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See Gaza Strip Access Restrictions.pdf since 2007 at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gaza_Strip_Access_Restrictions.pdf** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.”
*** The death toll in West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to PA’s Ministry of Health on April 5, this is the latest figure.
Source: mondoweiss.net
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Boris Kagarlitsky is in Prison!
On February 13, the court overturned the previous decision on release and sent Boris Kagarlitsky to prison for five years.
Petition in Support of Boris Kagarlitsky
We, the undersigned, were deeply shocked to learn that on February 13 the leading Russian socialist intellectual and antiwar activist Dr. Boris Kagarlitsky (65) was sentenced to five years in prison.
Dr. Kagarlitsky was arrested on the absurd charge of 'justifying terrorism' in July last year. After a global campaign reflecting his worldwide reputation as a writer and critic of capitalism and imperialism, his trial ended on December 12 with a guilty verdict and a fine of 609,000 roubles.
The prosecution then appealed against the fine as 'unjust due to its excessive leniency' and claimed falsely that Dr. Kagarlitsky was unable to pay the fine and had failed to cooperate with the court. In fact, he had paid the fine in full and provided the court with everything it requested.
On February 13 a military court of appeal sent him to prison for five years and banned him from running a website for two years after his release.
The reversal of the original court decision is a deliberate insult to the many thousands of activists, academics, and artists around the world who respect Dr. Kagarlitsky and took part in the global campaign for his release. The section of Russian law used against Dr. Kagarlitsky effectively prohibits free expression. The decision to replace the fine with imprisonment was made under a completely trumped-up pretext. Undoubtedly, the court's action represents an attempt to silence criticism in the Russian Federation of the government's war in Ukraine, which is turning the country into a prison.
The sham trial of Dr. Kagarlitsky is the latest in a wave of brutal repression against the left-wing movements in Russia. Organizations that have consistently criticized imperialism, Western and otherwise, are now under direct attack, many of them banned. Dozens of activists are already serving long terms simply because they disagree with the policies of the Russian government and have the courage to speak up. Many of them are tortured and subjected to life-threatening conditions in Russian penal colonies, deprived of basic medical care. Left-wing politicians are forced to flee Russia, facing criminal charges. International trade unions such as IndustriALL and the International Transport Federation are banned and any contact with them will result in long prison sentences.
There is a clear reason for this crackdown on the Russian left. The heavy toll of the war gives rise to growing discontent among the mass of working people. The poor pay for this massacre with their lives and wellbeing, and opposition to war is consistently highest among the poorest. The left has the message and resolve to expose the connection between imperialist war and human suffering.
Dr. Kagarlitsky has responded to the court's outrageous decision with calm and dignity: “We just need to live a little longer and survive this dark period for our country,” he said. Russia is nearing a period of radical change and upheaval, and freedom for Dr. Kagarlitsky and other activists is a condition for these changes to take a progressive course.
We demand that Boris Kagarlitsky and all other antiwar prisoners be released immediately and unconditionally.
We also call on the authorities of the Russian Federation to reverse their growing repression of dissent and respect their citizens' freedom of speech and right to protest.
Sign to Demand the Release of Boris Kagarlitsky
https://freeboris.info
The petition is also available on Change.org
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*Major Announcement*
Claudia De la Cruz wins
Peace and Freedom Party primary in California!
We have an exciting announcement. The votes are still being counted in California, but the Claudia-Karina “Vote Socialist” campaign has achieved a clear and irreversible lead in the Peace and Freedom Party primary. Based on the current count, Claudia has 46% of the vote compared to 40% for Cornel West. A significant majority of PFP’s newly elected Central Committee, which will formally choose the nominee at its August convention, have also pledged their support to the Claudia-Karina campaign.
We are excited to campaign in California now and expect Claudia De la Cruz to be the candidate on the ballot of the Peace and Freedom Party in November.
We achieved another big accomplishment this week - we’re officially on the ballot in Hawai’i! This comes after also petitioning to successfully gain ballot access in Utah. We are already petitioning in many other states. Each of these achievements is powered by the tremendous effort of our volunteers and grassroots organizers across the country. When we’re organized, people power can move mountains!
We need your help to keep the momentum going. Building a campaign like this takes time, energy, and money. We know that our class enemies — the billionaires, bankers, and CEO’s — put huge sums toward loyal politicians and other henchmen who defend their interests. They will use all the money and power at their disposal to stop movements like ours. As an independent, socialist party, our campaign is relying on contributions from the working class and people like you.
We call on each and every one of our supporters to set up a monthly or one-time donation to support this campaign to help it keep growing and reaching more people. A new socialist movement, independent of the Democrats and Republicans, is being built but it will only happen when we all pitch in.
The Claudia-Karina campaign calls to end all U.S. aid to Israel. End this government’s endless wars. We want jobs for all, with union representation and wages that let us live with dignity. Housing, healthcare, and education for all - without the lifelong debt. End the ruthless attacks on women, Black people, immigrants, and LGBTQ people. These are just some of the demands that are resonating across the country. Help us take the next step:
Volunteer: https://votesocialist2024.com/volunteer
Donate: https://votesocialist2024.com/donate
See you in the streets,
Claudia & Karina
Don't Forget! Join our telegram channel for regular updates: https://t.me/+KtYBAKgX51JhNjMx
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We are all Palestinian
Listen and view this beautiful, powerful, song by Mistahi Corkill on YouTube at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQwuhbLczgI
Greetings,
Here is my new song and music video, We are all Palestinian, linked below. If you find it inspiring, please feel free to share with others. All the best!
Mistahi
We are all Palestinian
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Labor for Palestine
Thousands of labor representatives marched Saturday, December 16, in Oakland, California. —Photo by Leon Kunstenaar
Video of December 16th Labor rally for Palestine.
Bay Area Unions and Workers Rally and March For Palestine In Oakland
https://youtu.be/L9k79honqIA
For More Information:
bayarealabor4palestine@gmail.com
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
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Just Like The Nazis Did
By David Rovics
After so many decades of patronage
By the world’s greatest empire
So many potential agreements
Were rejected by opening fire
After crushing so many uprisings
Now they’re making their ultimate bid
Pursuing their Final Solution
Just like the Nazis did
They forced refugees into ghettos
Then set the ghettos aflame
Murdering writers and poets
And so no one remember their names
Killing their entire families
The grandparents, women and kids
The uncles and cousins and babies
Just like the Nazis did
They’re bombing all means of sustaining
Human life at all
See the few shelters remaining
Watch as the tower blocks fall
They’re bombing museums and libraries
In order to get rid
Of any memory of the people who lived here
Just like the Nazis did
They’re saying these people are animals
And they should all end up dead
They’re sending soldiers into schools
And shooting children in the head
The rhetoric is identical
And with Gaza off the grid
They’ve already said what happens next
Just like the Nazis did
Words of war for domestic consumption
And lies for all the rest
To try to distract our attention
Among their enablers in the West
Because Israel needs their imports
To keep those pallets on the skids
They need fuel and they need missiles
Just like the Nazis did
They’re using food as a weapon
They’re using water that way, too
They’re trying to kill everyone in Gaza
Or make them flee, it’s true
As the pundits talk of “after the war”
Like with the Fall of Madrid
The victors are preparing for more
Just like the Nazis did
But it’s after the conquest’s complete
If history is any guide
When the occupying army
Is positioned to decide
When disease and famine kills
Whoever may have hid
Behind the ghetto walls
Just like the Nazis did
All around the world
People are trying to tell
There's a genocide unfolding
Ringing alarm bells
But with such a powerful axis
And so many lucrative bids
They know who wants their money
Just like the Nazis did
There's so many decades of patronage
For the world's greatest empire
So many potential agreements
Were rejected by opening fire
They're crushing so many uprisings
Now they're making their ultimate bid
Pursuing their final solution
Just like the Nazis did
Just like the Nazis did
Just like the Nazis did
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Free Julian Assange
Immediate Repeated Action Needed to Free Assange
Please call your Congressional Representatives, the White House, and the DOJ. Calls are tallied—they do count. We are to believe we are represented in this country. This is a political case, so our efforts can change things politically as well. Please take this action as often as you can:
Find your representatives:
https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member
Leave each of your representatives a message individually to:
· Drop the charges against Julian Assange
· Speak out publicly against the indictment and
· Sign on to Rashida Tlaib's letter to the DOJ to drop the charges:
202-224-3121—Capitol Main Switchboard
Leave a message on the White House comment line to
Demand Julian Assange be pardoned:
202-456-1111
Tuesday–Thursday, 11:00 A.M.–3:00 P.M. EST
Call the DOJ and demand they drop the charges against Julian Assange:
202-353-1555—DOJ Comment Line
202-514-2000 Main Switchboard
Sign the petition:
https://dontextraditeassange.com/petition/
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Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!
FREE HIM NOW!
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical Defense Fund, Official 2024
Mumia has instructed PrisonRadio to set up this fund. Gifts donated here are designated for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Medical and Legal Defense Fund. If you are writing a check or making a donation in another way, note this in the memo line.
Send to:
Mumia Medical and Legal Fund c/o Prison Radio
P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94103
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Leonard Peltier Update—Experiencing the Onset of Blindness
Greetings Relatives,
Leonard is in trouble, physically. He is experiencing the onset of blindness. He is losing strength in his limbs. His blood sugar is testing erratically. This, on top of already severe conditions that have become dire. Leonard has not seen a dentist in ten years. His few remaining teeth are infected. He is locked down, in pain.
As always, Leonard’s fortitude remains astonishing. He is not scared of dying. He does not want to die in lockdown.
Our legal team has an emergency transfer underway. They are going to extraordinary lengths. We must get a top ophthalmologist to him. Thanks to your calls, the BOP did see him. They told him a specialist would be 8 - 10 weeks out.
Leonard does not have eight to ten weeks. He needs emergency care immediately.
If you can, please donate to this GoFundMe. Every penny matters. If you cannot, please share. If you are so inclined, go to www.freeleonardpeltiernow.org and contact the officials listed.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-leonard-peltier-get-medical-care-freedom?utm_campaign=p_cp+fundraiser-sidebar&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer
As always, thank you for your support.
Dawn Lawson
Personal Assistant Leonard Peltier
Executive Assistant Jenipher Jones, Esq.
Secretary Leonard Peltier Ad Hoc Committee
1-800-901-4413
dawn@allfiredup.blue
www.freeleonardpeltiernow.org
Leonard Peltier Update - Not One More Year
Coleman 1 has gone on permanent lockdown.
The inmates are supposed to be allowed out two hours a day. I have not heard from Leonard since the 18th.
The last time I talked to Leonard, he asked where his supporters were. He asked me if anyone cared about these lockdowns.
Leonard lives in a filthy, cold cell 22 to 24 hours a day. He has not seen a dentist in ten years. I asked him, “On a scale of 1 to 10, is your pain level at 13?” He said, “Something like that.” Leonard is a relentless truth-teller. He does not like it when I say things that do not make sense mathematically.
That is why Leonard remains imprisoned. He will not lie. He will not beg, grovel, or denounce his beliefs.
Please raise your voice. Ask your representatives why they have abdicated their responsibility to oversee the Bureau of Prisons and ensure they adhere to Constitutional law.
Uhuru, The African People’s Socialist Party, has stepped up for Leonard. NOT ONE MORE YEAR.
Fight for Free Speech – YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM8GDeGv90E
Leonard should not have spent a day in prison. Click “LEARN” on our website to find out what really happened on that reservation:
www.freeleonardpeltiernow.org
Write to:
Leonard Peltier 89637-132
USP Coleman 1
P.O. Box 1033
Coleman, FL 33521
Note: Letters, address and return address must be in writing—no stickers—and on plain white paper.
Sign our petition urging President Biden to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier:
https://www.freeleonardpeltier.com/petition
Email: contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info
Address: 116 W. Osborne Ave. Tampa, Florida 33603
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Updates From Kevin Cooper
A Never-ending Constitutional Violation
A summary of the current status of Kevin Cooper’s case by the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
On October 26, 2023, the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP wrote a rebuttal in response to the Special Counsel's January 13, 2023 report upholding the conviction of their client Kevin Cooper. A focus of the rebuttal was that all law enforcement files were not turned over to the Special Counsel during their investigation, despite a request for them to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office.
On October 29, 2023, Law Professors Lara Bazelon and Charlie Nelson Keever, who run the six member panel that reviews wrongful convictions for the San Francisco County District Attorney's office, published an OpEd in the San Francisco Chronicle calling the "Innocence Investigation” done by the Special Counsel in the Cooper case a “Sham Investigation” largely because Cooper has unsuccessfully fought for years to obtain the police and prosecutor files in his case. This is a Brady claim, named for the U.S. Supreme court’s 1963 case establishing the Constitutional rule that defendants are entitled to any information in police and prosecutor's possession that could weaken the state's case or point to innocence. Brady violations are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. The Special Counsel's report faults Cooper for not offering up evidence of his own despite the fact that the best evidence to prove or disprove Brady violations or other misconduct claims are in those files that the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office will not turn over to the Special Counsel or to Cooper's attorneys.
On December 14, 2023, the president of the American Bar Association (ABA), Mary Smith, sent Governor Gavin Newsom a three page letter on behalf of the ABA stating in part that Mr.Cooper's counsel objected to the state's failure to provide Special Counsel all documents in their possession relating to Mr.Cooper's conviction, and that concerns about missing information are not new. For nearly 40 years Mr.Cooper's attorneys have sought this same information from the state.
On December 19, 2023, Bob Egelko, a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an article about the ABA letter to the Governor that the prosecutors apparently withheld evidence from the Governor's legal team in the Cooper case.
These are just a few recent examples concerning the ongoing failure of the San Bernardino County District Attorney to turn over to Cooper's attorney's the files that have been requested, even though under the law and especially the U.S. Constitution, the District Attorney of San Bernardino county is required to turn over to the defendant any and all material and or exculpatory evidence that they have in their files. Apparently, they must have something in their files because they refuse to turn them over to anyone.
The last time Cooper's attorney's received files from the state, in 2004, it wasn't from the D.A. but a Deputy Attorney General named Holly Wilkens in Judge Huff's courtroom. Cooper's attorneys discovered a never before revealed police report showing that a shirt was discovered that had blood on it and was connected to the murders for which Cooper was convicted, and that the shirt had disappeared. It had never been tested for blood. It was never turned over to Cooper's trial attorney, and no one knows where it is or what happened to it. Cooper's attorneys located the woman who found that shirt on the side of the road and reported it to the Sheriff's Department. She was called to Judge Huff's court to testify about finding and reporting that shirt to law enforcement. That shirt was the second shirt found that had blood on it that was not the victims’ blood. This was in 2004, 19 years after Cooper's conviction.
It appears that this ongoing constitutional violation that everyone—from the Special Counsel to the Governor's legal team to the Governor himself—seems to know about, but won't do anything about, is acceptable in order to uphold Cooper's conviction.
But this type of thing is supposed to be unacceptable in the United States of America where the Constitution is supposed to stand for something other than a piece of paper with writing on it. How can a Governor, his legal team, people who support and believe in him ignore a United States citizen’s Constitutional Rights being violated for 40 years in order to uphold a conviction?
This silence is betrayal of the Constitution. This permission and complicity by the Governor and his team is against everything that he and they claim to stand for as progressive politicians. They have accepted the Special Counsel's report even though the Special Counsel did not receive the files from the district attorney that may not only prove that Cooper is innocent, but that he was indeed framed by the Sheriff’s Department; and that evidence was purposely destroyed and tampered with, that certain witnesses were tampered with, or ignored if they had information that would have helped Cooper at trial, that evidence that the missing shirt was withheld from Cooper's trial attorney, and so much more.
Is the Governor going to get away with turning a blind eye to this injustice under his watch?
Are progressive people going to stay silent and turn their eyes blind in order to hopefully get him to end the death penalty for some while using Cooper as a sacrificial lamb?
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Mr. Kevin Cooper
C-65304. 4-EB-82
San Quentin State Prison
San Quentin, CA 94974
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
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The writers' organization PEN America is circulating this petition on behalf of Jason Renard Walker, a Texas prisoner whose life is being threatened because of his exposés of the Texas prison system.
See his book, Reports from within the Belly of the Beast; available on Amazon at:
https://www.amazon.com/Reports-Within-Belly-Beast-Department-ebook/dp/B084656JDZ/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
Petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/protect-whistleblowers-in-carceral-settings
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Daniel Hale UPDATE:
In February Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale was transferred from the oppressive maximum-security prison in Marion, Illinois to house confinement. We celebrate his release from Marion. He is laying low right now, recovering from nearly 3 years in prison. Thank goodness he is now being held under much more humane conditions and expected to complete his sentence in July of this year. www.StandWithDaniel Hale.org
More Info about Daniel:
“Drone Whistleblower Subjected To Harsh Confinement Finally Released From Prison”
https://thedissenter.org/drone-whistleblower-cmu-finally-released-from-prison/
“I was punished under the Espionage Act. Why wasn’t Joe Biden?” by Daniel Hale
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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
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1) Israeli forces carry out raids and arrests in northern Gaza, residents say.
By Hiba Yazbek and Iyad Abuheweila reporting from Jerusalem and Istanbul, April 16, 2024
A damaged building in Maghazi, central Gaza, on Monday. Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The Israeli military carried out assaults in several towns in northern Gaza on Monday night, according to accounts from residents and Palestinian news media, which described heavy bombardment and ground fighting that drove many families to evacuate the area.
Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, reported on Tuesday that Israeli forces were continuing for a second straight day to demand that all families leave the northern town of Beit Hanoun, and had made several arrests in the area.
The news agency said on Monday night that Israeli military vehicles had surrounded a school housing displaced families in Beit Hanoun and opened fire, and that several Palestinians had been killed or wounded after an airstrike on a mosque in the nearby Jabaliya area. In central Gaza City, Israeli bombardment early Tuesday left several people killed or injured, the agency said.
The reports could not be independently verified. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to questions about the fighting.
The objective of Israel’s attacks in northern Gaza — from which its forces had withdrawn earlier this year before returning in recent weeks — was not immediately clear.
The United Nations human rights office also said on Tuesday that there had been intense attacks in northern and central Gaza in recent days, pointing to reports that Israeli troops had opened fire on Gazans attempting to return to the north over the weekend, killing at least one Palestinian and injuring at least 11 others.
Emad Zaqout, a freelance journalist who lives in Jabaliya, said that Israeli ground forces and tanks were in Beit Hanoun and parts of Jabaliya, where heavy strikes were heard Monday night and early Tuesday as Israeli forces clashed with gunmen.
“It was a very heated night until the early hours of the morning,” Mr. Zaquot said in a phone call on Tuesday.
Mr. Zaqout said that before entering the area, the Israeli military had used recorded voice messages to order residents to move south, but he said that some had refused and had moved to other parts of northern Gaza instead.
The bombardment seemed to subside by Tuesday morning but Israeli tanks were still in the area and more residents were leaving, he said.
The Israeli military said on Tuesday that its forces were pressing on with an operation in central Gaza for a sixth day, reporting that it had killed several people it described as “terrorists” and had struck at “terrorist infrastructure.”
Nick Cumming-Bruce contributed reporting from Geneva.
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2) A U.N. panel says Israel is obstructing its investigation of the Oct. 7 attack.
By Nick Cumming-Bruce reporting from Geneva, April 16, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/16/world/iran-israel-gaza-war-news
Navi Pillay, right, who leads a U.N. commission created to look into possible human rights violations by Israel, with the Egyptian ambassador to the U.N., Ahmed Ihab Abdelahad Gamaleldin, in Geneva on Tuesday. Credit...Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Members of a United Nations commission said on Tuesday that Israel was obstructing their efforts to investigate possible human rights violations on Oct. 7 and in the ensuing war between Israel and Hamas. But they said the commission had still shared large amounts of evidence with the International Criminal Court.
“We have faced not merely a lack of cooperation but active obstruction of our efforts to receive evidence from Israeli witnesses and victims” related to the Oct. 7 attack, Chris Sidoti, one of three members of the commission, told a briefing for diplomats in Geneva. The commission was formed in 2021 to investigate human rights violations in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Israel has accused the commission of bias, and has said it would not cooperate with what it described as “an anti-Israeli, antisemitic body.”
It has not allowed the commission to visit Israel and the Palestinian territories, and in January it instructed Israeli medical personnel who treated released hostages and victims of the Oct. 7 attack not to cooperate with the panel, which is led by Navi Pillay, the former United Nations human rights chief.
Ms. Pillay said the commission had investigated crimes committed by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, as well as by Israeli forces in Gaza. She said that in line with the commission’s mandate from the U.N. Human Rights Council to seek accountability for such crimes, it had shared over 5,000 documents, including video and other material, with the I.C.C., which tries individuals on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The I.C.C. opened an investigation into potential crimes in Gaza and the West Bank in March 2021, but it has faced criticism from some lawyers for its lack of visible progress toward prosecutions. The court is not part of the U.N. system.
“We look forward to, and expect to see, progress on the I.C.C. investigations this year,” Ms. Pillay said.
The commission said that it had started collecting digital evidence early on the morning of Oct. 7, and that during missions to Egypt and Turkey it had interviewed Palestinians evacuated from Gaza for medical treatment and their family members.
The commission is set to report its findings on the Gaza conflict to the Human Rights Council in Geneva in June and to the U.N. General Assembly in October. But it has received additional mandates from the council to provide reports on Israeli settler violence and on arms deliveries to Israel, which it aims to deliver next year.
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3) Israeli settlers kill two Palestinians in the West Bank, officials say.
By Aaron Boxerman, April 16, 2024
Jihad Abu Aliya, 25, was killed in a mob attack, according to the village mayor. Credit...Nasser Nasser/Associated Press
Israeli settlers fatally shot two Palestinians in the West Bank on Monday, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials, as tensions continued to spike in the Israeli-occupied territory.
The Palestinian Authority Health Ministry identified the two men as Abdelrahman Bani Fadel, 30, and Mohammad Bani Jama, 21. The circumstances of their deaths near the town of Aqraba remained unclear.
The Israeli military said the two men had been killed during a “violent exchange” between Israeli settlers and Palestinians that followed a report of a Palestinian attacking an Israeli shepherd. An initial investigation indicated that the gunfire “did not originate” from Israeli soldiers, the military said.
The two Palestinians appeared to have been shot by Israeli settlers on the scene, said an Israeli security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was still underway.
The killings fed fears that the West Bank could become another front for a country already in its seventh month of war in the Gaza Strip.
About 500,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank live alongside roughly 2.7 million Palestinians under Israeli military occupation. Since the war began on Oct. 7, more than 400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces there and in East Jerusalem, according to the United Nations.
Over the past few days, a renewed wave of violence has swept through the West Bank.
On Friday, a 14-year-old Israeli teenager went missing, prompting Israeli settlers to riot inside a Palestinian village, Al Mughayir. Jihad Abu Aliya, a 25-year-old resident, was fatally shot during a mob attack, according to the village mayor, Amin Abu Aliya.
The teenager, Binyamin Achimair, was found dead on Saturday after an intensive search; Israeli officials said he had been murdered in an act of terrorism and vowed to track down the perpetrators. In response, Israeli settlers, some of them armed, conducted a series of mob assaults in Palestinian towns, torching homes and cars, according to Palestinian witnesses.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Israelis to allow security forces to search for Mr. Achimair’s killers, but he did not denounce the mob attacks against Palestinians. Human rights groups have long charged that Israel turns a blind eye to settler violence and rarely brings perpetrators to justice.
In footage distributed on Sunday by Yesh Din, an Israeli rights group that tracks Jewish extremist violence in the West Bank, hooded figures can be seen setting a car ablaze while Israeli soldiers watch nearby without intervening.
The United Nations human rights office said on Tuesday that Israeli security forces “must immediately end their active participation in and support for settler attacks on Palestinians.”
“Israeli authorities must instead prevent further attacks including by bringing those responsible to account,” said Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the office. “Those reasonably suspected of criminal acts, including murder or other unlawful killings, must be brought to justice,” she added.
Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, condemned Mr. Achimair’s killing in a statement on Monday. But he also said Washington was “increasingly concerned by the violence against Palestinian civilians and their property that ensued in the West Bank after Achimair’s disappearance.”
“We strongly condemn these murders, and our thoughts are with their loved ones,” Mr. Miller said. “ The violence must stop. Civilians are never legitimate targets.”
Nick Cumming-Bruce contributed reporting.
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4) U.N. report describes physical abuse and dire conditions in Israeli detention.
By Aaron Boxerman Reporting from Jerusalem, April 17, 2024
Israeli soldiers with Palestinian detainees in Gaza in December. The Israeli military reviewed this image as part of the conditions of allowing the photographer to accompany soldiers. Credit...Moti Milrod/Haaretz, via Associated Press
Gazans released from Israeli detention described graphic scenes of physical abuse in testimonies gathered by United Nations workers, according to a report released on Tuesday by UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.
Palestinian detainees described being made to sit on their knees for hours on end with their hands tied while blindfolded, being deprived of food and water and being urinated on, among other humiliations, the report said. Others described being badly beaten with metal bars or the butts of guns and boots, according to the report, or forced into cages and attacked by dogs.
The New York Times has not interviewed the witnesses who spoke to UNRWA aid workers and could not independently verify their accounts. None of the witnesses were quoted by name. Still, some of the testimonies in the report matched accounts provided to The Times by more than a dozen freed detainees and their relatives in January, who spoke of beatings and harsh interrogations.
Israeli forces have arrested thousands of Gazans during their six-month campaign against Hamas, the Palestinian armed group. The Israeli military says it arrests those suspected of involvement in Hamas and other groups, but women, children and older people have also been detained, according to the UNRWA report.
The Israeli military and the Israeli prime minister’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the report. But asked about similar accusations of abuse in the past, Israeli officials have said that detainees are held according to the law and that their basic rights are respected.
UNRWA staff gathered testimonies from more than 100 released Gazans arriving at the Kerem Shalom crossing over several months. Palestinian medics would occasionally rush freed prisoners who were injured or ill directly to area hospitals, the report said, adding that they sometimes bore “signs of trauma and ill-treatment.”
Many of the detainees are taken to military holding facilities inside Israel, from which many of them are then funneled into Israel’s civilian prisons. At least 1,500 detainees had been released by the Israeli authorities at Kerem Shalom as of April 4, the report said.
The detainees’ treatment in prison included “being subjected to beatings while made to lie on a thin mattress on top of rubble for hours without food, water or access to a toilet, with their legs and hands bound with plastic ties,” the UNRWA report said.
In the report, one freed prisoner described how an Israeli officer threatened to kill her whole family in an airstrike if she did not provide the Israelis with more information. Another said he had been forced to sit on an electrical probe that burned his anus.
Some freed Gazans told aid workers that they had been beaten on their genitals, aggressively searched and sexually groped, the UNRWA report said. Women said they had been forced to strip in front of male officers, the report said, suggesting that some of the incidents “may amount to sexual violence and harassment.”
When presented with the findings in a draft of the UNRWA report that was leaked last month, the Israeli military said that all mistreatment of detainees was “absolutely prohibited,” adding that all “concrete complaints regarding inappropriate behavior are forwarded to the relevant authorities for review.” It said medical care was readily available for all detainees and that mistreatment of detainees “violates I.D.F. values.”
The Israeli military said last month that it was aware of the deaths of 27 Palestinians in its custody, at least some of whom were already wounded. And at least 10 Palestinians, mostly from the West Bank, have died in Israel’s civilian prison system since Oct. 7, according to the official Palestinian prisoners’ commission and Israeli rights groups, including Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, whose doctors attended some of the autopsies.
UNRWA, a key provider of humanitarian assistance in Gaza, has come under scrutiny in recent months after Israel accused it of harboring numerous Hamas members in its ranks. Major foreign donors, including the United States, subsequently suspended their funding for the agency, although some have since resumed it.
Israel has said that at least 30 of the group’s 13,000 staffers in Gaza participated in the Hamas-led assault on Israel on Oct. 7 or its aftermath.
In response to the accusations, UNRWA fired staff members who were accused of being Hamas members. Two investigations have been opened into the allegations — one by the U.N.’s internal investigations body and another by independent reviewers appointed by the U.N. secretary general.
In the report released on Tuesday, UNRWA said some of its own staff members had been beaten, threatened, stripped, humiliated and abused while being detained by the Israeli authorities. It said that during interrogations, they were pressured to say that UNRWA had affiliations with Hamas and that its staff members took part in the Oct. 7 attack.
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5) Here’s where Israel’s military offensive in Gaza stands.
By Matthew Mpoke Bigg, April 17, 2024
Mourning over the bodies of relatives in Rafah, in southern Gaza, on Tuesday, April 16, 2024. Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Iran’s attack on Israel has shifted focus from the war in Gaza, but Israeli military operations press on there with the aim of eliminating Hamas, the armed group that controlled the territory before the fighting began.
Israel’s military launched its assault in Gaza after Oct. 7, when Hamas led an attack that Israeli authorities say killed around 1,200 people. Israel said its aims were to defeat Hamas and free the hostages taken that day, around 100 of whom remain in Gaza. Local health authorities say the war has killed more than 33,000 people, and the United Nations says the population is on the brink of famine.
Here is a look at where the military conflict stands:
Southern Gaza
Israel withdrew its forces from southern Gaza this month, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the military still plans to invade Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, to “complete the elimination of Hamas’s battalions” and to destroy its tunnel networks.
The timing of any operation in Rafah, on the border with Egypt, is unclear. President Biden is among many world leaders who have urged Israel not to invade the city because of the harm it could cause civilians. Rafah’s population has swelled to over a million, as people have flocked there for shelter from fighting elsewhere, and border crossings in southern Gaza are a main conduit for humanitarian aid.
Northern Gaza
Israel began its ground invasion in northern Gaza in late October, urging civilians to leave. Much of the north, including Gaza City, has been destroyed by airstrikes and ground combat. Israel began to pull its forces from northern Gaza in January, saying it had dismantled Hamas’s military structure there.
In March, however, Israeli troops mounted an operation at Al-Shifa Hospital, in Gaza City, where it said Hamas fighters had returned. Israeli troops said they had killed about 200 fighters and captured 500 more. The hospital, once Gaza’s largest, was left in ruins.
Some analysts said the raid showed that by leaving northern Gaza without a plan in place for governing the area, Israel had made it possible for Hamas to return. At the same time, some civilians who had fled south and attempted to return via a coastal road said this week that Israeli forces had fired on them. Their testimony could not be independently confirmed.
Central Gaza
The Israeli troops that remain in Gaza are mainly guarding a road that the military has built across the center of the strip to facilitate its operations. The Institute for the Study of War, a research group, said that was consistent with Israel’s plans to shift to a strategy of more targeted raids rather than wider assaults.
Israel retains the capacity to launch airstrikes anywhere in Gaza and it has conducted several around the central city of Deir al Balah. This month, Israeli planes attacked a convoy of the World Central Kitchen charity near the city, killing seven aid workers. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has said that Israel regrets the strikes.
Across the territory
Experts say the Israeli military has had considerable success in dismantling Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has broken the strength of most of its battalions with tens of thousands of airstrikes and ground combat, said Robert Blecher, an expert at the International Crisis Group think tank.
Israel has also killed at least one of Hamas’s top commanders and has destroyed some of the tunnels in which the group operates. But Hamas retains significant organizational and military capacity, particularly in southern Gaza where its tunnel network acts as a shield, and its leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, is still at large.
“Israel has done a good job of disabling those stronger battalions,” Mr. Blecher said, but he added: “Hamas is going to remain as an insurgent force.”
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6) VW Workers in Tennessee Start Vote on U.A.W., Testing Union Ambitions
The United Automobile Workers hopes contract gains at the Big Three carmakers will provide momentum in a broad effort to organize nonunion plants.
By Neal E. Boudette, April 17, 2024
Last fall the United Automobile Workers union won big pay increases from the Detroit automakers, and the impact rippled quickly through the nonunion auto plants scattered across the South.
Afterward, Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen, Nissan, Hyundai and Tesla raised wages for their own hourly workers in the United States, none of whom are unionized. On production lines in Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and elsewhere, those pay increases have been referred to as the “U.A.W. bump.”
Now 4,300 workers at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., will test whether the union can achieve an even greater bump. On Wednesday, they begin voting on whether to join the U.A.W., and the prospects of a union victory appear high. About 70 percent of the workers pledged to vote yes before the union asked for a vote, according to the U.A.W.
“I think our chances are excellent,” said Kelcey Smith, 48, who has worked in the VW plant’s paint department for a year and is a member of a committee working to build support for the U.A.W. “The energy is high. I think we are going to nail it.”
Volkswagen has presented reasons it believes a union is not needed at the plant, including pay that is above average for the Chattanooga region. But it has also said it encourages all workers to vote in the election, which is to conclude on Friday, and decide for themselves. “No one will lose their job for voting for or against the union,” a company spokesman said.
The stakes go beyond the Tennessee plant, Volkswagen’s only U.S. factory. A victory there would add fuel to the U.A.W.’s push to extend its presence to the more than two dozen nonunion auto plants in the United States, mostly clustered in Southern states where union resistance has been strong historically, and where right-to-work laws make it hard for unions to organize workers.
The U.A.W.’s chances beyond the Volkswagen factory are unclear. Japanese and South Korean automakers have demonstrated more forceful opposition to the U.A.W. than the German companies. Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, has spoken out against the U.A.W. on several occasions over the last few years.
And on Tuesday, the Republican governors of six states — Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas — denounced the U.A.W. drive, saying in a statement that they were “highly concerned about the unionization campaign driven by misinformation and scare tactics that the U.A.W. has brought into our states.”
“We have worked tirelessly on behalf of our constituents to bring good-paying jobs to our states,” the governors declared. “These jobs have become part of the fabric of the automotive manufacturing industry. Unionization would certainly put our states’ jobs in jeopardy.”
The vote at VW will be followed by another election — as yet unscheduled — at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Ala., where the U.A.W. says a majority of workers have signed up to back the union.
The U.A.W. says victories at VW, Mercedes and other plants would bring increased wages, richer benefits and higher living standards for tens of thousands of workers, many of them in the nation’s poorer counties.
Widespread unionizing in the Southern plants would also help level a playing field that for nearly half a century has been tilted against the three unionized Detroit manufacturers — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler. In operating nonunion factories, foreign-owned companies have a significant labor-cost advantage over their U.S.-based rivals.
“It would be a revolution for the U.A.W. and for the auto industry,” said Harley Shaiken, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, who has followed the U.A.W. for more than three decades. “It would break the glass ceiling for unions in the South, and would mean more purchasing power for working-class people in that region.”
The U.A.W. has organized several heavy-truck and bus plants in the South, but for decades has tried and failed to do the same at automobile factories, which are typically larger.
The vote at VW will be followed by another election — as yet unscheduled — at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Ala., where the U.A.W. says a majority of workers have signed up to back the union.
The U.A.W. says victories at VW, Mercedes and other plants would bring increased wages, richer benefits and higher living standards for tens of thousands of workers, many of them in the nation’s poorer counties.
Widespread unionizing in the Southern plants would also help level a playing field that for nearly half a century has been tilted against the three unionized Detroit manufacturers — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler. In operating nonunion factories, foreign-owned companies have a significant labor-cost advantage over their U.S.-based rivals.
“It would be a revolution for the U.A.W. and for the auto industry,” said Harley Shaiken, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, who has followed the U.A.W. for more than three decades. “It would break the glass ceiling for unions in the South, and would mean more purchasing power for working-class people in that region.”
The U.A.W. has organized several heavy-truck and bus plants in the South, but for decades has tried and failed to do the same at automobile factories, which are typically larger.
The VW election is the union’s third try at the plant. Workers rejected U.A.W. representation by a vote of 712 to 626 in 2014, and by an even narrower margin, 833 to 776, in 2019. Opposition from Republican elected officials in Tennessee was vociferous in those campaigns.
In the last 10 years, the U.A.W. also lost in a 2017 vote at a Nissan plant in Canton, Miss., and an organizing drive at the Mercedes plant fizzled without an election.
In those efforts, the U.A.W. was hampered by a dubious track record and a questionable reputation. Over nearly 30 years, the Detroit automakers closed dozens of plants, eliminating tens of thousands of hourly jobs, despite the U.A.W.’s objections. Some industry executives have blamed high union wages, in part, for pushing G.M. and Chrysler into bankruptcy in 2009. In addition, the union was racked by corruption scandals that resulted in prison sentences for two former presidents and about a dozen other senior U.A.W. officials.
In the past two years, however, the U.A.W. has undergone a transformation. Financial reforms and transparency measures overseen by a federal monitor have helped root out corruption. A feisty president, Shawn Fain, was chosen in the union’s first direct election by the membership. In the contract negotiations last year with G.M., Ford and Stellantis, Mr. Fain used a new approach, choosing all three companies as strike targets but shutting down only selected plants, which put pressure on the companies without crippling them or damaging the broader U.S. economy.
After six weeks, the union had contracts raising the top wage 25 percent, to more than $40 an hour. Pay for workers lower on the wage scale will rise to the top wage over three years instead of eight. Some will see their pay double. A worker putting in 40 hours a week at the top wage will earn about $83,000 a year. In recent years, profit-sharing bonuses have added about $9,000 to $14,000.
On top of that, the new contracts provide wage adjustments if inflation pushes the cost of living higher, improved pensions and retirement benefits, and increased paid time off. U.A.W. workers have also long had company-paid health care with no deductibles or co-payments.
Hourly wages at the nonunion auto plants used to start under $20 and top out around $32. The “U.A.W. bump” lifted the range to roughly $22 to $35. Volkswagen said its workers typically earned about $60,000 a year. (The annual mean wage for all occupations in the Chattanooga area was $54,480 in May, according to the U.S. Labor Department.)
Seizing on momentum from the Big Three negotiations, Mr. Fain said, the union will spend $40 million through 2026 to support organizing at plants owned by Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes, Subaru, Volkswagen, Mazda, Volvo and Tesla, as well as others owned by the electric vehicle start-ups Rivian and Lucid Motors.
VW workers who support the U.A.W. say their wages are pretty good for Tennessee but point 300 miles north to Louisville, Ky., where Ford pays many workers more than $40 an hour to make the Expedition sport utility vehicle, which competes with the VW Atlas made in Chattanooga.
“If Ford can pay that much, why can’t Volkswagen pay us the same?” said Isaac Meadows, 40, a father of six who has worked at the VW plant for 14 months. “We have more worth than they’re paying us.”
There are concerns beyond the hourly wage. Workers must use paid time off if they want to be paid during two periods when the plant shuts down around the year-end holidays and in summer.
Once he covers the shutdowns with vacation days, Mr. Meadows said, he is left with about 16 hours of paid time off to cover any family events or sick days for the rest of the year. “I miss my kids’ dances, sporting events, family gatherings,” he said. “I miss a lot because I’ve got to work.”
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7) The Israeli Censorship Regime Is Growing. That Needs to Stop.
By Jodie Ginsberg, April 17, 2024
Ms. Ginsberg is the chief executive of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Dadu Shin
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, newsrooms across the world scrambled to send their reporters to the front lines. Journalists gave the international public firsthand experience of the conflict. Air raid sirens blared during live on-air reports. Reporters flinched at nearby explosions. They brought the world to the heart of the fighting: “20 Days in Mariupol,” a documentary that showcased an Associated Press report on the attack on the city, won an Oscar last month. That report, among other things, helped debunk Russian claims that the bombing of a maternity hospital, in which three people were killed, was “staged.”
No such international coverage has been possible a thousand miles away in Gaza, where war has claimed the lives of more than 33,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel that left some 1,200 Israelis dead, according to the government.
Though international media workers rushed to Israel (it has granted accreditation to at least 2,800 correspondents since the war started), none have been allowed into Gaza except on a handful of tightly controlled tours led by the Israeli military. As a result, for the past six months, the world has been almost entirely reliant on the reporting of local Palestinian journalists for on-site information about the impact of the war — along with mostly unverified social media posts that have flooded the information space since its start.
The refusal to allow international media to cover Gaza from the inside is just one element of a growing censorship regime that leaves a vacuum for propaganda, mis- and disinformation, and claims and counterclaims that are extraordinarily difficult to verify independently. A CNN report on the so-called Flour Massacre — the deadly aid delivery that the Gazan Health Ministry said killed 100 people and injured 700 — for example, cast doubt on Israel’s version of events. But it took more than a month to piece together that evidence from eyewitness testimonies and after scouring dozens of videos.
Outside media access would enable journalists to more rapidly verify Israel’s claims that Hamas is seizing or stopping food aid or that it has used hospitals to shield its fighters. It could also help the world better understand the nature of Hamas’s tunnel system, which Israel says extends under civilian infrastructure, and the level of support for its leadership.
Free access could enable us to better understand whether Israel has deliberately fired on children, which it denies, and the extent of the famine that aid agencies report is spreading through northern Gaza. It would shed light on the killings of at least 95 journalists and other media workers that my organization, the Committee to Protect Journalists, has documented since the start of the war — the most dangerous conflict for reporters and media workers since we began keeping records in 1992.
Israel champions itself as a democracy and a bastion of press freedom in the region. Its actions tell a very different story. The high rate of journalists’ deaths and arrests, including a slew in the West Bank; laws allowing its government to shut down foreign news outlets deemed a security risk, which the prime minister has explicitly threatened to use against Al Jazeera; and its refusal to permit foreign journalists independent access to Gaza all speak to a leadership that is deliberately restricting press freedom. That is the hallmark of a dictatorship, not a democracy.
Israel’s allies, too, pride themselves on their commitment to a free press. The United States, Britain and other Israeli allies like Germany all loudly proclaim their commitment to a pluralistic and independent media. Their governments explicitly support news outlets that broadcast information into and about countries that censor and control information, such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is funded by the U.S. Congress. A government that has made explicit formal commitments to defend media freedom at home and abroad should be equally explicit in calling on Israel and Egypt to allow international journalists access to Gaza.
Banning journalists is an often used strategy: Russia heavily restricted international reporters’ entry into Chechnya during its war there, and Syria also largely barred foreign reporters during its civil war. But as one experienced war correspondent told me, “We could always find a way to sneak in.” That has not been possible in this war, with both Egypt and Israel preventing nearly all unsupervised foreign access and concerns abounding that journalists and other noncombatants may be targeted even when clearly marked — as evidenced by the killing of World Central Kitchen aid workers this month despite working in a so-called deconflicted zone and having communicated their movements to Israeli officials.
To be sure, governments waging war can make a legitimate argument that conflict zones are too dangerous for journalists and that protecting them would be too hard or even endanger troops. And Hamas in its rule over Gaza was no beacon of press freedom, banning news outlets and arresting journalists. But at least since the middle of the 19th century, with the Crimean War and the American Civil War, armies have given some kind of regular, if controlled, access to battle zones.
Journalists in Gaza are reporting under excruciating conditions that few of even the most seasoned war reporters have ever experienced: no food, no shelter, telecommunications blackouts, and routine destruction of professional equipment and facilities.
“From the first day, it has been impossible to comprehensively cover the war,” Diaa Al-Kahlout, a Gaza-based journalist, recently told the Committee to Protect Journalists. Bombings and communications blackouts stopped stories from getting out, he said. “What was shared were just bits of breaking news, and the deeper stories were lost or silenced because journalists were targeted, there was no security, and essential supplies like electricity and the internet, and work tools like laptops, were missing.” Mr. Al-Kahlout was himself detained by Israeli forces in a mass arrest and held for 33 days in custody, during which time he said he was interrogated about his journalism and subjected to physical and psychological mistreatment.
Israel frequently brands journalists as terrorists and sympathizers, encouraging the public to question these journalists’ veracity. Having journalists from outside Gaza would help counter such claims. Without them, Palestinian journalists will continue to bear the full risks — and responsibility — of reporting this conflict.
Governments and military regimes the world over like to say that censorship — including outside of war settings — is necessary to protect national security. In fact, the opposite is true. Without independent witnesses to war, atrocities can be enacted with impunity on all sides. Israel must open Gaza to journalists, and Israel’s allies must insist on it. Justice and democracy depend on it.
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8) A Gazan describes losing four nieces and nephews in an attack that killed children playing in the street.
By Anushka Patil and Abu Bakr Bashir, April 18, 2024
The children of the Abu Jayyab family in the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza were hoping for a brief respite from Israel’s bombardment.
Their parents had allowed them to play outdoors, and a group of siblings, cousins and other children were gathered around a foosball table on Tuesday when an attack hit the street.
Four members of the extended family, ranging in age from 3 to 18 years old, were killed, according to Yousef Abu Jayyab, their 24-year-old uncle. Three more were left in critical condition.
Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, said the strike was an Israeli attack that killed at least 11 people, many of them children. The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Abu Jayyab said the strike hit less than 10 meters from where the children were playing. “One strike, but that was enough to kill them,” he said.
Footage verified by The New York Times shows the chaotic aftermath of the strike, with a stream of injured children being carried away by bystanders, abandoned shoes lying in puddles of blood and bodies and debris in front of the foosball table.
At the Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, photos from The Associated Press show one stretcher arriving with the bodies of two children, one on top of the other, as other children watched in distress.
Mr. Abu Jayyab, a student who lives in the nearby Nuseirat refugee camp, said he rushed to the hospital to search for relatives after he learned of the attack.
In the hospital’s morgue, he found the body of his niece, 9-year-old Luji. Mr. Abu Jayyab said Luji had been eager to meet the new baby that her parents, Mr. Abu Jayyab’s brother and sister-in-law, were expecting. In his grief, Luji’s father decided they would name the baby after her, Mr. Abu Jayyab said.
By the time Mr. Abu Jayyab and his brother had buried Luji and returned to the hospital, they learned that her 3-year-old sister, Mila, had also died from her injuries.
Luji and Mila’s only surviving sibling, 7-year-old Ahmed, was injured in the strike and remains in critical condition. “Doctors say he needs a miracle to survive, and we should prepare ourselves for the bad news,” Mr. Abu Jayyab said in a phone interview.
Two of the girls’ cousins, 15-year-old Ahmed and 18-year-old Abdullah, as well as a 60-year-old neighbor were also killed in the strike, Mr. Abu Jayyab said. Two other cousins in the family were severely injured.
More than 33,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s military offensive began Oct. 7, including nearly 14,000 children, according to local health officials and the United Nations.
Aric Toler contributed reporting.
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9) Google fires 28 employees involved in a protest of an Israeli cloud contract.
By Nico Grant Nico Grant reports on Google from San Francisco, April 18, 2024
A protest on Tuesday in a parking lot in Sunnyvale, Calif., near the Google Cloud offices. Credit...Nathan Frandino/Reuters
Google on Wednesday fired 28 workers after dozens of employees participated in sit-ins at the company’s New York and Sunnyvale, Calif., offices to protest the company’s cloud computing contract with the Israeli government.
A day earlier, nine employees were arrested on charges of trespassing at the two offices.
“Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and completely unacceptable behavior,” a Google spokeswoman said in a statement.
Years before the dismissals, tensions had been simmering between the company’s management and some activist employees over Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion Google and Amazon deal to supply the Israeli government with cloud services, such as artificial intelligence.
That discord had deepened since the war in Gaza began in October. Google recently fired an employee who disrupted an Israeli technology conference in New York. And the company is even planning to make changes to a corporate forum because employees were bickering about the conflict.
Google said it would continue to investigate the Tuesday protests. In Sunnyvale, employees refused to leave the office of Thomas Kurian, the chief executive of Google Cloud.
Google employees affiliated with the group that organized the sit-ins, called No Tech For Apartheid, said in a statement that the firings were “a flagrant act of retaliation.”
“Google workers have the right to peacefully protest about terms and conditions of our labor,” the employees said. They added that some of the employees Google fired had not participated in the sit-ins.
The Nimbus contract, announced in 2021, was to supply various Israeli government ministries with cloud software. Since the contract’s inception, some Google employees have expressed concern that the company was aiding Israel’s military.
A Google spokeswoman said that Nimbus “is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.”
In 2018, Google workers successfully pushed the company to end a deal with the U.S. Defense Department. Called Project Maven, it would have helped the military analyze drone videos.
Employees who have taken part in Nimbus activism said in their statement that they would continue protesting “until the company drops Project Nimbus.”
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10) The U.N. seeks $2.8 billion in donations for the response to the crisis in Gaza.
By Liam Stack, April 18, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/18/world/iran-israel-gaza-war-news#un-seeks-2-8-billion-in-donations-for-response-to-gaza-crisis
Smoke rising over Rafah, southern Gaza, last month. Credit...Said Khatib/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The scale of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza — and the difficulties faced by aid workers responding to it — goes “beyond what has been seen before” in other conflicts, the United Nations said on Wednesday.
The cost of addressing it may be similarly staggering.
The U.N. said its agencies and other aid groups would need more than $2.8 billion from their donors to continue their response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza for the rest of the year.
“Widespread destruction. Multiple mass displacements. Looming famine. Collapsed health system,” the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement. “Every day is a struggle for survival for people in Gaza, as the war rages on and needs deepen.”
The amount requested, $2.8 billion, is only a portion of what the U.N. has estimated the full price tag of responding to the crisis to be: $4.089 billion. A majority of the money requested ($2.5 billion) would pay for relief work in Gaza, while a smaller amount ($297.6 million) would go to the West Bank, where violence has flared for months.
The U.N. scaled down its funding request to $2.8 billion needed to pay only for operations that appeared to be achievable in the next nine months, during which it assumed “many of the current security concerns and access limitations will continue.”
The war in Gaza began after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, which Israeli officials said killed roughly 1,200 people. Since then, the distribution of aid in Gaza has been hobbled by a cascade of restrictions and dangers.
More than 200 aid workers have been killed during the conflict, a vast majority of them Palestinians from Gaza, according to U.N. Secretary General António Guterres. Earlier this month, seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen, including six foreigners, were killed in a series of airstrikes on their convoy.
Their deaths started an international outcry and led to an internal investigation by the Israeli military, which reprimanded the personnel responsible for the strikes and said their killings were a mistake.
In the early months of the war, Israel imposed a near-total blockade on goods going into the Gaza Strip, including humanitarian assistance. It eventually relented, but insisted that entering shipments be meticulously inspected, and it barred a wide range of items, like scissors, that it said could have a potential military use.
Aid groups have said that whole trucks of aid have been turned away by Israeli inspectors because a single item on board was determined to have a possible military use. Groups are sometimes not told what the item was or why it was rejected, they say.
Israel has also accused Hamas of diverting aid. But American officials, including Samantha Power, the director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, and David Satterfield, the U.S. special envoy for humanitarian issues in the Middle East, have said there is no evidence for that claim.
The U.N. demanded that Israel improve the conditions under which aid is delivered, including by guaranteeing aid workers safe access to people in need, increasing the number of entry points and secure roads for humanitarian supplies, and improving the ability of aid workers to safely move around in Gaza.
In recent weeks, Israel has been eager to show that more aid is flowing into Gaza, and it has also been keen to blame the U.N. for delays in its distribution.
This week, Israel said that 553 aid trucks passed through the Kerem Shalom and the Nitzana border crossings and that 126 trucks were permitted to travel from southern Gaza to northern Gaza.
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11) Black Prisoners Face Higher Rate of Botched Executions, Study Finds
Lethal injections of Black people in the United States were botched more than twice as often as those of white people, according to a report from an anti-death-penalty group.
By Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, April 18, 2024
Demonstrators outside William C. Holman Prison in Atmore, Ala., in the hours before the scheduled execution of Kenneth Smith this year. Smith was the first prisoner in the nation to be executed using nitrogen gas. Credit...Edmund D. Fountain for The New York Times
As Clayton Lockett lay on an execution table in Oklahoma in 2014 awaiting his death, medical officials struggled to gain access to a vein to administer a lethal injection. They inserted needles in his arms, his neck, his chest and eventually his groin, where they mistakenly struck an artery. The prison warden later described it as “a bloody mess.”
The execution was called off, but with most of the drugs having already been injected, Mr. Lockett was pronounced dead on the table about 20 minutes later. Mr. Lockett’s case spurred Oklahoma to overhaul its execution protocols and, months later, the state stopped carrying out the death penalty for several years.
But a new report released by an anti-death-penalty group on Thursday suggests that the botched execution is also part of a disturbing, nationwide pattern: Executioners have botched the lethal injections of Black people, like Mr. Lockett, more than twice as often as those of white prisoners, the report said.
That finding builds on a wealth of research into racial disparities in how the U.S. judicial system administers the death penalty. The proportion of Black people on death rows is far higher than their share of the population as a whole, and one study in Philadelphia found that the people most likely to receive death sentences were Black defendants convicted of killing victims who were not Black.
The new report, from Reprieve, a human rights group that opposes the death penalty, adds to that previous research with findings that the likelihood of a botched lethal injection is also higher for Black people on death row.
“We know that there’s racism in the criminal justice system,” said Maya Foa, an executive director of Reprieve. “We know it’s there in the capital punishment system, from who gets arrested, who gets sentenced, all of it. This is, though, the first time that it’s been looked at in the context of the execution itself.”
She said the extent of the disparity found by the researchers, Reprieve staff members, was “really alarming.”
The group was not able to explain why Black prisoners had suffered botched executions at a higher rate, saying that more research was needed. Reprieve also said that there appeared to be “no easy answers,” adding that “across the botched executions studied, similar issues arose whether the execution was of a Black person or a white person.”
Austin Sarat, a professor at Amherst College in Massachusetts who has long studied the death penalty, said the new research was “an enormous step forward in understanding the pervasiveness and influence of race” in how the death penalty is carried out. Professor Sarat, who saw the report but did not work on it, said it appeared that racial biases that harm Black people in other contexts, such as in medical care or policing, also do so in execution rooms.
“The finding doesn’t surprise me, in the context of what we know about the disparities throughout society,” he said. “Here is now another instance.”
Two other prominent experts in race and the death penalty, Stephen Bright at Yale Law School and Jennifer L. Eberhardt at Stanford University, said the findings were intriguing and that more research was needed to explain them.
Professor Eberhardt was the lead author of a landmark 2006 study that found that, in criminal cases with white victims, defendants perceived as looking more “stereotypically Black” were more likely to be sentenced to death. She said she could not immediately think of any previous research that could explain the disparity in botched executions.
Dr. Ervin Yen, an anesthesiologist and former Republican state senator in Oklahoma who has witnessed 11 executions for the state but does not actively participate, said several factors can make it more difficult to insert an intravenous line. They include the patient’s being overweight or having a history of injecting drugs, he said.
Dr. Yen, who said he has started “zillions of IVs” in medical settings, said that it can sometimes be harder to get access to veins on people with darker skin because the veins can be less visible. He said more research should be done to pursue an explanation for the report’s findings.
The report’s authors also encouraged more research, writing that it should “be considered in the context of extensively documented racism in the U.S. capital punishment system.”
Executions have declined since their modern peak, in 1999, and only five states carried out executions in 2023, but how exactly lethal injections are administered has come under increased scrutiny as states encounter problems getting reliable drugs from pharmaceutical companies and reports proliferate of executions gone awry.
Alabama and Oklahoma have in recent years imposed temporary moratoriums on executions after failed lethal injections, including Mr. Lockett’s. The Death Penalty Information Center said that more than a third of execution attempts were mishandled in 2022, and researchers there described it as “the year of the botched execution.”
Problems with accessing drugs and carrying out executions with them were part of what led Alabama, this year, to carry out the first execution in the United States using nitrogen gas. Several witnesses described the execution as not going according to plan, though the state defended it as a “textbook” procedure.
In the new report, researchers studied 1,407 lethal injection attempts from 1977 through 2023 and looked for signs that the execution was botched, like if a person appeared to be conscious after the lethal drug or drugs were injected; if there was a problem inserting an intravenous line; or if a person reacted unexpectedly, such as by vomiting.
The executions that the report labeled “botched” ranged widely. In one case, it was merely delayed by “several minutes” as staff members tried to find a suitable vein for a backup needle. Others, like Mr. Lockett’s, were far more grisly.
The report concluded that 37 of 465 executions of Black people were botched — about 8 percent — compared with 28 out of 780, or about 3.6 percent, of those of white people. Even accounting for age and gender, the researchers said, executions of Black people were more than twice as likely to be botched than those of white people.
The researchers said they did not come to any statistically significant conclusions about the executions of Latino prisoners. Their analysis also showed that one-fifth of the 20 executions of American Indian or Alaska Native people were botched, but that the finding was not examined closely because of the small sample size.
In the new report, researchers studied 1,407 lethal injection attempts from 1977 through 2023 and looked for signs that the execution was botched, like if a person appeared to be conscious after the lethal drug or drugs were injected; if there was a problem inserting an intravenous line; or if a person reacted unexpectedly, such as by vomiting.
The executions that the report labeled “botched” ranged widely. In one case, it was merely delayed by “several minutes” as staff members tried to find a suitable vein for a backup needle. Others, like Mr. Lockett’s, were far more grisly.
The report concluded that 37 of 465 executions of Black people were botched — about 8 percent — compared with 28 out of 780, or about 3.6 percent, of those of white people. Even accounting for age and gender, the researchers said, executions of Black people were more than twice as likely to be botched than those of white people.
The researchers said they did not come to any statistically significant conclusions about the executions of Latino prisoners. Their analysis also showed that one-fifth of the 20 executions of American Indian or Alaska Native people were botched, but that the finding was not examined closely because of the small sample size.
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