progressiveissuesblog

Gaza Poisoned

Updated 2024-04-01

2024-01-31 Poisoning Gaza “Like the Allied forces of World War II, Israel is killing indiscriminately. Of the 29,000 air-to-surface munitions fired, 40% have been unguided bombs dropped on crowded residential areas. The U.N. estimates that, as of late December, 70% of all schools in Gaza, many of which served as shelters for Palestinians fleeing Israel’s onslaught, had been severely damaged. Hundreds of mosques and churches have also been struck and 70% of Gaza’s 36 hospitals have been hit and are no longer functioning.  According to HRW, Israel is using a lack of food and drinking water as a tool of warfare.”    

“Thousands upon thousands of Israeli and western-supplied bombs dropped on Gaza bring not just death but a toxic legacy from explosive chemicals, dust, and debris from destroyed buildings that pollute the air and the ground. Israel’s military offensive in Gaza is leaving a new layer of toxic chemicals in Gaza’s soil, adding to those left behind from many wars it has waged before.”   https://www.militarypoisons.org/latest-news/poisoning-gaza?

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Gaza Journalists (also see Journalists)

Updated 2024-04-01

2024-03-01 Global News Leaders Voice Solidarity With Gaza Journalists Under Israeli Attack     As Palestinian journalists brave Israeli bombs and bullets to show the world the Gaza genocide, leaders of three dozen prominent international media outlets on Thursday signed an open letter voicing solidarity with Palestinian media professionals “in their call for safety, protection, and the freedom to report.”

“For nearly five months, journalists and media workers in Gaza—overwhelmingly, the sole source of on-the-ground reporting from within the Palestinian territory—have been working in unprecedented conditions: At least 89 have been killed in the war… more journalists than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year,” states the letter, which was coordinated by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) with the support of the World Association of News Publishers. https://www.commondreams.org/news/journalists-killed-in-gaza-2667408264

2024-01-17 Reporting From the Front Lines of a Genocide   Being a Palestinian journalist has never been easy, but Israel’s escalation of violence against members of the press in Gaza is unprecedented, say press freedom advocates. Can global solidarity help stop the bloodshed?

Gaza is the deadliest place on Earth to be a journalist today. More than 100 journalists and media workers have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on their homes or vehicles or in attacks by invading Israeli forces since early October 2023, according to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate.

The attacks are part of Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip, an occupied and besieged territory in southern Palestine on the eastern Mediterranean coast. Neither Palestine nor the governorates that comprise the Gaza Strip—which is only about the size of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—have a land army, air force, or navy to fight a war. Experts have described the assault on Gaza as ethnic cleansing and genocide and accused Israel of committing international crimes.  https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2024/01/17/war-israel-palestine-journalism

2023-12-29 The Impossibility of Reporting the Story of Gaza Since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza, which has now killed more than 20,000 Palestinians, journalists have been on the front lines, both as witnesses and victims. For more than two months, as Israel has rained bombs on Gaza, they have rushed from refugee camps to hospitals, and from hospitals to schools and back, trying to stay safe while covering what they describe as their own genocide. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 68 journalists have been killed in Gaza, Israel, and Lebanon since October 7, making this the deadliest conflict since CPJ began tallying press fatalities. The International Federation of Journalists estimates that at least 66 journalists have been killed in Gaza alone. Many have also lost their families. On October 26, Ahmed Abu Artema, a contributor to The Nation as well as a poet and activist, was seriously injured and lost his young son when Israel bombed his father’s house.

“What is happening now is unprecedented,” said Sherif Mansour, the Middle East and North Africa program coordinator at CPJ. In 2022, CPJ reported that a total of 68 journalists and media workers were killed worldwide; Gaza reached that number in just over two months.

Journalists, said Mansour, “are the ones on the frontlines and they are the ones we need the most, but they are also the most vulnerable.”   It’s hard to overestimate the importance of the Palestinian journalists in Gaza right now. They, after all, are the only ones who have been reporting from the Strip since Israel instituted a total siege on October 9 and banned foreign press from entering. Their work has been essential and their commitment unceasing; yet, as the weeks have passed, the mounting challenges of reporting have meant that the world outside of Gaza is getting only a fraction of the story. Even social media has offered only a partial solution as many of the platforms regularly censor Palestinian voices.    By far, the biggest challenge for journalists is simply staying alive. The struggle to survive while reporting is an all-consuming endeavor. But this struggle has been seriously compounded both by the conditions of war and the shattering effects of Israel’s total siege of the Strip. Food and water are scarce, fuel is dwindling, electricity inconsistent, and cell service undependable; many journalists no longer even have homes to return to.  https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-impossibility-of-reporting-the-story-of-gaza/ar-AA1mctHH

2023-12-22 Israel’s Killing of Journalists in Gaza ‘Unparalleled,’ Says Watchdog     Journalists are being slain during Israel’s current assault on Gaza at a rate unseen in modern history—with more killed in the last 10 weeks alone than have been killed in any country in any whole year since records began, the Committee to Protect Journalists revealed on Thursday.   CPJ said that at least 68 media professionals—61 Palestinians, four Israelis, and three Lebanese—have been killed since the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel and the Israeli military’s retaliatory obliteration of the Gaza Strip.

Of particular concern to CPJ is Israel’s “apparent pattern of targeting journalists and their families.”   “In at least one case, a journalist was killed while clearly wearing press insignia in a location where no fighting was taking place,” the group said. “In at least two other cases, journalists reported receiving threats from Israeli officials and IDF officers before their family members were killed.”     https://www.commondreams.org/news/journalists-killed-in-gaza-2666788920

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Gaza – Israel Lies (see Israel’s Lies)

Updated 2024-04-01

2023-11-12   10 HUGE Gaza Lies Israel Wants You To Believe w/ Due Dissidence      There’s a tremendous amount of disinformation and number of outright lies being spread by Israeli officials and their apologists about the assault on Gaza. Journalist and political commentator Caitlin Johnstone has compiled what she believes are the ten biggest lies currently circulating as a means of spreading pro-Israeli propaganda.     Jimmy and his guests Russell Dobular and Keaton Weiss from Due Dissidence discuss these lies one at a time and comment on each. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgAzEtnJGME

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Gaza Epidemic

Updated 2024-04-01

2024-03-04 How Warmer Weather Could Fuel a Massive Epidemic in Gaza   Amid seemingly endless death, destruction, and displacement, life in Gaza has long been unbearable. At least 30,000 people have been killed and countless more wounded since the start of Israel’s retaliatory bombardment following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre. And the punishing winter weather, marked by heavy rain and temperatures as low as 48°F (9°C), has made the Strip all but uninhabitable for its more than 2 million inhabitants, many of whom were forced to flee their homes without warm clothes or blankets. Those who manage to find refuge in overcrowded shelters are considered the lucky ones. Others reside in makeshift tents, with nothing but tarpaulin and thin plastics to shield them from the elements. 

While many may greet the arrival of spring as a much-needed reprieve from the cold, experts warn that the warmer temperatures come with their own set of challenges—ones that stand to make the situation in Gaza much worse. That’s because warmer weather, while beneficial in some respects, can accelerate the spread of communicable diseases, such as diarrhea and hepatitis A, even as it reduces the risk of others. “As the season changes to spring and summer, you will have a lower incidence of certain infectious diseases: the flu, COVID-19, other respiratory viruses that affect children,” says Francesco Checchi, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine specializing in disease control in crisis.  https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/how-warmer-weather-could-fuel-a-massive-epidemic-in-gaza/ar-BB1jjz0K?

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Gaza Air Drops

Updated 2024-04-01

2024-03-08 Airdrop of aid packages kills 5 children in Gaza, Palestinian officials say   Airdropped aid packages from an unidentified country killed five children and injured several others in Gaza on Friday, Palestinian officials said.   “Press reports that U.S. air drops resulted in civilian casualties on the ground are false, as we’ve confirmed that all of our aid bundles landed safely on the ground,” Ryder said during a press briefing.

The Government Media Office in Gaza criticized air drops as “useless” and called for the immediate opening of land crossings into Gaza to more efficiently deliver aid to the approximately 2,400,000 people suffering from water and food shortages.  Adam Bouloukos, a senior official at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees-West Bank, told ABC News that airdrops are “dangerous” and a “drop in the bucket” in terms of need.   https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/airdrop-of-aid-packages-kills-5-children-in-gaza-palestinian-officials-say/ar-BB1jzVsJ?

2024-03-04 Theatre of Cruelty—And Its Double: From Aaron Bushnell to Biden’s Gaza Airdrop    The head of Save the Children described the Biden Administration’s recent airdrop of food into Gaza airdrop as “theater.” That it is. So is the Vice President’s sudden “demand” for a six-week ceasefire. For that matter, so is the ceasefire itself — if it happens. It’s likely to be characterized by ongoing immiseration and slow death, to be followed by the faster forms of killing.

It’s an American theater of cruelty whose real purpose is to deliver votes for the president, not meals for the starving. It will end as it began: in fire. The question is, what kind of fire and for whom?  

The American airdrop consisted of 38,000 “MRE’s,” or “Meals Ready to Eat,” those unwholesome feed bags the US military buys by the millions More than 2,100,000 people are starving in Gaza; the children are already dying. If divided evenly, every person in Gaza would receive precisely 1.8 percent of each bag pictured above – that is, if they got any of it, which is unlikely amidst all the US-backed chaos. Hunger can’t be cured homeopathically, with microscopic doses.   https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/gaza-airdrop-aaron-bushnell

2024-03-03 Biden Admin Airdrops 38,000 Meals Into Gaza as US-Armed Israeli Military Starves Millions       “Biden is airdropping food (expensive, inefficient, potentially dangerous) because he won’t condition massive U.S. military aid and arms sales on Israel ending its obstruction of most ground aid deliveries.”

The U.S. military on Saturday executed the first of what’s expected to be a series of humanitarian aid airdrops into the Gaza Strip, parachuting packages containing 38,000 meals to the besieged enclave’s coastline as the territory’s entire population—roughly 2.2 million people—faces the imminent threat of starvation due to Israel’s ongoing assault and blockade.

The airdrop, coordinated with the Jordanian military, came days after Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd of desperate Gazans near a convoy of aid trucks in the northern part of the territory, which Israel has almost completely cut off from humanitarian assistance.

Biden administration officials said Saturday that “the aid flowing into Gaza is nowhere near enough and nowhere near fast enough,” but the White House has done nothing to force the Israeli government to stop obstructing ground-based deliveries, which have fallen in recent weeks and become virtually impossible in much of the territory because of Israel’s restrictions and repeated attacks on aid workers.  https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-gaza-airdrops?

2024-03-02 US airdrops: Normal in ‘hostile’ env., not in areas occupied by allies     Critics believe the US airdrops in Gaza are a major sign of weakness that shows just how much the country is unwilling to stand up to Israeli cruelty.   Airdrops of humanitarian aid to Gaza may not be necessary if pressure on the Israeli occupation was effective, Patrick Wintour of The Guardian reported.

US President Joe Biden announced on Friday plans to carry out a first military airdrop of food and supplies into Gaza, a day after the Israeli occupation’s al-Rasheed street massacre, which resulted in the killing of over 115 Palestinian martyrs.  Tens of others were wounded in the Thursday attack that targeted Palestinian civilians who were waiting in line to receive aid packages in the northern Gaza Strip,  https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/us-airdrops–normal-in–hostile–env—not-in-areas-occupied

2024-03-01 Sanders Says US Gaza Aid Airdrops ‘No Substitute for Sustained Ground Deliveries’     “Israel MUST open the borders and allow the United Nations to deliver supplies in sufficient quantities.”    Independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday gave a qualified endorsement of American military airdrops of desperately needed humanitarian supplies into Gaza, echoing assertions from other human rights defenders that Israel must allow massive, immediate ground shipments of aid to reach the bombed and besieged Palestinians who are beginning to starve to death.  https://www.commondreams.org/news/bernie-sanders-israel-2667410239

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Gaza Aid (see also Aid to Palestine)

Updated 2024-04-01

2024-03-23 UN chief calls blocked aid for Gaza a moral outrage   A long line of blocked relief trucks on Egypt’s side of the border with the Gaza Strip where people face starvation is a moral outrage, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said during a visit to the Rafah crossing on Saturday. 

It was time for Israel to give an “ironclad commitment” for unfettered access to humanitarian goods throughout Gaza, said Guterres, who also called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza.   https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/un-chief-calls-blocked-aid-for-gaza-a-moral-outrage/ar-BB1kpaOG?

2024-03-16 I’m A Cook: Feeding Hope In Gaza   As children in Gaza starve and rapacious capitalism, fractured governments and toothless international groups all fail to act, let it not be said that one person – albeit with extraordinary grit, heart, political will, clarity of vision – cannot make a difference. This week, chef José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen, working with Jordan, UAE and Cyprus, made the first maritime delivery of food to Gaza. Please give this man his Nobel Peace Prize already. Also send him some money.

Since moving to the U.S. decades ago, the Spanish-born, award-winning Andrés, 54, has opened multiple restaurants in D.C and then across the country, including in New York, Chicago, Orlando and Las Vegas. In 2010, after volunteering at D.C.’s Central Kitchen helping repurpose food for those in need, he founded World Central Kitchen, whose chefs and first responders bring meals to people hit by natural disasters and humanitarian emergencies around the globe. Since his first mission to earthquake-ravaged Haiti, he and a worldwide “Chef Corps” of local cooks have made and distributed over 350 million meals – to Puerto Ricans devastated by Hurricane Maria, COVID-trapped cruise ship passengers in California, flooded-out Houston and, in 2022, in their first active war zone, to Ukraine, where, when a Russian missile hit the Kharkiv restaurant they were working in, injuring four WCK workers, team members insisted, “We wanna keep cooking. We wanna keep fighting.'”   https://www.commondreams.org/further/i-m-a-cook-feeding-hope-in-gaza

2024-03-07 Biden Aid Port Plan Rebuked as ‘Pathetic’ PR Effort as Israel Starves Gazans    President Joe Biden is expected to announce during his State of the Union address Thursday night that the U.S. military will construct a temporary port on Gaza’s coastline to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance, a plan that critics said is a far cry from what’s needed to end Israel’s forced starvation of the enclave’s population.

It’s expected to take up to two months for large aid packages to begin flowing through the seaport, which a White House official said would be able to “receive large ships carrying food, water, medicine, and temporary shelters.” 

“Wouldn’t it be easier to demand Israel let in aid right now while Palestinian children are literally being starved to death?”   “Besides, how are you going to offload the aid from the pier to the land given that Israel shoots at Palestinian boats all the time?” Josh Ruebner, an adjunct lecturer at Georgetown University and former policy director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights. continued. “And even if you get the aid to land, how does it get distributed to those most in need? Maybe you should have thought about that before you cut off aid to UNRWA, the only agency able to distribute aid throughout the Gaza Strip.”  https://www.commondreams.org/news/state-of-the-union-gaza-port 2024-02-27 Aid coming into Gaza is a trickle compared to the needs that exist, ICRC spokesperson tells CNN    ICRC spokesperson Sarah Davies says difficulties don’t only lie in the entry of aid into Gaza, but the logistics of safely distributing it.  https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/aid-coming-into-gaza-is-a-trickle-compared-to-the-needs-that-exist-icrc-spokesperson-tells-cnn/vi-BB1iYU22?

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Flour Massacre

Updated 2024-04-01

2024-03-24 The Media’s Linguistic Gymnastics Surrounding Israel’s Forced Starvation of Gaza      With headlines layered in verbal opacity, the response to the flour massacre prompted yet another egregious moment in the Western press’ facilitation of Israel’s continuing genocide in Gaza.  

Over 100 Palestinians were killed and hundreds more wounded on February 29, when Israeli snipers opened fire on people approaching a convoy of trucks carrying desperately needed supplies of flour. The attack was quickly dubbed the flour massacre.

Corporate media reporting was contentious and confused, mired in accusations and conflicting details that filled the news hole, even as media downplayed the grave conditions in Gaza created by Israel’s engineered famine. With headlines layered in verbal opacity, the massacre prompted yet another egregious moment in media’s facilitation of Israel’s continuing genocide in Gaza.

On the day of the massacre, The New York Times (2/29/24) published this contrivance:  As Hungry Gazans Crowd a Convoy, a Crush of Bodies, Israeli Gunshots and a Deadly Toll.  It was met with ridicule as it slid across online platforms. Assal Rad (Twitter, 3/1/24), author and research director at the National Iranian American Council, called the piece of work “a haiku to avoid saying Israel massacres Palestinians that they’re deliberately starving in Gaza.”  https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/media-linguistic-gymnastics-israel

2024-03-06 Bullets Found at Gaza Flour Massacre Site Belie Israel’s ‘Stampede’ Claim     Bullet wounds caused by the same type of large-caliber ammunition used in several Israel Defense Forces rifles and machine guns undercut Israeli officials’ dubious claim that most victims of last week’s “Flour Massacre” near Gaza City died in a stampede, one human rights monitor said Wednesday.

Gaza officials said at least 118 Palestinians were killed and 760 others injured when Israeli troops shot and shelled a large crowd of starving people waiting for food distribution in the al-Nabulsi Roundabout area south of Gaza City on February 29. Israeli officials said many or most of the victims were trampled as the large crowd of people starving due to Israel’s siege and blockade of Gaza desperately rushed aid trucks.

However, Dr. Mohammed Salha, the acting director of Al-Awda Hospital, told reporters last Friday that more than 80% of Flour Massacre victims treated at the facility suffered gunshot wounds. A United Nations team that visited al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City found “a large number of gunshot wounds” among the 200 or so patients being treated there.https://www.commondreams.org/news/flour-massacre-bullets

2024-03-02 BBC investigation reveals IOF edited aerial footage of flour massacre     Following the Flour Massacre, the Israeli occupation released aerial footage alleging that Palestinians were martyred due to a “stampede” during aid collection.  

A BBC investigation uncovered that the footage was edited and not presented as a continuous sequence, raising suspicions that the IOF might have concealed the part where they opened fire on the people gathered at the Nabulsi Roundabout.   BBC Verify has reviewed social media videos, satellite imagery, and IOF drone footage to assemble a “comprehensive understanding” of the information regarding the massacre.

It is worth noting that Mahmoud Awadeyah, a journalist who was at the scene, told the BBC that Israeli vehicles began firing at people upon the arrival of the aid trucks. “Israelis purposefully fired at the men… they were trying to get near the trucks that had the flour,” he said. “They were fired at directly and prevented people to come near those killed.”  https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/bbc-investigation-reveals-iof-edited-aerial-footage-of-flour

2024-03-02 Int’l pressure mounting on ‘Israel’ to investigate Flour Massacre     The Israeli occupation is under increasing international pressure to conduct an investigation after over 100 Palestinians were murdered in Gaza on Thursday when desperate masses swarmed around relief vehicles and Israeli forces opened fire.

More than 110 people were killed in the massacre in al-Rasheed Street, to the west of Gaza City, Al Mayadeen’s correspondent reported, while tens of others were wounded in the attack that targeted Palestinian civilians who were waiting in line to receive aid packages in the northern Gaza Strip, a field source from the Palestinian Resistance told Al Mayadeen.https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/int-l-pressure-mounting-on–israel–to-investigate-flour-mas

2024-02-29 Death toll from massacre on Palestinians waiting for aid rises to 112   “The number of victims of the massacre committed by Israeli occupants at Al Rashid Street has increased to 112, while 760 people have been injured,” ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra said after the bodies of eight more people were transported to the Shifa hospital.https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/death-toll-from-massacre-on-palestinians-waiting-for-aid-ris#:~:text=Gaza’s%20Health%20Ministry%20reported%20on,toll%20at%20104%20this%20morning

2024-02-29 Never Again is now.  On October 18th, Israeli Prime Minister Nethanyahu announced that the Israeli government would not allow food or medicine into Gaza. Yesterday, Medical Aid for Palestine announced that in Gaza, children are starving at the fastest rate that the world has ever known.

This morning, as hundreds of starved Palestinians waited in line for humanitarian aid, including flour for bread, the Israeli military opened fire, killing over 100 Palestinians, and wounding over 700. They massacred people seeking bread for their families.

The Israeli military has killed over 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza, destroyed entire neighborhoods, most hospitals and water and electricity grids, and forcibly displaced over 2 million Palestinians out of their homes. Palestinians in Gaza have nowhere to go, cannot seek shelter, cannot access food. This is unconscionable. This is what genocide looks like. These are the same tools of intentional starvation and mass slaughter used in past genocides, and which we, as Jews, recognize as used by Nazi Germany in the Holocaust. Many of us grew up on the images of emaciated people, starved in ghettos and concentration camps. Today’s images from Gaza are a rattling echo.

We will not look away, and we will not be silent. We know the role of our government in actively enabling the Israeli government’s genocide of Palestinians, from sending billions of dollars in unconditional military funding and deadly weapons, to blocking the international community’s calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire.     https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2024/02/29/never-again-is-now/

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Finland

Updated 2024-04-01

2024-03-22 US Pariah Status Grows as Finland Resumes UNRWA Funding    As the United States doubled down on banning funds for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, Finland said Friday that it would resume contributions to the lifesaving organization in an implicit rebuke of unsubstantiated Israeli claims—reportedly extracted via torture—that staff members were involved in the October 7 attacks.

UNRWA employees say they were tortured into making false confessions about involvement in Hamas and October 7. The staffers accuse Israeli interrogators of severely beating and waterboarding them, as well as threatening to harm their relatives.

The European Union and nations including Canada, Sweden, Denmark, and Australia subsequently resumed funding for UNRWA, while other contributors including Saudi Arabia increased their donations.   https://www.commondreams.org/news/unrwa-funding-2667580373   

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Democratic Party Donors

Updated 2024-04-01

2024-03-19 Dem Donors Warn Biden’s Support for Israeli War on Gaza May Hand Trump the White House    More than 100 Democratic donors and activists on Monday warned U.S. President Joe Biden that his administration’s “unconditional support” for Israel’s catastrophic war on Gaza “is increasing the chances” that former President Donald Trump will win this year’s election. 

In a letter, the Biden supporters—who according to The New York Times include some six-figure donors…   “However, the ongoing military actions by the [Israel Defense Forces] are not achieving those goals,” the signatories argued. “Instead, nearly all civil structures in Gaza, including hospitals, schools, mosques, and civilian accommodation are being systematically destroyed. Food, temporary shelter, and medical aid are being prevented by the Israeli government and Israeli extremists from being delivered to the civilian population. Gaza has become a humanitarian catastrophe.”

“Regrettably, President Biden has provided what appears to be unconditional support for the Israeli operation,” the letter states. “The Biden administration has been providing armaments, including 2,000-pound bombs which have been used to flatten entire civilian neighborhoods, causing massive casualties with a high ratio of women and children.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/biden-support-for-israel

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Cultural Erasure

Updated 2024-04-01

2024-03-17 Is ‘Cultural Erasure’ Only Wrong When Our Enemies Do It?   “What’s happening in Gaza is a multi-layered act that extends far beyond the physical destruction of artifacts or the killing of individuals,” according to Mariam Shah, writing at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “These actions are part of broader destructive processes that undermine a community’s heritage, identity, and existence—with profound symbolic and psychological implications for Palestinians not only in Gaza but globally…”

“This destruction, both physical and symbolic, serves a larger political agenda—the erasure of Palestinian identity and collective memory, which may amount to cultural genocide.”   

A few months ago—well into the Israeli assault on Gaza, with U.S support and weaponry—U.S. State Department Undersecretary Uzra Zeya spoke about “cultural erasure” at a conference in Prague. “We are at a critical juncture in history,” she said, “where the very fabric of many unique religious and cultural identities is being threatened by authoritarian regimes and extremist groups around the world.”

She proceeded to condemn Russia, China, and ISIS in Iraq for inflicting hell and ethnocide on vulnerable cultures in their domain.  She then declared: “The United States will continue to speak clearly and forcefully against attempts to erase the culture and unique identities of vulnerable communities, and we will back up our words with our actions.”

By arming Israel?   In a remarkable Al-Jazeera interview, three Palestinians talked about their culture—their art and poetry, theater and song—and how not only is it being bombed and demolished, it’s standing directly against the ethnocide, not simply resisting but transcending it. These are the words of Serena Rasoul, one of the interviewees:

“The most defiant act of resistance is to sing… to one another, to God, to the land. You can level our buildings but you can’t destroy our spirits. The majority of Palestinian folk songs are around joy and love. That’s who we are.”     https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/cultural-erasure-united-states-gaza

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World