#The War Crimes of the Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐖 🐗

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Doctors in Palestine's Gaza say the majority of surgeries are being performed on children, casualties of “Terrorist, Fascist, Apartheid, Illegal Occupier of the Palestine, Bastard Child of the USA and the West, War Criminal Zionist 🐖 Isra-hell's” unyielding assault on the besieged enclave. However, “Zionist 🐖 Tel Aviv” persists in targeting healthcare facilities, incapacitating them and reducing them to rubble.

Palestinian prisoners are facing the "harshest and cruellest" systematic violations by Israeli prison guards ever recorded, a Palestinian advocacy group has said.

In a report published Tuesday, the Palestinian Prisoners' Society (PPS) detailed the abuses faced by Palestinians in Israeli jails since 7 October, which have led to the death of at least 16 prisoners, though the actual number is likely higher.

At least 8,430 have been arrested from the occupied West Bank in 200 days since the war started, the report said. The figure does not include thousands of people arrested from Gaza. According to PPS, the Gaza detainees have forcibly disappeared as Israeli authorities refuse to release information about their numbers and whereabouts.

There are currently 9,500 prisoners in Israeli jails, the report said, a figure that does not include Gaza detainees. The Palestinian government media office in Gaza estimates that 5,000 Palestinians have been arrested from the Strip since the Israeli ground invasion began. Of the 9,500 prisoners, 3,660 are held in "administrative detention" for indefinite periods without charge or trial.

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"Thank You, US Universities"

Palestinians in Gaza express their gratitude to the students who are currently setting up camps on university campuses across the US to protest against the ongoing atrocities in Gaza by writing on their tents, in Rafah, Gaza on April 27.

Student-led protests demanding universities condemn Israel's war on Gaza and divest from Israeli companies have continued to spread, with new encampments erected in the face of law enforcement crackdowns from university administration and police interventions.

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Palestinian Reuters Photographer Mohammed Salem Won this Year's Prestigious World Press Photo of the Year Award with a Heart-wrenching Photo of a Palestinian Woman Cradling the Dead Body of Her Five-Year-Old Niece.

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Islamophobia: Taking A Page From The French Anti-Islam Playbook, UK Redefines ‘Extremism’

The British Government’s New Definition of Extremism is Another Attempt at Thought Policing Muslims and Should Be Resisted.

— 19 March 2024 | Imam Omar Suleiman

A Pro-Palestinian Protester holds a placard on a march through the British capital during a demonstration for the Palestinian people, in London, Britain, 21 October 2023. EPA-EFE/Andy Rain

As the genocide in Gaza continues to be streamed live to our screens, many Western governments are not only refusing to end their complicity in the slaughter, but also trying to silence and demonise the Muslim movements and organisations resisting the Israeli occupation within their countries’ borders.

In January of this year, the British government proscribed Hizb ut-Tahrir as a “terrorist” organisation, making it a criminal offence to belong to or invite support for the decades-old movement. No matter your view on the movement itself, this proscription is clearly a convenient political play.

In the post-9/11 era, Hizb ut-Tahrir has repeatedly been threatened with proscription and aggressively surveilled under the country’s inherently Islamophobic counter-radicalisation programme, Prevent. Former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and David Cameron tried to outright ban the group, in 2005 and 2010 respectively, but both times Home Office lawyers concluded that the group did not engage with or glorify any form of violence and advised that it should be allowed to continue its activities.

There is no suggestion that the group has since changed its approach to violence, or committed any crime under British law, so its official banning appears to be nothing but a French-style attempt at framing any Muslim movement, ideology or political expression that appears to challenge Western norms as violent and a threat to national security.

This week, the British government took yet another page from the French anti-Muslim playbook, and redefined “extremism” in a blatant attempt to subjugate and marginalise British Muslims who are taking a stance against the genocide of Palestinians.

In a clear attempt to curtail weekly pro-Palestine demonstrations attended by hundreds of thousands, and amid wider attempts to conflate all pro-Palestine activism with extremism, Communities Secretary Michael Gove announced that the state has expanded the official definition of extremism.

The new definition, Gove revealed, would include “the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance, that aims to negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others” or attempts to “undermine, overturn or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights”. It would also classify those who “intentionally create a permissive environment for others to achieve” these aims as extremists.

While the former definition focused on actual acts of violence, this new one is broader and much less precise. It appears to have been purposefully crafted to open the door to loaded, ideologically driven interpretations that could lead to the branding of all Muslim thought and political action not explicitly approved by the government as “extremism”. The inclusion into this definition of those supposedly creating “a permissive environment” for extremist behaviour is especially dangerous, as it could result in the arbitrary criminalisation of large segments of Muslim civil society in Britain.

For years, France has used a loose, ideologically-driven definition and understanding of secularism to marginalise, criminalise and subjugate its citizens originating from its former colonies, who are overwhelmingly Muslim.

Today, with this new, loose and ideologically-driven definition of extremism, Britain is attempting to do the same to British Muslims, who are standing up in support of Palestinians facing genocide and doing so with ever-increasing support from other Britons of conscience.

The global Muslim community, which stood with French Muslims as their government tried to crack down on their basic rights under the guise of secularism, will also be firm in its support for British Muslims as their government attempts to curtail their rights under the guise of “fighting extremism”.

In a speech last week at the House of Commons, Gove suggested that a number of mainstream Muslim organisations, such as the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), may fall foul of this new definition of extremism and as a result be banned from access to public money, ministers and civil servants.

In response, the MAB, known for the extensive role it played in anti-Iraq war protests and movement in Britain, condemned the government’s redefinition of extremism as “a cynical move to appease the hard-right, targeting mainstream British Muslim organisations” and challenged Gove to repeat the allegations without parliamentary privilege so they can sue.

Other Muslim media organisations like 5Pillars were under threat of being included in the government’s list of extremist groups, only to be eventually excluded. Dilly Hussain, the editor of 5Pillars, responded to the initial suggestion that the media platform would be on the extremist list by saying, “it’s not the job of Rishi Sunak, Michael Gove, or [the UK Prime Minister’s office] to be labelling and targeting members of the free press [with] whom they ideologically disagree with while claiming to be champions and upholders of “freedom of expression”.

Other British Muslim civil society organisations such as Friends of Al-Aqsa, which had a prominent presence in protests against the genocide in Gaza, and CAGE, which led the efforts to challenge France’s crackdown on Muslim civil liberties, are also facing the risk of being classified as “extremist” under the new definition. Even a mainstream mosque like the Lewisham Islamic Centre is under threat due to the initial inclusion of its Imam, Shakeel Beg.

The British government’s redefinition of extremism requires deep scrutiny because it amounts to a feigned reinvention of what “extremism” actually means. Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND), a well-established NGO, referred to this in its response to Gove’s slander. “Victory for resistance to Gove’s extremism, he has NOT placed MEND on an extremism list because the facts don’t allow it. Instead, he uses parliamentary privilege to slander.”

As Muslims, we must be proactive in condemning the thought policing of the British Muslim community. We must speak loudly against the British government’s efforts to silence and criminalise Muslim civil society for thought crimes, especially at a time when the same government is complicit in a genocide against Muslims in Gaza. And when we speak up, we must speak up for all groups and organisations facing such baseless and discriminatory attacks. This includes groups that may have ideas or approaches that aren’t representative of the majority of Muslims. At a time when Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian bigotry is on the rise, we cannot allow the British government to pick and choose which Muslims have a right to cultivate ideas, campaign or protest – we should stand firmly in defence of all our Muslim brothers and sisters in the UK and everywhere else. We should also encourage members of the British civil society of all ethnic and religious backgrounds to speak up in defence of Muslims in their country who are currently under a multi-pronged attack. Only if we bravely speak up, and do so together, can we prevent Britain from transforming into an Orwellian dystopia, like France already did.

— Imam Dr. Omar Suleiman is an American Muslim Scholar and Theologically Driven Activist for Human Rights. He is the Founder and President of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, and a Professor of Islamic Studies at Southern Methodist University.

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Source: SO INFORMED

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Pro-Palestine demonstrators gather during a vigil for U.S. Airman Aaron Bushnell outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, on Feb. 26, 2024. Photo: Tom Brenner for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Aaron Bushnell, Who Self-Immolated For Palestine 🇵🇸, Had Grown Deeply Disillusioned With The Military! “I have Been Complicit in The Violent Domination of The World And I Will Never Get The Blood 🩸 🩸🩸 Off My Hands.”

— By Nikita Mazurov | February 28 2024

Aaron Bushnell, the active-duty U.S. Air Force Airman who set himself on fire Sunday to protest Israel’s war on Gaza, appears to have grown disillusioned with the U.S. military and his own role as a service member, according to posts on the online forum Reddit under a handle matching one used by Bushnell.

Bushnell, 25, made international news when he professed that he would “no longer be complicit in genocide” and recorded himself shouting “Free Palestine!” as he burned to death in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington on Sunday. “I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest,” Bushnell had announced on a livestream before his self-immolation, “but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers is not extreme at all.”

The Reddit posts, by a user named acebush1 and mostly from the past four years, chronicle a young person’s experience struggling with money as the pandemic took hold. The Reddit poster turned to the military and was initially enamored with the Air Force, but quickly came to denounce it.

In the months leading up to Bushnell’s act of self-immolation, several of acebush1’s posts showed how sharply their view of the military had shifted. On the r/Airforce subreddit, a user asked veterans whether, in hindsight, they would still choose to join the military. Acebush1 answered, “Absolutely not.”

“I have been complicit in the violent domination of the world,” they said, “and I will never get the blood off my hands.”

The Intercept analysis linked the acebush1 Reddit account to Bushnell by analyzing his social media activity. In a post on Facebook the same day as his self-immolation, Bushnell had posted a link to the video streaming platform Twitch with the username LillyAnarKitty. Using a Twitch username history tool that identifies a user’s prior account names, The Intercept found that the same Twitch User ID number used by LillyAnarKitty previously employed the handle acebush1.

A Reddit user with the same username — acebush1 — posted over a thousand times since 2014. The Reddit posts mention details that align closely with Bushnell’s life, including being in the Air Force, having a friend who was a conscientious objector, and studying computer science.

As this story was being drafted, acebush1’s posts started to be removed from Reddit. The posts were archived and, though Reddit instantly deletes posts from their new interface, visiting the old-style Reddit user profile page reveals their recently deleted posts.

“A Regret I Will Carry”

The acebush1 Reddit user joined the military soon after posting about their financial struggles at the beginning of the pandemic. On March 19, 2020, acebush1 inquired about becoming an Uber Eats driver. The following month they posted asking for financial help: “HELP – Can’t get stimulus or unemployment benefits, about to run out of money.”

In May, acebush1 posted a photo with the caption “My Dad getting suited up to give me a goodbye? hug before I leave for BMT” — basic military training. According to Bushnell’s LinkedIn page, he enrolled in “Basic & Technical Training” in the Air Force in May 2020.

Several months into enrollment, acebush1 appeared excited by the Air Force, reposting a video of a military aircraft in August 2020 and giving it a heading that said: “Man, the Air Force does some cool-ass shit.”

Acebush1 also regularly posted in various video game Reddit communities, including one dedicated to the video game “Valheim.” In Bushnell’s self-immolation livestream, the liquid container he is carrying has a sticker with the slogan ‘the bees are happy,’ a meme from “Valheim.”

In November 2021, acebush1 made multiple posts asking about advice in pursuing a computer science degree. Bushnell’s LinkedIn profile, which has been memorialized “as a tribute to Aaron Bushnell’s professional legacy,” lists him as having been in the process of pursuing a bachelor’s degree in computer software engineering.

Nearly a year later, acebush1’s posts shifted from largely video game-based content to posts with titles like “Solidarity with Prisoners!” with a link to a Guardian article about an Alabama prison strike, and to reposting a meme image of anarchist philosopher Max Stirner. In 2023, acebush1 made a post with the title “Free Palestine!” and linked to a video of an activist takeover of UAV Tactical Systems, a drone company operated in part by the Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems.

“I Didn’t Realize What A Huge Mistake It Was Until I Was More Than Halfway Through.”

Shortly after the pro-Palestine post, in June 2023, acebush1 wrote, “I’m sticking it out to the end of my contract as I didn’t realize what a huge mistake it was until I was more than halfway through, and I only have a year left at this point. However it is a regret I will carry the rest of my life.”

The poster mentioned a friend who left the armed services on the basis of conscientious objection; Bushnell’s friend Levi Pierpont, according to the Washington Post, objected and left the military.

Acebush1’s posts became more stridently pro-Palestinian as Israel’s war in Gaza got underway. In one, they denounce Israel as a “settler colonialist apartheid state,” and exclaim that there are no Israeli “civilians” because the entire country is engaged in oppression. They refuse on several occasion to denounce armed Palestinian resistance, saying in the apartheid post that they “work for the air force and would also have no right to complain about violent resistance against my actions.”

In November 2023, acebush1 made another post describing “the moral necessity of getting out.”

In the last few months, acebush1 accelerated their posting across various anarchism-related Reddit communities, as well as on other various communities. “Piracy is always ethical,” acebush1 posted. “If you think that you’re making a difference with who you do and don’t choose to give your money to, you don’t understand how markets work.”

Acebush1’s last Reddit post was on February 24, expounding on how “whiteness erases culture” — a day before Bushnell’s self-immolating direct action. In an earlier post, acebush1 had written, “I’ve never been one for bullshit.”

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The night prayer at Al Omari Mosque during the month of Ramadan held a special place in the hearts of Palestinians, according to Mohammad Ibrahim, a political researcher in Gaza.

This is why Israel's levelling of the historic site was especially hard to come to terms with for the residents of the Palestinian enclave, Ibrahim said, noting that one of the goals of the occupation was to make Palestinians feel rootless in the face of widespread destruction.

Israel's aerial bombing and ground offensives have destroyed over 35% of Gaza's urban infrastructure, systematically wiping out historic neighbourhoods, cultural landmarks, medical facilities, educational institutions, as well as vital systems for sewage, water, and electricity.

For many city planners, an 'urbicide' — the deliberate annihilation of a city - has been unfolding since October 7, 2023.

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"The rate of damage being registered is unlike anything we have studied before." The Terrorist, Fascist, War Criminal, Apartheid, the Bastard Child of the United States and the West and the Illegal Regime of the Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐖 🐗 Isra-hell's Seven-month Bombardment of Gaza has caused more destruction than the controversial firebombing of the German city of Dresden near the end of the Second World War, analysts say.

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At least 5 Palestinians were injured in an Israeli air strike near Gaza European Hospital on April 15, as reported by the medical staff. The hospital stands among the mere 10 partially operational hospitals left in the besieged enclave, a striking toll of War Criminal Isra-hell's onslaught.

The Lebanese Freedom Fighters Hezbollah announced in a statement that its fighters had planted explosive devices in the Tal Ismail area, near the Lebanese border with the Illegal Regime of the Terrorist Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐗 Isra-hell.

An Isra-helli Terrorist Military official has reported that four of its soldiers have been injured in an explosion hundreds of metres inside Lebanese territory.

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The War Crimes of The God’s Fucked-up Terrorist Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐗!

Palestinian doctors have discovered a mass grave in the courtyard of the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza city. Nine bodies, believed to be of hospital patients, have been found so far. Doctors say they witnessed the killings outside the main gate of the hospital. It's one of several mass graves discovered on the grounds of al-Shifa in the last few days.

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The UK Could Be Complicit in “Terrorist, Fascist, Genocidal, Apartheid, War Criminal and The Illegal Regime of The Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐗’s, Isra-helli” War Crimes Through Its Continued Sale of Arms To The Country, Oxfam Has Warned.

"It is illegal, immoral and inconsistent for the UK to continue to sell arms to Israel, when it is clear that UK-made weapons and components are being used in serious violation of international humanitarian law - and after it imposed restrictions in previous escalations of violence when the scale of death and destruction had been lower," Aleema Shivji, Oxfam's chief impact officer, said on Friday.

"The people of Gaza are facing unprecedented levels of bloodshed, schools and hospitals are being deliberately targeted and starvation is being used as a weapon of war - what more suffering must they endure for the UK government to act?"

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"This Criminal Occupation By ‘The Terrorist, Fascist, Genocidal, Apartheid, War Criminal Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐗 Illegal Regime of Isra-hell’ Doesn’t Care About International Laws or Humanity, It Only Cares About Killing The Palestinian People."

Palestinians are recovering the bodies of those killed by Israel's two-week raid on al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, but identification is proving difficult because of the state of decomposition.

After Israeli forces withdrew from the hospital on April 1, 2024, teams from several government ministries have been deployed to al-Shifa to remove and identify bodies before burying them in cemeteries.

"We are now digging up all the martyrs that were executed by the [Israeli] army," Hussein Mahassen, ambulance director in the Gaza Strip, told Middle East Eye. "Our capacities are very limited, as we are working with just one bulldozer."

While it is unclear how many bodies have been buried in the hospital's yard, the Civil Defence said that they have recovered 409 bodies from the medical complex since the withdrawal of Israeli forces. Mahassen said his team expects to find between 200 and 300 bodies buried in the ground in al-Shifa, but cannot confirm this number.

Reports emerging from the hospital and its vicinity following the Israeli army's raid spoke of torture against detained Palestinians, with medical teams in al-Shifa currently documenting these cases.

"There are signs of torture on some of the arms and bodies we pulled out," Mahassen said. Medical and forensic teams said that their mission is particularly difficult because of the state of the remains.

Amira al-Safadi, a doctor at al-Shifa, said that some of the bodies were initially left to rot among people who were besieged in the hospital for days, before Israeli forces allowed them to buried.

Safadi herself was forced to stay in the hospital's reception with a group of people for two weeks. "Among the wounded that they brought down from the ICU to us, at the reception, around 16 died," she told MEE. "They laid dead with us for three days."

— ✍️ Mohammed al-Hajjar and Nader Durgham/Middle East Eye

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The World Food Programme says at least 300 trucks worth of aid are needed every day for the north of Gaza alone, yet Israeli disruptions and attacks on aid trucks and convoys make it impossible for agencies to distribute the much-needed aid to the Palestinians.

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It's been six months since “Terrorist, Fascist, Genocidal, War Criminal, Illegal Regime of the Zionist 🐖🐷🐗, Isra-hell,” launched its war on Gaza. Every aspect of life has changed for Palestinians on the ground, as they now face mass death and displacement, starvation, and a health system on the brink of collapse. Here's what that looks like, by the numbers.

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"Life Has Stopped. The Only Thing Ongoing Here Is Death."

On 7 October, 2023, Palestinian fighters stormed into southern side of the Illegal Regime of the Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐗, Isra-hel, in a surprise attack, resulting in the deaths of 1,191 Israelis and the seizing of 240 captives. Israel launched a brutal war on the Gaza Strip, with devastating aerial, artillery and naval attacks on the densely populated coastal enclave, followed by a months-long ground invasion.

The Israeli military's stated goal was the release of the captives, destroying Hamas and targeting its members and fighters. But over 70% of the more than 33,000 Palestinians killed have been children and women, according to Gaza health officials and international organisations.

The relentless bombardment has resulted in the destruction of around 70% of housing units and the loss of 90% of private sector jobs in the Gaza Strip over the course of six months.

From her shelter in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Zaina al-Rayyes curiously tracks the news of the upcoming Tawjihi (final high school) exams for her peers in the occupied West Bank. Before the war on Gaza, she had been gearing up for a pivotal year, setting her sights on being listed among the top students in Palestine's high school examination.

But, even if the war ends soon, Rayyes and approximately 620,000 students enrolled in schools in Gaza would not be able to return immediately. At least 351 schools have been completely or partially destroyed during the Israeli bombardment of the strip over the past six months.

The remaining schools are serving as shelters for hundreds of thousands of displaced people, whose homes have been either completely destroyed or damaged by the attacks.

Amid the perpetual sense of insecurity and the relentless sounds of bombardment for six consecutive months, Gaza residents find themselves "battling in yet another war" in their homes and shelters.

With essential supplies like electricity, water, fuel and cooking gas cut off since the first day of the war, every aspect of the residents' daily life becomes a struggle.