Israel-Gaza war sets Biden at odds with youth of America

Lauren Gambino

Los Angeles Times
Sat, December 9, 2023 

Photograph: Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza nearly two months ago, outraged young Americans have been at the forefront of a growing Palestinian solidarity movement.

They have led protests in Washington and across the country to demand a permanent ceasefire and to voice their disapproval of Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s military campaign, which has killed thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children, and plunged Gaza into a humanitarian catastrophe.

Related: Muslim leaders in swing states pledge to ‘abandon’ Biden over his refusal to call for ceasefire

A generational divide on the conflict is shifting the terms of the foreign policy debate in Washington, where support for Israel has long been bipartisan and near-unanimous. And, ahead of an already contentious election year, there are signs the issue could pose a threat to Biden’s prospects of winning re-election in 2024.

“There’s something profound taking place in the way young Americans, particularly Democrats, think about the issue,” said Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland, who has studied American public sentiment on the Israeli-Palestine conflict for decades.

Shifting attitudes

There was a surge of support for Israel in the wake of the 7 October attack, when gunmen killed at least 1,200 people, roughly two-thirds of whom were civilians, and seized as many as 240 hostages, more than 100 of whom have been freed so far. But attitudes have evolved in the two months since, especially among young Americans, thousands of whom have taken to the streets in protest of Israel’s air and ground offensive, which has killed at least 17,000 Palestinians and displaced more than three-quarters of the enclave’s 2.3 million residents.

Americans overall continue to sympathize with Israel, but surveys show stark divides by party affiliation and age. Young Americans are far more likely than older Americans to express sympathy for Palestinians and to disagree with Biden’s response and strategy, a trend that is especially pronounced among Democrats.

It is the deepest shift in a short period of time that I’ve seen

Shibley Telhami

A pair of University of Maryland Critical Issues Polls, the first taken shortly after 7 October and the second taken four weeks after the attack, found that the number of young Democrats who said Biden was “too pro-Israeli” had doubled while the percentage who said they were less likely to support him in 2024 based on his stance on the Israeli-Palestinian issue more than doubled.

“It is the deepest shift in a short period of time that I’ve seen,” said Telhami, who is the director of the Critical Issues Poll. While public attitudes often evolve during the course of a war, he said such a significant swing suggests “this isn’t episodic”.

Among voters 18-34, a majority – 52% – said they were more sympathetic to Palestinians than Israelis, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released in mid-November. It marked a sharp reversal from the survey taken the previous month, after the 7 October assault, when 41% of young people said their sympathies lay with the Israelis, compared with 26% who said the Palestinians.

The poll also found young people were about equally divided between those who believe supporting Israel is in the US’s national interest – 47% – and those who don’t – 45% – compared with older cohorts who overwhelmingly said it was.

According to a recent NBC poll, a striking 70% of voters ages 18 to 34 say they disapprove of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. A Pew poll published this week charted a similar trend, with just 19% of Americans under 30 approving of the president’s response.

Watching a young, multiracial coalition champion Palestinian rights has been a glimmer of hope amid the horrors of war in Gaza and a rise in Islamophobia in the US, said Nihad Awad, executive director and co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair).

“We hope to see a break with the past,” said Awad, who is Palestinian American, “and a shift not only in the public opinion among young people but hopefully among the general public, ultimately towards a policy that reflects universal values of justice and freedom for all.”

‘What moral standing is there?’

Many Americans of Biden’s generation can remember Israel as a young, left-leaning democracy founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust – a vulnerable country in a hostile region and a place the 81-year-old president has described as an indispensable haven for Jews. Biden, who was five at the time of Israel’s founding, has said: “If there weren’t an Israel, we’d have to invent one.”

Younger Democrats, by contrast, have mostly known Israel as a military power led by the rightwing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has aligned himself closely with Republicans in the United States and is accused of undermining democratic institutions in Israel.

Those generational tensions have roiled the party, pitting young staffers against their bosses at the White House and at agencies across the administration, on Capitol Hill and at the Democratic National Committee. In letters, cables and in some cases, resignations, they have expressed their concern over the administration’s policy toward Israel.

Polling shows Biden’s support deteriorating among the nation’s youngest voters, considered a key part of the Democrats’ electoral coalition. In 2020, Biden won voters under 30 by more than 20 percentage points, according to exit polls. Recent surveys show the president competitive with or in some cases trailing Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner, among young people.

What moral standing is there when you allow for more than 6,000 children to be killed?

Zohran Mamdani

Last month, a coalition of youth-centered progressive organizations signed an open letter calling on Biden to support a ceasefire, which he has resisted, and warning that his approach to the war in Gaza “risks millions of young voters staying home or voting third party next year”. Unless he changes course, they cautioned that Democrats would probably struggle to recruit the often young volunteers, organizers and staffers to work on Democratic campaigns.

“Biden ran on a promise to restore America’s moral standing in the world. What moral standing is there when you allow for more than 6,000 children to be killed?” said Zohran Mamdani, a 32-year-old Democratic state lawmaker from New York who staged a five-day hunger strike outside of the White House to protest against Biden’s handling of the war. “If the fabric of your coalition was built on promises that you are betraying, you cannot be surprised if that coalition cannot be reactivated once more.”

In the days after 7 October, Biden condemned Hamas’s attack on Israel as “sheer evil” and offered his administration’s unwavering support for Israel. The White House has argued that Biden’s strategy of standing by Israel as it wages war in Gaza has allowed his administration to push for diplomatic breakthroughs. The president has earned some praise for his administration’s efforts to restart the flow of desperately needed aid into the besieged region and to secure a week-long truce last month that saw the release of more than a hundred hostages held by Hamas.

Amid global outrage at the scale of the death and destruction in Gaza, the president and his administration have become more blunt in expressing their concern over Israel’s military campaign as well as Israeli settler violence in the West Bank.

“I have consistently pressed for a pause in the fighting for two reasons: to accelerate and expand the humanitarian assistance going into Gaza and, two, to facilitate the release of hostages,” Biden said recently.

Many young activists, especially young Arab and Muslim Americans, say the president’s support for Israel is abetting a war that is already outpacing the bloodiest conflicts of the 21st century. They have been alarmed by some of his rhetoric, particularly his comments questioning the veracity of the casualty figures kept by health officials in the Hamas-run enclave, which struck many as dehumanizing. And they say the fatal stabbing of a six-year-old Palestinian boy and the shooting of three Palestinian students in Vermont underscore the threat facing Arab and Muslim American communities.

“No amount of time will erase the last two months from our memory,” said Munir Atalla, 30, of the Palestinian Youth Movement.

Why it’s happening

Political scientists, activists and lawmakers on both sides of the debate say a range of factors are shaping the way young people perceive Israel’s war against Hamas. Social media, where young people have watched the horror of war unfold in real time on their cellphones, is one.

About a third of American adults under 30 say they regularly get their news from TikTok, where videos discussing the war have racked up billions of views.

Nerdeen Kiswani, 29, co-founder and leader of Within Our Lifetime, a Palestinian-led community organization that staged a peace protest near the Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Times Square, New York, last month, said young people distrust traditional media. Instead, she said they rely on social media to hear directly from Palestinian civilians and journalists in Gaza.

“They can see with their own eyes,” she said. “Social media now has really democratized what news comes out there.”

But young people’s interest in Israel-Palestine – and the US’s approach to the conflict – is not new and the conversation is not only happening online, said Rachel Janfaza, the founder of the Up and Up newsletter that explores gen Z political culture.

“While social media is one element of where young people are getting their news and information about what’s going on between Israel and Hamas,” she said, “there’s also a robust campus conversation about the conflict that predates the existence of TikTok.”

Many leftwing activists have embraced the Palestinian cause as an extension of the racial justice movement that mobilized following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. For them, the fight for Palestinian rights is linked to domestic causes like police brutality and climate justice.

“When I go to marches, when I go to rallies, when I go on hunger strike and I look around, these are the same people that I was marching with for Black Lives Matter,” said Mamdani. “That solidarity is at the crux of why so many young people are able to stand up for justice wherever it applies.”

A searing conversation over Palestinian rights has swept college campuses and even high schools, where educators are struggling to foster civil discourse as they confront a rise in bias attacks against Arab, Muslim and Jewish students.

At protests, pro-Palestinian activists describe Israel as a “colonial” power and an oppressive, occupying force. Behind claims of anti-Israel bias, they see an effort to silence any criticism of the Israeli government, which many activists now charge with perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people.

Supporters of Israel have argued that viewing the Israel-Palestinian conflict through a lens of power and privilege often flattens the complex roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict and ignores Jewish people’s history of persecution. They say some of the slogans and rhetoric used by pro-Palestinian activists cross a line into antisemitism and denialism of the atrocities of the 7 October attacks.

“It’s one thing to criticize Netanyahu, his policies,” said Tyler Gregory, 35, CEO of the Bay Area’s Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC). “It’s another thing to demonize Israel in the same way that Jews have been demonized for millennia, as being the source of the world’s problems.”

Young Jewish people

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has also divided young American Jews, a group that tends to be politically liberal and secular.

A survey by the Jewish Electorate Institute conducted a month after the war began revealed a significant generational split among American Jews that mirrored the US population as a whole.

While nearly three-quarters of American Jews said they approve of Biden’s response to the conflict, it found that Jewish voters aged 18 to 35 were far more likely than their older counterparts to disapprove.

With chants of “not in our name”, young progressive Jewish activists have led several of the major ceasefire protests, some of which have drawn rebukes from prominent Jewish advocacy groups.

Meanwhile, young Jews were among the tens of thousands of demonstrators who gathered in Washington last month to show solidarity with Israel and voice support for its war against Hamas as calls for a ceasefire grow.

You cannot bomb your way to peace. That’s what young people are saying in the streets right now

Eva Borgwardt

Joe Vogel, a 26-year-old Maryland state delegate running for Congress, said it had been deeply worrying to see attempts from some on the left to “justify” the violence on 7 October.

“The only way that we’re really going to secure peace and justice for everyone in Israel and Palestine is if we move away from the binary thinking,” said Vogel, who is Jewish and describes himself as a “pro-Israel progressive”. “We have to be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian. We have to be pro-Jewish and pro-Muslim.”

In 2020, Eva Borgwardt worked as a Democratic field director to help elect Biden in Arizona. Now the 27-year-old is helping to lead protests against him as the national spokesperson of IfNotNow, a leftwing Jewish group demanding the president back a permanent ceasefire.

“We know that the only way this horrific violence will end is with a ceasefire. You cannot bomb your way to peace,” she said. “That’s what young people are saying in the streets right now.”

Audra Heinrichs contributed to this report from New York

Rights groups say Israeli strikes on journalists in Lebanon were likely deliberate

BASSEM MROUE
Thu, December 7, 2023

Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah died in an apparent strike across the Israel-Lebanon border

BEIRUT (AP) — Two Israeli strikes that killed a Reuters videographer and wounded six other journalists in south Lebanon nearly two months ago were apparently deliberate and a direct attack on civilians, two international human rights groups said Thursday.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said that the strikes should be investigated as a war crime. Their findings were released simultaneously with similar investigations by Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

Israeli officials have said that they don't deliberately target journalists.


The investigations by the rights groups found that two strikes 37 seconds apart targeted the group of journalists near the village of Alma al-Shaab on Oct. 13.

The strikes killed Issam Abdallah and wounded Reuters journalists Thaer Al-Sudani and Maher Nazeh, Qatar’s Al-Jazeera television cameraman Elie Brakhya and reporter Carmen Joukhadar, and AFP’s photographer Christina Assi, and video journalist Dylan Collins.

The seven journalists, all wearing flak jackets and helmets, were among many who deployed in southern Lebanon to cover the daily exchange of fire between members of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group and Israeli troops. The violence began a day after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on southern Israel that triggered the latest Israel-Hamas war.

Amnesty International said that it had verified more than 100 videos and photographs, analyzed weapons fragments from the site, and interviewed nine witnesses. It found that the group “was visibly identifiable as journalists and that the Israeli military knew or should have known that they were civilians yet attacked them.”

London-based Amnesty said that it determined that the first strike, which killed Abdallah and severely wounded Assi, “was a 120mm tank round fired from the hills between al-Nawaqir and Jordeikh in Israel," while the second strike appeared to be a different weapon, likely a small guided missile, causing a vehicle used by the Al Jazeera crew to go up in flames.

Amnesty said that the tank round, most likely an M339 projectile, was manufactured by the Israeli IMI Systems and had been identified in other Amnesty International investigations of attacks by the Israeli military.

HRW said that it had interviewed seven witnesses, including three of the wounded journalists and a representative of the U.N. peacekeeping force in south Lebanon. The New York-based rights group also said it analyzed 49 videos and dozens of photos, in addition to satellite images, and consulted military, video, and audio experts. HRW said it sent letters with findings and questions to the Lebanese and Israeli armed forces, respectively, but didn't receive a response from them.

Ramzi Kaiss, a Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch, said that the group has documented other cases involving Israeli forces.

“Those responsible need to be held to account, and it needs to be made clear that journalists and other civilians are not lawful targets," he said.

Aya Majzoub, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director, condemned the "attack on a group of international journalists who were carrying out their work by reporting on hostilities.”

“Direct attacks on civilians and indiscriminate attacks are absolutely prohibited by international humanitarian law and can amount to war crimes,” she said.

Collins, the American AFP video journalist from Boston, said that the journalists had been at the scene for more than an hour before the strikes and felt “secure.”

He said they were “on an exposed hill, visible to multiple Israeli positions, and they had drones in the air the entire time,” adding that there were "no military activities near us.”

“Our job is to tell the story, not to become the story,” Collins said.

Abdallah’s mother, Fatima, told The Associated Press that the family was sure from the first day that Israel was behind the attack. Now that there is evidence, she said, she hopes “they (Israel) will be held accountable.”

“This move is not only for Issam but for journalists to be protected in the future,” Abdallah said.

Israel accused of killing journalist in direct strike on southern Lebanon

Tom Watling
Thu, December 7, 2023 

Reuters photographer Issam Abdallah was killed on 13 October (ASSOCIATED PRESS)


Israel has been accused of killing a journalist and injuring six others in a direct strike in southern Lebanon, in what Amnesty and Human Right Watch have said should be investigated as a possible war crime.

On 13 October, Reuters photographer Issam Abdallah was killed while stationed roughly one kilometre from the northern Israeli border with Lebanon. He was filming skirmishes between the Israeli military and Hezbollah, who are allied with Hamas that Israel are fighting a war against in Gaza.

A Reuters investigation published on Thursday said an Israeli tank crew killed Mr Abdallah and wounded the six other journalists by firing two shells in quick succession from Israel while the group were filming cross-border shelling from a distance.

“The evidence we now have... shows that an Israeli tank crew killed our colleague Issam Abdallah,” the Reuters editor-in-chief, Alessandra Galloni, said.

“We condemn Issam’s killing. We call on Israel to explain how this could have happened and to hold to account those responsible for his death and the wounding of Christina Assi of the AFP, our colleagues Thaier Al-Sudani and Maher Nazeh, and the three other journalists.”

An Israeli government spokesperson denied Israeli forces targeted non-combatants. "We do not target civilians," spokesperson Eylon Levy said in a televised briefing, when asked about the reports from Reuters, Amnesty International and HRW. "We've been doing everything possible to get civilians out of harm's way."

Dozens of journalists have been killed, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, since a deadly Hamas attack on Israeli soil on 7 October sparked a a war between Israel and the militant group in Gaza, with exchanges of fire across the border with Lebanon too.

Mr Abdallah and his six compatriots were all wearing vest marked “press” and driving cars with the word “TV” written on the roof and the hood.

Al Jazeera videographer Elie Brakhya, who was there during the strike, told Amnesty International they chose an “extremely exposed” filming position on top of a hill to signal they were journalists.

For 40 minutes prior to the strike, an Israeli Apache helicopter and a suspected Israeli drone hovered above them for more than 40 minutes. There were also observation towers nearby, the Amnesty International report said.

“All of this should have provided sufficient information to Israeli forces that these were journalists and civilians and not a military target,” the report said.

They added that the nearest fighting between the Israeli military and Hezbollah was roughly 1.5km away.

But at around 6pm local time, an Israeli tank fired a 120mm round from the hills to their east at their position, killing Mr Abdallah and wounding Ms Assi, Amnesty International said. A second round fired 37 seconds later destroyed an Al Jazeera vehicle, the group added.

Four other journalists received shrapnel wounds and a fifth suffered severe injuries in both his arms.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), in a separate report, said the strike was “likely a direct attack on civilians”.

After the strike, Israel’s United Nations envoy Gilad Erdan said in a briefing: “Obviously, we would never want to hit or kill or shoot any journalist… But you know, we’re in a state of war, things might happen.” The next day, the Israeli military said that “the incident is under review”.

Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht, the Israeli military’s international spokesman, told Reuters on Thursday: "We don't target journalists."

Issam Abdallah: Rights groups want Israel investigated over killed journalist

Barbara Tasch - BBC News
Thu, December 7, 2023 

Rights groups say Israel should be investigated for a possible war crime over the death of a journalist in Lebanon in October.

Reuters reporter Issam Abdallah, 37, died in two apparent strikes across the Israel-Lebanon border in October. Six others were wounded.

Amnesty and Human Rights Watch (HRW) said investigations showed the journalists were probably fired on deliberately by an Israeli tank crew.

Israel denies targeting the reporters.

"We do not target civilians," Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy said when asked about the reports from Amnesty and HRW.

"We've been doing everything possible to get civilians out of harm's way," Eylon added in a televised briefing.

The group of seven journalists from Reuters, Al-Jazeera and AFP, were filming about 1km from the Lebanon-Israel border on 13 October.

Amnesty said images showed the journalists were wearing body armour marked with the word "PRESS", and the Reuters crew car was marked "TV" with yellow tape on its hood.

They were on a hilltop in an open area with no tree cover or other buildings to obscure them from nearby Israeli military outposts, Reuters said. Drones had been overhead and an Israeli helicopter had been patrolling, it said.

Abdallah was killed instantly in the strike. Two more Reuters journalists, two from AFP and two from Al Jazeera were all wounded. AFP photographer Christina Assi, 28, later had a leg amputated and is still in hospital.

AFP's Christina Assi had a leg amputated after the strike

Amnesty's deputy regional director Aya Majzoub said the organisation's investigation indicated it was "likely a direct attack on civilians" and should be "investigated as a war crime".

"Those responsible for Issam Abdallah's unlawful killing and the injuring of six other journalists must be held accountable," Majzoub added.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the strikes "were apparently deliberate attacks on civilians, which is a war crime".

The group said its investigation showed the journalists were "well removed from ongoing hostilities, clearly identifiable as members of the media, and had been stationary for at least 75 minutes before they were hit".

Separately, Israel Defense Force (IDF) spokesperson Richard Hecht said the military did not target journalists when Reuters presented him with its own findings on the incident. The Israeli prime minister's office did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

AFP's global news director also said the agency had shared its latest findings with the Israeli military but had not received a response.

Sixty-three journalists have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Committee to Protect journalists.

Israel, on Reuters finding its forces killed Lebanon journalist, says area a combat zone

Reuters
Updated Fri, December 8, 2023 

Israel, on Reuters finding its forces killed Lebanon journalist, says area a combat zone

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The Israeli military, responding on Friday to a Reuters investigation that determined its forces killed a Reuters journalist in southern Lebanon on Oct. 13, said the incident took place in an active combat zone and was under review.

Without directly addressing the death of visuals journalist Issam Abdallah, a military statement said Lebanese Hezbollah fighters had on that day attacked across the border and Israeli forces opened fire to prevent a suspected armed infiltration.

A Reuters special report published on Thursday found that an Israeli tank crew killed Abdallah and wounded six reporters by firing two shells in quick succession from Israel while the journalists were filming cross-border shelling.

Israel's statement on Friday said that on Oct. 13, Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants launched an attack on multiple targets within Israeli territory along the Lebanese border.

"One incident involved the firing of an anti-tank missile, which struck the border fence near the village Hanita. Following the launch of the anti-tank missile, concerns arose over the potential infiltration of terrorists into Israeli territory," the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said in a statement.

"In response, the IDF used artillery and tank fire to prevent the infiltration. The IDF is aware of the claim that journalists who were in the area were killed.

"The area is an active combat zone, where active fire takes place and being in this area is dangerous. The incident is currently under review," it said.

The strikes killed Abdallah, 37, and severely wounded Agence France-Presse (AFP) photographer Christina Assi, 28, just over a kilometre from the Israeli border near the Lebanese village of Alma al-Chaab.

Amnesty International said on Thursday that the Israeli strikes were likely to have been a direct attack on civilians and must be investigated as a war crime.

In a separate report Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the two Israeli strikes were "an apparently deliberate attack on civilians and thus a war crime" and said those responsible must be held to account.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday it was important that Israel's inquiry into the killing reach a conclusion and for the results to be seen.

"My understanding is that Israel has initiated such an investigation, and it will be important to see that investigation come to a conclusion, and to see the results of the investigation," Blinken said at a press conference.

(This story has been refiled to use more precise language to make clearer that military statement refers to combat on Oct. 13, not at a specific hour of day, in paragraph 2)

(Writing by Dan Williams and Howard Goller; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Mark Bendeich)


Reuters Investigation Concludes Israeli Tank Fire Killed Lebanese Staffer & Calls On Israel For Explanation

Melanie Goodfellow
Thu, December 7, 2023 


A seven-week investigation by Reuters news agency into the death of staff member Issam Abdallah on Lebanon’s southern border with Israel on October 13 has concluded he was killed by Israeli tank fire.

The report, which was released on Thursday, said its examination of the evidence showed that an Israeli tank crew killed Abdallah by firing two shells in quick succession.

Israeli Film & TV Producers Seek To Get Cameras Rolling Again When Fighting Stops

Abdallah, who was an experienced Reuters videographer, had travelled to the border with other international TV and agency journalists to cover exchanges of fire between Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Israeli army.

The incident, close to the Lebanese village of Alma al-Chaab, happened amid mounting tensions in the area in the wake of Hamas’s terror attack on southern Israel on October 7 and fears that the country faced a similar threat out of Lebanon in the north.

The two strikes also injured another six journalists, two with Reuters, two with Al Jazeera and two with AFP. AFP photographer Christina Assi sustained life-changing injuries. Her left leg was amputated and she remains in hospital.

In a separate report by AFP, which was also released on Thursday, the Paris-based agency said its investigation pointed to a tank round only used by the Israeli army. It said it had conducted the investigation with UK-based NGO Airwars, a UK-based organisation with a a team of investigators and a network of forensic and military experts.

Reuters said it had spoken to more than 30 government and security officials, military experts, forensic investigators, lawyers, medics and witnesses to piece together the events around Abdallah’s death.

It also reviewed hours of video footage from eight media outlets in the area at the time and hundreds of photos from before and after the attack, including high-resolution satellite images.

The investigation also analyzed shrapnel on the ground and embedded in a Reuters car as well as flak jackets, a camera and other equipment.

“The evidence we now have, and have published today, shows that an Israeli tank crew killed our colleague Issam Abdallah,” commented Reuters Editor-in-Chief Alessandra Galloni.

“We condemn Issam’s killing. We call on Israel to explain how this could have happened and to hold to account those responsible for his death and the wounding of Christina Assi of the AFP, our colleagues Thaier Al-Sudani and Maher Nazeh, and the three other journalists. Issam was a brilliant and passionate journalist, who was much loved at Reuters.”

The AFP report also examined suggestions that the journalists had been deliberately targeted.

The agency did not state its own conclusion on this but cited a number of witnesses and experts who suggested that it was clear that party was made up of journalists and that it was unlikely they had been mistaken for militants.

The AFP report also noted that the fact there were two rounds of artillery, fired one after the other, suggested it was not a misfire.

 Deadline

SPACE

How to Watch SpaceX Launch Space Force’s Spaceplane for the First Time

George Dvorsky
Fri, December 8, 2023 

The X-37B spaceplane.



The X-37B spaceplane.

For the first time, a SpaceX Falcon Heavy will attempt to deliver the Pentagon’s spaceplane to low Earth orbit. The mission marks the seventh for the mysterious spacecraft, aiming to expand the Space Force’s knowledge of the space environment and test new technologies.


The Falcon Heavy is slated to launch at 8:15 p.m ET on Sunday, December 10 from launch complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Both side boosters will attempt vertical landings shortly after launch (Falcon Heavy is essentially three Falcon 9 rockets strapped together). The event will be livestreamed on SpaceX’s account on X, previously known as Twitter.

The mission “will expand the United States Space Force’s knowledge of the space environment by experimenting with future space domain awareness technologies,” Space Force said in a statement. “These tests are integral in ensuring safe, stable, and secure operations in space for all users of the domain.”

For its seventh mission, the X-37B will operate in new orbital alignments and carry a NASA experiment named Seeds-2. This experiment will expose plant seeds to the harsh radiation environment of long-duration spaceflight, gathering data vital for future crewed missions.

The spaceplane’s previous mission, launched atop a ULA Atlas V rocket in May 2020, saw the spaceplane spend a record 908 days in orbit before landing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in November 2022. This mission included a service module that expanded the spacecraft’s capabilities, and hosting more experiments than any previous missions. Among these were the Naval Research Laboratory’s Photovoltaic Radio-frequency Antenna Module experiment and two NASA experiments studying the effects of space conditions on various materials.

This upcoming mission marks SpaceX’s 92nd for the year 2023, inching closer to CEO Elon Musk’s ambitious target of 100 launches within the year. With several weeks remaining, the company appears to be on track to potentially reach this significant milestone.

For more spaceflight in your life, follow us on X (formerly Twitter) and bookmark Gizmodo’s dedicated Spaceflight page.

Space Station Astronauts Find Desiccated Tomato After Blaming Colleague for Its Theft

Victor Tangermann
Thu, December 7, 2023 


Grand Theft Tomato

A scandal on board the International Space Station has finally been put to bed.

For months now, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio has been accused by his fellow crew members — in jest, they say, mostly at least —of eating a tiny tomato that was laboriously grown on board the space station.

But as it turns out, Rubio was innocent.

"Our good friend Frank Rubio, who headed home [already], has been blamed for quite a while for eating the tomato," NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli said during a live stream celebrating the station's 25th anniversary.

"But we can exonerate him," she added in the footage, spotted by Space.com. "We found the tomato."
Crime and Punishment

Rubio flew to the space station on board a Soyuz spacecraft in September 2022 and made his return just over a year later due to delays caused by the same capsule starting to uncontrollably leak coolant. The unusual incident forced Russia's space program to send a replacement spacecraft, which ended up taking several months.

While he was on board the station, Rubio tended to an experiment dubbed Veg-05, which involved growing tiny Red Robin dwarf tomatoes.

In late March, astronauts were each given a share of the harvest tucked inside Ziploc bags. Rubio says his share, however, floated away before he could eat the fruits of his labor.

"I spent so many hours looking for that thing," Rubio said during a September livestream. "I'm sure the desiccated tomato will show up at some point and vindicate me, years in the future."

In October, two weeks after returning to the ground, Rubio told reporters that he spent "18 to 20 hours of my own time looking for" the errant tomato, as quoted by Space.com.

"The reality of the problem, you know — the humidity up there is like 17 percent," he added. "It's probably desiccated to the point where you couldn't tell what it was, and somebody just threw away the bag."

Given Moghbeli's latest comments, he likely was spot on in his predictions.

More on the ISS: Space Station Turns 25, Just in Time to Die


'Dark force' theory could solve 2 open cosmic mysteries
Robert Lea
Fri, December 8, 2023

An illustration of a bright galaxy surrounded by a blueish halo. 

A new theory that suggests dark matter is made up of particles that strongly interact with each other via a so-called "dark force." If true, this may finally explain the extreme densities we see in dark matter haloes surrounding galaxies.

The existence of particles called self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) acts as an alternative to cold dark matter theories which suggest the elusive stuff is made up of massive, slow-moving (and thus cold), weakly interacting particles that don’t collide. The problem with those cold dark matter models is that they struggle to explain two puzzles surrounding what are known as dark matter haloes.

"The first is a high-density dark matter halo in a massive elliptical galaxy. The halo was detected through observations of strong gravitational lensing, and its density is so high that it is extremely unlikely in the prevailing cold dark matter theory," Hai-Bo Yu, team leader and a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Riverside, said in a statement.

"The second," he continued, "is that dark matter halos of ultra-diffuse galaxies have extremely low densities, and they are difficult to explain by the cold dark matter theory."

Related: Dark matter may be hiding in the Large Hadron Collider’s particle jets
The haloes

Dark matter presents a major conundrum for scientists because, despite making up around 85% of the matter in the cosmos, it does not interact with light and therefore remains virtually invisible to us. This tells researchers that dark matter can't just be unseen conglomerations of matter made up of electrons, protons and neutrons — so-called baryonic matter that comprises stars, planets, our bodies and pretty much everything we see around us on a day-to-day basis. No, dark matter has to be made of something else.

The only way that researchers can infer the existence of dark matter at all, in fact, is because it has mass and thus interacts with gravity. This effect can be "felt" by baryonic matter we can indeed see and by light, which astronomers are definitely able to observe.

More specifically, when light travels past these dark matter-wrapped galaxies from background sources, the substance's influence on the fabric of space diverts the light's path and, in turn, makes the background sources appear "shifted" to new locations in space.

This effect, dubbed gravitational lensing, is what originally allowed scientists to determine that most, if not all, galaxies are surrounded by haloes of dark matter in the first place. And these haloes are believed to extend far beyond the limits of those galaxies' visible matter objects like stars, gas and dust. Gravitational lensing has also allowed astronomers to measure the density of dark matter haloes. Denser haloes are responsible for stronger lensing than less dense haloes around ultra-diffuse galaxies — low-brightness galaxies with scattered gas and stars. However, researchers have struggled to explain the extremes of dark matter halo densities.
Enter, artificial intelligence

To tackle this puzzle, Yu and colleagues, including the University of Southern California postdoctoral researchers Ethan Nadler and Daneng Yang, constructed high-resolution simulations of cosmic structures that are based on actual astronomical observations.

They factored into these simulations strong dark matter self-interactions on mass scales relating to strong lensing haloes and ultra-diffuse galaxies.

"These self-interactions lead to heat transfer in the halo, which diversifies the halo density in the central regions of galaxies," Nadler explained. "In other words, some halos have higher central densities, and others have lower central densities, compared to their cold dark matter counterparts, with details depending on the cosmic evolution history and environment of individual halos."

The team concluded that SIDM interacting through a "dark force," just as baryonic particles interact through the force of electromagnetism and via the strong and weak nuclear forces, could offer a solution that cold dark matter theories don’t deliver.

"Cold dark matter is challenged to explain these puzzles. SIDM is arguably the compelling candidate to reconcile the two opposite extremes," Yang added. "Now there is an intriguing possibility that dark matter may be more complex and vibrant than we expected."

Related Stories:

— We still don't know what dark matter is, but here's what it's not

— Astronomers weigh ancient galaxies' dark matter haloes for 1st time

— Could a 'supervoid' solve an unrelenting debate over the universe's expansion rate?

The team thinks their research also provides an example of the analytical power of uniting real observations of the universe, which grow in detail with each new generation of telescope, with the burgeoning power of artificial intelligence.

"We hope our work encourages more studies in this promising research area," Yu said. "It will be a particularly timely development given the expected influx of data in the near future from astronomical observatories, including the James Webb Space Telescope and upcoming Rubin Observatory."

The team’s research was published in November in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Humans have created a new geological era on the Moon, scientists say
Sarah Knapton
Fri, December 8, 2023

Signs of mankind's presence are not hard to find on the Moon - Sovfoto/Getty Images

Humans have caused so much disturbance to the Moon that it has entered a new epoch, scientists have claimed.

More than a hundred spacecraft have landed on the Moon’s surface since the USSR set down Luna 2 in 1959, leading experts to claim the satellite is now in the “lunar anthropocene” age.

Earth is thought to have tipped from the Holocene to the Anthropocene around the time the first nuclear weapons were detonated, leaving a lasting mark on the planet’s geology.

The Moon has been in the Copernican period for around the past billion years, which began when volcanic lava flows stopped.
‘We want to prevent massive damage’

But in a new paper in Nature Geoscience, anthropologists and geologists at the University of Kansas, argue Moon missions have tipped the satellite into a new era of human interference.

The scientists claim that the Lunar Anthropocene began when Luna 2 landed in 1959.

“The idea is much the same as the discussion of the Anthropocene on Earth – the exploration of how much humans have impacted our planet,” said lead author Justin Holcomb, a postdoctoral researcher with the Kansas Geological Survey.

“The consensus is on Earth the Anthropocene began at some point in the past, whether hundreds of thousands of years ago or in the 1950s.

“Similarly, on the moon, we argue the Lunar Anthropocene already has commenced, but we want to prevent massive damage or a delay of its recognition until we can measure a significant lunar halo caused by human activities, which would be too late.”
Two golf balls on the Moon

It is estimated that humans have left 500,000lbs of human artefacts on the lunar surface, including six American flags, television equipment, and an aluminium sculpture called Fallen Astronaut.

There are even two golf balls from when Alan Shepard attempted putting in low gravity, while Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke left a framed photograph of his family.

Nasa’s Artemis mission is due to place humans back on the surface by 2025.

The researchers have also called for a new academic field of ‘space heritage’ which would preserve or catalogue items such as the lunar rovers, flags and footprints on the Moon’s surface.

Twelve men have walked on the Moon and mankind has left signs of its visits - AP/Dr. Scott M. Lieberman

Dr Holcomb added: “As archaeologists, we perceive footprints on the moon as an extension of humanity’s journey out of Africa, a pivotal milestone in our species’ existence. These imprints are intertwined with the overarching narrative of evolution.

“In the context of the new space race, the lunar landscape will be entirely different in 50 years. Multiple countries will be present, leading to numerous challenges. Our goal is to dispel the lunar-static myth and emphasise the importance of our impact, not only in the past but ongoing and in the future.

“We aim to initiate discussions about our impact on the lunar surface before it’s too late.”

Why scientists think it's time to declare a new lunar epoch

Laura Baisas
Fri, December 8, 2023 

Apollo 16 lunar landing mission commander John W. Young leaps from the lunar surface as he salutes the United States flag. The flag is located at the Descartes landing site during the first Apollo 16 extravehicular activity.

Six decades of human lunar exploration has shaped the moon’s environment. There has been enough change that some scientists argue that a new geological epoch on the moon should be declared. In a commentary published December 8 in the journal Nature Geoscience, a team of anthropologists and geologists say it should be called the Lunar Anthropocene and “space heritage” should be preserved and cataloged.

[Related: Why do all these countries want to go to the moon right now?]
Why the Lunar Anthropocene?

Scientists used the term Anthropocene to describe the epoch where humans began to have a significant impact on Earth’s ecosystem and geology. The planet is about 4.5 billion years old, and modern humans have only been around for 200,000 years. In that short amount of time, Homo sapiens have significantly altered Earth’s biological, chemical, and physical systems.

The beginning of the Anthropocene Epoch is still being debated and has a large range. Some suggest it began thousands of years ago. Others pinpoint 1950, when plutonium isotopes from nuclear weapons tests were found at the bottom of a relatively pristine lake in Canada. Emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses accelerating global warming, ocean acidification, increased species extinction, habitat destruction, and natural resource extraction are additional signs that humans have dramatically modified our planet.

“The idea is much the same as the discussion of the Anthropocene on Earth—the exploration of how much humans have impacted our planet,” study co-author and Kansas University archaeologist Justin Holcomb said in a statement. “Similarly, on the moon, we argue the Lunar Anthropocene already has commenced, but we want to prevent massive damage or a delay of its recognition until we can measure a significant lunar halo caused by human activities, which would be too late."
64 years of moon exploration–and disturbance

On September 13, 1950, the USSR’s uncrewed spacecraft Luna 2 first descended onto the lunar surface. In the decades since, over 100 other spacecraft have touched the moon. NASA’s Apollo Lunar Modules followed in the 1960s and 1970s and China got the first seedling to sprout on the moon in 2019. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) successfully landed on the moon with the Chandrayaan-3 mission in August.

All of this activity has displaced more of the moon’s surface than natural meteroid impacts and other natural processes.

In Nature Geoscience, the team argues that upcoming lunar missions and projects will change the face of the moon in more extreme ways. They believe that the concept of the Lunar Anthropocene may help correct a myth that the moon is barely impacted by human activity and is an unchanging environment.

[Related: Lunar laws could protect the moon from humanity.]

“Cultural processes are starting to outstrip the natural background of geological processes on the moon,” Holcomb said. “These processes involve moving sediments, which we refer to as ‘regolith,’ on the moon. Typically, these processes include meteoroid impacts and mass movement events, among others. However, when we consider the impact of rovers, landers and human movement, they significantly disturb the regolith.”

They believe that the lunar landscape will look entirely different in only half a century, with multiple countries having some presence on the surface of the moon.

University College London astrophysicist Ingo Waldmann told New Scientist that the moon has entered its version of the Anthropocene. He said that lunar geology isn’t very dramatic. The moon might see an asteroid impact every couple of million years, but there aren’t too many other big events. “Just us walking on it has a bigger environmental impact than anything that would happen to the moon in hundreds of thousands of years,” said Waldmann.

The moon is currently in a geological division called the Copernican Period. It dates over one billion years ago. In that time, Earth has gone through roughly 15 geological periods.
Leave only footprints

The unofficial motto of the United States National Park Service here on Earth is “take only photographs, leave only footprints.” The authors of this commentary believe that a similar mindset should apply to the moon. Debris from human missions to the moon includes everything from spacecraft components, excrement, golf balls, flags, and more.

“We know that while the Moon does not have an atmosphere or magnetosphere, it does have a delicate exosphere composed of dust and gas, as well as ice inside permanently shadowed areas, and both are susceptible to exhaust gas propagation,” the authors wrote. “Future missions must consider mitigating deleterious effects on lunar environments.”

The team hopes that calling a similar attention to the environmental impact of the moon will protect their historical and anthropological value. There are currently no laws or policy protections against disturbing the moon. The team hopes that this concept of a Lunar Anthropocene will spark conversations about human impacts on the moon and how historical artifacts are preserved.