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Israeli parliament passes law to ban Unrwa from operating inside country

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Written by Associated Press in Jerusalem Associated Press in Jerusalem
Published: 28 October 2024 28 October 2024

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/28/israeli-lawmakers-pass-bill-that-could-halt-unwra-relief-work-in-gaza

Israeli lawmakers have passed legislation that could threaten the work of the main UN agency providing aid to people in Gaza by barring it from operating on Israeli soil.

The bill bans the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, or Unrwa, from conducting “any activity” or providing any service inside Israel.

The legislation, which does not take effect immediately, risks collapsing the already fragile aid distribution process at a moment when the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is worsening and Israel is under increased US pressure to ramp up aid.

The vote was passed 92-10 and followed a fiery debate between supporters of the law and its opponents, mostly members of Arab parliamentary parties.

A second bill severing diplomatic ties with Unrwa was due to be voted on later on Monday.

Taken together, these bills would signal a new low in relations between Israel and Unrwa, which Israel accuses of maintaining close ties with Hamas militants. The changes would also be a serious blow to the agency and to Palestinians in Gaza who have become reliant upon it for aid throughout more than a year of devastating war.

The bills risk crippling the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza. More than 1.9 million Palestinians are displaced from their homes and Gaza faces widespread shortages of food, water and medicine.

Israeli NGOs warn international community it will be complicit if Israel forcibly transfers the population of Northern Gaza

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Written by B'tselem B'tselem
Published: 25 October 2024 25 October 2024

Human rights NGOs based in Israel today called on the international community to take action now to prevent Israel from forcibly transferring hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have remained in the Northern Gaza Strip outside of the area, including by denying entry of essential humanitarian aid and fuel. The Israeli ceasefire coalition, the groups Gisha, B’Tselem, PHR-I and Yesh Din, said that there are alarming signs that the Israeli military is beginning to quietly implement the Generals’ Plan, also referred to as the Eiland Plan, which calls for complete forcible transfer of the civilians of the northern Gaza Strip through tightening the siege on the area and starving the population.

The NGOs reiterated the warning that states have an obligation to prevent the crimes of starvation and forcible transfer, and that if the continuation of the “wait and see” approach will enable Israel to liquidate northern Gaza, they will be complicit. All states and relevant international institutions should act now and use all tools at their disposal - legal, diplomatic and economic - to prevent this.

B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories

Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement

Yesh Din – Volunteers for Human Rights

Physicians for Human Rights Israel

 

https://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20241014_international_community_will_be_complicit_if_israel_forcibly_transfers_the_population_of_northern_gaza

The Language of Palestinian Embroidery

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Written by Peter Miller Peter Miller
Published: 12 October 2024 12 October 2024

The Language of Palestinian Embroidery

Wafa Ghnaim 

November 1, 2024 6pm

The First Unitarian Church of Portland

1211 Main Str.

Wafa Ghnaim is a Palestinian dress historian, researcher, author, archivist, curator, educator and embroideress who began learning embroidery from her mother, award-winning artist Feryal Abbasi-Ghnaim, when she was two years old.

Her first book, “Tatreez & Tea: Embroidery and Storytelling in the Palestinian Diaspora” (2018), documents the traditional patterns and stories passed on to her by her mother. Wafa has since become a leading educator in SWANA dress history and embroidery techniques, as the first-ever Palestinian embroidery instructor at the Smithsonian Museum. Wafa continues her mother’s educational legacy through The Tatreez Institute (Tatreez & Tea), a global arts education initiative she began in 2016 teaching courses in Palestinian, Syrian and Jordanian embroidery techniques and lecturing at leading institutions, museums and universities around the world. Wafa has since been featured in major media outlets, including Vogue Magazine, which named her and her mother “the world’s leading guardians of tatreez”. Her curatorial debut "TATREEZ INHERITANCE" (2023) at the Museum of the Palestinian People in Washington DC highlights traditional Palestinian dresses circulating North America and the importance of reclamation in the diaspora. Wafa released her second publication “THOBNA” (2023) to celebrate Palestinian embroidery as a powerful form of resistance over the past century.

Wafa is currently the Curator for the Museum of the Palestinian People in Washington, D.C. and Senior Research Fellow for The Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art.

Inside the State Department’s Weapons Pipeline to Israel

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Written by Brett Murphy | Propublica Brett Murphy | Propublica
Published: 05 October 2024 05 October 2024

Leaked cables and emails show how the agency’s top officers dismissed internal evidence of Israelis misusing American-made bombs and worked around the clock to rush more out while the Gaza death toll mounted.

In late January, as the death toll in Gaza climbed to 25,000 and droves of Palestinians fled their razed cities in search of safety, Israel’s military asked for 3,000 more bombs from the American government. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew, along with other top diplomats in the Jerusalem embassy, sent a cable to Washington urging State Department leaders to approve the sale, saying there was no potential the Israel Defense Forces would misuse the weapons.

The cable did not mention the Biden administration’s public concerns over the growing civilian casualties, nor did it address well-documented reportsthat Israel had dropped 2,000-pound bombs on crowded areas of Gaza weeks earlier, collapsing apartment buildings and killing hundreds of Palestinians, many of whom were children. Lew was aware of the issues. Officials say his own staff had repeatedly highlighted attacks where large numbers of civilians died. Homes of the embassy’s own Palestinian employees had been targeted by Israeli airstrikes.

Read more at: https://www.propublica.org/article/israel-gaza-america-biden-administration-weapons-bombs-state-department?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly-newsletter&utm_content=feature3

Special Report: Emails show early US concerns over Gaza offensive, risk of Israeli war crimes

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Written by Humeyra Pamuk | Reuters Humeyra Pamuk | Reuters
Published: 04 October 2024 04 October 2024

 

The emails, which haven’t been reported before, reveal alarm early on in the State Department and Pentagon that a rising death toll in Gaza could violate international law and jeopardize U.S. ties in the Arab world. The messages also show internal pressure in the Biden administration to shift its messaging from showing solidarity with Israel to including sympathy for Palestinians and the need to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.

...

Early on, concerns grew inside the administration about America’s image with its Arab allies.
After Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza’s hospitals, schools and mosques, the U.S. State Department’s top public diplomacy official, Bill Russo, told senior State officials that Washington was “losing credibility among Arab-speaking audiences” by not directly addressing the humanitarian crisis, according to an Oct. 11 email. Gaza’s health authorities reported that day a death toll of about 1,200.
As Israel defended the strikes, saying Hamas was using civilian buildings for military purposes, Russo wrote that U.S. diplomats in the Middle East were monitoring Arab media reports that accused Israel of waging a “genocide” and Washington of complicity in war crimes.
“The U.S.’s lack of response on the humanitarian conditions for Palestinians is not only ineffective and counterproductive, but we are also being accused of being complicit to potential war crimes by remaining silent on Israel’s actions against civilians,” Russo wrote.

Read more at: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/emails-show-early-us-concerns-over-gaza-offensive-risk-israeli-war-crimes-2024-10-04/

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