U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim

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What It’s Truly Like to Sleep in a Damp, Frigid Tent: A Report From Gaza: Five newborns have died of hypothermia amid the cold in Gaza. Doctors tell Drop Site the deaths are a direct result of Israel's blockades
by Abubaker Abed
Guest Post
Dropsite News
Jan 1, 2025


The streets of Deir al-Balah, where thousands of families set up their tents. Photo: Abubaker Abed.

DEIR AL-BALAH, GAZA—On the morning of Dec 28th, Yahya Al-Batraan, a 40-year-old father of five sons and three daughters, got up in his dilapidated tent in Deir al-Balah’s western parts near the beach to find his 1-month-old baby, Jomaa, had frozen to death. His twin brother was hospitalized for hypothermia at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital and faces a similar fate. Al-Batraan was displaced from Beit Lahia a year ago. His two brothers and many of his relatives were killed before his eyes. His house was razed to the ground after Israeli troops invaded and annihilated the camp.

Six people have frozen to death in Gaza during the past week, where the low temperatures have reached the low 40s in Fahrenheit—or about 8 degrees Celsius; five were infants less than a month old. Al-Batraan’s newborn baby will not be the last to die from hypothermia as conditions continue to deteriorate in the besieged territory.

“My wife and I got up in the morning. We checked the children as always. But my 1-month-old twin didn’t show any vital signs at all. When I touched him, his body was like a bottle of ice. I took him and rushed to the hospital on foot because I didn’t have the money for a taxi or even an animal-drawn cart. Doctors instantly told me that he passed away. I couldn’t hold my senses and burst into tears. Just moments later, my wife rang me to inform me that the other twin wasn’t breathing. We took him to the hospital. He is now under the resuscitation devices inside the ICU. However, doctors told me that he would die in the upcoming hours,” Al-Batraan said, as he choked in pain.

“I live with my family and my paralyzed parents in a tiny, flimsy tent made from torn blankets and pieces of nylon near the sea. We only have four mattresses and four blankets. All are so ripped apart. As it gets colder at night, I collect some garbage to set up a fire to heat the tent for the children. My children and I only wear one or two pieces of old clothing. We are always shivering with cold during the night hours. I sleep most nights without blankets and just put on my sweater.

“The babies’ mother can’t breastfeed them because she is severely malnourished and suffers from hypertension. Therefore, they’re both 1.6 kg. We barely eat one time a day, and we get our meal from one of the nearby free food distribution centers. One of my children has a trauma of looking at the sand because she has been eating Dugga for the past 14 months. We have no food, no water, no clothes, and no medications. Literally nothing. My tent has been flooded by the rain and blown away by the wind. And I am just waiting for the death of my other baby. I can’t take more heartbreaks,” he told Drop Site News.

“The hardest thing someone can ever endure is to see their children dying in front of them. There are no words to describe this feeling. But I went through it. My message to the world is that we’ve lost our dignity and everything. We need warmth and peace. Someone has to stop this genocide.”


The streets of Deir al-Balah, where thousands of families set up their tents. Photo: Abubaker Abed.

Dr. Mimed is an American emergency doctor who spent nearly thst month in Gaza volunteering at Gaza’s hospitals, particularly Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. She says that she is not shocked that babies are dying from the cold—the living conditions she witnessed are harsh and these babies live on the seaside where temperatures significantly drop. She also insists that Israel’s banning of building materials, which prevents building proper dwellings, amounted to their deaths.

“Dwellings need to be more secure. The humanitarian safe zone is neither humanitarian nor safe since most of the casualties we’ve been receiving are from there. If we want to end this, we need an immediate ceasefire and allow aid and decent containers and building materials in. It’s a huge difficulty for newborn babies to maintain their temperatures when they live under horrible circumstances and without basic human needs,” Dr. Syed explained to Drop site News.

“I’ve been in some people’s tents, and I can imagine the suffering against the backdrop of the extreme wind and rain,” she added. “Also, people don’t have good clothing to be insulated from the cold. Nor can they provide the medications to prevent hypothermia. Consequently, there is a dire need to allow shelter and proper nutrition in, which is just a basic human right. Almost every child I saw at the hospital here has malnutrition signs and patches of hypopigmentation on their skin and hair as well as some sort of inflammatory infectious conditions, let alone the gastrointestinal illnesses they are contracting because of terrible water contamination. I saw an infant who just kept coming to the hospital due to diarrhea, which is a result of the same living conditions. The future for children will be very bleak. There is actually no future.”

Dr. Khalid Abu-Habel, a volunteer emergency doctor at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, has been tirelessly working since the outbreak of Israel’s genocidal war. He describes the situation in Gaza as “unbearable” and “unsolvable” amid Israel’s continued blockade of the crossings. “In the open air along the sea line, temperatures hugely drop. So, it is almost impossible to protect them even if they have the clothes,” he told Drop Site News.

“People in Gaza live in tents,” he continued. “Most are along the sealine. The environment they are living in plays a major role in their suffering. Therefore, hypothermia is an anticipated result of the conditions. Children have neither winter clothes nor a good refuge to insulate them from the cold. They are even surrounded by litter and garbage and have already contracted viral infections. Most are malnourished and immunocompromised. Consequently, their bodies can lose temperature and can contract hypothermia very easily.”

Newborns, he said, are at particular risk: “Most newborn babies are born with impairments or deformities because mothers have been subjected to unimaginable trauma, malnutrition, dehydration, and several diseases. These children will easily be exposed to the cold and hypothermia and die.”


Sabreen Saleh and her husband sleep with only a couple of mattresses and three blankets in a perforated tent with no protection from the rain. Photo: Abubaker Abed

Sabreen Saleh, 32, has taken shelter in a leaky tent in Deir al-Balah with her husband and her two children, one of whom is a breastfeeding infant, after being displaced from Jabalya in northern Gaza. She has been very concerned about her baby’s health.

“The cold kills us during the night. We can’t bear it at all. We are here sleeping on the ground with only two mattresses and three blankets. But they are actually just shreds of fabric. We’ve been drowning over the past few days since the rain sneaks through our perforated tent and wets us and our belongings. We’re trembling with cold all day. My husband collects some wood to make a fire and warm us. But as we can’t afford to bring wood all the time, he sometimes resorts to shredding his own clothes or blankets to burn for the fire. My children and I have only some old clothes. We can’t afford anything. We mainly depend on the free food distribution center for our only meal, and we’ve been asking for aid from humanitarian organizations. However, we’ve only received aid two times since the war broke out.

“I fear a lot for my baby, especially after the death of several infants from the cold in Gaza. He wears only summer clothes because there is no winter clothing, and if available, they are sold at inflated prices. Since he was born a month ago, I haven’t showered him except for one time because I am scared of his consequent imminent death. During the night, his face becomes blue. I, as a result, take the towel and roll it around his body. My husband and I sometimes put our own blankets on our children and don’t sleep. What should we do? We don’t have any solutions. Our knees and bones hurt because of the freezing temperatures. But we can’t even purchase some medicine for our pain. We need a rainfly, suitable housing, and good nutrition. My children lack everything. This is our life drenched in extreme pain and horror. I just hope the war ends and we can return to what’s left of our houses.”


Hossam Al-Nabaheen's family in Deir al-Balah where he and 8 children take shelter with almost no means to live. Photo: Abubaker Abed

Hossam Al-Nabaheen, a 52-year-old displaced father of eight orphaned children, has been surviving on hardly a little for months as Israel bombed his house and displaced him from Al-Buraij camp in central Gaza. One of his sons has a chronic kidney condition treated with medications that are now too expensive for them. In his shabby tent in Deir al-Balah, the bare human necessities are nowhere to be found.

“I have eight children who desperately require everything: food, water, clothes, and medicine. But I am unable to get anything for them because prices are skyrocketing, staples are rarely available, and clothes need huge money to purchase,” he said. “We are shaking with cold every single day in our tent located in a very open area. The bitter fact is that we live on the streets where no protection, warmth, or safety can be seen. It is hellish. All that we have are two blankets and three mattresses. Our tent has been flooded by the rain because I can’t provide a tarp. My children are always barefoot and have only one piece of clothing on their bodies. They always have skin diseases and severe gastroenteritis because of the glacial weather. Yet, I can’t provide any medications, food, or good shelter for them. What else should I tell you? There are simply no words.”

“We gather around a woodfire at night to heat our bodies,” he continued. “But then, the cold debilitates us at night. As my children can’t bear the cold, I take my only blanket and cover them with it. This is my makeshift kitchen where I only have one bottle of oil. We only eat from the free meal distribution center. We’ve been calling on all humanitarian organizations, but we haven’t received any help. I have a massive responsibility and can’t take it under these stark and horrific conditions. This genocidal war has taken everything from us, including our homes and souls. I hope someone can help me navigate this grim, totally unavoidable reality. And we are praying for an end to this war in the new year.”

As long as Israel’s war and humanitarian blockade continues, more deaths from the cold are expected. “They need proper shelters, balanced nutrition, and a healthy environment as well as medications,” said Abu-Halel. “Nevertheless, this is unfeasible as all these things are now allowed in. An immediate end to the war will solve things. But as long as the cold weather hits Gaza, we mustn’t be surprised that more people, particularly children, will die from hypothermia in the upcoming weeks.”

Abubaker Abed is an accidental war correspondent from Deir al-Balah in Gaza. He was thrown into an active warzone to report on the genocide. He's a football journalist and commentator.

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Congress has the power to block Trump from taking office, but lawmakers must act now
by Evan A. Davis and David M. Schulte
Opinion contributors
12/26/24 8:00 AM ET
https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-bl ... ification/

The Constitution provides that an oath-breaking insurrectionist is ineligible to be president. This is the plain wording of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. “No person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” This disability can be removed by a two-thirds vote in each House.

Disqualification is based on insurrection against the Constitution and not the government. The evidence of Donald Trump’s engaging in such insurrection is overwhelming. The matter has been decided in three separate forums, two of which were fully contested with the active participation of Trump’s counsel.

The first fully contested proceeding was Trump’s second impeachment trial. On Jan. 13, 2021, then-President Trump was impeached for “incitement of insurrection.” At the trial in the Senate, seven Republicans joined all Democrats to provide a majority for conviction but failed to reach the two-thirds vote required for removal from office. Inciting insurrection encompasses “engaging in insurrection” against the Constitution “or giving aid and comfort to the enemies thereof,” the grounds for disqualification specified in Section 3.

The second contested proceeding was the Colorado five-day judicial due process hearing where the court “found by clear and convincing evidence that President Trump engaged in insurrection as those terms are used in Section Three.” The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed. On further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the court held that states lack power to disqualify candidates for federal office and that federal legislation was required to enforce Section 3. The court did not address the finding that Trump had engaged in insurrection.

Finally, there is the bipartisan inquiry of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol. More than half of the witnesses whose testimony was displayed at its nine public hearings were Republicans, including members of the Trump administration. The inescapable conclusion of this evidence is that Trump engaged in insurrection against the Constitution. In particular, Trump unlawfully demanded that his vice president, Mike Pence, throw out votes in the Electoral College for political opponent Joe Biden, a power he did not have. While the riot was in progress, Trump used Pence’s rejection of his demand to further enflame the crowd and cause them to chant “Hang Mike Pence!”

Some will argue that the Supreme Court decision in the Colorado case, Trump v. Anderson, precludes Congress from rejecting electoral votes when they convene on Jan. 6, on the basis of 14th Amendment disqualification. This view lacks merit for three reasons.

First the majority’s suggestion that there must be new implementing federal legislation passed pursuant to the enforcement power specified in the 14th Amendment is what lawyers call dicta. Dicta are the musings of an opinion that are not required to decide the case. The holding that Section 3 is not self-executing may be an alternate holding, but thoughts about the kind of implementing statute required are plain dicta. Dicta are not precedential. The four dissenters strenuously objected to this part of the opinion as overreach to decide a question not presented. This overreach is a power grab which Congress is not required to credit.

Second, counting the Electoral College votes is a matter uniquely assigned to Congress by the Constitution. Under well-settled law this fact deprives the Supreme Court of a voice in the matter, because the rejection of the vote on constitutionally specified grounds is a nonreviewable political question.

Third, specific legislation designed for this situation already exists. The Electoral Count Act was first enacted in 1887 and later amended and restated in 2022. That statute provides a detailed mechanism for resolving disputes as to the validity of Electoral College votes.

The act specifies two grounds for objection to an electoral vote: If the electors from a state were not lawfully certified or if the vote of one or more electors was not “regularly given.” A vote for a candidate disqualified by the Constitution is plainly in accordance with the normal use of words “not regularly given.” Disqualification for engaging in insurrection is no different from disqualification based on other constitutional requirements such as age, citizenship from birth and 14 years’ residency in the United States.

To make an objection under the Count Act requires a petition signed by 20 percent of the members of each House. If the objection is sustained by majority vote in each house, the vote is not counted and the number of votes required to be elected is reduced by the number of disqualified votes. If all votes for Trump were not counted, Kamala Harris would be elected president.

The unlikelihood of congressional Republicans doing anything that might elect Harris as president is obvious. But Democrats need to take a stand against Electoral College votes for a person disqualified by the Constitution from holding office unless and until this disability is removed. No less is required by their oath to support and defend the Constitution.

Evan Davis was editor in chief of the Columbia Law Review and David Schulte was editor in chief of the Yale Law Journal. Both clerked for Justice Potter Stewart. Davis is a New York lawyer who served as president of the New York City Bar, and Schulte is a Chicago investment banker.

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January 6 Should Be "Disqualification Day" For Adjudicated Insurrectionist Trump. But Will It Be?
by Glenn Kirschner
Jan 2, 2025

A new piece published in The Hill contends, " Congress has the power to block Trump from taking office, but lawmakers must act now."

But how realistic is it to expect the the 14th Amendment's disqualification clause to make a robust showing during the January 6 certification of the electoral college votes?

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Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 13, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/13/headlines

Mass Crowds Gather for First Friday Prayers Since Assad Ouster
Dec 13, 2024
In Syria, tens of thousands of people have gathered at the Great Mosque of Damascus and other cities for the first Friday prayers since longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad was toppled by opposition fighters.

The World Food Programme is appealing to donors to help it scale up relief operations for some 2.8 million displaced and food-insecure people across Syria. That includes more than 1.1 million people uprooted by fighting since late November.

U.N. Calls on Israel to Stop Bombing Syria and Occupying Demilitarized Zone
Dec 13, 2024
Israel’s defense minister has told his troops to prepare to spend the winter holding the demilitarized zone that separates Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Earlier today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toured the summit of Mount Haramun in the U.N.-designated buffer zone. Netanyahu said this week the Golan Heights would “forever be an inseparable part of the State of Israel.”

On Thursday, the U.N. called for an urgent deescalation of airstrikes on Syria by Israeli forces, and their withdrawal from the U.N. buffer zone.

Stéphane Dujarric: “The secretary-general is deeply concerned by the recent and extensive violations of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The secretary-general is particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Syria, stressing the need, the urgent need, to deescalate violence on all fronts throughout the country.”

In Ankara, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Turkey’s foreign minister and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Blinken said the U.S. and Turkey would work to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group in Syria. Meanwhile, Erdoğan told Blinken Turkey reserves the right to strike the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, which Turkey considers a terrorist organization. After headlines, we’ll go to Damascus for the latest on Syria.

96% of Gaza Children Think Death Is Imminent: Study Highlights Devastating Emotional Toll of Genocide
Dec 13, 2024
In Gaza, an Israeli airstrike on Thursday ripped through a post office sheltering displaced Palestinian families in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least 33 Palestinians, with 84 others wounded or missing. Elsewhere, separate Israeli strikes killed at least 13 people in Rafah and Khan Younis. Palestinian medics said those killed were part of a force protecting humanitarian aid trucks.

This comes as a new study finds 96% of children in Gaza feel that their death is imminent, and nearly half said they wished to die. Four out of five children surveyed suffer from nightmares, and nearly three-quarters show signs of aggression. The study was conducted by the charity War Child Alliance, which said in a statement, “Alongside the leveling of hospitals, schools and homes, a trail of psychological destruction has caused wounds unseen but no less destructive on children who hold no responsibility for this war.”

Reporters Without Borders: Palestine Remains Most Dangerous Place for Journalists
Dec 13, 2024
Reporters Without Borders warns Palestine remained the most dangerous country in the world for journalists this year. Since October of 2023, Israeli attacks have killed more than 145 media workers, which the group condemned as an “unprecedented bloodbath.” Palestinian press freedom groups have put the number even higher, at nearly 200 journalists killed by Israel.

Mufid Abdulqader Freed After 16 Years Behind Bars for Work with Pro-Palestinian Charity
Dec 13, 2024
A Palestinian American man who was convicted and imprisoned in 2008 for his work with the charity Holy Land Foundation has been released from federal prison. Mufid Abdulqader, one of the so-called Holy Land 5, was released to a halfway house Thursday. Abdulqader and his four co-defendants — Ghassan Elashi, Shukri Abu Baker, Mohammad El-Mezain and Abdulrahman Odeh — received sentences of up to 65 years under the Bush administration, accused of working for a terrorist organization.

The Holy Land Foundation raised millions of dollars for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, making it a target for pro-Israel groups in the U.S. Their case was widely denounced as political persecution during the height of the so-called war on terror and shuttered what was once the largest Muslim charity in the U.S. Shukri Abu Baker and Ghassan Elashi remain behind bars.

New York Police Arrest Faculty and Students Demanding NYU Divest from Israel’s Wars and Occupations
Dec 13, 2024
Police arrested at least eight protesters at the campus of New York University Thursday as they nonviolently blockaded the university’s library to demand NYU divest from companies that profit from Israel’s war and occupation of Palestine. Among those arrested were two faculty members: Sonya Posmentier and Andrew Ross. They’re among six professors and dozens of students who’ve been declared “persona non grata” by campus security officials and barred from entering NYU buildings.

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Report from Damascus: Relief Mixed with Sadness. Syrians Search for Loved Ones in Prisons & Morgues
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 13, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/13 ... transcript

We go live to Damascus for the first time since the fall of longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad, where the country’s populace is still reeling from the power struggle that forcibly displaced more than a million people over the last months. Investigative reporter Sarah El Deeb joins Democracy Now! while looking over the joyous scenes in the city, but reports there is a marked “contrast between the sense of relief over the departure of Bashar al-Assad but then the sadness and the concern and no answers for where the loved ones have gone.” El Deeb describes exploring Syria’s notorious prisons, the manhunt for U.S. citizens in the country, and how in the Gaza Strip Israeli soldiers have separated Palestinian families during raids.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Syria, where tens of thousands of people have gathered at the Great Mosque of Damascus for the first Friday prayers since longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad was toppled by opposition fighters.

DAMASCUS RESIDENT: [translated] Hopefully this Friday is the Friday of the greatest joy, a Friday of victory for our Muslim brothers. This is a blessed Friday.

AMY GOODMAN: Syria’s new caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir was among those at the mosque. He’ll act as prime minister until March.

This comes as the World Food Programme is appealing to donors to help it scale up relief operations for the approximately 2.8 million displaced and food-insecure Syrians across the country. That includes more than 1.1 million people who were forcibly displaced by fighting since late November.

Israel’s defense minister has told his troops to prepare to spend the winter holding the demilitarized zone that separates Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Earlier today, Prime Minister Netanyahu toured the summit of Mount Haramun in the U.N.-designated buffer zone. Netanyahu said this week the Golan Heights would, quote, “forever be an inseparable part of the State of Israel,” unquote.

On Thursday, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called for an urgent deescalation of airstrikes on Syria by Israeli forces, and their withdrawal from the U.N. buffer zone.

In Ankara, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Turkey’s foreign minister and the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Blinken said the U.S. and Turkey would [work] to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group in Syria. Meanwhile, Erdoğan told Blinken that Turkey reserves the right to strike the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, which Turkey considers terrorist.

For more, we go to Damascus for the first time since the fall of longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad, where we’re joined by the Associated Press investigative reporter Sarah El Deeb, who’s based in the Middle East, a region she has covered for two decades.

Sarah, welcome to Democracy Now! You are overlooking —

SARAH EL DEEB: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: — the square where tens of thousands of Syrians have gathered for the first Friday prayers since the fall of Assad. Describe the scene for us.

SARAH EL DEEB: There is a lot of firsts here. It’s the first time they gather on Friday after Bashar al-Assad fled the country. It’s the first time everyone seems to be very happy. I think that’s the dominant sentiment, especially people who are in the square. There is ecstasy, tens of thousands of people. They are still chanting, “Down with Bashar al-Assad.” But what’s new is that it’s also visible that the sentiment is they’ve been, so far, happy with the new rulers, not outpour — there is no criticism, out — loud criticism of the new rulers yet. So, I’d say the dominant thing is that everyone is happy down there.

AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, you recently wrote an AP article headlined “Thousands scour Syria’s most horrific prison but find no sign of their loved ones.” On Tuesday, families of disappeared prisoners continued searching Sednaya prison for signs of their long-lost loved ones who were locked up under Assad’s brutal regime.

HAYAT AL-TURKI: [translated] I will show you the photo of my missing brother. It’s been 14 years. This is his photo. I don’t know what he looks like, if I find him. I don’t know what he looks like, because I am seeing the photos of prisoners getting out. They are like skeletons. But this is his photo, if anyone has seen him, can know anything about him or can help us. He is one of thousands of prisoners who are missing. I am asking for everyone, not only my brother, uncle, cousin and relatives.”

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about this mad search by Syrians across the country.

SARAH EL DEEB: This is the other thing that’s been dominating our coverage and our reporting since we arrived here, the contrast between the relief, the sense of relief over the departure of Bashar al-Assad but then the sadness and the concern and the no answers for where the loved ones have gone. Thousands — also, tens of thousands of people have marched on Sednaya. It’s the counter to this scene, where people were looking for any sign of where their relatives have been. As you know really well, so many people have reported their relatives missing, tens of thousands, since the beginning of the revolt, but also before. I mean, I think this is a part of the feature of this government, is that there has been a lot of security crackdown. People were scared to speak, but they were — because there was a good reason for it. They were picked up at any expression of discontent or expression of opinion.

So, where we were in Sednaya two, three days ago, it feels like one big day, I have to say. When we were in Sednaya, people were also describing what — anything, from the smallest expression of opinion, a violation of a traffic light. No answers. And they still don’t know where their loved ones are. I mean, I think we know quite a lot from research before arriving here about the notorious prison system in Syria. There’s secret prisons. There are security branches where people were being held. I think this is the first time we have an opportunity to go look at those facilities.

What was surprising and shocking to the people, and also to a lot of us journalists, was that we couldn’t find any sign of these people. And the answers are — we’re still looking for them. But what was clear is that only a handful — I mean, not a handful — hundreds of people were found. Many of them were also found in morgues. There were apparent killing at the last hours before the regime departed. One of them was the prominent activist Mazen al-Hamada. We were at his funeral yesterday. He was found, and his family believes that — he was found killed, and his family believes his body was fresh, that he was killed only a few days earlier. So, I think the killing continued up until the last hour.

AMY GOODMAN: I was wondering if you can tell us more about —

SARAH EL DEEB: What was also — what was also —

AMY GOODMAN: — more about Mazen. I mean, I wanted to play a clip of Mazen’s nephew, Yahya al-Hussein.

YAHYA AL-HUSSEIN: [translated] In 2020, he was taken from the Netherlands to Germany through the Syrian Embassy there. And from there, they brought him to Syria with a fake passport. He arrived at the airport at around 2:30 a.m. and called my aunt to tell her that he arrived at the airport, and asked for money. When they reached out to him the next day, they were told that air intelligence had arrested him.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Mazen’s nephew, Yahya al-Hussein. Sarah, if you can explain? This was an activist who left Syria after he had been imprisoned and tortured — right? — more than a decade ago, but ultimately came back, apparently according to assurances that he would not be retaken. And now his body found.

SARAH EL DEEB: I mean, I think it’s — like you were saying, it’s very hard to explain. This is someone who was very outspoken and was working on documenting the torture and the killing in the secret prisons in Syria. So he was very well aware of his role and his position vis-à-vis the government. Yet he felt — it was hard to explain what Mazen’s decision was based on, but his family believes he was lured into Syria by some false promises of security and safety.

I mean, his heart was in Syria. He left Syria, but he never — it never left him. He was working from wherever he was — he was in the Netherlands, he was in the U.S. — I think, to expose these crimes. And I think this is — these are the words of his family: He was a witness on the crimes of the Assad government, and he was a martyr of the Assad government.

One of his — one of the people that were at the funeral yesterday was telling us Mazen was a lesson. The Assad government was teaching all detainees a lesson through Mazen to keep them silent. I think it was just a testimony to how cruel this ruling regime, ruling system has been for the past 50 years. People would go back to his father’s rule also. But I think with the revolution, with the protests in 2011, all these crimes and all these detentions were just en masse. I think the estimates are anywhere between 150,000 and 80,000 detainees that no one can account for. There are also — that is on top of also all the people that were killed in airstrikes and in opposition areas in crackdown on protest.

So, it was surprising that at the last minute — it was surprising and yet not very surprising. When I asked the family, “Why did they do that?” they would look at me and, like, “Why are you asking this question? They do that. That’s what they did.” It was just difficult to understand how even at the last minute, and even for someone that they promised security, this was — this would be the end, emaciated and tortured and killed, unfortunately.

AMY GOODMAN: Sarah, you spoke in Damascus to a U.S. citizen, Travis Timmerman, who says he was imprisoned in Syria. This is a clip from an interview with Al Arabiya Thursday in which he says he spent the last seven months in a prison cell in Damascus.

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: My name is Travis.

REPORTER: Travis.

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: Yes.

REPORTER: So, [speaking in Arabic]. Travis, Travis Timmerman.

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: That’s right.

REPORTER: That’s right.

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: But just Travis. Just call me Travis.

REPORTER: Call you Travis, OK. And where were you all this time?

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: I was imprisoned in Damascus for the last seven months. … I was imprisoned in a cell by myself. And in the early morning of this Monday, or the Monday of this week, they took a hammer, and they broke my door down. … Well, the armed men just wanted to get me out of my cell. And then, really, the man who I stuck with was a Syrian man named Ely. He was also a prisoner that was just freed. And he took me by the side, by the arm, really. And he and a young woman that lives in Damascus, us three, exited the prison together.

AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, your AP report on Timmerman is headlined “American pilgrim imprisoned in Assad’s Syria calls his release from prison a 'blessing.'” What can you share about him after interviewing him?

SARAH EL DEEB: I spent quite a bit of time with Travis last night before — yeah, last night. And I think his experience was very different from what I was just describing. He was taken, he was detained for crossing illegally into Syria. And I think his description of his experience was it was OK. He was not mistreated. He was fed well, I mean, especially when I compare it to what I heard from the Syrian prisoners in the secret prisons or in detention facilities. He would receive rice, potatoes, tomatoes. None of this was available to the Syrian detainees. He would go to the bathroom three times a day, although this was uncomfortable for him, because, of course, it was not whenever he wanted. But it was not something that other Syrian detainees would experience.

His experience also was that he heard a lot of beating and a lot of beating. I think that’s what he described it as: beating from nearby cells. They were mostly Syrian detainees. For him, that was an implicit threat of the use of violence against him, but he did not get any — he was not beaten or tortured.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Sarah, if you could also —

SARAH EL DEEB: He also said his release was a “blessing.” Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: If you could also talk about Austin Tice, the American freelance journalist? His family, his mother and father and brothers and sisters, seem to be repeatedly saying now that they believe he’s alive, held by the Syrian government, and they’re desperately looking for him or reaching out to people in Syria. What do you know?

SARAH EL DEEB: What we know is that people thought Travis was Tice when they first saw him. They found him in a house in a village outside of Damascus. And I think that’s what triggered — we didn’t know that Travis was in a Syrian prison, so I think that’s what everyone was going to check. They thought that this was Tice.

I think the search, the U.S. administration, the family, they are looking and determined to look for Tice. The family believes that he was in Syrian government prison. He entered Syria 2012. He is a journalist. But I think we have — his family seems to think that there were — he’s still in a Syrian government prison. But I think, so far, we have not had any sign of Tice from all those released. But, mind you, the scenes of release from prisons was chaotic, from multiple prisons at the same time. And we’re still, day by day, finding out about new releases and people who were set free on that Sunday morning.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Sarah El Deeb, you’ve reported on the Middle East for decades. You just wrote a piece for AP titled “These Palestinians disappeared after encounters with Israeli troops in Gaza.” So, we’re pivoting here. So much attention is being paid to the families of Syrian prisoners who they are finally freeing. I want to turn to Gaza. Tell us about the Palestinians searching for their family members who went missing during raids and arrests by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip. And talk about the lack of accountability for these appearances. You begin your piece with Reem Ajour’s quest to find her missing husband and daughter.

SARAH EL DEEB: I talked to Reem Ajour for a long time. I mean, I think, like you said, this was a pivot, but the themes have been common across the Middle East, sadly. Reem Ajour last saw her family in March of 2024. Both her husband and her 5-year-old daughter were injured after an Israeli raid on their house during the chaotic scenes of the Israeli raids on the Shifa Hospital. They lived in the neighborhood. So, it was chaotic. They entered their home, and they were shooting in the air, or they were shooting — they were shooting, and the family ended up wounded.

But what was striking was that the Israeli soldiers made the mother leave the kid wounded in her house and forced her to leave to the south. I think this is not only Reem Ajour’s case. I think this is something we’ve seen quite a bit in Gaza. But the fact that this was a 5-year-old and the mom couldn’t take her with her was quite moving.

And I think what her case kind of symbolizes is that during these raids and during these detentions at checkpoints, families are separated, and we don’t have any way of knowing how the Israeli military is actually documenting these detention, these raids. Where do they — how do they account for people who they detain and then they release briefly? The homes that they enter, can we find out what happened in these homes? We have no idea of holding — I think the Israeli court has also tried to get some information from the military, but so far very few cases have been resolved. And we’re talking about not only 500 or 600 people; we’re talking about tens of thousands who have been separated, their homes raided, during what is now 15 months of war in Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, we want to thank you for being with us, Associated Press investigative reporter based in the Middle East for two decades, now reporting from Damascus.

[admin]

Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 16, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/16/headlines

Israel Continues to Bomb Syria, Pushes Ahead with Plan to Invade and Settle More of Golan Heights
Dec 16, 2024
Israel is continuing to bomb Syria a week after Syria’s longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad was ousted from power. Last night, Israel dropped what has been described as an “earthquake bomb” on Syrian military and air defense sites in the coastal Tartus region. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights described Israel’s bombing as the heaviest strikes in the area in more than a decade. According to the group, Israeli forces have launched over 800 strikes on Syria over the past week.

The Israeli government has also approved a plan to expand illegal settlements in the occupied Golan Heights. This comes days after Israel invaded Syrian territory to seize more of the Golan Heights. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has confirmed the Biden administration has been in direct contact with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist Syrian armed group that led the surprise offensive that toppled Assad. We will have more on Syria after headlines.

Topics:SyriaIsrael
Israel Kills Khaled Nabhan, Palestinian Man Who Mourned His Granddaughter Reem: “Soul of My Soul”
Dec 16, 2024
Israel’s unrelenting slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza continues. Early this morning, a strike on the Nuseirat camp killed Palestinian grandfather Khaled Nabhan, whose story was shared with millions around the world last November after Israel murdered his grandchildren, including 3-year-old Reem, whom Nabhan was filmed cradling while repeating the words “the soul of my soul.”

Separately, Israel bombed yet another U.N.-run school without warning, killing at least 20 people in the Khan Younis shelter. At least 60 Palestinians have been killed over the past day of attacks, bringing the official death toll of the genocide to more than 45,000 Palestinians, though the true toll is certainly much higher.

Topics:Israel & PalestineGaza
Israel Kills 3 More Reporters Incl. Mohammed Balousha, Who Exposed Killing of ICU Babies at Al-Nasr
Dec 16, 2024
At least three journalists have been killed in weekend attacks, including Al Jazeera cameraman Ahmed Al-Louh, as well as Mohammed Balousha, who last November was the first to report about the intensive care babies who died after Israeli soldiers forcibly evacuated the Al-Nasr Hospital. This is a clip from that reporting for Al Mashhad.

Mohammed Balousha: “This is the scene in the ICU of Al-Nasr Children’s Hospital. It was under siege by the Israeli army. They didn’t allow these babies to evacuate and prevented anyone from rescuing them from the hospital. Until now, these bodies are still there alongside other bodies of citizens laying in the streets, while no party is able to pick them up and bury them with dignity.”

Israel’s unlawful targeting of Gaza’s hospitals continues more than a year later. In the north, Kamal Adwan Hospital remains under siege and attack by Israeli forces. Israel last week also ordered an area which includes the Patient’s Friends Benevolent Society Hospital to evacuate. The hospital has the only neonatal intensive care unit in north Gaza to receive premature babies. Israeli forces have also destroyed the Abu Shbak Health Center in Jabaliya.

Topics:GazaIsrael & PalestineHealthcareJournalism
Jenin Residents Demonstrate Against Deadly Palestinian Authority Raids
Dec 16, 2024
In the occupied West Bank, Palestinian Authority police forces have continued raids in the Jenin refugee camp, killing a senior leader of the resistance group Jenin Brigades Saturday. The killing of Yazeed Jayasa’a came amid an escalating crackdown by Palestinian Authority forces across the West Bank targeting groups resisting Israel’s occupation. Gunshots and explosions were heard across Jenin. Many residents have taken to the streets in protest of the raids. UNRWA, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, has suspended its services in Jenin due to the violence.

Israeli soldiers have also continued near-daily attacks in the West Bank, including in Hebron, where Israeli forces shot and killed a disabled 23-year-old man during a raid Friday. Muhammad Ahmad Masalma, who had learning difficulties, was shot as Israeli soldiers arrested his cousin inside a paint shop.

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“Lawless”: Marwan Bishara on Israel Bombing Syria 800 Times & Expanding Occupation of Golan Heights
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 16, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/16 ... transcript

Israel is continuing to bomb Syria a week after longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad was ousted from power. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Israeli forces have launched over 800 strikes on Syria over the past week. Meanwhile, the Israeli government has approved a plan to expand illegal settlements in the occupied Golan Heights. “Israel is setting new precedents in the Middle East,” says Al Jazeera senior political analyst Marwan Bishara. “It’s acting so lawlessly against Syria, as a rogue state basically.” Bishara also discusses Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the Syria strategy of other actors in the region, including neighboring U.S. allies that had previously attempted to normalize relations with Assad and extremist groups that have formed partially in response to U.S. aggression.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Israel is continuing to bomb Syria a week after Syria’s longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad was ousted from power. Last night, Israel dropped what has been described as an “earthquake bomb” on Syrian military and air defense sites in the coastal Tartus region. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights described Israel’s bombing as the heaviest strikes in Syria’s coastal region in more than a decade. According to the group, Israeli forces have launched over 800 strikes on Syria over the past week.

The Israeli government has also approved a plan to expand illegal settlements in the occupied Golan Heights. This comes days after Israel invaded Syrian territory to seize more of the Golan Heights. In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, quote, “Strengthening the Golan Heights is strengthening the state of Israel, and is especially important at this time. We will continue to hold on to it, make it flourish, and settle it.”

AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has confirmed the Biden administration has been in direct contact with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist Syrian armed group that led the surprise offensive that toppled Assad.

SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: So, first, yes, we’ve been in contact with HTS and with other parties. We have impressed upon everyone we’ve been in contact with the importance of helping find Austin Tice and bringing him home. And we’ve also shared the principles that I just laid out for our ongoing support, principles, again, that have now been adopted by countries throughout the region and well beyond. And we’ve communicated those.

REPORTER: That’s direct contact?

SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: That’s direct contact, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Blinken made the comments in Jordan. Over the weekend, he also visited Turkey and Iraq to discuss the future of Syria.

We go now to Marwan Bishara, senior political analyst at Al Jazeera. He’s joining us from Doha.

If you can start off by responding to the latest, Marwan? Thanks for joining us again.

MARWAN BISHARA: Well, thank you for having me. I’m glad that the both of you are there in the studio. The last time I was with you, the both of you were there, and I was with Noam Chomsky, and we discussed the Arab Spring. It was the first two weeks of it.

AMY GOODMAN: Wow! Well, it’s —

MARWAN BISHARA: Thirteen years ago.

AMY GOODMAN: Yeah, that’s absolutely amazing. Oh, and a belated happy birthday to Noam Chomsky, who turned, I think it was, 96 on December 7th. Marwan, if you can talk now — I wish we could have Noam Chomsky responding, as well, but if you can talk now about the latest news? And then we’re going to go back to look at the toppling of Assad, but right now this latest news of the attacks on Syria. I think the number of Israeli strikes is at about 800 now.

MARWAN BISHARA: It’s truly incredible. Israel is setting new precedents in the Middle East. It has been doing so for the past 75, 80 years, but this week, in the way it’s acting so lawlessly against Syria, as a rogue state basically, bombing the hell out of its neighbor, simply because there has been a change of rulers in Damascus attempting a peaceful transitional governing there, taking care of the people, and sending all kinds of signals that they have absolutely zero intentions of getting into war with anyone. And yet, this what’s called “strategic opportunism” on the part of the Netanyahu government, also political opportunism just while he’s on trial for corruptions and the rest of it, being a war criminal also, he’s stealing the show by deflecting from what’s going on in Israel, attacking Syria everywhere in Syria, while at the same time expanding in the southern part of Syria beyond the already-occupied Golan Heights. And, as you said, he’s trying to double the illegal settlements in the Golan Heights. So, all in all, Israel, Netanyahu are sending exactly the wrong messages, doing exactly the wrong provocations, and at the same time setting precedents for rogueness, that I think it might not come to bite them soon, but it probably could later.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And your response, Marwan, to the summit that was held in Jordan over the weekend? What do you think came out of it, and especially Secretary of State Blinken being there?

MARWAN BISHARA: You know, the first impression is to remember back the leaders’ parole, parole, parole. You know, sometimes things like only words, words and more words come out of Arab leaders and Arab summits, especially those with the United States. But then, if you look a little more deep into it, you would know that a lot of those people who — a lot of those leaders who were convening the summit in Aqaba have already been normalizing relations with the former Assad regime, despite its murderous corruption, despite its narco-state criminal kleptocracy. They’ve invited him back in the Arab League in 2022 and embraced him in 2023, and they were actually strengthening economic relations in the most of them. But now they were suddenly meeting together and to talk about human rights and peaceful transition and minority rights in Syria, as if, moving forward, or as if the past 60 years, it was merely the majority rights that were violated in Syria by the Assad dictatorship.

Be that as it may, I think while they sing from the same sheet, I think they have very different, very different approaches to what security means, to what stability means in Syria, to what even terrorism means. They don’t agree on this, that and the other thing. And, in fact, each and every one of the major powers in that meeting supports different militia, different military force in Syria. Just to give you a simple example, we have now what? Five or six military forces in Syria. We have the Free Syrian Army; we have the National Syrian Army; we have the militias, Syrian forces in the south; we have the Syrian Democratic Forces; and we have, of course, HTS, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — all in addition to Assad’s forces that remain there, as well as ISIS. A lot of these groups are supported by some of these people convening, including the Turks and the Emiratis and the Jordanians and so on and so forth. So, it’s going to be a very complicated way forward, and I remain doubtful that the Arab regimes are serious about assisting the Syrian people, moving forward.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I want to turn to President Biden speaking last week after the fall of Assad.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: So we carried out a comprehensive sanction program against him and all those responsible for atrocities against the Syrian people. Second, we maintained our military presence in Syria, our counter-ISIS — to counter the support of local partners, as well, on the ground, their partners, never ceding an inch of territory, taking out leaders of ISIS, ensuring that ISIS can never establish a safe haven there again. Third, we’ve supported Israel’s freedom of action against Iranian networks in Syria and against actors aligned with Iran who transported lethal aid to Lebanon.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was President Biden taking credit for the fall of Assad. Your response, Marwan?

MARWAN BISHARA: I tell you, it’s mind-boggling, mind-boggling, trying to whitewash genocide by saying, “Well, after all, 15 months of genocide, maybe, you know, we were on the right track after all. Look at us. You know, we are so great,” you know, and basically tapping himself on the shoulders after all the war crimes that were committed in Lebanon and in Palestine. And now he’s taking credit for some change that happened in Syria by the Syrian people — by the Syrian people — despite the complicity and the conspiracies against the Syrian people, and despite the embrace of the Assad regime by Biden’s allies in the region.

The second thing that came to mind is that, you know, Blinken and Biden keep warning us about ISIS, without mentioning that ISIS is basically the creation of the American invasion and occupation in Iraq, of the stupidities committed by everywhere from Bush to Obama, how they dealt with the question of Iraq, including the de-Ba’athifications, including the dissolving of the Iraqi military, that basically led directly to rise of ISIS. So, really, American intervention in the region, whether it is in Iraq or in Syria, and certainly in Palestine, has been catastrophic. Trying to claim credit for what happened in Syria or could happen in Syria is just beyond the pale.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to the spokesperson Matt Miller, who was questioned by journalists recently.

MATTHEW MILLER: So, we support the work of the ICC. I know that, obviously, we have disagreed with their —

MATT LEE: Wait a second.

MATTHEW MILLER: Hold on. Hold on. I’m going to — let me address it.

MATT LEE: No, you support the work of the ICC —

MATTHEW MILLER: We do support —

MATT LEE: — until they do something like with Israel.

MATTHEW MILLER: We — so, we have had a lot — let me just answer the question.

MATT LEE: And then you don’t like them at all, or the U.S.

MATTHEW MILLER: You know what, Matt? Let me — Matt, let me answer the question, because I was addressing that before you interrupted me. We obviously have had a jurisdictional dispute with them as it relates to cases against Israel. That is a long-standing jurisdictional dispute. But that said, we have also made clear that we support broadly their work, and we have supported their work in other cases, despite our jurisdictional dispute when it comes to Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s State Department spokesperson Matt Miller being questioned by AP’s Matt Lee, talking about why he would support Assad being brought up on war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court but doesn’t feel the same way about Netanyahu and Gallant. In fact, that was just a few days after Gallant had been in Washington, D.C., even though the ICC has issued this arrest warrant, meeting with U.S. officials. Marwan Bishara?

MARWAN BISHARA: You know, Amy, it’s funny, right? I mean, each and every era has an image that speaks to it, that represents it, that reflects it. This was one of them, laughing out, laughing at the State Department spokesperson, the Biden administration’s spokesperson, for again underlining, emphasizing and basically speaking clearly to his double standard and hypocrisy.

But, you know, as an international relations observer, let me tell you, America does not have double standard in the Middle East. It has a single standard. And that’s American interest, American-Israeli interest. So, it’s not really a double standard. I mean, you know, global powers, empires, and notably the United States, it looks like, for us intellectuals and others, moralists, that there is double standard, but in the end of the day, they have a single, narrow American strategic, Israeli strategic interest, and they’ve always spoken to it, defended it, justified it.

So, that’s why for 15 months we’ve seen — at Al Jazeera, we’ve reported from — live from Gaza the unraveling genocide, the war on doctors, the war on journalists, the war on children, on schools and hospitals. And a lot of this has trickled down to the American media, and we’ve seen it. And I think the Biden administration understands that there is a genocide, trying to get off technicality. Of course, again, this was exposed to be the total hypocrisy which it is. It’s OK for Putin to be taken or indicted by the ICC, and Assad, it’s OK, even the Myanmar generals, it’s OK, but not the Israeli leaders. It’s hypocrisy and double standard for the rest of us. For America, it’s the one single standard: American-Israeli interest.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I also wanted to ask you about Gaza, which the rest of the world keeps trying to forget, the atrocity still going on there. At least three journalists killed in Israeli attacks this weekend, including Al Jazeera cameraman Ahmed Al-Louh, as well as Mohammed Balousha, who last November was first reported to — about the intensive care babies who died after Israeli soldiers forcibly evacuated of the Al-Nasr Hospital. Your response to these latest attacks on your fellow journalists?

MARWAN BISHARA: You know, we’ve been covering this for a while. And at one point, you start asking yourself the question: Is this intentional? Or is it actually, you know, war, as it were, you know, just it happens? But then, when we started investigating and others started investigating and when the U.N. started looking at it, as we did when our own journalists were killed in the West Bank, clearly there is an intentional policy of assassinating journalists in Gaza. They are the eyewitnesses of the unraveling genocide, and hence getting rid of them is a thing that Israel has been doing now for 15, 16 months.

Now, why has this become more and more believable is when, then, more and more human rights organizations start reporting about how children are being targeted, I mean, you know, shooting at children in the head and in the chest. We’ve seen that by doctors, including Western doctors, American doctors, reporting about that. Then, slowly but surely, one starts to believe that, in fact, there is a government, there is an army, that is capable of killing doctors intentionally, killing journalists intentionally, in fact, killing children intentionally. And all that happens while — I don’t want to talk about American journalists — while Israeli journalists are silent. Israeli journalists are silent as countless Palestinian journalists are killed by their military. Israeli doctors are silent as Israel assassinates countless doctors in the 15, 16 clinical or hospital facilities in Gaza, or what remains of them. So, it’s not just the incredible ugliness of it all, the rogueness of it all, the inhumanity of it all. What kills me is the silence in Israel, in the United States and elsewhere.

AMY GOODMAN: Marwan Bishara, we thank you for being with us, Al Jazeera senior political analyst, speaking to us from Doha.

Coming up, South Korea’s parliament has voted to impeach the president. Stay with us.

[admin]

Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 17, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/17/headlines

Israeli Forces Attack Gaza “Safe Zone” and Again Assault Kamal Adwan Hospital
Dec 17, 2024
In Gaza, Israeli troops backed by armed drones have attacked the al-Mawasi refugee camp, which Israel had designated as a so-called humanitarian safe zone. Elsewhere, Israeli strikes have killed at least 10 people in Gaza City, while in northern Gaza, Israel has once again targeted the Kamal Adwan Hospital, knocking out the power generators, deploying explosive robots and planting booby traps around the hospital grounds. The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, condemned Israel’s assault, writing, “Recent attacks have further damaged the oxygen supply, generators, and broken windows and doors of the patients’ rooms. The conditions in the hospital are simply appalling. We urge for the protection of health care and for this hell to stop! Ceasefire!”

Family Asks Blinken to Launch Independent Probe of Israel’s Killing of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi
Dec 17, 2024
Here in the United States, the family of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, the 26-year-old Turkish American activist who was shot dead by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in September, is criticizing Secretary of State Antony Blinken after talks at the State Department on Monday. Family members have been demanding the U.S. launch an independent investigation into Eygi’s killing but said they left the meeting disappointed and with doubts that they will ever receive justice. Eygi, a recent graduate of the University of Washington, was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers after taking part in a weekly protest against illegal Israeli settlements in the town of Beita. Witnesses say she was fatally shot in the head by an Israeli sniper after the demonstration had already dispersed.

On Monday evening, Michigan Congressmember Rashida Tlaib rallied with Eygi’s family and supporters in a protest outside the White House.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib: “We all know that Ayşenur’s murder was not a 'tragic error,' as the president shamefully called it. It was devastating, I think, for her family to hear him say that. We know that, and she knew, that what the Israeli military did to her, they do to Palestinians every single day.”

“Nobody Is Going to Silence Ireland”: Irish PM Blasts Israel’s Closure of Dublin Embassy
Dec 17, 2024
Israel says it’s closing its embassy in Ireland over Dublin’s recognition of Palestinian statehood and its backing of South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the World Court. On Monday, Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris responded to the news.

Prime Minister Simon Harris: “You’re all here today asking me about Ireland’s position. What about Israel’s actions? What about what Netanyahu is doing to the innocent children of Gaza? This is — this is the diplomacy of distraction. And I think it is deeply regrettable that they took that decision. They have every right to take that decision to close the embassy. I’d rather it didn’t happen. We will continue to engage, continue to engage diplomatically. But nobody is going to silence Ireland.”

U.S. Officials Warn Turkey Is Preparing Invasion of Syrian Kurdish Autonomous Region
Dec 17, 2024
Senior U.S. officials say Turkey is building up its forces along the Turkish border with Syria in possible preparation for a large-scale incursion into territory held by U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds. That’s according to The Wall Street Journal, which reports a Turkish invasion could be imminent near Kobani, a Kurdish-majority city in Syria.

Meanwhile, Syria’s ousted authoritarian president has made his first statement since he fled to Russia to seek political asylum. In a post on the Syrian presidency’s Telegram channel, Bashar al-Assad writes that his departure from Syria was not planned, and argued that Syria has “fallen into the hands of terrorism.”

Rights Groups Warn Mass Graves in Syria Could Hold Over 100,000 Victims of Assad Family
Dec 17, 2024
Human rights groups are warning mass graves across Syria could contain the bodies of more than 100,000 victims of Bashar al-Assad and his father Hafez. One such site is in the Tadamon district of Damascus, where researchers are scrambling to examine evidence of widespread extrajudicial killings, including mass executions. Hiba Zayadin is Syria researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Hiba Zayadin: “We found human remains, bones, you know, part of a skull, fingers, ribs strewn around the entire area surrounding the mass grave, which shows that, really, you know, a lot more happened here than what we already knew. … What happened in Tadamon here is just one of many others that are being found out across the country, and so it is really urgent that at this time, where we can see that there’s quite a bit of chaos given this transition, that there needs to be quick, urgent securing of all of these areas so that we can really find out the truth about these places.”

*****************

Alex Gibney on “The Bibi Files,” Netanyahu’s Corruption Case & How Endless War Keeps Him in Power
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 17, 2024

As the official death toll in Gaza tops 45,000 and Israel’s wars throughout the Middle East continue, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in court for a long-awaited corruption trial, making him the country’s first sitting leader to face criminal charges. He is charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases. For more on this extraordinary case, we speak with acclaimed filmmaker Alex Gibney, whose latest documentary The Bibi Files features leaked behind-the-scenes footage of police interrogations of Netanyahu, his wife and those accused of bribing him. The film has been banned in Israel, and Netanyahu even tried unsuccessfully to stop it from screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, but Gibney says it is being widely shared inside Israel through unofficial channels. “Strictly speaking, this is a film about corruption,” Gibney tells Democracy Now! “It starts with petty corruption — being bribed with gifts and cigars, champagne, jewelry — but then the ultimate corruption is how he’s tried to elude a reckoning for his misdeeds, and in so doing, he wraps himself in the mantle of prime minister and then wages endless war.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

The official death toll in Gaza has topped 45,000. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting a different battle inside Israeli courts. The first sitting Israeli prime minister to face criminal charges, he’s finally taking the stand at his long-running corruption trial. The case has gone on for years. He’s charged with fraud, breach of trust, accepting bribes in three separate cases.

We turn now to an extraordinary new documentary that offers an in-depth look into the charges against Netanyahu, featuring leaked footage of police interrogations of Netanyahu himself, his wife Sara and those accused of bribing him. This is the trailer to The Bibi Files.

INTERROGATOR: [translated] Our first question for you is whether you or any of your family members have received any gifts or favors from wealthy businessmen in the last decade.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] This is preposterous and insane. You’re trying to incriminate the prime minister on nonsense.

RAVIV DRUCKER: In this case, the facts are really simple. The prime minister and his wife are getting gifts.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] It’s a total lie!

RAVIV DRUCKER: And on the other side, Netanyahu did favors.

BENEFACTOR: [translated] We must find a way to reward him.

INTERROGATOR: [translated] What do you need to reward the prime minister for?

NIMROD NOVIK: Government officials are not allowed to take gifts. This is corruption.

RAVIV DRUCKER: The police, they investigated everybody.

BENEFACTOR: [translated] If this comes out, I’m dead.

INTERROGATOR: What did you get?

SARA NETANYAHU: Champagne and cigars. [translated] Necklaces, rings.

NIR HEFETZ: Sara Netanyahu is very important. Both of them never surrendered, never compromised.

SARA NETANYAHU: [translated] My husband is the strongest prime minister we’ve ever had.

NIR HEFETZ: They start to believe that they are untouchable.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] Without shame! Saying things that didn’t happen!

AMI AYALON: After the catastrophe of the 7th of October, the war became another instrument to stay in power.

NIMROD NOVIK: When people serve for too long, it gets into their head.

RAVIV DRUCKER: The indictment made him dependent on the extreme right in Israel. He is now captive to their whims.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] This is nonsense.

RAVIV DRUCKER: Put all Israel in turmoil.

NIMROD NOVIK: Netanyahu is the architect of chaos.

AMI AYALON: He survived in a state of war. He survived in a state of instability. He’s not a crackpot. He tried to kill the system. Nobody is above the law.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] Do you remember that line from The Godfather? [in English] “Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer.”

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the trailer for The Bibi Files, leaked secret footage of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The new documentary The Bibi Files is directed by Alexis Bloom and produced by Alex Gibney. The Bibi Files cannot be legally distributed in Israel due to privacy laws.

For more, we’re joined by filmmaker Alex Gibney. In 2008, he won an Oscar for his film Taxi to the Dark Side about an Afghan man who was tortured in prison at Bagram.

Thanks so much for being with us again, Alex. I went to see this film the other night at the theater. This is powerful. Explain why in this trailer we can’t see Netanyahu’s face in these deposition tapes. And how did you get these deposition tapes, when he, his wife, his son Yair and others are being questioned by police?

ALEX GIBNEY: OK, I’ll answer the — hi, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Hi.

ALEX GIBNEY: I’ll answer the questions in reverse. I was leaked these tapes. They’re interrogation videotapes done by the police that were a precursor to the indictment of Netanyahu on corruption charges. And in the tapes, you can see Netanyahu, his wife Sara, his son Yair and many of the people who attempted to bribe Netanyahu. They were — I thought they were explosive and very important. This, by the way, was before 10/7 or the war on Gaza. This when there was a big crisis over the judicial reform attempts by Netanyahu, which, of course, were done in part so he could elude any consequence from, you know, impending bribery charges.

But the key thing to understand about distribution in Israel is, when I got these leaked tapes, I made a promise to the source that I would not distribute the film in Israel, because the source could go to prison. There are privacy laws that make it mandatory that if you are photographed as part of an official proceeding — i.e. a police interrogation — you can’t cause those videotapes to be released, so — unless you get the permission of Netanyahu and Sara, etc., which wasn’t going to happen. So, anyway, that is the occasion of why these things can’t be — this film can’t be released and why we had to, you know, black-bar the trailer in order so that the trailer wouldn’t be freely visible — I couldn’t cause the trailer to be freely visible in Israel. Though I should say that it’s being widely pirated there.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Netanyahu is going after you?

ALEX GIBNEY: Netanyahu, as soon as it was announced that we were going to premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, he went to an Israeli court and tried to stop the screening in Toronto. Now, how that was going to happen, I don’t know. But in any event, it was denied. But he certainly tried to stop us. And I understand the Netanyahu administration, through a number of mechanisms, are trying very hard to go after a guy named Raviv Drucker, who’s one of the producers of the film and is a longtime Israeli journalist who has an expertise in this kind of corruption, has been the bane of a number of prime ministers, but particularly Netanyahu.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to another clip from The Bibi Files. It begins with Ami Ayalon, the former head of Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet.

AMI AYALON: And after the catastrophe of the 7th of October, the war became another instrument to stay in power. He survived in a state of war. He survived in a state of instability. He survived when we fight each other. He survived when our enemies fight each other.

GILI SCHWARTZ: A forever war is beneficial to Netanyahu. This makes people feel like they are always in danger, like they always need him. There is always some huge threat. I think that that helps him remain prime minister.

AMY GOODMAN: That last voice, the young Israeli woman, Gili Schwartz, is from Kibbutz Be’eri, where more than a hundred people were killed on October 7th last year. Alex, if you can elaborate on what they are saying? I mean, as we speak, Netanyahu is in court in Israel right now. What this means? They say he wants to wage wider war because, otherwise, he’s no longer going to be protected by the prime ministership, by being prime minister.

ALEX GIBNEY: That’s right. I mean, I think, strictly speaking, this is a film about corruption. And it starts with petty corruption, being bribed with gifts and cigars, champagne, jewelry. But then, the ultimate corruption is how he’s tried to elude a reckoning for his misdeeds, and in so doing, he wraps himself in the mantle of prime minister and then wages endless war. Now, I can’t think of really anything more corrupt than somebody who is administering the killing of women and children in order to be able to stay in power. But that is what they are alleging, and that is what the film is about.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to another clip from The Bibi Files. This one begins with Prime Minister Netanyahu addressing the U.S. Congress this past July.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Together, we shall defend our common civilization. Together, we shall secure a brilliant future for both our nations.

NIMROD NOVIK: Well, I would say that, tragically, the Americans don’t know how to call him out. There was no plan for ending the war of Gaza, bringing the hostages home and changing dynamics in the region. And things only got worse. Netanyahu is the architect of chaos. And as we speak, when all eyes are on the front in Gaza and the front in Lebanon, he is implementing his plan in the West Bank with the extreme right. He may create a situation where it’s irreversible.

AMY GOODMAN: And that’s Nimrod Novik, former adviser to Shimon Peres, in The Bibi Files, the documentary produced by Alex Gibney, who’s with us now. So, talk about how this trial plays out right now. I think most people in the United States aren’t even aware. I mean, you have the horror in Gaza. You have what’s now taking place in Syria, what’s happening in Lebanon. Explain how this all fits in.

ALEX GIBNEY: Well, this is a trial that’s been going on for four years. And Netanyahu has been trying to elude a reckoning related to these charges for that much time. And what he constantly does is to wrap himself in the mantle of leadership. And so, what better way to do that? And this is a tried and true political formula, as grisly and as grotesque as it is, is to wage war, is to continue to use weapons and say, “We’re in danger of being annihilated, so we must strike back.” But, I mean, the destruction that’s going on in Gaza, for example, is a kind of wanton destruction at this point that is just beyond any kind of moral reckoning. And, you know, I think that also the United States bears some responsibility for this. That’s why we included those clips of him in the Congress. You know, we supply Israel with so much aid and so much —

AMY GOODMAN: And to be clear, Sara, his wife, and when she’s being questioned, she yells at the police and says, “Do you know how he’s treated in the United States when he addresses a joint session of Congress?” Alex Gibney, we’re going to have to leave it there, Academy Award-winning filmmaker and producer of The Bibi Files. His next film is about Luigi Mangione and the shooting of the UnitedHealthcare CEO. I’m Amy Goodman. Happy birthday, Jeff Stauch!

[admin]

Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 18, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/18/headlines

Israeli Attacks Kill Dozens of Palestinians Amid Signs of Breakthrough in Gaza Ceasefire Talks
Dec 18, 2024
Health officials in Gaza say Israeli attacks have killed at least 38 Palestinians and wounded more than 200 over the past 24-hour reporting period. Among the latest deaths were 10 Palestinians killed in an Israeli missile attack on the Shati refugee camp and two women killed when Israel shelled a home east of Khan Younis. In northern Gaza, doctors were forced to close the intensive care unit at the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital after an Israeli attack triggered a large fire. The U.N.’s humanitarian office warns U.N.-led missions to supply northern Gaza continue to be overwhelmingly denied, with Israeli forces turning back three humanitarian aid convoys carrying food and water on Tuesday alone.

Meanwhile, a senior Palestinian official involved in indirect negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza said talks were in a “decisive and final phase.” News of a possible truce was welcomed by Gaza residents who’ve survived more than 15 months of Israel’s assault.

Yasser Oweida: “Let them stop the war so we can live in peace and they can open the border crossing for us to bring in food and everything we need — flour, diapers and baby formula. Let them bring in everything for us.”

Israeli Forces Kill Two More Palestinians in Occupied West Bank
Dec 18, 2024
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers shot and killed two Palestinians near the town of Sofin Tuesday. They were identified as 32-year-old Mohammed Ashqar and 31-year-old Diaa Salmi. Israeli forces reportedly blocked anyone from approaching the wounded men, leaving them to bleed out before medical help could arrive. Israel has carried out near-daily raids across the occupied West Bank, killing at least 800 Palestinians since October 2023 and arresting over 12,000.

U.N. Envoy Warns Syria’s War “Has Not Ended” as Turkish-Backed Forces Challenge Kurdish Fighters
Dec 18, 2024
A United Nations envoy has warned Syria’s civil war has not yet ended, despite the removal of President Bashar al-Assad by opposition fighters. On Tuesday, U.N. Syria envoy Geir Pedersen told the U.N. Security Council that Turkish-backed armed groups are continuing to battle Kurdish groups for control of several areas of northern Syria. Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department said it had brokered an extension of a ceasefire deal between Turkey and the U.S.-backed Kurdish Syrian forces around the northern Syrian city of Manbij.

Netanyahu Vows Israeli Forces Will Remain in Syria Indefinitely
Dec 18, 2024
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that his forces will remain in Syria indefinitely, after Israeli troops expanded their occupation beyond the Golan Heights. On Tuesday, Netanyahu and senior Israeli officials toured the peak of Syria’s Mount Hermon, which Israeli troops seized after the fall of the Assad regime. The mountain on the border of Lebanon and Syria extends into — and even beyond — a U.N.-designated demilitarized buffer zone. This comes amid growing international condemnation of Israel’s plans to build new settlements in Israeli-occupied parts of Syria, which are illegal under international law. Israeli military bulldozers have begun clearing land for new construction projects in the Golan Heights community of Majdal Shams, where Druze residents condemned the surge in planned settlements.

Shihadeh Nasrallah: “Regarding this Israeli occupation, it is not surprising, since Israel occupied Palestine and Sinai and occupied the Syrian Golan Heights and Lebanon, that it is currently starting a new occupation. Behind us, you can see the digging which the Israeli army is doing, which is against all international conventions.”

Haaretz: Israel and Saudi Arabia Reach Breakthrough in Talks to Normalize Ties
Dec 18, 2024
Israel and Saudi Arabia have reached a breakthrough in talks that could soon result in an agreement to normalize relations between the two nations. That’s according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which reports the deal would see Saudi crown prince and de facto leader Mohammed bin Salman agree to a vague commitment to a “path towards Palestinian statehood” — rather than an explicit recognition of a Palestinian state.

CNN Admits It Misidentified Assad Intelligence Officer as Freed Syrian Prisoner
Dec 18, 2024
In media news, CNN is facing widespread backlash after the fact-checking group Verify-Sy and CNN’s own investigation determined that a person interviewed on a CNN video report claiming to be a Syrian prisoner was actually a former intelligence officer in the Bashar al-Assad regime who once ran a notorious checkpoint in Homs. CNN’s report shows journalist Clarissa Ward and her team stumbling upon the person, who has now been identified as former Syrian Air Force Lieutenant Salama Mohammad Salama, who claimed to have been held in a windowless cell for three months in a Damascus prison.

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“Obey the Law”: Palestinians Sue State Dept., Saying Arms Sales to Israel Violate U.S. Human Rights Law
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 18, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/18 ... transcript

"The Democrats' stubborn refusal to learn from the campus protests for Palestine"
A new lawsuit accuses the State Department of failing to ever sanction Israeli military units under the Leahy Law, which was passed in 1997 to prevent the United States from funding foreign military units credibly implicated in gross human rights violations. The case was brought by five Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and the United States and is supported by the human rights group DAWN. Former State Department official Charles Blaha, who served as director of the human rights office tasked with implementing the Leahy Law, says there is a mountain of evidence of Israel carrying out torture, extrajudicial killings, rape, enforced disappearances and other abuses. “Despite all that, the State Department has never once held any Israeli unit ineligible for assistance under the Leahy Law,” says Blaha, now a senior adviser at DAWN. We also speak with Palestinian American writer Ahmed Moor, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, who has family in Gaza and says the last year of genocide has made the lawsuit more urgent. “The conditions of basic life are not being met. Gaza is unlivable,” says Moor.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Five Palestinian families have sued the U.S. State Department for violating U.S. federal law by continuing to fund Israeli military units despite their role in gross human rights abuses in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. The lawsuit cites the Leahy Law, named after former Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy. The lawsuit says, quote, “The State Department’s calculated failure to apply the Leahy Law is particularly shocking in the face of the unprecedented escalation … since the Gaza War erupted on October 7, 2023,” unquote.

The lawsuit is supported by DAWN, the D.C.-based nonprofit that campaigns for democracy and human rights in the Arab world. This is a short clip from a video they produced about the lawsuit.

NARRATOR: For almost 30 years, the Leahy Law has prohibited the United States from funding foreign security forces that violate human rights. Yet for decades the United States has consistently ignored persistent and widespread abuses by the security forces of one country — Israel — and refused to block aid to any of its military units. Now DAWN is taking action. We are filing a lawsuit against the State Department to force it to finally enforce the Leahy Law and end military aid to abusive units of the Israeli Defense Forces. This lawsuit isn’t just about ending the Israeli exception from enforcing U.S. laws, but preserving the broader principles of accountability, human rights and the rule of law. We hope our lawsuit will force a long-overdue reckoning for Israeli impunity, but also crack down on U.S. foreign policies arming abusive regimes around the globe — in violation of our nation’s own laws and principles. This lawsuit also reflects the immense human cost of America’s failure to enforce its own laws, continuing to provide Israel with over $20 billion in weapons to terrorize Palestinians in Gaza, where it has killed over 45,000 people, the vast majority women and children.

AMY GOODMAN: That video from the D.C.-based nonprofit DAWN, that campaigns for democracy and human rights in the Arab world.

We’re joined now by two guests. Charles Blaha is senior adviser to DAWN. He retired from the State Department last year after over 30 years of service. From 2016 until his retirement, he served as director of the Office of Security and Human Rights, which is responsible for implementing the Leahy Law worldwide. He’s joining us from Washington, D.C. And from Philadelphia, we’re joined by the Palestinian American writer Ahmed Moor, born in Gaza. Moore is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit and advisory board member of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with Charles Blaha. You worked for the State Department, the agency that you are now suing, for over 30 years. Can you explain more fully the Leahy Law and what you’re charging in this lawsuit?

CHARLES BLAHA: Sure. And thanks for having me.

The Leahy Law, as you said, prohibits United States assistance to security force units that have committed gross violations of human rights. It’s actually very surgical, and it prohibits U.S. assistance to the specific units that have committed the violations.

The State Department has for years, in its own human rights reports, including the 2023 reports for Israel and for Gaza and the West Bank, set forth gross violations of human rights by Israeli security forces, things like torture, extrajudicial killings, like the killing of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi that you mentioned at the top. It deprived people of their liberty without due process, rape under color of law, enforced disappearances. These are allegations and credible reports set forth in the State Department’s own human rights reports, and they go back years.

Despite all that, the State Department has never once held any Israeli unit ineligible for assistance under the Leahy Law. The lawsuit, which is by the plaintiffs, is designed to try to compel the State Department to obey the law. So, in three words, what this lawsuit is about is the State Department must “obey the law.”

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Charles Blaha, what has happened to these reports once the department — once they’ve been issued to the higher-ups in the State Department?

CHARLES BLAHA: Well, that’s a good question, because usually the determinations about whether a unit is eligible or not are not made at the higher levels of the State Department. They’re made by experts. They’re made by action officers who are versed in the Leahy Law, who know the security forces — the security forces in question, and who know the facts in question. And these are legal determinations.

And one of the problems with the way the Leahy Law is applied, or really not applied to Israel, is that these determinations have been made at the political level. And they have, as I said, resulted in not one single Israeli security force unit ever being found ineligible for assistance.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And how is U.S. military assistance delivered to Israel? In what form and where? And is this a standard practice, the way it’s delivered?

CHARLES BLAHA: Well, Israel is a special case, and we give massive security assistance to Israel. And part of that is a lump sum of over $3 billion annually that goes into an account. And where it goes after that is controlled by Israel. We don’t know all the places it goes. We don’t know the units it goes to.

And that’s a problem, because the Leahy Law requires vetting units. In that situation where we can’t trace the units to which the assistance is going, the law requires the State Department to give the countries in question — and Israel is one of those, there are a few others — to give the countries in question a list, a list of ineligible units. The State Department has never done that. That has been the law since 2019. And in five years — five years — the State Department has never given Israel a list of ineligible units. It’s given lists to the other countries that this law applies to, but not to Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: Charles Blaha, you often hear commentators on television, or, I should say, U.S. government officials, saying, “Don’t be so concerned about this amount of money, $3 billion, because it’s really going mainly to U.S. military, you know, to the weapons manufacturers.” You hear that not only around Israel, but other countries that get U.S. military aid. Can you explain what actually happens? And is Israel a separate case, where you don’t know where the money goes, but in other cases, we insist that the money stays with U.S. weapons manufacturers?

CHARLES BLAHA: Well, part of the money does go to U.S. weapons manufacturers. Part of it actually goes to their competitors in Israel. But the problem from the Leahy Law is, regardless of where that money goes, this is U.S. taxpayer money that’s going to weapons that are being used in gross violations of human rights, being used by units that commit gross violations of human rights. That’s the problem.

AMY GOODMAN: And Blinken’s role, your former — well, I don’t know if you worked under him, but the secretary of state? When did you retire exactly?

CHARLES BLAHA: I retired in August 2023, so before the — before October 7th. And when I retired, I was frustrated at the slowness of the implementation of the law. It wasn’t the reason I retired. I retired because I had been in the State Department for 32 years and it was time to retire. But I was frustrated. But I became more and more frustrated as I saw mounting evidence of gross violations of human rights by Israeli security force units and nothing being done about them.

AMY GOODMAN: And did you have conversations with Blinken about it specifically?

CHARLES BLAHA: No, I was an office director, so I was not what they call up on the seventh floor, up in the highest levels of the State Department. I was in office director, but an office director with really good knowledge of the Leahy Law and how it is applied.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’d like to bring into the conversation Ahmed Moor, is a Palestinian American writer, advisory board member of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. Welcome to Democracy Now! Could you talk about your involvement in the lawsuit? You were born in Gaza and still have family there?

AHMED MOOR: Yes, that’s right. So, I was born in Gaza, moved to the United States as a child, still have most of my extended family in Gaza. And as you can imagine, conditions there have been unlivable for over a year, 14 months now. And so, my direct participation in the lawsuit goes to my increasing inability and increasing likelihood — inability to speak with family members in Gaza and increasing likelihood that they’re going to be subjected to further inhumane conditions and harm. My family has experienced direct loss through the genocide. Most recently, my cousin’s 19-year-old son was killed by an Israeli sniper in Rafah. And so, the urgency surrounding this lawsuit goes to the fact that the conditions are getting worse. The danger that people are exposed to continues even as we speak.

AMY GOODMAN: Ahmed, you wrote a piece recently in The Guardian, “The Palestine-Israel nightmare won’t end until we accept these basic truths.” Lay out your argument.

AHMED MOOR: So, I mean, basically, anybody who’s been — you don’t need to be a sophisticated geopolitical analyst to take a look at a map and realize that there’s never going to be a Palestinian state. The pronouncements that emerged in 1993, the White House Lawn, the famous handshake between Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister at the time, did generate a lot of hope. You know, I lived as a child in the West Bank, and people were ready, I’d say, to accept a future of two states, with everything that that entailed, with all of the losses that they had experienced personally through the Nakba. At that time, Israel was less than 50 years old. People were ready to move on and accommodate themselves to the reality, because Israel exists.

But over the course of the past 30 years, the acceleration of the settlement project has basically rendered a Palestinian state unrealizeable. And you really only need to take a look at how the settlements are arrayed across Jerusalem and the West Bank to realize that there’s no contiguous Palestinian state possible in that land. And so, people like me accommodated themselves to the idea of one binational state, equal rights for everybody. And it’s the framework that we live under here in the United States, and it’s workable in lots of different places. And we said, “Well, why not Palestine-Israel?”

That no longer seems likely or workable. You speak with people in Palestine, and they’re deeply traumatized, and it’s unreasonable to ask them, to say, “Well, you know, can you have a shared future in this land with Israelis?” So, I think the consensus that’s emerging is that we need some kind of separation, even though two states is unworkable. And it’s not clear where that goes.

In the article, though, I highlight a few conditions that need to be met before we can arrive at a negotiated conclusion or outcome to this horrible nightmare that we’ve all been living for so long. The first is recognition that Hamas is an ordinary political party, in the sense that it’s native to the Palestinian struggle. Hamas was founded long after the establishment of the state of Israel, and it rose in direct opposition to the conditions of the occupation in Gaza. Before Hamas, the chief organization, that was described as the terrorist and obstacle to peace, was the Palestine Liberation Organization. And, of course, the PLO accommodated themselves to Israel, and that was the commencement of the Oslo process. So we know that this outright description of people as hard-liners or as being fundamentally incompatible with the idea of negotiation and discussion just isn’t true. The second element of the argument — so, I guess the first one is Hamas is not going away. It’s an indigenous party in Palestine. It’s employed terrorist tactics, but that doesn’t mean that the party itself is going away or that Palestinian society is going to move away from Hamas just because the United States and Israel demand that it does.

The second part of the argument is that the Palestinians have a right to say that Zionism — have the right to say that Zionism is Jewish supremacy in Palestine, and that in order for us to have an equitable conversation about what a future looks like, we need to move past Jewish supremacy in Palestine. We need a basic framework for negotiation and discussion which moves past the idea that certain people have rights that accrue to them based on an identity which is immovable, an identity that you’re born with. And that’s basically the argument.

So, once we meet these — once we can set a framework, basically, for negotiation and discussion, we can begin to talk about resolving the Palestinian-Israeli crisis. Where we go from there, I’m not sure. I don’t think anybody really knows at this stage.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, I’d like to bring Charles Blaha back into the conversation. Charles, what differentiates this lawsuit from previous ones — excuse me — against the U.S. government for providing military assistance to Israel, especially in view of the fact that Israel — with every war, Israel gobbles up more territory, creates more settlements and becomes more and more of a rogue state?

CHARLES BLAHA: Well, what makes this particular lawsuit by the plaintiffs different are two things. One, it’s being brought under the Administrative Procedures Act. And the contention under that act is that the special process that the State Department uses to Leahy-vet Israeli units — it’s called the Israeli Leahy Vetting Forum — that that process is arbitrary and capricious and does not advance the intent of the Leahy Law. In fact, it seems designed to frustrate it.

And the second thing about this lawsuit is that given the Supreme Court’s recent ruling overruling the Chevron case, which says that courts have to give deference to agencies’ interpretations of laws, that no longer exists. That’s been overruled. And as our lawyer laid forth in the complaint, now the courts can look more closely at how an agency — at how an agency or department implements — or, in the case of Israel, fails to implement — the law.

AMY GOODMAN: We just have 30 seconds, but, Ahmed Moor, I wanted to ask why you’ joined this lawsuit. And given that so many of your family are still in Gaza, those that have survived, their response?

AHMED MOOR: The conditions are dire. I’m writing an essay now about child amputees, and I spoke with a child and her mother, double amputee in Gaza. The conditions of basic life are not being met. Gaza is unlivable. Never mind things like potable water or taking a shower in the morning, think about defecating in the open, being a woman or a girl who can’t — who’s menstruating. The basic conditions of life in Gaza aren’t being met. And the fact that they aren’t being met is a matter of policy, policy that our government is supporting.

AMY GOODMAN: Ahmed Moor, Palestinian American writer, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the State Department. And Charles Blaha, former State Department official, served as director of the office responsible for implementing the Leahy Law.

*******************

Justice for Ayşenur Eygi: Family of U.S. Citizen Killed by Israel Meets with Blinken Demanding Probe
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 18, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/18 ... transcript

"Why isn't Israel being held accountable for killing my wife and other innocents?"
We speak with the husband and sister of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, the 26-year-old Turkish American activist killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in September, who have criticized the Biden administration for failing to independently investigate her death. The recent University of Washington graduate was fatally shot in the head after taking part in a weekly protest against illegal Israeli settlements in the town of Beita, which she attended as an international observer. Witnesses say she was shot by an Israeli sniper after the demonstration had already dispersed. Members of Eygi’s family spoke with Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this week but left the meeting with little hope the U.S. would hold Israel accountable. “Accountability starts with an investigation by the U.S. of the killing of one of its own citizens by an ally,” says Eygi’s husband Hamid Ali. “The answer to the question of why my wife is not getting justice is because Israel enjoys this level of impunity throughout its existence that no other country, no other state in the world enjoys.”

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

The Biden administration is coming under criticism this week for failing to independently investigate the killing of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, the 26-year-old American activist shot to death by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in September. The recent University of Washington, “U Dub,” graduate was fatally shot in the head after taking part in a weekly protest against illegal Israeli settlements in the town of Beita. Witnesses say she was shot by an Israeli sniper after the demonstration had already dispersed.

On Monday, members of her family met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken but left the meeting saying they had little hope the U.S. will hold Israel accountable. Her family also held a vigil outside the White House on Monday night and a press conference on Tuesday outside the Capitol, where speakers included Democratic Congressmember Pramila Jayapal of Washington state.

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: Outside reporting, including an in-depth investigation by The Washington Post, directly challenges the Israeli government’s account of what happened and how Ayşenur was killed. This investigation found that Ayşenur was shot more than 30 minutes after the confrontation that the IDF claimed to be responding to had already ended. And she was killed from more than 200 yards away, horrifically shot in the head. That is not a, quote, “mistake,” as the IDF has claimed. That is not accidental. …

I am absolutely appalled with the lack of movement on this case, the lack of attention from the State Department, the U.S. State Department, for the well-being and the safety of our own U.S. citizens. Nothing that I have heard from the State Department gives me any assurance at all that the killing of a United States citizen by the IDF is being treated with the urgency that it deserves. And this is all particularly galling when the U.S. continues to provide unfettered aid to Israel — bullets, bombs, weapons — violating our own domestic Leahy Laws and international humanitarian law.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Democratic Congressmember Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, represents Seattle, where Ayşenur also grew up and went to college. Pramila Jayapal was speaking Tuesday at a news conference calling for a U.S. probe into Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi’s death, shot dead by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.

We’re joined now by Ayşenur’s sister, Ozden Bennett, and her husband, Hamid Ali.

We thank you so much, both, for joining us, and our deepest condolences on the death of your wife and your sister. Ozden, if you could start off by talking about your meeting with Blinken? Both of you weigh in. Why did he agree to meet with you? Your sister is an American citizen. And what he promised?

OZDEN BENNETT: My sister’s killing happened over three months ago, so we waited a long time to meet with Secretary Blinken. And unfortunately, we didn’t get a lot out of that meeting on Monday with him. He stuck to a lot of his talking points, which was that they will review the rules of engagement and conduct within the Israeli military because of their escalations and actions, and, essentially, kept deferring to the Israeli investigation. Anytime that we countered the comments that he was making, he would just circle back and repeat the same things. And —

AMY GOODMAN: Hamid, let me ask you: Has President Biden called you on the death of your wife? Or, Ozden, on the death of your sister?

HAMID ALI: No, no, President Biden has not reached out to us directly.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, I wanted to ask. State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said Monday that Blinken told you that, quote, that “Israel has told us in recent days they’re finalizing their investigation into the matter.” Have you received any communication from the Israeli government at all?

HAMID ALI: No, we haven’t received any communication from the Israeli government. I mean, we received three pictures with some captions from the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem via — or, from the Israeli government via the embassy in Jerusalem. But that’s about it. There’s been no other communication.

OZDEN BENNETT: And when we asked Blinken for what they — what communication or documents or anything they’ve received from Israel themselves, the answer was “nothing at this time.”

AMY GOODMAN: Hamid, can you tell us about your wife? The university — went to University of Washington, graduated. And then, what happened on that fateful day?

HAMID ALI: Yes. As I understand it and as I’ve been told by eyewitnesses and as I’ve read in The Washington Post investigation, she attended a weekly demonstration in Beita against an illegal Israeli settlement. She was there as an international observer. She was not part of the protest in the same way that — she was nonparticipating necessarily. She was there to document and as a protective presence and to bear witness, really, of their right to protest against that illegal settlement.

She was standing under an olive tree. She had just helped an older woman, who was also there as an international observer, who had just sprained her ankle. And the last conversation that they had was that they felt safe in that position underneath that olive tree. And then that’s when she was shot.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Ozden, could you tell us — your sister was drawn to advocating for human rights around the world. Could you talk about her growing up and her decision to get involved in these kinds of activities?

OZDEN BENNETT: Growing up, even from a young age, she was just always very drawn to helping her community, helping people in need, taking mentorship positions, volunteering where she could. And starting in high school, she became really politically engaged in the Seattle community. Around Trump’s election, for example, she was really moved by Bernie Sanders and his messaging. She was really moved against what Trump was messaging at the time and trying to implement. And she really rallied protests at that time in Seattle. And through the years, she has volunteered abroad in Myanmar to help relief efforts there.

She related to what’s happened in Gaza since October 7th, had raised over $40,000 working with the community at large, putting together a fundraiser, an art fundraiser, to help give aid to children in Gaza. She was a huge part of the student leadership that led the encampment movement on the campus of University of Washington. She was at the negotiations table trying to push the president and the administration on campus to divest from certain companies that were harming Palestinians.

And even after all that, she felt like what she had done wasn’t enough, and she felt moved to do what she could. And she felt like, in her words, the least she could do was to go there and bear witness as an international observer and document the injustices that she was seeing and, hopefully, be — have the Israeli military think twice before using lethal action, which, unfortunately, is what killed her that day.

AMY GOODMAN: Hamid Ali, you wrote an op-ed in The Hill newspaper in Washington that was headlined “Why isn’t Israel being held accountable for killing my wife and other innocents?” If you can answer that question right now and what exactly Blinken said he is waiting for, if he’s talking about an Israeli military investigation? I wanted to go back to what the State Department originally said, Matt Miller saying, “Israel has told us in recent days they’re finalizing their investigation.” You’re meeting with all sorts of congressmembers, right? Jim McGovern, Pramila Jayapal, Senators Jeff Merkley, Chris Van Hollen — Chris Van Hollen, who has called for the release of the investigation of the well-known journalist, also an American, the Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed, what, May 11th, 2022, by an Israeli sniper as she was covering the Israeli raids into the Jenin refugee camp. What would it look like if the U.S. held Israel accountable for the death of your wife?

HAMID ALI: Well, simply, to begin, accountability starts with an investigation by the U.S. of the killing of one of its own citizens by an ally. I think that’s where it starts. Accountability — I mean, nothing will bring my wife back. But at the very least, we can hold those who were responsible — for example, the soldier who fired that bullet, the unit commander who gave the order, and anyone else responsible for that action being taken — face some sort of punishment, because I think the answer to the question of why my wife is not getting justice is because Israel enjoys this level of impunity throughout its existence, that no other country, no other state in the world enjoys. And it seems to be unconditional at this point. I mean, I don’t know what else needs to happen.

AMY GOODMAN: And are you calling for something to happen before Trump takes office? Are you concerned about what will happen next?

HAMID ALI: I think it should happen as soon as possible. We’ve been saying this since September. I don’t think the election has anything to do with it. I don’t think Trump coming into office changes anything. I think — I hope any administration would take seriously the killing of one of its citizens. So, 30 days are left in this administration. That’s a long time, I think, for someone to just simply make a statement, namely President Biden or Secretary Blinken, to just say, “Hey, I think we need an investigation into the killing of Ayşenur,” because there’s still a lot of time, and I don’t want to take ownership off of the administration for what’s happened here.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Hamid, I wanted to ask you — she was also a dual citizen. She was a citizen of the U.S. and Turkey. And Turkey has opened its own investigation into the killing. Have you heard anything from the Turkish government?

HAMID ALI: The Turkish investigation is ongoing, as far as I know. I don’t know as many of the details there. But I think it just speaks to the stark contrast into these two governments of which she was a citizen, my wife was a citizen. One government has taken no pause, no hesitation to begin seeking justice for one of its citizens, and the other government, the U.S., has been dragging its feet, basically not doing anything and letting the military and the government responsible for killing her take the lead and investigate themselves, which we’ve seen historically has never proven any accountability, has never brought forward any accountability, especially, like you said, in the current administration even with Shireen Abu Akleh, that you mentioned earlier.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you both for being with us. And again, our deepest condolences. Hamid Ali is the husband of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, the 26-year-old American Turkish citizen who was shot dead by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in September. We’ll link to your article in The Hill. And we want to thank Ozden Bennett, the sister of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi. They have both just returned from a meeting with the secretary of state, Tony Blinken.

[admin]

Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 19, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/shows/2024/12/19

Israeli’s Attacks Continue Across Gaza Despite Talks of Nearing Ceasefire
Dec 19, 2024
Fresh Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have killed at least 25 Palestinians, including children. That includes 16 people killed in Jabaliya in northern Gaza, a strike on Maghazi refugee camp that killed four and bombings in Gaza City that killed at least five others. Survivors scrambled to retrieve people from under the rubble.

Mahmoud Al-Ghafry: “At exactly 10:02 at night, we were sleeping. We were sleeping. Suddenly, we heard the sounds of a strike. How? We don’t know. We went down and found it was our neighbors’ house, the Zeitouniya family. We pulled out several martyrs, children and women. And until now there are still people under the rubble they cannot reach. As you can see, they’re pulling them out. They are digging with their hands.”

Twin Palestinian Sisters Killed by Israeli Attack as They Attempted to Leave Gaza
Dec 19, 2024
Among the recent victims of Israel’s bombardment are twin sisters Sally and Dalia Ghazi Ibaid. The 26-year-olds had recently been accepted to attend the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, as part of the Global Student Relief Initiative, which supports students from conflict zones. They were killed by an Israeli bombing on December 5 as they attempted to leave Gaza via the Rafah border crossing into Egypt.

Haaretz: Israeli Soldiers Arbitrarily Kill Palestinians, Then Declare Them Terrorists
Dec 19, 2024
A new report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz finds Israel’s military has designated the Netzarim Corridor, which cuts the Gaza Strip in half, as a “kill zone.” The report quotes Israeli soldiers describing how they arbitrarily killed dozens of Palestinian civilians, including children, then posthumously declared them to be terrorists.

Separately, Human Rights Watch warns in a new report that since October 2023, Israeli authorities have deliberately obstructed Palestinians’ access to the adequate amount of water required for survival in the Gaza Strip — an act tantamount to genocide.

Israel Bombs Yemen, Killing at Least 9
Dec 19, 2024
Israel killed at least nine people in overnight bombing raids on port infrastructure and oil storage facilities near Yemen’s capital Sana’a. The bombings came after Israel’s military said it had intercepted a missile launched by Yemen’s Houthi movement before it crossed into Israeli territory.

“We Just Do What the Israelis Want Us to Do”: State Department Official Quits over U.S. Policy on Gaza
Dec 19, 2024
Another employee of President Biden’s State Department has resigned over U.S. policy toward Gaza. Mike Casey quietly left his role as deputy political counselor on Gaza — one of only two jobs specifically focused on Gaza — in July, after realizing all his reports were systematically dismissed despite the rapidly mounting death toll and catastrophic humanitarian situation Gaza.

Casey found that, unlike in his previous diplomatic work in Malaysia, China and Pakistan, the U.S. government does not expect Israeli authorities to listen to any of their recommendations or demands, and instead defers completely to Israel. Mike Casey told The Guardian in an interview about his resignation he “got so tired of writing about dead kids” and that “We don’t have a policy on Palestine. We just do what the Israelis want us to do.”

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Mass Graves Discovered as Syrian Families Seek Answers to Loved Ones’ Disappearances Under Assad Regime
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 19, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/19 ... transcript

“We were not prepared for what we were going to see,” says Human Rights Watch researcher Hiba Zayadin, who recently visited one mass execution site turned mass grave in Syria, following the sudden fall of the authoritarian Assad family from power. More than 150,000 Syrians remain unaccounted for after being held in Assad’s prisons, and many are believed to be buried in mass graves. We speak to Zayadin about what’s been uncovered so far and the struggle to preserve evidence, particularly in the face of a new regime that has not prioritized tracking records of the Assad government’s crimes, and of Israel’s ongoing shelling of crucial sites. “Every minute that passes where there is inaction, where these documents, these sites are not being preserved, are not being secured, is just one more family possibly never knowing what happened to their loved ones,” she says.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to a grim reality that Syrians are facing after the toppling of the Assad regime: the discovery of mass graves across the country. According to the International Commission on Missing Persons, more than 150,000 Syrians remain unaccounted for after being held in Assad’s prisons. Many are believed to be buried in mass graves. The Syrian search and rescue group White Helmets has received reports of at least 13 mass grave sites across the country, eight of them near Damascus.

Human Rights Watch visited the site of one mass grave, also a mass execution site, in the Tadamon neighborhood of Damascus last week. The group was able to confirm the exact location of the grave after verifying and geolocating a previously leaked video from April 2013.

LAMA FAKIH: The video shows Syrian government forces and pro-government militia shooting 11 men in civilian clothing, blindfolded and bound. The victims’ bodies then fall into a pit. One of three perpetrators films, while the other two men carry out the executions, taunting and laughing at victims as they die.

Human Rights Watch was unable to travel to Syria when we were first made aware of this video, so we went through an extensive process to verify it. We gathered witness evidence, and by matching landmarks in the footage with satellite imagery, we identified the exact location of the mass grave. We established that these summary executions took place in the Tadamon area of Damascus on April 16, 2013.

Since the fall of the Assad government, we have been able to travel to Damascus to see the area for ourselves. We know the grave was a machine-dug pit between two buildings. It measured approximately three meters wide, seven meters long and two meters deep. In the footage, 13 bodies are visible in the pit. During the course of the six-minute, 43-second video, the gunmen kill 11 more.

In visiting the grave here, we also discovered today the presence of human remains in and around the site. These victims deserve a decent burial. Their families deserve to know what happened to them.

Today, the pit is filled in. Local residents told us that access to the square kilometer surrounding this mass grave was restricted by Syrian authorities for a long time. One resident told us that pro-government forces ordered him to bury bodies, some years after the executions. It’s unclear to what extent human remains in the area have been removed since 2013.

All this is evidence of just one of many atrocities carried out by the Assad government. In this case, Human Rights Watch has identified the man in the blue-gray uniform as Najib Halabi, who died later in the conflict. The other man, initially identified by the University of Amsterdam researchers who first sent us the video, worked for Syrian military intelligence as recently as March 2023. Any surviving perpetrators of this or other atrocities should be held accountable as part of a fair judicial process. The 2013 massacre documented on video is just one of many summary killings in the area.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We’re joined now from Amman, Jordan, by Hiba Zayadin, senior Middle East and North Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. She just returned from a week in Damascus.

Hiba, welcome to Democracy Now! If you could just begin by talking about what you learned from your time in Damascus and what you saw?

HIBA ZAYADIN: Absolutely. And thank you for having me on the show.

So, upon arriving in Damascus, one of the first sites that we decided to visit was that of the heinous 2013 Tadamon massacre, which a video of had leaked in 2021. We had been investigating this crime for a long time now. We had confirmed the exact location of the mass grave and decided to go confirm it for ourselves.

But what we found there, you know, we were not prepared for what we had found. We were not prepared for what we were going to see, even though we knew, from conversations with residents earlier in 2021, that it was the likely site of other summary killings, as well. But when we arrived, what we saw was scores of human remains, of fingers, of a part of a skull, pelvic bones, strewn across the surrounding neighborhood. We saw families — you know, families had brought to us bags that they had collected of bones from the rubble in dilapidated stores in the area. We saw children toying with these bones. It was not anything that we had expected, that we had expected to see.

And we spoke to more residents and found out that this was the site of so much more horror than we had expected. You know, I had spoken to a resident who was forced at the age of 15 — this was back in 2016 — to dig graves and to dump bodies, corpses into those graves. We had found — we had spoken to an ambulance driver who was tasked to retrieve bodies from that area in 2018 and 2019. I spoke to countless families who had missing loved ones that they did not know what had happened to and had no answers for.

And so, you know, it was really important that we highlight how imperative it is to protect and to secure this site and many others like it. There are mass graves across Syria, and this was just one of them. And we had visited others, as well. We had seen desperate families visiting these sites, sometimes taking matters into their own hands, digging the graves on their own, trying to find anything about this. We saw them at the morgue, where there were several unidentified bodies, families clutching pictures of their loved ones, pushing it into the camera to try and show it to the world, to try and get any sort of information.

We also visited some of the most notorious detention facilities, that we had for a long time worked on and documented abuses and torture in. And, you know, what we found there, too, was quite upsetting, in that there was intentional destruction of documents, of evidence. There was looting. There was total insecurity for the first couple of days that we were there, with people coming in, retrieving files, leaving with them, tampering with the evidence. And we know that the Assad government operated a chilling bureaucratic system whereby they documented every crime. They documented it in detail. And that evidence had existed in these detention facilities, in the military courts, in the prisons themselves.

And every minute that passes where there is inaction, where these documents, these sites are not being preserved and not being secured, is just one more family possibly never knowing what happened to their loved ones. And it also means that there are officials who have perpetrated some of the most horrific atrocities over the past decade that will go free and that will not be brought to justice because of just how quickly a lot of this evidence is disappearing.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I’d like to read from a Financial Times article headlined “The Syrian neighbourhood at the heart of Assad’s killing machine,” which is the neighborhood that you’ve just spoken about, Tadamon. The article begins saying, quote, “In Tadamon, the children know the difference between a human jaw and a dog’s. So inured are they to decomposing remains, a consequence of living in this desolate Damascus suburb, that the boys casually toss around skulls and fractured femurs.” So, Hiba, if could speak — you just talked about the importance of protecting these sites. I mean, many have said that Assad’s regime has just fallen, and this work is only just beginning, the work of excavating these mass graves. Are there concerns that these sites will not be protected? And if not, where will the — who will damage them? How will they somehow be disrupted?

HIBA ZAYADIN: Definitely, there are concerns right now. I mean, we have seen that for transitional authorities, this has not been a top priority. And our presence in Damascus was to call for the preservation of this evidence, was to make it clear to transitional authorities that this must be a priority and that it is of the utmost urgency, because now is the time — yesterday was the time, a week ago was the time to be protecting these sites. And as I had said earlier, every day that passes, we’re losing more valuable information. And, you know, it is a priority, or it should be a priority, to transitional authorities not just because of justice and accountability efforts, but also because you have thousands upon thousands of families who are seeking answers, who deserve answers, and who have no idea what the transitional authorities are doing about this right now.

They need to be raising awareness about what it means to tamper with this evidence, what it means to retrieve documents from an area without preserving the chain of custody, because, you know, once you take these documents out without documenting exactly who and how and from where they were taken, none of this is going to stand in court. And this is what we’ve been impressing upon transitional authorities. This is what we’ve been calling for U.N. bodies, relevant bodies to arrive at the scene as soon and as urgently as possible. We’ve been calling on international rescue teams to also arrive on site and for Syrian groups to really be at the forefront of this, of this massive, massive effort.

AMY GOODMAN: This is State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller speaking earlier this week.

MATTHEW MILLER: When you look at the evidence that is coming out of Syria in the now 10 days since the Assad regime fell, it continues to shock the conscience. And I’m referring not just to the mass graves that have been uncovered, but information that we have been gathering inside the United States government, including information that’s not yet publicly known.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you respond, Hiba, to these remarks, in particular, Matt Miller suggesting more will be revealed about abuses by the Assad regime?

HIBA ZAYADIN: So, I mean, absolutely, more will be revealed. And I think, you know, there have been documents in detention facilities that remain intact. And there is movement. You know, we have seen a bit more of a stepping up in the security of some of these detention facilities. But there is no coordinated effort right now to preserve these documents. And it is really important to stress that these documents belong to the Syrian people. This evidence belongs to the Syrian people, and they need to be at the forefront of these efforts to preserve and secure — obviously, with the help of U.N. relevant bodies, obviously, with the help of international actors. But these documents belong to the Syrian people. The evidence belongs to them and needs to remain with them and in their hands. And that’s what I would stress in response to some of these remarks.

AMY GOODMAN: Hiba, what is Human Rights Watch looking out for when Israel intensifies the attacks on Syria, expanding its occupation of the Golan Heights? You’ve said that Israel bombed the only facility in Syria that had DNA equipment that would allow for the identification of remains in these mass graves. Can you explain?

HIBA ZAYADIN: Yes. So, I mean, Israel’s strikes in Syria come on the heels of its brutal military campaigns in Lebanon and in Gaza, where we’ve documented war crimes, crimes against humanity and, as my colleague has just been saying on your show, acts of genocide in Gaza specifically. You know, Syria is right now in a very fragile state, and the Israeli strikes have almost completely decimated its defense capabilities.

But also this has had repercussions and consequences for the issue that we’re speaking of right now, the preservation of evidence. Some of these strikes have hit vital facilities, including the Air Force intelligence branch, you know, the institute where these DNA machines were being housed, other security branches, military security branches, that contain vital evidence. And so, these strikes are also adding to the quite upsetting situation that we currently find ourselves in, in terms of just preserving evidence, making sure that some day, hopefully, every family can learn what the fate of their loved ones had been, where they may have been buried, and to really be able to give them a decent burial.

AMY GOODMAN: Hiba Zayadin, I want to thank you so much for being with us, senior Middle East and North Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. She’s just returned from Syria.

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“Extermination & Acts of Genocide”: Human Rights Watch on Israel Deliberately Depriving Gaza of Water
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 19, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/19 ... transcript

Human Rights Watch is accusing Israel of committing acts of extermination and genocide by deliberately restricting safe water for drinking and sanitation to the Gaza Strip. The report details how Israel has cut off water and blocked fuel, food and humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip, and deliberately destroyed or damaged water and sanitation infrastructure and water repair materials. We speak to one of the report’s editors, Bill Van Esveld, the acting Israel and Palestine associate director at Human Rights Watch, who describes “a clear state policy of depriving people in Gaza of water,” that HRW is, for the first time in the current Israeli assault on Gaza, characterizing as a genocidal act.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: In a major new report, Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of committing acts of extermination and genocide by deliberately restricting safe water for drinking and sanitation to the Gaza Strip. Tirana Hassan, the executive director at Human Rights Watch, said, quote, “This isn’t just negligence; it is a calculated policy of deprivation that has led to the deaths of thousands from dehydration and disease that is nothing short of the crime against humanity of extermination, and an act of genocide,” she said. The report details how Israel has cut off water and blocked fuel, food and humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip. In addition, Human Rights Watch accused Israel of deliberately destroying and damaging water and sanitation infrastructure, as well as water repair materials.

Israel has rejected the Human Rights Watch findings, saying, quote, “The truth is the complete opposite of HRW’s lies.” But just in the past day, the United Nations said Israel had once again denied requests to deliver aid to Palestinians in Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and Jabaliya — areas that have been under Israeli siege for months.

AMY GOODMAN: We go right now to Bill Van Esveld, acting Israel and Palestine associate director at Human Rights Watch. He helped edit the Human Rights Watch report, just out today, titled “Extermination and Acts of Genocide: Israel Deliberately Depriving Palestinians in Gaza of Water.” He’s joining us from Athens, Greece.

Bill, thanks so much for being with us. Why don’t you lay out your findings?

BILL VAN ESVELD: Thank you very much for having me on this issue.

I think this report lays out a clear state policy of depriving people in Gaza of water. So, we looked at four different ways in which all access has been controlled and restricted.

First, there are the water pipelines that come from Israel to Gaza. They supply only about 20% of the water in Gaza, but about 50% of the drinking water, because Gaza’s aquifer underground has been completely contaminated over years and years of closure. So, the first thing was cutting off those water pipes.

The second thing was, there are water resources inside Gaza, so those were cut off, too. Those are desalination plants. Those are water pumps going to the aquifer. Those are water sanitation facilities, water treatment facilities. They all need energy. They need electricity. They need fuel. Israel cut off electricity and fuel within the first few days of the war. But that wasn’t enough. Four of those six water treatment plants I was talking about in Gaza had solar panel fields that were their source of electricity in case electricity got cut off, because electricity has been terrible in Gaza for many years as a result of the siege. It wasn’t enough for Israel to cut off the electricity coming from outside; they also sent in military bulldozers to systematically destroy every one of the solar panels in those solar fields, rendering those sanitation facilities completely offline.

And two more issues. One is, you know, the infrastructure of water in Gaza has been so destroyed and damaged by the hostilities that it needs urgent repair. There was a major warehouse inside Gaza with a lot of spare parts. It was bombed. And the Palestinian staff who were there, with their families, some of them were killed in that bombing.

Finally, humanitarian agencies, such as Oxfam, UNICEF and others, have been trying, since the war started, to get water and sanitation materials imported into Gaza to help purify water, chlorine tablets, all sorts of things to fix the network. Those were systematically blocked. Even at moments when the Israeli military was allowing other civilian items into Gaza, we were told those were blocked. That is a complete state policy of denial of access to water, and the results are horrifying.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Bill, just to convey, you begin the report by citing World Health Organization figures about the amount of water, minimum amount of water, that’s required per person per day to sustain life. What the WHO recommends is 247 liters per person per day. And since October 7th, 2023, people in Gaza — an individual in Gaza has access to two to nine liters per day, as against the 247 that the WHO recommends. So, if you could say, Bill, on the basis of the people that you spoke to, that Human Rights Watch spoke to, what has the impact of this been on people in Gaza? What did medical personnel that you spoke to say? Also, in terms of excess deaths, we hear, of course, of this horrific figure of 45,000 people who have been killed by direct attacks by the Israeli military, but how many more deaths are likely the result of water deprivation?

BILL VAN ESVELD: Thank you. Yeah, that’s right. So, in Israel, the average consumption per day is 247 liters per person per day of water. The minimum, absolute minimum, required for life, even in an emergency situation, is 15 liters a day. And people in Gaza have been getting two to nine liters a day on average. Now, that’s an average that — and, you know, I should say, in northern Gaza, for example, for five months, people got zero liters of drinkable water per day.

The effects are as horrifying as you might expect. We spoke to 115 or more people, people in Gaza, healthcare providers. And, you know, the lack of water kills you in a million different ways. There are babies who have died directly from dehydration, but there’s also people who are dying from disease and contracting terrible illness. I mean, you cannot take — you cannot bathe if you have no water. And a quarter of a million people, at least, in Gaza now have skin disease as a result. I mean, one five-minute shower is more water than people in Gaza get in an entire week. We spoke to surgeons who said that wounds are not healing because the bodies of the patients are so dehydrated. Kids were coming in, dying in the hospital, because they were drinking from contaminated water sources. Now, if you add to this the decimation of the healthcare sector in Gaza, that means that people are coming in with waterborne diseases that can no longer be treated. So, children dying at large numbers of hepatitis A, which normally would have a death rate, but very, very small, that has ballooned horrifyingly in Gaza.

If you add all of these things up, there is a huge hidden death toll. We know that 45,000 names have been collected by the Gaza Ministry of Health, but those are almost all people who were killed directly by explosive weapons or shot directly during the course of the hostilities. That doesn’t include the hidden death toll of people dying from dehydration, starvation, disease and illness. Now, there were 99 healthcare professionals who wrote a letter to President Biden and his administration in October. And they calculated, on the basis of the international committee that tracks famine and that has sort of global standards for the numbers of deaths expected, that based on the assessment of starvation and hunger and lack of water in Gaza, at least 62,000 more people may be dead in Gaza. That is — you know, we say thousands in the report. It could easily be tens of thousands or more. We are talking about a mass death situation that is the result of deliberate policy.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go, Bill, to one of the many comments by Israeli officials quoted in your report to determine Israel’s genocidal intent in Gaza. This is the former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant speaking just days after the October 7th, 2023, attacks.

YOAV GALLANT: [translated] I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk, Bill Van Esveld, about the significance of what he said here, again, Yoav Gallant at the time the defense minister of Israel. And actually, recently, he — well, the ICC has issued arrest warrants for him and Netanyahu. And even with those arrest warrants issued, the International Criminal Court, he just recently went to Washington, D.C., to meet with officials.

BILL VAN ESVELD: Yes, the same Yoav Gallant, an indicted war criminal by the International Criminal Court, was just meeting with the U.S. defense secretary and President Biden’s senior Middle East adviser. You know, it’s really, really shocking. This is the same man who once said, when the United States was going to sanction an Israeli military unit, “We don’t listen to the United States. No one will teach us about morality.” Really disappointing move by the Biden administration there, and others who met with him.

What that statement of his and statements by other senior Israeli leaders in positions of control and command in the Israeli army and over this issue of denial of access to water, their statements are evidence of an intent. And they were also carried out by the military and, you know, by the authorities. So it’s not just they said something and it sounds bad. No, what they said was actually what they did.

That’s extremely serious, and that is part of what led us to the conclusion of extermination. That is a crime against humanity, of deliberately causing mass death. And one of the ways that, you know, that can be committed is by depriving people of what they need to stay alive, such as water. That same crime, which we define and conclude is the crime of extermination, is the same act as one of the acts of genocide listed in the Genocide Convention and, indeed, in the International Criminal Court statute on its article on genocide: deliberately inflicting conditions of life on people calculated to bring about the destruction of that group.

Now, what Gallant said there could be evidence of genocidal intent. Genocide is an extraordinarily difficult crime to prove, because the intent must be, according to international law, that you are not just killing people in large numbers, which is extermination, but that you are killing them specifically because you want to destroy the group they are part of. And if you look at the evidence of Israeli military and government actions on water, and statements like that one on water, we think you may have evidence already of genocidal intent.

AMY GOODMAN: So, can I ask you, Bill Van Esveld, is this the first time that Human Rights Watch is accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza?

BILL VAN ESVELD: This is the first time that we’ve made a finding of genocidal acts in Gaza. It is not an accusation that we level lightly. We have not done this very often in our history. We accused the Myanmar military of genocidal acts against the Rohingya in 2017, and we found full-blown genocide against the Kurds in Saddam Hussein’s Anfal campaign in Iraq in the '80s — sorry, in the ’90s, and we found genocide against — also in Rwanda in the ’80s. It is, you know, an extremely difficult crime to prove. It is, you know, mass killing deliberately to destroy people because they're part of the group, not something we level lightly, but, yes, we found it here.

AMY GOODMAN: Bill Van Esveld, we thank you so much for being with us, acting Israel and Palestine associate director at Human Rights Watch. He helped edit the Human Rights Watch report, just out today, titled “Extermination and Acts of Genocide: Israel Deliberately Depriving Palestinians in Gaza of Water.” We’ll link to that report at democracynow.org. Bill Van Esveld, joining us from Athens, Greece.

[admin]

Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 20, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/20/headlines

Israel’s Genocide in Gaza Claims 77 Palestinian Lives Over Past Day
Dec 20, 2024
Israel’s relentless attacks across the Gaza Strip killed at least 77 Palestinians over the past 24 hours. An Israeli strike on two schools turned shelters killed at least 15 displaced Palestinians in Gaza City. Meanwhile, Israeli forces have continued their brutal siege on north Gaza with attacks reported in Beit Hanoun. Israeli quadcopters were also seen shooting civilians in Jabaliya al-Balad.

Meanwhile, the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a resolution asking the International Court of Justice to assess Israel’s obligations to facilitate the delivery of U.N. and international aid to Palestinians in Gaza. Israel has repeatedly blocked the entry of lifesaving aid into the besieged territory.

In more related news, Doctors Without Borders said in a new report, published Thursday, that Israel’s war on Gaza shows clear signs of ethnic cleansing.

Israeli Settlers Vandalize West Bank Mosque Amid Continuing Israeli Attacks Across Occupied Territory
Dec 20, 2024
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlers on Friday set fire to a mosque in the village of Marda, spray-painting “revenge” and “death to Arabs” in Hebrew on the Muslim holy site. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned the attack, calling on the U.N. to launch an investigation. This is Nasfat al-Khufash, head of the Marda village council.

Nasfat al-Khufash: “Today, on Friday, Marda woke up to a systemic terror attack by a group of settlers who set fire to Bir al-Walideen mosque. A number of settlers set fire and attempted an attack on a wider scale on the mosque, as you see the aftermath of this, along with writing racial slurs such as 'death to Arabs' and that they will burn this mosque to build a synagogue. These attacks are continuous and systematic by settler groups.”

The attack on the mosque came as at least six Palestinians were killed across the West Bank, including an 80-year-old woman who was shot in the chest by Israeli forces during a raid in the Balata refugee camp, near Nablus, Thursday. In Tulkarm, at least four Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a vehicle.

U.S. Officials in Damascus as Syrian Kurds Seek to Fend Off Possible Turkish Incursion
Dec 20, 2024
Senior U.S. officials have arrived in Damascus on the first U.S. diplomatic mission to Syria in over a decade. The officials are expected to meet with members of HTS, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the armed Islamist group that helped overthrow Bashar al-Assad’s regime earlier this month. The meeting is occurring even though HTS remains on the State Department’s terrorist list.

This comes as questions remain over the fate of Kurdish populations in Syria. A commander of the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces said it would agree to withdraw any non-Syrian Kurdish fighters from northern Syria if Turkey agrees to a complete ceasefire.

Mazloum Abdi: “We said that we are ready to withdraw our forces from the border and for the area to be free of our forces and for the internal security forces to be present instead of our forces, in addition to the presence of American forces in the area to supervise this area, on the condition that there is a complete truce.”

The Wall Street Journal reports an official in the Syrian Kurds’ civilian administration has directly appealed to Donald Trump to pressure Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan against sending troops into Syria.

Meanwhile, press freedom groups have condemned the killing of two Kurdish journalists — Nazim Dastan and Cihan Bilgin — by a Turkish drone as they were reporting on attacks on the Tishrin Dam on the outskirts of Kobani.

Syrian Youth, Women Gather to Demand Respect for Human Rights from Incoming Gov’t
Dec 20, 2024
Meanwhile, Syria’s interim education minister reassured the nation that a new government will not restrict girls’ access to education. On Thursday, Syrian youth and women gathered in Damascus to call for their rights to be respected in any new government.

Maram Fuleihan: “We are here to participate as youths in order to be together hand in hand, to be a secular, democratic state where there is equality and maintenance of women’s rights. So far, we do not know what the situation will be, and we are not attacking or judging anyone because it is still so early, but it is our right to hold onto our rights. It is our right to know where we are going to and participate together, as Syrians, to build a Syria for all.”

EPA, Energy Dept. Workers Condemn Biden Admin for Funding Bombs Over Climate Crisis
Dec 20, 2024
A group of employees from the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy published an open letter to the White House Thursday condemning the withholding of federal climate funds from the group Climate Justice Alliance after it spoke out against the genocide in Gaza. The group called on the U.S. agencies to end their collaboration with Israel, writing, “We decry the prioritization of funding for bombs and tanks over the resourcing of communities impacted by accelerating climate disasters.”

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“Christ Is Still in the Rubble”: Bethlehem Rev. Isaac Calls on U.S. to Stop Funding Gaza Genocide
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 23, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/23 ... transcript

Christmas celebrations are canceled in the West Bank and the city of Bethlehem, Jesus Christ’s birthplace, for the second year in a row in response to Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza and ethnic cleansing of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We feature an excerpt of the Christmas sermon of Reverend Munther Isaac of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, titled “Christ Is Still in the Rubble,” referencing a sermon he gave at this time last year titled “Christ in the Rubble,” about the loss of Palestinian life to Israel’s assault of Gaza. We also go to Bethlehem to speak with Reverend Isaac. He shares his message to the U.S. and the rest of the world. “Our fear here in Bethlehem is that there is no one who’s going to hold Israel accountable,” he says. “We’re tired and sick of these wars, which are enabled by American tax money and American politics.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

We turn now to Palestine, where Christians are preparing for a second Christmas under ongoing Israeli attacks as the number killed in Gaza has risen to 45,317, though the toll is likely so much higher. In the past 24 hours alone, dozens of Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza.

On Friday, the Palestinian theologian and pastor Reverend Munther Isaac delivered a Christmas sermon at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, in occupied West Bank, the birthplace of Jesus, called “Christ Is Still in the Rubble.” He’ll join us in a minute. First, this excerpt of his address.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: “Never again” should mean never again to all peoples. “Never again” has become “yet again” — yet again to supremacy, yet again to racism and yet again to genocide. And sadly, “never again” has become yet again for the weaponization of the Bible and the silence and complicity of the Western church, yet again for the church siding with power, the church siding with the empire.

And so, today, after all this, of total destruction, annihilation — and Gaza is erased, unfortunately — millions have become refugees and homeless, tens of thousands killed. And why is anyone still debating whether this is a genocide or not? I can’t believe it. Yet, even when church leaders simply call for investigating whether this is a genocide, he is called out, and it becomes breaking news. Friends, the evidence is clear. Truth stands plain for all to see. The question is not whether this is a genocide. This is not the debate. The real question is: Why isn’t the world and the church calling it a genocide?

It says a lot when you deny and ignore and refrain from using the language of genocide. This says a lot. It actually reveals hypocrisy, for you lectured us for years on international laws and human rights. It reveals your hypocrisy. It says a lot on how you look at us Palestinians. It says a lot about your moral and ethical standards. It says everything about who you are when you turn away from the truth, when you refuse to name oppression for what it is. Or could it be that they’re not calling it a genocide? Could it be that if reality was acknowledged for what it is, that it is a genocide, then that it would be an acknowledgment of your guilt? For this war was a war that so many defended as “just” and “self-defense.” And now you can’t even bring yourself to apologize. …

We said last year Christ is in the rubble. And this year we say Christ is still in the rubble. The rubble is his manger. Jesus finds his place with the marginalized, the tormented, the oppressed and the displaced. We look at the holy family and see them in every displaced and homeless family living in despair. In the Christmas story, even God walks with them and calls them his own.

So, today, let us reflect on the child Jesus, the child of Bethlehem. At the heart of the incarnation, there is a child. And this child, in his weakness, he is our hope. He is our consolation. He is our strength. This child — let us remember, this child shook Herod’s throne when he was born. And while there are some who talk about the “Roman Empire” or glorify Herod as “great,” we are the ones who think of a child born to refugees escaping a massacre. …

Yes, it has been 440 days. It is 440 days of Palestinians’ resilience, sumud. Indeed, it is 76 years of sumud. But we have not and will not lose hope. Yes, it is 76 years of an ongoing Nakba, but it is also 76 years of Palestinian sumud, clinging to our rights and justice of our cause, 76 years of praying and singing for peace. I was thinking about it. We are stubborn people. We continue to pray for peace year after year after year, and sing about peace, and we will continue to do so. And we will continue to echo the words of the angels, “Glory to God in the highest, peace on Earth.”

AMY GOODMAN: Excerpts of this year’s Christmas sermon from pastor Reverend Isaac Munther at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank, in Palestine. Reverend Isaac’s forthcoming book is titled Christ in the Rubble: Faith, the Bible, and the Genocide in Gaza.

The pope has just repeated his call for a ceasefire in Gaza. He also unveiled this year’s nativity scene at the Vatican, portraying a baby Jesus in a crib lined with a Palestinian keffiyeh. The Israeli government has now denounced the pope for calling for an international inquiry into Israel’s assault on Gaza to see if it constitutes a genocide.

The pastor Munther Isaac is joining us now from occupied Bethlehem.

Your thoughts on what’s happening, on the pope being condemned by Israel, on what’s happening in Bethlehem, the second year that Christmas activities have been canceled because of the more than 45,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza? Reverend Isaac, thank you for joining us.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: Thank you for having me.

Well, if Israel was true that they are engaging within the rules of war, then why should they be concerned if anyone, not just the pope, calls for investigation into whether war crimes are taking place or not? Israel is clearly committing a genocide. I mean, the evidence is very clear. And of course they should be concerned, because if an investigation takes place, it’s going to reveal truly what is taking place.

And even here Bethlehem, it’s not easy. It’s another Christmas with isolation, with Bethlehem being completely isolated from Bethlehem, more blockades, more gates, checkpoints outside of Bethlehem. And my fear and our fear here in Bethlehem is that there is no one who’s going to hold Israel accountable. And that’s why statements like this from his holiness the pope make a difference, because Israel needs to know that we live within a community that respects the rule of law; otherwise, chaos will prevail if everyone just does what they can. And if the rule of “might is right” rules, then is this the kind of future we want to leave for our children?

AMY GOODMAN: Reverend Isaac, we spoke to you in our studio in New York. You came here to New York. You went to Washington, D.C. As the Biden administration wraps up and President Trump is about to become president again, what are you demanding of the United States?

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: That it respects the international law. I mean, it cannot be the United States and Israel versus the rest of the world, as every United Nations vote reveals. Again, if the United States is honest about its call for freedom, ideas, human rights, then they should respect that and that they should abide by the international law. My message is that they are enabling Israel into politics that’s leading the whole region into chaos and destruction. There can be other ways. There are other ways. And we’re tired and sick of these wars, which are enabled by American tax money and American politics.

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us more about “Christ in the Rubble” and that image that you created in the manger last year, that you continue this year. We said well over 45,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza. Close to 800 have died in the West Bank under Israeli assault. Talk about the situation where you are.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: Yeah, I mean, we’re still seeing images of children pulled from under the rubble. It’s unthinkable to me that it’s been more than 14 months now into this genocide, and we’re still seeing the same images. It seems like we’re powerless, and it seems that the world is content with letting this go on. And here in the West Bank, as we watch from Bethlehem what’s happening in Ramallah or Hebron, we wonder, “Are we next?” Israel has made it clear they plan to annex the West Bank next year. What would this mean on the ground? Again, we live in this moment of anticipation, of anxiety. And at the same time, we’re broken by the fact that the world seems content with letting this go, without serious efforts to make it stop or put accountability and restraint on those who commit war crimes.

AMY GOODMAN: Reverend Munther Isaac, we thank you so much for being with us, Palestinian Christian theologian, pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in occupied Bethlehem, where his Christmas sermon this year was titled “Christ Is Still in the Rubble.” He was speaking to us from Palestine.

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Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 24, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/24/headlines

Israel Attacks Two Hospitals in Northern Gaza
Dec 24, 2024
Health officials in Gaza say Israel has attacked the Al-Awda and the Kamal Adwan hospitals in northern Gaza, while forcing wounded and sick patients to leave the Indonesian Hospital, in the latest assaults on Gaza’s devastated health system. Israeli artillery shelled the third floor of the Al-Awda Hospital, while Israel detonated remote-controlled explosives just outside the Kamal Adwan, which is barely functioning after repeated Israeli attacks. This is Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan, speaking on Al Jazeera.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya: “Just now one of the explosives planted by the Israeli army detonated. It caused a shock wave that shattered the hospital doors and windows on the west side. It also injured some of the patients and the very few medical staff left at the hospital. Roughly 20 people were hurt. A second, stronger explosion followed. It caused massive damage to the hospital’s west wing, and more patients were injured. The entire west wing’s doors and windows were all smashed, and the false ceiling collapsed.”

At the United Nations, officials decried Israel’s attacks on Gaza’s health system.

Stéphanie Tremblay: “The director-general of the World Health Organization said that the reports of bombardment near Kamal Adwan Hospital and orders to evacuate the hospital are deeply worrisome, adding that the hospital has been in the middle of fighting for too long and the lives of patients are at risk. OCHA reiterates that civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, must be protected.”

In other news from Gaza, an Israeli drone strike on Sunday targeted an aid convoy in Deir al-Balah, killing four security guards. This comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that there has been “some progress” in talks over a ceasefire and hostage deal.

Israel Detains 100 in West Bank; Palestinian Authority Clashes with Palestinian Fighters in Jenin
Dec 24, 2024
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces have reportedly abducted about 100 Palestinians in raids over the past day. This comes as Palestinian Authority forces are clashing again with Palestinian militants in the Jenin refugee camp. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports Palestinian police have been firing rocket-propelled grenades at armed Palestinian fighters in Jenin, where Palestinian police killed a 17-year-old on Monday.

Israel Confirms It Assassinated Haniyeh as It Threatens to Kill Houthi Leaders Next
Dec 24, 2024
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has publicly confirmed for the first time that Israel was behind the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July. Katz made the comment as he threatened to target the heads of the Houthi movement in Yemen,

Israel Katz: “We will damage its strategic infrastructure, and we will behead its leaders. Just as we did to Haniyeh, Sinwar and Nasrallah in Tehran, Gaza and Lebanon, we will do it in Hodeidah and Sana’a. Whoever will raise his hand to Israel, his hand will be severed. The IDF’s long arm will harm him and will settle the score.”

In recent days the United States and Israel have both bombed targets in Yemen, while Houthi forces fired a rocket at Tel Aviv that injured 16 people.

Taxpayers Against Genocide Sue Two California Democrats for Funding Israeli Military
Dec 24, 2024
In Northern California, more than 500 residents have joined a class-action lawsuit in an effort to block future U.S. military aid to Israel over Gaza. The lawsuit targets Democratic Congressmembers Jared Huffman and Mike Thompson. The lawsuit was filed by the group Taxpayers Against Genocide. Seth Donnelly is the group’s lead organizer.

Seth Donnelly: “We want to go to where the source is. It controls our tax dollars. And that’s Congress. They have power of the purse. And our two reps in the House voted — and that’s Mike Thompson for some of the counties, and the other one is Jared Huffman for the other counties. They both voted on April 20th to send $26 billion more in military aid to Israel. And by that point, the evidence of genocide was overwhelming.”

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Kurds Under Threat in Syria as Turkey Launches Attacks and Kills Journalists After Assad Regime Falls
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 24, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/24 ... transcript

As foreign powers look to shape Syria’s political landscape after the toppling of the Assad regime, the country’s Kurdish population is in the spotlight. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan continues to threaten the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Turkey regards as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party militants who have fought an insurgency against the Turkish state for 40 years. Turkey’s foreign minister recently traveled to Damascus to meet with Syria’s new de facto ruler Ahmed al-Sharaa, the head of the Islamist group HTS. “Turkey is a major threat to Kurds and to democratic experiments that Kurds have been implementing in the region starting in 2014,” says Ozlem Goner, steering committee member of the Emergency Committee for Rojava, who details the persecution of Kurds, the targeting of journalists, and which powerful countries are looking to control the region. “Turkey, Israel and the U.S. collectively are trying to carve out this land, and Kurds are under threat.”

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We end today’s show with Syria and what the fall of the Assad regime means for Syria’s 2 million Kurdish people, who make up about 10% of the country. Since the Islamist armed group HTS toppled the Assad regime, Turkey, Israel and the United States are vying for greater control in post-Assad Syria, and the balance of power seems to be shifting against Kurdish groups.

Turkey’s foreign minister traveled to Damascus Sunday to meet with Syria’s new de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, the head of HTS. According to press accounts, they discussed the need for Syria to draft a new constitution, Israel’s attacks on Syria, and the future of the Kurds.

Meanwhile, a U.S. delegation met with al-Sharaa on Friday, and the Biden administration is moving to lift a $10 million bounty on him over his links to al-Qaeda. The Pentagon has also acknowledged there are now about 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria, more than double the previously announced figure of 900.

On Monday, the Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan said Syrian Kurdish armed groups had no place in Syria’s future, adding that Turkey would continue targeted operations against it. Turkey regards the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has fought an insurgency against the Turkish state for 40 years. The Syrian Kurdish YPG is the military wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, a key U.S. ally in fighting the Islamic State. But the return of President-elect Trump has called into question how long Washington’s support will continue.

For more, we’re joined here in New York by Ozlem Goner. She is associate professor at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the College of Staten Island and the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, CUNY. She’s also a steering committee member of the Emergency Committee for Rojava and is from the Bakur region of broader Kurdistan.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Professor.

OZLEM GONER: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about your concerns right now. What exactly is happening to the Kurdish population of Syria?

OZLEM GONER: Thank you so much for having me.

So, this is a big threat for the Kurdish populations in Syria, and this is also a big threat for this democratic confederalist, women’s liberationary and pluralist experience that Kurds initiated in the region of north and east Syria more broadly, because Turkey, as you’ve shown in the clip, and also as President Erdoğan, for example, just this past week said that we can’t confine the great Turkish nation to its 700-something thousand kilometers. So, Turkey is very explicitly saying that they’re involved. Turkey has said very explicitly that they’ve been supporting HTS for 11 years and that they have a stake in Syria and have explicitly been intervening in the region, pushing for its interests, trying to further its already-occupied — for example, Turkey has been occupying Afrin region of north and east Syria, that was under the Kurdish self-government for now since 2018. So, Turkey is a big threat to the democracy and against Kurds especially at this moment.

And we’ve seen in Syria, you know, both Israel and Turkey are making their progress, trying to control further territory, trying to exert further power and control in the region, and all through the U.S. You know, U.S. has been — Turkey is a NATO country. We have to know this, because sometimes this is represented as if there’s, like, Turkey versus the U.S., whereas, actually, Turkey is one of the major allies of the United States in the region. Turkey is the second-largest NATO army. And Turkey has been not only massacring, torturing, imprisoning Kurds under the Turkish territories, under the Turkish nation-state, but has been killing journalists in Kurdistan, has been killing journalists in Syria, in Iraq. So Turkey is really playing at becoming a major force in this region and taking Kurds out of the picture here.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s talk specifically about the journalists. Press freedom groups have condemned the killing of two Kurdish journalists, Nazim Dastan and Cihan Bilgin, by a Turkish drone as they were reporting on attacks on the Tishrin Dam on the outskirts of Kobani in northern Syria.

OZLEM GONER: Right, right, right.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain the significance of this area and who those journalists were.

OZLEM GONER: Right. So, those journalists — this is very, very important. This is crucial that Turkey targeted — target-killed these two journalist in north and east Syria.

AMY GOODMAN: A man and a woman.

OZLEM GONER: A man and a woman, yes. So, Nazim Dastan has been showing Turkey’s involvement with ISIS in 2014, when Kobani, this town that’s now under the threat of yet another Turkish invasion, and the SNA, the Turkish militias, Turkish mercenaries, paid by Turkey, are at the border and have started also a ground invasion. Turkey is using airstrikes and drones to also kill, do these targeted killings. Nazim Dastan was the journalist in 2014 who showed the Turkish-ISIS alliance and how, the ways, the different ways that Turkey was supporting ISIS in the region. And he was actually imprisoned in Turkey prior to his killing in north and east Syria.

And Cihan Bilgin has also been doing very important work, showing, for example, the lives of Kurdish people who were displaced from Afrin by Turkey’s ethnic cleansing in 2018. So, she has been in the region reporting the lives of these displaced people and also the ongoing Turkish attacks, because we need to understand something that’s very important, is that Turkey, from 2014, by supporting ISIS into the killing of 14,000 Kurdish people at the hands of ISIS, backed by Turkey, was very important.

Since then, in 2018, Turkey occupied Afrin, a region in north and east Syria that was under the Kurdish self-rule, and ethnically cleansed thousands of people, sold Kurdish women to slavery. And there are many, many human rights reports that show this at this moment. So, 2018. 2019, Turkey again came to the U.N. meeting and, in front of all the U.N., the world leaders, showed a detailed map as to how Turkey plans to colonize and occupy the north and east Syria. So, it’s trying to attack Kurds in 2023 right before Israel’s genocide started in Gaza. Turkey destroyed 40 to 50% of infrastructure in north and east Syria. And these, you know, they hardly make it to the media, but these are the realities that Turkey is a major threat to Kurds and to democratic experiment that Kurds have been implementing in the region starting in 2014.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s talk about how this will all play out with the presidential transition here.

OZLEM GONER: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: The U.S. is backing one Syrian Kurdish group that Turkey is opposed to, but at the same time, Turkey and the U.S. are allies, right?

OZLEM GONER: Yes, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Both in NATO.

OZLEM GONER: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: And also, how worried are Kurds in Syria about President Trump returning to power? In 2019, he greenlit a Turkish invasion into northern Syria.

OZLEM GONER: Right, right. I mean, as you know, these are fascist governors, governments, that are basically in coordination since the Cold War. Turkey has been one of major allies of the United States in the region, starting with the Cold War, I mean, using military training, sales of war equipment. The planes, the F-16s, that kill Kurds in north and east Syria are sold by the U.S., and not only are sold by the U.S., but the U.S. actually gives a lot of military funding, humanitarian funding, that are used in the purchase of these, this weaponry.

So, behind, you know, if you scratch the surface a little bit, the only purpose of those U.S. troops in the region were to prevent the further growth of ISIS, because even prior to the U.S. entering the region, it was the Kurdish forces who have been, because of their own movement’s success of 40 years of practicing of self-governing, self-defense, women’s self-defense forces — so, these were all in place before the U.S. entered the region. But the current presence of the U.S. troops is to prevent Turkey from entering, annihilating, crushing, killing Kurds in tens of thousands. What we’re seeing in Gaza today can happen in Rojava if we don’t enter. And it happened previously to Kurdish populations in my hometown of Dêrsim, 1930s, in Iraq. So, the Kurdish populations at the hands of these governments, who are in cooperation with the U.S., who use U.S. funding, U.S. military equipment, and then somehow appearing on the surface as if there is some contradiction here between the U.S. and Turkey. At the moment, as you said in the beginning, Turkey, Israel and the U.S. collectively are trying to carve out this land, and Kurds are under threat.

And also, I have to say one important thing is, even during Assad regime, Turkey was preventing the Kurds from sitting at the negotiating table to determine the future of a democratic Syria. And Turkey is doing that right now, while HTS have been giving some messages that Kurds could be included in this process. That is, after that, the Turkish foreign minister made several visits, signaled that, “Hey, we have been supporting HTS for the last 11 years.” And so, Turkey is trying very hard to prevent Kurds from sitting at the negotiating table. And that’s a very big loss for the region in general.

AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, we’ll continue to cover this. Ozlem Goner, we want to thank you so much for being with us, associate professor at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the College of Staten Island and also at the CUNY Graduate Center here in Manhattan.