Israel’s war on Gaza: List of key events, day 111
EXPLAINER The ICJ is set to deliver its response to South Africa’s lawsuit against Israel on Friday, while intense strikes continue in Khan Younis. Here’s how things stand on Thursday, January 25, 2024: Latest updates The International Court of Justice announced that it will deliver its response to South Africa’s request for emergency measures to protect Palestinians from “irreparable harm” on Friday, January 26 at 1pm local time in The Hague (12:00 GMT). On Wednesday, hundreds of protesters called on the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to secure the immediate release of captives held in the Gaza Strip. They blocked Tel Aviv’s main Ayalon Highway before they rallied outside the nearby headquarters of the Israeli military and Ministry of Defense, reported The Associated Press news agency. A reported Israeli tank fire killed at least nine people at a United Nations shelter in Khan Younis on Wednesday, and wounded dozens, sparking international outrage. Israel’s military said it investigating the incident and has so far “ruled out” that it was the result of an “aerial or artillery strike” from its forces. Human impact and fighting The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Wednesday that “no one can enter or exit” Nasser Hospital due to bombardments nearby, including 400 dialysis patients who are in “need of support”. Al-Amal Hospital, Al-Aqsa Hospital, and the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulance headquarters in Khan Younis are also surrounded by heavy fighting, OCHA said in its daily situation update on Wednesday. Four children were killed when Israeli warplanes bombed a residential area in the Nuseirat refugee camp overnight, reported Palestinian news agency Wafa. Israeli forces have arrested more than 6,225 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since October 7, according to statistics released by the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society on Tuesday. Diplomacy In a post on X on Wednesday, Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Majed al-Ansari, said Doha was “appalled” by Netanyahu allegedly calling Qatari mediation efforts to secure the return of captives in Gaza “problematic”. Netanyahu has reportedly also said he is “very angry” with the fact the United States has renewed their military presence for an additional 10 years at the US base in Qatar, reported Al Jazeera correspondent Hamdah Salhut. On Wednesday, 49 of the 51 members of the US Senate Democratic caucus backed a statement reiterating support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to Reuters. South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor will travel to The Hague to hear the ICJ ruling on her country’s request for emergency measures against Israel over alleged genocide in Gaza, according to spokesperson Clayson Monyela. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that he and Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi agreed at a meeting on Wednesday on the need to avoid steps that could threaten Middle East stability. Adblock test (Why?)
In India, an algorithm declares them dead; they have to prove they’re alive
This story was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network. Rohtak and New Delhi, India: Dhuli Chand was 102 years old on September 8, 2022, when he led a wedding procession in Rohtak, a district town in the north Indian state of Haryana. As is customary in north Indian weddings, he sat on a chariot in his wedding finery, wearing garlands of Indian rupee notes, while a band played celebratory music and family members and villagers accompanied him. But instead of a bride, Chand was on his way to meet government officials. Chand resorted to the antic to prove to officials that he was not only alive but also lively. A placard he held proclaimed, in the local dialect: “thara foofa zinda hai”, which literally translates to “your uncle is alive”. Six months prior, his monthly pension was suddenly stopped because he was declared “dead” in government records. Under Haryana’s Old Age Samman Allowance scheme, people aged 60 years and above, whose income together with that of their spouse doesn’t exceed 300,000 rupees ($3,600) per annum, are eligible for a monthly pension of 2,750 rupees ($33). In June 2020, the state started using a newly built algorithmic system – the Family Identity Data Repository or the Parivar Pehchan Patra (PPP) database – to determine the eligibility of welfare claimants. The PPP is an eight-digit unique ID provided to each family in the state and has details of birth and death, marriage, employment, property, and income tax, among other data, of the family members. It maps every family’s demographic and socioeconomic information by linking several government databases to check their eligibility for welfare schemes. The state said that the PPP created “authentic, verified and reliable data of all families”, and made it mandatory for citizens to access all welfare schemes. But in practice, the PPP wrongly marked Chand as “dead”, denying him his pension for several months. Worse, the authorities did not change his “dead” status even when he repeatedly met them in person. “We went to the district offices at least 10 times, out of which five times he [Chand] also accompanied us,” said Naresh, Chand’s grandson. “Even after several attempts to get this anomaly corrected at the government offices, and after filing a grievance complaint on the chief minister’s portal, nothing happened.” It was only after Chand carried out the parody of a marriage procession and met a local politician that the authorities finally admitted their mistake and released Chand’s pension. Chand is not an isolated instance of algorithm failure. According to data presented by the government in the state assembly in August last year, it stopped the pensions of 277,115 elderly citizens and 52,479 widows in a span of three years because they were “dead”. However, several thousands of these beneficiaries were actually alive and had been wrongfully declared dead either due to incorrect data fed into the PPP database or wrong predictions made by the algorithm. Such anomalies were not restricted to old-age pensions alone. Beneficiaries of disability and widow pensions, and other welfare schemes such as subsidised food, have also been excluded because the PPP algorithm made wrong predictions about their incomes or employment, excluding them from the eligibility criteria. When people who had been wrongfully erased by the algorithm went to government officials to get the records corrected, they faced red tape. Many were shunted from one office to another, and made to file endless applications to prove the obvious – that they were in fact alive. The ordeal faced by hundreds of thousands of citizens in getting their data corrected has made PPP one of the most controversial government plans of the Haryana government in recent years. The opposition party has termed it ‘Permanent Pareshani Patra’ (permanent inconvenience document) and promised that it will scrap the programme if it comes to power in the next assembly elections, due in 2024. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar (pictured) made the controversial PPP mandatory for all welfare schemes [File photo by Sonu Mehta/Hindustan Times via Getty Images] The state, however, continues to not just defend but even expand the programme. Sofia Dahiya, secretary of the Citizen Resources Information Department that handles the functioning of PPP, in September 2022 told Al Jazeera: “PPP was easing and improving the delivery of services to the right beneficiaries and preventing leakages through the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The interlinking of different databases was done to get an integrated database which was the ‘single source of truth’.” India spends roughly 13 percent of its gross domestic product, or close to $256bn, on providing welfare benefits to about half the country’s population. Worried that such benefits were being usurped by ineligible claimants, the federal and several state governments have increasingly relied on technology to eliminate welfare fraud. In the past few years, at least half a dozen states have adopted algorithmic systems to predict the eligibility of citizens for welfare schemes. Over the past year Al Jazeera, in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Accountability Network, investigated the use and impact of such welfare algorithms. Profiling families Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar launched the PPP programme in July 2019 and a year later made it mandatory for all welfare benefits. In the absence of privacy laws, the opposition parties contested the move to gather the personal data of citizens for building out the PPP. The government argued that it allowed “proactive” delivery of welfare without the claimants having to show any documents or needing a field verification. In September 2021, it gave legal sanction to the programme by passing the Haryana Parivar Pehchan Act. Within a year, however, massive problems with the PPP data started cropping up. After Chand’s ‘wedding procession’ stunt hit the headlines, thousands of poor thronged the district offices of the social welfare department, complaining about their exclusion from the schemes. The public outcry forced the government to launch grievance redressal camps across the state to review PPP data.
North Korea says tested new type of cruise missile with nuclear capability
State news agency says Pulhwasal-3-31 cruise missile is still in its development phase. North Korea has said it conducted its first test of a new-generation cruise missile, as it continues to expand its military capabilities. The official Korean Central News Agency reported on Thursday that the Pulhwasal-3-31 missile was still in its development phase and described the missile as “strategic”, implying an intent to arm it with nuclear weapons. KCNA did not specify how many missiles were fired. “The test-fire had no impact on the security of neighbouring countries and has nothing to do with the regional situation,” it said. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Wednesday morning it had detected the launch of “several” cruise missiles from North Korea’s western coast. The JCS said it was analysing the launch, which followed the January 19 test of a nuclear-capable underwater attack drone, and the test-firing of Pyongyang’s first solid-fuel intermediate-range ballistic missile five days earlier. On Thursday, it said it thought the launch was a test of upgrades to existing missiles’ capabilities. North Korea carried out its first test of a strategic cruise missile in September 2021. Tensions on the Korean peninsula have increased in recent months as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un continues to move ahead with his weapons development programme and issue provocative threats of nuclear conflict with the United States and its allies in the region. North Korea’s cruise missiles, which tend to be jet-propelled and fly at a lower altitude, are harder to detect and intercept than ballistic missiles and are among a growing arsenal aimed at overwhelming missile defences in South Korea and Japan. North Korea claims they are nuclear-capable and have a range of up to 2,000 kilometres (1,242 miles), a distance that would include US military bases in Japan. Cruise missile tests are not banned under long-running United Nations sanctions imposed over North Korea’s nuclear programme. The latest launch took place as South Korean special forces staged a drill off the country’s east coast, “in light of serious security situations” with North Korea. The 10-day exercise concludes on Thursday, according to the South’s navy. “We will achieve our mission to infiltrate deep into the enemy’s territory and neutralise them completely under any circumstances,” the drill’s commander said in a statement. Adblock test (Why?)
More than 70 dead in artisanal mine collapse in Mali
Despite the dangers, small-scale unregulated mines continue to flourish and attract thousands of gold miners. More than 70 people have died in southwest Mali after an artisanal gold mine collapsed last week, officials have said, the latest disaster in a region prone to mining accidents. Karim Bethe, a senior National Geology and Mining Directorate official, shared the details with The Associated Press on Wednesday, calling it an accident. Oumar Sidibe, an official for gold miners in the southwestern town of Kangaba, as well as a local councillor, confirmed the death toll to the AFP news agency. “It started with a noise. The earth started to shake,” Sidibe said. “There were over 200 gold miners in the field.” While it was not clear what caused the mine collapse that occurred on Friday, the Ministry of Mines said in a statement on Tuesday that it estimated “several” miners had been killed in the Kangaba district in southwestern Koulikoro region. The ministry said it “deeply regretted” the collapse and urged miners and communities in the area to “comply with safety requirements”. A spokesperson for the ministry, Baye Coulibaly, also told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday that the gold panners dug galleries “without complying with the required standards”. “We have advised them against it on several occasions in vain,” Coulibaly said. [Al Jazeera] Mali’s government offered its “deepest condolences to the grieving families and to the Malian people”. It also called on “communities living near mining sites and gold miners to scrupulously respect safety requirements and to work only within the perimeters dedicated to gold panning”. Small-scale, informal artisanal miners are often accused of ignoring safety measures, especially in remote areas, and accidents like these are common in Mali, Africa’s third-largest gold producer. “The state must bring order to this artisanal mining sector to avoid these kinds of accidents in the future,” Berthe told AP. While Mali’s mining sector is dominated by foreign groups, including Canada’s Barrick Gold and B2Gold, Australia’s Resolute Mining and Britain’s Hummingbird Resources, artisanal mines continue to flourish and attract thousands of gold miners. “Gold is by far Mali’s most important export, comprising more than 80 percent of total exports in 2021,” according to the International Trade Administration within the US Department of Commerce. It added that more than two million people, or over 10 percent of Mali’s population, depend on the mining sector for income. Mali produced 72.2 tonnes of gold in 2022 and the metal contributed 25 percent of the national budget, 75 percent of export earnings and 10 percent of gross domestic product, former Minister of Mines Lamine Seydou Traore said last year. But gold mining in the Sahel region is dangerous, and human rights organisations have repeatedly condemned the use of child labour in artisanal mining operations. Adblock test (Why?)
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 701
As the war enters its 701st day, these are the main developments. Here is the situation on Thursday, January 25, 2024. Fighting A Russian military transport plane carrying 74 people crashed in the Belgorod region of southern Russia not far from the Ukrainian border. Russia said there were 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war on board who were part of a planned prisoner swap, and accused Ukraine of shooting down the plane. Ukraine did not confirm it had shot down the plane, or that Ukrainian POWs were passengers. The Ukrainian military said it would continue to target military transport aircraft it believed were carrying missiles for Russia’s war on Ukraine, and air force commander Mykola Oleshchuk accused Russia of trying to discredit Ukraine over the aircraft crash. “Ukraine has the right to defend itself and destroy the means of the aggressors’ aerial attack,” he said. Ukraine’s military intelligence service said Kyiv had not been asked to ensure air space security on Wednesday around the Belgorod area as had been the case during previous prisoner-of-war swaps with Moscow. It said it had no reliable information on who was on board the crashed plane. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for full clarity on the circumstances of the crash and accused Moscow of “playing with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners of war”. The RBC Ukraine news outlet said he cancelled a planned regional trip as well as events linked to his birthday to deal with the crash. Two people were killed and eight injured in the town of Hirnyk, close to the front line in the east, after a Russian missile attack hit a residential area, Donetsk regional governor Vadym Filashkin said. Hirnyk lies to the northwest of Maryinka, a town still held by Ukraine but all but destroyed after many months of fighting with Russian forces. Regional governor Oleh Kiper said one person was injured in a Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa, that hit residential homes and started a fire. Avdiivka mayor Vitaliy Barabash said Russian forces entered the war-battered town for the first time but were pushed back. “Russian sabotage and reconnaissance groups entered the southern part of the city of Avdiivka, but they were dislodged,” Barabash told the AFP news agency but declined to say when the Russians entered the town or how long they were there. About 32,000 people lived in Avdiivka before Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Politics and diplomacy Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said he was worried that the war in Ukraine had been forgotten amid crises in other parts of the world. Speaking at the end of a week-long visit to Kyiv, Grandi told the Associated Press news agency that it was important to remind the international community that Ukrainians continued to live through a brutal war and that he was concerned humanitarian aid was being held up by political wrangling. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico met Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in the western Ukrainian town of Uzhhorod where he reaffirmed support for Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union, but said policy differences remained on issues including NATO accession. Fico, elected after tapping into pro-Russian sentiments, said he did not believe there was a military solution to the war, and welcomed a peace plan proposed by Ukraine’s president, although he called it unrealistic. In the first of three required readings, Russia’s State Duma passed a bill to confiscate the property, money and valuables of anyone convicted of spreading criticism of the Russian army. Ukrainian Dayana Yastremska is the first women’s qualifier to reach the Australian Open semifinals in 45 years [Mike Frey/USA TODAY Sports via Reuters] A US Senate committee approved 20 to 1 in favour of the “Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity [REPO)] for Ukrainians Act”, which would help set the stage for the US to confiscate Russian assets and hand them over to Ukraine for post-war reconstruction. The bill has broad bipartisan support but needs to pass both houses of Congress before it can be signed by the president and become law. The EU, the US, Japan and Canada froze some $300bn of Russian central bank assets in 2022 when Russia launched its full-scale invasion nearly two years ago. Ukrainian Dayana Yastremska became the first women’s qualifier to reach the semifinals of the Australian Open in 45 years. After her latest victory, and wearing blue and yellow to match Ukraine’s flag, she said she was “proud” of those fighting for their country. Weapons German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said European nations had to “do more” to provide the weapons for Ukraine to defend itself from Russia’s onslaught. “The contributions that European nations have earmarked for 2024 so far are not big enough,” Scholz told Die Zeit weekly in an interview. Adblock test (Why?)
‘Traitor’: Thousands strike against Argentina’s President Javier Milei
Buenos Aires, Argentina – In the biggest show of resistance to date against far-right President Javier Milei, Argentinian workers have taken to the streets for a general strike, bringing swaths of downtown Buenos Aires to a standstill. It was an unprecedented mobilisation. Never before in modern Argentinian history has a mass strike been called less than seven weeks into a new presidency. But leaders from Argentina’s largest labour union say the nationwide protests reflect the urgency they feel as Milei pursues radical economic and political reforms he likens to “shock therapy”. Thousands of protesters swarmed the square in front of Argentina’s Congress on Wednesday, denouncing Milei’s sweeping plans to overhaul the government, privatise public industries and slash spending. Some banged pots and carried signs accusing Milei of being a “traitor”. Other banners featured the portrait of working-class icon Evita Peron. Elizabeth Gutierrez made her way to the gathering after working an overnight shift as a nurse. She explained she was motivated by steep increases in food prices since Milei took office. “Before we used to have asados [barbecues] every Sunday. Not now. Even rice is very expensive,” Gutierrez said. “Rents have shot up. You can’t live off your salary any more: It’s not enough.” “The people are here to defend their nation,” she added. Protester Alicia Pereyra, 63, says her life has been turned ‘upside down’ since Javier Milei’s inauguration [Lautaro Grinspan/Al Jazeera] Another protester, 63-year-old retiree Alicia Pereyra, voiced opposition to Milei’s efforts to deregulate the economy, including plans to “modernise” labour law and ditch rent regulation. “He wants us to be slaves,” Pereyra said. Draped in an Argentinian flag, Pereyra worried about her ability to make ends meet in the face of Milei’s reforms. Her retirement income amounts to only 85,000 pesos per month — about $70. She said basic necessities had become so costly under Milei that she is unsure whether she will be able to access the medicine she needs for a chronic illness. Even small luxuries are now out of reach. Pereyra described how she and her husband opted for orange juice instead of wine to make their New Year’s toast for 2024, breaking a long-running family tradition. “It’s a horrible feeling of not knowing what’s going to happen tomorrow,” she said. “[Milei] is turning our heads upside down.” Protesters clanged pots and pans on the streets of Buenos Aires, Argentina, on January 24 [Lautaro Grinspan/Al Jazeera] Extreme measures exacerbate extreme inflation Argentina had already been suffering from record triple-digit inflation when Milei took office on December 10. Elected on the promise that he would fix the sputtering economy, Milei quickly moved to implement austerity measures that he said were needed to get Argentina’s finances in order. In his inauguration address, he warned the country that Argentina’s situation would get worse before it got better. And he was right. One of his earliest measures was to devalue the Argentinian peso by 54 percent, which accelerated the already sky-high inflation rates. According to the National Institute for Statistics and Censuses (INDEC), Argentina ended 2023 with annual inflation of 211.4 percent, the steepest rate in Latin America, surpassing even Venezuela. The year also clocked the fastest inflation hikes since 1990, resulting in higher prices for consumers. Santiago Manoukian, chief economist at the consulting firm Ecolatina, told Al Jazeera that December’s price increases will continue hitting consumers’ pocketbooks for the next several months. Salaries will have a hard time keeping up. “We believe that real wages fell in December more than in any other month since at least 2002,” he said. “Purchasing power is going to continue to go down.” That trend is expected to slow consumer spending, which Manoukian said will likely result in a recession and an uptick in unemployment and poverty. Four in 10 Argentines were already in poverty when Milei took office, according to national data. Thousands of Argentinians participated in Wednesday’s nationwide strike, called by one of the country’s largest labour unions [Lautaro Grinspan/Al Jazeera] Omnibus bill proceeds to Congress amid strike Milei coupled his currency devaluation measure with immediate cuts to government spending, including consumer subsidies. One presidential “mega-decree” in December reformed or overturned dozens of laws and paved the way for the privatisation of state-run companies. Another decree axed 5,000 government jobs. But further changes are on the way. Wednesday’s nationwide strike comes as Congress prepares to consider a slimmed-down version of Milei’s “omnibus law” the following day. Originally containing 664 articles, the bill sought to reimagine the country’s elections, restructure the lower chamber of Congress and enact tough new restrictions on protests, including through penalties of up to six years in prison. The streamlined version is still massive, with over 500 articles. If passed, it would hand broad legislative powers to Milei’s executive branch for an “emergency” period of one year. Still, the president dismissed Wednesday’s strike as evidence of backward thinking. “There are two Argentinas,” he told local media. “One wants to stay behind, in the past, in decadence.” Members of his administration likewise blasted the protesters. On Wednesday, Security Minister Patricia Bullrich — Milei’s erstwhile rival on the campaign trail — called the union groups that organised the strike “gangsters” and “guarantors of poverty”. “There’s no strike that will be able to stop us,” she wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. Retirees carrying handwritten signs denounce austerity measures enacted under President Javier Milei in Argentina[Lautaro Grinspan/Al Jazeera] Expert compares Milei to a ’mini-Trump’ Federico Finchelstein, a New York-based historian and fascism scholar, said Milei’s first month in office has demonstrated his “authoritarian style of populism”. He drew parallels to Donald Trump, the controversial — but popular — former president of the United States who sought to claim broad executive authority while in office. Finchelstein likened Milei to a “mini-Trump”. “It’s a type of populism that looks to undermine democratic institutions,” Finchelstein said. But despite the criticism and protests he faces, Milei continues to enjoy broad support among Argentinians. One survey this month,
Hundreds flee further south as Israeli forces advance in Khan Younis
Hundreds of Palestinians have fled Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis after Israeli forces advanced deeper into the area. The Israeli military said its ground forces “encircled” the city earlier this week after 24 of its soldiers were killed in the enclave in the largest single-day toll since October 7. Khan Younis was designated by the Israeli army as a so-called “safe zone” for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were forced to leave their homes in northern Gaza and Gaza City. However, repeated Israeli bombardment and attacks in the south have resulted in widespread destruction and more displacement. Israeli forces targeted hospitals, ambulances and schools where thousands of civilians had been sheltering. Gaza’s Ministry of Health has warned that Nasser Hospital and Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis are now in “grave danger”. In Nasser Hospital, shrapnel that reached inside the buildings has threatened the lives of patients, medical staff and people sheltering there, it said. On Tuesday, families once again picked up what was left of their belongings and fled towards the southern Rafah governorate, an already overcrowded area where disease is flourishing amid a lack of clean water, food, medicine and other basic supplies. The cold winter months and rainy season have worsened the misery of the 1.9 million displaced Palestinians. Many have had to move repeatedly in search of relative safety, the United Nations has said. Adblock test (Why?)
ICJ to decide on emergency measures in Israel-Gaza genocide case this week
The World Court will decide whether to order emergency measures relating to Israel’s military action in Gaza. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has said it will announce on Friday whether it will order emergency measures against Israel after South Africa filed a case accusing Israel of genocide in its assault on Gaza. The United Nations’ top court said in a statement on Wednesday that the 17-judge panel will announce its response to South Africa’s requests in court on January 26 at 12:00 GMT. South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor will travel to The Hague to be present at the court as it delivers its announcement, a government spokesperson said, according to Reuters. The ICJ will not deal with the main question of whether Israel is committing genocide on Friday, but will look at possible emergency measures requested by South Africa to restrain Israel’s actions. Earlier this month, in two days of hearings, South Africa asked the ICJ, also known as the World Court, to order an emergency suspension of Israel’s devastating military campaign in the Palestinian enclave. It argued that provisional measures are necessary “to protect against further, severe and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people under the Genocide Convention, which continue to be violated with impunity”. If the ICJ does decide on issuing emergency measures, it is not bound to order exactly the actions South Africa requested. Such measures are intended to prevent a dispute from getting worse while the court looks at the full case, which could take several years. The ICJ’s deliberations are a painstaking process, involving detailed written submissions followed by oral arguments and counter-arguments by the team of top legal counsels representing each state. Experts say a ruling in the case could take three to four years. Rulings by the court are legally binding and without appeal, but the court has no way to enforce them. If the court grants some or all of South Africa’s eight requests for so-called provisional measures, it is unclear whether Israel will comply. Israel dismissed the genocide allegations as “grossly distorted” and said it had a right to defend itself from Hamas, the Palestinian group that led a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, killing at least 1,139 people and seizing around 240 others has hostages, according to Israeli officials. Israel says it is targeting Hamas in Gaza, not Palestinian civilians. Since October, more than 25,700 people have been killed in the Israeli assault, mostly women and children, according to Palestinian authorities in Gaza. While Israel often boycotts international tribunals and UN investigations, saying they are unfair and biased, the country sent a high-level legal team to two days of hearings earlier this month. Any court order to halt operations would be a major blow to the country’s international standing. The European Union has been silent on the matter, but Israel has seen support from its number-one backer and weapons supplier, the United States. Adblock test (Why?)
Will a US court order Biden to stop ‘complicity’ in Gaza genocide?
Shawan Jabarin wants to know when it will be enough: When will the death toll in Gaza be high enough for United States President Joe Biden to end his unequivocal military and diplomatic support for Israel? “How many Palestinian civilians have to be killed until he says, ‘This number is enough?’ How many? Two million Palestinians? One million? 700,000? It [would be] good if he can tell us which number wakes up his human conscience.” Jabarin, the general director of the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq, said Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip would not be possible without US support. The Israeli military campaign has killed more than 25,000 Palestinians, and United Nations officials and other experts have repeatedly warned of a risk of genocide. Yet, since the war began in early October, the Biden administration has bypassed Congress to greenlight arms sales to Israel and blocked efforts to secure a ceasefire. That’s why Al-Haq, alongside two other advocacy groups and individual Palestinians affected by the war, filed a lawsuit in the US late last year accusing Biden and other senior US leaders of being complicit in genocide. The first hearing in the case is set for January 26 in a federal court in California. “Without American support — militarily, politically — nothing like [this could have] happened,” Jabarin told Al Jazeera in a phone interview from Ramallah. “The US are not complicit indirectly. No, directly. They are helping to commission a genocide in Gaza.” The case Filed in mid-November, the lawsuit (PDF) accuses the Biden administration of failing to meet its responsibilities under international and domestic law to prevent genocide. The 1948 Genocide Convention, which the US ratified, states that “genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which [state parties] undertake to prevent and to punish”. It also outlines that “complicity in genocide” is a punishable act. Additionally, the obligations to prevent and punish genocide have been recognised as being part of “customary international law” — a term that refers to “a general practice accepted as law”. Drawing from those statutes, the lawsuit alleges “the United States has been obligated, from the time it learned of the specter of a genocide of the Palestinian people, to exercise its clear and considerable influence on Israel to prevent this grave crime from unfolding”. The complaint names three defendants: Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. It claims they “have not only been failing to uphold the country’s obligation to prevent a genocide, but have enabled the conditions for its development”. The lawsuit also emphasises that US leaders were fully aware of Israel’s “genocidal” objectives. “Dehumanising” remarks by senior Israeli officials, including Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, demonstrated a clear intent to pursue the “erasure and destruction of Palestinians”, it explained. Gallant, for instance, called Palestinians “human animals” when he ordered the total siege of Gaza in early October. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also said, “The enemy will pay an unprecedented price,” before ordering Palestinians to “get out” of Gaza. “Those statements were not mere rhetoric. Israeli officials said what they meant and [they] do what they say,” said Katherine Gallagher, a senior staff lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), one of the organisations involved in the case. “States that have the ability to influence a country that is at serious risk of — if not already — committing genocide have to take all measures within [their] power to prevent [it],” she told Al Jazeera. “And the United States did not do that. Instead, it offered unconditional military support, financial support, and diplomatic cover and support for Israel’s ongoing genocidal campaign.” Gallagher explained that the plaintiffs are asking a district court to declare that the US has breached its obligations to prevent genocide. They are also requesting a preliminary injunction ordering officials to “take all measures within their power” to fulfil its legal responsibilities. “That would mean cutting off and ceasing the military support for the genocide,” she said. Government’s defence But the Biden administration has asked that the lawsuit be thrown out. In a December filing (PDF), it argued the court is being asked to “intrude into areas committed to the political branches of the government and violate constitutional separation of powers”. Since foreign policy is decided by the executive branch, not the courts, the lawsuit “should be dismissed as nonjusticiable”, the filing said. Oona Hathaway, a law professor at Yale University Law School, explained that this argument — known as the political question doctrine — is commonly used in foreign affairs cases, including challenges to the use of US military force abroad. “I think there is a good chance that a court will decide that this [US complicity in genocide case] is barred by the political question doctrine,” Hathaway told Al Jazeera. “I will say, I am myself really not a fan of the political question doctrine because I think that it means that legal violations often go unaddressed,” she said. “The truth of the matter is that, if the courts won’t address the possible legal violations, the chance that Congress is likely to do so is extremely slim.” Hathaway questioned whether the federal court would allow the claim to move to the merits stage, where parties present why their arguments should win. But even if that does not happen, Hathaway said the plaintiffs are likely hoping “to start a conversation” and bring attention to the situation in Gaza. “I think it’s part of raising the visibility of these concerns and ensuring that lawmakers and the American public are aware that there [are] potential legal obligations on the United States, not just on Israel, that are relevant to this conflict.” Effort ‘to stop this genocide’ For their part, the plaintiffs have rejected the government’s use of the political question doctrine. “This is not a case about run-of-the-mill policy decisions by the executive branch,” said Gallagher. “This is a case about compliance with
Suspect arrested over South Africa building fire that killed 77
A 29-year-old man told an inquiry of his involvement in starting the fire on August 31, 2023. South African police have arrested a man suspected of starting the fire that killed dozens of people in a building in downtown Johannesburg last year. Police confirmed the arrest on Wednesday, a day after the 29-year-old suspect told an inquiry into the fire that he was involved in starting it. The man is expected to appear before a Johannesburg court “soon” on charges of arson, 77 counts of murder and 120 counts of attempted murder, police said in a statement cited by the Reuters news agency. The blaze on August 31, 2023, ripped through the five-storey Usindiso building in Marshalltown in Johannesburg’s inner city. The building, which was once an apartheid-era “pass laws” office and later a women’s shelter, was then “hijacked”, or taken over, and used for illegal housing. Many of the victims of August’s blaze, including migrants from neighbouring countries, were burned beyond recognition. Emergency services officials said at the time that most of the fire escapes in the building had been locked or chained closed that night, making the blaze even deadlier. Many people jumped out of windows to escape the inferno, according to witnesses and health officials. Some said they had to throw their babies and children out, hoping they would be caught by people below. It was one of the deadliest building fires worldwide in recent years. The fire drew the world’s attention to downtown Johannesburg’s long-running problem with ‘hijacked’ buildings [File: Michele Spatari/AFP] ‘Hijacked’ building In the aftermath of the fire, a commission of inquiry was established to investigate the tragedy. During a hearing of the inquiry on Tuesday, the suspect – who spoke as a witness – admitted to his involvement in starting the fire, local media reported. The suspect said he had started a fire in the crowded housing block to cover up a murder he had committed, which triggered the bigger blaze, South Africa’s Eyewitness News reported. Andy Chinnah, a rights activist with Amnesty International who was present at the inquiry, told the AFP news agency that the man confessed to being a drug user who had befriended a dealer in the building. The man reportedly said he was high on drugs at the time the fire was started, and only later realised the extent of the blaze. He also broke down in tears when telling the inquiry about his actions on the night of the fire, witnesses said. According to Eyewitness News, the inquiry’s evidence leader said the statements made by the man before the inquiry may not necessarily be admissible against him in court. The man also testified that the building was a haven of criminality and was effectively run by drug dealers. The fire drew the world’s attention to downtown Johannesburg’s long-running problem with “hijacked” buildings, structures that have become rundown and taken over by criminal groups who charge fees for staying there. There are hundreds of such buildings in the old centre of the city, officials say. Adblock test (Why?)