“Media freedom is often a casualty of war, and Israel’s recent war with Iran is no exception. We have seen Israeli authorities use security fears to increase censorship, while extremist right-wing politicians have demonized the media, legitimizing attacks on journalists,” said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah. “Despite hopes that we will see a ceasefire in Gaza this week, Israel’s government appears relentless in its determination to silence those who report critically on its military actions.”

After Haaretz newspaper published an interview with Israeli soldiers who said they were ordered to shoot at unarmed Gazans waiting for food aid, a mayor in southern Israel threatened to shut shops selling the popular liberal paper. This follows the government’s decision last year to stop advertising with Haaretz, accusing it of “incitement.”

Authorities are also pushing ahead with a bill to dismantle the public broadcaster, Kan, and shutter its news division, the country’s third-largest news channel. Meanwhile, government support has seen the right-wing Channel 14 grow in popularity.

The hostile climate fueled by Israel’s right-wing government has emboldened settler violence against journalists. On July 5, two Deutsche Welle (DW) reporters wearing press vests were attacked by Israeli settlers in Sinjil, West Bank — an incident condemned by Germany’s ambassador and the German Journalists’ Association, which called it “unacceptable that radical settlers are hunting down media professionals with impunity.” Reporters from AFP, The New York Times, and The Washington Post were also present. Palestinian journalists had to flee.

“War is a dangerous time for civil rights – rights that Netanyahu’s government is actively undermining as it moves toward dismantling democracy,” Haaretz Editor-in-Chief Aluf Benn told CPJ.

‘Broadcasts that serve the enemy’

During the Israel-Iran war of June 13 to 24, anti-press government actions included:

• A June 18 military order requiring army approval before broadcasting the aftermath of Iranian attacks on Israeli military sites. Haaretz reported that this order was illegal as it was not made public in the official government gazette or authorized by a parliamentary committee.

• On June 19, security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called on Israelis who see people watching “Al Jazeera broadcasts or reporters” to report their sightings to authorities. Israel shut down the Qatari-based outlet in May 2024, and six of its journalists have been killed while reporting on Israel’s war in Gaza. Many Arabs in Israel still watch Al Jazeera broadcasts, and former Israeli officials have appeared on the network since the shutdown. 

“These are broadcasts that serve the enemy,” Ben-Gvir said. 

• On June 20, Ben-Gvir and communications minister Shlomo Karhi issued a directive that broadcasting from impact sites without written permission would be a criminal offense.

When Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara demanded that the ministers explain the legal basis for their announcement, the ministers said she was “trying to thwart” their efforts to ensure that foreign media “don’t help the enemy target us.”

• On June 23, Haaretz reported that the police’s legal adviser issued an order giving officers sweeping powers to censor journalists reporting from the impact sites.

“This directive, which primarily targets foreign media and joins a wave of police and ministerial efforts to obstruct news coverage, is unlawful and infringes on basic rights,” Tal Hassin, an attorney with Israel’s biggest human rights group, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), told CPJ.

ACRI petitioned the Attorney General, arguing that the police adviser did not have the legal authority to issue such an order. It has not received a response.

Journalists censored, detained, and abused

CPJ subsequently documented at least four incidents involving journalists who were abused and blocked from reporting.

• On June 20, police stopped a live broadcast from Tel Aviv by Turkish state-owned broadcaster TRT’s correspondent Mücahit Aydemir, although he told the officers he had the required permits, including authorization from the military censor. For several days afterwards, Aydemir received “unsettling phone calls” from unknown Hebrew-speakers, he told CPJ.

• On June 21, privately owned Channel 13’s journalist Ali Mughrabi and a camera operator, who declined to be named, citing fear of reprisals, were expelled from a drone crash site in Beit She’an, northern Israel, despite showing their press accreditation. During a live broadcast, Deputy Mayor Oshrat Barel questioned their credentials, shoved the cameraperson, and ordered them to leave. She later apologized.

“What we’re experiencing isn’t just about the media — it’s about citizenship,” Mughrab, an Israeli citizen of Palestinian origin, told CPJ.

• On June 22, a civilian police volunteer squad, led by far-right activist and rapper Yoav Eliasi, known as “The Shadow,” detained three Jerusalem-based, Arab Israeli journalists and one international journalist, after separating them from their non-Arab colleagues outside a building in Tel Aviv that had been damaged by an Iranian strike.

Mustafa Kharouf and Amir Abed Rabbo from the Turkish state-owned Anadolu Agency, Ahmad Gharabli, with Agence France-Presse news agency, and another journalist who declined to be named, citing fear of reprisal, were held for three hours.  

Kharouf told CPJ, the unit asked them who was “Israeli” and allowed the non-Arab journalists to leave. 

“One officer accused us of working for Al Jazeera, even though we showed official press credentials,” said Kharouf.

“When I showed my ID, they told me I wasn’t allowed to film because I’m not Israeli – even though they treat us like Israelis when it comes to taxes,” Gharabli told CPJ.

Armed volunteer squads have rapidly grown from four before the October 2023 Hamas attack to around 900 new units, an expansion that “had negative effects on Arab-Jewish relations,” Dr. Ark Rudnitzky of Tel Aviv University told CPJ in an email. Squad members “tend to suspect an Arab solely because they are Arab,” he said.

“It was clear they targeted the journalists because they were Arab,” said Israeli journalist and witness Oren Ziv, who wrote about the incident.

The Central District Police told CPJ via email that the journalists were “evacuated from the building for security reasons related to their safety and were directed to alternative reporting locations.”

• On June 24,  Channel 13 correspondent Paz Robinson and a camera operator who declined to be named were reporting on a missile strike in southern Israel’s Be’er Sheva when a woman shouted that he was a “Nazi” and “Al Jazeera” and blocked him from filming, screaming, “You came to celebrate over dead bodies.”

“After I saw the woman wasn’t backing down, I decided to leave. I’m not here to fight with my own people. I’m not a politician. I came to cover events,” Robinson told CPJ.

Earlier in the war with Iran, CPJ documented eight incidents in which 14 journalists faced harassment, obstruction, equipment confiscation, incitement, or forced removal by the police.

The Israel Police Spokesperson’s Unit told CPJ via email that police “made significant efforts to facilitate safe, meaningful access for journalists” during the war with Iran.  “While isolated misunderstandings may occur…case was addressed promptly and professionally.”

CPJ’s emails to the Attorney General, Israel Defense Forces’ North America Media Desk, Ben-Gvir, and Shlomo requesting comment did not receive any replies. 

Kholod Massalha is a CPJ consultant on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory and a researcher with years of experience in press freedom and freedom of expression issues.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Mohamed Mandour.

The two South Korean KF-16 fighter jets, both carrying four MK-82 bombs, dropped them outside the designated firing range, leading to unintended explosions in a civilian area, the South Korea’s air force said.

“We deeply apologize for the civilian casualties caused by this accidental bomb release and wish the injured a swift recovery,” said the air force in a release. “We will take all necessary measures, including compensation for damages.”

The United States and South Korea on Thursday held combined live-fire drills near the city of Pocheon, just 25 kilometers (16 miles) south of the border to the North, in a show of firepower aimed at North Korea ahead of the allies’ annual springtime exercise this month.

Fire service authorities said two of the eight injured people were seriously hurt, with some suffering fractures to the neck and shoulders.

The explosion also caused extensive property damage, with two homes destroyed, they said.

The MK-82 bomb, commonly used for destroying buildings and bridges, creates an explosion crater approximately 8 meters in diameter and 2.4 meters deep, with a lethal radius comparable to the size of a football field.

Unlike guided munitions, the MK-82 is an unguided bomb, meaning it is manually released by the pilot under the guidance of ground personnel. The aircraft’s computer system calculates altitude, speed, and trajectory to estimate the bomb’s impact point.

An unintended release, or abnormal drop, can occur due to errors involving ground control, pilot operation, aircraft computer performance, or the bomb’s attachment system.

Investigators are working to determine the exact cause of the malfunction.

(Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

Thursday’s joint exercise mobilized more than 160 pieces of military hardware, including K2 tanks, K55A1 self-propelled howitzers, Apache attack helicopters and F-35A stealth jets, according to the South Korean military.

The drills began with U.S. and South Korean drones conducting reconnaissance missions against simulated threats and directing artillery firing before mechanized infantry troops and tanks moved in to secure target areas.

North Korea has consistently condemned the joint military exercises, describing them as invasion rehearsals, while South Korea and the U.S. emphasize that the drills are defensive in nature.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.

The Palestinian-Israeli film No Other Land won an Oscar for best documentary feature at Sunday’s Academy Awards.

The film — recently screened in New Zealand at the Rialto and other cinemas — follows the struggles of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank community of Masafer Yatta to stay on their land amid home demolitions by the Israeli military and violent attacks by Jewish settlers aimed at expelling them.

The film was made by a team of Palestinian-Israeli filmmakers, including the Palestinian journalist Basel Adra, who lives in Masafer Yatta, and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, both of whom are prominently featured in the film.

AMY GOODMAN: And the Oscars were held Sunday evening. History was made in the best documentary category.

SAMUEL L. JACKSON: And the Oscar goes to ‘No Other Land’.

AMY GOODMAN: The Palestinian-Israeli film No Other Land won for best documentary. The film follows the struggles of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank community of Masafer Yatta to stay on their land amidst violent attacks by Israeli settlers aimed at expelling them. The film was made by a team of Palestinian-Israeli filmmakers, including the Palestinian journalist Basel Adra, who lives in Masafer Yatta, and the Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham. 

Both filmmakers — Palestinian activist and journalist Basel Adra, who lives in Masafer Yatta, and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham — spoke at the ceremony. Adra became the first Palestinian filmmaker to win an Oscar.

BASEL ADRA: Thank you to the Academy for the award. It’s such a big honor for the four of us and everybody who supported us for this documentary.

About two months ago, I became a father. And my hope to my daughter, that she will not have to live the same life I am living now, always fearing — always — always fearing settlers’ violence, home demolitions and forceful displacements that my community, Masafer Yatta, is living and facing every day under the Israeli occupation.

‘No Other Land’ reflects the harsh reality that we have been enduring for decades and still resist as we call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.

YUVAL ABRAHAM: We made this — we made this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because together our voices are stronger.

We see each other — the atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people, which must end; the Israeli hostages brutally taken in the crime of October 7th, which must be freed.

When I look at Basel, I see my brother. But we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law and Basel is under military laws that destroy his life and he cannot control.

There is a different path: a political solution without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people. And I have to say, as I am here: The foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path.

And, you know, why? Can’t you see that we are intertwined, that my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free and safe? There is another way.

It’s not too late for life, for the living. There is no other way. Thank you.

Israeli and Palestinian documentary ‘No Other Land’ wins Oscar. Video: Democracy Now!

Transcript of the February 18 interview with the film makers before their Oscar success:

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to the occupied West Bank, where Israel is reportedly planning to build nearly a thousand new settler homes in the Efrat settlement near Jerusalem. The Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.

The group Shalom Achshav, Peace Now, condemned the move, saying the Netanyahu government is trying “to establish facts on the ground that will destroy the chance for peace and compromise”.

This comes as Israel’s ongoing military operations in the West Bank have displaced at least 45,000 Palestinians — the most since the ’67 War.

Today, the Oscar-nominated Palestinian director Basel Adra shared video from the occupied West Bank of Israeli forces storming and demolishing four houses in Masafer Yatta.

Earlier this month, Basel Adra himself filmed armed and masked Israeli settlers attacking his community of Masafer Yatta. The settlers threw stones, smashed vehicles, slashed tires, punctured a water tank.

Israeli soldiers on the scene did not intervene to halt the crimes.

Basel Adra’s Oscar-nominated documentary No Other Land is about Israel’s mass expulsion of Palestinians living in Masafer Yatta.

In another post last week, Basel wrote: “Anyone who cared about No Other Land should care about what is actually happening on the ground: Today our water tanks, 9 homes and 3 ancient caves were destroyed. Masafer Yatta is disappearing in front of my eyes.

Only one name for these actions: ethnic cleansing,” he said.

In a minute, Basel Adra will join us for an update. But first, we want to play the trailer from his Oscar-nominated documentary, No Other Land.

No Other Land trailer.   Video: Watermelon Films

BASEL ADRA: [translated] You think they’ll come to our home?

MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 1: [translated] Is the army down there?

NEWS ANCHOR: A thousand Palestinians face one of the single biggest expulsion decisions since the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories began.

YUVAL ABRAHAM: [translated] Basel, come here! Come fast!

BASEL ADRA: [translated] This is a story about power.

My name is Basel. I grew up in a small community called Masafer Yatta. I started to film when we started to end.

They have bulldozers?

I’m filming you.

MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 2: [translated] I need air. Oh my God!

MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 3: [translated] Don’t worry.

MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 2: [translated] I don’t want them to take our home.

YUVAL ABRAHAM: [translated] You’re Basel?

BASEL ADRA: [translated] Yes.

MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 4: [translated] You are Palestinian?

YUVAL ABRAHAM: [translated] No, I’m Jewish.

MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 5: [translated] He’s a journalist.

MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 4: [translated] You’re Israeli?

MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 5: [translated] Seriously?

BASEL ADRA: [translated] We have to raise our voices, not being silent as if — as if no human beings live here.

YUVAL ABRAHAM: [translated] What? The army is here?

BASEL ADRA: This is what’s happening in my village now. Soldiers are everywhere.

IDF SOLDIER: [translated] Who do you think you’re filming, you son of a whore?

YUVAL ABRAHAM: [translated] It would be so nice with stability one day. Then you’ll come visit me, not always me visiting you. Right?

BASEL ADRA: [translated] Maybe. What do you think? If you were in my place, what would you do?

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the trailer for the Oscar-nominated documentary No Other Land, co-directed by the Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham and our next guest, Basel Adra, Palestinian activist and journalist who writes for +972 Magazine, his most recent piece headlined “Our film is going to the Oscars. But here in Masafer Yatta, we’re still being erased.”

Basel has spent years documenting Israeli efforts to evict Palestinians living in his community, Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron.

Basel, welcome back to Democracy Now! If you can talk about your film and also what’s happening right now? This is not a film about history. It’s on the ground now. You recently were barricaded in your house filming what was going on, what the Israeli settlers were doing.

Palestinian film maker Basel Adra talks to Democracy Now!   Video: Democracy Now!

BASEL ADRA: Thank you for having me.

Yeah, our movie, we worked on it for the last five years. We are four people — two Israelis and two Palestinians, me, myself, Yuval and Rachel and Hamdan, who’s my friend and living in Masafer Yatta. We’re just activists and journalists.

And me and my friend Hamdan spent years in the field, running after bulldozers, soldiers and settlers, and in our communities and communities around us, filming the destruction, the home destructions, the school destructions, the cutting of our water pipes and the bulldozing of our roads and our own schools, and trying to raise awareness from the international community on what’s going on, to get political impact to try to stop this from happening and to protect our community.

And five years ago, Yuval and Rachel joined, as Israeli journalists, to write about what’s happening. And then we decided together that we will start working on No Other Land as a documentary that showed the whole political story through personal, individual stories of people who lost their life and homes and school and properties on this, like in the last years and also in the decades of the occupation.

We released the movie in the Berlinale 2024, last year, at the festival. And so far, we’ve been, like, screening and showing, like, in many festivals around the world.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Basel, your film has received an Oscar nomination, but you haven’t been able to find a distributor in the US What do you know about this refusal of any company to pick up your film to distribute it? And also, can it be seen in the West Bank or in Israel itself?

BASEL ADRA: It’s sad that we haven’t found a US distributor. Our goal from making this documentary, it’s not the award. It’s not the awards itself, but the people and the audience and to get to the people’s hearts, because we want people to see the reality, to see what’s going on in my community, Masafer Yatta, but in all the West Bank, to the Palestinians and how the life, the daily life under this brutal occupation.

People should be aware of this, because they are — somehow, they have a responsibility. In the US, it’s the tax money that the people are paying there. It has something to do with the home destruction that we are facing, the settlers’ violence, the building of the settlements on our land that does not stop every day.

And we, as a collective, made this movie. We faced so many risks in the field, on the ground. Like, my home was invaded, and the cameras were confiscated from my home by Israeli soldiers.

I was physically attacked in the field when I’m going around and filming these crimes, I mean, to show to the people and to let the people know about what’s going on.

But it’s sad that the distributors in the US so far do not want to take a little bit of risk, political risk, and to show this documentary to the audience. I am really sad about it, that there is no big distributors taking No Other Land and showing it to the American people.

It’s very important to reach to the Americans, I believe. And so far, we are doing it independently on the cinemas.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And your co-director is Israeli. Have you come under criticism for working with Israelis on the film?

BASEL ADRA: So far, I’m not receiving any criticism for working with Israelis. Like, working together is because we share somehow the same values, that we reject the injustice and the occupation and the apartheid and what’s going on, and we want to work pro-solution and pro-justice and to end these, like, settlements and for a better future.

AMY GOODMAN: Basel, the Oscars are soon, in a few weeks. Can you get a visa to come into the United States? Will you attend the Oscars?

BASEL ADRA: So, I have a visa because I’ve been in the US participating in festivals for our movie. But my family and the other Palestinian co-director doesn’t have one yet, and they will try to apply soon.

And hopefully, they will get it, and they will be able to join us at the Oscars.

AMY GOODMAN: So, since it’s so difficult to see your film here in the United States, I want to go to another clip of No Other Land. Again, this is our guest, Basel Adra, and his co-director, Yuval Abraham, filming the eviction of a Palestinian family.

BASEL ADRA: [translated] A lot of army is here.

YUVAL ABRAHAM: [translated] They plan a big demolition?

BASEL ADRA: [translated] We don’t know. They’re driving towards one of my neighbors.

Now the soldiers arrived here.

MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 1: [translated] Aren’t you ashamed to do this? Aren’t you afraid of God?

ISRAELI SOLDIER: [translated] Go back! Move back now! Get back! I’ll push you all the way back!

YUVAL ABRAHAM: [translated] I speak Hebrew. Don’t shout.

MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 2: [translated] I hope that bulldozer falls on your head. Why are you taking our homes?

MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 3: [translated] Why destroy the bathroom?

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Israeli bulldozers destroying a bathroom. This is another clip from No Other Land, in which you, Basel, are attacked by Israeli forces even as you try to show them you have media credentials.

BASEL ADRA: [translated] I’m filming you. I’m filming you! You’re just like criminals.

ISRAELI SOLDIER: [translated] If he gets closer, arrest him.

BASEL ADRA: [translated] You’re expelling us. Arrest me! On what grounds?

ISRAELI SOLDIER: [translated] Grab him.

BASEL ADRA: [translated] On what grounds? I have a journalist card. I have a journalist card!

ISRAELI SOLDIER: [translated] Shut up!

BASEL’S FATHER: [translated] Don’t hit my son! Leave our village! Go away! Leave, you [bleep]! Shoot.

ISRAELI SOLDIER: [translated] Move back.

BASEL’S FATHER: [translated] Shoot me. Shoot me. Shoot me.

BASEL’S MOTHER: [translated] Get an ambulance!

BASEL’S FATHER: [translated] Run, Basel! Run! Get up, son. Run! Run, Basel!

AMY GOODMAN: Basel, that is you. Your mother is hanging onto you as you’re being dragged, your father. What do you want the world to know about Masafer Yatta, about your community in this film?

BASEL ADRA: I want the world to really act seriously. The international community should take measures and act seriously to end this, like, demolitions and ethnic cleansing that is happening everywhere in Gaza, in the West Bank, through different policies and different, like, reasons that the Israelis try to separate out, which is all lies.

It’s all about land, that they want to steal more and more of our land. That’s very clear on the ground, because every Palestinian community being erased, there is settlements growing in the same place.

This is happening right there, in the South Hebron Hills, everywhere around the West Bank, in Area C. And now they are entering camps, since January until now, by demolishing, like, destroying the camps in Jenin, Tulkarm and Tubas, and forcing people to leave their homes, to go away.

And the world just keeps watching and not taking serious action. And the opposite, actually.

The Israelis keep receiving all. Like, this amount of violations of the international law, the human rights laws, it’s very clear that it’s violated every day by the Israelis. But nobody cares. The opposite, they keep receiving weapons and money and relationships and —

AMY GOODMAN: Basel —

BASEL ADRA: — and diplomatic cover. Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there. I thank you so much, look forward to interviewing you and Yuval in the United States. Basel Adra, co-director of the Oscar-nominated documentary No Other Land.

The original content of this programme is licensed and republished by Asia Pacific Report under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

ANALYSIS: By Abdulwahab al-Mursi

On May 5, 2024, nearly seven months into Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the main goal of the war was to destroy Hamas and prevent it from controlling Gaza.

However, over 250 days since this statement, and 470 days into the Israeli aggression, it has become clear that Netanyahu’s promises have faded into illusions.

In the early hours of the first phase of the ceasefire on Sunday, Israeli military radio reported that Hamas forces were reasserting their control over Gaza, stating that Hamas, which had never lost control of any part of the territory during the war, was using the ceasefire to strengthen its grip.

• READ MORE: Palestinian prisoners to be freed after 3 captives held in Gaza released
• Delay in Gaza ceasefire as Israel kills 19 fails to daunt people celebrating
• Ceasefire in Gaza – so much excitement
• Gaza genocide protesters in NZ welcome ceasefire but will fight on for justice
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

This development highlights the gap between Israel’s strategic objectives and the reality on the ground, as images from Gaza continue to reveal widespread devastation and loss of life, yet Hamas remains firmly in control.

Popular Support: The backbone of Hamas
Military literature highlights the concept of “Center of Gravity” (COG) for military organisations, a concept that can vary depending on the organisation and context.

In the case of Hamas and Palestinian Resistance, the central element of their strength lies in the support of the local population.

This grassroots support provides Hamas with invaluable social depth, a continuous supply of human resources, and strong strategic backing.

The popular support and belief in the resistance’s strategic choices and leadership have allowed Hamas to maintain its popular mandate to achieve Palestinian national goals.

Recognising this, Israel has targeted Gaza’s civilian infrastructure both militarily and psychologically, aiming to raise the costs of supporting the resistance and weaken Hamas’s popular base.

Israel has treated Gaza’s entire civilian infrastructure as military targets, believing that expanding the death toll among civilians and inflicting maximum suffering would force the population to turn against Hamas.

Yet, despite these efforts, images of celebrations in Gaza, even in areas heavily targeted by Israel, underscore the exceptional nature of the Gaza situation, where resistance culture is deeply rooted and unyielding.

The strategic consciousness of Gaza’s people
There appears to be a collective strategic awareness among Gaza’s people to maintain a victorious image at all costs, even in the midst of devastating humanitarian crises.

This desire to project an image of resistance and triumph, despite the overwhelming tragedy, has led to spontaneous public displays of support for Hamas and resistance forces, reinforcing their resolve against the Israeli onslaught.

Failure of forced displacement plans
In the initial weeks of the war, Israel revealed its plan to forcibly relocate Gaza’s population.

Israeli media outlets reported in October 2023 that Netanyahu had proposed relocating Gaza’s residents to other countries.

However, after months of war, Gaza’s residents have shown an unshakable determination to remain, with displaced individuals in refugee camps celebrating their return to their homes, despite the widespread destruction they have suffered.

In northern Gaza, particularly in Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, Jabaliya, and Shuja’iyya, Israel’s attempts to prevent the return of displaced residents became a significant obstacle to a ceasefire agreement, delaying it for months.

Israel’s plan, known as the “Generals’ Plan” by former Israeli military advisor Giora Eiland, aimed to create a buffer zone in northern Gaza by applying immense military and living pressures on the population.

However, as evident from the ongoing images from the region, the displaced population continues to resist and return, undermining Israel’s relocation goals.

Hamas’s military structure endures
One of Netanyahu’s primary goals was to dismantle Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades.

However, in the early hours of the first phase of the ceasefire, images showed Hamas fighters organising military parades in southern Gaza, signalling the resilience of Hamas’s military structure even before the ceasefire officially began.

Despite Israeli claims of killing thousands of Hamas fighters and destroying significant portions of Gaza’s tunnel network, the rapid and organized emergence of Al-Qassam forces on the ground suggests that these Israeli claims may have been aimed more at reassuring the Israeli public about the progress of the war, rather than reflecting the true situation on the ground.

Failure of post-war plans
In December 2023, Netanyahu rejected Palestinian proposals that Hamas be included in Gaza’s post-war governance, insisting, “There will be no Hamas in the post-war period; we will eliminate them.”

Throughout the war, Israel attempted various unilateral methods to manage Gaza, including direct military administration and creating a new technocratic authority with local leaders, but all efforts failed.

Israeli military attempts to distribute humanitarian aid in Gaza also proved ineffective, as the army struggled to manage these operations.

As the conflict nears what is supposed to be its final phase, the governance structure in Gaza has not changed.

Hamas’s leadership, especially the Al-Qassam Brigades, continues to operate effectively, and the ceasefire agreement has allowed for the resumption of local security forces.

Even after Israel’s targeted assassinations of 723 members of Gaza’s police and security apparatus, the resilience of Gaza’s security forces has remained evident.

This failure of Israel’s post-war vision was highlighted by a comment from a political analyst on Israeli i24 News, who questioned the results of the prolonged military operation: “What have we achieved in a year and five months?

“We destroyed many homes, lost many of our best soldiers, and in the end, the result is the same: Hamas rules, aid enters, and the Qassam Brigades return.”

Republished from The Palestinian Chronicle with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

ANALYSIS: By Abdulwahab al-Mursi

On May 5, 2024, nearly seven months into Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the main goal of the war was to destroy Hamas and prevent it from controlling Gaza.

However, over 250 days since this statement, and 470 days into the Israeli aggression, it has become clear that Netanyahu’s promises have faded into illusions.

In the early hours of the first phase of the ceasefire on Sunday, Israeli military radio reported that Hamas forces were reasserting their control over Gaza, stating that Hamas, which had never lost control of any part of the territory during the war, was using the ceasefire to strengthen its grip.

• READ MORE: Palestinian prisoners to be freed after 3 captives held in Gaza released
• Delay in Gaza ceasefire as Israel kills 19 fails to daunt people celebrating
• Ceasefire in Gaza – so much excitement
• Gaza genocide protesters in NZ welcome ceasefire but will fight on for justice
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

This development highlights the gap between Israel’s strategic objectives and the reality on the ground, as images from Gaza continue to reveal widespread devastation and loss of life, yet Hamas remains firmly in control.

Popular Support: The backbone of Hamas
Military literature highlights the concept of “Center of Gravity” (COG) for military organisations, a concept that can vary depending on the organisation and context.

In the case of Hamas and Palestinian Resistance, the central element of their strength lies in the support of the local population.

This grassroots support provides Hamas with invaluable social depth, a continuous supply of human resources, and strong strategic backing.

The popular support and belief in the resistance’s strategic choices and leadership have allowed Hamas to maintain its popular mandate to achieve Palestinian national goals.

Recognising this, Israel has targeted Gaza’s civilian infrastructure both militarily and psychologically, aiming to raise the costs of supporting the resistance and weaken Hamas’s popular base.

Israel has treated Gaza’s entire civilian infrastructure as military targets, believing that expanding the death toll among civilians and inflicting maximum suffering would force the population to turn against Hamas.

Yet, despite these efforts, images of celebrations in Gaza, even in areas heavily targeted by Israel, underscore the exceptional nature of the Gaza situation, where resistance culture is deeply rooted and unyielding.

The strategic consciousness of Gaza’s people
There appears to be a collective strategic awareness among Gaza’s people to maintain a victorious image at all costs, even in the midst of devastating humanitarian crises.

This desire to project an image of resistance and triumph, despite the overwhelming tragedy, has led to spontaneous public displays of support for Hamas and resistance forces, reinforcing their resolve against the Israeli onslaught.

Failure of forced displacement plans
In the initial weeks of the war, Israel revealed its plan to forcibly relocate Gaza’s population.

Israeli media outlets reported in October 2023 that Netanyahu had proposed relocating Gaza’s residents to other countries.

However, after months of war, Gaza’s residents have shown an unshakable determination to remain, with displaced individuals in refugee camps celebrating their return to their homes, despite the widespread destruction they have suffered.

In northern Gaza, particularly in Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, Jabaliya, and Shuja’iyya, Israel’s attempts to prevent the return of displaced residents became a significant obstacle to a ceasefire agreement, delaying it for months.

Israel’s plan, known as the “Generals’ Plan” by former Israeli military advisor Giora Eiland, aimed to create a buffer zone in northern Gaza by applying immense military and living pressures on the population.

However, as evident from the ongoing images from the region, the displaced population continues to resist and return, undermining Israel’s relocation goals.

Hamas’s military structure endures
One of Netanyahu’s primary goals was to dismantle Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades.

However, in the early hours of the first phase of the ceasefire, images showed Hamas fighters organising military parades in southern Gaza, signalling the resilience of Hamas’s military structure even before the ceasefire officially began.

Despite Israeli claims of killing thousands of Hamas fighters and destroying significant portions of Gaza’s tunnel network, the rapid and organized emergence of Al-Qassam forces on the ground suggests that these Israeli claims may have been aimed more at reassuring the Israeli public about the progress of the war, rather than reflecting the true situation on the ground.

Failure of post-war plans
In December 2023, Netanyahu rejected Palestinian proposals that Hamas be included in Gaza’s post-war governance, insisting, “There will be no Hamas in the post-war period; we will eliminate them.”

Throughout the war, Israel attempted various unilateral methods to manage Gaza, including direct military administration and creating a new technocratic authority with local leaders, but all efforts failed.

Israeli military attempts to distribute humanitarian aid in Gaza also proved ineffective, as the army struggled to manage these operations.

As the conflict nears what is supposed to be its final phase, the governance structure in Gaza has not changed.

Hamas’s leadership, especially the Al-Qassam Brigades, continues to operate effectively, and the ceasefire agreement has allowed for the resumption of local security forces.

Even after Israel’s targeted assassinations of 723 members of Gaza’s police and security apparatus, the resilience of Gaza’s security forces has remained evident.

This failure of Israel’s post-war vision was highlighted by a comment from a political analyst on Israeli i24 News, who questioned the results of the prolonged military operation: “What have we achieved in a year and five months?

“We destroyed many homes, lost many of our best soldiers, and in the end, the result is the same: Hamas rules, aid enters, and the Qassam Brigades return.”

Republished from The Palestinian Chronicle with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

ANALYSIS: By Abdulwahab al-Mursi

On May 5, 2024, nearly seven months into Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the main goal of the war was to destroy Hamas and prevent it from controlling Gaza.

However, over 250 days since this statement, and 470 days into the Israeli aggression, it has become clear that Netanyahu’s promises have faded into illusions.

In the early hours of the first phase of the ceasefire on Sunday, Israeli military radio reported that Hamas forces were reasserting their control over Gaza, stating that Hamas, which had never lost control of any part of the territory during the war, was using the ceasefire to strengthen its grip.

• READ MORE: Palestinian prisoners to be freed after 3 captives held in Gaza released
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• Ceasefire in Gaza – so much excitement
• Gaza genocide protesters in NZ welcome ceasefire but will fight on for justice
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

This development highlights the gap between Israel’s strategic objectives and the reality on the ground, as images from Gaza continue to reveal widespread devastation and loss of life, yet Hamas remains firmly in control.

Popular Support: The backbone of Hamas
Military literature highlights the concept of “Center of Gravity” (COG) for military organisations, a concept that can vary depending on the organisation and context.

In the case of Hamas and Palestinian Resistance, the central element of their strength lies in the support of the local population.

This grassroots support provides Hamas with invaluable social depth, a continuous supply of human resources, and strong strategic backing.

The popular support and belief in the resistance’s strategic choices and leadership have allowed Hamas to maintain its popular mandate to achieve Palestinian national goals.

Recognising this, Israel has targeted Gaza’s civilian infrastructure both militarily and psychologically, aiming to raise the costs of supporting the resistance and weaken Hamas’s popular base.

Israel has treated Gaza’s entire civilian infrastructure as military targets, believing that expanding the death toll among civilians and inflicting maximum suffering would force the population to turn against Hamas.

Yet, despite these efforts, images of celebrations in Gaza, even in areas heavily targeted by Israel, underscore the exceptional nature of the Gaza situation, where resistance culture is deeply rooted and unyielding.

The strategic consciousness of Gaza’s people
There appears to be a collective strategic awareness among Gaza’s people to maintain a victorious image at all costs, even in the midst of devastating humanitarian crises.

This desire to project an image of resistance and triumph, despite the overwhelming tragedy, has led to spontaneous public displays of support for Hamas and resistance forces, reinforcing their resolve against the Israeli onslaught.

Failure of forced displacement plans
In the initial weeks of the war, Israel revealed its plan to forcibly relocate Gaza’s population.

Israeli media outlets reported in October 2023 that Netanyahu had proposed relocating Gaza’s residents to other countries.

However, after months of war, Gaza’s residents have shown an unshakable determination to remain, with displaced individuals in refugee camps celebrating their return to their homes, despite the widespread destruction they have suffered.

In northern Gaza, particularly in Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, Jabaliya, and Shuja’iyya, Israel’s attempts to prevent the return of displaced residents became a significant obstacle to a ceasefire agreement, delaying it for months.

Israel’s plan, known as the “Generals’ Plan” by former Israeli military advisor Giora Eiland, aimed to create a buffer zone in northern Gaza by applying immense military and living pressures on the population.

However, as evident from the ongoing images from the region, the displaced population continues to resist and return, undermining Israel’s relocation goals.

Hamas’s military structure endures
One of Netanyahu’s primary goals was to dismantle Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades.

However, in the early hours of the first phase of the ceasefire, images showed Hamas fighters organising military parades in southern Gaza, signalling the resilience of Hamas’s military structure even before the ceasefire officially began.

Despite Israeli claims of killing thousands of Hamas fighters and destroying significant portions of Gaza’s tunnel network, the rapid and organized emergence of Al-Qassam forces on the ground suggests that these Israeli claims may have been aimed more at reassuring the Israeli public about the progress of the war, rather than reflecting the true situation on the ground.

Failure of post-war plans
In December 2023, Netanyahu rejected Palestinian proposals that Hamas be included in Gaza’s post-war governance, insisting, “There will be no Hamas in the post-war period; we will eliminate them.”

Throughout the war, Israel attempted various unilateral methods to manage Gaza, including direct military administration and creating a new technocratic authority with local leaders, but all efforts failed.

Israeli military attempts to distribute humanitarian aid in Gaza also proved ineffective, as the army struggled to manage these operations.

As the conflict nears what is supposed to be its final phase, the governance structure in Gaza has not changed.

Hamas’s leadership, especially the Al-Qassam Brigades, continues to operate effectively, and the ceasefire agreement has allowed for the resumption of local security forces.

Even after Israel’s targeted assassinations of 723 members of Gaza’s police and security apparatus, the resilience of Gaza’s security forces has remained evident.

This failure of Israel’s post-war vision was highlighted by a comment from a political analyst on Israeli i24 News, who questioned the results of the prolonged military operation: “What have we achieved in a year and five months?

“We destroyed many homes, lost many of our best soldiers, and in the end, the result is the same: Hamas rules, aid enters, and the Qassam Brigades return.”

Republished from The Palestinian Chronicle with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

On the evening of Dec. 27, Myanmar’s military dropped a massive bomb on Pi King village in Shan state’s Pekon township, creating a crater as deep as a person’s height, according to a resident known as Panda.

“This is where the 500-pound bomb hit a residence and destroyed several other houses in this area,” said Panda who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke to RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

Three women were injured in the attack, he said.

The bombing is just the latest to have killed or wounded civilians this year as the military expanded its campaign of air and artillery strikes, amid growing losses by its ground troops to Myanmar’s myriad anti-junta forces.

According to statistics collected by RFA, the junta carried out air and artillery attacks in 12 of Myanmar’s 14 regions and states in 2024, except for the regions of Yangon and Ayeyarwady, where the military has retained near-total control.

These attacks led to 5,489 civilian casualties — 1,769 deaths and 3,720 injuries — outpacing those of the previous three years combined and accounting for just over 60% of related casualties since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup d’etat.

(Amanda Weisbrod/RFA)

In the three years from 2021 to 2023, junta air and artillery strikes killed 1,280 civilians and injured 2,374 others, for a total of 3,654 casualties.

The latest statistics follow a report by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Myanmar), which said that at least 540 civilians were killed by junta airstrikes in the first 10 months of the year — mostly in western Myanmar’s war-torn Rakhine state.

The bombing of Pi King village took place just 11 days after evening airstrikes on Sagaing’s Yinmarbin township killed five civilians and seriously injured 10 others, despite a lack of fighting between the military and anti-junta groups at the time, according to an aid worker.

“Aircraft were frequently flying over the area, and residents were afraid of returning to their homes, so we could only begin rescue work at the break of day [on Dec. 17],” said Myat Ko of the Kani-Yinmarbin People’s Embrace Group. “Soon after, some injured people died at the hospital. Two had died on the spot [during the strikes].”

Sources from the township suggested that the junta had intentionally targeted civilians in the attack, given the absence of clashes, possibly for perceived ties between residents and anti-junta forces.

Losses mount despite shift

Col. Naw Bu, the spokesperson for the ethnic Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, one of the most powerful groups fighting the junta for self-determination in northern Myanmar’s Kachin state, said the increase in the number of related civilian casualties in 2024 was unsurprising, as “up to 80% of the junta’s attacks were conducted by air and artillery” in his region.

“It’s not easy for the junta to conduct a ground offensive,” said Naw Bu, whose KIA now controls more than 50% of Kachin state, including the entirety of the China-Myanmar border. “Instead, they are mainly using air and artillery. The junta is relying on [these types of] attacks.”

As anti-junta forces have gained experience and weaponry since the coup, they have presented an increasingly formidable challenge to the military’s ground troops.

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Despite the military’s uptick in air and artillery strikes as a response, the junta lost control of 94 townships in 2024.

Several rebel groups recently told RFA that junta forces now control less than half the country after suffering major battlefield setbacks in 2024 — including the loss of command headquarters in Shan and Rakhine states.

Sgt. Zeya, a former air force officer now advising the opposition as part of the Civil Disobedience Movement of civil servants who left their jobs to protest junta rule, told RFA that the military might have suffered more setbacks this year if it hadn’t responded with increased strikes.

“If the junta hadn’t used artillery attacks and air strikes [to support its troops], the military would have lost 90% of its forces because the difference between the junta’s soldiers and our soldiers is their attitude and mentality,” he said. “They joined the military to seek more opportunities ... They have no strong sense of ideology or patriotism, nor are they deeply tied to the military. No one wants to die fighting when this is the reality.”

More strikes anticipated in 2025

Observers told RFA that they expect the junta will expand its use of air and artillery attacks even further in 2025 as part of a bid to prevent further loss of territory.

Thein Htun Oo, executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, run by former military officers, said the junta’s forces will “respond more aggressively” with strikes next year if the opposition forces continue their offensives.

Residents and rescue workers told RFA that civilian casualties are sure to increase if the attacks are intensified.

(MDY/PDF Photo)

Aung Myo Min, human rights minister for Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, said that despite the NUG’s best diplomatic efforts to cut off the junta’s access to aircraft, fuel, and raw materials for the production of military weapons, “countries are still selling arms, both openly and secretly.”

“Some countries support democracy in Myanmar, but others are more interested in how they can benefit by cooperating with the junta,” he said. “We realize that a lack of effective action will cause people to suffer more and more.”

On Dec. 15 alone, the military commissioned six Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters, six Chinese-made FTC-2000G fighter jets, one K-8W fighter jet, and one Y-8 support aircraft.

According to Justice for Myanmar, which monitors conflict in the country, the military is predominantly receiving aviation fuel from China and Russia, while the junta has said that the raw materials it uses to produce military weapons come from 13 countries, including China, Russia and India.

Attempts by RFA to contact junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun by telephone for comment on the military’s use of air and artillery strikes went unanswered by the time of publishing.

Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

My message today is really simple but brutal. 

Israel kills the journalists deliberately. This is unprecedented. The Western media — including here in Aotearoa New Zealand — kills the truth about genocide in Gaza.

On Boxing Day, an Israeli air strike killed five Palestinian journalists in a clearly marked white vehicle outside a hospital in central Gaza.

• READ MORE: Israel kills five Palestinian journalists in attack on media van
• RSF’s 2024 Round-up: journalism suffers exorbitant human cost due to conflicts and repressive regimes
• Silencing the messenger: Israel kills journalists, while the West merely censors them — David Robie
• Other Israel’s war on Gaza reports

The journalists from the Al-Quds Today TV channel were outside the al-Awada Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp when their satellite broadcast van was struck by a pre-dawn Israeli strike.

Video footage that went viral showed the van with the words “PRESS” clearly marked in red block letters engulfed in flames.

Middle East Eye reporter Hani Aburezeq said from the scene: “The van was entirely burnt and destroyed. It was fully engulfed in flames.”

The slain journalists were – let’s honour their names — Fadi Hassouna, Ibrahim al-Sheikh Ali, Mohammed al-Ladah, Faisal Abu al-Qumsan and Ayman al-Jadi.

Jadi had gone to the hospital with his wife who was giving birth to their first child. He had gone out to check on the car and his mates when it was bombed.

Baby born on day father died for ‘truth’
Imagine that, the baby was born on the very day his father died while doing his job as a journalist — reporting the truth.

It is another cruel example of the tragic lives lost in this genocide by Israel which has killed more than 45,400 people, mostly women and children.

Al Jazeera’s report on the journalist killings. Video: AJ

Just last week, four other journalists were killed over two days. And now the total is 201 Palestinian journalists killed since 7 October 2023.

This is by far the highest death toll of journalists in any war or conflict.

By comparison, in the six years of the Second World War only 69 journalists were killed.

And in 20 years of the Vietnam War, just 63 journalists were killed.

Al Jazeera reports that Israel, which has not allowed foreign journalists to enter Gaza except on military embeds with the Israeli “Defence” Forces (IDF), which is increasingly being dubbed by critics as the Israeli “Offence” Forces (“IOF”), has been condemned by many media freedom organisations.

Gaza ‘most dangerous region’
The besieged enclave is now regarded as the “most dangerous region of the world” for journalists, according to Reporters Without Borders in its annual report.

Al Jazeera itself was banned by Israel in May from reporting within the country, and was subsequently barred from reporting within the occupied West Bank and the closure of the Ramallah bureau in mid-September.

Israel has tried to silence Al Jazeera previously in by threatening it in 2017, bombing its broadcast office in Gaza in 2021, and assassinating celebrated journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022 and other reporters with impunity.

Al Jazeera, TRT News and many independent news outlets as Democracy Now!, The Intercept, Middle East Eye and The Palestine Chronicle stand in contrast to mainstream media such as BBC, CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post that have frequently been called out in investigative reports for systemic bias against Palestine.

Among the poignant messages from Palestinian journalists documenting this war are Bisan Owda, who signs on her video reports every day with “I’m still alive”.

But I would like to share this reflection from another journalist, videographer Osama Abu Rabee who says on his X news feed that he is “capturing the untold stories of resilience and hope”. He said in one post this week:

‘Moments away from death’
“One of my most vivid memories is when three journalists and I were in Eastern Jabalia and we needed to connect our e-sims to edit and upload content of a massacre.

“We went to a room but the connection wasn’t good so I suggested we go into another room. Less than 5 minutes later, the room we had been in got bombed.

“People came over running thinking that we were killed but luckily there were only injuries.

“This was one of the many times that I was moments away from death. I know that I’m targeted as a Palestinian but also as a journalist.

“Every single day I step out of my house and put on my ‘press’ vest and I look behind at my family, I’m not sure if I’ll see them again.

“I hope you understand the risks we are taking to show you the truth.

“Even 15 month later, we continue to go out every single day  and document the horrors that people in Gaza experience.

“We do this so that when God asks what you do, we respond with ‘we did what we could’.”

NZ media’s role shameful
Can journalists and the media in Aotearoa New Zealand say with hand on heart that “we did what we could” in the face of this genocide?

Of course not, the role of New Zealand media has been shameful, apart from notable exceptions such as Gordon Campbell.

It has failed to hold the Christopher Luxon coalition government to account over its pathetic inaction over the genocide.

It has failed to press the government into taking a stronger and more principled stance at the United Nations to call for sanctions against the apartheid and genocidal regime, or to even expel Israel from the global chamber — or the ambassador from Wellington.

It has failed to argue for New Zealand to join the South African-led genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Take Ireland, a smallish country like New Zealand, as an inspirational example. Earlier this month, Ireland responded immediately to the closure of Israel’s embassy in Dublin by opening a Palestinian museum on the premises.

Prime Minister Simon Harris condemned Israel’s genocidal actions, particularly against children and reaffirmed his country’s commitment to human rights and international law.

He said Ireland would not be silenced over Israel. He continued:

“You know what I think is reprehensible? Killing children, I think that’s reprehensible.

“You know what I think is reprehensible? Seeing the scale of civilian deaths that we’ve seen in Gaza.

“You know what I think is reprehensible? People being left to starve and humanitarian aid not flowing,”

Silence of the news media
Have we ever had such a courageous statement like this from our Prime Minister. Absolutely not.

It is shameful that our government has not taken a stand.

And it is shameful that the New Zealand media has been so silent over this most horrendous episode of our times — genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in front of our very eyes for 15 months.

To my knowledge, journalists in Aotearoa have not made even made statements of solidarity with the journalists of Gaza and their horrific sacrifice to bear witness to the truth.

I made a plea for such a stand last January and it was ignored. Australia is making a better job of challenging the status quo.

New Zealand journalists have already “normalised” the genocide. Shameful.

Dr David Robie is convenor of Pacific Media Watch and editor of Asia Pacific Report. This was first presented as an address to a Palestinian solidarity rally in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Te Komititanga Square in Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau on 28 December 2024.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Photo: NATO.

Why has NATO been so generally accepted in Europe by almost all the major political parties and especially puzzling, the social democratic ones? Its economic costs, illegal aggressive wars, environmental damage, and the risks of nuclear annihilation would seem to make it a prime platform item. Well-informed political activists are unlikely to believe that an invasion of Switzerland or Denmark is imminent. There are significant anti-NATO movements, such as No to War No to NATO, but so far they haven’t been able to turn the tide.

Some reasons are fairly obvious. The US military connections to European defense and foreign ministries began during World War II. These strong ties have continued, now with an emphasis on NATO’s newly acquired feminist face, the Women, Peace, and Security agenda.

The photo above, taken at the 2022 NATO summit in Madrid, depicts women Foreign Affairs and Defense ministers, from Canada, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, Iceland, Slovenia, Germany, and Belgium.

Promotion long and wide has been carried out by overtly pro-NATO lobbies such as the Atlantic Council and national think tanks, for example, the  Council on Foreign Relations (US), the British Royal Institute of International Affairs, and their counterparts in many nations. There is also a Youth Atlantic Treaty Association, a network of national organizations of young professionals, university students and researchers.

The secretive Bilderberg group harnesses the political, economic, academic and journalism elites of NATO nations. Operation Gladio, Operation Paperclip and others have sustained firm links with military and intelligence agencies. There has also been covert and overt interventions in political parties and nongovernmental organizations, such as the CIA funding of Christian Democratic party in 1948 to defeat the Communist Party and meddling in the British Labour Party to minimize the influence of the Committee on Nuclear Disarmament. These  have also cleared the path for NATO.  Eastern Europe was even more easily penetrated by NATO, after the devastation of its economic, cultural, and scientific institutions.

There have been constant protests against NATO bases, yet their less vocal sympathizers appreciate the economic benefit. At first, in war-torn Europe both the liberated and the occupied nations saw little economic activity. Now the European economy is increasingly militarized, having outsourced much of its civilian industry and facing declines in its tourist industry due to pandemics, protests by local residents, and environmental costs. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Fact Sheet of 2024, weapons production has greatly accelerated in many European countries, even though NATO and national militaries also equip themselves royally with US products.  Sales to the Middle East and other violence inflicted areas are good business.

         Now workers, many unionized and some even socialists and communists, have secure jobs in war industries and in the burgeoning military-civilian industries. As the Erikssons have documented:

The defence industry is undergoing rapid change, particularly regarding the development of dual-use technology and transfer of technology between military and civilian domains. . . The blurring of the military-civilian divide is particularly noticeable with the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), digitalization, satellite technology, integrated quantum, photonics, high-capacity wireless communications, and “big data” networking through 5 G – developments which have been referred to as “the fourth industrial revolution. . .”

Just as its military bases need everything, NATO institutes, operations, conferences, war games, and its supersized headquarters in Brussels equip and maintain from every kind of business. Much information is available on the NATO website; it also has a presence on YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and X (Twitter). The NATO Support and Procurement Agency contracts database for 2023 lists only orders valued above €80,000. It includes “consumables” from a firm in Luxembourg, transport of tents and conference center equipment from Belgium, winter clothing from France, “civil and mechanical” from Albania, medical equipment from Sweden, waterproof bags from Great Britain, and spare parts from vendors in many countries. Undoubtedly, even smaller businesses supply a wide range, and, as in the US, provide economic survival for owners, workers, and communities (see The Trillion Dollar Silencer). A listing of bids above €800,000 includes medical treatment structures from a firm in Italy, training services (Netherlands and Spain), and military cots and mosquito nets (Italy and Turkey). Although the largest in both lists are expenditures for weapons, firms that are often the economic lifeblood—rather the deathblood—of their communities, the smaller (but not piddling) purchases can influence many citizens and their elected representatives.

NATO training and research operations involve civilian universities, which increasingly have military departments, as well as national military academies. There are even public high school training programs, e.g., in Sweden, Germany, and France (Defence Cadets). In addition, the US Department of Defense has direct contracts with universities and scientific institutes worldwide, especially for weapons development, nanotechnology, and biotechnology.

NATO also has several layers of its own training entities. One is the Partnership Training and Education Centres, in 34 member and partner (i.e., not full member) countries. Some examples are Switzerland, Geneva Centre for Security Policy; Israel, IDF Military Medical Academy; Serbia, Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Training Centre; Mongolia, Peace Support Operations Centre; Colombia, International Demining Centre; Italy, The International Institute of Humanitarian Law; and United Kingdom, United Kingdom Defence Academy.

Another NATO network is the 28 Centres of Excellence which are “international military organizations that train and educate leaders and specialists from NATO member and partner countries.” They are funded nationally and accredited by NATO. Some of these are Civil-Military Cooperation, one of two in the Netherlands; Crisis Management and Disaster Response, Bulgaria; Modelling and Simulation, one of several in Italy; Strategic Communications, Latvia; Climate Change and Security, Canada; and Maritime Security, Turkey. The latter is described as:

[P]roviding expertise both as a centre for academic research and as a (multinational) hub for practical training in the field of maritime security, along with relevant domains (maritime trade, energy security, maritime environment, maritime resources, public health, maritime transport-logistic). The Centre strives to achieve the necessary collaboration among stakeholders from government, industry, academia and the private sector.

NATO’s enormous Civil Diplomacy department works through all print and electronic media. Its Press Tours enable reporters to “sail aboard the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush on the Adriatic Sea” and “mingle with counter-terrorism experts in a metro station in Rome, Italy.” The department also welcomes grant applications from think tanks, universities, NGOs, and other civil society organizations “ranging from out-of-the box, non-traditional ideas to more institutional formats. Particular focus should be placed on outreach to youth audiences, female audiences and key opinion formers, including those who have not connected with NATO before.”

As Merje Kuus notes:

In addition to NATO’s own public diplomacy division, the alliance’s message is produced and projected through a host of NGOs that collaborate with NATO but are not affiliated with it. Funded through national foreign and defense ministries, NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division, and private companies, they organize a wide range of activities designed to popularize NATO within and beyond its member states.

NATO’s less obvious influence may derive from its accelerated penetration of civilian institutions: education, entertainment, teenage “influencers,” festivals, nongovernmental organizations, even progressive and human rights movements. NATO portrays itself as simply the prime association of democratic nations, which was apparently very persuasive in Eastern European regimes trying to divest themselves of the “totalitarian” label.

A notable example is its Women, Peace and Security Agenda. Journalist Lily Lynch reports:

In January 2018, Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg held an unprecedented press conference with Angelina Jolie. While InStyle reported that Jolie “was dressed in a black off-the-shoulder sheath dress, a matching capelet and classic pumps (also black)”, there was a deeper purpose to this meeting: sexual violence in war. The pair had just co-authored a piece for the Guardian entitled “Why NATO must defend women’s rights”. The timing was significant. At the height of the #MeToo movement, the most powerful military alliance in the world had become a feminist ally. “Ending gender-based violence is a vital issue of peace and security as well as of social justice,” they wrote. “NATO can be a leader in this effort.”

A study by Katharine AM Wright, exploring the legitimacy given to NATO by the surprising participation of women’s rights groups in its activities, found some activists who argued that it enabled feminists to “advise” NATO, “to get it to hear things that they don’t usually hear,” and to “speak truth to power.”

As climate change is among NATO’s catalog of serious threats to security, environmentalists speak at NATO conferences and vice versa, serve on advisory boards, and formally interact in many ways. For example, the 2020 meeting of the Brussels Dialogue on Climate Diplomacy and the Environment & Development Resource Centre was hosted by the Policy Planning Unit in the Office of the NATO Secretary-General.

In addition to the more traditional Youth Atlantic Treaty Association, NATO has more recently created youth activities that are more cuddly. Its 2022 “Protect the Future campaign” recruited:

12 young online creators [teenage “influencers”] from Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. To discover more about the Alliance’s work, the creators met with the Secretary General in May; travelled to the Madrid Summit in June; visited the US aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush in October; and went on an AWACS training mission in November.

The outcome, NATO reported, was 300,000 social media engagements that reached more than 9 million young people.

In another wing of this campaign, “young artists from across the Alliance took part in an open competition to help create NATO’s first-ever graphic novel, ‘Protect the Future.’ Six young artists were selected to work with professionals to produce the book.” For the multitude, a Youth Summit was held that included 35,000 people from 99 countries.

At the [2023] NATO Gaming Tournament in Warsaw, Poland, thousands of gamers from across the Alliance and around the world gathered to play online games and chat with experts from NATO Headquarters. The vibe in the room is casual and relaxed. Young gamers from Warsaw mingle with artists, soldiers and NATO experts. In one corner, troops from NATO’s multinational battlegroup in Poland play vintage console games, including Street Fighter and Super Mario. In another area, gamers mash buttons on old arcade games like Pac-Man.

The arts are not neglected. NATO sponsors exhibits, murals, and competitions:

Are you an artist under 35? Do you have a creative mind and want your artwork to be displayed at a permanent location in Washington D.C. where NATO will mark the 75th anniversary of the Alliance? Submit your work to the NATO mural competition – an opportunity to showcase your talent and artistic vision of the future. The winner will get to work with a local street artist to feature their mural permanently on a wall in the city.

The NATO mural competition will give young talents a chance to produce a signature image for NATO’s anniversary as part of its “Protect the Future” campaign.

In our era of network governance it is not surprising that NATO has close connections with the European Union (including its Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and European Defense Agency), the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and many other intergovernmental organizations. These in turn are interwoven with international (e.g., World Economic Forum, Amnesty International) and thousands of national nongovernmental organizations (e.g., Council on Foreign Relations), foundations, and business corporations. Zbigniew Brzezinski noted in The Grand Chessboard:

As the imitation of American ways gradually pervades the world, it creates a more congenial setting for the exercise of the indirect and seemingly consensual American hegemony. And as in the case of the domestic American system, that hegemony involves a complex structure of interlocking institutions and procedures, designed to generate consensus and obscure asymmetries in power and influence. (p.27)

The staffs of intergovernmental organizations are required to be politically neutral. However, there is also pressure on progressive or left wing nongovernmental organizations to avoid confrontation or strong dissent with conference participants or any member of the “partnership.”

The very size of this monumental hive of associations, including representatives, staffs, task forces of university and other experts, NGOs, and contractors may in itself affect the complexion of European political parties. Although I have found no evidence so far, perhaps there has been a “brain drain” of progressive activists into the more promising, interesting, and often paid work of these institutions, compared with the scant rewards of local political parties. It could be yet another factor in the passive or active support for NATO in Europe.  Might there be scholars, journalists, or activists exploring this possibility?

Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations are from the NATO website. 

The post NATO’s Civilian Bases  appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Joan Roelofs.

In a special broadcast, we feature part of our recent in-depth interview about The Night Won’t End, a new documentary from Al Jazeera English which takes an in-depth look at attacks on civilians by the Israeli military in Gaza and the United States’ role in the war. The film follows three Palestinian families as they recount the horrific experiences they have endured under relentless Israeli assault, including the family of 6-year-old Hind Rajab, the young Palestinian girl who made headlines when it emerged in January that she had been trapped in a car with family members killed by Israeli ground troops, and the Salem family, who first lost dozens of family members in an Israeli airstrike and then additional family members who were executed by Israeli soldiers. We play clips from the documentary and speak to journalists Kavitha Chekuru and Sharif Abdel Kouddous, the director and correspondent on The Night Won’t End, respectively. We also discuss the plight of journalists in Gaza and U.S. complicity in Israel’s war. “There’s no question that U.S. weapons have killed civilians in Gaza,” says Kouddous. “This violates both international humanitarian law and domestic law.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The Night Won’t End, a new documentary from Al Jazeera English, takes an in-depth look at attacks on civilians by the Israeli military in Gaza and the United States’ role in the war. The film follows three Palestinian families as they recount the horrific experiences they have endured under relentless Israeli assault, including the family of 6-year-old Hind Rajab, the young Palestinian girl who made headlines when it emerged in January that she had been trapped in a car with family members killed by Israeli ground troops, and the Salem family, who first lost dozens of family members in an Israeli airstrike and then additional family members who were executed by Israeli soldiers. We play clips from the documentary and speak to journalists Kavitha Chekuru and Sharif Abdel Kouddous, the director and correspondent on The Night Won’t End, respectively. We also discuss the plight of journalists in Gaza and U.S. complicity in Israel’s war. “There’s no question that U.S. weapons have killed civilians in Gaza,” says Kouddous. “This violates both international humanitarian law and domestic law.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The junta, which seized power in 2021 and has since faced increasing desertions and military losses nationwide, announced the implementation of the People’s Military Service Law in February. The military has since recruited about 9,000 people through two rounds of conscription based on a lottery system.

Many young people have fled the country out of fear that they may be drafted. Recruitment by junta soldiers has involved coercing young people, including minors, threatening violence or property destruction and most recently, threats and heavy fines for parents of draft dodgers as a third round of conscription approaches, residents say.

About 960 people have chosen to seek training under the civilian National Unity Government’s People's Defense Forces, or militias opposing the junta, the group’s southern military office said in a statement on Wednesday. The statement included photos of a recent graduation. The N.U.G. was formed by members of the civilian administration ousted in the February 2021 coup.

A 28-year-old man eligible for military conscription under the junta in central Myanmar’s Mandalay Division told RFA he initially planned on going abroad, like many people already have, but he was now aiming to join anti-junta forces.

“At first I was hesitant to put my family at risk but now I canceled my preparations to go abroad and work and have decided to take up arms. Now I am preparing and am still trying to connect with the training group,” he said, asking to remain anonymous for security reasons. 

“I can’t take it anymore, mainly because of the [junta’s] injustice, the way they are killing and torturing people. Most young people would make the same decision. This is the only way left for us to root out the military dictatorship.”

The National Unity Government’s Southern Military Headquarters No. 3 began accepting trainees to undergo basic military courses in April and May, it said in its statement.

RFA phoned the headquarters for more information, but it could not be contacted due to limited telecommunications access.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

More than 100 small wooden boats accompanied the convoy of several slightly larger boats, which were loaded with fuel and food as they departed for Scarborough Shoal, a rock within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ) that China has effectively controlled since 2012.

The voyage is being led by Atin Ito! (This Is Ours!), a broad coalition of nationalist and civilian organizations. 

“The Philippines is ours, China leave,” some volunteers chanted as they carried posters with the same message. Catholic volunteers brought figurines of the Virgin Mary aboard the boats.

The flotilla set sail after 7 a.m. from a port in Masinloc, a town on the west coast of Luzon, the largest island in the Philippines. Later in the day, the small boats returned to shore while four of the main boats continued with their voyage to Scarborough Shoal, known as Panatag Shoal or Bajo de Masinloc in the Philippines.

A few hours after their morning departure, the flotilla conducted what organizers called “a peace and solidarity regatta” about 20 nautical miles off Masinloc.

At around 11 a.m., participants placed 12 symbolic buoys to assert Manila’s sovereign rights over the West Philippine Sea, Manila’s name for South China Sea waters within its EEZ. They also distributed food and fuel supplies to some fishers in the area before the small boats returned to shore and the larger ones continued with their journey.

“At least, we are now showing the world that Filipinos are fighting back,” Agustin Bustillo, 55, captain of one of the bigger fishing boats, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news service. “But I hope the problem will be settled through peaceful means.”

A BenarNews reporter was among a group of journalists aboard one of the civilian boats heading to the shoal.

At around 6 p.m., two China Coast Guard (CCG) ships were seen shadowing and trying to block the civilian boats, which were still hundreds of miles from their destination.

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), which had sent three ships to protect the civilians, said one of the CCG ships was about 1,800 yards (1,650 meters) from the convoy, while the other was a mile away as of early evening. 

The two coast guards exchanged radio challenges, both insisting their countries’ jurisdiction over the area even as the civilian convoy decided to continue its course to the shoal.

“They are trying to divide the contingent. Our boats are exercising evasive maneuvers while the PCG continues to maintain its close distance to the convoy to thwart any further attempt from CCG vessels,” Emman Hizon, one of the convoy’s organizers, told reporters.

Volunteer Aira Villamil, 21, said she felt mixed emotions while witnessing China’s actions at sea. While defiant, she said she feared what might happen.

“It’s scary because they are deliberately trying to block us while we are passing. It is super scary because we don’t know what they’ll do to us,” she told BenarNews in an interview aboard one of the fishing boats.

Asked about the civilian convoy on Wednesday, China asserted its sovereignty over the shoal, which it calls Huangyan Dao. It also warned the Philippines against violating Beijing’s jurisdiction.

“If the Philippines abuses China’s goodwill and infringes upon China’s territorial sovereignty and jurisdiction, we will defend our rights and take countermeasures in accordance with the law. Relevant responsibilities and consequences shall be borne solely by the Philippines,” foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters in Beijing.

Expected standoff

The resource-rich Scarborough Shoal lies within Manila’s 200-nautical mile EEZ, as mandated under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). But it has been under Beijing’s de facto control since 2012, when China wrested control from the Philippines after a weeks-long standoff.

China claims almost the entire South China Sea. In 2016, after Manila sued Beijing, an international court invalidated China’s expansive claims and ruled that the shoal is a traditional fishing ground for the Philippines, Vietnam, and China. Beijing has refused to acknowledge the ruling, asserting what it calls historical claims over the waters.

Wednesday’s voyage is Atin Ito!’s second supply mission to the West Philippine Sea. In December 2023, it set out to deliver supplies and Christmas gifts to Filipino troops stationed aboard the BRP Sierra Madre at Second Thomas (Ayungin) Shoal, but the convoy was forced to turn back after consistent shadowing by Chinese ships.

The convoy is expected to arrive near the shoal early Thursday to distribute supplies to Filipino fishermen operating in waters around the shoal. Because of the expected presence of Chinese ships, organizers do not know if they will be able to reach their destination.

Days before the convoy set sail, Beijing sent ships to the area, with Chinese state media reporting on Monday that the CCG was conducting training in Huangyan Dao. This was on top of the constant presence of two or three Chinese ships.  

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) Ray Powell, who heads Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation and monitors activities in the South China Sea, said a Chinese force of 43 ships was stationed near the shoal, seemingly ready to face the civilian flotilla.

Two weeks ago, on April 30, CCG ships fired water cannon at Manila’s government ships near the shoal, causing damage. 

The Philippine government summoned Zhou Zhiyong, the deputy chief of mission at the Chinese embassy in Manila, and “demanded that Chinese vessels leave Bajo de Masinloc and its vicinity immediately.” 

China claimed those operations were “professional, standardized and legal,” saying the Philippines’ actions infringed on Beijing’s sovereignty over the area and violated “international law and basic norms of international relations.”

The Philippine civilians remained unfazed despite the risks. Rafaela David, one of the Atin Ito! organizers, said the convoy was seeking to “normalize” access to the West Philippine Sea.

“If China is militarizing our own EEZ, we’re there to civilianize our own seas because at the end of the day, we stand by the belief that the West Philippine Sea should be accessible to ordinary citizens,” David told reporters in Botolan, a town in Zambales province, on the even of the trip.

Days before the mission, Global Times, the Chinese Communist Party’s official mouthpiece, accused the group of being funded by the United States and planning to provoke China. The group denied it.

“We have our own minds,” Edicio dela Torre, 80, a former priest turned activist and one of the coalition’s leaders, said during the same briefing on Tuesday. “China does not believe in civilian actions because they think all these are part of the government.”

David said China’s reaction shows it was rattled by the civilian movement.

“Ordinary Filipinos are coming hand-in-hand in peaceful means, showing they are not intimidated by someone as big as China,” he said.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jojo Riñoza and Camille Elemia for BenarNews.

CODEPINK’s Ann Wright, Medea Benjamin and hundreds of other human rights activists with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition are due to set sail on multiple vessels in mid-April to carry 5,500 tons of aid for Gaza. Their mission, aside from delivering the much-needed humanitarian aid, is to challenge Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza amid dire conditions, including widespread hunger and lack of medical attention intentionally caused by Israeli policies. Time is running out for many in Gaza as Israel threatens an all-out attack on Rafah and experts warn hunger and disease could soon surpass casualties from bombings.

“I have been walking the halls of Congress every day since October, going to rallies every weekend, writing letters of outrage to President Biden every night–and nothing has worked to stop Israel from murdering thousands upon thousands of innocent people. What more can I do? I can go on this flotilla to try to break the criminal siege that Israel has imposed on Gaza,” said CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin.

“President Biden waited six months, waited until 33,000 had been killed, mostly women and children, before picking up the phone and demanding that Netanyahu reduce civilian harm, allow more aid in, and protect aid workers,” said CODEPINK Ret. Army Colonel and former U.S. Diplomat Ann Wright. “But even if Israel allows more humanitarian aid in, it is still bombing Gaza with U.S. bombs, shooting innocent people and imprisoning the 2.2 million people that live in Gaza. Getting humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza is urgent, but it is not sufficient. We must end Israel’s unlawful, deadly blockade as well as Israel’s overall control of Gaza. That’s why we need this flotilla, filled with unarmed civilians, human rights observers from 30 countries, to challenge Israel’s brutal grip on the Gaza strip.”

Israel’s longstanding neglect of its responsibility as an occupying power to safeguard the health and wellbeing of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank has escalated into genocidal actions, including using starvation as a weapon of war. Israeli leaders have openly declared intentions to collectively punish Gaza’s population. The Freedom Flotilla opposes Israel’s authority over aid and will refuse any inspection of our cargo. For safety and effective aid distribution, the flotilla will deploy numerous international humanitarian observers from diverse backgrounds and countries.

Despite air drops of food and temporary docks, Israel continues to block thousands of aid trucks from entering Gaza through land crossings. The International Court of Justice’s rulings on January 26 and March 28 emphasize Israel’s obligation to ensure the safety and security of Palestinians in Gaza, including facilitating humanitarian assistance without obstruction.

“The International Court of Justice’s preliminary measures ordered against Israel are very clear,” comments Ismail Moola of South Africa’s Palestine Solidarity Alliance, which is part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. “The court’s ruling requires the whole world to play their part to stop the genocide unfolding in Gaza, including unobstructed access to vital aid. While our governments fail to lead in these urgently required humanitarian responses, people of conscience and our grassroots organizations must act to take leadership. When governments fail, we sail!”

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition is a non-partisan international coalition of campaigns that stand for freedom and human rights in Palestine. They have sailed since 2010 with the goal of breaking the blockade of Gaza, and in solidarity.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 5, 2024

Media Contact: Melissa Garriga | melissa@codepink.org 

The post International Civilian Aid Flotilla to Break the Siege of Gaza appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by CounterPunch News Service.

“I have been walking the halls of Congress every day since October, going to rallies every weekend, writing letters of outrage to President Biden every night–and nothing has worked to stop Israel from murdering thousands upon thousands of innocent people. What more can I do? I can go on this flotilla to try to break the criminal siege that Israel has imposed on Gaza,” said CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin.

“President Biden waited six months, waited until 33,000 had been killed, mostly women and children, before picking up the phone and demanding that Netanyahu reduce civilian harm, allow more aid in, and protect aid workers,” said CODEPINK Ret. Army Colonel and former U.S. Diplomat Ann Wright. “But even if Israel allows more humanitarian aid in, it is still bombing Gaza with U.S. bombs, shooting innocent people and imprisoning the 2.2 million people that live in Gaza. Getting humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza is urgent, but it is not sufficient. We must end Israel’s unlawful, deadly blockade as well as Israel’s overall control of Gaza. That’s why we need this flotilla, filled with unarmed civilians, human rights observers from 30 countries, to challenge Israel’s brutal grip on the Gaza strip.”

Israel's longstanding neglect of its responsibility as an occupying power to safeguard the health and wellbeing of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank has escalated into genocidal actions, including using starvation as a weapon of war. Israeli leaders have openly declared intentions to collectively punish Gaza's population. The Freedom Flotilla opposes Israel's authority over aid and will refuse any inspection of our cargo. For safety and effective aid distribution, the flotilla will deploy numerous international humanitarian observers from diverse backgrounds and countries.

Despite air drops of food and temporary docks, Israel continues to block thousands of aid trucks from entering Gaza through land crossings. The International Court of Justice's rulings on January 26 and March 28 emphasize Israel's obligation to ensure the safety and security of Palestinians in Gaza, including facilitating humanitarian assistance without obstruction.

"The International Court of Justice's preliminary measures ordered against Israel are very clear," comments Ismail Moola of South Africa's Palestine Solidarity Alliance, which is part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. "The court's ruling requires the whole world to play their part to stop the genocide unfolding in Gaza, including unobstructed access to vital aid. While our governments fail to lead in these urgently required humanitarian responses, people of conscience and our grassroots organizations must act to take leadership. When governments fail, we sail!"

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition is a non-partisan international coalition of campaigns that stand for freedom and human rights in Palestine. They have sailed since 2010 with the goal of breaking the blockade of Gaza, and in solidarity with Palestinians cries for freedom and equality. Their non-violent direct action missions support the dignity and humanity of Palestinians, working with civil society partners, rather than any party, faction or government.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Daniel Boguslaw.

The New Zealand government is shortly to announce whether it will designate Hamas a “terrorist” group in response to the October 7 attack on Israel in which Hamas was involved.

The US and most of the Western world calls Hamas “terrorists” but so far New Zealand has only designated the armed wing of Hamas as a terrorist group.

More importantly, the United Nations — along with most of the rest of the world — has not taken this step and neither should New Zealand.

• READ MORE: What is Hamas?: A simple guide to the armed Palestinian group
• The War on Gaza live news: Thousands could die as Israel blocks food, aid convoys under fire
• Other War on Gaza reports

It is for Palestinians to decide which groups they support in their struggle for self-determination but it’s important here to respond to the incessant, hysterical lies told about Hamas by Israel and the pro-Israel lobby around the world.

There are probably more lies spoken about Hamas than any other organisation in the world.

One of these is the lie that the Hamas Charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews worldwide. (For example, this was claimed in an opinion piece in The Post newspaper recently by Israeli diplomat and former ambassador to the United Kingdom Daniel Taub  — in response to which the newspaper declined to print any letters)

The truth is that in the latest Hamas charter from 2017, the organisation says

“Hamas reiterates that its conflict is with the Zionist project and not with the Jews based on their religion.”
“Hamas is not fighting against the Jews because they are Jews, but against the Zionists who are occupying Palestine.”
“Hamas rejects the persecution of people or the undermining of their rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian ground.”

Hamas accepts Israel with 1967 borders
In fact, their new charter goes further and Hamas accepts the state of Israel based on 1967 borders — precisely the same policy as the New Zealand government along with the US, the UK and most of the world!

It is clear to everyone that war crimes were committed in the October 7 attack on Israel.

Killing civilians and taking civilian hostages are war crimes under the Fourth Geneva Convention and should be condemned.

These crimes should be investigated by the International Criminal Court as were crimes in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Those investigations resulted in arrest warrants issued against Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

The same process should be followed for the October 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s genocidal response. For example, arrest warrants should be issued by the ICC against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and at least half his cabinet for war crimes and crimes against humanity — including the crimes of genocide and apartheid.

As things stand there were eight Palestinian resistance groups involved in the October 7 attack on Israel and we simply do not know yet which groups and leaders were responsible for war crimes.

Palestinian resistance groups have the right under international law to take up arms to fight against their colonial occupiers just as the African National Congress (ANC) had the right to take up arms to fight for freedom in apartheid South Africa.

Aotearoa New Zealand must respect this right and not pander to the deep-seated racism and cheap political sloganeering of the pro-Israel lobby.

A knee-jerk reaction from New Zealand to designate Hamas a terrorist group would be a further step backwards from an independent foreign policy.

John Minto is national chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA).

• Hamas’s surprise attack on October 7 came after Israeli settlers had stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and after a record number of Palestinians had been killed by Israel at that point in 2023.
• Other maps and charts  — Live tracker

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

"I have the great honor to be here today, to reward you, because you have such a difficult and decisive mission on your shoulders, to repel the enemy and win this war," Zelenskiy told soldiers on February 4 following his visit to Robotyne, a southern village in the Zaporizhzhya region that was one of the few successes by Ukrainian forces during last year’s counteroffensive.

The presidential office released video of Zelenskiy handing out medals to troops of the 65th Separate Mechanized Brigade, which led the advance on Robotyne, a village with a prewar population of about 450 people.

While there, Zelenskiy appointed Ivan Federov -- mayor of now-occupied Melitopol who was once abducted by Russia -- as head of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya region.

Fedorov was abducted in March 2022 when he refused to cooperate with Russians troops, triggering local protests and calls by Zelenskiy for his immediate release. He was released five days later.

Zelenskiy faces a growing political storm amid reports he is poised to push out the country’s top military commander, General Valeriy Zaluzhniy.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

Polls show that Zaluzhniy is as popular, if not more so, than Zelenskiy, and some experts fear that, were Zelenskiy to oust Zaluzhniy, it would demoralize some of Ukraine's troops and undermine national unity.

There has been no official word from Zelenskiy’s office about his intentions in regard to Zaluzhniy’s position, although numerous media reports have said the president has informed his U.S. allies of an impending move.

In remarks to Italian TV late on February 4, Zelenskiy said, without being specific, that he is considering “replacing a number of state leaders," not only in the military.

"It is a question of the people who are to lead Ukraine," he told told RAI television when asked about reports that he is about to fire Zaluzhniy.

"A reset is necessary. I am talking about a replacement of a number of state leaders, not only in the army sector. I am reflecting on this replacement. It's a question for the entire leadership of the country."

"I have in mind something serious that does not concern a single person but the direction of the country's leadership."

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry said the search-and-rescue operation at the site of a deadly building attack in the Russian-occupied city of Lysychansk has been completed.

Rescuers early on February 4 recovered more bodies from the rubble of the building in eastern Ukraine that was hit by apparent artillery fire, bringing the death toll to 28.

The Emergency Situations Ministry said in a post to Telegram that a child was among the bodies recovered from the rubble of the building, which it said housed a bakery and a restaurant. Another 10 people were rescued.

Moscow-imposed officials in the Luhansk region, which is nearly entirely controlled by Russia, initially blamed a Ukrainian drone strike for the attack, but later shifted explanations, asserting it was actually Ukrainian artillery. The claim could not be independently verified.

Ukrainian officials have made no comment on the incident.

Russia took control of Lysychansk in July 2022 after months of fierce fighting.

Nearly two years into Russia’s mass invasion of Ukraine, the battlefield along the nearly 1,200-kilometer front line stretching from northeast Ukraine to the south-central region of Kherson has largely frozen. After an unsuccessful counteroffensive last fall, Ukrainian troops have turned to rebuilding their forces, and shoring up defenses.

Russia, for its part, has continued to push forward in several, localized offensives: near Kupyansk in the north, and around the industrial city of Avdiyivka, to the south.

Both sides have also launched longer-range attacks this winter, using long-distance precision artillery, drones, and air-launched cruise missiles.

Ukraine has increasingly used its drone arsenal to target industrial sites within Russia itself. On February 3, an apparent Ukrainian drone strike hit one of the largest oil refineries in Volgograd, about 400 kilometers east of the Ukrainian border.

Firefighters put out the blaze after several hours, and it was unclear the extent of the damage at the refinery, which is owned by Lukoil, and is one of the largest in Russia. It produces gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel, and fuel for ships.

In Ukraine’s Sumy region, the military administration there said Russian forces had shelled the region in 16 separate attacks the previous day.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Russian and Ukrainian services, Reuters, and AP

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

The natural, indeed inescapable, consequence of Israel’s cutting off life-sustaining supplies of food and water to over 2 million people in Gaza is famine and mass death by starvation and dehydration. As 90 percent of the people of Gaza have become refugees, 93 percent of the population is facing crisis levels of hunger.

Epidemics of cholera, typhoid, and dysentery are also the natural consequence as sanitation systems collapse and there’s only contaminated water to drink. Deaths from disease and hunger are predicted to be several times that from fighting and bombing.

Who are most likely to die first? Children, the elderly, and pregnant women. Who are least likely to be affected? Hamas’s soldiers, who stockpiled food and water before the war.

Israel’s indiscriminate bombing has killed over 22,000 Palestinians, 40 percent of them children. The pace of killing has been “exceptionally high,” reports the New York Times. “It’s beyond anything that I’ve seen in my career,” says a former Pentagon senior intelligence analyst.

Israelis assert casualties are high because Hamas uses civilians as “human shields.” But Hamas fighters are intermixed with civilians because they live crammed together in densely populated Gaza.

Even on its own terms, the excuse fails. If a killer tries to escape capture by forcing an innocent family to stand between himself and the police, the cops can’t mow them all down to get the killer. If Hamas terrorists are surrounded by the people of Gaza, that doesn’t justify eliminating the entire population.

“Israel’s liberal use of very large weapons in dense urban areas, including U.S.-made 2,000-pound bombs that can flatten an apartment tower, is surprising,” the Times report continued.

But it’s not a surprise if Israel in fact intends the mass deaths it has inflicted. Calls for “erasing” the people of Gaza and claims that “there are no innocents in Gaza” have become widespread among Israeli officials.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has likened the war in Gaza to a biblical call to “totally destroy” the Amalekites, a rival nation to the ancient Israelites. “Do not spare them,” the prophet Samuel tells King Saul: God commands you to “put to death men and women, children and infants.” The idea of treating Palestinians this way is now widespread among Israeli leaders.

Why deliberately target civilians? Many Israelis consider all the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean to be the God-given “Land of Israel.” Butchering and starving Palestinian noncombatants forces the survivors to flee this land.

“There will be no electricity and no water,” decreed Israeli Major General Ghassan Alain at the outset of the war. “There will only be destruction.” General Giora Eiland added: “Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.” Eiland said Palestinians should be told, “They have two choices: to stay and to starve, or to leave.”

Last September at the United Nations, Netanyahu himself displayed a map showing “The New Middle East.” The map had no West Bank and no Gaza — only Israel incorporating both.

Members of Israel’s cabinet openly call for removing 90 percent of Palestinians from Gaza and resettling the land with Israelis. And Netanyahu recently told a meeting of his party that he is “looking for countries that are willing to absorb Gazans … we are working on it.”

Israel’s campaign in Gaza fits the legal definition of genocide: Israel is killing or inflicting conditions intended to bring about the destruction of Gazans as a group.

But whatever you call it, genocide or ethnic cleansing, deliberate mass murder is part of the project. The Biden administration should reconsider its support for Israel.

The post Civilian Casualties in Gaza are No Accident appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Mitchell Zimmerman.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 17, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called on Ukraine's Western backers to provide advanced weaponry, including long-range missiles and F-16 fighter jets, to help Kyiv "throw Russia out of the sky."

Ukraine has been subjected to a series of unusually intense Russian air strikes since the start of the year that has put its air defenses under massive pressure amid dwindling stocks of ammunition and equipment.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

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"In 2024, of course the priority is to throw Russia from the skies," Kuleba said during a panel discussion. "Because the one who controls the skies will define when and how the war will end."

Kuleba's comments echoed remarks by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who said a day earlier at the forum that his country “must gain air superiority.”

"Just as we gained superiority in the Black Sea, we can do it. This will allow progress on the ground.... Partners know what is needed and in what quantity," Zelenskiy said.

Russian missiles later on January 17 struck a town outside Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, killing one person and damaging an educational institution, the regional governor and the military said.

Governor Oleh Synyehubov said on Telegram there were two strikes on the town of Chuhuyev. A female employee of a heating and power plant was killed and another person was injured. A military source, also reporting on Telegram, said the attack involved S-300 missiles.

Russian troops attacked Kharkiv with two S-300 missiles on January 16, wounding 17 people, including 14 who have been hospitalized.

The Ukrainian military also said it destroyed six Iranian-made Shahed drones over the Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions late on January 17.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on January 17 said the Biden administration was "working very hard" to secure additional funding for Ukraine from Congress, warning that failure to do so would be a "real problem."

"If we don't get that money, it's a real problem. It's a real problem for Ukraine. I think it's a problem for us and our leadership around the world," he said.

President Joe Biden convened top congressional leaders at the White House to underscore Ukraine's security needs.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (Republican-Louisiana) and other Republicans used the meeting with Biden to push for tougher border security measures.

"We understand that there's concern about the safety, security, and sovereignty of Ukraine," Johnson told reporters after the meeting "But the American people have those same concerns about our own domestic sovereignty and our safety and our security."

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (Democrat-New York) stressed that Biden had repeatedly said he is willing to compromise on certain border measures. He told reporters that there was a "large amount of agreement around the table" on both funding for Ukraine and border security.

The German parliament meanwhile rejected a motion put forward by the conservative opposition that called for the government to send long-range Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine. Nearly all lawmakers from the three-party governing coalition -- Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens, and the Free Democrats (FDP) -- opposed to the motion on January 17.

The Greens and the FDP have been pushing Scholz for months to send the missiles, but lawmakers from the two parties said they voted against the proposal because the conservative opposition had linked it to a debate on the annual report on Germany’s military.

As Kuleba made his comments in the Swiss ski resort, Ukrainian authorities were declaring an air-raid alert for the whole country.

The Ukrainian Air Force warned on Telegram that a Russian MiG-31 fighter jet had taken off from the Mozdok airfield in Russia's North Ossetia, while Telegram monitoring channels reported that an Il-78M refueling plane was also airborne.

Earlier on January 17, a Russian drone attack on Odesa wounded three people and caused damage to civilian residential infrastructure, prompting the evacuation of 130 people, regional Governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram.

The Defense Forces of Southern Ukraine said separately that it shot down 11 Iranian-made drones during the attack on Odesa, with the vast majority of the debris falling into the sea.

"Air-defense units worked for almost three hours.... The main efforts of the enemy were concentrated on attacks on Odesa," the military said in a statement.

The latest Russian attacks came as the United Nations said the past several weeks have seen a steep increase in civilian victims in Ukraine due to unusually intense missile and drone strikes.

In December alone, 101 Ukrainian civilians were killed and 491 were wounded in Russian strikes, amounting a 26.5 percent month-to- month increase in verified casualties, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said in a report published on January 16.

In Brussels, the chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Bob Bauer, said on January 17 that the alliance would keep supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes.

Russia launched a late-night attack on January 16 that struck the city center of Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine, as well as the Black Sea port of Odesa early on January 17, wounding civilians and causing widespread destruction to residential buildings.

“Today is the 693rd day of what Russia thought would be a three-day war. Ukraine will have our support for every day that is to come because the outcome of this war will determine the fate of the world,” Bauer said at the start of a two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers.

“This war has never been about any real security threat to Russia coming from either Ukraine or NATO,” Bauer added. “This war is about Russia fearing something much more powerful than any physical weapon on Earth: democracy. If people in Ukraine can have democratic rights, then people in Russia will soon crave them too.”

Bauer also urged a fundamental overhaul in the conflict readiness of the 31-member alliance.

“In order to be fully effective, also in the future, we need a war-fighting transformation of NATO,” he said.

With reporting by Reuters and AP

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

Zelenskiy met with his Lithuanian counterpart Gitanas Nauseda on January 10 to discuss military aid, training, and joint demining efforts during the previously unannounced trip, which will also take him to Estonia and Latvia.

“We have proven that Russia can be stopped, that deterrence is possible,” he said after talks with Nauseda on what is the Ukrainian leader's first foreign trip of 2024.

"Today, Gitanas Nauseda and I focused on frontline developments. Weapons, equipment, personnel training, and Lithuania's leadership in the demining coalition are all sources of strength for us," Zelenskiy later wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Lithuania has been a staunch ally of Ukraine since the start of Russia's unprovoked full-scale invasion, which will reach the two-year mark in February.

Nauseda said EU and NATO member Lithuania will continue to provide military, political, and economic support to Ukraine, and pointed to the Baltic country's approval last month of a 200-million-euro ($219 million) long-term military aid package for Ukraine.

Russia's invasion has turned Ukraine into one of the most mined countries in the world, generating one of the largest demining challenges since the end of World War II.

"Lithuania is forming a demining coalition to mobilize military support for Ukraine as efficiently and quickly as possible," Nauseda said.

"The Western world must understand that this is not just the struggle of Ukraine, it is the struggle of the whole of Europe and the democratic world for peace and freedom," Nauseda said.

Ukraine has pleaded with its allies to keep supplying it with weapons amid signs of donor fatigue in some countries.

There is continued disagreement between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress on continuing military aid for Kyiv, while a 50-billion-euro ($55 billion) aid package from the European Union remains blocked due to a Hungarian veto.

But a NATO allies meeting in Brussels on January 10 made it clear that they will continue to provide Ukraine with major military, economic, and humanitarian aid. NATO allies have outlined plans to provide "billions of euros of further capabilities" in 2024 to Ukraine, the alliance said in a statement.

Zelensky warned during the news conference with Nauseda that delays in Western aid to Kyiv would only embolden Moscow.

"He (Russian President Vladimir Putin) is not going to stop. He wants to occupy us completely," Zelenskiy said.

"And sometimes, the insecurity of partners regarding financial and military aid to Ukraine only increases Russia's courage and strength."

Since the start of the year, Ukraine has been subjected to several massive waves of Russian missile and drone strikes that have caused civilian deaths and material damage.

Zelenskiy said on January 10 that Ukraine badly needs advanced air defense systems.

"In recent days, Russia hit Ukraine with a total of 500 devices: we destroyed 70 percent of them," Zelenskiy said. "Air defense systems are the number one item that we lack."

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, an all-out air raid alert was declared on the morning of January 10, with authorities instructing citizens to take shelter due to an elevated danger of Russian missile strikes.

"Missile-strike danger throughout the territory of Ukraine! [Russian] MiG-31Ks taking off from Savasleika airfield [in Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region].

Don't ignore the air raid alert!' the Ukrainian Air Force said in its warning message on Telegram.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

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The New York Police Department has agreed to end its practice of withholding body-camera footage of police shootings from civilian investigators, a practice that sometimes derailed independent inquiries into deaths at the hands of police.

The change came weeks after ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine asked the NYPD about the practice as part of their investigation into the use of body cameras.

For years, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which is charged with investigating police misconduct in New York City, has often been hamstrung in its ability to move ahead on the most serious cases because the NYPD refused to share footage of shootings and other serious incidents while the department did its own, often lengthy, internal investigation.

“We are pleased to have come to this agreement with NYPD and hope it will ensure officers who commit misconduct cannot avoid discipline due to a technicality,” said CCRB Chair Arva Rice in a statement.

Our investigation published last week detailed how the NYPD’s refusal to share footage had short-circuited the civilian agency’s efforts to punish an officer who had killed a young man named Kawaski Trawick.

NYPD did not give the civilian agency any footage of the April 2019 incident until more than a year and a half later. When the department finally handed it over, the footage showed one officer shot and killed Trawick, despite the officer’s more experienced partner repeatedly telling him not to use force. “No, no, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t,” the more senior officer said.

The CCRB filed disciplinary charges against the officer, triggering an NYPD trial earlier this year. But the police judge in the case decided there should be no discipline — because the CCRB had failed to file charges within an 18-month statute of limitations. The reason the CCRB hadn’t done so? The agency didn’t have the footage it needed to move ahead.

NYPD countered in a statement to ProPublica that “The CCRB could have brought charges prior to the expiration of the statute of limitations, but did not do so.”

The new agreement between the NYPD and CCRB, which was signed Dec. 5, stipulates that the Police Department will hand over footage and other records within 90 days of a request. The deal is essentially a good faith agreement between the two agencies. It does not have the force of law or lay out penalties.

A few other cities have taken a different approach. The civilian police oversight bodies in Chicago; Washington, D.C.; and New Orleans all have direct access to footage, mandated by law. Rather than relying on the police to send them the video, they have their own logins to the systems where videos are stored.

The deal also does not apply to the public disclosure of footage, an area in which the NYPD has lagged. Three years ago, the NYPD announced it would disclose footage from police shootings and other serious incidents within 30 days. Our investigation found that of 380 such serious incidents since then, the police have released video within a month just twice. (In response to our questions about that, the NYPD pointed to several exceptions in the department’s policy.)

The CCRB will have no shortage of footage to review. Through the first week of December, there were 28 shootings of civilians this year by New York City officers. The CCRB will now be able to get footage from all of them 90 days after the agreement was signed.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Eric Umansky.

As the junta lost control of several areas on the ground over the past month, the military turned to the skies to fight their enemies, especially in Shan, Kayah, Chin and Rakine states and in the Sagaing region.

In total, 196 civilians were killed and 228 were injured in airstrikes in these areas in November, compared with 28 killed and 105 injured in October. 

The highest civilian death toll was in Shan State, in the country’s north, where 60 civilians were killed and 44 were injured as Operation 1027, named for Oct. 27, the day it started, intensified there. 

“Civilian casualties will increase with escalation of conflict as long as the junta uses airstrikes and heavy weapons,” a spokesman for the Ta’ang Women’s organization, which monitors the military conflict in northern Shan state, told RFA Burmese.

The second-highest death toll occurred in the Sagaing region, where 44 civilians were killed and 21 were injured.

Among the dead was a 22-year-old woman from Ngar Yant Oh village in the region’s Myaung township, who was killed when a bomb from a fighter jet hit her house, a resident there said on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“We do not know what kind of bomb came from the fighter jet,” the resident said. “She was killed when the bomb dropped near her house.”

The resident said the bombardment on the village occurred even though there was no nearby armed conflict. 

Kayah state was third-highest in civilian casualties, with fighting around Loikaw city intensifying since “Operation 11.11”, which started Nov. 11.

The military deliberately targeted civilians there, Aung San Myint, secretary of the Karenni National Progressive Party, told RFA. 

“[The junta] regularly conducted artillery attacks and air force bombardments against internally displaced people living in camps in the forests,” he said. “They put pressure on us by targeting civilians.  It is their military tactic.” 

RFA attempted to contact junta spokesperson Maj. General Zaw Min Tun for comment, but he could not be reached. However, the junta made a press release on Nov. 29 saying that they never targeted civilian areas.

Kyaw Zaw, the spokesperson of the office of the National Unity Government, made up of former lawmakers who were ousted by the 2021 coup and their allies, said the shadow government was collecting data about human rights violations committed by the military.

“Such attacks by the [junta] have proved that they are committing war crimes,” he said. “We have documented these incidents. These documents could be used as evidence for both local court trials and in the international court of justice.”

According to RFA data, the junta has killed 730 civilians and injured 1,292 more in aerial attacks and heavy weapon shelling from January to November 2023.

Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

We look at a new report that reveals how Israel is using artificial intelligence to draw up targets in its military assault of Gaza. The report’s author, journalist Yuval Abraham, has found that the IDF’s increasing use of AI is partly a response to previous operations in Gaza when Israel quickly ran out of military targets, causing it to loosen its constraints on attacks that could kill civilians. In other words, the “civilian devastation that is happening right now in Gaza” is the result of a “war policy that has a very loose interpretation of what a military target is.” This targeting of private homes and residences to kill alleged combatants means that “when a child is killed in Gaza, it’s because somebody made a decision it was worth it.” It has turned the Israeli military into a “mass assassination factory,” with a “total disregard for Palestinian civil life,” continues Abraham, who also notes that, as an Israeli journalist, his reporting is still subject to military censors. We also discuss another recent report revealing that Israel may have received intelligence about Hamas’s planned attack more than a year in advance of October 7, but ignored it.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Articles like the Atlantic‘s (10/23/23) that took media to task for supposedly credulous reporting of the Gaza hospital blast actually demonstrated less skepticism of their sources than the initial coverage they complained about.

The devastating explosion at a Gaza hospital on October 17 provoked soul-searching in US corporate media—over the willingness of press outlets to quote Gaza officials who attributed the calamity to an Israeli airstrike.

“News Outlets Backtrack on Gaza Blast After Relying on Hamas as Key Source,” NPR (10/24/23) reported. “The initial coverage of a deadly blast at a Gaza hospital last week offers a fresh reminder of how hard it can be to get the news right—and what happens when it goes awry,” wrote NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik.

“How the Media Got the Hospital Explosion Wrong” was the headline of an Atlantic article by Yascha Mounk (10/23/23), which asserted:

As more details about the blast emerged, the initial claims so credulously repeated by the world’s leading news outlets came to look untenable….

The cause of the tragedy, it appears, is the opposite of what news outlets around the world first reported. Rather than having been an Israeli attack on civilians, the balance of evidence suggests that it was a result of terrorists’ disregard for the lives of the people on whose behalf they claim to be fighting.

The New York Times (10/23/23) offered an editorial mea culpa, saying its initial coverage “relied too heavily on claims by Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not immediately be verified.”

(What seems to be the New York Times‘ first mention of the blast—posted on its live feed on the “Israel/Hamas War” at 4:41 pm EDT on October 17—was headed “Hundreds Die in an Explosion at a Gaza Hospital, Setting Off Exchanges of Blame.” The first paragraph concluded, “The authorities blamed an Israeli airstrike, but the assertion was disputed by the Israel Defense Forces, which blamed an errant rocket fired by an armed Palestinian faction.” By 7:32 that evening, the feed was headed, “Israelis and Palestinians Blame Each Other for Blast at Gaza Hospital That Killed Hundreds.”)

CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy (10/26/23) demanded that numerous outlets retract their reporting—mainly because “Israel and the US have assessed that the rocket originated in Gaza, not Israel.”

CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy (10/26/23) took to task numerous outlets, including AP, Reuters, Al Jazeera, the Wall Street Journal and his own network for their “negligent reporting” that “amplified Hamas’s claims” on the blast. “Did these outlets stand by their initial reporting?” he asked them. “Was there any regret repeating claims from the terrorist group?” With the exceptions of the New York Times and the BBC, they “declin[ed] to explain to their audiences how they initially got an important story of such great magnitude so wrong.”

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post (10/18/23) heaped scorn on “Media Suckered by Hamas’s Hospital Lie,” saying, “We’re not sure why any reputable journo ever believed Hamas in the first place.” “Hard evidence shows that…the rocket was fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, not Israel,” the tabloid confidently asserted.

A dubious recording

But the articles that chided media for being overly credulous toward Gazan authorities themselves failed to critically examine the claims they relied on. In fact, the rebukes of news outlets for citing Gazan officials were based on dubious or ambiguous evidence, and were cherry-picked to present a case that absolved Israel. This one-way skepticism suggests less a concern for careful, accurate  journalism than it does a worry that, at a time when a US-allied government is inflicting mass civilian casualties, the institutions of the targeted population will be treated as credible sources.

For example, commentators prominently cited audio offered by an Israeli military spokesperson as authoritative evidence. “Israel released what it said were recordings of Hamas operatives discussing the blast as the misfire of a rocket launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad,” the Atlantic wrote, adding only, “The group has denied this version of events.”

“Don’t take our word for it!” the New York Post (10/18/23) said—instead take the word of a dodgy tape provided by Israel that audio investigators say was doctored.

“Don’t take our word for it!” the New York Post insisted. “The IDF has released audio of two Hamas operatives saying, quite literally, that the rocket is ‘from us’ (i.e. Islamist combatants trying to destroy Israel).”

What these outlets didn’t note is that serious questions have been raised about the authenticity of this audio. Alex Thomson of Britain’s Channel 4 (10/18/23) reported:

Hamas call this an obvious fabrication. Two independent Arab journalists told us the same thing, because of the language, accent, dialect, syntax and tone, none of which is, they say, credible.

The London Daily Mail (10/18/23) likewise reported that “Hamas and independent experts…said the tone, syntax, accent and idiom were ‘absurd.’”

Channel 4 (10/20/23) later reported on a forensic analysis of the tape conducted by Earshot, a nonprofit audio analysis group, which determined that the

recording is made up of two separate channels, and demonstrates that these two voices have been recorded independently.  These two independent recordings have then been edited together in a digital audio work station.

As a general rule, journalists should be particularly skeptical of intercepts that say precisely what the interceptors would want them to say—as with the hospital tape, in which one of the participants says, “That’s why we are saying it belongs to Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”

Cherry-picking video analysis

An Al Jazeera video analysis (10/19/23) found that “Israeli statements seem to have misinterpreted the evidence to build a story that one of the flashes recorded by several sources was a rocket misfire.”

There was also considerable weight placed on video showing an airborne object bursting into flames around the time of the hospital explosion, with Israel asserting that this was the Islamic Jihad rocket that struck the hospital. Wrote the Atlantic:

A live video transmission from Al Jazeera appeared to show that a projectile rose from inside Gaza before changing course and exploding in the vicinity of the hospital; the Israel Defense Forces have claimed that this was one of several rockets fired from Palestinian territory. Subsequent analysis by the Associated Press has substantially corroborated this.

It’s true that an AP report (10/21/23) endorsed the Israeli scenario:

AP’s analysis shows that the rocket that broke up in the air was fired from within Palestinian territory, and that the hospital explosion was most likely caused when part of that rocket crashed to the ground.

But AP‘s was not the only in-depth examination of the video evidence, and not necessarily the most convincing. An investigation by Al Jazeera itself (10/19/23) combined the network’s own footage with video captured simultaneously by a camera near Tel Aviv. The Qatar-based outlet reported:

At 18:59:35, we can see a single rocket launched from Gaza. This is the rocket in question. This rocket can also be seen on the Israeli video.

Fifteen seconds later, Al Jazeera‘s live feed shows that the same rocket was intercepted at exactly 18:59:50. This interception has the same afterglow seen in previous interceptions.

A closer look at the video captured by the Al Jazeera live feed shows the rocket being completely destroyed and broken apart in the sky. According to all  feeds and videos analyzed, this rocket was intercepted, and was the last one launched from Gaza before the bombing of the hospital.

After tracing the fields of vision of various cameras that captured the object that was said to be the misfiring rocket that caused the hospital blast, the New York Times (10/24/23) indicated that this munition was actually fired from Israel, well away from the hospital.

Al Jazeera also reported that it

was able to identify four Israeli airstrikes on Gaza targeting the area near the hospital, starting at 18:54:28, then 18:55:03, then 18:57:42, and then 18:58:04.

The hospital explosion happened at 18:59:55, in line with the sequence of Israeli airstrikes in the vicinity identified by Al Jazeera. The fact that Israel had been bombing the neighborhood immediately before the blast was left out of the articles bashing news outlets for quoting the Gaza Health Ministry.

Another analysis of the video evidence conducted by the New York Times (10/24/23) also cast doubt on the Israeli account. By tracing the sightlines of the available videos, the Times determined that the object that Israeli military spokespeople had pointed to as being the supposed “misfired rocket that caused the explosion” at the hospital was actually “launched from Israel, not Gaza, and appears to have exploded above the Israeli/Gaza border, at least two miles away from the hospital.”

This analysis was published the day after the Times‘ editorial apology for its hospital bombing coverage, but does not seem to have provoked any re-re-evaluation of the paper’s coverage. (It does feature in round-up of evidence by the Times‘ David Leonhardt—11/3/23—which is otherwise mostly accepting of the official line.)

Channel 4 (10/20/23) had earlier reported on an audio analysis of the sound of the explosion, which indicated that the munition had approached from the east rather than the west; that would make the Israeli account of a rocket fired from within Gaza less plausible.

Damage points east, not west

Britain’s Channel 4 (10/20/23) noted that independent forensic investigators were pointing to evidence that undermined the Israeli account.

Another piece of evidence in-house critics offered in favor of Israel’s denial was the condition of the blast site. This—aside from the assessments of “Israel and the US”—was the whole of the argument CNN‘s Darcy (10/26/23) advanced to declare the entirety of the coverage hopelessly wrong: “Independent forensic experts…have indicated that the available evidence from the blast was inconsistent with the damage one would expect to see from an Israeli strike.”

It is true that the relatively small impact crater contrasts with the large cavities left by the bombs Israel typically uses; however, other outlets have noted that this doesn’t rule out other Israeli munitions (Al Jazeera, 10/20/23; BBC, 10/27/23). Channel 4 (10/20/23) reported that a London University analysis of the impact site found a shallow channel of the sort an incoming missile would leave leading to the site from the northeast, while shrapnel splash marks fanned out to the southwest—again, opposite to the directions that the Israeli account would predict.

While the Israeli government insists that the hospital was never a target, it does admit that the “hospital administration had received at least three warnings from the Israeli military to evacuate its wards” prior to the blast (New York Times, 10/18/23); Israel had “hit Al-Ahli Arab Hospital with an illumination artillery shell three days earlier, according to video evidence” (New York Times, 10/24/23). This circumstantial evidence was not included in the discussion of the supposed failure of media to be sufficiently skeptical of Palestinian allegations.

US not a disinterested party

The primary reason NPR (10/24/23) offered for decreeing that coverage of the hospital blast “fell short” was that “Israel’s stance has since been backed by US and Canadian intelligence assessments.”

Perhaps the factor that seemed to most impel media’s own media critics to rebuke outlets for the initial coverage of the hospital bombing was that the US government supported the Israeli version of events. The Atlantic wrote:

By evening, US security agencies had analyzed the available evidence and come to an even more certain verdict: “We feel confident that the explosion was the result of a failed rocket launch by militant terrorists and not the result of an Israeli airstrike,” Mark Warner, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote on X.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board (10/18/23), which usually urges readers not to trust the Biden administration (1/13/22, 9/7/23, 10/13/23), presented the White House take as definitive:

We can now have confidence that the initial story was false. A White House National Security Council spokesman confirms that its “current assessment, based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information, is that Israel is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza.”

The only reason the Times apologia offered for giving more credence to Israeli than to Palestinian assertions was that the former were US-endorsed: “American and other international officials have said their evidence indicates that the rocket came from Palestinian fighter positions.”

Likewise, the first reason that NPR offered for judging that coverage by “illustrious” news outlets “fell short” was that “Israel’s stance has since been backed by US and Canadian intelligence assessments.” The outlet added that “Other outside institutions”—unnamed—”have cast increasing doubt upon the validity of Hamas’ allegations, although it’s still not clear what actually happened.”

The Atlantic, too, said that “a number of observers who are critical of Israel and had at first condemned the attack subsequently acknowledged that initial reports had likely been mistaken”—without giving any indications which observers those were.

Of course, a government that is the main supplier of weaponry to another government accused of committing a war crime is not an objective analyst; the US exoneration of Israel (which was also a self-exoneration) should not have been treated as particularly compelling evidence, let alone a definitive judgment.

Quoting is the problem

This is the caliber of media critic NPR‘s David Folkenflik (10/24/23) outsourced his media analysis to—one who objects to reporting any claim by a Palestinian official, because all Palestinian officials are “Hamas.”

If it does turn out that Israel was not involved in the destruction at the hospital—which, given the fragmentary evidence, has to be considered a possibility—that does not mean that media were derelict in initially quoting Gaza authorities. NPR (10/24/23) outsourced its media analysis on this issue to Drew Holden of the right-wing Washington Free Beacon, who published a Twitter thread on October 18 that (in NPR‘s words)

documented a series of prominent news outlets…that appeared to rely on Hamas’ claims as authoritative with little or scant acknowledgement of how little had been verified before publication.

Among the headlines that Holden singled out as particularly bad:

• “At Least 500 Killed in Israeli Airstrike on Gaza City Hospital, Health Ministry Says” (PBS NewsHour, 10/17/23)
• “Hundreds Feared Dead or Injured in Israeli Air Strike on Hospital in Gaza, Palestinian Officials Say” (BBC, 10/17/23)
• “Palestinian Health Ministry Says 200 to 300 People May Have Been Killed in Israeli Strike on Hospital in Gaza” (CNN, 10/17/23)
• “The Gaza Health Ministry Says at Least 500 People Killed in an Explosion at a Hospital That It Says Was Caused by an Israeli Airstrike” (AP, 10/17/23)

The Atlantic‘s Mounk acknowledged “that news outlets ascribed these details to Palestinian authorities, thereby doing the minimum to ensure that their readers would understand where the claims originated.” But simply by quoting them, they “led reasonable readers to conclude that these statements must basically be true.” Above all, they failed to stress “that the health  authorities—and all other authorities—in Gaza are controlled by Hamas.”

One of the first AP stories (10/17/23) on the hospital blast is the kind of coverage critics say didn’t happen enough; the accompanying story uses the phrase “run by Hamas” twice in the first two paragraphs. But it’s inaccurate; the Gaza Health Ministry actually answers to Fatah.

(Mounk did not acknowledge—as AP did, in an October 26 explainer, that “the United Nations and other international institutions and experts…say the Gaza ministry has long made a good-faith effort to account for the dead under the most difficult conditions,” or that “in previous wars, the ministry’s counts have held up to UN scrutiny, independent investigations and even Israel’s tallies.” Nor did Mounk note, as Reuters did—10/27/23— that the Gaza Health Ministry actually reports to the Palestinian Authority, dominated by Hamas’s rival Fatah.)

If 500 people were killed in an explosion in Kyiv, and Ukrainian officials blamed Russia, a subsequent revelation that the carnage was actually caused by friendly fire would not likely lead outlets to regret headlines that read “Hundreds Killed by Russian Airstrike, Ukraine Says.” After all, the vast majority of civilian deaths in Kyiv are caused by Russia—just as the vast majority of civilians killed in Gaza are killed by Israel.

It’s only when an official enemy like Hamas is involved that reporting straightforward claims that something that has happened many times before has happened again becomes problematic.

The rectified version

The lesson the New York Times (1/11/23) seems to have drawn from the hospital blast episode is not to be skeptical of everyone, but to be more skeptical of Palestinians and less skeptical of Israel.

On October 31, Israel bombed a Gaza refugee camp, killing more than 110 people, according to local doctors (Washington Post, 11/1/23). The lead story on the front page of the New York Times print edition the next day began:

An airstrike that Israel said was targeting Hamas militants caused widespread damage in a densely populated neighborhood of Gaza on Tuesday. Hamas and hospital officials said numerous people were killed and wounded.

Two paragraphs down, the story reported that

Hamas, the armed group that controls Gaza, and local doctors said hundreds of people had been killed or wounded at the Jabaliya refugee camp. Independent verification of the claim was not possible, but Israel itself described the strike as a “wide-scale” attack.

The story leads with Israel’s professed justification, goes out of its way to bring up Hamas even while citing medical sources, gives no specific estimates of deaths and stresses the impossibility of independent verification. The headline over the article, “Fatal Strike in Dense Area as Israelis Aim at Hamas,” turned Israel’s claim into an attack.

This sort of obfuscation is what critics of the coverage of the hospital blast wanted. It’s not the kind of reporting that victims of mass slaughter need.

The post Media’s In-House Critics to Reporters: Quit Quoting Palestinians About Civilian Deaths appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Jim Naureckas.

The Senate unanimously approved a similar resolution last week.

Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), one of the progressives who voted against the H. Res. 771, said in a statement that the resolution is "one-sided" and "explicitly and intentionally fails to mourn Palestinians while simultaneously greenlighting more death and violence."

"I deeply mourn and grieve all the civilians—Israeli, Palestinian, and American—who were and continue to be killed," said Bush, one of the lead sponsors of a cease-fire resolution in the House. "As more people die every hour, it is shameful that this resolution fails to acknowledge the responsibility of Congress and the entire United States government to do everything in its power to prevent further atrocities."

The seven CPC members who joined Bush in voting no were Reps. Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), André Carson (Ind.), Summer Lee (Pa.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), and Delia Ramirez (Ill.). Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), who is not a CPC member, also voted no, as did Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.).

Six Democrats, including CPC chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), voted present.

Tlaib, the first Palestinian-American woman ever elected to Congress, said she opposed the resolution because it offers "a deeply incomplete and biased account of what is happening in Israel and Palestine, and what has been happening for decades."

"This resolution rightly mourns the thousands of Israeli civilians killed and wounded in the horrific attacks but explicitly does not mourn the thousands of Palestinian civilians, including over 2,000 children, killed and wounded in the collective punishment of Palestine," said Tlaib. "How does treating Palestinian civilians as less than fully human, as legitimate targets for retribution, bring us closer to a just and lasting peace?"

"This resolution does nothing but greenlight Biden's call for unconditional military funding for a far-right government hell-bent on eradicating the Palestinian people."

The House passed the resolution as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country's military is preparing for a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, which is facing a massive humanitarian crisis as Israel continues to bomb the densely populated enclave and restrict the entry of desperately needed aid.

Human rights groups, legal experts, and the United Nations have accused Israel of committing a number of war crimes, including collective punishment, using starvation as a weapon of war, and genocide. Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 7,000 people in Gaza since October 7, the day Israel launched its latest bombing campaign in the wake of a deadly Hamas attack.

Omar, deputy chair of the CPC, said Wednesday that while the newly passed House measure "rightly acknowledges and mourns the lives taken by Hamas," she "cannot support a resolution that fails to acknowledge and mourn the lives of Palestinians taken by the Israeli military."

"The resolution also fails to acknowledge the Israeli government's military bombardment of Gaza, especially after Israeli officials openly admitted to implementing collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza," Omar said. "Our position should be consistent in defending innocent lives. We must use diplomacy to secure the release of hostages, end the violence by negotiating a cease-fire, restore water, food, and fuel to Gaza, and work toward lasting peace."

The progressive advocacy group Justice Democrats also denounced H. Res. 771 and criticized House Democrats for joining far-right Republicans "to erase the Israeli government's devastating attacks on innocent Palestinian civilians."

"With this one-sided resolution, Congress is not just ignoring, but actively approving the death of thousands of Palestinians, the displacement of millions, and the Israeli government's intentional targeting of hospitals, mosques, residential buildings, and evacuation routes—all internationally recognized as war crimes," said Alexandra Rojas, the group's executive director.

"This resolution does nothing but greenlight Biden's call for unconditional military funding for a far-right government hell-bent on eradicating the Palestinian people," Rojas added.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The Aotearoa New Zealand government announcement of $5 million in humanitarian aid to “Israel, Gaza and the West Bank” is a cowardly, shameful response to Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza.

The priority for Gaza is not bandages and aspirins — they need loud voices condemning Israeli genocide. They need the bombing and killing to stop.

Early last week Hipkins condemned the killing of civilians in the Hamas attack on Israel but has refused to condemn Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian people.

• READ MORE: ‘Bodies all around’: Gaza residents use bare hands to dig dead from rubble
• ‘A textbook case of genocide’: Israeli holocaust scholar Raz Segal decries Israel’s assault on Gaza
• Other War against Gaza reports

The “collective punishment” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza; the withholding of food, water, electricity and fuel; the intensive massive bombing of densely populated civilian areas of Gaza — these are all war crimes. Genocide is the only name that fits.

More than 700 children have been killed so far by Israeli bombing with civilian casualties of more than 2800.

Green light to orgy of killing
By refusing to condemn these killings, Hipkins is giving Israel the green light to continue its orgy of killing in Gaza.

Hipkins says he is “deeply saddened” by civilians deaths. But not deeply saddened enough to call out the colonial, apartheid state of Israel whose racist policies against Palestinians are the cause of the slaughter in Gaza.

Similarly, when Hipkins says “we call on all parties to respect international humanitarian law, and uphold their obligations to protect civilians, and humanitarian workers, including medical personnel”, it is a meaningless gap-filler in a government media release.

Hipkins’ announcement will be welcomed in Washington and Tel Aviv but will be deplored by decent people around the world who call for human rights for Palestinians and accountabilities for apartheid Israel.

The Prime Minister has our loudest voice — we demand he use it to help end the slaughter of civilians in Gaza by sheeting home blame where it belongs — with the policies of the racist, apartheid state of Israel.

John Minto is national chair of the Palestine Solidaity Network Aotearoa.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Junta soldiers recently trained about 40 people from eight villages from Thayarwady district in western Bago, according to a person in charge of a local anti-junta People’s Defense Force, or PDF. 

The junta has also been recruiting from some townships in eastern Bago, local residents told Radio Free Asia. 

Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told RFA in June 2022 that the military was organizing civilian militia groups and providing systematic training to protect villages in Bago, where intense fighting with anti-junta forces continues.

Nearly 100,000 residents of eastern Bago have been forced to flee their homes since the February 2021 military coup d’etat, according to the United Nations

The majority of the recent trainees are members of either the pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia or the Union Solidarity and Development Party, or USDP, which is also aligned with the military, residents said.

After one month of training, the military gives them weapons and assigns them watch duty near a local PDF, according to a Kyauktaga township resident who refused to be named for security reasons.

“The first batch completed the training just last month. I have heard that about 14 or 15 Pyu people left Kyauktaga for training last week,” he said, referring to Pyu Saw Htee members.

Most of the villages in Kyauktaga between the Sittaung River and the old Yangon-Mandalay highway are controlled by the joint forces of a regional PDF – that’s why the junta is organizing some towns into defensive positions, he said.

Training in Taungoo

Junta troops also began doing militia training in a field near the police station in Taungoo city in September, according to a local resident who refused to be named for security reasons.

Most of the trainees were members of the USDP, the resident said.

USDP spokesman Hla Thein said he was unaware of the recent training sessions.

“To be honest, I don’t know about this yet,” he said. “I think the locals are saying what they think and what it seems. But political parties like us are not legally allowed to get involved in the civilian militia.”

The PDF official in Thayarwady district urged the new militia trainees to consider joining anti-junta forces.

“I think it is time for them to come to their senses and join the people in the revolution,” he said. “Those who join the military junta or work with them are the enemies of the people. So I think they should avoid being in such a position.”

RFA telephoned Tin Oo, the junta’s economic minister and Bago region spokesman, regarding the militia recruitment, but he did not respond on Tuesday.

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Matt Reed.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

Today, Sunrise Movement along with 50+ national organizations – including key service, youth and environmental organizations – shared a letter calling on President Biden to establish a Civilian Climate Corps that would put young Americans to work serving their communities and fighting the climate crisis. The full text of the letter and its signatories are below.

“This summer, our country saw heatwaves, wildfires and floods that destroyed communities, uprooted families and claimed hundreds of lives,” the signed organizations wrote. “While previous Executive Orders and legislation under your administration demonstrate tremendous progress toward meeting our Paris climate goals and your campaign promises, this summer has made clear that we must be as ambitious as possible in tackling the great crisis of our time. We encourage your administration to create a Civilian Climate Corps through existing authorities, with existing climate funding, that can coordinate across relevant federal agencies.”

The letter highlighted the significance of what this could mean for young voters, in particular, a vital voting bloc for Democrats.

“Young voters widely support this vision. Half of all voters under 45 say they would consider joining the Climate Corps if a job was available to them,” the organizations note. “In 2020, young people helped ensure your election to office. After high profile approvals of fossil fuel projects, it’s time to deliver for this critical constituency and show that you and your administration are serious about an all out mobilization to confront the climate crisis. We urge you to support this historic investment in jobs and justice.”

This comes during Climate Week and after the March to End Fossil Fuels, which saw 75k participants – including tens of thousands of students – take to the streets calling for bold climate action from the Biden administration. Many of the same organizations leading the protest have signed the letter.

The letter also highlighted four key principles for a Civilian Climate Corps initiative created through Executive Action:

• The Civilian Climate Corps must take a whole-of-government approach to the climate crisis.
• The Civilian Climate Corps must prioritize equity in the communities it serves and the Corps members it trains.
• The Civilian Climate Corps must provide a pathway to long-term employment through good-paying union jobs.
• The Civilian Climate Corps must center the needs and leadership of local communities in order to achieve its national mission.

Sunrise Movement will be doubling down on its efforts to push for a Civilian Climate Corps through executive action. They've already spoken to their 100+ hubs and chapters about restarting a national campaign and increasing pressure on the administration to get this done.

The full text of the letter is as follows:

September 18, 2023

The Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
President of the United States of America
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Biden,

We, the undersigned organizations, write to express our support for an Executive Order establishing a Civilian Climate Corps that would put young Americans to work serving their communities and tackling the climate crisis.

This summer, our country saw heatwaves, wildfires and floods that destroyed communities, uprooted families and claimed hundreds of lives. While previous Executive Orders and legislation under your administration demonstrate tremendous progress toward meeting our Paris climate goals and your campaign promises, this summer has made clear that we must be as ambitious as possible in tackling the great crisis of our time. We encourage your administration to create a Civilian Climate Corps through existing authorities, with existing climate funding, that can coordinate across relevant federal agencies.

Tapping into enthusiasm for the sweeping social programs of the New Deal era, the possibility of a modern Civilian Climate Corps remains a popular and exciting strategy in our country’s plan to combat climate change. Americans want the opportunity to serve their communities, address the most pressing threat facing our country, and get experience that can lead to long-term, good-paying union employment. The Civilian Climate Corps would let them do so, through national service work that ranges from improving energy efficiency to supporting disaster resilience and recovery. With high workforce development standards and strong environmental justice requirements, an ambitious Climate Corps would train a generation of climate leaders, kickstart the climate workforce mobilization, and directly combat systemic racial injustice by prioritizing resources and job creation in underserved communities.

Young voters widely support this vision. Half of all voters under 45 say they would consider joining the Climate Corps if a job was available to them. Like the COVID recovery package’s $1,400 checks, putting young people into high-quality national service positions to tackle climate change and on pathways to good-paying, union jobs would make precisely the kind of visible policy change in Americans’ lives that can demonstrate the power of government to serve its people.

Strong workforce standards will be essential in realizing the full potential of the Civilian Climate Corps. It is critical that the Civilian Climate Corps set corps members up for success during and after their year of service, and that this holds true across all national service programs. A fully established and appropriated Civilian Climate Corps should provide a life-sustaining wage for all corps members, plus healthcare, childcare, and educational benefits that would help corps members and their families thrive. Corps members should also receive technical and vocational training during their service, including through pre-apprenticeships in partnership with local union chapters, to open pathways to stable careers in the clean economy.

The Civilian Climate Corps must also advance environmental justice and correct the racially exclusionary practices of the original Civilian Conservation Corps. It must be a viable opportunity for all young Americans, and it must address the disproportionate burden on communities of color across the country from the overlapping harms of toxic pollution, economic disinvestment, and other structural inequities. The Civilian Climate Corps can be a force to directly combat those inequities and support these communities. To that end, any new Civilian Climate Corps program should strive to direct half of corps investments into overburdened communities, and recruit at least half of its corps members from those same places, using the authority under the Justice 40 initiative and additional efforts. The program should also ensure gender equality, provide opportunities for corps members of a range of ages and abilities, give corps members opportunities regardless of immigration status, protect tribal sovereignty and prioritize the needs and leadership of the communities it serves. By prioritizing local recruitment and engaging in local consultation on project design and implementation the CCC can ensure that its climate action is sustainably driven from the bottom-up.

We know that when you hear the words climate change, you think jobs. Establishing a Civilian Climate Corps is a key opportunity to invest in the workforce of tomorrow and clearly demonstrate that climate action and job creation are inextricably and positively linked. Going big on the Civilian Climate Corps and ensuring that it centers job creation, environmental justice, and direct community investment will be an essential step in our collective fight to adapt to and mitigate climate change.

In 2020, young people helped ensure your election to office. After high profile approvals of fossil fuel projects, it’s time to deliver for this critical constituency and show that you and your administration are serious about an all out mobilization to confront the climate crisis. We urge you to support this historic investment in jobs and justice.

Sincerely,

Americas Service Commissions
Blue America
Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund
Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Chiron Communications
CivicWell
Conservation Trust for North Carolina
Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action
Debt Collective
Evergreen Action
Farallon Strategies
Food & Water Watch
Gen Z for Change
GreenFaith
GreenLatinos
GRID Alternatives
Healthy Communities of the Capital Area
Hip Hop Caucus
IfNotNow
Justice Democrats
Labor Network for Sustainability
League of Conservation Voters
Maine Conservation Voters
Main Farm & Sea to School Network
Maine Farm to Institution
March for Our Lives
Marked by Covid
Milwaukee Riverkeeper
National Wildlife Federation
Next100
NextGen America
OIC of America, Inc.
Oil Change International
Our Hawaii
Partnership for the CCC
Path to Progress
People’s Action
Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada
ReImagine Appalachia
RuralOrganizing
Service Employees International Union
Serve Washington
Service Year Alliance
Sierra Club
States for Service Coalition
Sunrise Movement
The Climate Initiative
The Climate Reality Project
The Corps Network
US High Speed Rail Association
WildEarth Guardians
Working Families Party

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The recent announcement that the U.S. will provide cluster bombs to Ukraine has sparked controversy about potential civilian casualties caused by the weapons. In the wake of the announcement, official Chinese state media outlets such as CCTV and China News Network reported that Colin Kahl, under secretary of defense for policy, stated that “defeating Russia is more important than civilian casualties.”

Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) found that Kahl did not say this and that these reports have twisted his original meaning in order to spread misinformation. Kahl did emphasize that sending the bombs was important to help forestall ammunition shortages during Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive, but he did not downplay the severity of potential civilian deaths. 

In Depth

The cluster bombs are included amongst the latest round of military aid to Ukraine announced  by the U.S. on July 7. President Joe Biden said sending the bombs was a “very difficult decision” made due to a shortage of ammunition by the Ukrainians. 

The president also noted that the U.S. is not a signatory to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, an international treaty outlawing the use of such weapons. Human rights groups and signatories of the convention such as the U.K. and Canada have criticized the move. China is also not a signatory, and its foreign ministry did not explicitly oppose the move, but it did emphasize that irresponsibly transferring such weapons “is highly likely to cause humanitarian issues.” 

What did Kahl say? 

In a followup Department of Defense press conference following the announcement, Kahl responded to a question about the reason for sending the bombs by saying, “I’m as concerned about the humanitarian circumstance as anybody but the worst thing for civilians in Ukraine is for Russia to win the war, and so it’s important that they don’t [win].”

Kahl also noted that the request to send the bombs was only granted after Ukraine agreed to several preconditions. These include not using the bombs “in civilian-populated urban environments,” recording locations where the bombs are dropped and demining areas hit by the bombs when the war is over. 

How did Chinese media report what Kahl said? 

The Chinese state-controlled media outlet Huanqiu released a short video on the night of July 9 misquoting Kahl’s remarks. The headline reads, “Under Secretary of Defense says that compared to civilian casualties, defeating Russia is more important.”

Following the CCTV broadcast, the headline was then copied and reused in several memes and short video clips produced by a range of Beijing backed media outlets and posted on a variety of social media platforms. One such posting on Twitter produced by the Hong Kong China News Agency features a meme based on the headline which added the mocking punchline that, “Winning by any means necessary is the true value of Westerners!” Netizens soon further repeated claims similar to the headline in their comments. 

Conclusion

Although the U.S. decision to provide cluster munition to Ukraine has indeed sparked controversy in many quarters, no U.S. official has ever said defeating Russia is “more important” than civilian lives.

The CCTV headline misinterprets the original intent of Kahl’s response and subsequent visuals, while reports from other state-affiliated Chinese news media continued to spread this misleading information.

Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) is a branch of RFA established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. Our journalists publish both daily and special reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of public issues.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Zhuang Jing for Asia Fact Check Lab.

The Biden administration is drawing outrage after announcing it will send cluster bombs to Ukraine as part of a new weapons package. When deployed, cluster munitions spread smaller “bomblets” across a wide area and regularly kill civilians, either on initial impact or from unexploded segments that go off later. Their use has been banned by 123 countries that signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but the United States, Russia and Ukraine are not signatories to the treaty. This comes as a new Human Rights Watch report documents how Ukrainian civilians have been killed or injured by cluster munitions, including by Ukrainian forces. We speak to Mary Wareham, advocacy director of the Arms Division at Human Rights Watch, who calls the Biden administration’s decision “appalling,” and to writer and activist Norman Solomon, author of War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, who says the U.S.’s military hypocrisy demonstrates a “willingness to sacrifice human beings and human rights on behalf of [its] strategic interests.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

In the month through June 15, 123 civilians were killed by the military in the most fiercely contested conflict areas – in the northern region of Sagaing, central Magway and the eastern states of Shan and Kayah, according to tallies by Radio Free Asia.

Some of the people were shot dead or hit with heavy weapons during clashes between junta troops and rebel fighters, who have put up stiff resistance to junta troops throughout the country.

In other cases, such as in Kawlin township in Sagaing, residents were massacred after the military detained and used them as human shields, residents told RFA.

“Since they had to enter a minefield, [the soldiers] forced the detained people to walk ahead of them [carrying supplies] and clear the path,” said a resident of Khan Thar village, who like others interviewed by RFA Burmese, spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.

“The villagers had to do everything they were assigned,” he said. “Then, [the soldiers] interrogated the villagers. In some cases, they killed them.”

Over the four-week period, junta troops killed 43 civilians in Sagaing, seven in Magway, 37 in Shan and Kayah states, and 28 in areas controlled by the Karen National Union ethnic rebel group, including Bago and Tanintharyi regions and Kayin and Mon states. Another eight were killed in Mandalay region and Kachin and Chin states.

‘No one dares’ return

In another mass killing, junta troops killed six civilians during a series of “clearance raids” on villages in Magway’s Yesagyo township from May 26-29.

A resident of Yesagyo’s Yay Lei Kyun area told RFA that the six – a 40-year-old woman and five men in their 30s and 40s – were hit by shelling, arrested and killed while fleeing the raids, or killed when returning to their village to put out fires started by junta troops.

“The soldiers killed men accused of being members of the People’s Defense Force,” the resident said, adding that the lone woman – a mother of two children named Ma Khin Mar Po – was killed by artillery fire as troops entered Mi Hpa Yar village on May 26.

“Between May 26 and 29, the troops burned 671 houses in our Yay Lei Kyun area,” he said.

The resident said that three columns of 250 junta troops took part in the raids on 27 villages in Yay Lei Kyun, which left “more than 3,000 people homeless.”

From May 25 to June 12, junta troops killed at least 35 civilians in southern Shan state’s Moebye township, according to the Karenni Human Rights Group. Among the dead were 10 women and three minors between the ages of eight and 17.

A resident of Moebye told RFA nearly all of the town’s inhabitants fled into the jungle to escape the fierce fighting and that “no one dares” return.

“When the soldiers knock on the door, they don’t open it,” he said. “If you do so, you would be shot dead.”

The resident said that prior to the latest clashes in Moebye, junta troops had entered the township, arrested women, and raped and killed them.

“That’s why no one dares to return to their homes,” he said.

Attempts by RFA to contact junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tin for comment on the killings went unanswered Wednesday. Previously, he denied reports of soldiers targeting civilians, saying the military only attacks members of the armed resistance.

‘Ruling through fear’

Banya, the founder of the Karenni Human Rights Group, told RFA that the military is “committing war crimes” with impunity and “ruling the people through fear” to maintain its grip on power that it seized in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat.

“Whenever it becomes difficult for [the military] to crush any armed organization, they kill the people in that region,” he said. “They do such things to instill fear among the people, to ensure there are no ethnic armed troops in the region. They let the people know that if there are ethnic troops in the area, ‘we’ll kill you.’”

Banya said the military seeks to “drive a wedge” between the people and anti-junta forces through its acts of terror.

Political analyst Than Soe Naing said the opposition in Myanmar is growing stronger and expects that the junta will respond with even more atrocities.

“As the people’s resistance increases, the junta’s violence will become more severe, and the number of civilian deaths will increase,” he said. “Since the junta is increasingly using airstrikes, I think the number of civilian casualties and loss of villages and houses will inevitably grow.”

In the more than two years since the military coup, authorities in Myanmar have killed at least 8,640 civilians, including more than 2,400 amid armed conflict, according to independent research group the Institute for Strategy and Policy (Myanmar).

Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

The military has killed at least 452 civilians in southern Shan and Kayah states in the 26 months since the February 2021 coup, rebel groups said Monday.

The latest death toll sheds new light on the situation in southeast Myanmar, where decades-long conflict between the military and ethnic armies has worsened since the junta began an offensive targeting People’s Defense Force paramilitaries and the armed groups that harbor them.

The airstrikes often target villages where PDF fighters are believed to be, killing civilians in the process. While the military denies targeting civilians, members of the opposition say the deaths are no accident and instead are a tactic used by the regime to wear down popular support for the rebels.

A new focus by the military on suppressing its adversaries in the southern Shan and Kayah state townships of Pinlaung, Pekon and Mongpai – also known as Moebye – has driven up the number of casualties in recent months, the Progressive Karenni People’s Force, or PKPF – a local offshoot of the PDF – announced Monday.

Since the coup, civilian casualties have steadily risen. At least 172 people were killed in the region in 2021, 248 in 2022, and 33 in the first quarter of 2023, said an official with the group, who spoke to RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity, citing security concerns.

The official said that while the military has targeted civilians throughout the conflict as part of a bid to undermine support for the armed resistance, the number of casualties has risen dramatically with its pivot to airstrikes.

“We saw a lot of civilian deaths due to small arms fire, artillery shelling and landmines in 2021 and 2022,” the official said. “But in 2023, the major cause of civilian deaths is junta shelling and airstrikes. The junta has been attacking non-military targets where civilians reside with artillery shelling and airstrikes, which we consider a serious war crime.”

Casualties mounting

The PKPF said that clashes in the region mostly occur between the military and a joint force of fighters from the ethnic Karenni Army and the Karenni National Defense Force. 

Casualties on both sides “are mounting,” it said.

The group said that 41 members of the defense forces were killed in the fighting in 2021 and170 in 2022. As of the end of April, 48 defense soldiers have been killed in fighting this year, bringing to 259 the total number killed by the military since its coup.

An information officer with the KNDF, who also declined to be named, confirmed that more resistance fighters and civilians are being killed by airstrikes, which the military has increasingly come to rely on this year as anti-junta forces enjoy greater success on the ground.

“Whenever there is a clash on the ground, it is certain that the junta planes will come to that area to attack us,” said the officer, noting that prior to 2023, the military mostly deployed troops without air support.

The junta carried out only two airstrikes in Kayah and southern Shan states in 2021 compared to 182 in 2022 and 179 in the first four months of 2023 alone, according to the PKPF. Since the coup, the group said, the region has seen 663 battles that claimed the lives of nearly 2,000 junta troops – 448 in 2021, 1,115 in 2022, and 432 in 2023, as of the end of April.

RFA was unable to independently verify the PKPF’s claims. Attempts by RFA to contact the junta’s spokespersons for Shan and Kayah states went unanswered Monday.

Junta ‘bluntly violating’ code of war

Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, which is made up of former military officers, dismissed the PKPF's announcement as “propaganda.”

“It’s the nature of war that each side spreads propaganda,” he said. “For example, if an enemy soldier dies, they report three casualties for propaganda purposes … Since the other party is using this strategy a lot, we have to be very careful.”

However, the PKPF claimed that its data was collected “systematically” from the battleground.

In addition to the number of casualties since the coup, the PKPF also said that military airstrikes and shelling over the same period had destroyed 34 Christian and Buddhist religious buildings and 1,497 civilian buildings, including medical centers.

Banyar, director of the Karenni Human Rights Organization, said the number of destroyed buildings alone is proof of the junta’s war crimes.

“You are prohibited from attacking certain buildings, even during heated battles,” he said. “[Belligerents] need to minimize damage. There are codes that soldiers in battle must follow to avoid killing civilians and destroying their buildings, but the junta is bluntly violating all of them.”

Since the coup, conflict has forced some 200,000 people to flee their homes in Kayah and southern Shan states, most of whom endure brutal living conditions in the jungles of Demoso and Hpruso townships and are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, according to aid workers.

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

As an armed conflict between Sudan's military and a paramilitary group intensifies in the capital Khartoum and surrounding areas, Amnesty International on Monday implored the warring factions to protect civilians and ensure access to humanitarian aid.

Since fighting erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on Saturday, more than 180 people have been killed and over 1,800 people have been wounded, U.N Newsreported Monday, citing United Nations envoy Volker Perthes.

"The toll could be much higher because there are many bodies in the streets around central Khartoum that no one can reach because of the clashes," The Associated Pressreported. "There has been no official word on how many civilians or combatants have been killed. The [Sudan Doctors' Syndicate] earlier put the number of civilian deaths at 97."

Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty's regional director for East and Southern Africa, said in a statement that "the use of heavy weaponry including artillery, tanks, and jet aircraft in densely populated areas in Khartoum has caused numerous civilian deaths and massive destruction of property."

"Civilians are caught in the middle of this conflict and are suffering," said Chagutah. "The parties to the conflict must immediately stop using explosive weapons with wide area effects in the vicinity of concentrations of civilians."

"Sudan's regional and international partners including the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), African Union, U.N., and others should publicly encourage that the parties to the conflict respect international humanitarian law and protect civilians," Chagutah continued. "Both parties must immediately stop their indiscriminate attacks."

He added that "Sudan's authorities and all parties to the conflict must ensure that there is immediate, unrestricted, and sustained access for humanitarian actors to monitor and assess the needs of civilians and to deliver assistance to them."

Combat broke out this past weekend following weeks of tensions between SAF commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, chair of Sudan's Transitional Sovereign Council, and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, or "Hemedti," the council's deputy chair.

The former allies joined forces to take control of Sudan in October 2021, two years after a 2019 military coup that came on the heels of a popular uprising ousted Omar al-Bashir, who had ruled Africa's third-largest country since leading the 1989 overthrow of a democratically elected government. But during recent negotiations for a new transitional government, a dispute arose over security force reform, turning al-Burhan and Dagalo—both of whom have extensive records of human rights abuses, including the brutal repression of pro-democracy activists—into rivals.

"The sudden explosion of violence over the weekend between the nation's two top generals, each backed by tens of thousands of fighters, trapped millions of people in their homes or wherever they could find shelter, with supplies running low in many areas," AP reported. "Even in a country with a long history of military coups, the scenes of fighting in the capital and its adjoining city Omdurman across the Nile River were unprecedented."

Amnesty on Monday urged the U.N. Security Council "to hold an emergency meeting on the situation in Sudan and publicly call on the SAF and RSF to protect civilians as a matter of priority."

According to AP, the council is "set to discuss the crisis" after "top diplomats on four continents scrambled to broker a truce."

Fears of a wider conflagration are mounting as the deadly power struggle spreads "across the sprawling western region of Darfur, where Mr. al-Bashir's government oversaw a campaign of genocidal violence beginning in 2003," The New York Times reported Sunday. "Reports of clashes in the region's major cities and several other towns are especially worrisome because Darfur is home to several heavily armed rebel groups that analysts fear could get sucked into the fight."

A third of Sudan's population—roughly 15 million people—suffer from hunger and rely on humanitarian assistance. However, the U.N.'s World Food Program was forced to halt operations in the country after three aid workers were killed and two others injured in Darfur on Saturday. In addition, the International Rescue Committee and Save the Children have both suspended most operations in the country.

Meanwhile, 12 out of around 20 hospitals in the capital area "have been 'forcefully evacuated' and are 'out of service' because of attacks or power outages," AP reported Monday, citing the Sudan Doctors' Syndicate. "Four other hospitals outside the capital have also shut down."

Citing the World Health Organization, U.N. News noted that "many of the nine hospitals in Khartoum receiving injured civilians are reporting shortages of blood, transfusion equipment, intravenous fluids, medical supplies, and other lifesaving commodities."

In a Monday address, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres lamented that the country's "already precarious" humanitarian situation "is now catastrophic."

"I strongly condemn the outbreak of fighting that is taking place in Sudan, and appeal to the leaders of the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces to immediately cease hostilities, restore calm, and begin a dialogue to resolve the crisis," said Guterres.

"The situation has already led to horrendous loss of life, including many civilians," the U.N. chief added. "Any further escalation could be devastating for the country and the region. I urge all those with influence over the situation to use it in the cause of peace; to support efforts to end the violence, restore order, and return to the path of transition."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

The increase comes after junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing acknowledged that the military only effectively controls around two-thirds of the country, despite a nationwide offensive by junta troops who have visited death, arson, sexual violence, and torture on the people of Myanmar in the 26 months since the military seized power in a coup d’etat.

It also follows an Armed Forces Day speech by the military commander in which he vowed to “eradicate” the country’s opposition.

According to the budget, which Min Aung Hlaing approved on April 5, defense spending for the fiscal year 2023-2024 was set at 5.6 trillion kyats (U.S.$2.7 billion). The new figure represents an increase of U.S.$920 million over the previous fiscal year’s budget of U.S.$1.8 billion.

Thein Tun Oo, the executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, a group made up of former military officers, defended the increase, saying that it is intended not to suppress internal armed conflict, but to “upgrade” the military to a more “modern standard.”

“It’s not surprising that the military budget has to be increased in order to keep up with advancing defense technologies,” he said, adding that he estimates upgrading the military “will require two-thirds of the entire budget.”

But Aung Myo Min, human rights minister for the shadow National Unity Government, told RFA that the size of the military’s budget is directly proportional to the number of civilian deaths in the country.

“The more weapons the military buys, the more people suffer because, throughout the period of military expansion, there have been more and more killings of innocent civilians, more air attacks using the jet fuel imported from foreign countries and more burning of civilian properties,” he said.

“Increasing the budget to expand the military under the current circumstances is literally reinforcing the junta with more weapons to kill more innocent people. It will definitely cause more civilian deaths.”

Aung Myo Min said that the international community needs to take urgent and effective legal action against the junta to hold it accountable for the atrocities it has committed and block the sources of income that enable it to increase its military budget.

Fight for control of the country

According to Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), authorities in Myanmar have killed at least 3,240 civilians since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup – many during the military’s widespread scorched earth offensive against anti-junta armed groups and ethnic armies.

And yet, after more than two years in power, Min Aung Hlaing recently acknowledged that he is only in control of 198 of the country’s 330 townships. Since making the comments, military forces have accelerated clearing operations in Sagaing, Magwe, Bago and Tanintharyi regions, as well as Chin, Kachin, Kayin, Mon and Shan states.

Sai Kyi Zin Soe, a political analyst, believes that the increase in the junta’s military spending is part of a bid to complete these operations.

“The military needs a larger budget to meet quotas within its armed forces and to attack the resistance forces more severely,” he said.

“The junta chief announced in his March 27 [Armed Forces Day] speech that the military will crush the resistance forces. He said he will crush not just the increasing number of resistance forces across the country, but also the ethnic armed groups that support those forces. I think that is the reason for the junta’s increase in military budget.”

The junta has increased its defense spending every year since the 2020-2021 fiscal year, when Aung San Suu Kyi’s deposed National League for Democracy last set the military budget at 3.4 trillion kyats (U.S.$1.6 billion).

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Matthew Reed.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

Peace advocates responded with disgust to the Navy's decision to name its new warship after the two battles of Fallujah, during which U.S. troops massacred Iraqi civilians.

"Fallujah was a giant American war crime in Iraq."

"The future America-class amphibious ship will be named the USS Fallujah, LHA-9," Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro announced Tuesday in a speech at Marine Barracks Washington, D.C. "The future USS Fallujah will commemorate the first and second battles of Fallujah, American-led offenses during the Iraq War."

Del Toro called it "an honor for me, and for our nation, to memorialize the Marines, the soldiers, and coalition forces that fought valiantly and those that sacrificed their lives during both battles of Fallujah."

U.S. troops slaughtered approximately 600 Iraqi civilians—including more than 300 women and children—along with 200 insurgents during the First Battle of Fallujah. Code-named Operation Vigilant Resolve, the battle was launched in April 2004 to avenge the deaths of four Blackwater contractors. Twenty-seven U.S. soldiers were killed during the retaliatory siege.

The Second Battle of Fallujah, known as Operation Phantom Fury, was fought from November to December 2004 to recapture the city from insurgent forces. In the process, U.S.-led occupation forces killed between 581 and 670 civilians across nine neighborhoods, according to Iraq Body Count.

"With over 100 coalition forces killed and 600 wounded, Operation Phantom Fury is considered to be the bloodiest engagement to the Iraq War and the fiercest serving combat involving U.S. Marines since the Vietnam War's battle of Hue City," said Del Toro. "This namesake deserves to be in the pantheon of iconic Marine Corps battles, and the LHA's unique capabilities will serve as a stark reminder to everyone around the world of the bravery, the courage, and commitment to freedom displayed by those who fought in those battles."

Critics called the Navy's commemoration of the battles of Fallujah "shameful."

"Some of the most heinous U.S. war crimes committed during the Iraq War took place in the city of Fallujah," The Intercept's Jeremy Scahill, who reported from Iraq during the U.S. invasion, wrote Wednesday on social media.

In a 2007 appearance on the Bill Moyers show, Scahill described the siege of Fallujah as "one of the most brutal and sustained U.S. operations of the occupation," telling Moyers that the Pentagon's murderous response to the killing of Blackwater contractors set a dangerous precedent.

In 2016, journalist Hope Hodge Seck wrote about what she called "the whisper campaign for a USS Fallujah."

"At the time, it seemed unlikely to ever happen," she tweeted Tuesday. "But now it has."

Construction on the 45,000 metric-ton vessel, the first U.S. warship named after a post-9/11 battle, is set to begin this month at the Mississippi-based Ingalls Shipbuilding, which secured a $2.4 billion contract in October.

Civilians in Fallujah, meanwhile, continue to suffer from a sharp rise in birth defects that has occurred in the wake of the 2003 invasion.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

Civilian commercial boats hired by the Philippine government brought food, water, maintenance equipment, medicine and other equipment to a small crew of marines who live aboard the outpost, the BRP Sierra Madre, a dilapidated World War II-era ship that was run aground in the Second Thomas Shoal (Ayungin Shoal) in 1999.

The shoal is about 174 nautical miles from the city of Puerto Princesa in western Palawan island that faces the South China Sea, which Manila refers to as the West Philippine Sea. The shoal is one of the nine areas occupied by Filipino troops in disputed waters.

The mission to deliver the supplies to the ship was the third one since President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took office in late June and the 10th one completed in 2022, military official said.

“This is the third consecutive resupply activity undertaken by the government with neither any escort nor untoward incident,” said Maj. Cherryl Tindog, spokeswoman for the military’s Western Command (WESCOM).

In June, just before Marcos formally assumed the presidency, Chinese ships shadowed military-escorted supply boats and challenged them through a radio broadcast.

Last year, two Chinese coast guard ships chased a boat carrying a crew from local broadcaster ABS-CBN Corp. The most dramatic sea chase occurred in 2014 when a Filipino resupply boat, which was also carrying journalists managed to evade a Chinese ship harassing it.

Vice Adm. Alberto Carlos, the WESCOM chief, said the military deliberately did not escort the recent supply ships.

Still, a Philippine Coast Guard ship, the BRP Malapascua, patrolled near the area during the resupply mission while two China Coast Guard and five Chinese militia ships were spotted as the supply boats entered and exited the shoal.

“The absence of Philippine government escort vessels was deliberate. We are exhausting all available means to peacefully co-exist until all WPS issues are finally resolved,” Carlos said using an acronym for the West Philippine Sea.

“Our current thrust is part of the trust-building efforts we are undertaking in response to the guidance of the president to exhaust all means to resolve the issues in the West Philippine Sea. Hence, continuing dialogues with Chinese authorities is one such approach,” Carlos said.

Scarborough Shoal

Meanwhile on Thursday, the Philippine Coast Guard said it had monitored four China Coast Guard ships near Scarborough Shoal including two in territorial waters during aerial surveillance flights. Called Bajo de Masinloc by the Philippines, the shoal is about 124 nautical miles west of Zambales province on Luzon island.

“Two Chinese militia vessels were also observed outside the said vicinity waters. There was no challenge made between the PCG and the CCG during the aerial surveillance,” the coast guard said.

In 2016, Manila won an arbitral ruling against China before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. The ruling nullified China’s expansive claims to the sea region, including in waters that lap on the shores of its neighbors. 

Among the first foreign dignitaries who visited Marcos Jr. shortly after he assumed the presidency in June was Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi who pledged to maintain friendly ties with Manila while working out overlapping claims in the sea region.

Given the “uncertain, unstable and complex regional and international dynamics, it is even more important for China and the Philippines, as two close neighbors, to join hands to further enhance mutual trust (and) expand mutually beneficial cooperation,” Wang said at the time.

“This will not only serve the common interest of the two countries and two peoples but will also be our important contribution to peace and stability in our region,” he said, noting that cooperation during the previous administration of President Rodrigo Duterte brought “tangible benefits” to both countries.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jojo Riñoza and Basilio Sepe for BenarNews.

The post The Roar of a U.S. Warplane Over a Civilian Irish Airport appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Vijay Prashad.

After more than two decades of wars and interventions that have killed an estimated 387,000 noncombatants, the Department of Defense has finally unveiled a comprehensive plan for preventing, mitigating, and responding to civilian casualties.

The 36-page Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan, or CHMR-AP — written at the direction of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin — provides a blueprint for improving how the Pentagon addresses civilian harm. The plan requires military personnel to consider potential harm to civilians in any airstrike, ground raid, or other type of combat. It also signals a more nuanced understanding that civilian harm extends beyond the deaths of innocents and may be far more connected with two decades of U.S. military defeats and stalemates than the Pentagon has previously admitted.

“Protecting civilians from harm in connection with military operations is not only a moral imperative, it is also critical to achieving long-term success on the battlefield,” reads the CHMR-AP. “Hard-earned tactical and operational successes may ultimately end in strategic failure if care is not taken to protect the civilian environment as much as the situation allows including the civilian population and the personnel, organizations, resources, infrastructure, essential services, and systems on which civilian life depends.”

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“There doesn’t appear to be a backward-looking function to see where and when and how civilian harm got overlooked in the past.”

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Nick Turse.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) said the milestone of 2,000 since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup was reached June 20 and that recent deaths in anti-junta hotbeds Sagaing and Magway regions had pushed the figure to 2007.

“This is the number verified by AAPP. The actual number of fatalities is likely much higher," the AAPP said in a statement.

The 2,000 deaths were memorialized by the U.S. and EU diplomatic missions in Yangon, with Brussels’ office posting a black cover on its social media page to express its condolences and Washington calling for accountability.

“The inhumane atrocities committed by the military against the people of Burma across the country are a result of the lack of accountability among responsible persons on the part of the military. It highlights the urgent need for accountability,” the U.S. Embassy said.

The AAPP report came five weeks after Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP Myanmar), a local think tank, said in a report that it had documented at least 5,646 civilian deaths between the Feb. 1, 2021, coup and May 10.

The ISP figure included people killed by security forces during anti-junta protests, in clashes between the military and pro-democracy paramilitaries or ethnic armies, while held in detention, and in revenge attacks, including against informers for the regime.

At least 1,831 civilians were killed in shooting deaths, the largest number of which occurred in war-torn Sagaing region, where junta troops have faced some of the toughest resistance to military rule in clashes with People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries that have displaced tens of thousands of residents since the coup, the ISP report said.

Former political prisoner Tun Kyi said the AAPP's list does not capture the full death toll.

“People are seen as criminals and arrested illegally. People are tortured and killed. Whole villages are set on fire,” he told RFA Burmese.

“The current AAPP list shows 2,000 deaths. In fact, there are more than that.”

The military has disputed or rejected the figures released by NGOS.

Junta-controlled newspapers said last month that 2,796 non-combatants had been killed between the coup and May 15. 

The military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party said 3,107 people have been killed after being accused of being military informants, 690 people died in armed clashes and 18 were slain by the pro-junta militia Thway Thauk, or Blood Comrades.

Coup opponents in Yangon told RFA they were still committed to resisting the military regime.

“The military made arbitrary arrests and detentions and tortured and killed peaceful protesters,” said a member of a Yangon-based protest committee who used the name Jewel for security reasons.

“As a result, this revolution has been going on for more than a year, with the conviction that the military dictatorship must be uprooted,” she said.

“No matter how much the people have lost, we see that this is the last game and I will continue to fight with this in mind,” added Jewel.

Kyar Gyi, a spokesman for the Htee Chaing Township PDF, said the army would continue to arrest and kill anyone who opposed the junta.

"It is routine for them to arrest or kill anyone who opposes them. They are still doing it. Homes are being set on fire and people killed,” he told RFA.

“We will continue the fight as long as it takes for the military dictatorship to fall."

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written by Paul Eckert.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) said the milestone of 2,000 since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup was reached June 20 and that recent deaths in anti-junta hotbeds Sagaing and Magway regions had pushed the figure to 2007.

“This is the number verified by AAPP. The actual number of fatalities is likely much higher," the AAPP said in a statement.

The 2,000 deaths were memorialized by the U.S. and EU diplomatic missions in Yangon, with Brussels’ office posting a black cover on its social media page to express its condolences and Washington calling for accountability.

“The inhumane atrocities committed by the military against the people of Burma across the country are a result of the lack of accountability among responsible persons on the part of the military. It highlights the urgent need for accountability,” the U.S. Embassy said.

The AAPP report came five weeks after Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP Myanmar), a local think tank, said in a report that it had documented at least 5,646 civilian deaths between the Feb. 1, 2021, coup and May 10.

The ISP figure included people killed by security forces during anti-junta protests, in clashes between the military and pro-democracy paramilitaries or ethnic armies, while held in detention, and in revenge attacks, including against informers for the regime.

At least 1,831 civilians were killed in shooting deaths, the largest number of which occurred in war-torn Sagaing region, where junta troops have faced some of the toughest resistance to military rule in clashes with People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries that have displaced tens of thousands of residents since the coup, the ISP report said.

Former political prisoner Tun Kyi said the AAPP's list does not capture the full death toll.

“People are seen as criminals and arrested illegally. People are tortured and killed. Whole villages are set on fire,” he told RFA Burmese.

“The current AAPP list shows 2,000 deaths. In fact, there are more than that.”

The military has disputed or rejected the figures released by NGOS.

Junta-controlled newspapers said last month that 2,796 non-combatants had been killed between the coup and May 15. 

The military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party said 3,107 people have been killed after being accused of being military informants, 690 people died in armed clashes and 18 were slain by the pro-junta militia Thway Thauk, or Blood Comrades.

Coup opponents in Yangon told RFA they were still committed to resisting the military regime.

“The military made arbitrary arrests and detentions and tortured and killed peaceful protesters,” said a member of a Yangon-based protest committee who used the name Jewel for security reasons.

“As a result, this revolution has been going on for more than a year, with the conviction that the military dictatorship must be uprooted,” she said.

“No matter how much the people have lost, we see that this is the last game and I will continue to fight with this in mind,” added Jewel.

Kyar Gyi, a spokesman for the Htee Chaing Township PDF, said the army would continue to arrest and kill anyone who opposed the junta.

"It is routine for them to arrest or kill anyone who opposes them. They are still doing it. Homes are being set on fire and people killed,” he told RFA.

“We will continue the fight as long as it takes for the military dictatorship to fall."

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written by Paul Eckert.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

The Pentagon must step up its efforts to track and publicly report on civilians hurt and killed by U.S. military operations, according to an unreleased draft of the 2023 defense spending bill.

The Defense Department must establish a Commission on Civilian Harm and do more to mitigate the impact of civilian casualties, according to a draft version of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, for Fiscal Year 2023 obtained by The Intercept. The so-called chairman’s mark — House Armed Services Committee Chair Adam Smith’s version of the NDAA — contains legislation and funding recommendations that must still be considered, debated, and voted on. The House Armed Services Committee is slated to consider Smith’s draft of the bill and offer amendments later this week.

“These proposals reflect that after 20 years, the accumulation of reports — by you, by the New York Times, the excruciating reporting on the strike in Kabul last year — led Congress to a tipping point where they felt the need to legislate in order to better understand civilian harm and to do something about it,” Brian Finucane, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group and former legal adviser to the State Department, told The Intercept.

While the civilian harm measures in the markup appear to constitute a major improvement, especially the requirement to set up the Commission and substantive changes to the Defense Department’s annual civilian casualty report, known colloquially as Section 1057, experts say they still fall short. There is also, they note, no guarantee that the measures will make it to the final version of the NDAA.

“It’s a good improvement, but we wish it went further,” said a Democratic congressional staffer familiar with the document. “We are pleased with the 1057 changes and the COE and Commission on Civilian Harm, and really hope those pieces stay in.”

The draft bill, which was shared with The Intercept prior to its public release this week, contains elements of directives set forth in Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s January memo directing subordinates to draw up a “Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan” that has yet to be released. The chairman’s mark also bears the imprint of legislation to overhaul the Pentagon’s civilian harm prevention, mitigation, reporting, and transparency policies, introduced in April by Reps. Jason Crow, D-Colo.; Ro Khanna, D-Calif.; Sara Jacobs, D-Calif.; and Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., as well as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

It “requires them to look at the human faces of these operations.”

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This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Nick Turse.

Four years ago, five cousins — all civilians — were driving near the Yemeni village of Al Uqla when a missile ripped through their SUV and tossed the car into the air. Three of them were killed instantly. Another died days later in a local hospital. The only survivor, Adel Al Manthari, may soon become the fifth fatality of that U.S. drone strike.

Al Manthari’s feet and legs have recently blackened due to restricted blood flow and, this week, a doctor told him he’s at imminent risk of developing gangrene. Al Manthari needs emergency medical care that he can’t afford. His future now rests with a GoFundMe campaign.

That the limbs — and possibly life — of a civilian drone strike victim now depend on donations to a fundraising website is due to what experts said is an inadequate, arbitrary, and broken civilian casualty investigation and compensation system that has failed victims of U.S. wars for decades.

Despite a top Pentagon spokesperson’s recent claim that the military now embraces accountability regarding civilian casualty allegations, the Department of Defense failed to provide basic information about the 2018 attack and refuses to even acknowledge pleas for assistance or compensation made on Al Manthari’s behalf, much less dip into millions of dollars in funds allocated by Congress for compensation in such cases.

“It was the U.S.’s Hellfire missile that cost Adel his family and his health. It should be the U.S. that pays for the treatment to save his legs.”

A screenshot from a video recorded by a local activist and lawyer shows the aftermath of the March 29, 2018, U.S. drone strike which killed four civilians and critically injured Adel Al Manthari near Al Uqla, Yemen.

Image: Mohammed Hailan via Reprieve

“If the Pentagon is truly committed to changing the culture of secrecy and impunity that has surrounded the U.S. drone program for the last decade, then responding to Adel’s complaint would be a start.”

Adel Al Manthari, then a civil servant in the Yemeni government, is treated for severe burns, a fractured hip, and serious damage to the tendons, nerves, and blood vessels in his left hand following a drone strike in Yemen in 2018.

Photo: Reprieve

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This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Nick Turse.

The Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP Myanmar) said in a report last week that it had documented at least 5,646 civilian deaths between the Feb. 1, 2021, coup and May 10, including people killed by security forces during anti-junta protests, in clashes between the military and pro-democracy paramilitaries or ethnic armies, while held in detention, and in revenge attacks, including against informers for the regime.

At least 1,831 civilians were killed in shooting deaths, the largest number of which occurred in war-torn Sagaing region, where junta troops have faced some of the toughest resistance to military rule in clashes with People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries that have displaced tens of thousands of residents since the coup.

The numbers are largely in line with reporting by RFA’s Myanmar Service, which had documented at least 5,683 civilian deaths between the military takeover and May 12. On May 10 alone, junta troops slaughtered 29 civilians in Mon Taing Pin village, in Sagaing region’s Ye Oo township, sources recently told RFA, saying the victims appeared to have been “killed and burned intentionally” by soldiers targeting residents in retaliation for alleged ties to the PDF.

ISP Myanmar said at least 3,107 civilians were killed after being named “Dalans,” or military informants, based on statements issued by the junta on Jan. 14 and by the chairman of the military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party, Than Htay.

A member of the PDF in Sagaing region told RFA on condition of anonymity that those who report paramilitary movements to the military have been targeted because the armed opposition is “handicapped in manpower and weapons.”

“If these pillars supporting the junta are not removed in time, they will report every movement of ours to the military,” he said.

“If the military finds out about our movements, they can easily crush our defenses on the ground. The military would always have the upper hand.”

A similar form of revenge killing is on the rise with the emergence of the pro-junta Thway Thauk, or Blood Comrades, militia, whose members have killed at least 18 people — mostly members of the deposed National League for Democracy party and their relatives — in Mandalay region.

Kyaw Htet Aung, a senior researcher at ISP Myanmar, called the death toll since the coup “unprecedented” in the history of Myanmar.

“We are seeing pressures and reactions that are unprecedented in Myanmar’s history. As clashes between the two sides increased, so did civilian casualties. I think that’s the main reason why civilian deaths are the highest that have ever been in the post-independence era [beginning in January 1948],” he said.

“One side is operating under the belief that the junta cannot be allowed to rule at all. But the junta is determined to work towards stability and dominance at all costs. So, I think the civilian casualties have increased because of these clashing ideologies.”

Peace and security in Myanmar have been shattered, Kyaw Htet Aung said, and “people are living in fear.”

When asked for comment on the estimated death toll, junta deputy minister of information, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, called ISP Myanmar’s numbers “baseless.”

“These groups rarely provide true and accurate information,” he said.

“We are publishing daily updates on what is happening. We can just ignore [the estimated death toll]. We don’t need to respond to them.”

Spokesperson for the military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) Nanda Hla Myint told RFA the civilian deaths do not bode well for the country’s future.

“It’s unfortunate that our fellow citizens are being killed in such ways,” he said.

“Instead of carefully trying to understand the cause of why all this is happening, people have become accustomed to arming themselves and killing at will. It’s not right to say, ‘You’re my enemy if you’re not with us.’ It’s a matter of grave concern for the future of our country.”

Nanda Hla Myint urged both sides to “use wisdom to think and act correctly” before resorting to bloodshed.

“The main thing is to be able to think carefully. We need to have the wisdom to think and see correctly.”

Political analyst Sai Kyi Zin Soe said Myanmar’s political crisis will only be resolved “when all parties concerned act in good faith.”

“People are suffering,” he said. “[But] if all stakeholders with the power to make decisions operate under this kind of mindset, there is nothing that is unresolvable.”

The latest death toll statistics came as Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) called the decision not to invite junta representatives to last week’s U.S.-ASEAN Summit in Washington, while allowing NUG officials to engage with their counterparts there, “a major setback” for the military regime’s international standing and “a win for the people of Myanmar.”

“Arranging a meeting with senior government officials is … a very good step for the NUG [and] a great result for the people of Myanmar,” said NUG President’s Office spokesperson Kyaw Zaw.

“This makes the military regime even more isolated. It’s a big diplomatic defeat and a source of shame for them.”

Myanmar was one of only two ASEAN countries whose rulers were not at the May 12-13 summit.

The Philippines was represented at the summit by its foreign minister as it wrapped up a presidential election, while Myanmar’s junta chief, Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, was barred from the gathering for the brutal crackdown on opponents of his regime.

While absent in Washington, the country the U.S. still officially calls Burma was much on the agenda of its fellow ASEAN members.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah called out junta officials in a series of tweets for failing to honor their commitment to end violence in the country, while U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman held a meeting with NUG Foreign Minister Zin Mar Aung. The meeting between U.S. and NUG officials drew swift condemnation from the junta, which has labeled the shadow government and the PDFs that fight in its name “terrorist organizations.”

Prior to her departure, Zin Mar Aung told a meeting of Burmese expatriates in Washington that during the summit the U.S. and ASEAN came to an agreement with the junta that satisfied conditions set by the NUG for providing humanitarian assistance to refugees displaced by conflict in Myanmar after she explained the situation to the bloc’s member states and United Nations aid agencies.

“We’re working to have humanitarian aid reach the [refugees] and those who really need it,” she said.

“The military cannot do this alone — it can only be accomplished if they work with us. We want to ensure that those providing aid do so in a transparent manner. … The U.S. accepted [these conditions] and ASEAN did as well.”

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Myanmar Service.

The Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP Myanmar) said in a report last week that it had documented at least 5,646 civilian deaths between the Feb. 1, 2021, coup and May 10, including people killed by security forces during anti-junta protests, in clashes between the military and pro-democracy paramilitaries or ethnic armies, while held in detention, and in revenge attacks, including against informers for the regime.

At least 1,831 civilians were killed in shooting deaths, the largest number of which occurred in war-torn Sagaing region, where junta troops have faced some of the toughest resistance to military rule in clashes with People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries that have displaced tens of thousands of residents since the coup.

The numbers are largely in line with reporting by RFA’s Myanmar Service, which had documented at least 5,683 civilian deaths between the military takeover and May 12. On May 10 alone, junta troops slaughtered 29 civilians in Mon Taing Pin village, in Sagaing region’s Ye Oo township, sources recently told RFA, saying the victims appeared to have been “killed and burned intentionally” by soldiers targeting residents in retaliation for alleged ties to the PDF.

ISP Myanmar said at least 3,107 civilians were killed after being named “Dalans,” or military informants, based on statements issued by the junta on Jan. 14 and by the chairman of the military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party, Than Htay.

A member of the PDF in Sagaing region told RFA on condition of anonymity that those who report paramilitary movements to the military have been targeted because the armed opposition is “handicapped in manpower and weapons.”

“If these pillars supporting the junta are not removed in time, they will report every movement of ours to the military,” he said.

“If the military finds out about our movements, they can easily crush our defenses on the ground. The military would always have the upper hand.”

A similar form of revenge killing is on the rise with the emergence of the pro-junta Thway Thauk, or Blood Comrades, militia, whose members have killed at least 18 people — mostly members of the deposed National League for Democracy party and their relatives — in Mandalay region.

Kyaw Htet Aung, a senior researcher at ISP Myanmar, called the death toll since the coup “unprecedented” in the history of Myanmar.

“We are seeing pressures and reactions that are unprecedented in Myanmar’s history. As clashes between the two sides increased, so did civilian casualties. I think that’s the main reason why civilian deaths are the highest that have ever been in the post-independence era [beginning in January 1948],” he said.

“One side is operating under the belief that the junta cannot be allowed to rule at all. But the junta is determined to work towards stability and dominance at all costs. So, I think the civilian casualties have increased because of these clashing ideologies.”

Peace and security in Myanmar have been shattered, Kyaw Htet Aung said, and “people are living in fear.”

When asked for comment on the estimated death toll, junta deputy minister of information, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, called ISP Myanmar’s numbers “baseless.”

“These groups rarely provide true and accurate information,” he said.

“We are publishing daily updates on what is happening. We can just ignore [the estimated death toll]. We don’t need to respond to them.”

Spokesperson for the military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) Nanda Hla Myint told RFA the civilian deaths do not bode well for the country’s future.

“It’s unfortunate that our fellow citizens are being killed in such ways,” he said.

“Instead of carefully trying to understand the cause of why all this is happening, people have become accustomed to arming themselves and killing at will. It’s not right to say, ‘You’re my enemy if you’re not with us.’ It’s a matter of grave concern for the future of our country.”

Nanda Hla Myint urged both sides to “use wisdom to think and act correctly” before resorting to bloodshed.

“The main thing is to be able to think carefully. We need to have the wisdom to think and see correctly.”

Political analyst Sai Kyi Zin Soe said Myanmar’s political crisis will only be resolved “when all parties concerned act in good faith.”

“People are suffering,” he said. “[But] if all stakeholders with the power to make decisions operate under this kind of mindset, there is nothing that is unresolvable.”

The latest death toll statistics came as Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) called the decision not to invite junta representatives to last week’s U.S.-ASEAN Summit in Washington, while allowing NUG officials to engage with their counterparts there, “a major setback” for the military regime’s international standing and “a win for the people of Myanmar.”

“Arranging a meeting with senior government officials is … a very good step for the NUG [and] a great result for the people of Myanmar,” said NUG President’s Office spokesperson Kyaw Zaw.

“This makes the military regime even more isolated. It’s a big diplomatic defeat and a source of shame for them.”

Myanmar was one of only two ASEAN countries whose rulers were not at the May 12-13 summit.

The Philippines was represented at the summit by its foreign minister as it wrapped up a presidential election, while Myanmar’s junta chief, Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, was barred from the gathering for the brutal crackdown on opponents of his regime.

While absent in Washington, the country the U.S. still officially calls Burma was much on the agenda of its fellow ASEAN members.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah called out junta officials in a series of tweets for failing to honor their commitment to end violence in the country, while U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman held a meeting with NUG Foreign Minister Zin Mar Aung. The meeting between U.S. and NUG officials drew swift condemnation from the junta, which has labeled the shadow government and the PDFs that fight in its name “terrorist organizations.”

Prior to her departure, Zin Mar Aung told a meeting of Burmese expatriates in Washington that during the summit the U.S. and ASEAN came to an agreement with the junta that satisfied conditions set by the NUG for providing humanitarian assistance to refugees displaced by conflict in Myanmar after she explained the situation to the bloc’s member states and United Nations aid agencies.

“We’re working to have humanitarian aid reach the [refugees] and those who really need it,” she said.

“The military cannot do this alone — it can only be accomplished if they work with us. We want to ensure that those providing aid do so in a transparent manner. … The U.S. accepted [these conditions] and ASEAN did as well.”

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Myanmar Service.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, he didn’t seek a democratic mandate. Russia has an authoritarian regime, in which one man and his lieutenants run the show. The diverse views of over 140 million citizens of the Russian Federation — spanning a huge number of ethnicities and languages, not to mention geography — mean little when it comes to foreign policy choices.

Yet when Russian tanks began rolling into Ukraine, the U.S. and its European allies turned to a familiar weapon, one that indiscriminately targets all Russian citizens rather than just those responsible for the crimes we are seeing today: broad-based economic sanctions.

In recent years, sanctions have become a favored tool of U.S. policymakers, used as a modern form of siege warfare but with lower domestic political costs than sending U.S. troops abroad. In addition to sanctions targeting oligarchs and the Russian high-tech and defense sectors, the U.S. and its allies have gone for the jugular by attempting to tank the entire Russian economy.

Russia is staying afloat for now, thanks to continuing sales of its natural gas reserves, but the stories of a handful of other countries hold a cautionary tale for the West about the potential human costs of sanctions to ordinary citizens.

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“Only by grappling with the full impact of sanctions can the U.S. ensure that sanctions don’t exacerbate the plight of ordinary citizens and serve, rather than undermine, U.S. interests.”

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Murtaza Hussain.

The post Civilian Deaths Beyond Bucha appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Nick Turse.

On Feb. 22, former U.S. Rep. Tom Andrews, who serves as U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said in a report to the U.N. Security Council that countries should stop selling arms to the junta, citing a brutal crackdown on civilians since the military seized power in a coup last year.

The report called out permanent Security Council members China and Russia, as well as India, Belarus, Ukraine, Israel, Serbia, Pakistan and South Korea, for selling the weapons, which Andrews said are almost certainly being used by the military to kill innocent people.

Speaking to RFA’s Myanmar Service on Thursday, Aung Myo Min, human rights minister for the shadow National Unity Government (NUG), said countries that sell arms to the Myanmar military must reconsider their actions.

“It’s very important to understand whether these arms you sell for your commercial interests are meant to protect ordinary people or are for killing them and committing crimes,” he said. “Myanmar’s dictators are getting weapons because arms companies are focusing only on their financial gains. The people of Myanmar are being tortured or killed with these weapons. We need to be aware of this.”

Aung Myo Min also called on the larger international community to help end arms sales to the Myanmar’s military.

In the 13 months since its Feb. 1, 2021, coup, the junta has cracked down on its opponents through attacks on peaceful protesters, arrests, and beatings and killings. The military regime has also attacked opposition strongholds with helicopter gunships, fighter jets and troops that have burned hundreds of villages they accuse of supporting anti-junta militias.

As of Friday, more than 1,600 people had been killed since the coup and some 12,300 arrested, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a human rights organization based in Thailand.

Andrews’ report states that China, Russia and Serbia have been selling arms to Myanmar’s military both before and after the coup, while the other nations sold arms to Myanmar for years prior to it.

The U.N. high commissioner said in his statement that China and Russia continued to provide Myanmar with fighter jets and armored vehicles and had promised to sell more despite the military’s attacks on communities since the coup. The Serbian government has decided to sell rocket launchers and artillery shells to the junta, while reports suggest that Pakistan has provided it with mortars and grenade launchers.

The U.N. in June 2021 said that member states should not sell arms to the junta, but Andrews said countries have not followed the recommendation.

Domestic production issues

A member of the anti-junta People’s Defense Force paramilitary group in Magway region’s Yesagyo township told RFA that he believes the killing of innocent civilians in Myanmar would drop dramatically if countries were to stop selling weapons to the military.

“They fire at our villages from warplanes and shell our homes. They attack civilian homes and open fire on refugee camps. They use these weapons to launch military operations. Villages were set on fire using these weapons,” he said. “If the military didn’t have these weapons, they wouldn’t have the ability to commit these crimes and the harm they inflict on the people would decline.”

But junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun has denied any wrongdoing by the military and the countries who have provided it with weaponry. He called the former U.S. lawmaker’s words hypocritical. 

“The arms trade is going on everywhere in the world. The U.S. is also the world’s largest arms seller, followed by China and Russia,” he said. “But regardless, most of the weapons used by our security forces are Myanmar-made.”

Myanmar has been working on a policy of self-reliance in the production of arms and that the junta’s interactions with other countries are not solely for purchasing weapons, but to improve political, social, and international relations, Zaw Min Tun said.

Min Zaw Oo, executive director of the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security, said that enacting and enforcing an arms embargo will be difficult for the U.N. Security Council when China and Russia hold veto powers and will not even accept formal talks on the issue.

But he acknowledged that even if the council could put an end to foreign arms sales to Myanmar, killings will continue for as long as the military produces its own weapons domestically.

“If we can make the most of an arms embargo, we might be able to stop aircraft-related issues, like air strikes,” he said. “The deadliest weapon is the heavy artillery. Mortars and Howitzers have caused many casualties. It can be generally assumed that even if an arms embargo is implemented, it will have little effect so long as domestic production capacity doesn’t drop.”

Military analysts have also suggested that U.S. and EU bans on arms sales to Myanmar are likely to be ineffective, noting that North Korea has been able to continue purchasing and producing weapons, despite a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

As a massive Russian military convoy approaches Kyiv while Russia intensifies attacks on civilian infrastructure across Ukraine, we get an update from Andre Kamenshikov,
Ukraine director for Nonviolence International in the southern Kyiv suburbs. He says “people are holding out, and I think there is growing confidence that the Russian forces will not be able to take the city.” He also says Russian President Putin is using the threat of NATO as propaganda to increase domestic public support of the war, and discusses why he won’t be taking up arms as a nonviolent activist.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.