This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Sep. 09, 2025
. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
Pro-Palestinian protesters gathered
at the Port of Sidi Bou Said in Tunis, Tunisia early Tuesday morning after the international group organizing a humanitarian aid mission to Gaza
said one of its boats had been struck by what was believed to be a drone.
The Global Sumud Flotilla said one of the main vessels of its fleet of 50 boats was struck while it was anchored in the harbor. The boat was carrying the group’s steering committee, which includes climate leader Greta Thunberg
, human rights activist Yasemin Acar, and Brazilian organizer Thiago Ávila.
Footage taken from a boat docked near the “Family Boat” showed the moment an object appeared to drop onto the vessel, triggering an explosion.
Footage from another boat across from the “Family” – the principal vessel of the Global Sumud Flotilla – shows an object dropping from above onto the ship, triggering an explosion on contact. https://t.co/7TtpIRPzVQpic.twitter.com/RKBDnTugt6
The Global Sumud Flotilla said
no one was injured in the apparent attack and said that “acts of aggression aimed at intimidating and derailing our mission will not deter us.”
“Our peaceful mission to break the siege on Gaza and stand in solidarity with its people continues with determination and resolve,” said the group in a statement.
Political commentator Brian Allen posted another video taken aboard the Family Boat.
🚨 BREAKING: Greta Thunberg was aboard a Gaza aid ship hit by a suspected drone strike off the coast of Tunisia.
The vessel, carrying activists and humanitarian supplies, was set ablaze mid-mission.
The flotilla is the latest fleet of boats headed for Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid and break the siege Israel
has imposed since October 2023 as it has relentlessly attacked the exclave, killing more than 64,000 Palestinians so far, and said it is planning
a complete takeover of Gaza.
Nearly 400 people, including at least 140 children, have died of starvation caused by Israel’s near-total blockade on humanitarian aid. More than 1,000 people have been killed while trying to access food, including at hubs set up by the privatized, US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification said
in late July that parts of Gaza are facing famine, with one in three people going days without consuming any food.
Israel has stopped several aid boats from reaching Gaza in recent months, including the Madleen
and the Handala, and detained organizers. The Conscience, another boat operated by the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, was reportedly bombed by Israel in May off the coast of Malta, forcing organizers to turn back.
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has threatened
to designate humanitarian aid organizers trying to reach Gaza by boat as “terrorists” and to detain them.
On Tuesday, Francesca Albanese
, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, said the reports of a drone attack have to be verified but noted Israel’s “history” of attacking aid vessels bound for Gaza.
Tunisian officials have said
the vessel was not attacked by a drone and blamed the fire that broke out on a cigarette butt or lighter.
“There is no other state protecting this boat other than Tunisia creating a safe port,” said Albanese. “The question is, if it’s confirmed that this is a drone attack, it will be an assault, an aggression against Tunisia and against Tunisian sovereignty.”
“We cannot keep on tolerating this,” she added, “and normalizing the illegal.”
This story originally appeared in Jacobin
on Sept. 09, 2025. It is shared here with permission.
On June 17, 2025, New York City comptroller Brad Lander, at that time a mayoral candidate, was arrested
by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Lander was engaged in the process of immigrant accompaniment, which is when humanitarian supporters accompany immigrants to their court proceedings. Their presence can throw sand in the system’s gears and slow down deportations. Donald Trump’s second administration is criminalizing this practice precisely because they know it works.
In researching my book The Politics of Sanctuary
, I spent years during Trump’s first term observing activists who practice immigrant accompaniment, trying to understand its mechanics and effectiveness. “We can stop or slow down the deportation process,” said one volunteer with the New Sanctuary Coalition (NSC), an organization dedicated to assisting migrants and asylum seekers. The Trump administration has moved to punish
nonprofits and faith-based groups that engage in sanctuary practices like accompaniment, alleging that they promote and facilitate immigration law violations.
“The judges know us, ICE knows us. They fear us,” the NSC volunteer continued. “They have blocked us [from accompaniments], but we will keep going. We show up to doctors’ appointments, to family court, to lawyers’ appointments, [and] to Varick Street,” where New York City’s immigration court is located.
The volunteer was not bluffing about the effectiveness of the accompaniment strategy. I observed numerous cases where NSC volunteers accompanying immigrants slowed down the deportation process. The volunteers I observed were mostly native-born, white, female New Yorkers, ranging from middle-aged to senior citizens. Their presence was critical for the success of migrants’ cases. At times they were a silent presence at ICE check-ins and case hearings, while at other times they were vocal in their advocacy. “We are literally standing at that line and making sure that we hold that line and enforce rights,” one volunteer told me.
During Trump’s first term, migrant advocates sought to counter the administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric with evidence that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates
than native-born Americans. These efforts did not completely reverse public opinion
, which carried Trump to a second victory on an even more anti-immigrant platform in 2024. However, activism during the first Trump term did bring citizens and noncitizens together at demonstrations and protests, strengthening the movement for migrant rights. Many citizens developed political consciousness during this period and dedicated themselves to sanctuary practices like accompaniment — practices that continue to this day, often led by faith-based organizations.
These citizen activists didn’t just sympathize with immigrants but felt they had a duty to defend them. This sense of responsibility led many to 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan to support migrants attending ICE appointments. Living near immigrant neighborhoods, having immigrant friends, and believing that New York City’s institutions could be pushed to protect migrants all contributed to their support. The immigrants involved in these networks, meanwhile, saw themselves not as criminals but as tentative residents whose rights were being violated — a perspective that grew stronger through their participation in sanctuary practices. Their own activism challenged the idea that migrants are simply victims of an exploitative economic system.
Cities as Battlegrounds for Citizenship
Sanctuary practices in cities create space for undocumented people, asylum seekers, and refugees to engage in political struggle. But they can’t do it alone: their effectiveness depends on building alliances with citizens and permanent residents who join these struggles with practices like accompaniment and acts of civil disobedience
. It is precisely this solidarity that the Trump administration is seeking to criminalize.
Nor can migrants claim rights without the dedicated assistance of sympathetic political leaders. Many of them lack the right to vote; the New York Court of Appeals ruled six to one
in March 2025 that the state constitution requires citizenship for voting. Systematically barred from the formal representational political process, they must rely instead on voluntary action from political figures — actions like Lander’s arrest as a mayoral candidate during an accompaniment action.
Trump has made outright threats
to defund sanctuary cities (though only small percentages of budgets would actually be affected). He has also threatened to expand
the criminalization of immigrants, which city administrations have resisted by refusing police cooperation
with ICE. These words have turned into violent acts against protesters and political representatives
seen as obstructing ICE enforcement.
Trump’s threats against grassroots sanctuary efforts serve to heighten racial hostilities, scapegoat immigrants, manufacture emergencies, and instill fear in immigrants to keep them from using social and health services. Meanwhile, urban disinvestment and austerity programs
are creating a false sense of scarcity for which immigrants are held responsible. Amid urban inequality, blaming immigrants can mask the lack of real solutions for urban problems like affordable housing, high-functioning social services, accessible transit, and so on.
Trump’s executive orders
earlier this year intensified threats to sanctuary jurisdictions by calling to cut federal funding, penalize the granting of public benefits, and target local officials for prosecution. Federal courts largely blocked these measures as unconstitutional, and cities continue to fight the policy in court. They must continue to put up a fight, as sanctuary practices represent an essential part of the struggle for migrant rights and indeed all human rights.
The sanctuary movement offers migrants more than simply hope that they won’t be deported. It provides concrete assistance toward the goal of avoiding deportation. Of course, getting migrants to participate in sanctuary practices becomes difficult in a climate of heightened fear amid stepped-up deportations. This makes the participation of native-born activists all the more necessary to create conditions of safety and solidarity. Only when migrants and nonmigrants stand together can they thwart Trump’s anti-migrant agenda.
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Sep. 11, 2025
. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro
was sentenced to over 27 years behind bars Thursday after four of five Supreme Court justices on a panel voted to convict the far-right leader and seven associates of plotting a military coup and assassination of current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and other officials.
“This criminal case is almost a meeting between Brazil and its past, its present, and its future,” said Justice Cármen Lúcia Antunes Rocha, on Thursday cast the third and decisive vote to convict the former president and seven co-plotters, referring in part to the two decades of US-backed
military dictatorship, during which Bolsonaro served as an army paratrooper.
Lúcia joined Justices Flávio Dino, Cristiano Zanin, and Alexandre de Moraes—who, along with Lula and Brazilian Vice President Geraldo Alckmin were targeted for assassination by the plotters—in voting to convict the defendants of attempting to subvert Lula’s victory
in the 2022 presidential election.
The defendants—who in addition to Bolsonaro include army generals and former Defense Ministers Walter Braga Netto and Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira; former Institutional Security Minister Augusto Heleno Ribiero; admiral and former Navy Commander Almir Garnier Santos; former Justice Minister Anderson Torres; and former presidential adviser Márcio Mirando—were found guilty of crimes including attempting a coup, involvement in an armed criminal organization, attempting the violent abolition of democratic rule of law, and aggravated damage of the state’s assets.
Brazil’s Supreme Court has refused to cave to imperialist threats from the USA and reached a 3×1 majority to convict ex-President Bolsonaro and 7 of his cronies (including army generals and the former commander of the Navy) of attempting a coup. My analysis @telesurenglishpic.twitter.com/3RAH10S43F
Lt. Col. Mauro Cid, a former Bolsonaro aide who turned state’s witness, was sentenced
Thursday to two years of confinement under open conditions, the most lenient form of carceral punishment in the Brazilian justice system.
“The government wanted to remain in power by simply ignoring democracy—and that is what constitutes a coup d’état,” Moraes said ahead of his vote on Tuesday. “The leader of the criminal group made it clear—publicly and in his own words—that he would never accept defeat at the ballot, a democratic loss in the elections, and that he would never abide by the will of the people.”
Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years, 3 months in prison, with penalties for the other convicted defendants still uncertain as of Thursday evening. Bolsonaro, who is 70 years old, denies any wrongdoing. He is currently under house arrest and could remain there until after exhausting the appeals process. He is already banned
from running for any office until 2030 due to his abuse of power related to baseless claims of electoral fraud.
bolsonaro was found guilty of plotting a military coup and brazilians are outside literally cheering and lighting fireworks pic.twitter.com/238LEtqmkP
Justice Luiz Fux voted Thursday to absolve Bolsonaro, asserting that there was “absolutely no proof” that the former president took part in or was even aware of the coup and assassination plot.
However, Lúcia argued that there was copious evidence indicating that Bolsonaro and his accomplices acted “with the purpose of eroding democracy and institutions.”
“They acted to hijack the soul of the republic,” she said. “The case files show a coordinated criminal enterprise by the defendants, who adopted the methods of a digital militia to attack the judiciary, the electoral system, and the electronic voting machines.”
The landmark verdict came amid acute political polarization in Latin America’s biggest democracy and threats from the office of US President Donald Trump
to unleash American “military might” in defense of the “Trump of the Tropics,” as Bolsonaro is often called. The Trump administration has already slapped 50% tariffs
on Brazilian imports and has sanctioned
Moraes.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded to Thursday’s developments by vowing on social media that “the United States will respond accordingly to this witch hunt.”
The political persecutions by sanctioned human rights abuser Alexandre de Moraes continue, as he and others on Brazil’s supreme court have unjustly ruled to imprison former President Jair Bolsonaro.
The United States will respond accordingly to this witch hunt.
Like Trump in 2020, Bolsonaro made many baseless allegations that his loss in the 2022 election was due to fraud, fueling lies and conspiracy theories that led to the January 8, 2023 mob attacks
on government buildings. Around 1,500 Bolsonaro supporters were arrested
in the days following the storming of Congress and the presidential offices.
While many right-wing Brazilians were outraged by the convictions, leftist lawmakers and others applauded what Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT) called
“a historic moment for Brazil.”
🚨 CÁRMEN LUCIA VOTA PELA CONDENAÇÃO: A ministra Cármen Lúcia acaba de votar pela condenação de todos os réus por todos os crimes imputados pela PGR, formando maioria de 3 votos a 1 pela condenação do ex-presidente Jair Bolsonaro e dos outros sete acusados. O ministro Cristiano… pic.twitter.com/MEZty8NrWI
Brazilian Secretary of Institutional Affairs Gleisi Hoffmann (PT) said
on social media, “The conviction of Jair Bolsonaro and his accomplices by the Federal Supreme Court expresses the vigor of democracy and national sovereignty.”
“They were convicted in due legal process, based on compelling evidence of the crimes they committed,” she continued. “It is a historic, unprecedented decision so that they may never again dare to attack the rule of law and the will of the people expressed at the ballot box.”
“It is also the proud response of Brazil’s judiciary to the economic sanctions and absurd coercion of the Donald Trump government, in conspiracy with the traitors to the homeland in the service of Bolsonaro,” Hoffmann added. “Today… Brazil told the world that crimes against democracy are intolerable. And they are unforgivable.”
Federal Deputy Talíria Petrone (Socialism and Liberty-Rio de Janeiro) called
Thursday “the greatest day ever,” while former colleague Jean Wyllys also hailed
this “great day.”
Erika Hilton, a Socialism and Liberty federal deputy representing São Paulo, taunted Bolsonaro with the prospect of a lengthy stay at a notorious maximum security penitentiary.
🚨 BOLSONARO, A PAPUDA TE ESPERA!
A Primeira Turma do Supremo Tribunal Federal acaba de definir a pena total de 27 anos e 3 meses de reclusão em regime FECHADO ao condenado Jair Bolsonaro.
Bolsonaro e seus aliados foram condenados pelos crimes de tentativa de golpe de Estado,… pic.twitter.com/5yzin5kzRb
Federal Deputy Benedita da Silva (PT-Rio de Janeiro) said
on social media that “democratic Brazil is proud and celebrating the firm decision” of the high court, “whose members suffered countless threats, including death threats, from the conspirators against the democratic rule of law.”
Referring to the United States, da Silva praised the justices, who “did not bow to the threats to our sovereignty from the greatest external power.”“Now we have to defeat the amnesty coup of the convicted plotters that they are still trying to pass,” she added, a reference to efforts by the right-wing Congress to pass clemency legislation for Bolsonaro. “No amnesty!”
President Donald Trump announced during an appearance
on “Fox & Friends” that he is planning to send military troops to Memphis, Tennessee.
During his appearance on September 12, Trump said his administration would deploy the National Guard “and anybody else we need” to the Tennessee city. Trump did not provide a timeline for the deployment.
“By the way, we’ll bring in the military too if we need it,” he added.
Trump said Memphis is “deeply troubled.”
“We’re going to fix that, just like we did in Washington,” he said.
The Memphis Shelby Crime Commission
shows that crime in Memphis, including violent crime, has decreased
since last year. Violent crime from January to June is down more than 17 percent this year compared with the same period in 2024.
Earlier this month, Trump flooded Washington, D.C.
with federal agents and National Guard troops under the pretense of cracking down on crime, despite record-low crime rates. In June, he sent National Guard troops, as well as the Marines, to Los Angeles to suppress protests
against his immigration policies.
For weeks Trump has threatened to send troops to Chicago, but a conversation with a businessman, who he did not name, changed his mind, Trump said on “Fox & Friends.”
“I said, ‘So what do you think? Where should we go next as a city?’” Trump said in his retelling of the story. “‘Because we’re going to 1, 2, 3, and then we’ll do a few at a time. We’re going to straighten out the crime in the city.’”
The man replied, “Sir, Memphis would be good.”
Trump did not disclose the man’s name, but said he was on the Board of FedEx, which has its headquarters in Memphis, and was the head of the railroad company Union Pacific. The Guardianreported
that Union Pacific CEO Jim Vena was on the board of FedEx until 2023, and that none of the railroad company’s leaders currently sit on the FedEx board.
Memphis is one of the largest majority-Black cities
in the country. Like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., Memphis is run by a Democratic Black mayor.
The governors of Illinois and California, both Democrats, pushed back against Trump’s incursions, but Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee has welcomed the news.
“For months, I have been in constant communication with the Trump Administration to develop a multi-phased, strategic plan to combat crime in Memphis, leveraging the full extent of both federal and state resources,” Lee said in a statement
released on September 12.
“The next phase will include a comprehensive mission with the Tennessee National Guard, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Tennessee Highway Patrol, Memphis Police Department, and other law enforcement agencies, and we are working closely with the Trump Administration to determine the most effective role for each of these agencies to best serve Memphians,” he continued.
Lee said he has authorized an “additional Tennessee Highway Patrol surge in Shelby County, and THP continues to work closely with the Memphis Police Department through the Bluff City Task Force.”
Local leaders, however, were not as enthusiastic about Trump’s plans.
Memphis Mayor Paul Young (D) said in a statement
that he had been informed earlier in the week that the president and governor were “considering deploying the National Guard and other resources to Memphis.”
“What we need most are financial resources for intervention and prevention, additional patrol officers, and case support to strengthen MPD’s investigations,” he continued, adding that Memphis is “making measurable progress in bringing down crime.”
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris (D), who is Black, said that Trump’s plan to send troops into Memphis is “anti-democratic.” The county mayor is the chief elected official
in Shelby County; Memphis is the county seat
.
“The President’s announcement that troops will occupy Tennessee communities is disappointing, anti-democratic, and violates American norms and possibly US laws,” he posted on Facebook
on September 12. “In the short term, the President’s incursion will likely cause confusion and fear in many of our communities, particularly the most vulnerable ones.”
He continued: “Let’s be clear: the President sending troops to Tennessee will interfere and have a chilling effect on Tennesseans’ ability to exercise critical freedoms, such as the freedom to protest and the liberty to travel. We will do everything in our power to prevent this incursion into Tennessee and to protect the rights, safety, and dignity of every resident in our communities.”
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Sept. 15, 2025
.It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
Senior Trump administration officials on Monday made fresh threats to crack down on a nonexistent left-wing “domestic terror movement” following last week’s assassination of Charlie Kirk—a move that critics called an attempt to exploit the far-right firebrand’s murder to advance an authoritarian agenda targeting nonviolent opposition.
Even as investigators work to determine the motive of Kirk’s killer, members of Trump’s inner circle and supporters have amplified an unfounded narrative of a coordinated leftist movement targeting conservatives.
On Monday, two senior administration officials, who spoke anonymously to describe the internal planning, said that Cabinet secretaries and federal department heads were working to identify organizations that funded or supported violence against conservatives. The goal, they said, was to categorize left-wing activity that led to violence as domestic terrorism, an escalation that critics said could lay the groundwork for crushing anti-conservative dissent more broadly.
Appearing on the latest episode of “The Charlie Kirk
Show” podcast—which was guest hosted
by US Vice President JD Vance—White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said that “we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people.”
“It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name,” Miller vowed.
Vance said during the podcast that he wanted to explore “all of the ways that we’re trying to figure out how to prevent this festering violence that you see on the far left from becoming even more and more mainstream.”
“You have the crazies on the far left who are saying, ‘Oh, Stephen Miller and JD Vance, they’re going to go after constitutionally protected speech,‘” the vice president said. “We’re going to go after the network that foments, facilitates, and engages in violence.”
Vance, who like Trump and numerous supporters claim to champion free speech, also took aim at “people who are celebrating” Kirk’s killing.
If we want to stop political violence like what happened to Charlie Kirk, we have to be honest about the people who are celebrating it and the people who are financing it.
Another unnamed administration official told
the Times Monday that government agencies would be investigating people, including those accused of vandalizing Tesla electric vehicles and dealerships and allegedly assaulting federal immigration agents, in an effort to implicate US leftists in political violence.
Vance and Miller’s threats ignored right-wing violence—which statistically outpaces
left-wing attacks—including the recent assassinations of Democratic Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman, who were murdered
in June by a right-wing masked gunman disguised as a police officer.
Investigative reporter Jason Paladino reported
last week that the US Department of Justice apparently removed an academic study previously published
on the National Institute for Justice’s online library showing that “since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives” versus “42 ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives” committed by “far-left extremists.”
“Militant, nationalistic, white supremacist violent extremism has increased in the United States. In fact, the number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism.”The Trump DOJ scrubbed this study from their website.
Responding to Miller’s remarks, New Republic staff writer Greg Sargent noted
on social media that “Stephen Miller was directly involved in one of the largest acts of organized domestic political violence the United States has seen in modern times, the January 6 [2021] insurrection.”
Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) weighed in Monday on Miller’s attempt to exploit Kirk’s murder, writing
on the social media site Bluesky that “it’s never acceptable to kill someone for their political beliefs. But the Trump [administration] exploiting the shooting of Charlie Kirk to follow their authoritarian instincts and crack down on the left is incredibly disturbing.”
“We must end any form of political violence—and reject those who try to exploit it,” she added.
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom noted
Monday on social media that Miller “has already publicly labeled the Democratic Party as a terrorist organization.”
“This isn’t about crime and safety,” Newsom added. “It’s about dismantling our democratic institutions. We cannot allow acts of political violence to be weaponized and used to threaten tens of millions of Americans.”
The progressive Working Families Party (WFP) said
Monday on social media that “JD Vance and Stephen Miller want to use the horrifying murder of Charlie Kirk to target and dismantle pro-democracy groups.”
“Their comments call to mind some of the darkest periods in US history,” WFP continued. “They’re dividing people based on what box we ticked on our voter registration.”
Vance and Miller “want to stoke fear and resentment to justify their un-American crackdowns on free speech, mass abductions of working people, and military takeovers of our cities,” WFP added. “This isn’t going to fly. We’ve survived crises like this before as a country, and we can choose to live in a place where our political freedoms are protected, where we settle disagreements with words not weapons, and where no one has to fear losing a loved one to gun violence.”
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Sept. 16, 2025
.It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
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.”
