decides.”
The West Bank has grown increasingly volatile. Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians and their property have risen sharply, while Israel has carried out a series of deadly raids and drone strikes targeting armed Palestinian militants that have chewed up streets and left many Palestinian civilians in fear.
Nearly 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the beginning of 2023, according to the United Nations. The Israeli authorities say that most were armed fighters, but at least some were uninvolved civilians. About 50 Israelis were killed by Palestinian assailants in the West Bank during the same period, 18 of them members of the security forces, according to U.N. data. Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, said it had thwarted more than a thousand attacks in 2024, including hundreds of shooting attacks.
On Monday, gunmen shot at a civilian bus and cars passing the Palestinian village of Al-Funduq in the northern West Bank, killing at least three Israelis — a police investigator and two women from a nearby settlement — in what the Israeli authorities described as a terrorist attack.
Some settlers express a wariness of Mr. Trump born of experience. He has not articulated clear plans for the region, other than a vague aim of bringing peace. But they nonetheless believe that the new administration will go along with the wishes of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government — the most right-wing in Israel’s history.
“Trump’s team was here, they saw the reality, and for me, that’s a total relief,” said Yisrael Ganz, the head of the Binyamin Regional Council, which governs the settlements around ancient Shiloh, including the adjacent settlement of Shilo. He is also the chairman of the umbrella council representing the rest of the settlements.
Mr. Ganz recently took Doug Burgum, Mr. Trump’s nominee for interior secretary, on a tour in the area. “I see the people he chose,” Mr. Ganz said of the president-elect.
Support for a two-state solution has been waning for years among Israel’s Jewish majority, and since the Oct. 7 attack, many Israelis fear that a Palestinian state would endanger their country. A recent survey found that nearly two-thirds of Jewish Israelis think Palestinians have no right to a state of their own.
But in his public statements, Mr. Ganz has avoided explicitly telling Mr. Trump what to do. To sound less provocative, instead of sovereignty, he uses vaguer terms like “changing the reality” in Judea and Samaria, the biblical names for the West Bank, which the Israeli government considers disputed, not occupied, territory.
During his first term, Mr. Trump showered Israel with diplomatic gifts, including moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv and recognizing the contested city as Israel’s capital. Mike Pompeo, then secretary of state, reversed four decades of U.S. policy by stating that settlements did not violate international law. (Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken returned to the traditional U.S. position in 2024, saying the American government considers settlements to be “inconsistent with international law,” in line with most countries.)
Mr. Trump’s administration also floated a peace plan that strongly favored Israel, discarding the longtime goal of granting the Palestinians a viable state with its capital in Jerusalem.
The proposal, which Mr. Trump called the “deal of the century,” called for Israeli annexation of about 30 percent of the West Bank, including its current settlements, and a disjointed Palestinian state with limited sovereignty. It was immediately rejected by Palestinian leaders and many settlers, who preferred continued ambiguity over what they saw as a patchwork of Israeli and Palestinian territory that would leave many settlements as isolated enclaves.
Adding to the settlers’ wariness, the idea of Israeli annexation was abruptly dumped by both Mr. Trump and Israel’s leaders in favor of forging diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, a process known as the Abraham Accords. The Trump administration is expected to try to expand the accords to include Saudi Arabia, which would most likely require some kind of Israeli acceptance of a pathway to Palestinian statehood.
The settlers are far from homogenous. They include secular, middle-class Israelis seeking affordable housing as well as religious ideologues who believe settling the land is part of a Messianic plan ordained by God.
But in the hills around Shilo and the neighboring settlement of Eli in the central West Bank, the mission of Jewish settlement expansion is clear. Alongside official government-approved settlements, outposts have been built in recent decades without official permits. Some have been retroactively authorized by Israel and have come to resemble the more established neighborhoods.
Ms. Passentin, a mother of eight, came to Israel as a child from San Francisco. She and her husband, David, lived for 10 years in a trailer, then in a tent, helping to establish outposts, before settling in Hayovel, a satellite of Eli, parts of which are still unauthorized after years of court battles over the ownership and status of the land.
As the Binyamin Council’s international relations director, she has accompanied some of Mr. Trump’s close circle on tours and hosted Mr. Hegseth in her home.
One immediate request of the Trump administration from settler leaders is to cancel sanctions imposed by the Biden administration on more than 30 individuals and organizations accused of violence against Palestinians and destruction or seizure of Palestinian property.
Settler leaders like Mr. Ganz say they do not condone the violence, some of which is directed at Israeli forces who come to remove illegal settlement structures. But they say that it is a police matter and that it is a fraction of the anti-settler violence perpetrated by Palestinians.
For all of the enthusiasm in settler circles surrounding Mr. Trump’s election, expectations of what he will actually do once in office are tempered.
Citing an adage that marriage is often better the second time around, Aaron Katsof, a winemaker in Esh Kodesh, a hilltop outpost perched above Shilo, between the Palestinian villages of Qusra and Duma, said of a second Trump term: “You don’t come with the lovey-dovey infatuation of high school sweethearts. But you come with a lot more experience and maturity.” Esh Kodesh still lacks Israeli government authorization and permits for permanent housing.
Rivka Amar, 19, who is nine months pregnant, moved in the fall to Alei Ayin, a tiny outpost between Esh Kodesh and Qusra. She and her husband live in a lone quick-build home there, accompanied only by some young men who sleep in a tent, in what was open land.
Ms. Amar had been lunching at the Merlot Cafe in Shilo with her friend Rina Kohen, 18, who lives on a settler farm in the northern West Bank with her brother and 150 head of cattle. The idea, she said, was for a few settlers to control as much land as possible, to keep territory away from Palestinians.
“If I’m not there, my enemy will be there,” Ms. Amar said.
But, she said, she keeps her focus on the tasks at the hand, not on political shifts in Israel or the United States.
“I don’t wake up in the morning thinking of Biden or Trump,” she said, “but of where to graze the goats.”
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2) Massacre Upon Massacre: Haiti’s Bleak Spiral Into a Failed State
In Haiti, gangs have killed hundreds of people and shot journalists at a news conference, exposing the country’s fragility and the government’s failures.
By David C. Adams and Frances Robles, Jan. 6, 2025
David C. Adams and Frances Robles reported from Florida
Journalists climb a wall to take cover from gunfire after being shot at by armed gangs at the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince. Credit...Jean Feguens Regala/Associated Press
A fresh injection of about 150 foreign officers arrived in Haiti this weekend to bolster an international security force charged with taking on the powerful and well-armed gangs that have inflicted so much misery on the country for months.
But if the past is any guide this latest infusion is unlikely to make much of a difference.
Back-to-back massacres that killed more than 300 people, followed by a Christmas Eve assault on Haiti’s largest public hospital have underscored the Haitian government’s increasing lack of control over the nation’s deepening crisis.
A news conference to announce the reopening of a public hospital that had been closed for nine months because of gang violence came under another gang attack, killing two reporters and a police officer.
More than two dozen journalists caught in the ambush were trapped for two hours triaging seven wounded colleagues before they were rescued. They ripped their own clothing to fashion tourniquets and used tampons to stanch the bleeding because, witnesses said, the few doctors at the hospital ran for their lives. Reporters escaped by climbing a rear wall.
“There was blood all over the floor and on our clothes,” said Jephte Bazil, a reporter with an online news outlet, Machann Zen Haïti, adding that the hospital had nothing “available to treat the victims.”
The hospital shooting followed two massacres in separate parts of the country that killed more than 350 people and have shined a harsh spotlight on the failures and shortcomings of local authorities and an international security force deployed to protect innocent civilians.
One of the massacres unfolded last month in an impoverished, sprawling, gang-controlled Port-au-Prince neighborhood where a lack of any police presence meant that for three days older people were dismembered and thrown to the sea without the authorities finding out. At least 207 people were killed between Dec. 6 and Dec. 11, according to the United Nations.
At about the same time, another three-day killing spree took place 70 miles north in Petite Rivière. Community leaders say 150 people were killed as gang members and vigilante groups attacked one another.
The violence is part of a relentless string of bloodshed that has befallen Haiti in the last two months, exposing the fragility of its interim government, raising concerns about the viability of a U.S.-brokered security mission and leaving a planned transition to elections and more stable leadership on the verge of collapse.
With President-elect Donald J. Trump about to assume the reins of an international deployment that has been criticized as ineffective and underfunded, the future of Haiti has never seemed so bleak.
Justice Minister Patrick Pelissier said he believed the 150 soldiers, mostly from Guatemala, should help turn the tide. He stressed that some gang-controlled areas had been retaken and that the government is tending to displaced people.
“The state has not collapsed,” Mr. Pelissier said. “The state is there. The state is working.”
But many experts believe Haiti is a failing state, with various factions of the interim government embroiled in political bickering with no apparent strategy for tackling the worsening violence and providing a path to elections, which were supposed to be held this year.
“Political disputes translate into violence,” said Diego Da Rin, a Haiti analyst with the International Crisis Group. “The gangs are very aware of when is the right moment to shift from defensive mode to offensive mode. They flex their muscles when they need to.”
The gang attacks have also drawn attention to the weakness of the U.S.-backed Multinational Security Support mission, a detachment of several hundred mostly Kenyan police officers that began arriving in Haiti last June.
The mission was supposed to have up to 2,500 officers, but with little international financing, the force numbers far less and lacks the staffing to tackle the many gang-entrenched areas.
Several experts said the Christmas Eve killings gave a sense that the government was inept. The event announcing the hospital’s reopening was held in a gang stronghold, with virtually no security. Even as people came under attack, the police took at least an hour to respond, though their headquarters are nearby.
The country’s heath minister, Dr. Duckenson Lorthe Blema, who was sick and running late, believes he was the intended target.
“I am not crazy — I wanted to do well, and it went badly,” Dr. Blema, who was fired in the aftermath of the attack, said in an interview. “It turned into a fiasco. The scapegoat is me.”
Dr. Blema insisted that he had asked for police deployments at the event and did not know why there was so little protection. He defended the hospital’s dearth of supplies, saying he had intended to open the facility “gradually” as an outpatient clinic, which would not have been for treating gunshot wounds.
The justice minister acknowledged that there was no coordination between the ministry of health and the police, nor was a proper security assessment done in advance.
“Neighborhoods are controlled by gangs, and the police are working to recover them,” he said, noting that while the crisis is severe in the capital and the rural Artibonite Valley, much of the country was operating normally.
Haiti’s descent into chaos was largely triggered by the assassination in July 2021 of its last elected president, Jovenel Moïse. Gangs earning income from illegal checkpoints, extortion and kidnappings used the political vacuum to expand their territories.
With no elected national leaders, the country is ruled by a transitional council made up of rival political parties, with an interim presidency rotating among its members.
The latest surge in violence began Nov. 11, when the council replaced the prime minister, and gangs took advantage of the political upheaval to fire on U.S. commercial aircraft and escalate their brutality. Haiti’s main airport has been closed since.
More than 5,300 people were killed in Haiti last year and the total number of people forced to flee their homes now exceeds 700,000, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Gang checkpoints and ambushes have disrupted food supplies and the nonprofit group Mercy Corp, estimates that nearly 5 million people — half the country’s population — are facing severe food insecurity.
The new prime minister, Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, in his only news conference since taking office nearly two months ago, announced pay increases for police officers and said he was committed to restoring the rule of law.
The prime minister and members of the presidential council declined to comment for this article.
In a New Year’s Day speech, the president of the council, Leslie Voltaire, insisted that elections would still take place this year, but likened the current situation to war. A police spokesman said he had no comment.
The commander of the Kenyan-led mission, Godfrey Otunge, who also did not respond to requests for comment, has complained that the mission’s successes have not been sufficiently touted.
In a recent message posted online, he said “the future of Haiti is bright.”
The U.S. State Department, which has committed $600 million for the Kenya mission, defended its record, noting that a recent operation with the police led to the death of a high-profile gang member.
Two police stations recently reopened and the Kenyan mission now has a permanent presence near the main port, which has long been controlled by gangs, the State Department said.
The U.S. government sent several shipments of materials in December, the agency said.
But absent significantly greater outside help, experts say Haiti’s worsening trajectory is unlikely to be reversed.
“The Haitian government is really not clear on what they are doing,” said Sophie Rutenbar, a visiting scholar at New York University, who helped run United Nations operations in Haiti until 2023. “Unfortunately right now they are faced with not good choices and worse choices.”
Some of the injured journalists blamed gangs — and the government — for a debacle that cost precious lives.
“If the state had taken its responsibilities, none of this would have happened,” said Velondie Miracle, who was shot seven times in the leg, temple and mouth. “The state is a legal force and should not give bandits access to places where the state cannot respond.”
André Paultre contributed reporting from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
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3) What if ICE Agents Show Up? Schools Prepare Teachers and Parents.
Across the country, educators described widespread anxiety about President-elect Donald J. Trump’s promises to deport immigrants and what it could mean for their students.
By Dana Goldstein, Jan. 7, 2025
If immigration agents arrive on the doorstep of a New York City public school, principals have been told what to do. Ask the officers to wait outside, and call a school district lawyer.
The school system has enrolled about 40,000 recent immigrant students since 2022. Now, as President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares to take office with promises to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, the district has shared with school staff a protocol to try to shield students who have a tenuous legal status.
In a December letter to principals, Emma Vadehra, the district’s chief operating officer, wrote, “We hope using this protocol will never be necessary.”
Still, New York and some other school districts across the country are readying educators and immigrant families for a potential wave of deportations.
Public schools serving clusters of migrant children have already dealt with a dizzying set of challenges in recent years, as an influx of hundreds of thousands of migrants crossed the southern border. Some are educating students who speak Indigenous languages and may have never before been enrolled in formal education. Others are trying to prod teenagers to class, when they may face intense pressure to earn money. And many have assisted newly arrived families with finding shelter, food and winter clothes.
Now, these schools are facing an additional challenge: convincing parents to send their children to class when some are so anxious about deportation that they are reluctant to separate from their children for even part of the day.
“We have parents who are afraid,” said Adam Clark, superintendent of the Mount Diablo Unified School District, northeast of San Francisco. “We are trying to inform them of what their rights are.”
About 20 percent of students in the Mount Diablo district are still learning English, meaning they are most likely recent immigrants, according to Dr. Clark. After Election Day, attendance fell, he said, though he emphasized that it was not clear exactly why students were missing.
Later this month, the district will host a legal information session for parents. Its social workers have explained to families that under current law, undocumented immigrant children have the right to a public education, and federal immigration agents generally cannot arrest students or family members at schools. They have also noted that American public schools do not typically track the immigration status of students.
But like other education leaders, Dr. Clark acknowledged that there was only so much reassurance he could offer.
A longstanding policy prevents Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from making arrests at schools and other sensitive locations, such as hospitals and churches.
But right-leaning policy advocates in Mr. Trump’s orbit, including the writers of Project 2025, a blueprint created for the new administration, have pushed to rescind the policy, arguing that to speed deportations, agents should be able to exercise judgment on where they operate. That has left many educators worried that federal agents could arrive at their doors.
“We’re going to follow the law whether we agree with it or not,” Dr. Clark said. “If they have proper documentation to execute their lawful duties, we will work with them.”
The Trump transition team did not respond to a list of detailed questions about migrant schoolchildren and deportation. But in a written statement, Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, said the president was given a mandate to deport criminals and terrorists.
In communities across the country, local officials have debated how much to cooperate with the incoming Trump administration on deportations. New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, a Democrat, has repeatedly voiced frustration with the number of migrants living in the city, and has recently taken a more conciliatory approach to Mr. Trump.
Mr. Adams runs the New York City school system. Nevertheless, district officials have told principals and school security staff to immediately call a school district lawyer if ICE agents show up and demand access to a school — in part because it can be difficult for nonexperts to distinguish a judicial warrant from other types of paperwork.
In the absence of a judicial warrant, the district “does not consent to nonlocal law enforcement accessing school facilities in any circumstances,” reads the official policy.
For educators concerned about their students being deported, the city has directed them to online information sessions hosted by Project Rousseau, a nonprofit that provides legal services to immigrants.
In one of those meetings, Bethany Thorne of Project Rousseau said teachers should tell families anxious about deportation to keep their children attending school, and to not skip a single court date, even if they do not have a lawyer.
Missing court “is a surefire way to get yourself removed,” she said.
In Chicago, which has enrolled as many as 17,000 recent immigrant students, issues related to the influx have become a factor in the contract negotiations between the teachers’ union and the public school system.
The district is struggling to maintain staffing amid a budget deficit. But because of the many needs of recent immigrant students, schools need more investments for both smaller class sizes and more bilingual teaching assistants and social workers, argued Rebecca Martinez, campaign director for the Chicago Teachers Union.
Among the migrant students are those “who have never been to school, or are in seventh grade and last went to school in second grade,” she said. “All that exists in one classroom, and that’s the pressure educators are facing.”
The school district declined an interview request, but issued a written statement emphasizing its commitment to serving all children in Chicago, regardless of their immigration status or home language.
In addition, the district said it planned to review with principals relevant laws and policies, such as the need for federal agents to display a warrant or demonstrate that there is an “imminent threat to public safety” before entering a school.
In Denver, another hub for recent immigrants, Tricia Noyola, chief executive of the charter school network Rocky Mountain Prep, said that many families had been fearful since Election Day, but also “resolute” in their desire to stay in the country and keep their children in school.
While Mr. Trump often talks about recent immigrants as threats, she said, she and her team have noticed how vulnerable they are — with some parents falling prey to scams in which they are given fake paychecks for construction work or asked to put down a deposit for an apartment that does not materialize.
The superintendent in Los Angeles, Alberto Carvalho, said he hoped schools there would remain “protected ground,” according to The Los Angeles Times. Officials said they would provide information cards to parents outlining their rights, and would hold mandatory training sessions for employees on the limits of federal agents’ access to schools.
Dr. Clark, the superintendent in Mount Diablo, noted that rumors about deportation have detracted from his district’s efforts to educate recent immigrant children.
To make it easier for migrant students, mostly from Guatemala, to work part time, the district has opened a half-day high school program. Encouraging attendance is a priority, but is more difficult when families fear the authorities.
“It’s disappointing that we’re having to have these discussions,” Dr. Clark said. “This talk taking place is a distraction.”
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4) At a Beloved Lebanese Market, the ‘Destruction Is Painful’
Israeli raids pummeled the historic souk in the city of Nabatieh, in southern Lebanon. Residents and shop owners are only beginning to come to terms with the damage.
By Abdi Latif Dahir, Photographs by Laura Boushnak, Reporting from Nabatieh, Lebanon, Jan. 7, 202
The business owners arrived one by one, but all were united in their mission on a chilly December morning: Salvage anything from the pulverized market in this hillside city in southern Lebanon.
A photo studio operator and his son trudged through debris and twisted metal to recover dust-coated negatives and camera lenses. A clothes shop proprietor dragged a garbage bag holding leggings, retrieved from under mangled rebar. And an optical store owner stood atop crushed concrete slabs that were once the rooftop of his business’s building.
“Everything is gone,” said Raed Mokaled, 58, who, along with the eyeglasses business, co-owned a gold and watches store in the same building with his brother. “An orange ball of fire took out everything.”
Israel conducted intense air raids and then began a ground invasion into south Lebanon in late September to retaliate against Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group that had been attacking it in solidarity with Hamas after the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks on Israel. A fragile 60-day truce, signed in November, has suspended the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
In the city of Nabatieh, which shares its name with the surrounding governorate where Hezbollah largely held sway, Israeli strikes obliterated the historic market on Oct. 12, at the height of the war. Another strike hit the nearby municipal building a few days later, killing at least 16 people, including the city’s mayor, according to Lebanese officials.
Israel said it had attacked Hezbollah targets in the area, but its claim could not be independently confirmed. Amnesty International said it did not find any evidence of a military target at the city’s headquarters.
The strikes across the governorate, which borders both Israel and Syria, have left behind scenes of desolation and ruin that many Lebanese say are unlike any they have seen. A World Bank report estimated the Nabatieh governorate incurred $1.5 billion in economic losses during the war with Israel.
On a recent morning, two weeks after the cease-fire, reporters with The New York Times arrived in the market as residents and business owners came to survey and deal with the wreckage. One by one, they said, they drove across rutted and bombed-out roads to arrive at the centuries-old market they fondly called the souk. Once a bustling center for vendors and shoppers from across Lebanon, it was now a shell of its glorious past.
Iconic shops, like the decades-old sweets store, were wiped out. Collapsed walls, shattered glass and twisted steel lay everywhere. Instead of the fragrant herbs and fresh produce that many people once sought in the market, a smoky and charred smell still swirled in the air.
Mannequins perched atop the mound of rubble and wires. Receipts, CDs and tattered sneakers littered the scorched pavements.
“This is a catastrophe,” said Niran Ali, 58, while standing amid the wreckage.
For 16 years, she co-owned a children’s clothing shop in the market and used it to support her family of four. Now, almost everything — about $100,000 in goods, she said — was gone.
“The destruction is painful to look at,” she said. “Our only hope is with God.”
Just across the street, Abed Al Raouf Farhat, 34, inspected the damage to his father’s photo studio. The strikes hadn’t entirely crumbled the building, but left it marred with deep cracks, exposed beams and a leaking roof. Inside, thick dust coated everything: the damaged photocopier, the cameras, the wooden photo frames.
Mr. Farhat’s father, Hamzah, opened the Amal Photo Studio Lab in 1982. Since then, generations of families across Nabatieh had been coming to take wedding and graduation photos. The elder Mr. Farhat, who is 65, also trained young photographers — including his own son, who has since gone to work as a photographer and videographer across the Middle East and Africa.
With the damage from the latest strikes, Mr. Farhat said, an establishment that was a symbol of community and collective memory has become a grim reminder of the war’s heavy toll. “Everything is gone,” Mr. Farhat said. “But my dad and Nabatieh are still standing, and he will start again from zero.”
The photo studio’s story — and the larger market’s — is closely intertwined with the city’s tumultuous past. Israel attacked Nabatieh in 1974 and 1978 and occupied it for three years beginning in 1982 following its invasion of southern Lebanon in retaliation for the Palestine Liberation Organization’s shelling of northern Israel. It also bombarded Nabatieh in 1993, 1996 and during the monthlong 2006 war as it clashed with Hezbollah in the region.
Hezbollah is a dominant force in Nabatieh, which has a majority Shiite population, though the group doesn’t have unanimous public backing. In several streets across the city, images of Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader assassinated by Israel in September, are pasted on walls and electricity poles.
When Israel attacked the market in 2006, business owners said the Iran-backed group gave them some money to rebuild. This time — with Hezbollah weakened, its military abilities and infrastructure degraded and its ally in Syria deposed — no one had approached them to make assessments or lend support, several business owners said.
Hezbollah announced in late December that it had a program to rebuild the southern villages pummeled by Israeli raids. Hezbollah officials said priority would be given to families whose homes were completely or partly destroyed, but didn’t say when or if businesses would get financial support.
Hezbollah also said the task of reconstruction was a national one and that the state — over which it holds significant power — also had a responsibility to help citizens rebuild.
“Every few years, we lose everything,” said Khalil Tarhini, 67, whose lingerie and underwear shop was flattened. When his shop was damaged in 2006, Hezbollah, he said, gave him $18,000 in compensation — a fraction of the more than $100,000 he lost, he said. He had to sell his property to rebuild the business, he said.
“We will be back, but it will take a while,” Mr. Tarhini said as he stared at bulldozers clearing debris where his shop once stood.
For now, the slow and grueling process of rebuilding has begun. Across Nabatieh, advertisements and signs in Arabic declare, “We will rebuild together,” or, “It will come back better.”
Hassan Jamal Sabboury and his family returned to the city from the capital, Beirut, hours after the cease-fire took effect in late November.
What he found, he said, brought him to tears. The gas station and carwash, which his grandfather first built decades ago, were gone. His apartment down the street, which he had outfitted with plush, cream-colored furniture, was ravaged.
But the strikes didn’t hit the fuel tanks underground, he said, allowing him the chance to restart somewhere.
“We are staying strong and resilient,” he said as he managed workers moving debris and mixing cement. He hoped the gas station would reopen in a month.
Mr. Mokaled, who ran the glasses business, was not so lucky.
When he and his family returned to the market, they realized they had lost goods worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Glasses, eyewear repair kits and gold cleaning equipment were wrecked. Out of 1,200 watches in the store, they were able to recover just over 100, he said. His home was also hit in a strike, and he was now staying in a one-bedroom guesthouse.
Despite an overwhelming sense of disbelief, he said, he had no choice but to rebuild. He and his brother have rented another store and plan to restart the optical business on a smaller scale.
“Life has to go on,” he said, his face pale and drawn. “If you stop, that means you are dead.”
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5) Al-Assad Is Out, but So Is a Revered Queen: Textbook Changes Unsettle Syrians
Syria’s new government has swiftly ordered changes to school curriculums. Some Syrians say the move is a worrying sign of how the former rebels plan to govern a diverse country.
By Raja Abdulrahim, Reporting from Damascus, Syria, Published Jan. 6, 2025, Updated Jan. 7, 2025
References to the ousted President Bashar al-Assad and his father, who ruled Syria before him, have been removed, as have images of pre-Islamic gods. The definition of a martyr has been changed, and it now means someone who has died for God, not one’s country. A Roman-era queen has been taken out of some textbooks.
Just weeks after a coalition of rebels toppled the Assad regime, the interim government they have set up in Damascus has moved quickly to order a raft of changes to the country’s school curriculum. The modifications cover subjects ranging from English and history to science and Islamic studies.
The move has been criticized by teachers and other Syrians who object not only to the nature of some of the changes but also to the fact that they were decided upon so quickly, with no transparency and no guidance from teachers and the general public.
Critics say that the changes, and the unilateral way in which they were ordered, are worrying signs of how the new Syrian government plans to govern a diverse country.
Some of the changes, which were detailed in nine pages released by the Education Ministry on social media last week, have been broadly welcomed, like removing glorification of the Assad regime from textbooks.
But some Syrians question why other changes were a priority, given the more pressing issues, like insecurity, sectarian tensions and an economic crisis, that still confront the country.
“The modifications should be restricted to only the things that involved the previous regime,” Rose Maya, 45, a high school French teacher, said at a small protest against the changes outside the Education Ministry on Sunday. “But there is no need for all the other changes.”
Ms. Maya was joined by about two dozen other people — among them teachers, students, doctors and artists — holding signs expressing various objections to the changes. Next to her was another teacher, Muayid Muflih, with a sign that read: “Power belongs to the people, not over the people.”
Mr. Muflih said that until recently he taught about nationalism, a subject that was widely seen as serving the agenda of the Assad regime. It has now been eliminated completely from the curriculum.
Ms. Maya, referring to Nazir Mohammad al-Qadri, the education minister, said that “as an interim minister he shouldn’t make changes.” And she said there needed to be transparency regarding the committees the ministry said it formed to review textbooks and suggest the changes. “There should be teachers involved,” she said.
The ministry has defended the changes and pushed back against suggestions that the alterations were Islamist, or a nod to Salafism, a conservative branch of Sunni Islam to which many of the country’s new leaders belong.
“The modifications were needed after the liberation of Syria,” Mr. al-Qadri said in an interview on Sunday. “These modifications were not changes to the curriculum but modifications of some of the slogans and symbols that used to glorify the previous regime.”
Mr. al-Qadri was part of the education ministry in Idlib, the province in northwest Syria run by the Islamist rebel group that now heads the interim government, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
Specialized committees involving both members of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-led government in Idlib Province and members of the Assad-era education ministry reviewed the textbooks and suggested changes, he said.
Mutasem Syoufi, executive director of the Day After, a nonprofit group, said that the interim government was trying to impose its vision not just on the political system of Syria but also its public life. The Day After was founded in 2012 by members of the Syrian opposition to plan for a transitional phase in Syria after the eventual fall of the Assad regime.
“The changes are a clear reflection of a very narrow reading of Islam, and again it reminds us of the background of the group which is in charge of Syria today,” he said. “There is no inclusive viewpoint.”
The speed with which the curriculum changes were made suggests they had been prepared before the interim government took power, Mr. Syoufi said.
Across Syria, even as people celebrate the toppling of a brutal and autocratic regime, there is some trepidation about the future of the country under a government headed by Islamist rebels.
Syria’s de facto new leader, Ahmed al-Shara, recently said it could take two to three years to draft a new constitution and up to four years to hold elections, alarming some Syrians who have expressed fear that they have traded one authoritarian leader for another.
Several people at the protest questioned why removing a Roman-era queen was such a priority for the new Syrian leadership, which is already overwhelmed with suddenly running a whole country, and rebuilding the state.
On page 19 in the third-grade Islamic Studies textbook a reference to Zenobia, a queen in the Roman colony of Palmyra, in present-day central Syria, has been removed. An ambiguous notation in the ministry’s list of changes has been read by many as proof that it sees her as a fictional person.
Mr. al-Qadri said she had not been removed from history textbooks. He said she had been deleted from the Islamic Studies textbook because she had lived and ruled in a pre-Islamic period.
“We don’t deny that Zenobia was present in history,” he said. But, he said, “we object to her inclusion in this book.”
The deletion of the female leader from the textbook has nevertheless worried some Syrians, who see it as an attack on the storied history of Syria.
“If we teach this generation that she was a fictional character, then we lose our connection to the past,” Ms. Maya said. “It means that we don’t have a past. And those that don’t have a past don’t have a future.”
Such changes, some Syrians say, should await the writing of a constitution and elections. They should also be part of a broader dialogue between different parts of Syrian society, made up of various religions, sects and ethnicities, they said.
“Their focus at this point should be just enforcing security and making it clear how they came into power and what their plans are,” said Malak Muhammad Suleiman, a dentist.
Another of the curriculum changes that has Syrians worried concerns the translation of a verse of the Quran. The final verse in the first chapter of the Muslim holy book refers to “those who are astray.”
In the previous first-grade Islamic studies book, the phrase was defined as “those who have moved away from the right path.” Under the new government’s changes, the phrase is now defined as “Christians and Jews.”
Manwella al-Hakim, a 60-year-old abstract painter and observant Muslim who wears the hijab, held up a sign at the protest objecting to this new interpretation.
“We don’t want things that will divide us,” she said. “Syria has always had all the religions and all the beliefs.”
Near her, Ziyad al-Khoury, a 61-year-old retired journalist, held up two signs, one of which read: “I am a Christian and not astray.”
Mr. al-Khoury said he was shocked when he first heard of the change.
“It felt like a message from the new government that we aren’t part of this country,” he said.
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6) In Israeli Video, Detainee Says Hamas Operates Out of Gaza Hospital
Facing international condemnation and pressure to free the chief of Kamal Adwan Hospital, Israel released a brief interrogation video backing up its claim that militants used the hospital as a base.
By Ephrat Livni, Jan. 7, 2025
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza who is now in Israeli detention, supervising the treatment of a Palestinian injured in an Israeli strike in November. Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
As international condemnation mounts over the Israeli military’s arrest late last month of the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, the Israeli military said on Tuesday that it had new evidence that militant groups had used the hospital as a command center.
The military released footage of what it said was an interrogation of one of the more than 240 militants it had arrested in raiding the hospital, saying it backed up Israel’s allegations that Hamas and other armed groups deliberately embed themselves in hospitals in violation of international law.
The New York Times was not able to independently verify the claims made in the video, or to determine the circumstances under which the detainee made the admission. Israel has detained many Gazans in Sde Teiman, an army base in southern Israel, where many have been held in demeaning conditions and in which former detainees described beatings and other abuse. The Israeli military has denied accusations of systematic abuse there.
The short clip the military released shows a young man who identifies himself as Anas Muhammad Faiz al-Sharif, 21, explaining that he had been a cleaning supervisor at Kamal Adwan Hospital, as well as a member of Hamas’s military wing since 2021. In the video, he says that operatives from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other groups operated out of the hospital, using it for weapons transfers and distribution, patrols and as an observation post, because they considered it a safe haven that could not be directly targeted by the Israeli military.
Hospitals are protected under international law, even if they provide medical care for combatants, but if they are used for other acts that are “harmful to the enemy,” that can make them legitimate targets for military action. Still, the military must weigh the expected military advantage of any action against the expected harm to civilians, and civilian harm must not be disproportional.
Israel has raided Kamal Adwan before and attacked areas in the vicinity of the hospital. In October, the military detained or expelled most of the hospital’s staff members during a raid that lasted for days. Before his arrest in December, the hospital director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, said that the hospital had been attacked many times in recent months.
Hamas did not respond to requests for comment on the Israeli claims about its operations.
Doctors and medical workers around the world, including in Israel, have condemned the raid on Kamal Adwan, and particularly the arrest of Dr. Abu Safiya. The hospital had been a main provider of medical care for the thousands of people who have remained in northern Gaza through an intensive Israeli military campaign over the last three months to quell what Israel says has been a Hamas resurgence there.
Dr. Abu Safiya was vocal in his protests of Israeli military activity throughout the war and frequently shined a light on the suffering in northern Gaza, in recent months especially.
In the days after the raid, the Israeli military confirmed the arrest of Dr. Abu Safiya, saying he was being questioned as a suspect and accusing him of being a member of Hamas. Because the group has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007, all kinds of public services, including health care, are to varying degrees entwined with Hamas.
Physicians for Human Rights Israel, an Israeli nonprofit group, said on Sunday that the Israeli military had refused the group’s efforts to send a lawyer to see Dr. Abu Safiya to evaluate his state and the conditions of his detention. “Despite our urgent requests to send an attorney, the military says he’s barred from lawyer visits” until Jan. 10, the group said.
The director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Saturday that Kamal Adwan Hospital remains “completely out of function” and that the organization has “received no updates on the safety and well-being of its director” since his detention. “We continue to urge Israel to release him,” Dr. Tedros said, adding that “attacks on hospitals and health professionals must end.”
On Monday, medical workers calling for the release of Dr. Abu Safiya and an end to attacks on hospitals and health workers in Gaza protested in cities around the United States and the world, including San Francisco, New York, Boston, Quebec and London. The rallies were organized by Doctors Against Genocide, a global coalition of health care workers based in Michigan and founded in 2023, which has demanded that Dr. Abu Safiya and his colleagues be released.
But the Israeli military has long insisted that Hamas and other militant groups have deliberately embedded themselves among civilians in violation of international law, and there is no indication that its campaign in Gaza will let up, despite international outrage. Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, the military’s chief of staff, in remarks to soldiers in northern Gaza on Monday, said of Hamas: “They understand that this is becoming unbearable. And I’m telling you — we won’t stop.”
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7) U.A.W. Seeks Union Election at Ford Battery Plant in Kentucky
The United Automobile Workers union asked a federal labor regulator to conduct an election at a factory Ford jointly owns with a South Korean battery company.
By Neal E. Boudette, Jan. 8, 2025
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/08/business/ford-union-election-kentucky-factory.html
The BlueOval SK battery plant under construction in 2022 in Glendale, Ky. Credit...Gina Clear/The News-Enterprise, via Associated Press
The United Automobile Workers union is seeking approval from federal labor regulators for a union election among workers at a Ford Motor battery plant in Kentucky, providing an important test of organized labor’s strength after the election of Donald J. Trump.
The union petitioned the National Labor Relations Board on Tuesday to let workers at the new factory in Glendale, about 55 miles south of Louisville, vote on whether they want to join the U.A.W. The plant, which is expected to begin production this year, is a joint venture between Ford and SK On, a South Korean battery company.
In a statement, the U.A.W. said a “supermajority” of workers at the plant had signed cards expressing their desire to join the union.
“We want to be able to come together with management and have a voice in how the business is run,” said Bill Wilmoth, a production worker at the Glendale plant who helped lead the organizing drive. “We want an opportunity to negotiate a contract.”
A vote to join the U.A.W. would increase the likelihood that workers who were hired at two other Ford battery plants would also become union members. Those plants — one in Kentucky and the other in Tennessee — are under construction and are also joint ventures between Ford and SK.
“We are excited about our future and strive to maintain our direct relationship with our employees,” the joint venture, known as BlueOval SK, said in a statement. BlueOval SK has about 750 employees in Kentucky and 350 in Tennessee.
The union election will take place after Mr. Trump becomes president and possibly after his appointees have taken over leadership posts at the labor board. Mr. Trump’s appointees were widely seen by labor experts as being hostile to unions and during his first term. The labor board often ruled in favor of employers over organized labor.
During the 2024 election campaign, tension between the U.A.W. and Mr. Trump ran high. The president of the union, Shawn Fain, campaigned energetically for Vice President Kamala Harris and often criticized Mr. Trump, calling him a “scab” and saying union workers would see much greater progress under a Harris administration. Still, a significant number of U.A.W. members supported Mr. Trump in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Under President Biden, the U.A.W. enjoyed enthusiastic support from the White House. Mr. Biden publicly championed unions and made an appearance on a U.A.W. picket line when the auto union was on strike against the three large Michigan-based automakers — General Motors, Ford and Stellantis — in 2023.
After winning significant wage and benefit gains from the three companies, the U.A.W. began campaigning to organize nonunion auto plants in the South. It won a vote at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., but lost another at two Mercedes-Benz plants in Alabama.
An affirmative vote at Blue Oval SK would give the U.A.W. another victory in the South, and could give the union momentum for votes at the other battery plants that have recently started production or are being built around the country.
The U.A.W. has already organized workers at a G.M. battery plant in Ohio. That factory is a joint venture between G.M. and LG Energy Solution. G.M. and LG recently started production at a second battery plant, in Spring Hill, Tenn., but that factory has not yet been organized by the U.A.W.
Stellantis, the maker of Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram vehicles, is building battery plants in Indiana that the U.A.W. also hopes to organize.
G.M. and LG had plans for a third battery plant in Lansing, Mich., but G.M. is set to sell its ownership stake in that factory, which is under construction, to LG.
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8) Trump’s Threat About Hostages Frustrates Gazans: ‘It Is Already Hell’
President-elect Donald J. Trump said “all hell will break out in the Middle East” if hostages captured in the Hamas-led attacks were not freed before he takes office.
By Hiba YazbekAbu Bakr Bashir and Lara Jakes, Jan. 8, 2025
Inspecting the damage in a building in Deir al Balah, Gaza, on Wednesday after an Israeli airstrike. Credit...Abdel Kareem Hana/Associated Press
For more than a year, millions of Palestinians living in Gaza have been homeless, facing severe food and medical shortages and under enduring threat of Israeli airstrikes. Nearly 46,000 Gazans have been killed, local health officials said on Wednesday, in a landscape largely reduced to rubble.
So when President-elect Donald J. Trump vowed that “all hell will break out in the Middle East” if hostages taken from Israel during the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7, 2023 are not freed in the next two weeks, Gazans were left to wonder: if this is not hell, then what is?
“I am not sure he understands the situation here — it is already hell,” said Alaa Isam, 33, from Deir al Balah, in central Gaza.
Negotiations to end the war between Israel and Hamas are deadlocked, leaving civilians in Gaza caught in the crossfire with little hope for the future.
“We have been being killed for 15 months,” Mr. Isam said. “We have been through two cold winters in tents, two hot summers that ruined our food. We have been subject to starvation and people died out of hunger, in addition to the continuous brutal bombardment of everywhere.”
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said, “I don’t want to hurt the negotiation” for a hostage exchange and a cease-fire agreement that remain under discussion. Mr. Trump’s incoming top Middle East envoy, Steven Witkoff, is expected to join those talks in Doha, Qatar, later this week.
But Mr. Trump was explicit about threatening consequences should Hamas refuse to release about 100 remaining hostages — at least a third of whom are presumed dead — who were taken from Israeli territory and have been held since the militant group led the attack on Israel.
“It will not be good for Hamas and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone,” he said. “If the deal isn’t done before I take office, which is now going to be two weeks, all hell will break out in the Middle East,” Mr. Trump added.
His comments reverberated Wednesday across Gaza, including with some civilians who questioned why Palestinians would be punished and not Israel if an agreement on the hostages is not reached by Jan. 20, when Mr. Trump is inaugurated.
Akram al-Satri, 47, a freelance translator from Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, said he found it strange that Mr. Trump “does not realize that Gaza has been deprived of all forms of life, and that he thinks he could add to that hell while Israel had not been spared any effort in turning the lives of Gazans into something far uglier than hell.”
“All of us who witness bombs dropping over our heads daily” were living “a reality that is more destructive and miserable than hell,” he added.
While most Gazans mainly blame Israel for the death and destruction around them, many also say they hold Hamas responsible for starting the war.
Several Gazans interviewed on Wednesday said they feared a continuation of the pro-Israel policies Mr. Trump pursued in his first term, from 2017 to 2021.
In those years, the American Embassy in Israel was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which Palestinians also claim as their capital, and the United States also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967.
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9)mIsraeli Strike in West Bank Kills 3, Including Children, Official Says
Violence has escalated in the occupied territory over the last year and a half, as Israel conducts raids targeting armed fighters with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
By Aaron Boxerman, Jan. 8, 2025
The aftermath of an Israeli raid in the village of Tamoun, in the Israeli occupied West Bank, on Wednesday. Credit...Zain Jaafar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
An Israeli drone strike killed three cousins, including two children, in the West Bank on Wednesday, according to the local Palestinian governor and a relative, as growing violence threatens to further destabilize the Israeli-occupied territory.
The attack struck the courtyard of the cousins’ home in the town of Tamoun, said Ahmed Asad, the Palestinian governor of the Tubas region. He identified the dead as two young children, Rida Basharat and Hamza Basharat, and Adham Basharat, a young adult.
Mr. Asad said that Israeli officials later informed their Palestinian counterparts that all three were dead.
The Israeli military said it launched a drone strike in Tamoun against a “terrorist cell,” but did not immediately comment on reports in Palestinian media that two children were killed. It later released a statement saying that “due to various reports regarding the results of the strike, the incident is under review.”
Their immediate families could not immediately be reached, but Mamun Abu Muhsin, a member of their extended family, confirmed their deaths in a phone interview on Wednesday night after he said their bodies were returned by Israeli forces.
Violence has spiraled in the West Bank for the past year and a half, as Israel has fought wars with armed groups like Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israeli forces have escalated raids in Palestinian cities in the West Bank — operations that can last for days at a time — bulldozing roads and engaging in shootouts with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants.
Wednesday’s aerial bombardment came in the wake of a Palestinian shooting attack two days earlier that killed three Israelis, including two women in their 70s. Israeli officials quickly vowed retribituion for the deadly attack.
“We are witnessing accelerating attempts to advance Palestinian terrorism in Judea and Samaria,” said Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, on Wednesday, using the biblical names for the West Bank, which the Israeli government considers disputed, not occupied, territory. He said that Israel would “respond accordingly” to protect its citizens, roughly 500,000 of whom live in settlements in the West Bank.
More than 800 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank since October 2023, in the wake of the Hamas-led attack that prompted the war in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry. It is unclear how many were combatants, but the numbers include some civilians, including women and children killed by Israeli security forces.
About 50 Israelis were killed by Palestinians in militant attacks in the West Bank over the same time, according to the United Nations. Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, has said that it thwarted more than a thousand attacks in 2024, including hundreds of shooting attacks.
The Palestinian Authority, which administers some parts of the territory under Israeli occupation, also launched its own operation against Palestinian militants in Jenin in December. Several Palestinian officers have been killed, as well as some civilians, including a young woman and a teenage bystander.
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10) Study Links High Fluoride Exposure to Lower I.Q. in Children
The results of a new federal analysis were drawn from studies conducted in other countries, where drinking water contains more fluoride than in the United States.
By Roni Caryn Rabin, Jan. 8, 2025
Water fluoridation is widely seen as one of the great public health achievements of the 20th century, credited with substantially reducing tooth decay. But there has been growing controversy among scientists about whether fluoride may be linked to lower I.Q. scores in children.
A comprehensive federal analysis of scores of previous studies, published this week in JAMA Pediatrics, has added to those concerns. It found a significant inverse relationship between exposure levels and cognitive function in children.
Higher fluoride exposures were linked to lower I.Q. scores, concluded researchers working for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
None of the studies included in the analysis were conducted in the United States, where recommended fluoridation levels in drinking water are very low. At those amounts, evidence was too limited to draw definitive conclusions.
Observational studies cannot prove a cause-and-effect relationship. Yet in countries with much higher levels of fluoridation, the analysis also found evidence of what scientists call a dose-response relationship, with I.Q. scores falling in lock step with increasing fluoride exposure.
Children are exposed to fluoride through many sources other than drinking water: toothpaste, dental treatments and some mouthwashes, as well as black tea, coffee and certain foods, such as shrimp and raisins. Some drugs and industrial emissions also contain fluoride.
For every one part per million increase in fluoride in urinary samples, which reflect total exposures from water and other sources, I.Q. points in children decreased by 1.63, the analysis found.
“There is concern that pregnant women and children are getting fluoride from many sources,” said Kyla Taylor, an epidemiologist at the institute and the report’s lead author, “and that their total fluoride exposure is too high and may affect fetal, infant and child neurodevelopment.”
Dr. Taylor said that the analysis was meant to contribute to the understanding of the safe and effective use of fluoride. But she said it did not address the benefits and was not intended to assess “the broader public health implications of water fluoridation in the United States.”
Several scientists, including many dentists, criticized the report, pointing to what they said were methodological flaws and emphasizing that the research did not have implications for U.S. drinking water.
The subject is so divisive that JAMA Pediatrics commissioned two editorials with opposing viewpoints to publish alongside the report.
In one, Dr. Steven M. Levy, a public health dentist at the University of Iowa, said that many of the studies included in the analysis were of very low quality. He also warned against concluding that any changes should be made in American fluoridation policies.
“A lay reader or policymaker at a water board in a small community somewhere may see the evidence and think that every way you analyze it, it’s a concern,” Dr. Levy said in an interview. “It isn’t as clear-cut as they’re trying to make it.”
The report’s findings align in some ways with statements by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice to head the department of health and human services. He has questioned the safety of fluoride and said one of the first acts of the Trump administration will be to advise water systems to remove fluoride.
Criticism of fluoridation has popped up frequently since the practice was initiated in many U.S. communities in the 1950s. But opposition was originally dismissed, as it was strongest among those with extremist or fringe views, and right-wing groups like the John Birch Society, which called fluoridation a Communist plot.
That is changing. Last September, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen regulations for fluoride in drinking water because of research suggesting that high levels might pose a risk to the intellectual development of children.
In a second editorial published alongside the new study, a public health expert, Dr. Bruce P. Lanphear, noted that as far back as 1944, the editor of The Journal of the American Dental Association expressed concern about adding fluoride, which he termed “a highly toxic substance,” to drinking water. He wrote that “the potentialities for harm far outweigh those for good.”
Some studies have suggested that dental health has improved not because fluoride was added to water, but because of fluoridated toothpastes and better dental hygiene practices. (In some countries, fluoride is added to salt.)
According to this argument, topical application of fluoride to teeth is effective enough to prevent tooth decay, and ingestion is not necessary. But other studies have reported increases in cavities after public water fluoridation initiatives ceased in some countries.
Currently, the recommended fluoride levels in the United States are 0.7 parts per million, and the study did not find a statistically significant inverse association between fluoride levels and I.Q. scores at below 1.5 parts per million based solely on fluoride levels in water.
But nearly three million Americans still drink water with fluoride levels above 1.5 parts per million from wells and some community water systems.
Linda Birnbaum, former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, called for more research into the potential effects of fluoride levels below 1.5 parts per million.
She emphasized that the study had concluded that exposure can be damaging to developing brains. “The answer is pretty clear: yes,” Dr. Birnbaum said.
To protect fetuses and babies who are especially vulnerable, she advised parents to avoid drinking fluoridated water during pregnancy and to use fluoride-free bottled water when preparing formula for their infants.
“My recommendation is that pregnant women and infants shouldn’t be exposed to excess fluoride,” said Dr. Birnbaum, who is not an author of the new analysis.
Women who are breastfeeding need not be concerned, she added, as very little fluoride is passed on through breast milk.
“The more we study a lot of chemicals, especially the chemicals that affect I.Q., like lead — there’s really no safe level,” Dr. Birnbaum said.
Some 74 studies from 10 countries, including China, Mexico, Canada, India and Denmark, were examined. Dr. Lanphear noted that the consistent links between fluoride and I.Q. were found in very different populations.
He urged the U.S. Public Health Service to set up a committee, perhaps one that does not include researchers who have studied the subject in the past and can take a fresh look at the topic, to examine two questions seriously: whether fluoride is neurotoxic, and whether it is as beneficial for oral health as it is believed to be.
“If that doesn’t happen urgently, my concern is there will be growing distrust of public health agencies amid the public, and they will have deserved it,” he said.
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11) Historians Condemn Israel’s ‘Scholasticide.’ The Question Is Why.
By Pamela Paul, Jan. 9, 2025
"... the vote passed overwhelmingly, 428 to 88. Chants of “Free, free Palestine!” broke out as the result was announced." (In spite of the convoluted thoughts and conclusion of Pamela James...BW)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/09/opinion/israel-gaza-scholasticide.html
Carl Godfrey
The history profession has plenty of questions to grapple with right now. Between those on the right who want it to accentuate America’s uniqueness and “greatness” and those on the left who want it to emphasize America’s failings and blind spots, how should historians tell the nation’s story? What is history’s role in a society with a seriously short attention span? And what can the field do — if anything — to stem the decline in history majors, which, at most recent count, was an abysmal 1.2 percent of American college students?
But the most pressing question at the annual conference of the American Historical Association, which I just attended in New York, had nothing to do with any of this. It wasn’t even about the study or practice of history. Instead, it was about what was called Israel’s “scholasticide” — defined as the intentional destruction of an education system — in Gaza, and how the A.H.A., which represents historians in academia, K-12 schools, public institutions and museums in the United States, should respond.
On Sunday evening, members voted in their annual business meeting on a resolution put forth by Historians for Peace and Democracy, an affiliate group founded in 2003 to oppose the war in Iraq. It included three measures. First, a condemnation of Israeli violence that the group says undermines Gazans’ right to education. Second, the demand for an immediate cease-fire. Finally, and perhaps most unusually for an academic organization, a commitment to “form a committee to assist in rebuilding Gaza’s educational infrastructure.”
“We consider this to be a manifold violation of academic freedom,” Van Gosse, a professor emeritus of history at Franklin & Marshall College and a founding co-chair of Historians for Peace and Democracy, told me, speaking of Israel’s actions in Gaza. The A.H.A. has taken public positions before, he pointed out, including condemning the war in Iraq and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “We felt like we had no choice — if we were to lose this resolution, it would send a message that historians did not actually care about scholasticide.”
That kind of impassioned commitment animated the business meeting, typically a staid affair that attracts around 50 attendees, but which this year, after a rally earlier in the day, was standing room only. Clusters of members were left to vote outside the Mercury Ballroom of the New York Hilton Midtown without even hearing the five speakers pro and five speakers con (which included the A.H.A.’s incoming president) make their case.
Sunday’s meeting was closed to the media but attendees and accounts on social media described an unusually raucous atmosphere. I saw many members heading in wearing kaffiyehs and stickers that read, “Say no to scholasticide.” Those opposing the resolution were booed and hissed, while those in favor won resounding applause.
It’s perhaps not surprising, then that the vote passed overwhelmingly, 428 to 88. Chants of “Free, free Palestine!” broke out as the result was announced.
Clearly there was a real consensus among professional historians, a group that has become considerably more diverse in recent years, or at least among those members who were present. One could read it as a sign of the field’s dynamism that historians are actively engaged in world affairs rather than quietly graying over dusty archives, or it may have been the result, as opponents suggested, of a well-organized campaign.
But no matter how good the resolution makes its supporters feel about their moral responsibilities, the vote is counterproductive.
First, the resolution runs counter to the historian’s defining commitment to ground arguments in evidence. It says Israel has “effectively obliterated Gaza’s education system” without noting that, according to Israel, Hamas — which goes unmentioned — shelters its fighters in schools.
Second, the resolution could encourage other academic organizations to take a side in the conflict between Israel and Gaza, an issue that tore campuses apart this past year, and from which they are still trying to heal. At this weekend’s annual meeting of the Modern Language Association, for example, members are expected to protest the humanities organization’s recent decision to reject a vote on joining a boycott of Israel.
Even those who agree with the message of the A.H.A. resolution might find reason not to support its passage. Certainly it distracts the group from challenges to its core mission, which is to promote the critical role of historical thinking and research in public life. Enrollment in history classes is in decline and departments are shrinking. The job market for history Ph.D.s is abysmal.
Finally, the resolution substantiates and hardens the perception that academia has become fundamentally politicized at precisely the moment Donald Trump, hostile toward academia, is entering office and already threatening to crack down on left-wing activism in education. Why fan those flames?
“If this vote succeeds, it will destroy the A.H.A.,” Jeffrey Herf, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Maryland and one of five historians who spoke against the resolution on Sunday, told me. “At that point, public opinion and political actors outside the academy will say that the A.H.A. has become a political organization and they’ll completely lose trust in us. Why should we believe anything they have to say about slavery or the New Deal or anything else?”
The resolution isn’t a fait accompli. The A.H.A. Council, the organization’s governing board, must accept, refuse to concur with or veto the vote. A refusal would send the resolution to the organization’s 10,450-plus membership for a full vote. Instead, at its meeting on Monday, the council punted, issuing a terse statement that its decision will be postponed until the next meeting, sometime within the month. Until then, the A.H.A. will not take an official stance.
“The A.H.A. cannot, does not, and should not intervene everywhere,” Jim Grossman, the organization’s executive director and an opponent of the resolution, noted in a message to members. “As a membership organization, we keep our distance from issues that are controversial within and among our members. And we keep in mind that our effectiveness rests on our legitimacy, our reputation for even-handedness, professional integrity and appropriately narrow boundaries.”
That stance may have already been compromised. The group’s Iraq war statement in 2007, for example, condemned America’s involvement in Iraq and censorship of the related public record while also urging an end to the war. On Ukraine, its statement was more carefully phrased as a rejection of Vladimir Putin’s characterization of Ukraine as part of Russia as being ahistoric.
Those who approved this current resolution may believe they are acting on a moral imperative. But historians are trained to take into account the long view. I would argue that while historians should be free to take part in public affairs on their own, it would be better if the A.H.A. as an institution never weighed in on political conflicts. Some may call this “anticipatory obedience.” I see it as wisely stemming the tide of mission creep and supporting independent thought by scholars.
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12) ‘Completely Dry’: How Los Angeles Firefighters Ran Out of Water
As wildfires roar into residential neighborhoods, firefighters in California and elsewhere are finding that water systems can’t keep up with the demand.
By Tim ArangoMike Baker and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Jan. 9, 2025
Tim Arango reported from Los Angeles, Mike Baker from Seattle and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs from New York.
Capt. Kevin Easton and his firefighting team had already spent hours battling an out-of-control fire sweeping through Los Angeles’s Pacific Palisades area, leaving gutted homes in its wake. Then, around midnight, their water lines started to sputter. Before long, the hydrants had run dry.
“Completely dry — couldn’t get any water out of it,” said Captain Easton, who was part of a small, roaming patrol of firefighters who were trying to protect the community’s Palisades Highlands neighborhood. Even on Wednesday afternoon — hours after the hydrants had gone dry — there was still no water. Houses in the Highlands burned, becoming part of the more than 5,000 structures destroyed by the Palisades fire so far.
Officials now say the storage tanks that hold water for high-elevation areas like the Highlands, and the pumping systems that feed them, could not keep pace with the demand as the fire raced from one neighborhood to another. That was in part because those who designed the system did not account for the stunning speeds at which multiple fires would race through the Los Angeles area this week.
“We are looking at a situation that is just completely not part of any domestic water system design,” said Marty Adams, a former general manager and chief engineer at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which is responsible for delivering water to nearly four million residents of Los Angeles.
Municipal water systems are designed for firefighters to tap into multiple hydrants at once, allowing them to maintain a steady flow of water for crews who may be trying to protect a large structure or a handful of homes. But these systems can buckle when wildfires, such as those fueled by the dry brush that surrounds Los Angeles’s hillside communities, rage through entire neighborhoods.
As urban growth spreads into wilderness areas around the country and climate change brings more challenging fire conditions, an increasing number of cities have confronted a sudden loss of water available for firefighting, most recently in Talent, Ore.; Gatlinburg, Tenn.; and Ventura County, Calif.
The problem can be especially acute during high-wind conditions, like those Los Angeles experienced this week, when firefighting aircraft could not safely make their usual aerial drops of water and fire retardant.
In Louisville, Colo., as firefighters were nearing depletion of water supplies in 2022, crews took the extraordinary step of pushing untreated water through the system. In 2023, on the Hawaiian island of Maui, firefighters battling a wildfire found their hydrants running dry as flames churned through the community of Lahaina, killing 102 people in the country’s deadliest wildfire in more than a century.
In that case, firefighters were confronted with many homes and pipes being destroyed simultaneously, causing water to gush across yards and streets when firefighters needed it in their hydrants.
Municipal water systems like the one in Los Angeles are designed to handle heavy loads, including those from large fires that might require multiple fire trucks to tap into the system at the same time.
Getting water to the upper reaches of hillside communities like Pacific Palisades can be a challenge. There, water is collected in a reservoir that pumps into three high-elevation storage tanks, each with a capacity of about one million gallons. Water then flows by gravity into homes and fire hydrants.
But the pump-and-storage system was designed for a fire that might consume several homes, not one that would consume hundreds, said Mr. Adams, the former leader of the city’s water department.
“If this is going to be a norm, there is going to have to be some new thinking about how systems are designed,” he said.
Ahead of this week’s dangerous weather conditions, the storage tanks above Pacific Palisades and other hillside communities affected by the fires were filled to capacity, officials said. But as the Palisades fire spread on Tuesday, the first tank there was quickly depleted. Hours later, the second one was empty. The third one was drained by Wednesday morning.
Janisse Quiñones, the chief executive and chief engineer at the city’s water department, said so much water was being pulled from the main water line during the fire that there was less water available to pump up toward the storage tanks.
By Thursday evening, Kristin M. Crowley, the chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department, said firefighters had stopped tapping into the hydrants altogether.
“Right now, we’re not utilizing the hydrants,” Chief Crowley said.
She said firefighters were used to running out of water while battling brush fires and had trained for that possibility. Instead, she said, the key tool in battling these fires has been the aircraft that drop retardant and water — assets that were unavailable during the initial phases of the fires because of the high winds.
The supply of water ended up being only one of several challenges, as fire crews across Los Angeles County were overwhelmed by fires on so many fronts. In the Altadena area, where the Eaton fire burned through more than 13,000 acres and as many as 5,000 structures, firefighters also dealt with strains to the water system, but Chad Augustin, the chief of the nearby Pasadena Fire Department, said crews could not have stopped the fire’s early spread even with more water.
“Those erratic wind gusts were blowing embers for multiple miles ahead of the fire, and that’s really what caused the rapid spread of this fire,” Chief Augustin said.
Rick Caruso, the real estate developer and former candidate for Los Angeles mayor who served two stints as president of the Department of Water and Power, said he had a team of private firefighters deployed in Pacific Palisades on Tuesday night, helping to protect a major outdoor retail space he owns, Palisades Village, as well as some nearby homes.
All night, he said, the team was reporting that water was in short supply. He said it would take time to account for the supply problems, but suggested there appeared to be a shortfall in preparation.
“The lack of water in the hydrants — I don’t think there’s an excuse,” he said.
Traci Park, the Los Angeles City Council member whose district includes Pacific Palisades, said the city’s water systems were among several pieces of critically underfunded infrastructure.
“There are environmental catastrophes waiting to happen everywhere with our water mains,” she said, adding that some were a century old. “As our city has grown, we haven’t upgraded and expanded the infrastructure that we need to support it.”
She also raised the issue of the complexity of battling fires that are inherently wildland blazes, sweeping into urban neighborhoods — with firefighters unable to take advantage of wildland firefighting resources, such as aerial drops, that would normally be available to them.
“Our firefighters were out there yesterday fighting a raging wildfire with fire engines and fire hydrants — that’s not how you fight a wildfire,” she said.
Greg Pierce, a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies water resources and urban planning, echoed the concerns over water systems that are designed for urban fires, not fast-moving wildfires. But redesigning water systems to allow firefighters to take on a broad wildfire would be enormously expensive, he said.
A more fundamental question, he said, is whether it’s a good idea to rebuild neighborhoods adjacent to wildlands, an issue that has been broadly debated across the West as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of fires on what is known as the wildland-urban interface.
Captain Easton, the 19-year fire department veteran who helped battle the Pacific Palisades blaze, said that there were other complications in addition to water supply, such as delays in getting additional support crews from other areas to the scene.
Los Angeles’s water and power department had sent trucks with additional water tanks to the area, he said, but they were in stationary positions, meaning firefighters had to go retrieve the water and bring it back to the fire.
“That causes problems too, because you get 500 gallons of water and you’ve got a house that’s on fire, you knock it down a lot and then you’ve got to go back and get refilled,” he said.
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13) Israeli Hostage Declared Killed in Gaza as Fears for Captives Mount
Hamza Ziyadne, 23, was abducted in the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel alongside his siblings and father, whose body was also recovered this week.
By Aaron Boxerman, Reporting from Jerusalem, Jan. 10, 2025
'The confirmation of Mr. Ziyadne’s death comes just a day after family and friends buried his father, 53-year-old Youssef Ziyadne, who was also taken hostage. The Israeli military said their bodies been found together in a tunnel under the southern Gaza city of Rafah alongside their dead captors. It was not clear when they were found."
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/10/world/middleeast/israeli-hostage-declared-dead-gaza.html
The Israeli military said on Friday that Hamza Ziyadne, an Arab citizen of Israel held hostage in Gaza, had been killed in the Palestinian enclave, as efforts by mediators to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas to free hostages have seen little success.
Over 15 months after the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023 prompted the war in Gaza, around 98 hostages remain in Gaza; roughly 36 are presumed dead by the Israeli authorities.
The confirmation of Mr. Ziyadne’s death comes just a day after family and friends buried his father, 53-year-old Youssef Ziyadne, who was also taken hostage. The Israeli military said their bodies been found together in a tunnel under the southern Gaza city of Rafah alongside their dead captors. It was not clear when they were found.
Before they were found, neither hostage had been designated as presumed dead by Israeli officials, who have sought to use intelligence to assess the condition of the remaining hostages. That was likely to further escalate fears among the families of the remaining captives in Gaza that their relatives might have already suffered the same fate.
It was not immediately clear how the Ziyadnes died: Some hostages have been killed in Israeli airstrikes, while Israel has said that others were executed by their captors. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said on Wednesday — after Youssef’s death was confirmed — that the military was still investigating.
Israel’s Arab citizens, like Mr. Ziyadne, were not spared in Hamas’s attack. At least 17 were killed and several others taken hostage. Around 1,200 people were killed in the assault and 250 taken hostage, according to Israel.
Many, like Mr. Ziyadne, belonged to the Bedouin Arab minority, a group that has long lived on the margins of Israeli society. Historically nomadic herders, many Bedouins now reside in a constellation of cities and hamlets throughout southern Israel, some of which lack basic government services like running water and electricity.
Hamza Ziyadne, 23, was taken hostage alongside his father and two younger siblings, Bilal and Aisha, while at the Israeli kibbutz where his father worked. Bilal, 18, and Aisha, 17, were freed during a weeklong truce in November 2023 in which 105 Israeli and foreign hostages — mostly women and children — were freed in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
The Hostages Family Forum, which represents the captives’ relatives, said that Hamza Ziyadne was survived by his wife and two children. In a statement, the group described him as a “nature lover who had a deep affection for animals and was beloved by his friends.”
“Four family members were kidnapped, with only two returning alive,” the group said in a statement. “Youssef and Hamza, who survived a period in the hell of Gaza captivity, could have been saved through an earlier agreement.”
Months of efforts to bridge the gaps between Israel and Hamas on a cease-fire and hostage release deal have failed to bear fruit. Qatar and Egypt have led the talks, which are also being brokered by the Biden administration.
On Thursday, Mr. Biden said that “real progress” was being made in the negotiations, without providing further details. Officials on all sides have repeatedly voiced optimism over a breakthrough over the past several months, only to see hopes dashed a few days later over new obstacles.
For months, Israel and Hamas have leveled seemingly irreconcilable conditions for an agreement. Hamas has demanded an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as part of any deal to release hostages. Israeli leaders have said they will not end the war before Hamas is destroyed in Gaza and vowed to maintain overriding security control there.
Michael D. Shear in Washington contributed reporting.
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14) House Passes Bill to Impose Sanctions on I.C.C. Officials for Israeli Prosecutions
The action put the measure on track for likely enactment given strong support for it among Republicans, who now control the Senate, and President-elect Donald J. Trump.
By Karoun Demirjian, Reporting from Washington, Jan. 9, 2025
"The United States has sent Israel shipments of weapons worth billions of dollars since the start of the armed conflict, despite international condemnation of its assault on Gaza and accusations from human rights groups that its actions there are tantamount to genocide. Efforts to broker a cease-fire have eluded the Biden administration. Mr. Trump said this week that if Hamas did not release Israeli hostages by his inauguration, 'all hell will break out in the Middle East.'”
Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, in Paris last year. Congressional Republicans have been trying to crack down on the court since May, when Mr. Khan announced he was seeking warrants for Israeli leaders. Credit...Dimitar Dilkoff/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The House on Thursday passed legislation that would impose sanctions on officials at the International Criminal Court, making a frontal assault on the tribunal in a rebuke of its move to charge top Israeli leaders with war crimes for their offensive against Hamas in Gaza.
The bill instructs the president to freeze property assets and deny visas to any foreigners who materially or financially contributed to the court’s efforts to “investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute a protected person.” Protected persons are defined as all current and former military and government officials of the United States and allies that have not consented to the court’s jurisdiction, such as Israel.
The measure is one of several that were pushed through the House by Republicans last year but died in the Democratic-led Senate, and is now all but certain to be enacted now that Republicans control both chambers of Congress and Mr. Trump is taking office on Jan. 20.
Last year, a similar measure drew some bipartisan support in the House but still faced resistance among many Democrats, who joined Republicans in criticizing the I.C.C.’s move to prosecute Israeli leaders but called the sanctions overly broad and ineffective. With Republicans now in charge, the barriers to the bill’s passage appear to have fallen away.
“The I.C.C.’s rogue actions only enable the terrorists who seek to wipe Israel off the map, and they cannot be allowed to stand unchecked,” Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, said on the floor this week. “In November, I promised that if Leader Schumer wouldn’t bring the I.C.C. sanctions bill to the floor, Republicans would. And we’ll soon fulfill that promise and have a vote to support our ally Israel.”
The 243-to-140 vote in the House, in which 45 Democrats joined all Republicans to support the bill, reflected the considerable bipartisan aggravation among lawmakers with the court’s decision to pursue Israeli officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity alongside the leaders of Hamas, whose deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, started a bloody backlash in the Gaza Strip.
“America is passing this law because a kangaroo court is seeking to arrest the prime minister of our great ally,” Representative Brian Mast, Republican of Florida and the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on the floor. He accused the court of antisemitism, trying to prevent the Israeli military from being successful and of stymying efforts to release Israeli and American hostages being held by Hamas.
“This bill sends an incredibly important message across the globe,” Mr. Mast added. “Do not get in the way of America or our allies trying to bring our people home. You will be given no quarter, and again, you will certainly not be welcome on American soil.”
The United States has sent Israel shipments of weapons worth billions of dollars since the start of the armed conflict, despite international condemnation of its assault on Gaza and accusations from human rights groups that its actions there are tantamount to genocide. Efforts to broker a cease-fire have eluded the Biden administration. Mr. Trump said this week that if Hamas did not release Israeli hostages by his inauguration, “all hell will break out in the Middle East.”
Congressional Republicans have been trying to crack down on the court since May, when its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced he was seeking warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and its defense minister at the time, Yoav Gallant, alongside Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza; Ismail Haniyeh, its Qatar-based chief; and Muhammad Deif, its top military commander. The House first passed a bill to impose sanctions on court officials and their associates just two weeks later.
In November, the court issued warrants for Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Gallant and Mr. Deif for war crimes and crimes against humanity. By that point, Mr. Sinwar and Mr. Haniyeh had been confirmed as killed by Israeli forces. Israel has also claimed to have killed Mr. Deif.
Proponents of the bill have argued that the sanctions are a necessary rebuke of the court’s move to equate Israel’s leaders with the top brass of a terrorist group like Hamas. They have also insisted that the measure is an important repudiation of what they see as overstepping by the court, since Israel, like the United States, has not consented to its jurisdiction.
The bill is “critically important not just for our friendship with our ally Israel but for our own national security, the protection of our men and women in uniform,” Representative Chip Roy, Republican of Texas and the author of the bill, said on the floor. He argued that if the United States failed to impose sanctions on the court, U.S. service members could be targeted for their conduct in foreign conflicts.
The I.C.C., Mr. Roy added, “should have no authority over our people, no authority over the prime minister of Israel.”
Most Democrats objected to the legislation, arguing that it was trying to punish too wide a swath of people for the decision.
“Republicans want to sanction the I.C.C. simply because they don’t want the rules to apply to everyone,” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts. “There is no international right to vengeance, and what we are seeing in Gaza is vengeance.”
The International Criminal Court claims jurisdiction over alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide that are committed by citizens of states that have recognized the court or occur in countries that have recognized the court. The Palestinian Territories did so in 2015, a few years after the United Nations admitted Palestine as an observer state.
The United States and Israel were among only seven countries that voted against the creation of the criminal court in 1998. Though both countries later became signatories to its founding document, the Rome Statute, neither country ratified it.
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15) Israel Strikes Ports and a Power Plant in Houthi-Controlled Parts of Yemen
Israel and its allies have escalated strikes against the Houthis to try to force them to stop firing on Israel and Red Sea shipping lanes, but it was not clear whether they would deter the Iran-backed militia.
By Aaron Boxerman and Ismaeel Naar, Jan. 10, 2025
Aaron Boxerman reported from Jerusalem and Ismaeel Naar from Dubai.
Smoke rises from the site of an airstrike in Sana, Yemen, on Friday. Credit...Khaled Abdullah/Reuters
Israeli fighter jets bombed ports and a power plant in Yemeni territory controlled by the Houthis on Friday, the Israeli military said, in the latest attempt to force the Iranian-backed militant group to stop firing at Israel and commercial ships in the Red Sea.
Israel has escalated its strikes on the Houthis in recent weeks in response to repeated attacks by the Yemeni militia, which has been firing on Israel in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza.
The United States and Britain have also struck Yemen repeatedly in an effort to secure international waterways from Houthi attacks. But it was far from clear whether Israel and its allies could successfully compel the Houthis to end their attacks through a bombing campaign.
Israel’s Air Force bombed the Hezyaz power station near Sana — the Houthi-controlled capital — not far from where thousands of Yemenis had gathered in a weekly solidarity rally with Palestinians. The ports of Hudaydah and Ras Isa, Yemen’s main oil export terminal were also attacked, the Israeli military said in a statement.
Experts have warned that attacking ports like Hudaydah, a major conduit for essential supplies in northern Yemen, could further worsen what is already one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Rocked by civil war for more than a decade, millions of people in Yemen face the threat of malnutrition, according to the United Nations.
The Israeli military said it had struck targets at sites that were being used by the Houthis for military purposes. One worker at the Hezyaz power station was wounded, according to al-Masira, the Houthi-affiliated broadcaster. There were no other immediate reports of serious casualties.
“The port of Hudaydah is paralyzed and the port of Ras Isa is ablaze,” Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, said in a statement. “The message is clear: Anyone who harms Israel will be struck tenfold.”
The Houthis are more than 1,000 miles from Israeli territory and have survived numerous efforts to defeat them since they rose to power in Yemen’s decade-long civil war. The United States designates the Houthis as a terrorist group, and some of its regional allies — like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — have targeted them as well.
Since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 prompted the Gaza war, the Houthis have fired hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel. They have also hampered global shipping by firing at passing commercial barges in a self-declared effort to enforce a blockade on Israel.
Over the past two months, the Houthis have stepped up their attacks, sending Israelis across central Israel rushing for bomb shelters late at night as air-raid sirens blare. On Thursday, Houthi militants fired three drones at Israeli territory; the Israeli military said it intercepted them all.
Israel has bombarded Yemen several times in response — sending its fighter jets more than 1,000 miles to do so — but has struggled to decisively subdue the Houthis. The United States and its allies have also struck the Houthis repeatedly over the past year without decisively deterring them from future attacks.
After the strikes on Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, said “the Houthis are paying, and will continue to pay, a heavy price for their aggression against us.”
On Friday, Mr. Katz threatened to kill Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the group’s leader, as well as its other commanders.
“No one is immune,” Mr. Katz said. “We will hunt you down and destroy the terror infrastructure which you built. Israel’s long arm will reach you, wherever you are.”
Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting from Tel Aviv.
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