The report came as 70 Palestinians were killed across the Gaza Strip — mostly at aid sites belonging to the widely condemned Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) — in the last 24 hours.

Soldiers said that instead of using crowd control measures, they shot at crowds of civilians to prevent them from approaching certain areas.

One soldier, who was not named in the report, described the distribution site as a “killing field,” adding that “where I was, between one and five people were killed every day”.

The soldier said that they targeted the crowds as if they were “an attacking force,” instead of using other non-lethal weapons to organise and disperse crowds.

“We communicate with them through fire,” he continued, noting that heavy machine guns, grenade launchers and mortars were used on people, including the elderly, women and children.

The increased attacks, particularly those targeting aid-seekers, come as Gaza’s government Media Office said at least 549 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces while trying to get their hands on emergency aid in the last four weeks.

‘Evil of moral army’
Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara described what was happening in Gaza was more than the genocode.

“It is the evil of the most moral army in the world,” he said.

Israeli forces continued their attacks across the Gaza Strip on Friday, killing at least three Palestinians in an attack on Khan Younis, in the south, while also heavily bombing residential buildings east of Jabalia in the north.

Medical sources also said a Palestinian fisherman was killed, and others wounded, by Israeli naval gunfire off the al-Shati refugee camp, while he was working.

Gaza’s Ministry of Interior responded to the attacks with a statement, accusing Israel of “seeking to spread chaos and destabilise the Gaza Strip”.

Malnutrition soars
Gazans have continued to desperately seek aid provided by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, despite the hundreds of people killed at its sites, as malnutrition soars in the territory.

Two infants have died this week due to malnutrition and the ongoing blockade on Gaza.

For weeks now, health officials in the enclave have raised the alarm over the critical shortage of baby formula, but aid continued to be obstructed.

The two infants were buried on Thursday evening, after they were pronounced dead at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Medical staff said the cause of death was a lack of basic nutrition and access to essential medical care.

One of the infants, identified as Nidal, was only five months old, while the other, Kinda, was only 10 days old.

Mohammed al-Hams, Kinda’s father, told local media that children are dying due to severe malnutrition, sarcastically labelling them “the achievements of Netanyahu and his war”.

“Not a second goes by without a funeral prayer being held in the Gaza Strip,” he continued.

Malnutrition ‘catastrophic’
On Wednesday, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said the humanitarian situation in Gaza had reached “catastrophic” levels, noting that there had been a sharp increase in malnutrition among children, particularly in infants.

According to Palestinian official figures, at least 242 people have died in Gaza due to food and medicine shortages, with the majority of them being elderly and children.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 61,700 Palestinians since October 2023. The war has levelled entire neighbourhoods, and has been called a genocide by leading rights groups, including Amnesty International.

In Auckland last night, visiting Palestinian journalist, author, academic and community advocate Dr Yousef Aljamal spoke about “The unheard voices of Palestinian child prisoners”.

Dr Aljamal, who edited If I Must Die, a compilation of poetry and prose by Refaat Alareer, the poet who was assassinated by the Israelis in 6 December 2023, also described the humanitarian crisis as a “catastrophe” and called for urgent sanctions and political pressure on Israel by governments, including New Zealand.

Soldiers admit Israeli army is targeting aid seekers       Video: Al Jazeera

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A report by a media watchdog has revealed the United Kingdom’s media bias in covering the Hamas attack on October 7 and Israel’s five-month genocidal bombardment and ground assault in response.

“Much of the news coverage of 7 October refers to Hamas’s attacks on Southern Israel as ground zero, with guests or commentators who try and explain the 75-year-old occupation of Palestine being accused by some presenters and columnists as justifying the attacks,” the report by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) said.

By ignoring the context and history of the occupation of Palestine and Gaza in particular, the report said the media landscape had been “favourable to an Israeli narrative which has constantly promoted the attacks on Gaza and in the West Bank as a war between light and darkness”, reports Al Jazeera.

Titled “Media Bias Gaza 2023-24”, the report also called out treating the Israeli military as a “credible source” without subjecting it to further verification as “one of the glaring failures of journalists and media outlets”.

Difference in the use of language has also been a regular feature of coverage, the report says, with Palestinian deaths often underplayed compared with those of Israelis.

Pro-Palestinian voices and activists have been routinely denounced, misrepresented and targeted by many national media outlets, it says.

The report adds that the right-wing media have been particularly hostile towards pro-Palestinian voices, framing them as supporters of terrorism and anti-Semites as well as being hostile to British values.

Key findings include:

• Language use: Emotive language describes Israelis as victims of attacks 11 times more than Palestinians.
• Framing of events: Most TV channels overwhelmingly promote “Israel’s right” to defend itself, overshadowing Palestinian rights to defend itself and other rights by a ratio of 5 to 1.
• In broadcast TV, Israeli perspectives were referenced almost three times more than Palestinian ones.
• In online news, it was almost twice as much.
• Contextual framing: 76 percent of online articles frame the conflict as an “Israel-Hamas war,” while only 24 percent mention “Palestine/Palestinian,” indicating a lack of context.
• Misrepresentation and undermining: Pro-Palestinian voices face misrepresentation and vilification by media outlets, perpetuating harmful stereotypes.
  Right-wing news channels and right-wing British publications were at the forefront of misrepresenting pro-Palestinian protesters as antisemitic, violent or pro-Hamas.

At least 30,717 people have been killed and 72,156 wounded by Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, the Palestinian Health Ministry anounced.

The death toll from malnutrition and dehydration in Gaza has risen to 18.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Thousands marched for Palestine across Australia at the weekend in the wake of Israel’s massacre of more than 100 starving Palestinians who were trying to get flour from an aid truck southwest of Gaza City.

Israel’s siege on Gaza has stopped Palestinians from accessing food, medical supplies and other crucial aid. A United Nations report found that more than 90 percent of the population, more than 2 million people, are facing starvation and malnutrition.

This is made worse by the cutting of funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) by Western governments, the main organisation providing aid to Gaza, after Israel alleged that 12 of its 30,000 staff were involved in the October 7 incursion.

The Labor government has refused to restore funding to UNRWA despite foreign minister Penny Wong conceding she had not seen any evidence to support Israel’s allegations.

“Our government has suspended funding to UNRWA when instead it should be restoring it and increasing it,” Greens senator Larissa Waters told the Meanjin/Brisbane rally on March 3, reported Alex Bainbridge.

Waters said that Foreign Minister Penny Wong was right to condemn Israel’s attack on food vans but that she was “not bowled over by the strength of response because Senator Wong has said she’s going to get her department to have a little word to the Israeli ambassador”.

“That’s all she’s going to do after we saw desperate parents getting slaughtered [while getting] food for their children.”

‘Solidarity with Palestinian women’
The rally had a “Solidarity with Palestinian women” theme in recognition of International Women’s Day on March 8.

Call on global Jewish community to rise up against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.   Video: Green Left

Protesters held a minute’s silence in recognition of United States Air Force serviceperson Aaron Bushnell who self-immolated on February 25 in protest against the US government’s participation in genocide.

Israel has begun its bombardment offensive against Rafah, the small city in southern Gaza where 1.4 million people are sheltering. More than 30,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7.

A YouGov survey found that more than 80 percent of Australians support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, showing the Palestine solidarity movement has cut through the establishment media pro-Israel messaging.

Edie Shepherd, from the Tzedek Collective, an anti-Zionist Jewish group told thousands at the rally in Gadigal/Sydney on March 3 that the global Jewish community must “rise up against the dominant Zionist frameworks that wield hate, power militarism to carry out atrocities against Palestinians”, reported Peter Boyle.

“The greatest shame is that our survival of genocide has been weaponised to commit genocide against Palestinians now.”

Nasser Mashni, president of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN), told the March 3 rally in Garramilla/Darwin that “Israelis and Zionists want to kill Palestinians”, reported Stephen W Enciso.

‘They want decolonisation’
“Palestinians do not want to kill Israels. Indigenous folk do not want to kill their colonisers. They just want to be acknowledged. They want [a] treaty. They want their rights. They want restitution. They want racism to stop and decolonisation to start,” he said.

Kulumbirigin Danggalaba Tiwi woman Mililma May drew links between the colonial violence faced by Indigenous people in Australia and Palestine.

She pointed to the coronial inquest into the killing of Kumanjayi Walker by former constable Zachary Rolfe, in which Rolfe gave evidence about widespread racism in the Northern Territory Police Force.

“We are witnessing in plain evidence the racism and the deep horror that exists in the NT police, as across the colony,” May said.

“We live in the same states and under the same violence as Palestine. It just manifests itself in different ways.”

Kites flying for Gaza
A kite-flying for Gaza event was organised by Pilbara for Palestine in Karratha, Western Australia on March 3.

Children made and flew kites decorated with Palestinian flags, watermelons and “Free Palestine” in solidarity with the children on Gaza.

Organiser Chris Jenkins told Green Left that the action “demonstrated once again that support for Palestine exists from the CBD to the bush”.

The community also raised money for UNRWA.

In Muloobinba/Newcastle a “Hands off Rafah” rally and kite-flying event was held on March 2 at Nobby’s Beach, reported Khaled Ghannam.

Former Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon, who visited Palestine in June last year, said the Israeli occupation impacts on everything Palestinians do.

“One of the common things that people we interviewed said was, ‘please take our voice to the world’,” she said.

“We are part of a massive global movement, millions of people are on the move around the world in so many countries, with a similar message to us:

• Ceasefire now,
• Restore UNRWA funding, and
• End the occupation.”

She said the UN had called on Australia and other countries to stop arming Israel.

Republished with permission from Green Left.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In just a few weeks the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated sharply as millions cope without desperately needed international aid, New Zealand journalist Charlotte Bellis says.

Bellis is Al Jazeera’s senior producer in Afghanistan and reported on the turmoil in August as the Taliban took over the government and thousands of people tried to flee.

She has dealt with Taliban leaders for a long time, and has sensed a change in their attitudes since they first ruled the country before being toppled 20 years ago.

She had to leave the country in mid-September because the network feared for her safety and Bellis noted on Twitter that the Taliban were detaining and beating journalists trying to cover protests.

Now she has returned and told RNZ Sunday Morning that she was not worried about her safety.

“The situation here is pretty dire and there are a lot of stories still to be told and I feel invested in what’s happening here and I also just love the country. It’s a beautiful place to be with amazing people and I genuinely like being here.”

However, the country is facing an uncertain future with its population suffering more than ever now that international aid has been cut off.

UN warns of humanitarian crisis
This week the United Nations warned that Afghanistan is becoming the world’s largest humanitarian crisis and Bellis agrees.

“The Taliban took over about two months ago and I just can’t believe how quickly everything has deteriorated.

“People cannot find food, there’s no money, they can’t pay for things, employers can’t pay their workers because there’s no cash, they can’t get money out even from the ATMs.”

Millions of jobs have disappeared, half of the population does not know where their next meal is coming from and already children are dying from malnutrition, Bellis said.

All the aid agencies are appealing to the world to listen.

23 million need urgent help
She is about to go out with the UN Refugee Agency whose teams are organising some aid distribution as the temperatures drop to 2 degC overnight as winter approaches. They are handing out blankets, food and some cash to thousands of the needy in camps in Kabul.

“But it’s such a Band-Aid. There is no way they can reach the number of people they need to reach — it’s  like 23 million people who need that kind of assistance,” she said.

Neighbouring countries such as Pakistan and Iran were very concerned, in part because they fear a huge influx of refugees. They have closed the borders to try and keep them away.

The process of getting money and food into people’s hands had broken down, she said, with a lot of it due to United States sanctions.

Three quarters of the country ran on foreign donations before the Taliban took over and that has dried up because no countries are recognising the Taliban’s legitimacy to govern.

Bellis has spoken to one senior Taliban official who said that at recent meetings between the Taliban and the US in Doha the Americans would not tell the Taliban what policies they needed to enact to unfreeze billions of dollars in funding.

“They [the Americans] are playing with millions of people’s lives.”

School problem for girls
She believes some Taliban leaders are pragmatic and would be willing to agree to high school girls being educated but are worried they will alienate their conservative base.

In the main, primary school age girls are able to attend their lessons but the problem is at secondary school level.

“If you’re a high school girl in Kabul it’s awful – sitting around thinking how did this happen. It’s really frustrating and really frustrating for everyone to watch and say this doesn’t make sense.”

Bellis said while she feels safe at the moment, the main problem is the terrorist group, ISIS-K, who have made threats against the hotel where she is staying.

The Taliban have said they will protect guests and have placed dozens of extra guards outside.

ISIS-K is believed to only number between 1200 and 1500 yet they are a potent force with their random attacks, such as beheading members of the Taliban, whom they hate.

She believes the Taliban’s biggest worry is that ISIS will appeal to its most fundamentalist members.

ISIS attracting recruits
ISIS is also believed to be trying to attract recruits who would be trained as fighters and be paid $400 a month which is a substantial amount of money in Afghanistan.

Bellis said she feels guilty staying at a hotel with the scale of poverty and deprivation she is witnessing.

“Right outside the door people are desperate,” she said.

She visited a major maternity hospital in Kabul yesterday and the only medication available for women giving birth was paracetamol.

“Imagine going into labour and thinking, OK if anything goes wrong I’ve got paracetamol. It’s just life and death on so many levels.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

For those of you wondering what you can do to help Afghans.. this @WFP project is the gold standard.
You donate meals direct to Afghans – choosing a set number of meals or month at a time. ???? https://t.co/qgmuaTdpfo

— Charlotte Bellis (@CharlotteBellis) October 26, 2021

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By David Robie in Manila

Operating out of a modest three-roomed rooftop suite overlooking the local marketplace in the rice-producing Bicol township of Vinzons, a tiny Filipino community radio startup is quietly making its mark.

Radyo Katabang 107.7FM only began broadcasting two years ago out of a studio lined with egg-container acoustic buffers in the Camarines Norte community in the central Philippines island of Luzon.

But it has already picked up a national community radio award for its programming.

MORE: Radio Katabang wins Nutriskwela award

It is the only media in town, although Vinzons does have a “sustainable tourism” municipality social media page for communications.

Vinzons was famously renamed from Indan in 1959 in honour of a local wartime resistance hero who fought against the Japanese Imperial Army before being captured and executed.

At the time of the Japanese invasion, Wenceslao Q. Vinzons, was governor of the province after being the youngest member the 1935 Constitutional Convention.

The town is proud of its most famous son who was regarded as a visionary leader and respected for his “advocacy for clean government and moral leadership” until his death in 1942.

Radyo Katabang’s core team of 11 are mostly volunteers but their dedication and pride in the station and community was amply demonstrated at their recent end-of-year Christmas party that I attended as a guest.

Three community stations
Only three community radio stations like this exist in Bicol and Radyo Katabang is all Vinzons has for news and information – there is no local newspaper for the widely spread community of 44,000, which includes the offshore Calaguas Islands, and rarely do copies of the national daily press circulate this far from the provincial capital Daet, an 8km tricycle or jeepney ride away.

National television stations hardly ever run stories about Vinzons.

But the Radyo Katabang crew are under no illusions about the vital importance of their local station for education, disaster risk reduction strategies and combating malnutrition – many coastal barangays (villages) are remote and can only be reached through mangrove-fringed waterways or the open sea.

Merle Fontanilla, chair of the Community Radio Council, praises the support of the Vinzons Municipal Council for launching and continuing to back the radio station – part of the national Nutriskwela network – to tackle the nutrition and other community welfare issues.

She says Radyo Katabang is about “community empowerment” and is an “outstanding source of information about health, nutrition and development” since 2017.

“Our station discusses the lives of the local people as reflected in the reduction of malnutrition and boosting health through community broadcasting.”

The station’s editorial policy is declared on the studio wall, guided by the principles of “balance, integrity and accuracy” with the belief that they can fill the gaps left by mainstream media shortcomings.

Independent alternative
“Nutriskwela shall be a reliable, independent alternative to mainstream media,” begins the policy pledge. “It provides balance to listeners, by focusing on underreported communities and stories not heard in commercial radio and highlighting positive and developmental stories, particularly correct nutrition behaviour and good practices in nutrition programme management.”

On diversity, the radio station declares:

“Nutriskwela shall seek out a multitude of perspectives and diverse voices, particularly from underrepresented communities and identities.

“Nutriskwela shall focus content on local issues and grassroots activities. It shall promote an analysis of the news that will lead to dialogues and understanding among individuals of different communities across the Philippines.”

Fifty one radio stations belong to the Nutriskwela community network, which states on its website that the programme was launched by the National Nutrition Council in 2008 with the help of the Tambuli Foundation as a “long-term and cost-efficient strategy to address the problem of hunger and malnutrition” throughout the Philippines by using radio – “the most available form of mass media”.

At the end of its first year of broadcasting in 2018, Vinzons was “marooned” by a savage typhoon – Usman (the Philippines averages about 21 typhoons a year in different parts of the country) that killed 156 people. It was vital to communicate to remote parts of community isolated by flooded ricefields and no electricity for three days.

Emergency generator
However, without power Radyo Katabang was forced off the air. Last year, the municipality responded by funding a 10kw emergency power generator for 250,000 pesos (NZ$7500).

This was a critical investment for the radio station’s important disaster risk management role. Radyo Katabang also maintains a rooftop garden to follow through on its nutrition advice to the community.

As a community station, Radyo Katabang carries no advertising or political news and it relies on municipality funding and donations to keep it afloat.

Community broadcasting in the Philippines faces a difficult mediascape compared with several other Asia-Pacific countries, according to speakers at the fourth AMARC regional conference for Community Radio in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in November 2018.

This was attended by more than 200 broadcasters, networks and civil society organisations, including the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) partner AlterMidya – People’s Alternative Media Network, which has more than 30 member organisations in the Philippines.

“Unlike corporate media newscasts, the stories which appear in our newscast, ALAB Alternatibong Balita [Alternative News], are deeply rooted in the daily struggles of communities of workers, farmers, indigenous peoples, migrants, urban poor, women and youth,” writes Ilang-Ilang Quijano in a WACC Global commentary.

Storytelling in diversity
“The ALAB newscast and public affairs shows are broadcast to member community radio stations and programmes throughout the Philippines.”

Storytelling in newscasts that span diverse communities in several islands, and in local languages “is invaluable”.

Among radio stations in this network are Radyo Sagada, broadcasting in the mountainous Cordillera region and run by mostly indigenous women, and Radyo Lumad 1575AM, a community station run by the Higaonons in central Mindanao.

Back in Vinzons, Radyo Katabang’s programmes director Fely Espiritu is optimistic about the empowerment future of her Nutriskwela community station in making an impact on public health.

And the meaning of Radyo Katabang? It is a Bicolano word meaning “ally or helper”.

Professor David Robie, director of the Pacific Media Centre, was recently in Vinzons, Camarines Norte, Philippines, on his research sabbatical.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has called for more action about the health crisis facing Asmat regency in Indonesian-ruled Papua.

The commission has blamed the Indonesian government “for this considerable loss of life”.

“The current efforts to address the problem are simply too little, too late,” it said in a statement from Hongkong.

So far, 68 children have died from measles and serious malnutrition in Asmat.

As reported by national media in Indonesia, the measles and malnutrition epidemic has affected 11 districts of Asmat regency: Swator, Aswi, Akat, Fayit, Pulau Tiga, Kolf Branza, Jetsy, Pantai Kasuari, Safan, Unirsarau, and Siret.

“Being the most remote areas of Asmat regency, victims in these districts have faced serious difficulties in obtaining access to medical facilities,” the AHRC statement said.

“Even in the regency’s capital, Agats, the Agats General Hospital (RSUD) is not equipped to deal with all the patients of measles and malnutrition.”

Patients in church
A category D hospital with limited facilities, paramedics and doctors, the hospital at present needed more medicine due to limited stock, and due to limited space, some patients have been hospitalised in the nearest church building, the AHRC statement said.

This circumstance showed how Papua had been left behind in terms of health facilities, infrastructure and development.

In Jakarta, Java island or other islands such as Sumatra and Bali, there were numerous public and private hospitals of type B and A, easy to access, the statement said.

Papua mostly has public hospitals of type D, especially in remote areas. There is a category A hospital in Jayapura city, the capital of Papua, but it is quite far from Agats and to reach Jayapura from Agats is not easy due to the lack of infrastructure.

“This situation clearly highlights how neither the central government of Indonesia in Jakarta, nor the local government in Papua province and Asmat regency have been able to develop an early warning system to prevent measles and malnutrition.”

The AHRC said it was concerned that the epidemic could easily spread to other places in Papua, particularly in remote areas lacking in health facilities.

Since Papua was integrated into the Republic of Indonesia in 1969, Papua has remained the poorest and least developed province.

Citizens’ rights
As a state party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Indonesia was obligated to:

• ensure its citizens’ rights to be free from hunger;
• address the prevention, treatment and control of epidemic, endemic, occupational and other diseases; and
• create conditions which would assure medical attention to all.

Similarly, national laws such as Law No. 36 of 2009 guaranteed the right to equal health access for all citizens, the AHRC said.

The commission said it viewed the current lack of health access and facilities in Papua – and the deaths of 68 children – as a clear violation of the Indonesian government’s responsibility towards its citizens.

“By not developing equal health care in Papua, the government is to blame for this considerable loss of life. The current efforts to address the problem are simply too little, too late,” the statement said.

The AHRC said the government should immediately announce a health emergency in Papua and open access for medical aid, including international medical support. It should also allow access to the media to ensure accountability and to monitor the eradication of the epidemic.

The government also needed an affirmative action policy to boost development of health access in Papua.

Priority for Papua
The assistance from the central government should not merely be limited to eradicating disease in Asmat regency, but should ensure that remote areas in Papua received priority in development of health access, facilities and infrastructure, the statement said.

The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), the Minister of Health and Ombudsman of Republic of Indonesia, the House of Representatives, in particular Commission IX which concerns health, food and medicines, should take initiatives to monitor, evaluate and ensure the implementation of such policies, the AHRC said.

Local government should also open access for NGOs and media to monitor the recovery and development in remote areas.

The AHRC also urged the government to comprehensively ensure that all children, including pregnant mothers in Papua, particularly in Asmat regency, were given enough nutrition, food, and vaccines to prevent disease.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz