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  • Polio virus detected in Gaza as Israel attacks Khan Younis

    Palestinians walk along a street covered with stagnant wastewater near tents sheltering displaced people in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, 22 July. Omar Ashtawy APA images)

    As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Washington, where he will deliver a speech to Congress on Wednesday, the Israeli military massacred Palestinians throughout Gaza and forced a new wave of mass displacement in the south of the territory.

    The World Health Organization meanwhile warned that there was a high risk of the polio virus spreading within and beyond Gaza due to the public health crisis borne of Israel’s destruction and siege.

    The highly infectious virus, mainly affecting children under the age of 5, “can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis,” according to Reuters.

    “There is a high risk of spreading of the circulating vaccine-derived polio virus in Gaza, not only because of the detection but because of the very dire situation with the water sanitation,” Ayadil Saparbekov, an official with WHO, said on Tuesday.

    “It may also spill over internationally, at a very high point,” Saparbekov added.

    WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday that “no paralytic cases have been detected” so far in Gaza. Prior to Israel’s current offensive, “polio vaccination rates in Gaza were optimal,” he added.

    He warned, however, that the “decimation of the health system” in the territory, as well as the “lack of security, access obstruction, constant population displacement, shortages of medical supplies, poor quality of water and weakened sanitation are increasing the risk of vaccine-preventable diseases, including polio.”

    A group of Israeli public health professors called for a ceasefire to allow for a “multi-pronged, coordinated and comprehensive” response to stop the disease from spreading, with babies in Gaza and Israel who have not completed their vaccinations at greatest risk.

    The detection of remnants of the polio virus in sewage samples tested in Gaza is only the latest indicator of the severe deterioration of public health conditions in the territory.

    The catastrophic situation is a predictable if not intentional outcome of Israel’s actions in Gaza. In an op-ed published in Ynet in November, Giora Eiland, a former Israeli military operations chief and head of the National Security Council who is currently serving as an adviser to defense minister Yoav Gallant, called for the deprivation of life essentials in Gaza as a means of biological warfare.

    The official death toll in Gaza since 7 October surpassed 39,000 this week, including 16,000 children, though the actual number is likely much higher.

    Thousands of Palestinians remain missing in the rubble or in the streets, or their deaths as a result of secondary mortality such as hunger, thirst and disease resulting from Israel’s military campaign are not reflected in the fatality count.

    In a letter published by The Lancet earlier this month, three public health experts conservatively projected “that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.”

    Death and displacement in Khan Younis

    Israeli tanks rolled back into Khan Younis on Monday and at least 70 Palestinians were killed and 200 injured in artillery shelling and airstrikes in the eastern areas of the southern Gaza district.

    Israel had ordered nearly half a million Palestinians in parts of Khan Younis to leave the area, “forcing residents to flee under fire,” Reuters reported. One survivor told the news agency that the situation was “like doomsday” with many “dead and wounded on the roads.”

    Nasser Medical Complex, the largest hospital in southern Gaza, struggled to cope with the influx of casualties, warning of dire conditions at the facility and issuing an urgent appeal for blood donations.

    The new Israeli orders encompassed part of the so-called “safe zone” that the military had unilaterally declared in al-Mawasi, a coastal area west of Khan Younis where some 1.7 million people displaced from other areas of Gaza are currently concentrated.

    The new evacuation orders showed the “safe zone” to now be around 50 square kilometers, down from just under 59 square kilometers, reducing the area by some 15 percent.

    “As of 22 July, nearly 83 percent of the Gaza Strip has been placed under evacuation orders or designated as ‘no-go zones’ by the Israeli military,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated.

    The office added that the “frequent evacuation orders and relentless hostilities continue to further devastate Gaza’s health system and make it increasingly difficult for repeatedly displaced populations to access essential services, particularly people suffering from chronic diseases.”

    Only 60 dialysis machines are available to more than 1,500 patients requiring kidney dialysis in Gaza. “As a result, patients are undertaking only two dialysis sessions of two hours per week, instead of the required treatment of three four-hour sessions a week,” the UN office said.

    Meanwhile, only eight partially functioning hospitals and four field hospitals are currently “providing maternal services with more than 500,000 women in reproductive age lacking access to antenatal and postnatal care, family planning and management of sexually transmitted infections,” the UN office added.

    Israel tightens vise on Gaza’s north

    The UN Human Rights Office condemned the latest displacement of Palestinians in Khan Younis, saying that the new evacuation order “was issued in the context of ongoing attacks … and gave no time for civilians to know from which areas they were required to leave or where they should go.”

    “The evacuation order also covered parts of Salah al-Din Road, which has been one of two main routes vital for the transport and distribution of aid,” the UN office added, “raising concerns that delivery and provision of desperately needed humanitarian assistance will be further reduced or prevented.”

    The office said that the supposed “safe zone” in al-Mawasi “has little or no infrastructure to support the masses of civilians who have been already displaced there” and has been repeatedly subjected to Israeli artillery fire and airstrikes.

    The Israeli military killed at least 90 Palestinians in al-Mawasi on 13 July, in one of the single deadliest incidents in Gaza since October, while claiming to target Hamas’ military chief Muhammad Deif.

    Israel launched a ground offensive in Khan Younis earlier this year, ordering residents out of the area and wreaking widespread destruction. At that time, many people fled Khan Younis to Rafah, which came under evacuation orders in early May.

    Meanwhile, “the Israeli military is escalating its targeting of all aspects and basic elements of life in the Gaza [City] and North Gaza governorates, in an attempt to render them uninhabitable and force their citizens to evacuate to the southern governorates,” the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said on Saturday.

    The group added that on Saturday morning, “the Israeli army opened fire on several women who were cooking and filling water containers in their home” in the Zarqa neighborhood in northern Gaza, killing 28-year-old Noura al-Sabbagh and injuring several others, one critically.

    Earlier in the month, on 2 July, 10 Palestinians including a child and a disabled person were killed by Israeli artillery fire while they gathered to fill water containers in al-Zaytoun, south of Gaza City.

    And in late June, three Palestinians were killed when Israel attacked a group of vendors in downtown Gaza City, according to the Euro-Med Monitor.

    Journalist killed, UN vehicles hit by live fire

    Also on Monday, an Israeli airstrike hit a tent used by journalists in the grounds of Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, killing one and injuring two others. The deadly strike brought the number of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza since 7 October to 163, according to the government media office in the territory.

    On Tuesday, two UN-marked vehicles were hit with live fire while waiting at a holding point near a checkpoint in Gaza, causing no casualties.

    “They were en route to reunite five children, including a baby, with their father,” said Adele Khodr, a regional director with the UN children’s fund.

    “This is the second shooting incident involving UNICEF cars on humanitarian duty in the past 12 weeks and on both occasions, the humanitarian consequences could have been severe, for both our teams and the children they serve,” Khodr added.

    On Sunday, Israeli forces opened fire toward a UN convoy heading to Gaza City in the north, piercing a UN-marked armored vehicle carrying UNRWA spokesperson Louise Wateridge five times while it was stopped at a checkpoint, causing no casualties.

    More than 200 UN staff members are among the at least 278 aid workers killed in Gaza since October.

    On Monday, a bill declaring UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, to be a terrorist organization passed a first reading in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.

    Two other bills aimed at preventing UNRWA’s ability to conduct its work already passed the first of three votes required by the Knesset before being enshrined in law.

    Israel has long sought to shut down the agency, which provides government-like services to millions of Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

    Several donor countries halted funding to UNRWA in late January after Israel made unsubstantiated allegations that a handful of its staff in Gaza were involved in the 7 October attack led by Hamas.

    Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, warned at the time that countries defunding UNRWA could be doing so in violation of the Genocide Convention.

    Yemen

    While some countries have defunded UNRWA, the organization with the largest humanitarian footprint in Gaza, groups in Yemen and Lebanon upped the pressure on Israel in their support for the Palestinian people and resistance.

    On Sunday, Israel said that it had shot down a missile fired from Yemen, where Ansarullah, the resistance group also known as the Houthis, said it had fired several projectiles toward the port city of Eilat.

    Israel bombed the Yemeni port of al-Hudayda on Saturday, killing six people, all of them reportedly civilians, and injuring dozens more, after a drone launched by Ansarullah on Friday hit a building in Tel Aviv, killing one.

    Breaching Israel’s air defenses and hitting the heart of Tel Aviv marks a major achievement for the Yemeni armed forces and a severe failure for Israel. It served as a reminder that if a drone fired from some 1,400 miles away could target Israel’s economic capital undetected, then the capabilities of Lebanese resistance group Hizballah are likely to be far more lethal.

    The exchange of attacks represents an escalation in the regional spillover from Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.

    For months, Ansarullah has maintained a maritime blockade disrupting global trade to pressure Israel to end the genocide in Gaza.

    The US had launched strikes on Yemen in response to the Red Sea blockade but the Israeli attack represents the first direct hit by Tel Aviv in response to Ansar Allah.

    The Yemeni strike on Tel Aviv comes after Hizballah pledged to ramp up military deterrence against Israel.

    During a speech marking the annual Shia commemoration of Ashura, Hasan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hizballah, threatened to strike areas deeper in Israel than it has previously reached.

    “If Israeli tanks come to Lebanon, they will not only have a shortage in tanks but will never have any tanks left,” Nasrallah said.

    Following days of deadly strikes in southern Lebanon, Nasrallah said that Hizballah, which has so far carefully calibrated its response to avoid a full military confrontation with Israel, would respond more forcefully than it has in the past if the attacks continued.

    “The resistance missiles will target new Israeli settlements that were not targeted before,” he said.

    UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “deeply concerned about the risk of further escalation in the region and continues to urge all to exercise utmost restraint,” the office of his special envoy for Yemen stated after the exchange of fire between Israel and Ansarullah.

    But Amal Saad, an expert on Hizballah, observed that the Houthis – as Ansarullah are also known – “are not constrained in the same way other actors in the Resistance Axis are, nor do they subscribe to the same rules of engagement or red lines as Iran or Hizballah.”

    “Their retaliation will potentially target non-military sites in Israel, mirroring Israel’s targeting of civilian infrastructure today,” she said on Saturday.

    Israeli captives declared dead

    On Monday, Israel declared dead two Israelis, including a Polish dual national, who were taken captive during Hamas’ military operation on 7 October and held in Gaza ever since.

    Israeli media reported that bombing by Israel is their most likely cause of death.

    Some 120 captives are believed to remain in Gaza after around 100 were released during a week-long truce and prisoner exchange in November.

    Around one-third of the captives remaining in Gaza have been declared dead by Israel in absentia.

    Netanyahu met with the families of Israelis being held in Gaza while in Washington on Monday, telling them that “the conditions to get them back are ripening, for the simple reason that we are applying very, very strong pressure, very strong, on Hamas.”

    According to The Times of Israel, “Netanyahu indicated that he would like more time to squeeze Hamas further in order to improve Israel’s negotiating position.”

    That should be understood as Netanyahu wanting more time to massacre Palestinian civilians in the absence of a battlefield victory in order to maximize pressure on Hamas, which seeks guarantees that a truce and exchange of captives would lead to a permanent ceasefire – conditions that the Israeli prime minister rejects.

    Mati Dancyg, the son of one of the Israeli men declared dead in absentia on Monday, said that his father Alex “didn’t just die – he died for the sake of [Benjamin] Netanyahu’s government of destruction.”

    Dancyg accused Netanyahu of sabotaging “any chance for a deal” in order “to save his rotten government,” adding that the “sacrificing of the hostages out of political motives is a much, much greater failure than the failure of 7 October.”

    Noa Argamani – an Israeli woman who was freed by the Israeli military along with three other captives in a raid that killed at least 274 Palestinians – told Netanyahu during a meeting on Monday that those remaining in Gaza “must be brought home as quickly as possible, before it is too late.”

    She reportedly told the Israeli prime minister that “the hardest moment I had in captivity was when I listened to the radio and heard you say the war will be long.”

    “I thought, ‘I won’t get out of here.’ It was a breaking point for me,” she said, according to Israeli media.

    While Netanyahu is expected to meet US President Joe Biden this week, and a delegation from Tel Aviv is due to arrive in Cairo to resume talks on Wednesday evening, a senior Hamas official said that the Israeli prime minister “is still stalling and he is sending delegations only to calm the anger of Israeli captives’ families.”

    • Article first published in the Electronic Intifada

    The post Polio virus detected in Gaza as Israel attacks Khan Younis first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • UNICEF Reports Israel Is Killing Kids at Shocking Rates Amid West Bank Assault

    Three days after the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion stating that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is unlawful, the United Nations children’s rights agency said that after decades of being “exposed to horrific violence,” the number of children who have been killed in the West Bank since last October has skyrocketed. Since Israel began its bombardment of…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Film honours 41 ‘heroines’ lost in Guatemala children’s home fire

    As their families await justice, Jayro Bustamante’s movie, Rita, highlights the bravery of victims of 2017 blaze, and the authorities’ failure to protect them

    Ada Kelly Alfaro says the cries from friends asking for help still haunt her daughter, Cynthia Phaola Morales, seven years after she survived a fire at a children’s shelter in Guatemala that killed 41 girls.

    Cynthia was one of only 15 survivors of the blaze at the Virgen de la Asunción (HSVA), in San José Pinula, just outside Guatemala City, which broke out on the morning of 8 March 2017.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Screaming, freezing, struggling to breathe: confronting Queensland watch house footage exposes anguish of children locked in isolation cells

    Exclusive: Cache of videos seen by Guardian Australia and SBS The Feed lays bare distressing treatment of teenagers – many of them disabled – in police custody

    A girl punches herself in the face, strips naked and urinates on the floor of an isolation cell; a boy wakes in the night and tells officers: “I can’t breathe.”

    Children scream in distress at being placed in a “freezing” isolation cell, known as “the box”.

    Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • El Salvador: Rights Violations Against Children in ‘State of Emergency’


    This content originally appeared on Human Rights Watch and was authored by Human Rights Watch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Israel kills at least 90 Palestinians in Gaza “safe zone”

    Bodies of Palestinians who were killed in Israel’s attack on al-Mawasi are brought to a hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, 13 July (Omar Ashtawy APA images)

    Israel massacred dozens of Palestinians in airstrikes in al-Mawasi, the supposed “safe zone” along the coast in southern Gaza, and in Beach refugee camp near Gaza City on Saturday.

    At least 90 Palestinians were killed and 300 injured in the attack on al-Mawasi, according to the health ministry in Gaza, and at least 20 Palestinians were killed after Israel bombed worshippers gathered for noon prayers outside the ruins of a mosque in Beach refugee camp.

    On Friday, the Israeli military killed four workers at an aid warehouse in Gaza, claiming that it had targeted Husam Mansour. Israel alleged that Mansour was a militant who worked at an aid organization to raise money for Hamas – an unsubstantiated claim similar to those made by Israel against other humanitarians in Gaza working for international charities who were killed and jailed with impunity.

    The Al-Khair Foundation, a UK-based charity, stated that Mansour was a “cornerstone” of its team in Gaza and that his death “is not just a loss to our organization but a devastating blow to the humanitarian efforts in the region.”

    The deaths of the aid workers came one day after Samantha Power, the head of the State Department agency USAID, said that Israel promised to improve safety for humanitarian workers in Gaza, where famine has taken hold as a result of Israel’s blockade.

    At least 38,345 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since 7 October, though the actual tally is likely substantially higher. Thousands remain missing in the rubble or their deaths as a result of secondary mortality such as hunger, thirst and disease resulting from Israel’s military campaign are not reflected in the fatality count.

    Saturday’s deadly attacks came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to be sabotaging what may be a final push to reach a deal with Hamas that would see an exchange of captives and lead the way for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

    Hamas condemned the “horrific massacre” in densely populated al-Mawasi, the open area where Israel ordered Palestinians to move after declaring one-third of Gaza a combat zone last week.

    Israel reportedly dropped five 2,000-pound bombs in al-Mawasi, resulting in one of the deadliest attacks – if not the deadliest – since nearly 300 people were killed in a raid in Nuseirat refugee camp on 8 June.

    Four Israeli captives were freed by the military in the Nuseirat raid, during which Israeli forces posed as civilians and gunned down Palestinians in the camp’s crowded market and streets. The office of the UN human rights chief said it was “profoundly shocked” by that operation in which the basic principles of the laws of war were blatantly disregarded.

    “False victory”

    Israel attempted to justify the massacre in al-Mawasi on Saturday by claiming that it targeted Muhammad Deif, the elusive head of the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, and the commander of Qassam’s Khan Younis Brigade.

    One of Israel’s most wanted figures, Deif survived several previous attempts on his life, including a 2014 attack that killed the military leader’s wife and their two young children.

    Netanyahu acknowledged during a press conference on Saturday evening that it was unclear whether Deif and the Qassam Brigades commander were killed, which Hamas denied.

    Khalil al-Hayya, deputy chair of Hamas, said in response that Netanyahu had hoped to “announce a false victory” and said that the blood of Deif is no more precious than that of the youngest Palestinian child.

    Al-Hayya suggested that Israel was killing more people in Gaza to undermine negotiations with Hamas and that Netanyahu was grasping for an illusion of victory before his address to US Congress later this month.

    Earlier in the day, following the al-Mawasi attack, Hamas said that this was “not the first time the occupation has claimed to target Palestinian leaders, and later it is proven to be a lie.”

    “These false claims are merely a cover-up for the scale of the horrific massacre,” the resistance group added in a statement published on Telegram.

    “Justification always the same”

    Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, observed that “the justification is always the same: ‘targeting Palestinian militants.’”

    Hamdah Salhut, an Al Jazeera correspondent, said that the Israeli military repeatedly employs such claims, “saying civilians are being used as ‘human shields’ for Hamas figures, using that as justification for killing dozens of civilians.”

    Assal Rad, an academic who closely observes the Western media’s framing of the genocide in Gaza, said that the Israeli justification is used by media outlets to treat the massacre of civilians in a “safe zone” as “an afterthought in their headlines,” if they are even mentioned at all:

    Amjad al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network, told Al Jazeera that the al-Mawasi massacre was “the message from Israel to the world that again and again and again they are targeting Palestinian civilians wherever they are.”

    “Massive attack on the north”

    Following the massacre in al-Mawasi, the UN human rights office condemned Israel’s continued use of “weapons with area effects in populated areas of Gaza.”

    A statement from the office noted that the deadly strikes on Saturday came “right after another massive attack on the north, which lasted for a week, resulting in further destruction and casualties.”

    Israel laid waste to Shujaiya, on the eastern outskirts of Gaza City, in a two-week raid during which it claimed to have killed a Hamas battalion deputy chief and commander in the area and uncovered a command center in a facility belonging to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees.

    Following the military’s withdrawal, residents returned to find that troops had destroyed the majority of buildings in the area, including residences, schools and medical clinics.

    A spokesperson for the civil defense in Gaza said that the bodies of more than 60 people had been recovered in Shujaiya, and that many more were missing under the rubble of destroyed homes.

    Dozens of people were also killed in Tal al-Hawa in southern Gaza City, the civil defense spokesperson said on Thursday.

    On Wednesday, Israel once again ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate. Many Palestinians vowed to stay in Gaza City, no matter the cost.

    Itay Epshtain, an international law expert, said that “this is not a permissible evacuation but an act of forcible transfer” that “shows the open-ended nature of hostilities in Gaza.” Epshtain noted that “Israel appears interested as ever in a protracted conflict.”

    The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that its field workers “are investigating reports that the Israeli army forces committed extrajudicial killings and unlawful executions of numerous residents, the majority of whom were women” during its incursion into areas of western Gaza City between Monday and Friday.

    Quadcopters fired on rescue workers

    The UN office said that the strikes on al-Mawasi on Saturday allegedly hit tents housing displaced people, a food kitchen and a desalination plant where people had gathered to collect water, “leading to tens of fatalities.”

    Israeli military “quadcopters reportedly targeted emergency rescue workers, killing at least one civil defense worker and injuring several others,” the human rights office added.

    The UN office once again pointed to “a pattern of willful violation of the disregard of [international humanitarian law] principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution” and “a rampant disregard for the safety of civilians.”

    Even if Palestinians belonging to armed groups were present among civilians, “this would not remove [the Israeli military’s] obligations” to comply with the fundamental principles of the laws of war, the UN office said.

    Video of the immediate aftermath of the Israeli attack in al-Mawasi shows injured and dead people who appear to be civilians, including someone wearing a civil defense vest, lying in the streets as a black plume of smoke rises from an area adjacent to a tent encampment:

    Another video shows people attempting to dig victims out of a massive crater with their bare hands. A man’s left arm and shoulder is seen protruding from the sandy soil as a child says, “that’s my father, has he been martyred?”

    A witness says in the same video that “all of Gaza is wanted” by the occupation.

    The man adds that there was a fire belt – a series of heavy bombs dropped in the same place – without warning on the tent encampment. When rescuers arrived, F-16 jets “bombed the paramedics and civil defense team,” he says.

    Amjad al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network, told Al Jazeera that the al-Mawasi massacre was “the message from Israel to the world that again and again and again they are targeting Palestinian civilians wherever they are.”

    “Massive attack on the north”

    Following the massacre in al-Mawasi, the UN human rights office condemned Israel’s continued use of “weapons with area effects in populated areas of Gaza.”

    A statement from the office noted that the deadly strikes on Saturday came “right after another massive attack on the north, which lasted for a week, resulting in further destruction and casualties.”

    Israel laid waste to Shujaiya, on the eastern outskirts of Gaza City, in a two-week raid during which it claimed to have killed a Hamas battalion deputy chief and commander in the area and uncovered a command center in a facility belonging to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees.

    Following the military’s withdrawal, residents returned to find that troops had destroyed the majority of buildings in the area, including residences, schools and medical clinics.

    A spokesperson for the civil defense in Gaza said that the bodies of more than 60 people had been recovered in Shujaiya, and that many more were missing under the rubble of destroyed homes.

    Dozens of people were also killed in Tal al-Hawa in southern Gaza City, the civil defense spokesperson said on Thursday.

    On Wednesday, Israel once again ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate. Many Palestinians vowed to stay in Gaza City, no matter the cost.

    Itay Epshtain, an international law expert, said that “this is not a permissible evacuation but an act of forcible transfer” that “shows the open-ended nature of hostilities in Gaza.” Epshtain noted that “Israel appears interested as ever in a protracted conflict.”

    The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that its field workers “are investigating reports that the Israeli army forces committed extrajudicial killings and unlawful executions of numerous residents, the majority of whom were women” during its incursion into areas of western Gaza City between Monday and Friday.

    Quadcopters fired on rescue workers

    The UN office said that the strikes on al-Mawasi on Saturday allegedly hit tents housing displaced people, a food kitchen and a desalination plant where people had gathered to collect water, “leading to tens of fatalities.”

    Israeli military “quadcopters reportedly targeted emergency rescue workers, killing at least one civil defense worker and injuring several others,” the human rights office added.

    The UN office once again pointed to “a pattern of willful violation of the disregard of [international humanitarian law] principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution” and “a rampant disregard for the safety of civilians.”

    Even if Palestinians belonging to armed groups were present among civilians, “this would not remove [the Israeli military’s] obligations” to comply with the fundamental principles of the laws of war, the UN office said.

    Video of the immediate aftermath of the Israeli attack in al-Mawasi shows injured and dead people who appear to be civilians, including someone wearing a civil defense vest, lying in the streets as a black plume of smoke rises from an area adjacent to a tent encampment:

    Another video shows people attempting to dig victims out of a massive crater with their bare hands. A man’s left arm and shoulder is seen protruding from the sandy soil as a child says, “that’s my father, has he been martyred?”

    A witness says in the same video that “all of Gaza is wanted” by the occupation.

    The man adds that there was a fire belt – a series of heavy bombs dropped in the same place – without warning on the tent encampment. When rescuers arrived, F-16 jets “bombed the paramedics and civil defense team,” he says.

    The head of the World Health Organization said that Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, which received 134 people severely injured in the al-Mawasi attack, “is extremely overwhelmed by the influx of patients.”

    Netanyahu stalls negotiations

    After the deadly attack in al-Mawasi, Ghassan Abu Sitta, a British Palestinian surgeon who was working in Gaza during the first weeks of the genocide, said that “Israel committed this massacre to foil the ceasefire negotiations.”

    Egypt officials told Reuters on Saturday that the indirect talks between Hamas and Israel “have been halted after three days of intense negotiations failed to produce a viable outcome … blaming Israel for lacking a genuine intent to reach an agreement.”

    Earlier in the week, an unnamed “former senior Egyptian official with knowledge of the negotiations” told The Washington Post that “Netanyahu does not want peace. That is all.”

    The official added that Netanyahu “will find excuses … to prolong this war” until the US elections, in which Republican candidate and former president Donald Trump, who was lightly injured after gunshots rang out during a campaign event on Saturday, may be voted into a second term.

    Whatever Netanyahu’s motivation, Israeli defense officials have told the Haaretz newspaper that the prime minister has “repeatedly torpedoed” progress towards a deal with Hamas to free the remaining captives held in Gaza since 7 October.

    The officials said that “in his attempt to derail negotiations, Netanyahu relied on classified intelligence and manipulated the sensitive information.”

    In recent days, an unnamed senior official told Hebrew-language media that Netanyahu’s new demand to build “a mechanism to prevent the movement of armed operatives” within Gaza threatened to derail a deal.

    “This is the moment of truth for the hostages,” the official told Channel 12 news. “We can reach an agreement within two weeks and bring the hostages home.”

    But Netanyahu’s new demand “will stall the talks for weeks and then there may not be anyone to bring home,” the official said.

    US resumes weapons shipments

    While US President Joe Biden said on Thursday that he was “determined to get this deal done and bring an end to this war, which should end now,” his national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters that “there’s still miles to go before we close, if we are able to close” on an agreement.

    With the US putting no real pressure on Israel, and continuing to supply weapons, more massacres of Palestinians in Gaza are all but guaranteed.

    The US said in recent days that it will resume the shipments of 500-pound bombs to Israel after pausing a transfer of those weapons and 2,000-pound munitions in May to deter a major Israeli offensive in Rafah, southern Gaza, which went ahead anyway.

    The Washington-based human rights watchdog DAWN said that the “partial lifting of the one solitary pause on munitions to the [Israeli military] in the face of overwhelming evidence of war crimes is a criminal offense under international law.”

    The group’s advocacy director called on the International Criminal Court to investigate US officials for their complicity in “genocidal atrocities in Gaza.”

    Karim Khan, International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, announced in May that he was pursuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas leaders Muhammad Deif, Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh.

    • First published in The Electronic Intifada

    The post Israel kills at least 90 Palestinians in Gaza “safe zone” first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Israel targets Palestinians from land and air in West Bank

    Mourners carry the bodies of four Palestinians killed by an Israeli airstrike late Tuesday during their funeral in the West Bank refugee camp of Nur Shams, near Tulkarm, Wednesday, 3 July (Mohammed Nasser APA images)

    At any other time in Palestinian history, the West Bank’s resistance to Israel’s lethal military raids and colonial encroachments would earn the title of a third intifada.

    Since 7 October, Israel’s military has intensified its raids into occupied West Bank cities, towns and refugee camps. These military operations, which often involve special units and an array of armored vehicles and bulldozers, have wrought widespread devastation, severely damaging electricity networks, water and sewage infrastructure, uprooting roads and destroying homes.

    In the West Bank, Israel has been killing Palestinians by various means.

    Israeli forces shoot Palestinians at protests, during military incursions or even by carrying out extrajudicial executions.

    Now, even aerial attacks in the occupied West Bank is not an unusual occurrence, after the practice was dormant since the second intifada until last summer. Since 7 October, Israel has conducted dozens of airstrikes in the occupied West Bank, killing at least 86 Palestinians, including 14 children, according to records kept by UN monitoring group OCHA.

    Armed Palestinian cells have expanded and refined their tactics to resist and confront Israel’s military raids, particularly in northern cities and refugee camps. One such tactic has been the wider use of explosive devices planted within roads where Israeli armored vehicles pass. Palestinians remotely detonate the explosive devices, killing and injuring a number of Israeli soldiers in recent months.

    Refined resistance

    In under one week, between the end of June and the beginning of July, roadside explosives killed two members of Israel’s army – a sniper team commander who was killed in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern occupied West Bank on 27 June, and a combat driver who was killed in another explosion in the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarm on 1 July.

    Under the guise of wanting to uproot explosive devices from roads, Israeli bulldozers ravage through the streets of cities and refugee camps “to shave the upper layer of asphalt on the roads,” as The Times of Israel put it.

    This has wreaked havoc on Palestinian communities, commercial stores and civic infrastructure in those areas.

    During a 15-hour Israeli military raid in Nur Shams refugee camp on 9 July, bulldozers destroyed roads in and around the camp, damaging water, electricity and internet infrastructure, OCHA reported, in addition to the walls of homes and commercial stores.

    The Israeli army claimed that the discovered explosive devices were “targeted toward civilians and Israeli security forces.”

    Armed resistance has seemingly adapted to the Israeli army’s methods to combat them and inflict punishment on the entire community in the process. The Times of Israel said the explosive that killed the sniper commander in the Jenin refugee camp was a “100-kilogram” device and may have been placed 1.5 meters underground.

    The device that killed the combat driver in the Nur Shams refugee camp also breached his vehicle’s IED protection, severely damaging it and flipping it upside down, suggesting the explosive device was particularly large and powerful.

    “All of the explosive devices detonated against Israeli targets in the West Bank over the past year were made of improvised homemade materials, and some were very high quality,” The Times of Israel reported.

    The increasingly sophisticated and organized resistance tactics are concerning the Israeli army in the West Bank as it invests in a larger effort to combat it, including an intelligence unit aimed at detecting them.

    Since the beginning of the year, the Israeli army dismantled production labs for these explosives, as well as discovered and neutralized planted devices, the Israeli newspaper reported, figures that likely originate with the Israeli military. Around 1,000 IEDs targeted Israeli troops.

    Since 7 October and through 8 July, 14 Israelis, including nine soldiers and five settlers, have been killed in the occupied West Bank, OCHA said.

    Deadly raids

    Children bear the brunt of Israel’s lethal military incursions into West Bank towns, cities and refugee camps.

    An atmosphere of constant impunity demonstrates Israeli soldiers’ “contempt for Palestinian children’s lives,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at Defense for Children International – Palestine.

    On Thursday, as Israeli forces withdrew from nearby Palestinian villages, they passed by the entrance of Meithalun, a town in the Jenin area. Palestinians threw stones at the invading Israeli military vehicles.

    One kid who allegedly threw stones at Israeli forces near the entrance of Meithalun was fatally shot by an occupation soldier.

    An Israeli soldier in a heavily armored vehicle shot 14-year-old Ali Hasan Ali Rabaya from a close distance of 20 to 40 meters, striking him under the armpit.

    Ali managed to run for about three meters before collapsing to the ground.

    “Israeli forces continued firing in Ali’s direction, striking at least five other Palestinian children,” DCIP reported.

    Israeli military fire continued for about five minutes, preventing any nearby Palestinians from approaching Ali to provide medical care or transport him. It was only when Israeli military vehicles withdrew from the area that Ali was transferred to a nearby hospital by private car, where he was pronounced dead.

    Meanwhile, Israeli forces killed 14-year-old Ghassan Gharib Zahran while he played with two friends at the entrance of the Palestinian village of Deir Abu Mashal, west of Ramallah.

    Three Israeli soldiers traveling in a vehicle nearby opened fire on the kids from a distance of 80 to 100 meters, striking Ghassan in his back, DCIP said.

    “A group of Israeli settlers gathered after Israeli soldiers shot Ghassan and began throwing stones at Palestinian village residents attempting to reach him,” DCIP said.

    “Israeli forces opened fire on the Palestinian residents to prevent them from reaching the child, who remained lying on the ground bleeding for 15 to 20 minutes.”

    “Unlawful killings of Palestinian children have become the norm as Israeli forces become increasingly empowered to use intentional lethal force in situations that are not justified,” said Abu Eqtaish.

    “In short, these are war crimes with no consequence.”

    Israeli forces and settlers have killed 57 Palestinian children since the beginning of the year, including two US citizens, according to documentation by DCIP.

    More than 550 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since 7 October, including at least 536 by Israeli forces, according to OCHA.

    Israeli settlers have killed at least 11 Palestinians, and another six were killed by either Israeli army or settler fire.

    Of those killed in the occupied West Bank since 7 October, 137 were children.

    At least 246 of those killings have happened since the beginning of 2024, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. Over 700 Palestinians, including 150 children, were injured.

    Israeli forces and settlers have injured over 5,500 Palestinians in the West Bank since 7 October, at least 800 of them children. One third of all injuries were by live ammunition.

    • Article first published in The Electronic Intifada

    The post Israel targets Palestinians from land and air in West Bank first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • IDF Killed 64 Children While Freeing 4 Hostages

    Ever since October 7, 2023, NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, CNN, PBS, along with BBC, DW, NHK other Western-aligned entertainment/news conglomerates and wire services like AP, UPI, Reuters and Israeli media have sought to keep their viewers, readers, and listeners attention on the hostages and away from any explanation, reason, or justification of Palestinians seeking to exchange the hostages for some of the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

    This is of course consistent with the under-reporting of the Palestinians suffering the illegal military occupation, subjugation, and often murderous treatment from the Israeli military which operates largely with impunity within Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and elsewhere.

    Western media focus on the hostages is even more important in justifying Israel’s wholesale annihilation of much of the population of Hamas governed Gaza, homes, apartment buildings, mosques, schools, stores, bakeries, playgrounds all claimed by Israel to be in defence of the Palestinian guerrilla attack of Israel on October 7, 2023.

    However, since the U.S. has built up the Israel military to be one of the most powerful in the world and perfectly capable of defending itself against any subsequent Hamas resistance attack, the Israeli obliteration of Gaza’s cities and its people is obviously not defensive, and after Israel’s generations of crimes against Palestinians, the October 7 invasion was hardly unexpected. UN Secretary General António Guterres  said as much right after the October 7, 2023 event. Guterres noted that “these attacks did not happen in a vacuum”—highlighting the impact of 56 years of occupation on the Palestinian people. (United Nations Press).

    Israel’s Responsibilities as an Occupying Power Under International Humanitarian Law

    Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories, regarding Israel’s right to self-defense in the context of Israel’s (illegal) military occupation of Palestinian lands and people: 

    “Israel has the right to defend itself, but it cannot invoke this right to perpetrate acts that violate international law against a people it is occupying.”

    In her report to the UN General Assembly in October 2022, Rapporteur Albanese noted,

    “An occupying power has a duty to protect the occupied population and cannot invoke self-defense to justify the use of force against its own protected persons.”

    Western news outlets refer to Palestinian freedom fighters as “terrorists” constantly reporting that some Western governments list Hamas and other armed groups fighting the Israeli occupation as terrorist organisations; however, China, as a permanent member of the Security Council, has backed the right of the Palestinian people to use arms. Zhang Jun, China’s UN ambassador, stated in an address to the International Court of Justice concerning Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land, February 22, 2024:

    The struggle waged by peoples for their liberation, right to self-determination, including armed struggle against colonialism, occupation, aggression, domination against foreign forces should not be considered terror acts.

    Beijing’s envoy said there were “various people (who) freed themselves from colonial rule” and they could use “all available means, including armed struggle.” (This seemed an indirect reference to the American War of Independence from Britain.)

    As a conscientious peoples historian activist, I have allowed myself to be subjected to anti-Chinese, anti-UN, anti-Hamas, pro-Israeli news slants in the interest of knowing just how the average mainstream media addict comes to accept genocide as an inevitable condition of modern warfare and wars as an unpreventable source of financial gain.

    Therefore NBC’s very poignant, even painful to look at and read, coverage of the Israeli Defence Force killing of 64 children during its freeing of 4 hostages on June 8, 2024, came as a surprise to this writer and life long sympathiser of the Palestinian inhuman predicament. This sorrowful coverage of the horrendous head wound and death of a lovely, four-year-old boy and the sight of a seven-year-old girl alive but with more than half her face gone, is perhaps one indication that just perhaps even the CIA overseen media of the hegemonic Western nations can no longer tolerate Israeli genocide in its ever more outrageously gruesome aspects.

    Readers are invited to share some grief with Arab Palestinian families suffering soul crushing amount of anguish for the sheer numbers of the dead and dying children and the catatonic state of surviving kids. Just click on the hyperlink below:

    NBC News June 8, 2024

    Gazan families mourn children killed during IDF’s hostage rescue

    WEB Gaza’s Health Ministry says at least 64 children were killed by Israeli fire during the June 8 raid to rescue four hostages being held by Hamas. 

    The four hostages — Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Shlomi Ziv and Andrey Kozlov — were safely extracted from the Gaza Strip and cameras captured their emotional reunions with their families after eight months of captivity.

    The joy experienced by both Palestinians and Israelis during the first hostage exchange as they fell into the loving arms of waiting family and friends could have been repeated instead of this horrific bloodbath of some 270 Palestinians, among them 64 precious children on June 8, 2024

    Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Shlomi Ziv and Andrey Kozlov will most likely never forget that their homecoming was one sided. No Palestinian got to welcome home family members long imprisoned with or without having been charged as seems to the case for so many incarcerated and more being seized every day.

    Actually, how shall any of us ever forget that Americans have been backing and supplying these abominations of using weapons of mass destruction upon fellow human beings and their children in full knowledge of the profits being made by U.S. corporations.

    The post IDF Killed 64 Children While Freeing 4 Hostages first appeared on Dissident Voice.


    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jay Janson.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Seven dead, including 3 children, killed in Myanmar clash

    Shelling during a clash in northern Myanmar killed seven civilians on Wednesday, including three children, residents told Radio Free Asia, as fighting between junta troops and ethnic minority insurgents escalated following the breakdown of a ceasefire.

    Fighters from the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and their junta army rivals blamed each other for the death of the civilians when shells hit their homes in the town of Lashio in northern Shan state.

    Fighting between the junta soldiers from the Northeast Command and the autonomy-seeking rebels resumed on June 25 after the collapse of a ceasefire brokered by Chinese officials in a series of meetings that began in January. 

    The Ta’ang National Liberation Army announced the capture of 26 junta camps in the days following the end of the ceasefire.

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    The fighting in Lashio escalated on Wednesday with one shell killing a family of six in their house, said a resident, who declined to be identified in fear of reprisals. 

    “It happened while they were eating in the kitchen. The dead bodies have been sent to the morgue,” he said. “We’ve heard the sound of heavy guns firing all morning but I’m not sure if the junta army or the revolutionary group was responsible.”

    Those killed were Zel Zaung, 14,  Dwel Aung and Zel Nwel, both 15, Sai Khon and May Yi, both 30, and  Mar Gyi, 70.

    A shell hit another Lashio house early in the day, killing a woman and wounding two men, residents said. RFA could not confirm their identities. 

    The Ta’ang National Liberation Army and civilians blamed the junta for the deaths but the junta blamed the rebels in posts on its Telegram channels.

    RFA called Shan state’s junta spokesperson Khun Thein Maung for more information on the attacks but calls went unanswered.

    Fighting between the two groups has also affected Namhu and Nampawng villages near Lashio town.

    Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 




    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Life for Gaza’s children during Israel’s genocide


    This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by The Real News Network.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • UNICEF Decries Israel’s “War on Children” as Starvation & Deaths Mount in Gaza


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Report from Rafah: UNICEF Decries Israel’s “War on Children” as Starvation & Deaths Mount in Gaza

    Seg1 elderchildren

    The Israeli military on Sunday announced a daily “tactical pause” in its attacks on Rafah to allow humanitarian relief to enter the Gaza Strip, after systematically blocking aid from reaching Palestinians in Gaza since October 7. While a full ceasefire is still vital, “any pause in the bombing is good news for children,” says UNICEF spokesperson James Elder, speaking to Democracy Now! from Rafah. “The physical and psychological exhaustion they face is almost impossible to capture,” he says, characterizing Israel’s offensive as “a war on children.”


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Democratic Republic of the Congo is critical and needs more attention, says Save the Children


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • “The Trauma Is Unimaginable”: Save the Children CEO Calls for Ceasefire in Gaza, More Focus on Congo


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • “The Trauma Is Unimaginable”: Save the Children CEO Calls for Ceasefire in Gaza, More Focus on Congo

    Guestjanti

    More than 15,000 Palestinian children have been killed over the past eight months of Israel’s assault on Gaza, and Palestinian officials are warning over 3,500 children are at risk of death due to starvation. “The trauma is unimaginable,” says Janti Soeripto, the president and CEO of Save the Children US, who is calling for a ceasefire, the protection of humanitarian workers and the allowance of aid into the besieged territory. “Over these past couple of weeks, it has even gotten worse.” Soeripto also calls for more international attention on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where over 7 million have been swept up in one of the world’s largest displacement crises as armed groups fight across the country. “The DRC should play a much more important, critical role for the international community, and it should get attention and the support its population deserves,” says Soeripto, who asks the U.S. to support a peace process and fund humanitarian relief.


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China’s censors deleted a video of children performing in Sichuan| Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China censors clip of children dancing to Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’

    China’s internet censors have deleted a video in which children at a private performing arts school in the southwestern province of Sichuan dance to British rock band Pink Floyd’s 1979 hit “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2” which featured a choir of schoolchildren protesting overbearing authority and “thought control” in education.

    In the video posted by the Let’s Music arts school in Sichuan’s Leshan city, a line of children in matching black T-shirts march robotically in front of hundreds of spectators on a busy shopping street, singing “We don’t need no education. We don’t need no thought control,” before breaking into a tightly choreographed dance to the Pink Floyd track.

    “No dark sarcasm in the classroom — hey, teacher! Leave those kids alone,” the song goes. “All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall.”

    The clip, posted to X by current affairs tweeter Byron Wan on May 16, is still visible outside the Great Firewall of Chinese internet censorship, but was no longer available on the video-sharing platforms Douyin and Bilibili on Tuesday.

    The Douyin link to the clip returned the message “That video does not exist,” while the Let’s Music channel on Bilibili showed links to other songs performed in the same location, but not “Another Brick in the Wall.”

    Let’s Music said in a statement on May 7 that the performance was deliberately intended to be a comment on “the current situation,” without giving further details.

    Patriotic education

    The ruling Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping is currently stepping up its program of “patriotic education” in schools and universities across the country, in a move that many outside China have criticized as “brainwashing,” a term first used in English by U.S. journalist Edward Hunter in 1950 to describe how the Chinese government got people to support China’s efforts during the Korean War. 

    Last October, China passed the Patriotic Education Law with the aim of “enhancing identification with our great motherland, the Chinese nation, Chinese culture and the Communist Party,” amid an ongoing nationwide campaign under Xi to boost ruling party involvement in cultural output at every level, in a manner some have likened to Mao Zedong’s 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution.

    ENG_CHN_THOUGHT CONTROL_05212024.2.JPG
    A Young Pioneer salutes during the weekly flag-raising ceremony at the East Experimental School in Shanghai November 5, 2012. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

    Pink Floyd’s original song sold more than four million copies worldwide and topped singles charts, making Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It was penned by Pink Floyd’s bass player Roger Waters as a protest over rigid and abusive schooling, particularly in British boarding schools.

    According to Wan, the video disappeared from Douyin and Bilibili more than a week after being posted there. 

    “Censors in China have been keeping an eye on X,” he commented after followers reported that the clip was no longer available.

    Artistic resistance

    France-based film director Hu Xueyang said he was happy to see some form of artistic resistance still alive in China.

    “When politics is uptight, then there’s a lot of political satire,” Hu said. “In dark times, all we have left is artistic ridicule and black humor.”

    “China’s younger generation is making its voice heard, and using various forms of resistance,” he said. 

    Paris-based artist Jiang Bu agreed, saying the song epitomized saying “no” to totalitarian control.

    “There was a kind of resistance or opposition to totalitarianism in a lot of the music from that time, including Pink Floyd’s stuff,” Jiang said. “It was about saying no.”

    “Let’s Music may not have intended direct resistance, but it still chose this song … that has resistance at its core, so there was a point to it.”

    ENG_CHN_THOUGHT CONTROL_05212024.4.jpg
    Students attend a flag raising ceremony during the morning assembly, ahead of National Security Education Day at a secondary school, in Hong Kong, China, April 12, 2021. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

    He said the removal of the track had attracted more views to the Let’s Music channel than it would normally have gotten, ironically alerting more people to the song’s meaning.

    He likened the backlash to the authorities pulling the plug on a live stream by beauty influencer Austin Li on the eve of the anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre because it showed an ice-cream cake in the shape of a tank.

    That piece of censorship had ensured that more people found out what happened on the night of June 4, 1989 — something that has been largely erased from the public record in China — than might otherwise have done, Jiang said.

    ENG_CHN_THOUGHT CONTROL_05212024.3.jpg
    Roger Waters, co-founder of the British rock band Pink Floyd performs during his The Wall Live show in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013, with graffiti reading “Fear builds walls”. (Vadim Ghirda/AP)

    When Pink Floyd went to record children from London’s Islington Green School singing the refrain of the song, they hid the lyrics from the headteacher for fear she would pull the plug on the project, according to the band’s Wikipedia page, citing media reports.

    Late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was said to have “hated” the song, according to the school’s former director of music, while the Inner London Education Authority criticized it as “scandalous.” The song was banned by the South African government of the time.

    Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Eugene Whong.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Yitong Wu and Kit Sung for RFA Cantonese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Tibetan Children Traumatized Abused And Brainwashed By The Chinese Regime

    Tibetan Children Traumatized Abused And Indoctrinated By The Chinese Regime

    Image: researched/acquired by @tibettruth

    Tibetan children are being forcibly removed from their families and incarcerated at indoctrination camps, such as the so-called Tsome County Primary ‘School’. In the image above, taken at that location, ‘students’ are lectured by Chinese regime officials of the supreme truth of ‘Xi Jinping thought’ and ‘legal knowledge’. All conducted of course in Chinese!

    This post was originally published on Digital Activism In Support Of Tibetan Independence.

  • Gallery: From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free

    Asia Pacific Report

    As Israel drives the Palestinians deeper into another Nakba in Gaza with its assault on Rafah, the Palestine Youth Aotearoa (PYA) and solidarity supporters in Aotearoa New Zealand tonight commemorated the original Nakba — “the Catastrophe” — of 1948.

    The 1948 Nakba
    The 1948 Nakba . . . more than 750,000 Palestinians were forced to leave their homeland and become exiles in neighbouring states. Many dream of their UN-recognised right to return. Image: Wikipedia

    This was when Israeli militias slaughtered more than 15,000 people, perpetrated more than 70 massacres and occupied more than three quarters of Palestine, with 750,000 of the Palestinian population forced into becoming refugees from their own land.

    The Nakba was a massive campaign of ethnic cleansing followed by the destruction of hundreds of villages, to prevent the return of the refugees — similar to what is being wrought now in Gaza.

    The Nakba lies at the heart of 76 years of injustice for the Palestinians — and for the latest injustice, the seven-month long war on Gaza.

    Participants told through their stories, poetry and songs by candlelight, they would not forget 1948 — “and we will not forget the genocide under way in Gaza.”

    Photographs: David Robie

     

    Nakba Day vigil in Tāmaki Makaurau in Aotearoa 2024
    1 of 12
    Nakba 1: Recalling the original Nakba in Palestine in 1948. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
    Nakba 2: Photos of the original 1948 Nakba and the atrocities that followed. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
    Nakba 3: A photographic timeline from 1948 until 2024. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
    Nakba 4: Blindfolded Palestinian captive. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
    Nakba 5: “Generation after generation until total liberation.” Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
    Nakba 6: Palestinian Kiwi children with miniature watermelons. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
    Nakba 7: Palestinian keys – symbolic of the Right To Return. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
    Nakba 8: Palestinian Kiwi child poet. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
    Nakba 9: “Return is our right, our destiny.” Image: Davd Robie/Asia Pacific Report
    Nakba 10: A montage of Israeli settler colonial cruelty. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
    Nakba 11: Palestinian children sing about their homeland during the Nakba rally in Auckland’s Aotea Square on Sunday, 12 May 2024. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
    Nakba 12: A giant “key of return” during the Queen Street Nakba march on Sunday, 12 May 2024. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Fiji abstains from new UN vote on Palestinian membership bid

    Asia Pacific Report

    The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to grant Palestine new rights and privileges, calling on the Security Council to reconsider its bid for full UN membership, reports TrimFeed.

    The resolution on Friday was opposed by the US, Israel, and seven other countries — four of them island nations from the Pacific — citing concerns over direct negotiations and a two-state solution.

    Papua New Guinea, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau were among the countries voting against Palestine.

    Fiji Abstains from UN Vote on Palestinian Membership Bid
    Fiji abstains from UN vote on Palestinian membership bid. (Note: Australia voted yes, it did not abstain). Image: TrimFeed

    The UN General Assembly called on the Security Council to reconsider Palestine’s request to become the 194th member of the United Nations.

    The overwhelming vote in favour by 143-9, with 25 abstentions, reflects wide global support for full membership of Palestine in the world body.

    The outcome of this vote has significant implications for the Israel-Palestine conflict, as it may influence the trajectory of future negotiations and the prospects for a two-state solution.

    Furthermore, the level of international support for Palestinian statehood may impact on the balance of power in the region and beyond.

    Fiji, Vanuatu, and Marshall Islands were among the countries that abstained from the vote, alongside the United States, Israel, Argentina, Czechia, Hungary, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, and Papua New Guinea voting against.

    US will veto statehood
    The US has made clear that it would block Palestinian membership and statehood until direct negotiations with Israel resolve key issues and lead to a two-state solution.

    The vote comes amid escalating violence and rising death tolls on the Palestinian people — more than 35,000 have been killed and almost 79,000 wounded in the War on Gaza

    Many countries have expressed outrage at the situation and fears of a major Israeli ground offensive in Rafah.

    Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN Ambassador, delivered an emotional speech, saying, “No words can capture what such loss and trauma signifies for Palestinians, their families, communities, and for our nation as a whole.”

    Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan vehemently opposed the resolution, accusing UN member nations of not mentioning Hamas’ October 7 attack that killed 1139 people and he shredded a copy of the UN charter in protest.

    US Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood said: “For the US to support Palestinian statehood, direct negotiations must guarantee Israel’s security and future as a democratic Jewish state, and that Palestinians can live in peace in a state of their own.”

    While the resolution grants Palestine some new rights and privileges, it reaffirms that it remains a non-member observer state without full UN membership and voting rights in the General Assembly.

    Humanitarian ceasefire vote
    Palestine became a UN non-member observer state in 2012. The United States vetoed a widely-backed council resolution on April 18 that would have paved the way for full United Nations membership for Palestine.

    The General Assembly’s vote calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza on October 27 and the ongoing violence underscore the urgent need for a resolution to the long-standing crisis.

    As the international community remains divided on the issue of Palestinian statehood, the path to lasting peace remains uncertain.

    Republished from TrimFeed.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Lady Massey of Darwen obituary

    Teacher, education adviser and politician who worked tirelessly to improve the lives of children in Britain and abroad

    Doreen Massey, Lady Massey of Darwen, who has died of cancer aged 85, devoted a long and busy working life primarily to improving the lives of children and young people in Britain and, subsequently, as a member of the Council of Europe, further afield. She believed in an inclusive society and sought to challenge discrimination, to defend human rights and, whenever possible, to speak on behalf of those who did not themselves have a voice.

    Massey was acclaimed for her considerable ethical contribution to a number of issues in public life, notably on education, marriage equality, LGBTQ+ rights, sexual health and the misuse of drugs and alcohol. She was a forthright, brave woman who lived life according to the values she espoused, and in consequence was as widely popular in parliaments as she had once been as a schoolteacher in the playground.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Profile in Persecution: Ali Mahmood Mahmood (AlKahraba’ii)

    Ali Mahmood Mahmood (AlKahraba’ii) was a 15-year-old Bahraini school student and minor when Bahraini authorities arrested him from his grandfather’s house on 16 January 2019 without presenting an arrest warrant. During detention, he endured torture, enforced disappearance, denial of access to legal counsel, unfair trial based on confessions extracted under torture, and sectarian-based insults. Ali was sentenced to 10 years in prison, of which he served five years before being released on 8 April 2024, under a royal pardon that included 1,584 convicts.

    On 16 January 2019, riot police, commandos, and special forces raided the home of Ali’s grandfather in Duraz, where he was staying. The officers entered the house from above and arrested him without providing any arrest warrant or reason for his arrest. Ali’s arrest occurred on a cold day while he was wearing light clothes, and officers refused to provide him with warmer clothing. Subsequently, they transferred him to the Criminal Investigation Directorate (CID) Building, where he managed to call his family for no more than a minute, informing them of his location. After that, his news was cut off and he forcibly disappeared until he was transferred to the New Dry Dock Prison on 6 February 2019. 

    Ali was previously summoned to appear before the Hamad Town Center in 2018 when he was 14 years old; however, he was not arrested at that time.

    At the CID, Ali was interrogated without the presence of a lawyer or guardian for 20 days. CID officers stripped him of his clothes, beat him on his face, forced him to stand for extended periods, poured cold water on him while the weather was cold, and then transferred him to an extremely cold air-conditioned room. Furthermore, they insulted his parents and his Shia religious sect. Subsequently, he confessed to the fabricated charges brought against him under torture.

    Ali was not presented to the Public Prosecution Office (PPO). Instead, he was transferred to Jau Prison, where he met with the PPO’s representative who forced him to sign papers without knowing their content. On 6 February 2019, he was transferred to the New Dry Dock Prison, where he was able to call his family for the first time since his enforced disappearance when he was at the CID.

    Ali was not brought before a judge within 48 hours after arrest, was not given adequate time and facilities to prepare for his trial (which started six months after his arrest), and was unable to present evidence or challenge the evidence presented against him. Furthermore, the court utilized the confessions extracted from him under torture as evidence against him in his trial.

    On 28 January 2020, Ali was sentenced to 10 years in prison and a fine of 100,000 dinars. He was convicted of 1) training on explosive materials, 2) attempted explosion, 3) possession of weapons, 4) manufacture of explosives, and 5) conspiring with external entities. The court of appeal, as well as the court of cassation, upheld the sentence.

    On 22 March 2024, Ali joined a hunger strike in solidarity with his fellow inmate, Mohamed Hasan Radhi, who was transferred to isolation. In a voice recording spread on social media, Ali held concerned authorities responsible for the deterioration of his inmate’s psychological condition.

    On 8 April 2024, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain issued a royal decree pardoning 1,584 convicts on the occasion of the silver jubilee of his accession to the throne, coinciding with Eid al-Fitr, with Ali among them. He was released on the same day.

    Ali’s warrantless arrest, torture, enforced disappearance, denial of attorney access, unfair trial, and religious discrimination constitute violations of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), to which Bahrain is a party. Furthermore, the violations he endured as a minor contravene the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), to which Bahrain is also a party.

    As such, Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) calls upon the Bahraini authorities to investigate the allegations of Ali’s arbitrary arrest as a minor, torture, enforced disappearance, religious discrimination, and denial of attorney access during interrogations, and to hold the perpetrators accountable. Additionally, ADHRB urges the Bahraini government to end the isolation of all political prisoners, holding the government responsible for the deterioration of the psychological conditions of the isolated detainees. While ADHRB welcomes the issued royal pardon, which included several political prisoners, it considers this belated step insufficient unless investigations into the violations suffered by these released individuals are conducted, compensation is provided, perpetrators are held accountable, and political arrests and prison violations cease.

    The post Profile in Persecution: Ali Mahmood Mahmood (AlKahraba’ii) appeared first on Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain.

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  • ‘Our Legs Were Shaking’: The Moment A Truck Plowed Into A Crowd Of Kyrgyz Children


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  • Truck Accident In Kyrgyzstan: Driverless Vehicle Rolls Down, Hitting A Crowd Of Children


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  • Profiles in Persecution: Ahmed and Mahmood Mohamed Habib

    Twin brothers Ahmed and Mahmood Mohamed Habib were 17-year-old minor students when Bahraini authorities arrested them along with some of their friends on 1 July 2015 while they were eating Suhoor during the month of Ramadan. During their detention, they were subjected to enforced disappearance, torture, sexual harassment, sectarian-based insults, and unfair trials based on confessions extracted under torture. Ahmed was sentenced to 40 years in prison, and Mahmood was sentenced to 47 years and six months in prison on politically motivated charges before being released on 8 April 2024, under a royal pardon that included 1584 convicts.

     

    On 1 July 2015, at 3:00 A.M., military and civilian vehicles, with helicopter support, surrounded the house in the Wadyan area, where Ahmed and Mahmood were eating suhoor during the month of Ramadan with their friends. Riot police officers from the Ministry of Interior (MOI) and two plainclothes officers raided the house and arrested the twins and the young men who were accompanying them: Ali Hasan Ashoor, Ali Jaafar AlAmr, Ahmed Hasan AlAnsara, and Ahmed Yasser Ahmed. The officers did not present any arrest warrant, nor provide a reason for the arrest. Subsequently, they transferred them to the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) building.

     

    After their arrest, Ahmed and Mahmood were forcibly disappeared for two days. Their family didn’t know about the arrest until after it was spread on social media platforms, and they heard the news from other people. On 3 July 2015, two days after the arrest, the twins called the family and informed them that they were at the CID building.

     

    At the CID, officers interrogated and tortured Ahmed and Mahmood. They severely beat them, took photos and videos of them while they were naked, and didn’t allow them to pray. Furthermore, they beat them whenever they tried to go to the bathroom and forced them to sign fabricated confessions to some of the charges brought against them. The interrogations lasted for about two weeks and were conducted without the presence of a lawyer. Subsequently, they were transferred to the Public Prosecutor’s Office (PPO) on 4 July 2015, and on 8 July 2015, they were transferred to the Dry Dock Prison. On 11 July 2015, 11 days after the arrest, Ahmed and Mahmood’s parents were able to visit them for the first time since the arrest in the Dry Dock Prison.

     

    Ahmed and Mahmood were not brought promptly before a judge, did not have adequate time and facilities to prepare for their trials, weren’t able to present evidence and challenge evidence presented against them, and were denied access to their lawyer. Furthermore, their confessions extracted under torture were used against them as evidence in their trials.

     

    The court convicted Ahmed between 29 October 2015 and 31 March 2020 in cases related to 1) gathering and rioting, 2) manufacturing usable or explosive devices, 3) negligent destruction, 4) using force and violence against a public official, 5) arson, 6) endangering people’s lives or safety, 7) violating the conditions of getting a license to import explosives, 8) using explosives to endanger the funds of others, 9) importing or possessing explosives, guns or pistols, and 10) explosion or attempted explosion. He was sentenced to a total of more than 50 years in prison. Ahmed appealed some of the rulings, however, the Court of Appeal rejected some of the appeals and upheld the verdicts. On the other hand, it accepted the rest of the appeals and reduced the sentences. After the appeals, the total sentence became 40 years in prison.

     

    Mahmood was convicted between 23 April 2013 and 29 October 2018 in cases related to 1) gathering and rioting, 2) breaching the prestige of the court, 3) manufacturing usable or explosive devices, 4) negligent destruction, 5) using force and violence against a public official, 6) arson, 7) endangering people’s lives or safety, 8) violating the conditions of getting a license to import explosives, 9) using explosives to endanger the funds of others, 10) importing or possessing explosives, guns or pistols, and 11) explosion or attempted explosion. He was sentenced to more than 59 years and six months in prison. Mahmood appealed some of the rulings, however, the Court of Appeal rejected some of the appeals and upheld the verdicts. On the other hand, it accepted the rest of the appeals and reduced the sentences. After the appeals, the total sentence was reduced to 47 years and six months in prison.

     

    While serving their sentences in Jau Prison, Ahmed and Mahmood were deprived of prayer and insulted based on their Shia religious sect.

     

    On 8 April 2024, King Hamad bin Isa AlKhalifa of Bahrain issued a royal decree pardoning 1584 convicts on the occasion of the silver jubilee of his accession to the throne, coinciding with Eid al-Fitr, with Ahmed and Mahmood among them. Ahmed and Mahmood were released on the same day.

    Ahmed and Mahmood’s warrantless arrest, torture, denial of attorney access, unfair trials, sectarian-based insults, and sexual harassment constitute violations of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), to which Bahrain is a party. Furthermore, the violations they endured as minors contravene the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), to which Bahrain is also a party.

     

    As such, Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) calls on the Bahraini authorities to investigate allegations of arbitrary arrest, torture, sexual assault, denial of legal counsel, and sectarian discrimination, provide compensation for Ahmed and Mahmood, and hold the perpetrators accountable. While ADHRB welcomes the royal pardon issued, which included several political prisoners, it considers this belated step incomplete if the Bahraini government does not investigate the violations endured by these released individuals and compensate them. This step would also be considered incomplete if the perpetrators are not held accountable and political arrests and violations within prisons are not stopped.

    The post Profiles in Persecution: Ahmed and Mahmood Mohamed Habib appeared first on Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain.

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  • ‘I can’t give up my children’; Myanmar mother whose three children face military conscription


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

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  • ‘I can’t give up my children’; Myanmar mother whose three children face military conscription


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

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  • “Stop killing Palestinian children,” mother tells Pentagon chief


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  • “Like Lying in a Coffin”: UNICEF Spokesperson Warns of Devastating Toll on Gaza’s Children


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  • “Like Lying in a Coffin”: UNICEF Spokesperson Warns of Devastating Toll on Gaza’s Children

    Seg3 baby

    As the death toll in Gaza tops 32,600, we speak with UNICEF spokesperson James Elder in Rafah near the Egyptian border, now home to some 1.5 million Palestinians seeking shelter from the fighting. He says Israel’s continued obstruction of aid into the territory is a “man-made and preventable” crisis of hunger and acute malnutrition that could be ended if Israel just opened access to more aid trucks, especially in northern Gaza, where desperate people could be reached in as little as 10 minutes. “When I’m on the street, every person, the first thing they want to tell me in English or Arabic is 'We need food, we need food,'” Elder tells Democracy Now! “They are saying that because their assumption is the world doesn’t know, because how would this be allowed to happen if the world knew?” He also reiterates UNICEF’s call for a full ceasefire and warns against Israel’s planned ground invasion of Rafah, which he describes as “a city of children.”


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