Montreal, Canada – “Unlivable.” That’s how Canada’s immigration minister, Marc Miller, described the situation in the Gaza Strip in late December.
The Palestinian territory was under fierce Israeli bombardment at the time. At least 20,000 people had been killed, and hunger was spreading at an alarming rate as Israel blocked deliveries of food, water and other necessities.
As conditions continued to deteriorate, Miller announced that the Canadian government was launching a special visa programme to allow citizens and permanent residents to bring extended family members from Gaza to Canada.
“To be clear, today is about providing a humanitarian pathway to safety and recognising the importance of keeping families together given the ongoing devastation,” he told reporters on December 21.
But more than three months later, not a single Palestinian applicant has left the Gaza Strip as a result of the visa programme.
That has fuelled a sense of anger and frustration for families who say Canada has abandoned them and their loved ones — and are demanding action from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government.
Samar Alkhdour stands in front of Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller’s office in Montreal on March 29 [Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/Al Jazeera]
“What are they waiting for?” asked Samar Alkhdour, a Palestinian mother who has lived in Canada since 2019 and received permanent residency in February.
Alkhdour began a daily sit-in outside Miller’s office in Montreal, the second-largest city in Canada, late last month to put pressure on the government to get her relatives out of Gaza.
She is trying to bring her sister, her sister’s husband and their two children — who are currently living with relatives in Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza — to Montreal to join her and her family.
But the family’s applications remain in the early stages of the process, Alkhdour told Al Jazeera.
“I’m still fighting, I’m working on it,” she said in late March at the sit-in, a black-and-white keffiyeh draped over her shoulders. “But deep down inside, in my heart, I’m starting to lose hope.
“And maybe that’s one reason I’m here — because no one’s doing nothing.”
Rights advocates are calling on countries across the Americas — notably the United States and the Dominican Republic — to stop deporting migrants and asylum seekers to Haiti amid a surge in gang violence and political instability there.
Speaking at an event on Thursday in Washington, DC, Guerline Jozef, head of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, a US-based advocacy group, explained that “there is no safe space” for displaced Haitians.
“We are pushing for a … complete stop of deportation[s] to Haiti by land, by sea or by air,” she said, stressing that Haitians and other asylum seekers should have access to pathways for protection.
Haiti has faced more than a month of widespread violence, as powerful armed gangs launched attacks on police stations, prisons and other institutions in the capital of Port-au-Prince, beginning in late February.
The violence has effectively paralysed the city, and more than 360,000 Haitians have been forcibly displaced from their homes across the country, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations agency.
Despite the continued unrest, the IOM reported on Thursday that neighbouring countries forcibly sent 13,000 migrants back to Haiti in March. That is a 46-percent increase compared with the previous month.
“The lack of economic opportunities, coupled with a collapsing health system and shuttered schools, casts a shadow of despair, driving many to contemplate migration as their sole viable recourse,” the IOM added.
“However, for most Haitians, the prospect of regular migration remains an insurmountable hurdle, leaving irregular migration as their only semblance of hope.”
‘Forced returns must end’
People have been fleeing Haiti long before the recent surge in unrest. Security has been an issue for years, particularly after Haitian President Jovenel Moise’s 2021 assassination created a power vacuum in the Caribbean nation.
But as the violence reached new heights last month, the UN and humanitarian groups have urged countries to ensure Haitians are protected.
“Haitians’ lives, safety and freedom are threatened by a confluence of skyrocketing gang violence and human rights violations,” Elizabeth Tan, the director of international protection at the UN’s refugee agency (UNHRC), said on March 20.
“We also reiterate our call to all States to not forcibly return people to Haiti, including those who have had their asylum claims rejected.”
This week, Amnesty International and other rights groups directly called on the Dominican Republic to end its use of “de facto racist migration policies” that target Haitians, Dominicans of Haitian descent, and Black people in the country.
The Dominican Republic — which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti — has sent thousands of Haitians back to their home country over the past few years. Rights advocates slammed the forced returns as discriminatory and warned that they put people’s lives at risk.
“The Dominican government itself has informed of the deportation of more than 250,000 Haitians in 2023, including people in need of international protection,” Ana Piquer, Americas director at Amnesty International, said in a statement on Tuesday.
“These collective expulsions are a clear violation of the Dominican Republic’s international obligations and put the lives and rights of these people at risk. Forced returns to Haiti must end.”
Temporary Protected Status
Meanwhile, advocacy groups also are calling on President Joe Biden’s administration to extend protections against deportation for Haitian citizens in the US.
In a letter to Biden and other top US officials late last month, around 500 advocacy, human rights and civil society groups urged Washington to extend and redesignate a programme called Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti.
The US government grants TPS to nationals of countries where temporary conditions make it too dangerous to return, such as in cases of armed conflict or environmental disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes.
Recipients can remain in the US without fear of deportation and work in the country. Haiti’s TPS designation is set to expire in early August.
However, in an interview with the McClatchy news agency, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas indicated the US was unlikely to extend TPS for Haitians.
“We do not have any plans at this time to redesignate Haiti for Temporary Protected Status,” Mayorkas said on Thursday.
Advocates also say the US must stop repatriating Haitian asylum seekers, including those intercepted at sea.
In one recent example, the US Coast Guard sent 65 Haitian migrants back to Haiti on March 12 after their vessel was intercepted near the Bahamas. That brought the total number of Haitians repatriated by the agency since October 31, 2023, to 131.
🚨We have gathered 481 organizations in urging @POTUS, @SecBlinken, and @SecMayorkas to extend and redesignate Haiti for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) amidst the worsening national violence.🚨
In a statement, a Coast Guard official said the agency would repatriate “anyone attempting irregular migration via sea routes, regardless of their nationality”.
Mayorkas echoed that perspective in Thursday’s interview with McClatchy.
“Let me be clear that, when we interdict individuals from Haiti at sea, we return them to Haiti as quickly as possible. In fact, we have done so in recent weeks, and we will continue to do so. We continue to enforce the law,” he said.
Immigration has long been a contentious political issue in the US, and it is set to stir up a great deal of public attention as the country gears up for a presidential election in November.
The vote is expected to pit Biden against his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, who made anti-immigrant rhetoric and border restrictions a key plank of his administration.
Two unnamed US officials told NBC News last month that the Biden administration does not plan to change its policy of returning Haitian citizens intercepted at sea “because they do not want to trigger mass migration”.
But in their letter on March 26, the rights groups urged the Biden administration to “halt all removal flights and maritime removals” to Haiti, which they described as an “already-overburdened country”.
“These removals severely undermine the administration’s promise to build a fairer and more inclusive immigration and asylum system for all and contribute to the destabilization of Haiti,” they wrote.
In March, the United States imposed new sanctions on 11 Zimbabwean individuals, including President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his wife, and other officials, following allegations of corruption and human rights abuses. It also placed sanctions on three businesses – also because of alleged corruption, human rights abuses and election rigging.
A statement from Mnangagwa’s office described the accusations as “defamatory”. It added that they amounted to a “gratuitous slander” against Zimbabwe’s leaders and people.
The move came after a review of US sanctions which have been in place since 2003. From now on, sanctions on Zimbabwe will apply to individuals and businesses listed under the Global Magnitsky Act of 2016. This Act authorises the US government to sanction foreign government officials worldwide for alleged human rights abuses, freeze their assets, and ban them from entering the US on unofficial business.
By switching to the Magnitsky Act to cover sanctions in Zimbabwe, the US said fewer individuals and businesses will receive sanctions than have until now. “The changes we are making today are intended to make clear what has always been true: our sanctions are not intended to target the people of Zimbabwe,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said.
Rutendo Matinyarare, a vocal government supporter who leads the Zimbabwe Anti-Sanctions Movement, welcomed the change to the sanctions regime. “The real sanctions are gone now, so no more excuses. Let’s build the country now,” he tweeted on X, formerly Twitter.
𝐍𝐎 𝐄𝐗𝐂𝐔𝐒𝐄𝐒. 𝐋𝐄𝐓’𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐁𝐔𝐈𝐋𝐃.
The real sanctions are gone now, so no more excuses. Let’s build the country now.
The sanctions on the President, VP, First Lady, Minister of defense and our amazing business people should be fought through the best legal minds… pic.twitter.com/BQAysQlRdc
The US says it aims to promote democracy and accountability and address human rights violations in Zimbabwe.
“We continue to urge the Government of Zimbabwe to move toward more open and democratic governance, including addressing corruption and protecting human rights, so all Zimbabweans can prosper,” David Gainer, the US acting deputy assistant secretary of state said.
The US is also the largest provider of humanitarian aid to Zimbabwe, providing more than $3.5bn in aid from the country’s independence from British colonial rule in 1980 until 2020.
Do sanctions harm Zimbabwe’s economy?
Last year, Zimbabwean Vice President Constantino Chiwenga said the country had lost more than $150bn because of sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States.
Alena Douhan, UN Special Rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures, who visited the country in 2021, said the sanctions “…had exacerbated pre-existing social and economic challenges with devastating consequences for the people of Zimbabwe, especially those living in poverty, women, children, elderly, people with disabilities as well as marginalised and other vulnerable groups”.
A 2022 Institute of Security Studies Africa (ISS) report found that investors tend to steer clear of Zimbabwe because of the “high-risk premium” placed on the country due to the targeted US sanctions.
Some international banks have also cut ties with Zimbabwean banks because the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) penalises US companies or individuals who do business with any sanctioned individual, entity or country.
Government supporters march against Western sanctions, including ZIDERA, which prevents Zimbabwe from accessing loans and investment from international financial institutions, at a rally in Harare, Zimbabwe on October 25, 2019 [Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters]
Are sanctions the only thing holding back the economy?
Zimbabwean economist Gift Mugano said that corruption, even more than sanctions, holds Zimbabwe back. “Zimbabwe can weaken the possible effects of so-called sanctions, but corruption is the major problem,” he told Al Jazeera.
He added that the US and others have never imposed trade sanctions on Zimbabwe. “We can trade with anybody, including the Americans and the Europeans; the measures were financial and didn’t affect trade.”
Eddie Cross, an economist who advises the government and has written a biography of President Mnangagwa, pointed to Transparency International figures showing that corruption has cost Zimbabwe $100bn since independence. “That’s more than $2.5bn a year, but combining the two [corruption and sanctions] is enormous.”
However, the US still operates the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA), which the Congress passed in 2001. While the US says this is not a set of sanctions, ZIDERA prevents Zimbabwe from accessing loans and investment from international financial institutions, such as the IMF and the World Bank, which experts say hampers its ability to develop economically. Some institutions had stopped lending to Zimbabwe before ZIDERA because of its poor record of servicing loans.
Cross said experts estimate that banks lose about $1bn annually in higher bank charges because of ZIDERA. “ZIDERA has been in place for 23 years, and a billion dollars a year could have easily settled our national debt.” He added that the additional costs arise when local banks go through banks other than the regular correspondent banks, which sometimes refuse to deal directly with Zimbabwean banks for fear of being penalised by the US government.
Among the conditions Zimbabwe has to meet for the repeal of ZIDERA is the restoration of the rule of law, the holding of free and fair elections, a commitment to equitable, legal and transparent land reform – including the compensation of the former farmers who lost their land to the country’s land reform programme – and the military and police withdrawing from politics and government.
Do sanctions work?
Cross argued that sanctions do not tackle corruption. He questioned why the US does not impose sanctions on countries like China, which he says is undemocratic. “They allow China free access to international financial markets, Western technology and international markets, and they allow China to borrow enormous sums of money at very low interest rates with which they have been developing their infrastructure and economy.”
Additionally, a 2022 Institute of Security Studies Africa (ISS) report concluded that sanctions have largely failed to improve democratic behaviour among the ruling elites in Zimbabwe. Human rights violations persist and political freedoms remain severely curtailed.
Amnesty International regularly highlights the threats to freedom of expression, arrests of journalists and harassment of members of the opposition police forces and members of the ruling ZANU-PF party.
Furthermore, an Al Jazeera investigation last year found Zimbabwe’s government was using smuggling gangs to sell gold worth hundreds of millions of dollars, helping to mitigate the effects of sanctions. Gold is the country’s biggest export.
Who else imposes sanctions on Zimbabwe?
The United Kingdom and European Union also imposed similar sanctions on Zimbabwe, giving the same reasons as the US. They have whittled down the measures over the years.
However, as of February, an embargo on the sale of arms and equipment that the government may use for internal repression remains in place. The EU and UK also still freeze assets held by state-owned arms manufacturer, Zimbabwe Defence Industries.
Government supporters chant slogans as they march against Western sanctions at a rally in Harare, Zimbabwe October 25, 2019 [Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters]
What do Zimbabweans think of the sanctions?
Members of the Broad Alliance Against Sanctions have been camped outside the US embassy in Harare since 2019, demanding an end to all sanctions, including ZIDERA.
Sally Ngoni, a leader of the group, said: “All these measures are a tool to effect regime change in Zimbabwe; they want our government to fail; it’s punishment for reclaiming our stolen land from the whites.” She was alluding to the sometimes violent fast-track land reform that saw white farmers lose their farms ostensibly for the resettlement of landless Black people launched in 2000.
However, other Zimbabweans support the sanctions, saying they should remain in place until the government stops harassing and silencing opposition figures. “The measures affect those listed and not the generality of Zimbabweans,” Munyaradzi Zivanayi, an unemployed graduate, told Al Jazeera.
Some believe removing sanctions would help to expose government deficiencies. “The removal of all sanctions will expose the government’s incompetence as they cannot use the sanctions as an excuse any more,” said Harare accountant Joseph Moyo.
How have Zimbabwe’s leaders responded to sanctions?
The late President Robert Mugabe called sanctions an “interference in the affairs of Zimbabwe,” a sovereign state. In response, he declared a “look East” policy, meaning Zimbabwe would strengthen economic ties with countries such as China and Russia, which he regarded as more supportive. He also forged stronger ties with other sanctioned countries, including Belarus and Iran.
After the military removed Mugabe in 2017, Mnangagwa, the new president, adopted a “friend to all and enemy to none” approach. This saw the new government vigorously pursue re-engagement with estranged countries.
In 2019, it paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Ballard Partners – a lobbying firm run by a Trump campaign fundraiser – after the US government renewed sanctions on 141 individuals and entities, citing continued human rights abuses and corruption.
Despite this charm offensive, it is still US policy that Zimbabwe has not addressed the issues for which sanctions were imposed. Besides corruption, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a statement announcing the new sanctions, noted: “Multiple cases of abductions, physical abuse, and unlawful killing have left citizens living in fear.”
Then-Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe signs a petition against Western economic sanctions, in Harare, on Wednesday, March, 2, 2011 [Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP]
How have sanctions affected Zimbabwe-US relations?
Sporadic verbal outbursts, accusations and personal attacks characterise the complicated relationship between the two countries.
They took another hit in February when the US protested against the deportation of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) officials and contractors.
Zimbabwe’s version of the incident is that the four individuals entered the country without notifying authorities and held “unsanctioned covert meetings”. The Sunday Mail, a state-controlled weekly, reported that the meetings were held “to inform Washington’s adversarial foreign policy towards Zimbabwe”.
The US asserted that the USAID personnel were in the country legally and that the Zimbabwean government knew of their presence and mission.
Human Rights Watch says Ethiopia’s army ‘summarily executed’ several dozen civilians in the country’s northwestern Amhara region in January.
Ethiopia’s army “summarily executed several dozen civilians” and committed other war crimes in the northwestern Amhara region earlier this year, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said, as it called on the United Nations to launch an independent investigation.
The incident in the city of Merawi in late January was among the deadliest for civilians since fighting began between Ethiopian federal forces and Fano militia in the restive region in August, the New York-based rights group said in a report on Thursday.
“Civilians are once again bearing the brunt of an abusive army operating with impunity,” Laetitia Bader, deputy Africa director at HRW, said.
“The Ethiopian armed forces’ brutal killings of civilians in Amhara undercut government claims that it’s trying to bring law and order to the region.”
There was no immediate comment by the Ethiopian government or the army, but a separate investigation conducted by the state-appointed Ethiopian Human Rights Commission estimated that at least 45 people were killed by government forces in Merawi.
HRW said it was unable to determine the total number of civilian killings in Merawi, adding that some accounts put the figure to more than 80.
More than a dozen witnesses, including victims and their family members, told the rights groups about the alleged abuses carried out by the army in the city.
HRW said it had also analysed and verified videos posted to social media in the aftermath of the January 29 attack and examined satellite imagery that corroborated witness accounts.
‘Pillage’ of civilian properties
HRW urged the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to lead the investigation into the alleged abuses.
It also called on the African Union to suspend all deployments of Ethiopian federal forces to peacekeeping missions until “commanders responsible for grave abuses are held accountable”.
“Under international humanitarian law applicable to the armed conflict in Amhara, the deliberate killing or mistreatment of civilians, and looting and pillage of civilian property are prohibited and may be prosecuted as war crimes,” HRW said.
Testimonies collected by HRW revealed that after Fano fighters withdrew from Merawi following an attack on Ethiopian forces, the soldiers shot civilians on the streets as well as during house raids over a six-hour period.
“The soldiers also pillaged and destroyed civilian property,” HRW said in a statement.
Several residents also told HRW that soldiers remaining in the town also refused to allow the community to collect and bury those who were killed.
Bader said the Ethiopian government’s “failure” to ensure accountability for abuses “contributes to ongoing cycles of violence and impunity”.
Fano fighters took part in a week of violent protests across Amhara in April last year after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered that security forces from Ethiopia’s 11 regions be integrated into the police or national army.
Protesters felt the order was meant to weaken Amhara – the country’s second-biggest region. The federal government denied this.
The Fanos and other Amharas felt betrayed by a peace deal signed in November 2022 by the government and dissident leaders of the Tigray region – longtime foes of Amhara nationalists who claim parts of Ethiopia’s northernmost region as their ancestral lands [Tiksa Negeri/Reuters]
Human Rights Watch has urged the two countries to ensure the safety of people crossing the dangerous migration route.
Colombia and Panama have failed to protect hundreds of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers crossing a dangerous yet popular jungle migration route between the two countries, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.
In a report on Wednesday, the rights group said the Colombian and Panamanian authorities have not protected people transiting through the Darien Gap or adequately investigated abuses that have taken place there, including sexual violence.
“Whatever the reason for their journey, migrants and asylum seekers crossing the Darien Gap are entitled to basic safety and respect for their human rights along the way,” Juanita Goebertus, HRW’s Americas director, said in a statement.
“Colombian and Panamanian authorities can and should do more to ensure the rights of migrants and asylum seekers crossing their countries, as well as of local communities that have experienced years of neglect.”
Connecting South and Central America, the Darien Gap is a dangerous route rife with natural hazards, including insects, snakes and unpredictable terrain. Its landscape ranges from steep mountains to dense jungles and strong rivers.
Criminal groups also operate in the area, and robberies, extortion and other forms of violence are widespread.
Despite these dangers, it has become an extremely popular migration pathway for migrants and asylum seekers fleeing violence, socioeconomic crises and other hardships in their home countries. Many hope to travel north to reach the United States.
The number of people passing through the area has repeatedly broken records, as migration northwards increases. More than 520,000 migrants and asylum seekers crossed the Darien Gap last year, more than double the total from 2022, according to figures from Panama’s government.
Of those who crossed in 2023, more than 60 percent were from Venezuela, which has experienced a mass exodus amid years of socioeconomic and political upheaval. Others were from nations across South America, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa.
In its report, HRW said the Colombian government’s limited presence in the Darien Gap allows migrants and asylum seekers “to be preyed upon” by members of a drug-trafficking group known as the Gulf Clan.
The group “controls the movement of migrants and asylum seekers and profits from their desperation and vulnerability”, the rights group said.
HRW urged the Colombian authorities to investigate the Gulf Clan’s role in taking people across the Darien Gap. It also called on Bogota to devote more resources to the protection of migrants and to probing alleged abuses.
But HRW’s report said that “most of the abuses in the Darien Gap, including robberies and sexual violence, occur in Panamanian territory”.
Panama has implemented a so-called “controlled flow” strategy to respond to the surge in Darien Gap crossings. Under the policy, it has established migrant reception centres and allows people to board buses to Costa Rica.
HRW on Wednesday criticised the scheme for imposing restrictions on peoples’ ability to seek asylum and limiting humanitarian protections.
“It appears focused on channeling and restricting migrants’ and asylum seekers’ movement through Panama and ensuring that they cross to Costa Rica promptly, rather than responding to their immediate needs or providing them opportunities to file asylum applications in Panama,” its report said.
The organisation urged Panama’s government to modify its strategy.
It also said the country should appoint a senior official to oversee its response to the Darien Gap in coordination with the United Nations and other humanitarian groups.
After Israel killed seven aid workers in Gaza, the US says it has not found any incidents of Israel violating international humanitarian law in the past six months. An Al Jazeera probe concluded the World Central Kitchen vehicles were deliberately hit.
Israeli army deliberately targeted World Central Kitchen convoy with three consecutive attacks, Al Jazeera concludes.
An investigation by Al Jazeera’s Sanad agency has found that the Israeli army intentionally targeted an aid convoy belonging to the World Central Kitchen (WCK) in three consecutive air raids on Rashid Street, south of Deir el-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip.
On Monday at 10:43pm (19:43 GMT), journalists reported an Israeli shelling targeting a vehicle on Rashid Street, which resulted in casualties. This matches the account of a displaced individual interviewed by Al Jazeera, who confirmed multiple bombings between 11:00 and 11:30pm (20:00 – 20:30 GMT).
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that the attack had been executed by Israeli forces, saying they had “unintentionally [hit] innocent people in the Gaza Strip … it happens in war.”
The Sanad investigation has found that the attacks were, in fact, intentional. Basing the research on open-source information, witness testimonies, and images from the site, a chronological and geographical timeline of the events was constructed.
WCK said in a statement on Tuesday that its workers had been leaving the Deir el-Balah warehouse after delivering 100 tonnes of food aid and that “despite coordinating movements with the [Israeli army], the convoy was hit”.
The shelling targeted three vehicles belonging to WCK, one at a time – two armoured and one unarmoured – killing seven relief workers of various nationalities, including a Palestinian driver, Saif Abu Taha, from Rafah.
Hasan al-Shorbagi, a displaced individual from Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip [Sanad/Al Jazeera]
Hasan al-Shorbagi, a displaced Palestinian who lives with his family near the bombing site, about 4.7km (2.9 miles) from the warehouse, told Al Jazeera the first car was hit by a projectile, completely burning it. This is consistent with the image of the burned armoured car.
According to al-Shorbagi’s testimony, the injured were transferred from the first targeted car to another armoured vehicle to expedite their transport.
A statement from WCK confirmed that the convoy left its warehouse in Deir el-Balah – shown on Google Maps at coordinates 31°24’54.7″N 34°22’05.1″E – and headed towards Rashid Street.
The second targeted vehicle at coordinates 31°24’41.97″ N 34°19’22.95″ E [Sanad/Al Jazeera]
This distance along the route from the warehouse to Rashid Street was about three kilometres (1.9 miles) and the first car was targeted about 1.7km (one mile) down the road.
The Sanad investigation found that the second vehicle was targeted approximately 800 metres (2,525 feet) away from where the first was hit.
The third car was targeted about 1.6km (nearly a mile) away from the second car, based on its location after being bombed.
Images taken from the bombing sites show that the vehicles were clearly marked on their roofs and windshields as belonging to WCK, indicating that they were in compliance and there had been prior coordination between WCK and the Israeli army about the movements.
A charred vehicle is shown at coordinates 31°25’00.43″ N 34°19’44.78″ E [Sanad/Al Jazeera]
Analysis of images of the second and third targeted vehicles showed signs of a projectile entering from the top and exiting through the bottom, suggesting that the cars were targeted from the air.
The Israeli army acknowledged its responsibility for the tragic incident involving the killing of relief workers in Gaza Monday night in an Israeli air raid. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that the Israeli army “unintentionally” struck innocent people in Gaza.
The incident drew global condemnation. WCK said its team was travelling in a “deconflicted” area at the time. It called on Israel to stop “this indiscriminate killing” in Gaza and announced it was suspending operations in the region.
Every year on March 30, Palestinians hold protests and vigils and plant olive trees to reaffirm their connection to the land.
Every year on March 30, Palestinians observe Land Day, or Yom al-Ard, recalling the events of March 30, 1976, when six unarmed Palestinians were killed and more than 100 injured by Israeli forces during protests against Israel’s confiscation of Palestinian land.
How much land did Israel confiscate?
Israel ordered the confiscation of 2,000 hectares (4,942 acres) of land belonging to Palestinian citizens of Israel in the Galilee. These plans were part of Israeli state policy to Judaise Galilee following the creation of the state of Israel.
The confiscated land is roughly the size of 3,000 football pitches or the area from the tip of Manhattan to Central Park in New York, US.
What do Palestinians do on Land Day?
Palestinians, both inside Israel and across the occupied territory, mark this day by holding protests and vigils and planting olive trees to reaffirm their connection to the land. The protests are often met with brutal use of force by Israel.
Um Ahmad al-Banna was wounded in the protests of March of Return and joined Land Day commemorations in Gaza in 2022 [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
Is Israel still seizing land?
Yes, Israel has continued to seize large swaths of Palestinian land, designating them as military zones, state land and other labels.
Most recently, on March 22, 2024, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared Israel was seizing 800 hectares (1,977 acres) in the occupied West Bank, in a move that would facilitate building more illegal settlements.
“While there are those in Israel and in the world who seek to undermine our right to Judea and Samaria and the country in general, we promote settlement through hard work and in a strategic manner all over the country,” Smotrich said, using Biblical names for the area that are commonly heard in Israel.
On March 6, Israel’s settlement-planning authority announced it had approved the construction of some 3,500 new housing units in Maale Adumim, Kedar and Efrat within the occupied West Bank.
From November 1, 2022 to October 31, 2023, Israel has approved at least 24,000 illegal housing units to be built on Palestinian land.
Earlier this month, the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said settlements had expanded by a record amount and risked eliminating any possibility of a Palestinian state.
Rajesh Jatavad*, a delivery rider for Zomato, a food delivery app in southern India, is worried about his full name being displayed for customers on the platform – because his last name reveals that he belongs to a marginalised caste.
More privileged communities among India’s caste system historically considered castes like Jatavad’s “untouchables”.
Jatavad’s worry is based on lived experience. “It is easy for others to identify my caste from my surname. Some of the customers, after reading my surname from the app, they won’t allow me near them, or even [allow me to] hand over the food packet. They will tell me to place it down and then leave,” Rajesh told Al Jazeera.
Then, in mid-March, his employer announced a decision that threatens to make Jatavad’s already perilous daily struggle against caste biases even tougher.
On March 19, Deepinder Goyal, CEO of Zomato, declared on social media platform X that the company was launching a “Pure Veg Mode along with a Pure Veg Fleet on Zomato, for customers who have a 100% vegetarian dietary preference.”
“India has the largest percentage of vegetarians in the world, and one of the most important feedback we’ve gotten from them is that they are very particular about how their food is cooked, and how their food is handled,” he wrote.
The Pure Veg Mode allows customers to pick from curated list of restaurants that serve only vegetarian food and excludes eateries that serve any meat or fish. The Pure Veg Fleet, Goyal announced, would consist of riders who will only carry food from Pure Veg Mode restaurants.
And in the future, Goyal wrote, the company plans to introduce other specialised fleets – a comment that left Jatavad anxious and that betrays, said sociologists, an ignorance of a complex reality that undergirds India’s enormous app-based food delivery industry, valued at $7.4bn in 2023.
More than half – 54.5 percent – of delivery workers belong to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, according to a March 11 study by the University of Pennsylvania.
These communities are designated “scheduled” by the government because they have suffered centuries of discrimination and socioeconomic disadvantages. In India’s caste-stratified society, they are also often associated with being “impure” by privileged castes.
Zomato’s latest policies could end up reinforcing those stereotypes and deepening the discrimination workers like Jatavad face, said sociologists and workers’ rights advocates. There are 700,000 to one million food delivery workers on platforms like Zomato in India.
Delivery riders – many working for Zomato – wait in line to collect their orders outside a mall in Mumbai, India, on August 10, 2023 [Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters]
‘If that happens, I’m in trouble’
Jatavad learned about the specialised fleets from a screenshot shared by his colleagues. Instantly, his mind went racing.
“’What is the company aiming for?” he said. “Will they create fleets based on religion and caste next? If that happens, I’m in trouble.”
In his posts on X, Goyal explained his rationale for the separate fleets. “Because despite everyone’s best efforts, sometimes the food spills into the delivery boxes. In those cases, the smell of the previous order travels to the next order and may lead to the next order smelling of the previous order,” Goyal reasoned. “For this reason, we had to separate the fleet for veg orders.”
Following pushback over the risks colour-coded uniforms could pose to riders, if neighbourhoods that view meat as impure decide to attack or abuse delivery workers, Goyal backtracked partly.
“All our riders – both our regular fleet, and our fleet for vegetarians, will wear the colour red,” he wrote in a follow-up post. “This will ensure that our red uniform delivery partners are not incorrectly associated with non-veg food and blocked by any during any special days … our riders’ physical safety is of paramount importance to us,” his post read.
But while riders carrying vegetarian and non-vegetarian food will not be distinguishable by their uniform, they will still belong to different fleets – and customers will be able to pick the “Pure Veg” fleet on the Zomato app.
Workers are worried.
“Today, they will say veg and non-veg; tomorrow, they will bring in religion and caste,” Shaik Salauddin, national general secretary and co-founder of the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT), a trade union federation of ride-sharing and other gig transport workers, told Al Jazeera. “They will say, upper-caste customers have demanded upper-caste delivery boys. This will create a further division among workers.”
Shaikh questioned why Zomato was wading into sensitive food and culture-related issues in a country as diverse as India. “This company is dividing people,” he said. “If they’re here to do business, let them do business.”
‘Purity and pollution’
Asked by Al Jazeera about the concerns of delivery workers, Zomato said that customers would not be able to choose delivery partners based on the rider’s own dietary preference.
It added that the “delivery partners onboarded on Zomato are not and will never be discriminated against on the basis of any criteria (including dietary/ political/religion preferences).”
But that’s easier said than done, according to Mini Mohan, a sociologist based in the southern Indian state of Kerala, who argued that by segregating vegetarian and non-vegetarian options, Zomato was exploiting religious and caste-based divisions.
“The caste system in India links food with purity and pollution,” she said. “Vegetarian food is considered ‘pure’, while meat and occupations associated with lower castes are seen as ‘impure’. This shapes dietary practices, with higher castes even avoiding food handled by lower castes.”
Zomato considered special green uniforms for its ‘Pure Veg Fleet’ delivery riders rather than the red uniform pictured here, but has backed away from that plan, Kolkata, India, July 13, 2021 [Rupak De Chowduri/Reuters]
Zomato’s approach “not only discriminates against certain groups but also risks widening social rifts. When food choices dictate treatment, it creates conflicts and undermines social harmony,” she added.
And the intersection of deep-seated biases and food delivery isn’t new for India – or for Zomato.
In 2019, Zomato faced controversy when a customer cancelled an order due to the delivery person’s religion. Zomato’s response, highlighting that food has no religion, was widely praised on social media. Five years later, the company now find itself on the other side of the fence.
‘Rise in Brahmin restaurants’
The concept of pure and impure food in Hinduism dates back to the Dharmasutras, Vedic texts written by different authors between BCE 700 and BCE 100, TS Syam Kumar, a Sanskrit scholar and teacher and debater told Al Jazeera.
“Dharmasutras are ancient Indian texts that functioned as guides for dharma – a concept encompassing duty, righteousness and ethical conduct. They are considered the earliest source of Hindu law,” he said.
Quoting chapters from Dharmasutras, the scholar said that the scriptures declared that food that has been touched by an impure person becomes impure, but is not rendered unfit to be eaten. On the other hand, food brought by a Shudra – the lowest rung of the traditional caste hierarchy – is unfit to be eaten.
The caste system often associates traditionally disadvantaged castes with meat consumption and considers them “polluted”, justifying their social exclusion. That’s true even in Kerala, a state often seen as a progressive bastion in India.
Kerala, too, he said, “is witnessing a rise in Brahmin restaurants”.
“People prioritise to buy certain brands of ingredients with upper-caste names,” Kumar said.
Meanwhile, Shashi Bellamkonda, a marketing professor and former hotelier said Zomato’s controversial approach is the outcome of a failure of communication and of not understanding the customer.
“Instead of introducing a separate ‘Pure Veg Mode’ and ‘Pure Veg Fleet’, the company could have focused on improving its existing processes to ensure that vegetarian orders are handled with the same care and attention as non-vegetarian orders,” he said. “And communicated that to customers.”
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