Sen. Elizabeth Warren warned Sunday that Donald Trump will aggressively pursue a national abortion ban if elected to another term after the former president and presumptive 2024 GOP nominee boasted about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade — a move that opened the floodgates for draconian attacks on reproductive rights across the country. Trump nominated three of the five Supreme…
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Gaza health officials said Thursday that Israeli forces killed at least 20 people and injured over 150 more as they waited for humanitarian aid in the northern part of the Palestinian enclave, where deliveries of food, medicine, and other necessities have become virtually impossible due to Israel’s persistent obstruction and attacks. Mohammed Ghurab, the director of emergency services at a…
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This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on March 14, 2024. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
A report published Thursday shows that major fossil fuel companies such as Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, and BP are playing a key role in propelling Israel’s devastating military assault on Gaza, facilitating the country’s supply of energy that powers Israeli jets and tanks as they bomb and shell civilians.
The new research, conducted by Data Desk and commissioned by the advocacy group Oil Change International, examines the sources of Israeli jet fuel and crude imports in an effort to shine light on the web of countries and corporations implicated in the war on the Gaza Strip.
Israel, which relies heavily on oil imports, has received at least three tankers of jet fuel from the United States since the start of the war, the research shows. A number of countries—including nations whose leaders have criticized the assault on Gaza—have continued supplying Israel with crude oil during its military campaign, which has killed more than 31,000 people in less than six months and sparked a horrific humanitarian crisis.
Israel gets “relatively small but regular shipments of crude oil via the SUMED pipeline,” which “receives crude oil from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Iraq, and from Egypt through which the pipeline travels,” the report notes.
“Countries and major oil companies fueling Israel’s war machine are complicit in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.”
Data Desk’s analysis confirms that the diesel and gasoline Israel uses to fuel its tanks and other military vehicles are generated by the country’s own refineries, but those facilities rely on imports from Russia, Brazil, Azerbaijan, and elsewhere.
“Major international oil and gas companies complicit in facilitating these supplies of crude oil include: BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, Eni, and TotalEnergies,” the report says.
The research points to several specific pipelines that deliver crude to Israel, including Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC).
BP operates the BTC pipeline and Exxon, TotalEnergies, and other prominent oil companies are shareholders. Chevron owns the largest stake in the CPC pipeline.
Allie Rosenbluth, U.S. program manager at Oil Change International, urged countries to “leverage their oil supply as a means to demand an immediate cease-fire and an end to the occupation.”
“Countries and major oil companies fueling Israel’s war machine are complicit in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people,” said Rosenbluth. “By directly fueling Israel’s military, on top of over a hundred other weapons sales, the U.S. in particular must be held accountable for potential violations of international law.”
Human rights organizations have been calling for an arms embargo on Israel for months, but less attention has been paid to the country’s energy supply.
In late February, a coalition of Palestinian advocacy organizations stressed that “energy supplies are instrumental to Israel’s war machine: to operate its army tanks, armored personnel carriers, ships, and military bulldozers, including specialist jet fuel that allows Israeli jets to rain death and destruction down on Gaza.”
The groups called on governments around the world to immediately halt all energy exports to Israel and implored workers and activists to do everything in their power to “disrupt the flow of energy making Israel’s genocide possible.”
Mahmoud Nawajaa, general coordinator of the Palestinian BDS National Committee, said in response to the new report Thursday that “states and companies that continue to provide Israel with fuel for its military forces are directly complicit in supporting its ongoing genocide.”
“The BDS movement, which is already targeting Chevron with a growing global boycott and divestment campaign, will expose and target the complicit states and corporations mentioned in this valuable report,” Nawajaa added.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday introduced legislation that would establish a 32-hour workweek in the U.S. with no loss of pay, a change the Vermont senator said is necessary to ensure the working class benefits from massive productivity gains and technological advances. A 32-hour workweek “is not a radical idea,” Sanders, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP)…
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More than 48,000 voters and counting marked “uncommitted delegates” on their ballots in Washington state’s Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday, far surpassing organizers’ expectations and further showing that President Joe Biden’s unconditional support for Israel’s war on Gaza has angered significant chunks of his base. Washington is one of several U.S. states that have adopted universal…
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A group of senators said Tuesday that under U.S. law, the Biden administration must cut off American military assistance to Israel unless the Netanyahu government immediately stops impeding aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip, where children are dying of starvation after months of incessant Israeli bombing and attacks on humanitarian convoys. “The severe humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza is…
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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…
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Flanked by photos of hungry children and destroyed buildings, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders said in a speech Wednesday that the Biden administration must stop merely asking the Israeli government to halt its indiscriminate bombing of Gaza and begin using real leverage to bring about an end to the war and ensure the free flow of aid to the territory’s starving population. “The U.S.
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The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees told the U.N. General Assembly on Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies are intentionally trying to decimate the critical aid body as mass starvation looms in the Gaza Strip. “UNRWA is facing a deliberate and concerted campaign to undermine its operations, and ultimately end them,” said Philippe Lazzarini…
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Pakistani lawmakers on Sunday elected Shehbaz Sharif to serve a second term as the country’s prime minister following elections last month that were widely decried as illegitimate, with top officials and the military manipulating the vote and cracking down on the party of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan — the nation’s most popular politician. The election of Sharif, the younger brother of…
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The youth-led Sunrise Movement on Friday panned the Biden administration’s decision to delay a regulatory crackdown on existing gas-fired power plants by exempting the major polluters from a forthcoming rule aimed at curbing planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. E&E News, which first reported the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) move, noted that the delay “could push a major part of the…
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The United States on Thursday unilaterally blocked a United Nations Security Council statement that would have expressed “deep concern” over the Israeli military’s killing of Gazans seeking food aid earlier in the day, an attack that drew global condemnation. According to Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, the U.S. was alone among the Security Council’s 15 members in opposing the…
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President Joe Biden’s claim Monday that a temporary cease-fire deal is “close” and could take effect as soon as next week reportedly took Israel’s leadership by surprise and was quickly downplayed by Hamas officials, who said there were still major disputes between the two sides on key issues. Biden told NBC’s Seth Meyers that Israeli negotiators have agreed “that they would not engage in…
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A Florida journalist who accessed and made public unaired video footage of an interview that former Fox News host Tucker Carlson conducted with the rapper Ye was arrested Thursday and hit with more than a dozen federal charges stemming in part from the disclosure, raising immediate concerns from press freedom advocates. Timothy Burke, a Tampa-based media consultant and former Daily Beast staffer…
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This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Feb. 21, 2024. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee said Tuesday that “we should kill ’em all” after an activist pressed him to respond to atrocities that the U.S.-backed Israeli military is committing against Palestinians in Gaza, including children.
“I’ve seen the footage of shredded children’s bodies,” the activist told Ogles. “That’s my taxpayer dollars that are going to bomb those kids.”
“You know what? So, I think we should kill ’em all, if that makes you feel better,” Ogles responded. “Hamas and the Palestinians have been attacking Israel for 20 years. It’s time to pay the piper.”
Watch the exchange:
Ogles, a vocal supporter of arming Israel unconditionally, was among the 212 House Republicans who voted in November to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) on the false grounds that she “justified” the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7.
Following the Tennessee Republican’s call for the mass killing of Palestinians, Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid asked, “Any congressional resolutions to censure or expel Ogles?”
Video footage of Ogles’ remarks was posted to social media hours after the Biden administration vetoed a cease-fire resolution at the United Nations Security Council—the third time since October 7 that the U.S. has wielded its veto power to block a measure calling for an immediate end to the bloodshed in Gaza.
Hours before the latest U.S. veto, an official with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned that Gaza is “poised to witness an explosion in preventable child deaths” as malnutrition and disease spread rapidly across the enclave.
Israeli forces have killed more than 12,400 children in Gaza since October 7, according to the territory’s health officials. More than 600,000 children are currently trapped in Rafah, which Israeli forces are preparing to invade. On average, more than 10 Gaza children per day have lost one or both of their legs since October, according to Save the Children.
“After four months of relentless violence, we are running out of words to describe what children and families in Gaza are going through, as well as the tools to respond in any adequate way,” Jason Lee, Save the Children’s country director for the occupied Palestinian territory, said in a statement Tuesday. “The scale of death and destruction is astronomical.”
“Children are being failed by the adults who should be protecting them,” Lee added. “It’s beyond time for the adults in the room to step up their responsibilities and legal obligations to children caught up in a conflict they played no part in, who just want to be able to live.”
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Israeli airstrikes on the severely overcrowded Gaza city of Rafah on Thursday destroyed a mosque and several houses as the leaders of aid groups and key United Nations agencies issued their latest warning over deteriorating humanitarian conditions across the Palestinian territory. Reuters reported that Rafah residents described the latest flurry of Israeli attacks as “one of their worst nights yet.
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With malnutrition and infectious diseases spreading rapidly, United Nations officials warned Monday that child deaths in the Gaza Strip are set to surge if Israel’s war and blockade are allowed to continue. In a joint statement, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Program (WFP), and the World Health Organization (WHO) said that “food and safe water have become incredibly…
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An attorney representing Palestine at the United Nations’ highest court called out the U.S. on Monday for routinely defending Israel’s violations of international law, including its brutal 57-year occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Paul Reichler, an American lawyer who has a record of success at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), said during a historic hearing on Israel’…
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Several oxygen-dependent patients at southern Gaza’s largest hospital died Friday due to a power outage at the facility, which Israeli forces raided and shelled 24 hours earlier as thousands of people who were sheltering at the complex scrambled to flee. Gaza’s Ministry of Health wrote on social media that at least five patients have died at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis “as a result of a power…
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Israeli forces on Thursday stormed the largest hospital in southern Gaza, ignoring warnings from United Nations officials, humanitarian groups, and the facility’s administrators that such a raid would put the lives of patients and people sheltering there at dire risk. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reportedly destroyed the southern wall of the Nasser Hospital complex in Khan Younis and started…
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Israeli troops further closed in on the largest hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis on Wednesday, ordering thousands of Palestinians sheltering at the facility to evacuate amid reports that Israeli snipers have been shooting people trying to flee the compound. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which has waged a devastating and illegal war on Gaza’s healthcare system…
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A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit that the pharmaceutical industry’s powerful trade group and allied organizations filed in an attempt to kill Medicare’s new drug price negotiation program, which threatens manufacturers’ virtually unrestrained power to drive up the prices of lifesaving medicines. Judge David Alan Ezra of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas tossed…
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Israeli forces raided an apartment building in the besieged and overcrowded Gaza city of Rafah early Monday and rescued two hostages in an operation that killed dozens of Palestinians, including children. The freed hostages were later identified as 61-year-old Fernando Simon Marman and 70-year-old Louis Har. A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that both were in good medical…
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President Joe Biden said Thursday that he believes Israel’s assault on Gaza has been “over the top” but did not indicate any substantive changes to U.S. policy, which has been to support the war militarily and diplomatically while pushing for humanitarian aid and pauses. “A lot of innocent people starving, in trouble, dying,” Biden said during a press conference at the White House. “It’s got to…
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A deadly U.S. drone strike in Baghdad late Wednesday drew swift criticism from Iraqi officials and foreign policy analysts, who warned that the Biden administration’s repeated attacks are further inflaming regional tensions and putting civilians at risk. Yehia Rasool, a spokesperson for the Iraqi military, said in a statement early Thursday that the U.S. “conducted a blatant assassination through…
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A right-wing coalition that’s been laying the policy groundwork for another Trump presidency has developed a plan to further privatize Medicare by making fraud-riddled Medicare Advantage “the default enrollment option” for newly eligible beneficiaries. The plan, highlighted Monday by Rolling Stone’s Andrew Perez, is outlined about halfway through Project 2025’s 920-page playbook for the first six…
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Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday that the U.S. must stop fueling the Netanyahu government’s assault on the Gaza Strip as senators unveiled legislation that would provide more than $14 billion in aid to Israel, which has waged its monthslong war on the Palestinian territory with massive American-made bombs, artillery shells, and other destructive munitions. “This is not JUST about 27,000…
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Belgian officials expressed outrage Thursday after Israeli forces reportedly bombed the office building of the Belgian Agency for Development Cooperation in the Gaza Strip, an attack that came after Belgium declined to join the U.S. and more than a dozen other countries in cutting off funding to the United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency. “The offices of Enabel, the Belgian development agency…
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