Palestine today
Don’t say you didn't know
Yezen Al-Kfarna, a 10 year old Palestinian boy who suffers malnourishment due to the ongoing Israeli blockade receives medical treatment with limited resources at Abu Yusuf al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, Gaza on February 28, 2024.
[Jehad Alshrafi – Anadolu Agency]
The unravelling of the New York Times’ ‘Hamas rape’ story An horrific story in the New York Times falls apart and exposes systemic issues. In December 2023, The New York Times published an explosive article – now widely discredited – that detailed Hamas’s agenda to weaponise rape and sexual violence on October 7. We reveal the controversies surrounding the article along with the broader issue of Western media outlets’ pro-Israeli/anti-Palestinian bias. The unravelling of the New York Times’ ‘Hamas rape’ story | TV Shows | Al Jazeera
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Australia handing nearly a billion dollars to banned Israeli arms firm
Elbit Systems is an Israeli company that arms the IDF, sold weapons to the Myanmar junta, and used to make illegal munitions. Now we're handing it nearly $1 billion. An Israeli arms company that is set to enjoy more than $900 million in Australian taxpayer funds is heavily involved in Israel’s suppression of Palestinians and its maintenance of apartheid, has been previously banned for producing cluster munitions, and has recently been banned by Australia’s ally Japan. The ABC’s Andrew Greene today revealed Elbit Systems has won a $917 million contract to supply systems for the Australian Defence Force’s Infantry Fighting Vehicles. As Greene noted, the ADF in 2021 began stripping Elbit systems out of ADF equipment due to serious security risks the ADF believed the systems posed.
Irish Senate Votes to Impose Sanctions on Israel, Prevent U.S. Arms from Crossing Its Airspace
Ireland’s senate unanimously voted last week to impose sanctions against Israel, prevent the passage of U.S. weapons to Israel via Irish airspace and advocate for an international arms embargo against Israel.
EU reinstates UNRWA funding and increases emergency support by 68 million euros
The European Union announced the decision to reinstate its funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) at 50 million euros. The EU had also announced increasing emergency support to Palestinians by 68 million euros. The resumption of funding comes after a period of suspension over Israeli allegations against a number of UNRWA’s staff. The reinstating of funding comes at a crucial time when famine hits Gaza hard as the war reaches its 5-month milestone.
Hateful Faith and Violence Against Palestinians in the ‘Holy Land’
We are liberation theologians in the religion of Jesus, activists for peace and justice, and faith leaders to people who have deep painful knowledge about the ways the “Hateful Faithful” hijack the gospel of Jesus and fraudulently use Christian identity to disguise white supremacy, Anglo-European paternalism, bigotry, discrimination, militarized authoritarianism, greed, and lust for empire. Separately and together, we have written and spoken publicly on numerous occasions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We do so again now, as the world is aghast about the ongoing genocide in Gaza due to U.S./Jewish Zionism, white supremacy, racism, Anglo-European imperialism, settler colonialism, apartheid, genocide, and xenophobia.
“Between the hammer and the anvil”
The Story Behind the New York Times October 7 Exposé. Anat Schwartz had a problem. The Israeli filmmaker and former air force intelligence official had been assigned by the New York Times to work with her partner’s nephew Adam Sella and veteran Times reporter Jeffrey Gettleman on an investigation into sexual violence by Hamas on October 7 that could reshape the way the world understood Israel’s ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. By November, global opposition was mounting against Israel’s military campaign, which had already killed thousands of children, women, and the elderly. On her social media feed, which the Times has since said it is reviewing, Schwartz liked a tweet saying that Israel needed to “turn the strip into a slaughterhouse.” “Violate any norm, on the way to victory,” read the post. “Those in front of us are human animals who do not hesitate to violate minimal rules.”
Europe risks losing credibility over silence on Israel’s war on Gaza: MP
Moutquin, the Belgian member of parliament, joins more than 200 lawmakers from 13 countries calling for an arms embargo on Israel. Europe risked any credibility to speak on Russia’s actions in Ukraine if it remained silent on Gaza, according to a Belgian member of parliament, who is among the more than 200 lawmakers who have signed a letter calling for an arms embargo on Israel. “We are so hypocritical in Europe to speak about international law when we speak about Ukraine and Russia, [but] if we don’t have the same [views] when we speak about the Palestinians, we will not have any credit in the future to speak about [it],” Simon Moutquin, a Belgian member of parliament, told Al Jazeera in an interview on Saturday.
US airdrops food into Gaza in move criticised by aid groups
US plan has been criticised as inefficient while Israel continues blocking most aid trucks from entering Gaza by land. “The airdrops are symbolic and designed in ways to appease the domestic base,” Dave Harden, former USAID director to the West Bank, told Al Jazeera. “Really what needs to happen is more crossings [opening] and more trucks going in every day.” “I think the United States is weak and that’s really disappointing to me,” Harden added. “The US has the ability to compel Israel to open up more aid and by not doing that we’re putting our assets and our people at risks and potentially creating more chaos in Gaza.” Since Israel’s war began on October 7 following Hamas’s attack, Israel has barred the entry of food, water, medicine and other supplies, except for a tiny trickle of aid entering the south from Egypt at the Rafah crossing and Israel’s Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing.
In Lydd, Palestinians fear tinderbox of Israel’s war, threat of expulsion
Since October 7, Palestinians in Lydd have been living under constant fear of state violence and Israeli extremists. One week after Israel began bombing Gaza last October, Ghassan Mounayer received a call from the Israeli police. An officer warned him not to write any critical Facebook posts about the war or call for demonstrations in Lydd [Lod in Hebrew], where Palestinian citizens of Israel like Mounayer live alongside Jewish Israelis. “They said, ‘We’re watching your Facebook’, and not to write anything ‘Satanic’,” said Mounayer, who is a human rights activist. “I said, ‘Do you have any examples of posts like this?’ He said, ‘Don’t be smart. You are being watched’.”
Max Blumenthal: Evils Of the IDF
A 35-minute interview of Max Blumenthal, author of the excellent books Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel and The Management of Savagery.