prison
US refuses to say it won’t kill Assange
Wikileaks journalist remains imprisoned as US continues to pursue discredited extradition case – and refusal to give binding guarantee would result in his immediate release if UK justice system was fit for purpose
The US has refused to give a specific, binding guarantee to a UK court that it will not execute journalist and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Assange has been held for years in solitary confinement in Belmarsh prison while he fights the US government’s attempt to extradite him so it can imprison him for years beyond his lifespan, after Assange exposed war crimes in Iraq by the US military.
The case should have been laughed out of court three years ago, when the main US witness admitted he had been lying all along in his claim that Assange induced him to hack US systems. Instead, Assange has been submitted to what former UN Special Rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer described as sustained psychological torture – and still faces the likelihood of imprisonment for more than a century.
His recent appeal was adjourned to give the US time to affirm properly that it would not kill him if he was extradited, a sick joke when there has been longstanding evidence of US plans to murder him outside the US.
Incredibly, the High Court has refused to admit fresh evidence of CIA plots to kidnap or kill Julian Assange.
The judges say the rationale for kidnapping or killing Assange would be removed if he is extradited, and the evidence is thus not worth consideration.
Read that again. pic.twitter.com/PqwJIg4yAn— Declassified UK (@declassifiedUK) March 26, 2024
The judges even refused to admit fresh evidence of the US’s plans to assassinate Assange, instead offering the US another opportunity to have him in their hands if they would promise not to put him to death. The US.
But Assange’s wife Stella has revealed that the US has refused to say that it will not kill him and has offered only a boilerplate statement about the death penalty, while denying Assange the free speech protections it would offer to any US citizen:
The United States has issued a non-assurance in relation to the First Amendment, and a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty.
It makes no undertaking to withdraw the prosecution’s previous assertion that Julian has no First Amendment rights because he is not a U.S citizen. Instead, the US has limited itself to blatant weasel words claiming that Julian can “seek to raise” the First Amendment if extradited.
The diplomatic note does nothing to relieve our family’s extreme distress about his future – his grim expectation of spending the rest of his life in isolation in US prison for publishing award-winning journalism.
The Biden Administration must drop this dangerous prosecution before it is too late.
The US statement says the death penalty will be ‘neither sought nor imposed’, but this is non-binding and meaningless given its previous attempts to kill him. The refusal to guarantee there will be no death penalty in Assange’s specific case should mean under UK and European human rights laws that the extradition is immediately refused by the UK court and Assange should already be free. Even if the assurances had been given, the likelihood that the US’s treatment of Assange would lead to his death should be enough to quash the bid.
The fact that he is not yet free of the threat of extradition, let alone walking around in the freedom he should have, is a damning indictment of the state of UK justice and democracy.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Exclusive: Graham fails to testify in Ogle discrimination case – subpoena to follow
Failure to obey a tribunal summons is a prosecutable offence under Irish law
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham has failed to respond to a court request to give evidence in Brendan Ogle’s discrimination case against the union she leads – and now faces a subpoena, or legal summons, to compel her to attend, for which she could be prosecuted if she fails to comply.
Skwawkbox has covered the discrimination case extensively – Ogle is also suing Unite, Graham and her sidekick Tony Woodhouse over defamatory comments made about him by Graham and Woodhouse in an apparent attempt to discredit Ogle and his discrimination case.
Despite attempts by Unite’s hugely expensive legal team, in an apparent demonstration of their eagerness to keep Graham from having to give sworn testimony, to argue that she was not relevant to the case because she is the UK general secretary and other witnesses would do instead, Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) Adjudicator Elizabeth Spelman has responded to Graham’s failure to respond by inviting Ogle and his lawyers to apply for a binding subpoena to compel Graham to attend and give evidence under oath – which Ogle’s barrister Mary-Paula Guinness has already confirmed in an earlier hearing that she will do.
Ogle’s legal team has until 22 April to file its application and Unite’s lawyers have another week to respond and a hearing of the arguments will take place 7 May.
The Unite argument that she is not relevant falls apart under scrutiny, as she has featured heavily in others’ testimony during the case so far, including her allegedly telling Irish officials to inform Ogle that there was no place for him. Unite barrister Mark Harty has also said that Graham may not be ‘amenable’ to subpoena, as if a legal summons is a matter of whether one feels like being summoned.
Ogle is claiming that Unite discriminated against him by sidelining him on his return from cancer treatment – and that he was told that Graham ‘recognises loyalty’ from those who supported her in Unite’s 2021 general secretary election. Ogle, like many Irish figures and branches, supported Graham’s rival, Howard Beckett.
In last week’s sessions of the hearing, Irish Unite stalwart James ‘Junior’ Coss gave evidence corroborating Ogle’s account of sitting through the creation of a whiteboard chart about how the union would be organised after his removal, to the evident ire of the aggressive Harty, whose approach in the preceding session in February led to several ‘sidebars’ with Spelman and Ogle’s outraged barrister.
John Douglas, former general secretary of Irish retail union Mandate, also gave evidence in support of Ogle’s case, to a similar reaction from Harty.
Sharon Graham has previously cancelled appearances in the Republic, avoiding members’ anger and scrutiny over the union’s ‘disgraceful’ treatment of Brendan Ogle. The situation caused such outrage in Ireland that union members picketed Graham’s long-delayed visit to Dublin, Unite’s Community section condemned it as ‘disgusting’ and a whole sector branch threatened to disaffiliate. She did, however, briefly speak at Unite’s Irish policy conference this week, although she did not attend the union dinner with delegates.
Skwawkbox wrote to Unite to ask for comment on the issue:
Ms Graham failed to attend the Brendan Ogle hearing in Dublin by last Friday’s deadline, despite being asked to attend and testify. The Workplace Relations Commission has now invited Ogle and his lawyers to apply for a subpoena.
Please advise, no later than 5pm:
- Why didn’t she attend to give evidence?
- Does she and Unite intend to contest the subpoena request?
- If a subpoena is issued, non-compliance is a criminal offence under Irish law. Will she comply?
At the time of writing, almost six hours after the reply deadline, Unite had not provided any response. Failure to obey a subpoena in employment cases is a prosecutable criminal offence under Ireland’s ‘Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2018‘, with with penalties including prison sentences and large fines.
Sharon Graham’s tenure as Unite boss has also been marked by a string of other allegations – which neither she nor the union has denied – including destruction of evidence against her husband in threat, misogyny and bullying complaints brought by union employees. She is also embroiled in a defamation lawsuit brought by Irish union legend Brendan Ogle for the union’s treatment of him and comments made about him by Graham and her close ally Tony Woodhouse.
She has also been alleged by insiders to have:
- banned Unite officials and national banners from pro-Gaza protests
- banned and smeared films and books exposing the ‘Labour antisemitism’ scam
- placed an official under investigation who refused to cancel a Palestine solidarity fringe event at Labour’s 2023 annual conference
- told her chief of staff to threaten a soon-to-retire official with the loss of a pension bonus if he did not soften his support for Palestinians
Her supporters also prevented debate and votes on Gaza at a meeting of the union’s elected executive last month.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Breaking Biden says US may drop Assange case
A genuine indication of sense from US president – or more mind games?
US president Joe Biden has said that the US is ‘considering’ abandoning the country’s attempt to extradite persecuted Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, in response to a request from the Australian government. Assange has been held in Belmarsh prison for years while his legal team attempts to fight a case that should have been thrown out when the main US witness admitted he had been lying when he said that Assange arranged the hacking of US systems.
Last month, the High Court kept Assange in prison when it ruled that the US could have more time to provide assurances that it would not impose a death penalty on the Australian journalist, even though it admitted that the US was attacking his right to free speech in a way it would not do to one of its own citizens.
Before his imprisonment, Assange was effectively kept captive for years in the Ecuadorian embassy when the UK refused to stop trying to extradite him to Sweden, which Assange’s supporters feared was an indirect route to handing him to the US, despite Sweden dropping discredited rape allegations. The US has pursued Assange in vengeance for Wikileaks exposing war crimes by US military.
Last month, the US leaked hints that it might accept a ‘plea deal’ and drop the extradition in return for Assange accepting a lesser conviction – still an outright attack on journalistic freedom and the public’s right to know what their governments are doing. Biden’s latest comment may be more mind games and those who support Assange and the importance of press freedom to a functioning democracy should not let up on their pressure until the case is formally dropped and Assange is free, as he should have been all along.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Assange: justice denied again as court declines to admit new evidence of US murder plots
Wikileaks founder will remain in Belmarsh prison while judges seek further meaningless ‘assurances’ from US
The High Court has this morning again denied justice to persecuted Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Despite admitting that the US is denying Assange’s rights to free speech and is pursuing him in a way that it would not pursue one of its own citizens, judges have decided to keep Assange in Belmarsh prison while it asks for further ‘assurances’ that the US will not kill him – even though there has been longstanding evidence of US plans to murder him outside the US.
Shamefully, the court has also declined to admit fresh evidence of US plots to assassinate him, claiming that the evidence is irrelevant because the US’s incentive to murder Assange would not apply if it had him in custody, as Declassified UK has pointed out:
Incredibly, the High Court has refused to admit fresh evidence of CIA plots to kidnap or kill Julian Assange.
The judges say the rationale for kidnapping or killing Assange would be removed if he is extradited, and the evidence is thus not worth consideration.
Read that again. pic.twitter.com/PqwJIg4yAn— Declassified UK (@declassifiedUK) March 26, 2024
The extradition case should have been laughed out of court three years ago, when the main US witness admitted he had been lying all along in his claim that Assange induced him to hack US systems. Instead, Assange has been submitted to what former UN Special Rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer described as sustained psychological torture – and still faces the likelihood of imprisonment for more than a century in US retaliation for Wikileaks exposing its war crimes in Iraq and as a deterrent to other journalists who might expose its crimes in future.
Shame on the UK and its travesty of justice and democracy. Free Julian Assange. Protect real journalism.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Cartoon: Forced labor funnies
This cartoon is based on the AP story entitled "Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands" that was recently published here on DK. (It's a long piece, so if you're in a hurry, you can check out the AP’s "takeaways" article summarizing the report.) To put it briefly, prisoners are doing a lot more labor in the food supply chain than I think most of us realized. While some inmates choose to work, many are compelled to do so under threat of punishment. The 13th Amendment allows involuntary labor as punishment for a crime, so the practice -- which disproportionately affects people of color -- can look an awful lot like slavery. The Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, where inmates do farm work, is literally located on a former slave plantation.
Help keep this work sustainable by joining the Sorensen Subscription Service! Also on Patreon.
Common sense is nowadays award winning…
Well I never thought I would have to be linking to ‘Conservative home’ where my local Police and Crime Commissioner has discovered that giving ex prisoners jobs is beneficial… Who knew?? How clever is that? I despair – the scheme has apparently won awards – for what is, I suggest, the blindingly obvious fact that... Read more
Prison Escape Foiled After Guards Asked To Sign Farewell Card
A planned breakout from Long Bay jail has been thwarted after the farewell card for the culprit was accidentally circulated to the guards for signing.
“Like any workplace, when someone is about to leave we like to send a card around for everyone to write a funny little message on it wishing them well at their new location,” admitted lifer Frank “The Axe” Haffey. “Unfortunately some dill wasn’t sure who to give the card to next and they left it on the table in the guard’s break room. Next thing you know the screws have busted into my cell and have found my tunnel.”
“Frank’s been a pretty popular guy here so when we found out he was leaving we had a whip around for a present and bought him a giant oversized card so we could wish him all the best,” said Haffey’s cellmate Danny “Kneecapper” Walsh. “We got him a gold plated shiv with his name engraved on it and had enough cash left over to toss in a $50 Myers voucher and a box of snout.”
Several of the guards signed the card before the head warden checked the records and discovered that Haffey wasn’t due for parole until the year 2035. While most of the guards were unsure who Haffey was and had simply written “all the best”, one had written a clever limerick and another had drawn a cartoon of the convicted murderer relaxing on a beach in Mexico with a beer in his hand.
“We knew something was amiss when we smelt a cake being baked in the prison laundry,” admitted the prison governor Leonard Godber. “Then when all the inmates gathered together during the afternoon tea break in the number plate painting factory for an impromptu farewell party I ordered a search of all the cells.”
Peter Green
http://www.twitter.com/Greeny_Peter
You can follow The (un)Australian on twitter @TheUnOz or like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/theunoz.
We’re also on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theunoz
The (un)Australian Live At The Newsagency Recorded live, to purchase click here:
Palestine Action activist remanded to prison after Stock Exchange arrests
Anti-war activist Sean Middleborough
Palestine Action activist Sean Middleborough was remanded to prison yesterday following his arrest on Sunday morning over an alleged plan to disrupt business at the London Stock Exchange (LSE), charged with ‘conspiracy to commit public nuisance’ under the draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, after appearing at Wirral Magistrates Court. Five other activists were released from police custody without charges pending further investigation.
On his way into the custody van, Middlebrough was heard to shout “Free Palestine”. Lawyers will be submitting an application for immediate granting of bail.
Middleborough and five other activists are accused of having planned to blockade the LSE, which through its trading in bonds and shares plays a significant role in facilitating the occupation of Palestine. The LSE has raised over over £4.73 billion in bond sales for the apartheid state of Israel in the past six years. The exchange describes itself as “a key partner to Israeli businesses, by enabling them to raise capital internationally” and trades shares in weapons manufacturers arming Israel’s regime.
A meeting on 8 February 2022 between UK government and Israeli investors, which included representatives from Israeli weapons companies Elbit Systems and Rafael, noted that “The London Stock Exchange has a strong and important relationship with Israel”. This includes the LSE holding capital market conferences in Israel and hosting Israeli business on the exchange with a combined market capital of $14.7 billion.
The arrests came after a Daily Express ‘journalist’ spied on the group in order to report on activities and hand information on alleged plans to the police. Most of the UK press and broadcast media have ignored Israel’s crimes and worked to manufacture consent for its ongoing genocide of Palestinians, which so far has killed almost 32,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the latest Euro-Med Monitor report. If failing to report even the basic facts of Israel’s crimes – including against its own people on 7 October – wasn’t bad enough, ‘reporters’ have now gone as far as acting on behalf of the state to criminalise direct action movement opposing Israel’s war crimes.
The UK state has been taking ever more draconian measures to try to punish and deter activists who stand on the side of humanity and against genocide. Numerous activists seeking an end to bloodshed have found themselves detained by the British state and often charged, with varying levels of state success. Palestine Action has stated repeatedly that it will not be diverted from the struggle for Palestinian liberation and the ending of all UK arms production and shipments to apartheid Israel.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Ceasefire now: the speech and video you need to read and watch
Jersey peace activist Natalie Strecker’s has turned her powerful speech at last weekend’s pro-Gaza rally into an article that exposes many of the horrors of apartheid Israel and its genocide – accompanied by an original animated video by Italian artist Luca Soci. It is important reading and viewing:
Ceasefire now – a speech by Natalie Strecker (reposted with permission)
7th November, Royal Square Jersey
Thank you for coming here today as people of conscience on our island. We are joining our voices with millions around the world for the sake of humanity at this incredibly dark time in our history.
A time when the rule book appears to have been thrown out the window, when a civilian population, over HALF of which is made up of children, is being pulverised! We have all seen the footage, the evidence: hospitals, convoys of ambulances, schools, universities, refugee camps, beach camps, churches, mosques, bakeries, water tanks, carpet bombed, journalists deliberately targeted, fishing boats burned, and the majority of the Western world and its allies have refused to call for a ceasefire, including our local government here in Jersey. Worse than that, the US, who already funds Israel to the sum of $3.8billion a year, has just agreed another $14.3 billion in military aid…let that sink in! They have no money for healthcare, for the homeless, for the poor, but they always have money for the war machine that feeds on the lives of ordinary people, people just like us! Additionally, reports are suggesting not only that, but that the US, the UK, and others are supplying intelligence and other military support to Israel as it commits its war crimes, making our national government actively complicit!
As we continue down this road, we need to fully appreciate that the international community, including our local government, has failed NOT just the Palestinian people, who after already suffering 8 decades of brutality, ethnic cleansing, occupation and apartheid, are now subject to what has been described, by legal expert and former UN official, Craig Mokhiber, as “a text-book case of genocide”.
Israel Frey, an Israeli journalist who went into hiding after his house was attacked by a mob over expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza last week, recorded a video message that was shared by his friends and colleagues on Thursday. pic.twitter.com/VXhRNEOokM
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) October 19, 2023
The international community has failed Israelis, whose society is being torn apart. Israelis who are being arrested, losing their jobs, receiving death threats and being beaten by violent mobs, because of showing empathy and compassion to the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank, where ethnic cleansing has increased, Israelis who understand and have publicly stated the truth, that this did NOT start on the 7th October, contrary to the narrative the media and our ruling classes have been spinning, and let us not forget that we can be sure now that most of their hostages will likely have suffered the same fate as Palestinian civilians in this bombardment.
Israeli police raided the anti-Zionist Jewish neighborhood in occupied Jerusalem to take down Palestinian flags.
When anti-Zionist Jews resisted, they brutally beat them; knocking them down on the road, hitting, and punching them #Bild #Spiegel #USA #NTV #Israel pic.twitter.com/IlDheJA3m1— Hakan D (@Xxmanxx40D) November 1, 2023
The International Community has also failed us as a global society, the human family, because whether we like it or not, our lives are inextricably linked for good or bad… the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the destruction of the environment around the globe and the violent weather it brings, which we witnessed just last week in our own island demonstrates the truth of this. We are all connected and what we do to others, we do to ourselves, we all need to wake up to this fact!
We need to understand the long reaching implications this has if we do not turn this around, I have argued many, many times of what will happen if we allow international law to become irrelevant, because it allows the establishment of new norms, it may start there in the Middle East, but let us be under no illusions, it will not end there, and it endangers us all!
So, when our Chief Minister issues a letter stated to be on behalf of us islanders, asking not for a ceasefire, but “humanitarian pauses”, let’s be clear what it is that she is asking for… it is punctuated genocide, and we say NOT IN OUR NAME! Israel as the occupying power cannot argue defence, that is a matter of legal fact under International Law, they can hold individuals to account for crimes and they should, but there can be no moral argument for the attempt to erase or forcibly transfer the indigenous population, crimes we had hoped we had left in the 20th Century!
This is a stain on our collective conscience, and we must do everything within our power to stop it!
After the israeli massacre of the hospital in Gaza, this is all this man has left of his son — two plastic bags: rise up world & end this evil genocide pic.twitter.com/beJCOwl6Vd
— Sarah Wilkinson (@swilkinsonbc) October 17, 2023
I know how helpless and desperate many of you will be feeling, because I feel it! How your soul and body aches, some of you no doubt are holding your precious children closer each night, grateful that it is not your babies being wrapped in blankets or collected in plastic bags. So, let’s work every moment of every day to say that this stops here, that it must stop right now, not a moment later! That we will not allow the world to continue down this path, which none of us will ultimately benefit from, it debases us as a human collective. It is going to mean that we need to be brave, to recognise that some people because they are ignorant, because they are fearful, or because they hold on to ideologies that they think will keep them safe, may make false claims, but we need to stand firm, to be courageous to raise and unite our voices, otherwise how will we ever be able to look at children again knowing the world that we allowed to be created? We owe them so much more than this.
“We want to live as other children live.”
Palestinian children in Gaza held a press conference outside al-Shifa Hospital to plead with the world to end Israel’s bombardment. Children make up nearly half of the victims killed in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/ex8Zpka9m7— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) November 8, 2023
Never underestimate the power we have as individuals, the impact of our accumulative actions can and will bring change! Take a moment right now to look at each other, look around yourselves, look at who is standing with you today this is what hope looks like! We may only be a small gathering, but each one of us is mighty, we are holding the light in our island and by doing so, we join millions of fellow light bearers around the world. and we will keep shining our light until the darkness is overcome.
So, I will finish with the words of the legend that was Nelson Mandela: “it always seems impossible until its done” So friends, my brother and sisters, let us get on with it!
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Israel accuses United Nations workers of being Hamas members to justify killings
Arrogance and deception overflow as oppressors pose as the oppressed
Israel’s representative to the United Nations has accused UN Relief Agency (UNWRA) workers of being Hamas member, exposing the towering arrogance of Israel yet again.
In an unhinged rant at the UN, as the appalled World Health Organisation head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus listened stony-faced to the smearing of murdered health and school workers, Gilad Erdan told the UN that ‘many’ UNWRA workers – Israel has killed over one hundred in just a month, with many more missing and presumed dead – are members of the organisation and then went on to insist that ‘UN facts’, ‘Hamas facts’, ‘journalist facts’, anyone’s facts but Israel’s ‘facts’, are lies and deception:
Clip spotted by Saul Staniforth
Israel, in fact, has repeatedly attempted to deceive the public about its bombings of hospitals, including apparently faking audio and reversing video clips to make missiles appear to be coming from Gaza instead of Israel – and has refused to allow journalists to monitor its activities in Gaza unless they surrender all their footage for approval first.
And Erdan’s claim that Palestinian journalists knew about Hamas’s attack on 7 October and accompanied Hamas operatives on their raid into Israel is a farce. The Egyptian and other regional governments have said that they warned Israel in advance about the attack, yet Israel did nothing and allowed Gazan fighters to break through its notorious border wall, despite its motion sensors and guard towers.
Erdan and his delegation have taken to wearing yellow stars to the UN to portray themselves as victims – a gross insult to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust – instead of the occupying oppressors and perpetrators of war crimes, ethnic cleansing and apartheid.
UNWRA’s workers in Gaza that have been killed by Israel have been medics, teachers, engineers and others providing desperately needed humanitarian aid in schools and hospitals. Israel has repeatedly bombed those and other schools and hospitals despite knowing they were packed with civilians seeking shelter as well as the sick and wounded. Around forty journalists have also been killed, while others have seen their whole family blown apart.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.