Fueled by dissent over the war in Gaza, the US public’s views are changing – and support for the Palestinians is rising.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...l-relationship
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Fueled by dissent over the war in Gaza, the US public’s views are changing – and support for the Palestinians is rising.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...l-relationship
A better news story. Not good, but definitely better!
https://www.theguardian.com/global-d...zyouna-us-gaza
https://www.thecanary.co/global/worl...dmarsdn8syijsb
Pakistan serious about that Trump Nobel Peace Prize nomination?
Now Trump has pissed off India (so much that Modi turned up at the Xi-Putin love-in a few months ago in Beijing), Pakistan must fancy being the USA's new bestie in the region. Trump is very big on order (if not law) and shooting protestors - so this must have gone down well in the Oval Office!
The release of some of the Palestinians incarcerated by Israel is to be welcomed, however, the evidence and accounts of systematic and brutal torture are horrifying to read and unimagineable to those of us who have not experienced this. Possibly as many as 11,000 Palestinians remain in Israeli jails, several thousands under “administrative detention” ie without charge or trial.
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org...cles-for-you_1
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...gaza-officials
At least 135 mutilated bodies of Palestinians returned by Israel to Gaza had been held in a notorious detention centre already facing allegations of torture and unlawful deaths in custody, officials from Gaza’s health ministry have told the Guardian.
The director general of the health ministry, Dr Munir al-Bursh, and a spokesperson for Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, where the bodies are being examined, said a document found inside each body bag indicated the bodies all came from Sde Teiman, a military base in the Negev desert where, according to photos and testimonies published by the Guardian last year, Palestinian detainees were held in cages, blindfolded and handcuffed, shackled to hospital beds and forced to wear nappies.
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Some of the photographs of Palestinian bodies seen by the Guardian – which cannot be published due to their graphic nature – show several of the victims blindfolded, their hands tied behind their backs. One image shows a rope fastened around a man’s neck.
Doctors in Khan Younis said official examinations and field observations “clearly indicate that Israel carried out acts of murder, summary executions and systematic torture against many of the Palestinians”. Health officials said the documented findings included “clear signs of direct gunfire at point-blank range and bodies crushed beneath Israeli tank tracks”.
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Naji Abbas, the director of the prisoners and detainees department at Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHR), said: “The signs of torture and abuse found on the bodies of Palestinians recently returned by Israel to Gaza are horrifying – yet, sadly, not surprising.
“These findings corroborate what Physicians for Human Rights Israel has exposed over the past two years about conditions inside Israeli detention facilities – particularly at the Sde Teiman camp – where Palestinians have been subjected to systematic torture and killings by soldiers and prison guards.”
PHR said: “The unprecedented number of Palestinians who have died in Israeli custody, together with verified evidence documented of deaths resulting from torture and medical neglect – and now the findings on the returned bodies – leave no doubt: an independent international investigation is urgently needed to hold those responsible in Israel accountable.”
https://www.thecanary.co/skwawkbox/2...dmarsdn8syijsb
Al Jazeera Arabic has named Major Sean Glass, of the so-called “Vampire Empire” tank company of Israel’s 52nd Battalion of its 401st Armoured Brigade, as the occupation commander who allegedly gave the order in Gaza, from inside an Israeli tank, to destroy the car carrying Palestinian child Hind Rajab and her family, as well as the ambulance rushing to rescue them, killing all those on board both vehicles.
Five-year-old Hind was the last to survive of her family and a heart-breaking recording of her terrified last conversation with a Palestinian emergency despatcher ended with Hind telling the female despatcher that it was hard to breathe because she didn’t want her mother to have to clean blood from her dress. The bodies were not found for several days; forensic examiners found 355 bullets had been fired into Hind’s car from close range by an Israeli tank.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...anction-israel
Prominent Jewish figures around the world are calling on the United Nations and world leaders to impose sanctions on Israel over what they describe as “unconscionable” actions amounting to genocide in Gaza.
460 signatories, including former Israeli officials, Oscar winners, authors and intellectuals have signed an open letter demanding accountability over Israel’s conduct in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. The letter’s release comes as EU leaders meet in Brussels on Thursday amid reports they plan to shelve proposals for sanctions over human rights violations.
“We do not forget that so many of the laws, charters, and conventions established to safeguard and protect all human life were created in response to the Holocaust,” the signatories write. “Those safeguards have been relentlessly violated by Israel.”
Signatories include former speaker of the Israeli Knesset Avraham Burg, former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy, British author Michael Rosen, Canadian author Naomi Klein, Oscar-winning film-maker Jonathan Glazer, US actor Wallace Shawn, Emmy winners Ilana Glazer and Hannah Einbinder, and Pulitzer prize winner Benjamin Moser.
The signatories urge world leaders to uphold international court of justice (ICJ) and international criminal court rulings, avoid complicity in international law violations by halting arms transfers and imposing targeted sanctions, ensure adequate humanitarian aid to Gaza, and reject false claims of antisemitism against those advocating for peace and justice.
“We bow our heads in immeasurable sorrow as the evidence accumulates that Israel’s actions will be judged to have met the legal definition of genocide,” the letter reads.
The appeal follows a sharp shift in public opinion for US Jews and the wider electorate over the last few years. A Washington Post poll found that 61% of US Jews believe Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza, and 39% say it is committing genocide. Among the broader American public, 45% told the Brookings Institution they believe Israel is committing genocide, while a Quinnipiac survey in August found half of US voters share that view, including 77% of Democrats.
Other signatories to the letter include the Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov, playwright V (formerly known as Eve Ensler), American comedian Eric André, South African novelist Damon Galgut, Oscar-winning journalist and documentarian Yuval Abraham, Tony award winner Toby Marlow and Israeli philosopher Omri Boehm.
“Our solidarity with Palestinians is not a betrayal of Judaism, but a fulfillment of it,” the signatories write. “When our sages taught that to destroy one life is to destroy an entire world, they did not carve exceptions for Palestinians. We shall not rest until this ceasefire carries forward into an end of occupation and apartheid.”
Since 7 October 2023, at least 65,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 167,000 injured, according to Gaza’s health ministry, while the UN estimates that roughly 90% of the population is internally displaced. Two US Democratic senators, Chris Van Hollen and Jeff Merkley, concluded after a fact-finding mission to the region in September that Israel was implementing “a systematic plan to destroy and ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza”, with the US complicit in these actions.