/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

Gaza death toll tops 34,900

The number of people killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since the start of the war has risen to 34,904, according to the latest figures by the Health Ministry in the besieged and bombarded territory.

Another 78,514 people have been wounded over the same period, the ministry said.

WATCH: Police bulldoze camp to break up pro-Palestine Amsterdam protest

Dutch police have used a bulldozer to mow down a pro-Palestine encampment at the University of Amsterdam (UVA).

As we reported earlier, police arrested at least 32 protesters as they cleared the camp, located in front of the UVA’s Binnengasthuis building in the city centre of the Dutch capital.

The protesters at UVA are calling for the university to sever all ties with Israel.

Ireland and Spain could recognise Palestinian state on May 21: Report

According to a report by Ireland’s national broadcaster, Ireland, Spain and several other European Union member states are considering recognising a Palestinian state on May 21.

RTE News on Wednesday evening said contacts between Ireland and Spain, and between Slovenia and Malta, had intensified with a view to the countries jointly recognising Palestinian statehood.

According to the report, the countries have been waiting for a vote by the UN General Assembly on May 10, which could lead to the recognition of Palestine as qualified to become a full UN member.

In a joint statement on March 22, Spain, Ireland, Malta and Slovenia said they had agreed to take the first steps towards recognising a Palestinian state.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/9/israels-war-on-gaza-live-biden-admits-israel-used-us-bombs-on-civilians

Trinity College Dublin agrees to divest from Israeli firms after student protest
Five-day encampment in university grounds that caused the college major loss of income ended in victory for campaigners

Students at Trinity College Dublin have ended a five-day encampment after the university pledged to cut ties with Israeli companies.

Student leaders claimed victory on Wednesday night for a US-style campaign that had disrupted the campus and blocked access to the Book of Kells.

Senior management made a deal with protesters, the university said in a statement. “Trinity will complete a divestment from investments in Israeli companies that have activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and appear on the UN blacklist,” it said. “Trinity will endeavour to divest from investments in other Israeli companies.”

Trinity’s supplier list contains just one Israeli company, which will remain until March 2025 for contractual reasons, said the statement. (…)

The encampment began on 3 May when pro-Palestinian protesters set up dozens of tents in Fellows’ Square, similar to actions in the US, Europe and India in response to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

In contrast to confrontations in the US where police forcibly evicted demonstrators at several universities, there was no attempt to remove the protest. Eoin O’Sullivan, a senior dean who led talks with the students, thanked them for their “engagement”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/08/trinity-college-dublin-agrees-to-divest-from-israeli-firms-after-student-protest

US will stop supplying some weapons to Israel if it invades Rafah, Biden warns
US president publicly warns that his administration will not provide the weapons for an offensive on Rafah

Joe Biden has issued a blunt warning to Israel that his administration will stop supplying bombs and artillery shells if its military pushes ahead with an offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, in what could mark the start of a turning point in relations between the two countries.

The US president delivered the warning in a television interview in which he brushed aside Israeli and Republican complaints and made clear his administration would not provide the weapons for an offensive on Rafah, which the US, the UN and other aid agencies warn would trigger a humanitarian disaster.

“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah – they haven’t gone in Rafah yet – if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that deal with that problem,” Biden told CNN.

The president was speaking after it was announced his administration had paused the delivery of 3,500 munitions, more than half them 2,000lb bombs, which can cause devastating damage and severe civilian casualties when dropped on densely populated areas.

…

Biden stressed the US would continue to supply ammunition for Israel’s main air defence system, Iron Dome, which performed well in the face of an Iranian missile and drone barrage last month, but he said Washington would not supply offensive weapons that would be used in an offensive the US believes will be disastrous.

…

US officials made clear that the pause would not be a one-off if the Rafah offensive went ahead: other arms deliveries that have already been approved could be delayed, and shipments waiting for approval could also face obstacles, such as a pending consignment of 6,500 joint direct attack munitions, or JDAMs, which convert freefall “dumb bombs” into precision-guided weapons.

A Guardian investigation this week found a US-made JDAM was used in a March airstrike in southern Lebanon that killed seven health workers. Analysis of debris found at the site of the attack revealed shrapnel from a 500lb (227kg) Israeli MPR bomb, as well as the parts of the JDAM that connect the munition to the guidance system and remnants of its motor.

The weapons – 1,800 2,000lb bombs and 1,700 500lb bombs – had long been seen by experts as the most likely to be targeted for any potential restrictions on arms supplies to Israel given how destructive they are in urban settings.

US officials insist that the pause is not because of legal concerns, but is a policy decision. There is nervousness in the administration about making legal judgments in case they are used against Israel in legal disputes before the international criminal court and the international court of justice.

However, the Guardian understands that conversations in recent months have focused on how the Israeli military’s use of certain munitions diverges from the Pentagon’s rules on the use of such weapons in heavily populated urban settings.

…

The weapons hold-up comes against the background of the expected delivery of a report by the US Department of State that examines whether Israel’s war conduct is credibly in compliance with assurances that American-supplied weapons will not be used in contravention of US and international humanitarian law.

The White House and Pentagon declined to comment.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/08/biden-israel-weapons-shipment-rafah-invasion

Dutch students strike back!

>>481433
>Dutch police have used a bulldozer to mow down a pro-Palestine encampment at the University of Amsterdam (UVA).
That sounds familiar, are they trying to make western protesters feel like they are in Gaza ?
It doesn't seem wise to blur that line.

>>481433
>>481434
How come the Dutch have an Anne Frank museum but then this Israel Palestine stuff?

War continuation, Israeli presence in Gaza a ‘death sentence to hostages’

Daniel Seidmann, Israeli attorney and specialist on Israeli-Palestinian relations, says all opinion polls suggest that a large majority of the Israeli public is aware that Israel cannot both free the captives and continue the war.

“The two are mutually incompatible,” he told Al Jazeera.

This has been echoed by the families of the captives as well as experts, including former military and intelligence officials in Israel, Seidmann noted.

There is a “binary choice – end hostilities, withdraw from Gaza while receiving all of the hostages back”, he said. “Any continuation of the war and any continuation of the Israeli presence in Gaza is a death sentence to the hostages.”

Israeli army destroys home of suspected attacker

Israeli forces have blown up the home of a man who is alleged to have carried out a February shooting attack at a bus stop in southern Israel, reports the Wafa news agency.

The demolition of his eighth-floor apartment, located in Jerusalem’s Shu’fat refugee camp, has left his wife and four children homeless.

The man, 37-year-old Fadi Jamjoum, was fatally shot by an Israeli reservist following the February bus stop attack.

Within days, Israeli forces raided Jamjoum’s home and took measurements, preparing to demolish it, according to Wafa.

Israel regularly demolishes the homes of Palestinians accused of attacks on Israel, a policy that rights groups decry as a form of “collective punishment”.

Pro-Palestinian student protests continue across Spain

We have verified videos posted online showing Granada University students demonstrating in front of the institution’s presidency at the Royal Hospital of the city in southern Spain, in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

The protesters are demanding their university divest from Israel as they chant slogans in support of Palestinians.

Israel Hayom, a Hebrew language Israeli newspaper, also reported today that the University of Barcelona is expected to cut ties with Israel after student protests.

Pro-Palestinian student protests have taken place across Spain this week with more than 2,000 lecturers having come out in support of the rallies.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/9/israels-war-on-gaza-live-biden-admits-israel-used-us-bombs-on-civilians

Bangladesh students protest Israeli genocide in Gaza

Thousands of university and college students across Bangladesh staged demonstrations on Monday, joining the wave of international student protests opposing the imperialist-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza.

The protesting Bangladeshi students also condemned the brutal police crackdown on students at university campuses and colleges across the US where they are also campaigning against Israel’s barbaric war.

Dhaka University was the main centre of Monday’s protests with students participating from other campuses and colleges. According to the Bangladesh-based New Age, other demonstrations were held at universities in Jahangirnagar, Chittagong, Comilla, Rajshahi and the Shahjalal University of Science and Technology.

Significant numbers of students also protested at Shah Azizul Haque College in Bogura and Mymensingh’s Agricultural University. Palestinian students enrolled at these universities and university lecturers also participated.

The students at the rallies and marches carried banners with slogans such as “Free Palestine, Stop Genocide! Down with Zionism! Ceasefire in Gaza now!” The rally at Dhaka University, which was joined by several university lecturers, was under the banner “Solidarity with Free Palestine Movement in American Universities!”

Solaiman Khan, a 23-year-old Dhaka University student, told Arab News: “The US and some other big players always speak in favor of freedom of speech. But what we have seen at university campuses in the US is a shame for all world leaders.” He added: “The youth [of Bangladesh] have come onto the streets against this sort of hypocrisy from the superpowers of the world.”

…

Mosaddek Ibne Mohammad Ali, who attended that event, told the media: “What Israel has been doing to the people of Gaza is clearly a war crime and genocide. The Netanyahu administration has violated all the humanitarian laws. This illegal war must be stopped for the sake of humanity.”

He condemned the Biden administration’s unwavering support for Israel and recalled previous US imperialist wars: “They violated the laws of democracy in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and now they are violating democracy in their own country [by] attacking and imprisoning the students.”

read more:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/05/09/ccoj-m09.html

Funny Cornish Man - Analysis on US politicians threats against the International Criminal Court

>>481436
It doesn't seem wise, but it does seem like it's what they're trying to do.

Breaking Points - Biden HALTS IDF War Crime Report Amid Rafah INVASION w/ analysis

Hezbollah claims to hit Israeli sites near border

Lebanon’s Hezbollah group says it has fired weapons at Israel’s Ramia military site near the border, destroying one of its newly set up “technical systems”.

Hezbollah also fired a rocket at Israel’s al-Samaqa military site, which is located in the occupied Lebanese hills of Kfarchouba, report our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic.

The Hezbollah attacks follow an alleged Israeli drone attack on a car in southern Lebanon that killed four of its members, according to Lebanese security sources cited by Reuters.

Elite UK universities join pro-Palestine student movement, spooking PM
Edna Mohamed
Reporting from London, UK

At 3am (02:00 GMT) last Wednesday, as the rain poured down, pro-Palestine students at Bristol University set up an encampment opposite a study centre on campus.

Eugenia and five other student activists who had met at previous protests put four tents together. But despite the cold, more sprung up over the next few nights.

“It’s now grown to at least 20 tents, with loads of people rotating in and out, usually about 30 [people] at the camp during the day. But it’s sometimes more if we have a specific event on,” Eugenia, an organiser with the Bristol for Palestine group, told Al Jazeera.

Police arrive at Malmo’s main square before Eurovision

A heavy police presence is in Malmo’s main square where protests against Israel’s inclusion in the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest are expected to take place.

Officers in more than five vans arrived in Stortorget, or main square, ahead of Eden Golan taking to the stage on Thursday evening in Malmo Arena to represent Israel.

A pro-Palestinian march will take place in the afternoon, which a spokesperson for the force said would cause disturbance to traffic in the city in southern Sweden.

The organisers of the march say the demonstration will take place at 3pm local time (13:00 GMT), with it ending at Molleplatsen park.

Boos for Israel’s entry at Eurovision rehearsal

Shouts of “Free Palestine” could be heard during Israel’s song at the rehearsals for the semifinal of the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmo, Sweden. The semifinal is to be held tonight.

Watch the video below:
https://aje.io/8mqpai?update=2890246

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/9/israels-war-on-gaza-live-biden-admits-israel-used-us-bombs-on-civilians

Yemen’s Houthis say they will continue to target ships transporting goods to Israel

The leader of Yemen’s Houthis, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, says the group would target ships of any company related to supplying or transporting goods to Israel regardless of their destination.

He said this was a fourth stage of escalation in retaliation to “the Israeli aggression on Rafah”.

“From now on, we are also thinking about the fifth stage and the sixth stage, and we have very important, sensitive and influential choices on the enemies,” he said.

Months of Houthi attacks in the Red Sea have disrupted global shipping, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa.

More than 300 Bedouins face forced evictions following home demolitions in Negev: Amnesty

We reported earlier on the Israeli authorities’ demolition of 47 homes in Wadi al-Khalil, a Bedouin village in the Negev.

Amnesty International has said in a statement the forced eviction of more than 300 residents in Wadi al-Khalil, one of nine unrecognised villages at risk of forced eviction “underscores the urgency to dismantle Israel’s apartheid system”.

“Instead of meaningfully consulting with the local communities in an inclusive decision-making process on planning, infrastructure development and access to land, Israeli authorities … continue to use urban development as a tool to displace Bedouins, disenfranchise them and force them into smaller and smaller pockets of land, in a clear illustration of Israel’s apartheid system,” said Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.

She urged authorities to immediately stop all evictions and ensure those made homeless are granted adequate housing.

Major Rafah operation will not defeat Hamas, White House says

White House national security spokesman John Kirby says Israel undertaking a major Rafah operation will not advance the objective of both the US and Israel of defeating Hamas in Gaza.

“Smashing into Rafah … will not advance that objective,” Kirby said in a briefing with reporters.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/9/israels-war-on-gaza-live-biden-admits-israel-used-us-bombs-on-civilians

>>481439
>It doesn't seem wise, but it does seem like it's what they're trying to do.
I don't understand what their motives are.

At first i thought this was an attempt at intimidation, but what they are doing has the effect of galvanizing solidarity and rope more people into resistance. When the CIA does color revolution stuff they deliberately try to provoke excessive police repression because that is such an effective tool to grow a movement.

The second puzzling thing is People are demonstrating against the actions of a foreign government in a distant country. By attacking these people, they make everybody think there is some sort of collusion going on. It's hard to reconcile why anybody would be giving so much political ammunition to the political opposition.

>>481442
I can't speak for the Dutch, but in the US, the repression seems like acts of both desperation and… normalization, maybe. They seem to be part of a broader authoritarian project.

And, generally, there is some collusion - afaik the protests in the Netherlands are also about divestment, and their government, institutions, etc. still haven't done so wrt Israel. Not fully, anyway - needlesstosay, The Netherlands is considerably less involved in all this than the US, or even the UK or Germany afaik. Still! They aren't totally uncompromised from what I understand, and so there have been protests there for a while prior to these ones ramping up.

>>481443
>I can't speak for the Dutch, but in the US, the repression seems like acts of both desperation and… normalization, maybe.
I can see the desperation angle, but this shit has definitely done the opposite of normalization, especially with regards to pro-Israel stances. It's no longer normal to side with Israel, normal people can't stomach it anymore.

>They seem to be part of a broader authoritarian project.
I get the impression this is people going down with the Zionist ship. The barbarism united the regional population against US empire, destabilizing the political hold on power of pro-western factions across the middle east. The IDF also failed it's military goals, they suffered too many casualties and despite the unfathomable devastation, every part of Gaza remains contested. Israels veneer of invincibility has cracked. The Zionist are compromising US imperial interests in the region.

>the protests are also about divestment
I see, that is indeed a demand directed at the government at home. However it's a rather harmless demand. They are demanding a change of policy, they're not demanding retribution.

Islamic Resistance in Iraq launches drone strike on Israeli base

The umbrella group of Iran-aligned militias in Iraq says it has launched a drone attack on a military base in Elifelet in northern Israel.

Neither the Islamic Resistance in Iraq nor the Israeli military has commented on any damage or casualties.

The Iraqi group promised it would continue its attacks on Israeli positions, which it said come “in response to the massacres committed” by Israel against Palestinians.

‘Burn down the UN’: Israelis set fire to UNRWA office in occupied East Jerusalem

The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has been forced to shut down its headquarters in the occupied East Jerusalem after Israelis – some of them armed – set fire to the compound’s perimeter.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the agency, said the fire caused “extensive damage” as “it took the Israeli fire extinguishers and police a while before they turned up”.

“This is an outrageous development,” said Lazzarini.

Over the past few months, UN staff have been “regularly” subjected to harassment and intimidation, the compound has been seriously damaged, and Israeli citizens have threatened the staff with guns.

“I call on all those who have influence to put an end to these attacks and hold all those responsible accountable.”

https://twitter.com/UNLazzarini/status/1788643951945150790

Israeli-American billionaire slams Biden decision on bomb transfer

Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban, a major donor to US President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party, urged the White House to “reconsider” sending 2,000-pound bombs to Israel for its continuing invasion of Gaza.

“Let’s not forget that there are more Jewish voters who care about Israel than Muslim voters that care about Hamas,” he wrote in a letter to Biden.

“Even beyond Israel, this sends a terrible message to our allies in the region and beyond, that we can flip from doing the right thing to bending to political pressure.”

Saban, who hosted a major Los Angeles fundraiser for Biden’s reelection campaign in February, said “defeating” Hamas is a shared goal that Biden is now acting against.

Israelis opposed to humanitarian aid for Gaza block highway

Israeli activists against sending desperately needed food into Gaza blocked a major highway in southern Israel.

Booby-trapped tunnel blast wounds 3 Israeli soldiers in Rafah

The armed wing of Hamas in Gaza says it has detonated a booby-trapped tunnel in eastern Rafah when Israeli soldiers and vehicles were nearby, inflicting casualties.

The Israeli army confirmed the explosion and said three soldiers were “moderately” wounded. The Qassam Brigades claimed multiple attacks on Israeli positions, signaling heavy fighting is ongoing in southern Gaza.

In the north in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City, Palestinian fighters hit Israeli forces with mortar rounds and targeted two armoured vehicles with al-Yassin rockets and an anti-tank explosive device, the The Qassam Brigades said. In the Sabra neighbourhood, also in Gaza City, a D9 military bulldozer was destroyed, it added.

Along the so-called Netzarim Corridor, which the Israeli army constructed to separate northern and southern Gaza, the Qassam Brigades claimed several mortar attacks.

Hezbollah claims seven attacks on Israeli positions

The Lebanese armed group said in its end-of-day report of border fighting with Israel that it had launched seven attacks using different weapons on Thursday.

The group also released multiple new videos of its attacks on Israeli positions, showing antitank guided missiles being launched to target gatherings of Israeli troops in buildings in border areas.

‘Nothing and no one allowed into Gaza’ for three days: UN relief chief

Martin Griffiths, the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, says the Israeli military hasn’t allowed anything or anyone to go in or get out of the Gaza Strip in tandem with its takeover of the Rafah crossing.

“The closure of the crossings means no fuel. It means no trucks, no generators, no water, no electricity and no movement of people or goods. It means no aid,” he wrote in a post on X.

“Civilians in Gaza are being starved and killed and we are prevented from helping them. This is Gaza today even after seven months of horrors.”

Amnesty calls on ‘all states’ to halt weapons transfers to Israel, Palestinian groups

Amnesty International urged states to “immediately halt the transfer of weapons, parts and ammunition to Israel and Palestinian armed groups”.

In a statement, the group said countries must do so while there is “a risk they could be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international law”.

Hezbollah claims attack to avenge ‘assassinated’ members

The armed Lebanese group says attacks on Israeli positions a few hours ago came “in response to the assassination” of its members in the Israeli air raid in Bafliyeh.

Hezbollah said in a post on its Telegram channel it targeted a military headquarters in the settlement of Kfar Giladi, “directly hitting the operation room” of senior Israeli forces and inflicting casualties. It released three videos of attacks on Israeli positions on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Two attacks were carried out using antitank guided missiles with one employing mortar fire. They targeted Israeli soldiers and “spying equipment”.

Seven crew members of Israeli-linked seized ship released by Iran

Portugal’s foreign ministry confirmed Iran has released seven crew members of the Portuguese-flagged, Israeli-linked ship MSC Aries that its armed forces seized on April 13.

Five Indians, a Filipino and an Estonian were released after another crew member was earlier freed, it said in a statement. Seventeen members still remain on board. Iran earlier said all crew members are free to leave if the captain also agreed to depart.

The Indian embassy in Tehran confirmed in a post on X that the Indian crew members departed Iran.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) confiscated the vessel after the Israeli military bombed Tehran’s consulate in Syria, killing seven members of the elite force, including two generals.

At midnight on the same day the ship was seized, Iran started its Operation True Promise, launching more than 330 missiles and drones at Israel, most of which were intercepted by Israel and a coalition of allies, including the United States.

Slovenia starts process of recognising Palestinian statehood

Prime Minister Robert Golob announces the Slovenian government has officially started the process of recognising Palestinian as a sovereign state.

He said Slovenia aims to recognise an independent Palestine based on the 1967 borders, or any borders that may later be drawn up as a result of potential future negotiations between Israel and Palestine, and reforms implemented by the Palestinian Authority.

“I call on Israel to put an immediate end to its attacks on Gaza and to use the negotiating table,” Golob said, adding that the governing coalition agreed unanimously on the decision to begin recognising Palestinian statehood.

Slovenia said in a joint statement on March 22 along with Spain, Ireland and that it has agreed to take the first steps towards recognising a Palestinian state.

Since 1988, an overwhelming majority of 142 out of 193 UN member states have recognised Palestinian statehood.

Tens of thousands protest against war on Gaza, Israel’s participation in Eurovision
Paul Rhys
Reporting from Malmo, Sweden

On the streets of Malmo, there are tens of thousands of people, protesting not only Israel’s war on Gaza but the fact that Israel has been allowed to enter the Eurovision Song Contest this year, and contrasting that with the fact that Russia was barred after their invasion of Ukraine.

There’s a huge Muslim population in Malmo – a lot of people from Syria, Lebanon and Palestine – and they see it in a way as rubber-stamping Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Alongside those demonstrations, there is also a pro-Israeli manifestation – as they’re calling it – of the Jewish community in Malmo. They’re saying it’s not a demonstration, they just want to show solidarity with the Jewish community. They say they’ve come under a lot of threats in the past seven months and they want to show their presence.

If not the top one, it’s definitely among the top three events the police here have had to deal with. They’ve brought in reinforcements from Norway and Denmark, and there are special police forces, and there are snipers on the roof around Malmo Arena.

Hamas urges halt to airdrops of aid after another two people killed

Hamas has called for an end to airdrops of aid after two more Palestinians were killed in northern Gaza when an aid pallet crashed into a warehouse after its parachute failed to open.

Residents had gathered there to collect relief supplies. A total of 21 people have been killed due to airdrops of aid going wrong, according to the Hamas authorities.

“We reiterate that airdrops pose a real danger to the lives of citizens and do not provide a real solution to alleviate the food crisis plaguing northern Gaza,” Salama Marouf, head of the Government Media Office in Gaza, said in a statement.

She called for the land crossings to reopen so humanitarian aid could be delivered to northern Gaza, where food shortages are at their worst.

Hamas says Israel operations in Rafah definitely not ‘limited’

Israel has already defied international objections by sending in tanks and conducting what it called “targeted raids” in the east of Rafah, the city it says is home to Hamas’s last remaining battalions.

But Hamas authorities in Rafah dismissed as “nothing but lies” Israel’s description of its operation as “limited”.

Residents and medics in Rafah said an Israeli attack near a mosque killed at least three people and wounded others in the eastern Brazil neighbourhood. Video from the scene showed the minaret lying in the rubble and two bodies wrapped in blankets.

An Israeli air strike on two houses in the Sabra neighbourhood of Rafah killed at least 12 people including women and children.

Critics warn an all-out Israeli assault on Rafah will lead to a humanitarian disaster with more than one million people sheltering in the tiny territory.

‘It’s like we’re sheep’: Palestinians flee Rafah with nowhere to go

Tens of thousands of people are on the move again as Israel threatens a full-scale invasion of southern Rafah where hundreds of thousands of people were ordered to go months ago.

“Where are we supposed to go? Where is the world that’s just watching us?” said Ahmad Abed, who has an eight-month-old daughter. “It’s like we’re sheep.”

At a makeshift refugee camp in Rafah, Mazen al-Shami said he was fed up. “We have no money and we don’t have the means to move from one place to another again and again. We have no means at all.”

Israel’s war on Gaza has driven about 80 percent of the territory’s population of 2.3 million from their homes and caused vast destruction. The death toll in Gaza has soared to more than 34,500 people, according to local health officials.

‘Anti-Palestinian racism’ affecting students at Berkeley schools

Berkeley Unified School District, a US public school district in California, faces federal complaints about anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim incidents as the war on Gaza rages on.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee civil organisations filed federal complaints alleging instances of discrimination and harassment against students since October 7.

“The pervasive anti-Palestinian racism within Berkeley schools is deeply concerning and demands urgent action,” said Zahra Billoo, executive director of CAIR’s San Francisco chapter.

“Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students should not have to endure discrimination or fear for their safety while pursuing their education.”

‘Europe must raise its voice for justice on Palestine’: Iran minister

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian commemorated Europe Day, but said those who worked for peace and prosperity on the continent should also strive for that elsewhere in the world.

“What is happening in Gaza weighs heavy on the conscience of humanity and is a crucial test for the legitimacy of values – namely human rights and dignity that Europeans claim working for. Europe must raise its voice for justice on the issue of Palestine,” he wrote on X.

Amirabdollahian earlier spoke on the phone with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, saying if the US continues to “appease” Israel on invading Rafah, “the repercussions will be difficult for those who support the war”.

Demonstrations at University of Barcelona lead to Israel divestment

The University of Barcelona is one of the latest schools to divest from Israel after students organised large demonstrations in solidarity with Palestinians.

https://twitter.com/AJA_Palestine/status/1788637606248579380

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/9/israels-war-on-gaza-live-biden-admits-israel-used-us-bombs-on-civilians

Hamas active in north Gaza, expects to rebuild in south after Rafah invasion: Monitors

As Israel prepares to launch a full ground invasion of southern Gaza’s Rafah city, Israeli forces carried out their third “re-clearing” of Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood on Wednesday, “demonstrating that Hamas remains active beyond just Rafah”, war monitors said.

In their latest battlefield assessment, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP) – two US-based think tanks – note that despite Israel’s repeated “clearing efforts”, Hamas “remains active and combat effective in the northern Gaza Strip”.

As Hamas has rebuilt its capacity in northern Gaza, so too will it likely rebuild in Rafah after the planned ground operation, the ISW and CTP said.

“Hamas’ remaining presence throughout the Gaza Strip supports CTP-ISW’s assessment that Hamas expects that it would survive an Israeli clearing operation into Rafah,” the monitors said.

“Hamas likely calculates that it could rebuild itself in Rafah in the same way that it is currently in the northern Gaza Strip,” they said.

Israeli troops blow up buildings in Rafah, artillery pounds Gaza City

Israeli forces are carrying out operations to blow up buildings in the east of Rafah city, our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting.

Intense artillery shelling targeting the Sabra and Zeitoun neighbourhoods of Gaza City has also been reported.

We will bring you more on the Israeli military attacks on Rafah and Gaza City as information emerges.

Fierce battles reported between Palestinian fighters, Israeli forces in Rafah

Israeli forces are conducting operations in several areas of Rafah city, according to our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic, while reports are emerging of heavy clashes between Palestinian armed groups and Israel’s military in the east of the city.

Video footage shared on social media showed a Palestinian family cowering in a residence as the sounds of heavy machine-gun fire and explosions could be heard nearby in what is being described as a “night of fire” in Rafah.

Al Jazeera Arabic also shared a verified video showing the aftermath of an Israeli attack on Rafah on Thursday.

https://twitter.com/AJA_Palestine/status/1788613436290760961

UN to vote on resolution reviving Palestine’s bid for UN membership

The United Nations General Assembly is expected to vote later today on a resolution that would grant new “rights and privileges” to Palestine and that, again, calls on the UN Security Council to favourably reconsider Palestine’s request for full UN membership.

The US vetoed a widely backed resolution on April 18 that would have paved the way for full UN membership for Palestine, a goal that Israel has worked strenuously to prevent and Washington has been instrumental in blocking on behalf of its key ally.

The US deputy ambassador to the UN, Robert Wood, said on Thursday that the Biden administration remained opposed to Palestinian membership. During the April 18 vote, Palestine’s application received strong support with a vote of 12 in favour, the UK and Switzerland abstaining, and the US alone in voting no.

The State of Palestine appealed for support on Thursday, saying a vote for UN membership comes at “a critical moment for the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including the right to their independent State … [and] rightful place among the community of nations”.

Gunfire reported in occupied West Bank as Israeli military night raids continue
There has been gunfire exchanged between Israeli forces and Palestinian resistance groups in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, the Wafa news agency reports.

Israeli forces stormed the Rafidia neighbourhood of the city and raided student housing, beating and arresting two students, according to Wafa.

Israeli raids and settler violence have also been reported elsewhere in the occupied West Bank in the following locations:

The city of Hebron and the town of Yatta to the south.
The town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron.
Israeli settlers set fire to Palestinian crops east of Ein al-Hilweh in the northern Jordan Valley, Wafa reports.

EU crisis management chief condemns arson attack on UNRWA’s Jerusalem HQ

Janez Lenarcic, the European commissioner for emergency responses, has called on Israeli authorities to ensure the “security and safety of UN staff” after attackers twice set fire to the perimeter of UNRWA headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem.

Israeli authorities must “prosecute those responsible for the attack”, Lenarcic said.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini reported earlier that a crowd of Israelis, some armed, gathered to chant outside his agency’s office: “Burn down the United Nations”, noting that it took Israeli police and firefighters “a while before they turned up”.

“Over the past two months, Israeli extremists have been staging protests outside the UNRWA compound in Jerusalem, called by an elected member of the Jerusalem municipality,” Lazzarini said on social media.

“This week, the protest became violent when demonstrators threw stones at UN staff and at the buildings of the compound,” he said.

“UN staff, premises and operations should be protected at all times in line with international law,” he added.

Blinken expected to say Israel not breaking law on use of US weapons: Report

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to submit a report to Congress today on whether Israel has violated international humanitarian law during its war on Gaza, news outlet Axios reports, citing three unnamed officials.

The report is expected to harshly criticise Israel’s conduct, but stop short of concluding that it has violated the terms of use for US weapons.

US President Joe Biden issued a National Security Memorandum (NSM-20) in February, requiring the State Department to report to Congress by May 8 over the credibility of Israeli assurances that its use of US weapons had not violated US or international law.

On Thursday, Biden admitted publicly that US weapons had been used to kill innocent civilians in Gaza while announcing the suspension of a shipment of bombs to Israel over its plans to invade Rafah.

Palestinian filmmaker wins Peabody Award for Gaza coverage

Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda and AJ+ won a Peabody Award – one of the highest honours in journalism – for coverage of the devastating impact that Israel’s war on Gaza is having on local people.

The award was announced on Thursday for the first video in Owda’s series for AJ+ on daily life under Israel’s bombardment.

Owda sent a videotaped message from Rafah to the world on winning the award.

“Acknowledging journalists’ efforts at this time is really important to me,” Owda said.

“It shows the world what’s happening to us. At a time when the [Israeli] occupation is murdering us – journalists, doctors, medics and civilians – as if we were supporting terrorism,” she said.

“We rise to simply document the genocide happening to our people and we expose the oppression to the world,” she added.

“A terrorist is one who commits genocide, supports genocide, stands by genocide, remains silent during genocide, and rejoices in genocide.”

‘For the very first time’: Joe Biden admits US bombs killed innocent people in Gaza
Patty Culhane
Reporting from Washington, DC, United States

This has been going on for months. We know that the Biden administration has tried to pressure Israel on reducing casualties, trying to get more aid into Gaza. But they never admitted it publicly.

They never talked about what the consequences were going to be for Israel.

Well, that changed recently. We saw President Joe Biden come out and say, look, if they do this large-scale invasion of Rafah – there will be no bombs, no artillery shells, perhaps none of the technologies that turn dumb bombs into smart bombs.

And he is not just saying that it is going to happen. He is showing that it is already sort of happening.

We know from the Pentagon briefing today that there was a shipment of bombs – 1,800 2,000-pound (900kg) bombs. Those are the ones that cause a lot of destruction. And, 1,700 500-pound (230kg) bombs.

Those were supposed to be shipped to Israel and that’s been delayed.

So, Biden sending the message of what’s going to happen and telling them this is already not happening.

At the same time – one of the more significant things – is we have, for the very first time, heard US President Joe Biden say, specifically, that American bombs have killed innocent civilians in Gaza.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/10/israels-war-on-gaza-live-aid-operation-completely-crippled-amid-attacks

>>481449
>‘Burn down the UN’: Israelis set fire to UNRWA office in occupied East Jerusalem
>The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has been forced to shut down its headquarters in the occupied East Jerusalem after Israelis – some of them armed – set fire to the compound’s perimeter.
>Philippe Lazzarini, head of the agency, said the fire caused “extensive damage” as “it took the Israeli fire extinguishers and police a while before they turned up”.

<We're the only good guys in the middle east
<Sets the UN's soup-kitchen on fire

They're really putting effort into making everybody think they're monsters.

>>481449
>Israeli-American billionaire slams Biden decision on bomb transfer
>Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban, a major donor to US President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party, urged the White House to “reconsider” sending 2,000-pound bombs to Israel for its continuing invasion of Gaza.
>“Let’s not forget that there are more Jewish voters who care about Israel than Muslim voters that care about Hamas,” he wrote in a letter to Biden.

<Deranged anti-semite of wealth makes unfounded accusations that all Jews want heavier bombs for the genocide.

Meanwhile the majory of the Jewish diaspora keep saying
<not in my name

>>481453
Yep!

>>481455
based

>>481458
Who is talking right now? Hamas is genocidal Nazis? They're the Hitlers of our time? What did the Nazis say, "Accuse the other of that you are guilty." — Joseph Goebbels. Israel has no leg to stand on. Free Palestine!

>>481458
The Palestinian speaker made a powerful and moving speech.
Then the Israeli speaker came on stage and the first thing he did was accuse the UN of being the Hitler of our time.

>>481460
Did Goebbels say that?
Sounds like you caught the Israeli ambassador talking. Isn't he a charmer?

>>481461
He likes doing that!

UN General Assembly resolution passes

The resolution to expand Palestine’s rights at the UN has passed with overwhelming support: 143 countries voted in favour, nine voted against and 25 abstained.

We will bring you a full breakdown of how each country voted shortly.

More from the Palestinian ambassador to the UNGA

Here are some more lines from Riyad Mansour’s impassioned address to the UN General Assembly:

Your vote today of course says a lot about your solidarity with Palestine but also about who you are and what you stand for.
It matters and I know an overwhelming majority of you will stand again with the Palestinian people in their hour of need and you will stand for just and lasting peace for the benefit of all.
In simple words, voting “Yes” is the right thing to do and I can assure you, you and your country for years to come will be proud to have stood for freedom, justice and peace in this darkest hour.
As everyone is saying, “Free Palestine, Free Palestine and peace for all.”
And I repeat, free Palestine and vote “Yes” for the resolution.
Click here to share on social media

Israeli security cabinet approved ‘expansion’ of ​​Rafah operation: Report

Israel’s security cabinet approved the “expansion of the area of ​​operation” of the Israeli forces in Rafah, Axios has reported citing three sources with knowledge of the details.

Two of the unnamed sources said this would be a “measured expansion” that did not cross US President Joe Biden’s red line while the third said it could be seen as crossing the line.

Earlier this week, Biden said the US was still committed to Israel’s defence and would supply rocket interceptors and other defensive arms but, if Israeli forces invade Rafah, “we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells used.”

The three sources also told Axios the cabinet instructed the Israeli negotiations to continue efforts to reach a captive deal and try to formulate a new initiative that would lead to a breakthrough, with far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich voted against this decision.

ICRC says ‘desperate’ to bring supplies into Gaza

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned that hundreds of thousands of people are facing “an extremely chaotic situation” as they try to flee Israel’s Rafah offensive.

“The food and water and medical supplies situation is critical and if this continues, then we move towards catastrophic, or even more catastrophic, consequences from the situation that we now see,” ICRC spokesperson Jason Straziuso told Al Jazeera.

He said the ICRC is “constantly asking” Israeli officials to allow access to humanitarian goods following the shutdown of the crossings.

“The Israeli officials know that we are desperate to bring in more supply trucks which we have waiting to cross the border as soon as they’re able to,” Straziuso said.

“There’s conversations also taking place about the need to spare civilian lives – no targeting of civilians, no targeting of civilian objects, meaning buildings, schools, medical facilities,” he added. “Those talks have been happening for months.”

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/10/israels-war-on-gaza-live-aid-operation-completely-crippled-amid-attacks

>>481464
Who were the againsts?

>>481466
Screenshot before they locked the machine

>>481467
ty
so the nos are:
Argentina, Czechia, Hungary, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, and the United States.

I'm actually laughing.

>>481464
>>481465
>The resolution to expand Palestine’s rights at the UN has passed with overwhelming support: 143 countries voted in favour, nine voted against and 25 abstained.

The way i understood this, Palestine got membership in the UN and now gets voting rights in the UN, but for some reason the US and Australian speakers tried to contradict this.

What gives ?

>>481469
I think this is technically a resolution to reintroduce a vote on membership at the UNSC and support it, so there is technical wiggle room, I think, but whether or not I'm right, the US would try to downplay it as much as possible. They flat-out lied about the UNSC ceasefire resolution.

>>481470
>a resolution to reintroduce a vote on membership
So diplomatic foreplay ?
Can i assume that Palestine will get UN Membership given the overwhelming result today.

>They flat-out lied about the UNSC ceasefire resolution.
Oh yeah i remember that one, the Security council didn't put enough binder into that resolution to make it stick or something. s/

>>481471
>So diplomatic foreplay ?
I think there's more to it than that, but at least partly, yes.

>Can i assume that Palestine will get UN Membership given the overwhelming result today.
No idea. I'd say stay pessimistic, but I say that for everything, personally. The US gov't really doesn't want it.

>Oh yeah i remember that one, the Security council didn't put enough binder into that resolution to make it stick or something. s/
Gotta use all ur glue. But not 2 much glue or it's "unilateral," like today's vote. 143-9 is the UN acting "unilaterally."

Yemen’s Houthis thwart ‘spying network’ amid expanding military ops: Report

The group has arrested multiple people accused of working with the intelligence services of the US and Israel through intermediaries in the region, according to a report in Iranian state-linked media.

The Tasnim news website, affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), quoted a Houthi military official as saying a “network of mercenaries” who were in contact with an intermediary linked with the United Arab Emirates were arrested in western Yemen.

The official said they were passing information on where the Houthis were trying to launch missiles and where their forces were located.

This is a historic day, but only diplomatically
Marwan Bishara

Palestine has netted a victory at the United Nations, but this will not impact what is happening on the ground to Palestinians, says Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara.

“How will that weigh on what’s happening in Gaza? It is probably not going to weigh in at all,” he said. “In fact, there is almost a negative correlation because the worst the situation is getting in Palestine, the better it is getting at the UN.”

Bishara said it was evident that most UN member states were going to vote in favour of the resolution, but that it was disappointing to see over two dozen abstentions, which did not make much sense due to overwhelming support for the resolution.

“I think a good number of votes were against the United States as much as they were for Palestine, and I think a good number of votes were abstaining under pressure from the United States.”

Bishara said the “hyperbolic, clownish” behaviour by the Israeli ambassador, who shredded a symbolic UN charter to demonstrate his opposition, did not help Israel.

US denounces ‘unilateral’ vote supporting Palestine’s bid for UN membership

After voting against the resolution, the US criticized the vote for more rights for Palestine at the UN General Assembly.

Robert Wood, deputy US ambassador to the UN, told the General Assembly that “unilateral” measures at the UN and on the ground will not advance a two-state solution.

“Our vote does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood. We have been very clear that we support it and seek to advance it meaningfully. Instead, it is an acknowledgement that statehood will only come from a process that involves direct negotiations between the parties,” he said.

The UN has long endorsed a vision of two states living side by side within secure and recognized borders. Palestinians want a state in the currently occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip – all territory captured by Israel in the 1967 war with neighbouring Arab states.

Israeli leaders reject an independent state for the Palestinians.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/10/israels-war-on-gaza-live-aid-operation-completely-crippled-amid-attacks

Colombia’s leader Petro urges ICC arrest warrant for Netanyahu

Colombian President Gustavo Petro called for the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Netanyahu, whose government he described as “genocidal” in its war in Gaza.

The outspoken leftist leader last week announced his country is severing diplomatic ties with Israel over its attack on Gaza.

“Netanyahu will not stop the genocide. That implies an international arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court,” Petro wrote on X.

He added the UN Security Council “must begin to consider the establishment of a peacekeeping force in the territory of Gaza”.

Israel responded to the severing of diplomatic ties by describing Petro as “anti-Semitic and hateful”, saying his stance amounted to handing a reward to Hamas.

Libya intervenes in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at ICJ

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) says Libya has filed a “declaration of intervention” in the genocide case South Africa launched against Israel for its war on Gaza.

This means the North African nation “believes that acts and omissions by Israel are of genocidal character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethical group”.

According to the ICJ, Libya said its move is focused on “the proper construction of the provisions concerning the duty not to commit and to prevent genocide, and the duty to punish genocide”.

https://twitter.com/CIJ_ICJ/status/1788974443936588141

South Africa asks ICJ for more measures against Israel amid Rafah assault

South Africa has asked the International Court of Justice to order additional emergency measures as Israel escalates its assault on Rafah in southern Gaza.

Israel’s attack on Rafah “and the extreme risk it poses to humanitarian supplies and basic services into Gaza, to the survival of the Palestinian medical system, and to the very survival of Palestinians in Gaza as a group, is not only an escalation of the prevailing situation”, South Africa said.

It also “gives rise to new facts that are causing irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people in Gaza”.

South Africa brought a case against Israel to the ICJ in January, accusing the country of committing “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza.

The top UN court ruled there was a plausible risk of genocide in the enclave and ordered Israel to take a series of provisional measures, including preventing any genocidal acts from taking place.

Tanzania decries UN Security Council veto blocking Palestine statehood

January Makamba, the foreign minister of Tanzania, expressed the East African country’s support for the UN General Assembly resolution granting Palestine further “rights and privileges”.

He pointed out that 143 countries voted that Palestine should become a full member state of the UN, but it still won’t be admitted for now because of a veto wielded in support of Israel by the US at the UN Security Council.

“We need to fix a system in which one country can thwart the decision of the entire family of nations,” Makamba said.

‘Insolence’: Iran denounces Israeli ambassador for shredding UN Charter

In a dramatic display, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, earlier shredded a copy of the UN Charter during his speech at the UN General Assembly denouncing a resolution giving Palestine more rights.

The move shows “insolence” by Israel, which only considers the UN Charter valuable as long as member states remain silent on its attacks on Gaza, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“Insolence in the Zionist way is expecting cheering from the global community after killing more than 34,000 women, children and innocent civilians during seven months of war crimes, gross violations of international humanitarian law, and being accused of genocide,” wrote ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani in a post on X.

“Shame on the criminals.”

Israeli air force carries out strikes on Rafah rocket launch site

The Israeli military released aerial footage showing the bombing of an area in Rafah from which the Qassam Brigades fired rockets at Beersheba, an occupied Palestinian city officially known as Be’er-Sheva, in southern Israel’s Negev region hours earlier.

Two rocket launch sites were destroyed in the air strikes on the besieged city in southern Gaza, it said, adding there were secondary explosions, indicating the presence of additional weapons.

Israeli army launches air strikes across southern Lebanon

The Israeli military released new aerial footage of a wave of fighter jet attacks across southern Lebanon that it said hit “terrorist targets”.

The attacks struck Odaisseh, Khiam, Rab el-Thalathine, Deir Siriane, and Aita al-Shaab, allegedly destroying five military buildings belonging to Hezbollah, along with another site that directed attacks on northern Israel.

Since the start of the war on Gaza, there have been near-daily cross-border exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli army.

Israeli forces beat Palestinian shepherds, detain farmer in occupied West Bank

Israeli forces have assaulted shepherds in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, according to local sources cited by the Palestinian Wafa news agency.

Troops also attacked the home of a human rights activist near Hebron, threatening to detain her if she continues her activities, Wafa said. Soldiers also reportedly attacked livestock and demolished barns.

In the West Bank town of Nilin, west of Ramallah, soldiers detained a farmer and confiscated his tractor, the news agency reported.

Hamas video shows sniper hitting Israeli soldier in Gaza City

The Zeitoun neighbourhood in Gaza City is for a third time an intense battleground between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters.

The Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, released a video showing a Palestinian sniper shooting one of the Israeli soldiers advancing into the neighbourhood.

Hamas says it fires rockets at Beersheba

The Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, says it has fired the rockets in response to the killings of civilians in Gaza.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that warning sirens had sounded in Beersheba in southern Israel’s Negev region.

Hezbollah claims rocket attack on Israeli military base

The armed Lebanese group says it has launched barrages of Katyusha rockets at the Khirbet Maar military base near the Lebanese border in the past few hours.

Hezbollah said Israeli soldiers had gathered to repair damage from a previous attack when they were again targeted and suffered casualties.

The group has claimed seven attacks on Israeli positions so far today, saying the other strikes targeted the Kiryat Shmona settlement and the Yiftah barracks among other places.

Harvard University issues suspension notices to pro-Palestine students

The prominent US university reportedly started sending out suspension notices to students who participated in pro-Palestine demonstrations on campus.

The Palestine Solidarity Committee at the university said suspensions are effective immediately. “Students are now at risk of degree withholding, eviction, food insecurity, and deportation. Details to follow.”

The move came after the students rejected a request to put an end to their encampment with calls on Harvard to divest from Israel.

Police forces made more arrests on Friday as they raided US universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), tear-gassing demonstrators and taking down camps.

Killing of 12 members of one family by Israeli drone ‘without justification’: Monitor

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (EuroMed) says an investigation it conducted into the killing by the Israeli military of 12 members of a Palestinian family on December 4 as they tried to evacuate a Gaza City neighbourhood found that the drone strike was “without justification or necessity”.

The Geneva-based group said a video showed the aftermath of the two missiles fired from an Israeli drone that killed the family, mostly women and children. Its investigators visited the site and determined the victims were members of the Abu Al-Ain family and were civilians.

Three more Palestinians – a man, his child and an elderly woman – were wounded in the attack.

Yemen’s Houthis say 2 million people attend pro-Palestinian march

The Yemeni group has released aerial footage of the latest demonstrations in support of Palestinians and military operations against Israeli-linked vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

The Houthis have organised marches every Friday since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza.

US crackdown on Gaza protests signals ‘erosion of intellectual freedom’: UN expert

The UN’s special rapporteur on the right to education says a crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters on US college campuses signals “a concerning erosion of intellectual freedom and democratic principles within educational settings”.

“I am deeply troubled by the violent crackdown on peaceful demonstrators, arrests, detentions, police violence, surveillance and disciplinary measures and sanctions against members of the educational community exercising their right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression,” said Farida Shaheed.

“I am particularly concerned about the unequal treatment of protesters based on their political stance, particularly targeting pro-Palestinian demonstrators.”

Students have enacted protest encampments in support of Palestinians in Gaza at dozens of universities across the US and around the world in recent weeks.

Some university administrators have called in police to clear the demonstrations, arresting hundreds of people.

Israel likely violated international humanitarian law in Gaza war: US govt report

The Biden administration says Israel’s use of US-provided weapons in Gaza likely violated international humanitarian law but wartime conditions prevented American officials from determining that for certain in specific air strikes.

The administration’s findings of “reasonable” evidence to conclude that Israel breached international law in its conduct in Gaza, released in a summary of a report being delivered to Congress, is the strongest such statement from Biden officials.

We’ll bring you more on the report shortly.

UN team in Palestine condemns Israeli attack on office

The UN country team in Palestine has condemned an attack by Israelis, some of them armed, on the headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees that led to its closure.

“Yesterday’s attack at the UNRWA compound in East Jerusalem, after weeks of threats and intimidation, are utterly unacceptable. It is imperative that Israeli authorities take swift action to investigate the incident and hold those responsible accountable for their actions,” it said in a statement.

“This is not an attack on UNRWA alone, but an assault on the entire UN system operating in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The UN in Palestine demands accountability for these acts, for immediate intervention by law enforcement should similar incidents occur in the future, and for Member States to recognise the longer-term consequences these attacks on the UN will have.”

Key takeaways from Biden admin report on Israel’s use of US weapons in Gaza

As we just reported, the US State Department has released a long-awaited report on whether Israel is using American weapons in Gaza in violation of international humanitarian law (IHL).

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

“It is difficult to assess or reach conclusive findings on individual incidents” in Gaza.
“Nevertheless, given Israel’s significant reliance on US-made defense articles, it is reasonable to assess” that US-provided weapons have been used by Israeli forces “in instances inconsistent with its IHL obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm”.
US intelligence agencies have “no direct indication of Israel intentionally targeting civilians” but they have assessed that “Israel could do more to avoid civilian harm”.
“We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of US humanitarian assistance” within the parameters set by US law. “This is an ongoing assessment and we will continue to monitor and respond to any challenges to the delivery of aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza moving forward.”

Students, Muslim groups call for Gaza ceasefire at University of Minnesota

Students at the University of Minnesota have been joined by civil rights groups to call on their school to cut financial ties with Israel and for an end to the Gaza war during a Board of Regents meeting.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations confirmed its Minnesota chapter joined Muslim leaders involved in the effort.

The rights group also filed a federal complaint urging an immediate investigation into a “hostile environment of anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and Islamophobic discrimination” within the Berkeley Unified School District in San Francisco.

Hamas welcomes UNGA resolution on Palestine statehood

The UN General Assembly resolution on Palestinian statehood is an acknowledgement of “the necessity of our Palestinian people obtaining their legitimate rights”, Hamas said in a statement.

The Palestinian group also said the overwhelming support for the resolution is an “affirmation of international cooperation”.

“We call on the free countries of the world to intensify their efforts and provide all means of assistance and support to our Palestinian people, who yearn for freedom and to achieve their right to self-determination,” Hamas said, also calling on the UN Security Council now to recognize Palestine.

Netherlands crackdown on pro-Palestinian students part of EU pattern: Monitor

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (EuroMed) says in a report that a pattern of “repression and flagrant rights violations” is taking place in crackdowns on pro-Palestine university protests in the Netherlands – part of a larger pattern across European Union states.

The Geneva-based organisation cited a riot police attack on a student encampment at the University of Amsterdam on May 6, during which students were beaten and dragged away, and a bulldozer was used to down barricades and tents.

“Over the past months, there have been growing and alarming attempts by law enforcement officers across Europe to repress, intimidate, and silence those who criticise the Israeli forces, speak out against the ongoing provision of arms to Israel, denounce the killing by Israel of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, and expose the silence and complicity of their own governments, universities, and major TV channels.”

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/10/israels-war-on-gaza-live-aid-operation-completely-crippled-amid-attacks

Hezbollah claims strike on Israeli military site

Hezbollah says it fired guided rockets and artillery at Israel’s Ramia military site near the border with Lebanon, directly hitting it, reports Lebanon’s National News Agency.

There has been no immediate comment from Israel’s military.

The attack comes after Israel’s military allegedly carried out several air strikes on southern Lebanese towns yesterday.

One of the attacks hit a mobile phone transmission site in Lebanon’s Tayr Harfa, killing civilians, including a paramedic and maintenance worker, according to Lebanese military sources.

A separate attack hit a home in the southern village of Yarine, killing one Hezbollah fighter and injuring a civilian, according to the sources.

‘Sophisticated attacks’: Hamas fighters prepared in advance for assault on Rafah

Sophisticated attacks launched by Palestinian fighters against Israeli forces advancing on Rafah demonstrate that Hamas prepared in advance to slow the ground invasion down, war monitors report.

On Friday, Palestinian fighters carried out “three tactically sophisticated attacks” on Israeli forces in Rafah involving the use of “thermobaric bombs, rocket-propelled grenades, and anti-personnel rockets in multi-stage attacks”, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP) have reported.

Fighters, including Hamas forces, conducted 18 attacks on Israeli troops in eastern Rafah on Friday, according to the report by the ISW/CTP, two US-based think tanks.

“The sophisticated nature of these attacks required planning, coordination, and organization, further underscoring that the Hamas battalions in Rafah are cohesive fighting units that can mount a deliberate defence against Israeli clearing operations,” the think tanks said.

Report on Israel’s use of US weapons in Gaza a ‘passing the buck’ exercise: Analyst

Saul Takahashi, professor of human rights and peace studies at Osaka Jogakuin University in Japan, said the US State Department’s finding that Israel’s use of American weapons in Gaza was “inconsistent” with international humanitarian law was “probably the understatement of the year”.

The State Department’s report, which stopped short of stating that Israel had violated international law in Gaza, was a “bureaucratic, passing the buck exercise” by the US, Takahashi told Al Jazeera.

“It’s incontrovertible. Clear as the light of day that Israel has been committing a litany of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide,” Takahashi said.

“But nobody wants to be the one who points to the elephant in the room,” he said.

“I think what happened is the bureaucrats have passed the buck on and now its supposedly a political decision. But, really, the buck has got to stop … and Biden has to find his courage and stand up for what’s right,” he added.

“He is very much damaging, if not already decimated, his prospects for re-election in November.”

Whistles and booing as Israeli Eurovision contestant rehearses

Boos and whistles can be heard from the crowd in footage of Israeli singer Eden Golan practising her song ahead of the Eurovision final in Malmo, Sweden, on Saturday.

The 20-year-old has become a focus for protests by pro-Palestine demonstrators, who want Israel kicked out of Eurovision because of the war on Gaza, which has killed almost 35,000 people.

State Department report on Israeli arms ‘self-contradictory’: Expert

A State Department report provided to Congress on Friday assessing whether Israel’s use of US-provided weapons in Gaza has violated international law is “self-contradictory”, according to Brian Finucane, senior adviser to the International Crisis Group.

“It says that it is reasonable to assume that US weapons have been used to commit violations of international humanitarian law, and yet it does not say that Israel has violated international humanitarian law,” he told the Reuters news agency.

“It says that Israel has restricted humanitarian assistance into Gaza, and yet it says that currently, Israel is not restricting US-funded humanitarian assistance in Gaza, which is an absurd thing to say,” he added.

Finucane said that the State Department are “trying to have their cake and eat it too”.

“They’re trying to be seen to be levelling criticism while steering clear of the legal determinations that would bind their hands and potentially lead to restrictions on arms transfers,” he said.

UAE denounces Netanyahu’s ‘invitation’ to participate in Gaza administration

The United Arab Emirates has denounced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent remarks about “inviting” the UAE “to participate in civil administration of Gaza”.

In a statement published on the UAE’s Foreign Ministry social media account, the country’s foreign minister said Netanyahu “does not have any legal capacity to take this step”, and the UAE would not be “drawn into any plan aimed at providing cover for the Israeli presence in the Gaza Strip”, which is “under Israeli occupation”.

“The UAE affirms that when a Palestinian government is formed that meets the hopes and aspirations of the brotherly Palestinian people and enjoys integrity, competence and independence, the state [UAE] will be fully prepared to provide all forms of support to that government,” UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed said the statement.

‘Entire international community let us down’: Palestinians say as Israel seals Gaza’s borders
Tareq Abu Azzoum
Reporting from Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip

We have been touring the streets of Deir el-Balah today as the streets are completely crammed with people who are evacuees living in makeshift tents, living on the streets and in open areas.

We came across a number of families who are still looking for places to stay after being displaced from Rafah.

There is growing pressure on the medical sector in Deir el-Balah where Al-Aqsa Hospital, right now, is the main operating hospital and is responsible for providing medical treatment to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who are right now residing in this very densely populated area.

The question among Palestinians is where next to go in light of this ongoing nightmare.

They have been following the Israeli military orders for days, months now, and they have been attacked in areas that were supposed to be safe for them.

In the past couple of hours, we’ve been hearing loud explosions in the Nuseirat refugee camp, which is close to Deir el-Balah, and where a number of Palestinians have been killed and wounded.

So, in all aspects, including on the security and humanitarian levels, the situation is deteriorating without – until now – any kind of international support or intervention.

Palestinians believe that the entire international community has let them down now with the closure of borders and the suspension of aid flows into the Gaza Strip.

Dozens arrested after police dismantle encampments at US universities

Police in the US arrested dozens of pro-Palestine protesters on Friday, as they dismantled Gaza solidarity encampments at university campuses across the country.

Thirty-three people were arrested at the University of Pennsylvania, as police took steps to remove an encampment that has been in place for more than two weeks.

Ten protesters were also arrested at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the university’s president said, after riot police arrived on campus at 4am local time.

Police also arrested 13 people at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, while two people were arrested at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

WATCH: ‘I voiced concern repeatedly, I was silenced’, says ex US diplomat on Gaza
The Biden administration faces growing internal dissent against its policies in the Middle East, most recently marked by the resignation of US Department of State Arabic language spokesperson, Hala Rharrit.

Rharrit is the first career diplomat to resign publicly, protesting the government’s response to Israel’s war on Gaza. What effect is dissent having on US foreign policy? And is the Biden administration at a tipping point in its support of Israel’s war on Gaza?

Marc Lamont Hill speaks to Rharrit about dissent within the Biden administration and the government’s foreign policy.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/11/israels-war-on-gaza-live-battles-rage-in-rafah-as-tanks-troops-advance

>>481460
>Accuse the other of that you are guilty
I think you are right about this
Check this out.
https://farside.link/invidious/watch?v=vj_yxpODJS0

The Zionist guy at the UN took a booklet with the UN-charta, put it into a tiny shredder, and then he accused all the diplomats at the UN of shredding the UN charta while he was doing exactly that.

This is the most literal display of accusation = confession

>>481482
It's difficult to imagine him not doing this on purpose, it's so cartoonish.

Captive died of wounds sustained in Israeli air strike: Hamas

Hamas’s armed wing has said in a statement that Nadav Popplewell has died of wounds that he sustained in an Israeli air strike more than a month ago.

Earlier we reported that the Qassam Brigades released an 11-second video showing Popplewell, saying it will publish more information soon.

In the video, republished on social media and cited by Israeli news outlets, the 51-year-old is seen with a bruised eye confirming his name. Superimposed text in Arabic and Hebrew reads: “Time is running out. Your government is lying.”

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/11/israels-war-on-gaza-live-battles-rage-in-rafah-as-tanks-troops-advance

Relatives of captives to hold emergency news conference

The families of captives held in Gaza have said they will hold an emergency news conference in front of the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv later this evening.

As we reported earlier, the Qassam Brigades announced a short while ago that 51-year-old captive Nadav Popplewell died as a result of injuries suffered in an Israeli air raid more than a month ago.

Families urge protests to secure captives’ release, bring gov’t down

The families of the captives have just held the emergency news conference in Tel Aviv in which they called Israelis to take to the streets to “save Israel from Netanyahu” and secure the release of the people held in Gaza.

Here are some lines from their statement:

Hamas is regaining its hold in areas previously captured by Israel.
There is no strategy; the northern parts of the country are on fire, and the southern parts are now an active shooting range.
The evacuees are completely neglected. The disaster is growing. If we continue down this path, we will lose not only the hostages but the country itself.
Netanyahu is not only the obstacle preventing us from getting our hostages back. He’s also the obstacle preventing the state of Israel from succeeding. In order to save the hostages from Hamas, we must save Israel from Netanyahu.
To Gantz, Eisenkot, Gallant, members of the Likud party, of the coalition who still have a conscience: In order to rescue the hostages who are rotting in Hamas terror tunnels, in order to reach a hostage release deal quickly, in order to end the sabotage and to stop the criminal abandonment of the hostages, we call upon you – bring this government down.
The government does not care about the hostages, it is leading the entire country towards destruction. Stop cooperating with them, rescue the hostages and save the state of Israel. Come out and tell the public that in order to rescue the hostages we can and must end this war.
We, the families of the hostages, and the members of the public, must not give up. We will not stop until they are all brought back home.
Join us and take to the streets.
There’s no victory and there can be no victory without the return of the hostages. When we all take to the streets together, we will save the hostages and the country.

Captives’ families demand deal after Hamas’s latest video release

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum in Israel has released a statement calling on the Israeli government to strike a deal following the release of the 11-second video by Hamas’s armed wing showing captive Nadav Popplewell.

“Every sign of life received from the hostages held by Hamas is another cry of distress to the Israeli government and its leaders,” the families’ group said in its statement.

“We don’t have a moment to spare! You must strive to implement a deal that will bring them all back today.”

The video released earlier today was the third time in less than a month the Qassam Brigades posted footage of captives held in the Gaza Strip.

Protesters slam ‘double standards’ over Israel’s Eurovision participation

Adel Sadat, an organiser in the Malmo demonstrations against Israel’s Eurovision participation, says there are two main reasons for the protests.

“One is national and one is international,” he told Al Jazeera.

The national component was against the Swedish government and the local authorities in Malmo for allowing the Eurovision Song Contest to be held in Sweden.

And then the international, of course, we stand in solidarity with Gaza and the Palestinian people and to really show the world that this is not acceptable,” Sadat said, criticising the contest organisers’ “hypocrisy”.

“Basically, double standards for not allowing the Russians, but allowing Israel [to participate],” he said.

Hezbollah claims 6 attacks on Israeli positions

The armed Lebanese group says it launched multiple attacks on Israeli targets in the past few hours, with the latest using rockets to hit a site in the occupied Shebaa Farms.

In Kfarchouba, southern Lebanon, Hezbollah said it hit the as-Summaqa site and achieved a direct strike with an unspecified weapon.

It also reported a hit on “spy equipment” in Jal al-Allam and said its artillery shells hit the Ramyah site.

Hezbollah and the Israeli military have traded attacks across the Lebanon-Israel border since October, raising fears of a wider regional war.

Palestinian armed groups attack Israeli forces throughout Gaza

Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, says it attacked invading Israeli soldiers and armoured vehicles east of Rafah with mortar fire.

Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, released a video showing fighters launching mortar rounds at Israeli soldiers in the Zeitoun neighbourhood, in Gaza City in the north, where intense fighting is ongoing for a third time since the start of the war seven months ago.

The group also released a footing showing its fighters working with the Jihad Jibril Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, to launch rockets at the so-called “Netzarim corridor”, which the Israeli military constructed to separate northern and southern Gaza.

‘We are abandoned by the world and everyone feels betrayed’

Islamic Relief has released a statement with the account of a staff member in Gaza while also condemning Israel’s latest evacuation orders that, it said, have created utter “chaos and panic”.

Here’s what the charity’s worker said:

“I feel like this is the end. It feels like we will all be either trapped and killed in Gaza, or we will all be forced out. People have stayed in Rafah thinking it’s safe and hoping that global pressure would stop an invasion. But now we are abandoned by the world and everyone feels betrayed and let down.

“It’s an unimaginable scene, with tens of thousands of people looking for shelter. People are pale and thin, tired and afraid. There are children, women, elderly people and people with disabilities trying to flee in wheelchairs. Injured people have to leave hospital with recent bandages and bloodstains.

“In other parts of Gaza, the few bits of remaining land are now filling up with tents and shacks built of bits of wood and nylon.

“No humanitarian assistance has entered since Israel took over the Rafah crossing and Kerem (Karem) Abu Salem crossing closed. Bakeries have stopped working because they don’t have fuel, so we don’t have bread. We don’t have any water supply as that also depends on fuel deliveries, so yesterday we had to pay $50 just to refill our tank. Cars have stopped, so people coming from Rafah to the Middle Area are either walking or packed into vans carrying hundreds of people.

“Many people in Gaza are already suffering from famine, but now we are entering a new period of unprecedented hardship.”

Report: US offers intel on Hamas leaders in exchange for ‘limited’ Rafah attack

The US is offering Israel’s military “sensitive intelligence” to target Hamas officials in Gaza in exchange for not launching a full-scale assault on overcrowded Rafah city, a news report says.

The Washington Post, citing four people familiar with the situation, reports other incentives not to launch a major operation in Rafah include information on the location of Hamas’s vast network of tunnels.

Also offered up by Washington are thousands of tents to house some of the nearly two million displaced people throughout the war-battered Gaza Strip, according to the sources who spoke to the newspaper anonymously.

The Biden administration has been widely criticized for arming and failing to put a stop to Israel’s seven-month war, which has killed nearly 35,000 people, mostly children and women.

Hamas calls for probe into Israeli mistreatment of Palestinian detainees

Hamas official Abdelrahman Shadid urged international legal and humanitarian organisations to investigate Israeli military mistreatment of Palestinian detainees in their prisons.

Shadid called the crimes against prisoners, which have included the death of at least 17 Palestinians, “unprecedented”.

“We call for an investigation that would expose the Israeli crimes against unarmed prisoners and for international pressure to be exercised on Israel to allow lawyers and humanitarian groups access to prisons and detention centres,” Shadid said in a statement.

Since October, Palestinian rights groups have raised the alarm about abusive practices towards detainees inside prisons and detention camps. The groups have warned Palestinian prisoners are subjected to beatings, medical neglect and even torture.

At least 50 professors arrested at US campus protests: Report

At least 50 professors have been arrested at pro-Palestinian campus protests across the US, according to US broadcaster CNN, which said it reviewed police records, court filings and news reports.

Since April 18, more than 2,400 students have been arrested on more than 50 campuses, it said.

Some of the arrested professors, who said they wished to support students’ right to free speech, were detained violently, resulting in injuries.

Harvard students name hall after Shireen Abu Akleh

Students at Harvard University in the US have named the hall after the veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh who was killed two years ago by an Israeli sniper in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.

Several human rights groups and media organisations found that the Israeli army was responsible for the killing of the Palestinian-American journalist.

University campuses in the US and around the world have exploded in recent weeks in protests by pro-Palestinian students and faculty members against Israel’s war on Gaza.

Some have renamed halls after the names of Palestinians killed by Israel, including Abu Akleh and Hind Rajab, a six-year-old girl whose family car came under Israeli fire in Gaza.

Hamas says it holds US responsible for Rafah invasion, renewed fighting

The group says the new Israeli ground attacks across the Gaza Strip – including Rafah in the south, Jabalia and Zeitoun in the north – show it wants to keep “massacring” Palestinians.

“We hold the US administration and its President Biden fully responsible for the escalation of these crimes against civilians, including children, women and the elderly, by continuing to provide cover for Zionist fascism to continue its crimes,” Hamas said in a statement.

The group also called on the international community and the United Nations to stop adopting “timid positions” and put pressure on Israel to stop its attacks and get aid to civilians.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/11/israels-war-on-gaza-live-battles-rage-in-rafah-as-tanks-troops-advance

Israeli military invades Jabalia again as Hamas ‘reconstitutes militarily’

Along with other neighbourhoods across Gaza such as Zeitoun, which the Israeli army has been coming back to repeatedly, Jabalia in the north is also being invaded again.

This is happening because Hamas is “reconstituting militarily there”, says the latest report by the Critical Threats Project and the Institute for the Study of War, two US-based think tanks.

It also noted intensified operations in the south.

“The Israeli military expanded its evacuation orders for civilians around Rafah, extending the evacuation zone to two refugee camps and nearby neighbourhoods.”

Israeli attack in northern Gaza captured by Al Jazeera

Our Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Anas al-Sharif says he and his team were in the middle of reporting when Israel attacked an area not too far from their location.

“Thank God we miraculously survived. During press coverage of the occupation’s targeting of citizens’ homes east of Jabalia camp, an area close to us was targeted,” he said.

In a video posted on X, people can be seen running frantically in the streets to seek safety following the Israeli attack.

https://twitter.com/AnasAlSharif0/status/1789378285190738175

Antiwar protests continuing in Malmo during controversial Eurovision
Paul Rhys
Reporting from Malmo, Sweden

It’s been a fast-moving situation here with thousands of protesters making their way through the city. Most of the demonstrations received permission and the police have been able to keep them orderly.

However, quite a few demonstrators suddenly started protesting outside the Eurovision venue with Palestinian flags and were boxed in by police and taken away one by one. Some were forcibly removed.

Demonstrators are angry that an Israeli contestant was allowed to participate, comparing it to when Russia was banned because of the war on Ukraine. Protesters say it’s hypocrisy.

Israeli military destroys Gaza home of Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif

An Israeli air raid destroyed the home of Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, whose father was killed in an attack in northern Gaza in December.

https://twitter.com/AJA_Palestine/status/1789368936275816763

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/11/israels-war-on-gaza-live-battles-rage-in-rafah-as-tanks-troops-advance

>>481483
I guess that would explain the cultural meme of evil clowns.

Tho i would not entirely discount that he could be a true believer.

The Zionists canceled the funny dutch man for singing
<Europe let’s come together!
<It’s now or never!
<I love you all!
<Welkom in Europa
https://farside.link/invidious/watch?v=gT2wY0DjYGo

I guess the Zionists have a preference for Austrian painters making angry barking sounds.

Netanyahu will go down in history as a genocidaire, says Colombia’s president

Gustavo Petro and the Israeli prime minister are continuing to trade insults over the war in Gaza.

The Colombian president, posting on X, said: “Mr Netanyahu, you will go down in history as a genocidaire. Dropping bombs on thousands of innocent children, women and elderly people does not make you a hero.”

He compared Netanyahu with the Nazis who killed millions of Jews in Europe and said that “a genocide is a genocide”, regardless of the religion of those killed.

Earlier, Netanyahu had called Petro “an anti-Semitic supporter of Hamas” after the Colombian leader called for the Israeli prime minister’s arrest over the killing of Palestinians in Gaza.

US report on Israeli violations not in ‘good faith’: MSF

A State Department report on how Israel is using weapons supplied by the US provides “excuses” to “deflect responsibility” says Avril Benoit, the executive director of the US branch of MSF, also known as Doctors without Borders.

Benoit said that the analysis from the Biden administration was not a “good faith effort to uphold US law”.

The US Leahy Law prohibits military assistance to forces engaged in gross violations of human rights.

“The horrific reality we witness on the ground in Gaza is that Israeli military operations continue to maim and kill civilians and block the provision of lifesaving humanitarian aid,” said Benoit.

Israeli settlers set fire to Palestinian home in West Bank

Al Jazeera Arabic has obtained footage showing the aftermath of an arson attack carried out by Israeli settlers in the village of Duma in the occupied West Bank.

The footage showed Palestinians trying to put the fire out with buckets of water as flames from the blaze turned the night sky orange.

https://twitter.com/AJA_Palestine/status/1789432899030442495

Arrests, water cannon as Israeli protest blocks highway

Israeli police arrested three people as protesters blocked Tel Aviv’s Ayalon Highway on Saturday night, the Times of Israel reported.

Family members of Israeli captives held in Gaza have held regular protests in Tel Aviv for months, calling on Netanyahu’s government to do more to bring them home.

A group opposed to Netanyahu’s government and its war on Gaza have also held their own protests, with the two protest groups joining to block the highway on Saturday night.

Biden administration’s changing rhetoric on Israel

Mohamad Elmasry, a political analyst and professor of media studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, spoke to Al Jazeera on subtle changes in the Biden administration’s language on Israel’s war on Gaza and the response of the Netanyahu government.

“It appears to me Israel is pretty much doing what it wants to do. It’s exerting pressure on the United States, not the other way around. We expect that it’s the US that’s going to exert pressure but it seems to be working backwards.”

“In terms of rhetoric, it had been interesting to follow [the] Biden administration’s rhetoric. [Earlier] the US said it did not want any kind of military operations in Rafah. You heard [Vice President] Kamala Harris say, to give one example, it was Israel that forced all those Gazans into Rafah in the first place. Therefore, the US opposes a military operation. But I think what happened [was] that in meetings and phone calls, Israel made it clear to the US that they were going to invade Rafah regardless of whether the US gave its blessings or not. So the US is now shifting its rhetoric. Instead of saying they oppose [the] Rafah operation they are saying they are opposed to a ‘major’ Rafah operation. We see that Israel that’s forcing the US hand.”

“The [US] rhetoric might become even more harsh towards Israel but the question that I have is: Is it too little too late? The opinion polling data we have, the encampments [at US universities] and man-on-the-street interviews suggest that people are really angry, especially young people. So, I am not sure ramping up the rhetoric against Israel is going to make a real difference. Donald Trump is ahead, according to FiveThirtyEight, a data collection and opinion polling site. He is ahead in all swing states. So, it’s looking disastrous for Biden, as one analyst said, Biden may have committed political suicide long ago.”

Police take heavy-handed approach to disperse protests outside Eurovision final
Nils Adler
Reporting from Malmo, Sweden

There have been large pro-Palestinian protests in Malmo, Sweden’s third largest city, all week over Israel’s inclusion in Eurovision.

Rallies, at times, locked down the centre of the city.

Palestinian flags were draped outside windows, and people could be seen wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh or clothes bearing the colours of the Palestinian flag all over Malmo.

Norwegian and Danish police officers were called in to join Swedish police to manage the crowds, and until last night, the protests had gone without incident.

Outside the arena where the Eurovision final was being held, protesters chanted “shame on you” as people entered the event.

As the show began, police decided to create a buffer zone around the arena and took a heavy-handed approach, cordoning off the crowds and detaining more than a dozen people.

Swiss singer Nemo won the controversy-plagued song contest early on Sunday.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/12/israels-war-on-gaza-live-major-rafah-attack-feared-after-evacuation-order

"Israel invading forces are holding Palestinian families at gunpoint, then destroying the homes in Hebron in the occupied West Bank…

Netanyahu has ordered the demolition of over 3,500 Palestinian homes that will be used for settlements…"

https://twitter.com/Resist_05/status/1789552159631274293

>>481497
>I guess the Zionists have a preference for Austrian painters making angry barking sounds.
They unironically do.

Egypt says it will intervene in support of South Africa’s ICJ genocide case against Israel

Egypt has announced its intention to formally intervene to support the lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel before the International Court of Justice to examine Israel’s violations of its obligations under the Genocide Convention in the Gaza Strip.

In a statement by the ministry of foreign affairs, Egypt said the step comes due to the escalating Israeli aggression against Palestinian civilians.

It “comes in light of the worsening severity and scope of Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, and the continued perpetration of systematic practices against the Palestinian people, including direct targeting of civilians and the destruction of infrastructure in the Strip, and pushing Palestinians to flee”.

Egypt said it is calling on Israel to comply with its obligations as the occupying power, and to implement the provisional measures issued by the ICJ, which require ensuring the access of humanitarian and relief aid in a manner that meets the needs of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

It also demands that Israeli forces not to commit any violations against the Palestinian people.

In the statement, Egypt renewed its call to the Security Council and international parties to immediately take action to achieve a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and to stop military operations in Rafah, as well as to provide the necessary protection for Palestinian civilians.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/12/israels-war-on-gaza-live-major-rafah-attack-feared-after-evacuation-order

Journalists detained in Tel Aviv on suspicion of working for Al Jazeera

Journalists from London-based news outlet Al-Araby Al-Jadeed were detained last night by Israeli authorities during protests calling for a deal to release captives last night, The Times of Israel reports.

Citing social media posts, the Israeli news outlet said the journalists were held on suspicion that they may be working for Al Jazeera, which was recently banned in Israel.

Israeli photojournalist Oren Ziv shared video and photos on X, which showed the journalists from the Qatari-owned outlet being questioned after authorities reportedly saw live footage of the Tel Aviv protests being broadcast on Al Jazeera.

https://twitter.com/OrenZiv_/status/1789619317509660698

Qassam Brigades claims series of attacks on Israeli forces in eastern Jabalia

The armed wing of Hamas has said on its Telegram channel that, since this morning, its fighters have:

Attacked nine Merkava tanks and armoured vehicles
Blown up a boobytrapped house with Israeli soldiers inside
Targeted a group of Israeli special forces inside a house with TBG shells
Attacked a tank using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)
Shelled the cities of Ashkelon and Sderot in southern Israel
Shelled groups of soldiers and army vehicles

Qassam Brigades claims hit on Israeli forces in northern Gaza

Hamas’s armed wing says it has hit a group of Israeli soldiers and vehicles in the al-Mabhouh area east of the Jabalia refugee camp with heavy-calibre mortar shells.

Additionally, the group said it shelled Israeli forces in a house in eastern Jabalia, causing casualties.

Earlier, we reported Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari saying in addition to Jabalia and the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City, Israeli forces are also operating in Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoon.

Hezbollah claims attacks on Israeli positions in border fighting

The armed Lebanese group has claimed two attacks on Israeli positions so far today and has released videos of previous attacks.

Hezbollah said it targeted a group of Israeli soldiers at a site in the occupied Shebaa Farms in southern Lebanon and used anti-tank guided missiles to hit a military barracks in Hunin, saying it achieved a direct hit.

The group also released two videos of attacks on Saturday, one showing intelligence-gathering equipment targeted and another of an attack on Beit Hilal that targeted Iron Dome batteries.

Gaza prisoners endure ‘barbaric treatment, systematic torture’ by Israeli forces

Prisoner rights group Addameer is calling for an International Criminal Court investigation into war crimes against Palestinian detainees and urges international action for accountability.

In a report, Addameer described severe violations against prisoners, including systematic torture during interrogation, and assaults and brutal suppression in prisons like Ofer, Naqab (Negev) and others.

Israeli soldiers, the group said, use dogs to attack prisoners. Many are shackled with steel handcuffs, leading to limb amputations, and all are subject to “a deliberate policy of starvation”.

Detainees are not allowed to change their clothes or cut their hair, beard, or nails. Showers are few and far between. “They complained about the foul odours emanating from their clothes, saying they feel like they are living in a ‘livestock pen’,” Addameer said.

The group said that there is a “reasonable basis to claim that the occupying forces are committing war crimes and crimes against humanity against prisoners from the Gaza Strip”, and it called on the Prosecutor of the ICC to conduct a special investigation into these crimes and to take necessary measures to hold all those responsible accountable.

Israeli protesters block road to demand captive deal

Footage shared on social media shows demonstrators at a barricade in Tel Aviv.

The video, verified by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking unit, Sanad, shows dozens of protesters seated on the street, chanting for the release of captives held in Gaza.

Students walk out of university ceremony in protest at Jerry Seinfeld’s support for Israel

Dozens of students walked out of Duke University’s commencement ceremony as some chanted “free Palestine” to protest against the guest speaker, comedian Jerry Seinfeld, for supporting Israel throughout its war on Gaza, Reuters reports, citing videos of the event on social media.

The American actor visited Israel and has vocally supported it since October 7.

The walkout was the latest manifestation of pro-Palestine protests that have roiled US campuses as students call for universities to divest from arms suppliers and other companies profiting from the war and amnesty for students and faculty members who have been disciplined or fired for protesting.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/12/israels-war-on-gaza-live-major-rafah-attack-feared-after-evacuation-order

+ Chapo Trap House bonus featuring an anonymous guest with interesting info on how college leadership is being run

>>481510
TYBNA

>>481510
>the journalists were held on suspicion that they may be working for Al Jazeera, which was recently banned in Israel.
<journalists held on suspicion that they may be journalists

good grief

Civil Defence teams come under fire in Rafah

The Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza says its crews came under fire from Israeli forces after they responded to a call about a house that was bombed in the Brazil camp in the southern Gaza city.

“When the ambulance crews arrived, shooting was fired from drones towards the cars, which posed a danger to the crews’ presence there,” the group said on its Telegram channel.

The United Nations and other agencies have warned for weeks that an Israeli assault on Rafah, which borders Egypt near the main aid entry point, would cripple humanitarian operations and cause a disastrous surge in civilian casualties.

Cambridge college divests from all arms producing companies: Report

Trinity College Cambridge has opted to withdraw its investments from all arms manufacturers, the UK-based Middle East Eye (MEE) news outlet is reporting.

This development comes after MEE revealed in February that Cambridge’s wealthiest college had more than 61,735 pounds ($78,089) invested in Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturing entity that produces a significant number of drones for the Israeli military.

According to three sources who spoke to MEE, Trinity’s student union made the decision to divest from arms companies in early March.

College campuses around the world have exploded in recent weeks in protests by pro-Palestine students and faculty members against Israel’s war on Gaza, in which more than 34,000 people have been killed.

In university after university, protesters are demanding their schools sever any direct or indirect financial and academic links with Israel, including by divesting from companies with ties to Israel.

US senator: End Gaza war by giving Israel any bombs it needs

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has told a US broadcaster that the US was right to “end [WWII]” by dropping two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Now, he said, Israel must be given “the bombs they need to end the war they can’t afford to lose”, during an interview with NBC News that is being widely shared online.

Graham said, “I thought it was okay” when the US dropped the nuclear bombs on Japan.

“To Israel, do whatever you have to do to survive as a Jewish state.”

This comes after President Joe Biden decided to halt a shipment of thousands of some of the largest bombs in the US military arsenal due to urgent humanitarian concerns after Israel launched its ground invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/12/israels-war-on-gaza-live-major-rafah-attack-feared-after-evacuation-order

>>481522
>Trinity College Cambridge has opted to withdraw its investments from all arms manufacturers
huh, so it does work

>US senator: End Gaza war by giving Israel any bombs it needs
Israel needs zero bombs
>“I thought it was okay” when the US dropped the nuclear bombs on Japan.
>“To Israel, do whatever
The US got a pass for nuking Japan, therefore Israel should get a pass for genocide ?
i don't understand the logic

Senior member of Palestine’s Democratic Front killed in Israeli attack

Talal Abu Zarifa, a senior member of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), has been killed in an Israeli attack on the Sabra neighbourhood in Gaza City, according to media reports.

The Wafa news agency and Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen television channel announced his death late on Sunday night.

The DFLP, a leftist group formed in 1969, was one of the first factions in the Palestine Liberation Organization to support a two state solution. Its armed wing has fought Israeli forces in Gaza and previously claimed several rocket attacks on Israel.

Student protesters at Johns Hopkins dismantle encampment

Pro-Palestine student protesters at Johns Hopkins University have taken down their encampment after officials there agreed to review the school’s ties to Israel.

The Hopkins Justice Collective said the “agreement is in no way a total victory”, but “it represents a step towards Johns Hopkins’ commitment to divest from the settler colonial state of Israel”.

The university confirmed the move, saying it would use its existing process to conduct the review. It also confirmed committing “to conclude student conduct proceedings arising out of the encampment, provided the protesters agree not to engage in further disruptions of university activities, including Commencement”.

Why is Egypt joining South Africa’s genocide case at the ICJ?

Egypt has long warned Israel against a ground offensive on Rafah, which lies across the Egyptian border with Gaza and is sheltering more than 1 million Palestinians. An Israeli assault on Rafah would result in tens of thousands of Palestinians seeking refuge in Egypt.

Cairo’s announcement that it is joining South Africa’s case follows some notable developments.

Israel seizes Rafah crossing

Israeli forces seized the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing on Tuesday, leaving hundreds of trucks filled with food and medicines stranded on the Egyptian side of the border. In its statement on joining the ICJ case, Egypt called on Israel to comply with the world court’s interim measures, which included the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Israel rejected a truce deal Egypt helped mediate

Last week, Israel rejected a ceasefire deal with Hamas that Egypt and Qatar helped mediate and said it would go into Rafah to dismantle the Palestinian armed group.

Egypt’s statement on the ICJ case called on the UN Security Council and “influential international parties” to “immediately move to a ceasefire”.

The US, which also helped mediate truce talks but has not held Israel to the latest deal, has said the talks, rather than the Security

Council, should be the source of a ceasefire.

Colombians welcome ‘Palestino’ football team at airport

A pro-Palestinian rally took place at Colombia’s El Dorado International Airport as activists gathered to welcome the Club Deportivo Palestino football team from Chile.

The Palestino team draws from the approximately 500,000 Palestinians who live in Chile, which has the largest Palestinian population outside the Middle East.

Supporters waved Palestinian flags and wore T-shirts saying “Free Palestine” as they welcomed the team ahead of its game against Colombia’s Millonarios in South America’s Libertadores cup on Tuesday.

Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro, who has been outspoken in support of Palestine, called for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu this week.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/13/israels-war-on-gaza-live-israel-reinvades-north-gaza-as-people-flee-south

Maldives to join South Africa’s ICJ genocide case against Israel

The government of Maldives has said it will formally join the lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which accuses Israel of violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention in the Gaza Strip.

In a statement by the president’s office, the government of Maldives said the move comes due to “genocidal acts perpetrated by Israeli occupying forces under the guise of security concerns [which] have resulted in mass displacement, acute starvation, and blockage of humanitarian aid”.

The government also said that demands made by Israel for the immediate evacuation of thousands of Palestinian civilians seeking refuge in eastern Rafah “are a testament to its failure to adhere to the provisional measures ordered by the ICJ”.

UN confirms killing of first international staff in Gaza in Israeli ‘attack’

The UN has confirmed its first international staff casualty in Gaza after a UN vehicle was hit in Rafah.

Farhan Haq, a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said during a news conference that the total number of UN staff killed in Gaza since October 7 has reached 190.

He said the Rafah incident could be characterised as an attack.

More on killing of first international UN staffer in GazaGabriel Elizondo
Gabriel Elizondo
Reporting from the UN headquarters in New York

A spokesperson for the secretary-general confirmed that there were two individuals in Rafah in a UN-marked vehicle on their way to the European Hospital there as part of their duties.

The UN said they work for the Department of Safety and Security and that they came under fire, and one of them was killed, and that person is an international staff member of the UN. The UN is not confirming what country the individual is from as it is still waiting to inform family members.

The second individual was injured; we’re told their injuries are minor and that they expect to have a full recovery.

HRW calls for ‘international action’ after UN staffer killed in Gaza

NGO Human Rights Watch says on X that the killing of a foreign UN staff member in Rafah earlier today is proof that “there is nowhere safe to go in Gaza”.

The organisation pointed out that the vehicle carrying the staff member who was killed – and another who was wounded – was on its way to a hospital when it was struck and heavily damaged by Israeli army fire.

Defence intelligence officer resigns in protest of US policy on Gaza war

US Army Major Harrison Mann, who works for the Defense Intelligence Agency, has announced his resignation, which he submitted on April 16, saying he “cannot justify staying silent any longer”.

In his letter, which he published on his public LinkedIn profile, Mann, who says he is a descendant of European Jews, wrote that the US “nearly unqualified support for the government of Israel … has enabled and empowered the killing and starvation of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians”.

“As we were recently reminded, this unconditional support also encourages reckless escalation that risks wider war.”

The Biden administration faces growing internal dissent against its policies in the Middle East, most recently marked by the resignation of US Department of State Arabic language spokeswoman, Hala Rharrit.

Rharrit is the first career diplomat to resign publicly, protesting the government’s response to Israel’s war on Gaza.

Josh Paul is the highest-ranking Biden administration official to resign over its approach to the war in Gaza, and Tariq Habash, a policy adviser at the US Department of Education, also resigned from his post in recent weeks.

Houthi-linked media reports alleged US-British attack on airport

Yemen’s Al Masirah TV Channel, a broadcaster affiliated with the Houthi rebels, has reported an alleged air attack carried out by the US and British military on the country’s Hodeidah International Airport.

The update shared on Telegram did not elaborate on the results of the air raid.

There was no information on the incident from the British and the US military. They have been targeting the Houthi positions in the country since the rebels started attacking vessels in the Red Sea in opposition to Israel’s war on Gaza.

Qassam Brigades claims drone attack on Israeli tank in Gaza

The armed wing of Hamas says intense fighting with Israeli ground forces is ongoing in northern Gaza.

The Qassam Brigades said its fighters managed to drop a Yassin-105 anti-tank shell on an Israeli Merkava tank east of the Jabalia refugee camp using a drone.

The group claimed attacks on four tanks in the same area.

Hamas says lost contact with members guarding four Israeli captives

Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, has lost contact with its members guarding four Israeli captives in Gaza, including Hersh Golberg-Polin, the group says in a statement.

Late last month, Hamas released a video of Polin, an Israeli American who has been held in the Gaza Strip for the duration of Israel’s war on the enclave.

The video ignited new protests calling on the Israeli government to do more to secure the captives’ release.

Israeli soldiers injured by antitank missiles launched from Lebanon

The Israeli military has reported that three of its soldiers were “lightly injured” and one “moderately injured” by two antitank missiles that crossed into Israeli territory from southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Israeli military have regularly traded fire since October 8, when the Lebanese armed group launched an attack on Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza.

Hezbollah claims it destroyed tank in missile strike on Yiftah barracks

Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group has claimed to have hit an Israeli Merkava tank with a guided missile in Yiftah barracks in the occupied village of Qadas.

“It was destroyed and its crew was killed and wounded,” it said in a statement on Telegram.

The attack came in support of Gaza at 10:35am (07:35 GMT), it added.

Earlier today, it also claimed an air attack on the newly-created position of the 403rd Reserve Artillery Battalion of the 91st Division, south of Beit Hillel in northern Israel.

That attack left “enemy officers and soldiers dead and wounded”, it said.

Israelis attack aid convoy headed to Gaza, show social media posts

A number of videos verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad verification unit have shown Israelis attacking food aid trucks at Tarqumiyah crossing in Hebron in the occupied West Bank, preventing them from reaching Gaza.

The Israeli “Ninth Order” movement activists were seen destroying food aid and unloading it from trucks on the ground.

https://twitter.com/nassar_furat/status/1789955552774160812

Israelis torch area around UNRWA headquarters

According to HaMoked, an Israeli rights group, a group of young Israelis set fire to the perimeter of the East Jerusalem headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

This is the second incident of arson targeting UNRWA in a week.

On May 9, the UNRWA compound was targeted while staff were inside.

“While there were no casualties among our staff, the fire caused extensive damage to the outdoor areas. The UNRWA headquarters has on its grounds a petrol and diesel station for the agency’s fleet of cars,” said UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini at the time.

“This is an outrageous development. Once again, the lives of UN staff were at a serious risk,” he said.

Gaza’s death toll rises

At least 35,091 Palestinians have been killed and 78,827 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, its Health Ministry says.

The ministry added that 57 people were killed and 82 injured in the latest 24-hour reporting period.

Protesting students chant for Palestine at University of Geneva

Pro-Palestinian protests are rippling across European universities with the University of Geneva seeing demonstrations starting last week.

Students have called on the University of Geneva to divest from Israel.

University of Amsterdam staff join pro-Palestine protests

Professor of sociology at the University of Amsterdam, Sarah Bracke, spoke to Al Jazeera about the student and staff protests against Israel’s war on Gaza in the Netherlands.

She said the staff at three higher education institutions in Amsterdam witnessed police “violently” attempting to disperse a peaceful student encampment last Monday.

She said the staff today are protesting as they want to end the university’s complicity in “the ongoing genocide” in Gaza and call out the violent methods that police have used to suppress peaceful protests.

She noted that Jewish staff and student protesters were beaten by police despite the educational institutions’ claim that police were needed to protect the Jewish students on campus.

Pro-Palestine protesters take over university buildings in Dutch cities

Demonstrators have taken over university buildings in the Dutch cities of Amsterdam, Groningen and Eindhoven, slamming Israel’s war in Gaza, the Dutch protest group behind the action says in a statement.

A spokesperson for the University of Amsterdam (UvA) confirmed the incident and said it advised people who are not affiliated with the protest to leave the building.

The Eindhoven University of Technology confirmed that there were “dozens of students peacefully protesting outside next to ten to 15 tents”.

Students in the Netherlands have been protesting against Israel’s war on Gaza since last Monday and Dutch riot police had previously clashed with protesters at the University of Amsterdam.

Students in the United States and Europe have been holding peaceful demonstrations calling for an immediate permanent ceasefire and for schools to cut financial ties with companies they say are profiting from the oppression of Palestinians.

Hundreds of riot police arrive at peaceful university protest in Amsterdam
Step Vaessen
Reporting from Amsterdam, the Netherlands

What started as a peaceful walkout this morning by hundreds of university staff, professors, lecturers in protest against police violence against students last week is now developing and escalating once again.

The riot police are here, hundreds of them are blocking the entrance to the university. After the university staff finished their rally, the students went in and they have built some tents right into the main hall.

The police are now coming in and [the students] are trying to block the police. They managed for a few minutes but now the police car van is driving towards the entrance and everyone here is very much hoping that the same scenario that happened last week is not repeated here.

The protests are against the war in Gaza and they’re also demanding the university to cut ties with Israeli universities but also to protest against police violence and what they say is a violation of their rights to demonstrate.

So far I’ve only seen peaceful protesters and the police is coming in and of course, there’s a lot of trauma after what happened last week so the situation is quite agitated.

Displaced in northern Israel won’t go home if Gaza war persists: Nasrallah

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hasan Nasrallah says residents of northern Israel would not be able to return home for the start of the next school year if their government presses on with its war on the Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with the Israeli military across Lebanon’s southern border in parallel with the war on the besieged coastal enclave.

The group said it is launching rockets at Israel both to support Hamas and to deter Israel from launching an attack on Lebanon.

In a televised address on Monday, Nasrallah repeated that Hezbollah would keep fighting as long as Israel continued its assault on Gaza.

“The link between the supportive Lebanese front and Gaza is definitive, final and conclusive,” he said. “No one will be able to delink them.”

Israel said it wants to secure the north for residents to return home either through a mediated diplomatic agreement or a military attack against Lebanon. Families displaced from northern Israel had been hoping to return home by September 1 for the start of the academic year.

PRCS says four members still detained by Israel

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says two of their members have been released following 49 days of Israeli detention.

They were arrested in March during the second Israeli raid on al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, PRCS said.

Israeli forces continue to detain four other PRCS members and “their fate remains unknown,” the organisation said on X.

Israel police reject Nakba Day event near Tel Aviv University: Report

Israeli police are refusing to issue a permit for a gathering of Palestinians to mark Nakba Day on Wednesday in the plaza outside Tel Aviv University, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

It said this is the first time since the establishment of the annual event 12 years ago that the gathering is being denied a permit, and that organisers were not given an official reason for the refusal.

Israel protests Nobel laureate’s Vatican speech denouncing Gaza genocide

Israel’s Embassy to the Holy See has issued a protest after a Yemeni Nobel Prize winner accused Israel of “genocide” in Gaza during an event hosted by the Vatican.

The embassy expressed “indignation and shock” about the comments made by rights activist Tawakkol Karman on Saturday evening during a conference organised by the Fratelli Tutti Foundation, which Pope Francis created.

Karman, who won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her role in the Arab Spring protests, told an audience in the atrium of St Peter’s Basilica: “The world is silent in front of the genocide and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people in Gaza.”

After mentioning Gaza, Karman received a loud round of applause from the audience, which included fellow Nobel prize laureates, politicians, and church officials. The pope was not present.

In an open letter posted on X on Monday, the Israeli embassy rejected Karman’s accusations as “lies”.

“The site was contaminated by a flagrantly anti-Semitic speech,” it said.

“We regret that such a speech was pronounced without anyone feeling the moral duty to intervene to stop this disgrace,” it added.

Hamas condemns US senator’s suggestion that Israel nuke Gaza

The group has called US Senator Lindsey Graham’s suggestion that Israel strike Gaza with a nuclear bomb “shocking” and “reflective of the depth of his immorality”.

“It is also reflective of his inherent mentality of colonialism, as well as that of a group of high-ranking politicians in the US, who support the genocide being perpetrated by an occupation army against civilians,” Hamas said in a statement.

Hamas said Graham’s stated position “makes him complicit in the genocidal war on Gaza”.

The group “urged people to denounce such positions and continue pushing for an end to the war against Palestinians in Gaza”.

University of Manchester sprayed with red paint in protest to Gaza war

The walls of the University of Manchester have been sprayed with red paint by activists protesting against the killing of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestine Action network of activists said in a post that the move is also aimed at making the university divest from Israel.

Global Anti-Apartheid Conference condemns Israel’s settler-colonialism, genocide

South Africa has hosted a Global Anti-Apartheid Conference for Palestine aimed at highlighting the continuing Israeli war on Gaza and the Israeli settlers’ illegal colonialism, among other issues.

The delegates from more than two dozen countries have now issued a statement in which they state they are “outraged by a century of colonialism; 75 years of ongoing Nakba; 75 years of Israeli genocide, colonialism, and apartheid”.

“We have witnessed seven months of ongoing genocide. The world has watched Israel brutally bombard Gaza from land, sea and air, turning it into an extermination camp,” the statement read.

“Israel has destroyed the conditions for life of Gaza’s people, including medical care, nutrition, education, infrastructure”.

“Just as the Global Anti-Apartheid movement did not make concessions to the apartheid South African state until the complete dismantling of the apartheid system, we too refuse to concede until the total dismantling of Israel’s settler-colonial project,” the statement concluded.

The three-day conference, which began on Friday at the Sandton Convention Center in Johannesburg, attracted international speakers, including Declan Kearney, the chairperson of Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican and Democratic Socialist political party, and Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian human rights activist and politician.

Will Israel’s war on Gaza sway South Africa’s election?
Qaanitah Hunter

Cape Town, South Africa – “We cannot allow supporters of baby killers to talk to us,” a furious resident of Surrey Estate in Cape Town shouted as he heckled the speaker at the podium.

The man was one of hundreds of residents of the mostly Muslim suburb who had gathered for a pre-election panel discussion early in May, where representatives from 10 political parties sought to lobby support.

When Riad Davids, the representative for the Democratic Alliance (DA) – South Africa’s liberal, centrist main opposition party that is considered a steadfast supporter of Israel – took to the podium to make his pitch to residents, he was booed.

The audience shouted and jeered, preventing him from delivering his message and seeking to force him off the stage.

The South African government’s support for Palestine has become a common theme in debates leading up to the May 29 general elections and expressions of solidarity with the people of Gaza have featured during the campaigns of various political parties.

Netanyahu, his ministers face protests during Memorial Day commemoration

Israeli military cemeteries have witnessed a wave of protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers during the Memorial Day commemoration of soldiers killed in wars, according to photos and videos posted by journalists and activists on social media.

Protesters blamed ministers, who were in attendance, for shedding the blood of Israelis. Many families started to leave the Mount Herzl cemetery in West Jerusalem when Netanyahu started his speech on Monday.

At the Kiryat Shaul cemetery near Tel Aviv, Israelis staged a silent protest during Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s speech, demanding his resignation and holding banners such as “Your hands are stained with their blood”. Antigovernment protesters have been urging the Netanyahu government to strike a deal with Hamas to free captives held in Gaza.

https://twitter.com/tomerappelbaum/status/1789934494767534149

UNRWA video shows extensive damage to its facilities in Khan Younis'

https://twitter.com/UNRWA/status/1789950182852800858

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/13/israels-war-on-gaza-live-israel-reinvades-north-gaza-as-people-flee-south

>>481539
>Defence intelligence officer resigns in protest of US policy on Gaza war
>US Army Major Harrison Mann, who works for the Defense Intelligence Agency, has announced his resignation, which he submitted on April 16, saying he “cannot justify staying silent any longer”.
>In his letter, which he published on his public LinkedIn profile, Mann, who says he is a descendant of European Jews, wrote that the US “nearly unqualified support for the government of Israel … has enabled and empowered the killing and starvation of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians”.
>“As we were recently reminded, this unconditional support also encourages reckless escalation that risks wider war.”
>The Biden administration faces growing internal dissent against its policies in the Middle East, most recently marked by the resignation of US Department of State Arabic language spokeswoman, Hala Rharrit.
>Rharrit is the first career diplomat to resign publicly, protesting the government’s response to Israel’s war on Gaza.
>Josh Paul is the highest-ranking Biden administration official to resign over its approach to the war in Gaza, and Tariq Habash, a policy adviser at the US Department of Education, also resigned from his post in recent weeks.
The personal dynamics are:
Morally principled people realize they got dragged to the wrong side of history and then take the escape hatch. Facing a lot of uncertainty in doing so.

I wish i understood the political dynamics.

>>481539
second picture where the woman is getting attacked by the anti-democracy mob. It says "BONK the POLICE" on the brick wall, what does that mean ?

Houthi military threatens to expand operations

The Houthis in Yemen promise to launch more attacks – and at new scales – to oppose the war on Gaza, according to spokesman Yahya Saree.

“Gaza is a red line for us,” he said during a speech earlier today.

“We can target things that the enemy hasn’t thought of and can’t imagine, things that neither the Yemeni people nor the people of the [Islamic] nation can imagine,” he said without elaborating.

The Houthis have already promised to level up their attacks to target vessels in the Mediterranean Sea if attacks on Palestinians persist.

Amsterdam University closed for two days after police move in on protesters

The University of Amsterdam says it will remain closed for two days after police were called in to crack down on pro-Palestinian protests at one of the school’s campuses earlier on Monday.

The university’s board said it had cancelled all classes through Wednesday, and all buildings will remain closed as it said it cannot guarantee safety for those on campus.

Demonstrators demanding divestment from Israel and opposing the war on Gaza have clashed several times with riot police in the past week at the university. But the board says the demonstrations had turned violent.

US officials believe ‘total victory’ over Hamas unrealistic: Report

The administration of US President Joe Biden reportedly does not believe that Israel’s stated strategy of pursuing “total” victory over Hamas in Gaza is feasible.

“Sometimes when we listen closely to Israeli leaders, they talked about mostly the idea of some sort of sweeping victory on the battlefield, total victory,” said Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, according to US news outlet Politico.

“I don’t think we believe that that is likely or possible.”

Campbell said many countries wish to see a “political solution in which the rights of Palestinians are more respected”.

Hezbollah claims seven attacks on Israeli positions

The armed Lebanese group says in its end-of-day report that its fighters carried out seven attacks throughout Monday, with the latest hitting Israeli soldiers in the settlement of Metulla.

Hezbollah said the attack was in response to Israeli assaults on southern Lebanese villages and civilian homes, most recently in Odaisseh.

It also reported a drone attack on an Israeli army site in Beit Hillel, resulting in casualties, along with a rocket attack on Kfarchouba and an antitank guided missile attack on a Merkava tank.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/14/israels-war-on-gaza-live-14-killed-in-israeli-attack-on-central-gaza-home

>>481548
See around 1:15 here: >>480749

>>481550
oh, that's what that means

>>481549
>The University of Amsterdam says it will remain closed for two days after police were called in to crack down on pro-Palestinian protests at one of the school’s campuses earlier on Monday.
>The university’s board said it had cancelled all classes through Wednesday, and all buildings will remain closed as it said it cannot guarantee safety for those on campus.
>Demonstrators demanding divestment from Israel and opposing the war on Gaza have clashed several times with riot police in the past week at the university. But the board says the demonstrations had turned violent.
People have a peaceful protest.
Send in goons to beat them up, things turn violent.
Close down the venue because it's not safe anymore.

That logic would negate the right to protest. So what now ?
Assume that all protests are always peaceful and that all violence that occurs is caused by anti-democracy force seeking to undermine the democratic process.

Al-Aqsa Mosque compound stormed, Israeli flag raised

We have received reports that dozens of Israelis have stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam’s third-holiest site, and raised the Israeli flag.

Footage verified by Al Jazeera shows a man holding the flag as an Israeli police officer speaks with him calmly and does not forcibly escort him from the compound.

The incident follows rallying calls made by Beyadenu, an organisation that says it aims “to strengthen the Jewish People’s connection” to the holy site, for the Israeli flag to be raised at the mosque on May 14.

Palestinians regard the day as the Nakba – or the “catastrophe” – which led to the creation of Israel.

The storming of the compound is a regular occurrence even though entering any part of it is forbidden for Jews due to the sacred nature of the site, according to Jewish law.

Israeli authorities have also repeatedly barred Palestinians from entering the site for Friday prayers since October 7, forcing many to pray on the streets near the Old City.

In previous years, Israeli forces have also attacked Palestinian worshippers inside the mosque.

Nakba survivor says Gaza’s displacement crisis worse than previous wars

Fatima Hussein, an 87-year-old Palestinian woman, says Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza brings back memories of being displaced from her village in the Nakba 76 years ago.

“In ’48 I carried my nephew and today my son and grandchildren carried me,” Hussein told the Palestinian news agency Wafa. “And in ’48 I ran away on foot and today I ran away by bus with only a few clothes.”

Yet, she added, the current war has brought a level of destruction and displacement not seen in previous conflicts.

“In the tripartite aggression, they executed civilians in the streets and in ’67 they occupied the Gaza Strip … but not at this level and there was no repeated displacement,” Hussein said.

Israeli forces firing on Palestinians trapped at UNRWA school in north Gaza
Moath al-Kahlout
Reporting from Jabalia, Gaza

As Israeli forces step up their attacks in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, many civilians remain trapped at a UNRWA school in the centre of the camp.

Israeli forces are stationed behind the school and, along with helicopters and quadcopter, are firing on civilians stuck there. The Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza is reporting receiving casualties from that area.

Sri Lankan MP urges government to cut ties with Israel

Sri Lanka’s opposition MP Rauff Hakeem has urged the government to cut off diplomatic ties with Israel if it continues with its military operations in Gaza.

“Threaten Israel and inform it that Sri Lanka will withdraw diplomatic ties if the offensive is not stopped in Gaza. Do this as a last resort,” Hakeem said in Parliament.

State Minister of Foreign Affairs Tharaka Balasuriya responded that Sri Lanka’s policy is to “maintain ties with all countries”, but that “does not mean we have abandoned Palestine”.

Palestinian fighters claim most attacks on Israeli forces in a single day since start of year

Palestinian armed groups claimed to have launched 33 attacks against Israeli forces in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, the most attacks claimed by Palestinian fighters in a single day of the war in 2024.

Washington, DC-based think tanks the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP) said the “unusually high number of attacks” reported on Monday demonstrate that Palestinian armed groups remain “combat effective and retain a significant force presence” beyond just Rafah in Gaza’s south.

“Hamas has exploited Israeli withdrawals from the northern Gaza Strip to begin reconstituting there, which has in turn led Israeli forces to return to areas to re-clear them,” the ISW and CTP said in their latest battlefield assessment.

“Hamas and the other Palestinian militias will almost certainly resume their reconstitution efforts in these neighbourhoods after Israeli forces complete their current clearing operations,” the think tanks said.

Gaza rescue efforts may stop due to lack of fuel, heavy equipment

Gaza’s civil defence crew is struggling to reach victims trapped under the rubble of bombed buildings, said a spokesperson for the agency, putting the lives of hundreds of injured Palestinians at risk.

Israeli forces “continue to target and destroy the heavy equipment that helps us recover the victims”, said the spokesperson at a press confernece outside Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah.

A severe fuel shortage is further straining rescue efforts, which may soon come to “a total halt”, added the spokesperson.

“As we speak, hundreds of victims remain buried under the rubble and our teams are not able to recover them. These numbers are continuing to rise.”

==Israeli government doing little to stop looting of Gaza-bound aid convoys''
Stefanie Dekker
Reporting from Amman, Jordan

Al Jazeera is reporting from outside Israel because it has been banned by the Israeli government.

The latest to be attacked was a Jordanian convoy. It had to go through the occupied West Bank to reach the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing in the south of the Gaza Strip.

The right-wing Israeli protesters blocked it and set it on fire after looting it.

It’s not the first time this has happened. We’ve been seeing this for months. The protesters simply don’t want any aid going to the Palestinians. They don’t make a distinction between the Hamas and civilians.

Little is being done on the part of the Israeli government to stop this. Israel has an incredibly powerful security force, particularly when it comes to looking at Palestinian protesters. But they’re not doing the same when it comes to these protests.

According to media reports, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right-wing security minister, told the police not to get involved because his ideology is the same as that of protesters. He wants settlements to start again in Gaza, he doesn’t want aid to get in and doesn’t want a ceasefire.

Israel is attacking known aid worker locations in Gaza, says HRW

Israel’s military has carried out at least eight attacks on aid workers’ convoys and premises in Gaza since October last year, even though the aid groups had provided their coordinates to Israeli authorities, according to a prominent rights group.

Human Rights Watch, in a new report, said Israeli authorities did not issue advance warnings to any of the aid organisations before the attacks, which have killed or wounded at least 31 humanitarian workers and those with them.

It said aid groups allege that a bomb used in one Israeli attack in January was US-made and was delivered by an F-16 aircraft that reportedly uses British-made components.

“Israel’s allies need to recognize that these attacks that have killed aid workers have happened over and over again, and they need to stop,” said Belkis Wille, associate director at HRW.

No hospitals operating in northern Gaza

Gaza’s Government Media Office says hospitals are no longer operating in the north of the besieged enclave.

The Israeli military has issued evacuation orders and stepped up attacks in recent days as they’ve launched a new ground operation in northern Gaza, displacing about 100,000 people, according to the UN.

The Jabalia refugee camp has seen intense fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian groups. Displaced civilians say the situation on the ground is “disastrous”, with Israeli forces firing on UNRWA shelters and forcing large numbers of people to flee again.

Nearly 450,000 displaced from Rafah: UNRWA

Nearly 450,000 people have been forced to flee Rafah since May 6, when the Israeli military began massing troops near the city, seizing the border crossing, and ordering evacuations, according to the UN agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).

“People face constant exhaustion, hunger and fear,” said UNRWA in a post on X. “Nowhere is safe. An immediate ceasefire is the only hope”.

US officials say Israel amassed enough troops in Rafah to launch full-scale invasion

Two senior Biden administration officials say the Israeli military has gathered enough troops at the edge of Rafah city to launch a full-scale invasion in the coming days.

However, US officials are unsure if the Israeli military will proceed with a ground invasion after Biden warned that he would withhold arms shipments to Israel if they were to take that step, CNN reports.

The unnamed officials quoted by CNN added that Israel has “not come anywhere close” to making adequate preparations for evacuating Rafah’s population before any invasion, such as “building infrastructure related to food, hygiene and shelter”.

Jordan condemns storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque compound
Stefanie Dekker
Reporting from Amman, Jordan

Al Jazeera is reporting from outside Israel because it has been banned by the Israeli government.

Jordan is the custodian of the holy sites in occupied East Jerusalem.

There’s something called the status quo for Al-Aqsa Mosque which is what Jordan and Israel have agreed upon. That means that non-Muslims can visit the site twice a day during the week, but they cannot pray.

What has changed over the years is the nature of these visits by Israeli far-right-wing ultranationalists. Today is Independence Day in Israel, so you’re seeing more numbers of these right-wing ultranationalists visiting the compound. They’re not allowed to pray, but what they’re doing today is bringing a lot of Israeli flags with them. This again is forbidden and hugely controversial.

Jordan has condemned this, saying it is a violation of the status quo. There are videos where you see at one point one Israeli security force confiscating a flag, but others are just allowed to walk free.

The status quo at Al-Aqsa Mosque compound has the ability to inflame not just Palestine but the wider region. It is a tinderbox.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/14/israels-war-on-gaza-live-14-killed-in-israeli-attack-on-central-gaza-home

>>481553
Wow those Zionist stomping on the food aid packages, that's something else.
So they're really trying to starve over a million people to death on purpose.
That's not something the Zionreich can come back from. Maybe the Egyptian military should force open the Rafah crossing and escort the aid trucks.

>>481554
Egypt is unlikely to do anything like that. Right now they're signing on to South Africa's ICJ case against Israel, but that's most likely just to avoid having to directly engage in war with Israel after Israel took Rafah in violation of the Camp David accords. El-Sisi is also walking a fine line domestically; he wants to keep Egypt in the US pocket, but he also has a population who are more and more pissed about what Israel has been doing and continues to do, and his inaction.

Breaking Points - PANICKED Dems Float ONLINE DNC To Avoid Protests

ICJ to hold hearings over Israel’s Rafah attacks

The UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) will hold hearings on Thursday and Friday to discuss new emergency measures sought by South Africa over Israel’s attacks on Rafah during the war in Gaza.

The hearings on May 16 and 17 will deal with South Africa’s request to the court to order more emergency measures against Israel over its attacks on Rafah, the tribunal said.

The request is part of an ongoing case brought by South Africa against Israel in January, accusing it of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

On Sunday, Egypt joined Turkey and Colombia in formally requesting to join the case against Israel.

‘This is not our Judaism’

Sapir Sluzker Amran, the rights activist who documented the aid convoy looting near Hebron in the occupied West Bank, says Israelis have a “moral duty” to oppose fellow citizens who are committing abuses towards Palestinians.

“I say this with tears because of what happened yesterday [the destruction of aid]. It doesn’t represent many Israelis and many Jews,” Sluzker Amran told Al Jazeera.

“My family is Iraqi. I see grandmothers and grandfathers in Gaza begging for food. We condemn it and we hope to stop it. This is a moral obligation to fight our own people in order to tell them what they are doing is wrong,” she said.

“I will keep organising more people to fight and to say: This is not our Judaism, this is not the society we want to live in,” she added.

“We have to stop this war. We cannot let this bloodshed continue.”

‘The police supported them’: Israeli rights activist on aid convoy looting

Sapir Sluzker Amran, an Israeli human rights lawyer who went to the Tarqumiyah crossing in Hebron to document the looting of a Gaza-bound aid convoy yesterday, has described the scenes to Al Jazeera.

For hours, a group of far-right Israeli activists tore food parcels out of aid trucks and destroyed them, including boxes of rice and noodles headed to desperately hungry people in Gaza.

Police at the scene protected the activists, giving them “full permission to do whatever they wanted”, said Sluzker Amran.

“I didn’t see anyone being arrested. The only one who was asked to leave was me,” she added, noting that the activists also threatened and physically attack her for trying to document the incident.

She said she believes police or security forces fed the activists information on when and where the aid trucks would arrive, with the information being shared openly on social media platforms.

UN says it informed Israel of vehicle that was fatally hit in Gaza

The UN says that it had informed Israeli authorities of the movements of a vehicle carrying UN staff, which was hit in southern Gaza, killing an Indian national.

UN spokesperson Rolando Gomez told a media briefing that a second UN staff member in the vehicle was wounded in the attack, adding that the two had been travelling to the European Hospital in Rafah when their vehicle was hit.

“The UN informs Israeli authorities of the movement of all of our convoys. That has been the case in any theatre of operation. This is a standard operating procedure,” Gomez said, adding it was a “clearly marked UN vehicle”.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report today in which it stated that Israeli forces have attacked humanitarian aid convoys and buildings in the Gaza Strip at least eight times since October despite being given coordinates to ensure their protection.

Israel is attacking known aid worker locations in Gaza, says HRW

Israel’s military has carried out at least eight attacks on aid workers’ convoys and premises in Gaza since October last year, even though the aid groups had provided their coordinates to Israeli authorities, according to a prominent rights group.

Human Rights Watch, in a new report, said Israeli authorities did not issue advance warnings to any of the aid organisations before the attacks, which have killed or wounded at least 31 humanitarian workers and those with them.

It said aid groups allege that a bomb used in one Israeli attack in January was US-made and was delivered by an F-16 aircraft that reportedly uses British-made components.

“Israel’s allies need to recognize that these attacks that have killed aid workers have happened over and over again, and they need to stop,” said Belkis Wille, associate director at HRW.

Norway aims to quadruple aid to Palestinians

The Norwegian government has proposed 1 billion kroner ($92.5m) in aid to Palestinians this year as humanitarian agencies warn of a looming famine in the Gaza Strip.

Figures in the revised budget presented on Tuesday show a roughly quadrupling of the 258 million kroner provided in the initial finance bill adopted last year.

“The urgent need of aid in Gaza is enormous after seven months of war,” Norway’s Minister of International Development, Anne Beathe Tvinnereim, said in a statement. “The food situation in particular is critical and there is a risk of famine,” she added, criticising “an entirely man-made crisis” and an equally “critical” situation in the occupied West Bank.

The figures are still subject to change because the centre-left government, a minority in parliament, has to negotiate with other parties to get the texts adopted.

Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide again warned Israel against a large-scale military operation in Rafah.

“It would be catastrophic for the population. Providing life-saving humanitarian support would become much more difficult and more dangerous,” Barth Eide said.

“The more than one million who have sought refuge in Rafah have already fled multiple times from famine, death and horror. They are now being told to move again, but no place in Gaza is safe.”

Israeli spy balloon downed inside Lebanon

Hezbollah says it has downed an Israeli spy balloon over the northern Israeli kibbutz of Adamit near the border with Lebanon.

The armed group also fired rockets at the balloon’s launch base and “management crew”, it said in a statement cited by Lebanon’s an-Nahar news site.

The Israeli military, in a post on X, acknowledged that one of its “observation balloons” had been downed in Lebanese territory but said there were no concerns information had been compromised.

MSF ceases services at Rafah hospital amid Israeli attacks

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, says in a statement that it has been “forced to stop providing healthcare at Rafah Indonesian Field Hospital” as of Sunday.

“MSF has seen a pattern of systematic attacks against medical facilities and civilian infrastructure since the beginning of the war. In light of this, as well as the advancing offensive, we have made the decision to leave Rafah Indonesian Field hospital,” the statement continued.

It said the 22 patients who remained at the hospital have been referred to other facilities and MSF can “no longer guarantee their safety”.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/14/israels-war-on-gaza-live-14-killed-in-israeli-attack-on-central-gaza-home

>>481556
>Egypt is unlikely to do anything like that.
If they went in and Isreal backed off, they'd score a big win. This would be a bluff, but would the Zionists really try to call it ?
>El-Sisi is also walking a fine line domestically;
Best way to piss off everybody.
>he wants to keep Egypt in the US pocket, but he also has a population who are more and more pissed about what Israel has been doing and continues to do, and his inaction.
I get the impression that the US doesn't want Israel slaughtering Rafah, because the diplomatic fallout for the US is enormous already, they might not anger the US if they nudge the Zionists a little bit.

>>481556
>Right now they're signing on to South Africa's ICJ case against Israel, but that's most likely just to avoid
It's diplomatic pressure, that is something slow, that builds up overtime before it begins having tangible effects. Don't dismiss it because it doesn't work as an emergency measure.

There is no world government that can enforce laws. The basis for international law is that cooperative behavior is more efficient than might-is-right arm-twisting. The countries that play the cooperative game gain a compounding efficiency advantage over time and the might-is-right actors will get marginalized in the end.

Qassam Brigades claims series of attacks on Israeli forces

Hamas’ armed wing says on its Telegram channel its fighters:

destroyed an Israeli troop carrier with a Yassin-105 rocket in Rafah’s eastern al-Salam neighbourhood, killing some crew members and injuring others
blew up an Israeli military bulldozer east of Rafah
shelled a group of Israeli soldiers and military vehicles east of Jabalia, in northern Gaza
targeted a Merkava tank with a Yassin-105 rocket northeast of Jabalia
shot and wounded an Israeli soldier with sniper fire east of Jabalia

‘We are paying the price for a war that we have nothing to do with’

British charity Save the Children has issued a statement with the account of a staff member in Gaza describing the dire conditions faced by its forcibly displaced population:

Here’s what they said:

“This is the fifth time we have been forced to move, following the new relocation orders. We were first displaced from Gaza to Khan Younis, then to different areas in Rafah, and now to Deir el-Balah. This is destroying us mentally. I have a son with me, and my mother who is 70 years old. Every time we start to get used to a place, we are forced to move again.

“My mother has diabetes and high blood pressure. She’s lacking the medication she needs but we can’t find it anywhere. It feels like we are being killed slowly. Our children are missing out on their life, education, they are experiencing lack of stability, forced displacement, fear. I can’t explain what it feels like living through this for the fifth time. We are paying the price for a war that we have nothing to do with.”

Ben-Gvir: Israel must return to the Gaza Strip

Israel’s far-right national security minister’s comments came during a speech at a rally for the resettlement of the Gaza Strip in Sderot, Israel.

“So that the problem [of Gaza] does not return, two things must be done: return to the Gaza Strip and encourage the voluntary departure of the residents of Gaza. This is moral, rational and humanitarian,” he said.

Ben-Gvir then took aim at the allowance of aid into the Strip, which Israel’s closest allies have demanded Israel expand.

“I am ashamed that I am the only one in the cabinet who voted against the transfer of shipments to Gaza through Kerem Shalom (Karen Abu Salem aid crossing). Do you want humanitarianism? Return the abductees.”

Palestinian truckers fear for safety after Israelis attack Gaza aid convoys

Palestinian hauliers have said they feared for the security of aid convoys to Gaza, a day after Israeli settlers wrecked trucks carrying humanitarian supplies bound for the besieged enclave, which is on the cusp of famine.

Footage circulated on social media showed at least one burning truck while other images showed trucks wrecked and stripped of their loads, which lay strewn over the road near Tarqumiyah Israeli military checkpoint outside Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

“Yesterday there was coordination for 70 trucks of aid to go the Gaza Strip,” Waseem al-Jabari, head of the Hebron Food Trade Association, told Reuters.

“While the trucks were uploaded with products at the crossing settlers attacked the trucks and they destroyed the products and set fire in trucks,” he said, saying Israeli soldiers had stood by as the attack took place.

Palestinians and human rights groups have long accused the Israeli military and police of deliberately failing to intervene when settlers attack Palestinians in the West Bank.

Adel Amer, a member of the West Bank-based hauliers’ union, said around 15 trucks had been damaged by Israeli protestors who beat some drivers and caused about two million dollars worth of damage.

“The drivers are now refusing to take goods to Gaza because they’re afraid,” he said. “It’s a disaster here because of the settlers.”

Even when the military was present, the convoys were still at risk, he said. “The army says we cannot do anything to the settlers.”

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/14/israels-war-on-gaza-live-14-killed-in-israeli-attack-on-central-gaza-home

>>481567
I'm not dismissing it, I think it's good. It's just also a deliberate bare minimum. They could do less, technically, but I think it would be politically incredibly risky to do less.

Gaza War Sit Rep Day 220: Nasrallah Speaks and Battles Rage
contains analysis on a recent Nasrallah speech.

"''Now in Jerusalem: Undercover police dressed as Ultra Orthodox arrest an anti Zionist Jew during a protest against the State of israel in the Mea She'arim neighborhood
''"

https://twitter.com/OrenZiv_/status/1790439227227844867

This guy performed a surprise IDF-critical interview like a week or two ago. Bimbofication is real and it's a process western liberals undergo every time they want to shift back to running apologia and denialism for the Zionist regime, critical to credulous in an instant. Even Kurt Cobain couldn't lose brain cells this fast.

PFLP repping Che Guevara and firing missiles at IOF

US moving ahead with more than $1bn in weapons for Israel: Reports

The State Department is moving ahead with a more than $1bn package of weapons aid to Israel – including tank rounds, mortars and armoured tactical vehicles – US officials told domestic media.

The package, which is yet to be approved, includes the potential transfer of $700m in tank ammunition, $500m in tactical vehicles and $60m in mortar rounds.

Two anonymous US officials confirmed separately to the Reuters news agency that the weapons aid package had been moved into the congressional review process. Members of the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs committees review major foreign weapons deals in the US.

The news weapons package comes after President Joe Biden said last week that the US had delayed a single shipment of 1,800 2,000-pound (907kg) bombs and 1,700 500-pound (227kg) bombs to Israel over concerns they may be used against civilians in Israel’s invasion of Rafah.

Gaza death toll now 35,233

At least 35,233 people have been killed in Gaza by Israeli attacks since October 7 with 79,141 wounded, the Health Ministry in the besieged enclave announced.

It added that at least 60 people were killed in Gaza by Israeli forces in the last 24 hours.

Belgium favours total EU ban on weapons to Israel

Belgium’s development cooperation minister has said Brussels, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, backs a complete ban on EU weapons exports to Israel but is facing resistance from other EU members.

“It is very clear that Belgium is in favour of a full weapons ban but some member states are still exporting,” Caroline Gennez said on a visit to the Jordanian capital, according to comments carried by The National newspaper.

“Israel has the right to defend itself. On the other hand, it is not allowed to punish an entire population for what happened on October 7,” said Gennez.

Germany, by far the bloc’s biggest military exporter to Israel, defended its shipments at the International Court of Justice in April in a case brought against it by Nicaragua.

However, Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius indicated last week that Berlin is weighing pausing some arms shipments to Israel following its Rafah operation.

Houthis say they targeted US warship in Red Sea

Yemen’s Houthis say they targeted a US warship and a vessel called “Destiny” in the Red Sea.

The group has launched repeated drone and missile attacks on vessels in the crucial shipping channels of the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden since November in what it says is a campaign of solidarity with Palestinians and against Israel’s war on Gaza.

Ireland to recognise Palestinian statehood in May: Foreign minister

Micheal Martin, Ireland’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister, has said his country will be recognising the state of Palestine “before the end of the month”.

“The specific date is still fluid because we’re still in discussions with some countries in respect of a joint recognition of a Palestinian state,” he told the Newstalk radio station.

“It will become clear in the next few days as to the specific date but it certainly will be before the end of this month.

In March, the leaders of Ireland, Malta, Slovakia and Spain said in a joint statement that they stand ready to recognise Palestinian statehood. Last week, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Ireland, Slovenia and Spain planned to symbolically recognise a Palestinian state on May 21, with others potentially following suit.

Amnesty says Palestinians’ right of return endures 76 years on from Nakba

Israel’s ongoing displacement of nearly two million Palestinians in Gaza highlights its historic denial of Palestinians’ legal right of return, said Amnesty International in a statement marking the Nakba.

“This Nakba day the fate of Palestinians is more perilous than ever – dispossessed and subjected to systematic human rights violations under a brutal occupation – with those in Gaza also facing the imminent risk of genocide and grappling with famine,” said Amnesty’s Erika Guevara Rosas.

“That’s why today, it is more important than ever to make a resounding call for Palestinians’ right to return and to remind the world that Israel has been denying them this legitimate right, in flagrant violation of international law, for more than 76 years.”

Sirens sound throughout Palestinian territories to commemorate the Nakba

Sirens have gone off throughout Palestinian cities for 76 seconds, marking the 76 years that have passed since the “Nakba” in 1948.

As the sirens went off in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, “everyone fell silent and raised two fingers in the air” reports Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, from the city where a large crowd has congregated in the streets for the occasion.

It is “a very clear sign that there can only be peace in victory and that only victory will bring peace”, said Basravi.

Projectile launched from Gaza causes damage in Sderot: Israeli military

The Israeli military said earlier today “two projectiles” were launched from the Gaza Strip towards the city of Sderot in southern Israel.

Initially, the military said its air defences had intercepted the projectiles but it later reported that one of them landed in the city and “caused damage”.

No casualties have been reported.

EU urges Israel to end Rafah attack ‘immediately’

The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has issued a statement warning Israel that a failure to end the military operation in the Gaza Strip’s southernmost city would undermine ties with the bloc.

“The European Union is calling on Israel to refrain from further exacerbating the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and reopen the crossing point of Rafah. Should Israel continue its military operation in Rafah, it would inevitably put a heavy strain on the EU’s relationship with Israel,” it said.

Borrell said the Rafah offensive is “further disrupting the distribution of humanitarian aid” and is causing “more internal displacement, exposure to famine and human suffering”.

His statement also called on all parties to increase their efforts to achieve an immediate ceasefire and the unconditional release of all captives.

UN launches probe into strike that killed first international staff in Gaza

The UN has launched an investigation into an attack on Monday that killed a retired Indian army officer, marking the first foreign national working for the organisation to die in Gaza since October 7.

Waibhav Anil Kale, who was working with the UN Department of Safety and Security, was en route to the European Hospital near Rafah in a UN-marked vehicle when it came under fire.

The Israeli military has said the incident is under review and is yet to confirm whether its forces were responsible, but it told Israeli media that the victims were killed “amid fighting in an area defined as an active combat zone”.

The Israeli military also claimed that the UN failed to inform them of the vehicle’s route, as is standard procedure to avoid such incidents. The UN has refuted this claim.

Ten killed by shelling of UNRWA clinic in Gaza City

Our colleagues on the ground are reporting that Israeli shelling targeted a UNRWA clinic in Gaza City’s Sabra neighbourhood, killing at least 10 displaced Palestinians.

The UNRWA said Israel’s military has repeatedly struck its facilities during the war, damaging 171 of them.

We’ll bring you more information on the latest Israeli attack shortly.

Australian senator breaks ranks, accuses Israel of ‘genocide’

Senator Fatima Payman has become the first member of the Australian Labor Party to call Israel’s war on Gaza a “genocide”, and called for her colleagues to “stand for what is right”.

In a thinly veiled swipe at her party leader, Australia’s PM Anthony Albanese, Payman criticised “performative gestures” on the issue and “gaslighting” about Israel’s right to self-defence.

“My conscience has been uneasy for far too long and I must call this out for what it is,” she said. “This is a genocide and we need to stop pretending otherwise. The lack of clarity, the moral confusion, the indecisiveness is eating at the heart of this nation.”

Hezbollah confirms senior field commander killed in Israeli attack

Israel’s military has named a Hezbollah member who was killed after it carried out an air strike targeting his vehicle in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre.

In a statement carried by the pro-Iranian channel Al Mayadeen, Hezbollah also confirmed Hussain Ibrahim Mekky was killed by Israeli fire. A statement by Lebanon’s National News Agency said another person was also killed in the Israeli strike.

Israel said Mekky was a senior field commander for Hezbollah’s southern front, accusing him of planning and executing attacks on Israeli territory.

Palestinian fighters carry out ‘very high daily rate of attacks’ on Israeli forces in Gaza

Palestinian armed groups have “preserved or rebuilt” their fighters and weaponry required to challenge Israeli military operations in northern Gaza, war monitors say, adding that the groups fighting in Jabalia report carrying out – on average – 28 attacks each day on Israeli forces since May 11.

In the latest battlefield assessment from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP), the two US-based defence think tanks continue to emphasise that Palestinian armed groups are far from vanquished, and now rebuilding, despite months of war with a vastly better-equipped Israeli army.

“Palestinian militias are sustaining a very high daily rate of attacks targeting Israeli forces in Jabalia,” the ISW/CTP said, noting that Israel’s military is conducting “two re-clearing operations” in the north of the Gaza Strip, where it claimed in December that it had defeated Hamas.

Also, on Tuesday, Palestinian fighters carried out four “indirect fire attacks” from Gaza towards Israel, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad firing rockets from northern Gaza towards Israel’s Sderot area.

ICC prosecutor faces demands for action against Israel at UN Security Council

The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor Karim Khan faced demands for swift action against Israeli leaders at the UN Security Council on Tuesday, the Associated Press news agency reports.

Libya’s UN ambassador, Taher El-Sonni, said genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity are being perpetrated by Israeli forces and the world expects the ICC “to be courageous and to issue arrest warrants against officials of the Israeli regime”.

“Don’t you see the threats against civilians, the potential threats against civilians in Rafah and the massacre that would happen at any time?”

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused the ICC of accomplishing nothing since it began a preliminary examination of abuses in the Palestinian territories in 2015 and a formal investigation in 2021.

Algeria’s deputy UN ambassador, Nacim Gaouaoui, expressed hope the ICC would take “a serious approach” to its Palestinian investigations and “demonstrate that it is not a tool used by some members of the international community to threaten whoever they want.”

Khan responded by telling the council that he will not be swayed or intimidated as his team investigates possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and the Palestinian territories as well as in Ukraine and elsewhere.

Gaza European Hospital ‘out of service’ due to fuel shortages

The electricity generators at the European Hospital near Rafah have stopped working due to fuel shortages, putting the hospital “out of service”, the Wafa news agency reports, citing medical sources.

It said the fuel shortages were “threatening the lives of hundreds of wounded and sick people inside” the medical complex in southern Gaza.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/15/israels-war-on-gaza-live-new-nakba-as-hundreds-of-thousands-flee-attacks

Videos show Palestinian fighters in dramatic attacks on Israeli tanks in Rafah

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic have obtained and verified video clips showing members of the Qassam Brigades – the military wing of Hamas – carrying out daring attacks against Israeli tanks and bulldozers in the ongoing battle for Rafah city.

In one video, Palestinian fighters can be seen emerging from a tunnel in the earth nearby to parked Israeli tanks. The fighters rush towards the tanks with what appear to be antitank mines, which they prime for detonation before fleeing.

A fighter then fires a rocket-propelled grenade at another Israeli tank before all three escape back into the tunnel.

https://twitter.com/AJA_Palestine/status/1790466836414529564
https://twitter.com/AJA_Palestine/status/1790467199997771834

Australia state parliament bans MPs from wearing Palestinian keffiyeh

The parliament in Australia’s state of Victoria has voted to ban members from wearing the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh and other symbols representing Palestine in the legislative chamber, members of the Australian Greens Party said.

Greens MPs took to social media to protest the ruling, which one MP said was designed to “silence us”.

Greens party leader in Victoria Ellen Sandell said the ban “makes us one of the only parliaments in the world to ban the keffiyeh – on Nakba day, a day that marks the displacement of Palestinian people”.

“Victorians have watched in horror at the atrocities unfolding in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli military. Yet Labor [Victoria and the country’s governing party] has signed a secretive MoU with Israeli Ministry of Defence & given $ to Israeli weapons companies,” Sandell said on social media.

Sandell said the Greens will move in parliament to make the memorandum of understanding with the Israeli military public.

UNRWA headquarters faces ‘another arson attempt’ by Israelis

Israeli arsonists once again attacked the headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in occupied East Jerusalem last night, according to the agency’s chief Philippe Lazzarini.

“Another arson attempt by Israeli children and young people on @UNRWA in #Jerusalem last night. This has got to stop,” he said in a post.

On May 9, Lazzarini announced the agency would temporarily close its headquarters after several arson attacks in recent weeks and growing threats of violence against UN staff.

https://twitter.com/UNLazzarini/status/1790475399480082787

Gaza solidarity encampment dismantled at University of California, Berkeley

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators were seen dismantling their Gaza solidarity encampment at Berkeley amid reports that administrations had agreed to meet with the protesters, though no other details about the conditions of the meeting were known, the Reuters news agency reports.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/15/israels-war-on-gaza-live-new-nakba-as-hundreds-of-thousands-flee-attacks

>>481581
I really don't get how orthodox Jews ended up in Israel in the first place if they hate it so much.

>>481582
Iirc there were some ultra-Orthodox there before it was Israel. Israel also has endeavored to bring Jews from outside communities there, and of course there are the ops Israel ran in neighboring countries to scare Jews into migration. It also has free healthcare and other free stuff, and ultra-Orthodox Jews are exempt from military service because of their objections. It's not the land that's the problem, it's afaik that they don't consider it to be Israel, and they see Zionism as essentially a heresy against Judaism, modern nationalism disguised as religious prophecy without actually fulfilling it. The atrocities don't help either.

>>481581
>Palestinian fighters can be seen emerging from a tunnel in the earth nearby to parked Israeli tanks. The fighters rush towards the tanks with what appear to be antitank mines, which they prime for detonation before fleeing.
>A fighter then fires a rocket-propelled grenade at another Israeli tank before all three escape back into the tunnel.

Their tunnel warfare game is strong. They're using ww1 weapons and are beating 1980s tank technology.

>>481581
>The parliament in Australia’s state of Victoria has voted to ban members from wearing the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh and other symbols representing Palestine in the legislative chamber, members of the Australian Greens Party said.
The battle of words game is weak in this one.
<bourgeois dictatorship installs fashion police

First Jewish Biden appointee publicly resigns over Gaza war policy

A US Interior Department staffer has become the first Jewish political appointee to publicly resign in protest of the country’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

Lily Greenberg Call is a special assistant to the chief of staff in the Department of the Interior. She accuses President Joe Biden of using Jews to justify US policy in the conflict.

She is at least the fifth mid- or senior-level administration staffer to make public their resignation in protest of the Biden administration’s military and diplomatic support of the now seven-month-long Israeli war.

In her resignation letter delivered Wednesday, she said she “can no longer in good conscience continue to represent this administration”.

“I think the president has to know that there are people in his administration who think this is disastrous,” Call said of the war overall and US support for it. “Not just for Palestinians, for Israelis, for Jews, [but also] for Americans, for [Biden’s] election prospects.”

New settler attack on Gaza-bound aid convoy

Al Jazeera’s correspondent reports that settlers have attacked aid trucks as they were heading to Gaza via Jerusalem.

The correspondent reported that they attacked a truck driver near the Beit El military checkpoint, north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

We will bring you updates on this incident as we get more information.

The attack comes just days after a mob of Israeli settlers looted aid trucks near Hebron, also in the West Bank, destroying their cargo and then setting them on fire. For more on that incident, watch our video below:

Beirut protesters mark 76th anniversary of the Nakba

Pro-Palestine protesters in Beirut marched to mark the 76th anniversary of the Nakba, Reuters reports.

The demonstration began outside the American University of Beirut and reached its final destination outside the British Embassy in the city.

This year’s commemoration has been dominated by the plight of around two million Palestinians in Gaza, most of whom are living in temporary shelters after being displaced from their homes by the Israeli war.

The seven-month-long war, which has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians and displaced most of the population, has drawn fears among many of a second Nakba in which they would be forced from the besieged coastal enclave altogether.

Protesters gather at university in Paris for Nakba day

Video posted by French media shows a gathering of people at Paris’s Sorbonne University to commemorate Nakba Day, when 76 years ago Palestinians were uprooted from their homes and lands in a series of violent episodes.

Protesters angry about Israel’s war on Gaza have been gathering at Sorbonne University since late last month, when the global campus Gaza encampment protests spread there.

https://twitter.com/LeMediaTV/status/1790780318154096944

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/15/israels-war-on-gaza-live-new-nakba-as-hundreds-of-thousands-flee-attacks

>>481580
>ICC prosecutor faces demands for action against Israel at UN Security Council
All the countries that want this to happen for real, have to commit military forces to protect the place that houses the ICC and body guards that would ensure protection for the ICC staff.

Israeli opposition leader says gov’t is losing control

Yair Lapid has said that as long as the Netanyahu government is in power, Israel will not be able to win the war in Gaza.

His comments came after Defence Minister Yoav Gallant rejected the possibility of Israeli civil or military governance of post-war Gaza.

“The government has lost control,” Lapid wrote in a post on X. “Soldiers are being killed every day in Gaza and they fight among themselves on television. The cabinet is disassembled and non-functional. Ministers protest in front of cabinet meetings.”

“One cabinet sends humanitarian aid convoys and the other burns them,” he added. “Relations with the US are collapsing, the middle class is collapsing, they have lost the north”.

“We can’t go on like this. We will not win with this government.”

Israeli settlers attack truck driver in occupied West Bank

Earlier we reported on an attack on aid trucks headed to Gaza in the occupied West Bank.

According to new information, it appears that Israeli settlers attacked commercial trucks with Palestinian drivers and not aid trucks.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted a security source as saying the settlers thought the truck was carrying humanitarian aid. The attack took place near the Israeli settlement of Givat Assaf.

https://twitter.com/haaretznewsvid/status/1790799703270912279

Hezbollah says it launched drones at military base west of Israel’s Tiberias

This is the deepest attack into Israeli territory since the Lebanese group and Israel began exchanging fire in parallel with the war on Gaza.

Hezbollah said it was targeting part of a surveillance system used by the Israeli air force, and that the swarm of attack drones “hit its limited targets accurately and accomplished what it wanted in this limited operation”.

The attack came a day after an Israeli attack killed a Hezbollah field commander, Hussein Mekki, in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah said on Wednesday that its drone attack was in response to “assassinations” carried out by Israel, but did not specify that it was in retaliation for Mekki’s killing.

South Africa seeks halt to Israel’s Rafah offensive at World Court

South Africa will ask the top UN court to order a halt to the Rafah offensive as part of its case in The Hague accusing Israel of genocide in the Gaza Strip.

The hearings at the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, come after South Africa last week asked for additional emergency measures to protect Rafah, a southern Gaza city where more than 1.5 million Palestinians had been sheltering.

On Thursday, South Africa will present its latest intervention-seeking emergency measures starting at 3pm (13:00 GMT). Israel, which has denounced South Africa’s claim that it is violating the 1949 Genocide Convention as baseless, will respond on Friday.

US-Muslim rights group to target Texas governor over Gaza

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says it is filing a legal complaint challenging Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s “unlawful executive order targeting student advocates for Palestine”.

“The order targets student advocates for Palestine and directs universities to punish students and organizations that are critical of Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza,” CAIR said in a statement.

Protesters place fake bodies at home of University of Michigan official

Pro-Palestine demonstrators wearing masks pitched tents and placed fake bloody corpses outside the home of a University of Michigan board member, raising tension with the school.

Sarah Hubbard, chair of the university’s governing board, said the 6am demonstration at her home in Okemos involved 30 people.

“They approached my home and taped a letter to my front door and proceeded to erect the tents. A variety of other things were left in the front yard,” Hubbard said. “They started chanting with their bullhorn and pounding on a drum in my otherwise quiet neighbourhood.”

She and her husband stayed inside. The protesters left 45 minutes later when police arrived. No arrests were made.

Fighting erupts during pro-Palestinian march to Israeli embassy in Greece

Greek police have clashed with protesters during a pro-Palestinian march to the Israeli embassy in Athens.

More than 2,500 people marched through the streets of Greece’s capital to the embassy carrying Palestinian flags and chanting, “Free Palestine!”

A group of protesters broke off from the march, which was largely peaceful, and hurled stones at police who had formed a security cordon outside the embassy. Police fired tear gas to disperse them. Three people were detained during the brief clashes, a police official said.

Earlier this month, violence broke out during a pro-Palestinian rally in central Athens, a day after the Israeli military launched a ground assault on Rafah in the Gaza Strip.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/15/israels-war-on-gaza-live-new-nakba-as-hundreds-of-thousands-flee-attacks

Jewish Biden appointee who resigned says US president has ‘blood on his hands’
Shihab Rattansi
Reporting from Washington, DC, United States

Lily Greenberg Call is the first “Biden appointee” to resign as a result of Joe Biden’s complete acquiescence to Israel’s slaughter in Gaza.

Actually, another Jewish member of the US administration did resign – a career military officer in the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Greenberg Call talks in her resignation letter about how she was a true believer in the Biden administration having worked on Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.

However, she writes that she can no longer, in good conscience, continue to represent this administration amidst President Biden’s disastrous, continued support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

She actually goes on to say that President Biden has the blood of innocent people on his hands.

And she particularly centres her opposition on being Jewish. In particular, she is very triggered by President Biden’s consistent conflation of Jewishness and supporting what Israel is doing in Gaza.

Biden, she writes, is making Jews the face of the American war machine – and that is so deeply wrong. And she says that both Biden and Israel are making Jews less safe around the world.

Israel carried out 80 attacks on aid in Gaza since January

The research group Forensic Architecture said it has identified at least 80 separate attacks by Israeli forces targeting humanitarian aid in Gaza since January.

The attacks include at least 37 against civilians seeking aid, all near the Israeli-controlled checkpoints on Salah al-Din Street and al-Rashid Street in northern Gaza.

“The frequency and widespread nature of these attacks suggests that Israel is systematically targeting aid,” the group said.

Italian chef Gabriele Rubini says he was attacked by ‘Zionists’

Prominent Italian chef Gabriele Rubini, better known as Chef Rubio, has said that he was ambushed by a group of “Zionists” outside his home in Italy.

The television personality – who has labelled Israel a “fascist” state, was arrested for his pro-Palestine activism and had been accused of anti-Semitism – posted a video on X showing his bloodied face and swollen eye after the attack.

“Terrorists. These are the Zionist Jews. Six of them waited for me outside the house and cut the gate wires to massacre me,” he wrote.

Other posts on the celebrity chef’s social media page showed the inside of a vehicle strewn with glasses from broken windows and him later in hospital with a bandage on a head wound and flashing a V sign for “victory” with the fingers of his right hand.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/16/israels-war-on-gaza-live-mass-displacement-as-israelis-intensify-assaults

>>481589
>Israeli opposition leader says gov’t is losing control
>Yair Lapid has said that as long as the Netanyahu government is in power, Israel will not be able to win the war in Gaza.
>His comments came after Defence Minister Yoav Gallant rejected the possibility of Israeli civil or military governance of post-war Gaza.
>“The government has lost control,” Lapid wrote in a post on X. “Soldiers are being killed every day in Gaza and they fight among themselves on television. The cabinet is disassembled and non-functional. Ministers protest in front of cabinet meetings.”
>“One cabinet sends humanitarian aid convoys and the other burns them,” he added. “Relations with the US are collapsing, the middle class is collapsing, they have lost the north”.
>“We can’t go on like this. We will not win with this government.”

well Fascism turns out to be a shit show again
what a surprise
who could have possibly seen that coming

>>481590
>And she particularly centres her opposition on being Jewish. In particular, she is very triggered by President Biden’s consistent conflation of Jewishness and supporting what Israel is doing in Gaza.
>Biden, she writes, is making Jews the face of the American war machine – and that is so deeply wrong. And she says that both Biden and Israel are making Jews less safe around the world.
DING
DING
DING

Can we update the definition of antisemitism to include conflating Jewishness with Zionism

LIVE NOW: LIVE: ICJ hears South Africa's demand to halt Israel’s Rafah offensive

‘We cannot leave case halfway,’ says South African minister on new ICJ appeal

South Africa’s minister of social development says the country is returning to the ICJ, where it will today request additional measures to end Israel’s Rafah invasion because it cannot leave its job undone as Israeli attacks intensify in the enclave’s last refuge.

South Africa went to the ICJ in January to try to “halt this genocide, but unfortunately, this has not happened”, Lindiwe Zulu told Al Jazeera.

“There’s been absolutely no respect for the action that we took … no respect for the ICJ,” she said, adding that Israel has only “escalated” its attacks on Gaza since the court’s ruling in January. “We believe we cannot leave it halfway.”

Zulu said South Africa’s latest appeal calls for Israel to urgently halt its attacks in Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians reside, and ensure civilians receive aid.

Beyond that, the case is meant to add momentum to the global pro-Palestinian solidarity movement, boosted by student protesters, and press the international community to take further action.

Swedish city proposes ban on purchases from Israel

Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter is reporting that the governing body of the country’s second-largest city, Gothenburg, wants to stop buying goods from Israel.

A coalition that includes the Swedish Social Democratic Party, Left Party and the Green Party, who have a majority in the municipality’s governing committee, has proposed that the city phase out all purchases of goods originating in states that illegally occupy other states.

“Israel is conducting an illegal occupation of the West Bank that has only worsened in the shadow of the widespread killing of civilians in Gaza,” Jonas Attenius, chairman of the municipal board in Gothenburg, said in a press release. “Our tax money should not go to financially support occupation forces.”

The proposal would also affect purchases from Russia and Morocco.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/16/israels-war-on-gaza-live-mass-displacement-as-israelis-intensify-assaults

What to expect at the ICJ hearing today

As we’ve been reporting, the ICJ will hold at 13:00 GMT a public hearing over the extra emergency measures sought by South Africa against Israel’s attacks on Rafah during its war on Gaza.

We’ve spoken to William Schabas, a professor of international law at Middlesex University whose work focuses on human rights and international criminal law, to unpack the case. Here’s what he said:

This will be the fourth request by South Africa for provisional measures. At the end of January, they were successful in getting an order and they again obtained an additional order late in March.
They will be presenting before the court this afternoon in The Hague that the circumstances have developed and evolved now where they are essentially claiming that this is the end of Gaza and with the threatened destruction of Rafah that this is sort of the final stage.
So they are asking for a renewed order and, in particular, they are focusing on a requirement of a ceasefire, that the military activities stop altogether.
The court has clearly indicated the urgency of the matter. The application was filed on Friday of last week and they’ve set a hearing for today, five days later.
This is extremely unusual; they haven’t responded with the same kind of urgency before so it shows that the court is taking this as a very serious matter.
Note: You will be able to follow the proceedings at the ICJ in our separate live coverage starting in a few hours. Stay tuned for details.

Israeli jets continue bombardment in Jabalia

Israeli air strikes have continued to pound northern Gaza’s Jabalia, where Israeli soldiers have engaged in fierce gun battles with Palestinian fighters.

A video posted on Instagram by Palestinian activist Mohamed Ahmed, and verified by Al Jazeera, shows smoke rising over targeted buildings in central Jabalia on Thursday morning.

Yesterday, Israeli tanks and troops pushed deep into densely populated neighbourhoods of Jabalia, encountering fierce resistance, as Israeli jets frequently raided parts of the city.

One Israeli strike hit a family home, killing at least four people in addition to causing injuries, according to Wafa news agency.

WFP suspends food distribution in Rafah

The UN’s food agency says it has run out of stocks in southern Rafah and has suspended food aid distributions there since May 11.

Food deliveries are still ongoing in Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah, it said, but in a limited capacity.

Earlier, we brought you an update from the WFP, which said its food and fuel stocks in all of Gaza are set to run out within a matter of days. This is due to the Israeli seizure and closure of the Rafah-Egypt border crossing and the limited entry of supplies through the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing from Israel into Gaza.

Israel launches investigation into soldiers killed by ‘friendly fire’

We now have more information on news of Israeli “friendly fire” that killed five of its soldiers in northern Gaza on Wednesday.

“Five soldiers of the 202nd Paratrooper Battalion were killed last night in a mass casualty incident as a result of fire by our forces,” the Israeli military said in a statement, adding that seven other troops were wounded.

According to a preliminary investigation, two Israeli tanks in the area opened fire on a house used by the Israeli battalion’s deputy commander, the military said.

“The shooting consisted of two tank shells,” it said. “From the initial investigation … it appears that the tank fighters identified a gun barrel coming out of one of the windows in the building, and directed each other to shoot at the building.”

The latest fatalities take to 278 the number of Israeli troops killed in the Gaza military campaign since the start of the ground offensive on October 27.

Israeli ‘clearing’ operations in Jabalia target of mounting Palestinian attacks: Monitors

Palestinian fighters say they have carried out the largest number of attacks per day on Israeli forces operating in the Jabalia refugee camp since the start of the Gaza ground invasion, war monitors report.

Palestinian armed groups reported carrying out 34 attacks on Wednesday against Israeli forces who re-entered the northern Gaza camp on Saturday in a renewed push to “clear” resistance from northern parts of the Palestinian territory.

With Palestinian attacks average 30 daily, “this marks the highest rate of claimed attacks per day in Jabalia since the war began”, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP) said in their latest battlefield report.

In southern Rafah city, Israeli forces discovered a Hamas facility containing “models of Israeli Merkava tanks and armoured personnel carriers”, which were used in the training of Palestinian fighters, the US-based think tanks report.

The report also notes that Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi has likened Israel’s “clearing” operations in Gaza to an unachievable, “Sisyphean task”.

Israeli soldiers attack Palestinian farmers near Bethlehem

Israeli forces have attacked a number of Palestinian farmers south of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, Wafa news agency is reporting.

Jaafar Assi, 55, said Israeli forces attacked him and a number of other farmers while they were working on their land with grape vines in Wadi al-Diyar, adjacent to the illegal Israeli settlement of Efrat, located on the lands of the town of al-Khader.

He said Israeli forces threatened them with arrest and confiscation of vehicles and equipment if they returned to working on their land, adding that this is the third time Israeli forces have attacked them during the grape season this year.

Assi said these lands constitute about 80 percent of al-Khader’s agricultural lands, and that Israeli authorities were trying to empty them.

More than 15,000 children killed in Gaza: Red Crescent

The Palestine Red Crescent Society has reported that more than 15,000 children have been killed in Gaza.

Since October 7, more than 35,000 people have been killed by Israeli attacks on the besieged enclave. About 500 Palestinians have also been killed in attacks by Israeli forces and settlers across the occupied West Bank.

Arrests as US police storm pro-Palestine campus protests

Police in the US arrested students at an encampment set up at the University of California, Irvine in support of a ceasefire in Gaza. This comes after hundreds of students closed off a lecture hall on the campus on Wednesday.

The university is one of many across the country where protesters have been demanding that institutions divest from Israeli companies.

Students at the University of Florida in Gainesville have also been demonstrating against the war in Gaza, ignoring the university’s orders not to do so.

Hezbollah carries out its deepest strike in Israel
Zeina Khodr
Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon

In the past 24 hours, Hezbollah has carried out its deepest strike in Israel using what the Israeli army said were two armed drones.

One was downed by Israel’s air defences and the other hit a “sensitive military facility near the Golani Junction, west of Tiberias” some 35km (22 miles) from the Lebanon border.

Hezbollah says the attack was a response to recent Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon that killed its members.

Israel responded to the Golani Junction strike by carrying out at least 15 strikes overnight in Baalbek region, eastern Lebanon. According to the army, a weapons manufacturing plant used to build guided munitions and a drone was among the targets.

CENTCOM announces Gaza floating aid pier has been anchored

The US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) has announced that a new US-built, temporary humanitarian aid pier was anchored to the beach in Gaza this morning.

It said trucks carrying humanitarian assistance are expected to “begin moving ashore in the coming days”, with the aid set to be received and distributed by the UN.

Relief groups have warned that the plan – which aims to boost aid deliveries to the besieged enclave – faces the same challenges that they do, namely a lack of safety and fuel.

Danger, uncertainty lie ahead for US effort to bring in aid through floating pier
The US is aiming to have a floating pier off the coast of Gaza operational within the coming days, but relief groups are warning that the plan – which aims to boost aid deliveries – faces the same challenges that they do, namely a lack of safety and fuel.

“Once you get food or supplies into the Gaza Strip, whether it’s from the pier or [border] crossing points, there is no security and … there’s no fuel,” Bob Kitchen, the International Rescue Committee’s vice president for emergencies, told the Reuters news agency.

And because land crossings could bring in all the needed aid if Israeli officials allowed, the US-built pier and sea route “is a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist”, said Scott Paul, an associate director of the Oxfam humanitarian organisation.

“Like all of the land crossings, it comes down to the consent of the government of Israel” on allowing aid through its screening process and ensuring aid teams are safe to distribute it within Gaza, Paul told The Associated Press news agency.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/16/israels-war-on-gaza-live-mass-displacement-as-israelis-intensify-assaults

>>481595
>This will be the fourth request by South Africa for provisional measures.
>So they are asking for a renewed order and, in particular, they are focusing on a requirement of a ceasefire, that the military activities stop altogether.
>The court has clearly indicated the urgency of the matter. The application was filed on Friday of last week and they’ve set a hearing for today, five days later.
>This is extremely unusual; they haven’t responded with the same kind of urgency before so it shows that the court is taking this as a very serious matter.

South Africa is in some ways trying to protect Israel from it self.
I think the politics of the entire region are at a turning point, if the Zionists complete the Gaza genocide by clearing out Rafah, that will set off the geo-political motion of Israel getting squeezed out, slowly and methodically.

Breaking news and analysis on day 222 of Gaza's Al-Aqsa Flood | The Electronic Intifada Podcast

Israeli soldiers view evacuation areas as ‘extermination zones’: Lawyer

A lawyer for South Africa at the genocide case at the World Court says there has been one child killed or wounded in Gaza every 10 minutes since Israeli’s military attacks began.

Blinne Ni Gralaigh also quoted an Israeli reservist active in Gaza as saying soldiers treat Israel-ordered evacuation areas as “extermination zones”.

“The evidence before the court indicates that the extent of the carnage in Gaza is of a much-greater magnitude than that pertained to Ukraine and Russia. Indeed, the carnage in Gaza is in an order which exceeds by far the necessities of war and the limits imposed by the laws of war,” said Gralaigh.

Arab League calls for peacekeepers in occupied Palestinian territory

The Arab League called for a United Nations peacekeeping force in the occupied Palestinian territory at a summit dominated by the war on Gaza.

The “Manama Declaration” issued by the 22-member bloc called for “international protection and peacekeeping forces of the United Nations in the occupied Palestinian territories” until a two-state solution is implemented.

The meeting is the first time the bloc has come together since an extraordinary summit in Riyadh, capital of neighbouring Saudi Arabia, in November that also involved leaders from the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

At that meeting, leaders condemned Israeli forces for their “barbaric” actions in Gaza.

Israeli military chief meets northern commanders as Hezbollah clashes surge

Israel’s military chief of staff, Major-General Herzi Halevi, met with army leaders of the Northern Command as fighting with Hezbollah along its northern border with Lebanon continues.

“We have trained the people, they are familiar with the operations,” Halevi is quoted as saying in an army post on X.

Hezbollah earlier said it launched “more than 60” rockets at Israeli military positions in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights in retaliation for overnight attacks that killed a Hezbollah member who Israel said was a field commander.

Israel and Hamas ally Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily fire since the Palestinian group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that preceded Israel’s latest war on Gaza, now in its eighth month.

More than 100 academics killed by Israeli assault: Gaza media office

The Government Media Ofice has published a list of the names of scholars, academics, university professors and researchers killed since Israel began its war on Gaza last October.

“In addition, the occupation completely destroyed more than 103 universities and schools, in addition to partially destroying 311 universities and schools,” a statement from the office adds.

The statement calls on “All universities and educational sectors in all countries of the world to condemn this crime, which comes within the framework of the crime of genocide”.

Israeli military confirms US floating pier ‘successfully connected’

The Israeli military confirmed the announcement by the US military that the much-criticised floating pier it built off Gaza for aid has been connected.

“In the upcoming days, trucks will begin entering,” said the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) that is tasked with organising aid.

International aid groups and experts cautioned the only viable way to get humanitarian aid to besieged Palestinians is through land crossings – which have been consistently closed or severely hampered by the Israeli military since the start of the war.

UN chief calls for Arab unity in summit address

“There is no better moment for the Arab region to come together,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in remarks to Arab leaders in Bahrain.

“Unity and solidarity throughout the Arab world would amplify the vital voice of the region and further boost your influence on the global stage,” he continued.

Guterres also reiterated his strong position in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza, saying that the death and destruction currently being meted out on the enclave must come to an end.

It can help this region find peace, make the most of its enormous potential, and further contribute to the global good.

“Entire families wiped out. Children traumatized and injured for life. People denied access to the very basics for human survival. A looming famine … It is time for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and unimpeded access for humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza,” he said to the Arab League summit.

Houthi chief says any ship heading to Israel will be attacked

In a televised speech, Abdulmalik al-Houthi announced the planned escalation by the Yemeni group, saying attacks on commercial shipping would extend to any area its military capabilities could reach and will no longer be limited to the Red Sea.

Since the early days of Israel’s war on Gaza, the Houthis have been targeting commercial ships they say are linked to Israel and military ships belonging to an international coalition meant to defend them. They say the attacks are being carried out in sympathy with Palestinians in Gaza.

The Houthis say the attacks will end when a ceasefire is achieved.

Catholic patriarch of Jerusalem visits Gaza

A statement from the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem says that Cardinal Pizzaballa, the current patriarch, entered Gaza and visited the parish of the Holy Family for a pastoral visit today.

“On May 16th, 2024, His Beatitude, Pierbattista Cardinal Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem entered Gaza and reached the parish of the Holy Family for a pastoral visit,” according to the statement.

He and a delegation “met the suffering population to encourage them and to deliver a message of hope, solidarity, and support”, the statement says.

Pizzaballa also delivered mass inside the parish church with local community members.

The statement added that this visit represents the beginning of a humanitarian mission aimed at delivering “life-saving food and medical help to the population in Gaza”.

Netherlands coalition plans to move Israel embassy to Jerusalem

The future right-wing coalition in the Netherlands plans to move the country’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The coalition agreement, which right-wing populist Geert Wilders has presented together with three other right-wing parties in The Hague, states that the date of such a move should be investigated. The decision should take into account diplomatic interests and a possible solution to the Middle East conflict, it says.

Crowd chants ‘Free Palestine’ during football match in Dublin

The Palestine women’s national football team played a friendly match in Dublin yesterday against local Irish club the Bohemians Women.

Held on Nakba Day, the match was meant to express Ireland’s longstanding solidarity with Palestine and raise funds for Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank.

During the packed match, loud chants of “Free Palestine” were heard from the crowd.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/16/israels-war-on-gaza-live-mass-displacement-as-israelis-intensify-assaults

Palestinian fighters claim attacks on Israeli forces in Gaza’s Jabalia

Palestinian fighters are claiming dozens of new attacks on Israeli troops and armoured vehicles every day as the Israeli military is advancing on the Jabalia refugee camp in the north.

In Jabalia on Thursday afternoon so far, Hamas and other groups, including the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, have claimed to:

Target an Israeli artillery emplacement with mortar shells
Destroy a command headquarters for ground troops with heavy-calibre mortar shells
Attack multiple Merkava tanks with Yassin-105 shells
Hit an observation site east of Jabalia with mortar shells
Destroy tanks with planted explosive devices
Use anti-armour shells to incapacitate D9 military bulldozers

Hezbollah records first combat use of rocket-armed drone against Israel

The armed Lebanese group, for the first time, released footage of an attack using air-to-ground rockets fired from a drone.

It said it inflicted casualties when two of its S-5 rockets were successfully fired and hit Israeli troops and vehicles at the Metula base.

The S-5 is a Russian-made rocket about 1.4 metres (4.6 feet) long and weighing 5kg (11 pounds).

Hezbollah claimed 13 attacks on Israeli positions on Thursday.

Hezbollah says it hits Israeli missile-detecting blimp in drone strike

The armed Lebanese group has released videos showing how it has monitored an Israeli Sky Dew blimp deployed in northern Israel to detect incoming missiles.

Hezbollah said it launched an explosive-laden drone at the aircraft and achieved a direct hit. The Israeli military confirmed the drone struck “a balloon that was on the ground” at a military base in northern Israel.

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said there were no casualties and the military has suffered no hits to its ability to image the area by air.

Spain denies port call for ship carrying arms to Israel

Spain has refused permission for an Israel-bound ship carrying arms to call at the southeastern port of Cartagena, Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares says.

Albares confirmed reports the Marianne Danica vessel is carrying a cargo of arms to Israel and requested permission to dock at Cartagena on May 21. He said refusing permission was consistent with Spain’s policy to ban the exports of all arms to Israel since the outbreak of the war in Gaza in October.

“We have detected this ship, we have refused to allow it to dock, and I can tell you that this will be a consistent policy with any ship carrying Israeli arms and arms cargo that wants to dock in Spanish ports,” Albares told reporters in Brussels.

Marianne Danica is carrying nearly 27 tonnes of explosive material from Madras, India, the El Pais newspaper reported.

Israeli army confirms deaths of two Thai nationals missing since October 7

Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari, during his daily media briefing, said that the army informed the families of two Thai citizens who were suspected to have been taken captive on October 7 that they were, in fact, killed that day during the Hamas attacks on Israeli territory.

Hagari named the Thai citizens as Sontia Ok’Krasari and Sontisek Rintalk, and said that they were working in agriculture on farms near Kibbutz Bari. He also claimed that Hamas has held their bodies since October 7.

CAIR sues Texas governor for ‘unlawful’ order on student protests

The Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR) civil rights group has sued Texas Governor Greg Abbott for issuing an “unlawful executive order” that impacts pro-Palestine students protesting at universities.

Abbott this month reiterated his unwavering support for Israel and said he has seen a “sharp rise” in anti-Semitism.

He ordered the state’s public colleges and universities to revise their free speech policies and blamed pro-Palestinian student groups for unrest and the rise in anti-Semitism.

US House passes symbolic bill forcing Biden to send arms to Israel

The US House of Representatives passed legislation aimed at forcing the administration of US President Joe Biden to reverse his decision to halt a shipment of bombs to Israel amid its invasion of Rafah.

The bill proposes slashing budgets for the offices of the defence secretary, secretary of state and the National Security Council unless Biden chooses to send the 3,500 heavy-duty bombs in the delayed shipment.

The measure passed 224-187, with 16 Democrats joining Republicans in supporting it and three Republicans voting against the bill.

But the bill is believed to be largely symbolic and an attempt to display bipartisan anger with the decision to hold the bombs. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says he does not plan to allow a vote on the bill, and Biden has pledged to veto it.

The Biden administration has stressed it is not altogether stopping weapons exports to Israel and is reportedly preparing to send another shipment worth over $1bn to Israel that includes tank ammunition.

‘Gaza largely wiped off the map’: South Africa

South Africa told the United Nations’s top court the situation in Gaza has reached “a new and horrific stage” as it sought emergency measures to halt Israel’s military operation in Rafah.

It was the third time the International Court of Justice held hearings on the conflict in Gaza since South Africa filed proceedings at The Hague-based court in December accusing Israel of genocide.

“Seven months ago, South Africa could not have imagined that Gaza would be largely wiped off the map,” the country’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Vusimuzi Madonsela, told the panel of 15 international judges.

South Africa argues Israeli attacks have far surpassed self-defence. “Israel’s actions in Rafah are part of the end game. This is the last step in the destruction of Gaza,” lawyer Vaughan Lowe said.

According to the latest request, the previous preliminary orders by The Hague-based court were not sufficient to address “a brutal military attack on the sole remaining refuge for the people of Gaza”. Israel will be allowed to answer the accusations on Friday.

Israel to abolish free trade deal with Turkey in retaliatory move

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says Israel will abolish its free trade agreement with Turkey and also impose a 100 percent tariff on other imports in retaliation for Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to halt exports to Israel.

The plan, he said, would be submitted to the cabinet for approval.

Earlier this month, Turkey said it was stopping exports to Israel during the duration of Israel’s war on Gaza citing a “worsening humanitarian tragedy” in the Palestinian territory.

US aid pier: ‘A floating dock far from where needs are most acute’

While the US military says a pier has been completed off Gaza to deliver aid to starving Palestinians, many questions about its effectiveness remain.

Farhan Haq, a spokesperson for UN chief Antonio Guterres, reiterated the UN’s preference for land routes, saying “getting aid to people in need into and across Gaza cannot and should not depend on a floating dock far from where needs are most acute”.

He added negotiations are continuing about how the aid would be distributed after the US ruled out any involvement by its troops in the distribution process.

Israel has been widely criticised for restricting crucial humanitarian relief via land routes with hospitals running out of fuel and people desperate for food and water.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/16/israels-war-on-gaza-live-mass-displacement-as-israelis-intensify-assaults

>>481600
That podcast has an interesting discussion on how Israel lost the war because they are loosing on military attrition.

Malaysia welcomes South Africa’s latest request to ICJ over Israel’s war on Gaza

Malaysia has said it “strongly supports and commends South Africa for her resolute effort to stop the genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza” and welcomes its latest request to the International Court of Justice to stop Israel’s attack on Rafah.

“Israel’s offensives in Rafah, a 64-square-kilometre area crowded with over 1.4 million Palestinians seeking refuge, will result in a massive humanitarian catastrophe,” Malaysia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“The international community has a collective responsibility to demand that Israel cease its military operations,” it said.

“Malaysia reiterates its unwavering support for the establishment of an independent and sovereign State of Palestine, based on the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, as well as the admission of Palestine as a full member of the United Nations,” the ministry added.

Israeli extremists carry out another truck attack in the West Bank

A group of Israeli extremists have blocked another truck and attacked its driver in the occupied West Bank, the Wafa news agency reports.

The driver sustained minor injuries and the truck was set on fire in the attack, which occurred near the Kochav Hashahar Israeli settlement, east of Ramallah, Wafa reports.

This is the latest of several attacks carried out on trucks by Israeli extremists, who say they are blocking the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza until all Israeli captives are returned.

Israeli extremists have, however, also perpetrated attacks and looted several trucks not carrying humanitarian aid.

Israeli extremists injure Israeli soldiers in latest Gaza aid truck violence

Israel’s military said three soldiers were “slightly injured” in a confrontation with dozens of Israelis who had set fire to a truck and injured its driver in the vicinity of the Kochav Hashahar Israeli settlement, east of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.

The attack on the truck and soldiers appeared to be the latest incident of violence by Israeli extremists who have ambushed several trucks transporting humanitarian aid supplies destined for the people of war-torn Gaza.

According to the military, soldiers “arrived on the scene, and acted to separate the Israeli citizens from the driver and provide the driver with medical treatment”.

“Dozens of Israeli citizens reacted violently towards the force. As a result, two [military] officers and another soldier were slightly injured and treated on the spot,” the military said.

Though the military condemned the violence, and said it would respond “to the fullest extent of the law”, it did not mention any arrests of attackers or suspects.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/17/israels-war-on-gaza-live-700000-palestinians-flee-military-onslaught

>>481604
What does it mean for the situation if Israeli citizens and Israeli soldiers aren't in agreement?

>>481604
>Israeli extremists injure Israeli soldiers in latest Gaza aid truck violence
>>481605
>What does it mean for the situation if Israeli citizens and Israeli soldiers aren't in agreement?
Zionism beginning to eat it self, means less violence directed against their victims.

https://farside.link/invidious/watch?v=PDOlPim1wc0

Zionist hypocrisy is off the charts

Palestinian rights group calls for investigation into Meta’s data leaks to Israeli military

The Sada Social online rights group says US tech giant Meta must be investigated for helping the so-called Lavender AI-assisted targeting system of the Israeli military used to kill Palestinians in Gaza through leaking users’ Whatsapp data.

“Since the onset of the genocidal war on October 7, the enforcement of surveillance and violation of users’ privacy through WhatsApp has escalated, with more than 670 numbers of Palestinian users being banned, over 78 percent of whom are journalists and users in the Gaza Strip, directly impacting their lives,” said the group, which is based in the occupied West Bank.

“Sada Social calls upon Meta management to adhere to responsibility and transparency across its various platforms, and to release transparency reports that have been withheld since the onset of the genocidal war.”

https://twitter.com/SadaSocialPs/status/1791824121333973299

Thousands expected to rally in Washington, DC, for Palestinian rights

Thousands of protesters are expected to turn out for a rally at the National Mall in the nation’s capital in support of Palestinian rights and an immediate end to the Israeli war on Gaza.

The event also commemorates the 76th anniversary of the Nakba.

Rally organisers didn’t apply for any permits from the National Park Service, which oversees the National Mall.

In January, pro-Palestine activists flooded the National Mall in one of the larger protests in recent memory in the District of Columbia.

Yemen’s Houthis hit oil tanker with a ballistic missile in Red Sea

US Central Command (CENTCOM) says the Houthi group in Yemen launched an antiship ballistic missile into the Red Sea that hit MT Wind, a Panamanian-flagged, Greek-owned and operated oil tanker.

“MT Wind most recently docked in Russia and was bound for China,” it said.

The impact of the missile resulted in a loss of propulsion and steering, but the vessel’s crew managed to restore the functions without assistance, and there were no casualties, CENTCOM said.

The Houthis have launched attacks for months on commercial vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Eden in an attempt to pressure Israel to end its devastating war on Gaza.

Qassam Brigades claims attacks on Israeli troops

Hamas’s armed wing says on its Telegram channel that its fighters:

shot an Israeli soldier with sniper fire east of Jabalia
attacked a group of 15 soldiers with anti-personnel devices and then used light weapons and hand grenades while they were inside a house in al-Tanour neighbourhood, east of Rafah
targeted a Merkava tank with a Yassin-105 rocket in the same neighbourhood
shelled Rafah crossing
targeted an “Apache” Israeli military helicopter with an anti-aircraft surface-to-air missile (SAM-7)
blew up an Israeli military bulldozer east of Rafah

6 Penn students arrested during attempt to occupy building

Authorities say a half-dozen University of Pennsylvania students are among 19 pro-Palestinian protesters arrested during an attempt to occupy a building on campus.

University police say seven remained in custody Saturday awaiting felony charges from Friday’s incident, including one person who allegedly assaulted an officer.

A dozen were issued citations for failing to disperse and follow police commands. They have been released from custody.

The arrests came as other colleges across the country, anxious to prepare for commencement season, either negotiated agreements with students or called in police to dismantle protest camps.

Body of another captive found Gaza, Israeli army says

The Israeli army says troops retrieved the body of hostage Ron Benjamin after he was “murdered” during the October 7 offensive by Hamas.

Military spokesperson Rear-Admiral Daniel Hagari said Benjamin’s body was found during the same operation that saw troops recover the remains of three other hostages, which was announced on Friday.

The bodies of the other captives were also recovered in a tunnel in Gaza, according to the Israeli military.

’14th major march in London since October’
Harry Fawcett
Reporting from London

The demonstration is taking place in White Hall, the heart of the British government, very close to Downing Street, the home and office of the prime minister.

It’s really seizable. There’s a real crush here.

The organisers are claiming some 250,000 people [are attending]. It’s hard to corroborate those figures, but certainly, it’s a very sizable turnout.

It’s associated with the Nakba, or the “catastrophe”, as Palestinians call it.

We’ve seen people carrying keys symbolising the right of return to their homes, and we’ve also heard those calls for an end to arms sales from Britain to Israel as this war continues, and repeated calls for an end to the war.

This has been a very diverse crowd by age, race and parts of the UK.

Demonstrators take to the streets in Israel

Videos shared online show thousands of people marching in the city of Haifa to demand an end to the attack on Gaza and early elections.

Protesters held banners reading, “We want to stop the war” and “We want to have elections now”.

Israel’s Gantz demands Gaza plan by June 8; threatens to quit cabinet

Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz demanded Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commit to an agreed vision for the Gaza conflict that would include stipulating who might rule the territory after the war with Hamas.

In a news conference, Gantz said he wanted the war cabinet to form a six-point plan by June 8. If his expectations are not met, Gantz said, he would withdraw his centrist party from the conservative prime minister’s emergency government.

Israeli military claims over 130 Palestinian fighters killed in east Rafah

The Israeli military has provided a combat report from its 162nd Division that is currently invading eastern Rafah in southern Gaza.

It claims soldiers with the Givati Infantry Brigade killed “more than 80 terror operatives”, located dozens of rifles, grenades and ammunition, and located tunnel networks.

The Israeli military said its 401st Armored Brigade has also been raiding sites in the area and engaging in gun battles with Palestinian fighters.

It claimed its tank forces have killed more than 50 fighters and demolished dozens of sites, including rocket launchers and tunnel shafts.

Israeli military claims to expose Palestinian minors as ‘Hamas informants’

The Israeli military has released names and information of a number of Palestinian children, claiming that they are informing on Hamas.

Palestinian children arbitrarily arrested and detained by the Israeli army are often coerced into becoming collaborators or informants, according to Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories.

The practice dates back to before October 7, but the expert said the situation has grown considerably worse and “risks to grow even worse if we do not use our power to stop it”.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/18/israels-war-on-gaza-live-battles-in-jabalia-and-rafah-as-israel-advances

>>481615
>The Sada Social online rights group says US tech giant Meta must be investigated for helping the so-called Lavender AI-assisted targeting system of the Israeli military used to kill Palestinians in Gaza through leaking users’ Whatsapp data.
>“Since the onset of the genocidal war on October 7, the enforcement of surveillance and violation of users’ privacy through WhatsApp has escalated, with more than 670 numbers of Palestinian users being banned, over 78 percent of whom are journalists and users in the Gaza Strip, directly impacting their lives,” said the group, which is based in the occupied West Bank.
>“Sada Social calls upon Meta management to adhere to responsibility and transparency across its various platforms, and to release transparency reports that have been withheld since the onset of the genocidal war.”

Data is getting used to kill people.
That means no more arguments against maximal privacy.

>>481615
>US Central Command (CENTCOM) says the Houthi group in Yemen launched an antiship ballistic missile into the Red Sea that hit MT Wind, a Panamanian-flagged, Greek-owned and operated oil tanker.
>“MT Wind most recently docked in Russia and was bound for China,” it said.
Is there a way to get independent confirmation that this was a Houthi missile ?
I'm not implying anything, it's just that the US has a greater interest to knock out an oil shipment from Russia to China than the Houthis do and that makes US CENTCOM perhaps not the best source of information in this case.

>>481615
>The Israeli military has released names and information of a number of Palestinian children, claiming that they are informing on Hamas.
Can murdering civilians be justified by calling them "human shields" ?NO!
Can murdering children be justified by calling them "informants" ? ALSO NO!

>>481618
Good point. I didn't even catch that lol

Israeli air strikes hit Gaza’s Khan Younis, Nuseirat, Jabalia

Israeli air attacks have hit several areas across the Gaza Strip tonight, including multiple sites in Khan Younis, in the south of the Gaza Strip, Wafa is reporting.

Israeli air attacks also hit the Nuseirat refugee camp and the town of az-Zawayda in the central Gaza Strip, as well as the Jabalia refugee camp in the north, Wafa reports.

No immediate details on the number of people killed and injured in the attacks were available.

Hospitals and other emergency services that usually report on deaths and injuries have been struggling to continue operations after Israel last week blocked land routes used to deliver fuel to run generators, months after cutting off all electricity supply.

Israeli soldiers supported settlers who attacked West Bank village of Yatma: Report

A Palestinian official told the Wafa agency that the Israeli settlers who set fire to farmland and a scrapyard in the West Bank village of Yatma did so “under the protection of Israeli occupation forces”.

Ahmed Sanobar, the head of the Yatma village council, also told Wafa that hundreds of settlers were involved in the attack and that Palestinians confronted the assailants and managed to extinguish the fires.

“Confrontations ensued between the residents and the attacking colonists, supported by Israeli soldiers who fired live ammunition and tear gas canisters at the former,” Wafa reported.

The agency said there were no reported injuries from the attack.

An Israeli attack in north Gaza killed 26 members of one family
Urooba Jamal

In Gaza’s north, two roads run between the city of Jabalia and the Jabalia refugee camp. Running parallel to as-Sikka Street is the smaller Assalia Street, named after the large family that inhabits the neighbourhood.

Late last week, 26 members of the Assalia family were killed and six houses on that street were reduced to rubble by an Israeli attack, according to witness testimony. The street is now barely a dirt track, as seen from images following the event’s aftermath, which Al Jazeera reviewed.

Ibrahim Assalia, 46, a media lecturer originally from Gaza who has been living in the United Kingdom since 2006, was on the phone with his brother as the attack on Jabalia and his family took place.

“Pray for me, they are heavily shelling the area,” Assalia recalled his brother as saying on May 11.

Freed Palestinian detainee Farouk al-Khatib dies

Dozens of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have taken part in a funeral for 30-year-old Farouk al-Khatib, who died from cancer on Monday, months after his release from Israeli prison, according to media reports.

The Wafa news agency said al-Khatib was subjected to medical negligence while being held in Israeli administrative detention for four months last year.

Al-Khatib lost 25kg (55 pounds) during his time in detention, his family told the Middle East Eye, and was diagnosed with stage-five stomach cancer shortly before his release in December last year.

New encampment at Drexel University in Philadelphia

Pro-Palestinian protesters in the US have set up a new encampment at Drexel University in the city of Philadelphia, a day after authorities thwarted an attempted occupation of a school building at the neighbouring University of Pennsylvania campus.

Up to 60 protesters were at the encampment on the campus’s Korman Quad on Sunday, Drexel President John Fry said in a statement, adding that the university was speaking with demonstrators to end the protest.

Morehouse community showed solidarity with Palestinians: CAIR

Here’s more on US President Joe Biden’s speech at Morehouse College.

The civil rights group Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) praised staff and students for standing in solidarity with the people of Gaza.

CAIR’s Edward Ahmed Mitchell said he was “very proud of students and faculty who respectfully protested President Biden and expressed the Black American community’s solidarity with Palestinians facing genocide in Gaza.”

Mitchell said that Biden should listen to students, including Morehouse valedictorian DeAngelo Jeremiah Fletcher, who called for “an immediate and a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza strip” in his speech.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/20/israels-war-on-gaza-live-al-awda-hospital-runs-out-of-drinking-water

Iran’s president and his foreign minister have been confirmed dead after the helicopter they were travelling in crashed in a mountainous region during bad weather.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/05/20/iran-president-ebrahim-raisi-killed-helicopter-crash/

Another burning of Reichstag or is iϟϟreal so desper8 for another escalation? Ah, who the fuck am I kidding.

>>481643
Probably the latter…

The ICC appears to be issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant, and 3 Hamas leaders.

>>481650
whats the chances of the US' Hague Act coming into play?

>>481651
Should be zilch since the US doesn't officially acknowledge responsibility for what Israel is doing. Should be.

US rights group calls ICC arrest warrant request a ‘milestone’ that took too long

Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) also urges the US to suspend all arms transfers to Israel, “given the ICC’s conclusion that Israeli officials at the highest levels are engaging in war crimes for which the court is seeking their arrest”.

“US officials involved in approving and sending additional weapons to Israel may find themselves next in line facing ICC arrest warrants,” said Raed Jarrar, Dawn’s advocacy director.

After Khan’s application for the arrest warrants, a panel of pre-trial judges will determine whether the evidence supports issuing them.

Sarah Leah Whitson, DAWN’s executive director, also called for warrants to indict Israeli officials for Israeli settlements, which, she said, are also war crimes under the Rome Statute.

“Any effort to ‘balance’ warrants against Israeli officials with an equal number of warrants against Palestinian officials would be an embarrassing concession to political calculations,” she said.

ICC has ‘various different routes’ to move forward

Michael Mansfield, an international law expert, says the issue of jurisdiction is “very important” because Israel and the US have not signed up to the ICC.

“However, that does not prevent the court from having jurisdiction if the issues that arise vis-a-vis Israel are referred by the Security Council,” he told Al Jazeera.

“There are various different routes which may make Israel and members of Hamas as well subject to the ICC,” he said.

Mansfield also noted that Israel has a history of ignoring institutions that have accused it of crimes, referring to the ICJ’s advisory opinion that deemed Israel’s separation wall illegal.

The decision in 2004 found the wall violates international law and called for its dismantlement. It also ruled that Israel should pay reparations for any damage caused.

“It is important that international lawyers should put pressure on the court to remain independent and not be bulldozed and bullied into withdrawing. The fear I have is the Americans might withdraw funding. They are not members of the ICC, but there are all sorts of pressure that they can bring about,” Mansfield said.

Mixed reaction from Gaza media office to ICC arrest warrant request

As could have been reasonably expected, the Government Media Office in Gaza is celebrating a request by the International Criminal Court prosecutor for arrest warrants against Israeli officials, and decrying requests made for warrants against Hamas officials.

“We appreciate the decision of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for two Zionist war criminals”, a statement from the office begins.

“We see the issuance of these memorandums as a legal step in the right direction, despite the fact that they came late”, it continues.

On the other hand, the office says that “We also deplore the fact that this step was accompanied by the issuance of similar decisions against some of the leaders of our people, in a scene in which the court equated the victim with the executioner”, referring to requests for arrest warrants against several Hamas officials.

More from Hamas on ICC arrest warrants

The group has also called on the ICC prosecutor to issue arrest warrants “for all the Israeli officials who gave orders and the soldiers who carried out crimes, in accordance with the Rome Statute”.

“The prosecutor is acting in violation of all norms that allow for people under occupation, including Palestinians, to resist their occupier,” Hamas’s statement said.

Hamas demands ICC arrest warrant request against leaders be cancelled

Hamas has issued a statement denouncing the ICC prosecutor’s decision to seek arrest warrants against its leaders, accusing Karim Khan of trying to “equate the victim with the executioner”.

The group said it demanded the cancellation of the request, adding that Khan’s application for arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant had come “seven months too late”.

‘World increasingly telling Israel enough is enough’

Israeli columnist and author Gideon Levy calls the ICC prosecutor’s decision to seek arrest warrants “just” but said he expected Israeli officials to double down.

“Israel will again protect itself with this wall of ‘the whole world is anti-Semite and the whole world is against us,’ and it will unite again the Israelis in an even more nationalistic wave,” he told Al Jazeera. “Everyone will feel so just and such a victim by this evil decision.”

Levy noted, however, that the impact of the possible arrest warrants could not be underestimated.

“The fact that an Israeli prime minister will or might become wanted in all kinds of corners of the world and will be prevented from travelling must have an effect,” he said.

“It’s unprecedented. It was never the case – for sure not in a country that is supposed to be a democracy, which considers itself as a democracy,” Levy added.

“You have to see the overall picture. It’s not one case. It’s an overall picture in which the entire world more and more so, more loudly and more clearly, tells Israel, ‘Enough is enough. We have had enough with you.'”

UN special rapporteur welcomes ICC prosecutor’s arrest warrant requests

The UN special rapporteur on the right to housing has welcomed Khan’s arrest warrant requests.

“On the request by the ICC Prosecutor for warrants: against Hamas, the charges of hostage taking and killing likely to stand but not others,” Balakrishnan Rajagopal posted on X.

“Against Israeli leaders, all charges likely to stick. And missing charges include attacks against various civilian objects including homes!”

War crime arrest warrants sought. What’s next?

The ICC prosecutor must request the warrants from a pre-trial panel of three judges who take on average two months to consider the evidence and determine if the proceedings may move forward.

Israel is not a member of The Hague-based court, and even if the arrest warrants are issued, Netanyahu and Gallant do not face any immediate risk of prosecution.

But Khan’s announcement deepens Israel’s isolation as it presses ahead with its devastating war on Gaza. The threat of arrest could make it difficult for the Israeli leaders to travel abroad.

Of the three Hamas leaders who face arrest warrants, two – Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif – are in Gaza. But Ismail Haniyeh, the political head of Hamas, is based in Qatar and frequently travels across the region.

Belgium backs ICC prosecutor’s move to seek arrest warrants

Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib says crimes committed in Gaza must be prosecuted at the highest level regardless of the perpetrators after the ICC prosecutor announced he is seeking arrest warrants against top Israeli and Hamas officials.

“The request submitted by the Court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, for arrest warrants against both Hamas and Israeli officials is an important step in the investigation of the situation in Palestine,” she posted on X.

“Belgium will continue to support the essential work of international justice to ensure that those responsible for all crimes are held accountable,” the minister added.

Ireland’s top diplomat says ‘independence and impartiality’ of ICC must be respected

In a post on X, Michael Martin condemned “recent threats against the ICC and its officials”, without identifying the specific threats.

“It is vital that we respect the independence and impartiality of the ICC,” he wrote.

He added the court’s “role in ending impunity is essential”.

https://twitter.com/MichealMartinTD/status/1792602341134286920

‘If ICC has any credibility, it should be going after those committing genocide’

Diana Buttu, a lawyer and former spokesperson for the PLO, says the ICC’s Khan is doing “a lot of bothsidesism”.

“He’s looking and seeing that there is a genocide that Israel is perpetrating – a genocide that Israel has been very open about perpetrating with over 35,000 Palestinians killed, mass starvation, 15,000 children killed, and in order to balance it out, he has to make it seem as though he’s addressing both sides,” Buttu told Al Jazeera.

“But if we want to be honest, we should be looking at what it is that the Israeli government has been doing and the orders that it has issued to its soldiers,” she said.

“If this court is to have any credibility, it should be going out after the people who are committing genocide rather than just simply trying to play this game of bothsidesism,” Buttu added.

South Africa has accused Israel at the ICJ of carrying out a genocide in Gaza, an allegation Israel has denied.

US lawmakers issue threats against ICC

Anthony D’Esposito, a Republican congressman from New York, says the ICC is “playing with fire, putting any international legitimacy at risk”.

“There will be serious consequences if they proceed,” he said.

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, also a Republican, called the move an “outrageous decision” that is “a slap in the face to the independent judiciary in Israel, which is renowned for their independence”.

Graham said he will work with Republicans and Democrats in both chambers of Congress to “levy damning sanctions against the ICC”.

A Republican congressman from Florida, Brian Mast, said in a post on X: “America doesn’t recognise the International Criminal Court, but the court sure as hell will recognize what happens when you target our allies.”

UK calls ICC arrest warrant request ‘unhelpful’

A spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has denounced requests from the ICC prosecutor for arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant and three Hamas leaders.

“This action is not helpful in relation to reaching a pause in the fighting, getting hostages out or getting humanitarian aid in,” the spokesperson said.

Israeli president slams ICC prosecutor’s move

Isaac Herzog has called Khan’s announcement “beyond outrageous” and argued that it shows “the extent to which the international judicial system is in danger of collapsing”.

The Israeli president alleged the ICC prosecutor had acted in “bad faith” and his decision violated “all the basic rules of the court according to the principle of complementarity and other legal norms”.

Smotrich likens ICC prosecutor’s move to Nazi propaganda

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has likened the announcement by the ICC prosecutor on seeking arrest warrants for top Israeli officials to Nazi propaganda.

“We haven’t seen such a show of hypocrisy and hatred of Jews like that of the Hague Tribunal since Nazi propaganda,” Smotrich said on X.

He also said all Israelis should feel as though there are arrest warrants against them after the announcement by Khan, who said he will apply for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.

HRW calls members to protect ICC’s independence amid expected pressure

Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), says Khan’s decision to seek arrest warrants “reaffirms the crucial role” of the ICC.

“Victims of serious abuses in Israel and Palestine have faced a wall of impunity for decades. This principled first step by the prosecutor opens the door to those responsible for the atrocities committed in recent months to answer for their actions at a fair trial,” Jarrah said in a statement.

“ICC member countries should stand ready to resolutely protect the ICC’s independence as hostile pressure is likely to increase while the ICC judges consider Khan’s request.”

ICC investigation ‘helpful warning’ to ongoing violations taking place

William Schabas, a professor of international law at Middlesex University in London, says the ICC’s investigation acts as a “helpful warning” and potential “deterrent” to violations taking place in the occupied Palestinian territories.

He told Al Jazeera the argument Israel is likely to make to fight the ICC probe and the arrest warrants is that “Palestine is not a proper member of the court”.

Many believe that ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan has “taken too long to get to this point”, but Schabas said it was recently revealed that he went through “an unusual consultation process”, which included the input of a group of experts and “recognised authorities” in international law.

Among the challenges the court will face in collecting evidence is the fact that the assault is “ongoing”, Schabas said.

Israel has repeatedly barred ICC teams from entering Gaza, which will add to the challenge for investigators.

However, they will be able to collect evidence through “people in the justice system in Gaza”, Schabas said.

There is also “a great deal of open source information, there are witnesses who testify, who make recordings from the territory,” he added.

ICC vs ICJ cases

As we’ve been reporting, the ICC’s chief prosecutor earlier today said he is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders.

Unlike the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the ICC is not part of the United Nations system. The court, which is also based in The Hague, has jurisdiction over individuals, prosecuting them for serious crimes in accordance with the Rome Statute. While the ICJ is a civil tribunal, the ICC is a criminal tribunal.

Like Russia and the United States, Israel is not a member of the ICC. However, the ICC has jurisdiction over Gaza, occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank after Palestinian leaders formally agreed to be bound by the court’s founding principles in 2015.

The ICC announcement on Monday is separate from the case that is currently being heard by the the ICJ over an accusation from South Africa that Israel was in breach of its obligations under the Genocide Convention in its war on Gaza.

The ICJ held its first hearing on the case in January and then proceeded to order a number of provisional measures that Israel has, so far, largely ignored.

In May, the ICJ heard arguments for a request by South Africa once again seeking additional emergency measures over Israel’s offensive on Rafah, a city in southern Gaza where more than one million displaced Palestinians sought shelter from Israel’s war.

Both Israel and South Africa are signatories to the United Nations Genocide Convention, which gives the ICJ – the highest UN legal body – jurisdiction to rule on disputes over the treaty.

All states that signed the convention are obliged to not commit genocide and also to prevent and punish it. The treaty defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

Gaza death toll increases

At least 35,562 Palestinians have been killed and 79,652 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, the Health Ministry in the besieged and bombarded territory has announced.

The ministry said 106 people were killed and 176 wounded in the latest 24-hour reporting period.

Demonstrators call for elections, removal of Netanyahu government

Local Israeli platforms and media outlets have shared videos online showing a demonstration in the vicinity of the Israeli parliament, called the Knesset, in Jerusalem, demanding elections and the removal of the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

https://twitter.com/IsraelHayomHeb/status/1792569537453293999

Large demonstration in Peshawar in support of Gaza

Thousands of protesters marched in the Pakistani city of Peshawar late on Sunday in support of the people of Gaza, demanding an end to Israel’s war on the enclave.

The march was led by supporters of Pakistan’s Jamaat-e-Islami party and people chanted slogans in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The demonstrators were led by the party’s leader, Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman.

No reason to suspend Israel from Paralympics, says IPC head

Andrew Parsons, the head of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), said on Monday that wars and conflicts should not influence participation in the Paralympic Games, paving way for Israel’s participation in the Games.

The statement from Parsons, the IPC head, comes amid global calls for Israel’s suspension for its brutal war on Gaza.

The IPC said in March that Russian and Belarusian athletes joining the Paris 2024 Paralympics would not be part of their opening ceremony.

Russian and Belarusian athletes cannot take part in team competitions at this year’s Olympics and Paralympics but are allowed to participate as neutrals – without flags or anthems being played.

Israel has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians and destroyed more than 70 percent of houses in Gaza since it launched its offensive on October 7.

“The Russian and Belarusian Paralympic Committees were suspended because both organisations have breached the (Olympic) constitution,” Parsons told Reuters. “They used the Olympic movement to promote the war and the invasion of Ukraine.”

“In the case of Israel, the Paralympic Committee and even the Palestine Paralympic Committee have not done anything of that nature, so we don’t have any process in place when it comes to suspending those national Paralympic committees,” Parsons said.

Hezbollah mourns ‘protector’ Raisi after death of Iranian leader

Lebanon’s Hezbollah group has said it mourns the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and other officials in a helicopter crash, praising him as a “protector” of allied groups in the region.

“Hezbollah in Lebanon extends its deepest condolences,” the group said in a statement, adding that they knew Raisi “closely for a long time” and that he was “a strong supporter, and a staunch defender of our causes… and a protector of the resistance movements”.

Hamas expresses ‘full solidarity’ with Iran after Raisi’s death

Hamas, earlier in the morning, expressed its condolences over the death of Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash, mourning in a statement an “honourable supporter” of the Palestinian group.

It said it appreciated Raisi’s “support for the Palestinian resistance, and tireless efforts in solidarity” with Palestinians since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Al-Quds Brigades says it attacked Israeli soldiers in Jabalia

Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, has said its fighters clashed with Israeli troops accompanied by a military vehicle in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

The group said on Telegram the incident took place near the Imad Aql Mosque, claiming that it had killed and wounded Israeli soldiers.

Israel has been carrying out an operation around the camp.

What’s the situation at al-Awda Hospital?

Here’s what you need to know about the ongoing Israeli siege at al-Awda Hospital, one of the last functional hospitals in northern Gaza.

The Wafa news agency, citing medical sources, said Israeli forces fired artillery shells at the hospital before surrounding the facility on Sunday.
The agency said Israeli forces also bulldozed areas in the vicinity of the hospital.
It added that the ongoing siege is preventing civilians and medical staff from entering or leaving the facility.
MSF said the hospital is treating at least 34 people who were wounded in an Israeli strike on the nearby Jabalia refugee camp on Saturday, and that it has now run out of drinking water.

Timeline of major Israeli attacks on Gaza’s hospitals

The ongoing siege on Gaza’s al-Awda Hospital is the latest in a series of Israeli attacks on health services in the Palestinian territory.

The World Health Organization has documented 445 Israeli attacks on Gaza’s medical sector that affected 101 health facilities, including 32 hospitals.

These include:

October 2023 – a missile hits the car park of al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, killing hundreds of people.
November 2023 – Israeli forces enter Gaza’s biggest hospital, al-Shifa, after a siege of several days. They also launch an attack on al-Awda, killing at least three doctors.
December 2023 – Israeli forces take control of al-Awda after a 12-day siege, during which snipers kill two members of the medical staff at the facility.
January 2024 – Israeli forces order the evacuation of Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis and raid the facility.
March 2024 – Israeli attack on al-Aqsa Hospital kills many civilians sheltering in the hospital. The same month, the military also launches a new assault on al-Shifa, leaving it in ruins.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/20/israels-war-on-gaza-live-al-awda-hospital-runs-out-of-drinking-water

>>481651
>whats the chances of the US' Hague Act coming into play?
Zero

Think of this as a way to ban Netanyahu from traveling to countries that signed and ratified the Rome Statute. (Giving the ICC jurisdiction)

The US did sign initially, but then they didn't ratify and later they withdrew their signature too.

The Hague invasion act is also retarded. Lets say hypothetically a US official somehow got arrested and "taken prisoner" by the ICC. If the US tried to do a military extraction operation they could just shoot the guy before the extraction team gets to him, and then blame it on the extraction operation. This is not a realistic scenario, the ICC has so far only managed to convict war criminals from Africa, the point is that threatening to invade the Hague does not represent any kind of leverage.

Netanyahu probably has to be careful where he travels anyway because the risk of him getting assassinated are likely very high.

Palestinian official welcomes ICC decision

Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, has said that this step affirms “that no one is immune from international law”.

In a statement, Barghouti added: “We consider this to be the first step towards condemning the crimes of genocide committed by the rulers and army of Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza and holding them accountable for committing these crimes according to international law and international humanitarian law.”

ICC prosecutor’s move against close US ally virtually unheard of
Step Vaessen
Reporting from The Hague, Netherlands

This is one of the most high-profile cases that the ICC has taken. We know of course that in 2023, the ICC also issued an arrest warrant against President Vladimir Putin from Russia.

But now this is a case against an ally, a very close ally to one of the most powerful nations on the planet – the United States. This is very unheard of.

There was a lot of pressure from both sides on the ICC. There were protesters demanding that Prosecutor Karim Kahn act more swiftly and request these arrest warrants.

There was also pressure from senators from the US to not issue arrest warrants. They have been threatening repercussions.

So it will be a very politically sensitive case.

Effort to prosecute Israeli leaders for starvation ‘watershed moment’: Expert

Catriona Murdoch, a director of Global Rights Compliance’s Starvation and Humanitarian Crisis Division and leading international law expert, has said that the effort to prosecute Israel’s Netanyahu and Gallant for the war crime of starvation is particularly significant.

The move represents the first time an ICC prosecutor has sought an arrest warrant for civilian starvation, according to Global Rights Compliance. The two officials could become the first individuals ever to stand trial for the crime, if the application is approved.

“This is a watershed moment in addressing this egregious crime, which has long been viewed solely as a collateral or incidental effect of armed conflict, rather than a deliberate and calculated strategy,” Murdoch said in a statement.

“This method of warfare has been championed by Gallant and other senior Israeli military and government officials including through the repeated use of dehumanising language, a blatant and publicly stated disregard for the rules of proportionality and necessity, describing a fight ‘against human animals,’ among several similar sentiments,” she said.

If US decries ICC warrants, it would ‘further undermine its standing in the world’

It would be “reckless on the part of Washington” if it were to denounce the International Criminal Court (ICC) for issuing warrants against some of its allies, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said.

It will “further undermine its standing in the world, and compromise its position about human rights and international law,” he said, and will also “send the wrong message to the rest of the world … that international law does not count”.

Once international law is “compromised” by a world superpower, “you can kiss international law goodbye”, Bishara said.

The ICC warrants against Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signal the “beginning of the end”, Bishara said.

Netanyahu has been an “utter disgrace” and “failure”, he said, adding “The future doesn’t look good for him.”

‘Outrageous’: Biden slams ICC arrest warrant application against Israeli leaders

In a brief statement released by the White House, US President Joe Biden has for the first time responded to ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan’s application for arrest warrants for Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.

“The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous,” he said.

“And let me be clear: Whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”

The Biden administration has repeatedly maintained its “ironclad” support for Israel amid the war, even as it has increasingly voiced concerns over the high civilian death toll in Gaza and barriers to access to humanitarian aid.

Blinken says ‘shameful’ ICC case on Israel puts truce talks at risk

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has denounced as “shameful” a bid by the ICC prosecutor to arrest Israeli leaders, rejecting the court’s authority and saying the move put ceasefire efforts at risk.

“We reject the prosecutor’s equivalence of Israel with Hamas. It is shameful,” Blinken said in a statement over the bids to arrest Israeli leaders including PM Netanyahu as well as Hamas chiefs.

NYC mayor defends police after videos show officers punching pro-Palestine protesters

Mayor Eric Adams has defended the New York Police Department’s response to a pro-Palestinian street demonstration in Brooklyn over the weekend, calling video of officers repeatedly punching men lying prone on the ground an “isolated incident”.

Adams complained that protesters who marched through Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge section had blocked traffic, spit at officers and climbed on top of a moving city bus.

Footage shot by bystanders and independent journalists shows police intercepting a march in the street, shoving participants towards the sidewalk and then grabbing some people in the crowd and dragging them down.

Officers can be seen repeatedly punching at least three protesters, in separate incidents, as they lay pinned on the ground.

https://twitter.com/Resist_05/status/1791959919010410653

University of California academic workers strike for pro-Palestine protesters

Graduate students at the University of California in Santa Cruz have walked off their jobs.

Academic workers at UC Santa Cruz are the first to strike as part of a systemwide protest against a public university they say has violated the free speech rights of pro-Palestinian protesters.

United Auto Workers Local 4811 represents 48,000 graduate students who work as teaching assistants, tutors and researchers across the University of California’s 10 campuses.

The union says arrests of protesters at the University of California at Los Angeles and elsewhere constitute an unfair labour practice. University officials say the work stoppages violate the bargaining agreement.

Two Palestinians shot to death at Gaza checkpoint

Al Jazeera’s correspondent reports that two people were killed when Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd near a checkpoint on the Netzarim axis in the Gaza Strip.

The Netzarim axis is a line set up by the Israeli army separating north Gaza from south Gaza, across which the majority of civilians have not been allowed to cross. The return of internally displaced residents to their homes in north Gaza has long been a demand of Hamas in its negotiations with Israel for a ceasefire and the return of Israeli captives held in the Strip.

Video verified by Al Jazeera and posted on Instagram by a Palestinian journalist shows the arrival of the bodies of the two people killed at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip.

Pro-Palestine protesters at Drexel refuse to disperse

Pro-Palestine protesters have sidelined a request by Drexel University’s president to disband their encampment as arrests linked to campus demonstrations against the Israeli war on Gaza surpass the 3,000 mark nationwide.

Drexel’s campus in Philadelphia remained on lockdown Monday, with classes being held virtually as police kept watch over the demonstration. Many Drexel employees were told to work from home.

Drexel President John Fry called the encampment “intolerably disruptive.”

The encampment at Drexel, which has about 22,000 students, was set up after several hundred demonstrators marched from Philadelphia’s City Hall to west Philadelphia on Saturday.

Nearby, on the University of Pennsylvania campus, university and city police arrested 19 demonstrators Friday night, including six Penn students.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/20/israels-war-on-gaza-live-al-awda-hospital-runs-out-of-drinking-water

Biden administration paused Guantanamo transfers as Gaza war began: Report

US President Joe Biden has repeatedly vowed to wind down operations, and eventually close, the Guantanamo Bay detention centre. The Cuba-based facility has long been emblematic of the US “global war on terror” and the practice of holding hundreds of people in indefinite detention without charges.

But Biden paused the transfer of 11 detainees from the facility in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to a report by NBC News. That was over concerns about the “political optics” of moving the detainees to countries in the Middle East, according to the broadcaster.

The date for the transfer of the men, who officials told NBC were either Yemeni or had ties to Yemen, has not been rescheduled. Thirty men remain in detention at Guantanamo.

Top Israeli diplomat asks AIPAC to push for ‘dramatic steps’ against ICC

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz says he has met with representatives of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), an influential pro-Israel lobbying group.

“I asked them to work with the [US] administration and Congress to take dramatic steps against the decision by the Prosecutor of the ICC to demand arrest warrants for PM Netanyahu and the Defense Minister,” Katz said on X.

He did not specify the steps. Several staunchly pro-Israel US lawmakers renewed calls to impose sanctions, including travel bans, on ICC officials, earlier in the day.

Republicans in the US House of Representatives and Senate had previously introduced legislation seeking to impose penalties on ICC Prosecutor Khan.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/20/israels-war-on-gaza-live-al-awda-hospital-runs-out-of-drinking-water

>>481658
AIPAC is becoming rather visible, which probably doesn't bode well for a lobby-group with such exceptionally unpopular goals.
And they also seem to be picking fights with an increasing amount of organizations.

Democracy Now! - Meet Two Morehouse Profs Who Protested Biden over Gaza and Congo During Commencement Speech

‘Law must be applied equally’: South African president welcomes ICC move

President Cyril Ramaphosa welcomes ICC Prosecutor Khan’s applications for arrest warrants for both Israel and Hamas leaders.

“The law must be applied equally to all in order to uphold the international rule of law, ensure accountability for those that commit heinous crimes and protect the rights of victims,” Ramaphosa said in a statement.

South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel at another court in The Hague, the International Court of Justice.

Swiss envoy to UN calls for ICC independence to be respected

Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting on Rafah, Pascale Baeriswyl said Switzerland was “concerned about possible war crimes and recalls the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court”.

She added Switzerland “fully supports the court and stresses the importance of respecting its independence”.

France says supports ICC mandate, ‘fight against impunity’

France says it has long warned of the consequences of violating international humanitarian law, particularly in regards to the “unacceptable” number of civilians killed in Gaza, as well as “insufficient humanitarian access”.

The French Foreign Ministry said in a statement it supported the ICC, “its independence, and the fight against impunity in all situations”.

But the statement fell short of explicitly saying that France supported ICC prosecutor Khan for seeking arrest warrants for both Israeli and Hamas leaders.

The statement added that France supports a “lasting political solution in the region”, saying it is the only way that will “put an end to the suffering of Israelis and Palestinians alike”.

Palestinian UN envoy: Israel will only be deterred by ‘resolute action’

Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting on Rafah, Riyad Mansour said there is “only one conclusion to draw” from Israel’s actions in Gaza.

“[Israel] is deliberately destroying life in Gaza and it will not be deterred by the rules of international law or positions adopted by state or international bodies,” he said.

“It will only be deterred by resolute action, holding it accountable for its decisions and forcing it to change course.”

Israeli military says intercepted launches from east, Syria

The military said it had intercepted two aerial targets approaching Israel from the east. It said the launches did not enter Israeli territory.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed armed groups in the country, said it had launched two drones towards the southern city of Eilat.

The Israeli military also said it intercepted a launch from Syrian territory.

EU foreign policy chief releases statement on ICC decision

Josep Borrell has said in a statement: “I take note of the decision of the ICC Prosecutor to apply for warrants of arrest before Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, Ismail Haniyeh, Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.”

“The mandate of the ICC, as an independent international institution, is to prosecute the most serious crimes under international law. All states that have ratified the ICC statutes are bound to execute the court’s decisions,” he said in a post on X, without elaborating.

Israel is not a state party to the court.

Italy latest western country to condemn ICC prosecutor

Speaking during a TV interview, Antonio Tajani condemned ICC prosecutor Khan for seeking arrest warrants for both Israeli leaders and leaders of Hamas.

“It seems to me truly singular, I would say unacceptable, to equate a government legitimately elected by the people in a democracy with a terrorist organisation that is the cause of everything that is happening in the Middle East,” Tajani said.

The statement echoes similar condemnations made by the US, UK and Germany earlier today.

Germany says it respects ICC but Israel has ‘right to defend itself’

Germany’s Federal Foreign Office says Berlin respects the ICC’s independence and procedures like all other international courts.

But, it said, the simultaneous application for arrest warrants against Hamas leaders and Israeli officials has created a false impression of an equivalency.

It added that Israel has a right to defend itself so long as international humanitarian law and its obligations apply.

Sanders says ICC ‘right’ as top Dem condemns prosecutor

Divisions within the Democratic party and its progressive flank over ICC prosecutor Khan’s request for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant have been on full display.

Speaking on the Senate floor today, Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the chamber, called Khan’s move “profoundly unfair” and “reprehensible”.

He accused the ICC of harbouring “deep biases” against Israel.

Meanwhile, progressive Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent who caucuses with Democrats, said Khan was “right to take these actions”.

“Without these standards of decency and morality, this planet may rapidly descend into anarchy, never-ending wars, and barbarism,” he said in a statement.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/20/israels-war-on-gaza-live-al-awda-hospital-runs-out-of-drinking-water

UN official says no aid delivered from US-built pier for two days: Report

A United Nations warehouse in Gaza has not received food aid from the newly-opened US-built aid pier for two days, an unnamed UN official has told the Reuters news agency.

Ten truckloads of food aid were transported on Friday from the pier to a World Food Programme warehouse in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza. But only five made it to the warehouse on Saturday, after 11 others were emptied by people as the trucks passed through an area that has been hard to access with humanitarian aid, the official told Reuters.

The UN did not receive any aid from the pier on Sunday or Monday, with the official saying, “they’ve not seen trucks for a while”.

“We need to make sure that the necessary security and logistical arrangements are in place before we proceed,” the official said.

The US has said that the pier, which is estimated to have cost $320 million to construct, will initially handle 90 trucks a day, but that number could rise to 150.

US president ‘moving closer to Israel’ after ICC seeks arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant
Heidi Zhou-Castro
Reporting from Washington, DC

Joe Biden actually just spoke about this from the White House and it comes at a time when tension between the US and Israel has really been growing over the US’s ignored warning for Israel not to invade Rafah.

But now, with this International Criminal Court move to seek arrest warrants for Netanyahu, it seems that Biden is moving closer to Israel.

As far as what can the US do about this effort to seek an ICC arrest warrant, well, it can make strong statements in support of Israel. There are also the Republican senators who issued a letter warning that they could try to seek sanctions against ICC staff members.

The biggest leverage the US may have, given that it is not a member of the ICC itself, is that it could pressure its allies – most European nations that are signatories [to the ICC] – to not take action to arrest these people if the arrest warrants were to be granted.

There certainly would be a lot of pressure and a lot of tension that those European allies of the US would be under in trying to navigate that potential conflict of interest.

‘We are the victims’: Palestinians in Gaza react to ICC prosecutor’s decision

Even as the ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, Palestinians in the war-battered coastal enclave are facing daily death and displacement, and the announcement brings little comfort.

Local man Sami Abu Zeid emphasised that civilians were continuing to suffer.

“We’re the victims, although we have nothing to do with Israel or Hamas. We are not Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad,” he told Al Jazeera from Deir el-Balah.

“We’re civilians… What is my guilt or my children’s guilt? What’s my guilt or my siblings’ guilt? What is my guilt or my neighbour’s guilt? Why was I displaced and why do I have to suffer every day?”

Another Gaza resident, Majdi Sleim, criticised the ICC prosecutor’s decision to seek warrants for the leaders of Hamas alongside Netanyahu and Gallant.

“We tell the prosecutor that the cards are being shuffled because there’s equivalence between the victims and the oppressed,” Sleim said.

“How is it possible to equalise between those who defend their country and freedom – and the ICC say they value everything in accordance with humanitarian standards – and between those who target children, women and elderly people? Those who destroy homes and infrastructure and humanitarian sectors in the Gaza Strip?”

Most envoys to UN tight-lipped about ICC prosecutor’s decision
Gabriel Elizondo
Reporting from UN Headquarters, New York City, US

Here at the United Nations headquarters, most ambassadors did not want to comment about the ICC chief prosecutor’s decision to submit an application for arrest warrants.

As one said, it’s like a hot potato that nobody wants to touch right now. We spent all day, trying to talk to ambassadors, asking them questions as they went in and out of Security Council meetings, but in almost all instances, our questions were ignored.

Most countries clearly want to let the judicial process play out before commenting. And that was the sentiment articulated by Malta’s ambassador to the UN, a security council member.

There is a sense here of US double standards, and people point to March of last year, when the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

At the time, the US and other Western countries mostly applauded that decision by the ICC. But now, when the ICC closes in on a possible arrest warrant for Israeli officials, the US calls it outrageous.

UN expert on Palestine says ICC prosecutor’s decision is historic

Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, says she understands that for the people of war-torn Gaza, the ICC prosecutor’s move to seek arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant may appear too little too late.

But “for me, it’s a historical, historical day,” Albanese told Al Jazeera.

“It’s not a small thing that the ICC prosecutor [is seeking] arrest warrants for two Israeli leaders and it’s not just for war crimes… it’s for crimes that have been committed intentionally and wilfully – the all-state policy that has animated this campaign against the population in Gaza is put into question,” she said.

“Without condoning or justifying the crimes that have been committed by Hamas, these crimes should have been investigated, and prosecuted. It shouldn’t have given leeway to Israel to start a war which has turned into a genocidal war against the entire Palestinian population.”

She added, “Palestine was a litmus test for the credibility of the court and this prosecutor in particular. And after October 7, after October 8, he was compelled to act.”

Yale students stage walkout at graduation ceremony

Dozens of pro-Palestine students staged a walkout during commencement events at Yale University on Monday.

At least 150 students stood up and left as Yale President Peter Salovey started the presentation of candidates for degrees on the grounds of Yale’s Old Campus.

Students at the Ivy League school have been protesting Israel’s war in Gaza, Yale’s financial ties to Israel and weapon makers, and the institution’s response to pro-Palestine demonstrations held on its campus.

The protesters wore red gloves to symbolise bloodied hands and carried placards with slogans including “Divest from war” and “Drop the charges”, in reference to the 45 people arrested in and around Yale’s New Haven campus last month.

Yale is one of dozens of US colleges that have seen large student-led protests in recent weeks, as demonstrators call for academic institutions to divest from Israel over its war on Gaza.

Backlash in Israel as ICC prosecutor seeks arrest of PM Netanyahu, defence minister
Mohammed Jamjoom
Reporting from Amman, Jordan, because Israel's gov't has banned Al Jazeera

Outrage across the Israeli political spectrum at the announcement that International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant as well as three Hamas leaders.

Israeli prime minister Netanyahu declaring that he rejects with disgust the comparison between Israel and Hamas.

At a time of such deep political polarisation in Israeli. At a time when there are so many divisions across the political landscape, what we heard throughout the day – after the announcement from the ICC – was very much a common refrain, very much echoing what we also heard from Netanyahu.

We also saw a lot of quotes from unnamed Israeli political officials throughout the Israeli media landscape throughout the day, calling the announcement from the ICC hypocritical, saying that it was embarrassing on an international level. That it was disgraceful. That is was insolent.

What we know is there are top legal scholars in Israel, as well as member of the national security council, and the foreign ministry that are all meeting.

They have set up a war room to try to figure out how to deal with all of this going forward.

Video captures Palestinian truck driver’s refusal to stop for Israeli settlers blocking Gaza aid

As hardline and ultra-right-wing Israeli settlers ambush and destroy humanitarian aid shipments transported by road to war-torn Gaza, our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic have shared video footage of one Palestinian truck driver who refused to be stopped.

In the brief video clip, the driver can be seen blasting his horn and moving forward despite the Israeli settlers using their bodies to try and stop the truck on a motorway.

The protesters eventually jump clear of the truck as it proceeds on its journey.

https://twitter.com/AJA_Palestine/status/1792638976165106002

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/21/israels-war-on-gaza-live-40-of-gaza-population-displaced-in-two-weeks

Israel ramps up attacks as families hit without warning
Tareq Abu Azzoum
Reporting from Deir al-Balah, Gaza

It was a really sad morning for Palestinians across Gaza. The Israeli military ramped up its attacks across the Strip.

Since midnight, at least eight Palestinians have been killed in Rafah after a residential building was destroyed. Three others were killed in Beit Hannon, northern Gaza, where Palestinians were trapped during the expansion of the fighting to the Jabalia refugee camp.

The camp is isolated in that corner of the city without any water and food supplies. And now the people trapped there are being killed by Israeli fire.

A couple of minutes ago, three injured people, including children, arrived at Al-Aqsa Hospital, where we are right now. They were wounded after a group of Palestinians were targeted by Israeli fighter jets.

In the last 24 hours, at least 106 Palestinians have been killed.

There is a great sense and deal of sadness and frustration among Palestinian families who are being attacked without any prior warning.

Palestinian rights groups welcome ‘landmark’ ICC decision, call for additional genocide charge

The rights organisations Al-Haq, Al Mezan, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said that ICC prosecutor Karim Khan’s decision to file an application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is “a crucial step” towards ending impunity in Israel’s war on Gaza.

In a statement, the three organisations said the ICC announcement follows after “tireless efforts by Palestinian and international civil society organisations demanding the issuance of arrest warrants” for members of Israel’s war cabinet.

“While we welcome the issuing of charges for crimes against humanity, there is also a public catalogue of genocidal statements of intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, including through the intentional denial of aid,” the organisations said.

“For these reasons, genocide as an additional crime should be included in an amendment to the charges,” they added.

Australia urged to end arms exports to Israel after ICC arrest requests

More from Australia on the ICC prosecutor’s move.

The Australian Center for International Justice (ACIJ) is calling on Albanese’s government to support Karim Khan’s efforts and reminding it that it is duty-bound to comply and execute any arrest warrants issued by the court.

Rawan Arraf, the executive director at ACIJ, said the requests for arrest warrants by ICC prosecutor put the government “on further notice that they may be assisting the commission of international crimes” and called for an end to all Australian arms exports – including parts and components – to Israel.

Arraf said the government must also urgently investigate Australians who have served and are serving in Israel’s military.

Israel’s army says it killed Hezbollah commander

The Israeli military has said it killed a commander of the Hezbollah group in an air raid in Lebanon’s Tyre region.

An Israeli military statement posted on X referred to Qassim Saqlawi as “the commander of the rocket and missile unit in the coastal division” of the group.

It also claimed he was responsible for planning and carrying out rocket and antitank missile attacks on Israel from the coastal region in Lebanon.

Hezbollah announced his death following the attack, without referring to his position.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/21/israels-war-on-gaza-live-40-of-gaza-population-displaced-in-two-weeks

+ Analysis of recent events by Dimitri Lascaris and Laith Marouf.

>>481662
>Italy latest western country to condemn ICC prosecutor Khan
how i pictured this
sorry

>>481664
>video
<Dimitri Lascaris discusses with Lebanon-based geopolitical analyst, Laith Marouf, the question of whether Israel might have brought down the helicopter in some manner.

So they think that Israel might have assassinated the Iranian president, as revenge for sort-of losing the tit for tat exchange that involved a Israel destroying a Iranian embassy, and Iran launching a successful missile strike as retaliation. They point out that there was a lot of mainstream media attention on the Iranian president, and they are not wrong that this can be a sign of an impending assassination.

Their political reasoning is sound, but how would the Israeli make that helicopter crash in the middle of nowhere ?
They think that in this case Iran would not accuse Israel but instead do some kind of covert retaliation thing. Does that mean a spy war ?

Norway first European country to say it will arrest Netanyahu should a warrant be issued

Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide says that if the arrest warrant against Israel’s prime minister becomes a reality, Norway is obliged to arrest him.

Yesterday, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court asked the court to issue arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, as well three Hamas officials including Yahya Sinwar.

“If he or one of the Hamas leaders who are also indicted should appear in Norway, then we are obliged by international law to do so. The same applies to all countries in Europe with the exception of Turkey,” Eide told Norweigan broadcaster TV 2.

China hopes ICC will be ‘objective’ after warrants sought for Israeli, Hamas leaders

China says it hopes the ICC will uphold an “objective” position after its chief prosecutor requested arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders.

“It is hoped that the ICC will uphold its objective and impartial position and exercise its powers in accordance with the law,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said, calling for an end to the “collective punishment of the Palestinian people”.

On Monday, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said he had requested arrest warrants for PM Netanyahu, defence chief Gallant and three Hamas leaders, including its chief Sinwar, over the alleged crimes committed in the October 7 attack and Israel’s war on Gaza.

Protesters assail Antony Blinken over US Gaza policy

Demonstrators interrupted the US secretary of state as he began testimony before the Democratic Party-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

There were shouts that he has “blood on his hands”, and Blinken flinched from a protester who approached him from behind waving a sign that said “criminal” before security officers carried her out of the room.

Demonstrations over Israel’s war on Gaza have been a feature during congressional appearances by Biden administration officials. When Blinken and defence chief Lloyd Austin testified on October 31, 2023, about Biden’s request for security assistance for Ukraine and Israel, they were repeatedly interrupted by protesters.

Protests have intensified across the United States since then, including on college campuses where there have been thousands of arrests.

US is asking Israel to reverse action against Associated Press

The United States is engaging directly with Israel to ask that its action confiscating Associated Press camera equipment be reversed, a White House spokesperson said.

Earlier, Israeli officials seized a camera and broadcasting equipment belonging to The Associated Press in southern Israel, accusing the news organisation of violating a new media law by providing images to Al Jazeera.

CPJ ‘deeply disturbed’ by Israel’s seizure of Associated Press equipment

Press watchdog the Committee to Project Journalists (CPJ) says in a statement that “Israeli authorities must return the equipment they confiscated from The Associated Press in southern Israel and stop harassing and censoring journalists covering the war”.

Earlier today, officials seized a camera and broadcasting equipment belonging to The Associated Press (AP) by officials in southern Israel. The AP was accused of violating a new media law by providing images to Al Jazeera.

“CPJ is deeply disturbed by Israeli authority’s seizure of broadcasting equipment used by The Associated Press, an international news outlet providing crucial coverage of the ongoing Israel-Gaza war,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in a statement.

“Israel started its media silencing campaign by banning Al Jazeera and is now using that as an excuse to obstruct AP. Israel must end this censorship campaign, return AP’s equipment, and allow all international media outlets — including Al Jazeera — to operate freely in the country.”

Israeli officials used the foreign broadcaster law to close down the offices of Al Jazeera on May 5, as well as confiscating the channel’s equipment, banning its broadcasts, and blocking its websites.

‘Visible act of criminality’: ICC arrest warrants likely to be approved
Mat Nashed

Alonso Gurmendi, an international law scholar at King’s College London, says arrest warrant requests at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have been denied in the past – although it is uncommon.

He said he expects the indictments for Israeli and Hamas leaders will be approved by judges at the ICC.

The pre-trial chamber needs to establish there are “reasonable grounds” that the people in question have committed a crime within the ICC’s jurisdiction.

What’s happening in Gaza “is such a visible act of criminality. What is being described [by ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan] is what we’re seeing… I just don’t see a mismatch between the conduct of the accused and the warrant itself,” Gurmendi told Al Jazeera.

France, Belgium and Slovenia say they support ICC move

France, Belgium and Slovenia released statements supporting the world’s top criminal court and its chief prosecutor’s request for arrest warrants for leaders of Israel and Hamas.

“France supports the International Criminal Court, its independence, and the fight against impunity in all situations,” its Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Belgium Minister of Foreign Affairs Hadja Lahbib posted on X, “Crimes committed in Gaza must be prosecuted at the highest level, regardless of the perpetrators,” along with a statement.

“War crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of Israel and Palestine from at least October 7 must be prosecuted independently and impartially regardless of the perpetrators,” Slovenia’s Foreign Ministry said on X.

More on UNRWA suspending food distribution in Rafah

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees has said in a statement on X that only seven out of its 24 health centres are operational.

It also said that it had not received any medical supplies in the past 10 days due to “closures/disruptions” at the Rafah and Karm Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossings into Gaza.

Israel mounted a new push in central Gaza, bombarding towns in the north of the Palestinian enclave and saying it intended to broaden operations in Rafah despite US warnings of the risk of mass casualties in the southern city.

“Accountability is crucial to prevent atrocities and to guarantee peace,” the ministry said.

Americans more likely to vote for Biden if he changes Gaza policy: Poll

One in five Democrats and independents in the US battleground states of Wisconsin, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota say the US president’s handling of the Israeli war on Gaza is making it less likely that they will vote for him in November, according to a new poll.

Two in five of those same respondents said an immediate and permanent ceasefire, conditioning of aid to Israel, and ensuring full entry of humanitarian aid into the besieged coastal enclave would make them more likely to vote for Joe Biden.

The poll, conducted by the polling firm YouGov, was commissioned by a lobbying group called Americans for Justice in Palestine Action.

Around three-quarters of respondents identified as Biden supporters, while one-quarter said they supported either Republican Donald Trump or a third party or write-in candidate.

According to the poll, some 30-40 percent of non-Biden voters in each state said a ceasefire and conditioning of aid would make them more likely to vote for the incumbent.

AP criticises Israel for cutting Gaza live feed, seizing equipment

Israeli officials seized a camera and broadcasting equipment belonging to The Associated Press (AP) in southern Israel, accusing the news organisation of violating a new media law by providing images to Al Jazeera.

The Qatari satellite channel is among thousands of clients that receive live video feeds from the AP and other news organisations.

“The Associated Press decries in the strongest terms the actions of the Israeli government to shut down our longstanding live feed showing a view into Gaza and seize AP equipment,” the news agency says in a statement.

Officials from the Communications Ministry arrived at the AP location in the southern town of Sderot this afternoon and seized the equipment. They handed the AP a piece of paper, signed by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, alleging it was violating the country’s foreign broadcaster law.

“We urge the Israeli authorities to return our equipment and enable us to reinstate our live feed immediately so we can continue to provide this important visual journalism to thousands of media outlets around the world.”

The seizure followed a verbal order on Thursday to cease the live transmission – which the news organisation refused to do.

“In accordance with the government decision and the instruction of the communications minister, the communications ministry will continue to take whatever enforcement action is required to limit broadcasts that harm the security of the state,” the ministry said in a statement.

Israeli officials used the foreign broadcaster law to close down the offices of Al Jazeera on May 5 as well as confiscating the channel’s equipment, banning its broadcasts, and blocking its websites.

Drone attack kills three children in southern Gaza: Sources

Medical sources have told Al Jazeera that a drone attack has targeted a group of people in the Yibna refugee camp in Rafah in southern Gaza, killing at least three children.

Footage obtained by Al Jazeera showed the first moments after the strike with the bodies of children lying on the ground.

The children were transferred by medical staff to the Kuwaiti Specialty Hospital in Rafah, sources say.

Trump’s foreign policy advisers meet Netanyahu: Report

Reuters is reporting that three former US foreign policy officials in Donald Trump’s administration met Prime Minister Netanyahu and other public figures in Israel on Monday.

The news agency quoted a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

The delegation comprised Robert O’Brien, who served as Trump’s fourth and final national security adviser, as well as former ambassador to the UAE John Rakolta and former ambassador to Switzerland Ed McMullen, the report said.

One of the main goals of their trip, which comes amid strains between Israel and the Biden administration over Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza, was to obtain a better understanding of Israel’s complex domestic political situation, Reuters said.

US police break up pro-Palestine encampment at University of Michigan

A video posted online on Tuesday by TV stations in Detroit, Michigan in the US showed police moving people from the camp and, at times, using an apparent irritant to spray people and disperse them, AP news agency reported.

Protesters have demanded that the school’s endowment stop investing in companies with ties to Israel. The university says it has no direct investments and less than $15m placed with funds that might include companies in Israel.

Students and others have set up tent encampments on campuses around the country to press colleges to cut financial ties with Israel. Tensions over Israel’s war on Gaza have been high on US campuses since the fall, but demonstrations spread quickly following an April 18 police crackdown on an encampment at Columbia University.

Arrests at campuses have surpassed the 3,000 mark nationwide.

Ben-Gvir promotes future Gaza settlements: ‘I would love to live in Gaza’

Israel’s far-right national security minister has again advocated for a full military takeover of Gaza after the war, even saying Israel should push Palestinians to “voluntarily” leave to make way for settlements.

“Israel should be the one that controls the Gaza Strip, unequivocally, and no one else,” said Itamar Ben-Gvir in comments carried by Israel’s Maariv news site.

Most important, he said, is “encouraging voluntary emigration of Palestinians” from the enclave, adding that Israel could then facilitate the return of settlements.

“I would love to live in Gaza if possible”, said Ben-Gvir.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/21/israels-war-on-gaza-live-40-of-gaza-population-displaced-in-two-weeks

>>481671
>Their political reasoning is sound, but how would the Israeli make that helicopter crash in the middle of nowhere ?
There are a few ways. Could be sabotage, that would be my first guess. It's also a region near the Azerbaijan border, so it wouldn't be totally impossible that someone could potentially shoot it down from the ground.

>>481676
Those explanations seem somewhat plausible with caveats.

The presidential helicopter likely is well guarded, and a spy trying to sabotage it could get caught, with enormous political fallout.

A mobile sam installation that can shoot long range anti aircraft missiles would be detectable. A dude with a infantry missile launcher, could evade detection, but those tiny shoulder launched missiles only have 3miles/5km range. It would take a bunch to cover enough area.

>>481679 meant for >>481678

Israeli security forces tipping off groups that attack Gaza aid convoys: Report

Israeli soldiers and police are tipping off settlers and hardline activists to the location of aid trucks delivering humanitarian aid to the besieged coastal enclave, enabling the groups to block and vandalise the convoys, UK newspaper The Guardian reports, citing multiple sources.

The claim of collusion by members of the security forces is supported by messages from internal internet chat groups reviewed by the Guardian, as well as accounts from several witnesses and human rights activists.

Videos last week showed aid convoys blocked and vandalised by Israeli settlers at the Tarqumiyah checkpoint, west of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The incident, in which activists threw boxes of supplies to the ground, sparked outrage, with the White House condemning the attack as “completely and utterly unacceptable behaviour”.

Pentagon: No aid from US-built peer has reached Gaza people

None of the 569 tonnes of humanitarian assistance that arrived at a US-built pier in Gaza has been distributed to those in need.

While some of the aid coming off the pier has made it to warehouses, trucks have also reportedly been intercepted by crowds of desperate Palestinians after leaving the loading area.

Pentagon spokesman Major-General Pat Ryder told reporters he did not believe any humanitarian relief has yet reached hungry Palestinians.

“We fully appreciate and recognise that land routes are the optimal way to get aid. It’s also important to remember that this is a combat zone and that it is a complex operation,” he said.

Israeli troops in Jenin opened fire ‘at any moving body in the street’

A major Israeli military operation involving dozens of vehicles has continued into the night at the Jenin camp in the occupied West Bank.

As night fell, the occasional sound of firing and explosions could still be heard as military vehicles moved in the darkened refugee camp adjacent to the city, but the intensity of the fighting has gone down, witnesses said.

“Undercover forces raided the area suddenly and they were firing at any moving body in the street,” said ambulance driver Hazim Masarwa. “They were targeting anything moving.”

Authorities said a teacher and a doctor, both of whom were on their way to work in the city, as well as a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old, were among seven people killed.

Ireland to announce recognition of Palestinian state on Wednesday: Report

The Irish government will announce the recognition of a Palestinian state on Wednesday, Reuters news agency reports, citing a “source familiar with the matter”.

The Irish government on Tuesday evening said the prime minister and foreign minister would speak to the media on Wednesday morning, but did not say what the topic would be.

European Union members Ireland, Spain, Slovenia and Malta have indicated in recent weeks they plan to make the recognition, arguing a two-state solution is essential for lasting peace in the Middle East.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/21/israels-war-on-gaza-live-40-of-gaza-population-displaced-in-two-weeks

Ireland will recognise Palestinian state: Irish PM

Ireland’s Prime Minister Simon Harris says that Ireland, Norway and Spain will recognise the state of Palestine today.

“Each of us will now undertake whatever national steps are necessary to give effect to that decision,” he told a news conference.

“I’m confident that further countries will join us in taking this important step in the coming weeks.”

More from Spain’s Sanchez

Speaking in the Spanish parliament, Pedro Sanchez has said that his Israeli counterpart, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is putting the two-state solution in “danger” with his policy of “pain and destruction” in Gaza.

“Next Tuesday, May 28, Spain’s cabinet will approve the recognition of the Palestinian state,” the Spanish prime minister said.

Norway will recognise Palestinian statehood on May 28

More from the Norwegian prime minister.

Store, speaking in Oslo, said Norway’s recognition of Palestine as a state will take place on May 28. “There cannot be peace in the Middle East if there is no recognition,” he said.

Norway recognition of Palestine state a ‘momentous occasion’
Imran Khan
Reporting from Amman, Jordan, because Israel's gov't has banned Al Jazeera

This is a major statement.

We are expecting this to be followed by Ireland a little bit later. Malta, Slovenia and Spain are also publicly saying that they are going to look at recognising the state of Palestine.

This is a momentous occasion for the Palestinians.

It’s perhaps unsurprising that Norway has taken the lead on this because they were behind the Oslo Accords – the agreement in 1993 that really did two things: it recognised the Palestine Liberation Organization, the PLO, as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people; and it also put into place the Palestinian Authority (PA), which had limited powers within the occupied West Bank.

This is going to be a boost for the PA.

It’s going to come as somewhat of a problem for the Israelis though, because they have already said that they want a moderate force within Gaza for the “day after”. But they are not really looking at the PA.

‘Some reflection’ among European countries on whether to recognise Palestine: Norway’s PM

Store responded in English to a reporter’s question about whether other countries also plan to recognise Palestine.

He said he expected several European countries to make announcements today.

“My impression is that there is reflection going on in some more countries, but I will not go into detail on that. I think they will make their position known when they are ready to do so,” he said.

“The United States have responded to us that they are not in a position or not ready to make that … recommendation. But they have understood, and they respect the decision we have taken,” he added.

PLO thanks countries who recognise Palestinian statehood

Hussein al-Sheikh, the secretary general of the Executive Committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), has posted a response on X to Spain, Ireland, and Norway’s announcements that they will recognise Palestinian statehood.

“Historical moments in which the free world triumphs for truth and justice after long decades of Palestinian national struggle, suffering, pain, occupation, racism, murder, oppression, abuse and destruction to which the people of Palestine were subjected”, he said.

“We thank the countries of the world that have recognized and will recognize the independent State of Palestine,” al-Sheikh said.

The Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) is an umbrella organisation comprising several political parties that claim to represent Palestinians worldwide.

Israel recalls envoys to Norway, Ireland for ‘urgent consultations’

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz is recalling his country’s ambassadors to Norway and Ireland over the two governments’ expected moves to formally recognise a Palestinian state.

“Today, I am sending a sharp message to Ireland and Norway: Israel will not go over this in silence,” Katz said in a statement.

“I have just ordered the return of the Israeli ambassadors from Dublin and Oslo to Israel for further consultations in Jerusalem,” he added.

UK charges pro-Palestine protester behind divisive ‘coconut’ placard
Aina Khan

London – Marieha Hussain, 37, has been charged with a racially aggravated public order offence after mocking Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and ex-Home Secretary Suella Braverman.

Hussain joined thousands of pro-Palestine protesters in London to call for an end to Israel’s war in Gaza. During the rally, she raised her placard depicting the faces of Sunak and Braverman alongside coconuts under a tree on a beach.

Coconut is a divisive term which, as it is brown outside and white inside, suggests a Black or brown individual is akin to a traitor who has betrayed their heritage by indulging white opinion.

Days later, the Metropolitan Police posted a photograph of Hussain and her placard on X, announcing she was being sought in relation to a hate crime. The post went viral.

US House leader to invite Netanyahu to address Congress despite ICC warrant request

Mike Johnson, the Republican Speaker of the US House of Representatives, has said he is moving ahead with an invitation to the Israeli prime minister to address US lawmakers.

The comments came a day after the ICC chief prosecutor requested an arrest warrant for Netanyahu on allegations of committing war crimes in Gaza.

Johnson said the invitation has not yet been sent because he was waiting for the Democratic leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, to sign a letter of invitation to a joint session.

If Schumer does not do so by Tuesday, “we’re going to proceed and invite Netanyahu just to the House”, Johnson said.

Addresses to joint meetings of Congress by foreign leaders are a rare honour generally reserved for the closest US allies, or major world figures. Netanyahu has already given three such addresses, most recently in 2015.

Aid system for Gaza – ‘seems it was designed not to work’

The American Friends Service Committee says the failure of the US-built pier to get food to starving Gaza people so far shows it’s more imperative than ever to reopen the three established land crossings.

“The pier itself can only bring in 90 trucks a day. We need 500 minimum, more like 1,500, to meet the vast humanitarian need that exists in Gaza,” said Kerri Kennedy from the organisation, which has worked in Gaza for 75 years.

“We are on the brink of a famine that is unprecedented in Gaza. There are 600,000 children on the edge of death. To think that we are playing around with building a pier… it is not [a] serious aid [effort].”

She told Al Jazeera the aid pier is a distraction from the much more effective land crossings that Israel continues to block.

“They’ve been there for decades. They have the infrastructure, the security mechanisms. This is a system that is not working – and it seems it was designed not to work.”

WHO, Japan sign $10m deal to support Gaza health response

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the government of Japan have signed a $10m agreement to bolster the emergency health response in Gaza, according to a statement.

The WHO said only 30 percent of Gaza’s hospitals were partially operational and the funding from Japan “will play a critical role in maintaining the functionality of health facilities by supplying essential medicines, medical equipment, and supplies”.

How many countries recognise an independent Palestinian state?

We have been reporting that, according to media reports, Norway is likely to recognise Palestine as an independent state today.

Ireland and Spain are also likely to announce plans for the recognition of a Palestinian state.

So far, 143 of the 193 UN member states have recognised Palestine.

Currently, just eight of the 27 EU members – Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sweden, and Cyprus – recognise Palestine as a state. Of those, only Sweden recognised Palestine as a sovereign state in 2014.

The EU does not recognise Palestine as a state despite multiple diplomatic efforts within the bloc.

All African states – excluding Cameroon and Eritrea – recognise Palestine as a state.

In mid-April, the US blocked a resolution at the UN Security Council that would have paved the way for full Palestinian membership of the world body.

More than 1,400 Israeli academics sign petition calling for end to Gaza war

Academics and administrators from higher education institutions across Israel have signed a petition calling on the Israeli government to end its war on Gaza and secure the return of captives held in the Palestinian enclave.

The petition, titled “A Call on the Israeli Government to End the War and Ensure the Return of the Hostages”, states that the end of the war and the return of captives are “moral imperatives that align with Israel’s interests”.

The signatories add that while it supports Israel’s right to self-defence, “this initial purpose has been exhausted” and the government does not have the right to “wage a war without a realistic end or one aimed at the political survival of the leadership”.

Hamas’s Haniyeh attends Raisi’s funeral in Tehran

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has paid tribute to the late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi at his funeral at the Tehran University.

“I come in the name of the Palestinian people, in the name of the resistance factions of Gaza … to express our condolences,” Haniyeh told those gathered.

He recounted meeting Raisi in Tehran during Ramadan, the holy Muslim fasting month, and heard the president say the Palestinian issue remains the key one of the Muslim world.

The Muslim world “must fulfil their obligations to the Palestinians to liberate their land”, Haniyeh said, recounting Raisi’s words. He also described Raisi calling Hamas’s October 7 attack in southern Israel an “earthquake in the heart of the Zionist entity”.

US pressured Israel to reverse block on AP video feed of Gaza
Alan Fisher
Reporting from Washington DC, United States

The Associated Press [AP] is one of the biggest names in American journalism.

The White House moved in and used the diplomatic levers and the strength of its support for Israel to try and get that decision reversed as soon as it could. And that video feed is now up and running, and the pictures are back, being beamed around the world to clients around the world, including Al Jazeera.

The White House had also expressed concern about the Israelis getting in the way of journalists doing their job. They said something similar when Al Jazeera was blocked from broadcasting in Israel about four weeks ago. But they didn’t put any pressure on the Israelis.

This time they did. And they said they wanted the Israelis to consider reversing that decision as quickly as possible. And here we are, a few hours later, and that’s exactly what’s happened.

Under the foreign press law, what the Israelis argued was that the shot of Gaza that was being used, the picture that was being broadcast, could perhaps give information away. Yet, it was a very broad, wide shot. And most of the time, it was essentially a pall of smoke over northern Gaza. You couldn’t see troop movements, you couldn’t make out that sort of detail.

So there was great concern that this was the Israelis pushing that law a bit too far. And certainly, that was the view expressed by freedom of speech and journalism advocates in the US.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/22/israels-war-on-gaza-live-famine-fears-rise-as-aid-failure-escalates

>>481688
>UK charges pro-Palestine protester behind divisive ‘coconut’ placard
>London – Marieha Hussain, 37, has been charged with a racially aggravated public order offence after mocking Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
>she raised her placard depicting the faces of Sunak and Braverman alongside coconuts
Yeah that it is indeed pretty unfair to coconuts

Netanyahu will use Norway, Ireland, Spain’s decisions to push ‘victimhood’ narrative

Akiva Eldar, a political columnist at Israeli publication Haaretz, has told Al Jazeera that the recognition of the Palestinian state by Norway, Spain and Ireland goes against “Netanyahu and the majority of the Israeli Knesset’s philosophy never to agree to a Palestinian state, especially not unilaterally”.

“Just a few months ago, the majority of the Knesset passed a very weird resolution against any unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state,” he said.

Eldar added that he believes that Netanyahu will frame the recognition “as another demonstration of anti-Semitism, victimhood” and use it in his narrative “that the world is against us”.

Recognition of Palestinian state a ‘blow’ to Netanyahu’s ‘extremist’ government

Longtime Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti said recognition of the Palestinian state by Ireland, Spain and Norway was a “powerful political and symbolically-significant step” that moved the achievement of “freedom and justice” closer for the Palestinian people.

“It is a very important step in determining the rights of the Palestinian people – our people – for self-determination,” Barghouti told Al Jazeera.

“Also, it blows away a lot of the defacto effects that Israel has created through settlement building on the ground – by confirming that Palestine today is a state under occupation,” Barghouti said.

“So, any efforts of the occupying power to change facts on the ground is meaningless and will not have an impact in the long run,” he said.

“This is also a blow to Netanyahu and his extreme government, and to the fascists in his government… It means the acts of fascism and extremism in the Israeli government has no future,” he added.

ICC move ignores Israeli crimes against detainees: Palestinian rights group

Addameer says that while the decision made by the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor to hold Israeli officials accountable for alleged war crimes in Gaza marks a significant step, it still lacks substantial efforts to achieve comprehensive justice for all Palestinians, including prisoners.

“Despite the importance of this decision, the prosecutor completely neglected the crimes committed against Palestinian prisoners. He did not address at all the violations committed against Palestinian prisoners for many years, which have significantly escalated after October 7,” the rights group said in a statement.

Addameer said for decades, it has extensively documented crimes committed against Palestinian detainees, “all of which fall under the crimes listed by the prosecutor such as starvation, willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health, or cruel treatment, and especially persecution as a crime against humanity”.

It also documented an increase in the acts of torture and mistreatment of Palestinian detainees since the beginning of the war, including being subjected to beatings multiple times a day, sometimes until loss of consciousness, forced to stay in stress positions, threatened, including with death, sexual violence, or threats on their families, and regularly strip-searched.

The group has also “recently documented outrages upon personal dignity against Palestinian detainees, in particular humiliating and degrading treatments against detainees from Gaza, forcing them to bark, to curse themselves, and guards scooping food with their hands before giving it to prisoners”.

Israelis demand return of captives in protest

Video verified by Al Jazeera shows a crowd of Israelis protesting their government’s failure to secure a deal with Hamas that would see the safe return of the captives currently held in Gaza.

The crowd gathered outside the Israeli Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv, and held banners demanding the return of the captives, even at the cost of ending the Gaza war.

https://twitter.com/orlybarlev/status/1793333653537235050

Sixteen-year-old Palestinian shot during Jenin raids has died

The director of Jenin Hospital has confirmed the death, after the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) had said earlier today that the teenager had been shot multiple times during Israeli raids in the refugee camp.

According to a statement from the Gaza Health Ministry, his name was Mahmoud Fares Qarini.

His death brings the total number of Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7 to 516 people, including 129 minors.

ICC indictments against ‘Western’ leaders a first in 21-year history

Analysts note International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan’s request for arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant marks the first time in its history that “Western” leaders have been targeted with war crimes allegations.

“This is a watershed event in the history of international justice,” human rights lawyer Reed Brody, who has gone after leaders including Augusto Pinochet of Chile and former Chad strongman Hissène Habré, said.

“The ICC has never, in over 21 years of existence, indicted a Western official. Indeed, no international tribunal since Nuremberg has done so.”

Tom Ginsburg, a professor of international law at the University of Chicago Law School, said Khan’s decision to consult a panel of top legal experts before seeking warrants sought to provide some “cover” for the move.

“By including Amal Clooney, he will ensure a lot of attention; by including Theodore Meron, a former legal adviser to the foreign ministry in Israel and prominent former judge of international criminal tribunals, he seeks to insulate himself from the charge of bias,” said Ginsburg.

Among the charges Khan wants instated against Netanyahu and Gallant is the war crime of “starvation as a weapon of warfare”. That’s a first, too, in international courts.

“This is a watershed moment in addressing this egregious crime, which has long been viewed solely as a collateral or incidental effect of armed conflict, rather than a deliberate and calculated strategy,” said Catriona Murdoch of rights group Global Rights Compliance.

UCLA police chief reassigned after pro-Palestine encampment violence

School administrators cited security shortcomings for the action against the California public university’s police chief John Thomas, according to the Los Angeles Times.

He had faced criticism after a pro-Palestine encampment on the campus was attacked by what the university described as a “group of instigators”.

It took at least three hours for police to respond to the violence at the encampment, which came as similar camps were set up in solidarity with Gaza at universities across the US.

The newspaper reported, citing three sources, that Thomas had failed to submit a written safety contingency plan for various scenarios related to the encampment.

Israel dumping goods at crossing with Gaza: Rights group

Gisha, an Israeli human rights organisation, accuses Israeli authorities of dumping goods on the Israeli side of the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing with Gaza. Those goods cannot be accessed without their approval.

The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) is the Israeli military unit responsible for ensuring that goods enter the besieged Gaza Strip.

Israel has been “mocking international organisations that can’t reach the goods because of lack of coordination during a humanitarian catastrophe”, Tania Hary, Gisha’s executive director, charged.

Initiative by UN members seeks to bolster support for UNRWA

At least 16 countries have put forth a “statement of shared commitments” in support of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees that will be circulated to UN members today.

The effort seeks to bolster UNRWA, which has long been considered a lifeline for people in Gaza but has been embattled by Israeli allegations that some of its staff members took part in the October 7 attacks.

An independent investigation last month said Israel has yet to provide evidence of its allegations that a “significant number” of UNRWA employees are “members of terrorist organisations”. The UN’s internal oversight body said last month that it’s still investigating 14 employees Israel claimed took part in the October 7 attacks but had suspended the probe into five others, citing a lack of proof.

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, called the initiative a “significant step” in rebuilding political support for the agency.

Following pro-Palestine efforts, University of Melbourne says will disclose investments

The university has agreed to a full disclosure of all its financial ties to weapons manufacturers, UM4P, a grassroots coalition of students, staff and alumni for Palestine, has said.

“After eight months of ongoing campaigning and meetings with [the university’s] management regarding their weapons ties, the University of Melbourne finally agreed to one of our demands: Full disclosure of its ties to all weapons manufacturers, including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, BAE Systems and more,” the coalition said.

“This is a major win for our campaign but it’s only one demand. Our priority remains full divestment from all weapons manufacturers.”

Student protests in support of Palestine, and demanding that educational institutions divest from Israel and disclose investments in companies tied to Israel and its war on Gaza, have spread to campuses world wide in recent months.

For a roundup of how various universities have dealt with student demands, read our story here.

Palestinian state recognition based on 1967 borders: Irish foreign minister

Micheal Martin says the country plans to formally recognise the Palestinian state on May 28 based on its 1967 borders.

This refers to the borders that existed before the war that year in which Israel occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

“When we recognise a state, we don’t recognise the government of the day; we recognise the state in terms of a permanent population of people in terms of defined borders, and in this case, it’s the 1967 borders,” the Irish foreign minister told RTE radio.

That is “a defined territory involving Gaza, the West Bank and … a capital of both an Israeli state and a Palestinian state in Jerusalem”, Martin said.

Legal group submits war crimes complaint to Scotland Yard

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), a London-based legal group, has submitted a complaint to Scotland Yard’s War Crimes Team accusing Israel of using “‘starvation as a weapon of war” and “willfully causing great suffering to Palestinians during its war on Gaza”.

The complaint builds on an initial complaint submitted in January that is still being considered by Scotland Yard, which named four British government ministers for “alleged complicity and criminal responsibility in Israeli war crimes”.

The latest submission now includes a fifth senior government minister as an alleged perpetrator, ICJP said in a statement.

“The alleged criminal acts are prosecutable in the United Kingdom and will now be considered by Scotland Yard’s War Crimes Investigation Team before a decision is made by them whether to open a formal criminal investigation, which could see alleged perpetrators questioned, arrested and prosecuted,” it said.

It added that the 60-page complaint is comprehensive, with 800 pages of evidence “collected from first hand eyewitnesses, expert reports and expert evidence from nineteen medical professionals who have worked in Gaza since October”.

https://twitter.com/ICJPalestine/status/1793218952505463002

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/22/israels-war-on-gaza-live-famine-fears-rise-as-aid-failure-escalates

Colombia to open embassy in Ramallah: Minister

Speaking to reporters, Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo says the Latin American country’s President Gustavo Petro has ordered the opening of an embassy in Ramallah.

The move comes weeks after Petro, Colombia’s first leftist leader, cut diplomatic ties with Israel over the war in Gaza.

“President Petro has given the order that we open the Colombian embassy in Ramallah, the representation of Colombia in Ramallah, that is the next step we are going to take,” Murillo said.

Petro has heavily criticised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and requested to join South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/22/israels-war-on-gaza-live-famine-fears-rise-as-aid-failure-escalates

>>481699
>Eldar added that he believes that Netanyahu will frame the recognition “as another demonstration of anti-Semitism, victimhood” and use it in his narrative “that the world is against us”.
The Zionists are going to wear out antisemitism accusations, by abusing it as a political weapon. And when there is a case of actual antisemitism we no longuer have a word to describe it.

Pro-Palestine protesters at Berlin university given deadline to leave

Pro-Palestine demonstrators, who have been occupying rooms at a Berlin university, have been told that they will only be allowed to stay until 6pm (16:00 GMT) on Thursday.

About 50 protesters have occupied several rooms at the Institute of Social Sciences at Humboldt University in support of Palestinians since Wednesday afternoon, the police and Germany’s dpa news agency estimated.

A further 250 to 300 young people demonstrated on the street outside.

In a statement, the Student Coalition Berlin group accused Israel of “genocide” and “ongoing mass murders”, saying the protest was about “unconditional solidarity with the Palestinian people”.

The protesters had called on the university to accept their occupation and presence and to ban a police operation.

Hungary says ICC warrant against Netanyahu ‘unacceptable’

Hungary’s PM Viktor Orban’s chief of staff says the ICC prosecutor’s request for an arrest warrant against Netanyahu is “unacceptable” and could not be enforced in Hungary.

Gergely Gulyas told a news briefing that although Hungary, a staunch ally of Israel, ratified the Rome Statute of the ICC, it “was never made part of Hungarian law”, meaning that no measure of the court can be carried out within Hungary.

ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said on Monday he had requested arrest warrants for Israel’s PM, his defence chief and three Hamas leaders over alleged war crimes.

“This decision … is not a legal but a political decision, it is unacceptable and it discredits the International Criminal Court,” Gulyas said.

All 27 European Union countries are ICC members, and EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell noted that they “are bound to execute the court’s decisions”.

ICJ to rule on Friday on measures over Israel’s Rafah offensive

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) says it will rule on South Africa’s request to order a halt to Israel’s offensive on Rafah tomorrow afternoon.

Rafah is where more than one million displaced Palestinians have sought shelter from Israeli attacks on other parts of the enclave.

In hearings last week, South Africa asked the ICJ to order a halt to Israel’s offensive in Gaza, and in Rafah in particular, to ensure the survival of the Palestinian people.

The demand for such an emergency measure is part of a larger case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide.

After initial hearings in January, the ICJ issued several provisional measures, ordering Israel to take action to limit humanitarian suffering in Gaza.

ICC prosecutor urged to address Israeli torture of Palestinian detainees

More from the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor:

The group, which published a new report with testimony from 100 freed Palestinian detainees from Gaza, criticised ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan for disregarding “the widespread and systematic torture” committed by Israeli forces against Palestinians when he applied for an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and Gallant.

The charges Khan levied against the two Israeli leaders include deliberately starving civilians, murder and extermination, but “not torture, even though there is ample evidence to support such allegations,” the group noted.

The court must take action in “submitting specialised reports about the crimes which Palestinian prisoners and detainees have been exposed to in Israeli prisons and detention centres since October 7” and issue arrest warrants for all those responsible for these crimes, it added.

Red Crescent staff death toll rises to 29

The killing of a Palestine Red Crescent Society mental health volunteer brings to 29 the total number of PRCS staff members killed by Israeli forces since October 7.

In a post on X, PRCS said it mourned the killing of Najm Tabassi and his wife in an Israeli attack on their home in southern Gaza’s Rafah city.

The PRCS added that 17 of the 29 staff members killed had died in “targeted” attacks by the Israeli military “while performing their humanitarian duties”.

Israeli forces withdraw from Jenin refugee camp

The Israeli military has reportedly withdrawn from the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

Twelve Palestinians were killed, including at least four children, a doctor and a teacher, in the siege which started on Tuesday.

The Israeli military claimed it was carrying out a “counterterrorism” operation in the city, but witnesses have described Israeli forces shooting at people indiscriminately in the streets.

Video clips from the raid show an Israeli soldier kicking one of several Palestinian detainees, who were forced to kneel on a road in their underwear.

Israeli soldiers also fired at an Al Jazeera crew in Jenin as one of our correspondents was preparing to go live, wounding a staff member at a nearby hotel.

New report details ‘horrific’ torture of Palestinian detainees in Gaza

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has gathered testimonies from 100 Palestinians who were arrested in Gaza, saying Israeli forces routinely subjected them to “horrific crimes”, including enforced disappearance, murder, torture, inhuman treatment and sexual violence.

The testimonies confirm the Israeli use of physical and psychological torture against Palestinian civilian detainees, including “beatings with the intent to kill, sexual violence, electrocution, blindfolding, and long-term hand and foot shackles”, the Geneva-based group said.

“Israel also denied them access to food and medical care, including critical and life-saving care, spat and urinated on detainees, and committed other cruel and degrading acts,” it said.

All EU donors have resumed UNRWA funding: Borrell

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has lauded an initiative by the Slovenian Permanent Mission to the UN to support UNRWA‘s vital role in providing assistance to generations of Palestinian refugees.

In a post on X, he also stated that all EU donors have now resumed funding of the UN agency.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/23/israels-war-on-gaza-live-news-full-scale-rafah-invasion-appears-imminent

x.com/angeloinchina/status/1792922910748807495
^Some more graphic (but not the absolute worst) footage of children, who Twitter sez were killed recently in Rafah.

>>481699
>Netanyahu will use Norway, Ireland, Spain’s decisions to push ‘victimhood’ narrative
So he's going for maximize cringe.

More than 100 rights groups call on Biden to support ICC

The civil and human rights groups have signed a letter to the US president urging him to support the independence of the International Criminal Court and ignore calls from some US lawmakers to sanction the court.

The calls came after the court’s prosecutor applied for arrest warrants against Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as three Hamas leaders.

“Acting on these calls would do grave harm to the interests of all victims globally and to the U.S. government’s ability to champion human rights and the cause of justice, which are stated priorities of your administration,” the letter reads.

Kenya presser: Biden avoids question on Israel ‘using starvation’ as war tool
Kimberly Halkett
Reporting from the White House

US President Joe Biden completely dodged a question about the International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Israeli leaders over the war on Gaza. It was the very first question by one of the American reporters who asked, “Is Israel using starvation as a weapon of war?”

The president tried to avoid it, so the reporter asked it again. He didn’t answer that part of the question. What he did say was the White House believes the ICC doesn’t have jurisdiction, and Hamas doesn’t have “any equivalence” to Israel’s leaders.

The president ruffled through his notes like he wasn’t prepared for this kind of question. He didn’t respond about Israel using starvation as a weapon of war, and I think that is going to be focused on by the American media.

MSF sounds alarm on situation at al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, says al-Awda Hospital “is being forced to close”.

“This follows a terrifying 4-day siege – the latest in a series of systematic attacks on health care by Israeli forces. Staff & patients were forced to leave one of the only hospitals still functioning in the north of Gaza,” it said on X.

Al-Awda Hospital came under siege by Israeli forces on Sunday and since then has come under direct attack by the Israeli army several times.

Israeli authorities giving priority to private sector trucks: UNRWA chief

Philippe Lazzarini says when it comes to the Israeli-controlled Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) land crossing into Gaza, “the private sector for the time being is being prioritised”.

At the inspection process, private sector cargo vehicles are inspected “before any other trucks” carrying aid to the desperate people of Gaza, a development that’s occurred over the past two weeks, he said.

While private goods are “welcome in the Gaza Strip”, most Gazans are starving after seven months of war and cannot afford goods at the current market prices.

“We need a combination of both humanitarian aid and market,” said Lazzarini, head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

The number of aid trucks entering Gaza through the southern crossings of Rafah and Karem Abu Salem has fallen dramatically in recent weeks, aid agencies say. The Israeli military takeover of the vital Rafah crossing into Gaza has compounded the problem.

Ambassadors from Norway, Spain, Ireland scolded by Israel

Israel’s foreign ministry reprimanded the ambassadors of Norway, Spain and the Republic of Ireland for their governments’ decisions to recognise a Palestinian state.

The ambassadors were summoned to the ministry and shown a video of Hamas fighters capturing five female soldiers during the October 7 attack that triggered the war on Gaza.

“The twisted decision by your governments is a prize to Hamas,” the ministry quoted its director general, Yaakov Blitshtein, as saying to them. “Hamas congratulates you.”

Blitshtein also warned that there would be additional repercussions for diplomatic relations with the three European countries.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/23/israels-war-on-gaza-live-news-full-scale-rafah-invasion-appears-imminent

>>481713
>The ambassadors were summoned to the ministry and shown a video of Hamas fighters capturing five female soldiers during the October 7 attack that triggered the war on Gaza.
LOOK! LOOK AT THE HORROR OF SOLDIERS FROM OUR SHITTY ARMY THAT THE US PAYS FOR GETTING CAPTURED BY ENEMY COMBATANTS! WE WILL NEVER NEGOTIATE FOR THEIR RELEASE, THEY ARE WORTHLESS TO US!! NOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND OUR PAIN?!

Israeli settlers attack flour truck near Nablus

Wafa news agency reports, citing local sources, that a truck loaded with flour near the town of Beira, south of the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, was attacked by a mob of illegal Israeli settlers.

The sources said, according to Wafa, that a mob intercepted the truck and sabotaged part of the shipment.

Israeli extremists have been attacking trucks, some containing aid bound for the Gaza Strip and some simply commercial trucks, for several weeks.

It is not clear at this time whether the truck that was just attacked was hauling humanitarian aid.

Hezbollah says it destroys Israeli tank

The Lebanese group says in a statement that it has observed, ambushed and destroyed an Israeli army Merkava tank in the Shtoula Forest.

It said it observed the tank firing on villages in southern Lebanon before attacking it with a guided anti-tank missile, leaving its crew “dead and wounded”.

Earlier, an Israeli army drone strike killed Muhammad Nasser, a Hezbollah commander, in the Nabtieh area in southern Lebanon. Israel confirmed it carried out the attack, and Hezbollah confirmed the death of the commander.

Qassam Brigades says Israeli commander captured on October 7

Hamas’s armed wing announced in a video message that it captured Asaf Hamami, commander of the Israeli army’s Southern Brigade in the Gaza Strip, during its attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.

According to Israeli media, Hamami was thought to have been killed on October 7 fighting in the Nirim kibbutz.

‘Extreme violence and hostility’ as UK police target Oxford student protesters

British police arrested a dozen University of Oxford students and scuffled with some during a pro-Palestinian sit-in at the university premises.

The Oxford Action for Palestine group (OA4P) said university authorities called in police after students began their protest at administration offices, as has been happening on campuses in the UK, US and elsewhere during Israel’s devastating war on Gaza.

Footage posted on social media by OA4P showed altercations between officers and students sitting in the road blockading a police van it said held detainees. “Let them go,” demonstrators chanted.

Protesters have called for the university to divest from companies with ties to Israel. “It is evident the administration would rather arrest, silence, and physically assault its own students than confront its enabling of Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” the group said.

Student Kendall Gardner accused police of “extreme violence and hostility”.

Hezbollah says it targeted an Israeli brigade with dozens of missiles

Hezbollah said its fighters fired dozens of rockets fighters at the Beit Hillel base in northern Israel.

We just reported the Israeli military saying that 30 rockets were fired across the border from Lebanon.

Earlier, Hezbollah announced that one of its members, Muhammad Nasser, was killed in an Israeli drone attack. Israeli forces struck a vehicle in the southern Lebanese town of Kfar Dajjal, near Nabatieh, where Nasser was from.

Gaza National Security Forces assistant commander killed in Israeli strike: Interior Ministry

The Interior Ministry in Gaza says in a statement published on its official Telegram channel that Major General Diaa ad-Din ash-Shurafa was killed “as a result of an assassination carried out by Israeli occupation aircraft”.

The statement says he was on a tour of as-Saraya area of central Gaza City in the northern Strip this morning when he was killed, and that four other officers were injured in the attack.

The National Security Forces operate in the occupied West Bank, where it is under the command of the Palestinian Authority, and the Gaza Strip, where it reports to the Hamas-led government. Its function is to support governmental security forces.

Pro-Palestine union members disrupt US VP’s speech

Members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) have disrupted the US Vice President Kamala Harris’s speech at a trade union conference in Philidelphia.

The protesters shouted “Free Palestine” and held Palestinian flags aloft in the middle of her address to the conference.

The union members denounced Harris and President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party and what they said is its complicity in ongoing genocide perpetrated by Israel in Gaza, and called on their union, which represents nearly 1.9 million workers across the US and Canada, not to endorse Biden in the upcoming presidential election in November.

Israel must investigate reports of torture of Palestinian detainees: UN expert

The UN special rapporteur on torture, Alice Jill Edwards, has called on Israel to investigate multiple allegations of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of Palestinian detainees since October 7.

Edwards said in a statement that she had received allegations of people being beaten up, kept blindfolded in cells and handcuffed for long periods.

She also received reports of some detainees being deprived of sleep, threatened with physical and sexual violence, insulted and exposed to humiliating acts, including “being photographed and filmed in degrading poses”.

“I am particularly concerned that this emerging pattern of violations, coupled with an absence of accountability and transparency, is creating a permissive environment for further abusive and humiliating treatment of Palestinians,” Edwards said.

“Those responsible at all levels, including commanders, must be held accountable, while victims have a right to reparation and compensation.”

Three US troops suffer non-combat injuries during pier operation

US Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, deputy commander of US Central Command, told reporters two of the injuries included a sprained ankle and a minor back injury.

He declined to offer details on the third. The $320m floating pier, built for delivering aid, is attached to Gaza’s shore.

Aid groups have criticised the pier as a costly and ineffective distraction from the fact that land deliveries – currently blocked and heavily restricted by Israel – are the most efficient way to help the wounded and starving people of Gaza.

Israeli PM Netanyahu boasts of ‘surprising plan’ for Hezbollah

While shouldering heavy criticism over Israel’s Gaza escalation, defiant leader Benjamin Netanyahu says there are also military plans in the works for southern Lebanon.

“We are constantly operating on the northern front. So far, we have killed hundreds of Hezbollah members, and we are still continuing to this day,” said Netanyahu.

“We have a clear, detailed, important and even surprising plan. But I will not share this plan with the enemy, which is prepared to achieve two things: The first is to restore safety to the north, and the second is to return the population to their homes safely. And we are determined to achieve both things together.”

Tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border have fled daily fighting since October 7, after Hezbollah began launching attacks into northern Israel in support of Hamas in Gaza.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/23/israels-war-on-gaza-live-news-full-scale-rafah-invasion-appears-imminent

>>481714
The Zionists are mad that nobody cares about October 7 anymore. Everybody thinks they are the villain and not the victim. They have dehumanized the Palestinians so much that they don't understand that the mega death they unleashed in Gaza completely overshadows oct7.

Netanyahu will soon address joint session of US Congress

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will soon address a joint session of Congress in the US, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Thursday.

“Tonight I’m happy to announce something else to you. We will soon be hosting Prime Minister Netanyahu at the Capitol for a joint session of Congress,” Johnson said to applause at the Israeli embassy’s annual Independence Day reception in Washington, D.C.

The invitation to speak comes amid growing tensions with US President Joe Biden over Netanyahu’s handling of Israel’s war on Gaza.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/24/israels-war-on-gaza-live-news-at-least-60-palestinians-killed-in-attacks

+ Kyle Cucklinski catches some interesting details, including video of apparent Israeli bodysnatching.

>>481715
>Israeli settlers attack flour truck
The madness that this can be a headline.

I used to read a lot of historic trivia and wondered about all the retarded shit people used to do in the past, and now i realize, somebody in the future will read about our time and think the exact same thing.

US soldier in ‘critical condition’ due to non-combat injury sustained on Gaza aid pier

An American soldier is in “critical condition” after suffering a non-combat injury while working on a US-constructed aid pier off the coast of Gaza, the Reuters news agency reports, citing an anonymous US defence official.

Earlier we reported that deputy commander of US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM), Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, told reporters that two other American troops had also suffered “very minor, routine injuries” while working on the pier.

The third soldier was injured on a ship at sea and medically evacuated to an Israeli hospital, the anonymous source said, without specifying the nature of the injury.

Some 1,000 US service members were involved in the construction of the pier, which went into operation last week, while it is estimated it will cost $320 million for the first 90 days to operate.

Israeli tanks reach western Rafah where ‘congested mass of people’ live: Aid worker

Reuters news agency reports that Israel’s military is continuing its attacks in three eastern suburbs of Rafah while Israeli tanks are advancing on Rafah’s southeast and have reached the city’s densely-populated western district of Yibna.

“The occupation is trying to move farther to the west. They are on the edge of Yibna, which is densely populated. They didn’t invade it yet,” one Rafah resident told the news agency.

“We hear explosions, and we see black smoke coming up from the areas where the army has invaded. It was another very difficult night,” he said via a chat app.

The Norwegian Refugee Council’s emergency response leader in Gaza, Suze van Meegen, said many civilians were still stuck in the Rafah warzone.

“The city of Rafah is now comprised of three entirely different worlds: the east is an archetypal war zone, the middle is a ghost town, and the west is a congested mass of people living in deplorable conditions,” she said in a statement.

“People have no choice but to put their faith in so-called ‘humanitarian safe zones’ designated by the forces that have killed their family members and destroyed their homes,” she added.

Israeli rights group exposes violent settler ‘take over’ of Palestinian pastureland

B’Tselem, a leading Israeli human rights group, has released video footage documenting how Israeli settlers “take over” land belonging to Palestinian shepherds as “part of a state policy to drive out pastoral communities”.

The rights organisation said it had documented some 20 incidents where settlers and Israeli soldiers “drove Palestinian shepherds out of pastureland” in the occupied West Bank’s South Hebron Hills.

“The State of Israel is working to drive Palestinian pastoral communities out of their homes in the West Bank in order to take over their areas of habitation, including farmland and pastureland,” the rights organisation said.

Since the October 7 attack on Israel, settlers involved in “violent acts” of land expulsion are part of Israeli “territorial defence” units and have been issued military weapons and uniforms.

“This makes it impossible to distinguish when they are operating under military orders and when they are acting independently while in uniform,” B’Tselem said.

US comedian Dave Chappelle calls out Israel’s ‘genocide’ in Gaza at UAE show

Chappelle’s reference to the “genocide” striking the Gaza Strip received loud cheers and applause during his performance in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, The Associated Press reports.

Even before coming on stage, the full crowd of thousands on Thursday night at Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Arena cheered as DJ Trauma, who accompanied Chappelle on the trip, played the song “My Blood is Palestinian” by the Palestinian singer Mohammed Assaf.

About halfway through his set, Chappelle said the Gaza Strip faces a “genocide”. He also said that making Jews safer in America amid rising cases of anti-Semitism would make them realise they do not need Israel as an ultimate protector.

When touching on the upcoming US presidential election, Chappelle’s mention of President Joe Biden – Israel’s staunched supporter in its war on Gaza – drew widespread boos throughout the arena.

Hundreds of Harvard students walk out of commencement, chant ‘Free, free Palestine’

Hundreds of students in graduation robes walked out of the Harvard commencement chanting “Free, free Palestine”, a day after the school announced that 13 students who participated in a Gaza solidarity encampment would not graduate alongside their classmates.

To cheers and applause, student commencement speaker Shruthi Kumar went off script from her speech to blast the university, saying that “freedom of speech” and “expressions of solidarity” had been made “punishable” by Harvard.

“I am deeply disappointed by the intolerance for freedom of speech and their right to civil disobedience on campus,” Kumar said. “The students have spoken. The faculty have spoken. Harvard, do you hear us?”

More than 1,500 students had petitioned, and nearly 500 staff and faculty had spoken out against sanctioning the student protesters, she said.

Those in the encampment had called for a ceasefire in Gaza and for Harvard to divest from companies that support the war.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/24/israels-war-on-gaza-live-news-at-least-60-palestinians-killed-in-attacks

‘Israel must immediately halt its military offensive’: ICJ

“Israel must immediately halt its military offensive or any other action in the Rafah governorate which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” Salam says.

UN Security Council adopts resolution on protection of humanitarian workers

The UN Security Council adopted a resolution calling for the protection of humanitarian workers and UN personnel in conflicts.

From the 15 members of the council, 14 voted in favour with Russia abstaining.

The Swiss-sponsored resolution doesn’t single out any conflict, but comes as humanitarian workers are being killed in military attacks in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and other places.

According to the UN, more than 190 of its staff have been killed by the Israeli army in Gaza since October 7, the highest number in the organisation’s nearly 80-year history.

ICJ rules Israel must stop Rafah operation, what’s next?
Justin Salhani and Mat Nashed

International Court of Justice orders are legally binding. However, the court’s ruling will now be discussed at the UN Security Council where states can decide to take united action to enforce the court’s rulings.

However, the US has a veto, which it has historically used to shield Israel from the consequences of violating international law.

But the new World Court order compounds the pressure on Western states that arm Israel. “How can you justify selling weapons for Israel to use in Rafah? I don’t think you can. I think it is legally impossible,” said Alonso Gurmendi, an international law scholar at King’s College, London.

Israel must comply with World Court ruling immediately: Amnesty

The UK-based human rights organisation says the ICJ order makes it “crystal clear” that Israel must halt the attack on Rafah.

“The Israeli authorities must completely halt military operations in Rafah, as any ongoing military action could constitute an underlying act of genocide,” said Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, in a statement.

“Unequivocally, the ground incursion and the associated mass forced displacement it has caused, pose further irreparable risk to the rights of the Palestinian people protected under the Genocide Convention and further threaten their physical destruction in whole or in part.”

UCLA police arrest man for alleged assault on pro-Palestine encampment

Nearly a month after counterprotesters attacked a pro-Palestinian camp at the University of California, Los Angeles, police have made their first arrest, detaining an 18-year-old who is not a student or affiliated with the school in any way.

“During that violence, one individual was seen on video assaulting encampment occupants with a wooden pole, causing serious injuries to at least one victim,” the university said in its statement, adding the suspect was booked at the UCLA Police Department for felony assault with a deadly weapon.

Counter-demonstrators threw traffic cones, fired pepper spray, and threw live mice into the encampment, setting off fighting that went on for hours before police stepped in. Police said at least 15 people were injured though the pro-Palestinian supporters put the number closer to 25.

UCLA officials have said the attack involved “a group of instigators”.

Hezbollah claims attack on Israeli military base

The armed Lebanese group says it used rockets and missiles to target the headquarters of the Sahel Battalion of the 769th Brigade of the Israeli military in Beit Hilel, achieving a direct hit.

It is the 11th attack claimed by Hezbollah today with earlier attacks targeting gatherings of Israeli soldiers and equipment.

Air raid sirens have also sounded in areas in northern Israel over the past few hours.

Qassam Brigades says it hits Israeli forces in northern Gaza

Hamas’s armed wing says its fighters have targeted two Merkava tanks and an Israeli military bulldozer with Yassin-105 rockets during fighting in the Beit Lahiya area.

Palestinian fighters continue to confront Israeli military operations in northern Gaza, where attacks have targeted the Jabalia refugee camp and surrounding areas.

In January, the Israeli army announced it was scaling down its operations in northern Gaza after it “dismantled” Hamas in the area. In early May, however, it again launched ground attacks, saying Palestinian fighters had regrouped in the north.

Israeli military claims assassination of Hamas national security official

The Israeli military says it was behind the assassination of Diaa al-Din al-Sharafa, identified as the deputy commander of Hamas’s national security department.

He was responsible for “managing the mechanism that secures the borders of the Gaza Strip”.

“During the war, this mechanism prevented the population from evacuating from combat zones,” it said in a statement, without elaborating.

Gaza’s interior ministry reported on Thursday that al-Sharafa was killed by an Israeli air raid while on a tour of the Saraya area of central Gaza City in the northern part of the enclave.

US military confirms Houthi attack, reports no injuries or damage

The US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) says the Houthis launched two antiship ballistic missiles into the Red Sea.

“There were no injuries or damage reported by US, coalition, or commercial ships.”

This comes hours after the Iran-aligned Yemeni group’s military reported attacks on three vessels, including two “Israeli ships” and a Greek vessel, without citing a timeline.

The group said its attack on the Essex took place in the Mediterranean Sea, marking the first time the Houthis claimed an attack there during military operations in opposition to the war on Gaza.

Shipping data show the Liberia-flagged Essex liquified petroleum gas tanker was anchored off the coast of Egypt’s Alexandria port in the Mediterranean on Friday.

The vessel is managed by Zodiac Maritime, which is controlled by Israeli magnate Eyal Ofer. The Portugal-flagged MSC Aries container ship that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized on April 13 is also associated with the London-based company.

Ireland condemns Israel’s ‘reprimand’ of envoy

Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister Michael Martin called Israel’s “reprimand” of its ambassador “totally unacceptable” after its move to recognise a Palestinian state.

Ireland, Norway and Spain said on Wednesday they will formally recognise statehood on May 28 and Israel immediately promised counter-measures.

Irish Ambassador Sonya McGuinness and her Norwegian and Spanish counterparts were summoned on Thursday. Israel’s foreign ministry said it showed them a video of the kidnapping of five female soldiers during the October 7 attack by Hamas that set off the Gaza war.

Martin, who is also Ireland’s foreign minister, told reporters, “I find that totally unacceptable and no way to treat diplomats, and is outside the norm by which diplomats are treated in any country.”

Showing the ambassador the video in front of Israeli media was something they had not “witnessed before in other countries or jurisdictions”, he added.

“Most people would accept internationally that that’s not within the parameters of acceptable norms in terms of how people engage with diplomats.”

South Africa’s president welcomes ICJ ruling on halting Rafah attack

However, President Cyril Ramaphosa says he remains concerned the United Nations Security Council has not succeeded in reducing human suffering in Gaza.

South Africa’s lawyers asked the International Court of Justice in The Hague last week to impose emergency measures, saying Israel’s attacks on Rafah must be stopped to ensure the survival of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people trapped there.

Israel insists Rafah operation does not risk ‘destruction of Palestinians’

“Israel has not and will not carry out military operations in the Rafah area that create living conditions that could cause the destruction of the Palestinian civilian population, in whole or in part,” National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said in a statement.

Earlier, judges at the top United Nations court ordered Israel to halt its offensive in Rafah and withdraw from the enclave, citing “immense risk” to the Palestinian population.

Nearly 800,000 Palestinians have been displaced from Rafah since Israel launched its offensive against the southern Gaza city earlier this month. Hundreds of thousands more remain trapped inside the city as Israeli forces push deeper towards them.

‘Biden administration stands alone in full support for Gaza genocide’: CAIR

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) “applauds” the rulings by the ICJ demanding an end to Israel’s attacks on Rafah.

“While the Biden administration stands alone in continuing to offer full support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the international community is increasingly pushing back against the slaughter, forced starvation and ethnic cleansing Israel’s far-right government is inflicting on the Palestinian people,” CAIR said in a statement.

“Israel is clearly attempting to make Gaza uninhabitable. It must be stopped from completing this monstrous goal. President Biden must honor this important ruling by immediately ending all military assistance to Israel’s genocide.”

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/24/israels-war-on-gaza-live-news-at-least-60-palestinians-killed-in-attacks

>>481718
Yeah, this is absolutely some "history book" insanity. The rhetoric and propaganda reminds me a lot of stuff which was employed against American Indians in that genocide.

Palestinian PM calls out book-burning Israeli soldiers

The social media account of the Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa has shared an image of an Israeli soldier reading a book in a library at Gaza’s Al-Aqsa University while a shelf of books burns in the background.

The prime minister said the soldier had shared the image of himself “posing in front” of the burning books at the library, “which they had set on fire”.

“Israel has targeted all universities in the Strip, with some being completely destroyed,” the post on the prime minister’s X account adds.

Hamas using ‘fighting compounds’ as ‘most violent’ battle for Jabalia rages: Monitors

Palestinian fighters in Gaza’s northern Jabalia refugee camp have established “fighting compounds” which allow them to rapidly and safely move through buildings rather than on the streets where they would be exposed to Israeli attack, war monitors report.

Israeli forces battling in Jabalia since May 11 have described the Palestinian resistance fighters in the camp area as “bolder” that in other parts of Gaza and the fighting as being the “most violent” of the war so far, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP) report.

The US-based defence think tanks said the two-week-long battle for control of Jabalia demonstrates that Hamas is “conducting a deliberate defence of the area” and their “unusually high rate of attacks” on Israeli forces proves that Hamas can remain “combat effective”, despite the loss of their Jabalia battalion commander in October.

“Hamas has organized its military wing like a conventional military and has developed a deep bench of experienced military commanders to run it,” the ISW/CTP said

“Hamas uses this conventional military structure to continue fighting, despite intense Israeli military pressure.”

UN chief expects Israel to comply with ICJ order: Spokesperson

A spokesman for Antonio Guterres said the UN’s secretary-general “trusts” that Israel will comply with the International Court of Justice’s orders and end its attack on Rafah, open Gaza’s border crossings to allow entry of humanitarian aid, and allow access to Gaza for war crimes investigators.

Guterres also expects that the other “parties” – a reference to Palestinian armed groups – will implement the ICJ’s repeated call for the immediate release of Israeli captives held in Gaza, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

UN member states have a duty to follow Security Council decisions and court orders, he said.

“The secretary-general has no crystal ball,” Dujarric told reporters. “Whether or not they choose to do so is a question you need to ask them.”

In accordance with the ICJ statute, Dujarric said the secretary-general will now transmit the ICJ’s provisional measures regarding Israel to the UN Security Council.

Guterres later posted on social media the message that “protecting civilians is not negotiable”.

“Wars have rules that everyone must respect,” he wrote.

Former Italian MP hangs Palestinian flag from Italian parliament

Former Italian Member of Parliament Stefano Apuzzo has been filmed hanging a Palestinian flag from the Italian parliament in Rome in protest of Israel’s war on Gaza.

In footage of the incident, Apuzzo can be seen climbing out of a window at the Palazzo Montecitorio, home to the lower house of the Italian Parliament, and onto a balcony, where he unfurls a Palestinian flag.

“Enough with the use of Italian weapons in genocide in Gaza. There are 35,000 dead in Gaza,” Apuzzo shouts from the balcony.

US Senator Bernie Sanders says US ignores crimes in Gaza at its peril

Sanders warned the US that if it ignored the “crimes against humanity” being committed in Gaza, it would not have any credibility to criticise “the actions of any country, no matter how terrible those actions may be”.

In a post on social media accompanied by a video of the Vermont senator making a speech, Sanders said the US “claims to be the leader of the free world”.

“At our best, we try to mobilise countries to uphold international law and prevent crimes against humanity,” he said.

“How will the United States be able to criticise any country in the world? Whether it is Russia, China, Saudi Arabia or anyone else, any other country in the world, if we pretend [about] that what is happening in Gaza. If we actually believe what Netanyahu is saying,” he said.

https://twitter.com/AJA_Palestine/status/1794148876305203255

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/25/israels-war-on-gaza-live-news-end-this-nightmare

>>481731
>US military confirms Houthi attack, reports no injuries or damage
Video from the Yemeni announcement if you're interested.

Part of US-built Gaza pier swept into sea, then recovered: Report

Israel’s Channel 12 reports that strong waves caused part of the dock to break off and drift into the sea before a US Navy crew secured it and brought it back ashore.

The US-built pier, located southwest of Gaza City, has delivered 97 truckloads of aid since it opened May 17, according to the United Nations, as key land crossings to the enclave remain shuttered.

While welcoming any aid entry, humanitarian groups have said the pier is a far less effective way to bring in aid than the land crossings Israel has blocked.

Two Hezbollah members killed in Syria by Israeli strikes: Report

Israeli drone strikes have hit several vehicles travelling near the western Syrian city of Qusayr, killing two Hezbollah members and injuring other people, reports the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

The vehicles, which caught on fire after being struck, were on their way to Syria’s Dabaa military airfield near the Lebanese border, according to SOHR.

Israel has not commented on the alleged attack.

So far in 2024, Israel has waged 41 strikes on Syrian territory, killing a total of 153 people, including 12 civilians, according to SOHR.

ICJ orders are binding and have to be implemented: EU’s Borrell

EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has called on Israel to implement ICJ’s ruling.

In a post on X, he reminded of the elements of the ruling and said: “ICJ orders are binding on the Parties and they have to be fully and effectively implemented.”

The ICJ on Friday urged Israel to stop its offensive in Rafah, open the Rafah border crossing for aid deliveries and allow international investigators into the enclave.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/25/israels-war-on-gaza-live-news-end-this-nightmare

>>481736
>US Senator Bernie Sanders says US ignores crimes in Gaza at its peril
>Sanders warned the US that if it ignored the “crimes against humanity” being committed in Gaza, it would not have any credibility to criticise “the actions of any country, no matter how terrible those actions may be”.

Sanders: once a again i urge you to behave like reasonable human beings

Zionists: REEEEEEEEE woob woob woob woob woob

>>481736
>The social media account of the Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa has shared an image of an Israeli soldier reading a book in a library at Gaza’s Al-Aqsa University while a shelf of books burns in the background.

>The prime minister said the soldier had shared the image of himself “posing in front” of the burning books at the library, “which they had set on fire”.

There are a lot of WW2 pictures of Nazis in front of burning book piles, that they took of them selves.
A year ago, give or take there also were Azov battalion members with swastika flag who posted photos of them selves burning old Soviet books.
And now there's Zionists snapping selfies of burning Palestinian books.

I'm beginning to see a pattern, fascists like to destroy books or perhaps more general archived knowledge. And they think that it's something worth bragging about.

Time to impose sanctions as Israel ignores international law: Palestinian official

Mustafa Barghouti, the secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, says he’s not surprised that Israel has ignored the world court’s order to immediately cease its assault on Rafah city.

“Israel for decades has considered itself above international law. But what’s changing now is its impunity is gone. Not only the ICJ but also the ICC are intervening. This is a new situation, but Israel is not listening,” Barghouti told Al Jazeera.

Israel killed at least 46 people, mostly children and women, on Saturday, he noted, adding, “so Netanyahu is proceeding”.

“The main country that can restrain Israel and stop it immediately is the United States of America. I believe now is the time to impose sanctions on Israel. It’s either support international law or support Israel,” said Barghouti.

Qassam Brigades claims to capture Israeli soldiers in Gaza ambush

Abu Obeida, the spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, says in a recorded audio message the Palestinian group has taken Israeli soldiers captive during an operation in Gaza.

Qassam Brigades fighters “lured a Zionist force” into a tunnel in the Jabalia camp in northern Gaza and engaged them in close-quarters combat, he said.

The Israeli soldiers, whose numbers Abu Obeida did not specify, were all killed, wounded or captured. The group also released a short video that appeared to show an Israeli soldier being dragged away by Palestinian fighters inside a Hamas tunnel.

More from Qassam Brigades’s Abu Obeida on Gaza fighting, captives

In the four-minute audio message where the spokesman of the armed wing of Hamas in Gaza announced the ambush of Israeli soldiers, he also commented on intense ongoing fighting across the enclave and the discovery of several Israeli captives’ bodies. Here is some of what he said:

The Israeli government continues its blind and absurd policy of revenge and destruction and moves from failure to failure – the latest chapter being failed military operations in Jabalia and Rafah.
Palestinian forces have carried out dozens of attacks against Israeli forces in more than two weeks of Israel’s ground invasions of Rafah and Beit Hanoon.
Israeli forces are digging up the remains of captives in Gaza for Benjamin Netanyahu’s personal machinations.
Israel is trying to portray the discovery of the remains of its captives as a military and moral achievement.

Israel’s army denies soldiers captured during Hamas operation

Israel’s military immediately denied a statement from Hamas that fighters captured an unidentified number of Israeli soldiers in Jabalia, northern Gaza.

“The [Israeli army] clarifies there is no incident of kidnapping a soldier,” the army said in a post on X.

A Qassam Brigades spokesman said earlier that fighters ambushed Israeli troops and “killed, wounded, and captured” some of them.

Israeli army says remains of three captives uncovered in ‘complex’ operation

The Israeli military released footage from the night raid that recovered the remains of three captives held in Gaza.

It said the “complex” operation was conducted in a tunnel in Jabalia in northern Gaza, the same area where bodies of another four captives were recovered a week earlier.

‘You are responsible for our terrible failure – take responsibility’
Sara Khairat
Reporting from Amman, Jordan

Al Jazeera is reporting from outside Israel because it has been banned by the Israeli government

These protests have gotten louder and louder and bigger and bigger week on week.

Thousands of Israeli demonstrators have gathered in Tel Aviv outside the defence ministry. There have also been antigovernment protests across the country in the past few hours, in the north in Haifa and outside the prime minister’s residency as well.

They’re calling for an immediate end to the war and the captives back as part of a deal, but also criticising the prime minister, telling him he needs to resign as soon as possible.

To give you a sense of the anger, one father – whose daughter was killed on October 7 – talking directly to Netanyahu said, “You are responsible for our terrible failure. Take responsibility.”

Hezbollah says launched eight attacks on Israeli positions

The latest of eight attacks by the armed Lebanese group was against soldiers with unspecified weapons.

Hezbollah also said it hit a building used by Israeli troops in al-Manara, and “spy equipment” in the occupied Kfarchouba hills.

The group released multiple videos of attacks on Israeli positions during the past few days, with one showing an antitank guided missile used to directly hit an armoured troop carrier.

Hezbollah confirmed the deaths of two of its fighters in Israeli strikes as well.

Vessels supporting US-built Gaza aid pier washed away in heavy seas

Waves swept away navy vessels supporting the United States-built pier installed to transfer aid to Gaza.

During the transportation of humanitarian aid, the floating dock was disconnected from a small boat tugging it and the vessels broke free from their moorings, CENTCOM said.

Part of the dock later drifted towards Israel’s Ashdod shore, while the third and fourth vessels beached on the coast of Israel near Ashkelon. No injuries have been reported so far and efforts to recover the vessels are under way.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/25/israels-war-on-gaza-live-news-end-this-nightmare

Thousands of Israelis demand return of captives after bodies recovered

Israeli police fired water cannon and forcibly removed demonstrators in downtown Tel Aviv as thousands rallied to demand urgent government action to bring home captives from Gaza.

Protesters observed a minute’s silence in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square in honour of the captives whose bodies were recovered by Israeli troops this month. Another protest, calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and an early election, was held nearby.

Palestinian fighters on October 7 took 252 hostages, 121 of whom remain in Gaza, including 37 the army says are dead.

Qassam Brigades reports series of attacks on Israeli forces

The armed wing of Hamas says one if its fighters hit an Israeli Merkava tank with a Yassin-105 anti-armour rocket in the vicinity of Salah al-Din Gate, south of the city of Rafah in southern Gaza.

It is the sixth attack claimed by the Qassam Brigades today with earlier attacks on Israeli troops and armoured vehicles in northern Gaza.

The group also released a video of an attack in which a tank and a bulldozer were hit at close range in the Jabalia camp in the north – seemingly by the same Palestinian fighter.

https://twitter.com/AJA_Palestine/status/1794434004109692960

‘Children were playing’ when Jabalia school attacked: witness

Victims of an Israeli attack on a school near Jabalia refugee camp have poured into al-Ahli Hospital, according to footage reviewed by Al Jazeera’s Sanad verification agency.

The attack is now reported to have killed at least 10 people and injured another 17, including children.

“The children were playing in the schoolyard, and suddenly we were bombed,” said one displaced woman whose daughter was injured in the attack. “We lived something unnatural.”

Gaza’s death toll rises

At least 35,903 Palestinians have been killed and 80,420 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, its Health Ministry says.

Report: Israeli army chief grilled by minister over October 7 attack

Israel’s transportation minister reportedly questioned the army chief to “explain to us where was the army on October 7” – the day of the deadly Hamas attack.

Israel’s military had warnings of a potential attack, Transportation Minister Miri Regev said in an apparently heated cabinet meeting on Thursday, according to The Times of Israel.

“If the Military Intelligence Directorate were so disturbed, why did you allow army-wide vacations in October? Why didn’t you do more?” Regev asked army Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi.

Helvi responded, “All matters regarding the warning we gave about October 7 are being dealt with in internal investigations. If you meant in your question that we knew and ignored or that we wanted such a thing to happen – that’s not even worthy of a response.”

The Times cited leaked transcripts aired on Channel 12 as the source of the comments.

Lapid says ‘seditious’ videos of Israeli soldiers are dangerous

A video is circulating online showing an Israeli soldier making threats against Israeli war cabinet ministers who are pushing for a deal with Hamas.

“We want decisive victory,” the masked soldier says while standing in the apparent ruins of a Gaza home. “Those who harmed the nation of Israel … we want to annihilate them.”

The soldier criticised Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and said if he and others fail to deliver on the victory, reservist soldiers will follow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Yair Lapid, the Israeli opposition leader, says in a post on X that such “seditious” videos are dangerous, regardless of whether they are real or staged.

“This madness must be stopped. This government needs to be removed from our lives before it destroys everything that is dear and sacred to this country.”

https://twitter.com/QudsNen/status/1794376209423290763

Israel’s war on Gaza is ‘real genocide’: Spanish defence minister

Margarita Robles, the defence minister of Spain, has said the war on Gaza, “which is a real genocide”, cannot be ignored.

“This is not against anyone, this is not against the Israeli state, this is not against the Israelis, who are people we respect,” she told TVE state television about Spain’s decision earlier this week to recognise Palestine as a sovereign state.

The move is aimed at ending the violence in Gaza, the minister added.

Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Diaz had also described the war as a genocide earlier this week.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/25/israels-war-on-gaza-live-news-end-this-nightmare

>>481740
>ICJ orders are binding and have to be implemented: EU’s Borrell
So we have a stern reminder
>>481745
>Time to impose sanctions as Israel ignores international law: Palestinian official
And demand for sanctions


The diplomatic pressure is having an effect, but the Zionists probably won't stop the slaughter until they get threatened with an international peacekeeper force

>>481751
… Or their weapons supplies are cut off. Preferably both just to be sure.

GDF piece on the USS Liberty incident.
A really interesting bit is the section in the middle where he's quoting the reaction of the US congress at the time. Genuinely uncanny, they were saying the same kind of insane bullshit congress says today, they were not only credulously taking Israel's word that they fired on an American-flagged ship "by accident," but were actually going as far as to praise Israel in the same statements.

Qassam Brigades says it attacked Tel Aviv, warning sirens sounded

The Israeli military has sounded sirens in Tel Aviv in central Israel warning of possible incoming rockets.

Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said in a statement on Telegram that its fighters bombarded the Israeli city with a missile barrage in what it said “in response to the Zionist massacres against civilians”.

Fifteen explosions were heard in the Tel Aviv area, according to local media.

Qassam Brigades claims it destroyed Israeli forces in Jabalia

Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, says it “destroyed a group of enemy forces penetrating the al-Qasaaseeb neighbourhood” in the Jabalia refugee camp with heavy calibre mortar fire.

The Israeli army continues with its operation in Jabalia in northern Gaza that started earlier in the month, causing mass displacement of the Palestinians there towards other areas.

Rocket attack on Tel Aviv raises question marks about Israeli military operation
Hani Mahmoud
Reporting from Deir el-Balah, central Gaza

We could see the trails of smoke from a distance here as these rockets were fired.

Some of the pictures that were attached to the Hamas announcement [about the attack] showed that some of the rockets were fired from the eastern part of the Rafah city, very close to the vicinity of the border crossing which has been under the Israeli military for the past 18 days.

The Israeli military and its occupation forces on the ground has been operating aggressively in the area and they made it clear that they are in control and they have pretty much cleared the area from the presence of any fighters on the ground or Hamas associates.

But all of a sudden we see now a barrage of rockets fired from that particular area, putting a huge question mark on the [Israeli] statements …

Reports suggest Israel’s military operations in Gaza ‘not going well’

Mohamad Elmasry, a professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, citing a report in Politico, says “70 percent of Hamas’s fighting force remains intact on fighting in Gaza” and that Hamas has been able to recruit thousands of new members.

The report, he said, also indicated Hamas’s extensive tunnel network under the Gaza Strip remains largely intact.

Elmasry said there had also been reports that Hamas has been able to repurpose unexploded Israeli bombs, so the Palestinian group no longer has a weapons supply issue.

“I think Israel is clearly getting all it can handle on the battlefield right now,” he concluded.

Due to fuel shortage, only one-eighth of water distributed: MSF

Christopher Lockyear, secretary-general of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), says his team is “seeing a further strangulation of the Gaza Strip” since Israeli forces closed the Rafah crossing as well as “a further collective punishment to the people of Gaza”.

Due to the “critical” supply of fuel, they have had to close certain hospitals and transfer patients to other hospitals, he told Al Jazeera.

“It’s becoming increasingly complicated there as we’re finding the supply of water critical; we ourselves are unable to distribute as much water as we have been able to,” he said.

Last week they distributed 400,000 litres of water; this week they distributed 50,000 litres, “one-eighth of what we’ve been able to do because of the fuel shortages”.

Famine in Gaza should be officially declared: Joint statement

More than 70 international organisations are calling on all authorities and international institutions to officially declare a famine in Gaza, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has said in a statement.

Food security levels have significantly declined due to the Israeli army’s ground operation in Rafah which began on May 7, the organisation said.

“The entire population in the Gaza Strip, including the governorates of Deir al-Balah, Khan Yunis, and Rafah, are experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity, with half of them in … the disaster/famine stage,” the statement said.

Israeli army attacks areas in southern Lebanon: Report

Israeli drones have attacked the town of Naqoura near the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), according to the official National News agency.

Artillery fire from the Israeli army hit areas on the outskirts of the towns of Chihine and Majdal Zoun in the Tyre region in southern Lebanon, the agency said.

Israeli artillery also bombed the areas of Wadi Hamul and Wadi Hassan in southern Lebanon, it added.

Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily fire since the Palestinian group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that preceded Israel’s latest war on Gaza.

Gantz seeks inquiry into October 7 attacks, war on Gaza: Reports

Israel’s war cabinet member Benny Gantz has submitted a proposal to the Israeli cabinet secretary to establish a commission of inquiry into October 7 and the war on Gaza, according to various Israeli media outlets.

Last week, Gantz threatened to quit Israel’s coalition government if Netanyahu didn’t come up with a plan for Gaza’s post-war governance within three weeks.

A leading figure in the opposition before joining the war cabinet, Gantz is currently viewed as Netanyahu’s main political rival in Israel.

Rocket attack on Israel could be used by Israeli PM as ‘justification’ for military expansion in Rafah

Israeli political analyst Akiva Eldar told Al Jazeera that the latest rocket attack on Israel, reported to have been launched from Rafah, will encourage Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “play the victim”.

Eldar said it would also allow the PM to argue against the ICJ ruling to halt military operations in Rafah by saying that they are needed to ensure the safety of Israeli civilians in the face of such attacks.

Eldar said this attack could make Netanyahu believe he has the “justification” to go “deeper into Rafah until, as he has promised, the total victory.”

Watch: Man claiming to be an Israeli soldier arrested for anti-Muslim abuse in the UK

A man who described himself as a soldier with the Israeli army was arrested for “racially aggravated assault” in London, UK.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/26/israels-war-on-gaza-live-news-hamas-claims-capture-of-israeli-troops