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

[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.

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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.

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'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...

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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.

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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?

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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.

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'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."

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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

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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.​