Palestine

Finally

As key Israel allies threaten action over Gaza catastrophe, Washington is largely unmoved (Guardian, 2025-05-19)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/19/israel-gaza-war-us-congress-white-house
------

>> As Israel orders Palestinians to evacuate Khan Younis in advance of what it calls an “unprecedented attack” on Gaza, much of Washington remains largely unmoved, even as Canada and European countries [= France &UK] threaten “concrete actions” if Israel does not scale back its offensive.

>> Despite reports of growing pressure from the Trump administration to increase aid into Gaza, where widespread famine looms, the White House continues to publicly back Israel...

#USPol #StopGenocide
@palestine@lemmy.ml @palestine@a.gup.pe @israel

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/30377108

from #TheSeattleTimes May 19, 2025 at 12:42 pm Updated May 19, 2025 at 4:32 pm

"Seattle police arrested one demonstrator after a crowd of dozens tried to push into the Seattle Convention Center, where hundreds had gathered for Microsoft Build. Several demonstrators were doused with pepper spray.

Demonstrators ultimately left the convention center at 1:30 p.m., returning to downtown Seattle’s Westlake Park where they had rallied earlier in the day."

from #AssociatedPress #APNews
By JAKE OFFENHARTZ
Updated 5:46 PM EDT, May 19, 2025

"NEW YORK (#AP) — Less than three weeks after his release from an immigration jail, the #Palestinian activist #MohsenMahdawi strode across the graduation stage at #ColumbiaUniversity on Monday morning, savoring a moment the #Trump administration had fought to make impossible.

Draped in a keffiyeh, Mahdawi, 34, paused to listen to the swell of cheers from his fellow graduates. Then he joined a vigil just outside #Columbia’s gates, raising a photograph of his classmate Mahmoud Khalil, who remains in federal custody."-

Johana Bhuiyan Mon 19 May 2025 14.27 EDT

"“As one of the largest companies in the world, Microsoft has immeasurable power to do the right thing: demand an end to this senseless tragedy, or we will cease our technological support for Israel,” read the email... “If leadership continues to ignore this demand, I promise that it won’t go unnoticed. The world has already woken up to our complicity and is turning against us. The boycotts will increase and our image will continue to spiral into disrepair.”"

Writing on X on Sunday, Sabo Amos, who works as a surgeon in Israel’s public healthcare system, said he had volunteered to take part in “eliminations” after his battalion had killed “dozens of terrorists” the previous day.

Amos said he had requested to take part in operations “within the framework of preventative medicine”, but said another doctor had suggested his involvement was a matter of “public health”.

“On second thought, he’s right. After all, we’re talking about eliminating cockroaches and other loathsome insects,” Amos wrote in the now deleted post.

Later on Sunday, he posted an image which he said showed Israeli soldiers participating in an afternoon Jewish prayer service in a mosque in northern Gaza.

Jeremy Scahill May 19, 2025

[This is the most brazen and honest statement from Netanyahu since October 7. The only word he doesn't use is "genocide".]

On 6 April, Israeli soldiers killed Amer Rabee, 14, and injured two other Palestinian children, Ayub Jabar and Abdulrahman Shihada, both 15. The boys were collecting green almonds in the occupied West Bank town of Turmusaya.

Israeli soldiers fired 47 bullets at the children.

Amer was shot 11 times, including twice in the head. Ayub was shot in the abdomen and Abdulrahman in the thigh.

Israel posted a statement accompanied by a grainy video in which it claimed that its forces engaged in a counterterrorism operation that prevented “terrorists” from throwing rocks on a highway below and endangering civilians.

Amer was a Palestinian American – as are the other two boys – and the US State Department issued a statement that acknowledged Israel’s claims. Although it offered condolences to the Rabee family, it did not condemn or even criticize Israel for killing and wounding unarmed American citizens or ask why lethal force was deployed against children.

Neither the State Department nor The New York Times acknowledged that even after the boys were shot, Israel delayed an ambulance.

This fits into a pattern of Israeli actions.

Abu Obeida, the military spokesperson for Hamas' al-Qassam Brigades, posted on social media shortly after Israeli rumors claiming he was assassinated in the Israeli bombing of the Gaza European Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Tuesday evening.

Some Israeli reports circulated claiming that Abu Obeida was assassinated in the massive strike. But the Palestinian spokesperson automatically denied the Israeli allegations when he posted, commenting on a West Bank shooting operation that killed an Israeli settler and seriously injured two others near the settlement of Bruchin, in Salfit, close to Nablus.

In his post, Abu Obeida called on the Palestinian people to rise up against the occupation in defense of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, in response to the aggression on the West Bank, and in solidarity with the people of Gaza.

Israeli forces killed a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who witnessed the mass execution of medics in southern Gaza earlier this year, his father told Middle East Eye.

Mohammed Saeed al-Bardawil was shot dead by Israeli naval forces on 10 May while fishing with his father off the coast of Rafah.

His death came just weeks after he survived the point-blank Israeli execution of 15 paramedics and Civil Defence workers responding to a strike in western Rafah on 23 March.

In that incident, his father, Saeed al-Bardawil, states he was walking with his son in the Tal al-Sultan area when special Israeli forces suddenly appeared and detained them.

Along with some others, they were stripped, bound and held at gunpoint by soldiers who ordered them to lie face down just metres from a smouldering Red Crescent ambulance that had been struck earlier.

Gaza has shattered the illusion of credibility in the Arab political order, exposing its deep structural and moral bankruptcy. No amount of wealth, foreign alliances or internal repression can offer true stability to Saudi Arabia or its counterparts while Palestinians are being besieged and murdered.

There is no moral or political rationale for partnering with Zionism. Gaza’s genocide has laid bare its essence as a bankrupt ideology built on dispossession and terror. To believe that Palestine can be crushed, or that Zionism can survive unscathed after all this savagery, is a ridiculous fantasy.

Do the Arab regimes that once facilitated the forced expulsion of Palestinian fighters from Beirut grasp that dismantling Gaza’s last line of defence could clear the path for a slaughter much worse than Sabra and Shatila? And if that horror unfolds, will they bear the burden of what they helped unleash?

History has shown that supporting the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people is the only path forward. Betraying those aspirations erodes the legitimacy of ruling elites. For more than 19 months, the relentless images of suffering from Gaza have etched themselves into the world’s collective memory. People are watching. They will not forget.

I can't believe this is a real headline. What a disgusting, racist, genocide.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video detailing the plan to bring humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, responding to criticism from the right.

Netanyahu said his order to allow the aid came after "we are nearing the red line," and that Israel's international support is being damaged by reports of hunger in the Strip.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/30319380

from #AssociatedPress #AP #APNews Updated 5:30 PM EDT, May 18, 2025

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel announced Sunday it will allow a limited amount of humanitarian aid into Gaza after a nearly three-month blockade, days after global experts on food security warned of famine. ... It was not immediately clear when aid would enter Gaza, or how. The Israeli military body in charge of overseeing aid did not comment. Israel has been trying to impose a new aid system, despite objections by aid workers. Netanyahu said Israel would work to ensure that aid does not reach militants.

By Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Maayan Lubell
May 18, 20255:26 PM EDT

Summary

ꞏ Israel says it aims for 'operational control' in parts of Gaza

ꞏ Latest airstrikes killed at least 130 Palestinians, medics say

ꞏ No progress reported in indirect ceasefire talks in Qatar

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, his office said Sunday.

Biden was seen by doctors last week after urinary symptoms and a prostate nodule were found. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer on Friday, with the cancer cells having spread to the bone.

Why Israel’s demand for Hamas to disarm is a red herring (+972 Magazine, 2025-05-13)

https://www.972mag.com/israel-demand-for-hamas-to-disarm-is-a-red-herring/
------

>> ... Israel’s insistence on Hamas’ disarmament is a red herring designed to sabotage any meaningful progress in the ceasefire talks and allow the genocide to continue. This was made abundantly clear when Israel’s government adopted plans to conquer and permanently occupy all of Gaza, squeeze the population into concentration camps near the border with Egypt and force as many as possible to leave, and maintain that apparatus even after all Israeli captives are released...

#StopGenocide #IsraeliSabotage
@palestine@lemmy.ml @palestine@a.gup.pe @israel

May 18, 2025

Pro-Palestinian protesters, police clash in Basel during Eurovision (France24, 2025-05-17)

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250517-pro-palestinian-protesters-police-clash-in-basel-during-eurovision
———

>> Pro-Palestinian demonstrators clashed with riot police in Basel as the Swiss city hosted the Eurovision Song Contest Saturday, AFP journalists at the scene witnessed.

>> During [Israeli Y. Raphael’s] performance of her song "New Day Will Rise" on Saturday, loud whistles could be heard in the arena, according to an AFP photographer in the hall.

>> There have been a number of smaller protests against Israel throughout #Eurovision week in Basel, and demonstrators interrupted Raphael's act during a dress rehearsal for one of the semi-finals.

#StopGenocide
@palestine@lemmy.ml @palestine@a.gup.pe @israel