April, 05 2024, 10:54am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Email:,info@codepink.org,Medea Benjamin, CODEPINK co-founder:,medea@codepink.org,Jodie Evans, national media coordinator, (310) 621-5635
CODEPINK’s Ann Wright and Medea Benjamin Join a Coalition of Human Rights Activists on International Civilian Aid Flotilla to Break the Siege of Gaza
INTERNATIONAL
CODEPINK's Ann Wright, Medea Benjamin and hundreds of other human rights activists with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition are due to set sail on multiple vessels in mid-April to carry 5,500 tons of aid for Gaza. Their mission, aside from delivering the much-needed humanitarian aid, is to challenge Israel's illegal blockade of Gaza amid dire conditions, including widespread hunger and lack of medical attention intentionally caused by Israeli policies. Time is running out for many in Gaza as Israel threatens an all-out attack on Rafah and experts warn hunger and disease could soon surpass casualties from bombings.
“I have been walking the halls of Congress every day since October, going to rallies every weekend, writing letters of outrage to President Biden every night–and nothing has worked to stop Israel from murdering thousands upon thousands of innocent people. What more can I do? I can go on this flotilla to try to break the criminal siege that Israel has imposed on Gaza,” said CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin.
“President Biden waited six months, waited until 33,000 had been killed, mostly women and children, before picking up the phone and demanding that Netanyahu reduce civilian harm, allow more aid in, and protect aid workers,” said CODEPINK Ret. Army Colonel and former U.S. Diplomat Ann Wright. “But even if Israel allows more humanitarian aid in, it is still bombing Gaza with U.S. bombs, shooting innocent people and imprisoning the 2.2 million people that live in Gaza. Getting humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza is urgent, but it is not sufficient. We must end Israel’s unlawful, deadly blockade as well as Israel’s overall control of Gaza. That’s why we need this flotilla, filled with unarmed civilians, human rights observers from 30 countries, to challenge Israel’s brutal grip on the Gaza strip.”
Israel's longstanding neglect of its responsibility as an occupying power to safeguard the health and wellbeing of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank has escalated into genocidal actions, including using starvation as a weapon of war. Israeli leaders have openly declared intentions to collectively punish Gaza's population. The Freedom Flotilla opposes Israel's authority over aid and will refuse any inspection of our cargo. For safety and effective aid distribution, the flotilla will deploy numerous international humanitarian observers from diverse backgrounds and countries.
Despite air drops of food and temporary docks, Israel continues to block thousands of aid trucks from entering Gaza through land crossings. The International Court of Justice's rulings on January 26 and March 28 emphasize Israel's obligation to ensure the safety and security of Palestinians in Gaza, including facilitating humanitarian assistance without obstruction.
"The International Court of Justice's preliminary measures ordered against Israel are very clear," comments Ismail Moola of South Africa's Palestine Solidarity Alliance, which is part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. "The court's ruling requires the whole world to play their part to stop the genocide unfolding in Gaza, including unobstructed access to vital aid. While our governments fail to lead in these urgently required humanitarian responses, people of conscience and our grassroots organizations must act to take leadership. When governments fail, we sail!"
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition is a non-partisan international coalition of campaigns that stand for freedom and human rights in Palestine. They have sailed since 2010 with the goal of breaking the blockade of Gaza, and in solidarity with Palestinians cries for freedom and equality. Their non-violent direct action missions support the dignity and humanity of Palestinians, working with civil society partners, rather than any party, faction or government.
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.
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Israel Kills Daughter, Infant Grandson of Slain Palestinian Poet Refaat Alareer
"I have beautiful news for you. I wish I could tell you in person. Do you know you have just become a grandfather?" Shaima Alareer wrote to her slain father before she, her baby, and her husband were killed.
Apr 29, 2024
The daughter, infant grandson, and son-in-law of Refaat Alareer—the renowned Palestinian poet assassinated last year in an Israeli airstrike—were killed Friday in another Israel Defense Forces bombing, this one reportedly targeting a building hosting an international relief charity in Gaza City.
Shaima Alareer, her husband Muhammad Abd al-Aziz Siyam, and their 3-month-old son Abd al-Rahman were killed in the strike on a home where they were sheltering in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City, Anadolu Agencyreported.
Siyam was an engineer. Alareer was an accomplished illustrator and the eldest daughter of Refaat Alareer—one of Palestine's most famous poets and professors—who was slain in a December 6 Israeli strike on Shejaiya that also killed his brother, sister, and her four children.
A month before his killing, Alareer posted his now-famous poem, "If I Must Die," on social media. The poem was written for Shaima.
"I want my children to plan, rather than worry about, their future, and to draw beaches or fields or blue skies and a sun in the corner, not warships, pillars of smoke, warplanes, and guns," Refaat Alareer explained a decade ago.
After giving birth, Shaima Alareer wrote to her slain father: "I have beautiful news for you. I wish I could tell you in person. Do you know you have just become a grandfather? Yes, dad. This is your first grandchild. He's more than a month old now. This is your grandchild Abdul Rahman whom I always imagined you would carry. I never imagined I'd lose you so soon before you got to meet him."
The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor found that the strike that killed Refaat Alareer and his relatives was "apparently deliberate" and followed "weeks of death threats" that came after Alareer—co-founder of the Palestinian writers' group We Are Not Numbers—called the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on Israel "legitimate" and mocked uncorroborated reports that Hamas militants baked an Israeli infant in an oven.
Friday's strike came amid relentless Israel attacks on Gaza by air, land, and sea, including a bombing of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza that killed at least 15 people on Saturday. Monday airstrikes targeting three homes killed at least 20 people including numerous children in the southern city of Rafah—where around 1.5 million Palestinians, most of them refugees forced from other parts of Gaza, are bracing for an expected full-scale Israeli invasion.
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Columbia Gives Student Encampment 2PM Deadline to Pack Up—Or Else
One student organizer called the move "just another intimidation tactic from the university."
Apr 29, 2024
This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates...
As Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and progressives around the world praise U.S. student protesters for pressuring their institutions to divest from Israel and its war on the besieged enclave, Columbia University on Monday gave members of a campus encampment a 2:00 pm deadline to leave or face suspension.
The Ivy League university has already suspended over 100 students, who were arrested after president Minouche Shafik invited New York Police Department officers to clear the first encampment. Since Columbia students built the initial encampment, similar demonstrations have popped up at dozens of campuses across the country throughout April.
"As you are probably aware, the dialogue between the university and student leaders of the encampment is, regrettably, at an impasse," says Columbia's notice, noting that finals are beginning and graduation looms. "The university will offer an alternative venue for the demonstrations after the exam period and commencement have concluded. If the encampment is not removed, we will need to initiate disciplinary procedures because of a number of violations of university policies."
"If you voluntarily leave by 2:00 pm, identify yourself to a university official, and sign the provided form where you commit to abide by all university policies through June 30, 2025, or the date of the conferral of your degree, whichever is earlier, you will be eligible to complete the semester in good standing (and will not be placed on suspension) as long as you adhere to this commitment," the document continues.
The notice states that "it is important for you to know that the university has already identified many students in the encampment. If you do not identify yourself upon leaving and sign the form now, you will not be eligible to sign and complete the semester in good standing. If you do not leave by 2:00 pm, you will be suspended pending further investigation."
Suspended students, the document details, are restricted from all university property, are ineligible to participate in any academic or extracurricular activities, and must notify the Department of Public Safety to conduct any official business on campus. The notice adds that those who do not leave the encampment before the deadline could ultimately be expelled.
Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student and the lead negotiator on behalf of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the student coalition that organized the encampment, toldThe New York Times that the deadline is "just another intimidation tactic from the university."
"The university is dealing with this matter as a disciplinary issue, not as a movement to divest from war," Khalil added.
Responding to the notice on social media, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine on Monday urged students not to "sign anything with administration" and called on supporters to show up to protect the encampment at noon.
The group—which is planning a 2:30 pm press conference—said that "Columbia's threat to mass suspend, evict, and possibly expel students with only a few hours' notice violates university rules" but faculty who objected were informed that such policies are not applicable because the administration has declared a "state of emergency."
"We have informed the university that we are prepared to escalate our direct actions if they do not adopt basic standards of conduct for negotiations," the group added. "We must take action to end the true 'state of emergency,' Columbia's complicity in genocide."
The notice came after a statement from Shafik—emailed to students across campus Monday morning—acknowledging the breakdown in talks with student organizers, noting Columbia's offers, declaring that "the encampment has created an unwelcoming environment for many of our Jewish students and faculty," and reaffirming that "the university will not divest from Israel."
It also followed Congressmen Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) leading a Monday letter to the board of trustees expressing disappointment that "Columbia University has not yet disbanded the unauthorized and impermissible encampment of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish activists on campus," and arguing that "the time for negotiation is over; the time for action is now."
Columbia's encampment has drawn national media attention and visits from supportive and unsupportive members of Congress.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)—whose daughter Isra Hirsi was suspended from Columbia University's Barnard College earlier this month—said last week that "contrary to right-wing attacks, these students are joyfully protesting for peace and an end to the genocide taking place in Gaza. I'm in awe of their bravery and courage."
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'This Is Who They Are Targeting': Israeli Bombs Kill At Least 5 Children In Rafah
"This is their objective. This is the generation they're looking for. This is the safe Rafah they talk about," one surviving family member said.
Apr 29, 2024
Israeli airstrikes killed between 20 and 30 people in Rafah Sunday night, including at least five children.
Among the slain children was a one-year-old boy whose parents had been trying to have a child for 10 years before he was finally born.
"This is who they are targeting," the boy's uncle, Mahmoud Abu Taha, said in a video shot by CNN in the courtyard of Rafah's Abu Youssef al-Najjar Hospital. "This is their objective. This is the generation they're looking for. This is the safe Rafah they talk about."
"Nowhere is safe. The entire Gaza Strip is a target."
As Abu Taha spoke, he lifted the lifeless body of his nephew toward the camera.
"His name is Deif-Allah (meaning guest in Arabic) and he was indeed a guest," Abu Taha further toldReuters. "He came as a guest after (his parents) longed for (him) for so long, after 10 years."
"Ten people (were killed), the mother, her daughter, her granddaughters, her grandson, her son-in-law, their daughters and relatives, everyone. They're all gone, all 10 of them," Abu Taha added.
As the threat of a full-scale ground invasion of Rafah still looms, the Israeli Defense Forces have continued to regularly bomb Gaza's southernmost city, where more than 1.5 million Gazans have fled seeking relative safety from Israel's lethal assault on the enclave.
Airstrikes late Sunday into early Monday struck three homes, The Associated Press reported:
The first killed 11 people, including four siblings aged 9 to 27, according to records at the Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital, where the bodies were taken. The second strike killed eight people, including a 33-year-old father and his 5-day-old boy, according to hospital records. The third strike killed three siblings, aged 23, 19, and 12. An Associated Press reporter saw the bodies at the hospital.
According to the video shot by CNN, the name of the five-day-old boy was Ghaith Abu Rayya.
"We are all alone. Nobody cares about us," a man cried out in the video as he opened a small body bag show Abu Rayya's head. He said the rest of the infant's body had been destroyed by the bomb.
Another mourner at the hospital told CNN, "Nowhere is safe. The entire Gaza Strip is a target."
The AP calculated the final death toll from the Rafah bombings at 22, including five children and six women. Reuters reported that 30 were killed.
Israel also carried out deadly airstrikes in other parts of Gaza Sunday night. The IDF killed five people, including women and children, when it fired a missile at the Tartouri family home west of Gaza City, the International Middle East Media Center reported. Another missile hit the home of the Hijazi family south of Gaza City, killing two women.
Another person was killed by an IDF missile that hit a car in central Gaza, while the Palestinian Civil Defense teams discovered 13 bodies amid the ruins of bombed homes in Khan Younis' Al-Amal neighborhood.
All told, the Gaza Health Ministry announced Monday that Israel had carried out three massacres against Gazan families in the last 24 hours, killing 34 and wounding 68. This brings the total death toll from Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip to at least 34,488, though that is likely an undercount as many remain buried beneath rubble and Israel has besieged and bombarded several hospitals, damaging or destroying nearly 84% of the strip's healthcare facilities and making record keeping more difficult.
Israel's devastating campaign in the Gaza Strip began in October 7 in response to Hamas' deadly attack on Southern Israel that killed approximately 1,100 and saw around 240 taken hostage. Prior to October 7, Israel had blockaded Gaza for 16 years and occupied the Palestinian West Bank for 56 years.
Sunday's bombings came as cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas are set to restart Monday, with Egypt hosting Hamas leaders to facilitate the discussion.
"We are hopeful the proposal has taken into account the positions of both sides, has tried to extract moderation from both sides, and we are waiting to have a final decision," Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said at a World Economic Forum meeting on Monday.
In a recent piece published online, Hebrew University Holocaust and genocide scholar Amos Goldberg added his voice to the growing number of human rights and international law experts who have labeled Israel's actions in Gaza a genocide.
"What is happening in Gaza is genocide because the level and pace of indiscriminate killing, destruction, mass expulsions, displacement, famine, executions, the wiping out of cultural and religious institutions, the crushing of elites (including the killing of journalists), and the sweeping dehumanization of the Palestinians—create an overall picture of genocide, of a deliberate conscious crushing of Palestinian existence in Gaza," Goldberg wrote in the essay published in translation on Medium.
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