Attention to the Unseen

  As pressure builds for a ceasefire after 27 days of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates joins us in a broadcast exclusive interview to discuss his journey to Palestine and Israel and learning about the connection between the struggle of African Americans and Palestinians. “The most shocking thing about my time over there was how uncomplicated it actually is,” says Coates, who calls segregation in Palestine and Israel “evil.” “There’s no way for me, as an…

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Rozina Ali writes: When President Biden landed in Tel Aviv days after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre of more than 1,400 people, he told an audience of Israelis that this was not just Israel’s Sept. 11, that “it was like 15 9/11s.” The comparison, which emerged widely and immediately, seemed apt on the surface: a brutal attack that shocked a nation and changed the course of its history. Indeed, it’s been dizzying to witness the speed at which the same patterns…

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The Guardian reports: The director of the New York office of the UN high commissioner for human rights has left his post, protesting that the UN is “failing” in its duty to prevent what he categorizes as genocide of Palestinian civilians in Gaza under Israeli bombardment and citing the US, UK and much of Europe as “wholly complicit in the horrific assault”. Craig Mokhiber wrote on 28 October to the UN high commissioner in Geneva, Volker Turk, saying: “This will…

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Reuters reports: Bolivia’s government said on Tuesday it had broken diplomatic ties with Israel due to its attacks on the Gaza Strip, while neighbors Colombia and Chile recalled their ambassadors to the Middle Eastern nation for consultations. The three South American countries lambasted Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip and condemned the deaths of Palestinian citizens. Bolivia “decided to break diplomatic relations with the Israeli state in repudiation and condemnation of the aggressive and disproportionate Israeli military offensive taking place…

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Save the Children: The number of children reported killed in Gaza in just three weeks has surpassed the annual number of children killed across the world’s conflict zones since 2019, Save the Children said. Since October 7, more than 3,257 children have been reported killed, including at least 3,195 in Gaza, 33 in the West Bank, and 29 in Israel, according to the Ministries of Health in Gaza and Israel respectively. The number of children reported killed in just three…

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Hala Alyan writes: I’ve moved back to the United States twice since my birth. Once as a child, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Then again for graduate school. I’d had the privilege of a youth — adolescence and young adulthood — in countries where being Palestinian was fairly common. The identity could be heavy, but it wasn’t a contested one. I hadn’t had to learn the respectability politics of being a Palestinian adult. I learned quickly. The task of…

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Amnesty International is issuing an urgent call for an immediate ceasefire by all parties in the occupied Gaza Strip and Israel to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid for people in Gaza amidst an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. “Over the past two and a half weeks we have witnessed horror unfolding on an unimaginable scale in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. More than 2 million people in the Gaza Strip are struggling to…

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A teenager who graduated high school as the top-ranking Palestinian student of 2023 with a 99.6% average score is among the young victims of Israel’s air attacks in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/0cb6TJkF0C — Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) October 25, 2023 "When double standards are exposed, the motives of the EU are questioned, and its credibility is eroded."@TiranaHassan addresses @EP_HumanRights on Israel, Palestine, and international humanitarian law ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/uOUzVCIeU3 — Human Rights Watch (@hrw) October 25, 2023  

The Associated Press reports: The only thing worse than the screams of a patient undergoing surgery without enough anesthesia are the terror-stricken faces of those awaiting their turn, a 51-year-old orthopedic surgeon says. When the Israeli bombing intensifies and the wounded swamp the Gaza City hospitals where Dr. Nidal Abed works, he treats patients wherever he can — on the floor, in the corridors, in rooms crammed with 10 patients instead of two. Without enough medical supplies, Abed makes do…

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Omar Shakir, Yasmine Ahmed and Akshaya Kumar write: The image of haggard doctors standing amid bodies and rubble following the explosive strike on al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza has sent shock waves around the world, which was still reeling from horrific Hamas-led attacks and the relentless Israeli bombardment and siege of Gaza. In the past two weeks, thousands of Israeli and Palestinian civilians have been killed with a speed and brutality that was previously unimaginable in Israel and Palestine. There is little sign that the spiral of…

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Lisandra Novo writes: On October 13, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)—an impartial, neutral humanitarian organization key to the origin story of the Geneva Conventions—issued a rare and exceptional public statement reminding parties to the escalating Israel-Hamas conflict of their obligations under international humanitarian law. After first condemning Hamas’s brutal attack on Israel on October 7, ICRC stated that “[t]he instructions issued by the Israeli authorities for the population of Gaza City to immediately leave their homes, coupled with the complete siege…

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The Washington Post reports: The announcement Wednesday that President Biden had secured a deal to allow aid into the besieged and bombarded Gaza Strip was hailed as a humanitarian breakthrough, but it was a limited and incomplete agreement, and there are some steep diplomatic hurdles to clear before aid can reach Palestinians in need. Wrapping up a trip to Israel on Wednesday, Biden told reporters that up to 20 trucks of aid from Egypt would be allowed into the enclave…

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NBC News reports: The taps in the besieged Gaza Strip are running dry, and residents are scrambling to save every last drop of water as the shortage reaches a crisis point. Dunia Aburahma said her family has rationed supplies, allowing her only a quart of drinking water per day. “I haven’t taken a shower for four days now,” said Aburahma, 22, an architecture student who fled northern Gaza with her family last week ahead of Israel’s threatened ground invasion and…

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Kenan Malik writes: ‘They too have casualties, they too have captives and they have mothers who weep … Let’s make real peace”. Not a liberal peacenik speaking from the safety of London or Washington but Yaakov Argamani, whose daughter Noa was taken hostage by Hamas at a music festival near Re’im on Israel’s border with Gaza. I hope I never have to face the torment that now engulfs Yaakov Argamani. But if I do find myself in as dark a…

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Yuval Abraham reports: While the world focuses on the Hamas massacre in southern Israel and Israel’s massive bombing of the Gaza Strip, settlers in the occupied West Bank are taking advantage of the chaos to attack and expel Palestinians from a number of small villages. Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed 51 Palestinians in the West Bank since Saturday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah. At least two villages, Al-Qanub and Wadi Al-Sik, have been entirely depopulated…

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