The arrest of the former top lawyer in the Israeli military for the leak of a video showing Israeli soldiers assaulting a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman military prison has created a political and legal storm in Israel.

The Israeli government is accusing Military Advocate-General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalm of “blood libel” against the Israeli army, of defaming Israeli soldiers, reports Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went as far as saying this was the “most dangerous assault” on Israel’s image since its establishment in 1948.

• READ MORE: Israel to appoint new army lawyer after Palestinian prisoner rape scandal
• Other Gaza reports

Many in Israel are fearful that Netanyahu and his coalition partners will use this as a pretext to introduce the changes they want in the Israeli military and judiciary.

There is so much focus on the fact that this video — which was alleged to show a gang rape of a blindfolded Palestinian prisoner — was leaked, at the expense of discussing how this crime actually happened.

The UN says that these kinds of crimes are being committed in a systematic manner.

In one way, it’s a way to shift attention from the fact that these crimes are happening, by focusing on this woman and the fact that she leaked the video.

Five soldiers indicted
Middle East Eye reports that at least nine Israeli soldiers were questioned over the assault in late July, sparking widespread anger across Israel.

Only five were indicted for “severe abuse” of the detainee, but not for rape. The trial remains ongoing.

On Sunday, the accused soldiers called for the case to be dropped.

The Palestinian detainee shown in an alleged rape video leaked to the Israeli outlet Channel 12 last year has been returned to Gaza, news agencies report, citing a document from the military prosecutor’s office.

The fallout from the leak has led to the resignation and arrest of the Israeli army’s top lawyer, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, on suspicion of allowing the clip to become public.

Meanwhile, the Islamic bloc has condemned Israel’s proposed death penalty law as “discriminatory, legally untenable”.

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a 57-nation bloc of Muslim-majority countries, dsaid the a draft law before the Israeli parliament that could impose the death penalty on those convicted of “terrorism”, a move critics say would legalise the execution of Palestinian prisoners.

‘Legally untenable’
In a statement posted on X, the OIC described the proposed law as “discriminatory and legally untenable”.

It added: “The OIC has urged the international community to fulfil its obligations in halting all violations perpetrated by the Israeli occupation and to extend international protective measures for the Palestinian people.”

The bill has been forwarded by the far-right and internationally sanctioned Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and is backed by Netanyahu.

The head of the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society has described the bill to introduce the death penalty for Palestinian “terrorism” suspects as a crime against humanity.

Former UK minister regrets silence over Palestinian nurse’s death, calls Israeli actions ‘murder’

A former Conservative minister in the United Kingdom has accused Netanyahu’s government of killing a young Palestinian nurse.

Alistair Burt, who served as Middle East minister in Theresa May’s government, told the UK newspaper The Independent he now regretted staying silent when 21-year-old medic Razan al-Najjar was fatally shot while treating wounded protesters near Gaza’s border in 2018.

Burt said Najjar had been “clearly targeted and murdered”, adding that Israel’s pledges to investigate such incidents were “bogus” attempts to “cover up killings”.

Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory, a book on the Israeli arms and surveillance industry, says Australian protesters are “outraged” not just by what Israel is doing in Gaza, but also by the Australian government’s “complicity”.

Loewenstein, who also spoke at the rally, told Al Jazeera that Australia has, for many years, including since the start of the war, been part of the global supply chain for the F-35 fighter jets that Israel has been using in attacking the besieged enclave.

“A lot of Australians are aware of this,” he said. “We are deeply complicit, and people are angry that their government is doing little more than talk at this point.”

• READ MORE: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange joins Sydney Gaza humanitarian protest as thousands cross bridge
• NZ ‘lagging behind’ world by failing to recognise Palestinian statehood, says former PM Helen Clark
• What would New Zealand recognising Palestinian statehood mean?
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports
• Other reports with Antony Loewenstein

Asked about opinions within Israel, Loewenstein, who is an Australian-German and Jewish, condemned what he called a prevailing climate of “genocide mania” and also criticised the role of the mainstream media in not reporting accurate coverage of the reality in Gaza.

Organisers of the Palestine Action Group Sydney-led march across the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge have said at least 100,000 people — and perhaps as many as 300,000 — took part in the biggest pro-Palestinian held in Australia. Police say more than 90,000.

Mehreen Faruqi, the New South Wales senator for the left-wing Greens party, addressed the crowd gathered at central Sydney’s Lang Park before the march, calling for the “harshest sanctions on Israel”, accusing its forces of “massacring” Palestinians.

At least 175 people, including 93 children, have died of starvation and malnutrition across the enclave since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, according to latest Gaza Health Ministry figures.

The horrifying images of Gazans being deliberately starved is adding to the pressure on Western governments which have been enthusiastic supporters of Israel’s genocide, reports the Sydney-based Green-Left magazine.

Former US President Barack Obama has started to push for an end to Israel’s military operations. Sections of Israeli society, including five human rights organisations, now agree that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

Media corporations, such as BBC, AFP, AP and Reuters, which have been complicit in manufacturing consent for “Israel has a right to defend itself” line, are now condemning the killing of Palestinian journalists.

These shifts reflect the scale of the horror, but also the success of the global Palestine solidarity movement.

It is undermining support for Israel — a factor which is starting to weigh on Western governments. Only 32% of Americans approve of Israel’s military action in Gaza, according to a new Gallup poll.

With the exception of Ireland and Spain, Western governments have refused to describe Israel’s war as an act of genocide.

.@antloewenstein on the huge pro Palestinian Sydney Harbour bridge march and what it tells us about where people around the world are at. He goes on to draw parallels with the attitude towards apartheid South Africa in the 1980s and notes that that regime ended in 1994. pic.twitter.com/jvCsr8ZgOV

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) August 3, 2025

Democracy Now!

The US-Israeli attack against Iran will intensify the forces that are already destroying international law legacies and the UN system in the Middle East and most of the world, writes Rami Khouri.

Israel’s attacks on military, civilian, and infrastructural sites throughout Iran and the repeated Iranian retaliatory attacks against targets across Israel have rattled the existing power balance across the Middle East — but the grave consequences of this new war for the region and the world’s energy supplies and economies will only be clarified in the weeks ahead.

It is already clear that Israel’s surprise attack did not achieve a knock-out blow to Iran’s nuclear sector, its military assets, or its ruling regime, while Iran’s consecutive days of rocket and drone attacks suggest that this war could go on for weeks or longer.

The media and public political sphere are overloaded now with propaganda and wishful thinking from both sides, which makes it difficult to discern the war’s outcomes and impacts.

• READ MORE: Trump says US has bombed Iran’s Fordow, Isfahan, Natanz nuclear sites – and warns against retaliation
• Other Middle East reports

For now, we can only expect the fighting to persist for weeks or more, and for key installations in both countries to be attacked, like Israel’s Defence Ministry and Weitzman Institute were a few days ago, along with nuclear facilities, airports, military assets, and oil production facilities in Iran.

So, interested observers should remain humble and patient, as unfolding events factually clarify critical dimensions of this conflict that have long been dominated by propaganda, wishful thinking, muscle-flexing, strategic deception, and supra-nationalist ideological fantasies.

This is especially relevant because of the nature of the war that has already been revealed by the attacks of the past week, alongside military and political actions for and against the US-Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing aims in Palestine.

This round of US-Israel and Iran fighting has triggered global reactions that show this to be yet another battle between Western imperial/colonial powers and those in the Middle East and the Global South that resist this centuries-old onslaught of control, subjugation, and mayhem.

Identifying critical dimensions
We cannot know today what this war will lead to, but we can identify some critical dimensions that we should closely monitor as the battles unfold. Here are the ones that strike me as the most significant.

First off, the ongoing attacks by Iran and Israel will clarify their respective offensive and defensive capabilities, especially in terms of missiles, drones, and the available defences against them.

Iran has anticipated such an Israeli attack for at least a decade, so we should assume it has also planned many counterattacks, while fortifying its key military and nuclear research facilities and duplicating the most important ones that might be destroyed or damaged.

Second, we will quickly discover the real US role in this war, though it is fair already to see Israel’s attack as a joint US-Israeli effort.

This is because of Washington’s almost total responsibility to fund, equip, maintain, resupply, and protect the Israeli armed forces; how it protects Israel at the UN, ICC, and other fora; and both countries’ shared political goals to bring down the Islamic Republic and replace it with a puppet regime that is subservient to Israeli-US priorities.

Trump claims this is not his war, but Israel’s attacks against Iran, Palestine, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Lebanon can only happen because of the US commitment by law to Israeli military superiority in the Middle East. The entire Middle East and much of the world see this as a war between the US, Israel, and Iran.

And then today the US strikes on the three Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.

Unconventional warfare attacks
We will also soon learn what non-military weapons each side can use to weaken the other. Missiles and drones are a start, but we should expect unconventional warfare attacks against civilian, infrastructural, digital, and financial sector targets that make life difficult for all.

An important factor that will only become clear with time is how this conflict impacts domestic politics in both countries; Iran and Israel each suffer deep internal fissures and some discontent with their regimes. How the war evolves could fragment and weaken either country, or unite their home citizenries.

Also important will be how Arab leaders react to events, especially those who chose to develop much closer financial, commercial, and defence ties with the US, as we saw during Trump’s Gulf visit last month. Some Arab leaders have also sought closer, good neighbourly relations with Iran in the last three years, while a few moved closer to Israel at the same time.

Arab leaders and governments that choose the US and Israel as their primary allies, especially in the security realm, while the attacks on Gaza and Iran go on, will generate anger and opposition by many of their people; this will require the governments to become more autocratic, which will only worsen the legacy of modern Arab autocrats who ignore their people’s rights and wellbeing.

Arab governments mostly rolled over and played dead during the US-Israeli Gaza genocide, but in this case, they might not have the same opportunity to remain fickle in the face of another aggressive moral depravity and emerge unscathed when it is over.

If Washington gets more directly involved in defending Israel, we are likely to see a response from voters in the US, especially among Trump supporters who don’t want the US to get into more forever wars.

Support for Israel is already steadily declining in the US, and might drop even faster with Washington now engaging directly in fighting Iran, because the Israeli-US attack is already based on a lie about Iran’s nuclear weapons, and American popular opinion is increasingly critical of Israel’s Gaza genocide.

Iran’s allies tested
The extent and capabilities of Iran’s allies across the Middle East will, too, be tested in the coming weeks, especially Hezbollah, Hamas, Ansar Allah in Yemen, and Popular Mobilisation Forces in Iraq. They have all been weakened recently by Israeli-American attacks, and both their will and ability to support Iran are unclear.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees this attack as the last step in his strategy to reorganise and re-engineer the Middle East, to make all states dependent on Israeli approval of their strategic policies. A few already are.

Netanyahu has been planning this regional project for over a decade, including removing Saddam Hussein, weakening Hezbollah and Hamas, hitting Yemen, and controlling trends inside Syria now that Bashar al-Assad is gone.

We will find out in due course if this strategy will rearrange Arab-Middle East dynamics, or internal Israeli-American ones.

The cost of this war to Israeli citizens is a big unknown, but a critical one. Israelis now know what it feels like in Southern Lebanon or Gaza. Millions of Israelis have been displaced, emigrated, or are sheltering in bunkers and safe rooms.

This is not why the State of Israel was created, according to Zionist views, which sought a place where Jews could escape the racism and pogroms they suffered in Europe and North America from the 19th Century onwards.

Most dangerous place
Instead, Israel is the most dangerous place for Jews in the world today.

This follows two decades in which all the Arabs, including Palestinians and Hamas, have expressed their willingness to coexist in peace with Israel, if Israel accepts the Palestinians’ right to national self-determination and pertinent UN resolutions that seek to guarantee the security and legitimacy of both Israeli and Palestinian states.

The US-Israeli attack against Iran will intensify the forces that are already destroying international law legacies and the UN system in the Middle East and most of the world. The US-Israel pursue this centuries-old Western colonial-imperial action to deny indigenous people their national rights at a time when they have already ignored the global anti-genocide convention by destroying life and systems that allow life to exist in Gaza.

Rami G Khouri is a distinguished fellow at the American University of Beirut and a nonresident senior fellow at the Arab Center Washington. He is a journalist and book author with 50 years of experience covering the Middle East. Dr Khouri can be followed on Twitter @ramikhouri This article was first published by The New Arab before the US strikes on Iran.

Global press freedom organisations have condemned the killing of two journalists in Gaza this week, who died in separate targeted airstrikes by the Israeli armed forces.

And protesters in Aotearoa New Zealand dedicated their week 77 rally and march in the heart of Auckland on Palestine Land Day to their memory, declaring “Journalism is not a crime”.

Hossam Shabat, a 23-year-old correspondent for the Al Jazeera Mubasher channel, was killed by an Israeli airstrike on his car in the eastern part of Beit Lahiya, media reports said.

• READ MORE: ‘Tell the world the truth,’ father tells dead son as Israel kills two journalists
• Whitewashing genocide — Steven Cowan
• Silencing the messenger: Israel kills journalists, while the West merely censors them — David Robie
• ‘Catastrophic’: Journalists say ethnic cleansing taking place in a news void in northern Gaza
• Other Gaza journalist reports

Video, reportedly from minutes after the airstrike, shows people gathering around the shattered and smoking car and pulling a body out of the wreckage.

Mohammed Mansour, a correspondent for Palestine Today television was killed earlier on Monday, reportedly along with his wife and son, in an Israeli airstrike on his home in south Khan Younis.

In Auckland today, Shabat’s aunt Ahlam Abuharbid, Beit Hanoun, Gaza, who migrated to New Zealand with her family in 1986, said her nephew “dreamed of becoming a journalist and to tell the world the truth.

“But war doesn’t wait for dreams. He was only 23, and when the war began he left classes to give a voice to those who had none.”

Global media condemnation
In the hours after the deaths, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Palestinian press freedom organisations released statements condemning the attacks.

“CPJ is appalled that we are once again seeing Palestinians weeping over the bodies of dead journalists in Gaza,” said Carlos Martínez de la Serna, CPJ’s programme director.

“This nightmare in Gaza has to end. The international community must act fast to ensure that journalists are kept safe and hold Israel to account for the deaths of Hossam Shabat and Mohammed Mansour.

“Journalists are civilians and it is illegal to attack them in a war zone.”

In a statement, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) confirmed it had targeted and killed Shabat and Mansour and labelled them as “terrorists” — without any evidence to back their claim.

The IDF also said that it had struck Hamas and Islamic Jihad resistance fighters in Khan Younis, where Mohammed Mansour was killed.

In October 2024, the IDF had accused Shabat and five other Palestinian journalists working for Al Jazeera in Gaza of being members of the militant arm of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Israeli claims denied
Al Jazeera and Shabat denied Israel’s claims, with Shabat stating in an interview with the CPJ that “we are civilians … Our only crime is that we convey the image and the truth.”

In its statement condemning the deaths of Shabat and Mansour, the CPJ again called on Israel to “stop making unsubstantiated allegations to justify its killing and mistreatment of members of the press”.

The CPJ estimates that more than 170 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the war began in October 2023, making it the deadliest period for journalists since the organisation began gathering data in 1992.

Al Jazeera Published their FINAL Interview with Journalist Hossam Shabat

He spoke about the challenges of working while being targeted pic.twitter.com/tgcs3BE1z8

— Ryan Rozbiani (@RyanRozbiani) March 28, 2025

However, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate says it believes the number is higher and, with the deaths of Shabat and Mansour, 208 journalists and other members of the press have been killed over the course of the conflict.

Under international law, journalists are protected civilians who must not be targeted by warring parties.

Israel has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in its genocide in the blockaded enclave since October 7, 2023.

Vigil for Gazan journalists.     Video: Aslam Qureshi

The Israeli carnage has reduced most of the Gaza to ruins and displaced almost the entire 2.3 million population, while causing a massive shortage of basic necessities.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants last November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its war on the enclave.

By Abubaker Abed in Deil Al-Balah, Gaza, and Jeremy Scahill of Drop Site News

The US-backed Israeli government resumed its intense genocidal attacks on Gaza early yesterday morning, unleashing a massive wave of indiscriminate military strikes across the Strip and killing more than 410 people, including scores of children and women, according to local health officials.

The massacre resulted in one of the largest single-day death tolls of the past 17 months, and also killed several members of Gaza’s government and a member of Hamas’s political bureau.

The Trump administration said it was briefed ahead of the strikes, which began at approximately 2 am local time, and that the US fully supported Israel’s attacks.

• READ MORE: Israel says attacks on Gaza that killed hundreds are ‘only the beginning’
  
• PSNA calls on NZ govt to condemn renewed Israel air strikes on Gaza – NZ protests
• Other Gaza genocide reports

“The sky was filled with drones, quadcopters, helicopters, F-16 and F-35 warplanes. The firing from the tanks and vehicles didn’t stop,” said Abubaker Abed, a contributing journalist for Drop Site News who reports from Deir al-Balah, Gaza.

“I didn’t sleep last night. I had a pang in my heart that something awful would happen. At 2 am, I tried to close my eyes. Once it happened, four explosions shook my home. The sky turned red and became heavily shrouded with plumes of smoke.”

Abubaker said Israel’s attacks began with four strikes in Deir al-Balah.

“Mothers’ wails and children’s screams echoed painfully in my ears. They struck a house near us. I didn’t know who to call. I couldn’t feel my knees. I was shivering with fear, and my family were harshly awakened,” he said.

‘My mother couldn’t breathe’
“My mother couldn’t take a breath. My father searched around for me. We gathered in the middle of our home, knowing our end may be near. That’s the same feeling we have had for the 16 months of intense bombings and attacks.

“The nightmare has chased us again.”

The Israeli attacks pummeled cities across Gaza — from Rafah and Khan Younis in the south to Deir al-Balah in the center, and Gaza City in the north, where Israel carried out some of the heaviest bombing in areas already reduced to an apocalyptic landscape.

Since the “ceasefire” took effect in January, more than half a million Palestinians returned to the north and many of them have been living in makeshift shelters or on the rubble of their former homes.

Hospitals that already suffer from catastrophic damage from 16 months of relentless Israeli attacks and a dire lack of medical supplies struggled to handle the influx of wounded people, and local authorities issued an emergency call for blood donations.

Late Tuesday morning, Dr Abdul-Qader Weshah, a senior emergency doctor at Al-Awda Hospital in Al-Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, described the situation.

“We’ve just received another influx of injuries following a nearby strike. We’ve dealt with them. We are just preparing ourselves for more casualties as more bombings are expected to happen,” he told Drop Site News.

‘Horrified . . . awoke to screams’
“Since the morning, we were horrified and awoke to the screams and pain of people. We’ve been treating many people, children and women in particular.”

Weshah said they have had to transfer some of the wounded to other hospitals because of a lack of medical supplies.

“We don’t have the means. Gaza’s hospitals are devoid of everything. Here at the hospital, we lack everything, including basic necessities like disinfectants and gauze. We don’t have enough beds for the casualties.

We don’t have the capacity to treat the wounded. X-ray devices, magnetic resonance imaging, and simple things like stitches are not available. The hospital is in an unprecedented state of chaos.

“The number of medical crews is not enough. Overwhelmed with injuries, we’re horrified and we don’t know why we are speaking to the world.

“We’re working with less than the bare minimum in our hands. We need doctors, devices and supplies, and circumstances to do our job.”

Al-Shifa hospital director Muhammad Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera Arabic: “Every minute, a wounded person dies due to a lack of resources.”

Rising death toll
Dr Zaher Al-Wahidi, the Director of the Information Unit at the Ministry of Health in Gaza, told Drop Site Tuesday afternoon that 174 children and 89 women were killed in the Israeli attacks. [Editors: Latest figures are 404 killed, including many children, and the toll is expected to rise as many are still buried beneath rubble.]

Local health officials and witnesses said that the death toll was expected to rise dramatically because dozens of people are believed to be buried under the rubble of the structures where they were sleeping when the bombing began.

“We can hear the voices of the victims under the rubble, but we can’t save them,” said a medical official at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

Video posted on social media by Palestinians inside Gaza portrayed unspeakable scenes of the lifeless bodies of infants and small children killed in the bombings.

Zinh Dahdooh, a dental student from Gaza City, posted an audio recording she said was of her neighbours screaming as their shelter was bombed, trapping them in the destruction.

“Tonight, they bombed our neighbors,” she wrote on the social media site X. “They kept screaming until they died, and no ambulance came for them. How long are we supposed to live in this fear? How long!”

According to local health officials, many strikes hit buildings or homes housing multiple generations of families.

‘Wiped out six families’
“Israel in its strikes has wiped out at least six families. One in my hometown. The others are from Khan Younis, Rafah, and Gaza City. Some families have lost five or 10 members. Others have lost around 20,” Abubaker reported.

“We talk about families killed from the children to the old. The Gharghoon family was bombed today in Rafah. The strikes have killed the father and his two daughters. Their mom and grandparents along with their uncles and aunts were also murdered, erasing the entire family from the civil registry.

“We are talking about the erasure of entire families. Among Israel’s attacks in Deir al-Balah, Israel bombed the homes of the Mesmeh, Daher, and Sloot families.

“More than 10 people, including seven women, from the Sloot family were killed, wiping them out entirely. The same has happened to the Abu-Teer, Barhoom, and other families.

“This is extermination by design. This is genocide.”

On Tuesday, Palestinian Islamic Jihad confirmed that “Abu Hamza,” the spokesman of its military wing, Al Quds Brigades, had been killed along with his wife and other family members.

A hellish scene
Israeli officials said they had been given a “green light” by President Donald Trump to resume heavy bombing of Gaza because of Hamas’s refusal to obey Trump’s directive to release all Israeli captives immediately.

“All those who seek to terrorise not just Israel but also the United States of America, will see a price to pay,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News.

“All hell will break loose.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement asserting that “Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength”.

Israeli media reported that the decision to resume heavy strikes against Gaza was made a week ago and was not in response to any imminent threat posed by Hamas.

Israel, which has repeatedly violated the ceasefire that went into effect January 19, has sought to create new terms in a transparent effort to justify blowing up the deal entirely.

“This is unconscionable,” said Muhannad Hadi, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

“A cease-fire must be reinstated immediately. People in Gaza have endured unimaginable suffering.”

Compounding the crisis in Gaza’s hospitals, Israel recently began blocking the entry of international medical workers to the Strip at unprecedented rates as part of a sweeping new policy that severely limits the number of aid organisations Israel will permit to operate in Gaza.

Editor’s note: Due to the ongoing Israeli attacks, Abubaker Abed relayed his reporting and eyewitness account to Jeremy Scahill by phone and text messages. This article is republished from Drop Site News under Creative Commons.

An almost three-hour delay for the start of the temporary ceasefire — due to “technical difficulties”, said the resistance movement Hamas — hardly daunted thousands of euphoric Palestinians who took to the streets of Gaza on Sunday to celebrate and try to move back to bombed-out homes in spite of the dangers.

Hamas finally released three names of women hostages due to be set free today and the truce began, reports Al Jazeera.

This in turn will trigger freedom for 95 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom had been jailed without charges or being tried in Israeli lawcourts, at the start of the 42-day first stage of the three-phase ceasefire deal.

• READ MORE: Ceasefire in Gaza – so much excitement
• Gaza genocide protesters in NZ welcome ceasefire but will fight on for justice
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

Israel currently detains 10,400 Palestinian prisoners in jails, according to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.

This figure does not include those detained from Gaza during the last 15 months of conflict. Hamas and allied resistance groups are reported to be holding 94 hostages captured on 7 October 2023, with 34 of those believed to be dead.

At least 19 people were killed on Sunday and 36 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza during the truce delay according to Gazan Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal

One person was killed in Rafah, six people were killed in Khan Younis, nine were killed in Gaza City and three in the north, he said in a statement.

Ceasefire start announced
The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office announced the ceasefire with Hamas would start at 11:15am local time (09:15 GMT) after the delay by Hamas in naming the three Israeli women captives to be freed as Romi Gonen, 24, Doron Steinbrecher, 31, and Emily Damari, 28.

One was reported to be of dual Romanian nationality and another of British nationality.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said it had 4000 truckloads of humanitarian aid ready to enter the Gaza Strip — “half of them carry food and water”, announced UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini in an X post.

UNRWA has 4,000 truckloads of aid ready to enter #Gaza — half of them carry food and flour.

Attacks on aid convoys in the Gaza Strip could decline as humanitarian relief comes in following a #ceasefire, says @‌UNLazzarini.https://t.co/yRt1NxWuXS

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) January 19, 2025

Two of the Palestinian reporters covering the truce from inside Gaza for Al Jazeera spoke of the joy and celebrations in spite of the uncertainty over the delayed truce start.

“Palestinians are taking a deep breath from all the atrocities they have been going through for the past 470 days. And today is a day of celebration,” said Hind Khoudary, reporting from Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

“Thousands of Palestinians are getting ready to go to the areas that they were not supposed to go, like the eastern parts, Jabalia, the areas that have been witnessing an Israeli ground invasion — and also Rafah.

‘Their houses are not even there’
“We also saw a lot of people putting their luggage to start going back, but many know that their houses are not even there.

“Most of their houses are not standing any more, but most of the people said that they’re going to put their tents on top of the rubble in their neighbourhoods.

Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Deir el-Balah, Gaza, said that despite the ceasefire delay, people had been celebrating.

“People here, as soon as the clock hit 8:30am, burst out into celebration and festivities. We heard shotguns a few times as well as people using fireworks.

“They are hoping that the coming hours are going to show them more promises and that the list of captives has been resolved and they can go on to start piecing their lives together in a more stable and safer environment.”

In Auckland on Saturday, about 200 demonstrators gathered in the heart of New Zealand’s biggest city to welcome the Gaza ceasefire, but warned they would continue to protest until justice is served with an independent and free Palestinan state.

Jubilant scenes of dancing and Palestinian folk music rang out across Te Komititanga square amid calls for the Israeli ambassador to be expelled from New Zealand and for the government to halt holiday worker visas for “Zionist terrorist” soldiers or reservists.

A Palestine solidarity group has protested over the participation of Israeli tennis player Lina Glushko in New Zealand’s ASB Tennis Classic in Auckland today, saying such competition raises serious concerns about the normalisation of systemic oppression and apartheid.

The Palestine Forum of New Zealand said in a statement that by taking part in the event Glushko, a former Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) soldier, was sending a “troubling message that undermines the values of justice, equality, and human rights”.

In the past 15 months, Israel’s military has killed almost 45,500 people in the besieged enclave of Gaza, mostly women and children.

• READ MORE: Experts hail ICJ declaration on illegality of Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory as ‘historic’ for Palestinians and international law
• Other Israel’s war on Gaza reports

Pro-Palestine protest causes pause in play at ASB Classic, via @nzherald https://t.co/klzdZ4inCt

— Irish Sport for Palestine (@Sport4Palestine) December 30, 2024

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has declared the occupation of Palestine, including Gaza, illegal, and Israel should end settlements as soon as possible.

Since the court ruling in July, Israel has intensified attacks on the civilian population in Gaza and their natural resources and infrastructure, including hospitals and health clinics.

“Welcoming Israeli athletes to Aotearoa is not a neutral act. It normalises the systemic injustices perpetrated by the Israeli state against Palestinians,” said Maher Nazzal of the Palestine Forum.

“Just as the international sports community united to oppose South Africa’s apartheid in the 20th century, we must now stand firm against Israel’s ongoing violations of international law and human rights.”

Implements apartheid policies
He said former soldier Glushko symbolised a regime that:

• Implements apartheid policies: As documented by leading organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch;
• Operates under leadership accused of war crimes: With an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant issued against Israeli officials; and
• Continues its illegal occupation of Palestine: In direct violation of international law and countless United Nations resolutions.

The statement said: “While sports often aim to transcend politics, they cannot be isolated from the realities of injustice and oppression.

“By welcoming athletes representing an apartheid regime, we risk ignoring the voices of the oppressed and allowing sports to be used as a tool for whitewashing human rights abuses.

“We urge the international and local sports community to remain consistent in their principles by refusing to host representatives of regimes that perpetuate apartheid.

“The global boycott of South African athletes during apartheid proved that sports can be a powerful force for change. The same principle must apply today.”

RNZ News reports that vocal pro-Palestine protesters managed to halt sixth seed Naomi Osaka’s eventual win 6-4 6-4 over Israeli Lina Glushko today at the ASB Classic.

A group of about a dozen protesters caused the players to briefly leave the court, as the noise from a loudhailer and shouting disrupted the usual silence while the ball was in play.

For her part, Osaka seemed non-plussed, saying that she had “just heard a lot of shouting and then people on the sidelines were telling me there was a protest”.

There was a further delay shortly after when Glushko had to leave the arena for a medical timeout, causing further confusion.

Meanwhile, global news agencies and media widely reported the NZ protest against Israel’s genocide.

An Israeli air strike has killed Palestinian photojournalist Ahmed Al-Louh and five Palestinian Civil Defence workers in central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp as Tel Aviv announces that it will double illegal settlements in the Golan Heights.

Al-Louh, who worked as a cameraman for Al Jazeera alongside other media outlets, was killed yesterday in the strike on the Civil Defence post in the central Gaza camp, according to medics and local journalists.

The attack occurred as Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 28 Palestinians on Sunday, medics said. Allouh is the third journalist killed in Gaza in the last 24 hours.

• READ MORE: Israeli forces bomb another UN-run school in Gaza, kill 20 Palestinians
• Global watchdog condemns Fiji for ‘blocking’ protest marches over Gaza genocide
• Other Gaza and Syria reports

Meanwhile, the Israeli government has approved a plan to increase the number of settlers in the illegally occupied Golan Heights, days after seizing more Syrian territory following the ousting of Syria’s dictator Bashar al-Assad, reports Al Jazeera.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the government had “unanimously approved” the “demographic development” of the occupied territory, which would seek to double the Israeli population there.

This new settlement plan is only for the portion of the Golan Heights that Israel has occupied since 1967. In 1981, Israel’s parliamentary Knesset moved to impose Israeli law over the territory, in an effective annexation.

Al Jazeera Arabic reports that journalist Al-louh was working while he was killed, wearing a “press” vest and helmet. He was taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Gaza’s city of Deir el-Balah.

Al Jazeera condemns ‘heinous crime’
Al Jazeera Media Network condemned Al-Louh’s killing, and called on human rights and media organisations “to condemn the Israeli Occupation’s systematic killing of journalists in cold blood, the evasion of responsibilities under international humanitarian law, and to bring the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice”.

Israeli strike kills Al Jazeera journalist.        Video: CNN News

“We urge relevant international legal institutions to take practical and urgent measures to hold the Israeli authorities and all those who are responsible accountable for their heinous crimes and to adopt mechanisms to put an end to the targeting and killing of journalists,” the network added.

Al-Louh had been covering Israel’s war on Gaza when it first began in October 2023, embedded with the Gaza Strip’s Palestinian Civil Defence teams, Al Jazeera reporter Hind Khoudary said.

Gaza’s media office said the head of the civil emergency service in Nuseirat, Nedal Abu Hjayyer, was also killed in Sunday’s attack.

“The civil emergency headquarters in Nuseirat camp was hit during the crews’ presence. They work around the clock to serve the people,” said Zaki Emadeldeen from the civil emergency service to reporters at the hospital.

“The civil emergency service is a humanitarian service and not political. They work in war and peace times for the service of the people,” he said, adding that the place was hit directly by an Israeli air strike.

The Israeli military said they were looking into the attack.

Journalists ‘paying highest price’
“Since the war in Gaza started, journalists have been paying the highest price — their lives – for their reporting. Without protection, equipment, international presence, communications, or food and water, they are still doing their crucial jobs to tell the world the truth,” said Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) programme director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York.

“Every time a journalist is killed, injured, arrested, or forced to go to exile, we lose fragments of the truth. Those responsible for these casualties face dual trials: one under international law and another before history’s unforgiving gaze.”

Several other Palestinian journalists were killed this past week, with 195 killed in Gaza since Israel’s war began, Khoudary said.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said earlier on Sunday that Palestinian journalist Mohammed Jabr al-Qrinawi was killed along with his wife and children in an Israeli air attack that targeted their home in Bureij refugee camp, in central Gaza, late on Saturday.

Earlier on Saturday, Al Mashhad Media said its journalist Mohammed Balousha was killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza.

Several AJ journalists killed
Several Al Jazeera journalists have been killed since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, including Ismail al-Ghoul, Rami al-Rifi, Samer Abudaqa and Hamza Dahdouh.

Also on Sunday, an air strike hit people protecting aid trucks west of Gaza City. Medics said several were killed or wounded but exact figures were not yet available.

Residents also said at least 11 people were killed in three separate Israeli air strikes in Gaza City. Nine were killed in the towns of Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoon and Jabalia camp when clusters of houses were bombed or set ablaze, and two were killed by drone fire in Rafah.

Earlier on Sunday, at least 15 Palestinians were killed after Israeli forces stormed Khalil Oweida School in Beit Hanoon, sources told Al Jazeera.

Several other Israeli attacks earlier on Sunday killed Palestinians near Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza; and in Shujayea, in Khan Younis.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 44,976 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since October 7, 2023.

Pacific Media Watch, Al Jazeera and news agencies.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Syria, where tens of thousands of people gathered at the Great Mosque of Damascus for the first Friday prayers since longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad was toppled by opposition fighters.

DAMASCUS RESIDENT: [translated] Hopefully this Friday is the Friday of the greatest joy, a Friday of victory for our Muslim brothers. This is a blessed Friday.

AMY GOODMAN: Syria’s new caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir was among those at the mosque. He’ll act as prime minister until March.

This comes as the World Food Programme is appealing to donors to help it scale up relief operations for the approximately 2.8 million displaced and food-insecure Syrians across the country. That includes more than 1.1 million people who were forcibly displaced by fighting since late November.

Israel’s Defence Minister has told his troops to prepare to spend the winter holding the demilitarized zone that separates Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Earlier today, Prime Minister Netanyahu toured the summit of Mount Haramun in the UN-designated buffer zone. Netanyahu said this week the Golan Heights would “forever be an inseparable part of the State of Israel”.

On Thursday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for an urgent deescalation of airstrikes on Syria by Israeli forces, and their withdrawal from the UN buffer zone.

In Ankara, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Turkey’s Foreign Minister and the President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Blinken said the US and Turkey would [work] to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group in Syria. Meanwhile, Erdoğan told Blinken that Turkey reserves the right to strike the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey considers “terrorist”.

For more, we go to Damascus for the first time since the fall of longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad, where we’re joined by the Associated Press investigative reporter Sarah El Deeb, who is based in the Middle East, a region she has covered for two decades.

Sarah, welcome to Democracy Now! You are overlooking —

SARAH EL DEEB: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: — the square where tens of thousands of Syrians have gathered for the first Friday prayers since the fall of Assad. Describe the scene for us.

Report from Damascus: Searching for loved ones in prisons and morgues.  Video: Democracy Now!

SARAH EL DEEB: There is a lot of firsts here. It’s the first time they gather on Friday after Bashar al-Assad fled the country. It’s the first time everyone seems to be very happy. I think that’s the dominant sentiment, especially people who are in the square. There is ecstasy, tens of thousands of people. They are still chanting, “Down with Bashar al-Assad.”

But what’s new is that it’s also visible that the sentiment is they’ve been, so far, happy with the new rulers, not outpour — there is no criticism, out — loud criticism of the new rulers yet. So, I’d say the dominant thing is that everyone is happy down there.

AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, you recently wrote an AP article headlined “Thousands scour Syria’s most horrific prison but find no sign of their loved ones.” On Tuesday, families of disappeared prisoners continued searching Sednaya prison for signs of their long-lost loved ones who were locked up under Assad’s brutal regime.

HAYAT AL-TURKI: [translated] I will show you the photo of my missing brother. It’s been 14 years. This is his photo. I don’t know what he looks like, if I find him. I don’t know what he looks like, because I am seeing the photos of prisoners getting out. They are like skeletons.

But this is his photo, if anyone has seen him, can know anything about him or can help us. He is one of thousands of prisoners who are missing. I am asking for everyone, not only my brother, uncle, cousin and relatives.”

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about this mad search by Syrians across the country.

SARAH EL DEEB: This is the other thing that’s been dominating our coverage and our reporting since we arrived here, the contrast between the relief, the sense of relief over the departure of Bashar al-Assad but then the sadness and the concern and the no answers for where the loved ones have gone.

Thousands — also, tens of thousands of people have marched on Sednaya [prison]. It’s the counter to this scene, where people were looking for any sign of where their relatives have been. As you know really well, so many people have reported their relatives missing, tens of thousands, since the beginning of the revolt, but also before.

I mean, I think this is a part of the feature of this government, is that there has been a lot of security crackdown. People were scared to speak, but they were — because there was a good reason for it. They were picked up at any expression of discontent or expression of opinion.

So, where we were in Sednaya two, three days ago, it feels like one big day, I have to say. When we were in Sednaya, people were also describing what — anything, from the smallest expression of opinion, a violation of a traffic light. No answers.

And they still don’t know where their loved ones are. I mean, I think we know quite a lot from research before arriving here about the notorious prison system in Syria. There’s secret prisons. There are security branches where people were being held. I think this is the first time we have an opportunity to go look at those facilities.

What was surprising and shocking to the people, and also to a lot of us journalists, was that we couldn’t find any sign of these people. And the answers are — we’re still looking for them. But what was clear is that only a handful — I mean, not a handful — hundreds of people were found.

Many of them were also found in morgues. There were apparent killings in the last hours before the regime departed. One of them was the prominent activist Mazen al-Hamada. We were at his funeral yesterday. He was found, and his family believes that — he was found killed, and his family believes his body was fresh, that he was killed only a few days earlier. So, I think the killing continued up until the last hour.

AMY GOODMAN: I was wondering if you can tell us more about —

SARAH EL DEEB: What was also — what was also —

AMY GOODMAN: — more about Mazen. I mean, I wanted to play a clip of Mazen’s nephew, Yahya al-Hussein.

YAHYA AL-HUSSEIN: [translated] In 2020, he was taken from the Netherlands to Germany through the Syrian Embassy there. And from there, they brought him to Syria with a fake passport.

He arrived at the airport at around 2:30 a.m. and called my aunt to tell her that he arrived at the airport, and asked for money. When they reached out to him the next day, they were told that air intelligence had arrested him.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Mazen’s nephew, Yahya al-Hussein. Sarah, if you can explain? This was an activist who left Syria after he had been imprisoned and tortured — right? — more than a decade ago, but ultimately came back, apparently according to assurances that he would not be retaken. And now his body is found.

SARAH EL DEEB: I think it’s — like you were saying, it’s very hard to explain. This is someone who was very outspoken and was working on documenting the torture and the killing in the secret prisons in Syria. So he was very well aware of his role and his position vis-à-vis the government. Yet he felt — it was hard to explain what Mazen’s decision was based on, but his family believes he was lured into Syria by some false promises of security and safety.

His heart was in Syria. He left Syria, but he never — it never left him. He was working from wherever he was — he was in the Netherlands, he was in the US — I think, to expose these crimes. And I think this is — these are the words of his family: He was a witness on the crimes of the Assad government, and he was a martyr of the Assad government.

One of the people that were at the funeral yesterday was telling us Mazen was a lesson. The Assad government was teaching all detainees a lesson through Mazen to keep them silent. I think it was just a testimony to how cruel this ruling regime, ruling system has been for the past 50 years.

People would go back to his father’s rule also. But I think with the revolution, with the protests in 2011, all these crimes and all these detentions were just en masse. I think the estimates are anywhere between 150,000 and 80,000 detainees that no one can account for. That is on top of all the people that were killed in airstrikes and in opposition areas in crackdown on protest.

So, it was surprising that at the last minute — it was surprising and yet not very surprising. When I asked the family, “Why did they do that?” they would look at me and, like, “Why are you asking this question? They do that. That’s what they did.” It was just difficult to understand how even at the last minute, and even for someone that they promised security, this was — this would be the end, emaciated and tortured and killed, unfortunately.

AMY GOODMAN: Sarah, you spoke in Damascus to a US citizen, Travis Timmerman, who says he was imprisoned in Syria. This is a clip from an interview with Al Arabiya on Thursday in which he says he spent the last seven months in a prison cell in Damascus.

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: My name is Travis.

REPORTER: Travis.

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: Yes.

REPORTER: So, [speaking in Arabic]. Travis, Travis Timmerman.

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: That’s right.

REPORTER: That’s right.

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: But just Travis. Just call me Travis.

REPORTER: Call you Travis, OK. And where were you all this time?

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: I was imprisoned in Damascus for the last seven months. … I was imprisoned in a cell by myself. And in the early morning of this Monday, or the Monday of this week, they took a hammer, and they broke my door down. … Well, the armed men just wanted to get me out of my cell. And then, really, the man who I stuck with was a Syrian man named Ely. He was also a prisoner that was just freed. And he took me by the side, by the arm, really. And he and a young woman that lives in Damascus, us three, exited the prison together.

AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, your AP report on Timmerman is headlined “American pilgrim imprisoned in Assad’s Syria calls his release from prison a ‘blessing.’” What can you share about him after interviewing him?

SARAH EL DEEB: I spent quite a bit of time with Travis last night. And I think his experience was very different from what I was just describing. He was taken, he was detained for crossing illegally into Syria. And I think his description of his experience was it was OK. He was not mistreated.

He was fed well, I mean, especially when I compare it to what I heard from the Syrian prisoners in the secret prisons or in detention facilities. He would receive rice, potatoes, tomatoes. None of this was available to the Syrian detainees. He would go to the bathroom three times a day, although this was uncomfortable for him, because, of course, it was not whenever he wanted. But it was not something that other Syrian detainees would experience.

His experience also was that he heard a lot of beating. I think that’s what he described it as: beating from nearby cells. They were mostly Syrian detainees. For him, that was an implicit threat of the use of violence against him, but he did not get any — he was not beaten or tortured.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Sarah, if you could also —

SARAH EL DEEB: He also said his release was a “blessing.” Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: If you could also talk about Austin Tice, the American freelance journalist? His family, his mother and father and brothers and sisters, seem to be repeatedly saying now that they believe he’s alive, held by the Syrian government, and they’re desperately looking for him or reaching out to people in Syria. What do you know?

SARAH EL DEEB: What we know is that people thought Travis was Tice when they first saw him. They found him in a house in a village outside of Damascus. And I think that’s what triggered — we didn’t know that Travis was in a Syrian prison, so I think that’s what everyone was going to check. They thought that this was Tice.

I think the search, the US administration, the family, they are looking and determined to look for Tice. The family believes that he was in Syrian government prison. He entered Syria in 2012. He is a journalist. But I think we have — his family seems to think that there were — he’s still in a Syrian government prison.

But I think, so far, we have not had any sign of Tice from all those released. But, mind you, the scenes of release from prisons were chaotic, from multiple prisons at the same time. And we’re still, day by day, finding out about new releases and people who were set free on that Sunday morning.

U.N. Calls on Israel to Stop Bombing Syria and Occupying Demilitarized Zone https://t.co/iHNIkKKOrs

— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) December 13, 2024

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Sarah El Deeb, you’ve reported on the Middle East for decades. You just wrote a piece for AP titled “These Palestinians disappeared after encounters with Israeli troops in Gaza.” So, we’re pivoting here. So much attention is being paid to the families of Syrian prisoners who they are finally freeing.

I want to turn to Gaza. Tell us about the Palestinians searching for their family members who went missing during raids and arrests by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip. And talk about the lack of accountability for these appearances. You begin your piece with Reem Ajour’s quest to find her missing husband and daughter.

SARAH EL DEEB: I talked to Reem Ajour for a long time. I mean, I think, like you said, this was a pivot, but the themes have been common across the Middle East, sadly. Reem Ajour last saw her family in March of 2024. Both her husband and her 5-year-old daughter were injured after an Israeli raid on their house during the chaotic scenes of the Israeli raids on the Shifa Hospital.

They lived in the neighborhood. So, it was chaotic. They [Israeli military] entered their home, and they were shooting in the air, or they were shooting — they were shooting, and the family ended up wounded.

But what was striking was that the Israeli soldiers made the mother leave the kid wounded in her house and forced her to leave to the south. I think this is not only Reem Ajour’s case. I think this is something we’ve seen quite a bit in Gaza. But the fact that this was a 5-year-old and the mom couldn’t take her with her was quite moving.

And I think what her case kind of symbolises is that during these raids and during these detentions at checkpoints, families are separated, and we don’t have any way of knowing how the Israeli military is actually documenting these detentions, these raids.

Where do they — how do they account for people who they detain and then they release briefly? The homes that they enter, can we find out what happened in these homes? We have no idea of holding — I think the Israeli court has also tried to get some information from the military, but so far very few cases have been resolved.

And we’re talking about not only 500 or 600 people; we’re talking about tens of thousands who have been separated, their homes raided, during what is now 15 months of war in Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, we want to thank you for being with us, Associated Press investigative reporter based in the Middle East for two decades, now reporting from Damascus.

Next up, today is the 75th day of a hunger strike by Laila Soueif. She’s the mother of prominent British Egyptian political prisoner Alaa Abd El-Fattah. She’s calling on British officials to pressure Egypt for the release of her son. We’ll speak to the Cairo University mathematics professor in London, where she’s been standing outside the Foreign Office. Back in 20 seconds.

This article is republished from the Democracy Now! programme under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

One of the major political developments in the United States that has got little attention in the wake of the Democrats’ astounding loss in the November 5 elections is the success of Arab American political organising.

A new generation of political activists has emerged that has earned representation in unprecedented numbers and impact for the 3.5-million-strong Arab-American community in elected and appointed political offices.

It also put Arab Americans on the electoral map for the first time by launching the Uncommitted movement during the Democratic primaries and making a foreign policy issue — Israel’s genocide in Gaza — a national moral issue.

• READ MORE: Protesters condemn Fiji ‘complicity, silence’ over Israel’s Gaza genocide
• Palestinian musicians, poets and solidarity partners in vibrant NZ cultural celebration
• Other Israel’s war on Gaza reports

The Democratic Party underestimated the power of this new generation and the intensity of citizen anger, which cost it dearly in the election.

What happened in the Arab American community is a vintage all-American tale. They, like other communities, started their pursuit of political impact as a low-profile immigrant group who became dynamic citizens after political developments threatened their wellbeing and motivated them to take action.

Arab American mobilisation traces its beginnings to small-scale participation in Jesse Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns for the Democratic Party. Jackson was the first serious presidential candidate to include Arab Americans as Democratic Party convention delegates, part of his Rainbow Coalition of:

“the white, the Hispanic, the Black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the Native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay, and the disabled [who] make up the American quilt”.

His campaign gave momentum to voter registration drives within the Arab American community, which continued in the following three decades.

Impact on outcomes
By 2020, nearly 90 percent of Arab Americans were registered to vote. By 2024, the Arab American voter block — in its expansive coalition with other groups — had grown large enough to impact on outcomes in critical swing states, especially Michigan and Pennsylvania.

The attacks of 9/11 and the subsequent backlash motivated Arab Americans even more to engage in meaningful politics. Many members of the community refused to live in fear, trying to avoid the intimidation and smears that had long kept their parents and grandparents subdued and quiescent politically.

As Omar Kurdi, founder of Arab Americans of Cleveland, told me, “We were no longer silent because we saw the dangers to us of being quiet and politically inactive. We refused to live in fear of politics.

“Since then, we have been proud, confident, and active in public. We no longer accept crumbs, but want our share of the pie, and we understand now how we can work for that.”

As a result, over the past two decades, Arab Americans have entered the public sphere and politics at all levels: from local, city, and county positions to state and federal ones.

Elected officials say they succeeded because their constituents knew and trusted them. Candidates who won state and national congressional seats — like Rashida Tlaib in Michigan — inspired hundreds of younger Arab Americans to enter the political fray.

Successful experiences in city politics educated newcomers on how they could impact decision-making, improve their own lives, and serve the entire community. They mastered locally the basics of politics, one Ohio activist told me, “like lobbying, bringing pressure, protesting, educating the public, achieving consensus, and creating coalitions based on shared values, problems, and goals”.

Coalesced into Uncommitted movement
All of this momentum, built up over the years, coalesced into the Uncommitted movement in 2024. As the Biden administration unconditionally supported Israel to carry out genocidal violence in Palestine and Lebanon, Arab-American activists moved to use their newfound leverage as voters in electoral politics.

They joined like-minded social justice activists from other groups that mainstream political parties had long taken for granted — including Muslim Americans, Blacks, Hispanics, youth, progressive Jews, churches, and unions — and sent a strong message during the primaries that they would not support Biden’s re-election bid unless he changed his position on Gaza.

The campaign hoped that tens of thousands of voters in the primaries would send the Democrats a big message by voting “uncommitted”, but in fact, hundreds of thousands of Democrats did so across half a dozen critical states.

These numbers were enough to send 30 Uncommitted delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August, where they could lobby their colleagues to shape the party’s national platform.

One activist involved in the process told me they convinced 320 of the other 5,000 delegates to support their demand for a party commitment to a Gaza ceasefire and arms embargo on Israel — not enough to change the party position, but enough to prove that working from inside the political system over time could move things in a better direction.

Intergenerational support and motivation were big factors in the success of the Uncommitted movement. Arab American Institute Executive Director Maya Berry, who has been involved in such activities for three decades, told me that Arab Americans were always in political positions, but in small numbers, so they had little impact.

However, they learned how the system works and provided valuable insights when the time came this year to act. She mentioned Abbas Alawiyeh as an example, who co-chairs the Uncommitted National Movement and worked as a congressional staffer for many years.

Defeat hotly debated
The Uncommitted movement’s precise contribution to the Democratic Party’s defeat is hotly debated right now. One activist told me the movement “placed Arab Americans at the centre of Democratic Party politics, led the progressives, helped Harris lose in swing states, and nationally brought attention to Gaza, divestment, and moral issues in ways we had never been able to do previously.”

All this occurs in uncharted territory, with no clarity if Arab Americans can influence both the Democratic and Republican parties who might now compete for their vote.

One Arab-American activist in his 30s added, “We are liberated from the Democrats who took us for granted, and we Arab Americans are now a swing vote officially.”

Other activists I spoke to thought the election experience could set the stage for a larger movement to counter the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, though that would require conquering the next hurdle of establishing Political Action Committees (PACs) and raising substantial funds.

That is a future possibility.

For now, it is important to recognise that a national-level Arab-American political effort has been born from the fires and devastation of the US-Israeli genocide in Palestine and Lebanon. Whether it can improve the wellbeing of Arab Americans and all Americans will be revealed in the years ahead.

Dr Rami G Khouri is a distinguished fellow at the American University of Beirut and a nonresident senior fellow at the Arab Center Washington. He is a journalist and book author with 50 years of experience covering the Middle East. This article was first published by Al Jazeera.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has told a media conference Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be arrested if he entered New Zealand

“We support the ICC [the International Criminal Court],” Luxon said yesterday.

“We believe in the international rules-based system, we support the ICC, and we would be obligated to do so.”

• READ MORE: Israel and the ICC: A legal scholar’s response to The Washington Post
• Many of Israel’s Western supporters indicate they would arrest Netanyahu. Will Australia and NZ follow suit?
• Other Israel’s war on Gaza reports

The NZ prime minister’s comments followed the ICC announcing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israel’s former defence minister Yoav Gallant on allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the 13-month war on the besieged Gaza Strip that has killed more than 44,000 people — mostly women and children.

Netanyahu and Gallant are now fugitives from global justice after the ICC issued the arrest warrants against them.

Although Israel — and the US — does not recognise the authority of the ICC, the highest international criminal court, and Netanyahu and Gallant will not turn themselves in, the pair’s world has got a lot smaller.

The Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC, includes 124 state parties across six continents.

Legally bound
Under the statute, countries that are part of the ICC are legally bound to enforce its arrest warrants, according to international human rights lawyer Jonathan Kuttab.

“The law operates on the basis of a presumption that people will obey it. That’s how all laws are created,” Kuttab told Al Jazeera.

“You expect everybody to respect the law. Those who don’t respect the law are themselves violating the law.”

He added that there were early signs that countries would not ignore the court’s decision.

Many of Israel’s allies — including several European Union countries — have committed to enforcing the arrest warrants.

The ICC was set up in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression when member states are unwilling or unable to do so themselves. It is based in The Hague in the Netherlands.

The case at the ICC is separate from another legal battle Israel is waging at the top UN court, the International Court of Justice, in which South Africa accuses Israel of genocide, an allegation Israeli leaders deny.

Here is a list of the countries where Netanyahu and Gallant could be detained after the ICC’s decision.

A community broadcaster in Aotearoa New Zealand has appealed for an end to the “sadistic cruelty” and the “out in the open genocide” by Israel in Gaza and the occupied Palestine territories.

In an open letter, Lois Griffiths, co-presenter of the environmental, social justice and current affairs programme Earthwise on Plains FM, has criticised the “injustices imposed by colonialism” and has cited Bethlehem Lutheran pastor Munther Isaac in saying “Gaza today has become the moral compass of the world”.

Her letter is published by Asia Pacific Report to mark the UN International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

• READ MORE: Which countries recognise Palestine in 2024
• Other Israel’s war on Gaza reports

The open letter by Griffiths says:

K Gurunathan’s article “Sparks fly as political tinder of Māori anger builds” (The Press and The Post, November 25) argues that the injustices imposed by colonialism, including the “systematic confiscation of Māori land”, leading to poverty and cultural alienation are factors behind the anger expressed by the recent Hīkoi.

We need to learn Aotearoa New Zealand history.

One needs to learn history in order to understand the present.

But we need to learn world history too.

Coincidentally, I am in the middle of reading Israeli journalist Gideon Levy’s most recent book The Killing of Gaza: reports on a catastrophe.

Levy has been there many times, reporting first hand about the sadistic cruelty imposed on its people, a cruelty that began in 1948.

He explains that Hamas promotes armed resistance as a last resort. Any other approach has been ignored

The Israeli regime is being accused now of war crimes. But war crimes have been going on for decades.

But it sickens me to even think of what is happening now. It is genocide, genocide out in the open.

In the words of Bethlehem Lutheran pastor Munther Isaac: “Gaza today has become the moral compass of the world.”

Israel is the world’s second-worst offender after Haiti in letting the murder of journalists go unpunished, according to a new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists, reports Al Jazeera.

According to the CPJ’s 2024 Global Impunity Index, released yesterday, Somalia, Syria and South Sudan round up the list of the top five countries allowing journalists’ killers to evade justice.

“What’s clear from our index is that Israel is not committed to investigating or punishing those who have killed journalists . . .  Israel has deliberately targeted journalists for being journalists,” CPJ chief executive Jodie Ginsberg told Al Jazeera.

• READ MORE: 5 more journalists killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza as death toll rises to 182
• Global media groups decry Israel labelling Gaza journalists as ‘terrorists’
• How impunity fuels Israel’s attacks on journalists in Gaza and Lebanon
• Silencing the messenger: Israel kills journalists, while the West merely censors them — David Robie

She said that in some cases, Israel had announced the killings, claiming without evidence the reporters were “terrorists”.

In others, like the killing of three Lebanese journalists last week, it was clear they were targeted since nothing else was in the area.

The CPJ index also noted that globally, nobody was held accountable for 80 percent of cases related to the murder of journalists, and in at least 241 killings there had been evidence that the journalists were directly targeted for their work.

Rise of criminal gangs
The index — which was launched in 2008 — comprises 13 nations this year and includes both democracies and non-democratic governments.

Haiti, which tops the list, has been challenged by the rise of criminal gangs, who played a role in destabilising the country’s administrative and judicial institutions, resulting in the murders of at least seven journalists remaining unresolved in the country, the index said.

Meanwhile, Israel, which ranks second on the list, has appeared on the index for the first time since its inception.

The CPJ said the country’s “failure to hold anyone to account in the targeted killing of five journalists in Gaza and Lebanon in a year of relentless war”, had resulted in its ranking on the index.

While the press freedom NGO is investigating the killings of at least 10 journalists, the CPJ said the number of murdered journalists might still be higher, considering the scale of Israel’s war in Gaza and Lebanon.

Israel ‘deliberately targeted journalists’
At least 128 journalists and media workers are among the tens of thousands of people Israel has killed in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon over the past year — the deadliest time for journalists since the CPJ began to track the killings more than four decades ago.

However, some media freedom watchdogs put the death toll higher. The Gaza Media Office lists 182 Palestinian journalists killed by Israel since 7 October 2023.

The CPJ index also noted that Mexico has recorded the highest overall number of unpunished murders of journalists – 21 – during the index period and ranks eighth on the index because of its sizeable population.

Asian countries like Afghanistan, Myanmar, Pakistan and the Philippines have been appearing on the index regularly since its inception.

Calling on the international community to help journalists, Ginsberg said in a statement: “Murder is the ultimate weapon to silence journalists.”

“Once impunity takes hold, it sends a clear message: that killing a journalist is acceptable and that those who continue reporting may face a similar fate.”

Republished by Pacific Media Watch.

The International Press Institute (IPI) has strongly condemned the Israeli government’s recent decision to revoke the press passes of Al Jazeera journalists, months after the global news outlet was banned in the country.

“The Israeli government’s decision to revoke Al Jazeera press passes highlights a broader and deeply alarming pattern of harassment of journalists and attacks on press freedom in Israel and the region,” IPI interim executive director Scott Griffen said.

The Israeli government announced it will be revoking all press passes previously issued to Al Jazeera journalists.

• READ MORE: Hezbollah blames Israel after Lebanon pager blasts killed at least 9 and wounded 2750 across Lebanon and Syria
• UN General Assembly debates end to Israeli occupation of Palestine
• Beyond Gaza: The terror in the West Bank

Nitzan Chen, director of Israel’s Government Press Office (GPO), announced the decision via X on Thursday, accusing Al Jazeera of spreading “false content” and “incitement against Israelis”.

Use of press office cards in the course of the journalists’ work could in itself “jeopardise state security at this time”, claimed Chen.

The journalists affected by the decision would be given a hearing before their passes are officially revoked.

While the GPO press card is not mandatory, without it a journalist in Israel will not be able to access Parliament, Israeli government ministries, or military infrastructure.

Only Israeli recognised pass
It is also the only card recognised at Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank.

Griffen said the move was indicative of a “systematic effort” by Israeli authorities to “expand its control over media reporting about Israel, including reporting on and from Gaza”.

He added: “We strongly urge Israel to respect freedom of the press and access to information, which are fundamental human rights that all democracies must respect and protect.”

In May, Israel’s cabinet unanimously voted to shut down Al Jazeera in the country, immediately ordering the closure of its offices and a ban on the company’s broadcasts.

At the time, Al Jazeera described it as a “criminal act” and warned that Israel’s suppression of the free press “stands in contravention of international and humanitarian law”.

GPO Director Nitzan Chen: “Al Jazeera disseminates false content, which includes incitement against Israelis and Jews and constitutes a threat to IDF soldiers. Use of GPO cards in the course of the journalists’ work could in itself jeopardize state security at this time”.
(2/3)

— Gov’t Press Office (@GPOIsrael) September 12, 2024

Al Jazeera is widely regarded as the most balanced global news network covering the war on Gaza in contrast to many Western news services perceived as biased in favour of Israel.

Media freedom petition rejected
A petition for military authorities to allow foreign journalists to report inside Gaza was rejected by the Israeli Supreme Court in January 2024.

IPI and other media watchdogs have repeatedly called on Israel to allow international media access to Gaza and ensure the safety of journalists.

At least 173 Palestinian journalists are reported to have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza with the latest killing of reporter Abdullah Shakshak, who was shot by an Israeli military quadcopter in Rafah in southern Gaza.

UN General Assembly debates end to Israeli occupation of Palestine.    Video: Al Jazeera

Deadly pager attack
Meanwhile, the deadly en masse explosion of pagers in Lebanon and Syria killing 11 and wounding almost 3000 people that has widely been attributed to Israel raises questions about what the end game may be, amid rising tensions in the region, say analysts.

Mairav Zonszein, a senior Israeli analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that the attack was something that Israel had had in the works for several months and risked losing if Hezbollah became suspicious.

This concern may have led the Israeli army to trigger the blasts, but Israel’s strategy overall remains unclear.

“Where is Israel going to go from here? This question still hasn’t been answered,” Zonszein said.

“Without a ceasefire in Gaza, it’s unclear how Israel plans to de-escalate, or if Netanyahu is in fact trying to spark a broader war,” the analyst added, noting that more Israeli troops were now stationed in the West Bank and along the northern border than in the Gaza Strip.

In a historic moment, Palestine, newly promoted to observer status at the UN General Assembly (UNGA), has submitted a draft resolution at the body demanding an end to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.

Building on a recent International Court of Justice ruling, the resolution calls for Israel to withdraw its troops, halt settlement expansion, and return land taken since 1967 within 12 months.

While the US opposes the resolution, it has no veto power in the UNGA, and the body has previously supported Palestinian recognition.

The resolution, which will be voted on by UNGA members today, is not legally binding, but reflects global opinion as leaders gather for high-level UN meetings next week.

The Victorian Greens have demanded an independent inquiry into Australian police tactics and alleged excessive use of force today against antiwar protesters at the Land Forces expo in Melbourne.

State Greens leader Ellen Sandell said her party had lodged a formal protest to the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC).

“We have seen police throw flash grenades into crowds of protesters, use pepper spray indiscriminately, and whip people with horse whip,” she also said in a X post.

• READ MORE: Protesters mobilise to greet Australia’s ‘Land Forces’ merchants of death
• Pro-Palestinian activists hold protests to disrupt defence expo in Australia

“These are military-style tactics used by police against protesters who are trying to have their say, as is their democratic right.”

Police used stun grenades and pepper spray and arrested 39 people as officers were pelted with rocks, manure and tomatoes in what has been described as Melbourne’s biggest police operation in two decades, reports Al Jazeera.

The Victorian Greens and I have demanded an independent inquiry into Victoria Police tactics and excessive use of force at the Land Forces protests in Melbourne today. pic.twitter.com/p8iLU073S0

— Ellen Sandell (@ellensandell) September 11, 2024

The pro-Palestine protesters, also demanding a change in Canberra’s stance on Israel’s war in Gaza, clashed with the police outside the arms fair.

Thousands picketed the Land Forces 2024 military weapons exposition. Australia has seen numerous protests against the country’s arms industry’s involvement in the war over the past 11 months.

Protesting for ‘those killed’ in Gaza
“We’re protesting to stand up for all those who have been killed by the type of weapons [in Gaza] on display at the convention,” said Jasmine Duff from organiser Students for Palestine in a statement.

About 1800 police officers have been deployed at the Melbourne Convention Centre hosting the three-day weapons exhibition. Up to 25,000 people had previously been expected to turn up at the protest.

Two dozen people were reported as requiring medical treatment, said a Victoria state police spokesperson in a statement.

Demonstrators also lit fires in the street and disrupted traffic and public transport, while missiles were thrown at police horses.

However, no serious injuries were reported, according to police.

Deputy Greens leader backs protesters
In a speech to the Senate, the deputy federal leader of the Greens, Senator Mehreen Faruqi, offered her solidarity to “the thousands protesting in Melbourne today to say no to the business of war”.

“The UK has suspended some arms sales to Israel. Canada today is halting more arms sales to Israel.

“What will it take for [Australia’s] Labor government to take action against the apartheid state of Israel?”

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition has told supporters that the “Break the Siege” aid project for besieged Gaza from Turkey has been put on hold — indefinitely — due to rising tensions in the wake of the assassinations of key resistance leaders in the capitals of Lebanon and Iran.

“We will continue to work tirelessly to attempt to sail but, in the meantime, we need to let everyone know that for the moment, the sailing of Break the Siege must be put on hold, indefinitely,” said flotilla reporter Tan Safi in a video to supporters.

“Our other campaign vessel, Handala, will continue its journey towards Gaza.

• READ MORE: Haniyeh killed by ‘short-range projectile’ fired from outside home, say Reopublican Guards
• Other war on Gaza reports
• Other Freedom Flotilla reports

An update from the Freedom Flotilla.              Video: Gaza Freedom Flotilla

“Our respective national campaigns remain active and engaged: please watch for updates about our actions and other Palestine solidarity actions near you.

“Keep an eye on the crew and participants of Handala and continue demanding their safe passage according to international law.

“Keep amplifying Palestinian voices.

“Together we must and will continue to demand sanctions, an end to the genocide, apartheid and illegal occupation, and justice for all the babies, children, mothers, fathers, and grandparents — human beings who have been murdered by the genocidal machine that is Israel.

Two New Zealand volunteers, Youssef Sammour and Rana Hamida, are crew on the Handala and feature in the the video.

Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh and his bodyguard were killed in the early hours of Wednesday at his war veterans’ guest house in Tehran in an assassination blamed on Israel by Iran.

His assassination came hours after top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr was killed in an Israeli air attack on the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut. According to Lebanon’s health ministry, five civilians – three women and two children – also died in the attack.

Republished from Kia Ora Gaza with permission.

New Zealand needs to get tough with Israel. It’s not as if we haven’t done so before.

When NZ authorities busted a Mossad operation in Auckland 20 years ago, the government didn’t say: “Oh well, Israel has the right to defend itself.”

No, it arrested, prosecuted, convicted, imprisoned and deported the Israeli agents, plus made them pay a big sum of damages. And it refused to restore normal diplomatic relations with Israel until Israel apologised to NZ. Which Israel did.

• READ MORE: Israeli agents jailed in NZ over spy case

Today’s government needs to treat Israel the same way it treats other aggressors, like Russia, with the likes of sanctions.

And the government needs to designate Zionism as an inherently racist, terrorist ideology.

Everyone knows that the Gaza War would stop in five minutes if the US stopped arming Israel to the teeth and allowing it to commit genocide with impunity.

Israel is the mass murderer; the US is the enabler of mass murder.

New Zealand is part of the US Empire. The most useful thing we could do is to sever our ties to that empire, something we bravely started in the 1980s with the nuclear-free policy. Also, do these things:

• Develop a genuinely independent foreign policy;
• Get out of US wars, like the one in the Red Sea and Yemen;
• Get out of the Five Eyes spy alliance;
• Close the Waihopai spy base and the GCSB, the NZ agency which runs it;
• Kick out Rocket Lab, NZ’s newest American military base;
• Stop the process of getting entangled with NATO; and
• Stay out of AUKUS, which is simply building an alliance to fight a war with China.

I never thought I’d find myself on the same side of an issue as Don Brash and Richard Prebble but even they have strongly opposed AUKUS.

Zionism is the enemy of the Palestinian people.

US imperialism is the enemy of the Palestinian people and the New Zealand people.

Murray Horton is secretary/organiser of the Anti-Bases Campaign (ABC) and gave this speech last Saturday to a Palestinian solidarity rally at the Bridge of Remembrance, Christchurch.

From Whangārei in the north to Invercargill in the south, thousands took to the streets of Aotearoa New Zealand in today’s climate strike, RNZ News reports.

Hundreds marched on Parliament in Wellington.

But it was not just about the climate crisis — the day’s event was led by a coalition including Toitū Te Tiriti, Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa, and School Strike 4 Climate.

• WATCH: Video report of the march on 1News
• Other NZ climate crisis reports

They had six demands:

• Keep the ban on oil and gas exploration,
• End the Fast Track Approvals Bill,
• Toitū te Tiriti o Waitangi,
• Climate education for all,
• Lower the voting age to 16, and
• “Free Palestine”

Palestine solidarity protesters called on the New Zealand government to expel the Israeli ambassador in protest over Tel Aviv’s conduct of the devastating Gaza war.

The UN Human Rights Council today adopted a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza Strip.

It was a decisive vote with 28 in favour, 13 abstentions and six voting against, including Germany and the US.

An ACT New Zealand post on X stated that the School Strike 4 Climate was “encouraging kids across the country to wag school”.

‘Raise awareness’
School Strike 4 Climate organisers said their aim was to “raise awareness about the urgent need for climate action and to demand meaningful policy changes to combat the climate crisis”.

1News reports that one protester said she was attending today’s march in Auckland because she had a problem with the government’s approach to conservation.

“They’re dismantling previous rules that have been in place, they are picking up projects that have been previously turned down by the Environment Court . . .  and they’re doing it behind our back and the public has nothing to say, so they have become the predators,” she said.

Another protester said: “I’m terrified, because I know I’m going to die from climate change and the government is doing absolutely zero for it.”

This report is drawn from RNZ News reports and photographs under a community partnership and other sources.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! — The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We turn to Gaza, where aid groups say famine is imminent after five months of US-backed attacks by Israel.

This is in spite of the historic UN Security Council resolution yesterday demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Fourteen countries voted in favour of the resolution — while the US, Israel’s main ally, abstained.

• READ MORE: Israel’s war on Gaza live: World welcomes UN ceasefire resolution
• UN Security Council demands immediate Gaza ceasefire as US abstains
• Other War on Gaza reports

The head of the UN Palestinian aid agency, UNRWA, says Israel is now denying access to all UNRWA food convoys to northern Gaza, even though the region is on the brink of famine.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X, quote, “This man-made starvation under our watch is a stain on our collective humanity.”

On Saturday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres travelled to the Rafah border crossing.

SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES: A long line of blocked relief trucks on one side of the gates, the long shadow of starvation on the other. That is more than tragic. It is a moral outrage. …

It’s time to truly flood Gaza with lifesaving aid. The choice is clear: either surge or starvation.

Let’s choose the side of help, the side of hope and the right side of history.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined by Alex de Waal, the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University and author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine. His new piece for The Guardian, “We are about to witness in Gaza the most intense famine since the Second World War.”

Alex, welcome back to Democracy Now! Describe what’s happening, at a time when Israel is now preventing the largest aid umbrella in Gaza, UNRWA, from delivering aid to northern Gaza, where famine is the most intense.

As Israel blocks more aid, protests mount for a free independent state. Video: Gaza famine

ALEX DE WAAL: Let’s make no mistake: We talk about imminent famine or being at the brink of famine. When a population is in this extreme cataclysmic food emergency, already children are dying in significant numbers of hunger and needless disease, the two interacting in a vicious spiral that is killing them, likely in thousands already. It’s very arbitrary to say we’re at the brink of famine. It is a particular measure of the utter extremity of threat to human survival.

And we have never actually — since the metrics for measuring acute food crisis were developed some 20 years ago, we have never seen a situation either in which an entire population, the entire population of Gaza, is in food crisis, food emergency or famine, or such simple large numbers of people descending into starvation simply hasn’t happened before in our lifetimes.

AMY GOODMAN: How can it be prevented?

ALEX DE WAAL: Well, it’s been very clear. Back in December, the Famine Review Committee of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system — and that is the sort of the ultimate arbiter, the high court, if you like, of humanitarian assessments — made it absolutely clear — and I can quote — “The cessation of hostilities in conjunction with the sustained restoration of humanitarian access to the entire Gaza Strip remain the essential prerequisites for preventing famine.”

It said that in December. It reiterated it again last week. There is no way that this disaster can be prevented without a ceasefire and without a full spectrum of humanitarian relief and restoring essential services.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain what the IPC is? And also talk about the effects of famine for the rest of the lives of those who survive, of children.

ALEX DE WAAL: So, the IPC, which is short for the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system, is the system that the international humanitarian agencies adopted some 20 years ago to try and come to a standardised metric. And it uses a five fold classification of food insecurity.

And it comes out in very clearly colour-coded maps, which are very easy to understand. So, green is phase one, which is normal. Yellow is phase two, which is stressed. Orangey brown is phase three, that is crisis.

Red is four, that is emergency.

And in the very first prototype, actually, of the IPC, this was called famine, but they reclassified it as emergency. And dark blood red is catastrophe or famine. And this measures the intensity.

There’s also the question of the magnitude, the sheer numbers involved, which in the case of Gaza means, essentially, the entire population of more than 2 million.

Now, starvation is not just something that is experienced and from which people can recover. We have long-standing evidence — and the best evidence, actually, is from Holland, where the Dutch population suffered what they called the Hunger Winter back in 1944 at the end of the Second World War.

And the Dutch have been able to track the lifelong effects of starvation of young children and children who were not yet born, in utero. And they find that those children, when they grow up, are shorter. They are stunted.

And they have lower cognitive capacities than their elder or younger siblings. And this actually even goes on to the next generation, so that when little girls who are exposed to this grow and become mothers, their own children also suffer those effects, albeit at a lesser scale. So, this will be a calamity that will be felt for generations.

Today I saw long lines of blocked relief trucks waiting to be let into Gaza.

It’s time to truly flood Gaza with life-saving aid.

The choice is clear: surge or starvation.

Let’s choose the side of help, the side of hope & the right side of history.

I will not give up. pic.twitter.com/TTTcnR01bU

— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) March 23, 2024

AMY GOODMAN: What are you calling for, Alex de Waal? I mean, in a moment we’re going to talk about what’s happening in Sudan. It’s horrifying to go from one famine to another. But the idea that we’re talking about a completely man-made situation here.

ALEX DE WAAL: Indeed. It is not only man-made, and therefore, it is men who will stop it. And sadly, of course, even if [with a] ceasefire and humanitarian assistance, it will be too late to save the lives of hundreds, probably thousands, of children who are at the brink now and are living in these terrible, overcrowded situations without basic water, sanitation and services.

A crisis like this cannot be stopped overnight. And it is a crisis that is not just a humanitarian crisis. It is fundamentally a political crisis, a crisis of an abrogation of essentially agreed international humanitarian law, and indeed international criminal law.

There is overwhelming evidence that this is the war crime of starvation being perpetrated at scale.

AMY GOODMAN: Alex de Waal, we’re going to turn now from what’s happening in Gaza. We’ll link to your piece, “We are about to witness in Gaza the most intense famine since the Second World War.”

The original content of this programme is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

The Israeli army has raided dozens of homes in the West Bank and detained 20 Palestinians, including two women — journalist Bushra al-Taweel and activist Sumood Muteer.

Quoting witness accounts, Quds News Network reported that al-Taweel was beaten up by an officer who insulted her before she was arrested.

Today is International Women’s Day.

• READ MORE: Biden to an­nounce Gaza port as Is­rael blocks aid from com­ing by road – 20 starve to death in Gaza

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said 57 journalists have been detained since October 7, with 38 of them still in jail. The organisation added that 22 of them were detained without charge.

Since October 7, at least 424 Palestinians, including 113 minors, three women and 12 prisoners in Israeli custody, have been killed in the West Bank alone.

At least 7450 Palestinians have been detained since the start of the war in Gaza.

Female Palestinian journalist and ex-prisoner Bushra Tawil was arrested by Israeli occupation soldiers last night during a raid into the city of Al-Bireh in the occupied West Bank.

According to eyewitnesses, Al-Tawil was subjected to a brutal attack by soldiers during a field… pic.twitter.com/59aRvQLrgA

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) March 7, 2024

The Gaza Media Office has reported at least 180 journalists and media workers have been killed since October 7.

Israeli forces ‘likely’ machinegunned reporters
Meanwhile, a new digital forensic report has found that Israeli forces “likely” shot machinegun at reporters after shelling them, killing one journalist and wounding six others on the Lebanese border last October 13.

The Israeli army targeted a group of journalists including AlJazeera’s crew, a colleague from another agency was killed and two of our colleagues at Aljazeera were injured, along with several others.

— Ali Hashem علي هاشم (@alihashem_tv) October 13, 2023

An Israeli tank crew fired shells at a clearly marked group of journalists near the border, killing one Reuters reporter and wounding six others, including two Al Jazeera reporters and an Agence France-Presse reporter.

An analysis by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), commissioned by Reuters, has found that the journalists were also targeted with machineguns, likely fired by the same Israeli forces.

“It is considered a likely scenario that a Merkava tank, after firing two tank rounds, also used its machine gun against the location of the journalists,” TNO’s report said.

“The latter cannot be concluded with certainty as the direction and exact distance of [the machinegun] fire could not be established.”

AFP global news director Phil Chetwynd, reacting to the finding, said: “If reports of sustained machine gun fire are confirmed, this would add more weight to the theory this was a targeted and deliberate attack.”

A report by a media watchdog has revealed the United Kingdom’s media bias in covering the Hamas attack on October 7 and Israel’s five-month genocidal bombardment and ground assault in response.

“Much of the news coverage of 7 October refers to Hamas’s attacks on Southern Israel as ground zero, with guests or commentators who try and explain the 75-year-old occupation of Palestine being accused by some presenters and columnists as justifying the attacks,” the report by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) said.

By ignoring the context and history of the occupation of Palestine and Gaza in particular, the report said the media landscape had been “favourable to an Israeli narrative which has constantly promoted the attacks on Gaza and in the West Bank as a war between light and darkness”, reports Al Jazeera.

• READ MORE: NZ news media under fire for ‘bias, propaganda’ in Gaza coverage
• Other media bias reports
• Israel’s war on Gaza live: Israeli attacks kill 86 Palestinians in a day

Titled “Media Bias Gaza 2023-24”, the report also called out treating the Israeli military as a “credible source” without subjecting it to further verification as “one of the glaring failures of journalists and media outlets”.

Difference in the use of language has also been a regular feature of coverage, the report says, with Palestinian deaths often underplayed compared with those of Israelis.

Pro-Palestinian voices and activists have been routinely denounced, misrepresented and targeted by many national media outlets, it says.

The report adds that the right-wing media have been particularly hostile towards pro-Palestinian voices, framing them as supporters of terrorism and anti-Semites as well as being hostile to British values.

Key findings include:

• Language use: Emotive language describes Israelis as victims of attacks 11 times more than Palestinians.
• Framing of events: Most TV channels overwhelmingly promote “Israel’s right” to defend itself, overshadowing Palestinian rights to defend itself and other rights by a ratio of 5 to 1.
• In broadcast TV, Israeli perspectives were referenced almost three times more than Palestinian ones.
• In online news, it was almost twice as much.
• Contextual framing: 76 percent of online articles frame the conflict as an “Israel-Hamas war,” while only 24 percent mention “Palestine/Palestinian,” indicating a lack of context.
• Misrepresentation and undermining: Pro-Palestinian voices face misrepresentation and vilification by media outlets, perpetuating harmful stereotypes.
  Right-wing news channels and right-wing British publications were at the forefront of misrepresenting pro-Palestinian protesters as antisemitic, violent or pro-Hamas.

At least 30,717 people have been killed and 72,156 wounded by Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, the Palestinian Health Ministry anounced.

The death toll from malnutrition and dehydration in Gaza has risen to 18.