US Gaza aid pier not used in Israel’s captives rescue mission: Pentagon
US says it is ‘incidental’ that deadly Israeli operation took place near floating dock built to deliver aid to Gaza. The United States has stressed that its temporary aid pier in Gaza was not used in the Israeli captive rescue operation in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza that killed more than 270 people. The Pentagon said on Monday that reports linking the pier to Saturday’s Israeli assault that resulted in the freeing of four captives held by Hamas are “inaccurate”. “It was near, but I think it’s incidental. Again, the pier, the equipment, the personnel all supporting that humanitarian effort had nothing to do with the [Israeli military] rescue operation,” Pentagon spokesperson Patrick Ryder told reporters. He added that the Israeli operation – despite its proximity to the US floating dock – does not put American personnel at a “greater risk”. “To underscore, the temporary pier on the coast of Gaza was put in place for one purpose only: to help move additional urgently-needed lifesaving assistance to Gaza,” Ryder said. The Washington Post reported on Sunday that the Israeli military used a helicopter on a beach “not far from” the US pier to evacuate three of the captives and the soldiers who freed them. The Israeli military intensively bombed the Nuseirat area during the operation, killing at least 274 people, including dozens of women and children, according to Palestinian authorities in Gaza. The administration of President Joe Biden lauded the rescue of the captives. “We welcome the rescue of four hostages who after eight months of captivity have finally been reunited with their families in Israel. The United States will not rest until every hostage is returned home,” the Department of State said in a statement on Saturday. While the US military has denied involvement in the attack, several international media outlets, including The New York Times, have reported that American officials provided intelligence that helped with the operation. Hamas decried Washington’s purported involvement in the mission, saying it “proves once again the complicity of the US administration and its full participation in the war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip”. The Palestinian group said the attack also raises questions over the professed US concern over the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Biden announced the decision to build the humanitarian pier in March amid the Israeli blockade on Gaza, which has sparked fears of famine. The floating US dock was completed in May, but within weeks, it sustained damage from bad weather, requiring repairs. The pier was reassembled on Friday. Aid groups have argued for weeks that the US dock is not an adequate substitute to delivering humanitarian assistance via land routes. Late in May, 20 aid organisations, including Doctors Without Borders, called the US-installed dock part of “cosmetic changes” that fail to address the crisis adequately. “As Israeli attacks intensify on Rafah, the unpredictable trickle of aid into Gaza has created a mirage of improved access while the humanitarian response is in reality on the verge of collapse,” the groups said in a statement. The Nuseirat attack could further deepen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) paused its aid deliveries in Gaza after the operation. “Two of our warehouses were rocketed yesterday, so we’ve stepped back just for the moment to make sure that we’re on safe terms and on safe ground before we’ll restart,” WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain told CBS News on Sunday. Adblock test (Why?)
UN Security Council passes resolution urging Hamas to accept ceasefire
NewsFeed he UN Security Council approved a US-sponsored resolution calling on Hamas to accept a ceasefire proposal, with 14 votes in favour and one abstention from Russia. The US says Israel has already agreed to the deal. Published On 10 Jun 202410 Jun 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
How has Benny Gantz’s resignation affected the Israeli government?
EXPLAINER Benny Gantz, the Israeli prime minister’s principal rival, has quit the government. What now? Not as much as you might think. Former general and leader of Israel’s National Unity party Benny Gantz has resigned from the war cabinet, citing the failure of the wider cabinet to agree a plan for Gaza beyond the current war. In mid-May, Gantz submitted a six-point plan for the administration of Gaza beyond the fighting. At the time, he said that if this was not agreed to, he would quit the cabinet. Gantz is regarded as a relative centrist and the principal rival to Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu. Here are the details of what happened and what this may mean for Israel and Palestine: What was Gantz’s plan? Gantz said his proposed six-point plan would include bringing a temporary US-European-Arab-Palestinian system of civil administration for the enclave, with Israel retaining overall control of security. It also proposed spreading the burden of national service across Israelis by including ultra-Orthodox Jews, whose exemption from the draft is protected by two parties in Netanyahu’s coalition cabinet. Gantz addresses the press in Kiryat Shmona on November 14, 2023 [Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters] Why didn’t Netanyahu like Gantz’s plan? There is growing consensus from Israel and abroad that Netanyahu rejected it for personal gain. In his resignation, Gantz said: “Netanyahu is preventing us from advancing toward true victory.” Israel’s principal ally, US President Joe Biden, told Time Magazine on Tuesday that “there is every reason for people” to think Netanyahu is prolonging the war on Gaza for his own political survival. That may be the belief that the war will protect Netanyahu from legal repercussions of the bribery, fraud, and breach of trust charges that have hung over him since his 2019 indictment. It may also be that any future plan for Gaza may split his coalition cabinet – some of whom want to build illegal settlements there and others who, like Gantz, want it administered by an international task force. Netanyahu – who campaigned as “Mr Security” – may also be trying to avoid dealing with the failings of October 7 when Palestinian group Hamas led an attack on Israel that saw 1,139 people killed and dozens taken captive. How does this benefit the far right? Gives them more room to grow. Gantz leaving the war cabinet, which was him, Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, leaves a slot open for one of the far-right politicians Netanyahu relies on to sustain his rule. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has already expressed interest in Gantz’s war cabinet seat. The extreme right-wing partnership of Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is strong. Both are in Netanyahu’s coalition cabinet and their combined parliament seats outweigh Gantz’s centre. While Gantz was an ineffective political counterweight, his departure from government will remove a strong voice critical of the far right from Israeli politics. What does this mean for Gaza? Little that’s good. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are clear that their plan for Gaza involves its people “voluntarily migrating” and Israelis settling it. Netanyahu may oppose this but has yet to confront the far right on anything significant since war was launched on Gaza in October. Will this change how Israelis feel? Israelis still seem to support the war, if starkly divided along political lines, but fewer are confident that Netanyahu will achieve his aims of “destroying Hamas” and freeing the captives through military means. Every week, tens of thousands of people crowd into the so-called Democracy Square in Tel Aviv and other locations around the country to demand an exchange deal to release the captives and the dismissal of Prime Minister Netanyahu. Polling shows Gantz consistently in the lead over Netanyahu in polls, with Netanyahu only edging ahead when Gantz threatened to quit the cabinet, which was deemed unpatriotic. But elections may still be some way off, according to Eyal Lurie-Pardes of the Middle East Institute. He feels that if Netanyahu can hold his coalition together until the summer recess, electoral laws would mean an election could not happen until March. Will it change how Israel’s allies feel? There is little to suggest that Gantz’s resignation, despite being the preferred interlocutor for the United States, will change anything. The US and Western states have continued to supply Israel with arms and diplomatic support since it started bombing Gaza in October – ignoring international accusations of “genocide” and applications for international arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. Even the apparent rejection of a ceasefire plan presented by Biden has done little to undermine support for Israel from the US. Adblock test (Why?)
These Palestinians are sheltering in their destroyed homes in Gaza
NewsFeed Palestinians from Khan Younis in Gaza have returned to live amongst the rubble of their destroyed houses, as Israel’s war continues to leave people with nowhere safe to go. Published On 10 Jun 202410 Jun 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
Far-right parties surge in EU elections
NewsFeed Far-right parties have made significant gains in the European Union’s elections, prompting President Macron to call a snap parliamentary election in France and dealing heavy defeats to leaders such as Germany’s Scholz and Austria’s Nehammer. Published On 10 Jun 202410 Jun 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
Germany and France’s far right make gains in EU elections
Far-right parties have made major gains at the European Union parliamentary elections, dealing stunning defeats to two of the bloc’s most important leaders: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron. In Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) was on track to take second place in Sunday’s EU election, according to projections from public broadcaster ARD, underscoring the party’s resilience ahead of next year’s federal election. The Eurosceptic party was set to secure a record 16.5 percent of the vote on Sunday, according to an exit poll published by ARD. That was 5.5 percentage points more than in the last European Union election in 2019, and more than all three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition. The conservatives, who are in opposition at the federal level, have been forecast to come first, rising slightly to 29.5 percent. Germany’s Greens were the biggest losers on Sunday, falling 8.5 percentage points to 12 percent, punished by voters for the cost of policies to reduce CO2 emissions – in line with expectations for environmental parties across Europe. Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the third coalition partner, the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), also fared poorly, expected to win 14 percent and 5 percent of the vote respectively, down from 15.8 percent and 5.4 percent in the previous election. The results are in line with an expected broader shift rightwards for the European Parliament across the bloc of 450 million citizens. The strong showing comes as Germany’s party landscape undergoes its biggest upheaval in decades, with new populist parties vying to take space vacated by the shrinking mainstream parties that have dominated since reunification in 1990. This looks set to make it much harder for established parties to form workable coalitions, and is coarsening the political climate, say analysts. The campaign was overshadowed by a surge in violence against politicians and activists. The AfD was plagued by scandals in recent months, with its lead candidate having to step back from campaigning in May after declaring that the SS, the Nazis’ main paramilitary force, were “not all criminals”. “We’ve done well because people have become more anti-European,” the AfD’s co-leader Alice Weidel said on Sunday. “People are annoyed by so much bureaucracy from Brussels,” she added, giving a plan ultimately to ban CO2-emitting cars as an example. [embedded content] In France, the National Rally party of Marine Le Pen dominated the polls to such an extent that Macron immediately dissolved the national parliament and called for new elections, a massive political risk since his party could suffer more losses, hobbling the rest of his presidential term that ends in 2027. Projected results from France put Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally around 33 percent, with 31 seats in the incoming European Parliament – more than double the score of President Emmanuel Macron’s liberals, at 15 percent. Macron acknowledged the thud of defeat. “I’ve heard your message, your concerns, and I won’t leave them unanswered,” he said, adding that calling a snap election only underscored his democratic credentials. Overall across the EU, two mainstream and pro-European groups, the Christian Democrats and the Socialists, remained the dominant forces. The gains of the far right came at the expense of the Greens, who were expected to lose about 20 seats and fall back to sixth position in the legislature. Reporting from Berlin, Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen said that the Eurosceptic parties appeared set to form a large bloc in the next European Parliament. “With this very large bloc of far-right parties, there can be an influence on climate policies, for example … Also, [the EU’s] agriculture policies … and migration policies, which is a very important issue here in Germany and in the Netherlands,” she said. However, Vaessen noted that the far-right parties are not united. “They have a lot of divisions among themselves, and they have been trying to reach out to each other. We’ve seen [France’s] Marine Le Pen, for example, reaching out to [Prime Minister] Giorgia Meloni in Italy,” she said. “But after tonight, we will have to see how these groups will be formed and what kind of influence they will have.” Adblock test (Why?)
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen wins Canadian Grand Prix for third year in a row
The victory was Verstappen’s sixth of the season, extending his lead in the F1 Drivers’ Championship to 56 points. Red Bull’s triple world champion Max Verstappen has completed a Canadian Grand Prix hat-trick of victories on a wet, wild and tricky race at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Verstappen, who started on the front row alongside Mercedes pole sitter George Russell on Sunday, stayed clear of trouble on a day of changing conditions, snatching the lead from McLaren’s Lando Norris on the final pit stops. The Dutchman then grimly hung on to claim his sixth victory from nine races this season and the 60th of his Formula One career. It was another brilliant drive from the 26-year-old, who dealt with constantly changing weather, pit stop battles and challenges from McLaren and Mercedes while wrestling with his Red Bull’s suspension. After Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Williams’s Alex Albon came together, bringing out the safety car for a second time, Verstappen pulled away on the restart and finished 3.879 seconds ahead of Norris while Russell won a nail-biting last-laps duel with teammate Lewis Hamilton to complete the podium. Verstappen now leads the Formula One (F1) Drivers’ Championship with 194 points. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc is next best, at 138 points. Adblock test (Why?)
How is the plight of Israeli captives affecting ceasefire-deal chances?
The Israeli government is under pressure to secure the release of captives held in Gaza. Four captives have been brought back from Gaza and hundreds of Palestinians killed during a major Israeli military operation. On the streets of Israel, many are celebrating – but also demanding that all remaining captives must be freed under a deal. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Israel next week for talks on a proposal for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and the exchange of captives for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Can the negotiations succeed? And with the resignation of war cabinet member Benny Gantz, will Blinken have the support of the remaining members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government? Presenter: Laura Kyle Guests: Gershon Baskin – Middle East director of the International Communities Organization, an NGO Muhammad Dahleh – Lawyer and founder of Muhammad Dahleh and Associates Scott Lucas – Professor of international politics at the Clinton Institute, University College Dublin Adblock test (Why?)
Why a Nigerian woman faces jail time for reviewing tomato puree
Lagos, Nigeria – On September 16, 2023, Chioma Okoli posted a review of the Nagiko tomato puree she bought at a street market in Sangotedo, Lagos, on her Facebook page. She was telling the few thousand followers on her small-business page that it tasted more sugary than other products, asking those who had tried it what they thought. The post received a diversity of opinions, but it reached a head when a Facebook user commented: “Stop spoiling my brother product, if [you] don’t like it, use another one than bring it to social media…” Okoli responded, saying: “Help me advise your brother to stop ki**ing people with his product…” Two days later, the post had garnered more than 2,500 comments, to her surprise. That Sunday, as she was stepping out of church with her husband, she was accosted by two men and one woman in plainclothes who said they were police officers, she said. They took her to the Ogudu police station still dressed in her church attire. “They took me into one room, I sat down and they brought more than 20 pages and told me those are my charges. I had forgotten about the post, then I remembered,” the 39-year-old mother of three told Al Jazeera. “They were charging me with extortion, blackmailing and that I run a syndicate.” Okoli is just one of several Nigerians who have been arrested, detained or charged for allegedly violating the country’s cybercrime laws [PDF], which are meant to secure critical national information as well as protect citizens from cyberstalking. But rights groups say more and more, it’s being used against journalists, activists, dissidents and even ordinary people publishing reports and expressing their freedom of speech. Chioma Okoli, who was arrested and faces a police case over her review of a tomato puree product [Courtesy of Chioma Okoli] The 2015 act was introduced to enhance cybersecurity but its broad, nebulous language has given the authorities and powerful people leeway to weaponise it against journalists and dissidents who speak truth to power, said Inibehe Effiong, a Nigerian activist and lawyer representing Okoli. This February, the act was amended by the president following a 2022 ECOWAS court ruling directing the country to review it, stating that it is not in line with the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. One of the major changes was section 24, which was used to target dissidents on cyberstalking charges. “It appears that the Nigerian police have not come to terms with the legal implications of the amendment,” Effiong said. “The import of it is that abusing someone on the internet is no longer a cybercrime, or a journalist carrying out his journalistic work cannot be criminalised or prosecuted.” Even as the act has been reviewed, Anietie Ewang, the Nigeria researcher for Human Rights Watch, said it is still highly susceptible to manipulation by authorities. “[This is] because the wording is vague and, as we know, the authorities have a way of using such provisions to fit their purpose. They have ways of interpreting citizens’ actions to be an intention to break down law and order or to threaten life,” Ewang said. ‘Coerced statement’ The day after Okoli’s arrest in Lagos, she was flown to the capital city Abuja to be interrogated at the headquarters of the police force, where she was held for a few days. Eric Umeofia, the CEO of Erisco Food Limited, the company that produces Nagiko tomato puree, came to the station too. Okoli was brought to see him in an office where he shouted at her while she cried, she told Al Jazeera. “He started shouting [saying], ‘so it was you that want to destroy my business of 40 years’,” she said, adding that he accused her of being paid by someone to destroy his business, while demanding that she name the person who paid her. Umeofia also demanded an apology from Okoli, and that she post a public statement on her social media and in three national daily newspapers. The company also filed a civil lawsuit against Okoli seeking 5 billion naira (over $3m) in damages. Okoli said she wrote a statement twice but both were rejected. She was asked to copy an already prepared confession statement. “It was like a 100 people sitting on one person, asking him to do one thing,” she told Al Jazeera, saying she had no lawyer present. “I had to copy everything and give [it] to them and they accepted it. And they now released me to go after three days.” A man opens Facebook on his computer in Abuja, Nigeria [File: Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters] On September 29, 2023, NAFDAC, Nigeria’s foods and drugs regulatory agency, said the sugar level in Nagiko puree is safe for human consumption. Erisco, in a statement, said Okoli made a “malicious allegation” against the brand and it will use every lawful means to clear its name and reputation. The police have charged her with two counts of “instigating people against Erisco Foods Limited, knowing the said information is false”, and called for her to shut down a GoFundMe campaign page that was set up to support her legal defence after her case gained public sympathy. Her lawyer has meanwhile filed a 500 million naira ($374,175) lawsuit against Erisco Foods Limited and the police. During the ordeal, Okoli says she fell sick and her suckling baby also suffered after having been weaned prematurely because her arrest meant she could not breastfeed for days. Her small business’s Facebook page, through which she sells imported baby clothes, was hacked too. The experience has changed her, Okoli said. She is no longer her lively, outgoing self and she now prefers to stay alone indoors and away from the public, she said. “I don’t go to church again, I do my church online,” she said. “I don’t know how to explain the type of life I am living now but this is what the whole thing has turned me to.” On January 9, the
Al Jazeera reporter describes horror inside Gaza’s overwhelmed hospital
NewsFeed The dead and wounded from Israel’s massive assault on Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp have overwhelmed hospitals. Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary is at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah where the scene resembles a slaughterhouse. Published On 9 Jun 20249 Jun 2024 Adblock test (Why?)