Israel’s war of attrition with Hamas delivers another bloody stalemate

Issued on: 21/05/2021 - 

A Palestinian policeman controls the traffic in Gaza City following a ceasefire reached after an 11-day war between the Palestinian enclave's Hamas rulers and Israel on May 21, 2021. © Khalil Hamra, AP

Text by:Benjamin DODMAN

An uneasy ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect on Friday after a deadly 11-day conflict, with both sides claiming victory and experts warning that the seeds of another bloody confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians have already been sown.

The truce brokered by Egypt brought a tentative end to the fourth war between Israel and the Islamist militant group since 2008. Like the three previous conflicts, the latest bloodshed ended with both sides landing blows but failing to secure a knockout.

Israel claimed to have inflicted “unprecedented” damage on Hamas with hundreds of bruising airstrikes, though it was once again unable to halt rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. Hamas and its smaller ally the Islamic Jihad also claimed victory, despite the horrific toll for families and businesses in the impoverished Palestinian enclave.

“Both sides exhausted each other,” Yossi Mekelberg, an associate fellow at the London-based Chatham House, told FRANCE 24. “Both tried to prove their points and strengths, but their vulnerabilities and weaknesses were also exposed.”


Publicity for Hamas, a lifeline for ‘Bibi’

More than 200 people – the vast majority Palestinians – have died in the 11-day conflict, which began on May 10 when Hamas militants in Gaza fired long-range rockets towards Jerusalem.

The barrage followed days of clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police at the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, where heavy-handed police tactics, coupled with the threatened eviction of dozens of nearby Palestinian families by Jewish settlers, had inflamed tensions.

Hamas and other militant groups fired over 4,000 rockets at Israel throughout the fighting, showcasing a vastly expanded and improved arsenal as they launched projectiles from civilian areas at Israeli cities. Dozens of rockets flew as far north as Tel Aviv, the country’s commercial capital.

“The whole world should know that our hands are on the trigger,” Hamas warned on Friday as Palestinians took to the streets in Gaza, Jerusalem and the West Bank to celebrate the ceasefire, boosting the Islamist group’s standing in areas controlled by its weakened rivals in the Palestinian Authority.




Israel, meanwhile, has carried out hundreds of airstrikes targeting what it said was Hamas’s military infrastructure, including a vast tunnel network and – in a first that sparked global alarm – a tower block housing the offices of international media Al Jazeera and the Associated Press.

"Hamas can't hide anymore,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised address, claiming that the Israeli military had destroyed the group’s extensive tunnel network, its rocket factories, weapons laboratories and storage facilities, and killed more than 200 militants, including 25 senior operatives.

According to Agnès Levallois, a senior fellow at the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research, Friday’s early-morning ceasefire “comes at the right time for both sides”.

“Hamas got what it wanted: to cast itself as the protector of Jerusalem, when it had so far been confined to the Gaza Strip,” she explained. “At the same time, Hamas knew very well that the vehemence of Israel’s riposte meant it had no choice but to accept a truce.”

On the Israeli side, an embattled Netanyahu was determined to inflict maximum damage on Hamas in a war that could help save his political career. But he too had come under intense pressure over the conflict’s horrific toll on civilians, particularly children, Levallois added.

“Netanyahu realised he had scored enough points on the ground to buttress his standing as Israel’s ‘strongman’ and thereby save his political skin – which was always one of the main motives for this operation,” she explained, referring to Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial and failed attempts to form a new government following inconclusive elections.

The Israeli prime minister “‘didn’t orchestrate the whole thing – it’s bigger than him,” added Mekelberg. “But the conflict certainly threw him a lifeline.”

‘Hamas won’t just disappear’

The 11-day war has effectively scuppered attempts by Netanyahu’s rivals to form a coalition without him, significantly boosting his chances of extending his 12-year rule. But the ceasefire also carries a cost for the prime minister, who is facing angry accusations from his hawkish, nationalist base that he halted the fighting too soon.

Gideon Saar, a former ally who now leads a small party opposed to the prime minister, called the ceasefire “embarrassing”, while Itamar Ben Gvir, the virulent head of the far-right Jewish Power party, described it as “a grave surrender to terrorism and the dictates of Hamas”.

>> Itamar Ben Gvir, the ultra-nationalist accused of stirring up violence in Jerusalem

As local daily Haaretz observed on Friday, Israeli authorities have once again been caught up by the discrepancy between the concrete military objectives of deterrence and the impossible aspirations raised by each new confrontation with Hamas.

“Once every few years, Israel initiates a new operation in the Gaza Strip or finds itself involved in one,” the newspaper read. “The disparity between the limited goals that the army wants to achieve, and the crushing victory that the majority of the public wants to see, will remain large.”

Ultimately, Netanayhu’s government “accepted the Israeli military’s advice that there was no more to achieve with air strikes and that if you aren’t going to expand, now is the time to retreat,” said FRANCE 24’s Jerusalem correspondent, Irris Makler.

As Levallois and Mekelberg point out, the latest conflict in Gaza followed an all-too familiar pattern of inconclusive wars that lead to further bloodshed down the line. Meanwhile, peace talks remain off the table.

“In recent years, Israel has carried out several operations to eliminate the military capabilities of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. Despite inflicting massive damage, each time they come back,” said Levallois. “Israel cannot make Hamas disappear, because the problem is not a military one – it’s political.”

Failure to seek a political solution will inevitably lead to another flare up in the near future, Mekelberg added, stressing the need for international brokers to get involved.

“It’s like ‘Groundhog Day’, we’ve been in this situation so many times, with exactly the same pattern,” he said. “It’s not just about Israel and Hamas; it’s the whole issue of the relation between Israel and the Palestinians that needs to be addressed, in all its aspects. If they don’t go back to the negotiating table, the war will come back again.”

Palestinians remain ‘united’ in fighting expulsions from Sheikh Jarrah



Issued on: 21/05/2021 - 

Text by:FRANCE 24

Video by: Gallagher FENWICK

This flashpoint neighbourhood of East Jerusalem is where regional escalation from Gaza to the West Bank is rooted. But as one prominent Palestinian activist living in the area tells FRANCE 24, tensions there are nothing new.

The activist says he was on his own when he began staging demonstrations in the neighbourhood in 2009. Police would enter his home and arrest him, he said, but he continued protesting.

The activist told FRANCE 24 how rewarded he felt seeing “all the world speaking about Sheikh Jarrah” today.

Those who are fighting against forced displacement by Jewish Israeli settlers say they are proud that their cause has unified many Palestinians.

“All Palestinians (are) united … We are Palestinians together and we will (stick) together to fight for our rights,” a young woman activist told FRANCE 24.

The stakes of the dispute go beyond the couple of thousand homes from which Palestinian residents could be expelled. Securing a greater Jewish presence in these parts would give Israeli authorities greater control over a strategic location just steps away from Jerusalem’s Old City.

>> Click the video player  to watch FRANCE 24 special correspondent Gallagher Fenwick’s report from Sheikh Jarrah

Life slowly resumes in ravaged Gaza Strip after ceasefire

People walk past a damaged shop in Al-Rimal commercial district in Gaza City on May 22, 2021 - Copyright AFP Laurence CHU

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/life-slowly-resumes-in-ravaged-gaza-strip-after-ceasefire/article#ixzz6vbtTmYVH

Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP)

Cafes reopened, fishermen set out to sea and shopkeepers dusted off shelves Saturday as Gazans slowly resumed their daily lives after a deadly 11-day conflict between Hamas and Israel.

Aid trickled into the Gaza Strip, the blockaded enclave controlled by the Islamist group Hamas, as the focus turned to rebuilding the devastated territory a day after a ceasefire took hold.

The Egypt-brokered truce halted Israeli air strikes on the crowded Palestinian territory and rockets fired by Palestinian armed groups at Israel since May 10.#photo1

Rescue workers searched for bodies or survivors in mounds of rubble after what Gazans referred to in the street as the latest "war" or "escalation" with the Jewish state.

In Gaza City's port, Rami Abu Amira and a dozen other fisherman prepared their nets before heading out to sea for the first time in two weeks.

"We need to eat," he said after the Gaza coastguard allowed fishing again, though adding he would stick close to the coastline to stay safe.#photo2

"We, fishermen, are scared the Israeli navy will shoot at us. It's up to everyone to decide whether to go or not."

- 'All lost' -

The latest round of bombardment killed 248 people in Gaza, including 66 children, and wounded more than 1,900 since May 10, the Hamas-run health ministry says.

The United Nations says more than half of those killed, the overwhelming majority in Israeli air strikes, were civilians.#photo3

Israel says it has killed "more than 200 terrorists", including 25 commanders.

During the same period, rockets fired by Palestinian armed groups killed 12 people in Israel including one child, a teenager, an Israeli soldier, one Indian and two Thai nationals, the police say. Some 357 people in Israel were injured.

On Friday evening in Gaza, Palestinian families had rushed to seaside cafes to breathe fresh air or smoke shisha.#photo4

In a clothes store near the ruins of a ravaged tower block in the upscale neighbourhood of Rimal in Gaza City, mannequins still wore the latest 2021 trends, but they were now caked in dust.

Bilal Mansur, 29, said all his merchandise had been ruined.

"There's dust everywhere, dust from the Israeli bombs clinging to the clothes. We won't be able to sell them," he said.

Nearby store-owner Wael Amin al-Sharafa said he had stocked up his shop with new clothes to sell during the usually busy season of Eid al-Fitr at the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

"But now it's all lost," he said. "Who will pay for all this? I have no idea."

- 'Two-state solution' -

Convoys of lorries carrying aid began passing into Gaza Friday through the Kerem Shalom crossing after it was reopened by Israel, bringing much-needed medicine, food and fuel.

The UN's Central Emergency Response Fund said it had released $18.5 million for humanitarian efforts.#photo5

The latest round of Israeli bombardment forced 91,000 people to flee their homes in Gaza, the UN humanitarian agency says.

It has hit 1,447 homes, completely destroying 205 residential blocks or homes, as well as ravaged electricity and water supply, according to the Gaza authorities.

The UN says three main desalination plants providing drinking water for more than 400,000 people have stopped working.

Both sides were fast to claim victory, as Egyptian state media said two Egyptian security delegations had arrived to monitor the deal.#photo6

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel's bombing campaign had been an "exceptional success".

Hamas' political chief Ismail Haniyeh said they had "dealt a painful and severe blow that will leave its deep marks" on Israel, and thanked Iran for "providing funds and weapons".

The international community welcomed the ceasefire.

US President Joe Biden pledged to help organise efforts to rebuild Gaza and said creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel is the "only answer" to the conflict.

"We still need a two-state solution," he said.

Peace talks have stalled since 2014 including over the key issues of the status of occupied east Jerusalem and Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

- Al-Aqsa clashes -

In a reminder of ongoing tensions despite the ceasefire, Israeli police on Friday fired stun grenades at worshippers in the highly sensitive Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem.

Israeli forces beat an AFP photographer who was covering the unrest there.

The incident was reminiscent of the tensions in Jerusalem that sparked the latest round of conflict.#photo7

Israeli security forces had cracked down on protests against the expulsion of Palestinian families from their homes to make way for Jewish settlers in the occupied east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

And they had also moved in on worshippers at Al-Aqsa, Islam's third holiest site.

Hamas on May 10 launched of rockets from Gaza towards Israel, in "solidarity" with Palestinians in Jerusalem.#photo8

The conflict sparked mob violence in Israel, and clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters in the West Bank.

Israeli forces have killed 25 Palestinians, including four under the age of 18, in the West Bank since May 10, the authorities in the territory say. Israel claims five tried to attack Israeli forces.

© 2021 AFP

Against backdrop of Gaza violence, Israel’s Jews and Arabs join forces for peace

Issued on: 18/05/2021 

Jewish and Arab protesters in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah on May 15, 2021. Neora Yaari can be seen in the centre, through the remnants of a burnt car, holding up a sign that reads "Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies". © Courtesy of Shai Kendler

Text by: Tamar SHILOH VIDON

The eruption of violence in Gaza prompted demonstrations around the world last weekend, with many condemning Israel’s air strikes while others protested the rockets fired by Hamas and in support of Israel’s right to defend itself. Across Israel, Jewish and Arab citizens have taken to the streets to call for an end to the inter-communal clashes that have erupted within the country's borders.

“Arabs and Jewish citizens of Israel, let’s live together,” read the headline of a Haaretz editorial on Tuesday. On Facebook, temporary profile frames used by Jews, Palestinians and others proclaimed, “Stop the war” or declared that “Arabs and Jews choose life” and “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies”.

After Hamas and Israel began trading rocket fire and air strikes in Gaza on May 10, riots broke out inside Israel, mainly in cities with a mixed Jewish and Arab population, such as Jaffa, Lod, Acre, Nazareth, Bat Yam – and, of course, Jerusalem – resulting in serious injuries and deaths, as well as widespread destruction of property and much tension and fear.

The Israeli government last week declared a state of emergency in several of these cities, calling up 1,000 border police in a “massive reinforcement” to help contain the unrest.

But Jewish and Arab citizens have also taken to the streets in rallies intended to strengthen the fragile fabric of intercommunal coexistence that has been holding together peacefully, if tentatively, for decades.

‘A complex message’

“We prefer to talk simply of existence, rather than ‘coexistence’,” said Dubi Moran, a Jewish Israeli from Ramat Hasharon just northeast of Tel Aviv, who has participated in innumerable rallies.

Moran works with the NGO Windows - Channels for Communication, a grassroots organisation whose members include Palestinians from Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and Jewish Israelis who work on youth programmes promoting justice, liberty, dignity and equality.

“I’m in touch with many Arab citizens and various solidarity groups. I feel their deep frustration and fear, and the hate and hostility that is bubbling up, and it’s very difficult. My only source of optimism comes from the actions being taken, mainly the demonstrations,” he told FRANCE 24 on Monday.

“I can’t just sit at home and lose hope. The demonstrations might not yet be quite focused enough or significant enough in terms of their results, but they’re still valuable. Not only must we not stop, we have to increase the number of joint rallies and add other locations, so it won’t be possible to ignore them,” he said.

The associations calling for the mobilisation of all of Israel’s citizens are many and varied. They include joint Jewish-Arab groups, feminist groups, organisations fighting government corruption, religious and secular groups, and others. Over the weekend, thousands of Jews and Arabs took to the streets in hundreds of rallies around the country, calling for an end to the violence.

On Wednesday, more than a dozen grassroots groups – including Rabbis for Human Rights, Women Wage Peace, Tag Meir and many others – plan to join hands to create the longest possible human “peace chain” in Jerusalem.

Jewish and Arab medical staff in various hospitals around the country have also been calling for calm and sharing photos on social media holding signs in Hebrew and Arabic reading “Peace”, “Continuing Together”, “All Together” or “Love Thy Neighbour as Thyself”.

“We are navigating a very complex message,” said Sally Abed, a member of the national leadership of Standing Together, one of the largest grassroots organisations mobilising citizens for protests calling for an end to violence.

“We also want to mobilise Jewish solidarity. However, many of the Jewish citizens right now are under attack, they are afraid and they want to hear a very equal voice condemning violent attacks on both sides. They don’t want to hear about the occupation; they want to hear about the end of violence,” she said.

“Since way before the escalation we have been organising people in Jerusalem and in Jaffa and in many other mixed cities – Arab and Jewish citizens – around many issues of shared interest. Since the escalation we’ve been able to organise dozens of locations of protests throughout Israel that call for Arab-Jewish partnership and basically demanding a ceasefire as well as the end of the occupation,” Abed told FRANCE 24 in a phone interview on Monday.

Abed, an Arab Israeli citizen living in Jaffa, said it was “absurd” to think an offensive in Gaza could ensure the safety of Israelis.

“Our message is that the majority of people who live here, Arabs and Jews, actually have the shared interest of security and of peace. And the idea that an aggression, that an attack on Gaza would actually bring security to Israeli citizens, is an absurd idea – and we are demanding a ceasefire,” she said.

'Silent majority'

Avi Dabush, director general of the Rabbis for Human Rights movement, said that a “silent majority” of Arabs and Jews wanted a return to peaceful coexistence.

“The silent majority in Israel supports a shared existence and strongly opposes violence. And it’s heartwarming that some of the people – even those who are perhaps afraid – are now saying, ‘No, we’ll go out and we’ll show that we’re the majority and we won’t give in to the minority – which is very, very dangerous but still a minority’,” Dabush told FRANCE 24.

Although not a rabbi himself, Dabush was raised as an Orthodox Jew and now lives in Sderot near the border with the Gaza Strip, which has been the target of hundreds of Hamas rockets in the past week. He recently left his home for a quieter area, where he took part in protests consisting of “mainly Jews protesting for peace and coexistence”.

“We’re at war, and I live in a town that’s been badly hit [by rockets], but what’s even more dangerous at this moment, to a certain extent, is what’s happening within Israeli society between Jews and Arabs,” Dabush said.

Abed’s Standing Together movement underscores that its demonstrations are also a criticism of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“It really is challenging. Because we do want to build politics that unite us around shared struggles – we really do – we really believe that there’s no other way to end the violence permanently without ending the occupation and without … creating a government and a country that actually serves the interests of security and peace, social justice, economic security [and] economic equality,” Abed said.

Israel’s Arab citizens “are part of the Palestinian people”, she said. “That’s a fact. What happens there, affects us here. That does not contradict our willingness and our desire and our interest in being an integral and equal partner within society, and being Israeli citizens.”


Spontaneous cooperation

Joint demonstrations are not the only way Jews and Arabs have been joining together. In Acre and in Jaffa, Jewish and Arab citizens came together to clean up after the riots, repairing damage caused by rioters and crowd-funding for the victims of attacks by both sides.

And many of the protests have not been led by organisations: many have been spontaneous – with citizens, Arab or Jewish, and not necessarily together, standing at crossroads bearing signs.

Edouard Jurkevitch, a researcher and teacher of microbiology for Hebrew University in Rehovot, has been regularly participating in solidarity protests over the past months in Arab cities where gang crime has been rampant but Israeli police intervention scarce.

On Sunday he went to Jaffa, Jurkevitch told FRANCE 24, but few people were there. “So we stayed a few minutes and went back home under the sirens” warning of incoming rockets from Gaza, he said.

A French-born Israeli Jew, Jurkevitch lives in the central Israeli city of Ness Ziona, which has a mainly Jewish population. “We go to [the Arab town of] Jaljulia almost every week in order to support the population in their struggle against the local crime, and the lack of action of the Israeli government and the police,” he said.

Jurkevitch said he is not an activist but “an outraged citizen – outraged by the lack of consideration toward our Arab co-citizens”, emphasising that he simply rejects “the dichotomy of right and wrong and of ‘us’ or ‘them’.”

Asymmetry in police response

Most of the people interviewed for this article agreed that although the purpose of the Arab and Jewish rallies was to bring about an end to inter-communal violence on both sides, it was important to acknowledge the asymmetry of the police’s response.

At the end of a week of riots, 116 people were arrested by police – all of them Arab citizens. “None of the very violent Jewish settlers – very violent, armed settlers – none of them were arrested,” Abed noted.

Neora Yaari, a Jewish Israeli resident of the mixed Jewish-Arab city of Ramle, has long been an active protester, attending rallies four or five days a week for the past year.

“When you’re out in the streets, you’re exposed to everything. You don’t need to get your information from the media. You see the violence of the police, you see the inequality, you see the injustice,” she told FRANCE 24.

“I began by going to solidarity protests in [the Arab cities of] Jaljulia and Umm el Fahm, but I never really went to Jerusalem. Maybe I was afraid, I don’t know. At first I didn’t see the connection to East Jerusalem,” she said.

Jews and Arabs have demonstrated in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah for over 10 years against the eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers. The protests have grown and became more intense in recent months as Israeli courts deliberated the dispute, with a Supreme Court ruling initially expected May 10.

   

Jewish and Arab protesters in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah on May 7, 2021. The sign in the centre reads, "Fighting corruption and plunder begins with solidarity with Sheikh Jarrah". © Courtesy of Dubi Moran

Abed, of Standing Together, said the presence of Jewish protesters in Sheikh Jarrah was especially important. “It’s import to us to amplify the Jewish presence there, because it usually de-escalates the police violence,” she said.

Yaari, Moran and others confirmed this. In early April, as Yaari attended a tour of the neighbourhood organised by Ofer Cassif, a Jewish member of parliament from the mostly Arab Hadash faction, she was injured by a police stun grenade.

“That made me understand the extent of the inequality,” Yaari said. “We always knew that there was a lot more violence in the other sectors of Israeli society, but I didn’t think it was that bad.”

General strike

The Sheikh Jarrah protests came to a head last week, when ultra-right member of the Knesset Itamar Ben-Gvir, in a move widely condemned as a provocation, opened an office in the neighbourhood.

The scuffles between protesters and settlers and police – as well as those at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in the Old City – were cited by Hamas as the reasons for launching the first rocket attacks against Israel on May 10.

The Israeli Arab High Follow-Up Committee declared a general strike by the Arab population on Tuesday.

The strike “is one step in a series of protest steps by the Arab public”, Taleb el-Sana, a veteran Israeli Arab politician and former member of the Knesset, told FRANCE 24 on Monday.

“It began with visits to Sheikh Jarrah and to Al-Aqsa and in the mixed cities of Ramle, Lod and Jaffa, then a huge demonstration with tens of thousands of participants in Sakhnin [north of Nazareth]. There will also be a general strike to protest Israel’s irresponsible and very dangerous policies under the government of [Benjamin] Netanyahu, who wants to set the ground on fire in order to stay in power. He’s sacrificing the people on his own personal altar. He’s trying to incite Jews against Arabs and Arabs against Jews.”

“We’re also promoting joint protest activities for Jews and Arabs under the banner of ‘Jews and Arabs Refuse to be Enemies’. Because the problem is not Arabs against Jews or Jews against Arabs. We want Jews and Arabs together as one against Netanyahu and his government,” el-Sana said.

Yaari, like Moran and others, said she, too, began protesting as part of the rallies against Netanyahu and his government.

“But now, what guides the protest movement are the connections between us," she said. "Only light will disperse the darkness – we’ll get there, not by fighting against what we don’t want, but by fighting for what we do want. I’m now devoting all my activism in the street to what we do want.”

Hamas key 'victory' in Israel war over Palestinian rival: analysts



Issued on: 22/05/2021 
  

Gazans take to the streets to celebrate following a ceasefire brokered by Egypt between Israel and the ruling Islamist movement Hamas MOHAMMED ABED AFP


Jerusalem (AFP)

After a ceasefire with Israel, Hamas has claimed "victory" but the Palestinian Islamist group's success lies more in marginalising its political rival Fatah than in battle, analysts say.

The return of calm to the Hamas-run enclave of Gaza, after 11 days of Israeli air strikes on the coastal strip -- and rocket fire sent in the other direction - was celebrated Friday by large crowds waving Palestinian flags.

"This is the euphoria of victory," senior Hamas figure Khalil al-Hayya told jubilant Palestinians in the densely populated enclave after the Egypt-brokered truce.

Hamas began a barrage of heavy rocket fire from Gaza towards Israel on May 10, in response to repeated clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces inside annexed east Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound.

In total, Hamas and Islamic Jihad launched more than 4,300 projectiles, according to Israel -- an intensity of fire seen as unprecedented, even if most rockets were intercepted by its Iron Dome defence system or fell short.

A major factor in Hamas' own claim to victory lies in "being seen as defending Palestinian rights, especially in relation to Jerusalem -- and (in) facing down Israel", Hugh Lovatt, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP.

Jamal al-Fadi, a professor of political science in Gaza, said Hamas feels victorious "because it was able to strike deep inside Israel... (and) Israel could not prevent it".

Fadi also said the militants had proved their ability to build up a substantial arsenal, despite the Gaza Strip having been under blockade for 14 years.

On the other side, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Israel's intense bombardment of Gaza by air strikes and mortar fire as an "exceptional success" that had killed "more than 200 terrorists".

The Jewish state can "point to its degradation of Hamas military capabilities", Lovatt said.

But one area where Hamas can claim a clear victory is in further sidelining Fatah, which runs the Palestinian Authority from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

- PA 'supine' -

Hamas and Fatah, a secular organisation led by president Mahmud Abbas, have been at loggerheads since the last Palestinian elections, before a partial reconciliation in recent months.

Held in 2006, those polls were won by Hamas, which pushed Fatah out of Gaza the following year, in what came close to a Palestinian civil war.

Elections were due on May 22, but 86-year-old Abbas abruptly postponed them earlier this month, alienating Hamas afresh.

Hamas saw elections as way "to relieve itself from the burden of governance by eventually bringing back the PA" to poverty-stricken Gaza, Lovatt told AFP.

"The prospect of... a government of national unity which Hamas would (have) supported or been a member of could have allowed for more progress," he added.

"But because the path for political engagement was closed, they had to reconfigure their calculations."

Hamas uses cycles of violence as attempts to extract "concessions" from Israel over Gaza, including relaxations of import curbs and increased export permits for residents.

For Hamas, periodic bouts of violence are its main competitive advantage" against Fatah, said Hussein Ibish, a Middle East expert.

"They claim to be the defenders of Palestine... in contrast to a supine PA government," he added.

- Abbas 'powerless' -

Fadi said: "Abbas has become powerless... His political performance is no longer acceptable to the public."

His tenure began in 2009 -- the same year as Netanyahu began his 12 successive years as Israel's premier.

Netanyahu's governments have expanded settlements -- seen as illegal by much of the international community -- and the US has recognised Jerusalem as the Jewish state's capital.#photo1

According to Fadi, it remains to be seen if Hamas, branded a "terrorist organisation" by the US and the European Union, is able to manage the post-conflict period, notably the challenge of reconstructing Gaza.

Lovatt describes the ceasefire with Israel as "very fragile".

"There is no reason to believe it's going to be any more sustainable than the past ones -- so it's just a question of when... the next war" erupts, he said.

© 2021 AFP

Thousands of work-related Covid deaths go unreported in UK

Businesses could be significantly under-reporting the number of work-related Covid deaths to the government’s safety watchdog, new research suggests.

There have been 3,872 Covid outbreaks in workplaces and 4,253 outbreaks in education settings yet not a single employer has been prosecuted for breaching Covid regulations.

© Photograph: PhotoAlto/Alamy There have been 3,872 Covid outbreaks in workplaces and 4,253 outbreaks in education settings yet not a single employer has been prosecuted for breaching Covid regulations.

Forthcoming analysis by the TUC shows employers have notified the Health and Safety Executive of 387 work-related Covid deaths since April 2020 even though the Office for National Statistics has identified 15,263 people of working age who died from Covid over the same period.

“It is just not credible that only 2.5% of working-age Covid deaths are down to occupational exposure,” said Shelly Asquith, TUC health and safety officer. “We believe employers are massively under-reporting the number of people who have died after catching Covid at work.”

There have been 3,872 Covid outbreaks in workplaces and 4,253 outbreaks in education settings yet not a single employer has been prosecuted for breaching Covid regulations.

© Provided by The Guardian Shelly Asquith of the TUC said it was ‘just not credible’ that only 2.5% of Covid deaths are down to work exposure. Photograph: Mark Kerrison/Alamy


Asquith said the low level of reporting had endangered workers by preventing inspectors intervening in unsafe workplaces and could lead to lives being put at risk again in the future. This comes as millions of employees return to workplaces amid growing concerns about the increased transmissibility of the Covid variant first found in India, which is spreading fast in parts of the UK.

More than 600 transport and storage workers died last year from the virus, according to the ONS, but only 10 deaths in the sector were reported. Nearly 140 people working in schools, colleges and universities died last year but employers only informed the HSE of nine deaths.

Covid cases likely to have been caused by workplace exposure should be reported to the HSE. Yet the government’s Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) in Swansea reported only one case during the largest workplace outbreak of the pandemic, in which more than 600 staff tested positive. DVLA said it had at all times followed HSE guidance.

Employers are supposed to report work-related Covid cases and deaths within 10 days. But unions believe this legal requirement is routinely flouted because firms are allowed to determine themselves if infections occurred inside or outside work.

Asquith, who carried out the research, added most of these deaths occurred during lockdowns when the hospitality industry was closed. “Work was the main place where people were mixing at that time and therefore it is likely that many of those deaths were work-related,” she added.

Related: TUC calls for immediate public inquiry into Covid deaths

An HSE spokesperson said the differences between the figures were due to requirements under Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (Riddor): “Riddor is the first step in HSE inquiries into a case and direct evidence to suggest occupational exposure will be required, which is understandably challenging given the prevalence of Covid in the general population.”

The spokesperson added that the HSE had bolstered guidance for employers on reporting cases during the pandemic.

SASKATCHEWAN

Mandryk: Race and class distinctions in 

Covid-19 fights all too visible

Murray Mandryk
REGINA LEADER POST

5/22/2021

\\

© BRANDON HARDER Saskatchewan Chief Medical Officer Dr. Saqib Shahab was harassed by anti-mask demonstrators in January.

Soliciting public help to identify law-breakers, the Saskatoon Police Service recently released some unusual-looking photos of alleged perpetrators.

They were photos of 41 unmasked people at a May 9 “freedom rally” in the city who allegedly violated the Public Health Act. That investigators are targeting them in such a public way is intriguing and, likely, somewhat tactical.

The police noted two more anti-mask rallies are planned for the city this weekend — a not-so-subtle warning you will be watched and possibly fined if you intend to defy public health orders. (In no small irony, by simply obeying the law and wearing a mask, the protesters couldn’t have been identified.)

Whether this is an effective strategy may be another matter.

Those attending these so-called “freedom rallies” have already self-righteously tapped into North America-wide defiance of mainstream media and are skeptical of legitimate scientific information. That defiance now seems extended to police inconveniencing their world.

Police cracking down on this “freedom of speech” against government policies runs the danger of creating sympathy among the more rational, those simply sick and tired of lockdowns that have closed their restaurants or kept their kids from playing hockey.

For some, it is just wanting to be a good parent or wanting to return to a normal life. For others, more than a year of COVID-19 still hasn’t taught them the differences between rights, privileges and obligations.

Whatever the case, “targeting” those protesting matters to which others may have passing sentiments could have undesired effects of creating sympathy and adding to the resolve. Heaven knows, such protesters have already been bolstered by political parties or right-wing media reinforcing their inflated grievances and bizarre sense of entitlement.

These are not the Black Lives Matter or teepee protesters of last summer who received disdain from society and were taken to court for breaching park bylaws.

Freedom ralliers have a look of familiarity — virtually all-white, mostly male and middle-aged, bonded by their seeming inability to comprehend how much societal freedom and privilege they actually do enjoy.

This takes us back to another reason why those photos released by the Saskatoon police looked so different than the ones we normally see.

When police in this province ask for public assistance, the photos they post are, almost invariably, of young, visible minorities.

It’s an understandable frustration to the Indigenous community who see such photos as perpetuating negative stereotypes without ever contextualizing the societal issues that get us to the point of posting such pictures.

Now, the COVID-19 pandemic may be widening that class gap.

A recent study by the Toronto Foundation illustrates that you are four times more likely to get COVID-19 in that city if you earn $30,000 to $50,000 a year and five times more likely if you earn less than $30,000 annually than if your income was $150,000 a year or higher.

COVID-19 may not discriminate, but it does prey upon the economically disadvantaged, who tend to be non-white minorities. This has been somewhat overlooked during the pandemic.

What anti-mask protestors and minorities share is the likelihood of going without a vaccine — the former because they see it as their privilege not to, and the latter because they may not have vehicles for drive-thru lines or the ability to take time off work.

It may be about all they do share. As was the case with the anti-mask/lockdown rally in front of the Saskatchewan legislature last November, racist undercurrents have not been uncommon.

We have seen this as a problem that’s happening somewhere else, like the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, predominately middle-class, white and male.

But class distinctions have always been here, and might be growing during COVID-19.

Heck, this isn’t even the first time police have posted such photos. After similar “freedom protesters” marched through Regina’s Cornwall Centre to exercise their freedoms while generally low-paid workers in shops watched, the Regina Police Service issued photos.

The divide is widening right under our noses, and we don’t seem to notice.

Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

SASKATCHEWAN SUICIDE EPIDEMIC

'Proved that they care': Man who held hunger strike hopeful after suicide bill passes

Last summer, a 24-year-old fiddle teacher walked more than 600 kilometres from his home in northern Saskatchewan to the legislature in Regina after a bill to address suicides was voted down a second time. 

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Tristen Durocher set up a teepee camp surrounded by photographs of people who had taken their own lives. He held a 44-day hunger strike — one day for every government legislature member who had voted against the private member's bill.

He called his protest Walking With Our Angels.

When he heard that the bill had passed unanimously last month on the third try, he was "speechless and very excited."

"I hope it's helpful, beneficial and meaningful," he said in an interview with The Canadian Press this week.

Durocher, who is from Air Ronge, Sask., said the support he received during his walk and hunger strike gave him a more optimistic outlook. It showed how communities can come together to show they care about mental health and meaningfully address issues related to suicide.

"There are times when I can get quite cynical, living in ... remote places with limited access to health care, not a lot of socio-economic opportunity and a lot of dependency on unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with the intergenerational trauma that has been inflicted on Indigenous populations," he said.

"It got rid of my doom-and-gloomy outlook of 'nobody cares' because they proved it wrong. They proved that they care."

Doyle Vermette, an NDP Opposition MLA for Cumberland, first introduced the bill in 2018 and again in 2019. In both cases, the bill was voted down by members of the Saskatchewan Party government.

But on April 30th, it passed with unanimous support.

It requires the Ministry of Health and concerned interest groups to set up a suicide prevention strategy. The ministry will have to make suicide statistics and data on risk factors available, define the best ways to stop deaths by suicide, and promote jurisdictions to work together.

The government had brought in a suicide prevention plan called Pillars for Life in 2020, but Vermette said many people felt it didn't go far enough.

Christopher Merasty, who joined and supported Durocher on his walk, said suicide prevention is deeply important to him. He said northern Saskatchewan remains under-resourced when it comes to mental-health supports.

"I was seeing and hearing a lot of loss — unnecessary loss — in the northern Saskatchewan area with many young kids, many men, many women taking their lives," he said. "It’s very disheartening, very depressing. It’s almost like you’re seeing failures in the system when you see youth taking their own lives at such an early age."

Preliminary data from the Saskatchewan Coroners Service says 187 people took their own lives in 2020 and 206 died by suicide the year before.

Durocher said he was inspired to see his activism taken up in broader political conversations.

"Walking With Our Angels happened right before an election, so it became part of the dialogue of people talking to politicians who were campaigning," he said. "A lot of people called their MLAs and were able to show politicians that their own supporters wanted this and wanted to see action on this."

Vermette said a great deal of work remains to be done — hashing out programs, where resources will go and how people will have access to them.

But the moment the bill passed is a milestone he won't soon forget.

"We’ll have many days to argue about the different issues. But April 30 was for the Saskatchewan people, the families, those who wrote letters to give support or voice their concern, families who lost loved ones," he said.

"Those are the true heroes."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 22, 2021.

Julia Peterson, The Canadian Press

CANADA

New long-term care standards will fall flat without money or enforcement, experts warn

Karina Roman 
CBC 5/22/2021
 

© Evan Mitsui/CBC Crosses representing residents who died of COVID-19 are pictured on the lawn of Camilla Care Community in Mississauga, Ont., on Jan. 13, 2021. The long-term care home was among the hardest-hit by the pandemic in Ontario.

The federal government is spending $3 billion over five years to establish new standards to improve long-term care in Canada. Advocates say the money alone is not enough — that they want measures to ensure new standards actually lead to better care for seniors.

Expectations are high for the new standards, now being developed by the Health Standards Organization (HSO) and the Canadian Standards Association (CSA). The work will take at least another 20 months but those involved say they hope new standards can help prevent the dire conditions that contributed to high pandemic death rates in the long-term care sector.

In the first wave of the pandemic, long-term care facilities saw 80 per cent of Canada's total COVID-19 deaths. Outside of Quebec and Nova Scotia, deaths in long-term care actually increased in the second wave.

But experts warn that new standards alone won't solve the many problems in the sector exposed by the pandemic. They say they fear that, after decades of government indifference to long-term care, public pressure to fix those problems might fade as the pandemic wanes.

"I do not want these standards to sit on a shelf and not be used," said Alex Mihailidis, technical subcommittee chair for the CSA.

"If we can take anything positive out of this pandemic and everything we've seen happen … I think we are at the tipping point and that is going to really drive the political will and social will forward and ensure that these standards are really taken seriously."
What would new standards look like?

Experts say the long-term care sector needs to improve both the delivery of care and the operation of its facilities. That extends to everything from the number of hours of direct personal care residents should expect to staff-resident ratios and infection prevention and control practices.

It also includes ventilation systems, plumbing, medical gas systems and facilities' use of technology. All of those things could depend on possible new infrastructure standards, which could dictate how new long-term care homes should be built, how many residents can be put in a single room and how common and isolation areas should be constructed.

The HSO and CSA also will have to work out how infrastructure standards would apply to existing buildings.

"We're pushing to basically say with everything that we've learned so far, with everything we're learning about the state of long-term care in Canada, how do we actually make these new standards pandemic-proof?" said Dr. Samir Sinha, the director of geriatrics at Sinai Health and the University Health Network in Toronto. He's heading up the technical committee for the HSO.

The HSO already has standards for long-term care homes; the pandemic proved they're clearly insufficient. Across Canada, almost 70 per cent of long term care homes are accredited based on either those HSO standards or a U.S.-based equivalent.

In Quebec, 100 per cent of homes require accreditation. But Quebec's long-term care homes were among those hardest-hit by the pandemic.

Dr. Sinha acknowledges that 20 months is a long time to wait for new standards, but the work takes time.

"This is actually how you end up developing good quality standards. Or do you want to just be politically expedient and get more of the same of what?" he said.

"Because whatever we've been doing so far, frankly, hasn't worked well. Now that everybody's attention is on this, I'm determined to make sure that we do this right."

Public input

Normally, in standards development processes, technical committees made up of stakeholders and experts work on draft standards that are then presented to the public for input and review toward the end of the process.

But the death toll in the long-term care sector during the pandemic has generated a massive amount of public interest in this process — especially among those who've lost loved ones in long-term care.

The HSO and CSA are expected to take into account the results of public surveys on long-term care standards and are holding town halls to solicit input starting this summer. And the HSO technical committee was assembled in part through a public application process.
Will new standards make a difference?

The answer to that question depends on what the provinces do. Provinces — which are primarily responsible for long-term care — will be called on to spend the money needed to meet those standards and to fill massive staffing shortages.

Experts also say the effect of new standards will depend a lot on whether they're mandatory, and whether those facilities caught violating them can expect penalties.

"Unless they're mandatory, then they are a wish list of what we think is important and that's not going to really make substantive change," said Laura Tamblyn Watts, CEO of CanAge — a national seniors advocacy organization — and an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto.

"So it's important that those standards have some type of force of law and that breaking them [has] some type of profound penalty against them."

Tamblyn-Watts said long-term care homes almost never lose their licenses to operate for violating standards and the fines they face are "almost laughable."

Technically, the federal government could create its own legislation and regulations to make the standards mandatory. Experts say that's unlikely.

Still, in a March interview with CBC, Health Minister Patty Hajdu argued enforcement is key.

"It's not just a question, for me, of having standards. It's about also a commitment and a path forward to enforcing those standards, or to upholding those standards," she said.

"Because, of course, some provinces and territories did have standards and it didn't necessarily lessen the tragedy in those provinces and territories. So it's about figuring out what the standards need to be. And then the separate process is how you ensure that those standards are applied consistently, so folks that are dependent on care are indeed safe in those places."
How much would it cost?

The Standards Council of Canada says it plans to contribute up to $340,000 to fund the work on long-term care standards.

The real price tag, of course, is what ultimately gets spent by federal and provincial governments to ensure the standards mean something. Critics say the $3 billion over five years Ottawa is offering the provinces is simply not enough.

"That's about six or seven dollars per resident per day," said Terry Lake, CEO of the B.C. Care Providers Association, which represents 400 long-term care and assisted living homes. Lake is a former provincial health minister.

"You have to have the provinces on board to make them mandatory because health care is provincial jurisdiction. There are carrots and sticks and the carrot, of course, from the federal government is funding. I think some provinces may be reluctant to have a standard that's enforced without more funding going in to incentivize those standards."

Already, some provincial governments have bristled at the idea of taking any direction from Ottawa, money or no money.

"I think those premiers are reading their populations wrong. These jurisdictions have had extremely bad outcomes in long-term care and much of it was preventable," said Tamblyn-Watts. "The pushback is out of step with how furious and distraught the voters are about it."

But a number of recent provincial budgets that committed money to building new homes or increasing staffing in existing ones have been criticized for not setting aside anything close to what is required — even at at time of intense public pressure for change.

Advocates say they fear that's not a sign the political will is there to ensure the thousands of people who died in long-term care homes during the pandemic did not do so entirely in vain.

Protected land and ocean jumped 42 per cent in the last decade

Stephen Leahy 


Embedded content: https://players.brightcove.net/1942203455001/B1CSR9sVf_default/index.html?videoId=6255425702001

Land and ocean under protection or conservation increased 42 per cent in the past decade according to a new report. In total, some 21 million square kilometres of protected and conserved areas might seem like a lot, but that has not curbed the continuing loss of biodiversity.

The 2019 Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity found that more than one million of the estimated 8.7 million species on the planet were at risk of extinction due to human activities. The main drivers of species loss include land conversion, deforestation, overfishing, bushmeat hunting and poaching, pollution, invasive alien species, and climate change.

The new Protected Planet Report 2020 acknowledges those drivers of biodiversity loss remain a major hurdle to the ultimate goal of living in harmony with nature. However, the big increase in protected areas in many countries is cause for celebration, says report author Neville Ash, Director of the UN Environment Programme’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre.

Today, nearly 17 per cent of land and inland water ecosystems and close to 8 per cent of coastal waters and the ocean are within documented protected and conserved areas.

“The increase in coverage has been impressive, however the quality needs improvement,” Ash said in an interview.

© Provided by The Weather NetworkThe sun sets over South America's Iguazu Falls. Today, almost 17 per cent of land and inland water ecosystems are within documented protected areas. (Anton Petrus/Moment/Getty Images)

One-third of the world’s key biodiversity areas have no protection at all while another third are poorly protected, he said.

When it comes to quality in biodiversity it is all about location and function. A single hectare of Amazon rainforest contains more than 750 types of trees and 1,500 other plants. A single pond in Brazil can sustain a greater variety of fish than is found in all of Europe’s rivers.

While a hectare of tundra in northern Canada might have half a dozen plants and no trees, the same area can have an important function such as sequestering enormous amounts of carbon in its soils.

And even when areas are protected, less than 8 per cent are connected to other protected areas, creating isolated islands of biodiversity that are vulnerable to decline.

For example, the province of Quebec plans to protect a large part of its remote north with little biodiversity or threat of development while announcing it will double logging in its remaining old-growth southern forests. Scientists call this a “gross ecological error” that will further fragment those forests and goes against the very principles of conservation.
WHY DOES BIODIVERSITY MATTER?

Biodiversity is the term for the tremendous variety of living species that make up our “life-supporting safety net.” They provide our food, clean water, air, energy, and much more. Our safety net is shrinking, becoming threadbare and holes are appearing.

© Provided by The Weather NetworkAn extreme closeup portrait of the alpha male chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), Kibale Forest National Park, Uganda. A 2019 report found that more than one million of the estimated 8.7 million species on Earth were at risk of extinction due to human activities (Marc Guitard/Moment/Getty Images).

“The evidence is crystal clear: Nature is in trouble. Therefore we are in trouble,” Sandra Díaz, co-author of the Global Assessment Report and ecologist at the National University of Cordoba in Argentina told National Geographic in 2019.

In 2010, the world’s countries set 20 targets to be achieved by 2020 to slow the breakdown of our life-supporting safety net. None of the global targets were met. Although many countries, like Canada, did meet some of their individual targets.

The big global target that was missed was to protect at least 17 per cent of land and inland waters and 10 per cent of the marine environment. That target will be likely reached this year as countries meet this fall to set new targets for 2030, says Ash.

Still, the ambitious target for 2030 to be discussed when countries meet at the biannual UN Convention on Biodiversity conference in Kunming, China in October, will be to protect 30 per cent of land, freshwater, and ocean.

“These areas must be placed optimally to protect the diversity of life on Earth and be effectively managed and equitably governed," says Bruno Oberle, Director General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The IUCN has developed a Green List Standard to assess the quality of protected areas and how well and fairly they are managed. “Many protected areas are underfunded nor are they well managed,” Oberle said in a press conference.

© Provided by The Weather NetworkA partially deforested area of rainforest in the Amazon, viewed from above. Human activity has played a significant role in biodiversity loss over the past decades (LeoFFreites/Moment/Getty Images)

The Green List focuses on protecting the right places using a bottom-up approach to ensure local people are involved in how an area is managed, he said. And to make the list these areas need to be managed in a way that benefits nature and local communities. Only about 60 sites around the world have made the list since its launch in 2014.

Protecting intact areas and restoring millions of hectares of degraded ecosystems brings multiple benefits, the Protected Planet report concludes. These include halting and reversing biodiversity loss to maintain essential ecosystem services but also play a major role in tackling climate change. Protecting and repairing our life-supporting safety net will also reduce the risk of future pandemics.