SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
For Immediate Release
February, 23 2009, 08:02am EDT
Contact:
Melissa Garriga: melissa@codepink.org
50 International Delegates to Arrive in Gaza With Gift Baskets for Gazan Women
Vow to camp on border if blocked, demand its opening
WASHINGTON
A 50-member international delegation will attempt to
cross the Egyptian border into war-torn Gaza early next month, carrying
2,000 gift baskets to pay tribute to the incredibly resilient,
beleaguered Gazan women on International Women's Day, March 8.
Set to depart Cairo March 6, the impressive delegation -- which
includes acclaimed author Alice Walker, former state department
official Ann Wright, CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin and 47 others
from around the world -- expects Egyptian authorities will allow them
to cross into Gaza March 7. The delegation, organized by the U.S.
women's peace group CODEPINK and coming at the invitation of the Gaza
Gender Initiative of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), it the
first delegation of its size and kind to attempt to enter Gaza since
July 2007, when Israel imposed the blockade.
If Egyptian authorities deny the group's entrance, the group will camp
out at the border until they get in, said delegation organizer
Benjamin. Hundreds of aid workers, lawyers, and convoys carrying
humanitarian aid have been denied entrance by Egyptian authorities at
the Rafah border.
Once inside Gaza, the delegation will spend several days meeting with
Palestinian women's groups, delivering aid to relief groups and
witnessing the devastation from the 22-day Israeli invasion.
"We have not, as a planet, been seeking to change the world so that
this insanity cannot continue," said delegate Alice Walker, Pulitzer
Prize-winning novelist and poet. "Going to Gaza is our opportunity to
express solidarity with the people there, to demonstrate the concern we
feel each day for the suffering endured. To remind the people of Gaza
and ourselves that we belong to the same world. We can bring our
witness, one of life's strongest gifts."
The delegation will pay tribute to the women of Gaza on the United Nations' International Women's Day,
which calls on the world to focus on the needs and contributions of
women. CODEPINK felt inspired to dedicate the day to Gaza women just
two months following the devastating Israeli assault on the occupied
land that killed more than 1,300, including 437 children, and injured
more than 5,000.
On February 20, CODEPINK put out a call
to its members to help fund $10 gift baskets for the women of Gaza. In
two days, the group collected enough donations to take gift baskets to
2,000 women.
"We have been overwhelmed by response toward our initiative," Benjamin
said. "We thought we'd take 15 people on the delegation to Gaza and we
have 50. We thought we'd take 200 gift baskets, and we're taking 2,000!
American women feel tremendous compassion toward the women of Gaza and
are ready for a U.S. policy based on respect for the human rights of
all people in the region."
Benjamin and Wright returned from a trip to Gaza earlier this month
where they witnessed the terrible devastation (read Wright's piece on
her trip on Air America here.
They found Gazans anxious to have foreign delegations visit, witness
and learn about their plight and push for an end to the blockade.
"The Israeli attack came after 18 months of a crippling blockade that
had already left the Palestinian population hungry, sick, weak, and
suffering from a catastrophic situation," Wright said. "We must not
only provide massive humanitarian aid, but lift the blockade that is
keeping the people of Gaza under siege."
WHAT: 50 international delegates to camp out at Gaza border until allowed inside; plan to meet with women's groups, call for end to blockade
WHEN: March 6 to March 12, 2009
WHERE: March 6, leaving Cairo; March 7, Rafah, Egypt border crossing into Rafah, Gaza
WHEN: March 6 to March 12, 2009
WHERE: March 6, leaving Cairo; March 7, Rafah, Egypt border crossing into Rafah, Gaza
For more information and interviews, please call Medea Benjamin,
CODEPINK co-founder, at 415-235-6517 or Jean Stevens, CODEPINK media
coordinator, at 508-769-2138.
CODEPINK is a women-led grassroots organization working to end U.S. wars and militarism, support peace and human rights initiatives, and redirect our tax dollars into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming programs.
(818) 275-7232LATEST NEWS
Trump Rebuked for Bypassing Congress With $8.6 Billion Weapons Sale to Israel and Gulf Allies
"The vaults are open and the arms trade is thriving before the war and after it," said one Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
May 03, 2026
As the US voting public continues to express its discontent over the disastrous war of choice against Iran that US President Donald Trump launched just over two months ago, fresh criticism followed after weekend reporting revealed the administration skirted congressional review to approve an $8.6 billion weapons deal with the United Arab Emirates and other allies in the Middle East.
Announced Friday night quietly by the US State Department, as the New York Times reports, the "sales would entail the transfer of rockets to Israel, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates and air-defense equipment to Qatar and Kuwait."
According to the Times:
Under the terms of the deal with Qatar, the Gulf country would pay more than $4 billion for American-made Patriot missile interceptors — global stockpiles of which have dwindled during the war with Iran.
Israel, the Emirates and Qatar would receive an Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, which fires laser-guided rockets. Kuwait also purchased an advanced aerial defense system for about $2.5 billion.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio expedited the deals under an emergency provision allowing the “immediate sale” of the weapons, the State Department said, bypassing standard congressional review and prompting criticism from Democratic lawmakers. This is the third time the second Trump administration has invoked an emergency authorization during the Iran war to bypass Congress on arms sales.
"No comment," said Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in an eye-rolling response to the news on social media.
After a commenter suggested that "America opened the door to war for [the countries taking part in the sale] so they would open their treasuries and the Israeli-American arms trade would boom after a slump," ElBaradei seemed to agree.
"The vaults are open, and the arms trade is thriving before the war and after it," he said.
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch and now a visiting professor at Princeton University, said: "Trump is bypassing Congress to fast-track arms sales to the United Arab Emirates, apparently without receiving any promise that the UAE would stop arming the genocidal Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan."
The RSF has been accused of atrocities in the ongoing Sudanese civil war, and the backing it has received from the US, with the UAE as its closely allied proxy, has been the source of outrage and criticism.
Keep ReadingShow Less
After More Private Social Security Data Exposed by Team Trump, Where Will GOP 'Draw the Line'?
"Over and over again, the Trump administration is exposing private Social Security data," said one watchdog group who called the leak of personal information "a goldmine for identity thieves" and other fraudsters.
May 03, 2026
A newly reported failure of the Trump administration's ability to handle sensitive private information in the social programs it is tasked with operating triggered a fresh wave of anger over the weekend after it was revealed that healthcare providers' Social Security numbers were made public as part of a faulty Medicare portal rollout.
The Washington Post discovered the compromised database and alerted the administration last week, before publishing a story about it on Friday, after efforts had been made to protect the sensitive information from further compromise.
According to the Post:
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last year created a directory to help seniors look up which doctors and medical providers accept which insurance plans, framing it as an overdue improvement and part of the Trump administration’s initiative to modernize health care technology.
But a publicly accessible database used to populate the directory contains some of the providers’ Social Security numbers, linked to their names and other identifying information. For at least several weeks, CMS made the database available for public use as part of its data transparency efforts.
While the reporting noted that the files were "not immediately visible to users who [visited] the provider directory," lawmakers and experts said the compromised information would be a treasure trove for fraudsters.
“The more we learn about how the Trump Administration handles the people’s most sensitive data, the clearer their incompetence becomes."
Critics pounced on the new reporting, calling it "yet another mess-up by the Team Trump" and only the latest evidence that the administration cannot and should not be trusted to protect the nation's most successful anti-poverty programs or the sensitive personal data of the American people who entrust the government with that information.
"Over and over again, the Trump administration is exposing private Social Security data," said Social Security Works, an advocacy group that serves as a public watchdog for the nation's social programs.
The compromised database, said the group, "is a goldmine for identity thieves, scammers, and foreign governments. And it is undermining the very foundation of our Social Security system."
"This is a failure by this administration," said Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) in response to the reporting. "Exposing Social Security numbers, whether patients or providers, is unacceptable."
Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the House committee that oversees the Medicare program, put the onus on his Republican colleagues in Congress.
“The more we learn about how the Trump Administration handles the people’s most sensitive data, the clearer their incompetence becomes,” Neal told the Post in a statement. “Do House Republicans need to see their own data exposed before they do right by their constituents and act?”
In March, as Common Dreams reported at the time, a whistleblower filed a complaint with the Social Security Administration accusing a former staffer with Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run for a time by right-wing billionaire Elon Musk, of trying to share information from SSA databases with his private employer.
Since the outset of Trump's second term, DOGE's meddling with Social Security and Trump's undermining of the program have been the source of deep anger and concerns among the program's defenders.
In a social media post on Saturday citing the whistleblower allegations from March, Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) said, "For more than a year, 'DOGE' has been combing through the American people's records. They want to use your data to overturn elections and profit in the private sector. Enough! This administration must be held accountable for this massive data breach!
On Friday, responding to the Post's new reporting about the compromised database of physicians' private information, Larsen condemned Republicans for their ongoing and pervasive failures in the face of Trump's malfeasance and incompetence.
DOGE, said Larsen, "has been in your data for more than a year. We just learned that physicians' Social Security numbers were publicly exposed in an online portal launched by ‘DOGE’ officials."
"If this isn't enough for Republicans to act," he asked, "where will they draw the line?"
Keep ReadingShow Less
'The World Is Proud of You, Guido': American Peace Activist Honored in Iranian Lego Video
"Your dignity stands taller than the place you stood, and it will live forever in our memory."
May 02, 2026
Explosive Media, one of the independent outfits generating the viral videos about the war in Iran, created a short piece on Saturday to honor the American father of two who climbed atop a bridge in the Washington, DC this weekend to demand an end to the conflict.
"In honor of Guido Reichstadter, the man who climbed the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge to make his voice of protest heard," the group said in a post alongside the video short. "Your dignity stands taller than the place you stood, and it will live forever in our memory."
As Common Dreams reported, Reichstadter climbed the bridge wearing a t-shirt that simply read "End War" beginning on Friday afternoon, remained in protest overnight, and told one reporter he intends to remain "for a few days at least."
In honor of Guido Reichstadter,
the man who climbed the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge to make his voice of protest heard.
Your dignity stands taller than the place you stood,
and it will live forever in our memory. 🫡🏔️ pic.twitter.com/WANYzS7kIh
— Explosive Media (@ExplosiveMediaa) May 2, 2026
Reichstadter said he climbed the 168-foot-tall bridge “because the government of the United States is engaged in acts of mass murder in my name. And I refuse to be complicit in that.”
"The world is proud of you, Guido," Explosive Media said in a separate post on social media. "Soon, side by side, we will celebrate peace and victory together."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular