Genocide Continues, Medford Divests

Israel’s security cabinet has approved plans to take over Gaza City, which would significantly expand Israeli military operations in the Palestinian enclave. Under the plan, Israel will force all Palestinian civilians from Gaza City into displacement camps further south.

This comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News that he intends to take over all of Gaza. Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid blasted the plan, calling it a “disaster.” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the decision “wrong,” adding, “It will only lead to more bloodshed.” Germany said that it would suspend some arms exports to Israel until further notice. Meanwhile, U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk said that Israel’s complete takeover of Gaza should be “immediately halted.” Palestinians in Gaza reacted to Netanyahu’s takeover plans.

Mahmoud al-Qurashli: “Netanyahu’s decision to occupy Gaza — it’s like there’s nothing left to occupy in the first place. We’re already dying, a hundred thousand deaths every day. Around 100 to 150 people die daily, from starvation, on top of everything else we’re going through. Practically all of Gaza has been squeezed into the western part of Gaza City, and that’s all that’s left, just that, west Gaza City. At this point, for the people, there’s no difference anymore whether he occupies it or not.”

Meanwhile, the Israeli TV station Channel 13 is reporting that Netanyahu deliberately imposed starvation on Gaza, restricting aid to the besieged enclave, as part of a strategy to force Hamas to surrender. Internal government transcripts from March show that Netanyahu repeatedly ignored calls from senior ministers to move to the second phase of the ceasefire agreement to release the Israeli hostages.

Meanwhile, Israelis took to the streets in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem Thursday to protest Netanyahu’s plans to occupy all of Gaza.

Ami Dror: “We are here demanding the end of the war, the immediate return of the hostages, end of the atrocities in Gaza, atrocities about the children in Gaza and atrocities against our own soldiers and against our own hostages. This war is a political war. The only person that benefits from this war is Benjamin Netanyahu, that’s trying to avoid jail.”

Al Jazeera reports at least two Palestinians were killed today as they sought aid at a distribution site run by the shadowy U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The latest killings of aid seekers at GHF sites came as hungry and displaced Palestinians scrambled for extremely limited supplies of food aid dropped into Gaza by air. This is Abu Mohammed al-Omar, who rushed to grab food from a pallet of aid that parachuted to the ground in northern Gaza.

Abu Mohammed al-Omar: “I got lentil and tomato paste, as you can see, for a family of six. We are dying. You can see the people. They get something, and it’s not enough — one pallet for a million people. This is what I got. It ripped open. We want to feed our children.”

The head of the World Food Programme criticized airdrops over Gaza as entirely inadequate. WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain wrote on social media, “We can’t airdrop our way out of an unfolding famine. Not in Gaza. 500,000 people are starving TODAY. The only way to get food to them, at scale, is by land.”

Meanwhile, Gaza’s Interior Ministry says falling pallets of aid have killed and maimed people on the ground, including Oday Al-Quraan, a Palestinian nurse reportedly crushed to death when a crate fell on him on Monday.

In Atlanta, Georgia, Palestinian American medical student Umaymah Mohammad has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit accusing Emory University of unlawfully suspending her over her remarks about Israel and Gaza. Mohammad’s lawsuit alleges the disciplinary proceedings that led to her suspension began after she appeared on Democracy Now! in April of last year and made remarks critical of Emory and its crackdown on protests in support of Palestinian rights.

Umaymah Mohammad: “We have repeatedly organized peacefully to put pressure on our institutions, especially at Emory, to stop harassing and doxxing students and to stop repressing speech around Palestine and to divest from the Israeli apartheid state. And every single time, Emory shuts us down. Every single time, they crack down, and they punish students. Every single time, they silence our voices.”

Meanwhile, the University of Maryland has agreed to pay $100,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by students who say they were denied their right to free speech during a crackdown on campus protests opposing Israel’s siege of Gaza.

The City Council of Medford, Massachusetts, has approved an ordinance divesting the Boston suburb from companies that contribute to human rights violations. On Thursday, Palestinian American Dina Alami joined fellow Medford residents who rallied at City Hall in support of the Values-Aligned Local Investments Ordinance.

Dina Alami: “We passed an ordinance at the Medford City Council that divests from fossil fuels, weapons manufacturers, prisons, detention centers and any company that violates human rights. So, this is very personal for me. What we know is that Medford has $12 million invested in a portfolio that includes Chevron, the world’s largest fossil fuel emitter, and Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest weapons manufacturer. Both are interconnected. Both harm human life, harm our planet. And for me as a Palestinian with family in Gaza, the weapons that we invest in are harming my family.”