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Israel’s political methods defy logic, ethics, and human sense. Burning journalists to death while they resided in a tent is hard to comprehend. Its probably infinitely worse than any cruelty perpetuated in any other war-like situation. Smotrich is cruel beyond description and one seriously wonders how the man sleeps at night with so much guilt and hate within him. He is hate filled and possibly every ounce of energy he possesses is to plan his next cruel act.

Western states have protected the Israeli regime since its inception, and escalated their complicity in its crimes since the beginning of the genocide. France, like others, have pretended to be a neutral mediator while granting impunity and unconditional political, financial and military support to the Israeli regime. Instead of meaningless condemnations and actions – such as the ongoing trilateral summit with Egypt and Jordan – France must uphold its obligations to stop and prevent further Israeli genocide and international crimes through sanctions. Europe, in this sense, is worse than Israel and USA combined. With that innocent look, and a few charitable remarks, they assume they have washed their guilt from the genocide of the Jews during the Second World War. Soon after they were awash in colonialism, and then neo-colonialism.

They still fan the flames of hate between ethnic groups in different parts of the world and , thus, prompt killings while announcing platitudes about peace. Little wonder they are a fading power of no consequence to shaping the world.

Meanwhile, the one great source of hope in this battle remains the UN Special Rapporteur who has never feared to call a spade a spade. Speaking of what is happening in Gaza she declares ” it is not a war, but a genocide, and that there is no protection for Palestinian lives”. She added  “The evidence of the killing of paramedics in Rafah has been hidden, and the Israeli army faces no restrictions or controls on the killing of Palestinians.”

This will also pass because it must end. The suffering will have been too much for many tens of thousands. Yet, there rings a bell of hope. Martin Luther King spoke these words: “And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people”.

Please read the news in this newsletter and disseminate widely.

Ranjan Solomon

On behalf of MLN/Palestine Updates

15 April 2025

By Nick Beams

A week after US President Trump launched his economic war against the world under the banner of so-called “reciprocal tariffs,” China will have a tariff of 104 percent imposed on its goods starting today.

This follows the decision by Trump to hit China with an additional 50 percent tariff, following its imposition of a 34 percent tariff on US goods in response to the US decision to impose tariffs of 54 percent last week.

When previous tariff increases are considered, imposed under the first Trump administration and maintained by President Biden, the tariff level against China is now around 120 percent. Nothing like this has ever been seen before.

The latest measures have brought a defiant response from Beijing.

A spokesperson from the Commerce Ministry said:

If the US proceeds with implementing these escalated tariff measures, China will resolutely take countermeasures to safeguard its own rights and interests.

If the US insists on going its own way, China will fight to the end.

As other countries have sought talks and negotiations, Beijing is digging in for a major battle. The all-out conflict between the number one and number two economies will reverberate around the world, with far-reaching implications for every country, even more than it already has.

The ministry official said the tariff escalation was

a mistake compounded by another mistake and once again exposes the coercive nature of the US side. China will never accept this.

The economic war against China has embroiled the countries of Southeast Asia, which have been hit with some of the highest tariffs, including Malaysia at 24 percent, Vietnam at 46 percent, Cambodia at 49 percent, Indonesia at 32 percent, and Thailand at 37 percent. These tariffs threaten to devastate their economies.

The aim of these measures is not to equalize or balance trade between the US and these countries. Not even officials in the Trump administration, in their most deranged moments, believe that is remotely possible because the countries involved do not have the economic wherewithal to even come close.

The tariff hikes against the region serve two purposes: one economic and the other geopolitical.

In the wake of the initial round of Trump’s tariff hikes against China during his first administration, many companies moved some of their operations aimed at the US market to the region in a strategy dubbed “China Plus One,” in order to avoid the tariffs. That road has now been closed.

The geopolitical objectives are the outcome of an evolving situation over the past decade and a half.

Ever since President Obama launched his anti-China “Pivot to Asia” in 2011, announced from the floor of the Australian parliament, many countries in the region have been seeking to maintain a balancing act between China, to which they are deeply connected economically, and the US.

The Trump tariff war against them is a declaration that the days of such maneuvering are over. They must get off the fence and fall in behind the US in its ever-increasing war drive against Beijing, or they will be hit hard.

There may well be negotiations with them over the tariffs. But any talks will involve more than economics because, as the Trump regime has stated, any decrease in tariffs requires that countries “align with the United States in economic and national security matters”—the biggest one of which is China.

As Trump wages war against the world, there is significant blowback hitting both the real economy and the fragile financial system in the US.

So far, the tariff hikes have been a massive hit to both consumers, who purchase a vast range of goods worth billions of dollars sourced in China, and to businesses that depend on imports from China and many other countries all over the world for their production processes.

Almost half of US imports are intermediate goods that are used by US companies to produce the final commodity. In the past, tariffs hit completed imported goods. But those days have gone with the development of globalized production over the past four decades.

The entire cost structure of US businesses, large and small, has been elevated, meaning that in order to counter this effect in the only way possible under the capitalist system, they must introduce cost-cutting programs through layoffs while intensifying the exploitation of those who remain in order to maintain profits. This process has already begun, with tariff-induced layoffs already being undertaken.

The most palpable effect so far of the tariff war has been in financial markets. Wall Street experienced its fourth-largest decline in the post-war period last Thursday and Friday, when trillions of dollars were wiped off market capitalization.

In a wild day of trading on Monday, the market eventually settled with very small losses.

But the sell-off continued yesterday. The S&P 500 index dropped 1.6 percent, while the NASDAQ fell by 2 percent.

The sharp market falls have resulted in a slanging match between two key figures in the Trump entourage: Elon Musk, the billionaire head of DOGE, and Peter Navarro, senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, the chief anti-China hawk.

Yesterday morning, Musk denounced Navarro as a “moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks,” after Navarro said in a TV interview that Musk was just a “car assembler” and that in his opposition to the new tariff regime, he was “protecting his own interests.”

Musk’s attack expresses opposition in sections of the financial oligarchy who fear that Trump’s measures are going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Their vast fortunes have not been made from autarky and the isolation of the US from the global economy, but they have been accumulated by exploiting globalization to their advantage.

And a significant factor in the accumulation of their wealth has been the supremacy of the dollar, which has allowed the US to run up debts to historically unprecedented heights, enabling the accumulation of vast fortunes via parasitism and speculation.

But the economic isolationism championed by Trump, with Navarro playing a leading role, is placing a question mark over the dollar’s global role.

Besides the continuing market sell-off, there was a highly significant new development that indicates that another financial crisis could be in the making.

The initial response to the tariff hikes was a fall in the yield on Treasury bonds, as a result of buying by investors seeking a safe haven, fearing that Trump’s measures would bring a recession. [Bond prices and yield have an inverse relationship in that as demand for them increases, their prices yield falls.]

But on Monday and again yesterday, the movement went in the other direction. On Monday, the yield on the 10-year Treasury bond jumped by 0.19 percentage points, the biggest one-day rise since September 22. Yesterday, amid what was described as a “weak” auction for the purchase of $58 billion worth of new government debt, the yield rose by a further 0.11 percentage points.

In a market where shifts, up or down, are generally very small, a total rise of 0.3 percent is considered large.

According to the Financial Times:

Tuesday’s sell-off is the latest sign of how some investors are ditching even very low-risk assets as … Trump’s tariffs on major trading partners spark intense volatility in markets.

One of the driving forces at work in the sell-off is the rise in margin calls being made by banks, which fund hedge funds and other market traders. In return for supplying them with credit, they demand that some cash be lodged with them. But as the value of the assets held by the funds rapidly falls, the banks are making a demand, a margin call, for more money to be placed with them.

Last Friday, it was reported that some hedge funds had been hit with the biggest margin calls since the start of the pandemic in 2020. This has prompted a dash for cash, as hedge funds stump up money to the banks in order to maintain their credit lines, upon which they depend.

The danger is that with hedge funds operating with very much the same business models and the fall in stock prices and other financial assets going across the board, the dash for cash can lead to a widespread sell-off and trigger a financial crisis.

The financial oligarchy is clearly taking the deepening crisis very seriously.

The working class must do the same. And even more so because, unlike the ruling elites who will develop measures of protection, it has no “bailout” mechanisms available to it within the capitalist system.

It must, therefore, make a sober assessment of the situation and, on that basis, develop the necessary political strategy to fight for its independent interests.

That assessment must begin with the understanding that the present “madness” is not the product of the fevered brain of Trump. He is only the most egregious expression of the profound insanity of the capitalist system he represents.

This insanity—destructive trade and economic wars, the growing danger of a third world war, the ever-present threat of a devastating financial crisis, the prospect of depression, and an endless list of other maladies and dangers in conditions where the material resources and the heightened productivity of labor have created the conditions for the advancement of humankind—signifies that the capitalist system has become historically outmoded and must be removed.

Those whom the gods would destroy, they must first make mad, it has been said.

But the capitalist system will not be overturned automatically. It can only be ended consciously through the political struggle of the working class in the fight for international socialism.

9 April 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

New York (Quds News Network)- UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated that “aid has dried up, and the floodgates of horror have re-opened” in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has blocked all humanitarian aid and resumed its assault.

“Gaza is a killing field, and civilians are in an endless death loop,” Guterres said on Tuesday.

In his address to journalists in New York, Guterres said Israel, as the occupying power, had obligations under international law to ensure that food and medical supplies get to the population.

That means Israel should facilitate relief programmes and ensure food, medical care, hygiene and public health standards in Gaza, he said. “None of that is happening today,” he added.

“The current path is a dead end – totally intolerable in the eyes of international law and history,” he said.

Guterres also rejected a new Israeli proposal to control aid deliveries in Gaza, saying it risks “further controlling and callously limiting aid down to the last calorie and grain of flour”.

“Let me be clear: We will not participate in any arrangement that does not fully respect the humanitarian principles: humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality,” Guterres said.

“More than an entire month has passed without a drop of aid into Gaza. No food. No fuel. No medicine. No commercial supplies,” Guterres said in New York.

Guterres’s comments followed a joint statement issued by six UN agencies on Monday that said world leaders must act urgently to make sure food and aid supplies get to Palestinians in the Strip.

Gazans were “trapped, bombed and starved again”, the statement said.

“The latest ceasefire allowed us to achieve in 60 days what bombs, obstruction and lootings prevented us from doing in 470 days of war: life-saving supplies reaching nearly every part of Gaza,” it said.

“While this offered a short respite, assertions that there is now enough food to feed all Palestinians in Gaza are far from the reality on the ground, and commodities are running extremely low.”

The statement was signed by the heads of:
OCHA – UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Unicef – UN’s children’s agency
WFP – World Food Programme
WHO – World Health Organization
Unrwa – UN agency for Palestinian refugees
UNOPS – UN Office for Project Services

Because of the blockade, all UN-supported bakeries have closed, markets are empty of most fresh vegetables and hospitals are rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

The statement said that Gaza’s “partially functional health system is overwhelmed [and]… essential medical and trauma supplies are rapidly running out.”

“With the tightened Israeli blockade on Gaza now in its second month, we appeal to world leaders to act – firmly, urgently and decisively – to ensure the basic principles of international humanitarian law are upheld.”

Responding to the comments, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said there was no aid shortage in Gaza. “As always, you don’t let the facts get in the way when spreading slander against Israel,” spokesman Oren Marmorstein said.

“There is no shortage of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip – over 25,000 aid trucks have entered the Gaza Strip in the 42 days of the cease fire,” he claimed.

On 2 March, Israel closed all the Palestinian enclave’s border crossings, halting the flow of much-needed humanitarian aid and further exacerbating the territory’s crises.

On March 18, Israel resumed its full-scale attacks on Gaza, killing over 1,400 Palestinians and wounded over 3,600, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

On Monday, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that he would maintain the total blockade on aid entering the Gaza Strip, vowing that “not even a grain of wheat will enter Gaza.”

Smotrich insisted on prioritising the complete defeat of Hamas over the release of Israeli captives.

“It’s good that the war has begun, and it’s unfortunate that it began this way, but we are changing the reality in the Middle East,” he said.

Israel has been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war during its attacks on the besieged enclave, with it being one of the main crimes that led the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, in November.

9 April 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark

Europe seems to be suffering paroxysms of withdrawal, notably when it comes to international conventions.  Many states on the continent seem to have decided that international law is a burden onerous and in need of lightening.  Poland, Finland and the three Baltic states, for instance, have concluded that using landmines, despite their indiscriminately murderous quality, somehow fits their mould of self-defence against the Russian Bear.  That spells the end of their obligations under the Anti-Personnel Landmines Convention.  Lithuania’s government has thought it beneath it to continue abiding by the Convention on Cluster Munitions, withdrawing last month.

The International Criminal Court now promises to be one member short.  Hungary, under the rule of its pugilistic premier, Viktor Orbán, timed the announcement to wounding perfection.  Knowing full well that Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, faces an ICC arrest warrant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, and also knowing, full well, Hungary’s obligations as a member state to arrest him, Orbán preferred to do the opposite.  That was an international institution both men could rubbish and bash with relish.

As far back as November, when the warrant was issued, the Hungarian leader had already promised that the order would not run in his country.  An invitation to Netanyahu to visit was promptly issued.  Spite was in the air.  In February this year, Orbán ruminated on his country’s continued membership of the ICC. “It’s time for Hungary to review what we’re doing in an international organization that is under US sanctions!” he bellowed in a post on the X platform.  “New winds are blowing in international politics.  We call it the Trump-tornado.”

On the arrival of the Israeli leader for a four-day visit, there was a conspicuous absence of any law officer or police official willing to discharge the duties of the Rome Statute.  The reception for Netanyahu featured a welcoming ceremony at the Lion Courtyard in Buda Castle.

Alongside Netanyahu at a press conference, Orbán trotted out the thesis that has long been used against any international court, or body, that behaves in a way contrary to the wishes of a government.  “This very important court has been diminished to a political tool and Hungary wishes to play no role in it.”  The abandonment of impartiality was evident by “it’s decisions on Israel.”

Netanyahu, who conveniently described the warrant for his arrest as “absurd and antisemitic”, brimmed with glee, calling the withdrawal “bold and principled” while directing his usual bile upon the organisation.  (Judges, Israeli or international, are not esteemed in the Israeli PM’s universe.)  “It’s important for all democracies,” he declared.  “It’s important to stand up to this corrupt organisation.”  Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar concurred.  “The so-called International Criminal Court lost its moral authority after trampling the fundamental principles of international law in its zest for harming Israel’s right to self-defence.”  A right, seemingly, to be exercised with defiant impunity.

Orbán should at least be credited for a certain unvarnished, vulgar honesty.  Open contempt is its own virtue.  Other European member states of the ICC have been resolutely mealy mouthed in whether they would execute their obligations under the Rome Statute were Netanyahu to visit them.  France, for instance, claims that Netanyahu has immunity from prosecution before the ICC, a rather self-defeating proposition if you are in the international justice business.  Italy, for its part, expressed doubts on the legal situation.

Germany, with its obstinate pro-Israeli stance, is one member state deeming the whole idea of arresting an Israeli leader unappetising, raising questions on whether its own membership of the court is valid.  “We have spoken about this several times,” stated the country’s outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz at a very recent press conference in Berlin, “and I cannot imagine that an arrest would occur in Germany.”

Scholz’s successor, Friedrich Merz, has confirmed this blithe attitude to ICC regulations, having promised Netanyahu “that we would find ways and means for him to be able to visit Germany and leave again without being arrested.  I think it is a completely absurd idea that an Israeli prime minister cannot visit the Federal Republic of Germany”.  As absurd, implicitly, as an international justice system moored in The Hague.

This made the hypocrisy of Germany’s own criticism of Hungary’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute sharp and tangy, with Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock lamenting the event as “a bad day for international criminal law”.  Europe had “clear rules that apply to all EU member states, and that is the Rome Statute.”  No mirror, it would seem, was on hand for Baerbock to reconsider the hollowness of such observations before the stance of her own government.

The response from the Presidency of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute, delivered in diplomatic if cool language, expressed “regret” at Hungary’s announcement.  “When a State Party withdraws from the Rome Statute, it clouds our shared quest or justice and weakens our resolve to fight impunity.”  The statement goes on to make the fundamental point: “The ICC is at the centre of the global commitment to accountability, and in order to maintain its strength, it is imperative that the international community support it without reservation.”  Hungary’s exit, and European qualifications and niggling subversions of the Court, show that reservations are all the rage, and justice a nuisance when applied inconveniently.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University.

8 April 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor

Palestinian Territory – Euro-Med Monitor strongly condemns Israel’s direct, deliberate attack on a tent housing Palestinian journalists in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, at dawn today(Monday 7 April). The attack killed two people, including one journalist, and injured nine additional journalists, making it a blatant and intentional crime carried out by Israel with full knowledge of its consequences.

The Euro-Med Monitor field team documented the killing of Helmi Al-Faqaawi, correspondent for Palestine Today News Agency, and Youssef Al-Khazandar, a civilian assisting the group ofjournalists, in the attack. Nine other journalistswere injured, including photojournalist Hassan Islayeh, in the direct and unprovoked Israeli strike on the journalists’ tent near Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. The bombing set some of the journalists on fire while they were still alive—in a horrifying scene that underscores Israel’s systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip.

In the aftermath of the attack, the Israeli army released a statement admitting to the targeting of the journalists’ tent, claiming that Hassan Islayeh was the intended target. Without providing any substantiated evidence, the army alleged that Islayeh was affiliated with a Palestinian factionand was operating under the guise of journalism through his media company.

The statement further accuses Islayeh of documenting and filming the events of 7 October 2023, when Palestinian factions launched attacks on Israeli military sites bordering the Gaza Strip,and references his activities on social media as justification for the strike. Islayeh has been a frequent target of Israeli incitement campaigns, particularly by Israeli media outlets, due to his journalistic work and documentation of Israeli rights violations in the Strip.

This incident is part of a broader, deliberate campaign by Israeli forces to suppress independent reporting from the Gaza Strip bytargeting those who document and expose the reality on the ground, especially amid the ongoing genocide. The glaring lack of any international accountability mechanisms or legal consequences has emboldened Israeli forces to continuecommitting these crimes with impunity, making the Strip the deadliest zone in the world for journalists.

“Burning a journalist alive in Gaza is not merely an attempt to silence the truth,” stated Euro-Med Monitor’s Legal Department Director Lima Bustami. “Israel already relies on something far more powerful—the world’s indifference to that truth.”

Bustami explained that Israel’s systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists also sends a chilling message: “Your truth means nothing. We can kill you with cameras in your hands, and no one will save you.”

Bustami went on to describe Israel’s crimes against Palestinian journalists as “a display of power and a practical declaration of impunity”.

Israel’s claims regarding the targeting of journalist Islayeh, even if hypothetically valid, do not in any way justify its attempt to kill him. Journalists are protected under international humanitarian law, including the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which clearly states that civilians—including journalists performing their professional duties in conflict zones—do not lose their legal protection simply because they report from war zones or convey information from the front lines.

Even a journalist classified as a war correspondent does not constitute a legitimate target unless directly participating in hostilities—something Israel has neither proven nor provided any credible evidence for in the case of Islayeh. Thus, Islayeh’s targeting constitutes a blatant violation of the laws of armed conflict and a full international crime, warranting legal accountability and prosecution.

Israel’s deliberate targeting of Palestinian journalists is a primary objective of its genocide. This is evidenced by the series of horrific crimescommitted by Israel against journalists in the Gaza Strip since the 7 October 2023 start of its genocide against Palestinians in the besieged enclave. To date, 211 journalists have been killed, and dozens more have been injured or arrested. These attacks are accompanied by systematic incitement campaigns and policies aimed at stripping journalists of their professional status—a deliberate attempt to justify their unlawful targeting and silence the voice of truth in the Gaza Strip.

As part of the broader genocidal campaign it is carrying out in the Gaza Strip, Israel has killed at least 15 Palestinian journalists since the beginning of this year alone.

These crimes against journalists are an integral component of Israel’s deliberate policy to silence the voices of Palestinian victims and obstruct the documentation of atrocities committed against the civilian population in the Strip.

Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian journalists has been systematic and widespread. It has targeted them while they are in the field, wearing clearly marked press vests; inside their media offices; in journalist tents set up near hospitals to facilitate coverage; and even in their homes with their families, when entire buildings were bombed and collapsed upon them.

Israel must be held fully accountable for these grave violations, which represent a flagrant breach of international law and a blatant contradiction of its obligations to protect journalists and uphold press freedom in exposing the truth and revealing the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip.

The aforementioned attacks amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, and further constitute an element of the genocide being committed in the Gaza Strip; the attacks are part of a sustained pattern of violations aimed at eliminating the Palestinian people physically, psychologically, and historically.

Targeting journalists and attempting to erase evidence of genocide are central to Israel’sgenocidal campaign. Israel’s crimes are not limited to mass killings of civilians, but extend to eliminating witnesses who can convey and document the crimes through their tools and testimonies. Attacks on journalists and documentation efforts, and the silencing of independent voices, are not only severe violations of international law, but are also essential elements in the crime of genocide, which seeks to obliterate the targeted group’s existence, voice, and memory.

Moreover, the absence of documentation denies victims recognition of their rights and undermines efforts to pursue accountability, enabling the continued perpetration of crimes with impunity and reinforcing Israel’s entrenched policy of escaping justice for the atrocities it commits in the Gaza Strip.

Since the start of the genocide, Israel has systematically barred journalists and international media representatives from accessing the Gaza Strip, except for a few individuals embedded with Israeli military forces. These individuals have been allowed into the enclave under strict conditions that limit their movement, and have only been permitted to report from areas approved by the Israeli army. These restrictions aim to isolate the Strip from the outside world and obscure the truth about the Israeli crimes committed against Palestinian civilians, contributing to the erasure of evidence and the concealment of the ongoing genocide.

Just days ago, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) documented that Israel wasresponsible for approximately 70% of all journalist killings worldwide in 2024, marking the highest single-country toll in any one year since the committee began documenting such incidents nearly three decades ago.

The policy of impunity enjoyed by Israel in the absence of any effective international mechanisms to hold it accountable for the crimes it commits against Palestinian journalists empowers it to continue its crimes, includingviolations of press freedom and the right to access information.

Accordingly, a comprehensive international investigation must be opened into the violations and crimes that the Israeli occupation army has committed, and continues to commit, against Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip. Immediate actions are needed to hold allperpetrators accountable, compensate the victims, and pressure Israel to stop the direct targeting and deliberate killing of journalists, ensuring the protection of their work and enabling them to carry out their mission, which is to report the truth. International journalists and news agency crews should also be allowed to enter and work in the Gaza Strip without restrictions or conditions, and their safety should be ensured.

All countries, individually and collectively, must assume their legal responsibilities and act urgently to stop the genocide in the Gaza Strip in all its forms, and to take all practical measures to protect Palestinian civilians there. Euro-Med Monitor stresses the need to ensure Israel’s compliance with international law and the rulings of the International Court of Justice, and to guarantee accountability for its crimes against Palestinians. In addition, the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against the Israeli Prime Minister and Minister of Defencemust be implemented at the earliest opportunity,and the Court must be allowed to bring them to international justice.

The international community must impose economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions on Israel right away due to its systematic and grave violations of international law. These sanctions should include prohibiting the export of weapons to Israel; the purchase of weapons from it; the halting of all forms of political, financial, and military support and cooperation; the freezing of financial assets of those responsible for crimes against Palestinians and the imposing of travel bans on them; and the suspension of any trade privileges and bilateral agreements that grant Israel economic benefits that enable it to continue committing genocide against Palestinians.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor is a Geneva-based independent organization with regional offices across the MENA region and Europe

8 April 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Gaza (Quds News Network)- Palestinian journalist Ahmed Mansour, who sustained severe burns in Monday’s Israeli attack on a media tent in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, has died from his injuries, bringing the death toll from the assault to at least three.

Gaza’s Government Media Office issued a statement on Tuesday urging global support for Palestinian journalists following Israel’s deadly raid on a media tent early yesterday morning.

Mansour, who died from severe burns sustained in the attack, is the 211th media worker killed during Israel’s war on Gaza, according to the office.

Israel’s attack also burned Palestine Today reporter Hilmi al-Faqaawi to death along with another man named Yousef al-Khazindar.

Journalists Hassan Eslaih, Ahmed al-Agha, Muhammad Fayek, Abdallah Al-Attar, Ihab al-Bardini and Mahmoud Awad were also injured.

“We call on the International Federation of Journalists, the Federation of Arab Journalists, and all journalistic bodies in all countries of the world to condemn these systematic crimes against Palestinian journalists and media professionals in the Gaza Strip,” the office said.

More than 200 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israeli forces since October 2023, according to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, making it the deadliest ever conflict for journalists.

8 April 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

Western states have protected the Israeli regime since its inception, and escalated their complicity in its crimes since the beginning of the genocide. France, like others, have pretended to be a neutral mediator while granting impunity and unconditional political, financial and military support to the Israeli regime. Instead of meaningless condemnations and actions – such as the ongoing trilateral summit with Egypt and Jordan – France must uphold its obligations to stop and prevent further Israeli genocide and international crimes through sanctions.

For 18 months, the Israeli regime has continued its genocide and killed 50,523 people, including over 15,000 children, and injured 114,776 people. At least 1.9 million Palestinians, 90 percent of the population, have been forcibly displaced and the entirety of Gaza’s infrastructure – both public (health, transportation, sanitation and education) and private – has been destroyed. France’s complicity in Israeli crimes must be addressed and ended. How many conferences will be organized before France stops actively enabling Israeli crimes, and recognizes and acts to stop the Israeli genocide? How many more discussions will be held before empty statements and actions become tangible and practical measures?

Affirming yesterday that “political initiatives were discussed to revive the peace process and establish a Palestinian state” does not do anything to stop the killing, and nor is it Egypt’s or France’s role to dictate political solutions. Stressing “the urgent need for an immediate ceasefire and the entry of humanitarian aid” is futile while the Israeli regime has been deliberately and ruthlessly preventing any aid from entering since 2 March and resumed bombing the Gaza Strip, in violation of the last ceasefire agreement, since 18 March 2025. Palestinians in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, especially refugee camps, are next, facing an unprecedented suppression campaign. Reaffirming the “rejection of the forced displacement of Palestinians”, while thousands of Palestinians have already been forcibly expelled – and as a so-called “voluntary migration bureau” is established to facilitate further expulsions – once again exposes French complicity in Israeli crimes and the futility of such statements.

Israeli acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing would not continue were states to act in accordance to their obligations under international law. All states must prevent the commission of genocide and international crimes such as the weaponization of aid and forced displacement by imposing the full range of economic, military and political measures against the Israeli regime and its colonial enablers, otherwise their inaction also constitutes complicity.

7 April 2025

Source: badil.org

By Countercurrents Collective

The UN Human Rights Council has reappointed Francesca Albanese as Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories for another three years resisting a coordinated campaign to remove her from her post.

There was sustained pressure from pro-Israel governments and advocacy groups, including the United States.

The decision came on Friday, during the final session of the UNHRC’s 58th meeting in Geneva. Albanese will now continue in her role through 2028.

Her reappointment faced strong resistance from several Western states and lobbying organizations critical of her outspoken stance on Israeli policies. Albanese has repeatedly accused Israel of ethnic cleansing and genocide in her reports and public statements, drawing praise from human rights advocates and ire from Israeli officials and their allies.

One of the most vocal campaigns against her has been led by UN Watch, which released a 60-page dossier accusing her of promoting antisemitism and “terrorism” in her capacity as UN Special Rapporteur. The group also launched a petition urging the Council to block her renewal and demanded her immediate dismissal during a recent session.

Other groups—including the World Jewish Congress and the Zionist youth organization Betar—have also taken aim at Albanese. Betar allegedly issued threats against her during a recent visit to London, invoking Israel’s airstrikes on Lebanon in 2023.

UK Labour MP David Taylor added to the chorus, accusing Albanese of justifying the October 7 Hamas operation and describing Israel as a “settler-colonial invasion”.

Despite the pressure, the Human Rights Council reaffirmed its support, signaling a continued commitment to monitoring the situation in the occupied territories.

6 April 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Gaza (Quds News Network)- The Israeli army released a new and different story of its attack on ambulances in Rafah, following the release of a video that exposed the execution of 14 aid workers and debunked its earlier claims. The new story is inconsistent, lacks evidence, and ignores key facts shown in the footage.

Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported details from the military’s internal investigation. According to the army, Israeli forces opened fire after a “Hamas police car” approached them. Soldiers claimed they felt threatened and fired, killing one person.

Later, ambulances arrived at the scene. The army said soldiers thought they were under attack again and opened fire on the rescue teams. The report claimed medics were “running toward the Hamas police vehicle,” and that the soldiers believed they posed a threat.

The army admitted that emergency lights may have been on but said the lack of visibility wasn’t an intentional lie. It also claimed a bulldozer buried the medics’ bodies and vehicles under sand “to protect them from animals.”

However, the report did not explain how some bodies were found handcuffed, one beheaded, and others executed at close range with bullets to the head. Nor did it address why ambulances were deliberately buried to hide the evidence.

The army’s new version contradicts previous footage published by international media. Videos clearly showed that emergency lights on the ambulances were flashing during the attack, proving the vehicles were visibly marked as humanitarian.

In its initial response, the Israeli military claimed the ambulances lacked lights or clear medical markings. That was quickly debunked.

Now, the army adds a new twist—suggesting that what it described as a “Hamas police vehicle” passed the area an hour earlier and that its presence confused the soldiers. But this explanation lacks logic. Gaza police are known targets for Israeli forces and rarely move during invasions, especially not with flashing lights near tanks.

The claim about “protecting the bodies from animals” also rings hollow. The same army has left hundreds of Palestinian bodies in the open throughout the genocide, often mutilated. In many cases, Israeli soldiers filmed themselves desecrating corpses and shared the videos publicly.

The new version of events leaves many questions unanswered and further undermines the credibility of Israel’s official narrative.

This is not the first time the Israeli army has issued contradictory narratives, only to have each one exposed as a lie.

At the start of the genocide, when the Israeli army bombed Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza and killed around 500 didplaced civilians, the military spokesperson released three different accounts within just a few hours.

First, he claimed, “We warned the hospital and five others to evacuate.” But realizing how disastrous that admission would be on the international stage, he quickly shifted to a second version: that Hamas fighters were operating from the hospital. However, journalists who had been stationed at the hospital for 12 days straight debunked that claim immediately.

By the following morning, the spokesperson settled on a third version: the explosion was caused by a misfired rocket from Islamic Jihad.

With no real evidence supporting any of the claims, each narrative collapsed under scrutiny. One by one, the stories were shown to be false—revealing a pattern, not just a mistake.

6 April 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Jon Queally

A video presented to officials at the United Nations on Friday and first made public Saturday by the New York Times provides more evidence that the recent massacre of Palestinian medics in Gaza did not happen the way Israeli government claimed—the latest in a long line of deception when it comes to violence against civilians that have led to repeated accusations of war crimes.

The video, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), was found on the phone of a paramedic found in a mass grave with a bullet in his head after being killed, along with seven other medics, by Israeli forces on March 23. The eight medics, buried in the shallow grave with the bodies riddled with bullets, were: Mustafa Khafaja, Ezz El-Din Shaat, Saleh Muammar, Refaat Radwan, Muhammad Bahloul, Ashraf Abu Libda, Muhammad Al-Hila, and Raed Al-Sharif. The video reportedly belonged to Radwan. A ninth medic, identified as Asaad Al-Nasasra, who was at the scene of the massacre, which took place near the southern city of Rafah, is still missing.

The PRCS said it presented the video—which refutes the explanation of the killings offered by Israeli officials—to members of the UN Security Council on Friday.

[https://twitter.com/_assaf_ps/status/1908375085380989188]

“They were killed in their uniforms. Driving their clearly marked vehicles. Wearing their gloves. On their way to save lives,” Jonathan Whittall, head of the UN’s humanitarian affairs office in Palestine, said last week after the bodies were discovered. Some of the victims, according to Gaza officials, were found with handcuffs still on them and appeared to have been shot in the head, execution-style.

The Israeli military initially said its soldiers “did not randomly attack” any ambulances, but rather claimed they fired on “terrorists” who approached them in “suspicious vehicles.” Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an IDF spokesperson, said the vehicles that the soldiers opened fire on were driving with their lights off and did not have clearance to be in the area. The video evidence directly contradicts the IDF’s version of events.

[https://twitter.com/DropSiteNews/status/1908419861941727248]

As the Timesreports:

The Times obtained the video from a senior diplomat at the United Nations who asked not to be identified to be able to share sensitive information.

The Times verified the location and timing of the video, which was taken in the southern city of Rafah early on March 23. Filmed from what appears to be the front interior of a moving vehicle, it shows a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck, clearly marked, with headlights and flashing lights turned on, driving south on a road to the north of Rafah in the early morning. The first rays of sun can be seen, and birds are chirping.

In an interview with Drop Site News published Friday, the only known paramedic to survive the attack, Munther Abed, explained that he and his colleagues “were directly and deliberately shot at” by the IDF. “The car is clearly marked with ‘Palestinian Red Crescent Society 101.’ The car’s number was clear and the crews’ uniform was clear, so why were we directly shot at? That is the question.”

The video’s release sparked fresh outrage and demands for accountability on Saturday.

“The IDF denied access to the site for days; they sent in diggers to cover up the massacre and intentionally lied about it,” said podcast producer Hamza M. Syed in reaction to the new revelations. “The entire leadership of the Israeli army is implicated in this unconscionable war crime. And they must be prosecuted.”

“Everyone involved in this crime against humanity, and everyone who covered it up, would face prosecution in a world that had any shred of dignity left,” said journalist Ryan Grim of DropSite News.

Jon Queally is managing editor of Common Dreams.

6 April 2025

Source: countercurrents.org