June, 29 2011, 09:58am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Athens: Donna Nevel, +30-694-266-3852;
New York: Leslie Cagan, 347-581-1782
Twitter @USBoatToGaza
US Boat Rejects Israeli Army Allegation of Violence
Passengers Reiterate Nonviolence Pledge, Openness to Neutral Inspection
WASHINGTON
Passengers on the U.S. boat to Gaza rejected as ludicrous and provocative an unsubstantiated accusation by the Israeli Army that passengers in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla plan to kill IDF soldiers with chemical weapons. The Jerusalem Post reported on Tuesday an Israeli Defense Forces allegation that some passengers on the flotilla had prepared sacks of sulfur which they planned to pour on Israeli soldiers.
"Passengers on the U.S. boat have long histories of responding to injustice nonviolently and peacefully. Every participant in the flotilla has signed a pledge of nonviolence," said Melissa Lane, a passenger on the U.S. boat. "We have been engaged in nonviolence training for the last several days. We have no weapons, and we have repeatedly offered to have our boats inspected by neutral authorities. We are absolutely not seeking any confrontation with the Israeli military. We just want to sail to Gaza."
"These spurious claims are merely an attempt to establish a justification to attack us," said Brad Taylor, another passenger on the U.S. boat. "Instead of fabricating horror stories about the hundreds of unarmed civilians in the flotilla, Israel should come clean about what it is they have in store for us. It is safe to conclude that the only chemical weapons, including tear gas and smoke bombs, that will ever be brought on board our ships to Gaza are those that the Israeli military apparently intends to fire at us."
"This is truly a shameful and desperate tactic on the part of the Israeli government. They know full well that the passengers have no intention of being anything but peaceful" said passenger Paki Wieland.
For regular updates follow the US Boat to Gaza on Twitter: https://twitter.com/usboattogaza and visit the US Boat to Gaza website.
Free Gaza is a human rights group founded in 2006. Our mission is to break the Israel's illegal siege on Gaza's 1.8 million civilians, since it inflicts collective punishment on the Palestinians who live there and has destroyed its economy. Free Gaza believes in direct action in confronting Israel's abuse of Palestinians using non-violent means and has found these voyages to be one of the most effective ways to alert the world to the prison-like conditions of Gaza. Ultimately, there is no better example of direct action than Free Gaza's sustained attempts to break the siege on Gaza which Israel claims it no longer occupies
LATEST NEWS
US, Israel 'Going Gaza on Iran' as Death Toll Tops 500 Amid New Massacres
"This is carpet-bombing, which has struck everything from playgrounds, to an emergency services HQ, schools, media buildings, and medical facilities," said one observer.
Mar 02, 2026
US and Israeli forces were accused Monday of "seemingly indiscriminate" bombing of Iran as the country's Red Crescent said that at least 555 people have been killed amid reports of fresh mass casualty attacks across the country.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society said at least 555 people have been killed so far during three days of a US and Israeli war of choice aimed at toppling Iran's long-ruling Islamist government. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday continued to insist that the war is not about regime change, but rather enduring yet bogus claims that Iran is close to developing nuclear weapons.
Those killed include many civilians as well as former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei and dozens of senior government and military officials. Iranian counterattacks have killed half a dozen US troops, 9 Israelis, and a handful of people in Gulf nations allied with the United States.
An attack on the Abbasabad Police Station—where anti-government protesters were allegedly tortured during the recent deadly crackdown—in Niloofar Square in central Tehran killed at least 20 people, local media reported.
"This is carpet-bombing, which has struck everything from playgrounds, to an emergency services HQ, schools, media buildings, and medical facilities," documentary filmmaker Robert Inlakesh said in a social media post showing the aftermath of the strike.
Local residents said that the site was attacked for the second time in three days. This was part of broader US-Israeli strikes on Tehran, including attacks on the Revolutionary Court, Defense Ministry, other government sites, and civilian infrastructure including at least eight medical facilities and state media outlets.
Carpet bombing in Iran is stark reminder of how air superiority shapes modern warfare. In May 2025, Pakistan faced similar escalation from India—yet credible air defense and a combat-ready air force altered strategic calculus decisively.
Invest in air power, instead of proxies! pic.twitter.com/H3rx2tYS7T
— Sarah Khan (@sarahkhanjourno) March 2, 2026
Video footage of another attack on central Tehran—this one in Ferdowsi Square—showed devastation from what political analyst Trita Parsi called "seemingly indiscriminate" bombing.
"Increasingly, Israel and the US appear to be following the Gaza playbook, having failed to achieve a quick regime implosion," Parsi said on social media.
Parsi also shared video of a distraught woman who described an apparent so-called "double-tap" strike, a common tactic used by the US, Israel, and other militaries in which an initial bombing is followed up with a second one in a bid to kill and injure survivors and first responders.
"They killed everyone," the woman said of the attackers. "They dropped the first bomb, then when people went to help, they dropped another bomb."
Local and international media reported at least 35 people killed in multiple attacks on targets in the southern Fars province, which neighbors Hormozgan province, where the deadliest massacre of the young war took place on Saturday. Officials said at least 175 people—mostly children—were killed in a strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' elementary school in Minab.
Several hours later, a missile strike on a gymnasium in Lamerd, Pars province, where dozens of teenage girls were playing sports reportedly killed at least 18 people.
"Like the destruction of the school in Minab, basic protections to safeguard the lives of civilians in war either failed or were disregarded, leading to catastrophic loss among Iran’s civilian population," the National Iranian American Council said in a statement Monday.
Iranian Red Crescent chief Pirhossein Kolivand said in a video posted on social media Sunday that “the Minab school incident has no comparison with any other incident, even in Gaza."
Comparisons with Gaza—where Israel's genocidal assault has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing since October 2023 and the coastal strip in ruins—have been numerous.
Condemning what it called the "barbarous" and "treacherous" US-Israeli attacks on Iran, Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based resistance group targeted by Israel during the Gaza war, said, “This aggression confirms the full and direct partnership between America and Israel in planning and execution, not only in the war against the Islamic Republic, but also in all the wars and crimes the region is facing, in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen.”
Ori Goldberg, an Israeli political analyst, said that, in Israeli society, "there’s a sense of triumphalism, of having attacked an enemy regime."
"Not really because we’re greatly invested in the future of the Iranian people, but because, through the genocide on Gaza, we’ve devalued human life,” he added.
Parsi said that "Israel appears to be going Gaza on Iran."
The renewed US and Israeli attacks on Iran follow last year's limited war on the country that left thousands of Iranians dead or wounded, including at least 436 civilians killed and over 2,000 others injured, according to officials and activists.
United Nations officials and international human rights defenders were also among those condemning the US-Israeli war of choice.
Addressing the Minab school strike, UNESCO—the UN's educational, scientific, and cultural agency—said that "the killing of pupils in a place dedicated to learning constitutes a grave violation of the protection afforded to schools under international humanitarian law."
UN Messenger of Peace and Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai asserted that “all states and parties must uphold their obligations under international law to protect civilians and safeguard schools," adding that "every child deserves to live and learn in peace.”
In the United States—where Democratic and a handful of Republican lawmakers are reportedly drafting a war powers resolution in a bid to rein in President Donald Trump's aggression—Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) took to social media to note the "over 555 Iranians already killed by US-Israeli bombs, including at least 165 at a girls' elementary school."
"At least four US service members are dead," she also wrote, before that figure rose to six. "Any member of Congress who votes against the war powers resolution is voting for more of this."
The Not Above the Law coalition was among the civil society groups urging Congress to pass an Iran war powers resolution.
“President Trump has launched deadly military strikes against Iran without congressional approval, in flagrant violation of the Constitution," the coalition's co-chairs said Monday. "Article I, Section 8 is crystal clear: Only Congress can declare war. Yet Trump has secured neither a declaration of war nor congressional authorization for military force."
"Trump’s reckless unilateral action puts American lives and global security at risk while trampling the foundational principle that no president is above the law," Not Above the Law added. “Congress must act immediately. Pass war powers resolutions to reject this unconstitutional power grab and reassert its authority over matters of war and peace. The rule of law demands it."
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'Enough Is Enough': Sanders, Khanna Propose Billionaires Tax to Raise $4.4 Trillion
"In a democratic society, we cannot tolerate 60% of our people living paycheck to paycheck—struggling to pay for housing, food, and healthcare—while 938 billionaires have become $1.5 trillion richer."
Mar 02, 2026
The US economy has reached a breaking point, suggested Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday as he and Rep. Ro Khanna introduced legislation to force billionaires pay their fair share in taxes.
"We can no longer tolerate a corrupt tax code that enables billionaires to pay a lower tax rate than the average worker," said Sanders (I-Vt.) "In a democratic society, we cannot tolerate 60% of our people living paycheck to paycheck—struggling to pay for housing, food, and healthcare—while 938 billionaires have become $1.5 trillion richer. We cannot continue a trend in which, over the past 50 years, $79 trillion in wealth in our country has been redistributed from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. Enough is enough. Billionaires cannot have it all."
The taxes of fewer than 1,000 people in the US would be impacted by the Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act, but just a 5% annual wealth tax on those households would be able to raise an estimated $4.4 trillion in revenue over the next decade, said Sanders' office—a fact that underscores the immense wealth of the 938 billionaires who would be targeted by the bill.
Those 938 people have a collective net worth of $8.2 trillion, and Sanders and Khanna (D-Calif.) pointed out how the immense fortunes of some high-profile billionaires would be affected by the bill.
According to the lawmakers, Tesla CEO and President Donald Trump ally Elon Musk, whose $833 billion net worth makes him richer than the bottom 53% of US households, would owe $42 billion in taxes—an unfathomable amount to the vast majority of Americans, but a comparatively tiny tax bill for Musk, who would be left with about $792 billion.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would each owe just $11 billion compared to their $220 billion and $218 billion net worth.
The wealth of billionaires has risen rapidly in recent years, increasing by about 20% in 2025, according to Americans for Tax Fairness.
“We have a deep economic divide in this country. On one side, places like Silicon Valley are generating extreme wealth. On the other side, families are struggling to cover the cost of healthcare, housing, and basic needs," said Khanna. "We can tax billionaires a modest amount to make sure everyone has a fair chance while keeping our innovative engine. That is why I am proud to join Sen. Bernie Sanders to lead the Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act."
With the revenue collected from the wealth tax, said Sanders and Khanna, the federal government would:
- Provide a $3,000 direct payment to every man, woman, and child in a household making $150,000 or less;
- Reverse the $1.1 trillion in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act cuts in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which are estimated to cause more than 50,000 unnecessary deaths;
- Expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing care for millions of seniors;
- Build, rehabilitate, and preserve over 7 million affordable homes to eliminate the affordable housing gap and end homelessness;
- Ensure no family pays more than 7% of their income on childcare;
- Establish a $60,000 minimum annual salary for every public school teacher in America; and
- Expand Medicaid home health care for seniors and people with disabilities.
Khanna and Sanders emphasized that "no one who has a net worth of less than $1 billion would pay a penny more in taxes under this bill."
Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, economists at University of California, Berkeley, released an analysis Monday that found the bill "would raise approximately $4.4 trillion over a decade and close the gap between wealth growth for billionaires and income growth for the average American family that has existed since the early 1980s."
"Democracies become oligarchies when wealth becomes too concentrated," said the economists. "The US has now reached an unprecedented level of top wealth concentration. US billionaire wealth has exploded in recent years, more than doubling since 2019. A billionaire wealth tax is the most direct policy tool to curb the growing concentration of wealth among the billionaire class in the United States."
"Combining top wealth taxation with policies to rebuild middle class economic security," said Saez and Zucman, "is what the United States needs to ensure vibrant and equitable growth for the future."
As Jeff Stein wrote at the Washington Post, the proposal of a wealth tax—which is supported by roughly two-thirds of Americans, according to polls—could become a litmus test in the 2028 presidential election, in which Khanna has been named as a potential candidate.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has also been named as a possible Democratic contender and has expressed vehement opposition to a billionaire tax that's been proposed in his state, putting him at odds with about 90% of Democratic voters there and three-quarters of all Californians.
Sanders—who supports the California measure—said that "it is time to enact a wealth tax on billionaires and use this revenue to address some of the major crises facing working families, the children, the elderly, the sick, and the most vulnerable.”
“At a time of unprecedented income and wealth inequality," he said, "this legislation demands that the billionaire class in America finally pay their fair share of taxes so that we can create an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1%."
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Platner Wins Second Senate Endorsement as Gallego Praises Him as 'Fighter' for Working Families
"This is the candidate that can win," the Arizona senator said.
Mar 02, 2026
Senate hopeful Graham Platner has picked up a critical endorsement in Maine's Democratic primary as he seeks to take down five-term Republican incumbent Susan Collins in November.
In a move challenging the party establishment, freshman Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) has endorsed the 41-year-old Marine veteran over the state's Democratic governor, Janet Mills, who has the backing of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and other leading centrists.
Platner, a proponent of progressive economic policies like Medicare for All and an extreme wealth tax, and an outspoken critic of US military interventionism, already has the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Now, as a recent poll shows him comfortably in the lead for the nomination and more likely than Mills to win in the general, Gallego said he thinks Platner's approach is the best chance Democrats have to nab Maine in November, which will be essential in their bid to flip the Senate blue.
“I think right now what people need and want is authenticity and a certain level of populism that they’re not going to get from Gov. Mills and they’re certainly not going to get from Collins,” Gallego told the Washington Post. “This is the candidate that can win.”
In a post to social media, he elaborated that Platner, "is the kind of fighter Maine hasn’t seen in a long time, someone who tells you exactly what he thinks, doesn’t owe anything to the special interests, and wakes up every day thinking about working families."
Gallego, who is also a Marine veteran, noted Platner's similar background, saying he "reflects the grit and independence that defines Maine, and that’s exactly why I’m proud to endorse him."
Platner's unexpected ascendancy in Maine has been described as a challenge to the conventional wisdom held by some Democratic strategists that moderation is the key to mass appeal, especially in a purple state. Platner described Gallego's endorsement as a sign that this narrative is starting to fray.
“I’ve never heard the powers that be in Washington refer to Sen. Gallego as some kind of radical, and I think that he understands my actual politics and what we’re doing," Platner told the Post.
The Post noted that Gallego has endorsed other candidates favored by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in competitive primaries, including Reps. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) and Haley Stevens (D-Mich.).
Thanking Gallego in a post to social media, Platner said, "Together in the Senate we will break the power of the billionaire class and end forever wars."
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