Tag: #palestine

  • Baby girl born after pregnant mother martyred died

    Baby girl born after pregnant mother martyred died

    The daughter of a pregnant woman who was martyred in the Israeli attack at Rafah in the occupied Palestinian territory of Gaza, has also died.

    Last week, a pregnant woman, Sabrin Al-Sakini, her husband and three-year-old daughter were martyred as a result of the Israeli attack in the Rafah area of Gaza. The doctors saved the daughter of Sabrin Al-Sakini by performing an emergency operation and the new-born girl was named ‘Shaheed Sabreen’s daughter’.

    The doctors who took care of the baby girl said that the weight of the baby girl at the time of birth was 1.4 kg and that her condition was improving. However, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation, the newborn girl died yesterday and was buried next to her mother.

    More than 34,000 people have been martyred as a result of the ongoing Israeli aggression in Gaza since October 7, 2023, including more than 14,000 children and more than 9,000 women.

  • Bridgerton actress Nicola Coughlan courageously stands up for Palestine

    Bridgerton actress Nicola Coughlan courageously stands up for Palestine

    Many people know Nicola Coughlan from shows like Bridgerton and Derry Girls. In a new interview with Teen Vogue, she openly showed her support for the Palestinian people who are facing a genocide in Gaza.

    “There’s a huge connection between Ireland and Palestine that maybe a lot of people aren’t aware of, and a shared history,” she explained. “To me it always becomes more about supporting innocent people. Are we supporting innocent people no matter where they’re from, who they are? That’s my drive.”

    Coughlan has been using her social media to talk about and raise money for the people in Gaza. She’s also been wearing a pin for Artists4Ceasefire. She’s not worried about having trouble getting acting jobs because of her political views. She feels good knowing that she’s using her influence to make the world better, so when she looks back on her life, she’ll know she did something good.
    “You might hear people say, ‘You won’t get jobs,’ ‘You won’t do well,’” admitted the Barbie actor. “But I believe if you know you’re standing up for innocent people, then I’m not scared of what others think.”

    Coughlan knows she has a big influence because she’s famous. “I’m lucky I’ve come this far in my career, especially as a white woman,” she said. Talking about being in the spotlight, she added, “I love my job, and I’m grateful I get to travel and meet amazing people. I feel like I need to give back because of this.”

    Even before she was on TV, Coughlan was involved in making the world better. “I supported different causes,” she remembered. “I campaigned for marriage equality and marched for abortion rights in Ireland. I’ve always cared about fairness and helping people.”
    With the first part of Bridgerton season three coming on May 16, Coughlan can focus on her successful TV career without worrying about being rejected because of her beliefs.

  • Malala reiterates Gaza support after criticism on collaboration with Hilary Clinton

    Malala reiterates Gaza support after criticism on collaboration with Hilary Clinton

    Education activist Malala Yousafzai has issued a statement on social media, reiterating her support for Palestine and calling out Israel for committing a genocide in Gaza.

    Earlier this week, she faced severe criticism, even from those who have always defended her, after it was revealed that she was partnering with former US First Lady Hilary Clinton, who has actively spoken against a ceasefire in Gaza.

    While Malala has issued a statement in support of Palestine now, her collaboration with a warmonger remains unaffected.

    As co-producers for a new Broadway production titled “Suffs,” they will mark their debut on the Broadway stage.

    “Suffs” is a musical that depicts the suffrage movement in the United States, chronicling the campaign for women’s right to vote from 1913 to 1920, culminating in the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

    The collaboration has become questionable for the Pakistani public in the light of on-going Israeli genocide in Gaza that is financed by the US and above all, supported by Hilary Clinton herself. And people are asking: what exactly is Malala thinking by doing this collaboration at this time.

  • No freedom of speech in American universities

    No freedom of speech in American universities

    Many people have lost jobs for views that contradict mainstream US approach towards Israel and Palestine, despite a strong movement of solidarity with Palestine.

    Palestinian solidarity activists faced monitoring and restricted mobility on campus as administrators heightened security measures. Many felt unwelcome, with reports of harassment against Muslim women, including spitting and hijab removal.

    Students for Justice in Palestine, the leading pro-Palestinian campus group, has been suspended from several universities, including Columbia, Brandeis, George Washington, and Rutgers since October 7. Accusations against the group include alleged support for Hamas, disruption of classes, and intimidation of other students. None of the charges have been proved.

    In late October, the chancellor of the State University System of Florida issued a letter to school presidents, directing them to “deactivate” chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine across the state. Civil rights groups assert that this directive blatantly violates the First Amendment.

    At Brandeis University, known for its public endorsement of free speech, a pro-Palestinian student group was prohibited from campus due to statements made by its national leadership.

    Meanwhile, at the University of Vermont, plans for a Palestinian poet Mohammed el-Kurd to speak were canceled after students raised concerns about alleged antisemitism, prompting the school to withdraw the venue.

    The board of the Harvard Law Review in mid-Nomber, 2023, decided against publishing an article by Rabea Eghbariah – Palestinian scholar and human rights lawyer – who had asserted that the situation in Gaza should be considered under the framework of genocide as laid down by the United Nations.

    At the University of Pennsylvania, the progressive Jewish student group Penn Chavurah planned to screen the documentary “Israelism” since July but postponed it in October due to proximity to a Hamas attack. The film, made by American Jews reevaluating their views on Israel after visiting the country, has sparked controversy on campuses. Although initially denied approval for a late November screening, the group attempted to secure space through the university’s Middle East Center. However, administrators warned of potential disciplinary action if they proceeded with the screening of “Israelism.”

    Hunter College too, cancelled the screening.

    In December 2023, University of Pennsylvania President M. Elizabeth Magill stepped down following a widely criticized congressional hearing.

    Magill, along with her counterparts from MIT and Harvard, consistently emphasized that their response would be contingent on the “context.” However, they faced criticism for failing to outright condemn any expressions advocating for the genocide of Jews.

    Students at Harvard have reportedly expressed their concern of the consequences of speaking out for Palestinians – even if it is expressing their views in class.no freedom of speech in maerican unis etc.

  • A hundred pro-Palestinian protesters arrested at New York’s Columbia University

    A hundred pro-Palestinian protesters arrested at New York’s Columbia University

    Police arrested more than 100 pro-Palestinian student protesters at New York’s Columbia University Thursday, a day after the president of the prestigious school was grilled in Congress over accusations of anti-Semitism on campus.

    “NYPD officers moved in to ensure the safety of the campus, the students and the staff made more than 108 arrests, and the NYPD ensured that there was no violence or injuries during the disturbance,” New York Mayor Eric Adams said during a press conference.

    The arrests and dismantling of tents that had been erected Wednesday also attracted a crowd of other demonstrators in support, according to an AFP journalist.

    According to The New York Times, the daughter of Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar was among those detained and she has been ordered to appear in court.

    The students were calling for the school, which has an exchange program with Tel Aviv University, to boycott all activities associated with Israel in light of the country’s war with Hamas and the ensuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

    University president Nemat Shafik requested police intervention to disperse the protesters, who she said had violated campus security regulations.

    Universities have become the focus of intense cultural debate in the United States since the October 7 attack and Israeli genocide in Gaza, as many students’ pro-Palestinian sentiments drew accusations of anti-Semitism.

    Congressional Republicans have taken up the issue, calling the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University to testify, and Harvard’s president Claudine Gay resigned shortly after.

    Shafik herself appeared in Congress Wednesday, where she said “anti-Semitism has no place on our campus.”

  • Google fires 28 workers protesting contracts with Israel

    Google fires 28 workers protesting contracts with Israel

    New York, United States – Google fired 28 employees following a sit-down protest over the tech giant’s contract with the Israeli government, a Google spokesperson said Thursday.

    The Tuesday demonstration was organized by the group “No Tech for Apartheid,” which has long opposed “Project Nimbus,” Google’s joint $1.2 billion contract with Amazon to provide cloud services to the government of Israel.

    Video of the demonstration showed police arresting Google workers in Sunnyvale, California, in the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian’s, according to a post by the advocacy group on X, formerly Twitter.

    Kurian’s office was occupied for 10 hours, the advocacy group said.

    Workers held signs including “Googlers against Genocide,” a reference to accusations surrounding Israel’s attacks on Gaza.

    “No Tech for Apartheid,” which also held protests in New York and Seattle, pointed to an April 12 Time magazine article reporting a draft contract of Google billing the Israeli Ministry of Defense more than $1 million for consulting services.

    A “small number” of employees “disrupted” a few Google locations, but the protests are “part of a longstanding campaign by a group of organizations and people who largely don’t work at Google,” a Google spokesperson said.

    “After refusing multiple requests to leave the premises, law enforcement was engaged to remove them to ensure office safety,” the Google spokesperson said. “We have so far concluded individual investigations that resulted in the termination of employment for 28 employees, and will continue to investigate and take action as needed.”

    Israel is one of “numerous” governments for which Google provides cloud computing services, the Google spokesperson said.

    “This work is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services,” the Google spokesperson said.

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    © Agence France-Presse

  • US says new sanctions on Iran coming soon

    US says new sanctions on Iran coming soon

    The United States said Tuesday it would soon impose new sanctions on Iran’s missile and drone program after its retaliatory attack on Israel, and that it expects its allies and partners to follow with parallel measures.

    US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s announcement came after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen indicated punitive measures were in the works, and European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said his office was working on it.

    Iran sent more than 300 missiles, drones and rockets at Israel over the weekend, in what it said was retaliation for a deadly strike on Tehran’s consulate in Damascus. Nearly all of the projectiles were intercepted, and there was little damage.

    “In the coming days, the United States will impose new sanctions targeting Iran, including its missile and drone program” as well as the Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian defense ministry, Sullivan said in a statement.

    “We anticipate that our allies and partners will soon be following with their own sanctions,” he added.

    “These new sanctions and other measures will continue a steady drumbeat of pressure to contain and degrade Iran’s military capacity and effectiveness and confront the full range of its problematic behaviors.”

    US authorities have been using economic tools to counter Iran’s activities, taking aim at its drone and missile programs, as well as its financing of groups like Hamas, which launched its own attack on Israel on October 7.

    Earlier, Yellen previewed the sanctions, telling reporters: “Iran’s actions threaten the region’s stability and could cause economic spillovers.”

    The Treasury will not hesitate to work with US allies to “use our sanctions authority to continue disrupting the Iranian regime’s malign and destabilizing activity,” she said.

    She added that “all options to disrupt terrorist financing” will be on the table.

    ‘More that we could do’

    Months of Israeli genocide in Gaza have triggered violence in the region involving Iranian proxies and allies who say they are acting in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

    But tensions have soared even higher with Tehran’s first direct assault on Israel, which has prompted appeals for de-escalation by world leaders fearing wider conflict.

    Yellen did not offer specifics on the possible measures to be taken, but said Washington has been working to diminish Iran’s ability to export oil, adding there might be “more that we could do.”

    The United States is also looking to work with G7 partners and countries including China to constrain Iran’s ability to access goods needed to build weapons, a senior Treasury official told reporters.

    “We’re going to have conversations with all major suppliers around the world,” the official said.

    In Brussels, Borrell said after an emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers that some member states had proposed “the adoption of expanded restrictive measures against Iran” and that his office would begin preparatory work.

    “We have to move away from the edge of the abyss,” Borrell said.

    Sullivan said that Washington had sanctioned more than 600 Iran-linked individuals and entities “connected to terrorism, terrorist financing and other forms of illicit trade, horrific human rights abuses, and support for proxy terrorist groups.”

    “The pressure will continue,” he warned.

    “We will not hesitate to continue to take action, in coordination with allies and partners around the world, and with Congress, to hold the Iranian government accountable for its malicious and destabilizing actions.”

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    © Agence France-Presse

  • UN agency finds unexploded 1,000-pound bombs in Gaza schools

    UN agency finds unexploded 1,000-pound bombs in Gaza schools

    The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Tuesday it had found unexploded 1,000-pound bombs inside schools after Israel pulled troops out of southern Gaza’s main city Khan Yunis.

    The Israeli army has carried out relentless air strikes and bombardments in Gaza since October 7 attacks.

    UN agencies led an “assessment mission” in Khan Yunis after Israeli forces withdrew from the embattled city last week, UNRWA said.

    It found “significant challenges in operating safely due to the presence of unexploded ordnance (UXOs), including 1,000-pound bombs inside schools and on roads”.

    “Thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) require a range of lifesaving assistance, including health, water and sanitation, and food,” it said.

    Earlier this month, the United Nations said it would take “millions of dollars and many years to decontaminate the (Gaza) Strip from unexploded munitions”.

    “We work off the rule of thumb that 10 percent of ordnance doesn’t function as designed,” UN Mine Action Service chief Charles Birch said in a statement earlier this month.

    “We estimate that, to begin the clearance of Gaza, we need around $45 million.”

    Israeli genocide in Gaza since October 7 has killed at least 33,843 people in the besieged strip, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry.

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    © Agence France-Presse

  • Five Palestinians sue Germany over weapons for Israel

    Five Palestinians sue Germany over weapons for Israel

    Five Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip have filed a legal complaint in Berlin against the German government over its delivery of weapons to Israel, an NGO representing them said Friday.

    The complaint seeks to “revoke the export licences issued by the German government for arms deliveries to Israel”, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) said in a statement.

    A spokeswoman for the administrative court in Berlin confirmed it received the complaint late Thursday. The five plaintiffs live in different parts of the Gaza Strip, including Rafah, the official added.

    The Palestinians are “challenging the authorisation already granted for the delivery of anti-tank weapons” and seeking to stop deliveries that have not yet been authorised, the spokeswoman said.

    The complaint is directed against the economy ministry, which now has two weeks to respond.

    The five Palestinians have all had family members killed in Israeli missile attacks since Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, according to the ECCHR.

    The plaintiffs say Berlin is failing to fulfil its obligations under international law, including the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention.

    “Germany cannot remain true to its values if it exports weapons to a war in which serious violations of international humanitarian law are evident,” said Wolfgang Kaleck, general secretary of the ECCHR.

    Germany is the second biggest arms exporter to Israel after the US, accounting for 30 percent of imports between 2019 and 2023, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

    Berlin is facing a case in the International Court of Justice in which Nicaragua says it is in breach of the UN Genocide Convention, set up after the Holocaust.

    On Tuesday, Berlin’s representatives insisted that Germany supplied arms only “on the basis of detailed scrutiny… that far exceeds the requirements of international law”.

    Israeli genocide in Gaza Strip has killed more than 33,000 people since October 7, according to the Gaza health ministry.

  • How humanitarian aid reaches war-torn Gaza

    How humanitarian aid reaches war-torn Gaza

    Most aid bound for war-ravaged Gaza arrives overland from neighbouring Egypt but Israel and UN agencies clash on how much actually makes it inside the Palestinian territory.

    The volume of aid entering Gaza by road each day through the Rafah crossing from Egypt is insufficient, aid workers say, blaming rigorous Israeli inspections at least in part.

    With no truce in sight to pause the Israel-Hamas war, here is a look at how aid currently reaches Gaza and what alternatives are being weighed to alleviate the crisis in the besieged Palestinian territory.

    First stop: Egypt

    Most Gaza-bound goods arrive by sea in the Egyptian ports of Port Said or El-Arish.

    El-Arish is closer to Gaza but also smaller, and was quickly overwhelmed by the volume of shipments arriving, aid groups say.

    Israeli authorities, who have blockaded Gaza since Hamas took sole control of the Palestinian territory in 2007, require that all aid entering Gaza be inspected by them.

    The main inspection area for goods is Kerem Shalom in southern Israel, not far from the Rafah crossing.

    Another inspection area exists in Nitzana, on the Israeli-Egyptian border about 40 kilometres (25 miles) to the southeast.

    Long wait for trucks

    Before reaching the inspection areas, many aid trucks wait for days at the Egyptian side of the Rafah checkpoint.

    Once inspected, goods that are cleared to enter by Israel are unloaded from the mostly Egyptian trucks in the zone between Egypt and Gaza.

    The supplies are then loaded onto separate vehicles, driven by Gazans working for aid groups, for distribution inside the Palestinian territory.

    Cumbersome screenings are a major reason shortages are so glaring, aid workers say.

    Israel blames a lack of sufficient capacity on the Palestinian side to distribute the aid once it gets in.

    In recent days, Israel took issue with UN figures on the number of trucks entering Gaza, accusing UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA of counting only trucks it had processed, not those processed by Israel.

    Heading north

    For months, aid groups and foreign governments including top ally the United States have urged Israel to reopen border crossings into the north of Gaza, where the humanitarian crisis is most severe.

    Israel announced that six World Food Programme (WFP) aid trucks entered the north directly from its territory in early March, in what it described as a “pilot project”.

    The trial was not extended, however, and aid convoys bound for northern Gaza must travel the length of the territory negotiating battlegrounds, Israeli bombardments and mobs of desperate civilians.

    In March, the WFP said one of its convoys had been blocked by Israeli forces inside Gaza before it could reach the north.

    After turning back, the agency said the convoy was looted by a “crowd of desperate people”.

    According to Israeli authorities, 28 trucks reached northern Gaza on Wednesday.

    They were among 298 trucks that Israel said entered Gaza on Wednesday, still far below the number aid groups say is needed to sustain the territory’s 2.4 million people.

    Under pressure from the international community, Israel announced on April 5 that it would open a new crossing directly into northern Gaza, without specifying its exact location or when it would open.

    By air and by sea

    In a bid to get round the logjam, several Arab and European governments, later joined by Washington, began carrying out aid airdrops over Gaza, particularly the north.

    But the airdrops have proved controversial, with multiple deaths among civilians on the ground who were crushed by aid crates when parachutes failed to open, or drowned trying to reach others accidentally dropped in the sea.

    There has also been an attempt to establish a maritime aid corridor from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus but it has largely fizzled out after seven aid workers were killed by Israeli fire on April 1 as they unloaded food from the second flotilla to make the crossing.

    Even though the Cypriot government insists it has not given up on the aid corridor, no further crossings are currently planned after the US and Spanish charities behind the first two suspended their operations in the region.

    UN agencies have in any case said repeatedly that road convoys are the only practical way of meeting Gaza’s needs.