French President Emmanuel Macron has defended his Indo-Pacific vision during the traditional New Year’s good wishes ceremony to the French Armed Forces in Paris.
Macron said tensions in the Indo-Pacific zone were a matter for concern because France was an integral part of the Indo-Pacific — both in the Indian and the Pacific oceans.
He recalled the French version of the Indo-Pacific had been masterminded in 2018 and had since been developed in partnership with such key allies as India, Australia, Japan and the United Arab Emirates.
“But we have also consolidated it and, may I say entrenched it, in our own (overseas) territories,” he said, citing New Caledonia as an example of French army presence to defend France’s sovereignty and “the capacity for our air force to deploy (from mainland France) to Oceania within 48 hours”.
He also praised the recent South Pacific Defence Ministers’ Meeting held in Nouméa last month when “France was the inviting power”.
He said Paris was able to strike “strategic partnerships” with neighbouring armed forces.
“The year 2024 will see us maintain without fail the protection of our overseas territories,” he told the troops.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
A civilian employee of the US Army has been arrested for allegedly stealing ONE HUNDRED MILLION dollars from the federal government. The employee was using a shell company to get millions in grants and payments from the government by lying about services the company was performing. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by […]
The International Court of Justice rejected Israel’s request to dismiss the genocide case brought against it by South Africa yesterday, ruling by a massive majority that the case shall proceed and instructing Israel to refrain from killing and harming Palestinians in the interim.
Imperial media are aggressively emphasising the absence of a ceasefire order in their headlines and many Israel apologists are framing that absence as a victory for their favorite ethnostate.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu . . . “The charge of genocide levelled against Israel is not only false, it’s outrageous.” Image: AJ screenshot APR
But such performative chest-thumping is severely undercut by the way high-level Israeli officials are currently accusing the ICJ of antisemitism and saying Israel should ignore its rulings.
“The international court of justice went above and beyond when it granted South Africa’s antisemitic request to discuss the claim of genocide in Gaza, and now refuses to reject the petition outright,” complained Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant in response to the ruling.
Israeli officials accuse international court of justice of antisemitic bias https://t.co/QoUltAdHgG
“The decision of the antisemitic court in The Hague proves what was already known: This court does not seek justice, but rather the persecution of Jewish people,” said Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
Ben Gvir also tweeted “Hague Schmague” immediately after the ruling was issued, which will probably go down in history as the most Israeli tweet of all time.
Everyone’s arguing about whether or not the ICJ’s ruling is helpful, and I don’t know enough one way or the other to be sure either way, but from where things stand right now it does seem unlikely to me that managers of the Israeli war machine would be getting this freaked out and whipping out their tired old “antisemitism” song and dance if there wasn’t something of substance to it.
The genocide case against Israel. Video: Al Jazeera
International lawyer Francis Boyle, who won provisional measures against Yugoslavia at the ICJ in 1993, said the following of the ruling:
“This is a massive, overwhelming legal victory for the Republic of South Africa against Israel on behalf of the Palestinians. The UN General Assembly now can suspend Israel from participation in its activities as it did for South Africa and Yugoslavia.
“It can admit Palestine as a full member. And — especially since the International Criminal Court has been a farce — it can establish a tribunal to prosecute the highest level officials of the Israeli government, both civilian and military.”
So take that for whatever that’s worth to you. In any case the butchery in Gaza still urgently needs to be ended, and only time will tell whether Friday’s development had any major effect on the outcome of this horror.
But what I wouldn’t have given to be a fly on the wall at the meetings they were having at the US State Department on Friday.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled against Israel and determined that South Africa successfully argued that Israel’s conduct plausibly could constitute genocide. The court has imposed several injunctions against Israel and reminds Israel that its rulings are binding, according to international law.
In its order, the court fell short of South Africa’s request for a ceasefire, but this ruling, however, is overwhelmingly in favour of South Africa’s case and will likely increase international pressure for a ceasefire as a result.
On the question of whether Israel’s war in Gaza is genocide, that will still take more time, but today’s news will have significant political repercussions. Here are a few thoughts.
This is a devastating blow to Israel’s global standing. To put it in context, Israel has worked ferociously for the last two decades to defeat the BDS movement — Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions — not because it will have a significant economic impact on Israel, but because of how it could delegitimiSe Israel internationally.
However, the ruling of the ICJ that Israel is plausibly engaged in genocide is far more devastating to Israel’s legitimacy than anything BDS could have achieved.
Just as much as Israel’s political system has been increasingly — and publicly — associated with apartheid in the past few years, Israel will now be similarly associated with the charge of genocide.
As a result, those countries that have supported Israel and its military campaign in Gaza, such as the US under President Biden, will be associated with that charge, too.
Significant implications for US
The implications for the United States are significant. First because the court does not have the ability to implement its ruling.
Instead, the matter will go to the UN Security Council, where the Biden administration will once again face the choice of protecting Israel politically by casting a veto, and by that, further isolate the United States, or allowing the Security Council to act and pay a domestic political cost for “not standing by Israel.”
I have deleted my previous posts on the ICJ ruling to ensure accurate representation of their decision.
Having read and listened to expert analysis of the ruling, it remains the case that the New Zealand government, a signatory to the Genocide Convention, now has a clear duty… pic.twitter.com/GOulkTJ4Kv
So far, the Biden administration has refused to say if it will respect ICJ’s decision. Of course, in previous cases in front of the ICJ, such as Myanmar, Ukraine and Syria, the US and Western states stressed that ICJ provisional measures are binding and must be fully implemented.
The double standards of US foreign policy will hit a new low if, in this case, Biden not only argues against the ICJ, but actively acts to prevent and block the implementation of its ruling.
It is perhaps not surprising that senior Biden administration officials have largely ceased using the term “rules-based order” since October 7.
It also raises questions about how Biden’s policy of bear-hugging Israel may have contributed to Israel’s conduct.
Biden could have offered more measured support and pushed back hard against Israeli excesses — and by that, prevented Israel from engaging in actions that could potentially fall under the category of genocide. But he didn’t.
Unconditional support, zero criticism
Instead, Biden offered unconditional support combined with zero public criticism of Israel’s conduct and only limited push-back behind the scenes. A different American approach could have shaped Israel’s war efforts in a manner that arguably would not have been preliminarily ruled by the ICJ as plausibly meeting the standards of genocide.
This shows that America undermines its own interest as well as that of its partners when it offers them blank checks and complete and unquestionable protection. The absence of checks and balances that such protection offers fuels reckless behavior all around.
As such, Biden’s unconditional support may have undermined Israel, in the final analysis.
This ruling may also boost those arguing that all states that are party to the Genocide Convention have a positive obligation to prevent genocide. The Houthis, for instance, have justified their attacks against ships heading to Israeli ports in the Red Sea, citing this positive obligation.
What legal implications will the court’s ruling have as a result on the US and UK’s military action against the Houthis?
The implications for Europe will also be considerable. The US is rather accustomed to and comfortable with setting aside international law and ignoring international institutions. Europe is not.
International law and institutions play a much more central role in European security thinking. The decision will continue to split Europe. But the fact that some key EU states will reject the ICJ’s ruling will profoundly contradict and undermine Europe’s broader security paradigm.
Moderated war conduct
One final point: The mere existence of South Africa’s application to the ICJ appears to have moderated Israel’s war conduct.
Any plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza and send its residents to third countries appear to have been somewhat paused, presumably because of how such actions would boost South Africa’s application.
If so, it shows that the court, in an era where the force of international law is increasingly questioned, has had a greater impact in terms of deterring unlawful Israeli actions than anything the Biden administration has done.
Trita Parsi is the co-founder and executive vice-president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. First published at Responsible Statecraft.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ordered Israel to take steps to prevent acts of genocide in South Africa’s case over the war on the Gaza Strip.
But it stopped short of ordering a ceasefire in what is being seen as a historical ruling on emergency measures requested by the South African government which analysts say will put pressure on Tel Aviv and its Western backers.
The ICJ, also known as the World Court, ordered Israel to take measures to prevent and punish direct incitement of genocide, and also to take immediate, effective measures to enable provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance in the besieged enclave.
Hailing the emergency measures, South African Minister of International Relations Dr Naledi Pandor said outside the court in The Hague that Israel would have to halt fighting in Gaza if it wanted to adhere to the orders of the United Nations’ top court.
“How else is it going to comply with the ruling?” she asked, adding that it was up to the global community to ensure the measures were applied to “stop the suffering of the Palestinian people”.
“How do you provide aid and water without a ceasefire?” Dr Pandor said.
“If you read the order, by implication a ceasefire must happen.”
In South Africa, government officials welcomed the ruling.
“It’s a watershed judgment for all those who want to see peace in Palestine,” Fikile Mbalula, secretary-general of the ruling African National Congress party, told reporters.
Palestinian human rights attorney @dianabuttu reacts to the ICJ ruling on Gaza: “This court has overwhelmingly decided in favor of South Africa, has overwhelmingly determined that there is plausible risk of genocide, and it becomes imperative upon the world community to now act.” pic.twitter.com/eXQuyIBlbA
Years to decide
The ICJ judges have not ruled on the merits of the genocide allegations, which may take years to decide. However, they ruled that South Africa had presented a “plausible case” with its genocide allegations that led to the emergency measures.
Since October 7 when Hamas launched a deadly raid on Israel, Tel Aviv’s military campaign has killed at least 26,083 people and wounded 64,487 others, according to officials in Gaza. Thousands more are missing under the rubble, most of them presumed dead.
Al Jazeera’s senior analyst Marwan Bishara told the network that “Israel is on trial for genocide”, saying that the provisional ruling would cause a seismic split between the Global North and South depending on which side people aligned, even if the ICJ had not called for an immediate ceasefire.
He said Israel’s major backer, the United States, which had vetoed three UN Security Council resolutions seeking a ceasefire in recent months, now needed to “look in the mirror”.
“The UK, Germany and other countries who supported Israel in the past three months unconditionally also need to look in the mirror and reconsider their decision because the World Court has taken up the case of genocide against Israel for its actions in the past three months,” Bishara said.
The principle outcome was that the ICJ would take on the case and had put Israel “on notice” and demand that the state carry out a number of steps.
“I think that legally and morally sends a strong message to Israel and its backers that they need to cease and desist — even if the court did not spell it out.”
International Court of Justice preliminary ruling: “Israel’s actions in Gaza may constitute genocide.” pic.twitter.com/ArtpoFbZ3M
Plausible case of genocide
Thomas Macmanus, director of international state crime initiative at Queen Mary University of London, stressed that the court had said there “is a plausible case of genocide in Gaza”.
“So, we now have a serious risk of genocide,” he said, noting that the law stipulated that once there is “a serious risk”, then states needed to do “everything they can to stop enabling that genocide and to start taking all action in their capacity to prevent it”.
Riyadh al-Maliki, Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs, issued a statement welcoming the ICJ’s provisional measures “in light of the incontrovertible evidence presented to the court about the unfolding genocide”.
“The ICJ ruling is an important reminder that no state is above the law or beyond the reach of justice. It breaks Israel’s entrenched culture of criminality and impunity, which has characterised its decades-long occupation, dispossession, persecution, and apartheid in Palestine.”
Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir mocked the ICJ after the court ended its reading.
“Hague shmague,” the minister wrote on X, formerly Twitter, in the first comments by an Israeli official.
All of those genocidal statements including that of Palestinians being human animals. Well here they are being quoted again to the world by Judge Donoghue at the ICJ. #ICJGazaGenocidepic.twitter.com/RmBQRBInU3
That rioting — branded as Black Wednesday — was sparked by a police protest after unannounced deductions from their wages, which the government blamed on a glitch.
The protest led to a riot causing the deaths of more than 20 people, widespread looting and hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to businesses.
The 14-day state of emergency following the violence has now ended.
The National newspaper reported Prime Minister James Marape announced Manning’s reinstatement, and that of Taies Sansan as the Department of Personnel Management Secretary, after administrative preliminary investigations concluded.
However, Treasury Secretary Andrew Oake and Finance Secretary Samuel Penias remained suspended “due to their failure to update the salary system, which led to the events of Jan 10”, Marape said.
Marape also said Deputy Police Commissioner Dr Philip Mina was being suspended.
A commission of inquiry will be appointed to look into the police force.
“The commission of inquiry will be headed by a judge from the Supreme Court and National Court, and will be concluded as soon as possible, to look into the structure, the operation, and their ethics of conduct,” Marape said.
“The country deserves to have a police force that is effective and efficient. We will leave no stone unturned as we recover, reboot and restore.”
An ethnic army has captured the military camp of the junta’s Light Infantry Battalion No. 123 in northern Myanmar’s Shan state, residents and the rebel group said Thursday, capping months of fighting for control of a key trade route with China.
The loss of the base means that ethnic rebels now control the entire 130-kilometer (80-mile) trade route from Muse township on the border with China to Hseni, located some 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of northern Shan state’s largest town of Lashio.
It is also the latest in a number of setbacks for the military since an ethnic offensive in late October that has seen the Three Brotherhood Alliance capture 15 cities in northern Shan state, seize control of more than 200 military camps, and force the surrender of some 4,000 junta troops.
The Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, took control of the camp on Wednesday evening after initially overrunning Nam Hpat Kar town on Jan. 17, KIA spokesman Col. Naw Bu told RFA Burmese.
“We heard that the military camp at Nam Hpat Kar was seized around 3 p.m. or 4 p.m., but we haven’t received any details from the field yet,” he said. “We haven’t been able to get a phone connection through.”
A resident of Nam Hpat Kar who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, told RFA that KIA soldiers entered the military compound on Wednesday, prompting junta troops to flee toward nearby Tarmoenye township.
“I’m sure the KIA troops are now stationed at Light Infantry Battalion No. 123 camp,” he said. “Since the troops retreated toward Tarmoenye, they are following them and clearing them out. The damage to the village is huge.”
Ethnic rebels began attacking Nam Hpat Kar township in late August, but the KIA only started the fight for control of the Light Infantry Battalion camp on Jan. 14. Junta forces responded to attacks on the camp with heavy artillery and airstrikes, residents said.
The KIA claimed on Jan. 16 that it was able to shoot down a junta jet fighter during fighting in the area.
Civilian casualties
Another resident of Nam Hpat Kar, who was forced to leave his home amid the fighting, told RFA that the military airstrikes destroyed area homes and caused civilian casualties.
“The [KIA] also broke into the houses and fired from inside of them, so the military attacked the houses based on information they received,” he said. “At the moment, out of the eight houses I know [were fired on], four were reduced to ashes. The rest of the houses no longer have walls or roofs.”
The resident said at least two civilians were killed in the fighting, but was unable to provide additional details. He said villagers are afraid to return home because of the threat of additional airstrikes.
More than 20,000 people live in Nam Hpat Kar, which consists of four wards and nine village tracts.
Aid workers said that some 10,000 residents of villagers close to the military camp were forced to flee to monasteries in the townships of Namhkan, Muse, Lashio and other nearby areas amid the clashes.
Another resident of Nam Hpat Kar told RFA that, as of Jan. 17, he had documented the deaths of at least 24 civilians due to military airstrikes and artillery fire, and said at least 100 homes had been damaged.
The KIA claims to have downed a junta jet fighter during the Nam Hpat Kar battle. On Jan. 25, 2024 an image of the downed jet from the Battle of Nam Hpat Kar was released. (Provided by Citizen Journalist)
A social worker who fled from Nam Hpat Kar due to the fighting said on Thursday that the number of casualties and extent of the damage had yet to be fully accounted for, due to severed internet and telephone lines.
The junta has not released any statement about the situation in Nam Hpat Kar.
KIA demonstrates importance
A former military officer, who now works as a commentator on military and political issues in Myanmar, said that the capture of the camp in Nam Hpat Kar is a demonstration of the junta’s increasing weakness in the region.
“The attack took 10 days, and we should praise the bravery [of the junta troops] who resisted it,” he said.
But he criticized the military’s leadership for failing to do enough to hold the camp.
“[Nearby] Kutkai and Namhkan [townships were] seized by the [Ta’ang National Liberation Army],” the former officer said, referring to one of the three ethnic armies that, along with the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Arakan Army, form the Three Brotherhood Alliance.
“Now, Nam Hpat Kar, which is located at the top of the road heading to Namhkan, has been captured. So now it is all done, and [the KIA] has demonstrated the importance of its role [in fighting the military],” he said.
In the five months of fighting between ethnic armies and the junta for Nam Hpat Kar, more than 50 civilians – including women and children – were killed, according to residents.
Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Matt Reed.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.
America’s Lawyer E83: A new lawsuit is accusing TikTok of mis-labeling their own app so that they could skirt child protection laws – we’ll bring you the details. Drug companies have already raised the prices of nearly 800 different pharmaceuticals so far this year, and more price hikes are on the way. And why the […]
New Zealand’s defence minister has defended a decision to send six NZ Defence Force staff to the Middle East to help “take out” Houthis fighters as they are “essentially holding the world to ransom”.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins confirmed the plan at the first Cabinet meeting for the year.
The deployment, which could run until the end of July, will support the military efforts led by the United States to protect commercial and merchant vessels.
The Houthis attacks are disrupting supply lines, and forcing ships to voyage thousands of kilometres further around Africa in protest against the Israeli war on Gaza.
‘Firmly on side of Western backers of Israel’
A security analyst also said the US-requested deployment could be interpreted as New Zealand “planting its flag firmly on the side of the Western backers of Israel”.
Speaking to RNZ Morning Report, Defence Minister Judith Collins denied it showed New Zealand being in support of Israel over the war on Gaza.
She said it was a “very difficult situation”, but not what the deployment was about.
“It’s about the ability to get our goods to market . . . we’re talking about unarmed merchant vessels moving through the Red Sea no longer able to do so without being attacked.”
Collins said New Zealand had been involved in the Middle East for a “very long time” and it needed to assist where possible to remain a good international partner and to make sure military targets were “taken out”.
Houthis had been given a number of serious warnings, Collins said, and its actions were “outrageous”.
“They are essentially holding the world to ransom.”
NZ would not allow ‘pirates’
New Zealand was part of the world community and would not stand by and allow “pirates to take over our ships or anyone’s ships”.
Collins said she was not expecting there to be any extension or expansion of the deployment which would end on July 31.
The opposition Labour Party is condemning the coalition government’s deployment of Defence Force troops to the Middle East, saying it has “shades of Iraq”.
Labour foreign affairs spokesperson David Parker made clear his party’s opposition to the deployment.
“We don’t think we should become embroiled in that conflict . . . which is part of a longer term civil war in Yemen and we think that New Zealand should stay out of this, there’s no UN resolution in favour of it . . . we don’t think we should get involved in a conflict in the Middle East.”
‘Deeply disturbing’, say Greens
The Green Party’s co-leaders have also expressed their unhappiness with the deployment, describing it as “deeply disturbing”.
In a statement, Marama Davidson and James Shaw said they were “horrified at this government’s decision to further inflame tensions in the Middle East”.
“The international community has an obligation to protect peace and human rights. Right now, what we are witnessing in the Middle East is a regional power play between different state and non-state groups. This decision is only likely to inflame tensions.”
Davidson and Shaw indicated they would call for an urgent debate on the deployment when Parliament resumes next week.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
“How dare we have a conversation about trade when there are children right now being treated without anaesthetic?”
British journalist Myriam Francois on the Houthis blockade of shipments in the Red sea amid Israel’s war on Gaza. pic.twitter.com/Yg9RV2ek4p
The Brussels Declaration, organised by the International Parliamentarians for West Papua (IPWP), has also launched a new phase in the campaign for a UN visit.
European parliamentarian Carles Puigdemont, formerly president of the state of Catalonia that broke away illegally from Spain in 2017 and an ex-journalist and editor, said during the meeting that the EU should immediately halt its trade negotiations with Indonesia until Jakarta obeyed the “will of the international community” and granted the UN access.
“Six years have now passed since the initial invite to the High Commissioner was made — six years in which thousands of West Papuans have been killed and over 100,000 displaced,” said Wenda.
“Indonesia has repeatedly demonstrated that words of condemnation are not enough. Without real pressure, they will continue to act with total impunity in West Papua.”
‘Unified call’
Wenda said the call to halt European trade negotiations with Indonesia was not just being made by himself, NGOs, or individual nations.
“it is a unified call by nearly half the world, including the European Commission, for international investigation in occupied West Papua,” he said.
“If Indonesia continues to withhold access, they will merely be proving right all the academics, lawyers, and activists who have accused them of committing genocide in West Papua.
“If there is nothing to hide, why all the secrecy?”
Since 2001, the EU has spent millions of euros funding Indonesian rule in West Papua through the controversial colonial “Special Autonomy” law.
“This money is supposedly earmarked for the advancement of ‘democracy, civil society, [and the] peace process’,” Wenda said.
“Given that West Papua has instead suffered 20 years of colonialism, repression, and police and military violence, we must question where these funds have gone.
‘Occupied land’
“West Papua is occupied land. We have never exercised our right to self-determination, which was cruelly taken from us in 1963.
“States and international bodies, including the EU, should not invest in West Papua until this fundamental right has been realised. Companies and corporations who trade with Indonesia over our land are directly funding our genocide.”
Wenda added “we cannot allow Indonesia any hiding place on this issue — West Papua cannot wait any longer”.
The incoming chair of the ABC, Kim Williams, must immediately move to restore the reputation of Australia’s national broadcaster by addressing concerns about the impact of external pressures on editorial decision making, says the media union.
The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance, the union representing journalists at the ABC, today called on Williams to work with unions to support staff who were under attack, reaffirm the commitment to cultural diversity in the workplace, and uphold the standards of reporting without fear or favour that the public expected of the ABC.
MEAA welcomed the appointment of Williams, a former chief executive of News Corp Australia, noting that he had decades of media experience including senior management positions at the ABC, commercial broadcast media and arts administration in the past, and that he had been recommended by an independent nomination panel.
The acting chief executive of MEAA, Adam Portelli, said the new chair would take office at a critical time for the ABC’s future following a staff vote of no confidence in managing director David Anderson earlier this week over the handling of a crisis over pressure from pro-Israeli lobbyists in the war on Gaza.
“On Monday, union members overwhelmingly said they had lost confidence in David Anderson because of his failure to address very real concerns about the way the ABC deals with external pressure and supports journalists from First Nations and culturally diverse backgrounds when they are under attack,” he said.
“Public trust in the ABC as an organisation that will always pursue frank and fearless journalism has been damaged, and management under Mr Anderson has not demonstrated it is taking these concerns seriously.
Buttrose ‘completely out of touch’
“Following yesterday’s board meeting, the current chair, Ita Buttrose, revealed she is completely out of touch with the concerns felt in newsrooms across Australia,” Portelli said.
“Dozens of staff have told us their first hand experiences of feeling unsupported by management when under external attack and the negative impact this is having on their ability to do their jobs and on the reputation and integrity of the ABC. But Ms Buttrose failed to acknowledge these concerns.
“ABC journalists have put forward five very reasonable suggestions to restore the confidence of staff in the managing director but at this stage, Mr Anderson has not committed to an urgent meeting as they requested.”
Portelli said MEAA was optimistic that Williams would bring a more collaborative approach to dealing with issues of cultural safety and editorial integrity than had been witnessed under Buttrose.
“He must understand that nothing less than the reputation of the ABC is at stake here,” Portelli said.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.
Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza, who has been documenting the impact of the war in the Gaza Strip, has left the enclave for Qatar and gave his first interview there with the Doha-based Al Jazeera global news channel.
Azaiza announced on Instagram yesterday that he was leaving the besieged enclave before boarding a Qatari military airplane at Egypt’s El Arish International Airport.
However, it was unclear how he was able to leave Gaza or why he had evacuated, reports Al Jazeera.
“This is the last time you will see me with this heavy, stinky [press] vest. I decided to evacuate today. … Hopefully soon I’ll jump back and help to build Gaza again,” Azaiza said in a video.
The 24-year-old Palestinian captured the attention of millions globally — including in the South Pacific — as he filmed himself in a press vest and helmet to document conditions during Israel’s war, which has killed more than 25,000 people in Gaza.
“Motaz Azaiza – A 24-year-old man from Gaza, in 108 days, did what CNN, Fox, the BBC, and all their ‘journalism’ predecessors refused to do for 75 years.
“Humanise a people!”
– Khaled Beydoun
Israel launched its offensive after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,139 people and taking more than 200 people captive. It has killed more than 25,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in a relentless attack on Gaza since then.
Azaiza’s coverage often took the form of raw, unfiltered videos about injured children or families crushed under rubble in the aftermath of Israeli air strikes.
He said he has had to “evacuate for a lot of reasons you all know some of it but not all of it”.
In his post, he was seen on a video about to board a grey plane emblazoned with the words “Qatar Emiri Air Force”.
“First video outside Gaza,” he said in one clip, revealing that it was his first time on a aircraft. “Heading to Qatar.”
He also shared a video of the inside of the plane as it landed in Doha.
Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza leaves Gaza after his “heroic” humanitarian reporting . . . “we are all Palestinian.” Video: Al Jazeera
Since the start of the war, the photojournalist has amassed millions of followers across multiple platforms.
His Instagram following has grown from about 27,500 to 18.25 million in the more than 108 days since October 7, according to an assessment of social media analytics by Al Jazeera.
His Facebook account grew from a similar starting point to nearly 500,000 followers. He now has one million followers on X, formerly known as Twitter.
As well as his social media posts, Azaiza has produced content for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNWRA).
I left Gaza with a broken heart and eyes filled with tears.
There was no other option after 108 days of continuous massacres against us.
It’s time to move somewhere else so I can do more work and I pray that I can be a reason to stop this war and help rebuild Gaza again.
I’ve… pic.twitter.com/kg3FwTi38d
Social media users thanked Azaiza for his coverage of the war, many saluting him as a hero.
“Thank you for everything you have done, you have moved mountains, what you have done in the last 100 days people can’t do in their whole lifetime. You were a pivotal voice in showing the world the Israeli atrocities in Gaza. Wishing you well and safety,” one user said on X.
Another, Khaled Beydoun, wrote on Instagram, “Motaz Azaiza – A 24-year-old man from Gaza, in 108 days, did what CNN, Fox, the BBC, and all their ‘journalism’ predecessors refused to do for 75 years.
“Humanise a people!”
“I’m so glad you had the opportunity to get out, God willing, YOU WILL RETURN TO A FREE PALESTINE,” wrote another.
“We love you so deeply,” American musician Kehlani wrote, adding, “Thank you for your humanity.”
“Frame that vest. It’s the armor of one of history’s greatest heroes,” comedian Sammy Obeid said.
A group of foreign policy critics alarmed at the Aotearoa New Zealand government’s “undemocratic decision” to step up support for US-led strikes against Yemen have warned against “inflaming” the Red Sea maritime crisis.
They have urgently called for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza as they say the Israeli war that has killed more than 25,000 Palestinians is the root cause of the crisis.
The foreign policy group, Te Kuaka, said in a statement that the government’s decision to deploy a six-member NZ Defence Force team to the Middle East was “deeply alarming”.
The government announcement came this afternoon at a post-Cabinet media conference.
Group co-director Dr Arama Rata said: “New Zealand’s involvement in the Red Sea will just inflame regional instability and cause more civilian deaths without addressing the root cause of the Houthi actions, which is ending the genocide in Gaza.”
Dr Rata said it was deeply alarming that this decision was made without a Parliamentary mandate, particularly given the incredibly high stakes of the crisis.
“There has been no explicit authorisation of military action in self defence against Yemen by the UN Security Council either,” she said.
‘Frightening precedent’
“This sets a frightening precedent for how foreign policy decisions are made.
“There are huge risks to not just the Middle East, but New Zealand directly, when we take the side of the US and the UK, nations that have a long history of oppressive intervention in the Global South.”
Co-director Dr Marco de Jong said: “We know that public opinion and a Parliamentary mandate would have swayed any foreign policy decisions in the direction of calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Thousands took to Queen Street in the heart of Auckland for the 15th consecutive week to protest over the war and to call for a ceasefire and an end to genocide. One of the Palestinian speakers addressing the crowd reminded them millions of citizen protesters were demonstrating all over the world.
The protesters condemned Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for failing to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
At today’s, post-cabinet media conference Luxon claimed the Houthi attacks were hurting New Zealand exporters.
Global trade
“Nearly 15 percent of global trade goes through the Red Sea, and the Houthi attacks are driving costs higher for New Zealanders and causing delays to shipments,” Luxon said.
However, Dr de Jong said: “By pre-empting these criticisms [such as by critics and protesters] in its own announcement, the government is wrongly suggesting that our intervention in the Middle East will not be viewed in the context of genocide in Gaza and highlighting NZ’s previous involvement in US-led misadventures — which have been similarly deadly and destructive.”
Dr Rata added: “We need to have an honest reflection about our positioning alongside the US and the UK.
“Instead of colluding with these colonial powers, we should be standing with countries like Brazil and South Africa, which are challenging old colonial regimes, and represent the majority of the international community.”
Powerful waves, driven by offshore storm surges, hit an important United States military installation in the Marshall Islands on Saturday night, causing damage and resulting in the evacuation of all “non-mission personnel” from the island.
Flooding caused by the waves also hit two airports at Ailinglaplap Atoll, leaving rocks, coral and debris in their wake, keeping those airports closed for weeks.
Other islands reported flooding and moderate damage.
The US Army in a statement yesterdy afternoon that at approximately 9pm on January 20, “a series of weather-induced waves hit Roi-Namur which caused significant flooding in the northern portions of the island”.
A video circulating from Roi-Namur, an island at the northern end of Kwajalein Atoll, shows an approximately one-metre wave hitting the Army’s dining hall, breaking down doors, knocking people down and washing them from outside into the facility.
Roi-Namur houses the US Army’s most sophisticated space-tracking equipment as part of the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Test Site.
The wave hitting the Roi-Namur dining room. The waves smashed down the dining hall’s doors, knocking people down and flooding the facility. Image: Screenshot RNZ Pacific
A second follow-up wave, caught on video, was higher, possibly as high as one-and-a-half metres, washing through the dining hall.
No deaths reported
No deaths were reported at Roi-Namur, but one person was being treated for injuries at the clinic on Kwajalein Island, the base headquarters.
“One individual sustained injuries to lower extremities and is currently being seen at the Kwaj Clinic,” said Army public affairs officer Mike Brantley. “He is in stable condition.”
Tomorrow the new RMI administration gets sworn in and they are inheriting multiple problems just over this past weekend alone: 30+ hours of power outages here in Majuro, water distribution problems, and king tide floodings in Ailinlaplap and Roi Namur pic.twitter.com/wCgFVyF1MM
The Army said in a statement on Sunday that US Army Garrison-Kwajalein Atoll and mission partners had established an Emergency Operations Cell to oversee and coordinate all recovery efforts.
“We have accountability of all employees (US and Marshall Islands) and evacuated all non-mission essential personnel to Kwajalein.”
Kwajalein Island is the missile testing range headquarters and is located about 64 km to the south at the other end of the atoll.
“All Roi residents will remain on Kwajalein until basic services can be restored on Roi,” the Army said. “Recovery efforts will be our top priority.”
Roi-Namur, which was hit by storm-driven waves Saturday night. Image: Giff Johnson
On Sunday, the Marshall Islands National Weather Service issued a mass text message alert saying: “Northern swells may cause inundation in northern atolls and north-facing shores. Hazardous conditions for swimming and sailing in small crafts due to crashing waves and stronger than usual currents due to swells.”
Damage assessment
An aerial damage assessment conducted by the Army on Sunday morning showed “how water inundation washed over the northwest side of the island (Roi-Namur), flooding at least one-third of it”, the Army said in a brief update Sunday morning.
“There is standing water on both sides of the north end of the runway and the first floors of all but two bachelors’ quarters.”
There was flooding in multiple buildings, including the Tradewinds Theater, the Army store, “and all of the automotive warehouse area”.
Remarkably, the small island of Santo, located 5 km away from Roi-Namur, which houses a Marshallese community of 1000, appeared to be unaffected by flooding, said Kwajalein Member of Parliament David Paul Sunday.
He said the Kwajalein Atoll local government had initiated a survey of all inhabited islands in Kwajalein to determine damage.
Kwajalein is the world’s largest atoll and has Marshallese communities on more than 10 islands.
Wave swells also seriously flooded islands in Ailinglaplap Atoll, tossing debris onto airfields at Woja and Jeh islands.
It likely will take weeks to clear the runways for air service to return. Kili Island, home of the displaced Bikini Islanders, also experienced flooding Saturday-Sunday.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
A Palestinian advocate has appealed to the New Zealand government to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and to back the South African genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
“A sovereign state like New Zealand that has historically stood for what is morally correct must not bend to foreign pressure, and must reject policies aligned with the United Kingdom of Israel and the United States of Israel which blindly endorse and support the apartheid regime,” said Billy Hania of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA).
He was speaking at the pro-Palestinian rally and march in Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau yesterday as the Gaza death toll rose above 25,000 dead, mostly women and children.
Palestinian advocate Billy Hania speaking in Aotea Square yesterday . . . “The Zionist project is failing in Palestine.” Image: David Robie/APR
Belgium is among the latest of 61 countries — and the first European nation — to support the genocide case and a growing number of other lawsuits are also being brought against Israel.
Swiss prosecutors have also confirmed that a “crimes against humanity” case has been filed against Israeli President Isaac Herzog during his visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos last week. No further details were given.
“The Zionist project is failing in Palestine — the apartheid entity with 75 years of colonial terror has achieved nothing for the Jewish people, oppressing and killing Palestinians through a violent settler colonial approach,” Hania said.
“Mass killing of Palestinians will achieve nothing for the Jewish people. Without respect for Palestinian rights and respect for life in Palestine, there will be no peace period.”
‘One holocaust not enough?’
Constrasting the shrinking support for Israel with massive citizen protests “in their millions” taking place around the world, Hania criticised Germany’s intervention in the genocide case supporting Tel Aviv while also planning to provide 10,000 tank munitions to “the apartheid regime with which to massacre Palestinians — as if one holocaust was not enough”.
“We are calling on the New Zealand government to support the South African ICJ case in addition to supporting the recent Chile-Mexico ICC war crimes initiative. This initiative is technically important with Israel being a signatory to the ICC,” Hania said.
He also thanked Indonesia for its legal initiative.
“Stop the genocide now” placard in yesterday’s Auckland rally calling for a ceasefire in the war in Gaza. Image: David Robie/APR
“More than 100 days of targeting Palestinian civilians and civilian infrastructure to exterminate Palestinian life is committing genocide, the crime of all crimes and with total impunity,” Hania said.
“More than 60,000 tons of explosives dropped over Gaza in 100 days equals three nuclear bombs, more than the infamous nuclear tragedy on Japan that led to its immediate surrender. It’s fundamentally different for Gaza as surrendering does not exist in Palestine vocabulary.”
He said the more than 100 Israel hostages would remain in Gaza until the “thousands of Palestinian hostages are freed”.
“The Gaza siege must end, West Bank Israeli settler extremist violence must end, there must be respect for worshippers and Muslim religious sites attacks by Israeli extremists is well documented and must end.”
Pro-Palestinian protesters march down Auckland’s Queen Street yesterday calling for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the killing of children in the Israeli war on Gaza. Image: David Robie/APR
24 massacres cited
Hania stressed that the current war did not start on October 7 with the deadly Hamas resistance movement attack on southern Israel as claimed by the Israeli government.
He cited a list of 24 massacres of Palestinians by Zionist militia that began at Haifa in 1937 and Jerusalem the same year, including the Nakba – “the Catastrophe” — in 1948 when 750,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes and lands with the destruction of towns and villages.
Hania also referred to a recent New York Times article that warned Israel was in a strategic bind over its failed military policies, saying Israel’s objectives were “mutually incompatible”.
The cited New York Times article saying Israel’s two main goals in its war on Gaza are “mutually incompatible”. Image: NYT screenshot APR
“Israel’s limited progress in dismantling Hamas has raised doubts within the military’s high command about the near-term feasibility of achieving the country’s principal wartime objectives: eradicating Hamas and also liberating the Israeli hostages still in Gaza,” wrote the authors Ronen Bergman and Patrick Kingsley.
Israel had established control over a smaller part of Gaza at this stage of the war than originally envisaged in battle plans from the start of the invasion, which were reviewed by The Times.
Citing Dr Andreas Krieg, a war analyst at King’s College London, from the article, Hania quoted:
“It’s not an environment where you can free hostages.
“It is an unwinnable war.
“Most of the time when you are in an unwinnable war, you realise that at some point — and you withdraw.
“And they didn’t.”
“Adolf and his zombie” poster at the rally in Auckland yesterday calling for an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. Image: David Robie/APR
For two months now, the United States and other Western countries backing Israel have been talking about “the day after” in Gaza. They have rejected Israeli assertions that the Israeli army will remain in control of the Strip and pointed to the Palestinian Authority (PA) as their preferred political actor to take over governance once the war is over.
In so doing, the US and its allies have paid little regard to what the Palestinian people want. The current leadership of the PA lost the last democratic elections held in the occupied Palestinian territory in 2006 to Hamas and since then, it has steadily lost popularity.
In a recent public opinion poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), some 90 percent of respondents were in favour of the resignation of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, and 60 percent called for the dismantling of the PA itself.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas . . . low public trust in the PA, but there is a reason why the US insists on supporting its takeover of Gaza. Image: Al Jazeera
Washington is undoubtedly aware of the low public trust in the PA, but there is a reason why it insists on supporting its takeover of Gaza: its leadership has been a reliable partner for decades in maintaining a status quo in the interests of Israel.
The US would like that arrangement to continue, so its backing for the PA may be accompanied by an attempt to revamp it in order to solve its legitimacy problem. But even if this effort succeeds, it is unlikely the new iteration of the PA would be sustainable.
A reliable partner Perhaps one of the main factors that has convinced the US that the PA is a “good choice” for post-war governance in Gaza is its anti-Hamas stance and willingness to conduct security coordination with Israel.
Since the Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, the PA and its leadership have not issued an official statement offering explicit political support for the Palestinian resistance. Their rhetoric has predominantly focused on condemning and disapproving of attacks on civilians on both sides, while also rejecting the expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland.
In a political address on the ninth day of the war, Abbas criticised Hamas, asserting that their actions did not represent the Palestinian people. He emphasised that the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and underscored the importance of peaceful resistance as the only legitimate means to oppose Israeli occupation.
This statement was later retracted by his office.
In December, Hussein al-Sheikh, a PA official and secretary-general of the executive committee of the PLO, also criticised Hamas in an interview with Reuters. He suggested its armed resistance “method and approach” has failed and led to many casualties among the civilian population.
The stance of the PA is consistent with its own narrow political and economic interests which have come at the expense of the Palestinian national cause. It has systematically and brutally stamped out any opposition and any support for other factions, including Hamas, in order to maintain its rule over West Bank cities while Israel continues with its brutal occupation and dispossession of the Palestinian people.
In Israel’s war on Gaza in 2008–2009, the PA leadership hoped to regain administrative control of Gaza with assistance from Israel. During that conflict, the PA prohibited any activities in the West Bank in support of Gaza and threatened to arrest participants.
I, myself, faced harassment and the threat of arrest for attempting to join a demonstration against the war. Similar positions were adopted by the PA, albeit with less aggressive measures, in subsequent Israeli assaults on Gaza, as its leadership came to recognise that Hamas was unlikely to relinquish its control over the Strip.
Since October 7, the PA has taken a bolder stance, marked by more aggressive actions. Its security forces have suppressed demonstrations and marches held in support of Gaza, resorting to shooting live ammunition at participants. Additionally, the PA has recently detained individuals expressing support for the Palestinian resistance.
While cracking down on Palestinian protests, the PA has done nothing to protect its people from attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian communities, which have resulted in deaths, injuries and the displacement of hundreds of people in the occupied West Bank.
Additionally, the Israeli army has intensified its raids in the PA-administered areas, leading to the arrest of thousands and the killing of hundreds of Palestinians, with no reaction from the PA.
The PA’s inability to offer basic protection has added to the deterioration of its legitimacy among Palestinians. Furthermore, by taking a stance against the Palestinian resistance and aligning itself with Israel and the US, the PA is only further undermining its own legitimacy.
Palestine Authority – PA 1.0
Washington is aware of the growing unpopularity of the PA and its leadership among Palestinians but it is not giving up on it because it seems to believe that that can be fixed. That is because the US has tried to revamp the authority before as it has always faced problems with legitimacy due to the way it was set up.
As a governing institution, the PA was established to bring an end to the first Intifada.
Conceived under the interim peace agreements in Oslo, it was envisioned as an administrative body to oversee civil affairs for Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip and certain parts of the West Bank, excluding occupied East Jerusalem.
It effectively took on a role as an Israeli security contractor in exchange for certain benefits related to administering Palestinian population centres. The PA faithfully fulfilled its mandate, carrying out routine arrests and surveillance of Palestinian individuals, whether they were involved in actions against Israel or were activists opposing its corrupt practices.
Thus, Israel strategically benefitted from the establishment of the PA, but the same cannot be said for the Palestinian people, as they continued to experience the ravages of a military occupation.
Expected independent state
“Despite this, the PA under Yasser Arafat — or what we can call PA 1.0 — leveraged patronage and corruption to maintain some level of support. Notably, Arafat viewed the Oslo process as an interim measure, expecting a fully independent Palestinian state by 2000.
He pragmatically engaged in security collaboration with Israel, hoping to build trust and ultimately achieve peaceful coexistence. In 1996, responding to ongoing Palestinian resistance, he even declared a “war on terror” and convened a security summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, involving Israel, Egypt and the US.
In 2000, the civil and security arrangements overseen by the PA became increasingly fragile and eventually collapsed, triggering the eruption of the second Intifada. This uprising was a response to Israel’s policies of settlement expansion, its firm refusal to accept any form of Palestinian sovereignty between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, and broader social and economic grievances.
In 2002, the Bush administration conceived the idea of refurbishing the PA as part of the Road map for peace. While Arafat’s leadership was perceived as a hindering factor, he had already collaborated with the US by implementing structural reforms, including the creation of a prime minister’s position.
Seeking to reshape the Palestinian leadership, the US engaged with potential alternative leaders, including Mahmoud Abbas, who eventually assumed the presidency of the PA in 2005 after the suspicious death of Arafat.
The PA took its first blow when Hamas won the elections in 2006 and was able to form a government. The US and EU rejected the results, boycotted the government and suspended financial assistance to the PA, while Israel halted the transfer of tax revenues.
Meanwhile, the PA security apparatus leadership refused to deal with the Hamas government and continued their work as usual, claiming they reported to the PA president’s office.
For several months, Hamas struggled to maintain its PA government, while Abbas and his supporters made significant efforts to isolate it.
In 2007, Hamas took over the PA security apparatus in the Gaza Strip and assumed control of all PA institutions. Abbas declared Hamas an unwanted entity in the West Bank and ordered the expulsion of the Hamas government and the imprisonment of many Hamas operatives.
After splitting the PA into two entities, one in the Gaza Strip and another in the West Bank, Abbas, along with allies Mohammed Dahlan and Salam Fayyad, led efforts to restructure the PA in the West Bank with full support from the US and the EU.
Restructuring PA 2.0
Under what we can call PA 2.0, two major restructuring efforts took place. First, it consolidated the Palestinian security apparatus under a united command. Led by US Army General Keith Dayton, the revamping of the Palestinian security forces aimed at deepening their partnership with the Israeli state and army.
Additionally, it sought to cultivate a vested interest among PA personnel in maintaining the role of the PA. Second, the restructuring of the PA consolidated its budget, placing all its resources under the Ministry of Finance.
This restructuring did not result in a “better” PA. It remained a dysfunctional entity, which mismanaged resources and service provision, leading to a severe deterioration in living standards for the majority of Palestinians.
Its leadership enjoyed certain privileges due to its security coordination with Israel and engaged in widespread corruption practices that have raised concerns even among PA supporters.
Meanwhile, Israel’s settlement enterprises continued expanding without limits and the violence employed by the Israeli army and settlers against ordinary Palestinians only worsened.
Restructuring PA 3.0? The lack of support for the PA leadership and its dysfunction have raised concerns about whether it can play a role in the upcoming post-Gaza war arrangements that the US administration is trying to put together.
That is why Washington has signalled it will seek to revamp the PA once again — into PA 3.0 — with the aim of addressing the needs of various parties. The US administration and its allies seek an authority that can provide security to Israel and engage in a peace process without altering the status quo.
Since the start of the war, several US envoys have visited Ramallah carrying the same message: that the PA needs to be revamped. In December US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with Abbas and al-Sheikh (the PLO secretary-general) urging them to “bring new blood” into the government. Al-Sheikh is considered a possible successor to Abbas, who could be part of these efforts to restructure the PA.
However, after more than 100 days since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza, it looks like Washington does not have a concrete plan and only has some general ideas which the PA has declared a readiness to discuss. More importantly, the US vision does not seem to take into account the will of the Palestinian people.
The Palestinian public clearly demands a leadership that can head a democratic, national entity capable of fulfilling the Palestinian national aspirations, including creating an independent state and realising the Palestinians’ right of return to their homelands.
Revamping the PA implies intensifying cooperation with Israel and providing Israeli settlers with more security, which effectively means more insecurity and dispossession for the Palestinians.
As a result, the Palestinian people will continue to perceive the PA as illegitimate and public anger, upheaval and resistance will continue to grow.
In this sense, the US vision for revamping the PA would fail because it would not address the core issues of Israeli occupation and apartheid, which successive American administrations have systematically and purposefully ignored.
Samer Jaber is a political activist and PhD researcher specialising in political economy at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is also a fellow with the Council for At-Risk Academics (CARA). He focuses on the Arab world and the Middle East region. This article was first published by Al Jazeera.
Gaza’s last standing university has been destroyed by the Israeli army as military continued to strike targets in areas of the besieged territory where it has told civilians to seek refuge.
Al-Israa University — the University of Palestine — was blown up after Israeli soldiers occupied the campus and turned it into a base and military barracks over two months ago.
A video shared on social media showed the moment the educational institute was completely destroyed, along with more than 3000 rare artefacts in a national museum near the university campus.
It is understood that all four of Gaza’s universities as well as more than 350 schools and its public library have now been destroyed by Israeli strikes.
Dr Nicola Perugini, an associate professor at the University of Edinburgh, shared the video and said: “The Israeli military just blew up the University of Palestine in Gaza City with 315 mines.
“All the universities in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. We need a full academic boycott.”
‘We need a full academic boycott’ Birzeit University, an institute in Palestine, reacted to the bombing: “Birzeit University reaffirms the fact that this crime is part of the Israeli occupation’s onslaught against the Palestinians. It’s all a part of the Israeli occupation’s goal to make Gaza uninhabitable; a continuation of the genocide being carried out in Gaza Strip.”
The Israeli military just blew up the University of Palestine in Gaza City with 315 mines. All the universities in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. We need a full academic boycott. pic.twitter.com/nNStUTBc9e
It comes as an Israeli airstrike on a home killed 16 people, half of them children, in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, medics said early on Thursday.
There was, meanwhile, no word on whether medicines that entered the territory Wednesday as part of a deal brokered by France and Qatar had been distributed to dozens of hostages with chronic illnesses who are being held by Hamas.
More than 100 days after Hamas triggered the war with its October 7 attack, Israel continues to wage one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history.
More than 24,000 Palestinians have been killed, some 85 percent of the narrow coastal territory’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, and the United Nations says a quarter of the population is starving.
Hundreds of thousands have heeded Israeli evacuation orders and packed into southern Gaza, where shelters run by the United Nations are overflowing and massive tent camps have gone up.
But Israel has continued to strike what it says are militant targets in all parts of Gaza, often killing women and children.
Dozens more wounded
Dr Talat Barhoum, at Rafah’s el-Najjar Hospital, confirmed the death toll from the strike in Rafah and said dozens more were wounded.
Associated Press footage from the hospital showed relatives weeping over the bodies of loved ones.
“They were suffering from hunger, they were dying from hunger, and now they have also been hit,” said Mahmoud Qassim, a relative of some of those who were killed.
Internet and mobile services in Gaza have been down for five days, the longest of several outages during the war, according to internet access advocacy group NetBlocks.
The outages complicate rescue efforts and make it difficult to obtain information about the latest strikes and casualties.
Three and a half hours. Three and a half hours from Jenin to Tul Karm. In three and a half hours you can fly to Rome, or drive to Eilat. But in the occupied West Bank today you’re barely able to drive between two nearby cities.
That’s the time it took us this week to travel from Jenin to Tul Karm, 35 kilometers. At the end of every Palestinian road on the West Bank there is a locked iron gate since the war in Gaza started. Waze instructs you to travel on these roads, but even this clever app doesn’t know there’s a locked gate at the end of every one.
If there isn’t a locked gate, there’s a “breathing” roadblock. If there isn’t a breathing roadblock, there’s a strangling roadblock.
Near the Ottoman railway station in Sebastia, reserve soldiers stop Palestinians from taking even that remote gravel path. Near Shavei Shomron, soldiers permit traveling from south to north, but not in the opposite direction.
Why? Because.
The soldiers at the next roadblock are taking selfies, and all the cars wait for them to finish photographing themselves so they can receive the dismissive, patronising hand gesture that will allow them to pass, while the traffic jam backs up on the road.
The Einav roadblock we passed through in the morning was closed to traffic in the afternoon by soldiers. It’s impossible to know anything. The Hawara roadblock is shut.
Like drugged coackroaches in bottle
The exit from Shufa is closed. So are most of the exit routes from the villages to the main roads. That’s how we traveled this week, like drugged cockroaches in a bottle, three and a half hours from Jenin to Tul Karm, to reach Road 557 and return to Israel.
And this is the Palestinians’ life in the West Bank these days.
When evening fell, thousands of cars whose drivers simply stopped by the wayside in abjection lined the roads in the West Bank. They stood helpless and silent. You have to see the fear in their eyes when they manage to approach the roadblock; any wrong move could lead to their death. It can make you explode.
It can make you explode that Israel is now doing everything to drive the West Bank to another intifada. It won’t be easy. The West Bank has neither the leadership nor the fighting spirit of the second intifada, but how can one not explode?
Some 150,000 laborers who worked in Israel have been out of work for three months. You can also explode from the army’s hypocrisy. Its commanders are warning that we must enable laborers to go to work, but the IDF will be the main culprit for the Palestinian uprising if it breaks out.
The problem is not merely economic. Under the guise of the war and with the extreme rightist government’s assistance, the IDF has changed its conduct in the occupied territories in a dangerous way — it wants Gaza in the West Bank.
The settlers want Gaza in the West Bank so they can drive out as many Palestinians as possible, and the army backs them up.
344 Palestinians killed
According to UN figures, since October 7, 344 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, 88 of them children. Eight or nine of them were killed by settlers. At the same time, five Israelis were killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, four of them by security forces.
The reason is that the IDF has in recent months started firing from the air to kill in the West Bank, like in Gaza.
On January 7, for example, the army killed seven youngsters who were standing on a traffic island near Jenin, after one of them apparently threw an explosive charge at a jeep and missed.
It was a massacre. The seven youngsters were members of one family, four brothers, two more brothers and a cousin. That doesn’t interest Israel.
Now the IDF is moving forces from Gaza to the West Bank. The Duvdevan undercover unit is already there, the Kfir Brigade is on its way. They’ll return to the West Bank stoked with the indiscriminate killing in Gaza and will want to continue the great work there as well.
Israel wants an intifada. Maybe it will even get one. It should just not feign surprise when this happens.
Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist and author who writes for Hareetz on human rights and the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
The Biden administration has officially re-designated Ansarallah – the dominant force in Yemen also known as the Houthis – as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity.
The White House claims the designation is an appropriate response to the group’s attacks on US military vessels and commercial ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, saying those attacks “fit the textbook definition of terrorism”.
Ansarallah claims its actions “adhere to the provisions of Article 1 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” since it is only enforcing a blockade geared toward ceasing the ongoing Israeli destruction of Gaza.
One of the most heinous acts committed by the Trump administration was its designation of Ansarallah as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) and as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT), both of which imposed sanctions that critics warned would plunge Yemen’s aid-dependent population into even greater levels of starvation than they were already experiencing by restricting the aid that would be allowed in.
One of the Biden administration’s only decent foreign policy decisions has been the reversal of that sadistic move, and now that reversal is being partially rolled back, though thankfully only with the SDGT listing and not the more deadly and consequential FTO designation.
In a new article for Antiwar about this latest development, Dave Decamp explains that as much as the Biden White House goes to great lengths insisting that it’s going to issue exemptions to ensure that its sanctions don’t harm the already struggling Yemeni people,
“history has shown that sanctions scare away international companies and banks from doing business with the targeted nations or entities and cause shortages of medicine, food, and other basic goods.”
DeCamp also notes that US and British airstrikes on Yemen have already forced some aid groups to suspend services to the country.
Still trying to recover
So the US empire is going to be imposing sanctions on a nation that is still trying to recover from the devastation caused by the US-backed Saudi blockade that contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths between 2015 and 2022. All in response to the de facto government of that very same country imposing its own blockade with the goal of preventing a genocide.
That’s right: when Yemen sets up a blockade to try and stop an active genocide, that’s terrorism, but when the US empire imposes a blockade to secure its geostrategic interests in the Middle East, why that’s just the rules-based international order in action.
Today, in response to these continuing threats and attacks, the United States announced the designation of Ansarallah, also known as the Houthis, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist – Jake Sullivan, U.S. National Security Advisorhttps://t.co/D5d8MylujKpic.twitter.com/pSFUzCR7qk
It just says so much about how the US empire sees itself that it can impose blockades and starvation sanctions at will upon nations like Yemen, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Syria and North Korea for refusing to bow to its dictates, but when Yemen imposes a blockade for infinitely more worthy and noble reasons it gets branded an act of terrorism.
The managers of the globe-spanning empire loosely centralised around Washington literally believe the world is theirs to rule as they will, and that anyone who opposes its rulings is an outlaw.
Based on power
“What this shows us is that the “rules-based international order” the US and its allies claim to uphold is not based on rules at all; it’s based on power, which is the ability to control and impose your will on other people.
The “rules” apply only to the enemies of the empire because they are not rules at all: they are narratives used to justify efforts to bend the global population to its will.
We are ruled by murderous tyrants. By nuclear-armed thugs who would rather starve civilians to protect the continuation of an active genocide than allow peace to get a word in edgewise.
Our world can never know health as long as these monsters remain in charge.
There are six ongoing international court cases initiated by states or organisations seeking to clarify the law and hold other states to account on behalf of the international community.
These cases offer smaller countries, such as New Zealand, an opportunity to have a significant role in strengthening the international legal order and ensuring a pathway towards peace.
A departure from the legal norm? Normally, cases are brought to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) when a state’s direct interests are impacted by the actions of another state.
However, six recent court cases reflect a significant departure from this tradition and mark an important development for international justice.
These cases argue the international community has a collective interest in certain issues. The focus of the cases range from Israel’s actions in Gaza (brought by South Africa) through to the responsibility of states to ensure the protection of the climate system (brought by the United Nations General Assembly).
South Africa’s justice minister Ronald Lamola outlined the country’s genocide case against Israel, as a landmark hearing opened at the International Court of Justice pic.twitter.com/AvlM8BwhQI
Holding states accountable for genocide Three of the six cases seek to hold states accountable for genocide using Article IX of the 1948 Genocide Convention. Put simply, Article IX says disputes between countries can be referred to the ICJ.
In late December, South Africa asked the court to introduce provisional measures — a form of international injunction — against Israel for genocidal acts in Gaza.
These proceedings build on the precedent set by a 2019 case brought by The Gambia against Myanmar for its treatment of the Rohingya people.
In 2022, the ICJ concluded it had jurisdiction to hear The Gambia’s case on the basis that all parties to the Genocide Convention have an interest in ensuring the prevention, suppression and punishment of genocide.
According to the ICJ, The Gambia did not need to demonstrate any special interest or injury to bring the proceedings and, in effect, was entitled to hold Myanmar to account for its treatment of the Rohingya people on behalf of the international community as a whole.
While Ukraine is directly impacted by Russia’s actions, 32 states, including New Zealand, have also intervened. These countries have argued there is an international interest in the resolution of the conflict.
In November 2023, following the example of intervention in Ukraine v Russia, seven countries — Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom (jointly) and the Maldives — filed declarations of intervention in The Gambia v Myanmar, in support of The Gambia and the international community.
States can apply for permission to intervene in proceedings where they have an interest of a legal nature that may be affected by the decision in the case (in the case of the ICJ, under Article 62 of the ICJ Statute). That said, intervening in judicial proceedings in support of the legal order or international community more generally was relatively rare until 2023.
South Africa is taking Israel to the ICJ, accusing it of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
These cases can be similarly characterised as having been brought on behalf of the international community for the international community. New Zealand has intervened in the Law of the Sea case.
Collectively, these six cases comprise actions taken on behalf of the international community with the overarching purpose of strengthening the international legal order.
They demonstrate faith in and support for that legal order in the face of internal and external challenges, and constitute an important counter-narrative to the prevailing view that the international legal order is no longer robust.
Instituting proceedings does not guarantee a positive outcome. But it is worth noting that less than three years after the ICJ issued an advisory opinion condemning the United Kingdom’s continued occupation of the Chagos Archipelago, the UK is quietly negotiating with Mauritius for the return of the islands.
New Zealand’s support for the global legal order in 2024 The international legal order underpins New Zealand’s security and prosperity. New Zealand has a strong and internationally recognised track record of positive intervention in judicial proceedings in support of that order.
In 2012 New Zealand intervened in the case brought by Australia against Japan for whaling in the Antarctic. Following our contributions to cases before the ICJ and ITLOS in 2023, we are well placed to continue that intervention in future judicial proceedings.
Calls have already been made for New Zealand to intervene in South Africa v Israel. Contributing to this case and to The Gambia v Myanmar proceeding provides an important opportunity for New Zealand to make a proactive and substantive contribution to strengthening the international legal order.
Acting Police Commissioner Donald Yamasombi approved the suspension to “facilitate a thorough and impartial investigation”, The National newspaper reported.
“He [Wagambie] will have the opportunity to provide further information to investigators as is required during this [disciplinary] process,” he said.
“This is the first of potentially several more suspensions with the way in which some police personnel conducted themselves during the mayhem.”
The violence broke out in Port Moresby last week on Black Wednesday — January 10 — with shops and businesses set alight after public servants, including police and army personnel, went on strike over a payroll issue.
As many as 22 people died in the violence, which prompted the government to issue a state of emergency.
Last week the PNG Police Commissioner David Manning was suspended alongside the secretaries of Finance, Treasury and the Department of Personnel Management.
When announcing these suspensions last Friday, Prime Minister James Marape said: “it’s not good enough that operating agencies do not get to work properly that has caused us this stress”.
RNZ Pacific’s PNG correspondent Scott Waide said there was strong public support for Wagambie online.
Major supermarket retailers went into panic mode yesterday and shut their doors early after corruption fighting no nonsense top cop Anthony Wagambie Jnr was sidelined by Acting Police Commissioner Donald Yamasombi.
Social media shutdown, warns minister Meanwhile, PNG’s Telecommunications Minister Timothy Masiu has announced that the government could shut down social media if people misused it during the state of emergency.
Masiu, a former journalist, said there was significant evidence people had spread false information on social media sites leading to the destruction of properties in Port Moresby and around the country.
The Port Courier reports him saying people who engaged in such bogus activity would lose their social media accounts and could face arrest and charges for fomenting violence.
Masiu said discussions on social media that incited violence, destruction, that spread false information or confidential government information, would be closely monitored.
He said national security, public emergency and public safety was critical for a secure nation and a “happy and safe country”.
The government has already revealed the state of emergency rules allow draconian measures such as searches of private homes, property, vehicles and phones by government agents.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Israel has arrested a total of 38 Palestinian journalists since the start of its war with Hamas on October 7 and is currently holding 31 — most of them without any charge, reports Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog has condemning the use of detention to silence the Palestinian media and called for the protection of all journalists and the release of those detained.
Reporter Diaa al-Kahlout’s release on January 9 after more than a month in detention will not eclipse the scale of Israeli’s arbitrary imprisonment of Palestinian journalists, said RSF in a statement.
At least 31 of those arrested since October 7 – 29 in the West Bank, one in Gaza and one in East Jerusalem — are still held in Israeli jails, in most cases without being notified of any charge.
“This unprecedented wave of arrests and detentions, while the war continues in the Gaza Strip, has clearly been carried out with the deliberate aim of silencing the Palestinian media,” RSF said.
All of the detained journalists work for Palestinian media outlets such as J-Media, Maan News Agency, Sanad and Radio al-Karama or are freelancers.
Massive crackdown in West Bank Most of the arrests have been in the West Bank.
According to RSF’s tally, a total of 34 journalists have been arrested there since October 7, of whom only five have so far been released.
When the war began, two were being held. The detained journalists cannot receive visits and most are held in locations in Israel that have not been revealed.
Some of those who have been released, such as freelancer Somaya Jawbara, who was granted bail on November 22, 17 days after her arrest, are required to remain at home, are banned from using the internet or talking to the media, and have been placed under surveillance for an unspecified period.
Since the start of the war, Israel has been using the procedure known as “administrative detention” to detain journalists.
Under this procedure, a person is detained without notification of any charge on the grounds that they intended to break the law. They can be jailed for periods of up to six months that can be renewed on nothing more than an Israeli judge’s order.
At least 19 journalists are currently subject to “administrative detention.” The other 10 journalists are being held pending trial on “trumped-up charges of inciting violence”, said RSF.
“At least 31 Palestinian reporters are currently held in Israeli prisons in connection with their journalism,” said Jonathan Dagher, head of RSF’s Middle East desk.
“This intimidation, this terror, these endless attempts to silence Palestinian journalism, whether by chains, bullets or bombs, must stop. We call for the immediate release of all detained journalists and for their urgent protection.”
Inhuman treatment of detained journalists Some of the detained journalists are being subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. This was seen in the case of Diaa al-Kahlout, the newly released reporter for the Al-Araby Al-Jadeed news site.
His family identified him in a video posted by an Israeli soldier in the north of the Gaza Strip on December 7.
#Gaza : RSF s’inquiète de la disparition depuis 4 jours du journaliste d’@alaraby_ar Diaa Kahlout. Il a été identifié dans 1 vidéo, publiée le 7/12 par des soldats , parmi des détenus déshabillés&agenouillés.RSF dénonce cette arrestation&exige d’Israël des infos sur son sort
Al-Kahlout was seen kneeling in the street in the middle of a group of half-naked detainees.
An Israeli patrol had arrested him a few hours earlier at his home in Beit Lahia. His house was burned down.
His two brothers, who had been arrested with him, were released. The reporter was briefly held in Eshel prison in Israel and was subjected to torture, according to several RSF sources.
The Israeli authorities said nothing about his fate for more than a month, until his release on January 9. In almost all cases of detained journalists, the families are given no information about their arrest and their situation.
Terrible ordeal for detained journalists in Gaza In Gaza, where two journalists are currently detained, many reporters have been subjected to arrests of less than 48 hours in duration that have been no less traumatic.
They include Said Kilani, a photojournalist who freelances for Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and other international media, who was one of the few reporters to remain in Beit Lahia.
On December 13, Kilani was covering the fighting as Israeli forces advanced on Kamal Adwan Hospital when he found himself being arrested along with a medical team.
“As I knew that journalists were being targeted by the Israeli army, I was afraid and I initially hid my helmet and my press vest,” he said.
Kilani was held for 14 hours at a military base in the north of the Gaza Strip.
“We were forced to take our clothes off, we were insulted and humiliated,” he said, although he insists that he immediately identified himself as a journalist to those holding him.
After being released, he found his wife and children, who had also been arrested and then released. While they had been held, their house had been set on fire, and the journalistic equipment that Kilani had hidden in the hospital had also been burned.
“The Israeli soldiers took everything from us,” he told RSF. “We are homeless, in the cold, with nowhere to go.”
Five days after his arrest, Kilani was with his 16-year-old son when the boy was killed by an Israeli sniper before his very eyes.
Huge tragedy for journalism At least 80 journalists have been killed in the Gaza Strip since October 7 (Al Jazeera reports 113 killed), including 18 in the course of their work, according to information verified by RSF.
More than 50 media offices in the Gaza Strip have also been completely or partially destroyed by Israeli strikes since the start of the war.
The political fallout from the deadly riots in Papua New Guinea continues, including calls for a vote of no confidence against Prime Minister James Marape.
Seven MPs in Marape’s government have resigned following last week’s riots in Port Moresby and Lae — dubbed “Black Wednesday” — and the current death toll has reached 22
Belden Namah, representative for Vanimo-Green, is the latest government MP to resign.
Namah is a senior MP and a former captain in the PNG Defence Force. He was involved in removing Sandline mercenaries in 1997 after similar rioting and looting. As such, his resignation is a significant blow to the Marape regime.
Last Friday, Morobe Governor Luther Wenge called for an emergency sitting of Parliament to address urgent issues including a vote of no confidence.
Marape still has the majority and may announce a possible reshuffle in the coming days.
It is expected that there will be ministries that will be reworked so that the main base of power will still be contained.
Normalcy has returned on the ground the only tension is within political circles where people were preparing for a vote of no confidence or calling for a vote of no confidence.
Property returned After several days of intense rioting in Port Moresby, Lae and other regions of Papua New Guinea the current death toll has reached 22.
However, it is suspected that the actual death toll, as order is restored, will be higher.
Acting Police Commissioner Donald Yamasombi asked people to return stolen property.
Yamasombi told looters to leave stolen items outside their homes for the military and police to pick up, on Saturday and Sunday.
His request was met with reasonable compliance.
A couple in Lae were arrested for abusing police over social media. The couple were “made an example of” for supporting the looters.
Videos of looter protests
There were also videos of looters expressing their dissatisfaction and telling the government why they were looting.
There is a feeling that something needs to happen. There are underlying frustrations among the population like the lack of opportunity for young people and the youth problems not dealt with.
The public’s frustrations are mirrored by PNG police, concerning their poor housing, work and pay conditions. Officers are expected to go into tribal fighting zones without body armour for protection.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
In late December, President Biden signed a new defense bill that included an extension of a controversial domestic spying program that allows the government to spy on US citizens without having to obtain a warrant. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos. Mike […]
Gerehu, the sprawling suburban township to the north of Papua New Guinea’s capital Port Moresby, is now a “ghost town” for shoppers.
All major shops in the central business district in the city’s biggest suburb — Papindo, Gmart, Total Energy service station, Desh Besh Motors, Pharmacy, Supermarket and the bakery which serve a population of more than 50,000 — was set on fire by looters on last week’s “Black Wednesday” riot.
There is nothing left of the shops but debris and charred remains of buildings.
Many residents have expressed remorse that there is nothing left.
“Gerehu is now a ghost town,” said one emotional resident.
“We have nothing here anymore and the shops we grew up with are gone.
“Gone just like that at the blink of an eye.
‘I grew up here’
“I grew up here, this is my home.
“Oh my heart breaks.”
The busiest bus stop in the city was empty with no vendors in sight.
The main market was left with only a few food items and vendors.
One could guess mothers were chased out of the market as well while doing their usual marketing.
Only the thin smoke coming out from the walls and outside of the sheds was noticeable when the PNG Post-Courier visited the area at the weekend.
The Government has evoked a law that now gives government agents absolute rights to search your homes, vehicles and mobile phones during the State of Emergency.
Gerehu General Hospital security supervisor Topo Dambe said the burning of buildings affected their area where they had received several casualties and the hospital was busy throughout the day.
“But when they set fire to the shops, the hospital staff and the lives of the people and properties were at risk and we were left to protect them and the hospital,” Dambe said.
“We had to close the gates allowing only emergencies.”
By Gorethy Kenneth and Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby
Rogue police officers have been alleged to be part of last Wednesday’s uprising of opportunists leading to looting and ransacking of more than 20 shops and loss of businesses in the capital of Port Moresby.
Prime Minister James Marape said last week’s “Black Wednesday” unrest had led the government to consider the Vagrancy Act and complete the national Census.
Marape said the 14-day State of Emergency orders included “no movement of large crowds”.
“There is no curfew and limited movement of large crowds will be stopped,” he said.
“Police will be supported by the PNG Defence Force and they will be allowed to stop anyone and check them.
“We are taking a soft approach to the SOE for the next 14 days,” Marape added.
Brian Bell Group chair Ian Clough . . . K50 million losses not covered by insurance. Image: Linked-in
Meanwhile, Brian Bell Group chair Ian Clough has made an impassioned plea to the government for assistance to rebuild its business because the company’s losses suffered in the Black Wednesday plunder were not covered by insurance, reports Claudia Tally.
He said that all businesses which suffered the “indignity of huge losses” through theft, arson and looting were not covered by insurance companies.
Brian Bell suffered losses of 50 million kina (NZ$21.5 million) million) after its warehouse in Port Moresby’s Gerehu Stage 6 was completely emptied by looters during the citywide plunder of businesses on January 10.
An emotional Clough said all businesses were not covered by insurance for civil unrest. This situation needed to be treated as a “natural disaster” where the government
must step in to assist.
Gorethy Kenneth, Miriam Zarriga and Claudia Tally are PNG Post-Courier reporters. Republished with permission.
For weeks Yemen’s Houthi forces have been greatly inconveniencing commercial shipping with their blockade, with reports last month saying Israel’s Eilat Port has seen an 85 percent drop in activity since the attacks began.
This entirely bloodless inconvenience was all it took for Washington to attack Yemen, the war-ravaged nation in which the US and its allies have spent recent years helping Saudi Arabia murder hundreds of thousands of people with its own maritime blockades.
The Biden administration’s dramatic escalation toward yet another horrific war in the Middle East has been hotly criticised by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, who argue that the attacks were illicit because they took place without congressional approval.
This impotent congressional whining will never go anywhere, since, as Glenn Greenwald has observed, the US Congress never actually does anything to hold presidents to account for carrying out acts of war without their approval.
But there are some worthwhile ideas going around.
After the second round of strikes, a Democratic representative from Georgia named Hank Johnson tweeted the following:
“I have what some may consider a dumb idea, but here it is: stop the bombing of Gaza, then the attacks on commercial shipping will end. Why not try that approach?”
By golly, that’s just crazy enough to work. In fact, anti-interventionists have been screaming it at the top of their lungs since the standoff with Yemen began.
All the way back in mid-October Responsible Statecraft’s Trita Parsi was already writing urgently about the need for a ceasefire in Gaza to prevent it from exploding into a wider war in the region, a position Parsi has continued pushing ever since.
“Huge Miscalculation”: Biden’s Refusal to Push for Gaza Ceasefire Could Drag U.S. into Middle East War https://t.co/eJuzswi2BJ
As we discussed previously, Israel’s US-backed assault on Gaza is threatening to bleed over into conflicts with the Houthis in Yemen, with Hezbollah in Lebanon, with Iran-aligned militias in Iraq and Syria, and even potentially with Iran itself – any of which could easily see the US and its allies committing themselves to a full-scale war.
Peace in Gaza takes these completely unnecessary gambles off the table.
And it is absolutely within Washington’s power to force a ceasefire in Gaza. Biden could end all this with one phone call, as US presidents have done in the past. As Parsi wrote for The Nation earlier this month:
“In 1982, President Ronald Reagan was ‘disgusted’ by Israeli bombardment of Lebanon. He stopped the transfer of cluster munitions to Israel and told Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in a phone call that ‘this is a holocaust.’ Reagan demanded that Israel withdraw its troops from Lebanon. Begin caved. Twenty minutes after their phone call, Begin ordered a halt on attacks.
“Indeed, it is absurd to claim that Biden has no leverage, particularly given the massive amounts of arms he has shipped to Israel. In fact, Israeli officials openly admit it. ‘All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the US,’ retired Israeli Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Brick conceded in November of last year. ‘The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability.… Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.’ ”
In the end, you get peace by pursuing peace. That’s how it happens. You don’t get it by pursuing impossible imaginary ideals like the total elimination of Hamas while butchering tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians.
You don’t get it by trying to bludgeon the Middle East into passively accepting an active genocide. You get it by negotiation, de-escalation, diplomacy and detente.
The path to peace is right there. The door’s not locked. It’s not even closed. The fact that they don’t take it tells you what these imperialist bastards are really interested in.
Amnesty International is calling on Papua New Guinea authorities to protect human rights in response to the riots.
Port Moresby is in a state of emergency for 14 days with at least 16 people confirmed dead following violent unrest on Wednesday.
The violence broke out with shops and businesses being set alight after public servants went on strike over what has been described as a payroll error.
Prime Minister James Marape announced at a late night news conference on Thursday that more than 1000 defence force personnel WEre ready to step in whereever necessary.
Amnesty International Pacific researcher Kate Schuetze told RNZ Pacific firearms was often never an appropriate way to respond to protests.
“They have declared a state of emergency under the constitution which gives extraordinary powers to the authorities like the police and the military,” Schuetze said.
“What we really want to do is just remind them that protesters have human rights, that people in the streets have rights as well and ultimately, they have to work in a way to use the least lethal force possible and uphold the right to life.”
Members of the disciplined forces were among those protesting after their fortnightly pay checks were reduced by up to 300 kina (US$80).
Schuetze said the deductions for some officers amounted to half their pay packet.
“The deductions we’re talking about here are not an insignificant amount … understandably they were concerned.
“There’s questions around how much the government knew prior to the strike around this pay area and why they didn’t take steps to address it sooner.”
Amnesty International’s response . . . “It is imperative that Papua New Guinea authorities respond to this violence in a way that protects human rights and avoids further loss of life.” Image: AI screenshot APR
Schuetze said inflation was a concern for people.
“A lot of people are doing it tough in Papua New Guinea and I think it could be a sign of rising resentment and dissatisfaction with the leadership of the government, as well as livelihood factors that people feel are not being addressed.”
Marape is under increasing political pressure to step down, with six members of his coalition government resigning in the aftermath of the deadly violence.
Among them, Chauve MP James Nomane and Hiri-Koiari MP Kieth Iduhu made their resignations public via social media and blamed blamed Marape for the riots.
Schuetze said there needed to be “prompt, impartial and independent investigation” into what happened, including the causes of the riots.
“Likely there will be several colliding factors which cause this to happen.
“Any government, if this happens on their watch, if it happened in Australia, in New Zealand, we would expect there to be a full independent public inquiry.”
She said there tended to be an absence of appropriate police response to address the violent acts once they had occurred in Papua New Guinea.
“Obviously, the fact that people have died in the course of these riots is a really strong indicator that there may be human rights violations by the state.”
Schuetze said there were lots of videos uploaded to social media that showed police actively encouraging and participating in the chaos.
“If the police themselves were involved in acts of violence, there is a responsibility of the state to hold them accountable as well, as much as any other person engaged in active violence.”
‘Dysfunctional government’ Anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International PNG (TIPNG) said the frustration among police, and other public servants over tax calculations, was just the tip of the iceberg of a dysfunctional government system.
It is calling on the PNG government to engage immediately in genuine open dialogue with the police representatives to address their legitimate grievances.
The organisation’s board chair Peter Aitsi said this must be done quickly through transparent and open communication in order to resolve this crisis.
Aitsi said the public service and police were institutions of the state, and if truly independent and free of political control, should play a critical role as a check and balance to the executive government.
Open for business Meanwhile, PNG’s largest retail and wholesale organisation — the CPL Group — has re-opened for business.
In a statement on Friday, the company said its Stop & Shop outlet at Waigani Central, Town, Boroko, Airways was now open.
The City Pharmacy chain in Waigani Drive, Boroko and Vision city are also open for trading.
However, the group says those outlets in areas which “suffered devastatingly” remained closed.
It is also warned people not to use stolen pharmaceutical products, including baby formulas, off the counter and prescription medicines.
It is urging the public not to buy these products as they may be damaged and tampered with and wrong doses could be administered.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
South African lawyer Adila Hassim told judges at The Hague that “genocides are never declared in advance, but this court has the benefit of the past 13 weeks of evidence that shows incontrovertibly a pattern of conduct and related intention that justifies as a plausible claim of genocidal acts”.
“Israel deployed 6000 bombs per week . . . No one is spared. Not even newborns.
UN chiefs have described it as a graveyard for children,” she said told the court on the opening session of the two-day preliminary hearing.
“Nothing will stop the suffering except an order from this court.”
Israel’s ongoing three-month war in Gaza has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, lawyers told the court.
Most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been displaced, and an Israeli blockade severely limiting food, fuel and medicine has caused a humanitarian “catastrophe”, according to the UN.
‘Genocidal in character’
South Africa submitted its case against Israel at the ICJ last month and has said Israel’s actions in Gaza are “genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group”.
Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, another South African lawyer and legal scholar at the hearing, said Pretoria was not alone in drawing attention to Israel’s genocidal rhetoric.
He said that at least 15 UN special rapporteurs and 21 members of the UN working groups had warned that what was happening in Gaza reflected a genocide in the making.
Video: Middle East Eye
Ngcukaitobi added that genocidal intent was evident in the way Israel’s military was conducting attacks, including the targeting of family homes and civilian infrastructure.
“Israel’s political leaders, military commanders and persons holding official positions have systematically and in explicit terms declared their genocidal intent.”
Ngcukaitobi said the “genocidal rhetoric” had become common within the Israeli Knesset, with several MPs calling for Gaza to be “wiped out, flattened, erased and crushed”.
Israeli defence
On Wednesday, Nissim Vaturi, a member of Israel’s ruling Likud party, said it was a “privilege” for his country to appear at The Hague as he doubled down on earlier remarks where he said there were “no innocent people” in Gaza.
This is the first time Israel is being tried under the United Nations’ Genocide Convention, which was drawn up after the Second World War in light of the atrocities committed against Jews and other persecuted minorities during the Holocaust.
During yesterday’s proceedings, Professor Max du Plessis, another lawyer representing South Africa, said Israel had subjected the Palestinian people to an oppressive and prolonged violation of their rights to self-determination for more than half a century.
Dr Du Plessis added that based on materials shown before the court, the acts of Israel were plausibly characterised as genocidal.
“South Africa’s obligation is motivated by the need to protect Palestinians in Gaza and their absolute rights not to be subjected to genocidal acts.”
Genocide cases, which are notoriously hard to prove, can take years to resolve, but South Africa is asking the court to speedily implement “provisional measures” and “order Israel to cease killing and causing serious mental and bodily harm to Palestinian people in Gaza”.
Three hour hearing
Yesterday’s hearing consisted of three hours of detailed descriptions detailing what South Africa says is a clear example of genocide. Israel will today have three hours to respond on Friday.
The spokesperson of the Israeli Foreign Affairs, Lior Haiat, hit out at the comments made in the hearing, calling it “one of the greatest shows of hypocrisy,” and demonstrated “false and baseless claims.”
He also accused South Africa of “functioning as the legal arm of the Hamas terrorist organisation”.
As South Africa did in its 84-page legal filing ahead of the case, the country’s Minister of Justice Ronald Lamola repeated that he “unequivocally condemns Hamas” for the October 7 attack on southern Israel.
Israel’s military assault on Gaza is not just a humanitarian disaster but also generating massive amounts of planet-heating emissions and exacerbating the climate crisis. The carbon emissions from Israel’s bombs, tanks, fighter jets and other military activity in the first two months of the war were higher than the annual carbon footprints of 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations…
(@OnlinePalEng) 
(@DrAyeshaOmar) 
, parmi des détenus déshabillés&agenouillés.RSF dénonce cette arrestation&exige d’Israël des infos sur son sort
(@GoodVibePolitik) 