Human Rights Glance
The Trump administration has been handed a double defeat by judges in immigration cases, barring the executive branch from deporting a group of Guatemalan children and from slashing protections for many Venezuelans in the US.
A federal judge on Thursday ordered the administration to refrain from deporting Guatemalan unaccompanied immigrant children with active immigration cases while a legal challenge plays out.
Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee based in Washington DC, kept in place an earlier judicial block on the policy, sharply criticizing the administration’s unproven assertion that the children’s parents wanted them deported.
The administration attempted to deport 76 Guatemalan minors being held in US custody in a surprise move in the early morning on 31 August, sparking a lawsuit and emergency hearing that temporarily halted the move.
The Department of Justice lawyer Drew Ensign initially said that the children’s parents had requested they be returned home, but the department later withdrew that claim. Reuters published a Guatemalan government report saying that most parents of the roughly 600 Guatemalan children in US custody could not be contacted and of those who could, many did not want their children forced back to the country.
Judges rule against Trump administration on deporting Guatemalan children and Venezuelans
Bernie Sanders Says Israel Is Committing Genocide In Gaza
Israel has gone well past self-defense and is now conducting a genocide in the Gaza Strip, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Wednesday in a lengthy statement laying out his agreement with a United Nations panel that found the situation met the legal definition of genocide.
Sanders is the first senator to apply the term to Israel, which has been waging war in the tiny strip of land with the aid of U.S. taxpayer dollars for nearly two years. A few other elected Democrats, such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), have been using the word for months.
House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) said last month that there was “genocide and destruction” unfolding in Gaza, but later backpedaled.
Sanders cited a number of devastating statistics: Over 65,000 people have been killed, with more bodies still lying under rubble. Of those deaths, Eighty-three percent of those deaths were civilians. Hundreds were aid workers and journalists. Seventy percent of all structures have been destroyed. Ninety percent of water and sanitation facilities have been made inoperable.
Israeli military begins its ground offensive in Gaza City as thousands of Palestinians flee
Israel launched its offensive in Gaza City on Tuesday, vowing to overwhelm a city already in ruins from nearly two years of war as thousands of Palestinians fled in vehicles strapped with mattresses and other belongings that clogged a coastal road.
The operation into the largest Palestinian city escalated a conflict that has roiled the Middle East and likely pushed any ceasefire with Hamas farther out of reach. The military would not offer a timeline for the offensive that aims to crush the militant group’s ability to fight, but Israeli media suggested it could take months.
“Gaza is burning,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declared as the operation began. Heavy bombardment pounded the city, and troops began moving in from the outskirts after weeks of airstrikes and buildup toward the renewed assault.
The offensive began the same day that independent experts commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Israel rejected the allegation, calling the report “distorted and false.”
Javier Bardem Says ‘Free Palestine’ on Emmys Red Carpet and ‘I Can’t Work With Someone That Justifies or Supports the Genocide’
“Here I am today, denouncing the genocide in Gaza,” he told Malkin on the red carpet. “I am talking about the IAGS, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, who study thoroughly genocide and has declared it is a genocide. That’s why we ask for a commercial and diplomatic blockade and also sanctions on Israel to stop the genocide. Free Palestine.”
In the week leading up to the Emmys, 3,900 industry names signed an open pledge that was organized by Film Workers for Palestine and declared the signees will not work with Israeli institutions and film companies that are “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.” The pledge states that examples of complicity include “whitewashing or justifying genocide and apartheid, and/or partnering with the government committing them.”
Palestinians displaced in Gaza return to a city under Israeli assault
Conditions in overcrowded coastal encampments for displaced Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are so desperate that some people who fled Israel's new offensive on famine-struck Gaza City in recent days are heading back toward the falling bombs, they said.
Those fleeing are mainly seeking shelter either in the area by the sea immediately west of Gaza City or in Mawasi, a sprawling tent camp along beaches and farmland in the south that Israel has designated a humanitarian zone, aid agencies said.
Many of them are arriving to find no space for shelter, few tents, inadequate water supply and restricted health care, according to over a dozen Palestinians who had made the difficult trip with their families and who, along with UNICEF and the Hamas-run Gaza government, were interviewed for this story.
"I have been in the sun for two days looking for a place and could not find any. Now I had to take my belongings and go back to Gaza City," said Mohammed al-Sherif, 35, who left the Sabra district of Gaza City along with his family and those of his two brothers on Monday after Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets on the area warning all civilians to get out.
Israel orders Gaza City residents to leave as military prepares to occupy city
The Israeli military has issued an evacuation order covering the entirety of Gaza City for the first time during the current round of fighting, ahead of a planned offensive to take over and occupy the city.
The order on Tuesday caused a scramble in the densely populated city and placed the fate of its 1 million residents in limbo, as they decided whether to be displaced once again or stay amid intensifying Israeli bombing.
Humanitarians have repeatedly warned that the consequences of an offensive on Gaza City – which is in the grips of famine – would be dire for its residents and the strip as a whole. On Tuesday, six more Palestinians died from hunger, bringing the total number of people who have starved to death in Gaza to 399.
“I say to the residents of Gaza, take this opportunity and listen to me carefully: you have been warned – get out of there!” the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said. Israel describes Gaza City as Hamas’s last stronghold.
Netanyahu warns Palestinians ‘leave now’ before ‘hurricane’ strikes as six killed in Jerusalem
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned residents of Gaza City to leave straight away, as Israel said it would ramp up air strikes on the territory hours after six people were shot dead in Jerusalem.
“I say to the residents of Gaza, I take this opportunity and listen to me carefully: you have been warned – leave now,” he said at the Air Force Command Centre in Tel Aviv, adding that Israeli forces were organising and assembling in the heart of the war-torn strip for a ground “manoeuvre”.
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz warned on social media earlier that “a powerful hurricane will strike the skies of Gaza City” after the IDF struck numerous high-rises over the past few days.
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