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Category: Human rights

UK to resume funding to UN Palestine relief agency UNRWA

UK to resume funding to UN Palestine relief agency UNRWA

The Guardian reports: Britain will restore funding to the UN’s Palestine relief agency Unrwa, the foreign secretary has announced, in Labour’s first major departure from the previous government’s stance towards the Middle East crisis. David Lammy told MPs on Friday he had decided to unfreeze funding, which was suspended in January after Israel alleged that Unrwa staff were involved in the 7 October attack by Hamas. Catherine Colonna, a former French foreign minister, carried out a review of the allegations…

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The hidden ties between Google and Amazon’s Project Nimbus and Israel’s military

The hidden ties between Google and Amazon’s Project Nimbus and Israel’s military

Wired reports: On April 16, police entered Google offices in New York and California to detain several employees protesting a $1.2 billion cloud contract with Israel’s government called Project Nimbus. The deal, shared with Amazon, has met pushback from some employees at both companies since 2021, but the protests have grown louder since Israel’s renewed conflict with Hamas after the attacks of October 7, 2023. Current and former Google and Amazon workers protesting Project Nimbus say it makes the companies…

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Why researchers fear the Gaza death toll could reach 186,000

Why researchers fear the Gaza death toll could reach 186,000

Mona Chalabi writes: Even if Israel’s bombing campaign were to stop, the death toll in Gaza is expected to soar. A letter published in the medical journal the Lancet claims that the final figure could eventually be about 186,000. Written by scientists who model how war affects health, the letter lays out the importance of an accurate count – and the difficulty of achieving one. For the past nine months, Israeli forces have waged an intense military campaign that has…

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Mustafa Barghouti: Israel’s goal is total ethnic cleansing

Mustafa Barghouti: Israel’s goal is total ethnic cleansing

  A panel of United Nations independent experts has accused Israel of engaging in a campaign of starvation and genocide in Gaza as the effects of the famine are being felt across Gaza. Palestinian physician and activist Mustafa Barghouti says “what we see today is a purposeful act of starvation” and that the real intention of the Israeli government has never changed. “Their main goal is the total ethnic cleansing of all of Gaza people and all of the Gaza…

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‘I’m bored, so I shoot’: The Israeli army’s approval of free-for-all violence in Gaza

‘I’m bored, so I shoot’: The Israeli army’s approval of free-for-all violence in Gaza

+972 magazine reports: In early June, Al Jazeera aired a series of disturbing videos revealing what it described as “summary executions”: Israeli soldiers shooting dead several Palestinians walking near the coastal road in the Gaza Strip, on three separate occasions. In each case, the Palestinians appeared unarmed and did not pose any imminent threat to the soldiers. Such footage is rare, due to the severe constraints faced by journalists in the besieged enclave and the constant danger to their lives….

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Only an anti-fascist front can save Israelis from the abyss

Only an anti-fascist front can save Israelis from the abyss

Orly Noy writes: “What’s happening to you?” That was the question Yoana Gonen posed, in her recent column for Haaretz, to the so-called “leftists” vowing to vote for Israel’s right-wing former prime minister, Naftali Bennett. The fact that such a trend exists is bewildering, but the answer to Gonen’s question is clear. What is happening to these “leftists” is the same thing that’s happening to all of Israeli society: a profound and accelerating slide toward fascism. Nine months into a…

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Israel announces largest West Bank land appropriation since Oslo Accords

Israel announces largest West Bank land appropriation since Oslo Accords

The Times of Israel reports: The Civil Administration, which manages civilian affairs in the West Bank, has declared 2,965 acres of land in the Jordan Valley region to be state land, meaning it is fit for future development. According to the Peace Now organization, which campaigns against the West Bank settlements, this is the largest designation of state land since the Oslo Accords in 1993, and follows other large designations of state land including 1,976 acres also in the Jordan…

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62 Democrats join 207 Republicans in vote to conceal Gaza death toll

62 Democrats join 207 Republicans in vote to conceal Gaza death toll

The Intercept reports: The House of Representatives has voted to effectively conceal the death toll from Israel’s war on Gaza. On Thursday, lawmakers voted 269-144 on an amendment to prohibit the State Department from citing statistics from the Gaza Health Ministry. The measure is part of the annual State Department appropriations bill. It was led by Democratic Reps. Jared Moskowitz, Fla., and Josh Gottheimer, N.J., and Republican Reps. Joe Wilson, S.C.; Mike Lawler, N.Y.; and Carol Miller, W.V. In total,…

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Out of 25,000 patients in need, 19 sick and injured children leave Gaza in first medical evacuation since May

Out of 25,000 patients in need, 19 sick and injured children leave Gaza in first medical evacuation since May

The Associated Press reports: Israeli authorities say 68 people — 19 sick and injured children plus their companions — have been allowed out of the Gaza Strip and into Egypt in the first medical evacuation since May, when the territory’s sole travel crossing was shut down. The Israeli military body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, known by its acronym COGAT, said Thursday that the evacuation was carried out in coordination with officials from the United States, Egypt and the international…

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J Street helped transform Jamaal Bowman’s view of Israel but the ‘pro-peace’ group remains soft on genocide

J Street helped transform Jamaal Bowman’s view of Israel but the ‘pro-peace’ group remains soft on genocide

Last week, Politico reported: In late 2021, Jamaal Bowman stepped out of a tour bus into the heat in Hebron. The then-rookie New York congressman was visiting the H2 area of the ancient city in the West Bank, which remains under Israeli military occupation with barbed wire-covered checkpoints every few blocks. Bowman had been in the Middle East for just three days, but he was already seeing sights that were changing the way he understood the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That day,…

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One in five households in Gaza go whole days without food, draft UN report says

One in five households in Gaza go whole days without food, draft UN report says

The Guardian reports: More than half of households in Gaza have had to sell or swap their clothes to be able to buy food, the UN is to report, as a high risk of famine remains across the whole of the territory after a new round of violence in recent weeks. The latest “Special Snapshot” of Gaza from the UN’s hunger monitoring system, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), that will be published on Tuesday also says that one…

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Inside the $100 million plan to restore abortion rights in America

Inside the $100 million plan to restore abortion rights in America

Politico reports: A new coalition of abortion-rights groups is marking the second anniversary of the fall of Roe v. Wade with a pledge to spend $100 million to restore federal protections for the procedure and make it more accessible than ever before. In plans shared first with POLITICO, groups including Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and Reproductive Freedom for All are banding together to form Abortion Access Now — a national, 10-year campaign that will both prepare policies for the next…

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Texas ‘pro-life’ abortion ban linked to stark rise in infant deaths

Texas ‘pro-life’ abortion ban linked to stark rise in infant deaths

HuffPost reports: Texas’ six-week abortion ban, a 2021 law whose GOP backers claimed would “protect innocent human life,” is linked to a staggering rise in infant deaths, a new study published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association found. The study, published on the second anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, found that the Texas ban was “associated with unexpected increases in infant and neonatal mortality in 2022,” suggesting that despite Republican sermonizing on…

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Open the door wider for refugees

Open the door wider for refugees

Ilhan Omar writes: Of the many titles I hold—congresswoman, mother, sister, organizer—one represents a part of my identity that I hold particularly close to my heart: refugee. People frequently come up to me and share their own refugee stories. We immediately ask each other how long it has been since arriving in the United States. In my case, it’s been 29 years since my family and I were given a golden ticket to start a new life in America as…

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Israel’s arms suppliers risk responsibility for human rights and war crimes violations, say UN experts

Israel’s arms suppliers risk responsibility for human rights and war crimes violations, say UN experts

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights: The transfer of weapons and ammunition to Israel may constitute serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian laws and risk State complicity in international crimes, possibly including genocide, UN experts said today, reiterating their demand to stop transfers immediately. In line with recent calls from the Human Rights Council and the independent UN experts to States to cease the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions and other military…

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Norman Finkelstein: Through genocide, the whole legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state has been called into question

Norman Finkelstein: Through genocide, the whole legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state has been called into question

  We are living through a moment of social and political upheaval – one that has somehow aligned the Houthi rebels in Yemen, South Africa’s greatest legal minds and students across the wealthiest campuses in the world. They’re all fighting for Gaza, and against an increasingly isolated Israeli government and its Western backers. So are we witnessing a historic tipping point? Norman Finkelstein has documented the Israel-Palestine conflict for over 4 decades, with a particular focus on Israel’s actions in…

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