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Category: Human rights/civil liberties

Deadly chaos at Gaza aid convoy is a symbol of the desperation enveloping the territory

Deadly chaos at Gaza aid convoy is a symbol of the desperation enveloping the territory

Politico reports: The chaos punctuated by heavy Israeli fire that killed 115 Palestinians trying to get bags of flour from an aid convoy highlights the desperation of the hundreds of thousands struggling to survive amid the devastation of northern Gaza after nearly five months of fighting between Israel and Hamas. Residents say they have taken to searching piles of rubble and garbage for anything to feed their children, who barely eat one meal a day. Many families have begun mixing…

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Biden’s planned airdrop of food to Gaza is a ‘major policy failure’ says former USAID official

Biden’s planned airdrop of food to Gaza is a ‘major policy failure’ says former USAID official

The Independent reports: Jeremy Konyndyk, who led USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance during the Obama administration and oversaw humanitarian air drops to Nepal, the Philippines and Iraq, described the potential US plan to drop aid by air as a “major policy failure” on the part of the Biden administration. “When the US government has to use tactics that it otherwise used to circumvent the Soviets and Berlin and circumvent Isis in Syria and Iraq, that should prompt some really…

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Israel has yet to provide UN with evidence to back UNRWA 7 October attack claims

Israel has yet to provide UN with evidence to back UNRWA 7 October attack claims

The Guardian reports: A month after Israeli allegations that a dozen United Nations staff were involved in the 7 October Hamas attack, UN investigators have yet to receive any evidence from Israel to support the claims, though they expect some material to be forthcoming “shortly”. The allegations against the 12 employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) led 16 major donors to suspend contributions totalling $450m at a time when more than 2 million Gazans are…

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Israeli forces fire on crowd waiting for aid, over 100 Palestinians dead and hundreds more injured

Israeli forces fire on crowd waiting for aid, over 100 Palestinians dead and hundreds more injured

  The New York Times reports: Gazan authorities said that more than 100 people were killed and hundreds more injured in a chaotic scene early Thursday morning in Gaza City, where a crowd gathered around a convoy of trucks carrying desperately needed aid and the Israeli military opened fire. Drone footage released by the Israeli military shows hundreds of people circling around the trucks along the Al-Rashid coast road, and a video posted on social media includes audio of shots…

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Jan Egeland: People in Gaza are traumatized beyond belief

Jan Egeland: People in Gaza are traumatized beyond belief

“I have never… seen a place… so bombarded for such a long time with such a trapped population without any escape. People are traumatized beyond belief.” Jan @NRC_Egeland of @NRC_Norway is in Gaza for the first time since Oct 7. “I’m pretty shaken, actually, from what I saw.” pic.twitter.com/7MFgRstrJl — Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) February 27, 2024

The trauma experienced in Gaza is beyond PTSD

The trauma experienced in Gaza is beyond PTSD

Yara M. Asi writes: “We will die. All of us. Hopefully soon enough to stop the suffering that we are living through every single second.” Those words were sent in a text last week by a physician working for Doctors Without Borders in the southern Gaza Strip. And it is far from an uncommon feeling shared by those struggling to survive and care for one another in Gaza these days. What would we call this feeling from the perspective of…

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Doctors Without Borders slams U.S. on Gaza at UN, says children as young as 5 want to die

Doctors Without Borders slams U.S. on Gaza at UN, says children as young as 5 want to die

Reuters reports: The head of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) told the United Nations Security Council on Thursday that medical teams in the Gaza Strip have come up with a new acronym: WCNSF – wounded child, no surviving family. “Children who do survive this war will not only bear the visible wounds of traumatic injuries, but the invisible ones too,” MSF International Secretary General Christopher Lockyear told the 15-member council. “There is a repeated displacement, constant fear and witnessing…

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Lessons on genocide from Xinjiang and Gaza

Lessons on genocide from Xinjiang and Gaza

Nader Hashemi and James A. Millward write: Days before the International Court of Justice’s initial ruling late last month that found there was a plausible risk of genocide being committed by Israel in Gaza, the United Nations Human Rights Council conducted its “universal periodic review” of China’s human rights record. China’s abusive treatment of Uyghur and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang province—which many governments around the world, including both U.S. administrations under Donald Trump and Joe Biden, have officially called…

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Alabama justice who ruled embryos are people says American law should be rooted in the Bible

Alabama justice who ruled embryos are people says American law should be rooted in the Bible

NBC News reports: On the same day that Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker handed down an opinion declaring that fertilized frozen embryos are people, imperiling women’s access to in vitro fertilization treatments, he espoused support for a once-fringe philosophy that calls on evangelical Christians to reshape society based on their interpretation of the Bible. During an online broadcast hosted by Tennessee evangelist Johnny Enlow on Friday, Parker suggested America was founded explicitly as a Christian nation and discussed…

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U.S. intelligence casts doubt on Israeli claims of UNRWA-Hamas links, report says

U.S. intelligence casts doubt on Israeli claims of UNRWA-Hamas links, report says

The Guardian reports: A US intelligence assessment of Israel’s claims that UN aid agency staff members participated in the Hamas attack on 7 October said some of the accusations were credible, though could not be independently verified, while also casting doubt on claims of wider links to militant groups. The assault precipitated a full-scale invasion by Israel of Gaza that has killed upwards of 30,000 Palestinians. Earlier this year, Israel accused 12 employees of the United Nations Reliefs and Works…

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Alabama’s IVF ruling shows our slide toward theocracy

Alabama’s IVF ruling shows our slide toward theocracy

Charles M Blow writes: If you don’t think this country is sliding toward theocracy, you’re not paying attention. The drumbeat of incidents moving us ever closer to the seemingly inescapable future is so steady and frequent that we’ve developed outrage fatigue — we’ve grown numb. For instance, on Friday, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children and that destruction of those embryos, even by accident, is subject to the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. In…

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Israeli forces fired on food convoy in Gaza, UN documents and satellite analysis reveals

Israeli forces fired on food convoy in Gaza, UN documents and satellite analysis reveals

CNN reports: Israeli forces fired on a United Nations convoy carrying vital food supplies in central Gaza on February 5, before ultimately blocking the trucks from progressing to the northern part of the territory, where Palestinians are on the verge of famine, according to documents shared exclusively by the UN and CNN’s own analysis. CNN has seen correspondence between the UN and the Israeli military that show the convoy’s route was agreed upon by both parties prior to the strike….

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Trump and allies planning militarized mass deportations, detention camps

Trump and allies planning militarized mass deportations, detention camps

The Washington Post reports: Faced with a surge of migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018 and 2019, Donald Trump’s White House discussed ways to more aggressively deploy the resources and the might of the U.S. military. Aides and officials spoke privately about detaining migrants on military bases and flying them out of the country on military planes — ideas that the Pentagon headed off. Throughout his presidency, Trump himself would frequently demand to send troops to the border…

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UN experts appalled by reported human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls

UN experts appalled by reported human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls

UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: UN experts today expressed alarm over credible allegations of egregious human rights violations to which Palestinian women and girls continue to be subjected in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Palestinian women and girls have reportedly been arbitrarily executed in Gaza, often together with family members, including their children, according to information received. “We are shocked by reports of the deliberate targeting and extrajudicial killing of Palestinian women and children…

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Systematic violation of human rights: The incarceration conditions of Palestinians in Israel since Oct 7

Systematic violation of human rights: The incarceration conditions of Palestinians in Israel since Oct 7

Physicians for Human Rights Israel: Since October 7th, any semblance of restraint has been cast aside regarding the treatment of Palestinians in Israeli incarceration and detention facilities. Forced disappearances, torture, and severe violations of human rights, particularly in terms of health, are now inherent in the practices and policies of Israeli security bodies responsible for Palestinians in custody. These actions have garnered support and, at times, were explicitly demanded by the political ranks. Simultaneously, the judicial system has allowed these…

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Why are Israel and its Western allies targeting UNRWA?

Why are Israel and its Western allies targeting UNRWA?

  About 20 countries have announced suspension of funding to UNRWA, the agency that has been providing services to Palestinian refugees since 1950. The official reason for the suspension was Israel’s accusation that a dozen UNRWA employees in Gaza had participated in the October 7 Hamas attacks. To understand the potential consequences of undermining UNRWA – especially amid a humanitarian catastrophe – host Steve Clemons speaks with Leila Hilal, a former adviser to the UNRWA commissioner-general, and Anne Irfan, lecturer…

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