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Category: Human rights/civil liberties

Harris earns an eleventh-hour show of support from Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim community leaders

Harris earns an eleventh-hour show of support from Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim community leaders

The New Republic reports: More than 100 Arizona Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and progressive Democrats and community leaders have signed a letter making the case for those reluctant to support Kamala Harris against Donald Trump. “We know that many in our communities are resistant to vote for Kamala Harris because of the Biden administration’s complicity in the genocide,” the letter, published Thursday night, reads. “Some of us have lost many family members in Gaza and Lebanon. We respect those who feel…

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Inside the siege of northern Gaza, where ‘death waits around every corner’

Inside the siege of northern Gaza, where ‘death waits around every corner’

+972 Magazine reports: For over two weeks, the Israeli military has been waging one the most brutal and destructive campaigns of the war in northern Gaza. Residents of Jabalia, Beit Lahiya, and Beit Hanoun are living through an unrelenting siege that has stripped them of food, water, and any illusion of safety. Survivors describe a nightmare beyond comprehension: airstrikes and shelling so incessant that their bodies haven’t stopped trembling. The Israeli military operation, which began during the early hours of…

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There are no ‘safe zones’ in Syria for refugees forced to return home

There are no ‘safe zones’ in Syria for refugees forced to return home

Rena Netjes and Sophie Fullerton report: Israel’s escalating war in Lebanon has displaced more than 1.2 million people across the country in recent weeks. Those displaced are not only Lebanese civilians but also an estimated 250,000 Syrian refugees who have fled back into neighboring Syria since Israel’s bombing campaign began last month. Some 1.5 million Syrian refugees living precariously in Lebanon for more than a decade, after fleeing civil war in their own country, have faced the threat of detention…

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‘Stop profiting off genocide’: 200 arrested at Jewish Voice for Peace protest at NY Stock Exchange

‘Stop profiting off genocide’: 200 arrested at Jewish Voice for Peace protest at NY Stock Exchange

  “There is nothing antisemitic about fighting for people’s right to live,” says Jewish Voice for Peace organizer Elena Stein, who on Monday joined hundreds of protesters arrested to block entrances to the New York Stock Exchange. We discuss the historic mass protest, which called for an Israeli arms embargo and an end to war profiteering by companies like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. “We are filled with horror beyond words and are attempting to embody just an ounce of that…

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U.S. suggests military aid to Israel is at risk in letter demanding more aid for Gaza

U.S. suggests military aid to Israel is at risk in letter demanding more aid for Gaza

CNN reports: The Biden administration sent a letter to the Israeli government demanding it act to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza within the next 30 days or risk violating US laws governing foreign military assistance, suggesting US military aid could be in jeopardy. The Sunday letter, jointly written by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, is addressed to Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant and Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer. It marks…

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UN says no food has entered northern Gaza since start of October, putting 1 million people at risk of starvation

UN says no food has entered northern Gaza since start of October, putting 1 million people at risk of starvation

CNN reports: No food has entered northern Gaza since the start of October, putting 1 million people at risk of going hungry, the World Food Programme told CNN on Friday. In August, approximately 700 hundred aid trucks entered northern Gaza. In September, only 400 aid trucks entered, after commercial operations ceased at the Allenby Crossing on the border between the occupied West Bank and Jordan, the WFP added. No food trucks have entered northern Gaza in October, the WFP told…

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UK urged to take action against Israel as ‘Generals’ Plan’ takes shape in north Gaza

UK urged to take action against Israel as ‘Generals’ Plan’ takes shape in north Gaza

Middle East Eye reports: Several MPs have urged the UK government to take firm action against Israel after it launched a major military offensive in northern parts of Gaza and ordered the forced mass displacement of nearly 400,000 Palestinians living there. For six consecutive days, Israeli forces have pummelled the Jabalia refugee camp with air strikes and artillery shelling, despite ordering residents to leave their homes and head south to the Mawasi “humanitarian zone”. At least 120 Palestinians are known…

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Israel orders Gazans to leave the north, but most are staying put

Israel orders Gazans to leave the north, but most are staying put

The New York Times reports: For more than a year, as Israeli bombs pounded northern Gaza around Mariam Awwad’s home, she and her family of 11 have refused to leave. Their resolve did not change even after the Israeli military dropped leaflets over the town of Jabaliya on Sunday, ordering Palestinians in northern Gaza to evacuate to the south. The military was renewing an offensive on the north, saying it was going after Hamas fighters. “We refuse to flee only…

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Inside Turkey’s EU-funded deportation machine

Inside Turkey’s EU-funded deportation machine

New Lines Magazine reports: Dawood remembers the disgust in the eyes of the Turkish security guards in the deportation center where he was held last year. “I felt like humanity had died,” said the soft-spoken Syrian man in his 30s, who is identified by a pseudonym to protect his safety. “They just kept shouting: ‘You are like animals! We’re tired of you. If you are a man, go back to Syria and fight!’” The humiliation hit hard for Dawood, who…

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Daughters to dads who support Trump: ‘You chose him over me’

Daughters to dads who support Trump: ‘You chose him over me’

A good father knows how important it is to protect his daughter. This November, fathers need to protect their daughters from Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/q7oQUDKXEp — The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) October 8, 2024 NJ.com reports: The anti-Donald Trump group, The Lincoln Project, is out with a new digital ad that’s focused on abortion and access to reproductive health care. The ad comes as the former president has been trying to thread a divide between his own base of anti-abortion supporters and…

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Rashid Khalidi, America’s foremost scholar of Palestine, is retiring: ‘I don’t want to be a cog in the machine any more’

Rashid Khalidi, America’s foremost scholar of Palestine, is retiring: ‘I don’t want to be a cog in the machine any more’

Razia Iqbal writes: History has a striking capacity to intrude on the present day, as it does when I meet Rashid Khalidi. The Palestinian American professor’s retirement from his position as the Edward Said chair of modern Arab history at Columbia University was imminent, and that morning he has received alarming news: a gang of extremist Israeli settlers had stormed a house on Silsila Road in Jerusalem, a property that had been in his family’s possession since the time of…

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Investigating war crimes in Gaza

Investigating war crimes in Gaza

  This feature length investigation by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit exposes Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip through the medium of photos and videos posted online by Israeli soldiers themselves during the year long conflict. The I-Unit has built up a database of thousands of videos, photos and social media posts. Where possible it has identified the posters and those who appear. The material reveals a range of illegal activities, from wanton destruction and looting to the demolition of…

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Melania Trump passionately defends abortion rights in upcoming memoir

Melania Trump passionately defends abortion rights in upcoming memoir

The Guardian reports: Melania Trump made an extraordinary declaration in an eagerly awaited memoir to be published a month from election day: she is a passionate supporter of a woman’s right to control her own body – including the right to abortion. “It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government,” the Republican nominee’s wife writes, amid a campaign…

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Israel’s vision of no Palestinians ‘from the river to the sea’

Israel’s vision of no Palestinians ‘from the river to the sea’

Sahar Aziz writes: Words matter. That is the purported principle behind a national campaign by pro-Israel organizations to censor, punish and even criminalize protests on American college campuses demanding a cease-fire to Israel’s unrestrained assault on 2.4 million Palestinians in Gaza. University administrators have obliged with draconian restrictions that effectively deny their own students the ability to speak out against what the International Court of Justice has described as Israel’s “plausible” violations of the Genocide Convention in Gaza. Pro-Israel advocates often point…

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Is Israel dragging the U.S. into a Mideast quagmire?

Is Israel dragging the U.S. into a Mideast quagmire?

  As long as the US extends “total impunity” to Israel, there’s no way to prevent further genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and further bloodshed in Lebanon, argues Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. One of the biggest factors preventing all-out war in the region is Iran’s desire to pursue its own interests and reconcile with the US, according to Iran expert Roxane Farmanfarmanian of Cambridge University. Join Friedman and Farmanfarmanian in their conversation with…

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