Author: ALJAZEERA

PodcastPodcast, The TakeUS Secretary of State Antony Blinken was alerted in December of alleged human rights abuses by Israeli soldiers. What is being done about them? Israeli military units could be sanctioned by the United States for the first time over allegations of human rights abuses. Those allegations made their way to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in December, according to a report from the US news outlet ProPublica, but they hadn’t been acted on until now. In this episode:  Episode credits: This episode was produced by Sonia Bhagat and Chloe K Li with our host, Malika Bilal. Li…

Israel’s war on Gaza entered its 200th day on Tuesday with fears mounting of an Israeli ground assault in the overcrowded south of Gaza. The Israeli army carried out intense shelling overnight of the Gaza neighbourhoods of Tuffah, Shujayea and Zeitun. Shelling and loud explosions were heard in southwest Gaza and Khan Younis in the south, while air raids struck near the Bureij refugee camp and artillery fire hit the Nuseirat refugee camp. The military said it struck several Hamas positions in south Gaza, with its warplanes hitting about 25 targets including military observation and launch posts. Israel’s military offensive…

Mass graves, crippled hospitals, thousands of civilian deaths and near-total destruction of infrastructure haunt Gaza as Israel’s war on the besieged Palestinian coastal enclave entered its 200th day on Tuesday. Israel launched its brutal military offensive on October 7 following a deadly attack by Hamas fighters. Some 1,139 people were killed and about 240 people were taken captive by the Palestinian fighters. Nearly 85 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced and more than 14,000 children have been killed in the offensive which critics have dubbed a war of vengeance. Here are some numbers that highlight the unprecedented…

UN human rights chief calls for independent and transparent inquiry after Palestinian authorities uncover hundreds of bodies at hospital.Volker Turk, the United Nations human rights chief, has said he is “horrified” by the destruction of Nasser Medical Complex and al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip and reports of mass graves found in and around the hospitals amid Israel’s war on Gaza. In a statement released on Tuesday, Turk called for independent and transparent investigations after Palestinian authorities said this week they had recovered hundreds of bodies at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis following the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the…

In a fast-expanding global battleground, enablers and opponents of Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza are facing off in an unusual landscape: courtrooms. Over the past six months, lawyers, activists, organisations and states who believe that international law and conventions that prohibit genocide actually mean something and must be implemented have submitted an unprecedented number of lawsuits and motions to national and international courts. This new frontier in the century-old battle between Palestinian Arabism and Zionism is significant because it promises a more level playing field where traditional military-political strengths and weaknesses are neutralised or even reversed. This extraordinary legal mobilisation is…

Google employees based in the United States staged protests at the tech giant’s offices in New York City, California and Seattle last week to oppose a $1.2bn contract with the Israeli government. Known as Project Nimbus, the joint contract between Google and Amazon signed in 2021 aims to provide cloud computing infrastructure, artificial intelligence (AI) and other technology services to the Israeli government and its military, which has faced condemnation for its ongoing war on Gaza. Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, overwhelmingly civilians, and destroyed vast swaths of the Palestinian coastal enclave since it launched the military offensive…

Israel looks ready to escalate its devastating war on Gaza after stationing troops and vehicles at nearby army bases and outposts just outside the enclave, according to satellite imagery obtained and assessed by Al Jazeera’s Sanad verification unit. The analysis indicates that Israel has deployed more than 800 military vehicles to two bases. At least 120 vehicles are stationed at the northern border of the Gaza Strip and 700 are in the Negev desert, to the south. The satellite imagery also reveals that Israel has established nine military outposts just outside the enclave. Three were erected in November and December…

The world spent $2.4 trillion on military forces last year, the highest amount ever recorded by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). SIPRI has been monitoring military expenditures since 1949 and found in its annual report released on Monday that in 2023 they rose to 2.3 percent of the global gross domestic product (GDP) from 2.2 percent the year before. It meant that every man, woman and child on the planet was taxed an average of $306 for military spending last year – the highest rate since the Cold War. The increased spending exactly matched the global rate of…

Legislation is expected to be used to block imports from China’s Xinjiang region.European Union lawmakers are set to vote to ban products made using forced labour under a new law that has China in its sights, risking tensions with Beijing. The law to be voted on on Tuesday does not directly mention China, but many lawmakers hope it will be used to block imports from China involving the region where the Uighur Muslim minority lives. Human rights groups say at least 1 million people, mostly members of Muslim minorities, have been detained in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region and face a…

Israel has not presented credible evidence to support its claims that UNRWA staff were members of “terrorist” groups, an independent review for the United Nations led by a former French foreign minister has said. The claims against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) led to a massive funding deficit as several donor countries announced cuts. The independent review into the relief agency’s practices was also commissioned, as well as a separate investigation into the October attack itself, by the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services. The review, headed by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna…