An Australian author whose award-winning book about Israel’s military and surveillance industry has swept the world is scathing about a controversial Gaza transit company.

Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory, a book about how Israel tests arms and surveillance technologies in the illegal occupation of Palestine, says the shadowy scheme carrying Palestinians to South Africa or other countries was waging “disaster capitalism”.

He said the Al-Majd Europe outfit that reportedly flew 153 people from Gaza to South Aftica could have been operating for weeks or months before being noticed.

Commenting on this mysterious flight carrying people from Gaza that transited through Kenya’s capital Nairobi and ended up in South Africa, Loewenstein told Al Jazeera from Indonesia’s capital Jakarta that there had been rumours about companies making such flights.

He said such flights apparently “requires Israeli permission as well as other countries’ permissions”.

“South Africa was apparently the final destination, considering it is one of the most pro-Palestine countries on the planet,” he said.

Lowenstein said there were “no names or associations” on the “incredibly strange” company website, which “almost looks like it was created by AI”, calling what it does “disaster capitalism” – a theme of one of his earlier books.

‘Making money out of misery’
“This is the concept of people making money out of other people’s misery,” Loewenstein said.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Foreign Affairs Ministry has warned against groups exploiting Gaza’s humanitarian crisis for human trafficking in the wake of the mysterious arrival of 153 people from Gaza in South Africa this week.

The ministry warned that “companies and entities that mislead our people, incite them to deportation or displacement or engage in human trafficking and exploit their tragic and catastrophic humanitarian conditions will bear the legal consequences of their unlawful actions and will be subject to prosecution and accountability.”

In a statement, the ministry also urged Palestinian families in Gaza “to exercise caution and avoid falling prey to human trafficking networks, blood merchants, and displacement agents”.

The departure of people from Gaza to South Africa was closely coordinated with Israeli authorities.

Everything started with an advertised post from the Al-Majd Europe organisation promising to safely evacuate Palestinian families outside the Gaza Strip, so many Palestinians filled in their applications and were waiting for a call from the organisation.

The situation in Gaza has pushed Palestinians to pay whatever they could to leave the Strip.

‘They lost everything’
“They have lost everything. They lost their houses, and they believe that they do not have any future here,” an Al Jazeera reporter said.

The television channel also said Gazans who used the transit company were forced to pay up to US$5000 to enable them to cross the so-called “yellow line” and be driven from Karem Abu Salem crossing to Ramon airport in southern Israel.

This is a risky move because at least 200 Palestinians have been killed since the October ceasefire for crossing the yellow line. So the operation would have required Israeli military cooperation.

The Gazans were then flown to Nairobi in Kenyan on a Romanian aircraft and transferred to a flight to Johannesburg where border officials held them for 12 hours because they reportedly did not have Israeli exit stamps in their passports.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

Secretary of War™ Pete Hegseth said during a speech on Friday that the US is at “a 1939 moment” of “mounting urgency” in which “enemies gather, threats grow,” adding, “We are not building for peacetime. We are pivoting the Pentagon and our industrial base to a wartime footing.”

Everything’s getting darker and creepier in the shadow of the empire.

Nate Bear has a report out on his newsletter titled “The AI Drones Used In Gaza Now Surveilling American Cities” about a new company called Skydio which “in the last few years has gone from relative obscurity to quietly become a multi-billion dollar company and the largest drone manufacturer in the US”.

Bear reports that Skydio now has contracts with police departments in almost every large US city to use these Gaza-tested drones for surveillance of American civilians.

Hegseth: “We are not building for peacetime. We are pivoting the Pentagon and our industrial base to a wartime footing. Building for victory should our adversaries FAFO.” pic.twitter.com/eoxhgZh7sZ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 7, 2025

Haaretz reports that Israel’s efforts to manipulate American minds back into supporting the Zionist entity include pouring millions into influence operations targeting Christian churchgoers and efforts to change responses to Palestine-related queries on popular AI services like ChatGPT.

It’s crazy how you can literally just be minding your own business in your own church on a Sunday morning and then suddenly find yourself getting throat fucked by propaganda paid for by the state of Israel.

The Intercept reports that YouTube, which is owned by Google, quietly deleted more than 700 videos documenting Israel’s atrocities in Gaza in a purge of pro-Palestine human rights groups from the platform.

Mass Silicon Valley deletions like this combined with the sudden influx of fake AI-generated video content polluting the information ecosystem could serve to erase and obfuscate the evidence of the Gaza holocaust for future generations.

The US empire keeps getting creepier      Video: Caitlin Johnstone

A new report from Reuters says that last year the US had intelligence showing Israel’s own lawyers warning that the IDF’s mass atrocities in the Gaza Strip could result in war crimes charges. This is yet more evidence that the Biden administration knew it was backing a genocide the entire time, including during election season when left-leaning Americans were being told they needed to vote for then-Vice President Kamala Harris if they wanted to save Gaza.

In Italy, a journalist was fired from the news agency Nova for asking an EU official if she thought Israel should be responsible for the reconstruction of Gaza in the same way she has said Russia should have to fund the reconstruction of Ukraine.

A Nova spokesperson confirmed to The Intercept that the journalist was indeed fired for asking the inconvenient question on the basis that “Russia had invaded a sovereign country unprovoked, whereas Israel was responding to an attack.”

Reuters reports that the US is preparing to establish a military base in Damascus. For years the empire waged a complex regime change operation in Syria to oust Assad, first by backing proxy forces to destroy the country and then via sanctions and US military occupation to prevent reconstruction.

And it worked. The empire’s dirty war in Syria will be cited by warmongering swamp monsters for years to come as evidence that regime change interventionism can succeed if you just stick at it and do whatever evil things need to be done.

These are just a few of the disturbing stories from the last few days that I hadn’t had a chance to write about yet. This is the kind of world we are being offered by the US empire. There is nothing on the menu for us but more war, more genocide, more surveillance, more censorship, more tyranny, and more abuse.

Things are going to keep getting more and more dystopian for everyone who lives under the thumb of the imperial power structure until enough of us decide that the empire needs to end.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

So here we are, 2025, and Israel has finally achieved what no terrorist group, no hostile neighbour, no antisemitic tyrant ever could: it has become the most dangerous country on earth — for its own people.

Not because of rockets or boycotts, but because its government has decided that the only way to secure the future is to annihilate everyone else’s.

The Zionist project — once sold as a miraculous refuge for a persecuted people — now stands revealed as a 70‑year experiment in ethnic cleansing, wrapped in biblical entitlement and armed with American money.

The current phase? Bulldozers in the West Bank, tanks in Gaza, and a prime minister whose personal survival depends on keeping his citizens permanently terrified and morally anesthetised.

Netanyahu and his coalition of zealots have at last clarified Israel’s mission statement: kill or expel two million Palestinians, and call it “security.”

Reduce Gaza to rubble, herd the survivors into tents, and then — here’s the punchline — offer them “resettlement packages” in Libya or South Sudan, as though genocide could be rebranded as humanitarian outsourcing.

And the world? Still dithering over whether to call this behaviour “problematic.” As if sanctions and isolation are reserved only for the unlucky states without lobbyists in Washington or friends in European parliaments.

Israel is begging to be treated as a pariah, but we keep dressing it up as a partner.

The most awkward truth of all: Jews in the diaspora now face a choice. Condemn this grotesque betrayal of Jewish history, or keep defending the indefensible until Israel itself becomes the nightmare prophecy it was meant to escape.

Richard David Hames is an American philosopher-activist, strategic adviser, entrepreneur and mentor and he publishes The Hames Report on Substack.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

As Israel unveils its final genocide push, and mass death from starvation looms in Gaza, Western media and politicians are tentatively starting to speak up

ANALYSIS: By Jonathan Cook

Who could have imagined 19 months ago that it would take more than a year and a half of Israel slaughtering and starving Gaza’s children for the first cracks to appear in what has been a rock-solid wall of support for Israel from Western establishments.

Finally, something looks like it may be about to give.

The British establishment’s financial daily, The Financial Times, was first to break ranks last week to condemn “the West’s shameful silence” in the face of Israel’s murderous assault on the tiny enclave.

In an editorial — effectively the paper’s voice– the FT accused the United States and Europe of being increasingly “complicit” as Israel made Gaza “uninhabitable”, an allusion to genocide, and noted that the goal was to “drive Palestinians from their land”, an allusion to ethnic cleansing.

Of course, both of these grave crimes by Israel have been evidently true not only since Hamas’ violent, single-day breakout from Gaza on 7 October 2023, but for decades.

So parlous is the state of Western reporting, from a media no less complicit than the governments berated by the FT, that we need to seize on any small signs of progress.

Next, The Economist chimed in, warning that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers were driven by a “dream of emptying Gaza and rebuilding Jewish settlements there”.

‘Deafening silence on Gaza’
At the weekend, The Independent decided the “deafening silence on Gaza” had to end. It was “time for the world to wake up to what is happening and to demand an end to the suffering of the Palestinians trapped in the enclave”.

Actually much of the world woke up many, many months ago. It has been the Western press corps and Western politicians slumbering through the past 19 months of genocide.

Then on Monday, the supposedly liberal Guardian voiced in its own editorial a fear that Israel is committing “genocide”, though it only dared do so by framing the accusation as a question.

It wrote of Israel: “Now it plans a Gaza without Palestinians. What is this, if not genocidal? When will the US and its allies act to stop the horror, if not now?”

The paper could more properly have asked a different question: Why have Israel’s Western allies — as well as media like The Guardian and FT — waited 19 months to speak up against the horror?

And, predictably bringing up the rear, was the BBC. On Wednesday, the BBC Radio’s PM programme chose to give top billing to testimony from Tom Fletcher, the United Nation’s humanitarian affairs chief, to the Security Council. Presenter Evan Davis said the BBC had decided to “do something a little unusual”.

Unusual indeed. It played Fletcher’s speech in full — all 12 and a half minutes of it. That included Fletcher’s comment: “For those killed and those whose voices are silenced: what more evidence do you need now? Will you act — decisively — to prevent genocide and to ensure respect for international humanitarian law?”

‘Genocide’ from taboo to mainstream
We had gone in less than a week from the word “genocide” being taboo in relation to Gaza to it becoming almost mainstream.

Cracks are evident in the British Parliament too. Mark Pritchard, a Conservative MP and life-long Israel supporter, stood up from the back benches to admit he had been wrong about Israel, and condemned it “for what it is doing to the Palestinian people”.

He was one of more than a dozen Tory MPs and peers in the House of Lords, all formerly staunch defenders of Israel, who urged British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to immediately recognise a Palestinian state.

Their move followed an open letter published by 36 members of the Board of Deputies, a 300-member body that claims to represent British Jews, dissenting from its continuing support for the slaughter. The letter warned: “Israel’s soul is being ripped out.”

Pritchard told fellow MPs it was time to “stand up for humanity, for us being on the right side of history, for having the moral courage to lead.”

Sadly, there is no sign of that yet. Research published last week, based on Israeli tax authority data, showed Starmer’s government has been lying even about the highly limited restrictions on arms sales to Israel it claimed to have imposed last year.

Despite an ostensible ban on shipments of weapons that could be used in Gaza, Britain has covertly exported more than 8500 separate munitions to Israel since the ban.

More weapons details
This week more details emerged. According to figures published by The National, the current government exported more weapons to Israel in the final three months of last year, after the ban came into effect, than the previous Conservative government did through the whole of 2020 to 2023.

So shameful is the UK’s support for Israel in the midst of what the International Court of Justice — the World Court — has described as a “plausible genocide” that Starmer’s government needs to pretend it is doing something, even as it actually continues to arm that genocide.

More than 40 MPs wrote to Foreign Secretary David Lammy last week calling for him to respond to allegations that he had misled the public and Parliament. “The public deserves to know the full scale of the UK’s complicity in crimes against humanity,” they wrote.

There are growing rumblings elsewhere. This week French President Emmanuel Macron called Israel’s complete blockade on aid into Gaza “shameful and unacceptable”. He added: “My job is to do everything I can to make it stop.”

“Everything” seemed to amount to nothing more than mooting possible economic sanctions.

Still, the rhetorical shift was striking. Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, similarly denounced the blockade, calling it “unjustifiable”. She added: “I have always recalled the urgency of finding a way to end the hostilities and respect international law and international humanitarian law.”

“International law”? Where has that been for the past 19 months?

Similar change of priorities
There was a similar change of priorities across the Atlantic. Democratic Senator Chris van Hollen, for example, recently dared to call Israel’s actions in Gaza “ethnic cleansing”.

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, a bellwether of the Beltway consensus, gave Israel’s deputy Foreign Minister, Sharren Haskel, an unusually tough grilling. Amanpour all but accused her of lying about Israel starving children.

Meanwhile, Josep Borrell, the recently departed head of European Union foreign policy, broke another taboo last week by directly accusing Israel of preparing a genocide in Gaza.

“Seldom have I heard the leader of a state so clearly outline a plan that fits the legal definition of genocide,” he said, adding: “We’re facing the largest ethnic cleansing operation since the end of the Second World War.”

Borrell, of course, has no influence over EU policy at this point.

This is all painfully slow progress, but it does suggest that a tipping point may be near.

If so, there are several reasons. One — the most evident in the mix — is US President Donald Trump.

It was easier for The Guardian, the FT and old-school Tory MPs to watch the extermination of Gaza’s Palestinians in silence when it was kindly Uncle Joe Biden and the US military industrial complex behind it.

Trump forgets ‘his bit’
Unlike his predecessor, Trump too often forgets the bit where he is supposed to put a gloss on Israeli crimes, or distance the US from them, even as Washington ships the weapons to carry out those crimes.

But also, there are plenty of indications that Trump — with his constant craving to be seen as the top dog — is increasingly annoyed at being publicly outfoxed by Netanyahu.

This week, as Trump headed to the Middle East, his administration secured the release of Israeli soldier Edan Alexander, the last living US citizen in captivity in Gaza, by bypassing Israel and negotiating directly with Hamas.

In his comments on the release, Trump insisted it was time to “put an end to this very brutal war” — a remark he had very obviously not coordinated with Netanyahu.

Notably, Israel is not on Trump’s Middle East schedule.

Right now seems a relatively safe moment to adopt a more critical stance towards Israel, as presumably the FT and Guardian appreciate.

Then there is the fact that Israel’s genocide is reaching its endpoint. No food, water or medicines have entered Gaza for more than two months. Everyone is malnourished. It is unclear, given Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s health system, how many have already died from hunger.

Skin-and-bones children
But the pictures of skin-and-bones children emerging from Gaza are uncomfortably reminiscent of 80-year-old images of skeletal Jewish children imprisoned in Nazi camps.

It is a reminder that Gaza — strictly blockaded by Israel for 16 years before Hamas’ 7 October 2023 breakout — has been transformed over the past 19 months from a concentration camp into a death camp.

Parts of the media and political class know mass death in Gaza cannot be obscured for much longer, not even after Israel has barred foreign journalists from the enclave and murdered most of the Palestinian journalists trying to record the genocide.

Cynical political and media actors are trying to get in their excuses before it is too late to show remorse.

And finally there is the fact that Israel has declared its readiness to take hands-on responsibility for the extermination in Gaza by, in its words, “capturing” the tiny territory.

The long-anticipated “day after” looks like it is about to arrive.

For 20 years, Israel and Western capitals have conspired in the lie that Gaza’s occupation ended in 2005, when Israel’s then prime minister, Ariel Sharon, pulled out a few thousand Jewish settlers and withdrew Israeli soldiers to a highly fortified perimeter encaging the enclave.

Always under Israeli occupation
In a ruling last year, the World Court gave this claim short shrift, emphasising that Gaza, as well as the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, had never stopped being under Israeli occupation, and that the occupation must end immediately.

The truth is that, even before the 2023 Hamas attacks, Israel had been besieging Gaza by land, sea and air for many, many years. Nothing — people or trade — went in or out without the Israeli military’s say-so.

Israeli officials instituted a secret policy of putting the population there on a strict “diet” – a war crime then as now — one that ensured most of Gaza’s young became progressively more malnourished.

Drones whined constantly overhead, as they do now, watching the population from the skies 24 hours a day and occasionally raining down death. Fishermen were shot and their boats sunk for trying to fish their own waters. Farmers’ crops were destroyed by herbicides sprayed from Israeli planes.

And when the mood took it, Israel sent in fighter jets to bomb the enclave or sent soldiers in on military operations, killing hundreds of civilians at a time.

When Palestinians in Gaza went out week after week to stage protests close to the perimeter fence of their concentration camp, Israeli snipers shot them, killing some 200 and crippling many thousands more.

Yet, despite all this, Israel and Western capitals insisted on the story that Hamas “ruled” Gaza, and that it alone was responsible for what went on there.

Fiction important to West
“That fiction was very important to the Western powers. It allowed Israel to evade accountability for the crimes against humanity committed in Gaza over the past two decades – and it allowed the West to avoid complicity charges for arming the criminals.

Instead, the political and media class perpetuated the myth that Israel was engaged in a “conflict” with Hamas — as well as intermittent “wars” in Gaza — even as Israel’s own military termed its operations to destroy whole neighbourhoods and kill their residents “mowing the lawn”.

Israel, of course, viewed Gaza as its lawn to mow. And that is precisely because it never stopped occupying the enclave.

Even today Western media outlets collude in the fiction that Gaza is free from Israeli occupation by casting the slaughter there — and the starvation of the population — as a “war”.

But the “day after” — signalled by Israel’s promised “capture” and “reoccupation” of Gaza — brings a conundrum for Israel and its Western sponsors.

Until now Israel’s every atrocity has been justified by Hamas’ violent breakout on 7 October 2023.

Israel and its supporters have insisted that Hamas must return the Israelis it took captive before there can be some undefined “peace”. At the same time, Israel has also maintained that Gaza must be destroyed at all costs to root out Hamas and eliminate it.

Goals never looked consistent
These two goals never looked consistent — not least because the more Palestinian civilians Israel killed “rooting out” Hamas, the more young men Hamas recruited seeking vengeance.

The constant stream of genocidal rhetoric from Israeli leaders made clear that they believed there were no civilians in Gaza — not “uninvolved” –– and that the enclave should be levelled and the population treated like “human animals”, punished with “no food, water or fuel”.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich reiterated that approach last week, vowing that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed” and that its people would be ethnically cleansed — or, as he put it, forced to “leave in great numbers to third countries”.

Israeli officials have echoed him, threatening to “flatten” Gaza if the hostages are not released. But in truth, the captives held by Hamas are just a convenient pretext.

Smotrich was more honest in observing that the hostages’ release was “not the most important thing”. His view is apparently shared by the Israeli military, which has reportedly put that aim last in a list of six “war” objectives.

More important to the military are “operational control” of Gaza, “demilitarization of the territory” and “concentration and movement of the population”.

With Israel about to be indisputably, visibly in direct charge of Gaza again — with the cover stories stripped away of a “war”, of the need to eliminate of Hamas, of civilian casualties as “collateral damage” — Israel’s responsibility for the genocide will be incontestable too, as will the West’s active collusion.

Mossad agents’ letter
That was why more than 250 former officials with Mossad, Israel’s spy agency — including three of its former heads — signed a letter this week decrying Israel’s breaking of the ceasefire in early March and its return to “war”.

The letter called Israel’s official objectives “unattainable”.

Similarly, the Israeli media reports large numbers of Israel’s military reservists are no longer showing up when called for a return to duty in Gaza.

Israel’s western patrons must now grapple with Israel’s “plan” for the ruined territory. Its outline has been coming more sharply into focus in recent days.

In January Israel formally outlawed the United Nations refugee agency Unrwa that feeds and cares for the large proportion of the Palestinian population driven off their historic lands by Israel in earlier phases of its decades-long colonisation of historic Palestine.

Gaza is packed with such refugees – the outcome of Israel’s biggest ethnic cleansing programme in 1948, at its creation as a “Jewish state”.

Removing Unrwa had been a long-held ambition, a move by Israel designed to help rid it of the yoke of aid agencies that have been caring for Palestinians – and thereby helping them to resist Israel’s efforts at ethnic cleansing – as well as monitoring Israel’s adherence, or rather lack of it, to international law.

Private contractor scheme
For the ethnic cleansing and genocide programmes in Gaza to be completed, Israel has needed to produce an alternative system to Unrwa’s.

Last week, it approved a scheme in which it intends to use private contractors, not the UN, to deliver small quantities of food and water to Palestinians. Israel will allow in 60 trucks a day — barely a tenth of the absolute minimum required, according to the UN.

There are several catches. To stand any hope of qualifying for this very limited aid, Palestinians will need to collect it from military distribution points located in a small area at the southern tip of the Gaza strip.

In other words, some two million Palestinians will have to crowd into a location that has no chance of accommodating them all, and even then will have only a tenth of the aid they need.

They will have to relocate too without any guarantee from Israel that it won’t continue bombing the “humanitarian zones” they have been herded into.

These military distribution zones just so happen to be right next to Gaza’s sole, short border with Egypt — exactly where Israel has been seeking to drive the Palestinians over the past 19 months in the hope of forcing Egypt to open the border so the people of Gaza can be ethnically cleansed into Sinai.

Under Israel’s scheme, Palestinians will be screened in these military hubs using biometric data before they stand any hope of receiving minimum calorie-controlled handouts of food.

Once inside the hubs, they can be arrested and shipped off to one of Israel’s torture camps.

Torture and abuse rife
Just last week Israel’s Haaretz newspaper published testimony from an Israeli soldier turned whistleblower — confirming accounts from doctors and other guards — that torture and abuse are rife against Palestinians, including civilians, at Sde Teiman, the most notorious of the camps.

Last Friday, shortly after Israel announced its “aid” plan, it fired a missile into an Unrwa centre in Jabaliya camp, destroying its food distribution centre and warehouse.

Then on Saturday, Israel bombed tents used for preparing food in Khan Younis and Gaza City. It has been targeting charity kitchens and bakeries to close them down, in an echo of its campaign of destruction against Gaza’s hospitals and health system.

In recent days, a third of UN-supported community kitchens — the population’s last life line — have closed because their stores of food are depleted, as is their access to fuel.

According to the UN agency OCHA, that number is rising “by the day”, leading to “widespread” hunger.

Facing ‘catastrophic hunger’
The UN reported this week that nearly half a million people in Gaza — a fifth of the population — faced “catastrophic hunger”.

Predictably, Israel and its ghoulish apologists are making light of this sea of immense suffering. Jonathan Turner, chief executive of UK Lawyers for Israel, argued that critics were unfairly condemning Israel for starving Gaza’s population, and ignoring the health benefits of reducing “obesity” among Palestinians.

In a joint statement last week, 15 UN agencies and more than 200 charities and humanitarian groups denounced Israel’s “aid” plan. The UN children’s fund Unicef warned that Israel was forcing Palestinians to choose between “displacement and death”.

But worse, Israel is setting up its stall once again to turn reality on its head.

Those Palestinians who refuse to cooperate with its “aid” plan will be blamed for their own starvation. And international agencies who refuse to go along with Israeli criminality will be smeared both as “antisemitic” and as responsible for the mounting toll of starvation on Gaza’s population.

There is a way to stop these crimes degenerating further. But it will require Western politicians and journalists to find far more courage than they have dared muster so far. It will need more than rhetorical flourishes. It will need more than public handwringing.

Are they capable of more? Don’t hold your breath.

Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist. He was based in Nazareth, Israel, for 20 years and returned to the UK in 2021. He is the author of three books on the Israel-Palestine conflict, including Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (2008). In 2011, Cook was awarded the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism for his work on Palestine and Israel. This article was first published in Middle East Eye and is republished with the author’s permission.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

Journalists gathered at Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital expressed outrage and confusion about the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) decision to shut down Al Jazeera’s office in the occupied West Bank.

“Shutting down a major outlet like Al Jazeera is a crime against journalism,” said freelance journalist Ikhlas al-Qarnawi.

“Al Jazeera coverage has documented Israeli crimes against Palestinians, especially during the ongoing genocide,” the 28-year-old journalist told Al Jazeera at the hospital, the most reliable internet connection in the Strip to file stories from.

Yesterday, the PA temporarily suspended Al Jazeera in the occupied West Bank for what they described as broadcasting “inciting material and reports that were deceiving and stirring strife” in the country.

The decision came after Fatah, the Palestinian faction which dominates the PA, banned Al Jazeera from reporting from the governorates of Jenin, Tubas and Qalqilya in the occupied West Bank, citing its coverage of clashes between the Palestinian security forces and Palestinian armed groups in the area.

Al Jazeera criticised the PA ban, saying the move is “in line with the [Israeli] occupation’s actions against its staff”.

‘Obscuring the truth’
Since the beginning of the war, about 150 journalists have been working from the journalists’ tents at Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital, for 20 local, international and Arab media outlets.

Journalists, including those from Al Jazeera, have been forced to work from hospitals after their headquarters and media offices were destroyed.

PA decision ‘shocking but hardly surprising’.   Video: Al Jazeera

Al-Aqsa TV correspondent Mohammed Issa said from the hospital that the PA’s ban contradicts international laws that guarantee journalistic freedom and could further endanger journalists.

“The PA’s decision obscures the truth and undermines the Palestinian narrative, especially a leading network like Al Jazeera,” Issa said, adding that the ban reinforces Israel’s narrative that “justifies the targeting of Palestinian journalists”.

“All media workers in Gaza reject this decision that silences the largest Arab and global outlet during critical times in years.”

Wafaa Hajjaj, an independent journalist working with TRT and Sahat, said the ban made her both “sad” and “disappointed”.

“At a time when Israel is deliberately targeting and killing … journalists in Gaza, with our Jazeera colleagues at the forefront, with no international or institutional protection, the PA’s move in the West Bank comes to worsen the situation,” Hajjaj said as she and her team walked into the hospital to interview the wounded.

Israel has killed at least 217 journalists and media workers in Gaza since the beginning of its war on Gaza on October 7, 2023.

Four of them were Al Jazeera journalists: Samer Abudaqa, Hamza al-Dahdouh, Ismail al-Ghoul and Ahmed al-Louh.

‘Trust Al Jazeera will persist’
Although frustrated, Hajjaj told Al Jazeera that she was hopeful the PA would drop its ban “as soon as possible”.

“I trust Al Jazeera will persist despite all sanctions, as it has for years.”

Yousef Hassouna, a photojournalist with 22 years of experience, also criticised the shutting of Al Jazeera along with “any other media outlet” targeted by such bans.

“This is a violation against all of us Palestinian journalists,” he said, adding that Al Jazeera was “an essential platform” covering Israel’s war on Gaza.

“Now more than ever, we Palestinian journalists need international support and protection, not limitations or restrictions,” Hassouna said.

‘Critical mistakes’
Ismail al-Thawabtah, spokesperson for the government media bureau in Gaza, said the Palestinian Authority had committed two serious mistakes over the past few weeks.

“The first: the attack on Jenin and the resulting military confrontation with our honourable Palestinian people and the resistance forces, and the second: the closure of the Al Jazeera office,” he said, adding that the move represents “serious violations of freedom of the press”.

Al-Thawabtah said both incidents required the PA to conduct a comprehensive review of policies and positions in line with supreme national interests and respect for the “rights of our Palestinian people and their basic freedoms”.

As for the journalists gathered at Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital, they were united in their call to end the ban.

“We as journalists are completely against it. I hope that action will be taken to stop this decision immediately.” said the freelance journalist al-Qarnawi, adding that the ban hurts more than just journalists.

“Our Palestinian people are the biggest losers.”

Republished from Al Jazeera under Creative Commons.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

“It looks like Hiroshima. It looks like Germany at the end of World War Two,” says an Israeli-American historian and professor of holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University about the horrifying reality of Gaza.

Professor Omer Bartov, has described Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza as an “act of annihilation” of the Palestinian people, reports Middle East Eye.

Dr Bartov said that not only had Israeli forces been moving displaced Palestinians around the Gaza Strip but they had also been strategically bombing mosques, museums, hospitals, and anything that served the health or culture of a people — in an attempt to cleanse the entire area of Palestinians.

Al Jazeera reports that an Israeli drone attack on the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza targeted a group of people gathered at a phone charging and internet distribution point, killing three people.

According to a witness, this was the only point in the refugee camp where people trapped in the area charge their phones and connect to the internet to be in touch with family members who are displaced in the central and southern parts of the Gaza Strip.

This was not the first time that the Israeli military has carried out deliberate attacks on such connectivity points.

Houthis ballistic missile wounds 14
Meanwhile, a ballistic missile launched by the Houthis from Yemen has broken through Israeli defences above and below the Earth’s atmosphere before slamming into Tel Aviv, reports Israel’s public broadcaster Kan.

It said interceptors from the Arrow missile defence system were launched into the upper atmosphere after detecting the missile, but missed the target and failed to stop it before it entered Israeli territory.

As captured in numerous videos, two more interceptors were then fired in the lower atmosphere, also failing to shoot down the missile.

At least 14 people were wounded after a failed interception of the ballistic missile.

This was the third incident of its kind just this week. The Israeli army says it was now investigating why it was not intercepted and why this was such a significant failure.

Since the start of the war, the Houthis have launched more than 200 missiles, and more than 170 drones in support of the Palestinians in Gaza. The Houthis have said they would continue the attacks until Israel ends its war in the besieged enclave.

In July, there was a drone that evaded all Israeli air defences, no siren sounded, and it was able to detonate in the middle of Tel Aviv and kill one person.

This time, it was just one minute from the time the sirens rang until the moment of impact.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A Fiji solidarity group for the Palestinians has accused the Rabuka-led coalition government of “complicity” in Israel’s genocide and relentless war in Gaza that has killed more than 44,000 people — mostly women and children — over the past year.

The Fijians4Palestine have called on the Fiji government to “uphold the principles of peace, justice, and human rights that our nation cherishes”.

“We urge our leaders to use their diplomatic channels to advocate for a peaceful resolution to the conflict, to support international efforts in providing humanitarian aid to the affected regions, and to publicly express solidarity with the Palestinian people, reflecting the sentiments of many Fijians,” the movement said in a statement  marking the UN International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

The group said it was “ashamed that the Fiji government continues to vote for the genocide and occupation of Palestinians”.

It said that it expected the Fiji government to enforce arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s former defence minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.

The Fijians4Palestine group’s statement said:

It has been over one year since Israel began its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Over the past year, Israeli attacks have killed more than 44,000 Palestinians living in Gaza, equal to 1 out of every 55 people living there.

At least 16,756 children have been killed, the highest number of children recorded in a single year of conflict over the past two decades. More than 17,000 children have lost one or both parents.

At least 97,303 people are injured in Gaza — equal to one in 23 people.

According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, every day 10 children lose one or both legs, with operations and amputations conducted with little or no anaesthesia due to Israel’s ongoing siege.

In addition to the killed and injured, more than 10,000 people are feared buried under the rubble.

With few tools to remove rubble and rescue those trapped beneath concrete, volunteers and civil defence workers rely on their bare hands.

We, the #Fijians4Palestine Solidarity Network join the global voices demanding a permanent ceasefire and an end to the violence. We express our unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The Palestinian struggle is not just a regional issue; it is a testament to the resilience of a people who, despite facing impossible odds, continue to fight for their right to exist, freedom, and dignity. Their struggle resonates with all who believe in justice, equality, and the fundamental rights of every human being.

Families torn apart
The images of destruction, the stories of families torn apart, and the cries of children caught in the crossfire are heart-wrenching. These are not mere statistics or distant news stories; these are real people with hopes, dreams, and aspirations, much like us.

As Fijians, we have always prided ourselves on our commitment to peace, unity, and humanity. Our rich cultural heritage and shared values teach us the importance of standing up for what is right, even when it is not popular or convenient.

Today, we stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, not out of political allegiance but out of a shared belief in humanity, justice, and the inalienable human rights of every individual.

We unequivocally condemn the State of Israel for its actions that amount to war crimes, genocide, and apartheid against the Palestinian people. The deliberate targeting of civilians, the disproportionate use of force, and the destruction of essential infrastructure, including hospitals and schools, are in clear violation of international humanitarian law.

The intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group is evident. The continuous displacement of Palestinians, the destruction of their homes, and the systematic erasure of their history and culture are indicative of genocidal intent.

The State of Israel’s policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, characterised by racial segregation, discrimination, and domination, amount to apartheid as defined under international law.

Oppressive regime
The construction of settlements, the separation wall, and the system of checkpoints are manifestations of this oppressive regime. Palestinians are subjected to different laws, regulations, and treatments based on their ethnicity, clearly violating the principle of equality.

We call upon the Fiji government to uphold the principles of peace, justice, and human rights that our nation cherishes. We urge our leaders to use their diplomatic channels to advocate for a peaceful resolution to the conflict, to support international efforts in providing humanitarian aid to the affected regions, and to publicly express solidarity with the Palestinian people, reflecting the sentiments of many Fijians.

We are ashamed that the Fiji government continues to vote for the genocide and occupation of Palestinians. We expect our government to enforce arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s former defence minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.

The silence of the Fiji government is complicity, and history will not forgive their inaction.

Our solidarity with the Palestinian people is a testament to our shared humanity. We believe in a world where diversity, is treated with dignity and respect. We dream of a future where children in Gaza can play without fear, where families can live without the shadow of war, and where the Palestinian people can finally enjoy the peace and freedom they so rightly deserve.

There can be no peace without justice, and we stand in unity with all people and territories struggling for self-determination and freedom from occupation.

The Pacific cannot be an Ocean of Peace without freedom and self determination in Palestine, West Papua, Kanaky and all oppressed territories.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

“Qatar will not accept that mediation be a reason for blackmailing it, as we have witnessed manipulation since the collapse of the first pause and the women and children exchange deal, especially in retreating from obligations agreed upon through mediation, and exploiting the continuation of negotiations to justify the continuation of the war to serve narrow political purposes,” he said in the statement posted on X.

Criticism aimed at Israel
Commentators on Al Jazeera pointed to the criticism being primarily aimed at Israel and the US.

Senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said Qatar had been spearheading the attempt at reaching a ceasefire “for so long now”.

“Clearly, there have been attempts by a number of parties, notably the Israelis, to undermine the process or abuse the process of diplomacy in order to continue the war.”

Earlier, Cindy McCain, executive director of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), said immediate steps must be taken to prevent an “all-out catastrophe” in northern Gaza where Israeli forces have maintained a monthlong siege on as many as 95,000 civilian residents amid its brutal military offensive in the area.

‘Unacceptable’ famine crisis
“The unacceptable is confirmed: Famine is likely happening in north Gaza,” McCain wrote on social media.

Steps must be taken immediately, McCain said, to allow the “safe, rapid [and] unimpeded flow of humanitarian [and] commercial supplies” to reach the besieged population in the north of the war-torn territory.

World Health Organisation Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has added his voice to rising concerns, saying on social media it was: “Deeply alarming.”

A group of global food security experts has reported that famine is likely “imminent within the northern Gaza Strip”.

Meanwhile, more than 50 countries have signed a letter urging the UN Security Council and General Assembly to take immediate steps to halt arms sales to Israel.

The letter accuses the Israeli government of not doing enough to protect the lives of civilians during its assault on Gaza, reports Al Jazeera.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian political leader and a former member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Executive Committee, says Israel’s “gangster style assassination and extrajudicial executions” are designed to “inflame the whole region”, reports Al Jazeera.

The killings of the Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut, Lebanon, were carried out to “sabotage any chances” of a ceasefire deal in Gaza and regional de-escalation, Ashrawi said.

Haniyeh was a chief Hamas negotiator for a ceasefire in Israel’s genocidal war and had built up formidable diplomatic credentials across the region.

While Israel and the United States regarded him as a “terrorist”, thousands mourned him across the Middle East yesterday, demonstrated huge and widespread support and respect.

“These are attacks not just on the capitals of sovereign states but also on significant leaders to ensure total provocation [and] destabilisation,” Ashrawi wrote on social media.

“Israel is a rogue state that represents a real [and] present danger globally,” she said.

‘Maddening and shameful’
Marking the 300th day of Israel’s war on Gaza yesterday, Palestinian-American scholar Noura Erakat said it was “maddening and shameful” that the world had not been able to stop one of the “grossest, most blatant colonial genocides”.

In a post on social media, Erakat said Israel’s genocide in Gaza had featured the use of advanced weapons as well as the spread of disease, “poisoning of the earth” as well as sexual assault and torture, reports Al Jazeera.

Israel’s genocide must be remembered for what it is, Erakat said, adding “we cannot afford to lose the next battle over narrative”.

“A blight on all humanity, to ascribe shame to all who let it happen [and] glory to those who fought so that the future indeed ensures: never again,” she said.

Day 300. Its maddening and shameful we have not been able to end one of the grossest, most blatant colonial #genocides feat disease, poisoning of the earth, sexual assualt, torture, & advanced weapons. This will end & we cannot afford to lose the next battle over narrative (1/2)

— Noura Erakat (@4noura) August 1, 2024

According to an analysis of data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), Israel is responsible for 17,081 incidents of air/drone raids, shelling/missile attacks, remote explosives and property destruction in eight countries since October 7, including the occupied Palestinian territory, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Iran and Iraq.

A majority of these attacks were on the Palestinian territory, specifically the Gaza Strip, with 10,389 incidents accounting for more than 60 percent of the total offensives.

There were at least 6,544 incidents of Israeli attacks on Lebanon (38 percent), followed by Syria with 144 such incidents recorded.

Haniyeh funeral final ceremonies in Qatar.           Video: Al Jazeera

Released 15 Palestinian prisoners tortured
Israeli forces have released 15 Palestinian prisoners into Gaza. They were dropped off at a military checkpoint near Deir el-Balah in central Gaza. Many spoke of abuse and torture while detained.

Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians during the war in Gaza and stands accused of numerous cases of torture, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights says in a new report.

The 23-page report, released on Wednesday, noted allegations of widespread abuse of prisoners being held incommunicado in arbitrary, prolonged detention.

It was published during a tense standoff in Israel as far-right politicians and demonstrators opposed an investigation into alleged sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees by Israeli soldiers.

The death toll in the genocidal war at the 300 day mark has topped 40,000 Palestinians, including more than 16,000 children.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Faruk Hanedar in Istanbul

“Women, children, and families have no food. They are trying to drink water from puddles. People are eating grass.”

— Kia Ora Gaza advocate Roger Fowler

New Zealand activist Roger Fowler has condemned the Israeli regime’s actions in the Gaza Strip, saying “this is definitely genocide”.

“The Israeli regime has not hidden its intention to destroy or displace the Palestinian people, especially those in Gaza, from the beginning,” he said.

“They are committing a terrible act — killing tens of thousands of people, injuring more, and destroying a large part of this beautiful country.”

The death toll from the Israeli War on Gaza topped 29,000 this week – mostly women and children – and there were reports of deaths from starvation.

Fowler demanded action to halt the attacks and expressed hope about the potential effect of the international Freedom Flotilla — a grassroots organisation working to end the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza.

He noted large-scale protests against Israel’s actions in Gaza and emphasised efforts to pressure governments, including through weekly protests in New Zealand to unequivocally condemn Israel’s actions as unacceptable.

Long-standing mistreatment
He stressed that the “tragedy” had extended beyond recent months, highlighting the long-standing mistreatment endured by Palestinians — particularly those in Gaza — for the last 75 years.

Fowler pointed out the dire situation that Gazans faced — confined to a small territory with restricted access to essential resources including food, medicine, construction materials and necessities.

He noted his three previous trips to Gaza with land convoys, where he demonstrated solidarity and observed the dire circumstances faced by the population.

“Boycott is a very effective action,” said Fowler, underlining the significance of boycotts, isolation and sanctions, while stressing the necessity of enhancing and globalising initiatives to end the blockade.

“I believe that boycotting has a great impact on pressuring not only major companies to withdraw from Israel and end their support, but also on making the Israeli government and our own governments understand that they need to stop what they are doing.”

Fowler also criticised the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) “genocide decision” for being ineffective due to the arrogance of those governing Israel.

South Africa brought a genocide case against Israel to the ICJ in December and asked for emergency measures to end Palestinian bloodshed in Gaza, where nearly 30,000 people have been killed since October 7.

World Court fell short
The World Court ordered Israel last month to take “all measures within its power” to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza but fell short of ordering a ceasefire.

It also ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective” measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance in the Gaza Strip.

Fowler said all nations must persistently advocate and exert pressure for adherence to decisions by the UN court.

Fowler acknowledged efforts by UN personnel but he has concerns about their limited resources in Gaza, citing the only avenue for change is for people to pressure authorities to stop the genocide and ensure Israel is held accountable.

“It’s definitely tragic and heartbreaking. Women, children, and families have no food. They are trying to drink water from puddles. People are eating grass. This is a very desperate situation. No one is talking about the children. Thousands of people are under the rubble, including small babies and children,” he said.

Roger Fowler is a Mangere East community advocate, political activist for social justuce in many issues, and an organiser of Kia Ora Gaza.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

South Africa has accused Israel of “genocidal intent” over its war on the besieged enclave Gaza Strip, and pleaded with judges at the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) to issue an interim order demanding Israel halt its military offensive in the embattled territory, reports Middle East Eye.

South African lawyer Adila Hassim told judges at The Hague that “genocides are never declared in advance, but this court has the benefit of the past 13 weeks of evidence that shows incontrovertibly a pattern of conduct and related intention that justifies as a plausible claim of genocidal acts”.

“Israel deployed 6000 bombs per week . . . No one is spared. Not even newborns.

UN chiefs have described it as a graveyard for children,” she said told the court on the opening session of the two-day preliminary hearing.

“Nothing will stop the suffering except an order from this court.”

Israel’s ongoing three-month war in Gaza has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, lawyers told the court.

Most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been displaced, and an Israeli blockade severely limiting food, fuel and medicine has caused a humanitarian “catastrophe”, according to the UN.

‘Genocidal in character’
South Africa submitted its case against Israel at the ICJ last month and has said Israel’s actions in Gaza are “genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group”.

Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, another South African lawyer and legal scholar at the hearing, said Pretoria was not alone in drawing attention to Israel’s genocidal rhetoric.

He said that at least 15 UN special rapporteurs and 21 members of the UN working groups had warned that what was happening in Gaza reflected a genocide in the making.

Video: Middle East Eye

Ngcukaitobi added that genocidal intent was evident in the way Israel’s military was conducting attacks, including the targeting of family homes and civilian infrastructure.

“Israel’s political leaders, military commanders and persons holding official positions have systematically and in explicit terms declared their genocidal intent.”

Ngcukaitobi said the “genocidal rhetoric” had become common within the Israeli Knesset, with several MPs calling for Gaza to be “wiped out, flattened, erased and crushed”.

Israeli defence
On Wednesday, Nissim Vaturi, a member of Israel’s ruling Likud party, said it was a “privilege” for his country to appear at The Hague as he doubled down on earlier remarks where he said there were “no innocent people” in Gaza.

This is the first time Israel is being tried under the United Nations’ Genocide Convention, which was drawn up after the Second World War in light of the atrocities committed against Jews and other persecuted minorities during the Holocaust.

During yesterday’s proceedings, Professor Max du Plessis, another lawyer representing South Africa, said Israel had subjected the Palestinian people to an oppressive and prolonged violation of their rights to self-determination for more than half a century.

Dr Du Plessis added that based on materials shown before the court, the acts of Israel were plausibly characterised as genocidal.

“South Africa’s obligation is motivated by the need to protect Palestinians in Gaza and their absolute rights not to be subjected to genocidal acts.”

Genocide cases, which are notoriously hard to prove, can take years to resolve, but South Africa is asking the court to speedily implement “provisional measures” and “order Israel to cease killing and causing serious mental and bodily harm to Palestinian people in Gaza”.

Thank you Madiba. Thank you South Africa. 🇿🇦 🇵🇸#ICJ #ICJGenocideConvention pic.twitter.com/9xjdSR40MI

— Dr. Omar Suleiman (@omarsuleiman504) January 11, 2024

Three hour hearing
Yesterday’s hearing consisted of three hours of detailed descriptions detailing what South Africa says is a clear example of genocide. Israel will today have three hours to respond on Friday.

The spokesperson of the Israeli Foreign Affairs, Lior Haiat, hit out at the comments made in the hearing, calling it “one of the greatest shows of hypocrisy,” and demonstrated “false and baseless claims.”

He also accused South Africa of “functioning as the legal arm of the Hamas terrorist organisation”.

As South Africa did in its 84-page legal filing ahead of the case, the country’s Minister of Justice Ronald Lamola repeated that he “unequivocally condemns Hamas” for the October 7 attack on southern Israel.

Republished from Middle East Eye.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Reporting Israel’s war on Gaza has become the greatest credibility challenge for journalists and media of our times. The latest assassination of an Al Jazeera photojournalist yesterday while documenting atrocities has prompted a leading analyst to appeal to global journalists to “take a stand” to protect the profession.

The killing of Hamza Dahdoud, the 27-year-old eldest son of Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, along with freelancer Mustafa Thuraya, has taken the death toll of Palestinian journalists to 109 (according to Al Jazeera sources while global media freedom watchdogs report slightly lower figures).

Emotional responses and a wave of condemnation has thrown the spotlight on the toll faced by reporters and their families.

Wael Dahdouh, 52, lost his wife, daughter, grandson and 15-year-old son on October 25 in an earlier Israeli air raid that hit the house they were sheltering in. After mourning for several hours, Dahdouh senior was back on the job documenting the war.

Just under 20 months ago, Al Jazeera’s best known correspondent, Shireen Abu Akleh, was fatally shot by an Israeli sniper while reporting on the Occupied West Bank on 11 May 2022 in what Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemned by saying this “systematic Israeli impunity is outrageous.”

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists protested about the killing of Hamza Dahdoud and Thuraya, saying it “must be independently investigated, and those behind their deaths must be held accountable”.

But few journalists would accept that this is anything other a targeted killing, as most of the deaths of Palestinian journalists in the latest Gaza war have been – a war on Palestinian journalism in an attempt to suppress the truth.

‘Nowhere safe in Gaza’
Certainly, Al Jazeera’s Palestinian-Israeli political affairs analyst and Marwan Bishara, who was born in Nazareth, has no doubts.

Speaking on the 24-hour Qatari world news channel, with at least 22,835 people killed in Gaza – 70 percent of them women and children — he said: “Nowhere is safe in Gaza and no journalists are safe . . . That tells us something.

“Killing the messenger”: Marwan Bishara’s interview with Al Jazeera — more tampering over the message? There is nothing “sensitive” in this clip.

“It is understood they are war journalists. But still the fact that more than 100 journalists were killed within three months is breaking yet another record in terms of killing children, and destruction of hospitals and schools, and the killing of United Nations staff.

“And now with 109 journalists killed this definitely requires a certain stand on the part of our colleagues around the world. Not just in a higher up institution.

“I am talking about journalists around the world – those who came to cover the World Cup in Doha for labour rights, or whatever. Those who are shedding tears in the Ukraine, those who are trying to cover Xinjiang in China [persecution of the Uyghur people], those who are claiming there are genocides happening right, left and centre – from China to Ukraine, to elsewhere.

“The same journalists who see in plain sight what is happening in Gaza should – regardless if we disagree on Israel’s motives, or Israel’s objectives in this war – must agree that the protection of journalists and their families is indispensable for our profession. And for their profession,” Bishara said.

“Journalists, and journalism associations and syndicates around the world – especially in those countries with influence on Israel, as in Europe, or the United States; journalists need to take a stand on what is going on in Gaza.

‘Cannot go unanswered’
“This cannot continue and go on unanswered. What about them?

“They’re going to be from various media outlets deploying journalists in war-stricken areas. They will have to call for the defence of journalists and their lives and their protection.

“This cannot go on like this unabated in Gaza,” Bishara added, as Israeli defence officials have warned the fighting could go on for another year.

The South African genocide case filed against Israel in the International Court of Justice seeking an interim injunction for a ceasefire and due for a hearing later this week could pose the best chance for an end to the war.

Bishara has partially blamed Western news networks for failing to report the war on Gaza accurately and fairly, a criticism he has made in the past and his articles about Israel are insightful and damning.

His call for a stand by journalists has in fact been echoed in some quarters where “media bias” has been challenged, opening divisions among media groups about fairness and balance that have become the most bitter since the climate change and covid pandemic debates when media “deniers” and “bothsideism” threatened to undermine science.

In November, more than 1500 journalists from scores of US media organisations signed an open letter calling for integrity in Western media’s coverage of “Israeli atrocities against Palestinians”.

Israel has blocked foreign press entry, heavily restricted telecommunications and bombed press offices. Some 50 media headquarters in Gaza have been hit in the past month.

Israeli forces explicitly warned newsrooms they “cannot guarantee” the safety of their employees from airstrikes. Taken with a decades-long pattern of lethally targeting journalists, Israel’s actions show wide scale suppression of speech.

In the United Kingdom, eight BBC journalists wrote an open letter in late November to Al Jazeera accusing the British broadcaster of bias in its coverage of Gaza.

A 2300-word letter claimed that the BBC had a “double standard” and was failing to tell the Israel-Palestine conflict accurately, “investing greater effort in humanising Israeli victims compared with Palestinians, and omitting key historical context in coverage”.

What is next? He lost everyone!!! Literally!!! #GazaGenocide pic.twitter.com/1LVh4eruIt

— Palestine News (@palestine) January 7, 2024

In Australia, another open letter by scores of journalists and the national media union MEAA called for “integrity, transparency and rigour” in the coverage of the war and joined the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), RSF and others condemning the Israeli attacks on journalists and journalism.

Leading Australian newspaper editors of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age and the Nine network hit back by banning staff who had signed the letter. According to the independent Crikey, a senior Nine staff journalist resigned and readers were angrily cancelling their newspaper subscriptions over the ban.

Crikey later exposed many editors and journalists who had made junket trips to Israel and is currently keeping an inventory of these “influenced” media people — at least 77 have been named so far.

In The Daily Blog, editor Martyn Bradbury has also questioned how many New Zealand journalists have also been influenced by Israeli media massaging. Bradbury wrote:

“If Israel has sunk that much time and resource charming Australian journalists and politicians, the question has to be asked, [has] the pro-Israel lobby sent NZ journalists and politicians on these junkets and if they have, who are they?”

He wrote to the NZ Press Gallery, the “journalist union” and media companies requesting a list of names.

Pacific journalists ought to be also added to the list.

I have just returned from a two-month trip in the Mediterranean, Red Sea and Australia. After a steady diet of comprehensive and well backgrounded reporting from global news channels such as TRT World News and Al Jazeera (which contrasted sharply in quality, depth and fairness with stereotypical Western coverage such as from BBC and CNN), I was stunned by the blatant bias of much of the Australian news media, particularly News Corp titles such as The Australian and The Advertiser in Adelaide.

Some examples of the bias and my commentaries can be seen here, here, here, here, here and here.

A pithy indictment of much of the Western reporting — including in New Zealand — can be read in the Middle East Eye and other publications.

Exposing much of the Israeli propaganda and fabricated claims since October 7 (and even from time of The Nakba in 1948), award-winning columnist Peter Osborne wrote:

“I am haunted by one other consideration. It is not just that Western commentators, columnists and chat show hosts often don’t know what they are talking about. It’s not even that they pretend they do.

“It’s the comfort of their lives. They sit in warm, pleasant studios where they earn six-figure sums for their opinions. They take no risks and convey no truths.”

A polar opposite from the Gaza carnage and the risks that courageous Palestinian journalists face daily to bear witness. They are an inspiration to the rest of us.

Dr David Robie is editor and publisher of Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

While the world remains fixated on the devastating October 7 Hamas attacks and the subsequent Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, there has been a pronounced — and mostly unnoticed — escalation in violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Before the recent events, this had already been the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2005, with about 200 fatalities, mostly attributed to Israeli security forces.

This figure has more than doubled since October 7, including the killings of 55 children. That brings the yearly fatality total in the West Bank to more than 450 Palestinians so far, according to the United Nations.

The UN has also recorded 281 settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7, resulting in eight deaths. Four Israelis have been killed in attacks by Palestinians.

In nearly half of the settler attacks, Israeli security forces either “accompanied or actively supported the attackers”, according to the UN.

WATCH| The moment when an Israeli sniper executes a 9-year-old Palestinian boy in Jenin City! pic.twitter.com/VY6HSFkufB

— PALESTINE ONLINE 🇵🇸 (@OnlinePalEng) November 29, 2023

A sharp increase in displacements
It is no coincidence the upsurge in anti-Palestinian violence this year has corresponded with the coming to power of the most right-wing nationalist government in Israeli history.

The new hardline government promised to expand Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since capturing the territory in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

This has emboldened Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, who now regularly engage in violence and provocative nationalist actions around the al-Aqsa mosque compound.

Since 1967, Israel has built over 270 settlements containing approximately 750,000 settlers. Despite these settlements being deemed illegal under international law, they remain protected by the Israeli military and their own security squads.

In February, the Israeli government transferred the West Bank from military to civilian control, which critics claimed could represent a step towards legalised annexation.

Since October 7 alone, the Israeli human rights group B’tselem reports that 16 Palestinian communities have been “forcibly transferred” in Area C, which covers about 65 percent of the West Bank and is under complete Israeli control. Overall, more than 1000 Palestinians have been displaced in the West Bank due to settler violence and access restrictions, according to the UN.

According to a group of UN experts:

Israel’s continuous annexation of portions of the occupied Palestinian territory […] suggests that a concrete effort may be under way to annex the entire occupied Palestinian territory in violation of international law.

Settler violence against Palestinians also includes the uprooting of hundreds of olive trees, destruction of property, blocked roads, armed raids and sabotaged wells. Military checkpoints and barriers make movement between Palestinian areas increasingly difficult.

Settlers also enjoy civilian and political rights in the West Bank, while Palestinians are subjected to military rule. This has been described by human rights groups, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and B’tselem, as well as prominent Israelis, as apartheid.

In a study of 1,000 cases of settler violence submitted to the Israeli judiciary between 2005 and 2021, the human rights organisation Yesh Din found 92% were dismissed.

A recipe for more violence
The West Bank continues to be run, at least in parts, by the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority (PA), led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah.

However, the PA is considered corrupt, nepotistic and is deeply unpopular among Palestinians in the territories. Recent polling revealed 78 percent of Palestinians want Abbas to resign. Primarily, this is because the PA is seen by Palestinians in the West Bank as nothing more than Israel’s security subcontractor and has suppressed demonstrations in solidarity with Gaza.

As a result, a younger generation of Palestinian fighters has emerged in West Bank towns and cities that transcend the longstanding divide between Hamas in Gaza and the PA in the West Bank.

These self-defence battalions are intended to defend Palestinians against Israeli incursions, especially in the Jenin refugee camp and the old city of Nablus, both of which have repeatedly been the subject of Israeli raids this year.

Meanwhile, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister and the leader of the Jewish Power Party, continues to openly defend settlers’ actions, setting the stage for more attacks.

Earlier this year, a joint statement by the Israeli military, Shin Bet (Israel’s domestic security agency) and Israeli police condemned Jewish settler violence against Palestinians, saying the increased vigilantism contradicted Jewish values and were a form of “nationalist terror in the full sense of the term”. Days later, though, Ben-Gvir blocked condemnation of the settlers and is reported to have called them “sweet kids” who had been turned into adults in detention.

After the October 7 attacks, Ben-Gvir’s ministry announced it had purchased 10,000 assault rifles to be distributed to civilian security teams around the country, including in West Bank settlements.

Other senior Israeli politicians have also been seen to encourage violence. In March, for instance, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is also in charge of the civil administration of the West Bank, said a Palestinian town called Huwara should be “wiped out”.

The US State Department said the comment amounted to an incitement of violence and called it “repugnant”. Smotrich later apologised, calling it a “slip of the tongue”.

All of this has helped create an environment of fear, frustration and desperation among Palestinians in the West Bank. Following five weeks of war in Gaza, the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research reported 69 percent of Palestinians say they “fear future settler attacks”.

The upshot of this continued violence in the West Bank is the prospects for a viable two-state solution are more remote than ever, leaving Palestinians with little alternative then to continue resisting.

Tristan Dunning, honorary research fellow, The University of Queensland and Martin Kear, sessional lecturer Dept Govt & Int Rel., University of Sydney. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

American President Joe Biden is among the latest Western politicians to land in Tel Aviv in a show of support to Israel.

As Israel’s primary backer, the United States has sent two aircraft carriers to the region and indicated it could deploy 2000 American troops to Israel.

Biden was also set to meet Palestinian and Arab leaders in the Jordanian capital Amman. But Jordan cancelled the meeting after a reported airstrike on October 17 killed about 500 people at a Gaza hospital.

In the days after Hamas launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against Israel, European and North American governments (with few exceptions) were quick to provide a unified and consistent message of support for Israel.

That message contains at least four interconnected elements:

• Israel is the victim of an unprovoked terrorist attack;
• Israel has the right to defend itself;
• The West fully stands with Israel against the barbaric and wanton violence of the Palestinians; and
• Hamas is to blame (either partially or fully) for all civilian deaths on both sides since they began these hostilities and forced Israel’s hand while hiding behind civilians.

Palestinians erased
There are a few important features of this message, but I want to focus on two that highlight the West’s double standards.

First, is the advancement of anti-Palestinian racism in the West. It is critical to underscore a salient feature of anti-Palestinian racism: the silencing of the Palestinian critiques of Zionism and Israel.

This is a dynamic which has its roots in the Nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”) and erases Palestinian voices, history, presence, aspirations and identity from public discourse.

Political, media and educational institutions in the West regularly sideline and silence Palestinians and their supporters. This is not just an issue among the right-wing or even centrists, but occurs across the political spectrum.

Left-wing politics, including progressive spaces, that purport to be anti-racist often remain hostile to Palestinian voices

Here in Canada, a statement by progressive Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow painted a rally in support of Palestinians as allegedly supporting violence and as a threat to the safety and security of Canadian Jews. That statement is still up on her X account.

This is precisely the anti-Palestinian narrative that has permeated in the West for years: that all support for Palestine is inherently violent and driven by antisemitic hatred of all Jews. Thus, in the name of anti-racism, Palestinians and their supporters are denounced and even criminalised.

Gaza| The City Of War And Love. #GazaGenocide pic.twitter.com/naiFWgYS1G

— PALESTINE ONLINE 🇵🇸 (@OnlinePalEng) October 20, 2023

Differing reactions to civilian death
Second, the double standard is on display in the reactions we have seen to the killing of Israeli civilians and the reactions — or lack thereof — to the killing of Palestinian civilians. Many are rightly highlighting Western hypocrisy by drawing comparisons to how the West responded to Russia’s war on Ukraine.

We need to look at how Western governments have responded to the killing of Israeli civilians versus the killing of Palestinian civilians. For the Israeli state and Israeli victims, political, military, economic, cultural and social institutions have fully mobilised to provide support.

The same is entirely absent for the Palestinians. For the Palestinians, there are no evacuations. Aircraft carriers are not sent to provide military support. Mainstream political and cultural discourse does not humanise Palestinian life and mourn Palestinian death.

Aid relief is withheld and used as a bargaining counter. Economic support is not forthcoming. Institutions do not send Palestinians messages of support.

In some ways, this silence is not surprising. No one expressing support for Israel risks losing their livelihood. Many who have voiced solidarity with Palestinians have lost their jobs, been rebuked, suspended and faced doxing.

More than 400 congressional staffers signed a letter urging Congress to back a cease-fire in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/WT99B79n4f

— PALESTINE ONLINE 🇵🇸 (@OnlinePalEng) October 20, 2023

Western self-interest
States are not moral entities, but act purely in self-interest. Palestinian freedom and liberation does not align with the interests of the US-led West.

Therefore, Western institutions repeat the increasingly weak talking point that “terrorism” is the cause of all the violence. This talking point is used to provide Israel with the green light to unleash uninhibited violence against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Jerusalem.

The idea that Western governments and institutions are horrified by violence against civilians rings hollow because of their silence when it comes to violence against Palestinian civilians and other groups around the world.

For decades, Palestinians have been expelled from their land, killed and maimed in great numbers, including in mass atrocities and many well-documented cases of sexual violence and torture in Israeli prisons.

This only scratches the surface of the violence that Palestinians continuously experience, and have experienced, since well before Hamas was formed.

I’m confused. When Ukrainians attacked back after Russia’s invasion, the US celebrated them. When Palestinians do the same against Israeli occupation, they’re condemned.

Filter the propaganda through this lens: the US empire will always choose sides based on its own interests.

— Bianca Graulau (@bgraulau) October 8, 2023

Palestinians continue to suffer what Palestinian scholars Nahla Abdo and Nur Masalha have called an ongoing Nakba and genocide of the Palestinian people. Yet, when Palestinians suffer, as they are now in Gaza, what Israeli historian and expert on genocide Raz Segal has called “a textbook case of genocide,” Western governments remain silent.

There was no Western outrage when Israel ordered more than a million Palestinians to leave their homes in 24 hours. In February, Israeli settlers went on an hours-long rampage in the Palestinian town of Huwara after two settlers were shot by a Palestinian.

Western condemnations of the rampage were muted or non-existent.

Hundreds of scholars and practitioners of international law, conflict studies and genocide studies are now sounding the alarm about the possibility of genocide being perpetrated by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The stories of Palestinian lives that end with the sudden drop of a bomb are not told. Palestinian voices that explain the settler colonialism they suffer remain sidelined. And Palestinian aspirations for decolonised liberation are denied.

The West’s institutional reaction is not just hypocritical, it is an expression of where Western governments stand on the question of Palestine. The West is an active participant in the erasure of Palestine, and when moments of intensified violence like this happen, the West’s true position becomes clear for all to see.

However, people power across the world, including in the US, provide reason for hope. Increasingly, many in the West are disgusted and ashamed by the erasure of Palestine and the killing of Palestinian civilians.

More people are joining the protests and calling for the siege on Gaza to be lifted once and for all. More people power is needed to demand that governments do everything they can to resolve this issue, which can only begin to move towards peace and justice when the Palestinian people are free.

M. Muhannad Ayyash is professor of sociology, Mount Royal University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Aotearoa New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is correct to condemn Hamas killing Israeli civilians in its attacks on Israel this week.

The killing of civilians or taking them hostage is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention and should be universally condemned.

However, the Labour government has been deathly silent on the war crimes committed by Israel against Palestinians under Labour’s watch these past six years.

Under his prime ministerial watch this year, Chris Hipkins has looked the other way while Israel has built more illegal Israeli settlement homes on Palestinian land; killed more than 250 Palestinian civilians; supported Israeli settler pogroms against Palestinian towns and villages across the occupied West Bank and encouraged highly-provocative Israeli ministerial and settler incursions into the Al Aqsa compound in occupied East Jerusalem.

Why does he only wake up when Israelis are killed? Why does he think Israeli lives are more important than Palestinian lives?

The Prime Minister’s pro-Israel stance is one-sided and blatantly racist.

New Zealand, along with other Western countries, bears heavy responsibility for the deaths of Palestinians and Israelis in recent days because we have never held Israel to account for its crimes against the Palestinian people.

We have given Israel a free pass to murder and abuse Palestinians and this led to the inevitable tragedy last weekend.

It is precisely the attitude of Western leaders such as our Prime Minister which has meant so many lives have been lost.

The Prime Minister has the blood of Palestinians and Israelis on his hands.

John Minto is national chair of Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA).

The besieged Gaza Strip
The Palestinian enclave — home to about 2.3 million people — has been under an Israeli air, land and sea blockade since 2007, reports Al Jazeera.
More than 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced and thousands have taken shelter in UN schools as Israeli attacks intensify, forcing Palestinians to flee their homes.

Buildings, mosques and offices have been targeted as Netanyahu promised “mighty vengeance” for the deadly attacks that has sent shockwaves across Israel.

Harrowing images from inside Gaza have emerged with 19 members of a family killed when an air strike on Sunday hit their residential building. More than 60 percent of Gaza’s population are refugees who were ethnically cleansed from their homes currently in Israel.

Israel has maintained a land, sea and air blockade on Gaza since 2007, a year after Hamas was democratically elected into power. The voting came nearly two years after Israeli troops and settlers withdrew from the enclave.

The blockade gives Israel control of Gaza’s borders, and Egypt has stepped in to enforce the western border.

Israel has stated it has blocked the borders to protect its citizens from Hamas, but the act of collective punishment violates the Geneva Conventions and has long been considered illegal by groups including the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz