Videos of enraged protestors setting fire to the Israeli embassy in Mexico City have emerged online.
The protest was a reaction to the massacre carried out by Israel in Rafah where displaced people’s tents were burnt down, leaving at least 45 refugees dead and hundreds injured.
BREAKING NEWS: Protesters have just set fire to the Israeli embassy in Mexico City. pic.twitter.com/pDtB990mjn
— Karim Wafa-Al Hussaini (@DrKarimWafa) May 29, 2024
In the capital of Mexico, Mexico City, about 200 people gathered outside the embassy in a demonstration called “Urgent Action for Rafah”. Protesters covered their faces and threw stones at the police blocking their path to the Israeli Embassy.
Demonstrators clash with the police in front of the Israeli embassy in Mexico City. [Pedro Pardo/AFP]A man with Palestine flags painted on his face attends the pro-Palestinian rally. [Pedro Pardo/AFP] Demonstrators shouted slogans during the pro-Palestinian “Urgent action for Rafah” rally. [Pedro Pardo/AFP]Protesters tried to break down barriers preventing them from reaching the Israeli mission. [Pedro Pardo/AFP]Police officers deployed tear gas and threw back the stones hurled at them by protesters. [Pedro Pardo/AFP]About 200 people joined the demonstration. [Pedro Pardo/AFP]
Israel’s bombing of refugee tents in Rafah on Sunday night left the world horrified. As videos and images of decapitated children, Palestinians burning alive and bodies reduced to char appeared on social media, a wave of outrage spread across the globe.
Among those who publicly spoke up were many supporters of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, including British television presenter Piers Morgan, who became a caricature of himself by continuously asking his pro- Palestinian panelists to “condemn Hamas”.
On Sunday night, he tweeted, “The scenes from Rafah overnight are horrific. I’ve defended Israel’s right to defend itself after Oct7, but slaughtering so many innocent people as they cower in a refugee camp is indefensible. Stop this now @netanyahu”.
Over in America, ‘free-speech activist’ Brianna Wu stopped her non-stop support of Israel to quote tweet Morgan’s tweet: “I agree with this.
I said at the beginning that invading Rafah would be a mistake of historic proportions and would make it difficult for people to stand with Israel.
None of this is going to make anyone safer.”
As other Israel supporters scrambled to condemn the incident in Rafah, the internet was having none of it. Many reminded Piers of his complicity in the genocide.
This is all happening because you pushed atrocity propaganda and said Israel has a right to defend itself when interactional law says that it does not !
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that a deadly strike that hit a displacement camp in Gaza’s Rafah was a “tragic accident” that his government was investigating.
“In Rafah, we evacuated a million uninvolved residents and, despite our best efforts, a tragic accident happened yesterday,” Netanyahu told parliament.
He added that “we are investigating the case and will draw the conclusions” after Gaza’s health ministry reported 45 dead as the strike late Sunday sparked a fire that tore through a tent city for displaced Gazans.
The ministry in the Gaza Strip also said that 249 people were wounded.
Israel faced a wave of international condemnation on Monday over the Rafah strike, including from across the region as well from the European Union, France, and the United Nations.
The Israeli military said it had launched a probe into the strike which it said was carried out based on “precise intelligence information” about two Hamas militants who it said were killed.
It also said “the strike did not occur in the humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi, to which the IDF (army) has encouraged civilians to evacuate” since the ground operation began in Rafah.
Netanyahu struck a defiant tone in his Knesset address while being heckled by relatives of hostages held in Gaza, and vowed to keep up the battle to destroy Hamas.
“There is no substitute for absolute victory” in Gaza, he told the chamber.
Netanyahu denounced pressure, both internal and external, that he said his government has faced since the war in Gaza began.
“They pressured us then,” said Netanyahu, before listing calls to refrain from military operations which Israel carried out anyway.
“Don’t enter Gaza. We entered! Do not enter Shifa! We entered! Do not enter Khan Yunis! We entered! Do not enter Rafah! We entered!” he said.
“I don’t give up and I won’t give up! I stand up to pressures from home and abroad.”
Israel’s genocide in Gaza has caused the death of 36,050 Palestinians.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said Monday that many bodies were “charred” after the strikes triggered a fire that ripped through a displacement camp in northwest Rafah.
“The massacre committed by the Israeli occupation army in the refugee tents northwest of Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip has left 40 martyrs and 65 wounded,” said agency official Mohammad al-Mughayyir.
“We saw charred bodies and dismembered limbs … We also saw cases of amputations, wounded children, women and the elderly.”
Footage released by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society showed chaotic night-time scenes of paramedics in ambulances racing to the fiery attack site and evacuating the wounded, including children.
“We had just done with the evening prayers,” recalled one survivor, a Palestinian woman who declined to be named.
“Our children were asleep … suddenly we heard a loud sound and there was fire all around us. The children were screaming … the sound was terrifying.”
Mughayyir said the rescue efforts were hampered by war damage and the impacts of Israel’s siege on the territory amid the over seven-month-old conflict.
“There is a fuel shortage … there are roads that have been destroyed, which hinders the movement of civil defence vehicles in these targeted areas,” he said. “There is also a shortage of water to extinguish fires.”
The ICRC said that one of its field hospitals was receiving an “influx of casualties seeking care for injuries and burns” and that “our teams are doing their best to save lives”.
Israeli occupation forces on the other hand said the air strikes late Sunday, hours after a rocket attack had targeted Tel Aviv, had killed two senior Hamas operatives. However, it will investigate the reports of civilians killed in a fire..
It added that it was “aware of reports indicating that as a result of the strike and fire that was ignited, several civilians in the area were harmed. The incident is under review.”
The Israeli attack sparked strong protests from Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, and from Qatar which warned it could “hinder” budding steps to revive stalled truce and hostage release talks in the Israel-Hamas war raging since October 7.
Egypt
Egypt deplored the “targeting of defenceless civilians” and labelled it part of “a systematic policy aimed at widening the scope of death and destruction in the Gaza Strip to make it uninhabitable”.
Jordan
Jordan also expressed its condemnation, accusing Israel of committing “ongoing war crimes”.
Kuwait
Kuwait charged the attack exposed Israel’s “blatant war crimes and unprecedented genocide to the whole world”.
Qatar
And Qatar condemned the Israeli bombing as a “dangerous violation of international law”.
Israel’s top ally the United States has strongly urged all sides to resume truce talks, with efforts underway in recent days toward new talks with US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators.
After the latest violence, Qatar’s foreign ministry voiced “concern that the bombing will complicate ongoing mediation efforts and hinder reaching an agreement for an immediate and permanent ceasefire”.
Hamas attack on Tel Aviv
The strike came hours after Hamas had on Sunday, for the first time in months, launched a barrage of rockets at Tel Aviv and other areas of central Israel, sending people running into bomb shelters.
Although Israeli air defences took out most of the rockets and no casualties were reported, the attack was seen as an effort by Hamas to signal that it remains undefeated.
Hamas’s armed wing said it had targeted Tel Aviv “with a large rocket barrage in response to the Zionist massacres against civilians”.
Israel invaded Gaza in late October, but its ground forces are still battling Hamas in northern and central areas where Hamas has regrouped, as well as around Rafah.
Hamas said, after the overnight strikes, that Palestinians must “rise up and march”.
Ebrahim Raisi is no more. Newspapers and various other outlets have published countless obituaries both coming from the tainted western lens and that of religiously coloured frame. I, on the other hand, want to present an account of listening to Raisi’s speech once and was inspired by the depth of his words and the resolution in his tone.
“If Israel violates the sovereignty of the Iranian state again, the reaction will be different and who knows the Zionist regime will not exist,” the one who said these words is now buried in a freshly dug grave in Mashhad but certainly not forgotten.
Ebrahim Raisi (1960-2024) said these words in front of the students and teachers at Government College University Lahore, my alma mater. It was surreal, to witness a head-of-state speak in the prestigious Bukhari Auditorium. While the security and arrangements made it all very unapproachable, when he arrived it was warm and almost palpable.
APP41-230424
LAHORE: April 23 – President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Dr. Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi shaking hand with students during his visit the Government College University (GC) Lahore. APP/MTF/MAF/TZD
April 23 was the day I went to the university after a long time, not just to attend an esteemed ceremony but also covering it for The Current. The day was bright and because it was a public holiday in the city, I reached GCU Lahore almost gliding through the air early in the day at 8:30 am.
A crowd of selected people, all ready to bear witness to history in the making could be seen under the gothic lady.
Although no gadget was allowed inside, I managed to grab a pen and paper and took notes of the speech which is a piece of literature in true sense of the word. References of Iqbal’s poetry with the messages of the reawakening of youth made it worth lending an ear to.
The Vice Chancellor started her address paying tribute to the resilient power and the great potential held by the land of Persians. In Allama Iqbal’s words. “Tehran ho gar Alam e Mahriq ka Geneva, Shayed Kurra-e-Arz ki Taqdeer badal jaye.” The verse implies that if Tehran becomes the Geneva of the East, the fate of the world will surely change.
It turned out that Iranian President Raisi was not just fully familiar with the work of our national poet but remembered him as Iqbal Lahori for his work in Persian. He was pleased to be present in the institution where Iqbal studied and taught; and to be in Lahore, the city from where the revolution against oppressive colonial rule started.
While he stressed about the hybridization of knowledge and faith as the key to success in life, he stressed on Iqbal being the best example as someone who combined both excellently. As he moved on, like an expert orator, he felt the pulse of the audience and drew a comparison between the East and West. We believe the people of the East are higher than that of the West because of how they understand the “creation of knowledge”, Raisi quoted the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
He laid out his vision by saying, “The West is somehow trying to have a monopoly in the field of knowledge and Science, but we the people of East can change that.” He emphasised the role of universities in imparting a deeper understanding of the current situation and the pivotal role of faith along with seeking knowledge.
He substantiated his argument by pointing out how the West claims to have championed freedom of speech and human rights but the brutal ways with which University students setting up protests and encampments in Europe and America against Israeli occupation of Gaza are dealt with is a testimony to the innate contradiction between the claim and the practice.
“Today the liberation of Palestine is not just an issue of the Islamic world but of the world as well,” he said in a passionate tone and with this the audience was totally invested and they were applauding him even before the interpreter translated his words. Raisi predicted that hate is brewing in the hearts of people against United States and this Zionist regime in Palestinian territory and this will take revenge from them.
We are usually so used to of seeing leaders just chanting out popular things and hardly something literary Raisi gave the audience a minor jolt as he quoted 12th-century Muslim philosopher Ibn Arabi precisely from the text Fusus ul Hikam where he brought up the killing of children by Pharaoh only to prevent the birth of Prophet Moses. However, Allah was with Moses. Meanwhile, the nation of Moses was being created. He said that the same will be translated with Israel killing Palestinian children relentlessly.
He spoke like a warrior, someone who has stayed resilient in the worst of pressure. “If you stand against our nation, we will stand against yours”, Raisi said affirmatively. As he moved towards the end he put an emphasis on the support of Palestine as the common point of relation between Pakistan and Iran.
Coming full circle, Raisi left his mark with his final words which I quoted in the beginning. There are problems and issues of governance in every state of the world but what stands out is the resilience and the will to face opposition with head held high. With his words, Raisi inspired students to stand tall in the worst of situations and stand on the right side of history. The memory will forever be etched in my mind.
An Israeli official said Saturday the government had an “intention” to renew “this week” talks aimed at reaching a hostage release deal in Gaza, after a meeting in Paris between US and Israeli officials.
“There is an intention to renew the talks this week and there is an agreement,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The Israeli official did not elaborate on the agreement, but Israeli media reported that Mossad chief David Barnea had agreed during meetings in Paris with mediators CIA Director Bill Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on a new framework for the stalled negotiations.
Top US diplomat Antony Blinken also spoke with Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz about new efforts to achieve a ceasefire and reopen the Rafah border crossing, Washington said.
Talks aimed at reaching a hostage release and truce deal in the Gaza Strip ground to a halt this month after Israel launched a military operation in the territory’s far-southern city of Rafah.
The current war in Gaza has caused the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Meanwhile, Israel has carried out a massacre of 35,903 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to data from Gaza’s health ministry.
The Israeli military said Friday its forces had retrieved the bodies of three hostages in an overnight operation in the northern Gaza Strip’s Jabalia.
The bodies of Israeli hostage Chanan Yablonka, Brazilian-Israeli Michel Nisenbaum and French-Mexican Orion Hernandez Radoux “were rescued overnight” and their families were notified after forensic identification, the military said in a statement.
Both Yablonka, 42, and Hernandez Radoux, 32, were abducted from a music festival when Hamas militants stormed southern Israel from Gaza on October 7, triggering the ongoing war.
Nisenbaum, a 59-year-old resident of the Israeli town of Sderot near Gaza, was last contacted on his way to an army base on the border to pick up his granddaughter on the day of the attack.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under increasing domestic pressure to secure the release of remaining hostages, said in a statement Friday that “together with the Israeli people, my wife Sara and I bow our heads in deep sorrow and embrace the grieving families in their difficult time”.
Israel recalled its ambassadors to Ireland, Norway and Spain on Wednesday and also summoned their envoys in protest at the three governments’ recognition of a Palestinian state.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz charged that all three countries were rewarding the Palestinian group Hamas for their October 7 attack which sparked the Gaza war.
“The twisted step of these countries is an injustice to the memory of the 7/10 victims,” he said in a statement.
Israel’s envoys were being recalled from Dublin, Oslo and Madrid for “urgent consultations” and threatened “serious consequences”, the minister added.
Katz said that the three countries’ ambassadors were also being summoned for a “conversation that would rebuke” their governments’ decision to recognise a Palestinian state by May 28.
Israeli genocide against Palestinians has killed at least 35,647 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Katz said he would show the three ambassadors a video of the kidnapping of female Israeli soldiers during the Hamas attack.
“They decided to award a gold medal to the murderers and rapists of Hamas,” Katz said. “We will demonstrate to them what a twisted decision their governments took.”
Mushahid Hussain Syed, a veteran politician and serving senator from Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), recently appeared on a talk show at 92 News channel and alleged that past military high command “was willing to compromise on Pakistan’s missile program, give up Kashmir along with recognition of Israel.”
When he was asked by the journalist Irshad Ahmad Arif whether relations between Pakistan and China are well, the senator said, “No, because Pakistan’s previous military establishment sent mixed signals despite Chinese support at every international forum, it was playing a double game with China and the US.”
Hussain stated that the US had clearly given out a statement in its national security strategy in 2022 that India was its strategic partner in this region and China was its enemy.
According to the senator, “If they [US] consider the Chinese their enemy then how could we play a double game with China despite their consistent support throughout our history?”
The PML-N leader said that the Chinese are not “children” and they know what Pakistan did to them.
Spain, Norway and Ireland have officially recognised the Palestinian state on Wednesday, paving the way for other European countries to do the same.
The momentous development comes as yet another setback to Israel after the ICC announced this week that it will seek arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Gallant for war crimes.
“Today, Ireland, Norway and Spain are announcing that we recognise the state of Palestine,” Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris announced at a news conference, adding that other countries will join them within a few weeks.
Israel reacted by announcing that it has recalled its ambassadors to Norway and Ireland. The occupying country’s ambassador to Spain had already been recalled in November last year.
During the news conference, Harris said that he viewed the two-state solution as the only viable pathway for peace and security for the peoples of Israel and Palestine.
