#aid convoys targeted

[richo1915]

Slaves often make the worst Masters

Anon

[sayruq]

It could not be more obvious why the UNRWA and international aid organisations have been targeted.

[soon-palestine]

The Israeli Navy has targeted a United Nations aid convoy heading from southern Gaza to the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

[triviallytrue]

The state of affairs in Palestine, 10/23/23

Conditions on the ground in Gaza continue to deteriorate. Gaza has no fuel, electricity, or clean water, and it remains under constant bombardment.

Humanitarian aid is beginning to make its way through the Rafah border crossing (Gaza's border with Egypt) but the current quantity is completely insufficient. There have been two convoys. The first convoy of 20 trucks contained enough water for 22,000 people, or ~1% of Gaza's population, for a single day. It's unclear what was in the second convoy, but it only had 17 trucks.

Israel continues to gear up for a ground invasion of Gaza. It's unclear what exactly they will do or what the end result will be, to the point that the US is calling on Israel to publicize its goals.

In the meantime, Israel has aggressively increased its air bombardment of Gaza. [CW for the header image on the red link: wounded young girl] This, along with the lack of fuel and supplies, is causing the complete collapse of the Gaza hospital system.

There is a very real risk of further escalation of the war. Israel has repeatedly raided and airstriked the West Bank and targets in Syria, continuously exchanged volleys with Hezbollah on the Israeli border with Lebanon, and hit the Egyptian border (allegedly by accident).

Protests around the world are rallying to bring attention and support to the Palestinian cause.

[embodiedfutures]

ID 1: Screenshot from Let’s Talk Palestine’s Instagram text channel. Their most recent text reads:

“Hi everyone.

Gaza has officially run out of fuel and electricity. Here’s what this means:

Hospitals cannot operate without electricity. Emergency fuel will run out today.

Refrigerated food will now soon expire. As Israel has cut Gaza off of all food, this accelerates the threat of mass starvation looming over people, including more than 1 million kids. Children. Babies. Toddlers.

Media blackout: our access to information will become severely limited, as even foreign media outlets based in Gaza can no longer charge their equipment.

We have no words. Nothing can convey the horrors that will unfold unless the world forces Israel to stop. Nothing justified the deliberate starving and executing of children and civilians. SPEAK OUT.” Two red exclamation point emojis follow. At the time of the screenshot, 261 people had liked the message. End ID.

ID 2: Screenshot of Let’s Talk Palestine’s most recent Instagram post. First slide reads, “Israel is Pushing 2 million Gazans to the Brink of Death.

Israel has completely cut off all food supplies from Gaza. If not reversed, this decision sets Gaza on the path to mass starvation for all 2.3 million people living there.

Israel has destroyed the only exit out of Gaza. The Rafah Crossing into Egypt is effectively closed now after a third Israeli bombing in the last 24 hours.

This means that Gazans are now completely trapped with no way out to escape the bombings.” End ID.

ID 3: Continuing: “Israel has imposed a "total" siege on Gaza.

Cutting it off from electricity, water, and fuel. Without electricity, Gaza's already overflowing hospitals will no longer be able to save the lives of civilians attacked by Israel.

Israel is carpet bombing entire neighborhoods and cities - targeting residential buildings, hospitals, and UN schools.

An entire family has been wiped out in an Israeli airstrike, with all 19 members killed in their home, including children.” End ID.

ID 4: The next slide reads: “Israel threatened Egypt that it would bomb humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza, prompting Egypt to withdraw its aid convoys.

177,000 PEOPLE ARE SEEKING REFUGE IN 88 U.N. SCHOOLS THAT HAVE BEEN CONVERTED INTO EMERGENCY SHELTERS but these schools are no longer safe as Israeli airstrikes have been targeting them.” End ID.

ID 5: Continuing: “10% OF THE POPULATION HAS ALREADY BEEN DISPLACED FROM THEIR HOMES IN JUST THREE DAYS.

THATS 20,000 PEOPLE.

200,000 children, mothers, fathers, and elderly.” End ID.

ID 6: The next slide reads: “50% OF GAZA'S POPULATION IS UNDER THE AGE OF 15.

ISRAEL HAS ALREADY KILLED 260 CHILDREN

HOSPITALS ARE OVERWHELMED AS THEY REACH FULL CAPACITY AND PRE-RESERVED MEDICAL RESOURCES HAVE BEEN DEPLETED AS 13 ISRAELI ATTACKS HAVE HIT GAZA'S HEALTH FACILITIES.” End ID.

ID 7: The final Instagram slide reads: “THIS IS NOT WAR.

MASS STARVATION IS NOT WAR.

BOMBING HOSPITALS IS NOT WAR.

WIPING OUT ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOODS IS NOT WAR.

THIS IS MASS MURDER.

THIS IS AN ANNIHILATION OF MORE THAN TWO MILLION PEOPLE ALREADY PERSECUTED UNDER APARTHEID.

SPEAK OUT.

BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.” End ID.

ID 8: Screenshot of the caption for the aforementioned Instagram post. It reads: “This is not an exaggeration. This is not something we wrote lightly. Two million people are being dragged by Israel towards mass annihilation, and it's only escalating further every hour. The patterns are appearing, namely the policy of starvation.

And the thousands of people who adopted Israeli rhetoric in the last few days here on social media are complicit.

Before any mass atrocity is committed against a group of people, they are dehumanized. You called them terrorists, you called them barbaric. You naively played into Israelis' hands, having not at all learnt the lessons from the American so-called "War on Terror" where dehumanising rhetoric and accusations of terrOrism were used to justify and condition people to accept the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

We are shocked, we are terrified, but most of all we are enraged that the world - especially privileged Westerners - never seem to ever learn their lesson. There are too many celebrities and even too many so-called "progressive activists" who are now complicit in these massacres.

This attack on Gaza it's different. It's different from all the previous attacks. People are saying goodbye to their loved ones abroad. Israel is planning annihilation.

Our people are being murdered. Our people are being slaughtered in their homes. Israeli pilots are targeting schools, hospitals and neighbourhoods. You care about civilians? SPEAK OUT. SHARE.”

33,917 people at the time of the screenshot had liked the post and 655 people had commented. End ID.

[workersolidarity]

[ 📹 Zionist fighter jets bomb an entire residential block sheltering four Palestinian families in the Al-Nuseirat Refugee Camp on Wednesday.]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏡💥🚑 🚨

💥ISRAELI OCCUPATION FORCES COMMIT 8 NEW MASSACRES OF PALESTINIAN FAMILIES ON 145TH DAY OF GENOCIDE💥

The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) have committed 8 new massacres of Palestinian families in the Gaza Strip, resulting in the martyrdom of 76 civilians, mostly women and children, and wounding another 110 others over the previous 24-hours, on the 145th day of Israel's ongoing genocide.

On Wednesday, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health of the Gaza Strip, Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, said in a statement reported on in the Palestinian media that hunger threatens the lives of children in northern Gaza.

Dr. Al-Qydra warned that the Ministry has begun monitoring deaths among infants, confirming that two infants died on Tuesday as a result of dehydration and malnutrition at Kamal Adwan Hospital, with thousands of other children and pregnant women at risk of death as famine and drought spread through the north of the enclave.

Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation, in another crime, detonated another entire neighborhood in Khan Yunis, including a residential neighborhood west of the city, after which 18 bodies of dead Palestinians were recovered from the area.

The Israeli occupation also bombed a civilian vehicle in Khan Yunis, resulting in the deaths of two civilians.

At the same time, IOF warplanes bombed a total of 7 residential homes over the previous 24-hours in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, while another civilian residence was bombed in central Gaza, where two civilians died as a result of the Israeli occupation bombing a home in Deir al-Balah.

According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), ambulance crews with the organization transported 34 wounded Palestinians after IOF fighter jets bombarded two civilian homes in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip.

In another Zionist atrocity, Israeli occupation forces opened gunfire on Palestinian families waiting for food aid convoys to arrive on Al-Rashid Street, west of Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, leading to the deaths of three civilians and wounding dozens of others, while occupation aircraft continue to bomb civilian residences in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southwest of Gaza City.

According to local civil defense crews, they've recorded several reports of missing civilians, both dead and wounded, buried under the rubble and ruins of their homes after being attacked by occupation tanks and armored vehicles.

The Israeli occupation also bombarded and destroyed the old Al-Samer rest house belonging to Abu Jamil Abu Saif, in the Al-Shati Refugee Camp, located to the west of Gaza City.

Meanwhile, occupation artillery shelling targeted two civilian homes in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City, while in the Sheikh Ajlin neighborhood, Zionist artillery shelling resulted in the deaths of three civilians and wounded six others.

Occupation warplanes also continue bombarding Palestinian residences in the Al-Sabra, Al-Rimal, and the Al-Janoubi neighborhoods of Gaza City, while in the southern Gaza Strip, Zionist forces fired seven missiles striking the central and eastern sections of the city, resulting in dozens of casualties among civilians.

Occupation aircraft, just before publishing, also bombarded an entire residential block sheltering four families in the Al-Nuseirat Refugee Camp, in the central Gaza Strip.

As a result of Israel's ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, upwards of 29'954 Palestinians have been murdered, mostly women and children, by the Israeli occupation army, while another 70'325 civilians have been wounded since the start of the current round of Israeli aggression beginning October 7th, 2023.

#source1

#source2

#source3

#source4

#source5

#videosource

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[cathkaesque]

Statement on Israel’s Use of Starvation as a Weapon of War in Gaza by the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, Palestine

For five days, Israel has attacked Gaza with the aim of total destruction, and the situation is at an unprecedented level of urgency. Israel’s actions have amounted to a humanitarian catastrophe of unfathomable proportions. At the time of publication, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reports 1,055 martyrs and approximately 5,184 injured.

Israel has declared a total warfare stance on Gaza, imposing a ruthless blockade that denies over two million Palestinian residents of Gaza access to electricity, water, food, fuel, medical supplies, and any humanitarian aid. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant explicitly stated this strategy on 9 October 2023, saying: “We are imposing a complete siege on [Gaza]. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel – everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.”

Israel’s deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war demands the international community immediately respond with unwavering urgency and resolve.

Israel is indiscriminately decimating hospitals, schools, mosques, markets, and entire neighborhoods. Further, Israel threatened Egypt that it would bomb humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza, prompting Egypt to withdraw its aid convoys. The Rafah Crossing into Egypt, the sole international exit from Gaza, has been bombed by Israel three times in a 24-hour period. This calculated assault severs Gazans’ only means of escape from ceaseless bombings or access to essential humanitarian aid. With Israel cutting off Gaza’s source of electricity, the only source of power was the Gaza Power Plant, which has just run out of fuel. In the case that it receives more fuel, Israel has threatened to attack the plant.

Israel’s assault is deliberately destroying any infrastructure that allows Gazans to support themselves. Vital agricultural and fishing infrastructure, crucial for food production, have been mercilessly attacked. Fisher folk cannot access the sea, into which sewage is spilling. The seaport is damaged, and tools are obliterated. Farming areas, often near the fence, have become vulnerable targets in Israeli airstrikes, and farmers whose land has not been destroyed cannot access it for daily agricultural practices. The Ministry of Agriculture reports that the bombing has done immense damage to agricultural areas and poultry farms, but the conditions make it impossible to precisely assess the situation in the field. There is a catastrophic decrease in food stocks, with shops across Gaza reporting severe shortages. The land and sea will face unimaginable environmental damages following these attacks, further preventing efforts to rebuild livelihoods.

Israel’s strategy aims to ensure that those who survive the bombs are condemned to a future without sustenance.

OCHA reports that the assaults have disrupted the UNRWA food operation, impacting at least 112,759 families. The poultry and livestock sectors are on the brink of collapse due to the severe shortage of fodder, endangering the livelihoods of more than 1,000 herders and affecting over 10,000 producers. This jeopardizes the provision of animal protein and the availability of meat and fresh sources of protein for Gaza’s entire population. Transportation of poultry to markets has virtually halted, and dairy cattle milk cannot be refrigerated nor marketed to factories, resulting in an expected daily spoilage of 35,000 liters of milk. More than 4,000 fisheries are at risk due to the closure of the sea. Gaza’s agriculture, poultry, cattle, fish, and other products are suffering from a lack of refrigeration, irrigation, incubation, and other machinery due to electricity cuts, causing spoilage.

Israel’s use of these tactics is not new by any means. Before Saturday, around 65% of the Gazan population was food insecure. More than 46% of the agricultural land in Gaza was inaccessible, and the fishing industry was severely struggling since fishing off the coast of Gaza has been restricted by Israel to 3 to 6 nautical miles.

Food insecurity is a human-made crisis, and Israel is manufacturing a mass starvation of the Gazan people.

It is the moral and legal obligation of the international community to intervene and end this crisis immediately. Food, as a basic necessity, must be allowed to reach the people of Gaza, and the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure must cease without delay.

We call upon the international community to take immediate action to stop Israel’s massacre of the Gazan population, demand the lifting of the siege, and establish humanitarian corridors for entry of aid.

[sayruq]

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on 30 April that US troops building a floating pier along Gaza's coast would have the ability and authority to open fire into the besieged enclave “to protect themselves,” putting into question US President Joe Biden‘s earlier claims that Washington would have “no boots on the ground” in Gaza. “[There will] be about 1,000 US service members operating a pier system off of Gaza. How many of them will have guns, Mr Secretary?” Representative Matt Gaetz asked the US war chief during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday. “Typically, all of the deployed service members carry guns, and they have the ability to protect themselves if challenged,” Austin replied. “Don’t you think that counts as boots on the ground? President Biden told the country that we were not going to have boots on the ground in Gaza,” Gaetz pressed Austin, to which he replied, “And we won’t.” “Okay, but you guys parse the distinction between ... Like when Americans think boots on the ground, they think Americans in harm’s way or engaged actively in a conflict. You guys seem to be sort of saying that boots on a pier, connected to the ground, connected to service members shooting into Gaza, doesn’t count as boots on the ground?” Gaetz continued. “It does not,” Austin replied, failing to explain the distinction. “If we��re gonna have people shooting into Gaza, we probably should have a vote on that, pursuant to our war powers,” the Republican lawmaker added.Last year, Gaetz introduced a War Powers Resolution legislation to end Washington’s illegal occupation of large swathes of Syria, arguing that US law had never authorized a military intervention in the country. The legislation was struck down a few weeks later in a 103-321 vote in the House of Representatives. US troops are building a $320 million “Joint Logistics Over The Shore” jetty system off the coast of Gaza to allegedly “ease the flow” of humanitarian aid into the strip. Biden announced the project nearly two months ago in response to Tel Aviv’s refusal to open border crossings into the enclave and blockades of aid convoys by Israeli settlers. Regional experts have warned that the floating pier could facilitate the mass deportation of Gaza’s population by sea.

[i-am-aprl]

🚨🚨| BREAKING: Celebrity chef Jose Andres told Reuters in an interview that an Israeli attack that killed seven of his food aid workers in had targeted them “systematically, car by car.” Speaking in a video interview, Andres said the World Central Kitchen (WCK) charity group he founded had clear communication with the Israeli military, which he said knew his aid workers’ movements. “This was not just a bad luck situation where ‘oops’ we dropped the bomb in the wrong place,” Andres said. “Even if we were not in coordination with the (Israel Defense Forces), no democratic country and no military can be targeting civilians and humanitarians.” Andres said there may have been more than three strikes against the aid convoy. He said he was supposed to be in Gaza with his team but for different reasons “wasn’t able to go back again to Gaza.”

[jewreallythinkthat]

How can Israel be allowed to exist after citizens literally rioted over the fact that IDF soldiers might be punished for raping a prisoner? And after government officials defended that rape? Not to mention those who repeatedly blocked aid going into Gaza with no punishment.

Hi Nonnie.

Firstly, thanks for actually posing this as a question rather than just hurling abuse at me.

So, having extremists in a country - both civilians and in government - does not mean that a country has no right to exist. We literally have had fascist riots in the UK (caused by the English Defence League) the past few days based around misinformation which have targeted mosques and these are horrific but do not mean the UK should be dissolved. Expecting a country which does things that are bad, or has horrific fascists in government to be dissolved as punishment is not only nonsensical but also never going to happen. It's an ideological purity position which does nothing to help anyone.

Additionally, you never see anyone saying Iran should be dissolved for torturing women to death for wearing the hijab incorrectly, or hanging people who say things the regime doesn't like; you don't see people say the USA should be dissolved because lawmakers tried to stop aid going to Ukraine and ICE were putting children in cages and tormenting asylum seekers and immigrants. You cannot hold Israel to a higher standard than other countries.

In terms of what I've seen about the rape of prisoners, it's fucking horrific. It's unconscionable and must be condemned unequivocally - no ifs, no buts. This is a especially important topic to me personally as a man who has been sexually assaulted. The government ministers protecting them are far right extremists. They are awful people and I hope one day, soon, they will face severe consequences for their actions. The same goes for the civilians who tried to protect the perpetrators.

Those blocking aid should be punished for it. The aid situation is actually really quite complicated despite what a lot of online sources they to portray it as. The Standing Together food convoys being blocked was pretty much a manufactured issue by ST refusing to comply with rules about declaring and clearing aid so it could be sent in. They knew it would be blocked and they did it anyway. (There is a post about this from an ex member of ST which is around somewhere and I'll link back here if I find it).

The nationalist extremist citizens blocking aid are despicable however if they are saying "no aid in until our hostages come out" do you understand why they might take that viewpoint? I do not agree with it but I certainly can see why people might get to that position. I appreciate the whole of Gaza is in crisis however I can understand why people may see this as their only way to protest and try and force Hamas to release hostages (unfortunately it seems like Hamas cares even less about the lives of the average Palestinian than they do about the average Israeli.)

The fact that Hamas also steels aid, there are literal videos of this happening and Hamas attacking starving Gazans trying to get the food, and this goes ignored by so many people does not help. Now I would say that if 90% of the aid is stolen by Hamas, at least 10% gets through and that's better than nothing in my opinion but at the same time, if no one is condemning the aid being stolen and in some cases sold back to Gazans at huge prices to make more money for Hamas, then whats the point in trying to have a civil conversation.

If someone refuses to see that there are Terrible People on both sides, people who really showcase how low humanity can sink, then how can sustainable peace ever be achieved for Israelis and Palestinians.

[thethief1996]

9.000 palestinians were killed in 3 weeks of bombings and the USA has just approved $14bi in additional military aid for Israel, on top of the annual $3.8bi Joe Biden instituted 28 years ago. Israel has targeted an ambulance convoy near Al-Shifa hospital, which was evacuating wounded from hospitals to the Rafah crossing. Al-Shifa is already working at 164% capacity, while 25 of the 35 hospitals in the Gaza Strip have shut down due to damage from bombing and lack of fuel (if I hear another zionist talk about how good Israel is for roof knocking hospitals is I'm going to explode). They did everything Israel asked of them and still they were murdered.

Almost half of these deaths are children, and even in death they're not respected and the US president and western media outlets are casting doubt over the reported numbers, even though they cast no such doubt over the numbers reported by Israel even though there's no official list provided by the government. It's ridiculous how blatantly they are copying Holocaust denialism talking points.

Meanwhile, Israel is enjoying the fog of war to proceed with the ethnic cleasing of the West Bank. Palestinians in Masafer Yatta, that have been intimidated by the construction of settlements hounding them for years, received threats by armed civilians saying they would be killed if they didn't leave in 24h and since then settlers have burned down their homes. Bedouin villages in Hebron, whose population was already routinely brutalized by settlers from the outposts nearby, are receiving equal threats and being terrorized by the destruction of their water supplies, roadblocks and physical violence. This is the largest forced displacement in the West Bank since 1972 and it's all being committed by settlers backed by the IDF. Israeli activists said they don't even know if these settlers are acting at the government's request or if they're just terrorizing people into running away from their homes in their free time. Thousands of Gazans who worked within Israel's "green line" were being held hostage since Oct 7th and reported they were tortured and labeled with numbers around their legs. Today, they were pushed back into southern Gaza amid airstrikes.

Palestinian journalists are being targeted for live streaming their genocide. The least we can do is pay attention and take action. Gazans have said our support lifts their spirits. If nothing else, to lift their spirits.

TOMORROW, NOV 4TH, there will be a National March in Washington DC organized by 500+ orgs and expected to be the largest pro-Palestine movement in the history of the USA. If you can, please attend.

Educate yourself. Read into Palestinian history and the occupation. You can't common sense people out of decades of propaganda. If your arguments crumble when a zionist brings up the "disengagement of Gaza", you have to learn more.

Read Decolonize Palestine. They have 15 minute reads that concisely explain the occupation (and its colonial roots) and debunk popular myths, including pinkwashing.

Read on Palestine. Here's an amazing masterpost.

Verso Book Club is giving out free books on Palestine (I personally downloaded Ten Myths about Israel by Ilan Pappe).

Keep yourself updated and share Palestinian voices, looking to inform yourself from the sources. Palestinians have asked of us only that we share, tweet and post, over and over. Muna El-Kurd said every tweet is like a treasure to them, because their voices are repressed on social media and even on this very app. Make it your action item to share something about the Palestinian plight everyday. Here are some resources:

Al Jazeera

Anadolu Agency

Mondoweiss

Boycott Divest Sanction Movement

Palestinian Youth Movement

Mohammed El-Kurd (twitter / instagram)

Al-Shabaka (twitter / instagram)

Mariam Barghouti (twitter / instagram)

Muhammad Shehada (twitter)

Motaz Azaiza (instagram) - reporting directly from Gaza.

Take action. You can participate in boycotts wherever you are in the world, through BDS guidelines. Don't be overwhelmed by gigantic boycott lists. BDS explicitly targets only a few brands which have bigger impact. You can stop consuming from as many brands as you want, though, and by all means feel free to give a 1 star review to McDonalds, Papa John, Pizza Hut, Burger King and Starbucks. Right now, they are focusing on boycotting the following:

Carrefour

HP

Puma

Sabra

Sodastream

Ahava cosmetics

Israeli fruits and vegetables

Push for a cultural boycott - pressure your favorite artist to speak out on Palestine and cancel any upcoming performances on occupied territory (Lorde cancelled her gig in Israel because of this. It works.)

If you can, participate in direct action or donate.

Palestine Action works to shut down Israeli weapons factories in the UK and USA, and have successfully shut down one of their firms in London.Some of the activists are going on trial and are calling for mobilizing on court.

Palestinian Youth Movement is organizing direct actions to stop the shipping of wars to Israel. Follow them.

Call your representatives. The Labour Party in the UK had an emergency meeting after several councilors threatened to resign if they didn't condemn Israeli war crimes. Calling to show your complaints works, even more if you live in a country that funds genocide.

FOR PEOPLE IN THE USA: USCPR has developed this toolkit for calls, here's a document that autosends emails to your representatives and here's a toolkit by Ceasefire in Gaza NOW!

FOR PEOPLE IN EUROPE: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace targeting the European Parliament

FOR PEOPLE IN THE UK: Friends of Al-Aqsa UK and Palestine Solidarity UK have made toolkits for calls and emails

FOR PEOPLE IN GERMANY: Here's a toolkit to contact your representatives by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN POLAND: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN DENMARK: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN SWEDEN: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN FRANCE: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN THE NETHERLANDS: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN GREECE: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN NORWAY: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN ITALY: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN PORTUGAL: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN SPAIN: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN FINLAND: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN AUSTRIA: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN BELGIUM: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN ROMANIA: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN UKRAINE: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN AUSTRALIA: Here's a toolkit by Stand With Palestine

FOR PEOPLE IN CANADA: Here's a toolkit by Indepent Jewish Voices for Canada

Join a protest. Here's a constantly updating list of protests:

Global calendar

Another global calendar (go to the instragram of the organizers to confirm your protest)

USA calendar

Australia calendar

Feel free to add more resources.

[probablyasocialecologist]

In Istanbul, a flotilla of ships is preparing to depart with 5,500 tonnes of aid and around 1,000 medics, lawyers, senior politicians and human rights observers. Its destination: the Gaza Strip. On Sunday, the Gaza Freedom Flotilla will begin making its way to the besieged strip, its fifth voyage in 14 years. While the journey would normally take three to four days, it is expected that the flotilla – initially comprising three vessels, one cargo and two passenger ships, with further vessels expected to join later – could be waylaid by Israeli forces. 

[...]

The flotilla is organised by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), which brings together 12 national groups from Canada, Malaysia, Italy, Norway, the US, Sweden, Spain, Turkey, South Africa, New Zealand, the UK and France. Altogether, delegates from over 30 countries will be represented on board. The flotilla’s crew and passengers – among them Che Guevara’s daughter Aleida and Nelson Mandela’s grandson Zwelivelile – will be unarmed. Their peacefulness will not guarantee their safety, however, as the Israeli state has a long and bloody history of targeting humanitarian groups. The flotilla’s first voyage to Gaza in May 2010 was a bloodbath: Israel sent a naval ship to meet it, killing 10 crew members (all of them Turkish, including one Turkish American dual national) and injuring 30. A UN report later found that Israel appeared to have executed at least six people in an “extra-legal, arbitrary and summary” manner; a Turkish state autopsy found that five had been shot in the head at close range.  Israel subsequently apologised to Turkey for the raid and agreed to compensate the bereaved families $20m. Further voyages in 2015, 2016 and 2018 saw Israel seize the FFC’s ships and detain and deport those on board. Israel has also targeted humanitarian workers on land. Earlier this month, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) food aid workers, among them three British citizens, in a drone attack on a marked convoy whose movements had been coordinated with the IDF. An Israeli investigation blamed “grave errors”, a finding WCK rejected.

[mariacallous]

The Israeli attack on a humanitarian convoy in Gaza in early April that killed seven aid workers with the U.S.-based aid group World Central Kitchen has ignited a fierce global backlash against Israel’s policies of engagement in the territory. The attack involved the successive firing of three missiles at three vehicles, driven by suspicions of a Hamas combatant’s presence within the convoy, according to reports.

In Israel, the event is being portrayed as an accident, “a grave mistake stemming from a serious failure due to a mistaken identification, errors in decision-making, and an attack contrary to the Standard Operating Procedures,” as the Israeli military’s investigation team concluded. In humanitarian circles, it is seen as evidence of a culture that “treats Gaza as a free-fire zone with total impunity for gross attacks on civilians,” as Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International who served in both the Obama and Biden administrations, has suggested.

But for the discussion to be useful, it should progress beyond these immediate interpretations to examine the deeper cultural patterns underlying such incidents. Most crucially, it must scrutinize the shift in military policy and ethos that can be traced back to the Elor Azaria affair of 2016-17. Azaria was an Israeli conscript who was captured on video executing a wounded and immobilized Palestinian assailant in Hebron. The Israeli military prosecuted Azaria for manslaughter and sentenced him to 18 months in prison.

While the case demonstrated the military’s commitment to its own ethical codes, it also sparked widespread protests from right-wing factions and a general backlash against military procedures. The army was accused of failing to support Azaria and creating a culture in which soldiers would hesitate to use force against Palestinian militants. To counter this claim, and from that point forward, the military began to announce the number of Palestinian fighters killed in its operations, demonstrating that its forces did not hesitate to engage.

Under the leadership of the military’s chief of staff, Aviv Kochavi, from 2019 to 2023, the killing-based criteria were reinforced. Kochavi’s goal was to remake the army into a “lethal, efficient, and innovative” fighting force—in other words, a death-generating army. He promoted this vision by enhancing the precision of weapon systems, improving the coordination between forces and intelligence, and increasing the rate of fire.

Kochavi’s directive for field commanders to assess, at the end of each combat phase, the number of enemy forces killed and objectives destroyed—rather than solely focusing on territorial conquest—signified a shift toward necrotactics, where the primary goal of military engagement is killing the enemy. Killing becomes not just an outcome of warfare but its principal aim.

The approach of using body counts as a metric of success has notably intensified during the current war. Soon after the Oct. 7 attack, the Israeli military began consistently reporting the number of Hamas fighters killed, echoing the way U.S. generals announced enemy fatalities during the Vietnam War—a scenario where traditional metrics for evaluating combat success are elusive, thus making the body count, rather than the strategic objectives achieved, the primary indicator of success. This was particularly evident as the Israeli death toll ticked up and the stated objective of dismantling Hamas appeared increasingly unattainable.

In fact, the military appears to have established a quantitative goal from the outset. According to the journalist Yuval Abraham in +972 Magazine, the Israeli army developed an artificial intelligence-based program named Lavender, designed to identify targets for assassination. This system tagged approximately 37,000 Palestinians in Gaza as suspected militants, marking their residences (and therefore their families as well) for potential airstrikes. The deployment of Lavender contributed to the deaths of around 15,000 Palestinians in the war’s first six weeks, according to the report.

By setting a numerical target, the Israeli military shifted from viewing outcomes as a measure of progress—like neutralizing the threat posed to Israel from Gaza—to making body counts the main standard. The trend has been reinforced by a pervasive adoption of the language of killing among military commanders. “Now we will go forward and kill them all,” Brig. Gen. Roman Goffman was quoted as saying just before the ground operation in Gaza began, in just one prominent example.

As Israel faces an impasse in Gaza, lacking a politically articulated exit strategy, the reliance on killing and its quantification as a metric for success becomes increasingly pronounced, leading to the erosion of operational constraints. This shift was evident in the recent raid at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, which inflicted extensive damage to Gaza’s most crucial health care infrastructure. The hunt for Hamas members has, to a significant degree, become an end in itself, complicating the dynamics of the conflict and placing military objectives above political resolutions.

This shift provides some context for the tragic killing of the aid convoy team—though it makes it no less disturbing. Once one or two armed individuals were spotted in the convoy, their neutralization became a top priority, apparently eclipsing overarching strategic considerations—factors that should have been incorporated at the tactical level. Fundamentally, such a situation warranted an approach aimed at preventing civilian casualties, especially along a deconflicted route designated for humanitarian aid delivery and when no direct threat was posed to Israeli troops. Moreover, the overarching political rationale should have prioritized safeguarding humanitarian missions, given the potential repercussions for Israel’s global standing amid the crisis in Gaza.

Yet the events unfolded with a seeming obsession for lethal action, as vividly illustrated by reporting in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: Upon spotting a gunman or two, Israeli forces targeted three successive vehicles from the air. After the first one was hit, passengers moved to a second vehicle, which was then struck by a missile. And when the wounded were transferred to a third vehicle, it too was fired on. This appears to be a case of obsessive kill confirmation, overshadowing the principles of necessity, proportionality, and the sanctity of civilian life.

Hence, the fundamental issue extends beyond merely revising the rules of engagement or monitoring their application more closely, as such measures alone would prove inadequate to prevent future incidents. The problem also transcends the flawed assumption that every part of Gaza can be considered a free-fire zone where engaging Palestinian militants indiscriminately is justified. What is crucial is dismantling the prevailing culture that equates killing with military success.

Yagil Levy is a professor of political sociology and public policy at the Open University of Israel. His most recent book in English is: Whose Life Is Worth More? Hierarchies of Risk and Death in Contemporary Wars.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

By Emanuel Fabian

According to the military’s findings, the incident began on March 23 amid the resumption of fighting in Gaza, and a new offensive in Rafah’s Tel Sultan neighborhood.

Golani soldiers, who were operating under the 14th Armored Brigade, had set up an ambush on a road in Tel Sultan at around 4 a.m. At that time, the military said, several ambulances and civilians passed by without incident.

At around 4:30 a.m., a Hamas police vehicle drove through the area, and the Golani soldiers exchanged fire with the operatives inside, killing one and capturing two others, the IDF said. The Hamas vehicle remained on the side of the road.

At around 6 a.m., a convoy of ambulances arrived in the area, and the IDF soldiers opened fire, perceiving them as a threat. Drone operators flying a UAV overhead had reported to the Golani soldiers that the vehicles were moving toward them in a suspicious manner.

This image grab from a handout video reportedly recovered from the cellphone of an aid worker killed in Gaza alongside other rescuers and released by the Palestine Red Crescent Society on April 5, 2025, shows ambulances with their emergency lights flashing and a rescuer near one of the vehicles in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, according to the PRCS. (Palestinian Red Crescent/AFP)

The initial investigation claimed that the soldiers were surprised by the convoy stopping on the road, next to the abandoned Hamas vehicle, and by several “suspects” jumping out of the convoy and running. The soldiers were said to have been unaware that the suspects were, in fact, unarmed medics.

The IDF acknowledged that based on the video, its initial statement asserting that the ambulances had had their lights off appeared to be incorrect, noting that it was based on the testimony of soldiers involved in the incident.

The new IDF investigation is examining that discrepancy.

The military also said that at least six of the bodies were identified by intelligence officials as Hamas operatives. It was expected to detail the names of the six operatives once the probe was concluded.

The initial findings rejected claims that the soldiers had intentionally targeted the medics from close range, carried out executions, or tied up the hands of any of the medics.

Informing the UN

The IDF also rejected the assertion that troops had buried the bodies in an unmarked mass grave without informing anyone.

Palestinian Red Crescent chief Dr. Younis Al-Khatib had said on Friday that the aid workers were “targeted from a very close range” and that Israel had “kept us for eight days in the dark” as to the whereabouts of the bodies.

According to the military’s initial probe, a deputy battalion commander in Golani and his troops collected the bodies in one spot, covered them with sand, and marked the burial spot.

The army said that burying bodies in this way was an approved and regular practice during fighting in Gaza, to prevent wild dogs and other animals from eating the corpses.

The United Nations was promptly notified of the burial spot, the IDF said, and was told to come and collect the bodies. The following day, however, the UN was unable to find the location, and the forces were unavailable to assist as they were busy with another task.

The UN was then called to return several days later to collect the bodies, and the bodies were eventually recovered in coordination with the IDF, the initial military probe found.

[workersolidarity]

[ 📹 Scenes from the destruction wrought by an Israeli occupation airstrike which targeted a vehicle being driven by 7 foreign aid workers belonging to the World Central Kitchen, killing all inside. Among the dead included foreign citizens of Britain, Poland, and Australia, along with a dual American and Canadian citizen. The aid organization said it had coordinated the movements of its personnel with the Israeli authorities, who knew the vehicle contained humanitarian aid workers.]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🚀🚙💥 🚨

ISRAELI OCCUPATION BOMBS FOREIGN AID WORKERS, CONTINUES BOMBING ACROSS GAZA ON DAY 179 OF GENOCIDE

On the 179th day of "Israel's" ongoing war of genocide in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 7 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 71 Palestinians, mostly women and children, while another 102 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.

In the latest occupation atrocity, the Zionist army bombed the vehicle of a group of Foreign aid personnel working for the World Central Kitchen (WCK), killing 7 employees, including 6 foreigners.

"World Central Kitchen is devastated to confirm seven members of our team have been killed in an IDF strike in Gaza," the organization said in a statement on its website.

According to the World Central Kitchen, despite coordinating the organization's movements with the Israeli occupation army, a convoy including two armored cars branded with the WCK logo and one soft-skin vehicle that were carrying the WCK team while it was traveling through a "deconflicted zone" was struck by an Israeli bomb, destroying at least one of the vehicles.

WCK says the team was leaving their Deir al-Balah warehouse, in the central Gaza Strip, where their teams unloaded more than 100 tons of humanitarian food aid brought to Gaza through a maritime route, when the convoy was targeted by Zionist forces.

“This is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organizations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war. This is unforgivable,” World Central Kitchen CEO, Erin Gore is quoted as saying.

The seven foreign aid workers killed in the Zionist strike included citizens from Australia, Poland, the United Kingdom, as well as a dual-citizen of the United States and Canada, and one Palestinian.

“I am heartbroken and appalled that we—World Central Kitchen and the world—lost beautiful lives today because of a targeted attack by the IDF. The love they had for feeding people, the determination they embodied to show that humanity rises above all, and the impact they made in countless lives will forever be remembered and cherished,” Erin Gore added.

In response to the International outcry over the atrocity, the Israeli occupation authorities said they will be “carrying out an in-depth examination at the highest levels to understand the circumstances of this tragic incident.”

The World Central Kitchen has suspended its operations in Gaza as a result of the incident.

In yet another atrocity yesterday, the Israeli occupation army bombed the Iranian consulate building in the Syrian capital of Damascus, killing several high-level Iranian officials, including 7 military advisors of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

In response to the strike, Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said in an announcement issued on Tuesday that the "evil Zionist regime will regret" it's crime of assasinating Iran's military advisors in Syria.

The Iranian leader said that both Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, and his deputy, General Mohammed Hadi Haji Rahimi were killed in the strike, which targeted the Iranian consulate in Damascus, declaring the crime was perpetrated by the "usurping and dispicable" Zionist regime.

“The evil regime will be punished by our brave men. We will make them regret this crime and other ones, by God's will," the Iranian leader added.

As Israel's crimes spread outside the occupied Palestinian territories and the Gaza Strip, and into the wider West Asian region, the bombing inside Palestine continued unabated.

In just one example, local civil defense crews recovered the bodies of six Palestinians who were killed, including two children, along with a number of wounded civilians, following a Zionist occupation airstrike targeting the Zarub family home, located in the city of Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip.

In another atrocity, several Palestinians were killed and a large number wounded after occupation artillery shelling targeted a number of residential buildings in the city of Khan Yunis, also in the south of Gaza, focusing artillery fire on the eastern and central parts of the city.

Meanwhile, Zionist warplanes bombed the al-Bashir Mosque, in the city of Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, martyring a several civilians, including the death of at least one child, and wounding at least 20 others, while also dealing significant damage to neighboring residential buildings.

Similarly, Zionist fighter jets fired several missiles that slammed into two residential homes in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City, while occupation artillery shelling targeted the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, along with the Sheikh Ajlin neighborhood, martyring three civilians and wounding six others.

Over the last day, as the Zionist occupation army withdrew from the Al-Shifa Medical Complex, located in the Al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City, which had been the largest and most well-equipped hospital in the entire Gaza Strip, a scene of mass destruction and carnage was revealed, with hundreds of bodies littering the hospital grounds, including some bodies discovered with handcuffed wrists, having been extra-judicially executed in cold-blood.

Among the bodies recovered from Al-Shifa were doctors and healthcare personnel, along with entire Palestinian families, which the Gaza Media Office says were just a small part of the roughly 400 citizens that were killed in two weeks of fighting near the hospital.

About another 900 Palestinians were arrested or detained by Zionist forces under suspicion of belonging to Resistance groups, while the Hospital buildings themselves were nearly completely destroyed, blown to pieces and left as scorched shells by the American bombs dropped on them by the Israeli occupation army.

As a result of "Israel's" ongoing war of genocide in the Gaza Strip, the infinitely rising death toll has now exceeded 32'916 Palestinians killed, more than 25'000 of which being among women and children, while an additional 75'494 others have been wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression beginning on October 7th, 2023.

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@WorkerSolidarityNews

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jess Craig at Vox:

After more than a year of neglect from global leaders and massive funding gaps for humanitarian assistance, the war in Sudan has reached a critical tipping point. Warring parties are waging a deadly battle for control of El Fasher — the capital of the state of North Darfur and, until recently, one of the last safe havens for civilians. If the city falls, experts warn there will be dire human rights consequences, ranging from ethnic cleansing to outright genocide for millions of people.

What’s happening in El Fasher is just the latest in the year-long conflict between two rivaling military groups struggling for power after working together to oust Sudan’s former president and his successor. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the general of the country’s military, known as the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), became the de facto ruler of Sudan in 2021 — but tensions with his temporary ally, the paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), soon boiled over as the leaders attempted to integrate the RSF into the SAF. This tension grew into a civil war last year, one that has created the world’s largest displacement crisis: On Monday, the United Nations told the AP that more than 10 million people — about a quarter of the population — have already been internally displaced since the war began. The SAF and RSF have clashed sporadically in El Fasher, which is the government military’s last foothold in all of western Sudan, but the town has largely been spared the worst of the war until recent weeks. That changed on the morning of May 10, when heavy fighting between the two groups broke out. Near daily bombings, indiscriminate shelling, and airstrikes have rocked the city since. More than 1,000 civilians have been injured and 206 people have died, according to Claire Nicolet, the emergency program manager at Médecins Sans Frontières. Hospitals and camps for internally displaced people have been damaged by gunfire and explosions. Very few aid convoys carrying food and health supplies have reached the estimated 2 million civilians in the city. 

As RSF has expanded its control of other towns in Darfur over the course of the war, they have resorted to ethnic targeting and brutal violence against civilians, including raping, torturing, and killing non-Arab civilians and using racial slurs against them, as Human Rights Watch has documented. Human rights experts are concerned that if El Fasher falls to the RSF, it might trigger a new wave of ethnic cleansing, reminiscent of the genocide that occurred in Darfur in the early 2000s when some 200,000 non-Arab civilians were killed by Janjaweed militias and government forces. The RSF evolved from the Janjaweed militia, an Arab-majority fighting force created by the former president to fight Darfuris in the mid-1980s. 

Although the current war between RSF and SAF is more of a power struggle than a sectarian one, ethnic tensions have long simmered in Darfur since the genocide, Akshaya Kumar, the director of crisis advocacy at Human Rights Watch, explained. If RSF gains the upper hand, they will control the entire Darfur region where most non-Arab communities reside.  The situation is all too familiar. As it was in 2003, the crisis teeters on the brink of famine and genocide. And as was the case then, the world’s worst humanitarian crisis remains unconscionably neglected by the foreign governments and international bodies that have the power to intervene to push for a peaceful resolution or to urge the warring parties to respect international humanitarian law. In the coming months, the humanitarian and human rights situation in Darfur and across Sudan may be finally too harrowing to ignore, but by that point, it may be too late to do anything about it.

Vox takes a look at the vastly under-covered story of the Darfur Genocide and the battle for control of El Fasher in Sudan.