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Category: Human rights

‘If you try to defend yourself, you’re dead’: A West Bank village’s night of terror

‘If you try to defend yourself, you’re dead’: A West Bank village’s night of terror

+972 Magazine reports: On Tuesday morning, the streets of Wadi Rahal were littered with stones and bullet casings — evidence of an attack the night before. According to the Palestinian residents of the village, which is located south of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, about a dozen Israeli settlers had driven in, some of them armed. They threw stones at cars and houses, and when residents came out to defend themselves, the attackers opened fire. One resident, 47-year-old Khalil…

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New HRW report: Palestinian healthcare workers chained, starved, sexually abused

New HRW report: Palestinian healthcare workers chained, starved, sexually abused

  We speak with Human Rights Watch researcher Milena Ansari about the organization’s new report detailing the torture of Palestinian medical workers in Israeli prisons. HRW spoke with eight doctors, paramedics and nurses who were picked up in Gaza before being transferred to the notorious Sde Teiman camp and other facilities, where they say they suffered beatings, starvation, humiliation, electric shocks and other forms of abuse. The men also describe threats of sexual violence during brutal interrogations and seeing another…

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Israeli settler: ‘I think colonialism gets a bad rap’

Israeli settler: ‘I think colonialism gets a bad rap’

  Violence has flared in the Occupied West Bank. At least five Palestinians, including two children, have been killed in an Israeli air strike on a refugee camp, and one Palestinian man was shot dead in an attack by Israeli settlers near Bethlehem. The West Bank has seen a surge in violence since the October 7 attacks. 607 Palestinians have been killed, largely in Israeli military raids, while attacks by settlers have displaced more than 1,500. In the same period,…

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In Gaza there are now so many orphans that no agency or aid group can count them

In Gaza there are now so many orphans that no agency or aid group can count them

The New York Times reports: The boys are aching to see their parents again. They are convinced it will happen as soon as they can go back to Gaza City, where they were growing up before the war bulldozed that life. “Baba and mama will be waiting for us there,” they say to their aunt Samar, who is taking care of the four of them, Mohammed, Mahmoud, Ahmed and Abdullah Akeila. They say this even though they were told their…

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Israeli society’s dehumanization of Palestinians is now absolute

Israeli society’s dehumanization of Palestinians is now absolute

Meron Rapoport writes: After every war in recent decades that Israelis have fought in, there have been public displays of remorse. This has often been criticized as a mentality of “shooting and crying” — but at least the soldiers were crying. Following the 1967 Six-Day War, the hugely successful book “The Seventh Day: Soldiers’ Talk about the Six-Day War” was published, containing testimonies from soldiers trying to grapple with the moral dilemmas they faced during the fighting. After the Sabra…

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Why is the DNC more willing to embrace Republicans than Democratic Palestinians?

Why is the DNC more willing to embrace Republicans than Democratic Palestinians?

  In this special episode of ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’, we’re at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, around the corner from the United Center, at the Palestinian-American owned OUD Coffee and Cafe. Mehdi is joined in this exclusive interview with prominent voices from the Uncommitted Movement – and just moments after it was revealed that the DNC would not be allowing a Palestinian to speak at the convention. Joining ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ are co-chair of the Uncommitted Movement Layla Elabed, who briefly…

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Palestinian American lawmaker, Georgia Rep. Ruwa Romman, gives speech the DNC wouldn’t allow on stage

Palestinian American lawmaker, Georgia Rep. Ruwa Romman, gives speech the DNC wouldn’t allow on stage

  Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic nomination Thursday after a four-day convention in Chicago where her campaign refused to allow a Palestinian American to take the stage to address Israel’s war on Gaza. We hear Georgia state Representative Ruwa Romman, who was among the list of speakers offered by the Uncommitted National Movement that the Harris campaign rejected, reading the speech she would have given on the convention floor had the DNC and the Harris campaign allowed her…

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Let a Palestinian speak

Let a Palestinian speak

Zeynep Tufekci writes: On Wednesday at the Democratic convention, Jon Polin, the father of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American hostage held by Hamas in Gaza, reminded listeners that there was a “surplus of agony” on all sides of the conflict in the Middle East. “In a competition of pain,” Polin said, “there are no winners.” But there’s one group whose pain will not be heard from the convention stage: Palestinian Americans. And there is a loser: the Democratic Party. A group…

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Michigan Democratic Party chair joins UAW in pushing for a Palestinian voice at convention

Michigan Democratic Party chair joins UAW in pushing for a Palestinian voice at convention

The Detroit News reports: The United Auto Workers and the head of the Michigan Democratic Party on Thursday called on organizers of the Democratic National Convention to allow a Palestinian American to address delegates at the final night of the four-day convention amid deep divisions in the party over Israel’s war in Gaza. Uncommitted delegates and supporters staged a sit-in after being told by DNC officials Wednesday night that there wouldn’t be a Palestinian American speaking from the convention’s main…

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Uncommitted delegates speak out after sleeping outside DNC to protest silencing of Palestinians

Uncommitted delegates speak out after sleeping outside DNC to protest silencing of Palestinians

  As “uncommitted” delegates continue their sit-in just outside the Democratic National Convention in protest of the party’s refusal to meet demands to platform a Palestinian American speaker on the main stage, we hear from two uncommitted delegates who have made a concerted effort to bring Israel’s war on Gaza to the forefront and to push the Harris campaign on its policy in the Middle East. Asma Mohammed, a campaign manager for Vote Uncommitted Minnesota and a delegate from Minnesota,…

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‘So Horrific’: Doctor recounts treating patients in Gaza injured in massacres enabled by U.S. bombs

‘So Horrific’: Doctor recounts treating patients in Gaza injured in massacres enabled by U.S. bombs

  Tanya Haj-Hassan is a pediatric intensive care physician who has volunteered in Gaza multiple times over the past 10 months. She joins us to recount what she witnessed there and to explain why she is calling for an end to U.S. support for the Israeli military and the resumption of comprehensive humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Over the course of Israel’s assault, Haj-Hassan has treated victims of “massacre after massacre,” with injuries and casualties “enabled by American bombs.”…

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What I saw was ‘unfathomable’: Doctor who worked in Gaza speaks out against U.S. arming of Israel

What I saw was ‘unfathomable’: Doctor who worked in Gaza speaks out against U.S. arming of Israel

  A group of American doctors who treated patients in Gaza held a press conference in Chicago on Tuesday to describe the suffering they saw among Palestinians injured and killed in Israel’s war on the territory. The press conference, taking place during the Democratic National Convention, was organized by the Uncommitted National Movement, which is pressuring Democrats for an end to blanket U.S. support for Israel. Among those who spoke was Dr. Ahmed Yousaf, who returned from Gaza just weeks…

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Former Rep. Andy Levin: ‘The acid test for Jewish people is, how do we treat our Palestinian cousins?’

Former Rep. Andy Levin: ‘The acid test for Jewish people is, how do we treat our Palestinian cousins?’

  We speak with former Michigan Congressmember Andy Levin, a former synagogue president, who lost his 2022 Democratic primary in a race that saw millions spent by pro-Israel groups to unseat the progressive Jewish lawmaker. AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and other lobby groups have used the same playbook over the years to defeat members of Congress who do not toe the line, and Levin says the Democratic Party has to act to stop such “dark money” from…

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Countries fueling Israel’s Gaza war may be complicit in war crimes, experts warn

Countries fueling Israel’s Gaza war may be complicit in war crimes, experts warn

The Guardian reports: Israeli tanks, jets and bulldozers bombarding Gaza and razing homes in the occupied West Bank are being fueled by a growing number of countries signed up to the genocide and Geneva conventions, new research suggests, which legal experts warn could make them complicit in serious crimes against the Palestinian people. Four tankers of American jet fuel primarily used for military aircraft have been shipped to Israel since the start of its aerial bombardment of Gaza in October….

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First ever DNC panel on Palestinian rights: We need to ‘restore the soul of the Democratic Party’

First ever DNC panel on Palestinian rights: We need to ‘restore the soul of the Democratic Party’

  This year, the Democratic National Convention held its first-ever panel on Palestinian human rights. The panel came after persistent grassroots organizing against U.S. support for Israel’s assault on Gaza. We play excerpts, including from the Arab American Institute’s James Zogby, a former executive member of the Democratic National Committee; Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care surgeon who recently worked in Gaza; and Layla Elabed, co-chair of the Uncommitted National Movement. Later that day, during President Biden’s convention speech,…

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