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
ifnotnow
Nearly 100 (and Counting) Dead as Israel Launches Large-Scale Ground Invasion of Gaza City
"The only way to halt this devastation," said one advocate, "is to end the flow of weapons that Israel relies on to fuel its genocide."
Sep 16, 2025
The Jewish-led rights group IfNotNow was among those condemning Israel's ground invasion of Gaza City on Tuesday, warning that the Israel Defense Forces have left more than 1 million people in the northern city and its surrounding towns with an "impossible choice": "flee once more without anywhere safe to go or face indiscriminate bombs and bullets from Israeli forces."
At least 91 people in Gaza City were killed by the latter on Tuesday as two divisions of the IDF launch ground attacks across the city, with a third expected to join them in the coming days.
Israeli forces have ordered people in the city to leave for the so-called "humanitarian zone" of al-Mawasi in the south, but the area has also been bombarded repeatedly—including an attack two weeks ago, when eight children as young as 3 years old were killed while lining up for water, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
The Israeli government last month approved the takeover of Gaza City, with the aim of taking control of all of Gaza and ethnically cleansing the entire exclave, and since then about 150,000 people have been forced to flee south while the IDF has stepped up aerial and artillery attacks, destroying whole neighborhoods.
At Al Jazeera on Tuesday, Tareq Abu Azzoum described "relentless bombardment from military operations that are leaving the landscape completely uninhabitable" in Gaza City.
"The Israeli military has deployed different military tactics to force people to leave Gaza City to the south—most notably excessive firepower, seen in the deliberate destruction of high-rise buildings," said Abu Azzoum.
“It is inhumane to expect nearly half a million children battered and traumatized by over 700 days of unrelenting conflict to flee one hellscape to end up in another."
Israeli human rights groups including the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and Physicians for Human Rights called on officials to lift the mass evacuation order and said it constitutes ethnic cleansing and forced displacement.
Tess Ingram, a spokesperson for UNICEF, said the mass displacement of families is a "deadly threat for the most vulnerable."
“It is inhumane to expect nearly half a million children battered and traumatized by over 700 days of unrelenting conflict to flee one hellscape to end up in another,” she said, adding that the IDF's escalation in Gaza City forced nutrition centers in the city to shut down this week, "cutting off children from a third of the remaining treatment sites that can save their lives."
Abu Azzoum described "tragically consistent" scenes of Palestinians—almost 70,000 in the past few days—loading whatever belongings they have left into vehicles and donkey carts to flee their homes:
Many people said in the initial days of the ground operation that they would not leave Gaza City. But, right now, Israel is burning the ground. They’re destroying every kind of civilian infrastructure and have cut off aid deliveries to the city, all for one clear purpose—to relocate them into the southern part of Gaza.
Some people are unable to afford the cost of transportation. We see exhausted faces, mothers carrying their babies, elderly people on foot.
What is so devastating to see is the vulnerability of children who have lost their parents and found themselves on the move again. They’re struggling to find any patch of land where they can stay in the absence of their parents and are completely reliant on strangers to survive.
At IfNotNow, executive director Morriah Kaplan called the ground assault on Gaza City "a chillul hashem, a desecration of God's name."
"With just days until Rosh Hashanah, we watch in horror as the Israeli military bombs and invades Gaza City, putting the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in mortal danger," said Kaplan, adding that the invasion "spells almost certain death for the remaining hostages" who were kidnapped by Hamas from Israel on October 7, 2023.
"The Israeli government’s willingness to sacrifice their own citizens to continue its campaign of destruction is devastatingly clear," said Kaplan. "It is critical that we say loudly and unequivocally: This invasion won’t make a single Jew anywhere in the world safer."
She called on international funders of the Israeli military—including the largest, the United States—to take immediate action to stop Israel's assault on Gaza, which a United Nations commission said Tuesday is a genocide.
"The only way to halt this devastation," said Kaplan, "is to end the flow of weapons that Israel relies on to fuel its genocide."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Jewish-Led Protest Outside Trump Hotel Demands End to US Support for Gaza Genocide
"The carnage the Israeli government is inflicting on the people of Gaza is unbearable," said IfNotNow. "For our collective sake. For the sake of those suffering. For the sake of each of our souls, we say NO MORE."
Aug 05, 2025
Dozens were arrested outside of the Trump International Hotel in New York City late Monday at a Jewish-led protest demanding an end to U.S. support for Israel's destruction of the Gaza Strip and starvation of its Palestinian population.
The protest was organized by the American Jewish group IfNotNow, Jews for Economic and Racial Justice, and other allied organizations and reportedly drew around 2,000 people, the latest evidence of mounting anger over Israel's assault on Gaza and deep U.S. complicity.
"The carnage the Israeli government is inflicting on the people of Gaza is unbearable. Palestinians in Gaza are suffering catastrophic levels of widespread starvation," IfNotNow wrote on social media. "Israeli troops have killed over 1,000 starving Palestinians lining up for scant aid at U.S.-backed sites. Haaretz reports that these 'food aid massacres' are a command decision. This is an atrocity of the gravest sort."
"Some Jewish communal leaders declare it a betrayal to Judaism to cry out against these injustices," the group added. "We consider it a betrayal to Judaism not to. For our collective sake. For the sake of those suffering. For the sake of each of our souls, we say NO MORE."
The demonstration, which started at Columbus Circle before moving closer to President Donald Trump's hotel, featured remarks from Jewish organizers, commentators, and political figures, including New York City Comptroller Brad Lander.
IfNotNow said that more than 40 were arrested at the demonstration, which the group called a product of "the broadest tent coalition in the Jewish community against the atrocities in Gaza in the last two years, representing the vast majority of U.S. Jews who are outraged by the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza."
NYPD officers arrest activists protesting Israel's war on Gaza outside the Trump International Hotel in New York City. (Photo: Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Monday's protest came days after 50 people were arrested at the Manhattan offices of U.S. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer during a demonstration against the lawmakers' continued support for arming the Israeli military. A day earlier, the two Democratic senators voted against a pair of resolutions led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would have halted the Trump administration's sale of 1,000-pound bombs, assault rifles, and other weaponry to the Israeli government.
But a majority of Senate Democrats voted for the resolutions, a signal that lawmakers are beginning to respond as U.S. public support for Israel's war on Gaza continues to fall. A Gallup survey released last month found that just 32% of Americans—including a mere 8% of Democrats—support the assault, a new low.
Meanwhile, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering expanding its assault on an enclave that is already utterly devastated, with more than 90% of residential buildings damaged or destroyed, hundreds of thousands of people killed or injured, and famine conditions fueled by Israel's blockade spreading rapidly.
“We need to keep up the pressure and get more food and aid into Gaza NOW before more Palestinians die of starvation,” T'ruah, an organization of rabbis that took part in Monday's protest, said in a statement. "This event is a mass mobilization of American Jews who object to our government's continued support for the policy of starvation and refusal to leverage its immense power to compel the admission of humanitarian aid."
Reuters reported Monday that Netanyahu "will convene his security cabinet this week to decide on Israel's next steps in Gaza following the collapse of indirect cease-fire talks with Hamas, with one senior Israeli source suggesting more force could be an option."
"Last Saturday, during a visit to the country, U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff had said he was working with the Israeli government on a plan that would effectively end the war in Gaza," Reuters noted. "But Israeli officials have also floated ideas including expanding the military offensive in Gaza and annexing parts of the shattered enclave."
Keep ReadingShow Less
US Bombs Have Helped Make Israel’s Collective Punishment of Gaza a Fact of Life
President Biden remains culpable for deaths in Gaza, whether the human toll is now 35,000 or 200,000.
May 31, 2024
As Amal Nassar lay in pain on a bed at the Al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp in northern Gaza, the echoes of explosions and artillery fire could be heard all around her. It was mid-January and she had made her way to the embattled hospital to give birth to a baby girl she would name Mira. While Amal should have been celebrating her infant’s delivery, instead she was engulfed in fear, surrounded by the relentless nightmare of death and suffering that she and her family had experienced for months.
“I was muttering to myself, ‘I hope I die,'” she recalled.
Though gut-wrenching, Amal’s story is not unlike those of so many other young mothers in Gaza today. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 50,000 pregnant women are barely surviving there, while having babies at the rate of 180 births a day. Many of those women (especially in the north) are acutely malnourished, and few received any medical attention before their labor pains began, often weeks ahead of schedule.
Being born amid the rubble, amid a horrifying offensive, will undoubtedly scar future generations—if, that is, they’re lucky enough to survive the constant bombings and the denial of basic necessities like food, fuel, and medical aid.
According to a bleak report released in March by UNICEF, the thousands of infants born in Gaza over the previous two months (and ever since) are at great risk of dying. Many already have, although numbers are hard to come by.
“There are babies who died in their mothers’ wombs and surgeries were performed to remove the dead fetuses,” said Dr. Muhammad Salha, acting director of Al-Awda Hospital, where the situation couldn’t be more dire. “Mothers are not eating because of the conditions we are living in, and this affects the infants… There are [cases] of many children suffering from dehydration and malnutrition, leading to death.”
Western healthcare providers who have returned from Gaza describe genuinely horrific scenes. Dr. Nahreen Ahmed, a Philadelphia-based doctor and the medical director of the humanitarian aid group MedGlobal, left Gaza in late March, her second time on the frontlines since Israel launched its assault nearly eight months ago. What she witnessed has changed her forever.
“There’s not enough space for us to work closely with the mothers to help them start lactating again. We can’t even access them. And to be able to do that, you have to have day-to-day activities with those women, and that is not something that’s possible for us right now. Those children need to be breastfed. If they can’t be breastfed, they need formula,” Dr. Ahmed told Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman. “What we’re talking about is women who are squeezing fruits, dates into handkerchiefs, into tissues, and feeding—drip-feeding their children with some sort of sugary substance to nourish them.”
Being born amid the rubble, amid a horrifying offensive, will undoubtedly scar future generations—if, that is, they’re lucky enough to survive the constant bombings and the denial of basic necessities like food, fuel, and medical aid. And as yet, despite mounting international pressure, threats of war crimes charges, and claims of genocide, Israel has shown no signs of relenting.
Onslaught of Revenge
From early on, Israeli leaders have been remarkably clear about their intentions in the Palestinian enclave. Israeli Colonel Yogez BarSheshet, speaking from Gaza in late 2023, put it bluntly: “Whoever returns here… will find scorched earth. No houses, no agriculture, no nothing. They have no future.”
It’s as if Israel’s leaders knew that, while it was impossible to actually destroy Hamas, they could at least obliterate Gaza’s infrastructure and slaughter civilians under the guise of hunting down terrorists. After seven long months of Israel’s onslaught of revenge, it’s clear that this has never been about freeing the hostages taken on October 7. Along the way, Israel could easily have accepted multiple proposals to do so, including a cease-fire resolution brokered by Egypt, Qatar, and the U.S. in early May. Instead, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and crew shot down that plan, in which Hamas had agreed to release all living hostages taken in its October 7 assault on Israel in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. The sticking point, however, had nothing to do with the release of those captives rotting in Gaza under who knows what kind of stressful conditions, but Israel’s refusal to accept any resolution that includes a permanent cease-fire.
If the destruction of Gaza and the slaughtering of Palestinians was the intent, then Israel has certainly succeeded.
Immediately after nixing Hamas’s offer to release the hostages, Israel began bombing Rafah, home to more than 1 million refugees. Hundreds of thousands of them have since fled the city, displaced yet again. And despite Netanyahu’s now-discredited claim that he only had to destroy Hamas’s last four “battalions” in Rafah, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soon found themselves back at it in the north as well, attacking areas where Hamas was once again said to be operating.
In response to protests that spread quickly on college campuses in the U.S., President Joe Biden paid lip service to the outrage and paused shipments of U.S. military aid to Israel, only to reverse course a week later with a new $1-billion arms deal for that country.
Depending on how Israel’s post-October 7 blood-soaked incursion into Gaza is evaluated, the military operation has either been a complete disaster or a monumental success. If the destruction of Gaza and the slaughtering of Palestinians was the intent, then Israel has certainly succeeded. If the return of the hostages and the destruction of Hamas was the goal, then it failed miserably. Either way, Israel has quickly become a pariah of its own making, something that never had to happen, and from which there may be no turning back.
The Damage Done
The specter of death in Gaza is difficult, if not impossible, to grasp. At a distance, our understanding of the situation often relies on somber statistics, especially in the establishment media. The official count, consistently cited by mainstream outlets, comes in at around 35,000 deaths.
In May, The New York Times and other outlets jumped on a report from the United Nations, which had apparently revised Gaza’s death count. But the U.N. did not, in fact, halve its total of women and children who had died, as The Jerusalem Post claimed. It simply altered its classification system in terms of those estimated to have died and those it could definitively confirm to be deceased. The totals, however, remained the same. Nonetheless, even those numbers, based on information provided by Gaza’s Ministry of Health, end up blurring the cruel reality on the ground. U.N. officials also fear that at least 10,000 more Gazans lie buried under the rubble in that 25-mile strip of land.
But death figures can also impart meaning, as the long-time consumer-rights activist Ralph Nader recently pointed out. He happens to believe that Israel could have killed at least 200,000 Palestinians in Gaza, a mind-boggling figure, but worth examining. So, I called on him to elaborate.
Legally speaking, that is, Israel is already committing genocide.
“The undercount is staggering,” said Nader, whose Lebanese parents emigrated to the United States before he was born. “The U.S. and Israel want a low number, so they look around. Instead of themselves estimating—which they don’t want to do—they cling to Hamas’ [figures], and Hamas doesn’t want a realistic number because they don’t want to be seen as unable to protect their own people. So, they developed these criteria: to be counted, the dead must first be certified by hospitals and morgues [which barely exist].”
He has made it a habit to reach out to writers and editors. Like so many others, I have a bit of a phone affair with that 90-year-old thinker and activist. We discuss politics, baseball, and journalism’s rapid, insidious decline. I’ve certainly heard him animated in the past, but never more indignant than when he addresses the situation in Gaza. “The whole thing is one death camp now. It’s easily 200,000 deaths in Gaza,” he insisted, citing the number of bombs dropped, which have, by some estimates, exceeded 100,000. We know that at least 45,000 missiles and bombs had been used in Gaza within three months of the beginning of Israel’s military campaign. As a result, as many as 175,000 buildings have been damaged or destroyed by Israel. So, he seems to be on to something.
“Eventually [the real number of the dead] will come out,” he adds. “They’ll do a census, whoever takes over. The one thing the extended families in Gaza know is who’s been killed in their families.”
Of course, his assertion is circumstantial and he knows it, but he’s making a point. With so much of the Gaza Strip facing imminent starvation, nearly all hospitals out of commission, just about no medicine left, and very little clean water or food, 35,000 deaths are likely, in the end, to prove a drastic undercount.
“Not in Our Name”
The Holocaust, in which Nazis murdered 11 million people, 6 million of whom were Jews, was quite literally the textbook genocide. Yet, as ghastly and systematic as it was, at least one other genocide may have claimed a larger death toll. In her latest book, Doppelganger, Naomi Klein explains that the largest genocide was inflicted on Indigenous peoples in the Americas at the hands of European settlers. Hitler’s Holocaust, Klein writes, actually took a page from colonialists in the Americas and was deeply influenced by the Western frontier myth.
“I think it is important to say that every genocide is different,” was how Klein put it to Arielle Angel of the Jewish Currents podcast On the Nose. “There are particularities to every holocaust, and there absolutely were particularities to the Nazi Holocaust. This was a Fordist Holocaust. It was quicker and on a much larger scale and more industrialized than had ever been seen before or since.”
Klein is correct that the Nazi Holocaust was born out of Hitler’s colonialist aspirations and ought to be framed as such. It’s also worth noting that the 1948 Genocide Convention, which was a response to that atrocity, makes clear that classifying an event as a genocide is dependent neither on the number of victims killed nor even on the percentage of a given population slaughtered. This means that the number of people killed in Gaza makes little difference in the court of international law; legally speaking, that is, Israel is already committing genocide.
We’re still months away from the November election and things could change drastically, but you can’t resurrect the dead or turn back the clock on genocide.
In one of the saddest twists of modern history, in the wake of the October 7 Hamas assault, the trauma of the Holocaust is being used to exploit Jewish suffering and fear for safety and so to justify the slow evisceration of Palestinians. It’s this tragic irony that’s turned so many young American Jews against Israel’s policies.
Amid a mounting international backlash, support for Israel among Jewish Americans has never faced such intense division. Many of the protests against the war in Gaza here have, in fact, been led by young Jews fed up with Israel’s claim on their Judaism and cultural history. In response, the ranks of the Jewish-run IfNotNow and the Jewish Voice for Peace have swelled, helping to spawn a newly invigorated anti-war movement in this country.
The threat this poses to Zionism’s future is unlike anything the movement has faced since the Six-Day War, according to the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League (ADL). “We have a major, major, major generational problem,” ADL director Jonathan Greenblatt said in a panicked donor call last November. “All the polling I’ve seen… suggests this is not a left/right gap, folks. The issue of [the] United States’ support for Israel is not left and right. It is young and old.”
Greenblatt is correct. Gen Z and Millenials, Jewish or otherwise, are much less likely to accept Israel’s rationale for the slaughter of Palestinians than the generations that came before them. Poll after poll shows that ever more young Jews in the United States are distancing themselves from the tenets of Zionism. Why wouldn’t they? They’ve seen the dead bodies on social media, the screams, the bloodshed, the flattened cities, and they want no part of it. Support for Israel among the young is now at a nadir.
And that, as polls already suggest, could affect the coming election. “Biden’s going to lose the election just by people staying home,” Ralph Nader predicted. “He thinks properly that Trump is worse on this issue and everything else, so he’s got this attitude, so does the entire Democratic Party, ‘Hey you protestors, grow up, you’ve got nowhere else to go.’ Yeah, they’ve got somewhere to go. They can just stay home.”
We’re still months away from the November election and things could change drastically, but you can’t resurrect the dead or turn back the clock on genocide. Thanks, in part, to those American bombs and missiles, the damage is already done. Israel’s collective punishment is now simply a fact of life, and President Biden remains culpable for those deaths in Gaza, too, whether the human toll is now 35,000 or 200,000. The White House’s continued denial that Israel is committing genocide means very little when there’s a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
Back in the desperate and overcrowded Nuseirat refugee camp, Amal Nassar held her three-month-old as an April spring day arrived early in Gaza. She wondered what the future would hold for her little baby girl.
“I looked at Mira and thought: Did I make the right decision to have this baby in a war?“
It’s a painful question without an answer, but the outlook remains grim. In mid-May, an Israeli fighter jet launched missiles at residential buildings in Nuseirat, killing 40 Palestinians, including women and children. Many more were injured. The rockets missed Amal’s family this time, but the longer Israel’s callousness endures, the closer death creeps.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Jewish Americans to Lead Shabbat Protests Against US Complicity in Gaza
The protests will condemn "the hypocrisy of American politicians cracking down on 'unlawful' behavior at home while repeatedly voting to send Israel more bombs to kill Palestinians in Gaza."
May 03, 2024
Jewish organizers announced plans to hold bicoastal "solidarity Shabbat" protests Friday evening to demand a cease-fire in Gaza and an end to the violent repression of campus anti-war protests across the country.
The Jewish-led organization IfNotNow announced plans to hold the protests in Los Angeles and New York, with "hundreds of American Jews" gathering "together with a multi-faith coalition to take a moral stand against U.S. complicity in the genocide in Gaza."
The Shabbat actions come more than two weeks into a wave of mass protests that have spread on college campuses nationwide, with students setting up encampments and occupying school buildings to demand that universities divest from companies that work with the Israeli government, such as tech firms and weapons manufacturers.
IfNotNow directed participants to wear white and not bring signs to the events, where demonstrators will "uplift the demands of the students of NYC and around the world: Divestment now. Palestinian freedom now. Power to the Students. Eyes on Gaza."
More than 300 protesters were arrested last week at a Passover Seder rally that had been organized by Jewish advocates near Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's (D-N.Y.) home in Brooklyn.
Arrests of protesters on college campuses in the last two weeks have surpassed 2,100, with more than 200 detained both at the University of California, Los Angeles and at Columbia University—both of which have celebrated their histories of student activism in the civil rights era and during the U.S. war in Vietnam.
On Thursday, President Joe Biden denounced the protests, saying "dissent must never lead to disorder."
IfNotNow called on political leaders to condemn "Israel's war crimes in Gaza, not student protesters taking action for peace."
"The media and politicians would rather scrutinize college campuses than confront the human misery and destruction happening in our name in Gaza which is, of course, the source of these protests," said the group.
"The Shabbat protests will serve to condemn state violence aimed at peaceful student protesters, as well as the hypocrisy of American politicians cracking down on 'unlawful' behavior at home while repeatedly voting to send Israel more bombs to kill Palestinians in Gaza," added IfNotNow.
On April 24, a week into the campus protests, Biden signed a foreign aid bill that included $17 billion in additional funding for the Israel Defense Forces.
At campus protests, some Jewish organizers have held other Shabbat services.
Protesters at New York University were planning a Shabbat dinner for Friday evening in solidarity with Gaza, and last week, students at the University of Pennsylvania took part in a Shabbat service.
"We pray together, we protest together, and we will get free together," said Jewish Voice for Peace Philadelphia.
Keep ReadingShow Less
300+ Arrested Outside Schumer's Home During Jewish-Led Seder Against Gaza Genocide
"No one is free until everyone is free," read a banner representing a Seder plate. "Jews say stop arming Israel."
Apr 24, 2024
As U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer prepared to vote on Tuesday night for a foreign aid package including billions to continue arming Israel in its bombardment of Gaza, roughly 300 protesters were arrested outside his home in Brooklyn for holding an "emergency Passover seder" protest, demanding the U.S. end its support for an assault that has killed at least 34,262 Palestinians.
The protest was led by anti-Zionist Jewish organizers with Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, with a large round banner representing a traditional Seder plate at the center of the protest at Grand Army Plaza, a block from Schumer's home.
Hundreds of people, some wearing traditional Palestinian keffiyehs, linked arms and chanted, "Free, free Palestine!" while blocking traffic and displaying the Seder plate.
"No one is free until everyone is free," read the banner. "Jews say stop arming Israel."
Schumer's home has been the site of numerous protests since October, when Israel began its attacks on and blockade of Gaza, which have left parts of the enclave facing famine and the entire population of 2.3 million people suffering from "acute food insecurity," at a minimum.
"A genocide being carried out in our names as Jews demands that we adapt our sacred tradition again, take to the streets, and do everything we can to prevent more death," author and activist Naomi Klein said at the protest.
The Biden administration has approved numerous weapons transfers to Israel, and the Senate overwhelmingly voted Tuesday night in favor of the package that includes $17 billion more in unconditional aid for the Israel Defense Forces.
Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) were the only members of the Democratic caucus who voted against the funding bill. Fifteen Republicans also opposed the bill over its inclusion of Ukraine aid.
The demonstration at Grand Army Plaza was organized amid a burgeoning protest movement on U.S. college campuses, including at Columbia University, where more than 100 students were suspended and then arrested for trespassing last week after setting up an encampment to demand the school divest from all companies that work with the Israeli government.
The student-led protests have been denounced by President Joe Biden and other pro-Israel critics as "antisemitic" and endangering Jewish students, despite the fact that Jewish students have helped to organize the nonviolent demonstrations.
One organizer, Calvin Harrison, told The New York Times that he attended the Brooklyn protest Tuesday night "because I'm a Jew and I was raised to believe that Judaism is about justice."
"Passover is a celebration of liberation for the future," he told the Times. "We can't celebrate liberation for ourselves while we're oppressing Palestinians."
Yonah Lieberman, co-founder of IfNotNow, recalled the group's Liberation Seder in 2016 in New York, where campaigners protested the Anti-Defamation League's support for the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
"Eighteen of us were arrested," he said. "Tonight: [Organizers] led a Seder in the streets demanding Schumer stop arming Israel. Hundreds are being arrested. The movement grows."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Just 23 House Dems Oppose Bill That Bars UNRWA Funding While Giving Billions to Israel
"Our elected leaders are funding Palestinian death," said one advocacy group.
Mar 22, 2024
The House of Representatives on Friday approved a sprawling government spending package that prohibits U.S. funding for the United Nations' Palestinian refugee agency for at least a year and hands Israel billions of dollars in unconditional military assistance, even as the country massacres and starves Gaza civilians.
The 1,012-page legislation passed in a 286-134 vote, with 112 Republicans and just 23 Democrats opposing the bill. All but one of the bill's Democratic opponents are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC). (Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), who was out sick, was initially recorded as not voting, but she later submitted a "no" vote.)
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the CPC, said in a statement after voting against the measure that she is "very concerned that this package continues funding for the Netanyahu government with no conditions, while at the same time prohibiting funding" for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)
"For decades, UNRWA has played a unique and integral role in supporting the welfare and survival of Palestinians in several countries," said Jayapal. "Humanitarian aid in the region is already severely restricted. Implementing a prohibition on UNRWA funding is irresponsible and unacceptable. As the largest contributor of funding to Israel, we should use our funding leverage to demand that humanitarian aid enter Gaza and that we have a lasting cease-fire and a return of all hostages."
In a
social media post ahead of Friday's vote, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) announced his intention to "vote no on this bill that bans aid to children in Gaza who are dying of hunger."
"Forget the politics and procedural jargon," Khanna wrote. "This is a test of first principles. The America I believe in must never be indifferent to the man-made starvation of children."
The legislation now heads to the Senate, which must pass the bill by Friday night to avert a partial government shutdown.
"Instead of banning funding for UNRWA, the U.S. should restore its aid to Gaza and halt weapons transfers to the Israeli military. No more money for massacre."
If passed and signed into law by President Joe Biden, the measure would bar the U.S. from resuming funding for UNRWA until at least March 25, 2025. The Biden administration and other Western governments suspended donations to UNRWA in January after Israel accused a dozen of the agency's 13,000 Gaza employees of taking part in the October 7 Hamas-led attack—allegations it has not substantiated.
While Canada, Finland, and other countries have since resumed funding for UNRWA, the U.S. has kept its contributions frozen as famine spreads rapidly in Gaza. The territory's entire population is facing "high levels of acute food insecurity," according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
By including such a provision in must-pass government funding legislation, Congress is "further deepening U.S. complicity in Israel's starvation of Palestinian children," said Josh Ruebner, an adjunct lecturer at Georgetown University and the former policy director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights.
While barring U.S. funding for the primary humanitarian relief agency in Gaza, the measure includes $3.8 billion in military support for Israel, whose forces have used
U.S.-made weaponry to commit atrocities against civilians in the Palestinian enclave.
As Security Policy Reform Institute co-founder Stephen Semler pointed out, the bill also prohibits U.S. funding for the United Nations commission that is investigating potential war crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel.
The House just passed a bill that cements genocide as official US policy. The legislation gives Israel $3.8 billion in weapons, sanctions UNRWA as Palestinians starve, and defunds a UN investigation into Israel's violations of international law.
All but 22 Democrats voted for it pic.twitter.com/8q9xaMVeJI
— Stephen Semler (@stephensemler) March 22, 2024
IfNotNow, an American Jewish group that campaigns for Palestinian rights, said in response to Friday's vote that "our elected leaders are funding Palestinian death."
"It's unsurprising that the GOP is working to ban funding for UNRWA while the Israeli military massacres and starves Palestinians in Gaza with U.S. financial and diplomatic backing," the group said. "It's unconscionable that so many Democrats are joining them."
"Instead of banning funding for UNRWA, the U.S. should restore its aid to Gaza and halt weapons transfers to the Israeli military," IfNotNow added. "No more money for massacre."
This story has been updated to reflect that Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), who was out sick, later submitted a "no" vote against the spending package.
Keep ReadingShow Less
30+ Arrested in Chicago Protest Demanding Gaza Cease-Fire
"We can't go on acting as if the genocide isn't happening," said one demonstrator who blocked traffic. "We're raising our voices to say no genocide in our name!"
Mar 08, 2024
Organizers said over 30 protesters were arrested in Chicago on Friday morning for blocking rush-hour traffic to demand a cease-fire in Israel's U.S.-backed war on the Gaza Strip.
"We can't go on acting as if the genocide isn't happening," said Deborah Adelman, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Chicago who blocked traffic at W. Jackson Boulevard and S. Dearborn Street. "We've been out on the streets for five months and we're not going anywhere."
The demonstration capped off a 24-hour vigil backed by the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Chicago Educators for Palestine, Chicago Teachers Union Caucus of Rank-and-file Educators, Dissenters, Jewish Fast for Gaza, Tzedek Chicago, U.S. Palestinian Community Network, and local chapters of American Muslims for Palestine, IfNotNow, and JVP.
"We're raising our voices to say no genocide in our name!" Adelman declared. "We're here risking arrest to show our solidarity with the people of Gaza who are suffering an unfathomable assault."
Since Israel launched its brutal retaliation for a deadly Hamas-led attack on October 7, Israeli forces have killed at least 30,878 people in Gaza, injured another 72,402, displaced most of the enclave's 2.3 million residents, restricted humanitarian aid, and devastated civilian infrastructure including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
For the morning action in the Illinois city—whose council called for a Gaza cease-fire in a contentious January resolution—protesters linked arms and held banners that read, ">30,000 Dead—Not One More" and "End the Siege on Gaza Now!"
Vigil participants also spent several hours reading aloud the known names of those killed. After his turn, Rabbi Aryeh Bernstein told the Chicago Tribune: "At least at the bare minimum, we will pronounce somebody's name correctly and have a moment of dignified memorialization for blessing for people who were killed prematurely in such a grotesque way... I have to imagine they did not have proper burials according to their beliefs and traditions and customs."
As the death toll mounts in Gaza, Israel is facing a South Africa-led genocide case at the International Court of Justice while U.S. President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin are the targets of a complicity case in federal court.
Biden has made promises to step up humanitarian efforts for Gaza in recent days, but the United States also gives Israel $3.8 billion in annual military aid and since October 7, his administration has repeatedly bypassed Congress to arm Israeli forces while seeking a package worth over $14 billion.
Since last fall, critics of the Israeli assault and U.S. complicity have taken to streets, bridges, tunnels, transit hubs, government buildings, and the campaign headquarters of Biden—who is seeking reelection in November—to call for an end to the genocide.
Activists gave a “State of the Genocide” address last night in response to Biden’s State of the Union. “Business cannot go on as usual and we are not going away. This genocide has been going on for 152 days and it is 100% an American project,” says @emanabdelhadi. pic.twitter.com/oIVPA4za12
— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) March 8, 2024
"Civil disobedience is integral to what my family and my ancestors have practiced for generations," said Nitaawe Banks, a member of the Native American and Indigenous Students Association at DePaul University who blocked traffic in Chicago. "My grandfather was kidnapped by the U.S. government and taken 2,000 miles away to a boarding school where the federal government attempted to forcibly assimilate him."
"At that time it was illegal for him to practice his religion and traditions," Banks noted. "He went on to participate in the occupation at Wounded Knee. I'm here today to protest in solidarity with Palestine and to illustrate the lack of legitimacy the U.S. empire has."
In addition to the Friday morning action, the #StateOfTheGenocide vigil included an alternate State of the Union that coincided with the president's annual address. There were prepared speeches from In These Times executive editor Ari Bloomekatz and Eman Abdelhadi, an organizer, writer, and professor at the University of Chicago, along with remarks from other attendees.
"Biden is addressing the nation without listening to his public and, as he speaks, the death toll rises in Gaza. Just last week the Israeli military opened fire on crowds of starving Palestinians waiting for aid," said Aaron Neiderman of IfNotNow Chicago ahead of the speeches. "We demand a permanent cease-fire and an end to this genocidal war."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Unconscionable': Biden Has Approved 100+ Arms Sales to Israel in Just Five Months
"When people ask, 'What do you want Joe Biden to do?' the answer is: Stop making these weapons deals," said one campaigner.
Mar 06, 2024
The Biden administration has approved more than 100 separate weapons sales to the Israeli government since its massive assault on the Gaza Strip began five months ago, transfers that did not require congressional notification because they were each below a certain dollar amount.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the sales, which were disclosed to lawmakers during a recent classified briefing, included "thousands of precision-guided munitions, small diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms, and other lethal aid."
"Only two approved foreign military sales to Israel have been made public since the start of conflict: $106 million worth of tank ammunition and $147.5 million of components needed to make 155 mm shells," the Post added. "Those sales invited public scrutiny because the Biden administration bypassed Congress to approve the packages by invoking an emergency authority."
Jeremy Konyndyk, a former senior Biden administration official and the current president of Refugees International, told the newspaper that the number of sales the administration has approved over such a short period of time is "extraordinary" and "suggests that the Israeli campaign would not be sustainable without this level of U.S. support."
"The U.S. cannot maintain that, on the one hand, Israel is a sovereign state that's making its own decisions and we're not going to second guess them, and, on the other hand, transfer this level of armament in such a short time and somehow act as if we are not directly involved," Konyndyk added.
"Weapons to a government starving and displacing millions of civilians. Weapons to an army that has killed 25,000 women and children."
News of the secretive arms sales comes as human rights advocates and progressive lawmakers such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are pressuring the Biden administration to cut off all military aid to Israel, pointing to U.S. law and White House policy barring the transfer of weapons to human rights violators.
Under the Foreign Assistance Act, the U.S. cannot provide aid to a country that "prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance."
U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller admitted during a press briefing on Tuesday that Israeli government ministers have blocked "the release of flour" and other aid into Gaza as much of the territory's population faces the imminent risk of famine—and as children die of starvation.
Miller admits what is preventing aid getting in to Gaza:"You have...ministers in the Israeli government block the release of flour...You have seen ministers of the Israeli government supporting protests that blocked aid from going in" despite this Biden hasn't used any leverage pic.twitter.com/SgWoxHn7LA
— HalalFlow (@halalflow) March 5, 2024
Yonah Lieberman, co-founder of the progressive Jewish advocacy group IfNotNow, noted that the Post's reporting shows the Biden administration has on average approved one arms sale to Israel every 36 hours since October 7, when Israel launched its large-scale assault on Gaza following a deadly Hamas-led attack.
"Weapons to a government starving and displacing millions of civilians. Weapons to an army that has killed 25,000 women and children," Lieberman wrote. "This is unconscionable. When people ask, 'What do you want Joe Biden to do?' the answer is: Stop making these weapons deals."
Keep ReadingShow Less
After Gaza Cease-Fire Veto, Biden to Attend Fundraiser at Home of Pro-Israel Billionaire
"The American Muslim community is running out of words to describe our feelings about the Biden administration's support for the Gaza genocide," said one advocate.
Feb 20, 2024
Hours after his ambassador to the United Nations vetoed the third cease-fire resolution to be proposed at the U.N. Security Council since Israel began its U.S.-backed bombardment of Gaza in October, President Joe Biden was scheduled to attend a high-dollar fundraiser at the home of an influential pro-Israel billionaire on Tuesday.
Tickets for the event hosted in Los Angeles by media mogul Haim Saban started at $3,300 and cost as much as $250,000. Other exclusive fundraising events for Biden, who is seeking reelection in November, have been disrupted in recent months by protesters demanding that the U.S. end its support for Israel, which has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October.
Co-hosts of the fundraiser include attorney Cliff and Leslie Gilbert-Lurie, whose own event in November was marked by demands for a cease-fire from people in a crowd as Vice President Kamala Harris spoke. Demonstrators also displayed fake blood at the Gilbert-Luries' home.
Nicole Mutchnik, a vice chair of the Anti-Defamation League, is also a co-host of Tuesday's event. Mutchnik's staunchly pro-Israel organization has frequently accused pro-Palestinian rights groups of anti-Jewish sentiment, equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
Jewish-led Palestinian rights group IfNotNow pointed out that Saban has been quoted as suggesting the U.S. should "scrutinize" Muslims "to get them to admit they are or they're not terrorists."
On Monday, the group led a vigil outside the Los Angeles residence of the vice president.
"We are sitting shiva with grief for all those who've been killed, Palestinian and Israeli, and begging the Biden-Harris administration to end it," said IfNotNow.
Ahead of Saban's fundraiser, fresh outrage erupted among Palestinian rights advocates after U.N. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield vetoed Algeria's resolution for a cease-fire.
"The American Muslim community is running out of words to describe our feelings about the Biden administration's support for the Gaza genocide," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "The latest U.S. veto of a U.N. cease-fire resolution is shameful. President Biden should stop acting like [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu's defense lawyer and start acting like the president of the United States."
"We call on the American people to continue expressing their opposition to the Biden administration's support for the Israeli government's war crimes by contacting the White House and their elected officials and calling on them to demand a cease-fire, access to humanitarian aid, and the pursuit of a just, lasting peace," Awad added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Uniting for Peace': Chicago Now Biggest US City to Demand Gaza Cease-Fire
Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson cast a tiebreaking vote to pass the Chicago City Council resolution.
Jan 31, 2024
A drawn-out battle in Illinois over a Chicago City Council resolution calling for a cease-fire in Israel's war on the Gaza Strip ended Wednesday when Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson cast a tiebreaking vote to pass the "Uniting for Peace" measure.
Chicago is the third-largest city in the United States by population—after New York City and Los Angeles—and now the country's biggest to demand a cease-fire nearly four months into the U.S.-backed war. Dozens of other smaller communities nationwide as well as advocacy groups, labor unions, and political leaders have issued similar calls while the death toll in Gaza has mounted.
"There are people that are still digging through the rubble, for their loved ones, for their babies."
"Why is it urgent that we pass this resolution? Over 26,000 Palestinians now have been killed. The majority of them are women and children," said resolution sponsor Ald. Rossana Rodríguez Sanchez of the 33rd Ward, according to the Chicago Tribune. "There are people that are still digging through the rubble, for their loved ones, for their babies. Weeks of digging through the rubble."
Also sponsored by Ald. Daniel La Spata of the 1st Ward, the resolution calls for "a permanent cease-fire to end the ongoing violence in Gaza" as well as "humanitarian assistance including medicine, food, and water to be sent into the impacted region, and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.
The measure—which will be sent to the Illinois congressional delegation and White House—also advocates for "plans to protect civilian population in the region in particular to support the needs of women, children, persons with disabilities, and the elderly."
Wednesday's 24-23 vote came after Johnson cleared the chambers due to disruptions during the debate over the symbolic resolution. The council previously planned to vote last week but was delayed after a request led by Ald. Debra Silverstein of the 50th Ward, the only Jewish member, related to an International Holocaust Remembrance Day resolution.
Observers interrupted Silverstein on Wednesday when she attempted to express her "disappointment and frustration" that the council was voting on what she called a "one-sided, lopsided resolution" rather than crafting one that "could have gained unanimous support."
As the Chicago Sun-Times reported:
As Silverstein spoke about the October 7 attack, a man in the audience yelled "Wadea was murdered because of your lies." The man then exited the council chambers on his own to applause and high-fives.
He was referring to Wadea Al-Fayoume, a 6-year-old boy who was stabbed to death in Plainfield a week after the Hamas attack. The boy's mother, who was wounded, had called 911 to say her landlord was attacking her. Police said they were targeted because of their Muslim faith.
The Tribune noted that "the final push to pass the resolution included an endorsement Monday from powerful unions like the Chicago Teachers Union and a widespread school walkout Tuesday that included cease-fire calls from hundreds of high school students. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who attended the start of the meeting, also threw his support behind the resolution."
The city's progressive mayor personally lobbied for the resolution and called for a cease-fire at a press conference last week.
In These Times shared some remarks from the public comment period preceding the vote in Chicago on Wednesday:
Cease-fire advocate Marty Levine, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, said, "I do this because I believe it is what I, as a Jew, must do." He continued: "The lessons we are required to learn from the Holocaust are that it can never happen again and we can never allow it to happen again. 'Never again' is not for some people, it is for all. We are taught that to save one life is to save all of humanity."
40th Ward resident Jennifer Husbands said, "We have bore witness to the mass murder of Palestinians." Noting that a majority of likely voters and three-quarters of Democrats support a cease-fire, she argued that "our tax dollars are being used to carpet bomb Palestinians" rather than fund services like housing, education, and gun violence prevention. "As Tupac said, 'They got money for war but they can't feed the poor.'"
The United States gives Israel $3.8 billion in annual military aid and since the war started, U.S. President Joe Biden has sought a new $14.3 billion package for the country while also bypassing congressional oversight to arm Israeli forces who have been accused of genocide in a South African-led case now before the International Court of Justice.
Reuters reported Wednesday that when asked for comment on Chicago's resolution, "the White House, which has said it is pressing Israel to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza, referred to previous statements that a cease-fire would only benefit Hamas." Still, peace advocates welcomed the vote in the county with the country's largest Palestinian population.
"Today was a test for our city and we passed," declared CodePink co-director Danaka Katovich. "Our city took a stance firmly against genocide and in support of a cease-fire... This is just the start of what the movement for Palestine can accomplish together."
The Chicago arms of IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace said in a statement: "We are proud that Chicago City Council heeded the calls of Palestinians and over a thousand Chicago Jews to support the growing movement demanding an end to the genocide in Palestine. In the wake of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we affirm that never again means never again for anyone and will continue to organize until there is a cease-fire and the liberation of Palestinians."
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy