WAGE THEFT
Waffle House charges employees for food — even if they don’t eat it

JOSEPH LAMOUR
November 16, 2023 

Waffle House workers are asking their employer to end a long-standing policy that regularly docks their paychecks.

On Nov. 8, a coalition of Waffle House workers and supporters delivered nearly 13,000 signed petitions from Waffle House workers, service workers and other allies to Waffle House’s headquarters in Norcross, Georgia.

As first reported by The Messenger, Waffle House workers delivered their demands with support from Raise Up The South, also known as Union of Southern Service Workers, which is being built by service workers to combat low wages and improve working conditions.

“Waffle House workers from across the South are fed up. We’re sick and tired of making poverty wages, the constant threat of in-store violence, and mandatory meal deductions — whether we eat a meal or not while on a shift,” reads the beginning of the petition. “We refuse to be exploited — and so we’re getting organized.”

Waffle House did not respond to a request for comment on this story, but told The Post and Courier, “Waffle House is proud of its long record of effectively addressing any concerns our Associates report to us. We intend to do that directly with our Associates.”

Cindy Smith, a 29-year veteran of the chain who works in Georgia, was part of the coalition of workers present for the delivery of demands.

Waffle House employees (Courtesy Union of Southern Service Workers)

Smith says Waffle House’s mandatory meal deduction policy, which takes a portion of every employee’s pay for meals — whether or not the employee eats anything — has been part of her time at the restaurant for as long as she’s been an employee.

“The meal deductions have always been taken out, but it was only like $1.50 per shift. Then they decided to start bumping it up,” Smith tells TODAY.com, adding that workers weren’t notified about any changes. “Every day that you work now, it is $3.75 that comes out of your check. That’s more than I make an hour.”

Waffle House employees (Courtesy Union of Southern Service Workers)

Smith, who makes $2.92 an hour plus tips at the chain, says the fee is doubled if employees work a double shift whether or not they eat. “85 to 95% of us don’t even eat the Waffle House food. We’re still having to pay for it,” she says. (Georgia’s minimum wage for tipped workers is $2.13.)

Other employees say their Waffle House locations take different amounts. Dreanna Colvin says her store deducts $3.15 a shift, and Gerald Green told The Messenger he paid $39 in three weeks for food he never consumed.

“I barely have any money to pay any bills,” Smith says. “We can’t even buy groceries.”


In addition to an end to paycheck deductions for meals, asking that the chain instead make it optional for employees to purchase discounted shift meals, Waffle House workers are demanding that Waffle House pay $25 an hour for all workers, cooks and servers, that it provide round-the-clock security and allow workers to weigh in about in-store safety.

Waffle House employees (Courtesy Union of Southern Service Workers)

“At one point, probably 2011, I was robbed at gunpoint,” Smith recalls, adding that safety has been an issue at the chain for a long time. “Waffle House didn’t reach out and I had to work my entire shift.”

Waffle House has made headlines for crimes that have been committed in stores, including physical fights that have sent celebrities to court, robberies and even murder. TikTok is littered with videos of several different melees in stores across the country, including one viral instance that made a star out of a Waffle House worker with quick reflexes.

“It’s the same fights when I used to work third shift. They start fighting in the building and out the door and they’re in the parking lot,” Smith says. “It’s been going on for years.”

Smith says their safety demands also extend to working during natural disasters. Waffle House is known for aiming to stay open 24/7 at all costs, including during hurricanes, floods and more. This reputation inspired FEMA to look to the chain’s locations to see how debilitating a severe weather event is. It was coined the “Waffle House Index” by former FEMA director W. Craig Fugate.

“I worked straight through the hurricane that came through Georgia that put the power out. I worked every single day, drove to and from work, even though we didn’t have any electricity at home,” Smith says of Hurricane Idalia. “During the snowstorms, I was transporting people, they put ‘em up in hotels, just to make sure the employees get to work.”

Waffle House employees (Courtesy Union of Southern Service Workers)

Smith says, the day of the protest, she and the group of ralliers present at Waffle House headquarters were hoping for the best outcome, but they were ultimately disappointed.

“We all stood out there. We were very quiet. We were not rude. We were not disrespectful,” Smith says. “We only sent three people in to deliver 13,000 signed petitions for them to tell us if we did not get off the property, they were going to call the police, and they threw all 13,000 petitions in the trash.”

In terms of next steps, Smith says they’re “hoping to get more people to stand behind us, whether they work for Waffle House or not.”

“Waffle House claims that their associates are family, but you’re letting your family live below poverty levels,” she adds. “We’re starving to death. But we’re still getting up every day and going into work.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com

California scientists seek higher pay in 3-day strike drawing thousands of picketers

WHITE, BLUE, PINK THE COLOR OF YOUR COLLAR NO LONGER MATTERS WE ARE ALL PROLETARIANS NOW

SOPHIE AUSTIN
November 16, 2023 



SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — More than 1,000 state scientists in California took to the picket line Thursday on day two of a three-day strike, calling for higher wages for work they say often goes unrecognized in a state that sets environmental policy trends on the national and global stage.

The California Association of Professional Scientists, a union representing about 5,200 scientists across more than 50 state departments, decided to strike after three years of stalled contract negotiations, said President Jacqueline Tkac. The push for a better contract began when state scientists were furloughed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We're not here to settle for anything less than the fair pay and respect that we deserve,” Tkac said. “We hope that the state can recognize the opportunity that we have in front of us.”

The strike comes during a big year for labor, one in which health care professionals, Hollywood actors and writers, and auto workers picketed for better pay and working conditions. It also comes amid new California laws granting workers more paid sick leave and increased wages for health care and fast food workers.

The scientists — whose work includes creating earthquake warning systems, protecting wildlife and reducing air pollution — picketed outside of the California Environmental Protection Agency building in downtown Sacramento. Most wore green shirts representing their union, and many held signs that read, “Scientists Strike Back” and “Defiance for Science." Drivers, including firefighters, honked in support as they drove by.

Tkac accused Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration of boasting about the state’s leadership on climate policy without recognizing those who do the work.

“Nobody wants to be here, but we have to,” Tkac said.

The union says state scientists are paid 40% to 60% less than professionals in comparable positions doing similar work.

The state says it has been working to reach a fair deal with the scientists. The California Department of Human Resources recently filed a complaint of unfair labor practices against the union in an attempt to prevent the strike.


The department said Wednesday it was disappointed by the walkout and that the state continues to bargain “in good faith.” Camille Travis, a department spokesperson, said the union sought mediation then called for the strike before that process concluded.

The state will continue working toward a fair agreement with the union, as it has with other bargaining units, Travis wrote in an email. She said the state “has taken steps to ensure that service to the public continues with as little disruption as possible.”

Kelsey Navarre, an environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said it is important for people to recognize the wide-ranging work of state scientists that includes conserving natural resources, monitoring food safety and protecting public health.

“It's really hard to be able to make a living — especially in some of these larger cities like Sacramento and L.A. and in the Bay Area — on the salary that we get working for the state,” Navarre said.

Jan Perez, an environmental scientist with the California Natural Resources Agency who has worked for the state for 25 years, said she chose her job in part because she believes “the state has the greatest impact on preserving and protecting our environment.”

Perez said she's lucky to have worked for the state long enough to afford living in Sacramento.

“When I look back at what an entry-level scientist makes and what the rents are and mortgage is in Sacramento, I honestly don't know how they're doing it,” Perez said.

___

Sophie Austin is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: @sophieadanna

NYC
Central Park carriage driver charged with animal abuse after horse collapsed and died

SAMAN SHAFIQ, USA TODAY
November 16, 2023 

A carriage horse is viewed at Central Park on November 14, 2011 in New York City.

A carriage horse driver in Central Park, New York has been charged with animal abuse and neglect for allegedly overworking a carriage horse to the point that it collapsed and suffered from "significant health issues," Manhattan's district attorney's office said in a news release.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., charged the horse, Ryder's, coachman with one count of overdriving, torturing and injuring animals, a class A misdemeanor, and failure to provide proper sustenance.

Ryder was euthanized several months after the incident in August 2022 "due to his poor medical condition", said the DA's office.
'Unacceptable'

“As alleged, Ryder should not have been working on this hot summer day," said the DA. "Despite his condition, he was out for hours and worked to the point of collapse."

Bragg said that the abuse Ryder faced was "unacceptable" and that all animals deserve to be "treated with the utmost care".

The hoofs of a carriage horse are viewed at Central Park on November 14, 2011 in New York City. Following three serious accidents involving Central Park horses over the past two weeks, some local lawmakers have renewed their call to ban carriage horses.

What happened with Ryder?

The district attorney's office, citing court documents and statements, said that the horse collapsed around 5:10 p.m. on August 10, 2022, in the middle of the street at West 45th Street and 9th Avenue in Manhattan, New York after working in Central Park since 9:30 a.m. Ryder had been observed to be very thin and frail throughout the day and was seen "walking slowly while panting with his tongue hanging out of his mouth," said the news release.

While Ryder was suffering, his coachman "repeatedly tried to force him to stand by pulling on the reins, yelling, and using a whip," said the DA's office, adding that the animal was not given any water or sustenance despite the 84-degree weather.

When the horse collapsed and lay on the ground, his driver kept Ryder attached to the carriage harness, said the DA's office, until an NYPD officer removed the harness, allowing the animal to fully lie down. The officer also put ice and cold water on Ryder to help him recover.

"It was later determined that Ryder suffered from a variety of significant health issues," said the news release. "He was eventually euthanized due to his overall health and medical conditions."

An arrest warrant was produced for Ryder's driver and he was arrested on November 13, according to court records and arraigned on November 15, where he pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor. He is now expected to appear in court on December 20, 2023 to address the charges.

Attorney's statement

Raymond L. Loving, the horse carriage coachman's attorney, told USA TODAY that the case "reeks of interference by outside groups".

"The incident in this case took place in August of last year," said Loving. "Now over a year later the District Attorney’s Office has decided to bring criminal charges. Are you kidding me? People have known about this case for over a year."

"This case reeks of interference by outside groups being brought to bear on the District Attorney’s Office," added Loving. He did not specify who these "outside groups" were.

Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at sshafiq@gannett.com and follow her on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter @saman_shafiq7.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Central Park carriage driver charged with abuse after horse's death

Judge rules against tribes in fight over Nevada lithium mine they say is near sacred massacre site

SCOTT SONNER
November 16, 2023 at 5:27 PM

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A federal judge in Nevada has dealt another legal setback to Native American tribes trying to halt construction of one of the biggest lithium mines in the world.

U.S. District Judge Miranda Du granted the government’s motion to dismiss their claims the mine is being built illegally near the sacred site of an 1865 massacre along the Nevada-Oregon line.

But she said in last week's order the three tribes suing the Bureau of Land Management deserve another chance to amend their complaint to try to prove the agency failed to adequately consult with them as required by the National Historic Preservation Act.

“Given that the court has now twice agreed with federal defendants (and) plaintiffs did not vary their argument ... the court is skeptical that plaintiffs could successfully amend it. But skeptical does not mean futile,” Du wrote Nov. 9.

She also noted part of their case is still pending on appeal at the 9th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals, which indicated last month it likely will hear oral arguments in February as construction continues at Lithium Nevada’s mine at Thacker Pass about 230 miles (370 kilometers) northeast of Reno.

Du said in an earlier ruling the tribes had failed to prove the project site is where more than two dozen of their ancestors were killed by the U.S. Cavalry Sept. 12, 1865.

Her new ruling is the latest in a series that have turned back legal challenges to the mine on a variety of fronts, including environmentalists' claims it would violate the 1872 Mining Law and destroy key habitat for sage grouse, cutthroat trout and pronghorn antelope.

All have argued the bureau violated numerous laws in a rush to approve the mine to help meet sky-rocketing demand for lithium used in the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles.

Lithium Nevada officials said the $2.3 billion project remains on schedule to begin production in late 2026. They say it's essential to carrying out President Joe Biden's clean energy agenda aimed at combating climate change by reducing dependence on fossil fuels.

“We’ve dedicated more than a decade to community engagement and hard work in order to get this project right, and the courts have again validated the efforts by Lithium Americas and the administrative agencies,” company spokesman Tim Crowley said in an email to The Associated Press.

Du agreed with the government's argument that the consultation is ongoing and therefore not ripe for legal challenge.

The tribes argued it had to be completed before construction began.

“If agencies are left to define when consultation is ongoing and when consultation is finished ... then agencies will hold consultation open forever — even as construction destroys the very objects of consultation — so that agencies can never be sued,” the tribal lawyers wrote in recent briefs filed with the 9th Circuit.

Will Falk, representing the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony and Summit Lake Paiute Tribe, said they’re still considering whether to amend the complaint by the Dec. 9 deadline Du set, or focus on the appeal.

“Despite this project being billed as `green,' it perpetrates the same harm to Native peoples that mines always have,” Falk told AP. “While climate change is a very real, existential threat, if government agencies are allowed to rush through permitting processes to fast-track destructing mining projects like the one at Thacker Pass, more of the natural world and more Native American culture will be destroyed.”

The Paiutes call Thacker Pass “Pee hee mu’huh,” which means “rotten moon.” They describe in oral histories how Paiute hunters returned home in 1865 to find the “elders, women, and children" slain and “unburied and rotting.”

The Oregon-based Burns Paiute Tribe joined the Nevada tribes in the appeal. They say BLM’s consultation efforts with the tribes “were rife with withheld information, misrepresentations, and downright lies.”

NAKBA 2

With communications down, UNRWA warns there will be no aid deliveries across Rafah

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 17, 2023 



Despite the dire need for humanitarian aid in Gaza, there would be no deliveries across the Rafah border crossing from Egypt on Friday, according to the communications director for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.

Gaza appeared to be left with downed communications systems for a second day Friday, halting cross-border deliveries of humanitarian supplies even as aid agencies warned that most people in the Gaza Strip already do not have adequate food or clean water. A severe lack of fuel in the Gaza Strip shut down all internet and phone networks Thursday, the main Palestinian telecom provider said, effectively cutting off the besieged territory from the outside world.

“We have seen fuel and food and water and humanitarian assistance being used as a weapon of war,” Juliette Touma, a spokesperson for UNRWA, the aid agency for Palestinian refugees, said Thursday.

At least 11,470 Palestinians — two-thirds of them women and minors — have been killed since the war began, according to Palestinian health authorities, who do not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people are reported missing.

Israel vowed to wipe out Hamas after the militant group launched its Oct. 7 incursion. Some 1,200 people have been killed in Israel, mostly during the initial attack, and around 240 were taken captive by militants.

Currently:

— Thousands of bodies lie buried in rubble in Gaza. Families dig to retrieve them, often by hand.

— As the battle for Gaza rages, families of hostages wait with trepidation.

— Under a communication blackout, Gaza’s 2.3 million people are cut off from each other and the world.

— Turkey’s Erdogan is visiting Germany as differences over the Israel-Hamas war widen.

— Cease-fire protests shut down bridges in Boston and San Francisco.

— Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war


Here’s what's happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war:

AFGHANISTAN DENOUNCES ISRAEL'S ONGOING STRIKES IN GAZA

ISLAMABAD — Afghanistan’s Taliban-led administration denounced the ongoing Israeli strikes in Gaza, including the raid on Shifa Hospital. In an overnight statement, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Israeli forces were continually breaking all rules of war.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan called on the United Nations and other human rights bodies, saying that “if they genuinely believe in their stated values, they must prevent the ongoing brutalities by adopting an honest, transparent & just position vis-a-vis crimes against humanity carried out by the zionists against the people of Gaza," the statement read, referring to Jews who seek to regain and retain their biblical homeland.

It also asked Arab and Islamic countries “to respond to the cries of the oppressed Muslims of Gaza, & to fulfill their religious & human responsibility through effective & meaningful positions & steps.”

The Taliban-led administration seized power in 2021, and since then the U.N. and other human rights groups have blamed it for human rights violations.

In September, the U.N. said it documented more than 1,600 cases of human rights violations committed by authorities in Afghanistan during arrests and detentions of people. At the time, it urged the Taliban government to stop torture and protect the rights of detainees. The report by the mission’s Human Rights Service covered 19 months — from January 2022 until the end of July 2023 — with cases documented across 29 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. It said 11% of the cases involved women.

SEVERAL ISRAELI AIRSTRIKES HIT NEAR DAMASCUS, SYRIA'S STATE NEWS AGENCY SAYS

DAMASCUS, Syria — Syria’s state news agency says Israel’s military has carried out strikes that hit several posts near the capital, Damascus, causing material damage but no casualties.

SANA quoted an unnamed military official as saying that Syrian air defenses shot down most of the missiles before they reached their targets early Friday.

There has been no confirmation from the Israeli military.

In the weeks since the latest war between Israel and Hamas broke out, Syria reported Israeli airstrikes that hit the international airports in Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo, damaging their runways and putting them out of service.

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, including attacks on the Damascus and Aleppo airports, but rarely acknowledges or discusses the operations.

Palestinians say Israeli settlers are seizing West Bank homes by force

DEBORA PATTA, AGNES REAU
November 16, 2023

East Jerusalem — Just to enter the driveway of his own home in East Jerusalem, Sa'adat Gharib must pass through a gate controlled remotely by Israeli security forces. Gharib's home is on his family's ancestral land, but it has been surrounded by an imposing metal fence, sitting within a cage encircled by Israeli settlements.

Gharib said the settler communities were built around his home — illegally — when he was a child. He said the settlers have offered to pay him whatever he wants to leave, but he has refused. He told CBS News that his family, including his young children, have been threatened.

Sa'adat Gharib stands with his children at the entrance to their home in East Jerusalem, which is entirely surrounded by an Israeli settlement - and a high security fence - in mid-November 2023. / Credit: CBS News/Agnes Reau

Gharib said his 11-year-old son Sabri was detained for six hours after his soccer ball rolled close to the settlements. Asked about it, Sabri grinned with youthful bravado and insisted he wasn't scared.

"But I was," piped up his sister.

The circumstances have taken a toll on Gharib.

"As a father I feel broken inside, because my children are unable to play outside like other kids," he said.

Patrolling just on the other side of the fence, armed with a rifle, we found Israeli settler Jonathan Landman. He said he was "a man of peace," and that the fence was built to keep him and the other settlers safe. He was born there, on land he insisted that his mother purchased.

Settler Jonathan Landman speaks with CBS News through the fence that separates Palestinian Sa'adat Gharib's family home from the surrounding Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem, Nov. 9, 2023. / Credit: CBS News/Agnes Reau

"When you live here all of your life… you get afraid and you need to protect yourself," he said. "If the Palestinians leave their guns, we will live in peace here… If the Israelis leave their guns, they will kill us."

The West Bank, the much larger of the two Palestinian territories, is occupied by Israeli security forces. It's made up of rugged, limestone hills dotted with olive groves — land that is at the very heart of this conflict.

Some 700,000 Israelis live in settlements scattered across the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem.

An aerial photo shows Sa'adat Gharib's family home, surrounded by a high security fence in the middle of an Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem, Nov. 9, 2023. / Credit: CBS News

The settlements are regarded as illegal under international law, but they've been encouraged by Israel's current government, which swung sharply to the right when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formed a coalition with parties that had long existed on the fringes of Israeli politics.

Israeli civilians, including settlers, are increasingly well-armed, and they're also increasingly emboldened. Since the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers launched their bloody Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel — in which Israel says about 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage — the West Bank has reached boiling point, and there's fear it could spark a civil uprising.

The Ministry of Health in the West Bank says almost 200 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since Oct. 7, and the United Nations humanitarian relief agency OCHA says almost 1,150 people have been displaced from their homes there due to settler violence and land access restrictions.

Among those displaced are around 400 men, women and children from ethnic Bedouin families in the village of Wadi Al Seeq, according to Abu Basher, an elder from the community of Arab herders. He shared cellphone video with CBS News that appears to show armed settlers forcing him and others to leave at gunpoint at the end of October.


"People were bleeding, and women and children were screaming," he said. "I was terrified my wife and children would be slaughtered."

Basher said the settlers destroyed their homes and property, even their local school, and stole money, cellphones and valuable livestock.

"I am so depressed. All my hard work over the past 48 years…all gone," he said. "I still haven't processed the shock… I have lost all hope."

Some of the displaced Bedouins have been living in tents on land belonging to a neighbor — temporary shelter while they try to get back on their feet.

A Bedouin Palestinian man sits with his children in a tent on a neighbor's property in the West Bank, Nov. 11, 2023, after hundreds of members of their community were allegedly forced from their homes in the village of Wadi al Seeq by Israeli settlers. / Credit: CBS News/Agnes Reau

Activist Mohammed Mattar was helping protect the Bedouins after they said they'd received death threats from the settlers, but it turned out it was Mattar who needed protecting.

He said settlers kidnapped him and two others, stripped them naked and then beat and tortured them for more than eight hours.

A photo provided by Palestinian activist Mohammed Mattar shows bruises he says he got from Israeli settlers who kidnapped him in the West Bank. / Credit: Courtesy of Mohammed Mattar

"After that we were in a state of collapse," he said. "Then someone started to pee on us. That's when I started screaming." At one point, he said Israeli soldiers joined in the abuse. An Israeli military commander has since been dismissed and an investigation opened, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

The settlers even bragged about it, posting an image on social media showing the bruised men blindfolded with their hands bound.

"The settlers believe if you're Arab… they can do anything they want," he said. "They can take your blood, your money, your women… anything."

An image shared online by Israeli settlers in the West Bank shows three Palestinian men, including, at right, activist Mohammed Mattar Mattar, who told CBS News they were all kidnapped and tortured for hours by the settlers amid Israel's war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Mattar's bruises have healed and, despite his ordeal, his desire for justice has only strengthened. He will take the Bedouins' case to court, he said, but only once the war is over.

The Bedouin herders put on a brave face for the sake of their children, but they told CBS News it felt as if they were in a dark tunnel with no light at the end. Winter is coming, and they're terrified of what a future without their land might hold.

Israel now occupies Gaza having completely destroyed it - so what does it do with the smouldering ruins?

Sky News
Thu, November 16, 2023



Israel is approaching the end of the first phase of its operation in Gaza and with it comes a dilemma.

"You break it, you own it," US secretary of state Colin Powell warned President Bush ahead of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, quoting signs in US department stores meant for customers.

The same principle applies to Israel with northern Gaza. Sporadic fighting goes on but it effectively controls the top third of the territory and has comprehensively broken the area as a place to live.

Israel has its reasons for flattening it. It says it has used artillery and air strikes "professionally" to protect its soldiers and that ultimate blame lies with Hamas.

But either way, it has pulverised most of the zone it now occupies to rubble and is well on the way to erasing Gaza City from the map.

So what does it do with the smouldering ruins?

Follow live: Biden warns Israel of 'big mistake' after war

Israel doesn't look like it wants to own what it has broken. It has not followed its military campaign with any largescale humanitarian operation, though it has a duty to do so.

Israeli spokesman Mark Regev has told Sky News this is not the time for that, with fighting still going on. But that seems disingenuous.

It is clear that any fighting in northern Gaza is increasingly limited and largely confined to night-time. More importantly there are no signs of Israel preparing such a humanitarian mission.

Mr Regev estimates a million people have now moved south on the Israeli military's urging.

Inside Gaza our correspondent Mark Stone and his cameraman Richie Mockler have documented what that looks like.

They've witnessed utterly miserable scenes belonging to another century as Palestinians line up to file away from their completely devastated neighbourhoods.

By Mr Regev's figures, that leaves an estimated 200,000 people behind.

Israel is now the occupying force in northern Gaza. Under the rules of law it has obligations to the civilian population whose homes it has utterly broken. So far, it says it has brought in 300 litres of fuel, boxes of medical aid and a few incubators.

That is the here and now. Israel faces an even bigger dilemma over what it does next.

It could call it quits and give up what it's broken. There's talk of pulling out, leaving Arab neighbours and the West to put Gaza back together. But that could leave the field clear for Hamas to return, as it has every time in the past. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised this time to destroy it for good.

His political survival depends on it.

It could double down. Hamas forces still prevail in two thirds of the Gaza Strip. If Israel is serious about eradicating its threat it will need to go after them. But really? In an area already one of the most densely populated on Earth that's now been swelled by another million? It seems inconceivable, even if the mission remains Israel's stated war aim.

Or there's a halfway house. Staying in, but only in the north and not pressing south.

Read more:
Inside Gaza's 'humanitarian corridors'
Labour frontbenchers quit over Gaza ceasefire vote
Village caught in crossfire 'could turn into battlefield'

Mr Netanyahu insists Israel will keep control of security in Gaza which implies a lasting presence on the ground of some sort.

That will suit his far-right partners in government just fine because it destroys even further the chances of a viable Palestinian state, something they vehemently oppose.

But in Washington the Biden administration is warning against anything approaching reoccupation because it jeopardises the only hope for peace in the region, however remote, that ever elusive two-state solution.

Read more:
What is the two-state solution for Israel and Palestinians?

Potential donor countries whose support could rebuild Gaza want the same. They will demand signs of progress towards peace before pouring in the billions needed to rebuild broken Gaza.

A divided, destroyed Gaza, still under Israeli occupation, may satisfy Mr Netanyahu's far-right partners in government for their own ideological reasons. But the Biden administration won't tolerate that outcome for long.

Israel relies on America for military aid and diplomatic support and cannot afford to alienate its patrons indefinitely.

Mr Netanyahu relies on his far-right partners to stay in power.

Patrons and partners. Israel's leader cannot please both and will need to choose between them sometime soon.

Thousands of bodies lie buried in rubble in Gaza. Families dig to retrieve them, often by hand

WAFAA SHURAFA AND SAMY MAGDY
November 16, 2023 



DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The wreckage goes on for block after devastated block. The smell is sickening. Every day, hundreds of people claw through tons of rubble with shovels and iron bars and their bare hands.

They are looking for the bodies of their children. Their parents. Their neighbors. All of them killed in Israeli missile strikes. The corpses are there, somewhere in the endless acres of destruction.

More than five weeks into Israel’s war against Hamas, some streets are now more like graveyards. Officials in Gaza say they don’t have the equipment, manpower or fuel to search properly for the living, let alone the dead.

Hamas, the militant group behind the deadly Oct. 7 attack that killed about 1,200 people in Israel, has many of its bases within Gaza’s crowded neighborhoods. Israel is targeting those strongholds.

But the victims are often everyday Palestinians, many of whom have yet to be found.

Omar al-Darawi and his neighbors have spent weeks searching the ruins of a pair of four-story houses in central Gaza. Forty-five people lived in the homes; 32 were killed. In the first days after the attack, 27 bodies were recovered.

The five still missing were al-Darawi’s cousins.

They include Amani, a 37-year-old stay-at-home mom who died with her husband and their four children. There’s Aliaa, 28, who was taking care of her aging parents. There’s another Amani, who died with her 14-year-old daughter. Her husband and their five sons survived.

“The situation has become worse every day,” said the 23-year-old, who was once a college journalism student. The smell has become unbearable.

“We can’t stop,” he said. “We just want to find and bury them” before their bodies are lost in the rubble forever.

The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says the attacks have killed more than 11,200 people, two-thirds of them women and children. The U.N. humanitarian affairs office estimates that about 2,700 people, including 1,500 children, are missing and believed buried in the ruins.

The missing have added layers of pain to Gaza’s families, who are overwhelmingly Muslim. Islam calls for the dead to be buried quickly — within 24 hours if possible — with the shrouded bodies turned to face the holy city of Mecca. Traditionally, the body is washed by family members with soap and scented water, and prayers for forgiveness are said at the gravesite.

The search is particularly difficult in northern Gaza, including Gaza City, where Israeli ground forces are battling Hamas militants. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled southward, terrified by the combat and pushed by Israeli warnings to evacuate. But even in the south, continued Israeli airstrikes and shelling mean nowhere is safe in the tiny territory.

The Palestinian Civil Defense department, Gaza’s primary search-and-rescue force, has had more than two dozen workers killed and over 100 injured since the war began, said Mahmoud Bassal, the department spokesman.

More than half of its vehicles are now either without fuel or have been damaged by strikes, he said.

In central Gaza, outside the northern combat zone, the area's civil defense director has no working heavy equipment at all, including bulldozers and cranes.


“We actually don’t have fuel to keep the sole bulldozer we have operating," said Rami Ali al-Aidei.

At least five large bulldozers are needed just to search a series of collapsed high-rise buildings in the coastal town of Deir al-Balah, he said.

This means that bodies, and the desperate people searching for them, are not the focus.

“We’re prioritizing areas where we think we will find survivors,” said Bassal.

As a result, the search for bodies often falls to relatives, or to volunteers like Bilal Abu Sama, a former freelance journalist.

He ticks off a handful of Deir al-Balah’s victims: 10 corpses still lost in what is left of the al-Salam Mosque; two dozen bodies missing in a destroyed home; 10 missing in another mosque attack.

“Will those bodies remain under the rubble until the war ends? OK, when will the war end?” said Abu Sama, 30, describing how families dig through the wreckage without any tools. “The bodies will be decomposed. Many of them have already decomposed.”

On Tuesday, 28 days after an airstrike flattened his home, Izzel-Din al-Moghari found his cousin’s body.

Twenty-four people from his extended family lived in the home, in the Bureij refugee camp. All but three were killed.

Eight are still missing.

A civil defense bulldozer came three days after the strike to clear the road, then left quickly for another collapsed building. The bulldozer came again Tuesday and helped find al-Moghari's cousin.

After finding his cousin, al-Moghari went back into the wreckage in search of his father and other relatives.

"I am stunned,” he said. “What we lived through is indescribable.”

Gaza has become a place where many families are denied even the comfort of a funeral.

Al-Darawi, the man searching for his cousins, understands that.

“Those who found their dead are lucky," he said.

Displaced as a girl and again in old age, Palestinian grandmother relives the Nakba

NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI
November 14, 2023 


KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Driven from her home by war and sheltering in a tent with no certainty of ever being able to return, elderly Palestinian refugee Abla Awad felt like history was repeating itself in a tragic, never-ending loop.

When she was a girl, she and her family were forced from their village, inside what is now Israel, to Gaza, during the mass displacement of Palestinians in 1948, when Israel was created, an event Palestinians call the "Nakba", or catastrophe.

Now, she has had to abandon her home all over again, fleeing Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza to escape Israeli air strikes, and taking shelter with generations of her family in a tent city in Khan Younis, in the southern part of the enclave.

"I was five years old and I remember being displaced. Our families carried us along with their bags, and they took us to Gaza. I swear it's the same as what's happening today," said Awad, sitting outside her tent on a patch of sand.

"I was a little girl and now I am reliving the same thing ... Ever since I can remember, since I was five years old, I have been witnessing wars," she said, as her grandchildren ran around her, playfully darting in and out of the tent.

The latest war, between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist group that runs Gaza, began when Hamas fighters rampaged through southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 Israelis, including babies and children, and taking 240 hostages, according to Israeli figures.

In response, Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza and launched an air, sea and ground assault that has killed more than 11,000 people, most of them women and children, according to Gazan officials. An estimated two thirds of the enclave's 2.3 million residents have been made homeless.


"What did we do to them? Every few years they bring a new Nakba on us," said Awad, breaking down in tears.

"They displaced us from our home and brought us to Gaza. Now where will they send us? To Sinai? Where will they take us? Let them throw us in the sea, then they can rest without Gaza and the poor Palestinian people," she said.

Israel contests the assertion that it drove Palestinians out, highlighting that Arab armies attacked it the day after it was created, rejecting a United Nations partition plan that would have created a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

The Israeli military has said its current war is against Hamas, not civilians, and that displaced people will be allowed home when it is over, but this has given little reassurance to Palestinians still suffering the consequences of the Nakba.

Most people in Gaza are registered as refugees, after they or their ancestors fled their homes in 1948.

On Tuesday, a senior far-right member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government said Gaza could not survive as an independent entity and it would be better for Palestinians there to leave for other countries.

The comments by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich are likely to reinforce fears in much of the Arab world that Israel wants to drive Palestinians out of land where they want to build a future state, repeating the Nakba.

"I can't take this anymore. I'm so tired of this life. We're so sick of this, oh God. Have mercy on us. Countries of the world, please look at us, have mercy on us. We're hungry. We've been displaced. How many more years?" said Awad, her voice full of despair.

(Writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Christina Fincher)

Airstrike kills renowned doctor in Gaza and relatives who sought shelter together

JACK JEFFERY
November 14, 2023 




CAIRO (AP) — It was the call Shaymma Alloh had been dreading, the news from Gaza she hoped would never come: The house where 26 members of her family were sheltering was hit by a missile strike.

Among the four confirmed deaths from the strike late Saturday was her 36-year-old brother, Hammam Alloh, a renowned physician who stayed in northern Gaza to help treat patients at Shifa Hospital, which has been encircled by Israeli troops for days.

He and many of his relatives were staying at his in-laws' home near the hospital because they had nowhere else to go. And that's where surviving family members found their bodies. One was disemboweled by the blast, two more buried in rubble, she said.

The dead included Shaymma Alloh's father and two in-laws, she told The Associated Press by phone Monday as she pieced together the tragedy from her home in the U.S. She declined to disclose her exact location out of concern about possible repercussions.

Her brother was a well-known kidney specialist at Gaza's largest hospital and had conducted several interviews with American news outlet "Democracy Now!" during the recent fighting between Israel and Hamas. While thousands fled Shifa over the weekend after Israeli troops encircled the facility, Hammam chose to stay behind as did hundreds of patients and displaced people who were seeking safety on the hospital's grounds.

“You think I went to medical school and for my postgraduate degrees for a total of 14 years so I think only about my life and not my patients?” he said to the outlet, explaining why he didn't flee. It was Oct. 31, his last interview.

The doctor's final days and violent death go to the core of battling narratives over how the war is conducted. Israel says it is striking Hamas fighters, while trying to avoid harm to civilians, and alleges that Hamas uses civilians as human shields. But its airstrikes and shelling, in retaliation for Hamas' deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, have also killed thousands of women and children in Gaza. Palestinians and rights groups accuse Israel of recklessly harming civilians.

Last month, Israel urged all Palestinians to evacuate to the southern part of Gaza as it launched a ground invasion. Israel has since agreed to open daily windows during which civilians can flee northern Gaza along two main roads.

But tens of thousands of people remain in the north. Israel continues to strike what it says are militant targets across the territory, often killing civilians.

According to Shaymma, her entire extended family was staying with her brother at their in-laws' house, a 10-minute walk from the hospital, when the airstrike they blamed on Israel hit. They had no relatives or friends in the south who could house them.

She learned of the attack from her Qatar-based sister, who called after hearing that the neighborhood had been hit, she said.

After failing to reach her brother or her father, Mahmoud, she finally got in contact with her mother, Haifa, who was hiding in an adjacent building with female relatives. They were frozen with shock and fearful that another strike could come.

Eventually her mother was convinced to go into the upstairs room of the home to look for male relatives. That’s where she found Hammam’s body in the rubble, Shaymma said, retelling what she could of her mother’s story. With him were two men who were gravely wounded.

Next to her brother was the body of his father-in-law, whose stomach had been torn open. Their father was discovered hours later beneath the remnants of a destroyed concrete wall. Another in-law was also killed, but Shaymma, overwhelmed by grief, was unable to recount the precise circumstances of his death.

Shaymma said she was not able to provide the exact location of her in-laws' house as she has never been there. The Israeli army said it is only able to comment on individual strikes if provided with coordinates.

More than 11,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. The vast majority have been killed in Israeli airstrikes. The ministry said it was forced to temporarily halt its count Friday because of the difficulty of collecting information.

At least 1,200 people have died on the Israeli side, mostly civilians killed in Hamas' Oct. 7 assault. Palestinian militants are holding nearly 240 hostages seized in the raid. The military says more than 40 soldiers have been killed in ground operations in Gaza.

Throughout Sunday, Shaymma tried contacting several aid groups, including the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, in an attempt to get medical treatment for the two wounded male relatives. One had a deep neck wound, and both struggled to walk. She said she was told no ambulances could come to the area because it was too dangerous.

Then on Monday morning, the Israeli army made contact. She said a relative received a phone call telling the family to leave the house and head south waving a white flag.

She said her mother was distraught by the idea of leaving loved ones unburied and scared that the family might be targeted on the journey. But her daughter convinced her otherwise.

“You have to think about the living,” Shaymma said, recounting the conversation. “If you take the other choice, you might be bombed.”

Her female relatives and the two injured in-laws left the neighborhood Monday, she said, turning their phones off before they left to save battery power.

She made contact with her sister-in-law, Noor, on Monday evening and discovered they had not traveled far. They were at Shifa Hospital.

While passing by the hospital, she said her family had been warned by people sheltering there that the Israeli army was shooting at Palestinians fleeing south. So they decided to stay.

“While it's not completely safe," she said, "I am glad they are OK.”

___

Heartbreaking message from London student killed in Israeli airstrike who feared being trapped by rubble

ANDY WELLS
Updated 9 November 2023 

Dr Maisara Alrayyes, 30, was a former alumni of King's College London and SOAS University.

A London student killed in a retaliatory Israeli airstrike told friend he was “terrified” as he lay under the rubble days before his death.

Dr Maisara Alrayyes, 30, a former alumni of King's College London (KCL) and SOAS University, was stuck under the rubble with his family for 30 hours before they died.

Now a message from Alrayyes sent to his former classmates has been shared by KCL’s Justice for Palestine society.
Recommended reading

Israel-Hamas war: What will it take for a ceasefire in Gaza?(Yahoo News)


Who are the British victims of the Israel-Hamas war?(Sky News)


Israel-Hamas war: What is the two-state solution?(HuffPost)


Can the Palestinian Authority lead a post-Hamas Gaza Strip?(France 24)

He wrote: “In the last few days, I'm starting to feel more terrified than ever.

“I imagine myself underneath the rubble, and I have a great fear of staying alive under the rubble."

According to a post shared by the society, rescuers struggled to reach Alrayyes and his family due to a blackout and they all died while trapped.

Palestinians inspect the damage of a destroyed house following Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City. (AP) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Israel launched retaliatory strikes on Gaza after Hamas militants attacked southern Israeli towns on 7 October, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians.

It was the single worst day of bloodshed in Israel's 75-year history.

Palestinian authorities claim that over 10,000 civilians have since been killed in the strikes, which Israel says are targeting Hamas figures who are holed up in civilian buildings.
‘Lively and happy and joyful’

Friends of Alrayyes posted tributes to him following his death.

Anas Ismail posted on X: "My best friend Maisara Alrayyes and his family were killed in an Israeli airstrike two days ago. His two brothers who survived have been trying to get the bodies from under the rubble. Another airstrike killed the two brothers while they were getting the bodies out."

Another tribute on X by Ahmed Alnaouq before Maisara's death was announced, said: "My best friend Maisara came to London two months ago for his honeymoon. He was lively and happy and joyful.

“And now it is more than 30 hours since his home was bombed and no one can retrieve his body or the bodies of his family from under the rubble."


Israeli military are continuing their ground operations in Gaza. (Reuters) (Handout . / reuters)
Gaza strikes intensify

Israel continues to pound Gaza, with its forces fighting Hamas militants in the north on Thursday.

Residents in Gaza City – a militant stronghold in the north of the Hamas-ruled territory – said Israeli tanks were stationed around the city.

Israeli forces were moving closer to two hospitals where thousands of displaced Palestinians were seeking shelter, they said.

Israel, which has vowed to wipe out Hamas, says 33 of its soldiers have been killed in its ground operation.

Smoke rises following Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City. (AP) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Israeli soldiers also discovered a Hamas weapons manufacturing and storage site in a residential building in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in northern Gaza, it said.

A humanitarian crisis has gripped the enclave, with basic supplies running out and buildings demolished by Israeli bombardments.

Tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians have fled the north of Gaza over Wednesday and Thursday seeking refuge from Israeli air strikes and the fierce ground fighting.

Israel has told residents to evacuate encircled northern parts of Gaza or risk being trapped in the violence.

Additional reporting by Reuters.