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Category: Human rights

U.S. approves massive arms sales to Israel, waives Leahy sanctions against abusive Israeli military unit amid ongoing atrocities

U.S. approves massive arms sales to Israel, waives Leahy sanctions against abusive Israeli military unit amid ongoing atrocities

DAWN reports: The U.S. State Department has officially notified Congress of its intent to proceed with a new authorization for weapons to Israel, including 6,500 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) guidance kits to Israel, despite extensive evidence documenting the Israel Defense Force’s (IDF) use of U.S. weapons to carry out war crimes and crimes against humanity, said DAWN today. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also announced his decision not to sanction the IDF’s notorious Netzah Yehuda battalion, despite credible evidence…

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Israel has created its own Abu Ghraib — and the world is silent

Israel has created its own Abu Ghraib — and the world is silent

Lubna Masarwa and Peter Oborne writes: It’s been just over 20 years since CBS News published the sobering photographs that proved the US army was carrying out unspeakable crimes against Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. Rape. Degradation. Homicide. Torture, both psychological and physical. Sexual humiliation. The revelations of US barbarity were greeted with horror around the world and played a major role in turning opinion against the Iraq War. In recent days, it has become all too clear that…

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Mayor of Dearborn, Michigan: ‘The door is cracked open’ for Harris to address frustrations over Gaza

Mayor of Dearborn, Michigan: ‘The door is cracked open’ for Harris to address frustrations over Gaza

  When President Biden was the Democratic candidate, he faced intense scrutiny from many Muslim and Arab Americans over his handling of the Israel-Hamas war. The city of Dearborn, Michigan, is home to one of the largest populations of Muslim Americans. Mayor Abdullah Hammoud joined Amna Nawaz and discussed if the new Democratic ticket of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz can quell the concerns.   “We want a meeting with Vice President Harris so we can talk to her to…

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Israeli jails holding Palestinian prisoners have become ‘torture camps,’ B’Tselem reports

Israeli jails holding Palestinian prisoners have become ‘torture camps,’ B’Tselem reports

The Guardian reports: Violence, extreme hunger, humiliation and other abuse of Palestinian prisoners has been normalised across Israel’s jail system, according to Guardian interviews with released prisoners, with mistreatment now so systemic that rights group B’Tselem says it must be considered a policy of “institutionalised abuse”. Former detainees described abuse ranging from severe beatings and sexual violence to starvation rations, refusal of medical care, and deprivation of basic needs including water, daylight, electricity and sanitation, including soap and sanitary pads…

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Massive appropriation of labor from the Global South enables high consumption in rich countries

Massive appropriation of labor from the Global South enables high consumption in rich countries

Phys.org reports: The high levels of consumption enjoyed by wealthy countries in the Global North are only possible because of mass appropriation of labor from the population of the Global South. This is evidenced by research from the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), which indicates that this appropriation takes place through unequal exchange in international trade and global commodity chains. The new study, published in Nature Communications, measured the flows of labor…

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The decimation of Gaza’s academia is ‘impossible to quantify’

The decimation of Gaza’s academia is ‘impossible to quantify’

Ibtisam Mahdi writes: Dr. Refaat Alareer was a good friend of mine. A poet, writer, and prominent activist for the Palestinian cause, Refaat taught English literature and poetry for many years at the Islamic University of Gaza. He loved the works of Shakespeare, Thomas White, John Donne, Wilfred Owen, and many others, and he was the editor of two books: “Gaza Unsilenced“ and “Gaza Writes Back.” Refaat is one of at least 105 Palestinian academics killed in Gaza since the start…

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Every university in Gaza has been destroyed. So have these students’ dreams

Every university in Gaza has been destroyed. So have these students’ dreams

Sondos Fayoumi writes: Around 88,000 higher education students in Gaza were supposed to sit for their exams last month. Many looked forward to completing their final assessments and celebrating their hard-earned graduation. Thanks to Israel’s genocidal war, though, nobody wore their caps and gowns. Instead, young people are enduring devastation of unparalleled magnitude. Every university in Gaza has been obliterated. Libraries have been burned to the ground. And the aspirations of Palestinian graduates lie in tatters. In addition to the…

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U.S. medics who volunteered in Gaza demand arms embargo over ‘unbearable cruelty’ inflicted by Israel

U.S. medics who volunteered in Gaza demand arms embargo over ‘unbearable cruelty’ inflicted by Israel

The Guardian reports: Dozens of US doctors and nurses who worked in Gaza have written to Joe Biden claiming that the true death toll from Israel’s months-long assault is much higher than previously reported, demanding the US withdraw diplomatic and military support for Israel until there is a ceasefire. The eight-page letter, delivered on Thursday and addressed to Biden, the first lady, Jill Biden, and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, said the medics saw evidence of widespread violations of laws governing…

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‘Uncommitted’ voters could back Harris if Israel-Gaza stance shifts, say delegates

‘Uncommitted’ voters could back Harris if Israel-Gaza stance shifts, say delegates

Axios reports: Pro-Palestinian Democrats were the only Michigan delegates who voted against endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris this week, but they say they’d be willing to reconsider if Harris shifts the administration’s Gaza policies. State of play: One of the two “no” votes, Abbas Alawieh, told Axios the national uncommitted movement has been trying to schedule a meeting with the vice president to discuss how to win back support of anti-war Democratic voters. If Harris meaningfully engages with demands of a ceasefire that…

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Trump’s mass deportation plan echoes concentration camp history

Trump’s mass deportation plan echoes concentration camp history

Andrea Pitzer writes: The Republican National Convention hit rock bottom on its third day in Milwaukee, Wis., on July 17, with a sea of signs calling for “Mass Deportation Now.” If former president Donald Trump is elected for a second term, he and his advisers promise to remove from the U.S., via forced expulsions and deportation camps, as many as 20 million people—a number larger than the country’s current estimated population of undocumented residents. Put into effect, this scheme would devolve quickly into a vast 21st-century…

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WHO ‘extremely worried’ about possible Gaza polio outbreak

WHO ‘extremely worried’ about possible Gaza polio outbreak

BBC News reports: The World Health Organization is “extremely worried” about the possibility of an outbreak of the highly infectious polio virus in Gaza after traces were found in wastewater. Dr Ayadil Saparbekov, head of the WHO’s team in the Palestinian territories, told reporters a risk assessment was being implemented and that in the meantime health workers were providing protection advice to Gaza’s 2.3 million population. But, he added, it would be “very difficult” for people to follow it, given…

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We volunteered at a Gaza hospital. What we saw was unspeakable

We volunteered at a Gaza hospital. What we saw was unspeakable

Mark Perlmutter and Feroze Sidhwa write: In the United States we would never dream of operating on anyone without consent, let alone a malnourished and barely conscious 9-year-old girl in septic shock. Nevertheless, when we saw Juri, that’s exactly what we did. We have no idea how Juri ended up in the Gaza European Hospital preoperative area. All we could see was that she had an external fixator — a scaffold of metal pins and rods — on her left…

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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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