Latest news with #Nakba
Al Etihad
2 days ago
- Politics
- Al Etihad
New casualties in Gaza's Khan Younis amid UN warnings of child crisis
31 May 2025 09:14 GAZA (WAM)At least 13 Palestinians, including children and women, were killed on Friday in an Israeli attack on Khan Younis in the southern Gaza reported that Israeli drones targeted a tent sheltering displaced people in the Al-Mawasi area of northern Khan Younis, resulting in the deaths of 13 civilians, including at least three children and several women. Another woman was reportedly shot dead in the to Palestinian medical sources, the ongoing Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip has raised the total death toll to 54,321, with 123,770 injured since October 7, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) revealed that more than 50,000 Palestinian children have been killed or injured since October 2023, averaging one child every 20 a statement, UNICEF said that since the end of the ceasefire on March 18, 1,309 children have been killed and 3,738 organisation renewed its call to end the violence, protect civilians—including children—uphold international humanitarian and human rights law, ensure the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid, and release all the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) warned that Gaza is in urgent need of continuous humanitarian assistance. It confirmed that its warehouses in Amman hold enough supplies to feed more than 200,000 people for a criticised the current US-backed aid distribution system, describing it as deeply flawed and forcing residents to travel long distances, thereby risking what it called a 'second Nakba' due to potential forced displacement. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini described the system as 'a waste of resources and a distraction from the atrocities', calling for unrestricted access for humanitarian organisations to operate freely.
Asharq Al-Awsat
2 days ago
- General
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Is The 1948 War Over? Yes and No
The State of Israel emerged in 1948, and its emergence was accompanied by a war and the expulsion of the Palestinian population. Its birth thus became the foundational act that precipitated many subsequent wars and, eventually, the 'Arab-Israeli conflict.' However, its emergence was also foundational to the rise of military regimes and radical ideologies in the Levant. In the shadow of this foundational event, many engrossed themselves in interpreting what Constantine Zureiq called 'the meaning of the Nakba.' Generations came and went, regimes collapsed, ideas emerged and wars were waged in the promise of undoing the outcome of that war and nullifying the victory. Nonetheless, this victory remained incomplete. An event, any event, needs recognition to be complete. The Arab states- be they the new state's neighbours or far away, and whether they fought it or didn't- refused to recognize the 'alleged entity.' After the Arab defeat of 1967 two decades later, the Israelis were under the impression that their victory would finally secure the recognition they had previously been denied. However, what happened was that new Arab causes- Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian- piled up over the Palestinian cause, further complicating what had already been a complex situation. Later, after 1978 and more so after 1982, Lebanon joined the club. All these 'neighbouring states' had lost land to occupation, while the surge of militias was the result of the trajectory set in motion by the 1967 defeat, and after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Islamism became dominant within these militias. One of the great ironies of the 1948 and 1967 wars is that the party that had achieved a resounding victory continued to seek recognition from its enemy, while the party that had been routed insisted on refusing to recognize its enemy. The Arabs' refusal to recognize Israel probably stemmed, in part, from the assumption that they would manage, albeit in an unknown future, to retaliate and 'take revenge' for what happened in the two wars. At this point, it would be no exaggeration to assert that many questions have been conclusively settled, both militarily and politically, and that the "Arab-Israeli conflict," which has narrowed to become a "Palestinian-Israeli conflict," is now behind us. At a time when a country like Syria, the 'beating heart of Arabism,' adopts a policy of pacification that is still being defined, when militias across the Levant fall after its armies have been defeated, and when the various revolutionary ideologies come to resemble abandoned houses, a military response to what was established in 1948 seems like a mirage or a hallucination. As for the political, social, and technological developments of the past couple of years, they offer no indication that the future will lead us in the opposite direction. It seems that one thing has been turned on its head despite the Israelis maintaining the upper hand in both cases. Whereas Israel's victories in 1948 and 1967 were met with Arab refusal to recognize the Jewish state, Israel's overwhelming dominance today has been coupled with a refusal to recognize not only the Palestinians but the other Arabs of Levant as well. This is evident not only in Gaza and throughout Palestine, but also in Israel's continued occupation of Syrian and Lebanese land, not deterred by the political changes in those two countries. The Arabs' refusal to recognize Israel has undoubtedly caused damage on every level since 1948. However, Israel's current refusal to recognize the Arabs' rights- to say nothing about Palestinians' right to a state- could create just as much harm that would not leave even Israel itself unscathed. While its victory in 1967 turned the country into a star and an inspiration to many around the world, its current posture has turned it into a polity that is reviled by a larger group of people than those who had admired it following its initial victory. Even though a military Arab response to what began in 1948 has now become unthinkable, the downward trajectory of the region, including in Israel, inspires no optimism about the imminence or plausibility of a take-off anywhere in the Levant. Only wars ending, materially but also through recognition, can open the door to a new phase that reflects on all levels. Only with conclusive conclusions of wars can there be a radical response to the radical struggle born in 1948. Today, some are pinning their hopes on the post–Benjamin Netanyahu era being a gateway to less gridlock. Others are betting on extracting Israel's recognition through Saudi and Gulf pressure on the United States, coupled with European (and Canadian) pressure on Tel Aviv- the former recently began abandoning their reluctance and reticence, as shown by the decision to reassess bilateral agreements. That is why, even as Israel's brutal war rages on, some believe that the establishment of a Palestinian state- or at least a process that leads to a state- has become more likely. What we can be certain of, however, is that immediately ending the genocidal war on Gaza and ensuring the delivery of humanitarian aid are the real test- this is our most urgent task and the benchmark. We should also note that Hamas could accelerate the positive trajectory by laying down its arms, releasing the remaining hostages, and abandoning its selfish ambition to retain control of the Gaza Strip. It is time to turn the page on the non-recognition that began in 1948, after the struggle of 48 and the struggles it spawned had ended as belligerent events.
Middle East Eye
3 days ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Brazilian oil trade unions urge Lula to impose energy embargo on Israel
Two of the largest federations of trade unions for oil workers in Brazil have called on the government to impose an energy embargo on Israel. The National Federation of Oil Workers and the Single Federation of Oil Workers sent a joint letter to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and key ministers in the Brazilian government on Wednesday, urging them to take more concrete action against Israel's 'genocide' in Gaza. Referring to comments made by Lula in February, the federations said that Brazil needs to go beyond public rhetoric and implement an energy embargo against Israel in accordance with its international legal obligations to prevent the 'ongoing Nakba' - meaning 'catastrophe' in Arabic and referring to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians in 1948 when Israel was created. In February, President Lula, while he was attending the African Union Summit in Ethiopia, accused Israel of committing 'genocide' against Palestinians in Gaza and compared its war on Gaza with Nazi Germany's extermination of Jews. The letter highlighted that 2.7m barrels of crude oil were exported from Brazil to Israel in 2024 alone, representing a significant portion of Israel's military fuel supply, and Brazil had a global responsibility to avoid complicity in war crimes, as articulated by legal experts and international judicial bodies. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters The letter cited action taken by other countries, such as Colombia's suspension of coal exports to Israel, and global grassroots campaigns such as #BlockTheBoat, where dockworkers around the world have refused to load Israeli ships and cargo and transport arms to Israel. In the United States, Block the Boat was organised by the Arab Resource and Organizing Center in San Francisco. In addition to the immediate suspension of oil exports to Israel, the federations urge the Brazilian government to suspend projects with Israeli energy companies, and support United Nations-led sanctions and measures to hold Israel to account. Signatories said this was an opportunity for Brazil to 'honor its diplomatic legacy, affirm its position on the right side of history, and ensure that its economic policies reflect its ethical and legal commitments to human rights and international law". The Single Federation of Oil Workers is a national trade union, while the National Federation of Oil Workers is a trade union federation comprised of independently operating oil workers' unions. Diplomatic backlash to Lula's comments Lula has been a longtime supporter of Palestine. His comment to reporters on 17 February in Ethiopia sparked a diplomatic backlash when he said that Israel's actions in Gaza were not a war, "It's a genocide". "It's not a war of soldiers against soldiers. It's a war between a highly prepared army, and women and children," he said. "What's happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people hasn't happened at any other moment in history. Actually, it has happened: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Lula's Nazi Germany comparison was 'disgraceful and grave', while Foreign Minister Israel Katz said that Lula would be 'a persona non grata in Israel' until he took back his comments. Lula refused to take back his comments and recalled Brazil's ambassador from Israel. Reuters reported that his approval ratings fell from 54 percent to 51 percent after his comments. Lula also backed South Africa's International Court of Justice case against Israel in January, which ruled that a 'plausible genocide' was happening in Gaza. An official statement highlighted Lula's role in the decision: 'The president expressed his support for South Africa's initiative to bring Israel before the ICJ to determine that Israel immediately ceases all acts and measures that may constitute genocide or related crimes under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.'
RTÉ News
4 days ago
- Politics
- RTÉ News
Harris accuses Israel of genocide in Dáil clash over Gaza
Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Harris has insisted Government is doing all it can to help ordinary people in Palestine - describing what is happening as "the genocidal activity of the Netanyahu government" and that there is "an act of evil going on". Mr Harris was speaking during a heated Dáil exchange in which Independent TD Catherine Connolly said in her view Israel has become "a rogue state" and that the coalition is "standing over a narrative that is utterly false". Speaking during a Dáil Leaders Questions debate, Ms Connolly said 54,000 Palestinians have been killed since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, including 15,630 children. Ms Connolly said during this same period 630,000 people have been displaced, and that "at least 28 aid workers have been killed since 1 May, an average of one worker per day". While saying there have been calls for an immediate ceasefire, the Independent TD said that Israel has said it "intends to establish 22 new settlements". She asked, "how have we allowed this to happen?", before saying: "We've let it happens because we've bought into a narrative that has been pushed more than 100 years, 140 at this time, that Jewish people without a land and Palestine was a country without a people. "And arising from that then the narrative took hold that they were entitled to that land notwithstanding the Nakba in 1948, a new Nakba happening under our very eyes and noses, with the narrative that Israel is the only democracy, the bulwark against Islamic religions and Muslims, and we have all bought into that to a certain extent. "The Hamas attack happened on 7 October, which we are on record as condemning, I also said history did not start on that day. "It is time for us to reflect, to stop the cognitive dissonance and ask why an independent republic is standing over a narrative that is utterly false." In response, Mr Harris said the Government is "not standing over" anything, before adding that what is taking place is the "genocidal activity of the Netanyahu government" in Israel. The Tánaiste said he wanted to make it clear he "differentiates between the government of Israel and the people of Israel", but said what is happening is "despicable" and that there is "an act of evil going on here, this is evil". Mr Harris said the measures the Government is taking include progress on the Occupied Territories Bill, saying Ireland "is the first country in Europe" to take this step and that other countries may be looking at us to ask, "why can't we do it in other countries as well". He continued that "I don't buy into the narrative that Opposition is good and Government is bad", repeating that "we're all appalled by the genocide we're witnessing". However, Ms Connolly responded, saying Government can be "appalled and sickened" but is still "refusing to recognise the elephant in the room". She said that in her view there is an "umbilical cord" between Israel and the US, which she described as the "biggest supplier" of weapons to Israel. She said the US is followed by the EU, which she said is "morally corrupt and inept" on the issue, saying "let's call a spade a spade". Ms Connolly said this is happening while Shannon Airport is being used by the US air force, and while in her view "the Occupied Territories Bill is going nowhere". She added: "It's time we led. Call out the narrative for what it is. Israel is a rogue state; it is not a democratic state. Stand up, stand up and account for what you're going to do." Mr Harris again responded, saying Deputy Connolly has "such vitriol and dislike for Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil" that in his view progress is not being acknowledged. He criticised Ms Connolly's remarks, saying "while you're standing here throwing brickbats at me", Government is being praised by other countries for the steps it is taking. Mr Harris added that he is "disgusted and sickened" by what is happening in Gaza and that "we were the first country to say what Israel is doing is genocide".
The Wire
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Wire
From Colonial Loot to Cultural Genocide at the British Museum
Menu हिंदी తెలుగు اردو Home Politics Economy World Security Law Science Society Culture Editor's Pick Opinion Support independent journalism. Donate Now Top Stories From Colonial Loot to Cultural Genocide at the British Museum Rachel Spence 8 minutes ago The British museum secretly hosted a birthday party for the Israeli embassy earlier this month. Israeli embassy event at the British Museum. Photo: X/@MooniTB Real journalism holds power accountable Since 2015, The Wire has done just that. But we can continue only with your support. Contribute now Last week, London's British Museum inaugurated 'Ancient India', a new show exploring the origins of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain sacred art. It should have been a moment to celebrate this rich confluence of artistic expression. Instead, there were calls to boycott. One guest, British-Indian actor and author Jassa Ahluwalia, published his refusal on Instagram. Behind his withdrawal, he wrote, lay the museum's 'repugnant' decision to host a birthday party for the Israeli embassy some days earlier. Held in secret – despite the museum's claim to run itself in an 'open and honest way' – the event was leaked by an insider to the activist organisation Energy Embargo for Palestine. The group was already focused on the museum for taking funds from BP, the fossil-fuel giant preparing to explore for gas in offshore Israel. The party celebrated the 77th anniversary of Israel's founding in 1948 – an event coinciding with the Nakba, in which Israeli forces expelled 7,50,000 Palestinians from their homes and land. The evening was hosted by Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely, who has called the Nakba 'a very strong and very popular Arab lie'. The museum's interior walls were lit in the blue and white colours of the Israeli flag, while Zionist guests made gleeful posts on X. Attendees included Maria Eagle, UK Defence Procurement minister who made a speech lauding Royal Air Force 'surveillance flights' over Gaza 'in support of hostage rescue efforts'. The British Museum is arguably the UK's premier cultural institution, home to around 8 million objects including Egypt's Rosetta Stone and India's Amaravati Marbles. It drew 6.5 million visitors last year alone. In an interview last year, its director, Nicholas Cullinan, condemned 'divisive discussions around nationalism' and claimed the museum had 'a role to play in giving people another way of thinking about the interconnected world, to be curious about each other.' How then could he have permitted his institution to welcome a country so steeped in ongoing violence against civilians? The museum defended itself by saying that the party was held on a 'commercial basis', unlike events that the museum 'actively hosts'. Yet given our collective awareness of the world's first live-streamed genocide, the British Museum's decision to sell itself to the country responsible for that horror is shocking. However it is far from the only western museum complicit in Israel's aggression. Last month, FreeMuse released their annual report monitoring international cultural censorship. As usual, they spotlighted a handful of countries with particularly oppressive records. Less usually, this year two western democracies were on the list. The USA and Germany found themselves alongside long-time offenders such as Cuba, Afghanistan, Russia and Iran, due to multiple museums' policies of cancelling and censoring pro-Palestinian art. As I write this piece, reports come in that the Whitney Museum in New York has cancelled a performance about Palestinian mourning after concerns about certain phrases used by one of the artists in a previous presentation. When cultural institutions cannot find the imagination to negotiate differences of language and viewpoint without resorting to cancellation it begs questions about their authenticity. Powerful art blossoms out of the darkest dilemmas. It is rarely elegant, polished, without rough edges. When the world beyond the museum is wracked with violence and injustice, it is inevitable that much artistic expression will reflect that raw, cruel turbulence. Our cultural spaces should be the places where our eyes are most open. Yet around Palestine, institutional western culture has suffered a willful blocking of vision. The result is a quenching of culture's ethical spotlight; a silencing of art's moral song. If they continue to erase the Palestinian experience, western museums will not only lose their reputation as flag-bearers of free expression, but also betray that their vaunted efforts to decolonise their collections and staff hierarchies were merely window dressing. Today, a growing number of culture-makers from the Global Majority doubt the intentions of western institutions. 'The sad realisation that our inclusion had probably been a form of tokenism and that the wider fraternity I genuinely believed in probably existed only in my mind leaves a bitter taste,' said Shahidul Alam, a photographer from Bangladesh, who in late 2023 found a German biennial he was curating suddenly cancelled, after he showed support for the Palestinian cause. Asked to comment on Israel's event at the British Museum, Alam replied, 'The museum's website states its aim is to provide a safe, welcoming environment for all children and adults at risk. By hosting a birthday party for Israel, the museum supported the selective erasure of humanity. Its prioritisation of profit over principle reveals its mercenary nature.' Palestinians are the victim of Israeli settler colonialism. That brutal system is dependent on the military support of countries such as the US and the UK, whose own wealth was built by stealing land, enslaving people of colour and exploiting labour. For the British Museum, colonialism is a particularly raw nerve. Much of its collection was acquired thanks to Britain's imperial conquests. Today the museum is assailed by repatriation demands, most famously by the Greek government for its Parthenon Marbles. Thousands of Egyptians have called for the return of their Rosetta Stone, which arrived in London with the tag 'Captured in Egypt by the British Army'. From colonial-era India, the museum acquired the Amaravati Marbles, 121 sculptures taken from an ancient Buddhist stupa in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, by British civil servant Sir Walter Elliot in 1860. Calling for their return in 2016, writer Ruchika Sharma castigated Elliot for his reckless excavations, accusing him of the 'greatest robbery of all time'. The museum says that an Act of Parliament prevents it from returning items. However, British Museum director Nicolas Cullinan has said he has no intention of lobbying to change the act. That attitude is in keeping with the heartlessness that welcomed Israel as Palestinian children starve. What is the point of conserving objects so impeccably if you collude with those who damage nature and community outside the museum walls? If the British Museum cannot find sympathy for Palestine, it might spare a thought for their heritage. Ottoman historian Dr Yakoob Ahme d has spoken of a 'cultural genocide' as dozens of historic sites, including the Great Omari Mosque, which dates back to the early seventh century, were flattened. Echoing the looting of their British colonial forebears, Israeli troops have been accused of thieving more than 3,000 objects from Gaza's Al-Isra University, then wrecking the site to hide their crime. The economic anthropologist Jason Hickel recently declared that 'Palestine is the rock on which the West will break itself.' How devastating if the region's great museums, who claim to foster cultural dialogue and harmony, help to fulfil his prophecy. Rachel Spence is a poet and arts writer. Her latest book is Venice Unclocked (2022, Ivory Press). Her work has appeared in the Financial Times, Hyperallergic and The Art Newspaper. 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