Israeli forces bomb UNRWA school in Gaza, killing at least 15
Al-Akhbar | July 24, 2014
At least 15 people were killed, including a baby, when an Israeli tank shell slammed into a UN-run school in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, Gaza health ministry sources said.
The ministry also estimated that at least 200 people were wounded in the bombing.
A UN official confirmed “multiple dead and injured” at the school in Beit Hanoun, which was being used as a shelter by hundreds of Palestinians fleeing a major Israeli operation in the area.
“At 14:50, a shell landed in or near” an UNRWA school being used as a shelter, a UN official told AFP.
“People in the shelter were hurt,” he said, with a spokesman for Gaza’s emergency services reporting deaths.
The director of a local hospital said various medical centers around Beit Hanoun were receiving the wounded.
“Such a massacre requires more than one hospital to deal with it,” said Ayman Hamdan, director of the Beit Hanoun hospital.
A Reuters photographer at the scene said pools of blood had collected on the ground and on student desks in the courtyard of the school near the apparent impact mark of the shell.
Scores of crying families who had been living in the school ran with their children to the hospital where the victims were being treated a few hundred meters away.
Laila Al-Shinbari, a woman who was at school when it was shelled, told Reuters families had gathered in the courtyard expecting to be evacuated shortly in a Red Cross convoy.
“All of us sat in one place when suddenly four shells landed on our heads … Bodies were on the ground, (there was) blood and screams. My son is dead and all my relatives are wounded including my other kids,” she wept.
UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said that the UN agency had unsuccessfully tried to coordinate with Israeli forces prior to the attack to let civilians evacuate the school.
Israel has attacked at least three UNRWA schools in the past four days. UNRWA facilities have served as shelters for tens of thousands of Palestinians since the beginning of the offensive.
At least 76 Palestinians have been killed on Thursday, the 17th day of a deadly Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip. In total more than 770 Palestinians have been killed in Operation “Protective Edge.”
(Reuters, AFP, Al-Akhbar)
Journalist captured in E. Ukraine released, RT stringer remains hostage
RT | July 24, 2014
Graham Phillips (Photo from grahamwphillips.com)
A journalist released from the ANNA news agency, who was captured along with RT contributor Graham Phillips, told RT that they were taken hostage by the Ukrainian army and tortured and beaten. Phillips’ fate remains unknown.
ANNA news agency cameraman, Vadim Aksyonov, has been released while RT contributor Graham Phillips, a UK national, is being held captive, ANNA news told RT.
According to the ANNA news press service, Aksyonov who was released about 3 hours ago is in “terrible state” as he hasn’t slept for a day and was tortured.
The journalist told RT how he and his colleague – RT contributor Graham Phillips were taken hostages.
“We were captured in [Donetsk] airport. Graham [Phillips] ran to the parking, I ran after him. Then we were taken by people with guns,” Aksyonov told RT.
Vadim Aksyonov said he is sure that the Ukrainian army was behind their kidnapping as they were wearing its insignia.
When they were taken to the cells at some checkpoint, they were tortured and beaten, he added.
“At first we were kept together, then separately. I heard him [Phillips] screaming from pain and he heard me screaming, too,” he told RT.
According to Aksyonov, their captors then took them somewhere. He heard that Phillips was dropped in the city of Krasnoarmeisk, in the Donetsk Region of eastern Ukraine.
Aksyonov thinks that Graham Philips might be taken to either Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, or Zaporizhie, a city in southern Ukraine which borders on the Donetsk Region, or to the city of Uzhhorod in western Ukraine.
The agency still hasn’t reveal the fate of two other hostages – an employee of the press service of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, and possibly an acquaintance of Phillips, who accompanied the journalist to the airport.
Phillips has been reporting about the developments in Ukraine for several months now. According to research from Brandwatch social networks monitor, he has become the most popular author in Twitter reporting on the situation in Ukraine.
It is not the first time, the RT contributor has been taken hostage. He was detained once at a checkpoint in Mariupol and held captive by Kiev military for over 36 hours in May.
Journalists from a range of media outlets have come under fire, some of them even detained, during the conflict in eastern Ukraine. There have also been reports that Ukrainian troops have fired at people with cameras, as well as people wearing press vests.
Russian journalists have been captured by Kiev’s forces throughout the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
In June, journalists from Russia’s Zvezda TV channel spent two days in captivity, after being detained by the Ukrainian National Guard.
In May, two LifeNews journalists were taken hostage for two days by the National Guard, prompting an online #SaveOurGuys campaign.
Several journalists have also been killed while covering the unrest in eastern Ukraine.
In June, a Russian cameraman from Channel One TV, Anatoly Klyan, was shot by Kiev forces in Donetsk. Also in June, Rossiya TV journalist Igor Kornelyuk and his colleague, sound engineer Anton Voloshin, were killed in shelling near Lugansk.
In May, Italian journalist Andrea Rocchelli and his Russian interpreter Andrey Mironov were killed when they were caught in a mortar attack close to the village of Andreevka, a couple of kilometers from Slavyansk.
Kiev sabotaging probe into downed Malaysian plane – self-defense leader
RT | July 24, 2014
Kiev is not interested in a fair and unbiased investigation into the downing of the Malaysian plane over Ukraine, so it is sabotaging the work of international experts, one of the self-defense forces leaders said on Wednesday.
Kiev’s authorities have been obstructing the international investigation into the crash of the Malaysia Airlines plane since day one, Deputy Prime Minister of People’s Republic of Donetsk Andrey Purgin told Russia-24 TV channel on Wednesday.
Purgin said it became clear that Kiev is sabotaging the probe two days after the incident, when international experts were not let into the area, as Kiev claimed it could not guarantee their safety.
Kiev simply refused to accompany the international experts, Purgin stated. The Malaysian group of experts made it down to the crash alone, with no security from Kiev.
It took four days for international experts to gain access to the site. The reason is that even after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced a 40-kilometer ceasefire zone around the crash site, Malaysian experts came under heavy shelling from the Ukrainian army while making their way within the ceasefire zone.
The Boeing 777-200ER, which was on a scheduled flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with 298 passengers and crew on board, was shot down over Ukraine on July 17. There were no survivors.
Kiev authorities have accused the militia of being behind the catastrophe. However, the militia stressed that it doesn’t possess the means to shoot down an aircraft at such an altitude.
Following the crash, the dead bodies were left under 30C heat, as self-defense forces were pressured by the OSCE not to move the bodies until the international experts arrived, the Donetsk People’s Republic’s Prime Minister Aleksandr Boroday told BBC.
“We waited a day, two, three – but no experts,” Boroday said. “They were all sitting in Kiev.” To keep the dead bodies laying there became “absurd” and “inhumane,” he added.
The Ukrainian militia handed over to Malaysian experts the black boxes from the plane on Tuesday. Investigators say they have found no evidence that the black box recorder was tampered with.
Read more: Ukrainian militia hand over MH17 flight recorders to Malaysia
The Dutch Safety Board said it has taken charge of the international investigation. It will coordinate a team of 24 investigators from Ukraine, Malaysia, Russia, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). It added that four Dutch investigators are currently operating in Ukraine.
The bodies of the first victims from Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 arrived back in the Netherlands on Wednesday.
A day earlier, the UN Security Council condemned the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 and called for an international probe into the incident in a unanimously adopted resolution.
Fears Grow of Possible Massacre in East Khan Younis; Area Completely Cut Off Until Early Thursday
Palestinian Ministry of Health Report | July 24, 2014
The Khuza’a area of east Khan Younis was cut off from the rest of the city for hours on Wednesday night, with medics unable to enter, journalists forced out and Israeli military forces engaged in a ground and air assault that has been ongoing, and has now sparked fears of a massacre similar to the one on Sunday, in Shuja’eyya, in which more than 75 people were killed.
Early Thursday, Israeli forces agreed to let up the assault for an hour to allow medics to retrieve the bodies of the dead and wounded.
Doctor Yusef Abu Al-Rish, the Deputy Health Minister of Gaza, issued a statement that reads:
Another massacre is underway in Khan Younis, where relentless Israeli shelling and sniper fire are wreaking death and destruction on all that moves in the zone east of Khan Younis city.
The villages of Khuza’a, Al Fukhari, Abasan Alkabir, Abasan Al Sa’ir, Jarara, and Bani Suhela received no warning of the attacks, and no warnings to evacuate before the bombardment began at around 11pm last night.
The intensity of Israeli shelling around the Algerian Hospital in Abasan Alkabir shattered its windows, and led to its evacuation, leaving only the emergency department operational.
Despite residents’ frantic calls to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for help in finding a safe route and safe vehicles to escape, the ICRC was unable to get a response from Israeli authorities until dawn today, when five bodies and 17 injured were retrieved and taken to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
An unknown number of dead and injured remain behind, as ambulances are prevented access.
Israeli military has declared the Khuza’a area a closed military zone, preventing even medics from entering it, but reports from Khuza’a stated that 12 were dead by morning.
The casualties in other villages are unable to be established at this time. Random shelling continues unabated, and Israeli snipers inside houses are attacking anything that moves.
Homes are being destroyed over the heads of entire families. Thousands have been displaced, many fleeing to the Nasser and European Gaza Hospitals.
Even hospitals are not safe, however. Monday’s attack on Al Aqsa hospital has left staff and patients alike fearing for their lives even within medical facilities.
The reality is that there is no safe sanctuary, for residents, patients or health personnel alike.
As they did in Shuja’eyya, the Israeli military is indiscriminately attacking civilians.
As they did in Shuja’eyya, the Israelis military is refusing to provide humanitarian access to the dead and injured, in clear breach of humanitarian law.
As they did in Shuja’eyya, the Israeli military is committing war crimes, with apparent impunity.
The Ministry of Health Gaza demands that the international community require the Israeli military to
1. Immediately cease all attacks on civilian targets in Gaza;
2. Immediately cease all attacks on medical facilities and personnel in Gaza;
3. Immediately provide access to the dead and injured, as required by international humanitarian law.
Medical Aid as a Weapon
By Paul Larudee | Dissident Voice | July 22, 2014
Q: Why is Egypt preventing medical aid to Gaza?
A: So that Israel can use it as a weapon, that’s why.
This explains why dozens of volunteer medical personnel cannot reach the desperately understaffed hospitals in Gaza. It explains why Egypt turned away a convoy of desperately needed medical supplies.
In this time of crisis, Egypt has sealed the border with Gaza, except occasionally to Palestinians who are registered with Israel as residents of Gaza. For anything else, please apply to Israel.
That’s fine for UNRWA, ANERA, UPA and other groups Israel has approved as relief agencies and who buy a lot of their supplies from Israeli sources, store it in Israeli warehouses, use Israeli transportation, have personnel that live in Israel and generally meet Israeli requirements and contribute to the Israeli economy. But what about doctors that carry Lebanese passports? Or Pakistanis, Algerians, Venezuelans, Sudanese, Iranians, Cubans or Syrians? Or who are not permitted to travel to or through Israel because they are on a long list of people who are critical of Israel, such as the organizers of the relief convoy that was turned away? Until the Sisi administration they used to be able to enter through Egypt.
That’s exactly the point. Israel wants them all to go to hell because they are not friends of Israel. Even better, let the people of Gaza go to hell – its children, mothers, grandparents – let them die or better still become infirm and a burden on this already crippled society.
Ashy grey faces – Oh NO! not one more load of tens of maimed and bleeding, we still have lakes of blood on the floor in the ER, piles of dripping, blood-soaked bandages to clear out – oh – the cleaners, everywhere, swiftly shovelling the blood and discarded tissues, hair, clothes, cannulas – the leftovers from death – all taken away…to be prepared again, to be repeated all over. More then 100 cases came to Shifa last 24 hrs. enough for a large well trained hospital with everything, but here – almost nothing: electricity, water, disposables, drugs, OR-tables, instruments, monitors – all rusted and as if taken from museums of yesterdays hospitals. But they do not complain, these heroes. They get on with it, like warriors, head on, enormous resolute.
– Dr. Mads Gilbert, al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza
This is what Israel has in mind. In effect, it has turned back the clock to when it destroyed nearly two thousand homes along the Gaza border, making homeless around 20,000 Palestinians and creating the “Philadelphi corridor”, a path of destruction the width of three football fields and eight miles long. It then controlled all of the borders of the Gaza strip, encroaching and destroying everything on the Gaza side up to an average depth of a half kilometer, and in the sea from a treaty-protected twenty kilometers to less than three unprotected, confining the ever growing population into an ever shrinking area with ever fewer resources.
Now, with Israel’s sweethearts running Egypt, it is once again fully in charge of that border, as well, and can treat the Gaza Strip like a hunting reserve, where its troops can practice their skills every couple of years. This is necessary in order to assure that the new recruits acquire the same genocidal experience as their older peers and preserve Israel’s shared cultural traditions.
These are the real aims of the Gaza invasion.
Paul Larudee is one of the founders of the Free Gaza and Free Palestine Movements and an organizer in the International Solidarity Movement.
Mississippi Cuts $1.3 Billion from Schools, Gives $1.3 Billion to Nissan
By Carl Gibson | Reader Supported News | July 23, 2014
Mississippi has proved to us all that austerity, or the political ideology of “government living within its means,” is a farce. All austerity means is taking money away from public services, and giving it to private business. Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant and the GOP-led legislature illustrated that perfectly in two ways.
Since 2008, Mississippi has violated a constitutional mandate to adequately fund the state’s public K-12 schools. The Mississippi Adequate Education Program, or MAEP, was established in 1997 to make sure a proper portion of taxes went to fund schools. A community’s ad valorem taxes will cover up to 27 percent of the cost, while the state covers the rest. The state’s contribution is essentially the base student cost times the daily attendance in a certain school district. The mandated amount would be readjusted every five years for inflation. Mississippi has spent $648 less per student than it did in 2008. Currently, Mississippi has underfunded its public schools by at least $1.3 billion.
In May of last year, the United Auto Workers released a study showing that Nissan’s Canton, Mississippi, plant was getting $1.33 billion in tax breaks from the state in return for Nissan’s promise to provide Mississippians with good-paying, full-time jobs. $850 million in tax breaks would be spaced out over a 30-year period, with $400 million in cash aid. Mississippi would even pay $90 million in interest on the debt incurred to reward Nissan with its lavish tax breaks. Mississippi has already given $378 million to Nissan, which paid for its access roads, water usage, and worker training. Nissan also gets to keep $160 million in income taxes from workers over the next 25 years, which would normally have gone to Mississippi’s public programs. No employer has gotten that sweet a deal from any state government.
However, out of all 5,200 workers at Nissan’s Canton plant, most of them are employed by temp agencies. Regular, full-time employees are paid over $23 per hour and have benefits, but the temp workers at the Canton plant are often hired for just half that amount, given no healthcare, retirement, benefits, or paid time off, and have very little job security. The automaker has even issued a 5-year wage freeze for its Mississippi workers even as the company pocketed $3.3 billion in profit last year. Nissan likes to brag that it never lays people off, yet they don’t count temp workers who have been let go. While many other Nissan plants have unionized workforces, Nissan has indirectly threatened to close its Mississippi plant for good and move out of state if its workers organize.
While Mississippi is paying for a giant chunk of Nissan’s subsidies with the exact amount of money it cut from schools in the last six years, the state is actually following a nationwide trend. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonprofit think tank, most states are funding schools even less than they used to before the global recession, which officially ended in 2009. Out of the 35 states following this trend, ten of those states have cut education by more than 10 percent. And despite modest increases in their tax revenues, 15 states are providing less funding per student than they did last year.
Nor is Nissan alone in their greed-inspired quest for huge tax breaks without fulfilling their promises to create jobs. A New York Times database from 2012 shows that over 150,000 state-based tax handouts to private businesses amount to $80.4 billion each year. Many of these corporations, like General Motors, took these handouts, and then shuttered operations a short time later. New Jersey governor Chris Christie has awarded over $2 billion in tax incentives during his tenure. That’s more under just one governor than in the combined tenures of all of New Jersey’s governors since 1996. But despite the handouts to corporations, New Jersey’s job growth is still lagging behind the rest of the nation. As of December of 2012, New Jersey had only restored half of the private sector jobs lost since the start of the recession.
States all over should have already realized that since globalization has sent manufacturing jobs overseas, real job growth lies in highly-skilled, technical industries. And to attract those employers, a state needs to have an educated workforce ready to take on those jobs. Unless states stop the disturbing trend of cutting education funding in favor of giving big tax breaks to any corporation that asks for them, their economies will only get worse.
Carl Gibson, 27, is co-founder of US Uncut, a nonviolent grassroots movement that mobilized thousands to protest corporate tax dodging and budget cuts in the months leading up to Occupy Wall Street. Carl and other US Uncut activists are featured in the documentary We’re Not Broke, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Carl is also the author of How to Oust a Congressman, an instructional manual on getting rid of corrupt members of Congress and state legislatures based on his experience in the 2012 elections in New Hampshire. He lives in Sacramento, California.
Why Are These Indian Children Being Torn Away From Their Homes?
By Stephen Pevar | ACLU | July 23, 2014
Imagine entering family court and knowing that what’s at stake is the person you hold most dear – your child. Now imagine having a judge tell you that he’s removing your child from your custody, from your home. When you ask him why, the judge’s replies, “I honestly can’t tell you.” The judge then signs an order giving custody of your son to Social Services.
You might think that such a court proceeding could never happen in the United States – but you’d be wrong.
It happened not long ago to the father of an American Indian child in South Dakota. What’s more, many similar hearings in which Indian children are removed from their homes for no reasons given to the parents occur at least 100 times a year in Rapid City, South Dakota, alone.
Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) in 1978 in an effort to stop American Indian families from having their children removed by state and local officials for invalid and sometimes even racist reasons. Yet 36 years later, Indian children in South Dakota are 11 times more likely to be removed from their families and placed in foster care than non-Indian children.
The ACLU filed a lawsuit in March 2013 in federal court on behalf of the Oglala Sioux and the Rosebud Sioux tribes in South Dakota and on behalf of a class of all Indian families living in Rapid City, South Dakota, the state’s second largest city. We sued state and local officials who, we contend, repeatedly violate ICWA.
We recently examined 120 transcripts of initial custody hearings – known as “48-hour” hearings – held during the past four years involving Indian children. Nearly 100 percent of the time, Indian children were removed from their homes in those hearings. The average length of time those hearings took was less than 4 minutes. Within that time, of the six different judges that oversaw the hearings, not one judge ever told one Indian parent that they have a right to contest the state’s petition for temporary custody of their children in the hearing on the petition.
During those hearings, the parents were not told the reasons for the removal, not provided with an attorney, not allowed to submit any evidence, and not allowed to cross-examine the Social Services worker who had submitted an affidavit against them. In most cases, the parents were not even allowed to see the affidavit.
And what were the parents in these hearings “guilty” of? Here is a snapshot of some of the cases discussed in the transcripts:
- A mother abused by her boyfriend lost custody of her child even though the abuser was not being allowed to return to the home. Before the judge’s decision, the mother pleaded with the judge not to punish her for what the abuser had done.
- A father going through divorce was denied custody of his children solely because his estranged wife got into trouble with the police, even though no evidence was introduced suggesting that the children would be at risk staying with the father.
- A mother lost custody of her daughter merely because the daughter’s babysitter had become intoxicated, without any showing that the mother knew that such a thing might occur.
- A father who tried to discuss the merits of his case was interrupted by the judge and told that the details of child custody removals were not to be discussed in 48-hour hearings, and then the judge signed an order removing the child from the father’s custody.
Our lawsuit seeks to stop state judges and social workers from continuing to remove Indian children from their homes unless the parents are provided with basic guarantees of due process of law and rights afforded 36 years ago in ICWA These include the right to a fair and prompt hearing, the right to notice of the charges against them, the right to an attorney, the right to present evidence, and the right to cross-examine the state’s witnesses.
Based on the 120 transcripts, we recently filed motions asking the federal court to rule that South Dakota officials engage in a pattern and practice of denying Indian families and Indian tribes their basic rights to fairness under ICWA and the Constitution. And next month, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination will consider a report submitted by the ACLU on U.S. failure to meet its international treaty obligations to end pervasive and institutionalized discrimination, including the lack of due process in American Indian child custody proceedings in South Dakota.
Ultimately, we hope to restore justice to a group of people who our legal system has repeatedly failed.
How Have Latin America’s Political Leaders Responded to Israel’s Siege on Gaza?
By Stephan Lefebvre | Center for Economic and Policy research | July 21, 2014
On July 10th, just two days after Israel launched Operation Protective Edge (the largest attack on Gaza in several years) President Obama released a statement in which he “reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself.” With a death toll now over 550, it is important to look beyond U.S. government sources for information and perspective. Foreign policy among the countries in Latin America conforms to the long-standing, overwhelming international consensus that opposes Israeli aggression and occupation, but it also reflects the region’s “second independence.” Over the last 15 years, most countries in Latin America have increased their ability to pursue a foreign policy agenda separate from the goals of the U.S. State Department. In the vast majority of cases, reactions to the latest hostilities are fundamentally at odds with the U.S. position, but they are also varied: many governments directly criticize Israel, using words like “crimes against humanity” and “genocide” to describe recent events; other official statements limit themselves to calling for a ceasefire and a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
Some of the strongest statements were issued by left-leaning governments in South America, including those of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela. The government of Argentina issued a statement “strongly condemn[ing] that Israel — defying calls by the Security County, by the Secretary General and by the many voices of the international community – has decided to escalate the crisis by launching a ground offensive.” President Evo Morales of Bolivia announced that he had petitioned the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNCHR) to consider a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for “crimes against humanity” and “genocide.” (Bolivia broke diplomatic relations with Israel in 2009 over Israel’s Operation Cast Lead assault on Gaza.) The statement from Brazil reads in part:[1]
The Brazilian Government vehemently condemns the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, with disproportionate use of force, which resulted in more than 230 Palestinians dead, many of them unarmed civilians and children. It equally condemns the firing of rockets and mortars from Gaza into Israel.
The foreign ministry of Chile released a statement that “strongly condemns the Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip,” also saying that “The reprehensible kidnappings and deaths of three young Israelis and one young Palestinian cannot serve as an excuse to initiate terrorist actions nor to attack areas densely populated by civilians.” Chile has reportedly suspended trade talks with Israel and is considering withdrawal of its ambassador in Tel Aviv over Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip. The Government of Ecuador released a statement saying that it:
strongly condemns the disproportionate military operations by the Israeli army against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, which have left more than a hundred deaths [sic] and considerable damage to property and civil infrastructure, demands an immediate cessation of these aggressions against the Palestinian civilian population and called [sic] the State of Israel to exercise maximum restraint and act in accordance to international law and humanitarian law.
Uruguay issued a similar statement condemning the military attacks by Israel in the Gaza Strip, which “caused dozens of civilian deaths and injuries, including women and children, in a disproportionate response to the launch of rockets against the Israeli territory on the part of armed Palestinian groups.” The statement also condemns the “repeated [rocket] launchings that put the civilian population in central and southern Israel at risk.” On the whole, this was not positively received by the Israeli ambassador to Uruguay. Finally, President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela issued a statement lamenting the murders of three young Israelis, saying it is a case that “demands a full investigation.” He also rejected the attacks by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, saying:
the Bolivarian Government of Venezuelan energetically condemns the unjust, disproportionate and illegal military response of the State of Israel against the historic Palestinian nation and urges its government to immediately end this aggression which goes against international law and against the most elemental sense of respect for life and human dignity.
Clearly the language used by each country varies, but it is interesting to note that Venezuela’s response falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum in terms of condemning the Israeli siege. The Venezuelan foreign ministry issued a separate statement on behalf of the ALBA counties which echoes the Venezuelan government’s statement and reaffirms the ALBA group’s “unconditional solidarity, support and influence for the people of Palestine before this new wave of violence.”
Outside South America, several other countries issued strong responses, including Cuba and El Salvador. Cuba’s foreign ministry condemned Israel for “us[ing] its military and technological superiority to execute a policy of collective punishment with a disproportionate use of force which causes civilian casualties and enormous material damage.” El Salvador issued a statement in which the government “strongly condemns and rejects Israel’s increased armed aggression against the Gaza Strip” which caused the “loss of human lives, hundreds of injuries and the flight of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, besides serious material damage.” Also, the statement explains that the U.N.’s legitimate self-defense clause “does not justify the use of disproportionate military force against another State, much less against its civilian population.”
As an historical aside, the United Nations declared 2014 the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, and several of the countries that introduced the resolution to the General Assembly were from Latin America, including Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Guayana, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
Colombia stands out, not only in South America but in Latin America as a whole, for condemning the “acts of violence and terrorism” against Israel and its civilian population. They called on both Israel and Palestine to end the confrontations and return to the dialogue and negotiation. Colombia has not supported U.N. membership for Palestine, abstaining during the 2012 vote.
More measured statements were issued by the governments of Costa Rica, Honduras [PDF], Mexico, and Peru. These statements typically called for a ceasefire, a peaceful resolution to the conflict, and condemned both sides equally for the violence. Several countries have not issued official responses, including the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Paraguay. Panama’s foreign minister did not release a dedicated statement on the recent events, but received the Israeli Ambassador for a meeting to strengthen the bilateral relationship during which time the Panamanian official expressed concern over the rise in violence in the Middle East and expressed support for a peaceful resolution.
These statements clearly show not only that the vast majority of Latin American countries are at odds with U.S. foreign policy, but also that these countries are more and more able to articulate opposing views that challenge U.S. State Department narratives. Back in 2010, CEPR examined the region’s response to Israel’s deadly raid of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and then as now we found that there was a “hemispheric isolation of the U.S. on critical foreign policy issues.” While the era of U.S. supported coups and interference in the region is not over, significant progress has been made to increase national sovereignty and independence in Latin America, and these are changes that reverberate not just throughout the hemisphere, but across the world.
[1] In this blog post, estimates for casualties and other statistics included in official statements are quoted as written in the original versions, not corrected for the latest information available. The latest numbers for the death toll indicate over 550 killed since July 8, 2014.
Israeli military falsifies photograph to justify bombing el-Wafa hospital
International Solidarity Movement | July 23, 2014
Gaza, Occupied Palestine – On the 21st July at 2:17 PM, the IDF spokesperson released an image on twitter showing an aerial picture of a building marked as ‘Al-Wafa’ hospital. In the image there is a red circle, which they designated as the location from which a M75 rocket was launched.
The building in the picture marked ‘Al-Wafa’ hospital is in fact not the el-Wafa hospital but the Right to Life Society.
“Israel has targeted our hospital based on false and misleading claims. They are targeting medical facilities, the wounded, the sick, and our children, all over the Gaza Strip. They want us to know that nowhere is safe.” Said executive director of el-Wafa hospital, Dr. Basman Alashi.
According to the Gazan Ministry of Health, seven out of 13 hospitals, including el-Wafa, have been severely damaged.
Al Atatra Medical Clinic and 12 ambulances have been completely destroyed, seven other clinics have been damaged, 12 medical staff members have been injured, and three have been killed.
El-Wafa hospital was bombed once again by the Israeli military today after Dr. Alashi, received two phone calls from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations (UN). They passed a message from the Israeli military that, “there are activities in the hospital and the Israeli military may take a bigger action against el-Wafa.”
Dr. Alashi explained to both callers that the hospital is empty; all patients were evacuated on the 17th of July and that the hospital holds seven million dollars worth of essential medical equipment, as well as two safes that were irretrievable during the emergency evacuation.
“I will hold Israel personally responsible for seven million dollars if they have destroyed the hospital. It has already been bombed and shelled, I don’t understand what they are trying to achieve.” Dr. Alashi stated to the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).
Ally Cohen, media coordinator for the ISM states, “anyone on the ground in Palestine knows that the Israeli military are constantly releasing completely fabricated information and reports. The only difference in this case, is that we can prove it.”
European Killers Enjoy Fascist ‘Safari’ in Ukraine
By Nikolai MALISHEVSKI | Strategic Culture foundation | 23.07.2014
The self-defense forces of the Donetsk People’s Republic reported the elimination of two enemy’s block posts in the area of Donetsk in the first half of July. According to their Minister of Defense Igor Strelkov, one of them was defended by people in NATO combat fatigue who were foreign passport holders.
It’s not only the hired personnel of Western private military contractors who do their job by killing for money. There are also people who go to Ukraine to get pleasure and are ready to pay for it.
Stan Patton, soldier of fortune, Blackwater, shares a quotation in his Twitter saying what the prices are: a shot of howitzers – $ 100 from the tank – $ 200, a shot in the village is priced at U.S. $ 350…
The Kiev regime converts the battle area into an entertainment place – firing range for blood thirsty foreign tourists, the government is even involved in advertising business. The clients don’t hide their passion for this kind of fun and even show it off. Here are some of them: Mikael Skillt is a Swedish sniper, with seven years’ experience in the Swedish Army and the Swedish National Guard. He is currently fighting with the Azov Battalion, a pro-Ukrainian volunteer armed group in eastern Ukraine. He is known to be dangerous to the rebels: reportedly there is a bounty of nearly $7,000 (£4,090; 5,150 euros) on his head. Don. Francesco Fontana – one of several hundred Western adventurers who flew to Ukraine and said in his video that he always dreamed to have a chance to kill people without responsibility.
Italian IL Giornale correspondent Fausto Biloslavo writes that foreigners are welcome to join the battalion of Azov established by Ukrainian homosexual MP Oleg Lyashko. There are volunteers from Italy, Sweden. Finland, Norway, France and Baltic States. International rabble gets on Ukraine thanks to the skillful recruiter – 46-year-old Frenchman Gaston Besson. He advertises on the Internet with an offer to take part in the bloody ‘safari’ in Ukraine. “We invite you to join a battalion of Azov. No payment. We are ready to meet you in Kiev. From you I need information about your family and social situation. Let us know if you are ready to participate in the battles themselves, or will train young soldiers. Upon arrival in Kiev, you will get the contact number of our English-speaking employee. Sleeping, eating, and so on – on our base in the south-east,” – said the ad. A native of Mexico, he served in the French commando and special forces in Southeast Asia. Member of three coups and two wars. Laos, Burma, Suriname… In 1991, the same mercenary killed Serbs in Croatia, then – in Bosnia.
“People come from many different countries. Finland, Norway, Sweden, England, France, Italy… We do not take the fanatics and extremists. We need people with military experience, professionals. We are not for NATO or for the European Union; we have no interest in politics. Every day I get about 15 letters from those who want to come to Ukraine to fight. We all understand that there is a war, and every day you can be hurt or killed,” – says Gaston Besson.
The U.S. attracts these masters of dirty work to all the hot spots – Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. The presence of American advisers in Ukraine is accompanied by the appearance of foreign mercenaries and the south-east part of the country.
Gaston says he is not a mercenary, or even a secret agent. He is not hiding. He sees himself as a revolutionary and an idealist having gone through two war and the uprisings in Croatia, Bosnia, Burma, Laos and Surinam. It’s his experience in former Yugoslavia that is important. It gives clue to what is done and why in Ukraine. Twenty years ago Yugoslavia was partitioned.
Back then, the Sunday Mirror did the same thing its Italian colleagues do today. Some advertisements of a tourist company were published and repeated in neo-fascist outlets and on theInternet. The hunting tours were arranged by British mercenaries with combat experience in Croatia. They were reported to launch branches in Munich and Zagreb and the business was flourishing.
Europeans were offered to hunt civilians in Serbian Krajina and Croatia. The price was $3000 (1995). Hunters were offered bullet-proof jackets, ammunition and rifles with optical guidance. Hunters – ‘international brigades of Croatian army’ guaranteed security. Rape and plundering were offered for special pay. The clients were mainly ethnic Croats from Australia, Germany, Canada, Switzerland and Austria, as well as European felons and Neo-Nazi. Gaston Besson started his business and combat experience there to continue to do what he likes most in Ukraine now.
What do these war dogs need? The Croatian army and the Ukrainian military don’t put them on the payroll. But in Croatia the ‘international brigades warriors’ got booty making many of them rich in no time. In 1994 the war was raging. German police was involved in investigations trying to find out how come this had nothings before the war all of a sudden started to buy land, equity, establish companies employing European neo-fascists. It was an open secret: plundering and arms trade and drug dealings.
What did Croats need mercenaries for? They almost made no contribution as fighters. They were needed for the very same thing the Ukrainian regime needs them now. Hunting and shooting does bring in certain profit. But it’s not the main thing. They protect the officials from accusations of being involved in genocide. The government can say the regular armed forces are not involved in plundering and expulsions. 20 years ago European politicians approached Former Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granić with demands to stop ethnic cleansing and providing the people with opportunity to get back home. Back then he smiled and said that the responsibility lied with «private» people from Europe who were not members of regular military.
Interview with an international human shield in Gaza
By Roqayah Chamseddine | Al-Akhbar | July 23, 2014
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza continues, with a death toll that has reached 655 – and just as an array of munitions rain down indiscriminately on the heads of those living in Gaza, turning night into day and forcing the residents of one of the most densely populated places on earth into becoming mourners in an instant, Gaza’s hospitals are made to endure the incoming salvo of missiles as well as a crippling siege.
Israel has a well-documented history of deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in Gaza and Lebanon – homes, police stations, mosques, power plants, sport facilities, schools and hospitals. On Monday in central Gaza the floor housing operating rooms and the intensive care unit of al-Aqsa Hospital was struck by at least three tank shells, which killed five, according to Al-Jazeera correspondent Stephanie Dekker in Gaza. Gaza’s Ministry of Health released a statement denouncing the attack and demanding medical facilities be protected and medical staff, who have also been targeted by Israel, be allowed to provide urgent medical care:
We deplore the escalating violence against Gazan civilians and civilian infrastructure, and demand that the Israeli occupation respect their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect civilians, health facilities and health professionals.
We note that attacks against health facilities can be considered war crimes under international law, and call upon the international community and the United Nations to take immediate action to prevent further such outrages against the Gazan citizenry by the Israeli occupation.
Al-Aqsa Hospital was not the only medical facility directly targeted by Israel, but one of four – another casualty of Israel’s unrelenting assault on the people of Gaza is charity-run al-Wafa Medical Rehabilitation Hospital, the only medical rehabilitation hospital in Gaza that treats and rehabilitates those with special needs and functions as a nursing home. On July 11, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) released a statement on the conditions around the hospital, relaying that not only had Israel fired “warning missiles” at the roof of al-Wafa but international activists were hearing missiles falling nearby Israel and so in an act of selflessness, foreign activists from the USA, Sweden, Spain, UK, Venezuela, Australia, New Zealand and France were maintaining a presence in the hospital so as to protect the patients and doctors inside. “The civilian population of Gaza is being bombed. We will stay with them in solidarity until the international community and our governments take action to stop Israel’s crimes against humanity,” states Swedish International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist Fred Ekblad.
Joe Catron, a freelance reporter who writes for the Electronic Intifada, Middle East Eye and other media outlets, is one of the ISM activists from the United States who remained inside al-Wafa Medical Rehabilitation Hospital. He entered the Gaza Strip in 2011 as part of the first solidarity delegation to arrive after the fall of the Mubarak regime in Egypt, and has lived there since. Catron and I spoke by way of email regarding his experiences as well as how doctors and Gaza’s medical facilities are coping as a result of Israel’s continued bombing:
Al-Akhbar English (AAE): What is the situation on the ground in Gaza currently, and how are Palestinians coping?
Joe Catron (JC): The situation is very difficult. Aside from the rapidly-mounting deaths and injuries, tens of thousands have been displaced by Israel’s destruction of their homes, or shelling and airstrikes on their neighborhoods. With many businesses and charities shuttered due to the risks of commuting, obtaining even basic supplies has become difficult for many. And Israel’s attacks on electrical and water infrastructure have made these resources even more inaccessible than the ongoing siege already had.
But people are pulling together, as they always do in times of escalated Israeli aggression, opening their homes to the displaced and sharing what they have. It’s the worst of times; in a strange way, it’s also the best of times. Palestinians are rarely more united than during an offensive.
AAE: What hospitals have you visited and what have you witnessed?
JC: I and seven other foreign activists spent a week in shifts at al-Wafa hospital, the only rehabilitation facility of its kind dedicated to occupational and physical therapy in the Gaza Strip. After an initial flurry of five Israeli missiles damaged it on July 11, we hoped our presence might discourage further Israeli aggression against it.
Unfortunately, it was insufficient. After a week of telephone threats and heavy shelling of the area, Israeli forces struck the hospital hard on July 17, forcing the evacuation of its patients at great risk and leaving smoking craters in its walls.
Al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s main and largest medical facility, is simply flooded. With new patients pouring in every hour, others are being discharged or transferred as quickly as possible.
On Sunday, four international activists accompanied rescue workers into Gaza’s Shujayeh neighborhood, the site of Israel’s largest massacre yet in its current offensive. Days of Israeli shelling have reduced this once-thriving neighborhood to an apocalyptic landscape of fire and rubble, bombed ambulances and demolished homes. We saw a young man trying to reach his family’s home and locate survivors shot by an Israeli sniper, then repeatedly shot again while prone on the ground. He lay only meters from us, but Israeli gun and artillery fire blocked us from reaching him.
AAE: What else can you tell me about the situation in the hospitals?
JC: Hospitals are crowded and chaotic, but also oddly inspiring. They’re sites to treat the wounded, but also for others to show support for them, their families, and the health care workers looking after them. A number of my friends here are doing what they can for the struggle by preparing food and bringing it to al-Shifa. Many political factions and civil society organizations are doing the same.
AAE: How are doctors dealing with what has been transpiring in Gaza?
JC: Doctors and other health care workers face grave challenges not only from a massive influx of new casualties and critical shortages of medications and other supplies, but also in threats to their own safety. Israel’s attacks on at least four hospitals and six clinics have shown that in its current offensive, they are its targets as much as anything else.
Hospitals and clinics face critical shortages not only of essential medications, but also of supplies as routine as bandages. In some cases, like Israel’s shelling of el-Wafa hospital, staff have been forced to abandon supplies in their facilities while evacuating patients, which hasn’t helped matters.
AAE: What do you want people to know about Gaza, in terms of this situation and beyond it? Anything else to add?
JC: Like most places, the Gaza Strip is a product of its history more than the news. The overwhelming majority of its population are Palestinian refugees ethnically cleansed from land now claimed by Israel. This is the single most important factor in its resistance to the occupation, and also the one most quickly obscured in mainstream reporting, which focuses instead, and almost exclusively, on the events of the day.
You can follow Joe Catron’s updates from the Gaza Strip on Twitter @jncatron
Roqayah Chamseddine is a Sydney based Lebanese-American journalist and commentator. She tweets @roqchams and writes ‘Letters From the Underground.‘
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Does Kevin Barrett Seek to “Absolve Islam of a Terrible Crime”?
The Kevin Barrett-Chomsky Dispute in Historical Perspective – Last part of the series titled “9/11 and the Zionist Question”
By Prof. Tony Hall | American Herald Tribune | August 28, 2016
Amidst his litany of condemnations, Jonathan Kay reserves some of his most vicious and vitriolic attacks for Kevin Barrett. For instance Kay harshly criticizes Dr. Barrett’s published E-Mail exchange in 2008 with Prof. Chomsky. In that exchange Barrett castigates Chomsky for not going to the roots of the event that “doubled the military budget overnight, stripped Americans of their liberties and destroyed their Constitution.” The original misrepresentations of 9/11, argues Barrett, led to further “false flag attacks to trigger wars, authoritarianism and genocide.”
In Among The Truthers Kay tries to defend Chomsky against Barrett’s alleged “personal obsession” with “vilifying” the MIT academic. Kay objects particularly to Barrett’s “final salvo” in the published exchange where the Wisconsin public intellectual accuses Prof. Chomsky of having “done more to keep the 9/11 blood libel alive, and cause the murder of more than a million Muslims than any other single person.” … continue
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