Occupied Jerusalem: ‘There is no Palestinian male that hasn’t been beaten’
Damascus Gate, occupied East Jerusalem – Samer and Omar* woke up early on Friday morning, hoping to make it to noon prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound in the Old City of Jerusalem. Located just 15 minutes away from their homes in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Issawiya in occupied East Jerusalem, the two young friends are among the tens of thousands of Palestinians in the city who attend Friday prayers at the mosque – one of the holiest in Islam. But when the two arrived at Damascus Gate – the main entrance used by Palestinians to the Old City – they were stopped by Israeli forces. “Where are you from?” the officer asked Samer and Omar, aged 22 and 28 respectively. “Issawiya,” they replied. “Go back to Issawiya and pray there,” the officer told them – a response that multiple Palestinian men said they received as they tried to enter that Friday. While Israeli forces had imposed a strict closure on the Old City since October 7, they have loosened the restrictions slightly the past two Fridays, allowing more people to enter. The two men, feeling antagonised, turned away and went to grab something to drink from a kiosk opposite the Israeli forces checkpoint. Shortly after, the Israeli officers approached them and told them to leave the area – the most central area for Palestinians in the city – without offering any explanation. “They started pushing us and then beat my friend with the baton,” Samer told Al Jazeera after the incident. “We tried to say ‘don’t touch us.’” Omar cursed at the officers, before the latter chased the two men for a distance of about 500 meters (1,640 feet) and beat them with batons. As the officers ran after the two men, Al Jazeera’s reporter – who was present at the scene – heard one of the Israeli officers say, “Break their legs so that they don’t come back.” Omar, the 28-year-old, suffered heavier blows than his friend. A strip of the skin on his leg looked as though it had been burned; he was in pain and was not able to walk. Omar’s leg after he was beaten by Israeli forces on Friday, February 9, after he tried to enter the Old City [Faiz Abu Rmeleh/Al Jazeera] “They don’t want us here. They want us out of this country, and to forget about the homeland,” said Samer, still frazzled by the beating. “To be a male in Jerusalem – it’s not a life,” he said. “Just simply existing as a Palestinian male in Jerusalem – that bothers them.” Yet, the young men say they have no option but to stay strong. “This is at the end of the day, a military occupation. We will never leave here, no matter what they do,” Samer said, before the two jumped on a bus going back home. ‘Beatings, provocative searches, cursing’ Since October 7, life for Palestinians living under the 57-year Israeli military occupation in Jerusalem has become much more difficult than it already was. That day, Hamas fighters attacked southern Israel, killing nearly 1,200 people and taking more than 200 others captive. Israel responded with a brutal military campaign, first by air and then on the ground as well, killing more than 29,000 people — mostly women and children — in Gaza, less than 80km (48 miles) away from Jerusalem, over the past four months. Thousands of others are buried under the rubble and presumed dead. Shortly after the Hamas attack, Israeli forces were deployed in the thousands in the Old City of Jerusalem as well as the dozens of neighbourhoods surrounding it. They imposed strict closures and restrictions on movement, in addition to the further isolation of Jerusalem by cancelling all military permits to enter the city for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Israeli forces running after Samer and Omar to beat them on February 9, 2024 [Faiz Abu Rmeleh/Al Jazeera] Young Palestinian men have, in particular, borne the brunt of increased violence and harassment by Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem. Abu Mohammad*, who runs a store and lives inside the Old City, said that after October 7 – especially during the first few days and weeks – Israeli forces imposed a strict curfew after 5pm. “No one was allowed to stand in the street after 5pm, even if we live in the Old City. If we did, they would attack us with beatings, provocative searches, cursing at us,” the 30-year-old told Al Jazeera. Describing the situation today and how violence by Israeli forces unfolds, Abu Mohammad said, “Anytime a male wants to enter the Old City, they get searched. “A group of soldiers will search this one man. While they are searching you, they hit you with their elbows, with their knees, to provoke you to say something. “If you say anything, you find them all on top of you, punching you on the head and all over your body. All of a sudden, you need a hospital,” explained Abu Mohammad. He noted that the Israeli officers “don’t differentiate between older and younger men.” “I have seen them push elderly men. They don’t care,” he said. “There is no Palestinian male here that hasn’t been beaten,” the father-of-three continued. ‘They went crazy after October 7’ Attacks by Israeli forces on Palestinians in Jerusalem have not only targeted residents and passersby. They have also targeted journalists trying to do their jobs. Mustafa Kharouf, a 36-year-old resident of the city and a photojournalist with the Turkish Anadolu Agency, was severely beaten by Israeli paramilitary officers while reporting on December 15. Along with a group of journalists, Kharouf had been stationed in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Wadi Joz, which lies close to the Old City. Due to the Israeli ban on Palestinians from entering the Old City and the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound, residents have been gathering to pray on the streets of the Wadi Joz on Fridays as an alternative. On many Fridays, Israeli forces fired live ammunition and large
What’s troubling Brazil-Israel ties? Unpacking a love-hate relationship
Brazil has recalled its ambassador to Israel and said it would not retract statements that the Israeli government calls “anti-Semitic” as a spat between the two countries escalated this week. On Sunday, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva compared Israel’s war on Gaza, in which nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, to the Holocaust, sparking outrage from Israel. Israel declared Lula persona non grata on Monday, summoning the Brazilian ambassador and demanding that Brasilia retract the statements. In return, Brazil summoned the Israeli ambassador in Brasilia for a dressing-down on Monday while also recalling its envoy to Tel Aviv. The tensions mark the latest chapter in a relationship between two countries more than 10,000km (6,200 miles) apart but bound by history dating back to the creation of Israel. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva compared israel’s war in Gaza to the Holocaust at an African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia [Reuters] What has Brazil’s position been on the war so far? Brazil denounced the October 7 attacks on Israel, led by the Palestinian armed group Hamas, in which 1,139 people were killed and more than 200 people taken hostage. However, the country has also been vocal about the war on Gaza, condemning Israel’s indiscriminate attacks on civilians and on crucial infrastructure. Lula said last year that the death of thousands of children “is particularly shocking”. At the United Nations Security Council, where it is a non-permanent member, Brazil has backed every single resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza although the United States has vetoed these moves. In November after Israel eventually allowed a select number of foreigners, dual nationals and Palestinian patients to leave Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, Brazilians were initially missing from the daily lists, sparking speculation that Israel was punishing Brazil for its diplomatic postures. Israel denied those suggestions. When repatriation flights to Brazil finally started, Lula was at the airport tarmac in Brasilia to welcome Palestinian Brazilians as they landed. For decades, Brazil has called for a Palestinian state to be created on the borders that existed before the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, in which Israel seized the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem. Have Brazil and Israel always had tense ties? Not really. In fact, Brazil had a role in the creation of Israel. Brazil was the president of the UN General Assembly in November 1947 when the UN Partition Plan for Palestine was first presented to the body, and it played a significant role in seeing the plan adopted. The partition plan recommended the creation of a Jewish state in British-administered Mandatory Palestine. Oswaldo Aranha, a one-time foreign minister of Brazil who was head of the country’s UN delegation, chaired the General Assembly and played a vital role in discussions of the partition plan. According to Gerson Menandro Garcia de Freitas, former Brazilian ambassador to Israel, Aranha realised on the day of the initial vote that the plan didn’t have enough support, so he cajoled speakers to prolong their addresses and run the clock out, eventually delaying the vote by two days, by which time, enough votes had been secured for the creation of Israel. Today, Tel Aviv and Beersheba have streets named after Aranha, and Jerusalem has a public square named in the Brazilian diplomat’s honour. Brazil was also one of the first countries to formally recognise the state of Israel in 1949. More than 100,000 Jewish people live in Brazil, making it the second largest Jewish community in Latin America. Relations between Brazil and Israel soared to new heights under former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who proclaimed Brazil as Israel’s best friend. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Bolsonaro when he was president-elect in 2018, the Israeli leader was awarded a national prize previously presented to Queen Elizabeth II and US President Dwight Eisenhower. Bolsonaro later sparked controversy when he signalled he might move the Brazilian embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem after a similar move by the US. In his 2019 trip to Israel, Bolsonaro visited the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, with Netanyahu. It is in Israeli-occupied territory in Jerusalem and is also known as the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam. During that trip, Bolsonaro chose to announce a non-diplomatic trade mission in the city rather than a full embassy. What other dips have there been in relations? The current crisis isn’t the first time that Brazil and Israel have seen their relations spiral downwards. In 2014, Brazil — then under Lula’s protege, President Dilma Roussef — criticised Israel’s violence against Palestinians and recalled its ambassador for diplomatic talks. Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson responded by describing Brazil as a “diplomatic dwarf”, escalating tensions further. That wasn’t all. The spokesperson taunted Brazil over its embarrassing 7-1 thrashing at the hands — or feet, rather — of Germany in the 2014 World Cup semifinals, which Brazil was hosting. Israel’s assault on Gaza that year, he said, was “proportionate”. What was “disproportionate”, he said, was the semifinal score. Brazil, alongside 28 other countries, voted for a UN Human Rights Council investigation into allegations of Israeli human rights violations in that offensive. An estimated 2,000 civilians were killed in that war. In November last year, Israel irked Brazilian authorities when its foreign intelligence agency, Mossad, publicly said it helped Brasilia bust a Hezbollah ring planning attacks in the South American country. Mossad linked the planned attacks to the ongoing Gaza war, suggesting that Jewish lives in Brazil were under threat. Brazilian Justice Minister Flavio Dino did not deny the assistance but responded in an apparent rebuke that “Brazil is a sovereign country,” and “no foreign force orders around the Brazilian Federal Police”. Adblock test (Why?)
Pakistan parties agree deal to form coalition government
NewsFeed Two major Pakistan political parties that are rivals of jailed ex-PM Imran Khan have agreed to a coalition and say they’re ready to form a government, after elections overshadowed by allegations of vote-rigging. Published On 21 Feb 202421 Feb 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
The Indian cafe that employs acid attack survivors
NewsFeed A cafe in India employs acid attack survivors to help them rebuild their confidence and return to society. Published On 21 Feb 202421 Feb 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
UK imposes sanctions on heads of penal colony where Russia’s Navalny died
Cameron promises to hold those responsible accountable, as Navalny’s mother takes legal action to recover his body. The United Kingdom has imposed sanctions on six officials overseeing the Arctic penal colony where Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny died. The sanctions, announced by British Foreign Secretary David Cameron on Wednesday, target the head and five deputy heads of the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp in Russia’s Yamal-Nenets region, who now face a ban on entering the UK and will have their assets frozen. “Those responsible for Navalny’s brutal treatment should be under no illusion – we will hold them accountable,” Cameron said. “It’s clear that the Russian authorities saw Navalny as a threat and they tried repeatedly to silence him.” The UK is the first country to impose sanctions in response to Navalny’s death, the Foreign Office said as it described him as “a political prisoner who dedicated his life to exposing the corruption of the Russian system, calling for free and open politics, and holding the Kremlin to account”. 🔴 SANCTIONED: heads of Arctic penal colony where Alexei Navalny was killed. pic.twitter.com/2FZn0W5b73 — Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (@FCDOGovUK) February 21, 2024 The sanctioned individuals include Vadim Konstantinovich Kalinin, who oversaw the prison where Navalny was kept in solitary confinement for up to two weeks at a time, it added. The penal colony about 1,900km (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow is considered one of the toughest in Russia. Its inmates are convicted of grave crimes. Russian authorities have said the cause of 47-year-old Navalny’s sudden death on February 16 at the colony, called “Polar Wolf”, is still unknown and have refused to release his body for the next two weeks, pending a preliminary inquest. On Wednesday, Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, filed a lawsuit at a court in the town of Salekhard near the penal colony, contesting officials’ refusal to release her son’s body so she could bury him with dignity. A closed-door hearing has been scheduled for March 4, Russia’s state news agency TASS reported. Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, released a video on Monday claiming the authorities had not yet handed over his body because they were waiting for traces of the Novichok nerve agent to disappear. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has rejected allegations of a cover-up and President Vladimir Putin’s alleged involvement as “unfounded, insolent accusations about the head of the Russian state”. The UK’s decision to take targeted punitive action against the prison heads coincided with plans by the United States to impose sanctions against Russia over the Putin critic’s death and the two-year war in Ukraine, set to be announced on Friday. Cameron will attend the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Brazil later on Wednesday and the Foreign Office said “he will use the opportunity to call out Russia’s aggression and its global impact directly to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.” Adblock test (Why?)
Israeli air strikes kills two people in Syria’s capital: State media
The attack took place in Damascus’s Kafr Sousa area near a large, heavily guarded complex used by security agencies. At least two people have been killed in Israeli air strikes in the Syrian capital, Damascus, state media reported. The attack on Wednesday took place in Kafr Sousa, an area that is home to a number of security and military headquarters, the news agency SANA reported. Israel has not confirmed the strikes. Videos on social media verified by Al Jazeera showed an apartment on fire in a multistorey building. Windows were shattered in nearby buildings and dozens of parked cars were damaged in the area. An empty bus for the nearby Al-Bawader Private School was damaged and people were seen rushing to fetch their children. The neighbourhood also has residential buildings and Iranian cultural centres. Witnesses heard several back-to-back explosions and ambulances rushed to the area, the Reuters news agency reported. Syrian state TV did not say who was killed. Rami Abdulrahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a Britain-based opposition war monitor, said the two killed were inside an apartment but did not give any clues about their identities. Abdulrahman said that the strike was similar to last month’s killing in Beirut, Lebanon, of Saleh al-Arouri, a top official with the Palestinian group Hamas. Two people were killed inside an apartment [Firas Makdesi/Reuters] SOHR said the blasts in Damascus were “a result of a new Israeli targeting of Syrian territory”. Since the start of the year, the group said it has documented 13 Israeli attacks on Syrian territory – eight air strikes and five rocket attacks by ground forces, which destroyed nearly 31 targets and left 31 fighters dead and 13 others injured. Eight civilians, including a woman, were also killed in the Israeli strikes this year, according to SOHR. The United States and Israel have for years carried out attacks against what they describe as Iran-linked targets in Syria, where Tehran’s influence has grown since it backed President Bashar al-Assad in the war that erupted in 2011. The attacks renewed in intensity since October 7 when Hamas fighters stormed communities in southern Israel killing more than 1,100 people and taking about 240 captive. The unprecedented assault triggered a ferocious response by Israel which has killed more than 29,000 people in the Gaza Strip. Last month, an Israeli strike on the Syrian capital’s western neighbourhood of al-Mezzeh destroyed a building used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), killing at least five Iranians. In December, an Israeli air strike on a suburb of Damascus killed Iranian general Seyed Razi Mousavi, a longtime adviser of the IRGC in Syria. Israel has also targeted members of Palestinian and Lebanese armed groups in Syria over the past years. Adblock test (Why?)
German champions Bayern to part ways with coach Tuchel at end of season
Struggling German champions will take ‘new direction’ with a different coach next season, club says after announcing Tuchel’s departure. German club Bayern Munich will part ways with coach Thomas Tuchel at the end of a disappointing season, the Bundesliga champions have said in a statement. Tuchel’s contract, which was signed less than a year ago and runs until 2025, will be terminated at the end of the current season. Bayern lost their last three games in all competitions, including a 3-0 defeat to league leaders Bayer Leverkusen and have now dropped eight points behind them in the Bundesliga. Tuchel had taken over in March 2023 from Julian Nagelsmann but despite leading them to the Bundesliga title last season on the final matchday, they have not shown the form this season that saw them dominate German football for the past decade. Bayern CEO Jan-Christian Dreesen said there would a “a new direction” next season with a new coach. “In a good, open discussion, we came to the decision to end our working relationship by mutual agreement in the summer,” Dreesen said on Wednesday. “Our goal is to pursue a new footballing direction with a new head coach for the 2024/25 season.” “Until then, every individual at the club is expressly called upon to achieve the maximum possible in the Champions League and Bundesliga. I also explicitly hold the team accountable in this regard.” New direction for the new season: FC Bayern and Thomas Tuchel to end their working relationship in the summer. 🔗 https://t.co/nKsSeKx3kk pic.twitter.com/1q22LRSMcy — FC Bayern Munich (@FCBayernEN) February 21, 2024 Tuchel, who in the past had been in charge at Borussia Dortmund and Paris St Germain, and also won a Champions League title with Chelsea in 2021, said his remaining time in Munich would be focused on the remaining goals in the Bundelsiga and the Champions League. His first full season at Bayern had been hit by a string of injuries to key players and by what he had said was a relatively thin squad at the start of the campaign despite the arrival of Bundesliga record signing Harry Kane. “We have agreed that we will end our working relationship at the end of this season,” Tuchel said. “Until then, I will of course continue to do everything I can with my coaching staff to achieve maximum success.” Bayern’s next game is against RB Leipzig who beat Bayern the last two times in Munich. The club’s last season without a title was in 2011-12. They have won all 11 Bundesliga titles since then, four German Cups, and two Champions Leagues to clinch trebles in 2013 and 2020. Now they trail Leverkusen by eight points, were beaten in the German Cup by a third-division side and have to overcome the deficit against Lazio to stay alive in Europe. Leverkusen are coached by Xabi Alonso who as a former Bayern player could be a top candidate for them in summer. But he is also linked with another ex-club, Liverpool, where Jurgen Klopp is leaving in summer. Klopp, for his part, has been seen as a future Bayern coach but said he wants to take time off after leaving Anfield. Adblock test (Why?)
Police fire tear gas at protesting Indian farmers marching to New Delhi
Police have fired tear gas at thousands of Indian farmers who resumed their protest march to the capital, New Delhi, after talks with the government failed to end an impasse over their demands for guaranteed crop prices. The protests come at a crucial time for India, where national elections are due in the coming months and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party is widely expected to secure a third successive term in office. The farmers began their protest last week but were stopped some 200km (125 miles) from the capital. The authorities are determined to contain the protests, which have renewed the movement from more than two years ago when tens of thousands of farmers had camped out on the outskirts of the city for more than a year. At the time, the farmers pitched tents, bought food supplies and held out in the sit-in until they forced Modi to repeal new agriculture laws in a major reversal for his government. This time around, the authorities have barricaded the highways into New Delhi with cement blocks, metal containers, barbed wire and iron spikes to prevent the farmers from entering. On Wednesday, the farmers arrived at the barricades with bulldozers and excavators to try and push through. Last week, the farmers had paused their protest and hunkered down near the town of Shambhu, close to the border between the northern states of Punjab and Haryana, as unions engaged in discussions with government officials. They rejected a proposal from the government that offered them five-year contracts of guaranteed prices on a set of certain crops, including maize, grain, legumes and cotton, and the farmers resumed their march on Wednesday. Adblock test (Why?)
Sudanese refugees face gruelling wait in overcrowded South Sudan camps
A new truck arrives in the South Sudanese town of Renk, packed with dozens of elderly men, women and children, their exhausted faces betraying the strain of their traumatic journey out of war-ravaged Sudan. They are among more than half a million people who have crossed the border into South Sudan, which is struggling to accommodate the new arrivals. Renk is just 10km (6.2 miles) from Sudan, where fighting broke out in April last year between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Since then, Renk’s two transit centres run by the United Nations have been overwhelmed by an uninterrupted influx of frightened people, fleeing for their lives. The journey is rife with danger, said Fatima Mohammed, a 33-year-old teacher who escaped with her husband and five children from El-Obeid city in central Sudan. “The bullets were entering our house. We were trapped between crossfire in our own street. So we understood that we needed to leave for the good of our kids,” she said, describing the situation in Sudan as “unsustainable”. It took them five days to make their escape, with Sudanese soldiers and RSF fighters “making [it] difficult for us to leave the country”. “They took all our phones at one checkpoint, a lot of our money [at] another one. We saw abuses happening at those checkpoints,” she said. Sudanese refugees line up during a cash assistance programme at a transit centre for refugees in Renk [Luis Tato/AFP] ‘Stuck here’ Since the start of the conflict, nearly eight million people, half of them children, have fled Sudan. Around 560,000 of them have taken refuge in South Sudan, according to the UN, which estimates that around 1,500 new arrivals turn up in the country every day. Many spend months waiting in the transit camps, hopeful that someday soon they will be able to return home. Iman David fled fighting in Sudan’s capital Khartoum with her then three-month-old daughter, leaving her husband behind. “It was supposed to be a short stay, but I am still stuck here in Renk after seven months,” said the 20-year-old. “My hope is to go back to Khartoum and reunite with my husband but I don’t know his fate.” Thousands of civilians were killed in the war, according to UN figures. Some 25 million people, more than half of Sudan’s population, need humanitarian assistance, while an estimated 3.8 million children under the age of five are suffering from malnutrition, the UN says. Sudanese refugees and ethnic South Sudanese families who have fled the war in Sudan gather after crossing the border while waiting to be registered by the authorities at the Joda border crossing point, near Renk [Luis Tato/AFP] ‘Better than Khartoum’ While many in Renk long to return home, others hope to travel onwards to the town of Malakal in Upper Nile state, which is also hosting a huge number of refugees. At Renk port, hundreds of people lined up under the oppressive glare of the midday sun, waiting hours to hop aboard the metal boats which make the trip at least twice a week. As she waited, Lina Juna, a 27-year-old mother of four, said her final destination was the South Sudanese capital, Juba. “I have nothing to do in Juba, no family members or friends, no business or work to take care of because I have spent all my life in Sudan,” she said. “But I still expect Juba to be much better than Khartoum,” she added, recalling days spent struggling to find food as heavy fighting rocked the city. Several hours later, she managed to board a boat, one of two carrying some 300 people each. “Today is a good day for us,” said Deng Samson, who works for the International Organization for Migration. “Some weeks we have seen ourselves completely overwhelmed,” said Samson, adding that the approaching monsoon made him nervous. “We are truly afraid of what will happen when the rainy season comes, with waters rising from the river and disrupting the normal functioning of the port.” With up to 10 trucks and buses arriving in Renk every day, the UN is trying to mobilise the international community, launching an appeal for $4.1bn this month to respond to the most urgent humanitarian needs. Adblock test (Why?)
‘We want dignity’: Indian farmers defy pellets, drones to demand new deal
Shambhu border, India — Balvinder Singh lies on his side, writhing in pain, on a hospital bed in the northern Indian state of Punjab. When Singh, 47, was hit by a volley of piercing objects while marching towards New Delhi with thousands of other farmers, he did not know what had struck him. But his body is pockmarked with telltale black scars from iron pellets fired by security forces to prevent farmers from crossing over from Punjab into the state of Haryana, which borders New Delhi. Haryana is ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, whose federal policies the farmers are protesting against. Singh, a farmer from Faridkot district in Punjab, who was admitted at Rajindra Hospital in the city of Patiala, was hit when he was calming the angry young farmers at the front of the protest site, metres away from the border on February 14, a day after the protests began. “I was calming down the protesters when I was hit,” Singh says, his left eye bloody from a pellet injury. “I could not understand whether it was a bullet or something else that hurt me.” Singh says he had never heard of iron pellets being used as ammunition by security forces against civilian protesters. In the past, such pellets have been mostly used in Indian-administered Kashmir as a crowd-control mechanism. Pellet guns have blinded scores of people in Kashmir. Balvinder Singh, his eye bloodied by a wound from an iron pellet fired by police, in a hospital in Patiala, Punjab [Md Meherban/Al Jazeera] Now, they are part of the intensifying confrontation between farmers and the government. The government in Punjab, which is ruled by the Aam Aadmi Party that is in opposition nationally, has said that three farmers have lost their eyesight after being hit with the Haryana police pellets and a dozen others have also suffered pellet injuries. Critics of the farmers, meanwhile, argue that the central government cannot allow the protests to escalate the way they did in 2021, when clashes broke out on the streets of New Delhi. Some protesters reached the Red Fort – from where the prime minister delivers the Independence Day speech – and were accused of yanking down the national flag. A security crackdown followed. Yet, days after this latest agitation kicked off, there are growing signs of a repeat of the kind of escalation in tensions that India witnessed three years ago. Thousands of farmers in their tractor trolleys, small trucks, on foot, and scooters have travelled from rural areas of Punjab and gathered on the Punjab-Haryana highway waiting to march on the capital city. They are hoping to press the BJP government for demands including a guaranteed minimum support price (MSP) for their crops and loan waivers, among others. In Haryana, the government has been criticised for using drones to drop tear gas shells on the protesting farmers. The state’s police have sealed the border with heavy cemented blocks, iron nails and barbed wire. Singh, who owns a four-acre plot where he grows rice and wheat, says there is no guarantee of price in the fluctuating market for other crops. “We spend more on cultivation [when growing other crops] and there is no earning,” he says. “Now, we are also facing water shortages for even growing these two crops [rice and wheat]. We are in deep stress.” At present the government buys rice and wheat from farmers for public distribution, and offers them a minimum support price for these grains. But other agricultural commodities do not receive this price protection. That, farmers say, has in turn led to the overproduction of rice and wheat. Paddies in particular, are water intensive, leading to depleted groundwater levels. “If I want to diversify to other crops, there should be financial security for me that I will get a good price – that is what we are asking. We are asking for our rights,” says Singh, from the hospital, where eight other farmers, some aged above 60, are also being treated. One of them, Mota Singh, 32, from Hoshiarpur in Punjab, said that he was hit by a rubber bullet on his hand. To Mota, something even more fundamental is at stake than crop prices. “Farmers are demanding dignity, we cannot be poor forever,” says Mota, when asked why he was protesting. Female farmers listen to a speech by a farming leader at the protest site on the Shambhu border between Haryana and Punjab [Md Meherban/Al Jazeera] Why are farmers again on the roads? More than 250 farmers’ unions have supported the protest that is being organised from Punjab. Up to two-thirds of India’s 1.4 billion population are engaged in agriculture-related activities for their livelihoods and the sector contributes nearly a fifth of the country’s gross domestic product. Farmers say that their main demand – minimum support price legislation – would ensure that the rates of their crops are sustainable and provide them with decent earnings. At present, the government protects wheat and rice against the price fall by setting a minimum purchase price, a system that was introduced more than 60 years ago, to ensure food security in India. Development economist Jayati Ghosh says that if other crops were also brought under the MSP regime, it would help provide sustainable financial support to the farmers. This wouldn’t mean that the government would need to buy large volumes of these crops, says Ghosh, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. It’s only when the price drops below the MSP that the government would need to step in and buy just enough that the price rises above the minimum set bar, she says. “It’s a market intervention that makes sure that farmers have this other option,” Ghosh says. In India, experts say that agriculture has been going through a severe crisis due to increasing extreme weather combined with a lowering water table, affecting yields and pushing farmers deep into debt. Thousands of farmers take their own lives each year.