Pictures released by US central command come after satellite photos showed US navy ship offshore with floating platform being built alongside it
The US military has released pictures it says show that a pier to help bring more aid into the besieged Gaza Strip is now under construction.
The images show what appears to be a large metal construction with workers in military uniform dotted along the floating platforms.
Continue reading...Regime’s effort to exploit US campus crackdown damaged by treatment of Toomaj Salehi
An Iranian court’s decision to pass the death sentence against Toomaj Salehi, a popular Iranian rapper and regime opponent, has led to international protests and damaged Iran’s fledgling efforts to exploit crackdowns on unrest in US university campuses over Gaza as an abuse of human rights.
Crowds gathered in the US, Europe and Canada on Sunday to support Salehi, while dozens of political prisoners in Iran’s Ghezel Hesar prison issued a statement condemning the death sentence, calling it “the culmination of gross human rights violations in Iran”. Salehi has also won the support of major US rappers, as well as human rights groups.
Continue reading...Calls for divestment continue despite hundreds of arrests, with more demonstrations planned for Democratic national convention
Student protests on US university campuses over Israel’s war on Gaza showed little sign of letting up over the weekend, with protesters vowing to continue until their demands for US educational bodies to disentangle from companies profiting from the conflict are met.
In what is perhaps the most significant student movement since the anti-Vietnam campus protests of the late 1960s, the conflict between pro-Palestinian students and university administrators has revealed an entire subset of conflicts.
Continue reading...US president and Israeli PM talk as Israel vows to invade Gaza city despite global concern for 1 million Palestinians sheltering there
The White House on Sunday said Joe Biden had again spoken with Benjamin Netanyahu as pressure builds on Israel and Hamas to reach a deal that would free some Israeli hostages and bring a ceasefire in the nearly seven-month-long war in Gaza.
There were no immediate details of the conversation, which took place as Israel vows to invade Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah despite global concern for more than 1 million Palestinians sheltering there. The US secretary of state is returning to the Middle East on Monday.
Continue reading...US secretary of state to discuss avoiding regional conflict amid fears about Israeli ground invasion of Rafah
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will travel to Saudi Arabia to try to restart fraught ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel and discuss efforts to prevent spiralling regional conflict, while other senior US officials claimed Israel was willing to listen to their fears about a ground invasion of Gaza’s southernmost city.
A delegation from Hamas, expected in Cairo in parallel to Blinken’s visit, said they would provide a response to an Israeli proposal focused on an initial hostage release.
Continue reading...Mumia Abu-Jamal tells New York City students they’re on the right side of history by deciding ‘not to be silent and to speak out’
In a powerful and rousing live address to students at the City University of New York (CUNY) on Friday night, the incarcerated Black political activist Mumia Abu-Jamal praised the pro-Palestinian movement growing at US colleges as being on the right side of history.
“It is a wonderful thing that you have decided not to be silent and decided to speak out against the repression that you see with your own eyes,” Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther, said while calling from Pennsylvania’s Mahanoy state prison. “You are part of something massive, and you are part of something that is on the right side of history.
Continue reading...Israel has started to meet commitments it made to Joe Biden on allowing aid into the north of Gaza, says White House national security spokesperson
The Gaza health ministry on Sunday reported at least 66 Palestinians had been killed in the past 24 hours.
In central Gaza, Mohammed al-Hattab said he found his one-year-old baby in the rubble after an Israeli airstrike hit the Nuseirat refugee camp over the weekend.
Continue reading...Tents, debris and personal items from the Nova festival, where 364 people died on 7 October, form shocking exhibit on Wall Street
While New York was preoccupied with student protests over the US’s support of Israel’s war in Gaza last week, another aspect of how the city with the largest Jewish population outside Israel is coming to terms with bloodshed in the Middle East was being prepared.
On Wall Street, a gruelling exhibition has opened detailing the horrific attack on the Nova music festival by Hamas terrorists on 7 October, in which 364 people were murdered, many wounded and 44 taken hostage.
Continue reading...A peaceful action at the school near Atlanta, Georgia, was met with violent use of force and 28 arrests of students and faculty
Clifton Crais, a history professor, was walking to class at Emory University in Decatur, Georgia, outside Atlanta, on Thursday shortly before 10am when several students rushed up to him.
“Please, please contact president Fenves,” they begged, referring to the university president, Gregory Fenves. “Ask him to not call the police.” Several dozen protesters seeking the university’s divestment from Israel and opposing a $109m police training center colloquially known as “Cop City” had set up tents on the school’s grassy quad – the size of a football field – several hours before.
Continue reading...US senator says Israeli prime minister is using antisemitism to distract attention from ‘extremist and racist government’ policies
Bernie Sanders has hit back fiercely at Benjamin Netanyahu over the Israeli prime minister’s claim that US universities were being overrun by antisemitism on a scale comparable to the rise of Nazism in Germany.
In a video posted on X, the progressive senator from Vermont – who is Jewish – accused Netanyahu of “insult[ing] the intelligence of the American people” by using antisemitism to distract attention from the policies of his “extremist and racist government” in the military offensive in Gaza.
Continue reading...Islamist group release new video apparently showing two hostages as UN warns famine thresholds will be breached within six weeks
Hamas has said it is studying the latest Israeli counterproposal regarding a potential ceasefire in Gaza, a day after media reports said a delegation from Egypt had arrived in Israel in an attempt to jumpstart stalled negotiations.
The signs of renewed truce talks come as the UN warned that “famine thresholds in Gaza will be breached within the next six weeks” unless massive food assistance arrives.
Continue reading...As hostilities ramp up, Israelis evacuated from the country’s north say Hezbollah must be pushed back to protect communities from its rockets
For the Israeli communities evacuated from the country’s far north in the aftermath of 7 October, there is no longer any doubt about whether full-scale war with Hezbollah in Lebanon is going to happen. For most people, the only question is when.
Nissan Zeevi, 40, has spent the past six months working as a first responder in Kfar Giladi, a kibbutz that grows apples and avocados. His wife and two young boys are living near the Sea of Galilee and are yet to come home; it’s just him, bulldog Joy, and his M16 rifle, keeping an eye on the Lebanese villages and Hezbollah outposts clearly visible from the garden, just a few kilometres away.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our coverage of the Middle East crisis here
Three people have been killed in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon on Saturday, including two members of Hezbollah, AFP reports, citing statements from the militant group and official media.
Hezbollah released statements mourning the deaths of two fighters from the villages of Kafr Kila and Khiam, saying they had been “martyred on the road to Jerusalem”.
Continue reading...Professors at Emory University arrested as campuses follow Columbia’s lead in demanding ceasefire and divestment
At least 40 pro-Palestine protest camps have arisen across US campuses following Columbia University’s example earlier this month, as the New York school’s senate called for an investigation into its leadership, the New York Times reported.
While many remain provocative though peaceful, demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and divestment by their institutions from companies with ties to Israel, hundreds of students and outside protesters have been arrested, and there have been some fierce clashes with police.
Continue reading...Cancellation of World Voices festival comes days after organization cancelled 2024 edition of its annual awards ceremony
The free speech organization PEN America has cancelled its World Voices festival after several authors withdrew their participation over the non-profit’s response to Israel’s military attacks against Gaza.
The festival was scheduled to take place on 8 May in New York City and Los Angeles. A prominent group of writers including Naomi Klein, a Guardian columnist; Isabella Hammad; and Zaina Arafat signed an open letter to PEN America in March announcing their decision not to participate in this year’s festival.
Continue reading...Tower Hamlets criticised by its own mayor for taking down murals, while Redbridge reviews artwork after complaints
Council authorities have moved to take down pro-Palestine murals in east London, while another is being reviewed after complaints were made by pro-Israel lawyers.
The latter, which depicts four journalists standing against a backdrop of ruins and under the words “Heroes of Palestine”, went up last month in Redbridge, east London, as local authorities came under pressure over similar murals.
Continue reading...Top UN demining official outlines scale of devastation as Egypt officials fly into Israel in attempt to revive ceasefire talks
Israel’s war in Gaza has created 37m tonnes of debris, much of it laced with unexploded bombs, which could take more than a decade to remove, a top UN demining official said.
Nearly seven months into the war, there is an average 300kg of rubble a square metre of land in Gaza, Pehr Lodhammar, the former United Nationals Mine Action Service chief for Iraq, told a news conference.
Continue reading...War has left estimated 37m tons of debris in area, requiring years of work with ‘100 trucks’, says Pehr Lodhammar
A premature Palestinian infant, rescued from her mother’s womb by an emergency caesarean section shortly after the woman was killed by an Israeli airstrike, has died, her uncle said Friday.
Associated Press reports Rami al-Sheikh said Sabreen Jouda died in a Gaza hospital on Thursday after her health deteriorated and medical teams were unable to save her.
Continue reading...University and colleagues condemn detention of law professor, the first time an academic has been held over speech related to work
The arrest and interrogation of a leading Palestinian legal scholar based at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem marks a new threat to civil liberties in Israel, her legal team and employer have said.
Prof Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian was detained by police on the afternoon of 18 April over comments made on a podcast more than a month earlier and held overnight in conditions her lawyers described as “terrible” and designed to humiliate.
Continue reading...Infant dies five days after caesarean delivery following death of mother in Israeli airstrike in Rafah
A premature Palestinian baby rescued from her mother’s womb shortly after the woman was killed in an Israeli airstrike has died, the baby’s uncle has said.
Sabreen Jouda died in a Gaza hospital on Thursday after her health deteriorated and medical teams were unable to save her, Rami al-Sheikh said on Friday.
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