Please give now to allow MECA to provide medical aid, clean water, food, psychological support, and more.
Madison-Rafah Sister City Project is raising funds for the Middle East Children’s Alliance to provide urgent aid to children and families in Rafah and throughout Gaza.
Almost half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are now crowded into every available space, indoors and out, in our sister community of Rafah, suffering from hunger, cold, disease, dehydration, and the constant threat of death and injury from Israeli bombing and shelling.
Amidst the ongoing attack on Gaza, MECA’s staff and local partners have continued to provide emergency assistance to families who have fled their homes to seek shelter with relatives, as well as procuring emergency medical supplies for hospitals and clinics.
We all have to keep working, protesting, advocating for a ceasefire and aid. But right now we also have to provide food to people before they die. Your contributions now will support solar-powered kitchens, delivery of fresh produce from farmers, distribution of food parcels and anything else our staff, partners and volunteers can buy in Gaza. — Middle East Children’s Alliance
Beyond donating, we urge you to TAKE ACTION to stop the genocide in Gaza. To get involved in the Madison area please contact us: MadisonRafah.org • Facebook • Twitter • Instagram • Email
Palestinians across the globe are marking the 76th anniversary of the Nakba — which means “catastrophe” in Arabic — when those establishing the state of Israel violently expelled over 700,000 Palestinians.
Palestinian historian Abdel Razzaq Takriti says closer to 900,000 Palestinians were forced out or massacred during Israel’s founding, which is being celebrated inside Israel with calls to ethnically cleanse and settle the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.
“The Nakba is continuing. This is a colonial continuum,” says Takriti. “It’s not enough to commemorate. It’s not enough to talk about it. We have to stop it right now. … The first step to doing that is to stop the genocide in Gaza.”
Takriti lays out four principles for Nakba education: refuting Nakba denialism, recognizing the Nakba is part of an ongoing process of settler colonialism, stopping that process, and then reversing it by restoring Palestinian national rights.
Join Eyewitness Palestine on Wednesday, May 29th at 12PM ET for our Live from Haifa webinar, featuring a special virtual delegation led by Khulood Basel, who will take us around Haifa on a custom tour of the city.
Khulood will take us around the Palestinian neighborhood of Wadi Salib, where families who remained during the Nakba and those who were able to return from forced displacement re-settled.
Don’t miss this special virtual delegation to see the remarkable and ancient port city and learn more about its incredibly rich history with a uniquely qualified Palestinian native tour guide!
Participation in this event is free as Eyewitness Palestine is seeking to highlight voices in Palestine as broadly as possible. Donations are appreciated.
June 1 starting 9 am: Marker removal, Olbrich Park
Madison Veterans for Peace asks you to join them for Memorial Day and a Week to Remember to honor those lost in war while learning from the past.
If you can help them put up simulated grave markers at Olbrich Park beginning at 9 am on Saturday, May 25 please RSVP to jhfour@gmail.com. They can also use help bringing them down on Saturday, June 1 beginning at 9 am.
They invite everyone to the annual Peace Rally at Gates of Heaven Synagogue, James Madison Park, 1 pm on Monday, May 27.
7 pm CT Online Jewish Voice for Peace invites you to join them and partner organizations for an Israel Bonds divestment campaign launch event and teach-in.
There has never been a more important moment to campaign to end U.S. support for the Israeli apartheid and the Israeli military’s genocide of Palestinians. Billions in “Israel Bonds” – direct loans to the Israeli military and government – are being purchased by our local governments, state governments, unions, pension funds, religious institutions, and other institutions every day. Together, we can withdraw key support for violence against Palestinians by demanding that our community institutions stop buying Israel Bonds.
Come learn from organizers about Israel Bonds and Israel Bonds divestment, including what you can do in your community to break the bonds with genocide and apartheid!
Brian Blackmore, national Director of Engagement for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), will introduce a new tool called “Investigate” which can be used to look up how certain investments support Israel’s military occupation, militarization of the U.S./Mexico border, and prisons.
All those interested in divestment campaigns (a key issue in the recent student encampments) are invited to attend. You are also invited to check out this guide to divestment developed by AFSC’s Action Center for Corporate Accountability at afsc.org/divest.
“The good news is—actions like this by the USA or European countries taken under pressure from the pro-Israeli lobby or Israel itself smell of sheer panic and desperation,” the renowned author said.
In what one observer called “a whole new level of insanity and paranoia,” renowned Israeli historian and professor Ilan Pappé—a staunch critic of Zionism—was detained and interrogated this week by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents as he entered the United States at Detroit’s airport.
In a Wednesday Facebook post, Pappé said that he was questioned by FBI agents for two hours after arriving at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport on Monday.
He wrote:
The two-men team were not abusive or rude, I should say, but their questions were really out of the world! Am I a Hamas supporter? Do I regard the Israeli actions in Gaza a genocide? What is the solution to the “conflict” (seriously this what they asked!) Who are my Arab and Muslim friends in America… What kind of relationship [do] I have with them?
“They had [a] long phone conversation with someone, the Israelis?” he added, “and after copying everything on my phone allowed me to enter.”
“I know many of you have fared far worse,” Pappé wrote, referring to Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British Palestinian plastic surgeon and rector of Glasgow University in Scotland who last month was denied entry to Germany—and by extension all 29 Schengen Area nations—before the ban was overturned earlier this week.
“The good news is—actions like this by the USA or European countries taken under pressure from the pro-Israeli lobby or Israel itself smell of sheer panic and desperation in reaction to Israel’s becoming very soon a pariah state, with all the implications of such a status,” he added.
This story is told in three parts. The first documents the unequal system of justice that grew around Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. The second shows how extremists targeted not only Palestinians but also Israeli officials trying to make peace. The third explores how this movement gained control of the state itself. Taken together, they tell the story of how a radical ideology moved from the fringes to the heart of Israeli political power.
PART I.
IMPUNITY
By the end of October, it was clear that no one was going to help the villagers of Khirbet Zanuta. A tiny Palestinian community, some 150 people perched on a windswept hill in the West Bank near Hebron, it had long faced threats from the Jewish settlers who had steadily encircled it. But occasional harassment and vandalism, in the days after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, escalated into beatings and murder threats. The villagers made appeal after appeal to the Israeli police and to the ever-present Israeli military, but their calls for protection went largely unheeded, and the attacks continued with no consequences. So one day the villagers packed what they could, loaded their families into trucks and disappeared.
Who bulldozed the village after that is a matter of dispute. The Israeli Army says it was the settlers; a senior Israeli police officer says it was the army. Either way, soon after the villagers left, little remained of Khirbet Zanuta besides the ruins of a clinic and an elementary school. One wall of the clinic, leaning sideways, bore a sign saying that it had been funded by an agency of the European Union providing “humanitarian support for Palestinians at risk of forcible transfer in the West Bank.” Near the school, someone had planted the flag of Israel as another kind of announcement: This is Jewish land now.
Such violence over the decades in places like Khirbet Zanuta is well documented. But protecting the people who carry out that violence is the dark secret of Israeli justice. The long arc of harassment, assault and murder of Palestinians by Jewish settlers is twinned with a shadow history, one of silence, avoidance and abetment by Israeli officials. For many of those officials, it is Palestinian terrorism that most threatens Israel. But in interviews with more than 100 people — current and former officers of the Israeli military, the National Israeli Police and the Shin Bet domestic security service; high-ranking Israeli political officials, including four former prime ministers; Palestinian leaders and activists; Israeli human rights lawyers; American officials charged with supporting the Israeli-Palestinian partnership — we found a different and perhaps even more destabilizing threat. A long history of crime without punishment, many of those officials now say, threatens not only Palestinians living in the occupied territories but also the State of Israel itself.
“Where Olive Trees Weep” offers a searing window into the struggles and resilience of the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation. Following Palestinian journalist and therapist Ashira Darwish, grassroots activist Ahed Tamimi and others, the film explores the themes of loss, trauma, and quest for justice.
Ancient landscapes bear deep scars, having witnessed the brutal reality of ancestral land confiscation, expulsions, imprisonment, home demolitions, water deprivation, and denial of basic human rights. Yet, through the veil of the oppression, we catch a glimpse of the resilience — the deep roots that have carried the Palestinian people through decades of darkness and shattered lives.
Bearing witness to their harrowing experiences, one cannot help but ask: What makes the oppressor so ruthlessly blind to its own cruelty?
Washington, DC | www.adc.org | May 15, 2024 – Today we commemorate 76 years of Nakba – The Catastrophe. This day is a solemn reminder of the expulsion and dispossession of the Palestinian people from their ancestral homeland at the hands of Zionist militias and settler military forces. Decades of killing, ethnic cleansing and dehumanization.
Decades of generational compounded trauma and grief. Decades of injustice marked by massacres named after the towns and villages where they occurred; proof of the systematic plan to rid Palestine of its indigenous inhabitants: the Palestinian people. From Deir Yassin, to Tantura, to Kufur Qassem, to Lydd, to Qibya, to the current horrific genocide taking place in Gaza, this continuum of annihilation must end now! There are volumes of personal narratives passed down from parents and grandparents, many armed with the keys to their homes, grainy photos of lives stolen and heroic narratives of unfathomable brutality and injustice.
For 76 years, the assault has been as brutal on Palestinian life and history as it has been on the land itself. Olive groves cut down and water aquifers contaminated. Over 500 Palestinian villages permanently erased from maps are now covered with forests of invasive, non-native trees. The village of Al-Tira has been erased by Carmel National Park, and 6 Palestinian villages lay under Birya forest. The village of Sarkas became a garbage dump for a Zionist settlement. Where once stood the Palestinian village of Tantura, and on top of a mass grave of over 200 Palestinian, now is a parking lot for Israel’s Dor Beach.
What can never be erased are stories of Palestinian life from the river to the sea that predates the Zionist entity. On the banks of the Jordan River Palestinians had picnics, enjoying the fruit of their citrus and date trees.To the hills of Ramallah, called by the promise of the cool breeze, many went during the summer heat, where children played in the sturdy branches of mature fig trees. Shepherds roamed the Naqab’s heat, knowing each dune and hardy plant. To Gaza they went for vacations and honeymoons, surrounded by centuries of buried and unearthed rich history. Stories and memories created will forever remain in the golden sand of Yafa, the bride of the sea.
The Palestinian people continue to embrace life and persist. Their stories are a tribute to humanity and the universal quest for freedom and justice. Both the personal narratives and the keys to their homes will continue to be passed down; these are the foundations for the future of liberation for the coming generations.
Joel Beinin, Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History and Professor of Middle East History, Emeritus, Stanford University
Revised from talks delivered at UC Law SF and The Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley
The riveting artistic power of “The Battle of Algiers” rendered Algeria the best-known instance of settler colonialism and armed struggle for decolonization and national independence. The black and white newsreel style of the film and its compelling music uncompromisingly impress on the viewer both the structural and the kinetic violence of the French settler colonial regime and the urban terror unleashed by the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) in 1956-57.
A popular reading sees “The Battle of Algiers” simply as a justification of anticolonial armed struggle. In a key scene, after the French have captured Larbi Ben M’hidi, commander of the Algiers sector and the leading intellectual among the “historic nine” founders of the FLN, the French paratroop commander Col. Mathieu (a composite character based on several French officers) brings him to a press conference. A journalist stereotypically asks Ben M’hidi how he can justify planting bombs in public places using women’s shopping baskets. Ben M’hidi replies, “Give us your tanks and planes and you can have our women’s baskets.” Mathieu is impressed by Ben M’hidi’s intellect and dedication, fears his argument may undermine France’s position, and abruptly ends the press conference.
Off camera, paratroop intelligence officers extrajudicially murder Ben M’hidi and hang him to make it appear like a suicide. Gen. Paul Aussaresses, one of the chief French counterterrorism and intelligence officers (i.e., torturers) during the Battle of Algiers, acknowledged in 2001 that he and another man were the killers. [1]
The interpretation of the film simply as a justification of anti-colonial armed struggle is often fortified by a reading of Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth emphasizing the first chapter’s excoriating inventory of the pervasive violence of colonialism and its view of “violence as a kind of therapy for the oppressed.”[2] Fanon was the leading exponent of Algeria’s armed struggle for independence to Western audiences. His eloquent denunciation of European colonial violence was widely embraced by leftist militants and intellectuals of the 1960s era.
Hashem Ghazal was a disability rights advocate in the enclave, and was known locally as Gaza’s “Godfather of the Deaf”.
Seven of his children, some whom are also deaf, were severely wounded in the strike.
Born in 1966, Ghazal was a prominent organiser of craft workshops at the Atfaluna Society for Deaf Children NGO, located in Gaza City.
The NGO has been active since 1992, and provided speech therapy, income-generating programmes for the deaf, as well as vocational and community training. Ghazal had been with the NGO since 1994.
Online, many remembered Ghazal as a skilled carpenter, who was the first to establish a wood workshop for deaf carpenters, providing opportunities for the community.
In tribute to Ghazal, Palestinian photojournalist Wissam Nassar said: “Hashem Ghazal’s influence remains deeply ingrained in the hearts of those he touched, embodying resilience and unwavering dedication to improving the lives of deaf individuals in Gaza.”
Nassar said he personally worked with Ghazal, adding he experienced “first hand his infectious enthusiasm, genuine warmth, and commitment to inclusivity”.
Israeli protesters blocked aid trucks destined for Gaza on Monday, throwing food packages onto the road and ripping bags of grain open in the occupied West Bank.
The lorries, which were set upon at the Tarqumiya checkpoint west of Hebron, came from Jordan and were headed to the Gaza Strip, where people are in desperate need of humanitarian aid.
The White House has condemned the attack, describing the “looting” of aid convoys as “a total outrage”.
The group reportedly behind the protest said they were demonstrating against the continued detention of Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Unverified footage shared on social media showedprotesters toppling boxes from lorries onto the ground, and stomping on them once they had fallen.
Some videos appeared to show vehicles being set on fire later in the evening. The BBC has not been able to independently verify these.
According to reports in Israeli media, the Tzav 9 activist group were responsible for organising the protest.
Israeli media reports describe it as a right-wing group which is seeking to halt humanitarian aid transfers into Gaza while Israeli hostages are held there.
Maj. Harrison Mann said he feels “incredible shame and guilt” to know his work at the Defense Intelligence Agency has contributed to Palestinians’ suffering and death.
Updated May 13, 2024 at 7:43 p.m. EDT|Published May 13, 2024 at 4:22 p.m. EDT
A U.S. Army officer working at the Defense Intelligence Agency has resigned from the military, citing his objection to Israel’s war in Gaza, according to an open letter he published online Monday saying he is distressed that his work has contributed to the deaths of Palestinian civilians.
Maj. Harrison Mann posted his letter on the social networking site LinkedIn, where his work history shows experience as an analyst focused on the Middle East and Africa. His time at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) coincided with the Hamas attack on Israel last year and the subsequent Israeli invasion of Gaza, where local health authorities say more than 35,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since the fighting began in early October and officials have warned of spreading famine.
U.S. support for Israel has included weaponry and intelligence.
“My work here — however administrative or marginal it appeared — has unquestionably contributed to that support,” Mann wrote in his letter. “The past months have presented us with the most horrific and heartbreaking images imaginable … and I have been unable to ignore the connection between those images and my duties here. This caused me incredible shame and guilt.”
“This unconditional support also encourages reckless escalation that risks wider war,” he wrote.
As soon as a single Palestinian activist showed up at an anti-Dakota Access Pipeline camp on the edge of the Standing Rock reservation in 2016, intelligence analysts for the mercenary security firm TigerSwan were on alert. The analysts, who worked for the pipeline parent company Energy Transfer, confirmed via aerial surveillance that a Palestinian flag was flying above the camp, according to internal records obtained via a public records request and reviewed with support from the Center for Media and Democracy.
The Standing Rock movement was fast becoming one of the most important environmental and Indigenous uprisings of the past 50 years. For TigerSwan, keeping its contract meant convincing Energy Transfer that danger was everywhere. The security firm told its client that Palestinians meant an “Islamic” presence and the possibility of “terrorist type tactics.”
“It’s part of the dehumanization of my people and it directly enables the genocide that we’re witnessing now right now. It’s totally built on racism,” said Haithem El-Zabri, the Palestinian activist that TigerSwan first noticed at Standing Rock. “It’s not limited to a security company — it’s common across the board of government agencies.”
By being at Standing Rock, El-Zabri and other Palestinian activists took on the risk of being subjected to fossil fuel industry surveillance. Now, as historic antiwar protests arise across the U.S., the roles have been reversed, with environmental and Indigenous activists standing in defense of Palestinians. In this case, land defenders of all stripes will absorb the sweeping criminalization of the Palestinian cause being pushed by advocates for Israel.
Resistance returns to the north, UNRWA says 300,000 people fled Rafah
The Israeli army has intensified its renewed assault on Jabalia refugee camp and the Zeitoun area in northern Gaza as resistance factions regroup there, months after the Israeli army said it had “defeated Hamas” in the north.
DISPLACED PALESTINIANS WHO FLED RAFAH TO DEIR AL-BALAH SHELTER AT A CAMP ON THE SHORE, MAY 12, 2024. (PHOTO: OMAR ASHTAWY/APA IMAGES)
Casualties
35,034 + killed* and at least 78,755 wounded in the Gaza Strip.*
498+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.**
Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,139.
620 Israeli soldiers have been announced as killed by the Israeli army since October 7, and at least 3,415 have been announced as wounded.***
*Gaza’s Ministry of Health confirmed this figure on its Telegram channel on May 9, 2024. Some rights groups estimate the death toll to be much higher when accounting for those presumed dead.
** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to the PA’s Ministry of Health on May 12, this is the latest figure.
*** These figures are released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” The number of Israeli soldiers wounded, according to Israeli media reports, exceeds 6,800 as of April 1.
Key Developments
Israel kills 130 Palestinians, wounds 241 since Friday, May 10, across Gaza, raising the death toll since October 7 to 35,034 and the number of wounded to 78,755, according to the Gaza health ministry.
The U.S. ambassador to Tel Aviv says that U.S. assistance to Israel will not be interrupted and that nothing strategic has changed in the U.S.-Israel relationship.
Netanyahu says that Israelis are “determined to achieve absolute victory.”
Israel’s war minister says that war will continue until “dismantling Hamas.”
Israeli forces escalate assault on Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza City.
Israeli bombing intensifies on Rafah as hundreds of thousands flee the city.
Israel kills one Palestinian and wounds 11 in military raids on Nablus in the West Bank.
Israeli settlers torch a house in Duma, south of Nablus.
UNRWA says that it will stay in Rafah “as long as possible,” while warning of societal “collapse.”
UNRWA closes its Jerusalem office following fire in its surroundings. The agency accuses Israeli assailants.
Hezbollah attacks several Israeli military positions across the border amidst new Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon.
“It is a narrow strip of beach on the coast that lacks the basic infrastructure—like toilets and running water—needed to sustain the population,” said the agency chief.
As Israel’s tanks and warplanes continued attacking eastern Rafah on Thursday amid fears of a full-scale invasion, United Nations leaders warned that the area to which Israeli forces are directing Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip city is unsafe.
The Israel Defense Forces this week has circulated a map and claimed that “the IDF has expanded the humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi to accommodate the increased levels of aid flowing into Gaza. This expanded humanitarian area includes field hospitals, tents, and increased amounts of food, water, medication, and additional supplies.”
However, in an interview published Wednesday, Tess Ingram of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that “the area that they’re being directed to evacuate to is not safe. It’s not safe because there aren’t the services there to meet their basic needs, water, toilets, shelter.”
“But it’s also not safe because we know that that area has been subject to strikes despite being a so-called safe zone. So we’re really concerned about that impact of a ground offensive on one of the most densely populated areas in the world,” she told The Intercept‘s Jeremy Scahill.
“Israel’s latest evacuation orders and their ground operations will bring more death and displacement.”
Rafah was home to about a quarter-million people before October 7, but since Israel launched what the International Court of Justice has called a “plausibly” genocidal assault on Gaza—killing at least 34,904 Palestinians and wounding another 78,514 as of Thursday—the city’s population has swelled to over 1.4 million.
Washington, DC | adc.org | May 11, 2024 – The ongoing genocide and invasion of Rafah has placed the lives of millions of Palestinians at risk. The Biden Administration, as well as other global leaders have empowered Israel to act with impunity and no accountability. We are calling on our members to take immediate actionand send a message to the Biden Administration, Congress, and the Ambassadors of France, Germany, and the U.K. to the U.S., demanding that immediate global action be taken to end the genocide.
Over 1 million Palestinians, among them 600,000 children, face an immediate forced transfer out of Rafah. This escalation and impending full-scale invasion of Rafah is a direct result of the Biden administration’s unwillingness to end Israel’s seven-month long genocide in Gaza. Longstanding U.S. policy of impunity and unconditional support for Israel has empowered the horrific devastation that we see daily.
Take action now and demand the Biden Administration and world leaders do more to bring an immediate end to the genocide. Over 1 million Palestinians, among them 600,000 children, have been forced to seek shelter in Rafah where they live in tent cities and are suffering from a humanitarian catastrophe.The consequences of the Israeli invasion into Rafah are cataclysmic. Already we have seen occupation forces on the ground as they seized the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, a vital entry point for aid to Gaza on the Egyptian border. Israel has now taken complete control over the provision of aid, and stopped all movement at the crossing.
The U.S. plays a critical role in providing support to a genocidal regime that is hellbent on continuing its policy of engineered famine, forced displacement, and genocide. The Biden Administration, and world leaders must take action that leads to an immediate, permanent, and unconditional ceasefire, and use any measures available to force Israel to pull out of Rafah.
Support ADC | Become a member American-Arab Anti-Discriminaiton Committee (ADC) 910 17th Street NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20006 United States (202) 244-2990 | adc@adc.org
Israel continues to close Rafah crossing as Biden threatens to halt arms shipments
Ceasefire talks are “paused” as delegations leave Cairo. Sources say Israel wants a full invasion of Rafah despite U.S. opposition, while Hamas reiterates its acceptance of the latest deal. Meanwhile, a new mass grave has been unearthed at al-Shifa.
SMOKE BILLOWS FROM ISRAELI AIRSTRIKES IN RAFAH IN THE SOUTHERN GAZA STRIP, MAY 9, 2024. (PHOTO: OMAR ASHTAWY/APA IMAGES)
Casualties
34,905 + killed* and at least 78,514 wounded in the Gaza Strip.*
497+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.**
Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,139.
612 Israeli soldiers have been killed since October 7, and at least 6,800 injured.***
*Gaza’s Ministry of Health confirmed this figure on its Telegram channel on May 9, 2024. Some rights groups estimate the death toll to be much higher when accounting for those presumed dead.
** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to the PA’s Ministry of Health on May 9, this is the latest figure.
*** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” The number of Israeli soldiers wounded is according to Israeli media reports.
Key Developments
Israel kills 167 Palestinians, wounds 400 since Monday, May 6, across Gaza, raising the death toll since October 7 to 34,905 and the number of wounded to 78,514, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Biden says that the U.S. will halt arms shipments to Israel if it invades Rafah city.
Israeli radio quoting a former official in the Israeli military industry: Israel cannot deal with threats without U.S. arms.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid says that Biden’s declarations are the result of Netanyahu’s failed direction of the war.
Israeli media says that Israel’s war cabinet will meet today to make a “decisive decision” regarding Biden’s declarations.
Hamas’s negotiating delegation will leave Cairo for Doha, as the group reiterated its acceptance of the latest proposed ceasefire deal.
CIA chief William Burns leaves Qatar for the U.S. as negotiations pause due to the current situation in Rafah.
The Gaza-based Palestinian health ministry says that patients’ lives are lost every day due to the closure of the Rafah crossing and the prevention of the delivery of medical supplies and critical cases leaving the Strip.
The Gaza-based Palestinian health ministry says that the only dialysis unit in the Rafah district has stopped working.
UNRWA says that 80,000-100,000 Palestinians left Rafah in “a new forcible displacement.”
Hezbollah announces attacking the Israeli army’s northern division headquarters with rockets. Israel admits one soldier killed and several wounded.
Israeli night raids in West Bank and arrest wave continue, one Palestinian killed after succumbing to wounds from Israeli gunfire in Tulkarem.
MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) – Protesters will clear out the encampment on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus on Friday after an agreement was reached with campus leaders, the university announced.
UW-Madison stated the campus leaders and student representatives from Students for Justice in Palestine reached a resolution. The organization also agreed to not disrupt the weekend graduation ceremonies or other campus functions, as well as not to reestablish an encampment on campus.
“This has been a difficult period for our campus, our nation and the world,” the university’s response stated. “We want to be clear that UW–Madison supports peaceful student protest, fully respects the First Amendment, and has done so throughout this year.”
The university stated that it could appreciate that while students were violating campus and state law in camping on university grounds, it knows students were doing so to condemn the war in Gaza.
“We also understand that the encampment made others in our community, especially portions of our Jewish community, feel uncomfortable and unseen,” the university stated. “We reiterate our strong condemnation of antisemitism, Islamophobia, and hate and bigotry in all its forms, and we recognize the costs of war and displacement on so many across the globe.”
Protests on Library Mall started on Monday, April 29. Students were seen clearing out tents and other items from the encampment around 3 p.m. Friday.
MADISON, Wis. — After over a week of protests, the encampment on Library Mall is set to come down after UW-Madison leaders and students reached an agreement Friday.
In a statement, UW-Madison officials said that Students for Justice in Palestine, the primary group organizing the encampment, has agreed to clear the encampment, not disrupt graduation ceremonies and other campus functions and not reestablish an encampment on campus.
“We appreciate reaching resolution with SJP and acknowledge the support they received from their faculty liaisons,” university officials said.
Students had been protesting on Library Mall for just over a week, calling on the university to divest from groups who they said were supporting genocidal actions by the Israeli government against Palestinians in Gaza.
UW-Madison maintained that the encampment violated both campus policy and state law. Furthermore, campus leadership including Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin said that they don’t have direct control over how the university’s endowment is invested. That responsibility falls on the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association.
“This has been a difficult period for our campus, our nation and the world. We want to be clear that UW–Madison supports peaceful student protest, fully respects the First Amendment, and has done so throughout this year,” university leaders said. “We appreciate that the encampment, named by SJP the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, although in violation of Chapter 18, was motivated by understandably passionate feelings about the devastation in Gaza, and was a source of community for many participants. ”
As part of the agreement, administrators will set up a meeting on July 1 between SJP, the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association and the Universities of Wisconsin to discuss transparency and principles in how the university’s endowment is invested. Chancellor Mnookin will attend the meeting.
Administrators also agreed to recognize that SJP can engage in the shared government process when it comes to investment principles. Mnookin committed to not interfering with the shared government process.
UW-Madison leaders also committed to a review of the university’s projects, opportunities, study abroad programs and internships that engage with people and places impacted by war.
The university also committed to consulting with Palestinian members of the UW community and inviting at least one scholar from a Palestinian university for each of the next three academic years.
A staff member will be added to the Division of Student Affairs to support students impacted by war, violence and displacement. The position will be posted for hiring by August 1.
University leaders also committed to asking UWPD to use discretion when reviewing cases related to the May 1 confrontation between law enforcement and protesters at the encampment.
Demonstrators at the University of Chicago were given a final notice to leave their encampment on campus which was established to protest the war in Gaza. Police entered the encampment on the campus quad early Tuesday morning and began tearing down tents. Protesters continued to face off with police.
Eli Valley is a Jewish Currents contributing writer. His comics collection Diaspora Boy: Comics on Crisis in America and Israel is available from OR Books.
Chavurat Tziporah and Jewish Voice for Peace – Milwaukee hosted Shabbat Shirah May 4 at the UW-Milwaukee Popular University for Palestine encampment. Students hold up letters spelling Tikkun olam, Hebrew for “repairing the world.”
Jewish professors and students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee protest encampment defended the encampment against accusations that it threatens Jewish safety. They also spoke out against equating anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
Participants in the UWM encampment point out that Jews and Christians have surrounded Muslims to protect them as they prayed, and Jews celebrated Shabbat (sabbath service) in the encampment, sharing challah (bread) with all.
The encampment at UWM, set up April 29, is one of dozens at colleges around the country to protest Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. Students demand their universities disclose and end investments that involve Israel and call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Here in Madison the UW student encampment on Library Mall continues. You can follow their requests and daily plans at this link. We understand that they are especially in need of support during the overnight hours.
Also, Madison World Beyond War offers this nonviolent training tomorrow Wed. May 8:
Madison for a World BEYOND War invites you to a training workshop this Wednesday called “Take to the Streets.” It will be led by Julie and Mohammed, of Community Peacemaker Teams & the Des Moines Catholic Worker, to help us prepare to support the students more, and to prepare ourselves for future war abolition work in general. Space is limited, timing will depend on when more people can come, so please rsvp today!
A City Council resolution, “Reaffirming Support for a Permanent Ceasefire and Supporting Student Protestors,” has been introduced for a vote tonight, Tuesday, May 7 at the regular Council meeting beginning at 6:30 pm.
The much stronger resolution originally drafted by Alders Wehelie, Bennett and Rummel has been significantly altered. You can read the old and new resolutions here.
There are three ways you can weigh in on this resolution.
You can register your opinion here, indicating whether or not you wish to speak. The resolution is Item 38 on the agenda. If you want to join the meeting via zoom, they will send instructions.
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Hi. I wanted to talk about what’s happening on college campuses, and to make six different observations. And these come from my travels speaking at colleges this semester. I’ve probably spoken at at least a dozen, maybe fifteen, I’m not sure. And I also spent a lot of time at Columbia, in particular, several days before the encampment was taken down. Now, the colleges I’ve been to, I should say, are not representative. They’re more of the kind of elite kind of campuses that have been disproportionately in the news. So, it’s important to say that not everything I’m saying is gonna hold for all campuses in America. And probably the media should be paying a lot more attention to some of these campuses that don’t have such fancy names and to see what’s actually happening there. So, what I’m going to say is not necessarily representative of campuses as a whole, but they may be representative of the ones that have been in the news a lot.
The first is that the most important political dynamic is not happening among either Jewish or Palestinian students. It’s happening among non-Jewish progressive and non-Palestinian progressive students, and most of these students are progressive. And what’s happening is that for a lot of these students, the question of Palestinian liberation has become a central part of their political identity when it wasn’t before. It wasn’t that they were hostile to Palestinian freedom. If they thought about it, they probably would have been sympathetic, but it wasn’t one of their top burning issues. Now it’s become a central part of their political identity.
One way of thinking about this is that a large number of the progressive students on these campuses have moved from being non-Zionists to being anti-Zionists. They weren’t supporters of Israel before, but they weren’t involved in activism against Israel either, and now they are. And the reason this matters so much is that these campuses don’t have many conservative students, right? They don’t have, for instance, a lot of conservative Christian white evangelical students. So, the dynamics on the campus are very different than the dynamics in the country as a whole. In the country as a whole, most Zionists in America are not Jewish. You have huge numbers of Christian Zionists out there in Congress, out there in the country, in the Republican Party. But in these campuses, once the progressive students turn to being anti-Zionists, pretty much the only Zionist people around are the Jewish students. Yes, they could be joined by the college Republicans. But there are not many college Republicans. And I think this is what creates this dynamic of ideological isolation among the Zionist Jewish students, as they see the large bulk of their classmates who are not Palestinian but have turned towards a pro-Palestine politics.
The incursion comes after Israel said it would continue its military operation in Rafah even after Hamas said it had accepted a Gaza ceasefire proposal put forward by Qatari and Egyptian mediators.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the proposal was far from Israel’s demands but that he would send a delegation to Cairo for talks.
UN agencies and aid groups warn of devastating consequences of any Israeli military assault on Rafah after tens of thousands of Palestinians were ordered to evacuate before the attacks.
At least 34,789 people have been killed and 78,204 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from Hamas’s October 7 attacks stands at 1,139, with dozens of people still held captive.
Should college students who compare Israeli government policy with that of the Nazis be investigated by their school?
Politicians love to say they love free speech. But let’s see who actually means it.
The Senate may pass the Antisemitism Awareness Actas early as tomorrow [May 7]. Going by the name alone, it sounds great. Combating anti-Semitism is a laudable and important goal.
But when you dig into the details, the effects of the bill are chilling: It requires the Department of Education to adopt an unconstitutionally vague and overbroad definition of anti-Semitism that would pressure schools to investigate and censor students for speech protected by the Constitution.
The definition is accompanied by a list of examples—but those examples include core political speech, protected by the First Amendment. Should college students who compare Israeli government policy with that of the Nazis be investigated by their school? Should they be censored for holding Israel to “double standards”?
You can condemn what people say. But the government shouldn’t throw out the First Amendment to censor students for saying it.
Our country is built on the idea that we all have the freedom to share our opinions. There are only very narrow exceptions to our free speech rights — and having “double standards” isn’t one of them.
The bill uses a definition of antisemitism adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance which was created to collect data on anti-Semitism in Europe, not to police student expression. Even the definition’s author agrees laws like this are a bad idea:
What’s next? Should Congress define what speech is Islamophobic? Anti-Palestinian? Racist? Anti-white? How about defining ‘anti-United States’ speech? We could dust off the files of the House Un-American Activities Committee … When people are seduced by the false notion that a law can stop hateful ideas, they neglect to actually fight bigotry.
I don’t oppose the butchery in Gaza because I love Hamas or hate Jews or love Islam or hate America. I don’t oppose the butchery in Gaza because I’m a lefty or a commie or an anarchist or an anti-imperialist. I oppose the butchery in Gaza because I’m not a fucking psychopath.
Opposing Israel’s butchery in Gaza is so obvious, so common sense, such a bare-minimum, fundamental-level, Being Human 101 position that if it isn’t immediately self-evident to you after learning the basic facts, your problem is much, much deeper than whatever ideology or bias or prejudice you might happen to have. There’s something wrong with you as a person.
If you support Israel’s butchery in Gaza, you’ve got much bigger problems than merely not having the correct ist or ism belief system. You’re just all fucked up inside. Your conditioning has made you into a generally shitty human being. You have deep and immensely consequential flaws in your character, and you won’t mature as a person until you heal and transcend them.
Opposing Israel’s atrocities in Gaza doesn’t make you a good person, it just makes you a normal person — and supporting Israel’s atrocities in Gaza makes you a bad person. Nobody gets any points for opposing an active genocide; that’s just the basic, bare-minimum requirement for a normal human being with a functioning empathy center in their brain. If you can’t meet that basic, bare-minimum standard, you deserve to be viewed with suspicion and disdain, and anyone in your personal life who cares about truth, morality and humanity should seriously reassess their relationship with you.
On Tuesday night, we watched in horror as hundreds of riot police flooded our beloved campus and brutalized our classmates. The next day, students awoke with swollen faces, bruised wrists and lacerations – all results of inhumane police treatment. The past two weeks have been tumultuous, marked with mass arrests of student demonstrators, an encampment on our lawns, national media attention and vile acts of hatred. Countless have spoken on our behalf. But by speaking over us, media outlets and politicians have created a distorted narrative – one which unfairly characterizes our community.
Now, it is time to elevate student perspectives, the “us”, rather than the “them”. The traumatic environment and militarization of our campus are not the sole product of ill-intended protesters or reckless non-affiliates, as claimed by administrative emails; rather, they are the fault of the senior administration themselves. For months, this crisis has brewed as administrators neglected student and faculty voices. We must be clear: the administration has put our students’ safety at risk and has failed to ensure a conducive learning environment. As student leaders, it is time for our voice to be heard.
Israel’s military on Monday ordered about 100,000 civilians in parts of Rafah to evacuate “immediately” to a humanitarian zone, saying it will operate with “extreme force” in those areas. Israel’s determination to invade Rafah remains a sticking point in cease-fire negotiations, which appear to have broken down. President Biden reiterated his opposition to a ground invasion of Rafah in a Monday call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a White House readout of the conversation.
Israel is preparing for a “limited scope evacuation operation,” Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said. A member of Hamas’s political bureau, Suhail al-Hindi, warned in an interview with The Washington Post that “Rafah will become a graveyard” for Israeli soldiers should a military operation occur.
The gaz agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) said an Israeli offensive in Rafah would be “devastating” for the1.4 million people sheltering there. It said it was not evacuating Rafah and would stay for “as long as possible” to continue providing aid.
National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson told The Post on Monday that the Biden administration believes a deal between Israel and Hamas remains “the best way to preserve the lives of the hostages.”
FourIsraeli soldiers were killed and others wounded in a rocket attack on the Kerem Shalom border crossing Sunday, according tothe Israel Defense Forces. Hamas claimed responsibility for the strike on the crossing, which was closed for humanitarian aid.
At least 34,735 people have been killed and 78,108 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children.
Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and says 267 soldiers have been killed since the launch of its military operation in Gaza.arrow leftarrow right
RAFAH, Gaza Strip, May 6 (Reuters) – Israel’s military carried out airstrikes in Rafah on Monday, residents said, hours after Israel told Palestinians to evacuate parts of the southern Gaza city where more than a million people uprooted by the war have been sheltering.
Fears are growing of a full-blown assault in Rafah, long threatened by Israel, against holdouts of the Palestinian militant group Hamas as ceasefire talks in Cairo stall. Hamas official Izzat al-Rashiq said in a statement that any Israeli operation in Rafah would put the truce talks in jeopardy.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, which Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV said had targeted areas in eastern Rafah near neighbourhoods given evacuation orders.
Instructed by Arabic text messages, phone calls, and flyers to move to what the Israeli military called an “expanded humanitarian zone” around 20 km (12 miles) away, some Palestinian families began trundling away in chilly spring rain.
Some piled children and possessions onto donkey carts, while others left by pick-up or on foot through muddy streets.
The Biden administration last week put a hold on a shipment of U.S.-made ammunition to Israel, two Israeli officials told Axios.
Why it matters: It is the first time since the Oct. 7 attack that the U.S. has stopped a weapons shipment intended for the Israeli military.
The incident raised serious concerns inside the Israeli government and sent officials scrambling to understand why the shipment was held,Israeli officials said.
President Biden is facing sharp criticism among Americans who oppose his support of Israel. The administration in February asked Israel to provide assurances that U.S.-made weapons were being used by Israel Defense Forces in Gaza in accordance with international law. Israel provided a signed letter of assurances in March.
State of play: The Israeli officials said the ammunition shipment to Israelwas stopped last week.
The White House declined to comment.
The Pentagon, the State Department and the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office didn’t immediately respond to questions.
Driving the news: The Biden administration is highly concerned Israel will invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah where more than one million displaced Palestinians have been taking shelter.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released several statements in recents days saying he intended to order an invasion of Rafah regardless of whether Israel and Hamas reach a deal for the release of hostages being held in Gaza and a ceasefire.
Netanyahu hinted at tensions with the Biden administration in a statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day issued Sunday.
“In the terrible Holocaust, there were great world leaders who stood by idly; therefore, the first lesson of the Holocaust is: If we do not defend ourselves, nobody will defend us. And if we need to stand alone, we will stand alone,” he said.
Behind the scenes: Last Wednesday U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel and had a“tough”conversation with Netanyahu regarding a possible Israeli operation in Rafah, two sources briefed on the meeting said.
Blinken told Netanyahu during their meeting that “a major military operation” in Rafah would lead to the U.S. publicly opposing it and would negatively impact U.S.-Israel relations.
A day later White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters that Israeli leaders understand that President Biden “is sincere” when he talks about the possibility of changes to U.S. policy regarding the Gaza war “should they move ahead with some sort of ground operation in Rafah that doesn’t take into account the refugees.”
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said at a Financial Times conference in Washington on Saturday that the Biden administration made clear to Israel that the way it will conduct an operation in Rafah will influence U.S. policy towards the Gaza war.
The big picture: Egyptian and Qatari mediators are still trying to reach a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas that would lead to a pause in the fighting in Gaza.
The Biden administration is deeply involved in the efforts and CIA director Bill Burns joined talks in Cairo over the weekend.
Hamas in a statement on Friday said it was reviewing the current proposal with “positive spirit” and was “going to Cairo in the same spirit to reach an agreement.”
While Israel waits for Hamas’ response to the proposal, Netanyahu has issued several statements over the weekend saying he won’t agree to end the war as part of a hostage deal.
Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant visited Israeli military forces in Gaza on Saturday and said Israel sees “worrying signals” that Hamas isn’t going to move toward an agreement on releasing hostages.
“This means that an operation in Rafah and in other parts of Gaza will take place in the very near future,” Gallant said.
How do we define human rights? Does a Palestinian have the right to live or not? Is a Palestinian a human being or not? If you think these are easy questions to answer, I tell you, do not bother.
Here in the village of Susya, every day, Israeli settlers throw stones, attack Palestinian homes, and attack shepherds. There is not a moment when you feel that you are safe. With every passing moment, you can’t imagine what will happen.
You are a Palestinian, so you do not have rights. The first and last right is for the settler. So what does this occupying settler do? They break into homes, threaten Palestinians with death, destroy agricultural crops and trees, and demolish water wells. As a Palestinian, you should not defend yourself or protect your family, and if you do, you will go to prison. If you, as a Palestinian, do nothing, you must just die in silence.
For more than 6 months, the roads and entrances to the village of Susya have been completely blocked, and the people of the village of Susya are forced to drive on bumpy roads in order to bring food and water to their families. Every day, the settler shepherds bring their herds to graze in the center of our village, between our homes, invading our land and damaging our agricultural crops.
Not only that, but they attack the Palestinians, insult them with the most vile words, threatening to leave them or kill them or take their homes. Recently, a group of young settlers attacked the family of Nasser Al-Nawajaa, a resident of the village of Susiya. At first the settler boys came to graze their sheep near his house. This was repeated more than once, until one day a group of settlers came, with covered faces, and attacked his house and his family with stones. They forced his family to leave their house for fear of further attack. Later, settlers smashed his car that was in front of his house. Settlers have also thrown stones into the homes of other families living in Susiya.
This past Saturday, April 27, more than 11 settlers, aged between 12-18 years, attacked and destroyed agricultural crops and olive trees. They also built a blockade on a road that Palestinians had built to access their private agricultural lands, since all of the other roads have been closed since the beginning of the war.
The settlers came with their sheep to our homes. I called the police, and I explained that the settlers were in front of my neighbors house, with a flock of sheep. The police came after 20 minutes, and asked to see the documents of land ownership. They refused to remove the settlers, saying they were allowed to graze there.
“These are our homes,” I said to the policeman. “How are they allowed to be here?”
He told me we were on state land.
Our homes have become state land. I was born here, I grew up here, and now a policeman comes and says that settlers are allowed to be at my door.
Yes, it is the law of the jungle. It is a double standard. There is no justice. The only thing that exists is racism and hatred of Palestinians.
Two weeks earlier, a group of young settlers attacked homes in Susya, throwing stones and yelling insults. The police came and said, “I will talk to their mother.” What would happen if a Palestinian child had done the same thing that the settler children had done? He would likely be shot, immediately, with no care.
The repeated attacks on the village of Susiya aim to displace us from our homes. For more than 6 months, the residents of the village of Susiya have been suffering from settler terrorism. We have been told we cannot reach our agricultural lands because they are ‘closed military zones’, while we watch settlers graze their sheep right outside our windows. They think by increasing the attacks and increasing the pressure on our lives, we will leave. They could not be more wrong.
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United Nations World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said Friday that Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip are experiencing “full-blown famine” after nearly seven months of Israeli bombardment and invasion—and that deadly malnutrition is “moving its way south” through the embattled enclave.
While U.N. agencies have warned since March that famine was imminent in Gaza, McCain’s remarks—which came during an interview with Kristen Welker that is scheduled to air on Sunday’s edition of NBC News‘ “Meet the Press”—make her the most high-profile international official to date to publicly acknowledge a state of famine in parts of the Palestinian territory.
“It’s horror,” said McCain, who is American. “There is famine—full-blown famine—in the north, and it’s moving its way south.”
UN World Food Program @WFPChief: “There is famine — full-blown famine — in the north of Gaza, and it’s moving its way south.”
The occupation army has a new strategy: closing the roads that connect all of the villages and cities in Masafer Yatta.
For several months, the residents of Masafer Yatta have suffered from continuous attacks from the occupation, its soldiers, and the settlements, including, land confiscations, night raids on homes, car confiscations, violent settler attacks on residents, and frequent arrests.
While all of these methods of attack and control are already insufferable, two days ago the situation became even worse: all of the roads linking the villages of Masafer Yatta to the city of Yatta were completely closed. This is a strategy of collective punishment for all Palestinians in the region, as none of them can reach the city to retrieve medicine, food, or any other essential goods.
There are ordinarily several entrances to the city of Yatta from the surrounding villages. At the beginning of the war, the army closed all but one of those entrances, which just so happened to be the most difficult and inconvenient entrance.
These days, when we get to that entrance, sometimes our cars are sent back, sometimes cars are confiscated, and sometimes everyone inside is searched and cross-examined.
But now, there is no road at all linking the neighboring villages of Masafer Yatta. If any emergency occurs, there is no road for us to reach the city, or for an ambulance to reach us. There is no means of access between us and others, isolating us all from one another. We cannot bring medicine or food. We cannot go to the doctor, to the hospital, to the clinic, or even to the pharmacy.
We have faced countless attacks and constant harassment since the start of the war, and these problems are ongoing and increasing, with no intervention to protect us.
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Washington, DC | www.adc.org | May 4, 2024 – Pro-Palestine protests are continuing to grow, and that is making lawmakers nervous. Over the last month, the unhinged leadership of both parties have capitulated to AIPAC and the ADL by introducing four (4) bills which curtail the rights of all Americans, two of which have already passed the House and are awaiting a vote in the Senate. Congress, on a bipartisan basis, has been singularly focused on attacking, criminalizing, and demonizing Palestinians and the pro-Palestine movement. Republicans and Democrats alike are willing to take away your rights in this country so they can shield and protect Israel from any criticism or accountability over the ongoing genocide.
ADC National Government Affairs and Advocacy Director Chris Habiby said, “Rather than reckoning with Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza, the US’s complicity in the annihilation of Palestinians, or the clearly documented Israeli system of apartheid, Congress has decided to fixate on dangerous and diversionary bills. ADC is staunchly opposed to every effort which seeks to distract from the ongoing genocide and demonize those taking the principled, moral, human stance against the dispossession and destruction of Palestinians.”
The four bills that attack, criminalize, and demonize Palestinians and the movement are:
The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act – This bill passed the U.S. House of Representatives (H.R. 6090), and is now in the U.S. Senate. The bill dangerously conflates First Amendment-protected political speech critical of the Israeli government and state with antisemitism. If passed this bill will chill the free speech of all Americans. The House passed this bill and it is now awaiting a vote in the Senate.
H.R. 6408, Amends the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to terminate the tax-exempt status of “terrorist supporting organizations” – If passed this bill would give a single US official the authority to strip nonprofit organizations of their tax-exempt status with virtually no limitations or accountability, simply because the organizations have viewpoints that official or presidential administration disagrees with.
H.R. 7914, the Accountability for Terrorist Perpetrators of October 7th Act – This bill would criminalize Palestinians beyond the State Department’s already politicized Foreign Terrorist Organization process by enacting sanctions against Palestinian organizations that have not been designated a terrorist organization. It would set a precedent that will allow Congress to implement sanctions on organizations that administration officials have not found to meet the criteria for designation.
H.R. 7921, the Countering Antisemitism Act – This bill would codify and further entrench the narrative that the pro-Palestine movement is responsible for the antisemitism seen in the US. It is a continuation of Congress’s myopic focus on “combating antisemitism” at a time when Arab, and especially Palestinian, Americans are being targeted and attacked across the country.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin erred when she authorized a police raid Wednesday on a well-organized encampment by student advocates for peace and justice in Gaza on Library Mall.
The raid, which led to 34 arrests and several injuries of protesters and officers, was ill-conceived and unnecessary, as have been similar raids on a number of campuses across the country. It was also pointless, as the encampment was reestablished within minutes of the departure of the officers.
But Mnookin got things right Thursday when she met with students and faculty members who are associated with the protest. By most accounts, the meeting was productive — resulting in an agreement to meet again within 24 hours. According to participants in the session, there will be no further police action for the time being.
That should be the goal going forward.
Mnookin and the UW-Madison community should strive for a result similar to the one achieved Thursday at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus, where university officials and protest organizers agreed to disband an encampment while allowing ongoing protests that do not disrupt final exams and graduation ceremonies.
The Star-Tribune reported: “University of Minnesota Interim President Jeff Ettinger told students and faculty Thursday that a deal has been reached to disband a pro-Palestinian encampment that had set up on the Twin Cities campus for three days. The announcement came after Ettinger and others held a series of meetings with the leaders of student groups who had been calling on the U to divest from companies with ties to Israel, provide amnesty for people arrested during protests and meet other demands.”
Those are similar demands to the ones made by students who have been active in the Madison encampment, including those associated with groups such as University of Wisconsin-Madison Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Young Democratic Socialists of America. The Wisconsinites support a cease-fire in Gaza as an immediate response to the crisis that has resulted from the Israeli assault on the enclave, which has left roughly 35,000 Palestinians dead. At the same time, they are also seeking divestment by the university system from companies selling war-related products to Israel.
No one says that achieving these goals will be easy. But there should be an agreement that honest discussions about sincerely advanced demands are preferable to an ever-escalating cycle of police raids and arrests.
Abdallah Fayyad is a correspondent at Vox, where he covers the impacts of social and economic policies. He previously served on the Boston Globe editorial board.
For weeks, police have been arriving on college campuses from New York to California at the behest of university officials, sweeping pro-Palestinian protests and arresting more than 2,100 people. They’ve come in riot gear, zip-tied students and hauled them off, and in some high-profile instances, acted violently.
The aggressive crackdown started when Columbia University’s president, Nemat Shafik, summoned New York Police Department officers to campus in mid-April to bring an end to the student encampment there, one day after she promised Congress she would quash unauthorized protests and discipline students for antisemitism.
That police intervention temporarily dismantled the encampment, and resulted in the arrest of more than 100 protesters on trespassing charges.
But it was also a strategic failure on the part of the university administration. If the university was trying to avoid disruption, it has ended up inviting it instead.
In the days since, as support for the protesters has swelled both at Columbia and at hundreds of colleges across the country, students have set up encampments, organized rallies, and in a few cases escalated their protests by occupying university buildings. Similar protests even cropped up in other countries.
In response, other universities have taken Columbia’s lead and cracked down on these protests, which seek to end colleges’ investments in firms supporting Israel’s occupation and its ongoing assault on Gaza. Nearly 50 universities have called the authorities to intervene, and students and faculty have been beaten, tear gassed, and shot at with rubber bullets by police.
This week, when Columbia escalated its police response, the Columbia Daily Spectator, the student newspaper, reported that “officers threw a protester down the stairs … and slammed protesters with barricades.” A police officer also fired a gun in a campus building, and others threatened to arrest student journalists.
This can only be described as a major overreaction to student protests. But it also didn’t happen in a vacuum. The police response falls squarely in a long pattern of colleges suppressing pro-Palestinian activism and anti-Israel speech — one that dates back many decades. Currently, universities aren’t applying their rules equally, singling out only some student advocacy as unacceptable campus speech and, in some cases, even changing rules to specifically target these protests. (The Department of Education is now reportedly investigating Columbia for anti-Palestinian discrimination.)
While schools including Columbia were quick to call in law enforcement, however, a few other schools have taken an alternative approach — with vastly different outcomes. Administrators at Brown, Northwestern, and several others negotiated with students, allowed them to continue protesting, or even reached deals to end the encampments by meeting some of the protesters’ demands. As a result, they’ve avoided the kind of disruption and chaos unfolding at universities that called the police.
These divergent outcomes among schools that relied on police and those that didn’t offer an important lesson on how universities should manage campus activism, while ensuring students’ safety and protecting speech.
Israeli Military Escalates Bombing of Civilian Homes in #Rafah Amid Threats of Ground Invasion
Amid ongoing threats of a large-scale ground military assault on Rafah, Israeli forces have escalated airstrikes on the densely populated areas in the southern #Gaza Strip. The… pic.twitter.com/HAikgVe1zY
— Palestinian Centre for Human Rights – PCHR (@pchrgaza) May 2, 2024
Wednesday morning’s crackdown included brutal attacks on protestors, arrests without charges, and a dubious narrative.
Perhaps it was an example of progressive policing or Madison-centric policing or the “Madison Model.” In any case, a pro-Palestine encampment protest on UW-Madison’s Library Mall got through two overwhelmingly peaceful days and nights—full of speeches, chants, praying, reading, sharing food, card games, and studying—before police violently attempted to break it up on Wednesday morning.
A bit before 7 a.m., officers began ordering protestors to remove their tents, then began moving to tear down tents themselves, and arresting some of the protestors who refused to leave. Over the next two hours, dozens of officers from the UW-Madison Police Department, Madison Police Department, Dane County Sheriff’s Office, and Wisconsin State Patrol—many equipped with riot shields and some with tear-gas launchers—pressed in on the holdouts. At times the cops had groups of protestors more or less fully surrounded, essentially trapping the very people they were ordering to disperse.
What I witnessed on Wednesday morning was pretty unambiguous: Police manhandling community members (including UW-Madison faculty and students) who peacefully stood their ground, refusing to voluntarily break up an encampment that UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin could have allowed but chose not to. Some of those arrested had locked arms to form a protective circle around the remaining tents, a group that included faculty members who wanted to protect students from arrest and police violence.
Adnan al-Bursh, a Palestinian surgeon and professor of orthopaedic medicine, was killed by torture while in Israeli detention, according to a statement from the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.
In what has been termed a “deliberate assassination”, Bursh, 50, died in the Israel-controlled Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank on 19 April, according to the Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee, and his body remains withheld.
Another detainee, Ismail Abdul Bari Khader, 33, also died in custody, according to the joint statement, and his body was handed over on 2 May along with 64 other prisoners.
“The two victims died of torture and crimes committed against Gazan detainees,” the statement said.
Bursh was the head of orthopaedic medicine at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City and had been arrested in December, around the same time that he had reportedly been wounded by Israeli bombardment at the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza.
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Until his arrest, Bursh regularly travelled around to different hospitals in the Gaza Strip to tend to patients, and at the time of his arrest, he was working at al-Awda hospital. Several medical staff and patients were also arrested alongside Bursh.
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories, said today that she was “extremely alarmed” at the death of the prominent doctor.
“I urge the diplomatic community to intervene with concrete measures to protect Palestinians. No Palestinian is safe under Israel’s occupation today,” she wrote in a statement on X.
MADISON, Wis. — A group of Dane County Board Supervisors sent an open letter to Sheriff Kalvin Barrett on Thursday, asking him to not use county resources to break up ongoing protests on the UW-Madison campus.
Dane County Sheriff’s deputies worked with UW-Madison police officers and other law enforcement to disperse an encampment on Library Mall Wednesday morning. In total 34 people were arrested, though only four were taken to the Dane County Jail. UWPD officials said three deputies were injured during confrontations with protesters Wednesday morning.
Students have gathered on Library Mall since Monday morning, calling on UW-Madison to divest from groups that they say are funding genocidal actions by the Israeli government against Palestinians in Gaza. The protest comes as college students across the country gather to call for similar divestments by their respective schools.
In Thursday’s letter, Dane County Supervisors Heidi Wegleitner, Jay Brower, April Kigeya, Kierstin Huelsemann, Henry Fries, Tommy Rylander, Rick Rose Yogesh Chawla and Michele Doolan said that First Amendment rights on campuses like UW-Madison must be preserved.
“The ongoing war in Gaza has surfaced many strong feelings, which will continue to build pressure around the demonstration,” the supervisors wrote. “As public officials, acting in the public’s interest, we must not succumb to any impulse for action that will silence activists working to shape public discourse through peaceful means.”
In the first such divestment action by a major Christian denomination, the General Conference of The United Methodist Church has voted to divest from Israel bonds, and those of other countries carrying out prolonged military occupations.
On April 30, 2024, the General Conference of The United Methodist Church, being held in Charlotte, North Carolina, made a groundbreaking call for church investment managers to exclude the bonds of three countries – Israel, Turkey, and Morocco – that are holding subject populations under prolonged military occupation.
In the first such divestment action by a major Christian denomination, the church has called on all its investment managers to avoid “the governmental debt of each such country until the time when each government ends their military occupation.”
The church resolution, “Excluding Government Debt of Countries Involved in Prolonged Occupations,” makes clear the church’s desire to avoid profiting from the suffering and oppression caused by these decades-long occupations: Israel’s occupation of the West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip since 1967, Turkey’s occupation of Northern Cyprus since 1974, and Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara since 1976.
The UN has identified flagrant human rights violations in all three occupations, including: land confiscation, theft of natural resources, home demolitions and illegal colonization, deprivation of food and water, violence against civilians, mass incarceration for population control, brutality against children, and more.
“The timing of this decision is especially significant. When we see the ongoing genocide happening in Gaza, we do not want to be supporting the Israeli government with unrestricted governmental funds” said Lisa Bender, chair of United Methodists for Kairos Response (UMKR), the group that wrote and organized passage of this divestment legislation.
“You know, I’m biased. But you know, the past four, huge, top 10 matchups in the Kohl Center have gone pretty favorably,” one fan said.
Ahead of the game, fans waiting said they didn’t think it was too cold. But, as the night went on, they said they we’re just trying to stay warm.
“Just the setups that people bring up here, I’d say these are people right over here that have a ice fishing tent. I wish we had thought of that,” another fan said.
Officers from a variety of state and local departments – including UW-Madison Police, the Madison Police Department, the Dane County Sheriff, and the State Patrol – marched onto the encampment at Library Mall early Wednesday morning just after 7am.
That ended what has so far been a peaceful demonstration in the so-called “Liberated Zone,” where demonstrators have been distributing food, playing music, disseminating information, and of course- much to the chagrin of UW Madison administration- camping out. Protestors have a variety of demands that range from cutting UW-Madison ties with Israeli institutions to disclosing UW Foundation investments.
“We were sitting. We weren’t doing anything wrong, we weren’t blocking anything, we weren’t causing any disruptions. We were peaceful,” says demonstrator Mia Kurzer.
“And the police just came in here with riot gear and they started just going at the crowd. And people got hurt, people got arrested for just being in a public space, being on public property.”
Washington, D.C. | www.adc.org | May 1, 2024 — In response to the student-led, pro-Palestinian movement, the US House of Representatives today passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act, a bill which is steeped in anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism and dangerously conflates concern for Palestinian human rights with danger and hate. It stifles legitimate criticism of the apartheid state of Israel and that of the Biden administration’s complicity in the ongoing genocide. ADC firmly rejects this disingenuous attempt to paint pro-Palestinian and anti-war protesters as any sort of threat, particularly as these students and faculty are the ones facing a very real risk of being attacked by both police and pro-genocide agitators. We stand in solidarity with those facing violence and suppression for their courageous stance against genocide.
Organizers are calling on everyone to rally on Library Mall today at 5 pm.
SJP UW-Madison is also asking everyone to make these four phone calls in protest of the police action. Please insist that all charges against those arrested be dropped and that no further police action against peaceful protestors be taken.
Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin (608) 262-9946 Option 4
Published: Apr. 30, 2024 at 6:41 PM CDT|Updated: 17 hours ago
MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) – As a ‘Free Palestine’ protest continues on UW Madison’s campus, a small group of elderly women joined in to show their support.
82-year-old Bonnie Block is a Wisconsin native who lives in Madison and is a part of a group called the Raging Grannies, who encourages people to speak out.
“We wanted to come and tell these students thank you for being here because I think it’s really important,” Block said. “All my life I’ve been heartened by groups of people who are saying no to what they see is wrong. I think that that’s critical.”
Block said the war in Gaza should end.
“We need to end the genocide,” she said. “I’ve seen the occupation up close and it’s awful.”
She said it’s important for students in Wisconsin to speak out against the war and approved the encampment setup.
“I’m so proud of these students all over the country,” she said. “I just say, ‘Go for it!’’’
University of Wisconsin Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin and other faculty put out a statement on Monday night and encouraged protesters to take down their tents.
Neither Mnookin nor UW Police would speak on-camera on Tuesday.
MADISON, Wis. — Police removed nearly all of the tents from Library Mall at 8:21 a.m. Just before 7 a.m., police had given protesters 15 minutes to remove their tents.
Students locked arms and have started chanting as officers attempted to take down the last of the tents. They could be heard shouting “Free Palestine,” “Shame,” and “MPD stand down – students, students hold your ground.”
By 8:15 a.m. law enforcement officers had removed multiple people from the encampment with their hands behind their backs. News 3 Now’s crew said they saw some in zip-ties. It was not immediately clear where law enforcement was taking those individuals.
Yesterday hundreds of students and faculty at UW Madison and UW-Milwaukee joined the growing campus protests around the US. against the slaughter in Gaza. (Directory of protests here)
In Madison, a 24-hour protest encampment was established on Library Mall. The protest continued overnight last night and is going on today, in spite of police preparations to force the protestors to disband. (Check the Daily Cardinal’s blog for updates.)
If you are able to attend the protest at any time please do so. Community support will be the key to keeping these students safe and protecting their free speech rights. Feel free to bring food, tents, sleeping bags, pads, tarps and other things that could be useful to this encampment.
You can help today by making phone calls to these University officials insisting that they NOT use police force against the peaceful protesters and that they listen to the students’ justified demands rather than punishing them for trying to stop a genocide.
Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin (608) 262-9946 Option 4
Pro-Palestine demonstrators who organized an encampment Monday at the University of Wisconsin-Madison remained on Library Mall despite warnings from university officials that the event violated state law.
UW-Madison Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), in collaboration with a local Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter, organized Monday’s protest calling for the university’s “financial and social” divestment from Israel, mirroring similar pro-Palestine demonstrations on college campuses across the country.
The tents, which accumulated to more than two dozen in number over the course of the demonstration, first popped up early Monday morning ahead of a mostly sunny day of peaceful marches and chants.
Overcast skies and ominous unease of a nighttime police crackdown took hold Monday evening as police officers from multiple departments set up a temporary command center at the Fluno Center approximately two blocks from the protest. But no arrests were made, and police presence on Library Mall remained limited.
Protesters continue to advocate for a list of six demands related to investment transparency, campus safety and divestment and disinvolvement with Israeli companies and programs.
University officials said Monday evening they will meet with student groups once tents are taken down and protesters comply with state laws banning camping on university grounds
The following blog recorded The Daily Cardinal’s live reporting as events unfolded Monday. You can find live updates for day two of the protest here.
The western media is pretending the West’s efforts to secure a ceasefire are serious. But a different script has clearly been written in advance
One does not need to be a fortune-teller to understand that the Israel-US game plan for Gaza runs something like this:
1. In public, Biden appears “tough” on Netanyahu, urging him not to “invade” Rafah and pressuring him to allow more “humanitarian aid” into Gaza.
2. But already the White House is preparing the ground to subvert its own messaging. It insists that Israel has offered an “extraordinarily generous” deal to Hamas – one that, Washington suggests, amounts to a ceasefire. It doesn’t. According to reports, the best Israel has offered is an undefined “period of sustained calm”. Even that promise can’t be trusted.
3. If Hamas accepts the “deal” and agrees to return some of the hostages, the bombing eases for a short while but the famine intensifies, justified by Israel’s determination for “total victory” against Hamas – something that is impossible to achieve. This will simply delay, for a matter of days or weeks, Israel’s move to step 5 below.
4. If, as seems more likely, Hamas rejects the “deal”, it will be painted as the intransigent party and blamed for seeking to continue the “war”. (Note: This was never a war. Only the West pretends either that you can be at war with a territory you’ve been occupying for decades, or that Hamas “started the war” with its October 7 attack when Israel has been blockading the enclave, creating despair and incremental malnutrition there, for 17 years.)
Last night US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken moved this script on by stating Hamas was “the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire… They have to decide and they have to decide quickly”.
This map shows a small snapshot of the US-based encampments. With such a large distribution of encampments, its not difficult to find a location near you and offer material support to the frontline organizers. Head over to https://students4gaza.directory/ for the updated list.
Dear friends,
Over the last weeks, students and organizers across all seven continents set up at least 113 encampments, with the primary goal of forcing universities to divest from genocide. These brave and beloved organizers are demanding that universities retract their financial investments from the institutions animating—as well as financially benefitting from—the zionist genocide of the Palestinian people. Student formations have been the face of the movement, particularly Students for Justice in Palestine and other Palestinian groups, but support for the encampment movement is diverse and representative of the broader solidarity movement. Over the last week, police forces from New York to France have beaten and arrested thousands of these courageous organizers, among them professors, clergy people, and people with disabilities. Students engaged in the encampment movements on their college campuses have not only faced arrests, but also suspension and displacement from their homes on campus. Through these encampments, all of those involved are illustrating the power and importance of sacrifice in solidarity. They are putting their safety and future on the line to get in the way of genocide, to not only throw sand in the machine, but remove its gears.
We love them for their unwavering commitment to their goals despite the daily threats and state violence they are facing.
The progressive Democrat from a rural, mostly white Wisconsin district is highlighting that it is not just young people of color who are concerned about the war.
Reported from Madison, Dodgeville and Reedsburg, Wis.
During a town hall-style meeting a short drive from her home in rural southwestern Wisconsin, Elizabeth Humphries asked her congressman how a 66-year-old woman like her could get the message to President Biden that she and her peers are deeply dissatisfied with his administration’s approach to Israel’s war in Gaza.
Representative Mark Pocan, the Democrat who has held the district’s seat in Congress since 2013, assured her that he was working to pass along those very concerns.
“We’re videotaping this to share with the White House,” he said, gesturing to the iPhone set up on a nearby tripod to capture the event with two dozen or so voters seated in a room in Dodgeville’s City Hall. “They can hear me say this ad nauseam, but you all saying this is, I think, very helpful.”
Days after Congress gave overwhelming bipartisan approval to a $95.3 billion aid package that includes $26 billion in security assistance to Israel, Mr. Pocan — one of 37 House Democrats to vote “no” on the money for Israel — returned to his home district this week to field questions from constituents like Ms. Humphries who share his reservations about American involvement in the conflict.
💚🖤💔 Hello all, I am heartbroken to pass on the news that our Flotilla will be unable to sail for Gaza at this time due to Israel’s intense pressure to prevent the breaking of the siege on Gaza and the delivery of the flotilla’s 5500 tons of desperately needed aid.
We are returning to our home countries while the Freedom Flotilla Coalition works to find another way for us to sail.
Here is a statement by the coalition, and yesterday’s statement of support from UN experts who had hoped to see the flotilla depart for Gaza.
On Thursday afternoon, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition was contacted by the Guinea Bissau International Ships Registry, requesting an inspection of our lead ship – Akdenez. This was a highly unusual request as our ship had already passed all required inspections; nevertheless, we agreed. The inspector arrived on Thursday. On Friday afternoon, before the inspection was completed, the Guinea-Bissau International Ships Registry (GBISR), in a blatantly political move, informed the Freedom Flotilla Coalition that it had withdrawn the Guinea Bissau flag from two of the Freedom Flotilla’s ships, one of which is our cargo ship, already loaded with over 5000 tons of life-saving aid for the Palestinians of Gaza.
The Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace (PCAP), Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA) and a broad coalition of Christian Voices for Palestine invite you to “Challenging Christian Silence Regarding the Gaza Genocide” with Munther Isaac and Shane Claiborne. The moral courage and consistent prophetic witness displayed by Munther and Shane during these past months has put the western church to shame. May we learn from and follow their example.
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac is the pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, academic dean at Bethlehem Bible College, and the director of the Christ at the Checkpoint conferences. His latest book is The Other Side of the Wall: A Palestinian Christian Narrative of Lament and Hope. Last December, Rev. Isaac’s delivered a passionate Christmas sermon, “Christ in the Rubble,” in which he bitterly decried the failure of Christian leaders, especially in the West, to stand with the Palestinians against the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Shane Claiborne is a prominent speaker, activist, and best-selling author. Shane worked with Mother Teresa in Calcutta, and founded The Simple Way in Philadelphia. He heads up Red Letter Christians, a movement of folks who are committed to living “as if Jesus meant the things he said.” Shane is a champion for grace which has led him to jail advocating for the homeless, and to places like Iraq and Afghanistan to stand against war. Now grace fuels his passion to end the death penalty and help stop gun violence.
5-6 pm CT Join ADC for an Arab-American Heritage Month conversation on how our community relates to life’s joy and struggles through language and art. You’ll hear from award-winning Arab American artists Naomi Shihab Nye and Heather Raffo about their chosen forms of expression, the role their art plays in providing hope, and their response to the crisis of worldwide injustice and inequity.
Goodman Community Center
Hicks Room
149 Waubesa St, Madison
4-5:30 pm
Israel’s genocidal invasion of Gaza has continued for over six months, with full backing from the Biden administration, and is now threatening to spiral into a wider regional conflict. Why does the US government care so little for Palestinian lives, what strategy lies behind its support for Israel, and what can we do in this country to alter the balance of forces, end the carnage, and support justice for Palestine? Come to this meeting, organized by the Tempest Collective in Madison, to discuss these issues.
Speakers:
Brian Ward is an educator, socialist and activist who lives in Madison (occupied Ho-Chunk Land), and has lived and worked on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home of the Oglala Lakota Nation. His writing, primarily on Indigenous liberation and environmentalism, has appeared in numerous publications.
brian bean is a socialist organizer and writer based in Chicago. He is a member of the Tempest Collective, a part of the Rampant Magazine editorial collective, and an editor and contributor to the book Palestine: A Socialist Introduction from Haymarket Books.
Tuesday, April 23, 2024, marked the 200th consecutive day of Israel’s large-scale military offensive on the Gaza Strip. Nearly 90 percent of the population is displaced, with many living in dire conditions in tents, and the few remaining schools used as shelters. Despite the International Court of Justice’s provisional measures orders to prevent genocide, Israel persists in threatening a large-scale ground invasion of Rafah, home to over 1.2 million residents and displaced persons—a threat that has loomed over the Palestinian people there for several weeks.
Our organizations — the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Al Mezan, and Al-Haq — are closely monitoring and deeply concerned about the escalation of Israeli airstrikeson Rafah. The tactics of intensified bombing of homes using heavy artillery and carpet bombing are alarming and have resulted in significant civilian casualties over the last six months.
Furthermore, concerns are growing as reports from Israeli media indicate that the Israeli army is purchasing thousands of tents to accommodate displaced individuals from Rafah. The Israeli plan to expand the so-called safe zone in the Al-Mawasi area, despite its limited capacity and current overcrowding with displaced persons, is also troubling. This expansion is purportedly capable of housing up to a million people, but the reality of its size (extending about a kilometer deep from the borders of Khan Younis to the borders of Rafah) raises doubts about its feasibility and effectiveness in addressing the humanitarian crisis.
Our organizations have repeatedly warned and expressed serious concerns about the potential consequences of a large-scale ground invasion on Rafah, similar to what has occurred in most governorates of the Gaza Strip. Such an invasion could lead to horrific massacres and raise scenarios of a second Nakba. The densely populated city, with hundreds of thousands of displaced individuals residing in tents and heavily relying on aid from the Rafah and Kerem Abu Salem Crossings, exacerbates the vulnerability of its population. The closure of these vital crossings during a potential Israeli attack would leave no suitable alternatives for the evacuation of Rafah residents and those already displaced within the city. This concern is compounded by the continued attacks and destruction that have altered the landscape of the Gaza Strip.
Meet at UW-Madison Library Mall at 9 am. Wear a mask and bring a friend!
Support Students at UW Madison
On Monday, April 29 starting at 9 am there will be a demonstration on Library Mall at UW-Madison protesting UW complicity in war crimes in Gaza and against the repression of student protests around the country.
MRSCP will be there and we urge everyone to turn out. Follow YDSA and SJP on Instagram for updates.
The University administration has been issuing press statements and students report receiving emails threatening potential “consequences” for student protests. Community support is crucial to protect students from targeted retaliation and to prevent the police violence we are seeing. Try to attend, and if you can’t, please spread the word.
US President Joe Biden signs into law a $95bn aid measure that includes $26bn for Israel and $1bn in humanitarian assistance to Gaza.
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer says it is “moving ahead” with its planned military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Gaza medics continue to unearth bodies in mass graves at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis with international demands rising for an independent investigation into Israel’s raid on the facility.
Fears for the safety of tens of thousands of civilians in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya surge as Israeli troops attack the city “with extreme force” and order Palestinians to immediately flee.
At least 34,262 Palestinians have been killed and 77,229 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from Hamas’s October 7 attacks stands at 1,139 with dozens still held captive in Gaza.
Istanbul , MINA – The Freedom Flotilla Coalition ( FFC ) was forced to postpone its sailing schedule to penetrate the Gaza blockade until Friday (26/4), due to permits that have not yet been issued by the Turkiye authorities .
MINA journalist Nurhadis from Istanbul reported that on Wednesday (26/4), the FFC Steering Committee, Ann Wright , announced the postponement of the departure schedule again at a meeting in front of FFC participants on Tuesday evening Istanbul time.
The atmosphere at the meeting became tense when one of the participants from England pounded the table and shouted asking the committee to immediately announce the exact schedule for the three ships that would sail across the Mediterranean Sea.
“In the history of our Flotillas we have never departed on time, some of the Flotillas we have held have always been like this. Any anger or annoyance will not affect the person or departure of this Flotilla. “Please don’t be frustrated, we need high morale and hope,” said Ann.
Ann further said that in 2011 she had carried out a similar mission, overland through Jordan. “When we were in Aqabah we were detained for two weeks, then we went to Amman towards Damascus and were detained for three weeks in Lattakia, until finally we were able to negotiate and enter Gaza . “Be as patient as possible,” he said.
Ann further said that the FFC High Committee is making maximum efforts so that this ship can sail. “Currently there are discussions from the FFC High Committee both in Ankara and Istanbul and until now there has been no decision from the authorities to allow the ship to depart. “Because of that, we can’t leave tomorrow,” he said.
After receiving information via telephone from the FFC Supreme Committee, Ann said that the ship, loaded with 5,500 tons of aid, together with more than 1,000 volunteers, would depart on Friday (26/4).
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA), Journalist: hadith, Editor: Rudi Hendrik