UN says aid entering Gaza amid pause ‘insufficient’

AFP/GENEVA LAST EDITED NOVEMBER 29, 2023 

Palestinian Mohamed Abu al-Humus, former prisoner released from the Israeli jail in exchange for hostages freed by Hamas in Gaza, hugs his mother upon return to his home in east Jerusalem, yesterday

Palestinians fleeing the north walk along the Salaheddine road in the Zeitoun district on the southern outskirts of Gaza City, yesterday.

Palestinians wait to fill their cars with fuel during a temporary truce between Hamas and Israel, in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, yesterday.

Palestinians inspect the destruction caused by Israeli strikes in Wadi Gaza, in the central Gaza Strip, yesterday.

The UN welcomed yesterday the increase in aid deliveries into Gaza afforded by a temporary truce but warned it was not enough to even start addressing the Palestinian territory’s massive needs.

UN children’s agency UNICEF said the aid flow to the northern Gaza Strip — the largest since the Israel-Hamas war erupted on October 7 — was “the right start”.

“(It’s) definitely the right type of aid — fuel, medicines, food, warmth,” spokesman James Elder told a press briefing in Geneva via video-link from Gaza.

But, he warned, the needs in the besieged enclave of more than 2mn are so huge that “all this aid is triage... It’s not even enough for triage.” When there are insufficient resources to treat everyone who needs it, hospitals and aid organisations are forced to triage — that is, to prioritise the most urgent cases, or those people most likely to survive, and leave the others.

“The aid needs to multiply... Everything here is emergency care right now,” Elder said.
Margaret Harris of the World Health Organisation agreed.

“The needs are massive. The amount of aid we’ve been able to get in is a trickle still,” the WHO spokeswoman told the briefing.

Their comments came as Israel and Palestinian fighter group Hamas embarked on a two-day extension to an initial four-day truce that has allowed Israeli hostages to be freed from Gaza in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

The truce paused fighting that began when Hamas fighters poured over the border into Israel. Israel’s relentless retaliatory ground and air offensive in Gaza has killed almost 15,000 people, mostly civilians and many of them children, according to its Hamas-run government.

‘HEARTBREAKING’

The truce “has caused a moment of respite, critically to get aid in and also for people to take the heartbreaking task of looking for loved ones”, Elder said.
It was vital for the pause in fighting to be prolonged and turned into a permanent ceasefire, he said.

“It would be callous and cold to think we could turn around and start destroying homes and children and families’ lives again.” At the same time, “there is no way” to get things like desalination and sewage treatment plants on Gaza working properly again during just a temporary pause in fighting.

If the hostilities resume, “mass killing of children” will continue in Gaza, at a time when civilians there are even more vulnerable than before — many living outdoors in increasingly cold weather, malnourished, lacking clean water and with disease threatening, Elder said.
Allowing Israel’s bombardment of Gaza to resume, he said, “would be a dark stain on everyone’s conscience”.

What is Israel's administrative detention system used against Palestinians like Ahed Tamimi?

The New Arab Staff
28 November, 2023

Approximately 150 Palestinians have been released by Israel who were detained under the notorious administrative detention system, without charge or trial

Israeli forces have detained thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank since 7 October [Getty


Around 98 or 150 Palestinian detainees released since a Hamas-Israel hostage swap deal began on Friday were subject to the notorious administrative detention system which allows prisoners to be held indefinitely, without charge.

Administrative detention has been increasingly utilised by Israel, reaching levels not seen in decades, with hundreds more detained in the occupied West Bank since 7 October.

Of those released as part of the truce deal, 119 were children and 31 women.

Amnesty International has highlighted a significant increase in these detentions, saying they were "already at a 20-year high before the latest escalation in hostilities on 7 October" and denouncing them as a part of Israel's apartheid practices against Palestinians.

"Administrative detention is one of the key tools through which Israel has enforced its system of apartheid against Palestinians.

"Testimonies and video evidence also point to numerous incidents of torture and other ill-treatment by Israeli forces including severe beatings and deliberate humiliation of Palestinians who are detained in dire conditions," said Heba Morayef, Amnesty’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

How does the administrative detention system work?

The administrative detention system allows Israel to detain individuals without formal charge or trial, based on the premise that they might pose a future threat.

The detentions are authorised by military commanders and are based on classified evidence that isn't disclosed to the detainees. They are often renewed indefinitely, leaving prisoners in a state of uncertainty, without knowing the charges against them or when they might be released.

This lack of transparency and indefinite nature of the detentions has been condemned by human rights organisations as a violation of international law and an element of Israel's broader measures to control and persecute Palestinians.

How many Palestinians are affected by this system?

As of June 2023, 1,083 out of 5,000 Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons were kept under the administrative detention system. These included three women and 19 children, according to the Palestinian Prisoners' Club.

Data gathered by human rights organisations shows a dramatic increase in the number of Palestinians detained under this system since 7 October.

Between 7 October and 25 November, over 3,160 Palestinians were detained in total by Israel.

The total number of Palestinians held in administrative detention also increased sharply around this time. Between 1 October and 1 November, the total number of Palestinians held in administrative detention, without charge or trial, rose from 1,319 to 2,070, the Israeli human rights organization HaMoked said.


Ahed Tamimi 'could be freed' as part of truce extension

These recent detainees have been part of ongoing negotiations for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. Palestinian human rights activist Ahed Tamimi, one of those detained by Israel since 7 October, is reportedly among the most notable figures linked to these exchanges.

Since 1967, Israel has implemented over 1,000 military orders that have criminalised various aspects of Palestinian identity and expression, including political speech and symbolic acts like waving the Palestinian flag, often leading to arrests under charges of 'incitement'.

The Israeli NGO B'tselem says that, since March 2002, "not a single month has gone by without Israel holding at least 100 Palestinians in administrative detention".

How Israel keeps hundreds of Palestinians in detention without charge

"Administrative detention is an anathema in any democratic society that follows the rule of law," 

Ishaan Tharoor, Nov 29 2023

ANALYSIS: A four-day pause in hostilities between Israel and the militant group Hamas was extended by two more days, instead of expiring Tuesday morning, lengthening the brief reprieve offered to Gaza's 2.1 million Palestinians, who have endured weeks of relentless Israeli bombardments.

The move also gave further hope to the families of Israeli hostages abducted by Hamas during its October 7 strike on southern Israel.

Through Qatari and Egyptian mediators, the two sides had agreed on an initial release of 50 hostages in Gaza and about 150 Palestinians, mostly teenagers and some women, imprisoned by Israel, over the four-day period.

Sixty-nine hostages – the majority Israeli but also Thai, Philippine, French, Argentine and Russian citizens and others – and more than 100 Palestinians were released over the first four days.

The extension raises the possibility of more captive exchanges and more moments of joy for their friends and loved ones. But for freed Palestinians, the context in which they return is more barbed and fraught. In lists distributed to media, Israeli authorities label all the prisoners up for release as "terrorists".

Some were convicted of crimes such as attempted murder; others were detained for activities like "throwing stones" or carrying knives. And a few, like 59-year-old Hanan Barghouti, the eldest female prisoner to be released, were in indefinite Israeli custody without any charge.


NASSER NASSER/AP
Former Palestinian female prisoner Hanan Barghouti, who was released by the Israeli authorities, talks to the media upon her arrival in the West Bank town of Beitunia, on November 24, 2023.

While there were scenes of jubilation in Ramallah in the West Bank as a group of released prisoners met their families over the weekend, Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel's far-right national security minister, issued directives cracking down on such celebrations in East Jerusalem, where the Israeli police can directly operate.

"My instructions are clear: there are to be no expressions of joy," he said. "Expressions of joy are equivalent to backing terrorism, victory celebrations give backing to those human scum, for those Nazis."


AMIR LEVY/GETTY IMAGES
Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir in Tel Aviv, Israel, on July 4, 2023.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank, most of which is under Israel's military administration, Israeli authorities have detained roughly as many Palestinians as have been released in the past few days.

A post-October 7 crackdown saw the Palestinian population in Israeli custody almost double, by some measures: According to Palestinian rights groups, more than 3000 Palestinians, mostly in the West Bank, were swept up by Israeli security forces. The majority appear to be held in administrative detention – that is, a form of incarceration without charge or trial that authorities can renew indefinitely.

Under international law, the practice of administrative detention is supposed to be used only in exceptional circumstances. But, as Israeli and international human rights groups document, it has become more the norm in the West Bank. Even before October 7, smouldering tensions and violence in the West Bank had led to a three-decade high in administrative detentions.

Then, according to the Israeli human rights organisation HaMoked, the total number of Palestinians in administrative detention went from 1319 on October 1 to 2070 on November 1 – close to a third of the total Palestinian prisoner population.

NASSER NASSER/AP
Omar Atshan, 17, is hugged by his mother after being released from an Israeli prison on November 26, 2023.

Israel's critics contend that even those charged with specific crimes face a skewed, unfair justice system. Palestinians in the West Bank are subject to Israeli military courts, unlike the half-million Jewish settlers who live in their midst. These courts have in some years churned out convictions at a 99% rate, a state of affairs that raises questions about the due process afforded to Palestinians.

"Palestinians are routinely denied counsel, for example, and faced with language barriers and mistranslations that taint testimonies and confessions used in court," explained Vox's Abdallah Fayyad.

"But it's not only a lack of due process that plagues this legal system. Often times, these cases are based on specious and far-reaching charges."

NASSER NASSER/AP
Omar Atshan, 17, was released from Israeli prison into the West Bank town of Ramallah, on November 26, 2023.

The dynamics of the Israeli carceral system for Palestinians have long undergirded anger over the broader nature of Israel's military occupation of the Palestinian territories.

"The power to incarcerate people who have not been convicted or even charged with anything for lengthy periods of time, based on secret 'evidence' that they cannot challenge, is an extreme power," noted Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.

"Israel uses it continuously and extensively, routinely holding hundreds of Palestinians at any given moment."

NASSER NASSER/AP
Released Palestinian prisoners arrive in the West Bank town of Ramallah on November 28, 2023.

The deepening crisis that followed Hamas' bloody rampage on October 7 has only exacerbated tensions.

"Administrative detention is one of the key tools through which Israel has enforced its system of apartheid against Palestinians," Heba Morayef, Amnesty International's regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement this month, citing numerous reports of abuses suffered by Palestinian detainees in recent weeks.

"Testimonies and video evidence also point to numerous incidents of torture and other ill-treatment by Israeli forces including severe beatings and deliberate humiliation of Palestinians who are detained in dire conditions."

Israeli authorities have argued over the years that their practice of administrative detention is in line with policies in other democracies and constitutes a necessary preventive measure, given the security conditions that shape the West Bank.

The feeble Palestinian Authority, which has long worked hand-in-glove with Israeli security agencies, has struggled to tamp down rising anger and militancy among Palestinians in the West Bank.

NASSER NASSER/AP
33 Palestinian prisoners were released by Israel into east Jerusalem and Ramallah on November 28, 2023.

In recent weeks, Israeli government officials have lashed out at censure from UN officials and organisations like Amnesty International, which an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson described as "antisemitic" and "biased".

But Israel's widespread use of the practice has been long criticised by international observers. A 2012 European parliamentary report described administrative detention as a tactic employed "principally to constrain Palestinian political activism".

In 2020, Michael Lynk, then the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, called on Israel to abolish the practice.

"Administrative detention is an anathema in any democratic society that follows the rule of law," Lynk said.

"When the democratic state arrests and detains someone, it is required to charge the person, present its evidence in an open trial, allow for a full defence and try to persuade an impartial judiciary of its allegations beyond a reasonable doubt."

Israel incarcerating 44 Palestinian journalists — media body

Israel is holding 29 journalists in addition to 15 already languishing in its jails, says Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.



AA

The syndicate says 70 journalists and media workers, mostly Palestinian. have been killed in the Israeli bombardment of besieged Gaza since October 7. / Photo: AA

At least 44 Palestinian journalists are languishing in Israeli jails, and 29 of them were seized since October 7, a local journalists group has said.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate [PJS] said: "The Israeli occupation forces released 12 of the detained journalists after serving various terms."

It added: "29 journalists are still under arrest." About 15 journalists are already incarcerated in Israeli jails.

The syndicate released a list of the names of 29 journalists detained by Israel in its statement, most of whom are held under administrative arrest [arrest without trial or charge].

The syndicate released on Saturday the names of 70 journalists and media workers who have been killed in the Israeli bombardment of besieged Gaza since October 7.

The list of martyred journalists ranges from technicians, cameramen, editors and investigative journalists.

Three other journalists have been killed in Lebanon.

Israel's war on besieged Gaza has killed over 15,000 Palestinians so far, including 6,150 children and 4,000 women, according to health authorities in the enclave.

Netanyahu says he is 'only one who will prevent a Palestinian state'

Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
November 28, 2023

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 

With his approval ratings in the tank, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly been lobbying members of his Likud party in a bid to keep their support, claiming he is "the only one who will prevent a Palestinian state" in Gaza and the West Bank.

Netanyahu's remarks, first reported by the Israeli public broadcaster Kan, fly in the face of the Biden administration's continued push for a two-state solution as the "only way to guarantee the long-term security of both the Israeli and the Palestinian people."

"To make sure Israelis and Palestinians alike live in equal measure of freedom and dignity, we will not give up on working towards that goal," U.S. President Joe Biden, who has offered unconditional political and military support to Israel during its latest assault on Gaza, wrote in a social media post late Monday.

Analysts have long argued that one democratic state, not two states, is the only viable alternative to the apartheid status quo, given factors such as ever-expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Throughout his career, Netanyahu has vociferously opposed a peaceful resolution and worked to divide Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank by propping up Hamas.

"Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas," Netanyahu told his colleagues in 2019. "This is part of our strategy—to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank."

In his latest comments to Likud backbenchers, Netanyahu reportedly said he's "the only one who can withstand U.S. pressure" and that he knows "how to manage American public opinion," even as American public support for Israel's assault on Gaza falls

The Times of Israelreported Monday that Netanyahu "boasted about having gone against" U.S. wishes by launching a ground invasion of Gaza and raiding the Palestinian territory's largest hospital on the pretense that Hamas was hiding a command center on the facility's grounds—a claim that has not been substantiated.

Netanyahu, facing mounting domestic pressure to resign, has also indicated that Israel plans to occupy the Gaza Strip for an "indefinite period" after the current war, defying Biden's warning against a prolonged occupation.

"Look Joe Biden: Netanyahu is spitting in your face," Yonah Lieberman, co-founder of the Jewish-American advocacy group IfNotNow, wrote on social media Monday. "He doesn't take you seriously. Are you going to keep hugging him in public or are you going to finally end the blank check and hold him accountable for his words and actions?"

News of the Israeli prime minister's meetings with Likud lawmakers came as the attack on Gaza is under a tenuous pause to allow for the release of hostages. Netanyahu has opposed a lasting cease-fire and pledged to continue waging war on the strip once the pause is over.

The Financial Times reported Tuesday that Biden and other top U.S. officials have implored Israel not to trigger mass internal displacement in its planned offensive in southern Gaza, where many people have fled to escape Israeli bombing in the north. Israel's assault has displaced around 70% of Gaza's population so far.

Israeli officials have not provided any public indication that their bombing campaign will be less destructive following the end of the pause.

"The enemy will meet first the bombs of the Air Force, and after that the shells of the tanks and the artillery and the scoops of the D9 [bulldozers], and finally gunfire of the infantry troops," Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday. "We will fight in the entire strip."

Israeli plans to ‘expand’ offensive in Gaza at end of pause 'deeply worrying': UN rights office

All parties should use humanitarian pause 'to work toward full cease-fire, on human rights and humanitarian grounds,' spokeswoman tells Anadolu

Beyza Binnur Donmez |28.11.2023 - AA


GENEVA

Recent comments from Israeli political and leadership that they plan to expand the military offensive in Gaza at the end of the humanitarian pause are “deeply worrying,” the UN human rights office said on Tuesday.

“The comments of Israeli political and military leadership in recent days that they plan to expand and intensify the military offensive across Gaza following the pause are deeply worrying.” Marta Hurtado, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told Anadolu.

She urged all parties of the conflict as well as states with influence to use the current humanitarian pause "to work towards a full cease-fire, on human rights and humanitarian grounds."


Nothing that there has been an "important respite" from the "hellfire" of the past seven weeks for civilians in Gaza, and some families have been reunited with loved ones, Hurtado said: "Much more must be done."


"The protection of civilians must be the top priority," she added.


She stressed that in order to ensure that aid meets the needs of the civilian population, the humanitarian space must be improved - “including through the opening of a crossing from Israel.”

Israeli officials have said that at the end of the humanitarian pause in Gaza, now in its fifth day and set to go on for a sixth, the army would resume its military offensive on the enclave.

Qatar announced an agreement late Monday to extend the initial four-day humanitarian pause for an additional two days, under which further prisoner exchanges will be carried out.

Israel launched a massive military campaign in the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7.

It has since killed over 15,000 people, including 6,150 children and 4,000 women, according to health authorities in the enclave.

The official Israeli death toll stands at 1,200.

Israel attempting to 'ethnically cleanse' Gaza: British-Palestinian doctor

Dr Ghassan Abu Sitta, a veteran war surgeon, says that Israel's sustained attacks on Gaza aim to make the region "uninhabitable", as he returns to the UK to testify on alleged war crimes.


"My duty as a doctor is not just to give treatment to my patients, but also to find justice for them," says Dr Abu Sitta. 

/ Photo: AA

Weeks of unrelenting attacks by Israel are part of an attempt to "ethnically cleanse" the besieged Gaza by making it uninhabitable, according to British-Palestinian surgeon Dr Ghassan Abu Sitta.

Abu Sitta, an experienced war surgeon, has just returned to the UK after weeks of caring for the wounded and sick in Gaza, including at the Al Ahli Baptist Hospital and the Al Shifa Medical Complex, as the Palestinian enclave was pummeled by over 40,000 tonnes of Israeli explosives.

Returning to Britain to provide a first-hand account of what has been happening in Gaza from inside the hospitals, Abu Sitta has agreed to work with UK police to provide eyewitness evidence of Israeli "war crimes" perpetrated over the past few weeks.

"My duty as a doctor is not just to give treatment to my patients, but also to find justice for them," he told Anadolu in London after giving a news conference organised by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians.

'Situation in Gaza remains catastrophic'

Abu Sitta, who has over 30 years of experience, has worked on 12 wars across Yemen, Iraq, Syria, South Lebanon, and Gaza. He arrived in the Palestinian enclave following Israel's war in Gaza.

Shortly thereafter, he said British counterterrorism police "showed up at my house in the UK and harassed my family."

However, he said he would not "stop speaking out on behalf of my patients and bearing witness to the crimes that are being committed."

On the current situation across Gaza, where a humanitarian pause has been in place since Friday, he said that while some food and medicine have made it into the enclave after a devastating blockade, this was "not enough."

"The situation in Gaza still remains catastrophic. There are shortages of food and water and medication," Abu Sitta stressed, noting that out of 36 hospitals, only nine of them have survived the Israeli attacks.

'Hospital full of wounded with no anaesthetic medication'

Israel aims to "clear Gaza of its population," Abu Sitta asserted, adding that Tel Aviv sought "to ethnically cleanse Gaza to make it unlivable."

"If you want to make a place uninhabitable, you do two things: You injure 37,000 people, and then you destroy the health system so that they can never find treatment, which means that their families have to take them out of Gaza for their treatment, which means that you create an uninhabitable Gaza," he explained.

Recounting one of his worst experiences in the course of the several weeks he was there, Abu Sitta talked about an incident that took place after Israel targeted a mosque during nighttime prayers, just two days before he had to leave Al Ahli Baptist Hospital.

"They killed 60 people and hundreds were brought in wounded," he said, adding that they only had two operating rooms left but continued to operate on injured patients until they ran out of medication.

At that point, they had to leave the hospital, even though there were still 500 wounded after finishing "with all of the anaesthetic medication." Al Ahli was the only hospital left in the northern part of Gaza at the time.

"The hospital was full of wounded, everywhere on the floor, on the grounds, and all of them still needed more surgery, but there were just no operating rooms left."

On a possible worst-case scenario for Gaza, if the attacks continue, Abu Sitta said this would be a return to total blockade of the strip following the current pause, with no materials allowed inside to rebuild homes and bring hospitals back into operation.

"So, the war will continue as a silent death to make sure that Gaza becomes uninhabitable."

FEMICIDE IS TERRORISM

In Canada, a Judge Sentences an Incel Killer as a Terrorist

A Toronto teenager who killed a woman in a massage parlor was sentenced on Tuesday to life in prison. The case was the first time gender-based violence in the country was labeled terrorism.

The massage parlor in Toronto where a 17-year-old carried out a deadly knife attack in 2020, killing one woman and seriously injuring another.

Credit...Ian Willms for The New York Times


By Vjosa Isai
The New York Times
Reporting from Toronto
Nov. 28, 2023

The teenager was lying next to his bloodied sword when the police captured him outside a Toronto massage parlor where one woman had been stabbed to death and another seriously injured.

The sword was inscribed with a sexist epithet and a note promoting an ideology of violence against women was found in the teenager’s pocket.

With the evidence stacked against him, he pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder. But a Canadian judge ruled that the attacks were acts of terrorism, in part because the teenager wanted to send a message that he hated women.

On Tuesday, the judge, Justice Suhail Akhtar, sentenced the teenager — who was 17 at the time of the attack — to life in prison though he would be eligible for parole after 10 years. Under Canadian juvenile justice law, his name cannot be published


The case represents the first time in Canada that the murder of a woman killed because of her gender has been prosecuted as an act of terrorism, a charge that increases the length of a prison sentence.

In a country that has grappled with recent, high-profile attacks against women, the case underscores how Canada is rethinking the classification of some violent acts as terrorism.

The teenager embraced the ideology of an online group whose members call themselves incels, or “involuntary celibates,” and who disparage women and blame them for denying incels what they believe is their right to sex.

Adherents of the group have launched other attacks in Canada over the years, including a deadly rampage five years ago in Toronto in which a man drove a van into a crowd of pedestrians, killing 10 people and injuring 16 others.

The incel ideology has been linked to the killing or injuring of 110 people in the United States and Canada since 2014, according to Canada’s intelligence agency, which in a report referred to incel attacks as a “growing and concerning area of gender-driven violence.”

Canada has typically reserved terrorism charges for religious extremists inspired by Al Qaeda and similar groups. But the judge overseeing the Toronto massage parlor case said in a ruling that the defendant “was motivated by the incel ideology and wished to send a message to society that incels were prepared to kill and commit violence.”

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto where the attacker, now 21, was sentenced.Credit...Ian Willms for The New York Times

The teenager admitted to killing Ashley Arzaga, 24, and injuring another woman, whose name cannot be published under a court order.

After the defendant’s guilty plea, prosecutors asked to have the attacks designated as terrorism to increase his possible jail time. He would otherwise have faced a maximum of 10 years in prison.

The teenager’s lawyers argued that there was no evidence that their client wanted to intimidate a large swath of the public and that the defendant’s ideology did not rise to the level of terrorism.

During an earlier sentencing hearing in October, the defendant, reading from a handwritten sheet of paper, said, “I do not hate women or anyone,” and added that he wished he could “travel back in time and talk some sense into my former self.”

Ms. Arzaga’s sister, who sat in the courtroom for part of the trial and asked prosecutors to be identified publicly only by her initials, provided a victim impact statement that was read in court.

“I think the most emotionally draining part of everything is watching my niece celebrating Mother’s Day at the cemetery,” the statement said.

The country’s handling of the case echoes a growing movement in Latin America to more aggressively tackle the killing of women in the region, which United Nations data indicates reached crisis levels. At least 18 countries have passed laws to protect women by creating a class of homicide known as femicide, adding tougher penalties and bringing greater law enforcement attention to the issue.

In February 2020, the Toronto teenager targeted a massage parlor called Crown Spa, where Ms. Arzaga, a woman he had never met, was working at the front desk, according to the judge who presided over his trial. He pulled a 17-inch knife, described in court as a sword, from beneath his coat pocket and stabbed Ms. Arzaga 42 times.

Her screams sent a female manager racing to the reception area where the teenager also stabbed her in the chest while yelling misogynist slurs, and sliced off part of her finger. The manager wrestled the sword from the teenager sword and stabbed him in the back, the judge said.

The teenager made it out of the spa and was lying on the pavement with the sword beside him. He had written “THOT slayer” on the sword. THOT is a crude epithet commonly used in the incel community to demean women, according to an expert who testified at the trial.

The defendant also told paramedics after the attack that he wanted to kill everyone in the spa. “I’m happy I got one,” he told them, according to the judge’s ruling.

In the teenager’s pocket, the police found a plastic bag with a knife-sharpening stone, a driver’s license and a piece of paper with the words “Long Live the Incel Rebellion,” a reference to one of the worst mass killings in Canada’s history.

The perpetrator of that attack, Alek Minassian, a college student, turned incels into a household word after he plowed a rental van into pedestrians on a busy Toronto street in 2018.


Mr. Minassian was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years, but he was not charged with terrorism.

Perhaps the most high-profile attack on women in Canada was the École Polytechnique massacre in 1989, in which a gunman fatally shot 14 women and injured another 12 people before turning the gun on himself.

Canadian terrorism prosecutions are different from other types of criminal prosecutions. Typically, an accused person’s intent to commit a crime to intimidate and scare the public is part of the standard for assigning guilt, said Leah West, a law professor at Carleton University in Ottawa and co-author of a paper about how forms of extremism like incel violence fit into Canada’s terrorism laws.

Canadian prosecutors must also prove that the accused was motivated by a specific ideology, Prof. West said, though the law is not clear about what qualifies as an ideology.

“We have this kind of amorphous term that we don’t really know what it means, and it’s a key element to proving someone’s committed terrorism,” Prof. West said.

Still, some legal experts say pursuing a terrorism charge is warranted to underscore how dangerous some ideas can be and what they can cause.

But some women’s groups and anti-violence advocates say that leaning on a terrorism strategy to address attitudes that breed misogyny can obscure the severity of other acts of violence against women that are far more common.

“When a woman is killed by her domestic partner, you still have a dead woman and we don’t ordinarily label that terrorism,” Janine Benedet, a law professor at the University of British Columbia, said, “even though that’s also an expression of sexism and an expression of misogyny.”

Vjosa Isai reports for The Times from Toronto. 

Growing number of homeless people turning to ERs for shelter and warmth in Ontario, study says

Non-urgent ER visits among homeless people during winter rose by 24% across province since 2018


Nicole Ireland · The Canadian Press · 

Posted: Nov 28, 2023 

Dr. Carolyn Snider, chief of the emergency department at St. Michael's Hospital in downtown Toronto, says there's been a significant increase in the number of homeless people taking refuge in emergency departments over the last few winters. 

(Michael Wilson/CBC)


When Dr. Carolyn Snider arrives for her early morning emergency room shifts, she regularly sees between five and 10 people in the waiting area who don't need medical attention— just a safe place to stay warm.

"[They're] truly there to just stay out of the elements," said Snider, chief of the emergency department at St. Michael's Hospital in downtown Toronto.

"This has already been occurring this fall. I can't even imagine what will be occurring over the upcoming [winter] months," she said.

There's been a significant increase in the number of homeless people taking refuge in downtown Toronto emergency departments over the last few winters, Snider said. She and colleagues did some research to see if they could quantify what they were seeing.

The resulting study, published on a pre-print website Tuesday, examined data that had been collected from hospitals across Ontario, documenting ER visits from the winter of 2018-19 through to last winter, ending March 31, 2023.

It found that non-urgent emergency department visits among people who are homeless increased by 24 per cent across the province over those five winters.
Visits skyrocketed nearly 70% in Toronto hospitals

In Toronto hospitals specifically, those cold-weather ER visits by homeless people skyrocketed by 68 per cent.

The researchers submitted the study for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, but chose to release the results earlier out of a sense of urgency as the days and nights get colder.

"We wanted to get this information out right away because we think that it can help inform the policy decisions that are being made right now about shelter spaces," said Dr. Stephen Hwang, the study's senior author and a physician-researcher at the MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions based at St. Michael's Hospital.

"When we have high levels of homelessness and not enough shelter beds for people ... the emergency department is the shelter of last resort. It's the warming centre of last resort," Hwang said.

The health administrative data used for the study came from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and an Ontario Health Insurance Plan database.
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Because no records existed to document whether homeless people said they had come to the emergency department specifically to get warm, the researchers eliminated some other possible reasons they might have come.

For example, the researchers "excluded visits related to care for COVID-19 or overdose, both [of] which are known to account for significant fluctuations in ED usage in this population," the study said.

There was no significant increase in non-urgent ER visits by people who were housed over the study period.

In Toronto hospitals specifically, those cold-weather ER visits by homeless people skyrocketed by 68 per cent, according to the study.

 (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press)

Sometimes people who are homeless will come into the emergency department and let staff know that they need help finding shelter, Snider said, and then calls to the shelter system show there are no vacancies.

A "larger proportion" of people who are homeless arrive at the ER and say they're concerned about their feet, she said.

"Sometimes it's that we need to provide them with some warm and clean socks because they don't have those," Snider said.

Other times, "they've been in multiple times over the last months with concerns about their feet when in fact there's actually no concerns about their feet," she said.

"They're there to get shelter and they know they've got a few hours to wait before a physician will even be available to see them about their feet," Snider said.

"And I don't blame them because they're there for survival reasons."
'We should prioritize getting people housed':expert

The study results don't surprise Stephen Gaetz, head of the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness based at York University.

Gaetz was not involved in the study but said "the results are to be trusted.

"One of the things we need to come to terms with in our response to homelessness is that if we do not provide people with access to adequate housing that is safe, affordable and appropriate, as well as necessary supports if they have health and or mental health challenges, then we shouldn't be surprised that people experiencing homelessness are going to make decisions that we may not like," Gaetz said in an email to The Canadian Press.

"If we don't like people experiencing homelessness going to emergency services at hospitals, sleeping in tents or in parks, or sleeping and keeping warm on the subway, then we should prioritize getting people housed," he said, noting that preventing people from becoming homeless in the first place is also important.
Focus on homeless crisis risks forgetting poverty hidden behind closed doors, advocates sayToronto hospitals see increase in cold-related injuries as shelter system fills up

Longer-term housing solutions are vital, but it's also urgent to increase access to safe shelters and warming centres this winter, study co-author Hwang said.

"We just need to ensure that at a bare minimum, that there are ways for people to get out of the cold and not be injured by hypothermia or frostbite," he said.

"And that should not be a chair in the emergency department waiting room."

 

Life expectancy fell in 2022 for 3rd year in a row: StatsCan

More than 19,700 Canadians died of COVID-19 last year, highest since start of pandemic

The Canadian Press · Posted: Nov 28, 2023 

Cancer and heart disease were the leading causes of death in Canada in 2022. (Gerry Broome/The Associated Press)

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Statistics Canada says life expectancy for the average Canadian at birth has fallen for three straight years, from 82.3 years in 2019 to 81.3 in 2022.

The report on deaths shows New Brunswick saw the biggest decline in life expectancy in 2022, dropping to 79.8 years from 80.9 in 2021.

Saskatchewan's life expectancy has fallen the most over the past three years combined, dropping a full two years to 78.5 in 2022 from 80.5 in 2019.

Life expectancy increases when there are fewer deaths in general, or when deaths tend to occur at older ages, or a combination of both. It declines when there are more deaths, when deaths occur at younger ages, or a combination.

Cancer and heart disease were the leading causes of death, accounting for 41.8 per cent of all deaths in 2022, while COVID-19 caused about six per cent of deaths.

More than 19,700 Canadians died of COVID-19 last year, the highest number since the pandemic began in 2020.

"This increase may in part be due to the exposure to new highly transmissible COVID-19 variants and the gradual return to normalcy (e.g., reduced restrictions and masking requirements)," the report read

Data shows the number of Canadians dying from COVID-19 each week is rising once again, a stark reminder that for those most at risk the pandemic continues to be a real and legitimate threat.

The report shows the rate of COVID-19 deaths in Atlantic Canada was more than seven times higher last year (59.5 deaths per 100,000 population) compared with the year before (8.3 deaths).

• SECOND OPINION
  Researchers are still untangling the risks of catching COVID over and over

• Saskatchewan's average life expectancy is at its lowest level since 1999

In 2022, the agency said the increase in deaths among younger age groups can, in part, be attributable to deaths under investigation by a coroner or medical examiner, typically unintentional injuries such as substance-related toxicity deaths, suicides and homicides. 

With files from CBC News

135% rise in number of children facing hunger due to climate change in 2022

November 28, 2023 at 11:50 am

Wassan, 9, and her siblings on the land her family used to cultivate before the drought in Abu Al-Khasseb, Basra Governorate, Iraq

 [Emily Garthwaite/Save the Children]


More than 27 million children were driven into hunger and malnutrition by extreme weather events in countries heavily impacted by the climate crisis in 2022, which was a 135 per cent jump from the previous year, according to a new data analysis by Save the Children ahead of COP28.

Save the Children found that children made up nearly half of the 57 million people pushed into crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse across 12 countries because of extreme weather events in 2022. This was based on data from the Integrated Food Security Classification or IPC scale, a monitoring system for assessing hunger emergencies in 58 countries.

The IPC has estimated that the number of people facing hunger in countries where extreme weather events were the main driver of food crises has nearly doubled in five years – soaring to 57 million in 2022 from about 29 million people in 2018.

The majority of countries where weather extremes were the main driver of hunger last year were concentrated in the Horn of Africa, with Ethiopia and Somalia accounting for about half of the 27 million children.

READ: Save the Children staffer dies in detention in Yemen

Among the 12 countries where weather extremes were the primary driver of hunger in 2022, according to the IPC, were Iraq, Pakistan and Somalia.

Somalia has repeatedly been at the frontlines of the climate crisis, suffering five failed consecutive rainy seasons. Now, the country stands once again at the precipice, with extreme weather events such as mass flooding set to exacerbate hunger this year.

Heavy rains and floods in recent weeks have displaced about 650,000 people – about half are children – cutting families off from accessing food and medical care. The current flooding could be just as devastating for the country as the years of drought that left millions of children hungry and malnourished.

Thirty-eight-year-old Sadia and her eight children have been displaced twice as a result of climate change in Somalia. “We left due to droughts, and now we face displacement again because of floods. [Before the drought] life was good. We were farmers and took care of animals. We had enough food from our crops and milk from our animals to live comfortably. But the droughts came and destroyed everything we had,” she said.

She has since started selling fruit at a market stall, “but recently, heavy rains and floods have made everything worse. The markets are flooded, and my stall is underwater. I can’t earn any money, and it’s tough to feed my children.”

Pakistan was one of the countries where extreme weather events were the primary driver of hunger last year after devastating flooding submerged one third of the country, affecting 33 million people, half of whom were children. One year on, more than two million flood-affected children are acutely malnourished, with almost 600,000 children suffering from the deadliest form of malnutrition.

BLOG: Iraq – Living in one of the hottest places on earth

Dr Muhammad Hanif, who works at a healthcare unit in Sindh Province – a region severely affected by the floods – explained that he had never seen anything like it in his lifetime.

“By the end of last year, I treated about 1,000 children for hunger-related illnesses, and about 30,000 other patients for various diseases that were inflamed by climate change,” he explained.

Globally, an estimated 774 million children – or one third of the world’s child population – are living with the dual impacts of poverty and high climate risk, according to Save the Children’s report Born into the Climate Crisis.

“In a world where wildfires, floods, droughts and hurricanes are becoming the frightening new normal, children today not only face a climate emergency but a landscape of heightened inequalities, where hunger is an unwelcome guest at an already crowded table,” Save the Children’s Chief Executive Officer, Inger Ashing, said.

“As climate-related weather events become more frequent and severe, we will see more drastic consequences on children’s lives. In 2022, 135% more children were pushed into hunger due to extreme weather events than the year before.”

“At COP28, World Leaders must listen to the demands of children and invite them to be part of proposing solutions. Without tackling the climate crisis, the global hunger crisis will only deteriorate further, pushing millions more to the brink,” she added.

Silver treasures hid beside main road in Poland for 700 years — until now. See them

Moira Ritter
Tue, November 28, 2023

While exploring the side of a main street in Poland, archaeologists recently spotted something peculiar: a trove of about 100 to 150 ancient silver coins.

Experts were on Odrodzenia Street in Szprotawa when they made the unexpected discovery, according to a Nov. 17 news release from the Lubuskie Provincial Conservator of Monuments. The street once served as a connector between the town’s market square and a gate that no longer stands.

The coins have a green patina because they are made of copper and silver, according to experts.

The thin, flat coins were identified as wide Silesian bracteates minted between 1250 and 1300, archaeologists said. The coins are made of silver mixed with copper, which caused the green patina on their surface.


The treasures were found inside a fabric bag that was shallowly buried, according to the conservator. Some of the coins were organized in piles, indicating that they were originally arranged and tightly tied in the bag.

Experts said the coins were likely minted between 1250 and 1300.

Now, experts want to know who buried the coins and why. Their current hypothesis is that the coins were petty cash belonging to a wealthy person hundreds of years ago, archaeologists said in the release.

Szprotawa is about 260 miles southwest of Warsaw.

Google Translate was used to translate a news release from the Lubuskie Provincial Conservator of Monuments.

Hot muddy waters hid cult’s mysterious deity for 1,500 years in Italy. See the photos

Aspen Pflughoeft
Tue, November 28, 2023

Centuries ago, a marble statue stood in a cult sanctuary. Under his watchful stone eyes, worshippers visited and left offerings in the thermal spring that flowed through the center of the temple.

Eventually, times changed. The once-revered deity was dismembered and left in the hot muddy waters. Until now.

Archaeologists were excavating the ruins of a cult sanctuary in Tuscany, Italy, when they uncovered the broken statue, according to a news release from the University for Foreigners of Siena.


The sanctuary and its central hot spring were considered sacred by the ancient Romans and the ancient Etruscans who lived in the area before them. Consequently, a temple was built around the spring and used for about 700 years, the release said.

An aerial view of the sanctuary as it looked during excavations in 2022.

The cult sanctuary was permanently closed in the fifth century A.D. As part of this closure, the marble statue was intentionally fragmented, placed in the hot spring and sealed with a large column, archaeologists said.

About 1,500 years later, excavations unearthed the broken statue. A photo shows the lower half of the figure, still partially submerged.

A fragment of the statue still partially submerged.

The University for Foreigners of Siena shared photos of the reassembled and restored statue in a Nov. 18 Instagram post. Put together, the statue is about 6 feet tall.

Archaeologists identified the statue as a depiction of Apollo, god of the sun, known as Apollo Sauroctonos, often referred to as Apollo Lizard-Slayer.


Over the years, several different versions of the Apollo Lizard-Slayer statue have been found, most being marble statues dated to Roman times, according to an article from the Cleveland Museum of Art. These mysterious deities, however, have lost their original religious meaning.

The excavation’s lead archaeologist, Jacopo Tabolli, told the Italian newspaper ANSA that existing statues of Apollo Lizard-Slayer did not come from specific archaeological contexts and had no surviving myths to explain the statue’s meaning.

Finding an Apollo Lizard-Slayer statue in the context of a sanctuary offers new glimpses into its meaning, Tabolli told the outlet.

The central hot spring as it looked during excavations in 2022 when filled (left) and emptied (right).

The San Casciano dei Bagni sanctuary was centered on Apollo for at least a portion of its existence, the release said. Archaeologists suggested that the mysterious Lizard-Slayer depiction of Apollo may embody themes of medicinal care and protection of life in this context.

These themes fit with other bronze statues previously uncovered at the site. These statues included depictions of the Greco-Roman deities of Hygieia, the goddess of health and hygiene, and other versions of Apollo.

Some of the bronze statues left in the hot springs as offerings and found during excavations in 2022.

Archaeologists also found an altar with an inscription written in both Latin and the ancient Etruscan language of Etruria, the release said. Last year’s excavations also found about twenty bronze statues and 5,000 coins.

The sanctuary is located in San Casciano dei Bagni, about 100 miles north of Rome in the province of Siena and the larger region of Tuscany.

Ancient shark species unearthed in landlocked state’s national park — and it’s over 300 million years old

Jeremiah Budin
Mon, November 27, 2023 

Kentucky, a landlocked state, would probably not be the first place you would expect an ancient shark species to have been discovered. But the world is full of surprises, as scientists recently uncovered teeth from a 300 million-year-old shark species in Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave National Park.

The teeth, which once belonged to a Strigilodus tollesonae (Latin for “Tolleson’s scraper tooth”), were found during a National Park Service research project coordinated by the NPS Paleontology Program and Mammoth Cave park officials. The species was named in honor of Mammoth Cave guide Kelli Tolleson, one of the people behind the discovery.

“The teeth of Strigilodus tollesonae were discovered within the St. Genevieve Formation rock layer at Mammoth Cave National Park,” an NPS spokesperson told Newsweek. “This would place it as living approximately 340 to 320 million years ago.”

The Strigilodus tollesonae was part of a now-extinct group of cartilaginous marine fish called petalodonts, or “petal-toothed.” Its spoon- or petal-shaped teeth were likely arranged in a fan-like structure, indicating that may have subsisted on snails, bivalves, soft-bodied worms, and smaller fish.

Photo Credit: Benji Paysnoe

As far as paleontology research projects go, finding 300 million-year-old extinct shark teeth from a never-before-discovered species has to be up there in terms of the best possible results.

According to the researchers, the Strigilodus tollesonae is more closely related to the ratfish than to any modern shark species. Ratfish reside in the deep sea and cruise the seafloor for shrimp, clams, worms, seastar, and small fishes.

Although Kentucky is landlocked today, during the time of the Strigilodus tollesonae, it was covered by shallow tropical seas. During that period, the continents of North America, South America, Africa, and Europe all existed as one single continent called Pangea.

The findings were announced to the public on Oct. 11, which, fittingly, is National Fossil Day.