Israel has turned the largest medical facility in the Gaza Strip into a charred wasteland, a slaughterhouse, a cemetery.

During its two-week siege on al-Shifa Hospital, Israel destroyed “all buildings and departments without exception, in a clear crime that shames humanity,” Gaza’s government media office stated.

The army withdrew at dawn on Monday, after facing fierce battles from Palestinian resistance factions.

When the families of patients, medical staff and displaced persons – who were trapped inside the hospital and its grounds during Israel’s raid and massacre – returned to retrieve their loved ones, many found bodies in fragments, flattened under bulldozer treads.

Children’s corpses were discovered burned beyond recognition.

“Inside the complex and its surroundings, the occupation army killed more than 400 martyrs and attempted to hide its abominable crime by executing hundreds of civilians, the wounded, and the sick within the walls of the al-Shifa Medical Complex,” the media office added.

“They covered the bodies with piles of sand, bulldozed them, buried them, and mixed them with the ground of the Complex. Moreover, more than 300 prisoners were arrested, while over 100 Palestinian civilians are still missing as a result of the occupation’s shocking crime.”

Hundreds of bodies inside al-Shifa complex and in the surrounding area have been found burned and mutilated, including corpses “with their heads and limbs severed,” stated the Geneva-based Euro-Meditteranean Human Rights Monitor.

The group called Israel’s destruction and slaughter at al-Shifa “one of the largest massacres in Palestinian history.”

During the 14-day raid, Israeli forces carried out summary executions, arrests and detentions while forcing medical staff to abandon their patients.

According to Dr. Ahmad al-Maqadmeh’s colleague, the British Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta, they were shot by Israeli soldiers as they tried to flee the hospital.

More than 20 patients were found dead in their hospital beds “as a result of the Israeli siege of the complex and the deliberate deprivation” by Israeli soldiers of medical care, food and water, Euro-Med stated on Monday.

During the siege, Euro-Med added, Israeli forces “obstructed the arrival of relief teams and representatives of international organizations to the complex to carry out humanitarian missions.”

Palestinian resistance forces had engaged in fierce battles with Israeli soldiers during the raid on al-Shifa.

Executions of children

Last week, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor documented “systematic and horrifying military operations” by Israeli forces inside and around the al-Shifa complex.

Among these operations, the group explained, were at least 13 executions of Palestinian children between the ages of four and 16 years old.

“Some of the fatal shootings occurred during an Israeli army siege while the victims’ families were inside their homes; others occurred when the victims attempted to escape via routes that the Israeli army had designated as ‘safe’ after forcibly evacuating them from their homes and places of residence,” Euro-Med reported.

Islam Ali Salouha, who lives near al-Shifa, said that Israeli forces killed his two sons, nine-year-old Ali, and six-year-old Saeed, on 24 March “in front of their families and fellow locals. They specifically targeted the children, he said, with live bullets,” Euro-Med stated.

Salouha told the human rights group that Israeli forces ordered residents of the area to leave. His young sons walked just meters “before they were suddenly exposed to intense gunfire, which targeted the two children, Ali and Saeed, in particular. The children then fell in front of them, their bodies covered in blood.”

As family members “attempted to pull the two kids off the ground, he said, the Israeli forces opened fire on them again, forcing them to leave Ali and Saeed on the ground and to continue walking.”

Israel denies targeting of civilians

Israeli lawmakers and political figures have repeated claims that the hospital complex was used as a Hamas and Islamic Jihad command center.

Naftali Bennett, Israel’s former prime minister, called the destruction of al-Shifa an “amazing battlefield achievement.”

“Hamas used staff and patients as human shields in order to cause maximum civilian casualties as to create more criticism and pressure on Israel,” Bennett claimed, adding that “not one civilian was killed. Not one.”

Israel’s military chief of staff Herzl Halevi boasted on Saturday that the army’s siege of al-Shifa sends a “very, very important message here, a hospital is not a safe place.”

Last week, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Palestine, included Israel’s crime of “medical shielding” in her report on the genocide in Gaza.

“Targeting medical facilities while accusing the enemy of shielding within them had already been employed by Israel as a strategy of ‘medical lawfare’ in previous wars,” Albanese writes in “Anatomy of a Genocide.”

“In the current assault, Israel has invoked this legal strategy to justify genocide through the complete destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure,” her report states.

On Monday, Albanese called on the International Criminal Court’s lead prosecutor, Karim Khan, to take action over Israel’s “genocidal campaign.”

“This is the greatest moment of truth in the ICC history,” Albanese stated.

Source: Electronic Intifada

Thirty thousand people demonstrated in New York City on March 30 to stop the genocide in Gaza. They marched from Manhattan’s Times Square to Washington Square Park.

March 30 is commemorated around the world by Palestinians and their supporters as Land Day. On that date in 1976, six unarmed Palestinians were killed and more than a hundred wounded by Zionist police.

The Palestinians were protesting the theft of nearly 5,000 acres of their land in Galilee. That’s 7.7 square miles or the size of Manhattan south of Central Park.

All of it was inside the “1948” borders of the Zionist state. The apartheid regime occupying Palestine was determined to kick out the indigenous Arab inhabitants and fill it with Zionist settlers. 

The Israeli prime minister at the time was the so-called peacemaker Yitzhak Rabin, who was later assassinated. During the first Intifada (Uprising), Rabin ordered Zionist occupation forces to break the arms of Palestinian children arrested for allegedly throwing rocks at invading soldiers. 

This year, people demonstrated on Land Day in dozens of cities across the United States and around the world. They protested the murder of 14,000 Palestinian children in Gaza with bombs supplied by Genocide Joe Biden.

Around 50 people were arrested in Philadelphia for blocking the I-76 Schuylkill expressway. The courageous action of blocking the Schuylkill was first carried out for Black Lives Matter.

The New York City action was organized by the Shut It Down for Palestine Coalition. It includes the Palestinian Youth Movement; PAL Al-Awda: the Palestine Right to Return Coalition; Jewish Voices for Peace; Party for Socialism and Liberation; and The People’s Forum.

After a rally with speakers in Times Square, people marched across 42nd Street to Fifth Avenue and then south to Washington Square in Greenwich Village. Block after block of protesters filled Fifth Avenue.

People chanted while accompanied by drums and horns. Many onlookers cheered on the march. A short rally at Washington Square Park encouraged people to keep fighting.

Palestine will win!

An action to block U.S. military supplies for the Zionist campaign of genocide in Gaza shut down the Embarcadero, a major roadway on the eastern waterfront of the Port of San Francisco, on March 29. Protesters occupied the Embarcadero’s northbound lanes near Pier 32 to stop a U.S. military ship from carrying military supplies to Israel.

The demonstration began during a ceremony celebration on the U.S. Naval Ship (USNS) Harvey Milk.* Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was among the officials attending. Pelosi is well-known for her hawkish belligerence — most recently, her provocative voyage on a U.S. destroyer through the Strait between China and Taiwan.

As pro-Palestinian protesters began to scale the pier’s fence, Pelosi fled. Some protesters breached the security fence surrounding the ship and chained themselves to the gangway. Police pointed heavy assault guns as others used bolt cutters to remove protesters they arrested. The massive USNS ship was held up in San Francisco Bay for the rest of the day.

Steve Zeltzer on Labor Radio interviewed an activist who told him that “she can’t sleep at night unless she finds ways to oppose the attack on Palestinians. She called the ship’s name a travesty to Milk’s memory.”

Sharif Zakut, an organizer from the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), said he has family in Gaza. Zakut said: “It’s outrageous that Nancy Pelosi is commemorating a U.S. warship which is serving the genocidal Israeli Army and its government and is named after civil rights activist Harvey Milk.

“Biden now says he’s for a ceasefire, but apparently, he can’t open up the border for Palestinians to get food. It’s ridiculous to believe he is for a ceasefire. If he was really for the end of this genocide, he would cut off military aid to Israel.

“The United States has trillions of dollars for the military. Yet people are suffering in the United States. We need health care. We need safety for queer and trans communities. We need safety for women’s bodily autonomy. We need housing. We need better infrastructure.

“Instead the president and his administration would rather prioritize war making, genocide and continuing the occupation of Palestine.”

Lara Kiswani from AROC said, “It is outrageous and unacceptable that our government continues to fund and supply the Israeli military as it carries out genocide against the people of Gaza.”

Watch the full report here.

Longshore workers against genocide

There have been ongoing actions in the Bay Area to block the U.S. shipment of weapons being used to decimate the population of Gaza.

On Jan. 13, “over 3,000 workers and community members shut down the Port of Oakland to demand an end to U.S. economic and military support of Israel’s genocidal bombing campaign in Gaza. Thanks to the Bay Area’s steadfast commitment, operations at the Port were effectively shut down all day,” reported Jack Heyman, a retired International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 worker, to The Internationalist.

“Over 200 scheduled jobs were canceled during the afternoon shift. The Oakland Port preemptively called off the morning shift in anticipation of massive community turnout.”

As Jimmy Salameh, a Palestinian longshoreman and member of ILWU Local 10, said: “I’ve worked at the port for 10 years, and I can say for a fact that there was no business as usual out here today. How could there be in the middle of a genocide? I couldn’t be prouder of the people who turned out today to raise their voice against the war on Gaza and to demand that this port isn’t used for military purposes.”

On Nov. 18, Local 10 in the Bay Area unanimously passed a resolution recalling the local’s repeated refusal – in 2010, 2014, and 2021 – to work Israeli Zim Line ships when there were protests in defense of Palestinians and expressing “our determination to take action in their defense.”

It is also reported that ILWU Local 6 in the Bay Area, Local 8 in Portland, Oregon, as well as the San Francisco and Southern California Inland Boatman’s Union in the Marine Division of the ILWU have called for a ceasefire in Gaza.

* Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, was murdered in San Francisco City Hall in 1978. While Milk served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War, he was forced to accept an “other than honorable” discharge rather than face a court martial for being gay. The LGBTQ+ community has expressed outrage that Milk, an advocate for peace, would have his name branded on a machine of war.

The Africa Regional Conference of the International Transport Workers’ Federation unanimously passed a motion authored by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, an end to political support for Israel, and expressing solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom.

Unions in Africa affiliated with the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), representing 18.5 million transport workers and 740 unions worldwide, have called for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, an end to political support for Israel, and expressed their solidarity with the Palestinian people’s struggle for freedom and self-determination.

The motion was proposed by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) at the ITF’s Africa Regional Conference held in Côte d’Ivoire last week. It was passed unanimously on March 7, the same day that the Israeli occupation forces bombed the headquarters of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) in Gaza City.

The five-story building had attached to it several other facilities providing services to the Palestinian people, including a kindergarten that served 380 children, as well as a large automatic bakery.

In a statement, the PGFTU added that it was the third time that its headquarters had been bombed, the previous attack being during Israel’s 2014 bombardment of Gaza, and three of the Union’s branches in the Al-Rimal neighborhood and Yarmouk Street had been destroyed.

Shaher Saed, the general secretary of the PGFTU, said in a statement that the union would rebuild its headquarters, as it had done before, to “continue its important role towards the steadfast Palestinian society”.

Israel has killed over 31,000 Palestinians and injured over 73,000 in its ongoing, six-month-long genocidal campaign in besieged Gaza.

African unions call for concrete action against Israel

Addressing the ITF Conference in Abidjan, Irvin Jim, the General Secretary of NUMSA, read out the motion passed by the Conference.

The motion condemned “the ongoing violence and human rights violations perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” noting that the South African Union brings a “unique perspective to the issue having ourselves fought against a system of racial segregation, institutional violence and oppression, apartheid.”

“The Israeli settler-colonial state…[has] for more than seven decades dispossessed, oppressed, murdered, massacred, brutalized, tortured and imprisoned Palestinians and implemented policies and practices characteristic of an apartheid state”.

The statement highlighted the forced displacement and systematic dispossession of the Palestinian people of their homes and land, Israel’s military occupation, mass detentions and targeted killings, its control of Gaza’s economy and borders.

Noting that Israel was under binding orders from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to take “all measures within its power” to prevent the commission of acts defined as genocide under the 1948 Convention and ensuring the delivery of essential aid and services to Gaza, “Israel has disregarded the ICJ ruling and continues its attack on Palestinians. This disregard for international law and human rights cannot be tolerated.”

The Conference demanded the implementation of an immediate and permanent ceasefire, secure the unconditional release of civilian hostages “on both sides”, end political support for Israel’s war in Gaza and to implement an immediate two-way arms embargo by all states.

It further called for the implementation of an international mechanism to enforce the ICJ ruling, strengthening funding commitments to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), for the imposition of sanctions on Israel through the UN Security Council, urging the Council to “use all available means to stop the bloodshed in Gaza”.

The Conference echoed calls for the International Criminal Court’s Chief Prosecutor, Karim Khan, to expedite the investigation into the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel in Gaza.

Despite repeated calls by Palestinian advocacy organizations and referrals filed by multiple countries, including South Africa, as early as November 2023, the ICC has yet to take any actions to prosecute those responsible for committing the ongoing atrocities in Gaza. The Court already had an open investigation into the crimes being committed by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories since 2021, long before the start of Israel’s current bombardment in October.

Earlier this week, it was announced that Khan had appointed British barrister and former military prosecutor Andrew Cayley to oversee the Court’s investigation. The manner of Khan’s appointment to the ICC has raised serious questions, especially around the role played by the UK and the US, especially given that quickly after assuming office, Khan shut down the ICC’s investigation into crimes committed by US forces in Iraq.

Cayley, for his part, “played a key role in a process that resulted in the former ICC prosecutor deciding in 2020 to abandon a long running investigation” into alleged war crimes committed by UK forces in Iraq, according to The Guardian. Both Khan and Cayley also have ties to the ruling Conservative Party in the UK, the former through his brother, and Cayley through donations made to the Party.

Meanwhile, the ITF’s Conference last week also called on all its affiliates and to intensify boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns against companies profiting from the occupation or operating in illegal settlements, and to support workers refusing to handle goods linked to Israel’s occupation.

In the past months, transport unions in different countries, including India, Belgium, and Spain, have refused to handle military cargo bound for Israel, refusing to be complicit in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

“We urge all to join the global campaign to hold Israel accountable for its crimes, dismantle its apartheid system, and support the Palestinian people’s struggle for freedom and self-determination,” Jim said.

Source: Peoples Dispatch

Today marks the 48th anniversary of Land Day, immortalizing a battle that continues to form the core of the struggle in occupied Palestine. The land remains the title of the Palestinian people’s battles since the inception of the zionist project as an advanced tool for global imperialism to seize the region’s resources and quash its aspirations for liberation and independence.

This year’s anniversary coincides with the brutal genocidal war ongoing for about six months against the backdrop of the heroic Al-Aqsa Flood operation organized by the brave Palestinian resistance.

The parties and organizations signing below:

– Commemorate Land Day, united in the streets, squares, and arenas with all peoples and free forces opposing imperialism, Zionism, and colonialism.

– Salute the Palestinian people and their brave resistance, especially the armed resistance, as a legitimate and just revolutionary response.

– Salute the armed resistance in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen for supporting the Palestinian resistance and all the free people of the world who have exposed the essence of zionism as a racist colonial ideology.

– Consider that the land was and still is the core of the conflict, which can only be resolved by liberating the land, all the land, from the river to the sea, returning all refugees, and establishing a secular democratic state with Al-Quds as its capital on the entire Palestinian territory.

– Renew their condemnation of the shameful complicity of the Arab regimes, agents of zionism and imperialism, especially the normalization regimes that fly the flag of the occupation entity in their capitals, suppress the free by arresting them (Jordan, Bahrain), fabricating cases against them and prosecuting them (Morocco), or assaulting them in the streets (Egypt). In this regard, they stand in solidarity with all activists and free individuals, women and men, victims of oppression and tyranny.

– Urge all progressive forces in the region and the world to double their efforts to support the Palestinian people and their brave resistance, boycott the occupation entity, expose its crimes of genocide, starvation, land theft, and violation of human dignity across occupied Palestine, in Gaza, the West Bank, and the occupied interior, and escalate mobilization for the immediate cessation of aggression, opening of crossings, and delivery of aid.

Honor to the resistance!
Glory to the martyrs!
Victory to Palestine!

March 30, 2024

The signing parties and organizations:

1- Workers’ Party – Tunisia
2- Democratic Working Path Party – Morocco
3- Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
4- We Can Movement – Mauritania
5- Democratic People’s Party of Jordan (Hashd)
6- Lebanese Communist Party
7- Democratic Popular Unity Party – Jordan
8- Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP)
9- Sahrawi Association of Human Rights Defenders CODESA
10- Unified Democratic Patriots’ Party – Tunisia
11- Popular Socialist Alliance Party – Egypt
12- Progressive Movement of Kuwait
13- Jordanian Communist Party
14- Sudanese Communist Party

Source: Resistance News Network

More than a thousand people protested against the genocide in Gaza in New York City on March 28. They marched in the rain to a cadence of drum beats from the reference library on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue to Radio City Music Hall.

There they rallied against the Democratic Party fundraising event hosted by presidents Joe Biden, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. All these war criminals have blood on their hands.

Bill Clinton bombed socialist Yugoslavia for 78 days and killed thousands in Iraq with sanctions that prevented importing vital goods. Barack Obama’s invasion of Libya led to slave markets being set up in the African country.

Joe Biden has helped kill over 14,000 Palestinian children in both Gaza and the West Bank.

Manolo De Los Santos, executive director of The People’s Forum, was among the speakers denouncing the genocide in Gaza. The march was organized by the Shut It Down for Palestine Coalition, which includes the Palestinian Youth Movement; PAL Al-Awda: the Palestine Right to Return Coalition; Jewish Voices for Peace; Party for Socialism and Liberation; and The People’s Forum.

Groups of health workers and other union members came to the demonstration.

Inside Radio City people courageously disrupted the blood money collection event.

One protester stood up and shouted “Shame on you, Joe Biden – you are pushing genocide in Palestine!” As she was forcibly kicked out, she shouted, “There’s blood on your hands!”

Among the people who disrupted Genocide Joe’s fundraiser and were escorted out were members of Jewish Voices for Peace and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. 

Genocide Joe raised $25 million for his reelection campaign. All of it is coated in blood. 

It amounts to about $750 for every Palestinian killed in Gaza by U.S.-made bombs and shells.

That’s reminiscent of the Vietnam War. Vietnamese families were offered no more than $120 for each child murdered by U.S. forces while Michelin Tire got $600 for every rubber tree destroyed. 

What better location for Genocide Joe raking in cash than Radio City Music Hall in Rockefeller Center? It’s named for and was owned for decades by Big Oil’s first family — the Rockefellers.

The Zionist state occupying Palestine exists to protect Big Oil’s holdings in Western Asia.

The courage of the Palestinian people, backed by poor and working people around the world, will defeat the apartheid Zionist state and its U.S. paymasters.

Russia and China vetoed a U.S.-authored resolution in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on March 22 on the situation in Gaza. The text “determines the imperative for an immediate and sustained ceasefire,” stopping short of an explicit call for a halt to Israel’s six-month-long attack on besieged Gaza that has killed almost 32,000 Palestinians.

The U.S. authored the resolution after vetoing three successive UNSC resolutions on Gaza, including a February 20 resolution presented by Algeria that had called for an immediate ceasefire.

Absent an explicit call for a ceasefire, the text presented by the U.S. mentioned allowing for the delivery of essential humanitarian assistance, “alleviate humanitarian suffering and towards that end unequivocally supports ongoing international diplomatic efforts to secure such a cease-fire in connection [emphasis added] with the release of all remaining hostages,” according to a draft circulated in the news media on Thursday.

This unilateral demand for the release of Israeli hostages—without a mention of a reciprocal release of the thousands of Palestinians Israel has imprisoned and tortured— has been inserted by the U.S. in UNSC discussions of a ceasefire. This is all while Israel has continued to bomb Gaza and rejected comprehensive ceasefire proposals presented by the Palestinian resistance. Friday’s vote in the Security Council was held amid ongoing negotiations in Qatar.

The U.S. continued to make this link, perhaps not “as firmly,” during the Council on Friday, with Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield speaking of an “immediate and sustained ceasefire as part of a deal that leads to the release of all hostages being held by Hamas and other groups that will help us address the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” She added that adopting the resolution would “put pressure on Hamas to accept the deal on the table.”

The U.S. resolution received 11 votes in favor and three votes against, with Algeria joining Russia and China, who cast the deciding vetoes. Guyana was the sole abstention, reiterating the lack of a call for an immediate ceasefire.

U.S. resolution a ‘hypocritical spectacle’

Addressing the Council ahead of the vote, Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused the U.S. of presenting a “hypocritical spectacle” wrapped up in a ceasefire, that the U.S. had been trying to “sell a product” to the international community. He added that the language of an “imperative” was not enough to save the lives of the Palestinians and was not stipulated in the mandate of the UNSC, which is vested with a mechanism to “demand a ceasefire and, where necessary, to compel compliance.”

“The American product is exceedingly politicized, the sole purpose of which is to help to play to the voters, to throw them a bone in the form of some kind of a mention of a ceasefire in Gaza” and would make the UNSC “instrument in the advancement of Washington’s destructive policy in the Middle East,” and “to ensure the impunity of Israel whose crimes in the draft are not even assessed.”

“The U.S. draft contains an effective green light for Israel to mount a military operation in Rafah”, adding that the text’s authors had tried to make it that “nothing would prevent” Israel from “continuing their brutal cleansing of the south of the Gaza Strip”.

Algerian Ambassador Amar Bendjama stated that the adoption of the February ceasefire resolution could have saved thousands of lives, adding that the present resolution had fallen short “due to the absence of a clear demand for a ceasefire those who believe that the Israeli occupying power will choose to uphold its international legal obligation are mistaken, they must abandon this fiction.”

He stated that the U.S. draft resolution had been circulated a month ago, following which Algeria had made proposed edits to “achieve a more balanced and acceptable text.” However, finally, the draft fell short as “core concerns remained unaddressed.”

Addressing the Council on Friday, China’s Ambassador Zhang Jun explained the country’s veto, stating that despite the urgent need and demand for an immediate, unconditional, and sustained ceasefire, “the Council had dragged its feet and wasted too much time.”

He added that the U.S.-authored draft had “always evaded and dodged the most central issue—that of a ceasefire. The final text remains ambiguous and does not call for an immediate ceasefire, nor does it even provide an answer to the question of realizing a ceasefire in the short term.”

Zhang further stated that an immediate ceasefire was a “fundamental prerequisite” for “saving lives, expanding humanitarian access and preventing greater conflicts. The U.S. draft on the contrary sets up preconditions for a ceasefire which is no different from giving a green light to continued killings which is unacceptable.”

He noted that the draft was “very imbalanced,” particularly in regard to Israel’s plans to invade Rafah. “The draft does not clearly and unequivocally state its opposition, which would send an utterly wrong signal and lead to severe consequences.”

His Algerian counterpart, Bendjama, had similarly stated that the text “does not convey a clear message of peace. It tacitly allows continuing civilian casualties and lacks clear safeguards to prevent further escalation. It is a laissez-passer to continue killing the Palestinian civilians. The emphasis on ‘measures to reduce civilian harm from ongoing and future operations’ implies a license for continuing bloodshed,” Bendjama added, highlighting Israel’s looming invasion of Rafah.

Rafah invasion still on the table despite international outcry

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated the Occupation’s plan to launch a ground invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza, where 1.5 million people forcibly displaced by Israeli attacks on other parts of Gaza are currently trapped.

While the U.S. continues to display its supposed efforts to halt the looming invasion, Netanyahu has declared that Israel is “rejecting growing international pressure “to achieve the war’s goals. Following a phone call with President Joe Biden, Netanyahu stated that he “made it as clear as possible” that there was no way around a ground incursion.

“We see no way to eliminate Hamas militarily without destroying these remaining battalions. We are determined to do this,” he said. Netanyahu reiterated this in a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday, saying, “I told him that I hope we will do it with the support of the U.S., but if we have to—we will do it alone.”

“A major military ground operation is not the way to do it,” Blinken told reporters, then going on to say, “We’re determined that Israel succeed in defending itself and becomes integrated into the region with its security.”

Meanwhile, the ten elected, non-permanent members (E-10) of the Security Council have drafted a separate resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, “leading to a permanent sustainable ceasefire.”

It also demands “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages”, without linking it to the ceasefire, and stresses the need to protect civilians in Gaza and provide humanitarian assistance. France has also stated that it will be drafting a separate resolution.

A vote on the E-10 text is reportedly expected to take place later on Friday or Saturday morning.

Popular Front: The Washington Post’s revelation that the U.S. recognized the occupation’s bombing of civilian targets is new evidence of America’s involvement in the war of extermination

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) emphasized that the revelation by the Washington Post that “the U.S. administration admitted in a secret meeting at the White House that Israel repeatedly bombed civilian targets without making sure that they were military targets” is further evidence that this criminal administration is a major partner with the Zionist enemy and fully involved in the Zionist war of annihilation waged on the Gaza Strip.

The Front added that this confession revealed by the newspaper indicates that the U.S. administration practiced a policy of covering up, misleading, and obfuscating the occupation’s horrific and unprecedented crimes against civilians in the Gaza Strip and worked systematically to promote Zionist lies and propaganda despite the documented video and audio evidence of the devastating war, genocide and starvation crimes waged by the Zionist enemy against our people in the Gaza Strip, and within this administration’s determination to practice lies and blindly defend the Zionist entity and cover up its crimes, it foiled projects for a ceasefire in the UN Security Council and mobilized its media machine to support the war of annihilation waged against Gaza.

The Front stressed the need to investigate these American confessions as evidence of condemnation of this criminal administration and refer them to the International Court of Justice; the American administration’s bias and support for the entity with weapons and covering up its crimes amounts to war crimes.

The Front concluded its statement by emphasizing that shame will continue to follow the U.S. administration and the war criminal Biden for the crimes they committed against the Palestinian people, stressing that the opportunity is now available for free people in America to win victory for Palestine by punishing this criminal administration at the ballot box, and continuing public pressure to expose the crimes of this administration.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

Central Media Department

Sayyed Abdulmalik al-Houthi, leader of Yemen’s Ansar Allah, said on Thursday, March 14, that his country’s armed forces will expand their attacks against ships moving to Israel from the Red Sea region to the whole of the Indian Ocean.

Stating that attacks on Israeli ships in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb will continue until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, al-Houthi declared that “we [now] aim to prevent ships associated with the Israeli enemy from crossing [Indian] Ocean towards South Africa and the Cape of the Good Hope” as well.

He warned that international shipping companies should take Ansar Allah’s declaration seriously and avoid any links with Israel as “any ship linked to Israel is vulnerable to Yemeni missiles.”

Ansar Allah and the Yemeni Armed Forces have been carrying out attacks against the ships associated with Israel in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since November last year, in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza who have been facing devastating Israeli aggression since October 7 which has killed close to 32,000 of them and injured over 72,000.

Ansar Allah has been a part of the regional Axis of Resistance against imperialist interventions and colonialism along with Iraqi resistance forces and Hezbollah in Lebanon. They have targeted Israel and U.S. installations in the region in solidarity with Palestinians.

Al-Houthi asserted that the attacks carried out by the U.S. and Britain on Yemen will not be able to deter the country from supporting Gaza. Those attacks have “one outcome, which is the widening of the conflict and war at the regional level,” he said.

The U.S. and Britain launched aerial strikes inside Yemen in December despite concerns that any such move would escalate the war in Gaza to the regional level. Since then, they have carried out over a hundred such attacks.

On Thursday, the U.S. and Britain carried out a total of 11 airstrikes. According to Al-Mayadeen, Thursday’s attacks bring the total number of such airstrikes in Yemen to over 35 in just five days since the start of the month of Ramadan. Most of the airstrikes targeted the port city of Hodeidah. However, provinces such as Saada and Sanaa were also been targeted.

U.S. and Israel linked ships and warships targeted  

Al-Houthi claimed that at least 34 Yemenis have been killed in operations carried out in support of Gaza since November. He, however, asserted that Yemen will not be deterred and will continue to act in solidarity with Palestine.

He also stated that the Yemeni Armed Forces have carried out at least 12 operations against ships and warships in the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, and Gulf of Aden region by launching 58 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones in the past week. He added that the total number of ships and warships hit by Yemen since November has reached 73.

On Thursday, the Britain Maritime Trade Operations (BritainMTO) reported that it received reports of two more ships being attacked off the coast of Hodeidah with missiles. At least one of those two ships was damaged in the attack.

Al-Houthi also praised popular support for the Palestinian cause in Yemen and the large participation in the weekly million-person marches in solidarity with Palestinians. He appealed to the Yemeni people to participate in the next “million Yemeni march” organized across the country on Friday.

Al-Houthi criticized the role of most of the regional countries in the Israeli war in Gaza, claiming apart from Iran, most others “did not take any serious practical stand” in support of the Palestinian people.

Al-Houthi claimed that “the Israeli occupation is carrying out a crime of the century, with American participation and contribution” from other Western countries. He termed the U.S. airdropping of aid into Gaza “an insult” to Palestinians, underlining how it has bypassed the official UN channels of aid.

Source: Peoples Dispatch

Dozens of acts scheduled to appear at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in the United States have withdrawn in an act of protest against sponsors with ties to Israel’s war in Gaza.

As of Wednesday, at least 80 artists and panelists have pulled out of the nine-day festival, citing the involvement of several weapons companies and agencies tied to the US Department of Defense, according to the Austin for Palestine Coalition, which helped organize the protest.

The event, billed as a “convergence of tech, film, music education and culture”, is among the most prominent entertainment festivals in the southern US.

Taking place each year in Austin, Texas, the festival has been a launchpad for up-and-coming indie acts and filmmakers since its opening in 1987. This year’s festival will conclude on March 16.

But several artists slated to appear this year have withdrawn, in an effort to show solidarity with the people of Gaza.

“I have decided to pull out of my official SXSW showcases in protest of SXSW’s ties to the defense industry and in support of the Palestinian people,” musician Ella Williams, who is known as Squirrel Flower, posted on Instagram on March 4.

https://twitter.com/Lambrini_Girls/status/1766550399069081805

The Austin for Palestine Coalition identified Williams as one of the first nine acts to withdraw as part of the protest.

Ibrahim Batshon, the founder of the BeatStars digital production company, posted a day later on social media that artists associated with his organization would also boycott the festival, which attracted over 345,000 people last year.

He cited the involvement of Raytheon and BAE Systems, two of the companies involved in this year’s SXSW festival.

“Both of these companies manufacture and provide weapons to the terrorist state of Israel, whom is currently conducting an internationally condemned genocide against an occupied and besieged population of Palestinians,” Batshon posted.

However, the boycott has since expanded to include featured speakers like labor union organizer Chris Smalls and musicians like Buffalo Nichols.

The advocacy organization United Musicians and Allied Workers has also thrown its support behind the protest, echoing its rallying cry on social media: “Warmongers have no place at SXSW!”

In announcing its withdrawal this week, Northern Ireland hip-hop trio Kneecap highlighted the costs small acts would incur by missing the high-profile event.

“This decision will have a significant financial impact on Kneecap, both on lost income and on logistical costs already incurred,” the trio said in a statement. “But it isn’t an iota of hardship when compared to with the [unimaginable] suffering being inflicted every minute of every day on the people of Gaza.”

As of Wednesday, at least 31,272 Palestinians had been killed in Israel’s operations in Gaza, the vast majority of them women and children, according to local authorities. The fighting has left the enclave on the brink of famine, with human rights groups accusing Israel of slowing the delivery of humanitarian aid.

The administration of US President Joe Biden has continued to pledge political and material support to Israel despite issuing stronger criticism of its military campaign in recent weeks.

“There are a lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying,” Biden said last month. “And it’s got to stop.”

Governor responds: ‘Don’t come here’

The growing SXSW boycott effort, however, prompted a rebuke on Tuesday from Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

“We are proud of the US military in Texas,” he wrote on social media. “If you don’t like it, don’t come here.”

In late February, the Austin Chronicle also reported that SXSW organizers sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Austin for Palestine Coalition as they sought to rally support for the boycott.

The letter said the group had used trademarked SXSW art in their social media posts and threatened legal action, according to the news site.