Gaza
This seems important:
Major Union Backing Harris-Walz Joins Call for Palestinian American to Speak at DNC | Common Dreams
The United Auto Workers—a major union backer of the Harris-Walz presidential ticket—added its voice Thursday to the growing chorus demanding that a Palestinian American be invited to address the Democratic National Convention in Chicago over Israel’s U.S.-backed assault on the Gaza Strip.
“If we want the war in Gaza to end, we can’t put our heads in the sand or ignore the voices of the Palestinian Americans in the Democratic Party,” the UAW said on social media.
Do the Democrats believe Palestinians are lesser humans? That seems to be true given the difference in who is being allowed to speak inside the DNC. Israel gets a voice. Palestine does not.
DNC Tells Uncommitted Delegates There Won’t Be Any Pro-Palestinian Speaker | Truthout
Keep in mind the death toll is likely far higher than the 40,000 reported here which does not include all those killed but still buried under the destroyed buildings. According to the recent Lancet report the real number Gaza toll could exceed 186,000.
Israel continues its war crimes with ongoing mass killing of Palestinian civilians and children. In the past 48 hours 142 Palestinians have been killed and 150 others have been injured.
On Monday, the health ministry said 39,897 Palestinians have been killed and 92,152 have been injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October.
Harris Adviser Says She Opposes Israel Arms Embargo as She Shuts Down Protesters | Truthout
As activists are turning up the heat on the Kamala Harris campaign to come out strongly against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, a top Harris adviser said on Thursday that the vice president doesn’t support the idea of an arms embargo on Israel — one of the most crucial and consequential demands of pro-Palestine advocates calling for an end to Israel’s slaughter.
“Welcome to Hell”: U.S. Silence on Israel’s Network of Torture Camps | Democracy Now!
“When we got off the bus, a soldier said to us: ‘Welcome to hell.’” Those are the words of 45 year-old Fouad Hassan, a father of five from Nablus in the occupied West Bank, who was recently held in Israel’s Megiddo Prison. His words open a devastating report from the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, exposing Israel’s rapid conversion of Megiddo and eleven other prisons into a network of “torture camps” following Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists Israel’s war against Gaza is the “deadliest conflict for journalists the organisation has documented in 30 years.”
Al Jazeera journalist, cameraman killed in Israeli attack on Gaza
Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami al-Rifi have been killed in an Israeli air attack on the Gaza Strip.
The reporters were killed when their car was hit on Wednesday in the Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, according to initial information…
The Gaza government media office has put the figure at 165 Palestinian journalists killed since the war began.
On X Mohamed Moawad, the managing editor of Aljazeera, shared this post by Ismail Al-Ghoul
Let me tell you, my friend, that I no longer know the taste of sleep. The bodies of children and the screams of the injured and their blood-soaked images never leave my sight. The cries of mothers and the wailing of men who are missing their loved ones never fade from my hearing.
I can no longer bear the sound of children’s voices from beneath the rubble, nor can I forget the energy and power that reverberates at every moment, turning into a nightmare. It is no longer easy for me to stand before the rows of coffins, which are locked and extended, or to see the dead people more than the living who are fighting death beneath their homes, not finding a way out to safety and survival.
I am tired, my friend…
Ismail Al-Ghoul, Al Jazeera Correspondent in Gaza
Another day, another school in Gaza bombed. 30 killed. The war crimes and genocide continue.
A wave of Israeli airstrikes targeting central and southern Gaza have killed at least 50 people and injured an estimated 200, with one strike hitting a school where thousands were seeking shelter…
Wounded people poured into the nearby Aqsa hospital, while images from Deir al-Balah showed families carrying injured children for treatment.
The US is increasingly on its own with Israel.
Britain drops its challenge to ICC arrest warrants for Israeli leaders | The Guardian
Labour has announced its biggest step yet in overhauling the UK’s approach to the Middle East, dropping its opposition to an international arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu despite pressure from Washington not to do so.
Downing Street announced on Friday that the government would not submit a challenge to the jurisdiction of the international criminal court, whose chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, is seeking a warrant against the Israeli prime minister.
The Majority Report discusses Kamala Harris' response to the protests of Netanyahu’s visit to Congress. They also dig into Netanyahu’s various lies, his denial of the humanity of Palestinians and the fucked up warm welcome by many in Congress including many Democrats.
The Congress people there to cheer him on are complicit in his war crimes as is Biden. I’m guessing her policies in this area will be better than Biden but only a little. Time will tell.
Of course, much of Gaza is now rubble and uninhabitable. While the official death toll is now around 40,000, recent reporting on a Lancet study suggests the number is much higher, likely above 186,000 and still going higher this very moment.
The Guardian reports on her meeting with Netanyahu stating that she “pressed him on the ‘dire’ humanitarian situation in Gaza in talks that she described as frank, adding ‘I will not be silent’.”
In comments that were closely watched for signs of a shift from Joe Biden’s policy approach, the US vice-president said after the meeting: “What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time.”
War criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, met with a standing ovation by the US Congress, appealed for more weapons which would enable Israel to “finish the job faster” in Gaza.
I’m sure it’s on record who in Congress continues to support Israel’s war crimes and genocide.
“Netanyahu drew one of the clearest lines yet between the supply of U.S. weapons and Israel’s genocidal assault of Gaza, essentially straight out saying that the slaughter has been made possible by U.S. assistance — and that the speed of Israel’s genocide is scaled to how many U.S. weapons they receive.”
Truthout reports on a potential Polio Outbreak in Gaza:
Advocates for Palestinian rights are demanding that the Biden administration take urgent action to stop a potential outbreak of polio in Gaza after the virus that causes the deadly disease was found in Gaza’s wastewater, threatening an epidemic that would be nothing short of catastrophic.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says that Biden bears responsibility to respond to the crisis after funding Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s health and sanitation systems, which has created conditions ripe for a deadly epidemic.
On Mastodon, Joshua Holland shares the current state of Congressional support of war crimes and genocide:
A foreign leader invited to address the United States Congress is just shitting all over Americans who don’t support his far-right government’s campaign of ethnic cleansing and Republicans are giving him standing ovations for it.
Inviting a war criminal to speak to Congress was a mistake. Of course, given the US and its current president is a full partner and arms supplier in those war crimes I suppose it fits. The US is a partner in a current, ongoing genocide.
A “disruptive” Capitol protest spikes security fears around Netanyahu speech
A large, raucous pro-Palestinian protest Tuesday at a U.S. House office building is spiking lawmakers' concerns about security around Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming speech.
Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara highlights that the recent ruling represents a corner-stone and game-changer in legal terms. He emphasizes that, while the ruling may not be surprising, it builds upon and extends the 2004 decision concerning the illegality of the apartheid wall in the West Bank. Bishara suggests that the significance of today’s ruling lies in its damning and detailed nature.
Truthout reports that Israel Has “Flattened” UNRWA HQ in Gaza:
After months of successive attacks on humanitarian aid facilities, Israeli forces have now “completely destroyed” the headquarters of the primary aid group for Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the agency reports.
Israeli forces attacked the facility as they carried out their horrific raid of Gaza City last week, leaving nothing but rubble in its place. … UNRWA Commissioner Philippe Lazzarini said that Israel’s attack on the facility represents a “blatant” war crime.
The Real Gaza Death Toll - Susan Abulhawa - YouTube
While the official death toll stalled at 30,000 for months before climbing to 37,000, they grossly underestimate the true death toll. These figures only account for identified victims of ‘direct fire’. Hundreds of thousands more remain uncounted—unidentified bodies or body parts, those who died due to a lack of medicine and healthcare, those buried by their loved ones without getting to hospital, those who starved to death, those trapped under the rubble, those who succumbed to torture while abducted by the IOF and/or those missing.
Mother Jones reports on the July 5th Lancet report on the counting of the dead in Gaza:
Factoring in a possible ratio of four indirect deaths to each direct death, researchers Dr. Rasha Khatib, Dr. Martin McKee, and Dr. Salim Yusuf wrote that “it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.” That is nearly five times the 38,000 dead reported by the Gaza Health Ministry, the only organization conducting regular counts of the dead on the ground. That number is equivalent to 8 percent of Gaza’s population.
The war crimes and genocide continue with another school bombing by Israel. 4 schools in 4 days. One school each day. When you’re bombing kids playing football you are on the wrong side.
Video shows moment of Israeli strike on Gaza school | The Guardian
Asmaa Qudeih, a witness who lost some relatives in the attack, told Reuters: “Bodies flew in the wind, body parts flew, I don’t know how to describe it.”
Videos from Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, where the casualties were taken, showed dozens of dead and seriously injured people, including children, strewn across the floor of a room.
What a fucking joke. Shameful.
Pier, which has delivered the equivalent of a single day’s pre-war land aid deliveries in two months, will reportedly be removed in a few days’ time
Meanwhile, as the war crimes and genocide continue: Researchers Estimate True Gaza Death Toll at 186,000 or More | Truthout