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Category: Human rights/civil liberties

A map to a place that no longer exists

A map to a place that no longer exists

Abdullah Hany Daher writes: In Gaza, the landscape changes faster than memory can keep up. Every neighborhood carries its own scars, some fresh, some already fading into dust. Places once familiar become unrecognizable overnight; streets you walked yesterday may not be there tomorrow. On this shifting ground, home is not just a structure. It is a fragile anchor to a previous version of life, one that can vanish without warning. Losing this place means losing the map inside you. I…

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International Association of Genocide Scholars: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza

International Association of Genocide Scholars: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza

The Associated Press reports: The largest professional organization of scholars studying genocide said Monday that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The determination by the International Association of Genocide Scholars — which has around 500 members worldwide, including a number of Holocaust experts — could serve to further isolate Israel in global public opinion and adds to a growing chorus of organizations that have used the term for Israel’s actions in Gaza. Israel rejects the accusation and called the resolution…

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U.S.-Israeli Gaza plan calls for ‘voluntary’ exodus with remaining Palestinians placed in concentration camps

U.S.-Israeli Gaza plan calls for ‘voluntary’ exodus with remaining Palestinians placed in concentration camps

The Cradle reports: A postwar plan for Gaza circulating within President Donald Trump’s White House envisions demolishing the strip, confiscating all public land within it, paying small amounts to remove the entire population of more than 2 million Palestinians, and building “a gleaming tourism resort and high-tech manufacturing and technology hub” on its ruins, The Washington Post reported on 31 August. A 38-page prospectus seen by The Post envisions placing Gaza in a trust controlled by Israeli and American investors….

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Israel’s onslaught on Gaza City forces thousands to flee with nowhere to go

Israel’s onslaught on Gaza City forces thousands to flee with nowhere to go

Abdel Qader Sabbah reports: Israeli tanks backed by warplanes and quadcopters are pushing deeper into Gaza City, destroying entire neighborhoods and leaving people with nowhere to go. The escalating assault comes amid a widening famine, with Palestinians starving to death every day. Airstrikes continue to pound civilians in central and southern Gaza. It has been one of the deadliest periods for journalists since Israel’s assault began, with at least 11 journalists killed in two bombardments just two weeks apart. Palestinians…

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How AI became the far right’s latest weapon against refugees

How AI became the far right’s latest weapon against refugees

Anagha Nair writes: Earphones plugged in, a cigarette dangling from his hand, Mohammed al-Mohammed was waiting for a train at a station in Hamburg, Germany, when he was enveloped by screams of horror. Amid the chaos of people fleeing, he glimpsed a flash of metal out of the corner of his eye. Turning, he saw a lady clutching a raised knife, pointed toward him. Mohammed’s reflexes kicked in, and he pushed the lady away. As another man tackled her and…

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How Israelis turned atrocity denial into an art

How Israelis turned atrocity denial into an art

Ron Dudai writes: A decade ago, in the final days of the weekly joint Palestinian–Jewish protests against Israel’s construction of the separation wall in the West Bank village of Al-Ma’asara, one of our pre-demonstration rituals was a speech by Mahmoud, a local community leader. Phone in hand, he would declare: “We will not have another Nakba, because now we have this. We have a smartphone. We have Facebook. They will try to drive us away again, but everyone will see…

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Dutch foreign minister resigns over failure to secure sanctions against Israel

Dutch foreign minister resigns over failure to secure sanctions against Israel

The Guardian reports: The Dutch foreign minister, Caspar Veldkamp, has resigned after a cabinet meeting failed to secure sanctions against Israel, weakening the Netherlands’ already fragile caretaker government. Veldkamp’s colleagues from the centrist New Social Contract (NSC) party also walked out after the cabinet debate late on Friday reached an impasse over adopting harsher measures against Israel. The discussions about taking further steps against Israel came after the Netherlands joined 20 other countries in signing a joint declaration on Thursday…

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After Gaza famine report, U.S. is mostly silent while Israel is defiant

After Gaza famine report, U.S. is mostly silent while Israel is defiant

The New York Times reports: A report by a panel of food security experts that found there was famine in parts of Gaza prompted outrage from many European countries, but not from the United States — Israel’s main backer — and the Trump administration. Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, echoed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel’s arguments against the report in posts on social media, saying that Hamas was to blame for any hunger in Gaza. “Tons of…

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Omer Bartov: Why Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide

Omer Bartov: Why Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide

  Professor Omer Bartov concludes that the word genocide describes Israel’s conduct in Gaza and as such requires the U.S. and Europe to intervene and stop Israel’s destructive path. In his forthcoming book, Israel: What Went Wrong, Bartov unpacks how a country founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust by a marginalized people could now become a pariah state that is occupying and displacing the Palestinians with active support, or indifference, of so many of its Jewish citizens. We discuss…

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Phone searches at the U.S. border have hit a record high

Phone searches at the U.S. border have hit a record high

Wired reports: United States Custom and Border Protection officials have sweeping powers to search anyone’s phone when they are entering the country—including US citizens. Newly released figures show that over the past three months, CBP officials have been searching more phones and other devices than ever before. From April through June this year, CBP searched 14,899 devices carried by international travelers, according to stats published on the agency’s website. While the figures aren’t broken down by device type, the CBP…

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Trump cuts off medical visas from Gaza as he bows to pressure from Laura Loomer

Trump cuts off medical visas from Gaza as he bows to pressure from Laura Loomer

Rolling Stone reports: Donald Trump’s administration stopped all visitor visas from Gaza — including those for humanitarian and medical aid — on Saturday after far-right provocateur and Trump friend Laura Loomer posted about several Palestinian children being allowed into the U.S. for medical care amid Israel’s relentless siege and blockade. The State Department said it will “conduct a full and thorough review of the process and procedures used to issue a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas in recent days,”…

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In DC, Trump’s masked thugs voice their contempt for the people who pay their salaries

In DC, Trump’s masked thugs voice their contempt for the people who pay their salaries

Marisa Kabas writes: A delivery worker was tased, punched and kicked by multiple federal agents in the middle of the street outside a popular brunch spot in Northwest DC on Saturday morning, a video shared with The Handbasket shows. While customers sitting outside at the Logan Circle cafe munched on avocado smash and matcha pancakes, two and then an additional four masked agents beat the shit out of the man in broad daylight. This is America.   America’s largest cities…

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Nakba 2.0: Israel in talks with multiple countries to which it could send Gaza Palestinians

Nakba 2.0: Israel in talks with multiple countries to which it could send Gaza Palestinians

The Times of Israel reports: Israel is in talks with five countries or territories — Indonesia, Somaliland, Uganda, South Sudan and Libya — about potentially accepting resettled Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, Channel 12 reported Wednesday. “Some of the countries are showing greater openness than before to accepting voluntary immigration from the Gaza Strip,” a diplomatic source told the outlet, naming Indonesia and Somaliland as particularly open to the idea. However, no concrete decisions have reportedly been made. Somaliland is…

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With chaotic airdrops, Israel’s engineered starvation of Gaza enters new phase

With chaotic airdrops, Israel’s engineered starvation of Gaza enters new phase

+972 reports: From his displacement tent in western Deir al-Balah, Tayseer Obeid has spent the past week scanning the skies over central Gaza, noting the time and direction of aircraft dropping aid. His family of 12 hasn’t received proper humanitarian assistance in six months. To feed them, he planted small patches of molokhia, eggplant, and pumpkin around his and his relatives’ tent. But the crops have been repeatedly destroyed — including at the end of July, when the Israeli army…

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Rula Jebreal on Israel’s plan to eliminate Palestinians

Rula Jebreal on Israel’s plan to eliminate Palestinians

  Palestinian American commentator Rula Jebreal discusses how Israel’s commitment to genocide & occupation will spell disaster for Palestinians & Jews, and how the US has a responsibility to stop it. When it comes to public opinion, the ground is shifting on Israel and Palestine. Trump, as President, can end the genocide with a phone call, but he remains both indifferent and complicit. Palestinian American author, commentator, and foreign policy analyst Rula Jebreal joins The Left Hook to discuss the…

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Trump has turned the annual human rights report into a cover-up of human rights violations

Trump has turned the annual human rights report into a cover-up of human rights violations

Anne Applebaum writes: For nearly half a century, the State Department has reported annually on human-rights conditions in countries around the world. The purpose of this exercise is not to cast aspersions, but to collect and disseminate reliable information. Congress mandated the reports back in 1977, and since then, legislators and diplomats have used them to shape decisions about sanctions, foreign aid, immigration, and political asylum. Because the reports were perceived as relatively impartial, because they tried to reflect well-articulated…

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