365 Days of Genocide: October 6th Newsletter
365 Days of Genocide: October 6th Newsletter
Spain: Over 200 Unions strike against Gaza Genocide
Spain entered a 24-hour general strike last Friday titled “Against the genocide and occupation in Palestine,” called for by more than 200 unions and non-governmental organisations.
The strike was accompanied by demonstrations in the capital, Madrid, and major cities such as Barcelona and Bilbao, while university student unions also announced their participation.
More at Middle East Monitor
9,500 Palestinian Students Slain
In Israel's 11-month-long war on Gaza, more than 9,500 Palestinian students have been killed. AJ Labs explores how Israel's war on Gaza has affected Palestinian education.
Ayman Safadi Calls out Netanyahu
Jordan's FM Ayman Safadi on Friday responded to Netanyahu's claim Israel was surrounded by enemies by saying '57 Muslim-Arab countries want peace; within the context of Israel ending its occupation and a Palestinian state. via Al Jazeera
Australian Government Finally Appoints Islamophobia Envoy, after Imam Council Warnings Over Delay
“Aftab Malik, a United Nations Alliance of Civilisations "Global Expert" on Muslim affairs, has been named as the government's Islamophobia envoy.
Mr Malik was born in Britain to Pakistani parents and migrated to Australia in 2012 when he was invited by the Lebanese Muslim Association to work as a scholar in residence to teach and mentor young Muslims in Sydney's western suburbs.
Most recently, Mr Malik has worked in the NSW premier's department in community engagement and countering violent extremism.”
More at ABC
B’Tselem Releases Report on Abuses of Incarcerated Palestinians
B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories has released a new report about the widespread abuses of Palestinians in Israeli custody since October 7, 2023.
See more here.
These families have been fleeing Israel’s bombardment in Lebanon
Lebanon's PM Najib Mikati states that up to one million people have been displaced by Israel's attacks, with families fleeing bombardment in the south.
Via Al Jazeera
NSW Police Attempt to Block Rally on 7 October An Attack on Fundamental Democratic rights
The organisers behind the weekly pro-Palestine protests have criticised New South Wales police for their decision to apply to the state’s supreme court to prevent two rallies from going ahead on 6 and 7 October.
Palestine Action Group (PAG) had informed police of the protests and submitted the required paperwork request, known as form 1, for both.
But after a meeting on Tuesday morning, police decided they were “not satisfied that the protest could proceed safely”, and have signalled they will be applying to prohibit both assemblies.
Amal Naser, spokesperson for PAG, said the group “unequivocally opposes this attempt to silence protests” and that the application was an “attack on fundamental democratic rights”.
More at The Guardian.
UPDATE: NSW Police have reached an 11th-hour agreement with the organisers of pro-Palestinian events in Sydney's CBD after negotiations continued in the background of a Supreme Court hearing.
Thousands are expected to rally through the city this weekend to mark the one-year anniversary of the Israel-Gaza conflict, but organisers had also put in paperwork to NSW Police seeking to hold a vigil on Monday. via ABC News
Old Tricks, new targets: Israel’s continued use of explosives in covert ops
Contrary to the assassinated resistance leader’s words in his final speech, Israel’s terrorist attack involving exploding pagers and radio communication devices targeting Lebanese resistance operatives is not an “unprecedented” or exceptional event when viewed in the context of the occupation state’s extensive intelligence operations over the decades.
Israel has used similar methods in previous assassinations of Palestinian resistance leaders. One prominent example occurred on 5 January 1996, when Yahya Ayyash, a key leader of the armed wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, and the mastermind behind numerous operations against Israel, was assassinated. The Israeli Shin Bet used a small, 50-gram explosive hidden in a portable device to carry out the attack…
More at The Cradle.
Iran Launches Ballistic Missiles at Israel
“Iran fired at least 180 missiles at Israel in retaliation for the killing of several senior Hamas, Hezbollah and Iranian officials. Iran defended its decision to fire a barrage of missiles at Israel on Tuesday, calling it a "legal" response to Israeli "terror attacks" following the killing of several senior Hamas, Hezbollah and Iranian officials in recent months.”
More at Middle East Eye.
‘As if we don’t exist’: Under bombs in Lebanon, Americans feel abandoned
Karam, an American citizen stranded in Lebanon, says she feels as if she does not matter to the United States government.
Lebanon has been facing relentless Israeli bombardment — part of a US-backed campaign that has killed hundreds and displaced more than a million people, according to the United Nations.
In recent days, however, the conflict has escalated, as the Israeli military launched a ground invasion in southern Lebanon.
On Monday, Karam called the US embassy in Beirut for help fleeing the violence. But she said she was told to find a way out of the country by herself.
Karam, who chose to be identified by her nickname out of fear of retaliation, drew a contrast with how the US State Department swiftly chartered special flights and a ship to evacuate American citizens in Israel after Hamas’s October 7 attack last year.
“Americans of Lebanese descent have been treated as lesser US citizens than Israeli US citizens. It is as if we don’t exist,” Karam told Al Jazeera.
More at Al Jazeera.
'Western calls for a ceasefire are a mirage’. Al Jazeera columnist Andrew Mitrovica believes the supposed divide between Western leaders and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is just an illusion.
Ties that bind. Australians who serve the Israeli war machine
“At any one time, there are around 100 Australians in the Israel Defense Force, according to DFAT, a number likely to be higher now. Some Jewish Australians have volunteered since October 7 to join the IDF under the Mahal Programme that recruits Jewish youths under 24 years from other countries to volunteer to join the IDF. They serve full-time in the military for eighteen months.
Other Jewish Australians who have answered a call-up appeal from Israel are reservists who have completed their time in the IDF and returned to Australia but remain on an emergency response list. Israel provided flights for some of the volunteers. A claim that there may be as many as 1,000 Australians in the IDF has not been confirmed by DFAT, with a spokesperson saying that the department “does not track the movement of Australians overseas”. The Sar-El Volunteer programme is also actively recruiting from Australia’s Jewish population of 99,956 (last Census), the ninth-largest Jewish population in the world. Participants serve one to three weeks in the IDF in non-military roles with the option of serving longer. They provide support to the Israeli Defence Force such as packing medical supplies to free up soldiers to concentrate on military duties. An article in The Australian Jewish News last November said more Australians were needed to volunteer for Sar-El “to work in uniform on Israeli military bases’.”
Another program called Birthright Israel takes young Jewish Australians, aged variously from 16 to 26 or 16 to 32 on free 10-day trips to Israel billed as educational. One trip that had 160 participants was jointly funded by the Zionist Federation of Australia, and the Gandel Foundation, one of Australia’s largest independent family trusts that funds both Jewish and general causes.”
More at Michael West Media.
What did Al Jazeera’s investigation into Israeli war crimes in Gaza reveal?
Al Jazeera’s I-Unit investigated thousands of videos and photos posted to social media by Israeli soldiers.
The behaviour displayed in the photos and videos ranges from crass jokes and soldiers rifling through women’s underwear drawers to what appears to be the murder of unarmed civilians.
It will be for prosecutors to decide the guilt or otherwise of the soldiers, but both Rodney Dixon, an international law expert, and Bill Van Esveld, the associate director for the Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera that several of the incidents documented merited investigation by international investigators.
Most of the photos and videos fell into one of three categories: wanton destruction, the mistreatment of detainees and the use of human shields. All three may be violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) and war crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
More at Al Jazeera.
After Iran launched missiles at Israel Tuesday, the U.S. condemned Iran’s “brazen, unacceptable attack.” The day before, the U.S. defended Israel’s missile attacks on Lebanon.
FIFA Postpones Decision on Israel AGAIN
“FIFA has once again postponed a decision on the Palestinian call to ban Israel from football amid its ongoing war on Gaza.
Following a meeting at its headquarters in Zurich on Thursday, the Federation Internationale de Football Association – FIFA, football’s world governing body – said its disciplinary committee will review the allegations of discrimination that have been raised by the Palestinian Football Association (PFA).”
Via Al Jazeera.
Send FIFA a letter here.
Biden claims he is ‘unsure’ if Netanyahu holding up Gaza deal to influence US election
“Joe Biden has said he does not know if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been dragging his feet on a ceasefire deal in Gaza in order to influence the US election in November.
Biden was asked the question directly during a news conference at the White House on Friday
“No administration has helped Israel more than I have. None. None. None. And I think Bibi should remember that,” Biden said, referring to the Israeli leader by his nickname.
“And whether he’s trying to influence the election, I don’t know, but I’m not counting on that.”
The Biden administration has for months downplayed the prospect that Israel could be intentionally holding up such a deal, instead regularly laying the blame for breakdowns in talks on Hamas. It has done so despite repeated reports indicating that Netanyahu’s position had shifted throughout the talks, precluding any breakthroughs.”
More at Al Jazeera.
Australia’s National Tertiary Education Union has overwhelmingly endorsed the institutional academic boycott of Israel.
Failing Gaza: Pro-Israel bias uncovered behind the lens of Western media
“Ten journalists who have covered the war on Gaza for two of the world’s leading news networks, CNN and the BBC, have revealed the inner workings of those outlets’ newsrooms from October 7 onward, alleging pro-Israel bias in coverage, systematic double standards and frequent violations of journalistic principles.
In several cases, they accused senior newsroom figures of failing to hold Israeli officials to account and of interfering in reporting to downplay Israeli atrocities. In one instance at CNN, false Israeli propaganda was put on air despite advance warnings from staff members.”
‘An embarrassing moment’ at CNN
In November, CNN International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson embedded with the Israeli army to visit Gaza’s bombed-out al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital.
Once inside, military spokesperson Daniel Hagari claimed to have found proof Hamas was using the hospital to hide Israeli captives.
Hagari showed Robertson a document on the wall written in Arabic, which he said was a roster of Hamas members watching over the captives.
“This is a guarding list. Every terrorist has his own shift,” Hagari told Robertson.
Adam recalled the broadcast as “an embarrassing moment” for CNN.
“It wasn’t a Hamas roster at all,” he said. “It was a calendar, and written in Arabic were the days of the week. But the report that came out from Nic Robertson just swallowed up Israel’s claim.”
To make matters worse, the Israeli claim had already been debunked by Arabic speakers on social media before the CNN footage aired, and, according to multiple CNN journalists and an internal WhatsApp chat seen by Al Jazeera, a Palestinian producer alerted her colleagues, including Robertson, but was ignored. After the report aired on television, they said, another producer tried to get it corrected before it was posted online.
“One colleague saw the report and flagged to Nic, [saying,] ‘Hold on, people are saying that this is not accurate,'” Adam said. “And apparently, Nic said, ‘Are you meaning to say that Hagari is lying to us?’
“There was a chance for this to get stopped. But Nic was adamant, and it went out. He’s a very experienced correspondent. If you are trusting the Israeli government over your own colleagues, then you need to have your wrist slapped at the very least because your reporting has given cover to the Israeli operation.”
No proof ever emerged of captives being held at al-Rantisi hospital.
Adam also said there was a period of time when CNN journalists “couldn’t call air strikes in Gaza air strikes unless we had confirmation from the Israelis”.
“We would not be doing this in any other place. We would not tolerate the need to ask, say, the Russians whether they bombed a hospital in Kyiv.”
Recently, when health officials in Gaza announced that Israeli attacks had killed more than 40,000 people, CNN Managing Editor Mike McCarthy ordered his team to “contextualise and hold Hamas accountable”, Adam said.
“That was reflected in the framing from the shows,” he added.”
‘No balance’ at the BBC
Sara*, a former BBC journalist, accused the British broadcaster of a double standard in interviewing guests.
She told Al Jazeera that she no longer saw her future at the BBC in part because of a “sort of unwillingness among the executive” to address concerns around editorial bias.
In the days after October 7, the BBC set up an internal group chat in which producers could screen potential interviewees based on their online footprint.
Al Jazeera has obtained messages from that chat.
“It was overwhelmingly guests on the Palestinian side of things who were being looked into,” she said. “Palestinians [were] being flagged up for using the word Zionist, which isn’t something to flag necessarily.”
She said that “now and again” Israeli guests were vetted.
“But there was no balance in what was going on. Israeli spokespeople who we did have on were given a lot of free rein to say whatever they wanted with very little pushback,” she said.
For example, Israeli politician Idan Roll on October 17 told BBC presenter Maryam Moshiri that “babies were set on fire” and “babies were shot in the head” during the Hamas incursion into southern Israel, claims that Israel has not proved and Hamas rejects.
Moshiri did not challenge or probe his claim.”
More at Al Jazeera.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry has announced that more than 2,000 people have now been killed in Israeli attacks on the country, including 127 children and 261 women.
Professor Devi Sridhar from the University of Edinburgh has estimated that, based on Rasha Khatib, Martin McKee and Salim Yusuf’s report in The Lancet, that at 23,000 Palestinians killed each month, that number could reach as high as 385,000 by the end of this year.
The destruction that Israel has wreaked upon the people of Palestine has caused and continues to cause irreversible harm. If you feel that you can’t picture an end to this terrible destruction, that’s because there is no end. Once a culture has been enslaved, occupied, or the victims of genocide, the harm continues through inter-generational trauma. This much is a fact. The people of Palestine are now living through Israel’s last phase of genocide after suffering through 76 years of apartheid and genocide.
It is easy for those of us around the world who are helpless to do anything directly to fall into despair. The actions we can take, writing letters, signing petitions, sharing information and attending protests week in, week out, are not glamorous. I know that these actions feel insignificant and repetitive and boring and useless. But they are not useless. We have seen incremental changes, and while they may not feel like much, they are all building towards the end of the occupation.
The most persuasive thing that those of us who can’t take direct action can do is make ourselves seen. This way we lend our voices to a people who are being failed and we give the Palestinian people hope. Palestine sees us. Enough of us writing letters and signing petitions eventually puts pressure on our government and institutions to stop abetting war crimes. And those of us who can speak validate the feelings of those who are opposed to the genocide, but are afraid to, or simply can’t, speak. When they see us, they know we are speaking for them too. One day they might pick up a sign and join us.
Today we grieve for those who have been lost, and we assert our loyalty to the people of Palestine and our commitment to the fight against genocide. Palestine will never die.
