Displacement, death, hunger as Israel’s war on Gaza enters third month | News

Fighting has escalated in Gaza’s second-largest city of Khan Younis as Israeli air strikes rain down throughout the enclave, forcing Palestinians to flee to increasingly crammed pockets of the territory’s southern edge where there is no promised security, as the war enters its third month.

“We are talking about a carpet bombardment of entire neighbourhoods and residential blocks,” Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Rafah in southern Gaza, said on Thursday, following heavy overnight shelling there.

The Israeli army “ordered with a threatening tone to move to Rafah because it is safe”, he said, but residential homes “were destroyed”.

“[These strikes] are not concentrated in one area of Rafah … multiple locations were targeted, just sending waves of fear and concern that confirm what people have talked about and expressed before – there is literally no safe place in the Gaza Strip, including the areas Israel designated as safe.”

After more than two months of war, starting on October 7, Mahmoud said that “the mood of these more than 60 days has been death, destruction and displacement”.

“We’re talking about more than 60 days of constant movement and running for their lives from one place to another, from the extreme northern part of the Gazan city of Beit Hanoon to the extreme south by Rafah, where many people are being packed and squeezed.”

‘Alarming levels of hunger’

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said that households in northern Gaza are “experiencing alarming levels of hunger”.

At least 97 percent of households in northern Gaza have “inadequate food consumption”, with nine out of 10 people going one full day and night without food.

In the southern governorates, a third of the households have reported high levels of severe or very severe hunger, with 53 percent experiencing moderate hunger.

“Palestinians lack everything they need to survive,” Mahmoud said.

While pursuing its offensive in the south, Israeli armed forces have attacked several refugee camps, among them the Jabalia camp in the north and the al-Maghazi camp in the centre. The attack in Jabalia killed 22 relatives of Al Jazeera journalist Momin Alshrafi, including his father, mother, three siblings, and children.

According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, 60 percent of the wounded require urgent medical treatment abroad, pointing to the collapse of the health sector in Gaza.

“The occupation forces are deliberately arresting and abusing the sick and wounded, including paramedics from our crews, and we are on the cusp of a health and environmental catastrophe in the Strip,” a statement said.

When will it end?

As the death toll mounts amid the humanitarian catastrophe, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told officials in Israel’s war cabinet last week that the administration of US President Joe Biden believed the war should end in weeks – not months, according to The Wall Street Journal, 

Israeli officials, in turn, expressed an interest in a return to normalcy, especially in the interest of economic stability, but did not make any guarantees, the report said.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel could indefinitely occupy part of the Gaza Strip to create a “buffer zone”, a move that would put him on a collision course with regional allies and the United States.

Conflicting reports have also emerged on whether Israeli troops have surrounded the house of Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, in Khan Younis.

Late on Wednesday, Netanyahu said it was “just a matter of time until we get him” and that Israeli soldiers had encircled his house.

Yet, military spokesperson Daniel Hagari later said Sinwar’s home is the entire “Khan Younis area”, giving no indication that a specific location had been surrounded.

Three names top Israel’s most-wanted men, namely Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades; his second-in-command, Marwan Issa; and Sinwar.

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UN secretary-general invokes Article 99 on Gaza | Israel-Palestine conflict News

The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, urging the UN Security Council to act on the war in Gaza.

The rare move by the secretary-general comes as the Security Council is yet to adopt a resolution calling for a ceasefire between Israel, Hamas and their allies.

Considered the UN’s most powerful body, the 15-member Security Council is tasked with maintaining international peace and security.

In his letter to the council’s president, Guterres invoked this responsibility, saying he believed the situation in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, “may aggravate existing threats to the maintenance of international peace and security”.

Guterres – who has been calling for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” since October 18 – also described “appalling human suffering, physical destruction and collective trauma across Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories”.

In response to Guterres’s letter, Security Council member the United Arab Emirates posted on X to say it had submitted a new draft resolution to the council, and “called for a humanitarian ceasefire resolution to be adopted urgently”.

If the council does choose to act on Guterres’s advice and adopt a ceasefire resolution, it does have additional powers at its disposal to ensure the resolution is implemented, including the power to impose sanctions or authorise the deployment of an international force.

But the council’s five permanent members – China, Russia, the US, the UK and France – hold veto power.

The US used that veto on October 18 against a resolution that would have condemned Hamas’s attack on Israel while calling for a pause in the fighting to allow humanitarian assistance into Gaza. Twelve other council members voted in favour, while Russia and the UK abstained.

Catastrophe looms

Guterres said the Security Council’s continued lack of action and the sharp deterioration of the situation in Gaza had compelled him to invoke Article 99 for the first time since he took on the top job at the UN in 2017.

He warned public order in Gaza could soon break down amid the complete collapse of the humanitarian system.

“The situation is fast deteriorating into a catastrophe with potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole and for peace and security in the region,” he wrote.

“Such an outcome must be avoided at all costs.”

But Guterres’s invocation of Article 99 was not welcomed by Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan.

In a post on X, Erdan described the letter as “more proof” of Guterres’s “moral distortion and his bias against Israel”.

“The secretary-general’s call for a ceasefire is actually a call to keep Hamas’s reign of terror in Gaza,” said Erdan, who also repeated his call for Guterres to resign.

The UN Charter only provides limited powers to the UN secretary-general, who serves as the UN’s Chief Administrative Officer and is elected by member states.

Article 99 of the UN Charter gives the secretary-general the power to “bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security”.

“The fact that this tool has not been used since 1989 does resonate diplomatically and symbolically here in New York,” Daniel Forti, a senior analyst on UN advocacy and research at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera.

But Forti added that it will not “fundamentally change the political calculation of the Security Council’s most powerful members”.



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US declares warring factions in Sudan have committed war crimes | Crimes Against Humanity News

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urges the military and rival paramilitary RSF to ‘stop this conflict now’.

The United States has determined that warring factions in Sudan have committed war crimes, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said, as Washington increases pressure on the army (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to end fighting that has caused a humanitarian crisis.

The US also found that the RSF and their allied militias committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, Blinken said in a statement on Wednesday.

“The expansion of the needless conflict between RSF and the SAF has caused grievous human suffering,” Blinken said.

He urged both sides to “stop this conflict now, comply with their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law, and hold accountable those responsible for atrocities.”

The RSF has been accused of orchestrating an ethnic massacre in West Darfur, 20 years after the region was the site of a genocidal campaign.

A Chadian cart owner transports belongings of Sudanese people who fled the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region [File: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters]

In the capital, Khartoum, residents have accused the paramilitary of rape, looting and imprisoning civilians.

Meanwhile, the army’s air and artillery attacks on residential neighbourhoods where the RSF has strongholds could be considered violations of international law, according to experts.

Residents, experts and aid groups have told Al Jazeera of growing fears that the next major battle in Sudan’s civil war could spiral into an all-out ethnic war.

While the US’s conclusion comes after a lengthy legal process and analysis, it does not carry any punitive measures. The US has imposed several rounds of sanctions since the war broke out in mid-April, however.

The war, which has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced another 6.5 million, broke out over disagreements about plans for a political transition and the integration of the RSF into the army, four years after former ruler Omar al-Bashir was deposed in an uprising.

Countless rounds of US-and-Saudi brokered peace talks have failed over the last few months.

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What do Israelis think of their gov’t handling of the captives’ crisis? | Israel-Palestine conflict

Relatives of captives have reacted with fury and demanded PM Benjamin Netanyahu step down over the crisis.

In Israel, the plight of the captives dominates the political and news agenda, with major rallies calling for their release.

Some have been freed in return for Palestinian prisoners, but 138 remain trapped in Gaza.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says bringing them home safely is a priority. But he says so while his military bombs Gaza without mercy.

Relatives have reacted with fury at a meeting with the prime minister and his war cabinet.

Some are even demanding Netanyahu step down.

What do people in Israel think?

Presenter: Neave Barker

Guests:

Udi Goren – Cousin of one of the captives detained in Gaza, who has taken part in the “Bring Them Home Now” campaigns

Gershon Baskin – Former hostage negotiator and founder of the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information, a joint public policy think tank

Akiva Eldar – Political analyst and author of, Lords of the Land: The War Over Israel’s Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007

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Israeli raid kills 22 members of Al Jazeera correspondent’s family in Gaza | Israel-Palestine conflict News

The family members of Moamen Al Sharafi, a correspondent for Al Jazeera Arabic, have been killed at Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

An Al Jazeera employee has lost 22 members of his family in an Israeli air attack on the home in which they were sheltering in the Gaza Strip.

The family members of Moamen Al Sharafi, a correspondent for Al Jazeera Arabic, were killed early on Wednesday morning at Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

Al Sharafi’s parents Mahmoud and Amina, his siblings and their spouses, as well as nephews and nieces were among those killed.

Al Sharafi told Al Jazeera an explosive barrel hit the home, causing a deep crater in the ground.

“None of the civil defence crews were able to reach their bodies,” he said.

“We are prevented from saying goodbye to our loved ones and are deprived of giving them a proper burial.”

A video shot after the attack showed a relative of Al Sharafi wailing as he stood at the debris of the house that was bombed.

“It looks like they hit the house at around 4 or 5 in the morning. We couldn’t reach the scene until the sun was up,” said the relative, adding that several children were killed.

Al Sharafi, meanwhile, shared the contents of the last voice message his mother Amina sent to him before she was killed in the bombing.

“Assalam Aalaykum. Good morning, Momin. How are you? I hope you are well. How are your wife and children? How is your health? Take care of yourself, son,” she is heard saying in the voice note.

“May Allah bring you out of this war unharmed. Take good care of yourself. I really miss you, I pray for you every day. May God bless you.”

In a statement, the Al Jazeera Media Network denounced the Israeli attack and said it “will pursue all legal steps to holding accountable all those responsible for this crime”.

“The horrific event unfolded today [Wednesday] at Jabalia Camp, where Moamen’s family sought refuge, leading to the killing his father, mother, three siblings and his children,” said the network.

“Al Jazeera calls on the international community and press freedom organisations to work to put an end to these massacres immediately and ensure prompt justice for the families of the martyrs and the innocent victims,” it added.

On October 25, an Israeli raid killed several family members of Wael Dahdouh, another Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent in Gaza.

Mohamed Abu Al-Qumsan, a broadcast engineer with Al Jazeera’s bureau in Gaza, also lost 19 family members, including his father and two sisters, in Israeli air raids on the Jabalia refugee camp on October 31.

At least 16,248 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7. In Israel, the official death toll stands at about 1,200.

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Putin makes rare trip to Middle East to meet with UAE and Saudi leaders | Vladimir Putin News

The Russian leader has been bolstering his partnerships with Gulf nations as Moscow faces growing isolation by the West.

Escorted by four fighter jets, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a rare one-day lightning tour to the Middle East during which he visited the United Arab Emirates before departing for Saudi Arabia.

Putin landed on Wednesday in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE, which is hosting the United Nations COP28 climate talks.

He was escorted to the presidential palace, where he was greeted with a 21-gun salute and a flyby of UAE military jets trailing smoke in the colours of the Russian flag.

The Gulf nation’s President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan called Putin his “dear friend”.

“I am happy to meet you again,” Sheikh Mohammed said. He later issued a statement saying they discussed “the importance of strengthening dialogue and cooperation to ensure stability and progress”.

The Russian leader echoed those sentiments.

“Our relations, largely due to your position, have reached an unprecedentedly high level,” Putin told Sheikh Mohammed. “The UAE is Russia’s main trading partner in the Arab world.”

The meeting was part of Russia’s quest to stake out a more influential role in the Middle East, with oil cooperation and the Israel-Hamas war on the agenda.

The two leaders discussed, among other things, bilateral cooperation in the energy industry and advanced technologies, according to Russia’s state-owned TASS news agency.

Putin then jetted off to Riyadh, where he will meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, TASS reported – their first face-to-face meeting since October 2019.

Putin’s meeting with the prince, known as MBS, came after oil prices fell, despite a pledge by OPEC+, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as well as allies led by Russia, to further reduce output.

However, it was not immediately clear what Putin, who has rarely left Russia since the start of the Ukraine war, intended to raise specifically about oil or geopolitics with the crown prince of the world’s largest crude exporter.

On Thursday, Putin will host the Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Moscow. Following that, the UAE will welcome Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday and Saturday.

Putin’s rare trip to the region is his first since July 2022, when he met Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran.

The Russian leader has made few international trips after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for him in March, accusing him of deporting Ukrainian children.

Neither the UAE nor Saudi Arabia have signed the ICC’s founding treaty, and are not obligated to arrest him if he enters their territories.

On Israel’s two-month bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip, Putin has decried the war as a failure of the United States diplomacy. He has suggested Moscow could instead play the role of a mediator due to its friendly ties with both Israel and the Palestinians.

Putin’s Middle East trip is also a part of his efforts to demonstrate that Western attempts to isolate Moscow through sanctions for its war on Ukraine have failed.

“He seems to be pretty delighted to be on the ground in Abu Dhabi,” said James Bays, Al Jazeera’s diplomatic editor. It is unclear how this visit will be seen in Washington, as the UAE also has close ties with the US, he added.

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Sexual violence still a major threat as Sudan’s conflict grinds on | Sexual Assault

Cairo, Egypt – While sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) has increased notably in Sudan during the fighting that has torn the country apart since April, it has been an epidemic there long before April 15, according to Sara Musa, an activist with the Darfur Women’s Forum.

Musa and several other activists and humanitarian workers involved in Sudan were meeting in Cairo for the Sudan Humanitarian Conference at the end of November. They were there to discuss their experience working on the ground during the conflict and deliver their message to international aid organisations, some of whom were also attending.

A significant portion of the meetings discussed SGBV and the serious obstacles to tackling it, obstacles that make even accurately recording the number of attacks difficult. As Saja Nourin, head of programme for the Sudanese Organisation for Research and Development (SORD), told Al Jazeera, the Combatting Violence Against Women Unit has said that the cases they recorded are likely less than 3 percent of actual figures.

SGBV is tragically something that recurs during violent conflict, but the total lack of civilian protection in Sudan means that the rate of SGBV is almost unfathomable.

Women and girls are being kept by their abusers for days following the assault so that they cannot access medical care and are forced to carry pregnancies, Shaza N Ahmed, executive director of Nada Elazhar Organisation for Disaster Prevention and Sustainable Development, told Al Jazeera.

Non-Arab communities, such as the Masalit, in West Darfur are particularly vulnerable to SGBV, Ahmed said, with women girls being kept in sexual slavery, sold in markets, and kidnapped into forced prostitution. She added that fighters from various mainly Arab militias or the feared paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are raping women to intentionally impregnate them.

“Women and girls in Darfur are being told: ‘After [we] rape [you], you will carry our babies […] to change the non-Arab portion within the Sudanese blood,’” Ahmed said.

In a country where abortion is illegal, the options for survivors are extremely limited and, in some cases, the social stigma has driven them to depression or worse, Ahmed said, adding that the stigma is worse when a child is born of rape.

Not a new problem

Musa of the Darfur Women’s Forum told Al Jazeera that before the war, SGBV was already a big problem in Darfur, especially in rural areas where RSF, Sudanese army fighters or other security forces attacked women with impunity.

The RSF has said it has zero tolerance for SGBV but cases of SGBV are still reported. While this has been taken by some observers to indicate a lack of cohesion in the RSF ranks, others say the militia has been successful in fighting but that there seems to be less control once the guns quiet.

In the past, there used to be community-based mechanisms and referral pathways to deal with SGBV but now, victims are left to fend for themselves, carrying unwanted pregnancies, trauma and severe complications.

“There is no access to sexual violence service provision because there are either no service provisions [to begin with] or because of the social stigma,” said one Sudanese woman’s activist, who did not disclose her name for fear of reprisal.

“All of the facilities like the hospitals, the police stations where you [could] report [violations] all stopped because of the conflict and the fighting,” Musa said.

On top of that, Musa told Al Jazeera, first responders and service providers have reason to fear for their own safety as the RSF “arrests [civilians] and gives them two options: either you join us, or you will get tortured for the rest of your life until you die”, driving most to flee for their lives.

She stressed that more support is urgently needed to prevent further violations and to help victims during the conflict. Musa and other delegates also called for comprehensive sexual reproductive health services that include family planning protocols, rape protocols, HIV medicines and safe abortions where necessary.

The widespread scale of SGBV is part of a wider issue plaguing Sudan – the lack of protection for civilians, conference delegates said. They called for more support from the international community, protection of civilians, and accountability for perpetrators of SGBV and other crimes.

Among the civilians most in need of protection are the displaced people who walk for days to escape violent fighting, hoping to find a camp to take shelter. Some manage to leave Sudan entirely, most finding refuge in Chad while some head to South Sudan or Ethiopia to the east.

Pregnant women on those routes have had miscarriages or suffered trauma, malnutrition and a lack of medical care. Children are also exceptionally vulnerable, with three to four children dying every week on the escape route from Nyala to East Darfur, Musa told Al Jazeera.

Whether outside Sudan or displaced within its borders, the civilians trying to survive amid this violence are still in danger of more SGBV unless protections are put in place.

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The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism has no place on Australian campuses | Israel-Palestine conflict

In universities across the world, the definition of anti-Semitism put forward by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) has been used to silence critical commentary on Israel’s human rights violations and war crimes. In Australia, the definition has been having a chilling effect on campuses across the country.

Amid Israel’s relentless bombing of Gaza, which has killed nearly 16,000 people, including more than 6,000 children, students and staff who have organised in solidarity with the Palestinian people have faced pressure and intimidation.

At the University of Melbourne, the highest-ranked institution of higher education in Oceania, the university’s administration has openly embraced the official Israeli narrative and refused to condemn what legal experts have called a textbook case of genocide. 

While students and staff have tried to resist attempts at censorship and silencing, what is happening at the university is a good illustration of how the IHRA definition hurts academic freedom on campus and helps propagate colonial violence.

The problem with the IHRA definition

In November 2022, the Parliamentary Friends of IHRA group was created, consisting of members of the Australian parliament. One of its first tasks was to write to all Australian, universities, urging them to adopt the IHRA definition.

Following this announcement, the peak body for Palestinians in Australia, the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, asked to be included in university deliberations on the subject but its call was unheeded.

Since then, five Australian universities have adopted the IHRA definition, while seven, including high-profile Australian National University and the University of Adelaide, have publicly rejected the call.

The University of Melbourne was the first to publicly announce the adoption of the IHRA definition in January 2023. This was framed as the first step in its new antiracism initiative, with consultations to follow among Muslim staff and students in respect of a statement on Islamophobia.

This approach highlighted the anti-Palestinianism at the heart of the university’s adoption of the IHRA definition as it implied that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is sectarian in nature.

Both Palestinian and Jewish academics have argued that the adoption of the IHRA definition undermines the fight against racism and have pointed to the context in which it was carried out – to impede campus activism challenging Israeli apartheid.

As a group of university scholars in Australia have written: “[The] IHRA definition is not only vague but also not grounded in contemporary anti-racism scholarship or practice. It treats antisemitism as if it occurs in isolation from other forms of racism and disconnects the struggle against antisemitism from the struggle against other forms of racism.”

Particularly in Australia, a settler colony, fighting racism must begin with – and be grounded in – solidarity with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Kenneth Stern, author of the definition, has explained that it was never intended to be used for this purpose of limiting what can be said at universities. Using it in this way, he wrote, is deeply harmful for all.

The IHRA is a problem not just in Australia, but across the Global North. In response to a report compiled for the #NoIHRA project, prepared by Independent Jewish Voices, Amos Goldberg, Professor of Holocaust History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem noted “how powerful, cynical and vicious the weaponization of the fight against antisemitism for silencing critique of Israel and Zionism has become”.

Censorship on campus

Even before the IHRA definition was adopted by the University of Melbourne, there were already attempts at intimidation and silencing of those who speak out against Zionism on campus.

In May 2022, the People of Colour department at the University of Melbourne’s Student Union (UMSU) passed a motion, rigorously supported by evidence gathered by international human rights organisations, that criticised political Zionism and called for participation in the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. Threats of a costly lawsuit from a Liberal Party member intimidated UMSU into rescinding their motion.

This tactic of lawfare has had a chilling effect on campuses, restricting political freedom. A Palestinian master’s student described to us the impact of such actions on his student experience: “I’ve been made to feel that my life and that of my people is less worthy and less valuable than that of Israeli and Zionist students on campus.”

The adoption of the IHRA definition has only further encouraged the trend of curbing the freedom of expression on campus.

For Palestinian and Muslim students and staff whose criticism of Zionism is silenced by accusations of anti-Semitism, not only is their expertise challenged but their experiences of racism are often dismissed. As one academic described to us:

“I have lived experiences of racism and Islamophobia. I know first-hand how much these actions hurt. So, I don’t take it lightly to be accused of hate or racism…. It is unfair and traumatic that those of us who have been subjects of racism are now being silenced through accusations of racism.”

Both Palestinian and Jewish students and staff are harmed by the IHRA definition’s mischaracterisation of their lived experiences. As a Jewish academic noted to us: “In the past I’ve had frivolous complaints from Zionist students about my lectures, and given what we know about complaints under IHRA overseas (that they are plentiful but “unreasonable”) there is a concern about the effects for all, most particularly Palestinians, with rising complaints. This is not the way to address anti-Semitism.”

Other academics feel a similar pressure in the classroom. One in the School of Social and Political Sciences shared that “it’s always challenging teaching in the area of political violence and it’s not always comfortable for students to critically reflect on governments or nations they might identify with, but now I am worried about having to tailor my teaching so it’s less critical to avoid being targeted and smeared with charges of anti-Semitism”.

The risks to students include the future of their education. A law student involved in a recent Gaza fundraiser that was targeted by Zionists on campus shared concerns about possible disciplinary action: “We were all apprehensive about the potential consequences organising the fundraiser would have on our enrolment at the university.”

Speaking against Israel’s justifications for the ongoing massacre of Palestinians is now cited by precariously employed academics at the University of Melbourne as yet another reason for work-related stress and anxiety.

The pushback against the IHRA definition

While students and staff at the University of Melbourne and elsewhere have been facing the added pressure of the IHRA definition, they have not stayed silent on the brutal Israeli war on Gaza.

On October 25, Vice-Chancellor Duncan Maskell issued a statement “concerning the Israel-Gaza war” in which he presented Israel as the injured party defending itself against an “act of terrorism committed by Hamas”. He expressed no criticism of Israel’s actions, which have been defined as amounting to genocide by legal experts.

The statement caused outrage across campus. An open letter was drafted in response and signed by more than 2,500 staff, students and alumni.

“We express our grave concern about how this misrepresentation of Israel’s genocidal attack against the people of Palestine will contribute to further loss of life in Gaza and harm to Palestinian students, staff and alumni of the University,” it stated.

The open letter also invited signatories to include a statement in their university email signature that calls on the university to rescind its adoption of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.

The public list of names in the open letter challenges the censorship instilled by the IHRA definition and aims to defend academic freedom on campus. Beyond the letter, other groups on campus also spoke up.

The criminology discipline at the University of Melbourne, for example, unified in their stance against the vice-chancellor’s statement, collectively issued a response, tweeting:

“We are particularly concerned by the conflation of criticism of Israel’s policies and actions with antisemitism, and the policing of solidarity with Palestine. As Criminology activists and scholars, we stand united against the criminalisation and silencing of the right to speak truth to power.”

It is telling that the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), which has increasingly been representative of low-income casual workers, joined over 100 trade unions in Australia that came out to unequivocally condemn Israel’s bloodiest assault on Gaza.

As Palestinian trade unions call on workers internationally to escalate economic pressure by leveraging their labour power, there is an urgency for higher education workers to also go beyond verbal condemnation.

As Israel’s indiscriminate killing of Palestinians in Gaza, as well as the West Bank, continues, the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism is emerging as a clear obstacle to critical scholarship and action in resisting and denouncing such atrocities. The use of this definition has no place on Australian campuses.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.



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Iran launches animals into space as it revives bid for human missions | Space News

Iran’s ramping up of space launches in recent years has helped to spur additional tension with the West.

Tehran, Iran – Iran has sent a capsule carrying animals into space as it boosts its Western-contested space programme in preparation for human missions.

State media on Wednesday released a clip of the launch of an Iranian-made rocket carrying the capsule, which they said was successfully sent 130km (80 miles) into orbit.

The Salman rocket carried an “all indigenous” capsule weighing 500kg (1,100 pounds), which is reportedly the heaviest biological capsule ever successfully carried in the history of the Iranian space programme.

Neither state media nor Telecommunications Minister Isa Zarepour, who confirmed the news, said what kind of animals were in the capsule.

The capsule was ordered by the Iranian Space Agency and developed by the aerospace division of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology. The rocket was built by the aerospace wing of the Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics.

Hossein Dalirian, spokesperson for the space agency, put a video on X. “Launch of the bio capsule from a new angle,” he wrote.

Iran started work on sending animals into space in the mid-2000s and had its first successful launch in 2010. It reported in 2013 that it had sent two monkeys into space and brought them back.

Dalirian claimed on Wednesday that the administration of President Ebrahim Raisi has “effectively revived” work on Iran’s longer-term goal of sending humans into space.

Critics of former centrist President Hassan Rouhani maintain that his administration all but halted work on the Iranian space programme – which includes the development of long-range ballistic missiles – in favour of engagement with the West that ultimately failed.

But as Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal remains in limbo after a 2018 unilateral United States withdrawal which included imposing hefty sanctions on Iran, Tehran has made several high-profile space launches, including military launches.

The latest came in September, when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it successfully put a third imaging satellite into an orbit 450km (280 miles) away. Several other satellite launches are expected in the coming months, per Iranian officials.

The US and its allies continue to condemn missile and space launches by Iran, especially those including long-range ballistic missiles, which could potentially be used to carry nuclear warheads.

Tehran has maintained that its nuclear programme is peaceful.

In August 2022, Russia helped Iran launch an imaging satellite from a space base in Kazakhstan, which was also received with concern from the West.

Similarly, Western allies are engaged in a standoff over rival space launches by Washington-backed South Korea and North Korea.

Following condemnation of its launch of a military satellite on November 21, Pyongyang this week accused the US of double standards after South Korea launched its first domestically built spy satellite into space from an aerospace base in California.



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Israel army in most intense combat in Gaza war, no safe place to evacuate | Israel-Palestine conflict News

The Israeli army has widened its attacks in southern and central Gaza, with some of the heaviest fighting in the war seeing homes sheltering displaced Palestinians bombed, refugee camps hit and no safe place left to evacuate thousands of people already on the move for weeks.

From early Wednesday morning, “under heavy aerial bombardment, Israeli tanks started pushing deeper and deeper to the centre of Khan Younis city, coming from the eastern side,” reported Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Rafah, in southern Gaza, forcing hundreds of people to flee the area.

“Everybody thought the eastern areas of Khan Younis were the main target, as the leaflets that were dropped on the residents stated, but it seems like the entire city of Khan Younis is under heavy bombardment right now,” Mahmoud said, of the leaflets dropped by Israeli forces ordering residents to evacuate.

Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher said that Israel’s military was gearing up for days of intense battle in Khan Younis, which it views as a key Hamas stronghold where many leaders could be stationed.

However, Israel’s military must move cautiously as it believes numerous captives could also be there, said Fisher, reporting from occupied East Jerusalem.

“It’s all part of a plan to move the operation further south,” he said. “We’re likely to see [the Israeli military’s] intense operation extend four or five weeks until the middle of January.”

The next few days could bring the heaviest fighting of the two-month war, he added.

A woman mourns her child and her husband killed in an Israeli strike, in a hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, December 5, 2023 [Fatima Shbair/AP Photo]

Mahmoud said that “after this point, there are no options for Palestinians to go anywhere. The only option that might be feasible or even possible for Palestinians is crossing into Egypt, but with the current situation, it seems very, very difficult”.

“Under heavy bombardment, people were being pushed first into the central part [of Gaza], then Khan Younis, and now Rafah,” he reported, adding that “more than 1.5 million people have been squeezed into this pocket of land that’s really populated with people”.

There were also relentless assaults on Deir el-Balah in central Gaza through the night, reported Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary from the area. She said there were “non-stop explosions, non-stop artillery shelling and non-stop clashes. Multiple homes were bombed”.

“The number of wounded being brought to the hospital is massive. Doctors and paramedics have not been able to save them all,” Khoudary said, describing the intensity of the attacks and noting that “it is very dangerous for people to leave for either the north or the south. At the same time, conditions here are very harsh. There is no food in the markets. Even the little food that was once available is not any more since the centre has been split off from the south.”

At least six people were killed and 14 wounded in an Israeli air strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. An Al Jazeera team at the site of the strike reported on Wednesday that people were trapped under the rubble of a building that was hit.

As the injured are rushed to the few remaining functional hospitals in the area, relief organizations sounded the alarm that supplies were perilously low.

The international medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, warned that Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah was running out of options.

“There are 700 patients admitted in the hospital now, with new patients arriving all the time,” MSF emergency coordinator Marie-Aure Perreaut Revial said. “We are running out of essential supplies to treat them.”

At least 16,248 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7. In Israel, the official death toll stands at about 1,200.

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