🇧🇩 Israel and Hamas war in Gaza-----Can Bangladesh be a peace broker?

[Saif]

With the UNSC ceasefire, Israel is exposed and isolated

However, US did make it clear why Washington did not vote in favour of the affirmative resolution—because it does not provide for “condemnation of Hamas.”

www.thedailystar.net

With the UNSC ceasefire, Israel is exposed and isolated

US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield raises her hand to abstain during a Security Council vote, paving the path for the first successful resolution calling for a ceasefire in the war on Gaza, at the UN Headquarters in New York on March 25, 2024. PHOTO: REUTERS

After months of relentless slaughter of Palestinians—in the worst genocide we have seen in recent history—the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution was issued demanding an immediate ceasefire without linking this to any other matter, such as the release of Israeli detainees. This resolution, which bears the number 2728, is a positive development on the US position in particular, as they prevented the issuance of a ceasefire resolution from the UNSC since the beginning of the war in Gaza using the veto. Today, the US position has changed, as it abstained from voting and spoke openly about the resolution being consistent with that of the Biden administration. They did make it clear why Washington did not vote in favour of the affirmative resolution—because it does not provide for "condemnation of Hamas." Despite some gaps in the resolution, such as providing for a ceasefire in Ramadan, it marks the beginning of a serious shift in the international position.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was angered by Washington's abstention, which shows that he is aware of the dimensions of this international shift against him. He described the US decision to abstain as "a retreat in the position of the United States," affecting military operations and influencing efforts to release the detainees, according to Netanyahu's office, which led to the decision not to send senior Israeli delegation to Washington, DC to discuss the subject of ground operation in Rafah, which would have been at the request of President Biden.

Netanyahu's stance and reaction to the US administration surprised many and was met with a lot of criticism in both Israel and the US. Some Israeli opposition leaders have accused Netanyahu of damaging the strategic relationship for personal reasons. Senior figures in the US also spoke with the Hebrew website Walla News that Netanyahu chose to create a crisis with the US for domestic political reasons. His reactions are indeed strange, especially with an ally that has provided voluminous support. Even after the resolution, the Biden administration is reportedly set to greenlight an $18 billion sale of F-15 fighter jets to Israel.
​

With each day that this war drags on, Israel also loses its own international status and increasingly becomes isolated. There will come a time when Netanyahu's intelligence may betray him and he will find himself to be the biggest loser on a personal level—and that will be irreversible, causing a major defeat for Israel on the international stage.
​

But if we return to the decision, what angers Netanyahu and many Israelis is not that this resolution will be applied immediately; the US said itself that the resolution is not binding—unlike the majority of countries that consider Security Council resolutions binding and enforceable. Regardless, the resolution has opened the door to very negative changes in Israel's position in the international scene. If Israel ignores the resolution, the UNSC will return to meeting again and adopt more burdensome and more severe resolutions that may turn into a snowball. The resolution underpins Israel's international isolation and encourages many countries to take sanctions against Israel by stopping the supply of weapons and ammunition and reviewing forms of cooperation. This will undoubtedly create great international pressure on Israel, which has come on the opposite side of the international community and is now being seen as a rogue state.

The Israeli government also believes that the resolution will encourage Hamas to harden its positions and not make concessions in the negotiations. If it will receive a ceasefire free of charge, this means increasing the terms of negotiation or insisting on the demands it makes, especially ending the war, withdrawal of the Israeli military, and also facilitating the return of the displaced to their homes, and specifically, the release of thousands of prisoners and detainees. Netanyahu's position to not send the head of the National Security Council and the minister of strategic affairs to Washington, DC to discuss completion of the war means that Netanyahu does not want to coordinate with the US on the issue of Rafah and the stalled negotiations on the exchange of hostages and prisoners. This should be alarming for the Biden administration. Netanyahu's undiplomatic stance should have consequences and possibly US sanctions.

But on the other side of possibilities, Netanyahu may benefit from the escalation of the crisis with Washington and even from international pressure by marketing himself as the custodian of Israel's interests, the only one who is able to withstand international pressure, including those coming from allies and friends. However, the clash with the US administration will create a rift in the ruling coalition, where Benny Gantz, a member of the War Council and the head of the "official camp," rejects this policy. The cracks within the Israeli society will intensify the opposition and demands to overthrow his government and go to new elections urgently.

Another problem with the geo-strategic dimensions is the deepening of the rift and disagreement between the Israeli government and Jews in the US, who see Netanyahu as a threat to the idea of the "Jewish-Democratic" state, and view the alliance with the US as one of the pillars of Israel's survival, resilience, strength, and military and economic superiority.

Netanyahu can manoeuvre as an expert in crisis management, but what Israel is going through carries existential risks as it loses its war in Gaza: this large volume of killing innocents, extermination and destruction, raising the ceiling of its cruel goals, and the sheer inability to achieve them by means of war. They say Hamas is destroyed in northern Gaza, but won't let food enter the area. Israel's talking points are talking points to justify a genocide. With each day that this war drags on, Israel also loses its own international status and increasingly becomes isolated. There will come a time when Netanyahu's intelligence may betray him and he will find himself to be the biggest loser on a personal level—and that will be irreversible, causing a major defeat for Israel on the international stage. The state will lose that false aura woven by the Zionist and Western propaganda that portrays Israel as an oasis of democracy, Western norms and values. This process has already begun among international public opinion. The genocidal war in Gaza has exposed, irrevocably, Israel and its falsity.
​

[HR=3][/HR]

His Excellency Youssef SY Ramadan is the ambassador of Palestine to Bangladesh.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli offensive caused damage of $18.5bn: WB

The World Bank says the Israel-Hamas war has caused damage of around $18.5 billion to Gaza’s critical infrastructure, according to a new report published Tuesday.

www.thedailystar.net

GAZA'S CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Israeli offensive caused damage of $18.5bn: WB

Ambulances carrying the bodies of staff members of the US-based aid group World Central Kitchen, arrive at the Rafah crossing with Egypt in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday, two days after a convoy of the NGO was hit in an Israeli strike. Israel's armed forces chief Herzi Halevi called the attack a "grave mistake", which he blamed on night-time "misidentification". Photo: AFP

The World Bank says the Israel-Hamas war has caused damage of around $18.5 billion to Gaza's critical infrastructure, according to a new report published Tuesday.

This is equivalent to 97 percent of the combined economic output of the West Bank and Gaza in 2022, the World Bank said in its interim damage assessment, which covers the period between the onset of the conflict on October 7 and the end of January.

The report, produced with the United Nations and the European Union, found structural damage affected "every sector of the economy," with more than 70 percent of the estimated costs due to the destruction of housing.

Israel's military has killed at least 32,975 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

The Israeli military's heavy aerial bombardment in the aftermath of the attack, and its ongoing ground operations inside Gaza, have reduced many areas of the territory to rubble, creating an estimated 26 million tons of debris.
​

An estimated 84pc of Gaza's health facilities have been damaged or destroyed: report​

"For several sectors, the rate of damage appears to be leveling off as few assets remain intact," the Bank said.

Beyond the structural damage, the report also found that more than half of Gaza's population were on the brink of famine, with the whole population "experiencing acute food insecurity and malnutrition."

An estimated 84 percent of Gaza's health facilities have been damaged or destroyed, while three quarters of the population have been displaced by the fighting, leaving more than a million people without homes.

The report, created using remote data collection sources, found that Gaza's water and sanitation system had "nearly collapsed," and was delivering less than 5 percent of its pre-war output.

100 percent of Gaza's children were out of school due to the collapse of the education system, while 92 percent of its primary roads were either destroyed or damaged, according to the World Bank.

The report called for "an increase in humanitarian assistance, food aid and food production; the provision of shelter and rapid, cost-effective, and scalable housing solutions for displaced people; and the resumption of essential services."​

 

[Saif]

Israel announces opening of aid routes into Gaza

The move comes hours after the United States warned of a sharp shift in its policy over the Gaza war

www.thedailystar.net

Israel announces opening of aid routes into Gaza

The move comes hours after the United States warned of a sharp shift in its policy over the Gaza war

Photo: AFP People wave Palestinian flags as they protest in support of Palestinians amid the ongoing war between Israel and the militant Hamas group in the Gaza Strip, outside an event attended by the US vice president on April 4, 2024, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Israel announced on Friday that it would allow "temporary" aid deliveries into famine-threatened northern Gaza, hours after the United States warned of a sharp shift in its policy over the Gaza war.

In a tense, 30-minute phone call on Thursday, US President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that US policy on Israel was dependent on the protection of civilians and aid workers in Gaza, the first hint of possible conditions to Washington's military support.

Just hours later, in the middle of the night in Jerusalem, Israel announced it would open more aid routes into blockaded Gaza.

Israel's war cabinet authorised "temporary" aid deliveries via the Ashdod Port and the Erez land crossing, as well as increased deliveries from neighbouring Jordan at the Kerem Shalom crossing, Netanyahu's office said.

The White House quickly welcomed the moves -- calling them "at the president's request" -- and saying they "must now be fully and rapidly implemented".

Israel has come under mounting international pressure over the toll inflicted by its six-month war on Hamas, and drawn increasingly tough rebuke from main backer Washington.

Since the October 7 attacks that launched the war, Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 33,037 people, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, and sparked warnings about catastrophic hunger.

Palestinians in northern Gaza have had to survive on an average of just 245 calories per day -- less than a can of beans -- since January, according to Oxfam.

Charities have repeatedly accused Israel of throttling aid and targeting convoys, with the dangerous work of trying to stem a famine underscored this week by an Israeli strike that killed seven humanitarian workers distributing food in Gaza.

"The strikes on humanitarian workers and the overall humanitarian situation are unacceptable," Biden told Netanyahu, according to a White House readout of their call.

Biden also "made clear that US policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel's immediate action" to improve the humanitarian situation.

Longtime Israel supporter Biden is facing growing pressure in an election year over his response to the Gaza war -- with allies pressing him to make the billions of dollars in military aid Washington sends dependent on Netanyahu listening to calls for restraint.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby acknowledged Biden's "growing frustration" with Netanyahu, but reiterated that US support for Israel's security was "ironclad".

'Concern' over Rafah plan

Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas, including in Gaza's southern city of Rafah, while pledging to move more than one million civilians in the city out of harm's way first.

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said the deadly strike on the World Central Kitchen staff had "reinforced the expressed concern over a potential Israeli military operation in Rafah, specifically focusing on the need to ensure the evacuation of Palestinian civilians and the flow of humanitarian aid".

In a call to his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant, Austin also "discussed the threat posed by Iran and its proxy activities", according to the Israeli army.

Israel was blamed for an air strike on Monday on the Iranian consulate in Damascus that killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed in a social media message posted in Hebrew that "with God's help we will make the Zionists repent of their crime of aggression against the Iranian consulate in Damascus".

The Israeli military said that after a "situational assessment, it was decided to increase manpower and draft reserve soldiers".
It also said "leave will be temporarily paused for all combat units".

Netanyahu faces intense domestic pressure from the families of the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza, and from a resurgent anti-government protest movement.

War cabinet member Benny Gantz, a centrist political rival of Netanyahu, has demanded that a snap election be held in September, a call rejected by the premier's right-wing Likud party.

The bloodiest ever Gaza war began with Hamas's Hamas attack on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of 1,170 Israelis and foreigners, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Palestinian militants also took more than 250 hostages on October 7, and 130 remain in Gaza, including 34 who the army says are dead.

Amid the heightened tensions, Israeli security services said they had foiled a plot to kill the far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who heads the Jewish Power party, and to strike other targets.

'Food for our families'

In Gaza, relentless Israeli bombardment has reduced much of the territory to rubble, collapsed the hospital system and forced 2.4 million Palestinians to endure dire shortages of food, water, fuel and other basic supplies.

In Gaza City, Palestinians slept overnight near an aid delivery spot, hoping to receive a bag of flour.

"We sleep on the streets, in the cold, on the sand, enduring hardship to secure food for our families, especially our young children," one man told AFP. "I don't know what else to do or how our lives have come to this."

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has accused Israel of systematically destroying Gaza's healthcare system, describing scenes of carnage beyond the abilities of any hospital.

The medical charity said children were turning up at hospitals with gunshot wounds from drones, while many patients were crushed under rubble then suffering severe burns.

"No healthcare system in the world can cope with the volume and type of injuries, and the medical conditions, that we're seeing on a daily basis," said Amber Alayyan, MSF deputy programme manager for the Middle East.​

 

[Lulldapull]

Gents, the IDF is using AI to kill Palestinians on an industrial scale. I wonder how this ‘Lavender’ functions? Is it using facial recognition? Is it using behavioral data? How is AI determining who to kill?

 

[Saif]

Gaza ceasefire talks make 'significant progress': Egyptian media

Talks in Cairo aimed at brokering a truce between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip have made "significant progress", Egyptian outlet Al-Qahera reported Monday

www.thedailystar.net

Gaza ceasefire talks make 'significant progress': Egyptian media

A person holds a handful of spent bullet casings above a bigger pile in Khan Yunis on April 7, 2024 after Israel pulled its ground forces out of the southern Gaza Strip, six months into the devastating war sparked by the October 7 attacks. Israel pulled all its troops out of southern Gaza on April 7, including from the city of Khan Yunis, the military and Israeli media said, after months of fierce fighting with Hamas militants left the area devastated. Photo: AFP

Talks in Cairo aimed at brokering a truce between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip have made "significant progress", Egyptian outlet Al-Qahera reported Monday.

The state-linked outlet reported "significant progress being made on several contentious points of agreement", citing a high-ranking Egyptian source.

Egypt, Qatar and key Israeli ally the United States have mediated previous rounds of negotiations, but a workable agreement to end the six-month war has remained elusive.

Al-Qahera reported that Qatari and Hamas delegations had left Cairo and were expected to return "within two days to finalise the terms of the agreement".

US and Israeli delegations were due to leave the Egyptian capital "in the next few hours" and consultations were expected to continue over the next 48 hours, the outlet added.
Hamas's unprecedented attack on October 7 resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, Israeli figures show.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants also took more than 250 Israeli and foreign hostages, 129 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 the army says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 33,175 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

Israel has faced growing global opposition to the war, with the outcry intensifying following an Israeli drone strike that killed seven aid workers -- most of them Westerners -- for the US-based food charity World Central Kitchen on April 1.​

 

[Saif]

How the unjustifiable war in Gaza is justified

Propaganda in the media is a prevalent practice during war.

www.thedailystar.net

How the unjustifiable war in Gaza is justified
Debunking propaganda in the Western media

People outside The New York Times building, New York, protesting against the newspaper's coverage of Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza, on December 11, 2023. FILE PHOTO: AFP

"Ramadan is the best time to kill them. They're weak and tired," said Almog Cohen, a member of the Israeli Knesset, urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Rafah and massacre the Palestinian people. This critical statement, which shows the extent of dehumanisation, has been conspicuously absent from Western media coverage. Due to the extensive control exerted by the Zionist lobbies within the Western media, they lean towards omitting information regarding the Israelis' inhumane school of thought, and engage in corroding the image of Palestinians. This critical statement is among the numerous pieces of information withheld by Western media outlets from their wider audience. Yet, it is essential to recognise that the concealment of such news contributes to the propagation of propaganda, influencing public opinion in a misleading manner.

Disinformation, dehumanisation of victims, and protecting the perpetrators are all important processes that are used in the construction of narratives in mainstream media publications. Especially during times of war, propaganda in the media is a prevalent practice. By using the Western media as their megaphone and pawn to repeat their words, carry out their directions, and most importantly, engage in defamation, intimidation, and the embellishment of falsehoods, Western politicians have legitimised bias, as the truth.
​

The persistent association of Hamas with ISIS is a part of a deliberate attempt by the Western media to depict all Palestinians as "terrorists." This narrative makes it easier for people to sympathise with Israel, and desensitises them towards Palestinians.
— Nada Yousef Ramadan​

The first type of propaganda in the genocide in Palestine is disinformation. Images of affected newborns in Gaza were released by The Times of London with the title, "Israel releases pictures of mutilated babies," to allege proof of the October 7, Hamas attacks. The Western media, far from fact-checking, parroted the Israeli propaganda, claiming the possession and verification of harrowing images of "babies" murdered by Hamas. The Times mentioned in their article, that they refuse to publish images of Israeli infants with mutilations because they were "too graphic." Later on, an investigation by Haaretz, found that no babies were beheaded during the October 7, Hamas attacks.

The media engaged in "pre-attack legitimacy," purposely broadcasting content with the intention of either convincing their audience that a certain act of assault ought to take place or assisting viewers in comprehending that an attack is on the horizon. Everything started as soon as the events of October 7th occurred, when an official US statement quickly described the Hamas attacks as an "unprovoked terrorist attack." The "unprovoked" component reverberated through the media, and was repeatedly used by politicians. Both of these combined serve to convince the audience that Hamas carried out a heinous terrorist attack, with no underlying reason other than sheer ruthlessness and inhumanity.

This "pre-attack" rhetoric prepares the audience to view the Israeli attacks in response as acts of "self-defense." In reality, the international community has been ignoring the citizens of Gaza for many years—the fact that they live in an open-air prison—and the decades-long misery that the Palestinians have been living through. Establishing pre-attack legitimacy, the second component of propaganda is essentially the process of justifying the overt and unjustifiable Israeli aggression, in a twisted way of making the attacks "acceptable" to the general public. Take for example, BBC which released information alleging that hospitals were being utilised as Hamas tunnels, the day before a hospital in Gaza was bombed.

The third phase of propaganda served to dehumanise the victims. The Western media has, for the most part, focused on the victimhood of Israelis, while entirely ignoring the Palestinian side. The bias was crystal clear, as commonly liberal magazines pursued large-scale reporting of the victims of the October 7 attacks, in abundance, while ignoring the Palestinians, who were also being killed in a genocidal campaign. Stories spotlighting the families of October 7 hostages by Hamas received unilateral attention compared to all the families whose lives were also shattered by Israel's grueling response.

In the first few months of war, it was evidently clear that this was going to be disastrous for the civilian population in Gaza; the Israeli government had cut off the Gaza Strip, which prevented the delivery of fuel, food, and water as well as the supply of electrical power. Israeli fighter jets began their bombardment of the besieged region; whole neighborhoods were soon reduced to rubble. For months, none of these received the attention of Western media outlets. On the other hand, false information—including accounts of Israeli civilians being burned and decapitated, women being raped—were spread by top politicians in the West, including the president of the US.

It would not be too far-fetched to question whether the objective of the Western media has been to liken Hamas to well-known terrorist groups, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The persistent association of Hamas with ISIS is a part of a deliberate attempt to depict all Palestinians as "terrorists." This narrative makes it easier for people to sympathise with Israel, and desensitises them towards Palestinians. As a result, the global society as a whole has been more bent to assume that Israel is the victim, which in return normalises the mass murder of Palestinians. Despite the historic pace with which Palestinians have been murdered, the conflict of Israel-Palestine is somehow still up for debate, due to the normalisation of genocide itself.

Protecting the perpetrators, the fourth stage of the propaganda can be witnessed in the Western media's coverage of Israeli and Palestinian lives lost in the conflict. Israelis are described as "killed," while Palestinians are said to have "died." Take for example, a headline in The New York Times: "How Gaza Civilians Have Fared After Israel Has Asked Them to Flee." The article itself, published on March 19, 2024, delved into how nearly 2 million Palestinians are facing "forced starvation" as a direct consequence of the Israeli government's actions. It is, therefore, diluted at best and dishonest at worst, to suggest that people in Gaza are "faring." The phrase, Israel "asked" them to "flee," almost criminally underplays the ground reality. It seems as though the Israeli Army are nicely asking Palestinians to evacuate, when the reality is that they are killing them wherever they themselves are telling them to go. The language itself reeks of preconceived bias and reveals the hidden propaganda that is ensconced in the Western media's coverage of the genocide.

On the other hand, due to the proliferation of social media, many users in Gaza have become "self-proclaimed journalists." In an effort to counter the false narratives and demonstrate the real horrors, Gazans have made this effort by utilising their social media accounts to broadcast real-time images, videos, first-hand accounts of those who have been injured, and stories of families who are dealing with terrible losses. Motaz Azaiza, Plestia Alaqad, Bisan Owda, and Saleh Al Jafarawi are just a few of the names that will live on in this historic moment for public service journalism.

At the end of the day, the Western media will never properly refer to what's happening as a genocide; rather, they still believe it all started on October 7, 2023. But in fact, there have been massacres in Gaza in 2021, 2018-2019, 2014, 2012, 2008-2009, the battle of the Jenin refugee camp in 2002, the massacre at the Ibrahimi mosque in 1994, the slaughter at the Al-Aqsa mosque in 1992, the massacre at Sabra and Shatila in 1982, and a lengthy list of previous assaults going back to 1948.

Despite the Western media's inclination towards aligning with Israel, countries such as Bangladesh who have shown their constant support for Palestine serve as a source of inspiration for Palestinians, bolstering their resilience and fostering optimism over the eventual liberation of Palestine. The Palestinians will forever be commemorated as the individuals who have consistently reminded the global community of their presence and unwavering determination to oppose oppression by colonialism. Palestinians will be remembered as individuals who were previously prohibited from flying their flags, which caused them to substitute watermelons instead, partly due to their remarkable resemblance to the flag. Palestinians will continue to be symbolised as the "Al-Badawi" olive tree—which is situated in Bethlehem, Palestine—which means "The Great One," and is believed to be 5,000 years old. No matter what happens, Palestinians will resist; they will remain in Gaza because Israelis are aiming to wipe out a people whose strength against oppression is as deeply ingrained as the roots of the Al-Badawi olive tree.​

[HR=3][/HR]

Nada Yousef Ramadan is pursuing International Relations at the American University in the Emirates, UAE.​

 

[Saif]

From victimhood to apartheid statehood

THE tapestry of Jewish myths and history spans over two millennia. The Jewish saga of ‘diaspora’ to ‘aliyah’, of migrations and...

www.newagebd.net

From victimhood to apartheid statehood
Aminul Sarwar | Published: 00:00, Apr 08,2024

— Euronews

THE tapestry of Jewish myths and history spans over two millennia. The Jewish saga of 'diaspora' to 'aliyah', of migrations and pogroms, of persecution and the Holocaust is woven with elements of both myths and history. The tale is intertwined with the humanitarian cries of millions of Jews in the past, but the present is rather marred by an ironic role reversal of the same people through their own doings against the Arabs of Palestine. The story always begins with the myths of the 'chosen ones' — an utterly regressive and supremacist conjecture in the purview of the modern value system — finding the promised land, an enduring diaspora, and sufferings that embody a textbook case of resilience. Yet, the end to date horrifically looks to have gone wrong as we contemplate the modern history of Israel and Palestine. From the Babylonian exile to the destruction of the Second Temple, the Jewish people endured displacement and persecution and forged a collective identity rooted in survival. On one hand, we have the biblical accounts, from Abraham's journey to Moses leading the Israelites, setting a spiritual backdrop to a historical drama of triumphs and tribulations; on the other hand, we see a repressive statehood with brutal military power, persecution, and a genocidal regime hell-bent on uprooting and annihilating the legitimate resistance of the people whose homes were taken away.

Centuries of diaspora tested Jewish adaptability, leading to intellectual and cultural contributions during the Islamic Golden Age and challenges in mediaeval Europe's ghettos. The 19th-century rise of Zionism, seeking a Jewish homeland, embodied the longing for a promised land rooted in religious conviction and historical yearning. Facing perpetual prejudice due to socio-cultural and economic practices like usury or the flawed onus of blood libel, along with cultural mistrust in the general population because of their closely bonded, introverted community lifestyle, Jewish people sought political agency. This culminated in the vision of a Jewish state during the nationalistic waves of late 19th-century Europe.

The Dreyfus Affair in late 19th-century France marked the immediate nucleus of Zionism, as Theodor Herzl's vision for a national homeland emerged in response to anti-Semitism. The establishment of Israel in 1948 was a transformative moment, shifting from victimhood to statehood. However, this journey unveiled a paradox: the persecuted becoming powerful. Herzl's vision responded to centuries of anti-Semitism, but the implementation of Zionism faced challenges reconciling diverse cultural backgrounds. The historical rise of Zionism underpinned a supremacist ideology, resonating in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Holocaust cast a dark shadow, leading to global acknowledgment of the need for a Jewish homeland. The State of Israel's establishment in 1948 reflected the transition from victims of genocide to architects of statehood. As the Jewish people shifted from victims to state builders, the complexity of historical circumstances shaped the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Post-World War II dynamics witnessed Western support for Zionism, contributing to the displacement of Palestinian communities. The power dynamics tilted towards Israel, challenging a just and lasting resolution.

The historical narrative unravels a crisis where the persecuted became state architects, facing the dilemma between managing power and security. The call for coexistence becomes intricate as power dynamics shift. While the well-equipped Jewish population with Western education and knowledge enjoyed Western sympathy due to their racial and cultural affinity with Western people, contemporary Arabs in Palestine lacked political agency within the existing state system, facing a shortage of knowledge and representation during the interbellum years. As a result, a Western-dominated world order, burdened by the collective guilt of the Holocaust, made decisions that shamefully disregarded the political, social rights, and dignity of Palestinian Arabs. Since the inception of the conflict during the mass immigration of Jewish people to Palestine, communal riots, tensions, the Naqba, and subsequent Arab-Israel wars, it has consistently manifested as a one-sided struggle between Palestinian Arabs and the Jewish State of Israel.

Jewish people formulated the basis of Zionism on the premise that they are a community that has been persecuted throughout history because of their identity and minority status. There is no denying the fact that Jewish people had been living in ghettos across many European kingdoms and were often subjected to harassment, antipathy, and social and economic boycotts by the mainstream population due to anti-Semitic outlooks. But, as we have seen, if not premeditated, Zionism's legacy has ultimately bred a supremacist ideology, transforming statehood pursuit into an apartheid regime. It needs no elaboration, as a look into the history of modern Israel makes it pretty evident. The once-persecuted Jewish community held political power, resulting in unforeseen role reversals with far-reaching consequences. The paradox of Jewish statehood calls for reckoning with the unintended consequences of Zionism. It urges us to navigate the complexities of identity, power, and historical burdens with nuance and understanding. The pursuit of justice and humanism must prevail over entrenched prejudices, fostering a world where the rights of all are recognized and respected.

In tracing the Jewish Israeli journey from victimhood to apartheid statehood, a fabric woven with historical resilience, political aspirations, and obvious consequences unfolds. The Jewish people's narrative, etched with tales of survival, diaspora, and the establishment of the State of Israel, reflects a transformative evolution. From the challenges of historical persecution to the complexities of managing power and security, the journey has been paradoxical.

Zionism, born out of the need for a Jewish homeland in response to anti-Semitism, apparently inadvertently sowed the seeds of ethno-religious supremacy, leading to the unintended legacy of an apartheid regime. The role reversals, where the once-persecuted gained political power, have profound consequences, shaping the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

History calls for a reckoning with the unintended consequences of Zionism, urging bold reflections on identity, power, and historical burdens. The pursuit of justice and humanism must prevail over entrenched prejudices, fostering a world where the rights of all are recognised.

Moving forward, the world must ensure the engagement of the belligerent parties in open dialogue, acknowledging the multifaceted layers and dimensions of the conflict. A commitment to understanding historical transitions and fostering empathy is crucial. Collective efforts to bridge divides and dispel prejudices can pave the way for a just and lasting resolution. The only solution on the horizon is the 'two-state solution,' recognising the existence, security, and respect for the lives and dignity of the Palestinian Arabs and the Israeli Jews.

Aminul Sarwar, a retired army official, is a banker.​

 

[Saif]

West’s hypocrisy in international politics, laws

IN NOVEMBER 2023, a month into the Gaza genocide, columnist Nesrin Malik remarked in her article in the Guardian, ‘The war in Gaza has been...

www.newagebd.net

West's hypocrisy in international politics, laws
by Humayun Kabir | Published: 00:00, Apr 07,2024

— Web

IN NOVEMBER 2023, a month into the Gaza genocide, columnist Nesrin Malik remarked in her article in the Guardian, 'The war in Gaza has been an intense lesson in western hypocrisy. It won't be forgotten.' She thought, people have seen too much that will stay with them too long. Trust in the international community will never be the same. Well, she made the point all right, but history tells us differently. The hypocrisy she has alluded to has been there all these decades of conflicts, enabling the crisis to prolong until the occupiers' intent on annihilating the Arab population from Palestine has been achieved. Gaza is a burning proof that human rights are not universal and international law is arbitrarily applied.

In the past six months of massacre (we refrain from calling it a war as it never was one) of the Palestinian population meted out by the killing machines of Israel's extreme right government, personally led by Netanyahu, one thing that has become exposed is the hypocrisy being displayed by the western powers, led by the USA, as well as that by the Arab Muslim countries in the region. To be clear, for many years, Arab governments have been accustomed to the western model of rhetoric on human rights while looking to the other way for economic gain while the regional crisis intensifies. These Arab authoritarian rulers have a single mission: to remain in power endlessly. And for western politicians, maintaining certain domestic economic outcomes has proven to be more important than making sound foreign policy decisions based on values and the common human good across boundaries. What the world conscience fails to understand is the fact that the western power, mainly led by the US, continuously adopts a policy of 'strategic ambiguity.' For example, this policy is best exemplified by its China-Taiwan policy, which offers two equally opposite messages. This approach means that the US could either stand with Taiwan if it engaged in a war with mainland China or apply realpolitik and let Taiwan confront China on its own. Such ambiguity and double standards have resulted in growing distrust in the rest of the world towards the United States.

Today, the most striking misperception about western political imperatives is believing that Arab rulers, such as General Sissi of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan, are aligned with their policies. With such duplicity and ambiguity of policies, the US and western nations have been heavily engaged in virtually every single political dialogue in the region, beginning with the long-standing Arab-Israeli conflict and ending with all the military engagements in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. To be on record, they have no significant achievements to show except for the Egypt-Israel Camp David Accord, which is now half a century old. In the current Biden administration, the twice-held international dialogue on democracy is an example of US duplicity and hypocrisy in international politics. They cannot explain their policy for the transition to democracy when it comes to sanctions against Iran. Sanctioning Iran will never transform it into a democracy; on the contrary, it will expand support for extremism and increase the economic burden on its citizens, who are likely to naturally escalate their dislike for western hypocrisy.

Accusations of western hypocrisy in its foreign policy have sounded more convincing in recent years. The same leaders who bang on about Russin's war crimes in Ukraine have been more circumspect about Israel's massacre and destruction of Gaza. So, the question today is: how concerned should policymakers in Washington, London, Brussels, Tokyo, and elsewhere be about the geo-political hedging of the global south?

As for the hypocrisy charge, let us be honest, it sticks for a reason. One can rationally excuse the Global South for being cynical when statesmen who reportedly cite the 'rules-based order' suddenly go quiet if Israeli actions become a topic of debate and concern. In the six-month-long massacre and genocide being carried out by Israel in Gaza and now extended to the West Bank, supported with ammunition generously supplied by the USA, UK, Canada, France, and Italy in Gaza, any conscientious person cannot help but be curious about trying to dissect the hypocritical role being played by the Western nations and the Arab neighbours of Palestine, notably Egypt and Jordan. Saudi Arabia, Syria, and other Muslim nations around.

Let us examine the use of the word 'international law', the supposed foundation of the current global order. Well, it is finally off, as can be seen in the Gaza Strip. A recent observation by Wesam Ahmad, a human rights advocate in Ramallah, says: 'As Palestinian cries for help from Gaza remain unanswered, the sinister truth is now undeniably out in the open; international justice, more often than not, is used as a tool to advance imperial interests and not justice.' This was well known a long time ago with the history of imperialism, from the European scramble for Africa to more recent US interventions in Latin America, and traced how that dark past has helped shape the way the world functions in this century. In our straightforward thinking, international law is the desirable mechanism that only reflects a noble concept, as it promotes peace and applies universal human rights, cooperation, and justice among nations. But when one 'scratches beneath the surface, a different narrative emerges, shaped by the ghosts of imperialism in the past.'

Last year, at the United Nations, world leaders took to the platform to highlight several issues and prompt collective action to address them. The key issue, once again, was the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Not only were the Western states, especially NATO members, giving humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine, but they have also been taking the opportunity to build a stronger narrative against Russia. Now, may we ask, what are these same NATO groups doing when it comes to protecting Palestine from the Israeli killings of civilians, women, and children? Any better example to cite of western hypocrisy? There are many such examples of communities that stand testimony to this hypocrisy. Take Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, or Kashmir, for example, whose citizens never know if they will live another day.

The reality is that the promoters of 'peace' are, all too often, the protectors of the warmongers, or are the warmongers themselves. Talking about hypocrisy, we have been witnessing that while Palestinians are being killed in thousands every day, including children, by the Israeli forces and illegal settlers, the US and Europe have no time to apply concepts of human rights and international law to Israeli authority and are allowed to act with impunity.

Even in the Arab media, western hypocrisy is well exposed. In an opinion piece in the Jordan Times, one columnist wrote that the Ukrainian crisis conveniently captures contemporary attention, creating a narrative of valiant struggle against external aggression. And the Palestinian narrative languishes in historical complexities, seemingly overlooked by a world that selectively chooses which historical injustices to champion. The global response to Ukrainian and Palestinian movements reveals a disturbing hypocrisy woven into the fabric of international relations. 'Historical dynamics, geopolitical alignments, and media narratives collectively expose a double standard that challenges the very essence of justice and self-determination' wrote columnist Al Shriedeh of The Jordan Times.

Let us examine the role of the Arab neighbours of Israel in addressing the crisis in Gaza. All 57 Arab and Muslim countries in the world, representing nearly 3 billion people of the faith, met in Riyadh in November 2023 under the umbrella of a joint Arab Islamic Extraordinary Summit. While they warned the Israeli government and its backers, namely the US, 'of the real danger of the expansion of the war as a result of Israel's refusal to stop its aggression and of the inability of the Security Council to enforce international law to end this aggression', they avoided any decision on any concrete action against Israel as a collective force, despite Iran's pleading. Their only intent was to put pressure on the Biden administration to exert sufficient pressure on Israel to stop the war. The Saudis, together with their conservative allies like Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, and Bahrain, see an action-oriented position as a dangerous destabilisers for their own power base. As a result, the Islamic summit ended up being a talk show instead of a meaningful plan of action.

The United States has been engaging in this war by grossly violating its own laws that govern and regulate its policy to provide aid, including military aid, to foreign countries under certain well-defined conditions. I will now cite five major US laws that it violates in letter and spirit and, as transparently as can be conceived, as it applies to the current situation in Israeli aggression and violence, thus revealing the highest form of hypocrisy ever displayed in modern history of the century:

I. The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961: The Act provides that no assistance is to be provided to a government that 'engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognised human rights, including torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, prolonged detention without charges…or other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, and the security of the person…' Each word of this act has a direct bearing on the current massacre in Gaza and the West Bank.

II. Arms Export Control Act of 1976: The Act requires international governments receiving weapons from the US to use the armaments only for 'legitimate self-defence.' This act considers prohibiting the development of weapons of mass destruction or increasing the possibility of an outbreak or escalation of conflict. This is precisely what has resulted from the US's complicity in the war imposed by Israel, in the form of an escalation of conflict in Palestine.

III. The War Crimes Act of 1996. This act defines a war crime to include a 'grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, to which the US is a party. The law specifically refers to the text that highlights principles of the Convention as…' committed against persons or property protected by the Convention, such as willful killing, torture, or inhuman treatment, thus causing 'great suffering or serious injury to body or health.' As a complicit in Israel's mass killings, this Act has been grossly violated by the US government itself.

IV. The Leahy Law: This law prohibits most types of US foreign aid and Defence Department training programmes from going to foreign security, military, and police units credibly alleged to have committed human rights violations. As revealed in the case before the International Court of Justice, Israel is accused of the highest form of human rights violation. The UN Special Rapporteur has recently reported human rights violations by Israeli forces in no uncertain terms. US duplicity is beyond question.

V. Genocide Convention Implementation Act: This Act, passed in 1987, amends the US Federal Criminal Code to establish the criminal offence of genocide, namely, specified acts committed with specific intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Here, again, the US administration has shown a total disregard for its own policy involving measures against genocide.

I should bring to light the strong statements made at several media events in Germany by Malaysian prime minister Anwar Ibrahim over the current Gaza tragedy. He boldly asked that the world wake up and see the stark hypocrisy the western governments and the press have been practicing incessantly over the Palestinian crisis. He asked that this contradiction and hypocrisy in international politics be stopped.

Israel has deliberately chosen to weaponise the Holocaust issue in perpetuating its ethnic cleansing genocide in Gaza. And while the entire West slams Russia for killing civilians in Ukraine, it 'gives green light to Israel to do the same in Gaza.' As for the Arab neighbours, suffice it to say that in the past six months of the incessant killings by Israel, none of the neighbours — Egypt, Jordan, and even Bahrain or UAE — have suspended the trade and commerce relationship, and the direct transmission of power and gas by Egypt, which has enabled Israeli armament factories to remain alive, has not been suspended. This is the utmost form of hypocrisy by the so-called Muslim Ummah.

The mask is off. The Gaza crisis has exposed the hypocrisy of international law and politics to the world at large.

Humayun Kabir was a senior official of the United Nations.​

 

[Bilal9]

I don't believe driving away Jews entirely from the Middle East is a sane idea - nor is it achievable. There are liberal educated Jews too - the extremists are a loud minority. Will comment more after Iftar.

 

[Saif]

No barbarism without poetry

If our world is becoming full of poets and executioners, we need more judges and thinkers to counter the new tendency.

www.thedailystar.net

No barbarism without poetry

In an October 13, 2023 announcement soliciting submissions, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) invited potential contributors 'to embark on a poetic journey and reignite the great Israeli spirit' in response to the Hamas attack a week before, leading to a sadistic campaign of death and destruction in the occupied Palestinian territorries. FILE PHOTO: REUTERS

When the basic pact that holds society together is crumbling—which appears to be happening worldwide—wild rumours and conspiracy theories proliferate. Even, or especially, when the message is obviously nonsensical, it can evoke deep-seated fears and prejudices.

A perfect example of this, which I have noted previously, occurred in late August 2023, when a priest known as "Father Anthony" ceremoniously doused holy water on a 26-foot-tall statue of Stalin in Russia's Pskov region. Though the church had suffered during the Stalin era, he explained, "Thanks to this we have lots of new Russian martyrs and confessors to whom we now pray and are helping us in our motherland's resurgence." This logic is just a step away from claiming that Jews should thank Hitler for creating the conditions that allowed for the state of Israel. If that sounds hyperbolic, or like a bad joke, consider that some Zionist extremists close to the Israeli government openly advocate exactly this position.

To understand the success of such perverted argumentation, we should first note that, in developed countries, unrest and revolts tend to explode when poverty has ebbed. The protests of the 1960s—from the soixante-huitards in France to the hippies and Yippies in the United States—unfolded during the golden age of the welfare state. When people are living well, they come to desire even more.

One must also account for the surplus enjoyment that social and moral perversion can bring. Consider the Islamic State's recent attack on Crocus City Hall in Moscow, in which 144 people were killed. What some call a terrorist attack, others call an act of armed resistance in response to the massive destruction wrought by the Russian military in Syria. But whatever the case, something notable happened after the attack: Russian security forces not only admitted to torturing the suspects whom they had arrested; they publicly displayed it.

"In a graphic video posted on Telegram," writes Julia Davis of the Center for European Policy Analysis, "one of the detained had his ear cut off and was then forced to eat it by one of his interrogators." No wonder some Israeli hardliners look to Russia as a model for dealing with arrested Hamas members.

Russian officials did it not just to deter potential future attackers, but also to give pleasure to fellow members of the tribe. "I never expected this from myself," writes Margarita Simonyan, a Russian propagandist who heads the state-owned media outlet RT, "but when I see how they are brought into the court crooked, and even this ear, I feel extremely satisfied." Nor is this phenomenon confined to Russia. In Tennessee, some lawmakers want to restore public hangings (from trees, no less) for those who receive the death penalty.

Where do such acts end? Why not just bring back the premodern practice of publicly torturing alleged criminals to death? More to the point, how can "normal" people be brought to the point where they would enjoy such sadistic spectacles?

The short answer is that it requires the unique power of some kind of mythic discourse, religion, or poetry. As the reluctant Nazi fellow-traveller Ernst Jünger explained, "Any power struggle is preceded by a verification of images and iconoclasm. This is why we need poets—they initiate the overthrow, even that of titans."

One finds poetry playing an important role in Israel. On March 26, Haaretz ran a story explaining "how Israel's army uses revenge poetry to boost morale." An anthology published by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) includes poems that "express a desire for vengeance and paint the combat in Gaza as a religious war." In an October 13 announcement soliciting submissions, the IDF invited potential contributors "to embark on a poetic journey and reignite the great Israeli spirit," so as to "raise the spirit in wartime."

Apparently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's references to Amalek (the Jews' biblical enemy in the Torah) after October 7 were not enough. They needed to be supplemented by modern verse. Or perhaps Netanyahu's biblical reference conveyed more than he wanted to say. After all, according to the Old Testament, when the wandering Jews reached the hills above the valley in Judea where the Amalekites lived, Jehovah appeared and ordered Joshua to kill them all, including their children and animals. If that is not "ethnic cleansing," the term has no meaning at all.

It is worth remembering that Germany was known as the land of Dichter und Denker (poets and thinkers), before its turn towards Richter und Henker (judges and executioners). But what if the two versions are more similar than they appear? If our world is gradually becoming a world of poets and executioners, we will need more judges and thinkers to counter the new tendency and regain our moral footing.
​

---

Slavoj Žižek, professor of philosophy at the European Graduate School, is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, and the author, most recently, of Christian Atheism: How to Be a Real Materialist.​

---

Views expressed in this article are the author's own.​

---

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2024
www.project-syndicate.org​

 

[Saif]

Israel would let 150,000 Gazans return north in potential truce, officials say

Israel has agreed in Gaza war ceasefire talks in Egypt to concessions about the return of Palestinians to the north of the enclave, but believes Islamist group Hamas does not want to strike a deal, Israeli officials said on Wednesday. Two officials with knowledge of the talks said that under a US

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Israel would let 150,000 Gazans return north in potential truce, officials say
Published :
Apr 10, 2024 22:28
Updated :
Apr 10, 2024 22:28

Smoke rises following an Israeli strike as Palestinians fleeing north Gaza due to Israel's military offensive move southward, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, at the central Gaza Strip on March 15, 2024 — Reuters/File

Israel has agreed in Gaza war ceasefire talks in Egypt to concessions about the return of Palestinians to the north of the enclave, but believes Islamist group Hamas does not want to strike a deal, Israeli officials said on Wednesday.

Two officials with knowledge of the talks said that under a US proposal for a truce, Israel would allow the return of 150,000 Palestinians to north Gaza with no security checks.

In return, they said, Hamas would be required to give a list of female, elderly and sick hostages it still holds alive.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office declined to comment. Hamas said on Tuesday that the latest proposal passed on by Eqyptian and Qatari mediators did not meet demands, but that it would study it further before responding.

Israel's assessment is that Hamas does not want to strike a deal yet, the two Israeli officials said.

In the seventh month of the war, Hamas wants an end to the Israeli military offensive, a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and permission for displaced Palestinians to return home.

Israel's immediate aim is to secure the release of hostages seized by Hamas in its Oct. 7 cross-border rampage.

It says it will not end the war until Hamas no longer controls Gaza or threatens Israel militarily.

More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed since the Israeli offensive began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, with most of the 2.3 million population displaced and much of the enclave laid to waste.

Israel pulled back most ground forces from southern Gaza this week after months of fighting, but still says it plans to launch an assault on Rafah, on Gaza's southern border with Egypt, where more than half of Gazans are now sheltering.

Netanyahu has said civilians will be evacuated from Rafah before Israeli forces pursue Hamas' remaining battalions there, but that pledge has done little to calm international alarm.

The war began when Hamas led an attack on southern Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and 253 taken hostage. Around 130 are still being held incommunicado in Gaza, Israel says.​

 

[Saif]

No liberal Jews live in Israel. Jews living in Israel are all extremists. I want Israel to be eradicated from Middle East because if Israel exists then they would gobble up the entire Middle East (including Mecca and Medina) with the help of the West. Israel is expansionist so needs to be eradicated from Middle East.

 

[Saif]

Bangladesh protesters want steps against Israel, justice for Palestine

Leaders of Palestine Solidarity Committee Bangladesh on Thursday urged the world community to be vocal and take steps against Israel to stop aggressions in Palestine and mass killings there....

www.newagebd.net

Bangladesh protesters want steps against Israel, justice for Palestine
Staff Correspondent | Published: 00:24, Apr 12,2024

This photo taken on April 11, 2024 shows that the Palestine Solidarity Committee Bangladesh forms a human chain in front of the National Press Club in Dhaka. The protesters urge the world community to be vocal and take steps against Israel to stop aggressions in Palestine and mass killings there. – Md Saurav.

Leaders of Palestine Solidarity Committee Bangladesh on Thursday urged the world community to be vocal and take steps against Israel to stop aggressions in Palestine and mass killings there.

Addressing a human chain in Dhaka, the Palestine Solidarity Committee Bangladesh, a combine of some left leaning political parties, urged the world community to expel Israel from the United Nations and ensure justice for Palestinians.

The organization formed the human chain in front of the National Press Club, where a member of the committee and central leader of Revolutionary Communist League, Harun Or Rashid, chaired.

Harun Or Rashid called on the world community to be vocal to stop Israeli aggression in Palestine and said that formation of a free state could be solution of the conflict.

Democratic Revolutionary Party general secretary Mushrefa Mishu said that Israeli army had killed several hundred unarmed Palestinians in recent conflict.

Coordinator of Socialist Party of Bangladesh (Marxist), Masud Rana, said that Israel was getting patronization from imperialist American government.

Communist Party of Bangladesh central leader Abdullah Kafee Ratan, SPB central leader Khalequzzaman Lipon spoke at the human chain.​

 

[Saif]

Duplicitous US Policy on the Gaza massacre

THE incessant waves of the brutal and ruthless Israeli war, or rather the Palestinian massacre in the Gaza Strip, now in its sixth month, have finally reached Washington...

www.newagebd.net

Duplicitous US Policy on the Gaza massacre
Published: 00:00, Apr 09,2024

— New Eastern Outlook

Prominent Jewish American senator Chuck Schumer broke with long-standing tradition and delivered sharp criticism from the Senate floor against the Israeli government, taking Israel, as well as the political establishment in the US, by surprise when he called Netanyahu an 'obstacle to peace' in the Middle East, writes Viktor Mikhin

THE incessant waves of the brutal and ruthless Israeli war, or rather the Palestinian massacre in the Gaza Strip, now in its sixth month, have finally reached Washington. It happened in Congress in an event that took many by surprise and deepened the rift between the two major political parties. It is well known that the Congress has been one of Israel's main bulwarks for decades, providing political support for Israeli policy on many fronts. This includes the Arab-Israeli conflict, the creeping annexation of the occupied West Bank, and the illegal siege that successive Israeli governments have imposed on Gaza since 2007.

Chuck Schumer's speech on Netanyahu's policy

HOWEVER, on March 14, prominent Jewish American Senator Chuck Schumer (Democrat, New York), the Senate majority leader, broke with long-standing tradition and delivered a sharp criticism from the Senate floor against the Israeli government led by the country's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He apparently took Israel, as well as the political establishment in Washington and the US media, by surprise when he called Netanyahu an 'obstacle to peace' in the region, commenting on how Israel is conducting military operations in Gaza and blocking humanitarian aid to starving Palestinian civilians.

Schumer said Netanyahu 'has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel,' causing support for Israel around the world to plummet to historic lows. He also criticised Israel's ruling coalition government for the same reasons. 'The Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7. The world has changed — radically — since then, and the Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past,' he said, adding that after five months of war, 'it is clear that Israelis need to take stock of the situation and ask: Must we change course?' According to the US Senator, at this critical juncture, new elections are the only way to ensure a healthy and open decision-making process about Israel's future, while so many Israelis have lost confidence in the vision for the direction of their government.

It is rare that a US Senator, especially a Democrat from New York, has spoken so boldly and sharply about the Israeli government. And of course, the speech provoked a storm of indignation. Senator Mitch McConnell (Republican of Kentucky), the Senate minority leader, went on the offensive, attacking Schumer and expressing extreme prejudice and unfettered support for Israel. In his view, the main obstacles to peace are 'genocidal terrorists such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad,' as well as corrupt PA leaders who have repeatedly rejected the peace agreements of several Israeli governments.

It is interesting that according to the New York Times, Schumer called US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan the day before his speech to ask if achieving a temporary pause in military operations in Gaza, releasing hostages and allowing more humanitarian aid into Gaza would jeopardise ongoing negotiations. J. Sullivan, in his characteristic cowboy manner, replied that 'there would be no problem.' What is really going on in Gaza, the National Security Advisor can best learn from the world's media, which daily print heartbreaking reports of Palestinian old men, women and children dying of starvation.

No fundamental disagreement between Biden and Netanyahu

IN THE context of the palpable differences between US president Joe Biden and Netanyahu that have been building up over the past month, the position taken by the Senator from New York is not much different from that of the White House and Biden on how Israel is handling the war in Gaza and what will happen after the war comes to an end. This reflects some of the frustration the administration has had with Netanyahu's verbal rejection of the two-state solution. In fact, Biden and his administration are committed to preventing the creation of an independent Palestinian state, and therein they stand in solidarity with Israel's leadership.

Another fact confirming this position, i.e. the unconditional US support for Israel, is the statement of White House spokesman John Kirby on March 15. In particular, he indirectly conveyed an encouraging message to Israel, as well as to its supporters in Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, that the Biden administration is 'going to keep supporting Israel.' He said, 'We're going to keep urging them to reduce civilian casualties, and we're going to keep working to get a temporary ceasefire in place.'

However, no one has yet seen an American plan for a ceasefire in Gaza. Moreover, on the same day, news from Israel indicated that Netanyahu had approved plans to attack Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. The US administration said it could not support such an attack in the absence of a 'credible and implementable' plan to save hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Rafah from danger. Although the Israelis said they had such a plan, on March 15 the same White House announced that it had not seen it. It is interesting to wonder what the US position will be when the Israeli army launches its offensive in Rafah and thousands of innocent civilians are killed as a result, in addition to the 31,000 Palestinians in Gaza who have already been killed and the more than 71,000 who have been wounded since last October. One should not expect much from the Biden administration. Perhaps there will be minor restrictions on arms exports to Israel, and perhaps the US will, as usual, abstain from voting on the draft resolution to be introduced in the UN Security Council calling for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza.

In his speech, Schumer said, and many Americans fully agree with him, that the world has changed 'radically' since last October. However, unwavering US support for Israel did not affect this change. The relationship between the US and Israel, on the one hand, and Arab countries, on the other, also does not reflect the changing world and the transformed regional scene in light of Israel's barbaric assault on the Palestinian people in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

While hosting Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar at the White House on March 15, Biden agreed with his Irish guest in Washington to celebrate St Patrick's Day on March 17. At the same time, the US president pompously declared that he wanted a quick ceasefire in Gaza to deliver food and medicine to the Strip and to free Israeli hostages. As the saying goes, it is hard to credit now, though fresh is its renown. The facts and life itself will show how sincere the administration and Biden himself are in wanting to achieve such a result in the coming months in a very difficult election cycle in the United States.

New Eastern Outlook, April 8. Viktor Mikhin, corresponding member of RANS and writes for the online magazine 'New Eastern Outlook'​

 

[Saif]

Norway ready to recognise Palestinian state

Norway is ready to recognise a Palestinian state together with other countries, its prime minister said on Friday. In November, Norway’s parliament adopted a proposal for the country to be prepared to recognise an independent Palestinian state...

www.newagebd.net

Norway ready to recognise Palestinian state
Agence France-Presse . Oslo, Norway | Published: 20:46, Apr 12,2024 | Updated: 21:01, Apr 12,2024

Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Stoere (R) and Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez address a press conference during a bilateral meeting in Oslo on Friday. —AFP photo

Norway is ready to recognise a Palestinian state together with other countries, its prime minister said on Friday while hosting Spanish counterpart Pedro Sanchez, who is seeking support for the cause.

Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Store told reporters that such a decision would need to be taken in close coordination with 'like-minded countries'.

'Norway stands ready to recognise the state of Palestine,' Store told a joint press conference with Sanchez.

'We have not set a firm timetable,' Store added.

In November, Norway's parliament adopted a government proposal for the country to be prepared to recognise an independent Palestinian state.

Norway also hosted Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at the beginning of the 1990s, which led to the Oslo Accords.

Sanchez is currently on a tour of Poland, Norway and Ireland this week to drum up support for the recognition of a Palestinian state, according to a Spanish government spokesperson.

On March 22, Spain issued a statement with Ireland, Malta and Slovenia on the sidelines of an EU leaders summit, saying they were 'ready to recognise Palestine' in a move that would happen when 'the circumstances are right'.

In the past week, Sanchez told reporters travelling with him on his Middle East tour that he hoped it would happen by the end of June.

Store on Friday said that he welcomed Sanchez's initiative to consult among countries to 'strengthen coordination'.

'We will intensify that coordination in the weeks to come,' Store said.

The Spanish leader has repeatedly angered Israel with his outspoken comments since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas.

The war in the Gaza Strip erupted after Hamas's unprecedented attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Israel's offensive has killed at least 33,634 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.​

 

[Saif]

Israel’s ‘human shields’ lie

ONE aspect of the recent revelations about the IDF’s Lavender AI system that’s not getting enough consideration is the fact that it is completely devastating to the narrative that Israel has been...

www.newagebd.net

Israel's 'human shields' lie
Published: 00:00, Apr 08,2024

March on Washington for Gaza on Jan 13. — Consortium News/Diane Krauthamer

Israel is not being 'forced' to kill Palestinian children, it is knowingly doing so, writes Caitlin Johnstone

ONE aspect of the recent revelations about the IDF's Lavender AI system that's not getting enough consideration is the fact that it is completely devastating to the narrative that Israel has been killing so many civilians in Gaza because Hamas uses 'human shields.'

If you missed this story, a major report from +972 revealed that Israel has been using an AI system called Lavender to compile kill lists of suspected members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad which have been carried out with hardly any human verification.

One automated system, psychopathically named 'Where's Daddy?' tracks suspects to their homes so that they can be killed along with their entire families. The IDF has been knowingly killing 15 to 20 civilians at a time to kill one junior Hamas operative, and up to 100 civilians at a time to take out a senior official.

+972's Yuval Abraham writes the following:

'Moreover, the Israeli army systematically attacked the targeted individuals while they were in their homes — usually at night while their whole families were present — rather than during the course of military activity. According to the sources, this was because, from what they regarded as an intelligence standpoint, it was easier to locate the individuals in their private houses. Additional automated systems, including one called "Where's Daddy?" also revealed here for the first time, were used specifically to track the targeted individuals and carry out bombings when they had entered their family's residences.'

(Another +972 report by Abraham back in November revealed that IDF AI systems ensure that the Israeli military is fully aware of every child it's going to be killing in each airstrike, and that it deliberately targets civilian infrastructure as a matter of policy.)

When questioned about these systems by +972, the IDF spokesperson responded that:

'Hamas places its operatives and military assets in the heart of the civilian population, systematically uses the civilian population as human shields, and conducts fighting from within civilian structures, including sensitive sites such as hospitals, mosques, schools and UN facilities. The IDF is bound by and acts according to international law, directing its attacks only at military targets and military operatives.'

The 'human shields' narrative that's become so popular in Israel apologia insists that the reason the IDF kills so many civilians in its attacks on Gaza is because Hamas intentionally surrounds itself with non-combatants as a strategy to make the innocent Israelis reluctant to drop bombs on them.

But as the Intercept's Ryan Grim recently observed on Twitter, this is soundly refuted by the revelation that Israel has been intentionally waiting to target suspected Hamas members when it knows they'll be surrounded by civilians.

'Israel's argument that they kill so many civilians because Hamas uses "human shields" is torn apart by the revelation that the IDF prefers to attack its 'targets' when they are at home with their families,' tweeted Grim. 'It is not Hamas using human shields, it is Israel deliberately hunting families.'

'A human shield is only a shield if your enemy values human life and seeks to minimise civilian deaths', Grim adds. 'Israel deliberately maximizes the number of civilians it can kill by waiting until a target is with his entire family. Palestinians are not shields to Israel, they are all targets.'

This is such an important point. Advocates for Palestine like Abby Martin have for years been presenting compelling arguments against Israel's 'human shields' claims, and common sense shows that the presence of civilians is clearly not a deterrent to Israeli airstrikes, but because of these +972 revelations the lie has now been thoroughly, irrefutably debunked.

Civilians aren't getting killed because Hamas hides behind them, civilians are getting killed because the IDF waits until suspected Hamas members are around civilians to target them with high-powered military explosives.

A popular quote attributed to former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir says, 'Someday we may be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our children, but we will never forgive them for making us kill their children.'

You see this quote pop up all the time in varying iterations, shared approvingly by Israel apologists around the world as though it's something wise and brilliant instead of a horrific defence of murdering children. But it turns out this morally depraved quote isn't even true by the most generous of interpretations: Israel isn't being 'forced' to kill Palestinian children, it is knowingly choosing to.

The 'human shields' narrative is just one more instance in which Israel pretends to be the victim while actually being the victimizer.

They lied about beheaded babies so that they could get away with murdering babies. They lied about mass rapes so that they could get away with committing rape. They lied about Hamas using civilians as human shields so that they could kill civilians.

They lie about being victims so that they can victimise.

Consortiumnews.com, April 6. Caitlin Johnstone is a journalist, poet, and utopia prepper.​

 

[Saif]

Iran seizes huge cargo ship after threats to close Strait of Hormuz

Iran's Revolutionary Guards seized an Israeli-linked cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, days after Tehran said it could close the crucial shipping route and warned it would retaliate for an Israeli strike on its Syria consulate

www.thedailystar.net

Iran seizes huge cargo ship after threats to close Strait of Hormuz
Iran must release ship 'immediately': US

An official slides down a rope during a helicopter raid on MSC Aries ship at sea in this screen grab obtained from a social media video released on April 13, 2024. Video obtained by Reuters/via REUTERS
Iran's Revolutionary Guards seized an Israeli-linked cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, days after Tehran said it could close the crucial shipping route and warned it would retaliate for an Israeli strike on its Syria consulate.

Iran's state-run IRNA news agency reported that a Guards helicopter had boarded and taken into Iranian waters the Portuguese flagged MSC Aries, saying it was linked to Israel.

MSC, which operates the Aries, confirmed Iran had seized the ship and said it was working "with the relevant authorities" for its safe return and the wellbeing of its 25 crew.

MSC leases the Aries from Gortal Shipping, an affiliate of Zodiac Maritime, Zodiac said in a statement, adding that MSC is responsible for all the vessel's activities. Zodiac is partly owned by Israeli businessman Eyal Ofer.

Video on Iranian news channels purporting to show the seizure included a figure abseiling from a helicopter on to a ship. Reuters was able to verify that the ship in the video was the MSC Aries but not the date it was recorded.

The incident comes amid rising regional tensions since the start of Israel's campaign in Gaza in October, with Israel or its ally the United States clashing repeatedly with Iranian-aligned groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Iran has threatened to retaliate for suspected Israeli airstrikes on its consulate in Syria's capital Damascus on April 1 that killed seven Revolutionary Guards officers including two senior commanders.

The White House on Saturday called on Iran to immediately release a British-owned ship it seized near the Strait of Hormuz, as Middle East tensions soar and fears mount over a retaliatory attack on Israel.

"We call on Iran to release the vessel and its international crew immediately," said National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson. "Seizing a civilian vessel without provocation is a blatant violation of international law, and an act of piracy by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps."

US President Joe Biden said on Friday he expected Iran to attack Israel "sooner, rather than later" and warned Tehran not to do so.

Israel's military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said "Iran will bear consequences for choosing to escalate this situation any further", in response to reports of the seizure of MSC Aries.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz accused Tehran of piracy.

ESCALATION

On Tuesday the naval head of the Revolutionary Guards, Alireza Tangsiri, said it could close the Strait of Hormuz, which lies between Iran and the United Arab Emirates, if deemed necessary.

He said Iran viewed as a threat Israel's presence in the UAE, with which Israel established diplomatic relations in 2020 as part of the "Abraham Accords" mediated by the United States.Analyst Hasan Alhasan of the International Institute for Strategic Studies said if the seizure of the MSC Aries was in retaliation for Israel's strike on Iran's Damascus consulate, it showed a desire to save face without a wider escalation.

"Iran may be trying to play on fears that it could obstruct shipping through the strait, a passageway of greater significance to global oil and gas supplies than the Red Sea," he said.

"If Iran were to limit itself to seizing commercial vessels linked to Israel then it would minimise the risk of an all-out conflict but damage its own credibility," he added.

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi group has disrupted global trade with attacks on shipping in the Red Sea for months, saying it is aiming at vessels linked to Israel in retaliation for Israel's campaign in Gaza.

The United States and Britain have carried out strikes against Houthi targets in response to the attacks on shipping.

The Joint Maritime Information Center, run by a Western-led naval coalition, said vessels intending to navigate the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most important energy routes, should exercise caution and not loiter.​

 

[Saif]

Not one has lived without water

BY NOVEMBER 2023, it was already clear that the Israeli government had begun to deny Palestinians in Gaza access to water...

www.newagebd.net

Not one has lived without water
Vijay Prashad | Published: 00:00, Apr 06,2024

— Dissident Voice

BY NOVEMBER 2023, it was already clear that the Israeli government had begun to deny Palestinians in Gaza access to water. 'Every hour that passes with Israel preventing the provision of safe drinking water in the Gaza strip, in brazen breach of international law, puts Gazans at risk of dying of thirst and diseases related to the lack of safe drinking water', said Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, UN special rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation. 'Israel', he noted, 'must stop using water as a weapon of war'. Before Israel's most recent attack on Gaza, 97 percent of the water in Gaza's only coastal aquifer was already unsafe for human consumption based on World Health Organisation standards. Over the course of its many attacks, Israel has all but destroyed Gaza's water purification system and prevented the entry of materials and chemicals needed for repair.

In early October 2023, Israeli officials indicated that they would use their control over Gaza's water systems as a means to perpetrate a genocide. As Israeli Major General Ghassan Alian, the head of the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, said on 10 October, 'Human beasts are dealt with accordingly. Israel has imposed a total blockade on Gaza. No electricity, no water, just damage. You wanted hell, you will get hell'. On March 19, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Palestine Jamie McGoldrick noted that Gaza needed 'spare parts for water and sanitation systems' as well as 'chemicals to treat water', since the 'lack of these critical items is one of the key drivers of the malnutrition crisis'. 'Malnutrition crisis' is one way to talk about a famine.

The assault on Gaza — whose entire population is 'currently facing high levels of acute food insecurity', according to Oxfam and the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification — has sharpened the contradictions that strike the world's people with force. A UN report released on World Water Day (March 22) shows that, as of 2022, 2.2 billion people have no access to safely managed drinking water, that four out of five people in rural areas lack basic drinking water, and that 3.5 billion people do not have sanitation systems. As a consequence, every day, over a thousand children under the age of five die from diseases linked to inadequate water, sanitation, and hygiene. These children are among the 1.4 million people who die every year due to these deficiencies. The UN report notes that, since women and girls are the primary collectors of water, they spend more of their time finding water when water systems deteriorate due to inadequate or non-existent infrastructure or droughts exacerbated by climate change. This has resulted in higher dropout rates for girls in school.

A 2023 study by UN Women describes the perils of the water crisis for women and girls:

'Inequalities in access to safe drinking water and sanitation do not affect everyone equally. The greater need for privacy during menstruation, for example, means women and girls and other people who menstruate may access shared sanitation facilities less frequently than people who do not, which increases the likelihood of urinary and reproductive tract infections. Where safe and secure facilities are not available, choices to use facilities are often limited to dawn and dusk, which exposes at-risk groups to violence.'

The lack of access to public toilets is by itself a serious danger to women in cities across the world, such as Dhaka, Bangladesh, where there is one public toilet for every 200,000 people.

Access to drinking water is being further constricted by the climate catastrophe. For instance, a warming ocean means glacier melt, which lifts the sea levels and allows salt water to contaminate underground aquifers more easily. Meanwhile, with less snowfall, there is less water in reservoirs, which means less water to drink and use for agriculture. Already, as the UN Water report shows, we are seeing increased droughts that now impact at least 1.4 billion people directly.

According to the United Nations, half of the world's population experiences severe water scarcity for at least part of the year, while one quarter faces 'extremely high' levels of water stress. 'Climate change is projected to increase the frequency and severity of these phenomena, with acute risks for social stability', the UN notes. The issue of social stability is key, since droughts have been forcing tens of millions of people into flight and starvation.

Climate change is certainly a major driver of the water crisis, but so is the rules-based international order. Capitalist governments must not be allowed to point to an ahistorical notion of climate change as an excuse to shirk their responsibility in creating the water crisis. For instance, over the past several decades, governments across the world have neglected to upgrade wastewater treatment facilities. Consequently, 42% of household wastewater is not treated properly, which damages ecosystems and aquifers. Even more damning is the fact that only 11 per cent of domestic and industrial wastewater is being reused.

Increased investment in wastewater treatment would reduce the amount of pollution that enters water sources and allow for better harnessing of the freshwater available to us on the planet. There are several sensible policies that could be adopted to immediately address the water crisis, such as those proposed by UN Water to protect coastal mangroves and wetlands; harvest rainwater; reuse wastewater; and protect groundwater. But these are precisely the kinds of policies that are opposed by capitalist firms, whose profit line is improved by the destruction of nature.

In March 2018, we launched our second dossier, Cities Without Water. It is worthwhile to reflect on what we showed then, six years ago:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Technical Paper VI (IPCC, June 2008) is on climate change and water. The scientific consensus in this document is that the changes in weather patterns — induced by carbon-intensive capitalism — have a negative effect on the water cycle. Areas where there will be higher rainfall might not see more groundwater due to the velocity of the rain, which will create a rapid movement of water to the oceans. Such high velocity rainfall neither refills aquifers (natural water sources), nor does it allow water to be stored by humans. The scientists also predict higher rates of drought in regions such as the Mediterranean and Southern Africa. It is this technical report that put forward the number that over a billion people will suffer from water scarcity.

For the past decade, the United Nations Environmental Programme has warned about the growth of water-intensive lifestyles and of water pollution. Both of these — lifestyles and pollution — are consequences of the spread of capitalist social relations and capitalist productive mechanisms across the planet. In terms of lifestyle use, the average resident in the United States consumes between 300 and 600 litres of water per day. This is a misleading figure. It does not mean that individuals consume such high amounts of water. Much of this water is used by water-intensive agriculture and by water-intensive industrial production, including energy production. The World Health Organisation recommends per person usage of 20 litres of water per day for basic hygiene and food preparation. The gap between the two is not accidental. It is about a water-intensive lifestyle — use of washing machines and dishwashers, washing of cars and watering of gardens, as well as the use of water by factories and factory farms.

Water pollution is a serious problem. In Esquel, Argentina, the people saw that the contaminants from corporate gold mining were ruining their drinking water. 'Water is worth more than gold' (El agua vale más que el oro), they said. Ruthless techniques of extraction by mining corporations (by use of cyanide) and of cultivation by agribusiness (by use of fertilisers and pesticides) have ruined reservoirs of clean water. Their blue gold, say the people of Esquel, is more important than real gold. They held a public assembly in 2003 that asserted their right to their water against the interests of the private corporations.

It is worth pointing out that the amount of water it would take to support 4.7 billion people at the WHO daily minimum would be 9.5 billion litres — the exact amount used every day to water the world's golf courses. The water used by 60,000 villages in Thailand, for instance, is used to water one golf course in Thailand. These are the priorities of our current system.

In other words, watering golf courses is more important than providing piped water to the thousand children under the age of five who die every day due to water deprivation. Those are the values of the capitalist system.

DissidentVoice.org, April 4. Vijay Prashad, an Indian historian and journalist, is author of 25 books, including The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World and The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South.​

 

[Saif]

Israel presses on in Gaza as world awaits response to Iran attack

Israel struck war-battered Gaza overnight, Hamas and witnesses said on Monday, as world leaders urged de-escalation awaiting Israel’s reaction to Iran’s unprecedented attack that heightened...

www.newagebd.net

Israel presses on in Gaza as world awaits response to Iran attack
Agence France-Presse . Palestinian Territories 16 April, 2024, 00:19

People search through the rubble of a collapsed building in the eastern side of the Maghazi camp for Palestinian refugees in the central Gaza Strip on Monday amid the on-going conflict in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas group. | AFP photo

Israel struck war-battered Gaza overnight, Hamas and witnesses said on Monday, as world leaders urged de-escalation awaiting Israel's reaction to Iran's unprecedented attack that heightened fears of wider conflict.

World powers have urged restraint after Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel late Saturday, though the Israeli military has said nearly all were intercepted.

Tehran's first direct assault on Israel, in retaliation for a deadly April 1 strike on its Damascus consulate, followed months of violence across the region involving Iranian proxies and allies who say they act in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with his war cabinet on Sunday, but no decision has been made on how or when Israel could respond to the Iran attack, local media said, reporting another meeting planned later on Monday.

Tensions in Iran 'weaken the regime and rather serve Israel', the newspaper Israel Hayom said, adding that this suggested Israeli leaders would not rush to retaliate.

Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi has warned that a 'reckless' Israeli move would spark a 'much stronger response', while foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said Monday that Western nations should 'appreciate Iran's restraint' in recent months.

Tehran has insisted the attack on Israel was an act of 'self-defence' after the Damascus strike that killed seven Revolutionary Guards including two generals.

The Israeli military said it would not be distracted from its war against Tehran-backed Hamas in Gaza, triggered by the Palestinian armed group's October 7 attack.

'Even while under attack from Iran, we have not lost sight of our critical mission in Gaza to rescue our hostages from the hands of Iran's proxy Hamas,' military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said late Sunday.

As mediators eye a deal to halt the fighting, fears persisted over Israeli plans to send ground troops into Rafah, a far-southern city where the majority of Gaza's 2.4 million people have taken refuge.

'Hamas is still holding our hostages in Gaza,' Hagari said of the roughly 130 people, including 34 presumed dead, who Israel says remain in the hands of Palestinian militants since the Hamas attack.

'We also have hostages in Rafah, and we will do everything we can to bring them back home,' the military spokesman told a briefing.

The army said it was calling up 'two reserve brigades for operational activities', about a week after withdrawing most ground troops from Gaza.

The Hamas government media office said Israeli aircraft and tanks launched 'dozens' of strikes overnight on central Gaza, reporting several casualties.

Witnesses said that strikes hit the Nuseirat refugee camp, with clashes also reported in other areas of central and northern Gaza.

Hamas's attack that sparked the fighting resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 33,729 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting Sunday following the Iranian attack, where secretary-general Antonio Guterres warned the region was 'on the brink' of war.

'Neither the region nor the world can afford more war,' the UN chief said.

'Now is the time to defuse and de-escalate.'

G7 leaders also condemned Iran's attack and called for 'restraint' on all sides, European Council president Charles Michel wrote on X after a video conference on Sunday.

French president Emmanuel Macron said Monday his government would help do everything to avoid a 'conflagration' in the Middle East.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz said that after Israel's 'success' in intercepting the Iranian launches, 'our advice is to contribute to de-escalation'.

Israel's top ally the United States has also urged caution and calm.

'We don't want to see this escalate,' White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told NBC.

After the attack, US president Joe Biden reaffirmed the Washington's 'ironclad' support for Israel.

However a senior US official said Biden had also told Netanyahu that his administration would not offer military support for any retaliation on Iran.

Word of the impending attack prompted Israel to close schools and announce restrictions on public gatherings, with the army saying early Monday that those measures were being lifted for most of the country.

In Iran, airports in the capital and elsewhere reopened on Monday, state media said.

Fears of a wider regional conflict propelled stock markets lower on Monday.

More than six months of war have led to dire humanitarian conditions in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Rumours of a reopened Israeli checkpoint on the coastal road from the territory's south to Gaza City sent thousands of Palestinians heading north on Sunday, despite Israel denying it was open.

Attempting the journey back to northern Gaza, displaced resident Basma Salman said, 'even if it my house was destroyed, I want to go there. I couldn't stay in the south.'

'It's overcrowded. We couldn't even take a fresh breath of air there. It was completely terrible.'

In Khan Yunis, southern Gaza's main city, civil defence teams said they had retrieved at least 18 bodies from under the rubble of destroyed buildings.

Responding late Saturday to the latest truce plan presented by US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators, Hamas said it insists on 'a permanent ceasefire' and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Israel's Mossad spy agency called this a 'rejection' of the proposal, accusing Hamas of 'continuing to exploit the tension with Iran'.

But the United States said mediation efforts continue.

'We're not considering diplomacy dead there,' said the National Security Council's Kirby.

'There's a new deal on the table It is a good deal' that would see some hostages released, fighting halted and more humanitarian relief into Gaza, he said.​

 

[Saif]

UN to launch $2.8b global appeal for Gaza, West Bank

The United Nations on Wednesday will launch a $2.8 billion appeal for donations this year to help the war-ravaged population of the Gaza Strip as well as West Bank Palestinians

www.thedailystar.net

UN to launch $2.8b global appeal for Gaza, West Bank

Photo: AFP People walk amid the rubble of buildings destroyed during Israeli bombardment in Khan Yunis, on the southern Gaza Strip on April 16, 2024.

The United Nations on Wednesday will launch a $2.8 billion appeal for donations this year to help the war-ravaged population of the Gaza Strip as well as West Bank Palestinians, a senior agency official said.

The "flash appeal" addresses humanitarian funding needs through the end of 2024, according to Andrea De Domenico, head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Palestinian territories.

"With the entire humanitarian community we will appeal for $2.8 billion to support the three million people identified across the West Bank and Gaza," he said Tuesday in a video press conference.

"Of course 90 percent of it is for Gaza," De Domenico added.

He noted that "the original request was for $4 billion but considering the limited ability to deliver (aid) and the space that we have to do so we have really focused on the highest priority."

Days after the unprecedented Israeli offensive in Gaza on October 7, the United Nations launched an initial emergency appeal for $294 million.

That appeal was modified in early November and raised to $1.2 billion to meet the most urgent needs of 2.2 million people in Gaza and another 500,000 in the West Bank in 2023.

The United Nations has warned that thousands of Gazans face famine, particularly in the north of the territory where distribution of food and aid has been limited.​

 

[Saif]

Erdogan urges Palestinian unity after meeting Hamas chief

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Palestinians to unite amid Israel’s war in Gaza following hours-long talks with Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in...

www.newagebd.net

Erdogan urges Palestinian unity after meeting Hamas chief
Agence France-Presse . Istanbul 21 April, 2024, 01:08

Relatives mourn during a funeral ceremony for Damian Sobol, a member of the US-based food charity World Central Kitchen, killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza, at the cemetery in his home town of Przemysl, Poland, on Saturday. | AFP photo

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Palestinians to unite amid Israel's war in Gaza following hours-long talks with Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Istanbul on Saturday, his office said.

Erdogan has sought but failed to establish a foothold as a mediator in the Gaza conflict that has roiled the Middle East since October 7.

Tensions in the region are running high as the Hamas-run Palestinian territory braces for a new Israeli offensive and a reported Israeli attack on Iran.

Erdogan called on Palestinians to unite following the talks at the Dolmabahce palace, on the banks of the Bosphorus strait, that Turkish media reports said lasted more than two and a half hours.

'It is vital that Palestinians act with unity in this process. The strongest response to Israel and the path to victory lie in unity and integrity,' Erdogan said according to a Turkish presidency statement.

Hamas, designated a terrorist organisation by the United States, the European Union and Israel, is a rival of the Fatah faction that rules the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank.

As soaring tensions between Iran and Israel stoke fears of a wider regional war, Erdogan said recent events should not allow Israel to 'gain ground and that it is important to act in a way that keeps attention on Gaza'.

With Qatar saying it will reassess its role as a mediator between Hamas and Israel, Erdogan sent Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to Doha on Wednesday in a new sign that he wants a role.

'Even if only I, Tayyip Erdogan, remain, I will continue as long as God gives me my life, to defend the Palestinian struggle and to be the voice of the oppressed Palestinian people,' the president said Wednesday when he announced Haniyeh's visit.

Hamas has had an office in Turkey since 2011 when Turkey helped secure the agreement for the group to free Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Erdogan has maintained links with Haniyeh, who has been a frequent visitor.

Fidan was a past head of Turkish intelligence and the country provided information and passports to Hamas officials, including Haniyeh, according to Sinan Ciddi, a Turkey specialist at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. This has never been confirmed by Turkish authorities, however.

If Qatar withdraws from mediation efforts, Turkey could seek to increase its mediation profile based on its Hamas links.

Fidan on Saturday held talks with visiting Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, with both men emphasising the need to deliver more humanitarian aid to devastated Gaza where the threat of famine looms.

Turkey is one of Gaza's main humanitarian aid partners, sending 45,000 tonnes of supplies and medicine in the region.

Israel has said it is preparing an offensive against the Gazan city of Rafah and the reported Israeli attack on the Iranian province of Isfahan, following Iran's direct attack on Israel, has only clouded hopes of a peace breakthrough.

But Erdogan can only expect a 'very limited' role because of his outspoken condemnation of Israel and its actions in Gaza, according to Ciddi.

Last year, the Turkish leader likened the tactics of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to those of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and called Israel a 'terrorist state' because of its offensive against Hamas after the militant group's October 7 attacks on Israel.

Ciddi said Erdogan would not be welcome in Israel and at most might be able to pass messages between Palestinian and Israel negotiators.

The unprecedented Hamas attacks that sparked the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Militants also took about 250 hostages. Israel estimates 129 remain in Gaza, including 34 who are presumed dead.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 34,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.​

 

[Saif]

Israel holds Palestinian economy captive: analysts

The Gaza offensive is speeding up Israel’s “annexation” of the Palestinian economy, say analysts, who argue it has been hobbled for decades by agreements that followed the Oslo peace accords.

www.thedailystar.net

Israel holds Palestinian economy captive: analysts

A Palestinian man waits for news of his daughter as rescue workers search for survivors under the rubble of a building hit in an overnight Israeli bombing in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday. Photo: AFP

The Gaza offensive is speeding up Israel's "annexation" of the Palestinian economy, say analysts, who argue it has been hobbled for decades by agreements that followed the Oslo peace accords.

While the Israel's offensive raging since October 7 has devastated swathes of Gaza, it has also hit the public finances and wider economy of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israel is tightening the noose on the Palestinian Authority, which rules parts of the West Bank, by withholding tax revenues it collects on its behalf, economist Adel Samara told AFP.

Palestinian livelihoods have also been hurt by bans on labourers crossing into Israel, and by a sharp downturn in tourism in the violence-plagued territory, including a quiet Christmas season in Bethlehem.

Samara said that "technically speaking, there is no Palestinian economy under Israeli occupation -- our economy has been effectively annexed by Israel's".

The Palestinian economy is largely governed by the 1994 Paris Protocol, which granted sole control over the territories' borders to Israel, and with it the right to collect import duties and value-added tax for the Palestinian Authority.

Israel has repeatedly leveraged this power to deprive the authority of much-needed revenues.

But the Gaza offensive has further tightened Israel's grip, Samara said, with the bulk of customs duties withheld.

"Without these funds, the Palestinian Authority struggles to pay the salaries of its civil servants and its running costs," said Taher al-Labadi, a researcher at the French Institute for the Near East.

In February, Norway reportedly transferred to the Palestinian Authority about $115 million from Israel following a deal to release some of the frozen taxes.

Almost all Palestinian workers have also been forbidden from entering Israel for work, driving up unemployment across the territories.

The Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa bemoaned an "unprecedented financial crisis" during which his government's deficit had soared to $7 billion, more than a third of the territories' GDP according to the latest budgetary figures.​

 

[Saif]

https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/world/israeli-strikes-on-southern-gaza-city-of-rafah-kill-22-mostly-children

Israeli strikes on southern Gaza city of Rafah kill 22, mostly children
AP
Published :
Apr 21, 2024 20:07
Updated :
Apr 21, 2024 20:07

Palestinians look at damages following an Israeli raid at Nur Shams camp, in Tulkarm, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on April 21, 2024 — Reuters photo

Israeli strikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah overnight killed 22 people, including 18 children, health officials said Sunday, as the United States was on track to approve billions of dollars of additional military aid to its close ally.

Israel has carried out near-daily air raids on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza's population of 2.3 million has sought refuge from fighting elsewhere. It has also vowed to expand its ground offensive to the city on the border with Egypt despite international calls for restraint, including from the US.

The House of Representatives approved a $26 billion aid package on Saturday that includes around $9 billion in humanitarian assistance for Gaza.

The first strike killed a man, his wife and their 3-year-old child, according to the nearby Kuwaiti Hospital, which received the bodies. The woman was pregnant and the doctors managed to save the baby, the hospital said.

The second strike killed 17 children and two women, all from the same extended family, according to hospital records. First responders were still searching the rubble. An airstrike in Rafah the night before killed nine people, including six children.

Mohammed al-Beheiri said his daughter, Rasha, and her six children, ranging in age from 18 months to 16 years, were among those killed overnight and into Sunday. Her husband's second wife and their three children were still under the rubble, al-Beheiri said.

The Israel-Hamas war has killed over 34,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, devastated Gaza's two largest cities and left a swath of destruction across the territory. Around 80% of the population have fled their homes to other parts of the besieged coastal enclave, which experts say is on the brink of famine.

The conflict, now in its seventh month, has sparked regional unrest pitting Israel and the U.S. against Iran and allied militant groups across the Middle East. Israel and Iran traded fire directly earlier this month, raising fears of all-out war between the longtime foes.

Tensions have also spiked in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli troops killed two Palestinians who the military says attacked a checkpoint with a knife and a gun near the southern West Bank town of Hebron early Sunday. The Palestinian Health Ministry said the two killed were 18 and 19 years old, from the same family. No Israeli forces were wounded, the army said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service meanwhile said it has recovered a total of 14 bodies from an Israeli raid in the Nur Shams urban refugee camp in the West Bank that began late Thursday. Those killed include three militants from the Islamic Jihad group and a 15-year-old boy. The military says it killed 10 militants in the camp and arrested eight suspects. Nine Israeli soldiers and officers were wounded.

In a separate incident in the West Bank, an Israeli man was wounded in an explosion Sunday, the Magen David Adom rescue service said. A video circulating online shows a man approaching a Palestinian flag that had been planted in a field. When he kicks it, it appears to trigger an explosive device.

At least 469 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Most have been killed during Israeli military arrest raids, which often trigger gunbattles, or in violent protests.

The war in Gaza was sparked by an unprecedented Oct. 7 raid into southern Israel in which Hamas and other militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 hostages. Israel says militants are still holding around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.

Thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets to call for new elections to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a deal with Hamas to release the hostages. Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed and all the hostages are returned.

The war has killed at least 34,097 Palestinians and wounded another 76,980, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry does not differentiate between combatants and civilians in its count but says at least two-thirds have been children and women. It also says the real toll is likely higher as many bodies are stuck beneath the rubble left by airstrikes or are in areas that are unreachable for medics.

Israel blames Hamas for civilian casualties because the militants fight in dense, residential neighborhoods, but the military rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children. The military says it has killed over 13,000 Hamas fighters, without providing evidence.​

 

[Saif]

Hezbollah downs Israeli drone

Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah said on Sunday it downed an Israeli drone that was on a combat mission in southern Lebanon.

www.thedailystar.net

Hezbollah downs Israeli drone

A wounded Palestinian woman is escorted to an ambulance before she is transported to hospital after an Israeli strike on al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip yesterday. Photo: AFP

Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah said on Sunday it downed an Israeli drone that was on a combat mission in southern Lebanon.

The drone that was brought down above the Al Aishiyeh area in southern Lebanon was "waging its attacks on our steadfast people," a statement said by the group said.

Israeli forces and Lebanon's armed group Hezbollah have been exchanging fire for over six months in parallel to the Gaza war, in the most serious hostilities since they fought a major war in 2006.

Hezbollah said the drone was an Israeli Hermes 450, a multi-payload drone made by Elbit Systems, an Israel-based weapons manufacturer. The fighting has fuelled concern about risk of further escalation.

At least 370 Lebanese, including more than 240 Hezbollah fighters and 68 civilians, have been killed in the fighting according to a Reuters tally. Eighteen Israelis, including soldiers and civilians, have been killed on the Israeli side of the border, according to Israeli tallies.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli military intelligence chief resigns as Gaza pounded

Israel’s military intelligence chief has resigned after taking responsibility for failures leading to the Hamas attack on October 7, the military said on Monday, as Israel carried out more shelling in war-battered Gaza overnight...

www.newagebd.net

Israeli military intelligence chief resigns as Gaza pounded
Agence France-Presse . Jerusalem 23 April, 2024, 00:26

Israel's military intelligence chief has resigned after taking responsibility for failures leading to the Hamas attack on October 7, the military said on Monday, as Israel carried out more shelling in war-battered Gaza overnight.

General Aharon Haliva is the first top Israeli official to step down for failing to prevent the Hamas attack, which triggered the war in Gaza and brought the government and military under intense scrutiny in Israel.

'The intelligence division under my command did not live up to the task we were entrusted with,' Haliva said in his resignation letter. 'I carry that black day with me ever since.'

Israel has meanwhile lashed out at reports that its top ally the United States was considering sanctioning the military's ultra-Orthodox Netzah Yehuda battalion over alleged human rights abuses in the West Bank from before the war.

'At a time when our soldiers are fighting the monsters of terror, the intention to impose a sanction on a unit in the IDF (army) is the height of absurdity and a moral low,' prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on X.

Netanyahu said late Sunday that the Israeli military would increase military pressure to 'deliver additional and painful blows' to Hamas in the coming days, without elaborating further.

The prime minister has repeatedly said Israel will launch a ground assault on Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah, despite international concern about the majority of the territory's population who have taken refuge there.

The promise of more military pressure came amid growing global opposition to Israel's offensive in Gaza, which has turned vasts areas of the territory into rubble and sparked a dire humanitarian crisis including fears of famine.

Gaza was hit by heavy shelling overnight, with strikes reported in several areas in the centre and south of the besieged territory, an AFP correspondent said on Monday.

Doctors at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in the Gaza city of Deir El Balah said that six people were wounded in an Israeli airstrike in central Gaza, while three more were injured by a separate strike on the Al-Bureij refugee camp.

Israel's allies including Washington have warned against sending troops into Rafah, fearing huge civilian casualties in the only major Gaza city yet to be invaded during the offensive.

More than 1.5 million of the 2.4 million Palestinians in Gaza are estimated to have taken refuge in Rafah. However thousands are believed to have headed north since Israel withdrew most of its troops from Gaza earlier this month.

The Israeli army has said the city is Hamas's last major stronghold and that some of the hostages taken on October 7 were being held there.

This week, during the Jewish holiday of Passover which begins on Monday night, 'it will be 200 days of captivity for the hostages,' Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said.

'The chief of staff has approved the next steps for the war,' he added, without offering details.

At least 16 people, mostly children, were killed in Israeli strikes on two Rafah homes over the weekend, according to Gaza's civil defence agency.

Gaza's crossings and borders authority meanwhile said that 34 Palestinian detainees had been released from Israeli prison since Monday morning. Authority spokesman Hisham Adwan said some of the prisoners showed 'signs of torture'.

In the main southern city of Khan Yunis, Gaza's civil defence agency said on Sunday that its teams had discovered at least 50 bodies buried in the courtyard of a hospital previously raided by Israel.

Spokesman Mahmud Bassal said that the agency was 'waiting for all graves to be exhumed in order to give a final number' of bodies unearthed from the courtyard of the Nasser Medical Complex.

Israel's military said it was checking the reports.

In the occupied West Bank, where violence has surged since the Gaza war began, a funeral procession was held on Sunday for 13 Palestinians killed during an Israeli raid on the Nur Shams refugee camp.

The Israeli army said it had killed 10 militants in a three-day 'counterterrorism' raid on Nur Shams, but residents in the camp gave a different account.

Niaz Zandeq, 40, said his son Jehad was shot dead by an Israeli soldier on his 15th birthday.

Neighbours said troops told Jehad to leave his uncle's house.

'The minute he came out, they opened fire, hitting him directly in the head,' Zandeq said through tears. 'He was unarmed.'

The Israeli army has not responded to residents' allegations.

The army also said a suspect has been arrested over the death of Israeli teenager Benjamin Achimeir, whose disappearance sparked violent raids in the West Bank earlier this month.

In Jerusalem, two civilians received minor injuries in a car-ramming attack on Monday. Israeli police said they had arrested two suspects who fled the scene on foot.

Hamas's October 7 attack that triggered the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,151 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

Israel estimates that 129 captives remain in Gaza, including 34 who the military says are dead.

Some relatives of the hostages have urged families celebrating Passover to leave an empty chair at their seder table with a picture of a hostage.

'How can we celebrate such a holiday while people are still without their freedom, still waiting to be liberated?' asked Mai Albini, whose grandfather Chaim Peri was taken hostage on October 7.​

 

[Saif]

US aid to Israel: Twenty-three billion dollars to slaughter women and children

The US has decided to generously reward Israel $1 billion per thousand women and children that Israel has killed in the Gaza Strip.

www.thedailystar.net

US aid to Israel: Twenty-three billion dollars to slaughter women and children
us aid to israel

A medic holds a Palestinian newborn girl after she was pulled alive from the womb of her mother Sabreen Al-Sheikh (Al-Sakani), who was killed in an Israeli strike, along with her husband Shokri and her daughter Malak, at a hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still image taken from a video recorded April 20, 2024. PHOTO: REUTERS

After vetoing Palestinian statehood, the US, on Sunday, passed an aid package worth $23 billion to Israel, to strong-arm the Israeli machine of killing and destruction. In a twisted coincidence, on the same day, it was reported that around 23,000 women and children had been killed in Gaza so far since October 7, 2023. The US has decided to generously reward Israel $1 billion per thousand women and children that Israel has killed in the Gaza Strip. With this generosity, the US has proven that it is most aggressively against the human rights of women and children.

More than three decades ago, the US, the sponsor of the peace process in the Middle East, began injecting the Palestinians with morphine through false promises of a two-state solution, and in return, unlimited support for Israel, the occupying power, and its racist, expansionist, and fascist policies that it practices against the Palestinian people.

After the direct Iranian response to the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, where the US rushed to rescue its spoiled son to avoid the expansion of the conflict in the Middle East, it presented a request to Israel to not drag the region into a war with dire consequences. In exchange for Israel accepting the US' request, the US handed out gifts to Netanyahu. But only billions of dollars was not sufficient. The US also had to wrap the gift with a veto in the United Nations to prevent the full membership of Palestinian Statehood in the United Nations. With such palatial blessings from the US, Netanyahu will now advance his planned operation in Rafah, where most of the displaced Palestinians of the Gaza Strip are taking refuge.

How could the US give this shameless, morally bankrupt "go-ahead," after the documented atrocities in the Gaza Strip?

Biden ostentatiously spoke about building a port to provide aid to Palestinians to project how much he cares. Since January, we have seen reports that the US has apparently set up a channel with Israel "to discuss concerns" over the large number of civilian deaths, and "seek answers." What came out of all these big words? Is this—the continued slaughter of civilians—the result of their moral investigations? How can we ever take a single word that the US says seriously when it is simply letting Israel do whatever it wants, at the cost of Palestinian lives—thousands and thousands of innocent Palestinian lives. Palestinians continue to pay the price. It appears as though Palestinian blood is just a liquid with no value.

When will the Muslim ummah wake up from its deep sleep, its helplessness, and its restraint? When will they rise to defend their sanctity and honour sacred places such as the Al-Aqsa mosque, our first Qibla? When will they step up to protect the Palestinian people? Why are we continuing to tolerate this utter humiliation?

— Yousef SY Ramadan, Palestinian Ambassador to Bangladesh

Joe Biden not only failed to live up to his promises to the Palestinians, but also to every Muslim in the US and every citizen who voted for him, because he had promised to take a stand against fascism and racism in his presidential campaign against Donald Trump. But then he presented the worst US initiative of the century to solve the Palestinian issue.

The US president, who claimed he is a "Zionist at heart," washed away every promise he ever made to uphold human rights with the worst policy. He not only disavowed all his promises to the Palestinians, and not only aided the genocide in Gaza, but he actively participated in it. As his own citizens protest against him, calling him "Genocide Joe," Biden shamelessly continues to provide Israeli aggressors with all the support on both material and diplomatic fronts. In the upcoming election, where he is projected to face Donald Trump again, voters have said in polls they consider Biden to be more evil. It's as though Biden is ready to lose his seat by supporting this genocide but he still cannot stop Israel's worst impulses. So how can we even believe that he truly even wants to stop Israel's genocide?

In February, one of Biden's top foreign policy officials acknowledged the administration's mistakes in Gaza and offered "clear notes of contrition" for its response to the Gaza war to Arab-American voters in Michigan. And even after all that, as Israel continued to kill more civilians and poked Iran to start a larger war, the US president took to The Wall Street Journal, writing a word salad plea to pass the aid, before it was successfully passed. In the opinion piece, Biden wrote, Israel is facing "brazen adversaries that seek their annihilation." So we ask, who are Israel's "brazen adversaries"? Is it the thousands of helpless, starving children who are being orphaned by the Israeli occupying forces? And what about the annihilation of Gaza?

After giving aid to Israel to kill Palestinians, the US is now reportedly considering placing sanctions on a unit of the Israeli "occupying" forces—Netzah Yehuda Battalion, the ultra-Orthodox Israeli military unit accused of documented human rights abuses against Palestinians. Netanyahu responded that, "At a time when our soldiers are fighting against the monsters of terror, the intention to impose a sanction on a unit in the IDF is the height of absurdity and a moral low." He added, "The government headed by me will act by all means against these moves."

So tell us, why is the Biden Administration rewarding this selfish, fascist man who has always been a renegade, out only for himself? Netanyahu has not expressed gratitude for the support it gets from the US, instead he keeps showing off that he doesn't need the US, each time there are any minor speculations of punitive actions against his murderous agenda to remove Palestinians from the map. All of humanity stands helpless before the tyranny of Netanyahu, the US' spoiled son, dragging the White House behind him. The US has pretended to stand with the oppressed when the reality is, it stands only and only with the oppressor, becoming the oppressor itself. Time and time again, the US has proven to the world, especially the Arab and Islamic world, that it simply does not care—not only about the aspirations of the Palestinian people, but also about the ongoing demands of many other countries. Shame on everyone who has claimed to be moral and stand by humanity, while silently watching double standards pave the path for unspeakable horrors to unfold, the likes of which history has never known.

Now, the question is, how long will the rest of the world remain hostage to the oppressor? Or rather, when will the Muslim ummah wake up from its deep sleep, its helplessness, and its restraint? When will they rise to defend their sanctity and honour sacred places such as the Al-Aqsa mosque, our first Qibla? When will they step up to protect the Palestinian people? Why are we continuing to tolerate this utter humiliation? Will we raise our heads high and say enough is enough? Or will we continue to live in this darkness?

I can answer on behalf of my Palestinian people because I breathe their air, drink their water, and live in their pain. So I say to every free person in this world that we Palestinians are a people who love life. We are human beings who continue to fight for our freedom even when the worst of mankind keeps killing us; we Palestinians resist, for the sake of our dignity. The Palestinians in Gaza, unlike anything seen before, refuse to leave, they have accepted martyrdom. If sacrificing our human lives is what it takes to protect our land, our sanctity and our dignity, then so be it.

No matter how strong the power of the oppressor is, we will not surrender. No matter how tyrannical the oppressor is, the strength of our people will continue on. We will fight until we obtain our rights as human beings. We believe in the power of truth. The oppressors will never attain victory, real victory, because the determination of Palestinians will continue to prevail.

His Excellency Youssef SY Ramadan is the ambassador of Palestine to Bangladesh.​

 

[Saif]

‘Neutrality’ issues found at UNRWA, review finds

An independent review group on the UN agency for Palestinians found some “neutrality-related issues,” its much-anticipated report said Monday, but noted Israel had yet to provide evidence for incendiary allegations that staff were members of terrorist organizations.

www.thedailystar.net

'Neutrality' issues found at UNRWA, review finds
Israel yet to provide evidence for incendiary allegations that UN agency's staff were members of terrorist organizations

An independent review group on the UN agency for Palestinians found some "neutrality-related issues," its much-anticipated report said Monday, but noted Israel had yet to provide evidence for incendiary allegations that staff were members of terrorist organizations.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) remains "irreplaceable and indispensable to Palestinians' human and economic development" added the 54-page report, which was led by French diplomat Catherine Colonna.

The review group was created following allegations made by Israel in January that some UNRWA staff may have participated in the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks. In the weeks that followed, numerous donor states suspended or paused some $450 million in funding.

Many have since resumed funding, including Sweden, Canada, Japan, the EU and France -- while others, including the United States and Britain -- have not.

The review also found that the majority of neutrality breaches related to the social media posts.

Congress passed a bill signed into law by President Joe Biden last month that blocks US funding until March 2025.

The freezes to the main aid agency in Gaza come as months of Israeli military operations have turned the territory into a "humanitarian hellscape," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said recently, with its 2.3 million people in desperate need of food, water, shelter and medicine.

Colonna's team was tasked with assessing whether UNRWA was "doing everything within its power to ensure neutrality," while Guterres activated a second investigation to probe Israel's allegations.

Despite a framework for ensuring it upheld the humanitarian principle of neutrality, the review found that "neutrality-related issues persist," including staff sharing biased political posts on social media and the use of a small number of textbooks with "problematic content" in some UNRWA schools.

But it added "Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence" for its claim that UNRWA employs more than 400 "terrorists."

Israel responded by saying that "the Colonna report ignores the severity of the problem, and offers cosmetic solutions that do not deal with the enormous scope of Hamas' infiltration of UNRWA."

UNRWA itself welcomed the findings and Guterres said he accepted its recommendations.

The review found that the majority of neutrality breaches related to social media posts, often following incidents of violence affecting colleagues or relatives.

"One preventive action could be to ensure that personnel are given space to discuss these traumatic incidents," said the report, which was co-authored with three Nordic rights groups.

 

[Saif]

Hezbollah launches drones at Israel bases

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement said it launched drone attacks on two north Israel bases Tuesday in retaliation for the killing of a fighter Israel described as...

www.newagebd.net

Hezbollah launches drones at Israel bases
Agence France-Presse . Beirut 23 April, 2024, 22:01

The Israeli army had earlier on Tuesday claimed to have killed `two significant terrorists in Hezbollah's aerial unit' during the course of the previous day and night. | AFP photo

Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement said it launched drone attacks on two north Israel bases Tuesday in retaliation for the killing of a fighter Israel described as 'significant'.

Since Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel triggered war in Gaza, there have been near-daily cross-border exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli army.

But Hezbollah has stepped up its rocket attacks on Israeli positions in recent days, with the latest assault targeting beyond the border area that the group usually strikes.

Hezbollah launched 'a combined air attack using decoy and explosive drones that targeted' two Israeli bases north of Acre, the group announced in a statement, while Israel said they did not hit their targets.

The Lebanese group added the attack was 'in response' to an Israeli drone strike that killed one of its members in south Lebanon earlier in the day.

Israel's army said it had 'successfully intercepted two suspicious aerial targets off the northern coast'.

On Tuesday morning, a source close to Hezbollah told AFP an Israeli drone strike deep into Lebanon killed an engineer working for the group's air defence forces as he was travelling in a vehicle.

The strike hit the Abu al-Aswad area near the coastal city of Tyre, some 35 kilometres from the border, an AFP journalist reported.

The fighter's vehicle was completely burnt out.

Hezbollah said one of its fighters had been killed by Israeli fire, adding he was a resident of the area where the vehicle was struck.

The group also said another fighter had been killed by Israel in a statement overnight.

Earlier Tuesday, the Israeli army had said it killed 'two significant terrorists in Hezbollah's aerial unit' on Tuesday morning and overnight.

The fighter killed Tuesday was 'heavily involved in the planning and execution of terrorist attacks against Israel,' it added.

On Sunday evening, Hezbollah shot down an Israeli drone, both sides said.

Since October 7, at least 378 people have been killed in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also 70 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Israel says 11 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed on its side of the border.​

 

[Saif]

Gaza could surpass famine thresholds in 6 weeks: WFP

The Gaza Strip could surpass famine thresholds of food insecurity, malnutrition and mortality in six weeks, an official from the World Food Programme said yesterday.

www.thedailystar.net

Gaza could surpass famine thresholds in 6 weeks: WFP

A family flees Rafah putting the children in the trunk of a car in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday. Fears are rising that Israel will soon launch an assault on Rafah, but aid groups warn any invasion would create an "apocalyptic situation". Photo: REUTERS

The Gaza Strip could surpass famine thresholds of food insecurity, malnutrition and mortality in six weeks, an official from the World Food Programme said yesterday.

"We are getting closer by the day to a famine situation," said Gian Caro Cirri, Geneva director of the World Food Programme (WFP).

"There is reasonable evidence that all three famine thresholds -- food insecurity, malnutrition and mortality -- will be passed in the next six weeks."

A UN-backed report published in March said that famine was imminent and likely to occur by May in northern Gaza and could spread across the enclave by July. On Tuesday, a US official said the risk of famine in Gaza, especially in the north, was very high.

Cirri was speaking at the launch of a report by the Global Network Against Food Crises, an alliance of humanitarian and development actors including United Nations agencies, the World Bank, the European Union and the United States.

A US official said the risk of famine in Gaza, especially in the north, is very high.

In its report, the network described the 2024 outlook for the Middle East and Africa as extremely concerning due to the Gaza offensive and restricted humanitarian access, as well as the risk of the conflict spreading elsewhere in the region.

"As for Gaza, the conflict makes it difficult and sometimes impossible to reach affected people," Cirri said. "We need to scale up massively our assistance... But under the current conditions, I'm afraid the situation will further deteriorate."

The United Nations has long complained of obstacles to getting aid in and distributing it throughout Gaza in the six months since Israel began an aerial and ground offensive against Gaza's ruling group Hamas.

Israel has denied hindering supplies of humanitarian aid and blames aid agencies for inefficiencies in distribution.

Israel's military campaign has reduced much of the territory of 2.3 million people to a wasteland with a humanitarian disaster unfolding since October 7.

Cirri said that the only way to steer clear of famine in Gaza was to ensure immediate and daily deliveries of food supplies. "They've been selling off their belongings to buy food. They are most of the time destitute," he said. "And clearly some of them are dying of hunger."

Meanwhile, the Red Cross said the evacuation of displaced Palestinians from Gaza Strip's Rafah is not possible under current conditions.

The statement from the top humanitarian agency comes as Isarel has signalled that the invasion of Rafah is in the offing. The Israeli military considers Rafah in southern Gaza to be the last bastion of Hamas.​

 

[Lulldapull]

I guess it’s a safe bet that the number of dead Israelis is around 3500 since Oct 7th last year. I bet three times that number are injured:

Over 2,000 Israeli forces killed, injured in 1,650 operations by Hezbollah since Gaza war began

Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement says it has killed and injured more than 2,000 Israeli forces in its 1,650 operations on the occupied territories since early October.

www.presstv.ir

 

[Saif]

Israel’s sense of moral immunity needs breaking

How much of the global outrage for Gaza will impact Washington’s attitude and its policy of blind and unconditional support for Israel?

www.thedailystar.net

Israel's sense of moral immunity needs breaking

Avnery crossed the front lines and met Yasser Arafat on July 3, 1982 during Israel's siege of Beirut. PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The late Israeli academic, journalist, and politician Uri Avnery once famously described Israel as a small America and America as a huge Israel. If Avnery were alive today, he could be forgiven for including Europe as an extended part of Israel. Uri Avnery was among the founders of the Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace. Shortly after the group's founding, Avnery was assaulted and stabbed several times—yet another graphic manifestation of the Zionist state's culture of intolerance to the truth.

Avnery crossed the front lines and met Yasser Arafat on July 3, 1982, during Israel's siege of Beirut. He is said to have been the first Israeli politician to have met personally with Arafat. He was tracked by an Israeli intelligence team that intended to kill Arafat, even if it meant killing Avnery at the same time once the latter had inadvertently led them to Arafat's hide-out. The operation, "Salt Fish," failed when the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) managed to lose their trackers in the alleyways of Beirut.

The late Robert Fisk, an English writer, journalist, and a major critic of United States foreign policy in the Middle East, interviewed Avnery shortly following the harrowing Sabra and Shatila massacre of 1982 and asked him how survivors of the Holocaust and their children could look on as 1,700 (the actual figure was said to have crossed 3,000) Palestinians, unarmed men, women, and children, were massacred in cold blood. Avnery replied, "I will tell you something about the Holocaust. It would be nice to believe that people who have undergone suffering have been purified by suffering. But it's the opposite, it makes them worse. It corrupts. There is something in suffering that creates a kind of egoism… You get a moral 'power of attorney,' a permit to do anything you want… This is a moral immunity which is very clearly felt in Israel."

The key question that remains unanswered, though, is how much of the global outrage for Gaza will impact Washington's attitude and its policy of blind and unconditional support for Israel. There are signs of slow but visible unease among the policymakers in the US capital. But with an election looming on the horizon and the gripping power of the Jewish lobby all across the land, how strongly, to quote Avnery, "a large Israel" can confront Israel and unshackle itself from its "most strategic ally" remains to be seen.

Gaza today is Sabra-Shatila multiplied many times.

But then some believe differently. Nothing but respect can there be for someone like Professor Norman Finkelstein, a son of Holocaust survivors. Both his parents were victims of Nazi persecution against the Jews, and still, that has not stopped him from speaking out openly about the truth in the face of denial of the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. Finkelstein has, on more than one occasion, said he is dead against using the Holocaust card to justify Israel's atrocities against the Palestinians and has dared the Jews of the world to do the same if they have any heart.

The present state of Palestinian persecution has its roots in the Nakba of 1948. This historical tragedy finds little or no mention in the narrative that pervades in Western capitals. Israel's continued persecution in Palestine in general, and now the genocide in Gaza in particular, has been possible only because of the direct support from those governments in the West that profess the values of human rights and democracy across the globe but choose to exempt Israel from their list.

The words of Norman Finkelstein and those of the late Uri Avnery did prove that among all the mayhem and Western double standards, there exist voices of sanity; not that those have made much difference to the policymakers in the West. But maybe, just maybe, that could begin to change.

In a case filed by Nicaragua, the World Court will likely rule on Germany's support for Israel. This could be a sign of how geopolitics is shifting as a fallout from the genocide being committed by Israel in Gaza.

Steve Crawshaw, the former Russia and East Europe editor at The Independent and former UK director at Human Rights Watch, in an article in The Guardian on April 9, has said that Germany is under pressure. Crawshaw says that after October 7, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that "there is only one place for Germany: at Israel's side." It was, Scholz said, "a perpetual task for us to stand up for the security of the state of Israel."

Crawshaw writes, "The good intentions that underlie that philosophy – Israel as Germany's 'raison d'état,' in the words of Scholz's predecessor Angela Merkel – are clear. But Germany's unquestioning support for Israel is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. Germany sees itself as a global voice for human rights, yet it has continued to sell arms to Israel… German opinion polls have swung dramatically in ways that no politician can ignore. Critics of the Gaza assault have more than doubled to 69%; support for Israel's conduct of the war has collapsed to just 18%. Almost nine in 10 Germans now think there should be more pressure on Israel."

Germany's Green Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, has also said that aid must immediately get into Gaza with "no more excuses." And even Scholz has begun to sound critical, asking on a visit to Israel last month, "No matter how important the goal, can it justify such terribly high costs? Or are there other ways to achieve your goal?" Meanwhile, German lawyers have reportedly brought a case calling for Germany to end its arms sales to Israel. Britain and other governments are facing similar pressures, while a Dutch court found a "clear risk" that exported F-35 jet parts to Israel could be used in breaches of international humanitarian law.

The key question that remains unanswered, though, is how much of the global outrage for Gaza will impact Washington's attitude and its policy of blind and unconditional support for Israel. There are signs of slow but visible unease among the policymakers in the US capital. But with an election looming on the horizon and the gripping power of the Jewish lobby all across the land, how strongly, to quote Avnery, "a large Israel" can confront Israel and unshackle itself from its "most strategic ally" remains to be seen.

In the meantime, Palestinians continue to pay with blood for the horrific crimes committed by Europe on the Jews for ages.

Bir Bikram Shamsher M Chowdhury is former Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh.​

 

[Saif]

‘My son is on the bulldozer’

Palestinian woman Reem Zidan had been searching for her son for months, and finally found his body on Wednesday as a bulldozer unearthed human remains outside a Gaza hospital.

www.thedailystar.net

'My son is on the bulldozer'
Palestinians search for loved ones as bulldozers unearth bodies near Gaza hospital

Palestinians mourn over the bodies of relatives killed in Israeli bombardment, at the al-Najjar hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday. Photo: AFP

Palestinian woman Reem Zidan had been searching for her son for months, and finally found his body on Wednesday as a bulldozer unearthed human remains outside a Gaza hospital.

"They told me to move away, but I said, 'my son is on the bulldozer'," Zidan told AFP from the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, crediting her "maternal instinct" for "knowing" it was the body of 22-year-old Nabil.

As combats subsided in Khan Yunis after Israeli forces withdrew from the area in their fight against Hamas, health workers have begun recovering bodies buried next to the city's Nasser Hospital -- southern Gaza's largest.

"I haven't seen him for three months, and today I found him", Zidan said, adding that Nabil was killed by shrapnel from an Israeli air strike.

Gaza's Civil Defence agency said Tuesday that workers had uncovered nearly 340 bodies over several days of people killed and buried by Israeli forces at the hospital.

"We were surprised that inside the Nasser Medical Complex there are mass graves made by the Israeli occupation" military, Civil Defence spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told AFP.

The Israeli army has denied troops had dug the graves. Some parents told AFP the bodies recovered had been buried by relatives.

Unlike Zidan, others who went to the Nasser complex in hope of recovering their relatives' bodies could not find them.

Sonia Abu Rajilah, 52, from Khan Yunis, said her son 29-year-old son Hazem was buried by his friends near the hospital, but that she and her other sons have not been able to find him.

"Now I wait among the bodies being pulled out, hoping to recognise his body," she told AFP.​

 

[Saif]

The pitfalls of neutrality

The heavy-handedness led students in Atlanta to shout, "Stop Cop City."

www.thedailystar.net

The pitfalls of neutrality

Protesters continue to maintain the encampment on the Columbia University campus after a tense night of negotiations in New York City, US on April 24, 2024. PHOTO: REUTERS

One of the grey areas in my professional life involves the debate surrounding the teaching of political consciousness in the classroom and the resistance to student activism. As a student of literature and culture, I believe that teaching students about political consciousness is essential to creating informed and engaged citizens. However, I have consistently avoided exposing my personal political ideologies in a classroom context, as I worry that my stated stance could result in the teaching of biased viewpoints. Ideally, as a teacher, I strive to act as a facilitator, promoting the discussion that the text demands. But there comes a moment when you have to identify what you think is just and fair. This may vary depending on the position of an organised political entity controlled by its attached strings, or that of a radical thinker who comes with macho-zealous baggage.

While I was doing my PhD at Birkbeck College at the University of London, I remember seeing a yellow sticky note left on the classroom door by my professor on April 10, 2003. It read, "Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures. No class today." My professor was going to the anti-war march to protest the attack on Iraq. We all joined. The ongoing campus protests in the US and other parts of the world have prompted me to reflect on the extraordinary roles that students are playing. It made me think of a novel that I sometimes teach: Don DeLillo's White Noise.

The novel, set in 1968, begins with students returning to campus after their spring break. The caravan of cars in which parents bring their children to College-on-the-Hill symbolises a tradition that defines a nation. The fun-loving students who come to pursue degrees remain oblivious to the 1968 protests that sparked a counterculture against the Vietnam War and a demand for civil rights. Hitler Studies is one of the College-in-the-Hill's signature academic programmes. The sham of academia is critiqued by DeLillo, who exposes the forgery of the most celebrated Hitler professor, who does not even know German, yet nobody can talk of Hitler without citing him. DeLillo's criticism pervades my consciousness like white noise, a constant background noise that drowns out other sounds. The inability to practise what we teach adds to the ambivalence.

Seeing the encampments spreading like wildfire in US universities has made me rekindle my passion. These students are occupying significant campus locations or setting up blockades, calling for universities to separate themselves from companies that advance Israel's military efforts in Gaza and, in some cases, Israel itself. Independent coalitions of student groups orchestrate these campus protests, drawing inspiration from peers at other universities. Columbia University arrested over 100 protesters and expelled many due to their convictions. Many of these students pay or have taken loans to pay almost $80,000 in annual tuition fees. They are jeopardising both their career and their future. Why? They feel that their government is aiding Israel in committing genocide in Palestine.

The students are advocating for the divestment of investments in companies and funds allegedly benefiting from Israel's actions in Gaza and the ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories. Companies like Google, which reportedly holds significant contracts with the Israeli government, and Airbnb, known for permitting property listings in Israeli settlements located in the Occupied West Bank, are among the targets. Then there is the issue of having the university's branch campus in Tel Aviv.

Emory University in Atlanta dismantled a camp on Thursday morning, with at least 17 people detained. Police used rubber bullets and tear gas to quell pro-Palestinian protests. The heavy-handedness led students in Atlanta to shout, "Stop Cop City." The situation turned brutal at the University of Texas, where police and state troopers made dozens of arrests and forced hundreds of students off the main lawn. The University of Texas at Austin aggressively detained dozens of protesters, making 34 arrests. The university's president, Jay Hartzell, vowed, "Our rules matter, and we will enforce them. Our university will not be occupied." Northwestern University hastily changed its student code of conduct to bar tents on its suburban Chicago campus, as anti-war student activists set up an encampment similar to pro-Palestinian demonstrations at colleges nationwide. The university enacted an interim addendum to its student code to bar tents, and warning of disciplinary actions including suspension, expulsion, and criminal charges.

Earlier, the University of Southern California cancelled its main stage graduation ceremony amid protests. The university faced criticism over its decision to axe a graduation speech by valedictorian Asna Tabassum after pro-Israel groups labelled her anti-Semitic for her social media posts supporting Palestinians.

While many pro-Israeli lobbyists have tried to thwart what they believe is rising anti-Semitism, many Jewish individuals have come to aid the pro-Palestine student groups. They believe that the extreme Zionists are libelling their culture. "Not in my name" is a popular slogan among the Jewish supporters of Palestine. Award-winning author and activist Naomi Klein, for instance, spoke at one gathering in New York recently, where she said, "Too many of our people are worshiping a false idol. They are enraptured by it. They are drunk on it. They are profaned by it. Zionism is a false idol."

Now, one may wonder why the noise is getting louder on the margin, outside the whale, where mainstream media harps on Biblical myth: to protect the promised land of one of the most persecuted races in history. But do the Jewish people have the moral height to preach about suffering once it has killed more than 40,000 people in a narrow strip of land, pounding it with thousands of 2,000-pound bombs—the extent that the world has not seen since Vietnam? The International Court of Justice has already taken the case of plausible genocide into cognisance. The veto power of the superpower makes the federal government out of sync with the people.

As the clamour of dissent grows louder, we stand on the precipice of historical reckoning. The student protests of 1968 heralded a paradigm shift in global consciousness, challenging entrenched power structures and reshaping the trajectory of history. Are we on the cusp of a similar watershed moment, where the voices of dissent converge to challenge the prevailing orthodoxy? Only time will tell.

Dr Shamsad Mortuza is professor of English at Dhaka University.​

 

[Saif]

World has failed Gaza

Saudi Arabia on Sunday said the international community has failed Gaza and reiterated its call for a Palestinian state at a global economic summit attended by a host of mediators

www.thedailystar.net

World has failed Gaza
Host Saudi tells global economic summit, reiterates its call for a Palestinian state

Smoke rises after an explosion in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, as seen from Israel, March 14, 2024. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

Saudi Arabia on Sunday said the international community has failed Gaza and reiterated its call for a Palestinian state at a global economic summit attended by a host of mediators.

"The situation in Gaza obviously is a catastrophe by every measure –- humanitarian, but also a complete failing of the existing political system to deal with that crisis," Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said during the first day of a Saudi-hosted World Economic Forum special meeting.

Only "a credible, irreversible path to a Palestinian state" will prevent the world from confronting "this same situation two, three, four years down the line," he said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Palestinian leaders and high-ranking officials from other countries trying to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas are attending the summit in Riyadh, capital of the world's biggest crude oil exporter.

Since October 7, Israel's offensive has killed at least 34,454 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Speaking in Riyadh, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said the United States "is the only country capable" of preventing Israel's long-feared invasion of Rafah city in southern Gaza.

"We appeal to the United States of America to ask Israel to stop the Rafah operation," he said, warning it would harm and displace civilians, and be "the biggest disaster in the history of the Palestinian people".

Earlier Sunday, Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan called for regional "stability", warning of the effects of the war on global economic sentiment.

"I think cool-headed countries and leaders and people need to prevail," Jadaan said.

Diplomatic efforts to reach a long sought-after truce and hostage-release deal in Gaza appeared to intensify, as Hamas said it would respond to Israel's latest proposal on Monday.

WEF president Borge Brende said Saturday there was "some new momentum now in the talks around the hostages, and also for... a possible way out of the impasse we are faced with in Gaza".

Israel is not taking part in the summit.

The US State Department said Blinken will "discuss ongoing efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza that secures the release of hostages".

Prince Faisal said any reconstruction plan for Gaza would need to be accompanied by a durable political solution to the conflict.

"This idea that we can talk about half measures and to discuss, 'Well where are the 2.5 million people of Gaza going to go?' without addressing how we make sure that something like this doesn't happen again, I think that's patently ridiculous," he said.

"And anybody who tries to take that approach I think is sincerely misguided."

From the outset Saudi Arabia has worked with other regional and global powers to try to contain the war in Gaza and avoid the type of conflagration that could derail its ambitious economic reform agenda known as Vision 2030.

The kingdom also remains in talks about a landmark deal under which it would recognise Israel for the first time while strengthening its security partnership with Washington, though analysts say the war has made it more difficult.

Saudi Arabia, home to the holiest shrines in Islam, is trying to open up to the world, luring business leaders and non-religious tourists.

Hosting international events such as the WEF meeting allows it to showcase social changes such as reintroducing cinemas and lifting a ban on women driving.

Yet questions persist about just how much of Vision 2030 will be achieved and when, with special focus on signature projects such as NEOM, a planned futuristic megacity.

In December, Jadaan said officials had decided to push the timeframe for some major projects past 2030, without specifying which, though he also noted that others would be accelerated.

Saudi Arabia is projecting budget deficits through 2026, and GDP growth was nearly flat last year after several oil production cuts.

Jadaan stressed Sunday that non-oil GDP growth was "very healthy" at 4.4 percent and that "Vision 2030 is about, actually, the non-oil GDP".​

 

[Saif]

‘We’re living in hell’

As garbage piles up and the heat rises in Gaza, flies and mosquitoes proliferate in crowded Rafah city and life becomes even more grim for displaced people living in tents.

www.thedailystar.net

'We're living in hell'
Displaced Palestinians in Gaza's Rafah city struggle with heat, garbage, insect swarms

Smoke billows following Israeli bombardment in a position northwest of Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip yesterday. The Israeli attacks come amid renewed international efforts to broker a ceasefire in the nearly seven-month-old offensive. Photo: AFP

As garbage piles up and the heat rises in Gaza, flies and mosquitoes proliferate in crowded Rafah city and life becomes even more grim for displaced people living in tents.

Last week, temperatures already topped 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), turning the makeshift shelters made from plastic tarps and sheets into sweltering ovens.

On a sliver of land on the outskirts of the far-southern city on the Egyptian border, about 20 of these tents have been erected, all shaded by a large sheet stretched above them.

But the thin, dark cloth is no match for the blazing sun that has sent temperatures rising fast in late April, making it harder to preserve scarce potable water and food.

"The water we drink is warm," Ranine Aouni al-Arian, a Palestinian woman displaced from the devastated nearby city of Khan Yunis, told AFP. "The children can't bear the heat and the mosquito and fly bites anymore," she told AFP.

She was holding a baby whose face was covered in insect bites and said that she struggles to find "a treatment or a solution".

Around her, swarms of flies and other insects were buzzing incessantly.

"We're living in hell," said Hanane Saber, a 41-year-old displaced Palestinian whose children can no longer bear the steamy tent.

"I'm exhausted from the heat, on top of mosquitoes and flies everywhere that bother us day and night," she said, her voice barely audible above the sound of Israeli drones and planes.​

 

[Saif]

US almost ready with KSA rewards for Israel normalisation

The United States is nearly ready with a security package to offer Saudi Arabia if it normalises relations with Israel, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said yesterday, as he seeks incentives for Israel to support a Palestinian state.

www.thedailystar.net

US almost ready with KSA rewards for Israel normalisation
Says US Secretary of State Blinken

The United States is nearly ready with a security package to offer Saudi Arabia if it normalises relations with Israel, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said yesterday, as he seeks incentives for Israel to support a Palestinian state.

Blinken was visiting the kingdom on his seventh trip to the region since Israel's October 7 offensive in Gaza.

President Joe Biden's administration, while supporting Israel, has sought moderation from its government by dangling the prospect of formal relations with Saudi Arabia -- a potential game-changer, because the Gulf state is guardian of Islam's two holiest sites.

As part of any deal, Riyadh is expected to insist on a path to statehood for the Palestinians as well as alliance-style security guarantees from Washington, which has repeatedly tried -- with limited success -- to shift its focus out of the Middle East.

"The work that Saudi Arabia, the United States have been doing together in terms of our own agreements, I think, is potentially very close to completion," Blinken said.

"But then in order to move forward with normalisation, two things will be required -- calm in Gaza and a credible pathway to a Palestinian state," he told a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Riyadh.​

 

[Saif]

Five Israeli military units committed HR violations against Palestinians: US

The United States has concluded that five Israeli security force units committed serious human rights violations against Palestinians in the West Bank before the Hamas attack in October, the State Department said Monday.

www.newagebd.net

Five Israeli military units committed HR violations against Palestinians: US
Agence France-Presse. Washington, United States 30 April, 2024, 05:45


The United States has concluded that five Israeli security force units committed serious human rights violations against Palestinians in the West Bank before the Hamas attack in October, the State Department said Monday.

Israel has taken remedial measures with four of these units, making US sanctions less likely.

Consultations are under way with Israel over the fifth unit, State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.

He declined to identify the units, give details of the abuse, or say what measures the Israeli government had taken against them.

A US official speaking on condition of anonymity said the fifth unit is part of the army.

Press reports have identified a battalion called the Netzah Yehuda, composed mainly of ultra-Orthodox Jews, as being accused of abuses.

It is about 1,000-strong and since 2022 has been stationed in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.

'After a careful process, we found five Israeli units responsible for individual incidents of gross violations of human rights,' Patel said.

All the incidents took place before the October 7 Hamas attack and were not in Gaza, he added.

'Four of these units have effectively remediated these violations, which is what we expect partners to do, and is consistent with what we expect all countries whom we have a secure relationship with,' said Patel.

Israel has provided 'additional information' about the fifth unit, he added.

US law bars the government from funding or arming foreign security forces against which there are credible allegations of human rights abuses.

The United States provides military aid to allies around the world, including Israel.

The Israeli army has been fighting the militant Palestinian group Hamas in the Gaza Strip for almost seven months and is trading fire almost every day with Hezbollah along the border with Lebanon. Both groups are backed by Iran.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted angrily to recent news reports that the United States might slap sanctions against a unit of the Israeli military because of human rights abuses, saying the army should not be punished with the country at war.

Patel said the United States is continuing its evaluation of the fifth army unit and has not decided whether to deny it US military assistance.

This case comes with the administration of President Joe Biden under pressure to demand accountability from Israel over how it is waging war against Hamas, with such a high civilian death toll.

In an election year, more people are calling for the United States to make its billions of dollars in annual military aid to Israel contingent on more concern for Palestinian civilians. Pro-Palestinian protests are also sweeping US college campuses.

Hamas' October attack in Israel resulted in the deaths of about 1,170 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,488 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.​

 

[Saif]

Residents of northern Israel brace for possible all-out war with Hezbollah

Eli Harel was an Israeli soldier in his early thirties when he was sent into Lebanon in 2006 to battle fighters from the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah in a bloody, largely inconclusive month-long war. Now 50, Harel is ready to rejoin the army to fight the same group if shelling along Israel&rsquo

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Residents of northern Israel brace for possible all-out war with Hezbollah
REUTERS
Published :
Apr 30, 2024 19:34
Updated :
Apr 30, 2024 19:34

An Israeli soldier looks on at a scene, after it was reported that people were injured, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, near Arab al-Aramashe in northern Israel April 17, 2024. Photo : Reuters/Avi Ohayon/Files

Eli Harel was an Israeli soldier in his early thirties when he was sent into Lebanon in 2006 to battle fighters from the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah in a bloody, largely inconclusive month-long war.

Now 50, Harel is ready to rejoin the army to fight the same group if shelling along Israel's northern border turns into a full-blown war with Iran's most powerful regional proxy. This time Israeli forces would face some of the most challenging fighting conditions imaginable, he said.

"There are booby traps everywhere," he told Reuters. "People are popping up from tunnels. You have to be constantly on alert otherwise you will be dead."

Harel lives in Haifa, Israel's third biggest city, well within range of Hezbollah's weapons. Haifa's mayor recently urged residents to stockpile food and medicine because of the growing risk of all-out war.

Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in escalating daily cross-border strikes over the past six months - in parallel with the war in Gaza - and their increasing range and sophistication has spurred fears of a wider regional conflict.

Hezbollah has amassed a formidable arsenal since 2006.

Like Hamas, the militant Palestinian group battling Israel in Gaza, Hezbollah has a network of tunnels to move fighters and weapons around. Its fighters have also been training for more than a decade with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

Hezbollah has so far restricted its attacks to a strip of northern Israel, seeking to draw Israeli forces away from Gaza. Israel has said it is ready to push Hezbollah back from the border, but it is unclear how.

EXILES IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY

Some 60,000 residents have had to leave their homes, in the first mass evacuation of northern Israel, and cannot safely return, prompting increased calls within Israel for firmer military action against Hezbollah. Across the border in Lebanon, some 90,000 people have also been displaced by Israeli strikes.

Eyal Hulata, a former Israeli national security adviser, said Israel should announce a date in the next few months when displaced Israeli civilians can return, effectively challenging Hezbollah to scale back its shelling or face all-out war.

"Israelis cannot be in exile in their own country. This cannot happen. It is the responsibility of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) to defend civilians. It is what we failed to do on Oct. 7," he said, referring to the Hamas attack on southern Israel that prompted the current war in Gaza

Hezbollah did not respond to a request for comment. The group's leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in February that residents of northern Israel "will not return" to their homes.

The Israeli military said this month it had completed another step in preparing for possible war with Hezbollah that centred on logistics, including preparations for a "broad mobilisation" of reservists.

A conflict between Israel and Hezbollah would probably result in massive destruction in both countries. In the 2006 war, 1,200 people in Lebanon were killed and 158 in Israel.

Since October, more than 300 people have died in fighting in the border area, mainly Hezbollah fighters.

If war did break out, Israel would probably bomb targets in southern Lebanon before soldiers tried to push at least 10 kilometres across the border. Hezbollah would likely use its estimated arsenal of over 150,000 rockets to target Israeli cities. In 2006 the group fired about 4,000 missiles at Israel.

'IMMENSE' DAMAGE LIKELY

Assaf Orion, a retired Israeli brigadier general, told Reuters there was a growing likelihood of war erupting between Israel and Hezbollah, caused either by an unplanned escalation in clashes or by Israel losing patience with people being unable to return home.

Orion said the intensity of bombing in any war could be 10 times greater than in Gaza.

"The damage will be immense," he said. "Gaza will look like a walk in the park compared to that level of fighting."

Haifa, a port city built on the slope of a mountain from where it is possible to see the Lebanon border on a clear day, was targeted in 2006. Eight people were killed in the worst attack.

Nasrallah said in 2016 Hezbollah could hit ammonia storage tanks in Haifa, saying the result would be "like a nuclear bomb".

The mood in Haifa is a mixture of anxiety and fatalism.

Hundreds of evacuated Israelis have moved to the city and many said another war may be the only way to return home.

Assaf Hessed, 35, who lived in a kibbutz two kilometres from the border, said the military has until September to force Hezbollah back or residents will move elsewhere.

"We have to make a decision soon about where we live, we cannot go on like this much longer," he said.​

 

[Saif]

The story of Gaza genocide survivor in Bangladesh

In this exclusive interview with The Daily Star, Kamel provides a painful firsthand account of 170 days of carnage.

www.thedailystar.net

The story of Gaza genocide survivor in Bangladesh

Kamel Abu Amsha, a 24-year-old Palestinian from Gaza, is currently pursuing his studies at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical College (BSMMC) in Faridpur. After five long years, he returned to his hometown in September 2023. Then he got stuck in one of the deadliest military campaigns in modern history. He is a survivor, and a direct victim of the ongoing genocide.

In this exclusive interview with The Daily Star, Kamel provides a devastating testimony of 170 days of carnage.



The written account of Kamel's story of survival, with painful details that he could not articulate in front of a camera, will be published on May 2, Thursday in Geopolitical Insights.​

 

[Saif]

US only hurts itself by trying to silence pro-Palestinian protesters

It is key to stopping Israel’s unjust war in Gaza

www.thedailystar.net

US only hurts itself by trying to silence pro-Palestinian protesters
It remains key to stopping Israel's unjust war in Gaza

VISUAL: STAR

It is disappointing that more than 900 students have been arrested from a number of universities and colleges in the United States over the past two weeks, because they demanded justice for Palestinians. Protesting against Israel's unjust war in Gaza, these students have been demanding that their universities divest from companies and businesses that have links with Israel in any shape or form. They want their educational institutions—and essentially their country—to be separate from Israel's genocidal campaign against Palestinians, and we stand in solidarity with them.

Since the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel, the latter has been running a ruthless campaign in Gaza that has so far killed more than 34,000 people. Although the US, as usual, stood by Israel, its university students wanted no part in it. They have been holding rallies, sit-ins, hunger strikes and, most recently, encampments on their campuses in protest. Things escalated when, on April 18, police removed a pro-Palestinian encampment on the Columbia University campus, arresting over 100 demonstrators. Instead of getting subdued, the students pushed back, and similar demonstrations spread across the US.

Now university administrations and police are cracking down on protesters, with the accusations of anti-Semitism being thrown around to justify it. We fail to understand how a peaceful demonstration demanding justice for a persecuted population can be labelled anti-Semitic. In fact, what these protesters are being subjected to violates the principles of academic freedom and free speech, as the American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU) has pointed out.

The US government should pay heed to the demands of pro-Palestinian protesters. What we have seen so far is an extraordinary display of double standards and flouting of international and humanitarian laws in Gaza, and these students have been trying to bring critical focus on that. The US must re-evaluate its position regarding Israel and take a stance that is moral and in line with international humanitarian laws, not to mention its own stated policy on human rights. Protecting one nation's interests must not be detrimental to another nation's freedom and well-being.​

 

[Saif]

More war debris in Gaza than Ukraine: UN

The Gaza Strip is filled with more war debris and rubble than Ukraine, the head of UN demining operations for the narrow Palestinian territory said Wednesday

www.thedailystar.net

More war debris in Gaza than Ukraine: UN

People walk amid the rubble of buildings destroyed during Israeli bombardment in Khan Yunis, on the southern Gaza Strip yesterday. The UN children's agency (Unicef) called for an increase in medical evacuations from Gaza, saying less than half of applications had been successful. Photo: AFP

The Gaza Strip is filled with more war debris and rubble than Ukraine, the head of UN demining operations for the narrow Palestinian territory said Wednesday.

And the danger for clearance work is restricted not just to unexploded ordnance but includes possible exposure to toxic substances such as asbestos.

The United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) estimated the amount of debris in Gaza at 37 million tonnes in mid-April, or 300 kilogrammes per square metre.

"Gaza has more rubble than Ukraine, and to put that in perspective, the Ukrainian front line is 600 miles (nearly 1,000 kilometres) long, and Gaza is 25 miles (40 km) long," said Mungo Birch, head of the UNMAS programme in the Palestinian territories.

But the sheer volume of rubble is not the only problem, said UNMAS.

"This rubble is likely heavily contaminated with UXO (unexploded ordnance), but its clearance will be further complicated by other hazards in the rubble," Birch told journalists.

"There's estimated to be over 800,000 tonnes of asbestos, for instance, alone in the Gaza rubble." The cancer-causing mineral used in construction requires special precautions when handling.

Birch said he hoped UNMAS, which works to mitigate the threats posed by all types of explosive ordnance, would become the coordination body for mine action in Gaza.

It has secured $5 million of funding but needs a further $40 million to continue its work in Gaza over the next 12 months.

However, "the sector as a whole will need hundreds of millions of US dollars over multiple years in order to make Gaza safe again for the population", Birch added.

The Gaza war started after Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,568 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.​

 

[Saif]

Horrors inside the Gaza genocide: Through a survivor’s eyes

This is an eye-witness account, the story of a Palestinian in Gaza, a human being, a 24-year-old medical student, his real human life of love and loss, and a human testimony of war crimes perpetrated by the Israeli government and the military in the deadliest campaign of bombings and mass...

www.thedailystar.net

"It feels illegal to be a human being in Gaza"

Kamel in Beit Hanoun, Gaza, on February 1, after they returned from the camps. Photo courtesy: Kamel Abu Amsha

Trigger Warning: The following content contains graphic details of violence, blood and death. Reader discretion is advised.

On April 5, 2024, Kamel Abu Amsha landed in Dhaka after 170 days of uncountable near-death experiences, back to "normal life." He does not know what to do with peace in Bangladesh. He appreciates that people in Bangladesh stand with Gaza, that they want the freedom of his people. But he doesn't know what to do with that either. He feels too often that the solidarity for Palestinian lives in Gaza, their real lives, are reduced to a faceless number of casualties.

"No one really gets what happens there every day, especially in North Gaza, even if you see it on your phone. We lived many lives every day, and parts of us died everyday," he told me.

Each night, in his bed in Faridpur, Kamel keeps waking up every thirty minutes, hearing thumping sounds of air raids, tanks and bombs. The bed is more comfortable than all the cold, mucky floors, slick with blood, of overcrowded refugee camps, and the blood-drenched hospital beds of injured patients, where he's slept over the past seven months. He walks to class in Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical College (BSMMC) in Faridpur; his life is confined to his doctors' quarters, medical courses and mostly, to his phone. Bangladesh faces dangerous heat waves currently, but Kamel is beyond grateful that he has a fan and a room.

PART I: THE BEAUTIFUL DAYS

Kamel's father, Akram, 55, means everything to him. Akram ran a small store where he sold chicken, near their house in Beit Hanoun, Northern Gaza, just over 10 kilometres away from the barbed-wire border of Israel. Akram always encouraged Kamel to make something of himself, "to help people." Since he was young, Kamel had wanted to study in Al-Azhar University in Gaza and become a doctor. But the expenses were too high for his father. Akram felt ashamed that he couldn't provide for his son, that he'd failed his son. Kamel felt distraught seeing his father feel this way, so he applied to scholarship programmes for disadvantaged Palestinian students in foreign universities.

In 2019, he left Gaza for Bangladesh. It was immensely difficult for Kamel; his family of six brothers and one sister have always been tight-knit. They shared rooms in their three-storied house, and ate dinner together every single night. They celebrated Eid cherishing their Palestinian custom of eating Fasekh—a specialty dish of gray mullet freshly fished from the sea, and marinated for fourteen days, served with fried tomatoes. Kamel grew up close to his cousins too. Hasan, from his mom's side, was Kamel's age, and his best friend and confidant. They were inseparable. Kamel loved his little life in Gaza, even though the hope of liberation one day from the "open-air prison" always seemed too distant.

During his four years in Faridpur, Kamel missed everything about home. He watched The Pursuit of Happiness because it reminded him of his father's struggles and sacrifices to provide for Kamel and his siblings. Last year, on September 29, Kamel finally went back. "It had been too long," he told me, smiling.

Kamel, his father Akram and Tariq, on the 6th of October, 2023, in their home in Beit Hanoun. Photo Courtesy: Kamel Abu Amsha

He cannot articulate the feeling of seeing his father after thousands of days, when he got out of the taxi; both broke down, loudly. It was also his 24th birthday. They celebrated with a little cake that read, "Happy Birthday Dr Kamel." He felt embarrassed that they were "too proud" of him, he told me.

Kamel's family celebrated his 24th birthday, on September 29, the day he reached Gaza, after four years. Photo Courtesy: Kamel Abu Amsha

He excitedly opened his suitcase full of gifts the same night. He bought panjabis from Faridpur for everyone, even a mini-size one for his nephew who was still in his sister-in-law's womb. Over the next few days, his relatives came to visit him. He was reunited with his cousin Hasan, who told him he was planning on getting married soon. "Then you must do it quickly so I can attend while I'm here," Kamel had joked.

Kamel with his brothers, Hussein, 16, and Tareq, 10, at the beach, the only time he went out in the 9 days before the war. Photo courtesy: Kamel Abu Amsha

Then in an instant, life as he knew it, turned upside down. Hasan was killed in an airstrike in January, 2024. "I buried him," Kamel shared with me, shaking his head and reaching out for a tissue, as a welled up tear began trickling down his cheekbone. "Sorry," he said, rubbing his nose, "Remembering those beautiful days, that's what hurts the most."​

 

[Saif]

PART II: A LITTLE LIFE IN CAMPS
On October 7, 2023, Kamel was sleeping, when he heard rockets and missiles barrage the sky. "Please not now," he thought to himself. He had lived through many flare-ups in Gaza, in 2006, 2008, 2011 and 2014. Even while he was in Faridpur, the Israeli army had attacked Gaza in 2021 and 2022. He had prayed that this month, this time, it would not happen again.

Soon, he heard the news: Hamas had carried out its biggest attack in Israel and Israel had declared war. The uncertainty of what would unfold reigned over his body. His family quietly locked themselves in house arrest; they hoped that it would pass soon like previous conflicts. But the bombs this time were far more destructive; at every thunderous explosion, his family was sure they were going to die. They hadn't heard from his elder brother, Emad, 28, who Kamel had met just a day before. Till today, they don't know whether he's alive or dead.

The Israeli army had ordered the residents to evacuate the north but Kamel's family refused to leave, because they knew the Israeli army would take it. On the 5th night of the war, as bombs exploded like a dance of murderous fireworks, his family knew there were no options anymore. His mother rushed to pack his medical textbooks. "Where will I study, let's go," he had said as they all vacated the house, leaving behind the life they had built in it, for 35 years.

Kamel's family home, after it was bombed twice, captured on the 120th day of war. Photo courtesy: Kamel Abu Amsha

They began searching for a safe place nearby and went to a school in Al-Falujah, which was turned into a refugee camp, crammed with thousands of displaced Gazans. His heavily pregnant sister-in-law was with them. They ate canned beans and corned beef, and showered every fifteen days. He doesn't want to remember the bathrooms, but the stench and visuals of mud mixed with faeces of children—who couldn't control themselves waiting in the long queues like the adults—is etched on his memory.

And every day, they experienced heavy bombing. Soon, the supply of food got thinner and thinner, as did the people. The Israeli bombs first targetted the vegetable market and food stores nearby, to start the cycle of starvation, Kamel recounts.

Kamel recorded the bombing of a vegetable market near the camp in Al-Fallujah. Photo: Kamel Abu Amsha

They chopped up wood to make fire as gas had run out. When wood also became scarce, Kamel's family had no options but to use his medical textbooks that his mother had taken, to make fire and cook some food to survive.

Kamel on October 15, 2023, in the refugee camp in Al-Fallujah, North Gaza, before the Israeli ground invasion. Photo courtesy: Kamel Abu Amsha

Oftentimes shrapnel, shells and stones from the bombs would spray onto their camp, and injure people next to him. Some died in the school. In just a week, the sight of people dying around him—he respectfully refers to everyone as martyrs—had become normal.

Kamel's family had one priority: the baby, who they had decided to name Akram after his father. Around the 15th day of war, as his sister-in-law's due date approached, Kamel went back to their house to retrieve the baby's clothes and diapers. Shells exploded from rooftops nearby. He quickly packed the baby's panjabi that he had bought in Bangladesh. The same day, once he returned to Al-Falujah, Kamel buried two of his cousins who had been killed in airstrikes.

At dawn, on 27 October, 2023, his sister-in-law's water broke. Nerves running high, as bombs pounded the northern strip, they managed—by a stroke of luck or fate—to take her to Kamal Adwan Hospital, which had an obstetrician facility, reaching around 4am. And like a miracle, baby Akram made it into the world. He had sepsis, but he was brought to the camp two hours after he was born, as there was no space in the hospital. Even as death engulfed the north of Gaza, they celebrated the birth of new life.

Kamel with his nephew, Akram, in Al-Fallujah refugee camp. Akram was born on October 27, 23, the day of the ground invasion. Photo courtesy: Kamel Abu Amsha

Then the rumours of the Israeli ground invasion became a reality.​

 

[Saif]

PART III: TERROR EVERYWHERE
There were so many atrocities happening everyday that Kamel lost all notion of time. As a medical student, Kamel felt it was his duty to help. So, he began volunteering at the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya. It was a 45-minute walk from the Al-Falujah camp. He would work at the hospital for two days at a stretch, go back to see his family, and rotate again. He worked in the emergency room of the Indonesian Hospital for 40 days, then in Al-Ma'amadani Hospital for 30 days and Al-Shifa hospital for another 40 days. He had forgotten that he was, in fact, just a 24-year-old student, that he'd come to Gaza because he was stressed about exams.

In the Indonesian hospital, each day, every hour, they received more than 100 injured patients, screaming in pain. The hospital was a 140-bed facility and was used to treat 250 patients per day, after it was launched in 2016. Kamel witnessed families like his get shattered, and whole families wiped out. On the 40th day of war, he received a call that his closest friend, Ahmed Shabat, had been killed by an airstrike while trying to buy bread from a bakery. Kamel didn't have time to mourn him. Death of loved ones was now routine.

Kamel treated a patient who had brain hemorrhage, after being struck in an airstrike. He took the patient to Al-Shifa Hospital at 12:30am, as Indonesian Hospital did not have neurosurgeons. He does not know if the patient survived. PHOTO: COURTESY OF KAMEL ABU AMSHA

There's one incident at the hospital that he remembers every day before he goes to sleep. He was in the ICU, when a man carrying a nine month old fetus with an intact umbilical cord rushed to Kamel. The male fetus was dripping in blood—his skull was completely fractured and bits of feeble bones were sticking out. His mother was killed, the man cried. Kamel still does not know how, but he thinks her abdomen had been burst by tank bombs, and the fetus had fallen out on the ground, or been hit by a chunk of shrapnel. "Please save him, I don't want to lose him," the man cried.

But Kamel knew the fetus was already dead. He just could not get himself to tell the father. So, he said, "Okay I will do my best." Kamel wrapped the fetus in a large piece of white cloth and told the father that he couldn't save him. The father couldn't accept it, and kept begging him to do something. Kamel had nothing to say, and no time to console him. More injured people from the airstrike, mostly children, kept pouring into the hospital. He received ten cases of children with deep skin-peeled burns from phosphorous bombs—yellow sloughed tissue, Kamel described, squinting his eyes.

But he witnessed horrors outside the hospital too. One day, when Kamel was walking from the camp back to the Indonesian Hospital for duty, passing through a street on his regular route. Around three minutes after he had just crossed, he heard explosions of multiple rockets slamming in that direction. He sprinted and found refuge under a house. The street turned to smouldering ashes, splattered with blood; the hundreds of people walking behind him lay on the granite, lifeless. His father, whose angina and hypertension was getting worse, had run to the Indonesian Hospital when he heard about the massacre. Like a ragged silhouette, his father reached him. "He thought I was dead," Kamel recounted.

On the 45th day of the war, his family's fears about Kamel's life reached a devastating height. Around 2am, when Kamel was working in the Indonesian Hospital, he heard gunshots. The staff was shell-shocked, realising what was happening: a hospital siege. Kamel ran upstairs to the third floor with a group of hospital staff members. Through microphones, the Israeli army ordered people to leave, saying they will bomb the hospital. Unlike previous conflicts, the Israeli army in this war was not only from Israel, Kamel told me. "Some spoke really good English with accents. They spoke Dutch, French, Arabic and other languages," he described. "It was weird."

The Israeli army let guard dogs into the hospital as drones swirled by the windows, Kamel claims. The doctors and nurses refused to leave their critical patients behind. They stayed put for days, in a hostage situation, without any food or water. They heard the army torture critically ill and injured patients by beating them with wooden sticks. The military had claimed that Hamas soldiers were hiding there, Kamel told me. "If they were targeting only Hamas soldiers, then why did they attack and kill patients and torture them? Are we human beings or what?" He claimed, his eyes wide open.

The siege came to an end when an ambulance from the International Committee of Red Crescent arrived to take patients to the Al-Nasser Hospital in the South of Gaza. But Kamel would never abandon his family in the North. On his way out of the hospital, Kamel saw a lot of patients, lying dead with bullet marks, blood smeared on the cloth of hospital beds. He ran to the Al-Falujah camp where his family was waiting for him, terrified.

Huddled in the fragile safety of the camp, Kamel's family heard that a "truce" had been reached. They knew it would be a temporary respite as the army had not retreated from the streets of Gaza. Kamel, his uncle, and brothers returned home to Beit Hanoun, to find some food from the house.

When they went, they saw that their house had already been bombed. The bowl of flour they'd left on the kitchen counter, was dusted with rubble. But they couldn't stay for long; drones began swarming the sky above like angry wasps. While returning, he saw more injured people on the streets, and that's when Kamel recalled that he left his backpack, in which he carried medical tools—dressings, antibiotics, painkillers—in the Indonesian Hospital. He went back to the hospital, which was now out of service. Before entering, he saw piles of decomposing bodies, partially hollow skeletons with open flesh, on the pavement. Stray animals, also dying in air raids and deprived of food, were eating the flesh off dead human bodies.

In the hours he would spend walking from place to place, Kamel would help civilians rescue injured people from under the rubble. He would help limbless people by carrying them to hospitals, and treat some with dressings on the spot to tamper bleeding.

Before the "truce" ended—Kamel claims there was no such thing as "truce"—he began volunteering at the partially functional Al-Ma'amadani Hospital, also known as Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, which suffered a massive blast in its garden-area on October 18—killing nearly 500 Palestinians. A month after Kamel joined, the Israeli army forced everyone in Al-Ma'amadani Hospital to evacuate, and Kamel witnessed injured patients, even in wheelchairs, killed by snipers when they made their way out of the hospital, as ordered.

"I don't know how they count the number of people killed, but I saw so many people killed in so many different horrible ways. So many human beings. I am pretty sure a lot of martyrs remain uncounted," he told me.

Kamel's only calm moments were at the refugee camp in Al-Falujah, which had become their home until December 1, 2023, when the Israeli army brought tanks, and laid siege. They threw smoke bombs—he doesn't know what chemicals are in these bombs—at the civilians and began shooting to force them to evacuate. It felt as though being a human being in Gaza—his home, where he had grown up—was now illegal.​

 

[Saif]

PART IV: AN INCH OF LUCK


They walked for kilometres and found another camp, in an area, called "Zainab Alwazeer," between Jabalia in the North and Gaza City. On December 7, at exactly 8pm, the nightmare began again. The Israeli army began circling all the shelters in the area, and fired over 20 smoke bombs at civilians. Enormous fumes swallowed up the tiny room where Kamel's family was, which had no windows, and where almost a hundred people were stuffed. They managed to escape onto the streets which were also filled with the same clumps of smoke. Some people had collapsed, and died right there.

Kamel and his sister walked about 100 metres, when he started feeling terribly sick. He couldn't breathe anymore. It was at that point that Kamel gave up. He managed to tell his little sister, Kawsher, 17, to go find their father and walk with him. He fainted a few seconds after.

When he woke up, he had been carried to the pavement of another dusty street. He saw his father crying hysterically in front of him; Kawsher was shouting at the top of her lungs. He stood back on his feet, and they quickly shifted to another outdoor camp nearby, which was overflowing with displaced citizens. Wobbly and weak, Kamel saw five heavily injured people. One of them was a 13 or 14-year-old boy whose entire family had been killed. The boy had lost a lot of blood with a cut in his femoral artery in his thigh; he was about to die.

Kamel had his medical backpack. He stitched the wound up, wrapped the area up in a tourniquet to stop further bleeding. He gave the boy saline and retreated to a jammed room, where his family was. It was especially cold that night; they did not have any blankets; they were wearing ripped t-shirts. They hugged each other to keep themselves warm while shivering like babies for eight hours.

The next morning, Kamel understood they needed to get some of their belongings, any bits of food or blankets that were left, in the first refugee camp in Al-Falujah. When he reached, he saw decomposed human bodies piled outside. He could recognise one of them. He wanted to bury the human beings, but if he dug out a grave, the Israeli military would be suspicious and shoot him.

When he entered the classroom where they used to stay, a sniper shot at him. It went right through the other side. He was saved by a few centimetres, or an inch, of luck. He hid in a corner and sat alone for hours. "For God's sake, what is this," he said, pausing when detailing the incident. Once night fell, he tiptoed out, unsure whether a sniper would kill him. He doesn't how or why he survived.​

 

[Saif]

PART V: A GAME OF LIFE AND DEATH

The next day, his family was on the road again to find a safer place. They went to the UN relief agency, UNRWA centre, in the west of Gaza. The situation was much better there, with 300 staff members. They had food and breathing space; it felt like paradise. Kamel began working at the Al-Shifa hospital, which was a lot more crowded than the others. Though the hospital had suffered from two sieges, it was still functional at the time. Injured people, missing bits and pieces of their bodies, took shelter on the stairs, by the bathrooms. The smell of urine hunkered in the corridors. Kamel would treat patients during the days, and at night, he served as a consultant and prescribed medications to patients at the UNRWA medical spot.

Kamel with his father and brothers in Gaza Port while they were staying at UNRWA Center, before the massacre on January 31, 2024. Photo courtesy: Kamel Abu Amsha

Around 9pm, on January 31, 2024, when his mother was making rice, the Israeli military started hounding the area with tank bombs. There were schools around the UNRWA centre where people took refuge, and through the window Kamel and his family witnessed the army separating the men and women in two different lines, ordering them to get naked. Then they proceeded to arrest some of them while sparing others. He doesn't know the selection that precedes the arrests.

The next few hours, they waited in the anxiety of death. They knew the army would not pardon the UNRWA centre, because they did not pardon anything. The Israeli government has claimed that UNRWA relief workers have ties to Hamas and Islamic Jihad to justify their attacks. What was more threatening this time was that they didn't know where the Israeli army was hiding. Some people decided to escape from the doors on the west side. That's where they faced snipers. Five or six people were killed on the spot. People started screaming and running in different directions. Kamel and his family escaped through the east side, but there was carnage ahead. "Worse than any horror movie I had ever seen," Kamel described.

They walked forward in a line outside the UNRWA centre, and suddenly snipers began shooting at everyone like a brushfire. One human being passed, got shot by a sniper, and another passed and survived. It was a gamble between life and death. He saw pieces of brains, organs, bursting out into the air, on the ground, on him.

"There was a fight going on in my mind, that I shouldn't take this step, if I take it, I will die. But then I thought that if I don't take a step forward, then they will shoot me as well," he said.

He ran, eyes closed. He passed. But he did not know the fate of his family. There was only a fifty-fifty probability for each person to survive. And he was one hundred percent sure that everyone would die.

When he saw his father crossing alive, Kamel started voluminously crying. "How many of them are dead, please tell me," he kept crying.

Everyone in his family made it out alive.

They knew they had been lucky, too lucky. It was going to run out soon. So, they went back home to Beit Hanoun, to die together.

Note: The Israeli government has claimed that workers of the UN relief agency, UNRWA have ties to Hamas and Islamic Jihad to justify the attacks. Till today, the government has not yet provide substantial evidence supporting its claims.

(L) Kamel's brother , Ahmed, 20, got injured when he went to fetch air-dropped food, on April 8, 2024. (M) Ahmed was shot by the Israeli Army. They don't know if he has intracranial hemorrhage as there is no functional hospital in Gaza. (R) Kamel's brother Tareq, 10, drags water cylinders in a wheel-chair to retrieve water from the tube well, on April 26, 2024. Photo collage: Nazifa Raidah​

 

[Saif]

PART VI: ANIMAL FOOD AND THE LIST


It was February 1. The town where he grew up was unrecognisable. It was grayer than the insides of the mullet they cooked during Eid. Their house was bombed for the second time, and only the entrance of it remained. They stayed there for a night in search of food. They walked around during the day, as no one was allowed to get out after 5pm. Night fell, and there were airstrikes. One day, as he walked around in search of food, Kamel found the home of his 10th grade Arabic teacher, Youssef, which had been struck the night before. His teacher was screaming under the rubble. Kamel and his family tried to pry him loose from under the debris for hours. He was dead by the time they recovered him.

(L) View of Kamel's street in Beit Hanoun, in North Gaza in February, 2024; (M) Inside of Kamel's house photographed during the temporary truce from November 24 to November 30, 2023; (R) Bombed Umm al-Nasr Mosque in Beit Hanoun, where Kamel and his family prayed every Friday, captured on February 2024. Photo Collage: Nazifa Raidah

They walked over to the periphery of Northern Gaza, where his aunt lived. Her house was not fully bombed; a room was still inhabitable for the ten members of his family. They went near the Erez crossing, barricaded within a concrete wall and a heavily-fenced Israeli border. Anyone who steps within 1km of this barrier is in danger of being shot by the Israeli army. As he and his family walked across, the glimpses of the hinterland across the border made him crumble inside. He could see life: tall buildings, glass windows, and cars in Israel.

On his side of the border, they went 15 days without any food, drinking salt water from the beach, or from dirty tube wells. They picked grass from the wasteland and swallowed it. His family was in hypoglycemic shock, their pulses were weak. They would writhe and grimace in hunger. To treat hypoglycemic shocks, Kamel needed injections which he did not have. Each night they went to sleep, Kamel accepted that the prophesied doom was near: maybe the next day, or in a few hours, he would wake up and have to bury his brother, mother or father, if they didn't wake up. Or they would have to bury him.

Then his brother heard that some people were serving "food" somewhere nearby in a cart. It was animal feed, but they were so ecstatic, Kamel told me in a matter-of-fact way. They did whatever they could to survive.

Animal feed fried for 20 people with old beans and rotten fruit. This is what Kamel and his family ate after returning to the North. PHOTO: COURTESY OF KAMEL ABU AMSHA


On March 24, Kamel's uncle came and woke him up. "Your name has been published on the list! Get up!" he shouted.

"What list? What list?" He'd responded.

That's when Kamel remembered, that around the beginning of the war, he had registered in a few student organisations which were helping students studying abroad to escape Gaza. The organisation would pay $5,000 to let him cross the border—that's how much it cost to cross Rafah to Egypt. (He's never met anyone in the organisation, he doesn't know how they pay, or who they pay to). He felt an electric shock through his chest.

"No," he told his uncle. "I'm not going." He refused to leave. Kamel and his family were starving, and he knew what his family was facing. They are not students, so they won't be allowed to leave with him. Kamel and his family didn't have any money let alone the amount needed to cross the borders.

"We know our fate, but you have a different fate. Go finish your journey," his father had said, "Go back, go become a doctor."

He was crushed, broken, but he knew he had to go. Kamel departed, knowing it could be the last time he sees them. But he doesn't want to think like that. "They're my life," he told me.​

 

[Saif]

PART VII: CROSSING DEADLY BORDERS

Kamel started off with the backpack he carried around. The only memory he took with him was the tape on his phone charger that his sister had put to mark theirs, when they were in the camps. The Israeli army was destroying the Al-Shifa hospital when he was coming back, and he had to cross Al-Rashid street dividing the North and South of Gaza. When he reached, he saw that the army had set up a temporary border between North and South Gaza with large shipping containers. He was frozen; how would he pass? He was alone on the street, as bombs exploded nearby. He then saw a girl and two boys, who were also students like him, studying in Algeria.

The girl had a heavy bag she was struggling with, so Kamel carried it. The boys entered the container before Kamel, and there was a camera inside. Outside of the container, there were dozens of soldiers, with tanks and jeeps. When the boys crossed over, the Israeli soldiers caught them. Kamel saw the soldiers force the two boys to take their clothes off, take their bags, and arrest them. The girl began to cry. Kamel was sure, it's over, but he whispered to her, "We have to pretend that we are a family, like husband and wife. We can pass."

They held hands and walked, looking straight ahead. The army didn't call them. They passed.

Kamel after crossing Rafah to Egypt while fasting during Ramadan. Photo Courtesy: Kamel Abu Amsha

They walked kilometres and kilometres, as night settled, reaching the South in Nuseirat. The girl went to see her relatives, he does not know her fate.

Kamel stayed at his uncle's place for two nights in the South, which was like a "different country," he told me. "The north, where I'm from, and where my family is now—it is a complete ghost-town. There's still some life in the South."

He left the South to Rafah, where an imaginable number of people were clustered. "If Israel attacks and bombs Rafah the way they bombed the north, it will be a genocide in one day," Kamel told me, as we discussed Israel's current decision to advance in Rafah.

He arrived at the "6th of October city" in Egypt, and called his uncle, who had moved to Cairo 25 years ago. His uncle took him to his house. "It was a complete fantasy," Kamel said. It felt sickening too, to see life. "Why does everyone get to have a life but we don't? Why?"

In Cairo, Kamel showered and informed his college in Faridpur that he had reached Cairo, and they booked a flight for him on Gulf Air. He also managed to call his family, who had limited internet. They were alive too. "It felt like a liberation from war at the time, but it wasn't," he said.

(L) Kamel's father Akram, stands in front of the grills of his bombed house in Beit Hanoun on April 26, 2024. He has lost more than 25 kgs since the war, and remains in starvation. (R) On the same day, Kamel set up the table to eat Makluva, which he cooked with his flatmates in Faridpur. He can't each much, his stomach has shrunk.​

 

[Saif]

PART VIII: DYING IS BETTER THAN THIS LIFE

Kamel has lost over 13 family members and eight friends, till date. Kamel's immediate family is still alive—except his brother Emad—as of May 2, 2024. They've faced three forced evacuations since he left. Once he hears that there's been a bombing in Beit Hanoun, he stays up all night worried for his family, calls journalists and everyone he knows in Gaza. "It's another prison, and punishment, living like this, leaving them there, seeing with my own eyes where I've left them. Dying is better than this life," Kamel told me, repeatedly, over the past three weeks.

"Oh, how I wish I could bring them here in Bangladesh," Kamel told me, sighing.

"I don't wish this life on my worst enemy," Kamel Abu Amsha, 24, in Faridpur on April 26, 2024. His left eye has a corneal tear and keratitis. PHOTO: Ibrahim Khalil Ibu​

 

[Saif]

Bangladesh, Gambia for speedy resolution of Myanmar case at ICJ

Bangladesh and the Gambia yesterday expressed hope to witness a speedy resolution of the case filed against Myanmar on the charge of Rohingya genocide with the International Court of Justice (ICJ)

www.thedailystar.net

Bangladesh, Gambia for speedy resolution of Myanmar case at ICJ

Photo: BSS

Bangladesh and the Gambia yesterday expressed hope to witness a speedy resolution of the case filed against Myanmar on the charge of Rohingya genocide with the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The optimism was reflected at a meeting between Bangladesh Foreign Minister Hasnan Mahmud and Gambian Justice Minister and Attorney General Dawda A Jallow on the sideline of the preparatory meeting of the foreign ministers ahead of the 15th summit of Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Gambia, said a foreign ministry press release.

During the meeting, Gambian minister expressed sincere thanks to the Bangladesh government for providing humanitarian shelter to forcibly displaced Rohingyas.

He also expressed his gratitude to the Bangladesh government for providing financial assistance to the Gambia for handling the Rohingya genocide case.

Hasan discussed Bangladesh government's steps to provide humanitarian shelter to Rohingyas as well as the future obstacles regarding the crisis.

He emphasised the repatriation of the Rohingyas, staying in Bangladesh, to their homeland Myanmar in order to find a sustainable solution to the crisis.

Jallow described the current scenario of the Rohingya case and expressed his confidence in proving the allegations of genocide against Myanmar.

However, he also raised the issue of insufficient funds to run the case with ICJ.

Hasan assured of providing necessary legal assistance and evidence from Bangladesh side to Gambia to continue the case.

In 2019, the Gambia filed a case against Myanmar with the ICJ alleging Rohingya genocide following a consensus of the OIC member states.​