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Category: Human rights/civil liberties

While the world has abandoned Gaza, its doctors have done the opposite. They are our heroes

While the world has abandoned Gaza, its doctors have done the opposite. They are our heroes

Ghada Ageel writes: In the movie Any Given Sunday, Al Pacino plays a highly strung football coach. In a key scene, he gives a speech about how “life is a game of inches” and how when “you add up all those inches that’s gonna make the difference between livin’ and dyin’”. For Pacino, the rousing words are a figure of speech. For the people of Gaza – particularly its doctors, nurses and medical staff – these words are a matter…

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Growing numbers of Chinese migrants are crossing the southern border

Growing numbers of Chinese migrants are crossing the southern border

The New York Times reports: The surge of migrants entering the United States across the southern border increasingly includes people from a surprising place: China. Despite the distances involved and the difficulties of the journey, more than 24,000 Chinese citizens have been apprehended crossing into the United States from Mexico in the past year. That is more than in the preceding 10 years combined, according to government data. They typically fly into Ecuador, where they do not need a visa….

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Pope Francis: ‘this is not war, it is terrorism’

Pope Francis: ‘this is not war, it is terrorism’

The Guardian reports:Pope Francis has faced criticism for allegedly drawing equivalence between Israel and Hamas. During a general audience after meeting with Israeli and Palestinian delegations at the Vatican, the pope reportedly remarked, “They suffer so much, I heard how they both suffer.” This statement referred to testimonies brought by the Israeli group, who shared their experiences of having relatives taken hostage by Hamas during the 7 October attacks, as well as the Palestinians with family members living in the…

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Gaza’s next tragedy: Disease risk spreads amid overcrowded shelters, dirty water and breakdown of basic sanitation

Gaza’s next tragedy: Disease risk spreads amid overcrowded shelters, dirty water and breakdown of basic sanitation

By Yara M. Asi, University of Central Florida After more than a month of being subjected to sustained bombing, the besieged people of the Gaza Strip are now confronted with another threat to life: disease. Overcrowding at shelters, a breakdown of basic sanitation, the rising number of unburied dead and a scarcity of clean drinking water have left the enclave “on the precipice of major disease outbreaks,” according to the World Health Organization. As an expert in Palestinian public health…

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Asylum in America, by the numbers

Asylum in America, by the numbers

The New York Times reports: Under President Biden, the Border Patrol has arrested more people for illegally crossing the southern border into the country than in any other period since the government started keeping count in 1960. His time in office coincides with a global migration movement driven by tens of millions of people displaced because of war, persecution, climate change, violence and human rights abuses, according to the United Nations. More Americans far from the border are witnessing the…

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The richest 1% — the ‘polluter elite’ — are plundering the planet to point of destruction

The richest 1% — the ‘polluter elite’ — are plundering the planet to point of destruction

The Guardian reports: The richest 1% of humanity is responsible for more carbon emissions than the poorest 66%, with dire consequences for vulnerable communities and global efforts to tackle the climate emergency, a report says. The most comprehensive study of global climate inequality ever undertaken shows that this elite group, made up of 77 million people including billionaires, millionaires and those paid more than US$140,000 (£112,500) a year, accounted for 16% of all CO2 emissions in 2019 – enough to…

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Pro-Israel groups are weaponizing civil rights law to suppress dissent on campuses across America

Pro-Israel groups are weaponizing civil rights law to suppress dissent on campuses across America

The Intercept reports: In front of Columbia University’s Low Memorial Library, seven infant-sized bundles of white cloth rested on the steps, splattered with red paint. Behind the swaddles, plywood boards read “10,600 lives slaughtered,” “4,412 children,” and “let Gaza live,” alongside images of Palestinian flags and olive trees. This was the scene where Columbia students gathered last Thursday for a “peaceful protest art installation” and demonstration organized by the campus chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice…

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Here’s what the mass violence in Gaza looks like to a scholar of genocide

Here’s what the mass violence in Gaza looks like to a scholar of genocide

Raz Segal writes: I cannot stop thinking about the dozens of Israeli children held in captivity by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in underground tunnels in Gaza, while above them Israel’s attack has killed, so far, nearly 4,500 Palestinian children. Stopping the violence, and returning the hostages, is urgent for any person who values all lives. That it is very difficult to imagine how this happens tells a terrible truth: Those with the most power to effect change refuse to…

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Israel has killed more children in Gaza than have died in all other conflict zones globally over the last year

Israel has killed more children in Gaza than have died in all other conflict zones globally over the last year

The New York Times reports: Barefoot and weeping, Khaled Joudeh, 9, hurried toward the dozens of bodies wrapped in white burial shrouds, blankets and rugs outside the overcrowded morgue. “Where’s my mom?” he cried next to a photographer for The New York Times. “I want to see my mom.” “Where is Khalil?” he continued, barely audible between sobs as he asked for his 12-year-old brother. A morgue worker opened a white shroud, so Khaled could kiss his brother one final…

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Israeli strikes hit maternity ward in Gaza’s largest hospital, evidence indicates

Israeli strikes hit maternity ward in Gaza’s largest hospital, evidence indicates

The New York Times reports: Minutes after 1 a.m. Friday, as active fighting raged between Israeli forces and Hamas militants, a projectile streaked over Gaza’s largest medical complex and crashed into the center of the courtyard of Al-Shifa Hospital, a place where thousands of displaced Gazans had sought shelter. It landed just a few feet from Ahmed Hijazi, a social media personality who has been documenting the conflict. He filmed a video of the projectile flying in, and then of…

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‘I could never dream such a nightmare’: Gaza in grip of humanitarian disaster

‘I could never dream such a nightmare’: Gaza in grip of humanitarian disaster

Jason Burke reports: UN-run shelters in Gaza are so crowded that it is impossible to count the people needing food, water, medicine and other basics, administrators say, as more fighting and bombardments continue to arrive. “It is a terrible, terrible situation. There is no room even to sleep on the floor. There is one toilet for 700 or 800 people. No bread, no stoves for cooking. We are drinking irrigation water,” one UN official at a compound in the southern…

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The West can’t defend international law while also supporting genocide

The West can’t defend international law while also supporting genocide

Oliver Stuenkel writes: The war between Israel and Hamas is bad news for Ukraine. The conflict has already shifted news coverage and public attention in the West away from Russian aggression. It may also force Western exporters to divert portions of their arms supplies from Ukraine to Israel, as the United States is already thought to have done. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned last week of a “long and difficult war ahead,” which could give Russian President Vladimir Putin…

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Expel all Palestinians from Gaza, recommends Israeli gov’t ministry

Expel all Palestinians from Gaza, recommends Israeli gov’t ministry

+972 reports: The Israeli Ministry of Intelligence is recommending the forcible and permanent transfer of the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, according to an official document revealed in full for the first time by +972’s partner site Local Call yesterday. The 10-page document, dated Oct. 13, 2023, bears the logo of the Intelligence Ministry — a small governmental body that produces policy research and shares its proposals with intelligence agencies, the army, and other ministries….

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Israel launches deadly strike on ambulance outside hospital in Gaza

Israel launches deadly strike on ambulance outside hospital in Gaza

The Washington Post reports: An Israeli strike on an ambulance outside Gaza City’s largest hospital on Friday killed at least 15 people and injured another 60, the Gaza Health Ministry said. Photos and videos of the aftermath, which were geolocated by The Washington Post, showed scenes of carnage and destruction, with bodies crumpled on the pavement and bystanders rushing to carry the wounded into the hospital grounds. The strike was one of several attacks on schools and health infrastructure on…

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