#BDS 

UWindsor president says they plan to meet with pro-Palestinian encampment organizers

CBC
Wed, May 15, 2024 

A pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Windsor, Ont., started May 10. (Jennifer La Grassa/CBC - image credit)


The University of Windsor's president says the school has reached out to arrange a meeting with the organizers of a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus.

At an unrelated news conference Wednesday morning, president Robert Gordon told reporters that the school in southwestern Ontario reached out Tuesday morning and hopes to talk to the group in the coming days. There is no set date at this time.

Gordon said the school hopes to talk about what the group "would like to see done, but also for us to just be able to listen and learn to get a better context of what are the broader issues they expect the university to consider moving forward."


The pro-Palestinian encampment first started as a protest on May 9, among many in Canada and the U.S. that have sprung up related to the months-long Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

The student movement began at Columbia University in New York City on April 17 before protesters were forcefully cleared by police at the request of administrators.

In Canada, encampments have also sprung up at Montreal's McGill University, the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia and McMaster University in Hamilton.

University of Windsor president Robert Gordon told reporters Wednesday that the school plans on meeting with encampment organizers in the next few days.

University of Windsor president Robert Gordon told reporters Wednesday that the school plans on meeting with encampment organizers in the next few days. (Jennifer La Grassa/CBC)

A day later, more than 20 students set up about 15 tents on the southwestern Ontario university's grounds and have been sleeping on the lawn across from Dillon Hall to get the attention of school administration.

The group has six demands it wants the university to meet: disclose investments that benefit Israel, divest of those investments, declare a stance in the war, defend and support students and boycott academic institutions with ties to Israel.

The University of Windsor says it appreciates the way students are protesting in a peaceful and safe manner on campus.

The University of Windsor says it appreciates the way students are protesting in a peaceful and safe manner on campus. (Jennifer La Grassa/CBC)

Co-organizer of the encampment, Jana Jandal Alrifai, told CBC News she's "not optimistic that administration is going to come into this meeting with concrete steps or concessions that they are willing to make.

"I am hoping and imploring that that's what they do, because if they don't want us here, they don't want us sleeping here, then we're not just using empty words or statements or promises, that is not what we are looking for," she said.

Broadly speaking, the protesters at the campus encampments are demanding that their universities disclose their stakes in and divest from investments they say support Israel's actions against Palestinians, such as weapons manufacturers and the defence industry more generally.

University plans to 'listen,' 'get context' from meeting

The group has claimed that the university has about $900 million invested in funds that indirectly go to Israel's military industries.

When asked to confirm whether this is the case, Gordon said he hopes to clarify where the group got that number from.

Jana Jandal Alrifai is a co-organizer of the encampment on campus. She says they want the university to have a plan to meet their demands.

Jana Jandal Alrifai is a co-organizer of the encampment on campus. She says they want the university to have a plan to meet their demands. (Jennifer La Grassa/CBC)

"I think there is a little bit of confusion of how that number was arrived at," he said.

"The intentions I think are with this first meeting to listen, to just get better context how some of these numbers have been established."

As for whether the university will take a stance and support Palestinians — another demand from the group — Gordon said they are "happy to have conversations."

"These are complex geopolitical issues that we are doing our best to try to make sure that we are first and foremost supporting our university community," he said.

Students have been camped on the University of Windsor campus since Friday. Students say they will stay until University of Windsor officials meets with them about their demands for divestments.

Students have been camped on the University of Windsor campus since Friday. Students say they will stay until University of Windsor officials meets with them about their demands for divestments. (Jennifer La Grassa)

But Jandal Alrifai said she wants to see the university come to the table seriously considering their demands and a plan for when and how the school will implement them.

"The assumption is that we got this meeting, we're going to quiet down for a little bit, but that's not true," she said.

"The meeting is only one part of what we're trying to achieve here."

A total of 253 hostages were seized in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which about 1,200 Israelis were also killed, according to Israeli counts. Israel's offensive has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians over the last seven months, mostly women and children, health officials in Gaza said.

For the children of Gaza, war means no school — and no indication when formal learning might return

WAFAA SHURAFA and SAM MEDNICK
Thu, May 16, 2024 




Children play near their family's tent in Deir al Balah, on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Since the war erupted Oct 7, all of Gaza's schools have closed, and aid groups are scrambling to keep children off the streets and their minds focused on something other than the war.

 (AP Photo/Abdel Kareen Hana)


DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza (AP) — Atef Al-Buhaisi, 6, once dreamed of a career building houses. Now, all he craves is to return to school.

In Israel's war with Hamas, Atef's home has been bombed, his teacher killed and his school in Nuseirat turned into a refuge for displaced people. He lives in a cramped tent with his family in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where he sleeps clinging to his grandmother and fears walking alone even during the day.

Since the war erupted Oct. 7, all of Gaza's schools have closed — leaving hundreds of thousands of students like Atef without formal schooling or a safe place to spend their days. Aid groups are scrambling to keep children off the streets and their minds focused on something other than the war, as heavy fighting continues across the enclave and has expanded into the southern city of Rafah and intensified in the north.


“What we’ve lost most is the future of our children and their education,” said Irada Ismael, Atef’s grandmother. "Houses and walls are rebuilt, money can be earned again ... but how do I compensate for (his) education?”

Gaza faces a humanitarian crisis, with the head of the U.N.'s World Food Program determining a “full-blown famine” is already underway in the north. More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures. About 80% of Gaza’s population has been driven from homes. Much of Gaza is damaged or destroyed, including nearly 90% of school buildings, according to aid group estimates.

Children are among the most severely affected, with the U.N. estimating some 19,000 children have been orphaned and nearly a third under the age of 2 face acute malnutrition. In emergencies, education takes a back seat to safety, health and sanitation, say education experts, but the consequences are lasting.

“The immediate focus during conflict isn’t on education, but the disruption has an incredibly long-term effect,” said Sonia Ben Jaafar, of the Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation, a philanthropic organization focused on education in the Arab world. “The cost at this point is immeasurable.”

Before the war, Gaza was home to more than 625,000 students and some 20,000 teachers in its highly literate population, according to the U.N. In other conflicts, aid groups can create safe spaces for children in neighboring countries — for example, Poland for shelter and schooling during the war in Ukraine.

That's not possible in Gaza, a densely populated enclave locked between the sea, Israel and Egypt. Since Oct 7, Palestinians from Gaza haven't been allowed to cross into Israel. Egypt has let a small number of Palestinians leave.

“They’re unable to flee, and they remain in an area that continues to be battered," said Tess Ingram, of UNICEF. "It’s very hard to provide them with certain services, such as mental health and psychosocial support or consistent education and learning.”

Aid groups hope classes will resume by September. But even if a cease-fire is brokered, much of Gaza must be cleared of mines, and rebuilding schools could take years.

In the interim, aid groups are providing recreational activities — games, drawing, drama, art — not for a curriculum-based education but to keep children engaged and in a routine, in an effort for normalcy. Even then, advocates say, attention often turns to the war — Atef's grandmother sees him draw pictures only of tents, planes and missiles.

Finding free space is among the biggest challenges. Some volunteers use the outdoors, make do inside tents where people live, or find a room in homes still standing.

It took volunteer teachers more than two months to clear one room in a school in Deir al-Balah to give ad hoc classes to children. Getting simple supplies such as soccer balls and stationery into Gaza can also take months, groups report.

“Having safe spaces for children to gather to play and learn is an important step," Ingram said, but “ultimately the children of Gaza must be able to return to learning curriculum from teachers in classrooms, with education materials and all the other support schooling provides.”

This month, UNICEF had planned to erect at least 50 tents for some 6,000 children from preschool to grade 12 for play-based numbers and literacy learning in Rafah. But UNICEF says those plans could be disrupted by Israel's operation there.

Lack of schooling can take a psychological toll — it disrupts daily life and, compounded with conflict, makes children more prone to anxiety and nervousness, said Jesus Miguel Perez Cazorla, a mental health expert with the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Children in conflicts are also at increased risk of forced labor, sexual violence, trafficking and recruitment by gangs and armed groups, experts warn.

“Not only are children vulnerable to recruitment by Hamas and other militant groups, but living amid ongoing violence and constantly losing family members makes children psychologically primed to want to take action against the groups they consider responsible,” said Samantha Nutt of War Child USA, which supports children and families in war zones.

Palestinians say they've seen more children take to Gaza's streets since the war, trying to earn money for their families.

“The streets are full of children selling very simple things, such as chocolate, canned goods,” said Lama Nidal Alzaanin, 18, who was in her last year of high school and looking forward to university when the war broke out. "There is nothing for them to do.”

Some parents try to find small ways to teach their children, scrounging for notebooks and pens and insisting they learn something as small as a new word each day. But many find the kids are too distracted, with the world around them at war.

Sabreen al-Khatib, a mother whose family was displaced to Deir al-Balah from Gaza City, said it's particularly hard for the many who've seen relatives die.

“When you speak in front of children," al-Khatib said, "what do you think he is thinking? Will he think about education? Or about himself, how will he die?”

On Oct. 7, 14-year-old Layan Nidal Alzaanin — Lama's younger sister — was on her way to her middle school in Beit Hanoun when missiles flew overhead, she said. She fled with her family to Rafah, where they lived crowded in a tent. Since Israel ordered evacuations there, she fled to Deir al-Balah.

“It is a disaster," she said. “My dreams have been shattered. There is no future for me without school.”

___

Mednick reported from Tel Aviv, Israel.

#BDS CEASEFIRE NOW!

Police dismantle pro-Palestinian encampment at DePaul University in Chicago

TERESA CRAWFORD
Updated Thu, May 16, 2024

CHICAGO (AP) — Police began dismantling a pro-Palestinian encampment early Thursday at DePaul University in Chicago, hours after the school's president told students to leave the area or face arrest.

Officers and workers in yellow vests cleared out tents at the student encampment as front-loaders removed the camping equipment.

Across the street from where the encampment was spread across a grassy expanse of DePaul’s campus known as “The Quad,” a few dozen protesters stood along a sidewalk in front of a service station, clapping their hands in unison as an apparent protest leader paced and spoke into a bullhorn.

All the protesters at the encampment “voluntarily left” the area when police arrived early Thursday, said Jon Hein, chief of patrol for the Chicago Police Department.

“There were no confrontations and there was no resistance,” he said at a news briefing.

Hein said two people were arrested outside of the encampment “for obstruction of traffic.” One of those arrested is a current DePaul student and the other a former student, DePaul President Robert Manuel said in a statement.

The move to clear the campus comes less than a week after the school's president said public safety was at risk. The university on Saturday said it had reached an “impasse” with the school’s protesters, leaving the future of their encampment unclear. Most of DePaul’s commencement ceremonies will be held the June 15-16 weekend.

In a statement, Manuel and Provost Salma Ghanem said they believed that students intended to protest peacefully, but “the responses to the encampment have inadvertently created public safety issues that put our community at risk.”

Efforts to resolve the differences with DePaul Divestment Coalition over the past 17 days were unsuccessful, Manuel said in a statement sent to students, faculty and staff Thursday morning.

“I understand that the last 17 days have been stressful for many, not only within our campus, but also for those who live and work in our neighboring community," Manuel said later Thursday in a statement. “We are saddened that the situation came to the point where law enforcement intervention was necessary to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all — both within and outside the encampment.”

Students at many college campuses this spring set up similar encampments, calling for their schools to cut ties with Israel and businesses that support it, to protest lsrael’s actions in the war in Gaza.

Separately, 47 people were arrested at University of California, Irvine on Wednesday, university spokesperson Tom Vasich said in an email Thursday evening. The school previously said 50 people had been arrested.

A few were arrested for trespassing, but a majority were arrested for failure to disperse after a direct police order, Vasich said.

Chancellor Howard Gillman issued a statement Wednesday saying he was planning to allow the peaceful encampment to remain on campus even though it violated university policies, but the school called in police after a small group barricaded themselves inside a campus lecture hall, supported by a large group of community members rallying outside.

He said the group transformed what had been a manageable situation into one that required police response and demanded to oversee many elements of university operations.

“Most importantly, their assault on the academic freedom rights of our faculty and the free speech rights of faculty and students was appalling,” Gillman said in the statement.

Also Wednesday, 11 members of a group protesting at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville who did not vacate the area despite repeated warnings were arrested for trespassing, the university said in a statement. Those arrested included three students and eight people who are not affiliated with the university.

“The University of Tennessee respects individual’s rights to free speech and free expression and is committed to managing the campus for all,” the university said in the statement. “We will continue to be guided by the law and university policy, neutral of viewpoint.”

An independent journalist on Thursday confirmed his Wednesday arrest at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque as authorities removed encampments and arrested seven people, including two students.

Bryant Furlow, a frequent contributor to nonprofit news outlet New Mexico In Depth said in a statement that he was arrested along with wife and photographer Tara Armijo-Prewitt. In the statement released by New Mexico In Depth, Furlow said he and Armijo-Prewitt were charged with criminal trespass and wrongful use of public property and detained for 12 hours before release.

“We at all times followed instructions we received from police and stayed behind the yellow police tape,” Furlow said. “We were arrested while photographing the operation and shortly after asking an NMSP (New Mexico State Police) officer for his badge number and name. As I was being arrested, I said I was a member of the press repeatedly and loudly.”

At the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the school’s Board of Regents held a regularly scheduled meeting Thursday, a day after protesters showed up at the homes of some board members.

Sarah Hubbard, chair of the university’s governing board, said tents and red-stained sheets intended to resemble body bags with corpses were left on her lawn.

“This conduct is where our failure to address antisemitism leads literally — literally — to the front door of my home,” said board member Mark Bernstein. “When and where will this end? As a Jew, I know the answer to these questions because our experience is full of tragedies that we are at grave risk of repeating. Enough is enough.”

Protesters have been allowed to maintain an encampment on campus. They want the university to get rid of investments in companies linked to Israel, though school officials insist there are no direct investments, only a relatively small amount of endowment money in funds that might invest there.

The student-led DePaul Divestment Coalition, who are calling on the university to divest from Israel, set up the encampment April 30. The group alleged university officials walked away from talks and tried to force students into signing an agreement, according to a student statement late Saturday.

Henna Ayesh, a Palestinian student who’s a member of the coalition, criticized the police removal of the encampment as “shameful” in a statement sent Thursday by the group.

“It is shameful that DePaul chose violence rather than allowing students the right to protest our tuition money funding a genocide that is directly killing and displacing our families,” Ayesh said.

The Associated Press has recorded at least 80 incidents since April 18 where arrests were made at campus protests across the U.S. More than 2,960 people have been arrested on the campuses of 60 colleges and universities. The figures are based on AP reporting and statements from universities and law enforcement agencies.

___

Associated Press reporter Christopher L. Keller contributed from Albuquerque, New Mexico

Antiwar protesters rallied at DePaul University in Chicago, Thursday evening, May 16, 2024, after an encampment at the campus quad had been taken down by university police early in the morning.

 (AP Photo/Melissa Perez Winder)

American doctors uncertain how they will leave Gaza: A day in their life

ZOE MAGEE and RUWAIDA AMER
Thu, May 16, 2024 

As the Israeli military intensifies its fight against the militant group Hamas in and around the southern Gaza city of Rafah, thousands are being forced to evacuate and several U.S. citizens are caught up in the confusion after the Israeli military took over the Rafah Crossing on May 7.

Among those uncertain how they will get out of Gaza are a group of medics, who were volunteering with the Palestinian American Medical Association, working at the European Hospital in Khan Younis.

"The U.N. have been working to try to secure a safe passage," Monica Johnston, a burns nurse from Portland, told ABC News in an interview.

"We just don't know when that will be. We keep getting told tentative dates and it keeps getting pushed back. We have a team in Cairo waiting to come and relieve us."

Johnston and 18 other colleagues were meant to leave on Monday, but with the Rafah Crossing closed and Israel Defense Forces activity in the area increasing, the route out was deemed too dangerous.

Johnston told ABC News she didn’t want to leave until the replacement team had arrived. "I want to continue to provide help because I don't want these people abandoned," Johnston said, visibly upset.

"I want the world to know that there are so many innocent people being affected," Johnston told ABC News.

MORE: Protesters in Israel arrested after attacking Gaza aid trucks

PHOTO: A view of Yafa hospital damaged by Israeli strikes, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in the central Gaza Strip, Dec. 8, 2023. (Stringer/Reuters, FILE)

She explained that the longer this team has to wait for their replacements, the harder it is for them to do their jobs as the hospital is running so low on supplies.

"They need to come in, and they need to have their supplies as well," Johnston said, explaining that she is struggling to suitably treat patients as the hospital is running out of basics like soap, hand sanitizer, paper towels, medicines and equipment.

"We’re running out of medications, life sustaining medications that keep the heart running, the blood pumping. Pain medications we have to ration that and that in my position is extremely hard," she said.

"There’s such a lack of infection control. There’s bugs and flies and dirty linen everywhere. Most dressings should be changed daily ... some we are spreading out to every other day. We find that the wound is very contaminated – sometimes they have maggots," Johnston said.

The Rafah Crossing into Egypt has been the main access point for the Gaza Strip since this conflict began when Hamas militants stormed Israel on Oct. 7, killing at least 1,200 Israelis and kidnapping over 250.

On May 7, Israeli tanks entered the crossing and the IDF now control it. They are not allowing any access as they step up their efforts to confront Hamas in the area.

Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant was in Rafah Thursday and announced a ramping up of troops there. "Additional troops will join the ground operation in Rafah," Gallant said.

MORE: Humanitarian workers, doctors describe 'horrific' situation in Rafah as Israel intensifies strikes

PHOTO: A delegation of American and European doctors performs complex surgeries on injured Palestinians at the European Hospital, Dec. 31, 2023, Gaza Strip. (Abed Rahim Khatib/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)

This increase in military activity has meant the journey in and out of for the PAMA teams is now far more complicated and potentially dangerous.

"The situation since May 7 has gotten even more dire than you can imagine," Johnston said, explaining that many hospital staff have fled the area after the Israeli military instructed the evacuation of nearby Rafah, adding a further burden onto the already over-stretched staff and volunteers who have remained.

"There have been lots of fights amongst people here ... over things like the use of water," Johnson explained. "I am concerned I don’t know how much longer our bottled water supply is going to last."

Tension is running high in the hospital among both patients and staff, Johnston said. "I was leaving the ICU last night and was quickly ushered out as there was a gun fight and a knife fight in the ER. I don’t know what it was over, but you feel the tension, you feel the stress, you feel the anxiety increasing in everyone here."

Johnston has not worked in conflict zones before but her colleague, Dr. Adam Hamawy, has. He was an army medic and served in Iraq where he was responsible for saving the life of Sen. Tammy Duckworth.

Sen. Duckworth has been in regular contact with Hamawy, posting to X (formally known as Twitter) on May 14, "I'm in direct contact with Dr. Hamawy and am working hard to secure his group's immediate evacuation. Aid workers and innocent civilians should always be protected. The Netanyahu admin must work to open the Rafah crossing, support evacuations and allow much more aid in."

MORE: Northern Gaza experiencing 'full-blown famine': UN official

PHOTO: A general view shows a field hospital operated by the International Committee of the Red Cross, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 10, 2024. (ICRC/via Reuters)

Despite being no stranger to conflict, Hamawy said he is distressed by what he has seen in Gaza. "Every patient I have has a story. Every patient I have has been suffering for months. Every patient I have has lost family members. Many of my patients are children that are now orphans because they have lost both their parents," Hamawy told ABC News.

"And it’s not just the patients. It’s everyone that is here in the hospital. It’s the nurses, it’s the doctors, it’s the staff," Hamawy said. "This morning I was talking to one of the nurses that I met when I first came here," Hamawy said, explaining that this man looked exhausted.

"As soon as I asked him how he was and where he had been he collapsed and started weeping, telling me the ordeal he has been through," Hamawy said.

That nurse had evacuated his family out of Rafah, taking his wife and two young daughters to where the Israelis had indicated was safe.

"This place had nothing. It was basically desert. There was no water. There was no food, no shelter, no tents, no bathrooms. He said they lived like animals. When they had to use the facilities, they had to dig a hole. He said at night it was freezing and during the day he was extremely hot,” Hamawy said.

Both Hamawy and Johnston said they are filled with empathy and admiration for the patients they have treated and the Palestinian colleagues they have worked with.

"I feel very grateful to be here and provide that little level of comfort and safety for them," Johnston said, adding, "The amount of trauma that everybody has suffered here and the triggers that are going to happen lifelong is heartbreaking."

US working to get trapped American doctors out of Gaza, White House says

Reuters
Updated Wed, May 15, 2024 


US working to get trapped American doctors out of Gaza, White House says
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre holds a briefing in Washington

(Reuters) -The Biden administration is working to get a group of U.S. doctors out of Gaza after Israel closed the Rafah border crossing, the White House said on Wednesday.

The State Department said earlier this week that the government was aware that American doctors were unable to leave Gaza, after the Intercept reported that upwards of 20 American doctors and medical workers were trapped in Gaza.

The Palestinian American Medical Association, a U.S.-based non-profit, said on Monday that its team of 19 healthcare professionals, including 10 Americans, had been denied exit from Gaza after a two-week mission providing medical services at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, a city near Rafah in southern Gaza.

Israel seized and closed the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt on May 7, disrupting a vital route for people and aid into and out of the devastated enclave.

"We're tracking this matter closely and working to get the impacted American citizens out of Gaza," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Wednesday.

Jean-Pierre said the United States was engaging directly with Israel on the matter.

The Biden administration has been warning Israel against a major military ground operation in Rafah, but Jean-Pierre said efforts to get the doctors out are continuing regardless of what happens there.

"We need to get them out. We want to get them out and it has nothing to do with anything else," she said.

Israeli troops battled militants across Gaza on Wednesday, including in Rafah, which had been a refuge for civilians, in an upsurge of the more than seven-month-old war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.

Gaza's healthcare system has essentially collapsed since Israel began its military offensive there after the Oct. 7 cross-border attacks by Palestinian Hamas militants on Israelis.

Humanitarian workers sounded the alarm last week that the closure of the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings into Gaza could force aid operations to grind to a halt.

The Israeli assault on Gaza has destroyed hospitals across Gaza, including Al Shifa Hospital, the Gaza Strip's largest before the war, and killed and injured health workers.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose; Writing by Brendan O'Boyle; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Eric Beech)

Opinion: 

I'm an American doctor stuck in Gaza. As Israel moves into Rafah, where will physicians and our patients go?

Mahmoud Sabha
Wed, May 15, 2024 

Smoke rises from a fire in a building caused by Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 10. (AFP via Getty Images)


As an American doctor, I felt called to help Palestinians who have faced a collapsing healthcare system in Gaza. My first trip was in March and I returned for another mission earlier this month, before the Israeli military assault on Rafah, in southern Gaza, which has been catastrophic. Now we have no way out.

Israel’s seizure of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt has complicated our medical team’s departure from Gaza, which was coordinated with the World Health Organization and scheduled for Monday.

Read more: Opinion: Do campus protests show Americans' support for Palestinians has reached a turning point?

We have been at the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, near Rafah. If we leave, and no new mission can get in, the patients here will be abandoned and terrified. More than 1 million people had taken refuge in Rafah during the Israeli bombardment of northern Gaza, and hundreds of thousands have now been forced to flee the area amid Israel’s offensive here.

Our patients ask me where they should go, to which hospital. They tell me that some facilities are still open and ask my opinion of them. What do I say? The patients know full well about the destruction of the Al Shifa and Nasser hospitals. They know patients have been killed with IV lines and catheters still inside, and they believe that will be their fate as well if they are left alone and vulnerable to the Israeli forces.

Read more: Granderson: Biden is right to nudge Israel toward protecting civilians in Rafah

Meanwhile, limited humanitarian aid is getting in. The medical supplies entering Gaza often come in with new volunteers. I brought eight pieces of checked luggage, full of wound-care supplies for this mission. We get patients with wounds over 60% to 80% of their bodies, but we don’t even have absorbent pads to keep their wounds dry, which is necessary to prevent hypothermia.

The Rafah invasion is also worsening the displacement of both the patients’ and the medical staff’s families. Given the hospital’s staffing shortages, families are doing half the work of the nurses. They help turn patients. They help change their diapers. They transfer them to the clinic and back to the ward. They feed them. The patients would be nowhere without their families.

Read more: My family in Gaza faces starvation. How do I find solace this Ramadan?

If the hospital were abandoned or their families were forced to evacuate, I have no clue how these patients would survive, especially those with amputations restricting their movement. I imagine the patients saying a final goodbye to their loved ones.

Some doctors and nurses have been volunteering here for a long time. Some of us have been to Gaza several times. Yet we continue to be shocked by the cruelty. We are not used to this degree of carnage. Even the local staff continues to be shocked.

Read more: Opinion: I'm an American doctor who went to Gaza. What I saw wasn't war — it was annihilation

The local medical staff have avoided telling the patients that our team may have to evacuate before the next set of aid workers can arrive, for fear it would cause a massive panic. Nobody likes talking about evacuation. I can tell they don’t even like to use the word. Even if as doctors, we can’t save people given the limited resources, at least as foreigners, we can provide some protection, standing as a shield against a potential massacre of the patients.

We are still working with the WHO to leave safely, despite the Rafah border closing. Though, it is disturbing that on our planned exit date, a United Nations-marked vehicle was shot at and a foreign aid worker killed.

In the meantime, we will continue to see our patients and provide medical care for as long as we are here. Our organization’s next team is waiting in Cairo, hoping to start their mission.

I remain inspired by the fortitude of the people I’ve met. When some of my patients are under conscious sedation for their dressing changes, their inner selves come out, and many of them call to God. One patient repeated the shahada — the Muslim testimony of faith. Another whose voice I hadn’t heard before raised his hands to the air as he woke, making dua, a prayer of supplication to God.

I hope that the border crossing will reopen and that a new team with more resources will arrive. I hope for a cease-fire to end this man-made humanitarian disaster. For now, as long as I am able to testify to the strength of people in Gaza and share that with the world, I am honored to be among these individuals, who have given me more than I have given them.

Mahmoud Sabha is a wound care physician from La Palma, Calif., residing in Dallas.

First humanitarian aid reaches Gaza from temporary pier built by US

Our Foreign Staff
Fri, May 17, 2024

The Trident Pier, a temporary pier to deliver humanitarian aid, on the Gaza coast - US Central Command

The first trucks carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza began moving ashore on Friday via the temporary pier built by the United States.

The trucks drove off the pier at about 9am local time, the US military’s Central Command said on Friday.

No US troops went ashore in Gaza, it added.

“This is an ongoing, multinational effort to deliver additional aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza via a maritime corridor that is entirely humanitarian in nature, and will involve aid commodities donated by a number of countries and humanitarian organisations,” it said.

This is a developing story and will be updated

What to know about how much the aid from a US pier project will help Gaza

ELLEN KNICKMEYER
Updated Thu, May 16, 2024


A ship is seen off the coast of Gaza near a U.S.-built floating pier that will be used to facilitate aid deliveries, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, Thursday, May 16, 2024.

 (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S.-built pier is in place to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza by sea, but no one will know if the new route will work until a steady stream of deliveries begins reaching starving Palestinians.

The trucks that will roll off the pier project installed Thursday will face intensified fighting, Hamas threats to target any foreign forces and uncertainty about whether the Israeli military will ensure that aid convoys have access and safety from attack by Israeli forces.

Even if the sea route performs as hoped, U.S, U.N. and aid officials caution, it will bring in a fraction of the aid that's needed to the embattled enclave.

Here's a look at what's ahead for aid arriving by sea:

WILL THE SEA ROUTE END THE CRISIS IN GAZA?

No, not even if everything with the sea route works perfectly, American and international officials say.

U.S. military officials hope to start with about 90 truckloads of aid a day through the sea route, growing quickly to about 150 trucks a day.

Samantha Power, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, and other aid officials have consistently said Gaza needs deliveries of more than 500 truckloads a day — the prewar average — to help a population struggling without adequate food or clean water during seven months of war between Israel and Hamas.

Israel has hindered deliveries of food, fuel and other supplies through land crossings since Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel launched the conflict in October. The restrictions on border crossings and fighting have brought on a growing humanitarian catastrophe for civilians.

International experts say all 2.3 million of Gaza's people are experiencing acute levels of food insecurity, 1.1 million of them at “catastrophic” levels. Power and U.N. World Food Program Director Cindy McCain say north Gaza is in famine.

At that stage, saving the lives of children and others most affected requires steady treatment in clinical settings, making a cease-fire critical, USAID officials say.

At full operation, international officials have said, aid from the sea route is expected to reach a half-million people. That's just over one-fifth of the population.

WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES FOR THE SEA ROUTE NOW?

The U.S. plan is for the U.N. to take charge of the aid once it's brought in. The U.N. World Food Program will then turn it over to aid groups for delivery.

U.N. officials have expressed concern about preserving their neutrality despite the involvement in the sea route by the Israeli military — one of the combatants in the conflict — and say they are negotiating that.

There are still questions on how aid groups will safely operate in Gaza to distribute food to those who need it most, said Sonali Korde, assistant to the administrator for USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, which is helping with logistics.

U.S. and international organizations including the U.S. government's USAID and the Oxfam, Save the Children and International Rescue Committee nonprofits say Israeli officials haven't meaningfully improved protections of aid workers since the military's April 1 attack that killed seven aid workers with the World Central Kitchen organization.

Talks with the Israeli military “need to get to a place where humanitarian aid workers feel safe and secure and able to operate safely. And I don’t think we’re there yet," Korde told reporters Thursday.

Meanwhile, fighting is surging in Gaza. It isn’t threatening the new shoreline aid distribution area, Pentagon officials say, but they have made it clear that security conditions could prompt a shutdown of the maritime route, even just temporarily.

The U.S. and Israel have developed a security plan for humanitarian groups coming to a “marshaling yard” next to the pier to pick up the aid, said U.S. Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, deputy commander of the U.S. military’s Central Command. USAID Response Director Dan Dieckhaus said aid groups would follow their own security procedures in distributing the supplies.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces have moved into the border crossing in the southern city of Rafah as part of their offensive, preventing aid from moving through, including fuel.

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said that without fuel, delivery of all aid in Gaza can't happen.

WHAT'S NEEDED?

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration, the U.N. and aid groups have pressed Israel to allow more aid through land crossings, saying that's the only way to ease the suffering of Gaza's civilians. They've also urged Israel's military to actively coordinate with aid groups to stop Israeli attacks on humanitarian workers.

“Getting aid to people in need into and across Gaza cannot and should not depend on a floating dock far from where needs are most acute,” U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters Thursday.

“To stave off the horrors of famine, we must use the fastest and most obvious route to reach the people of Gaza — and for that, we need access by land now,” Haq said.

U.S. officials agree that the pier is only a partial solution at best, and say they are pressing Israel for more.

WHAT DOES ISRAEL SAY?

Israel says it places no limits on the entry of humanitarian aid and blames the U.N. for delays in distributing goods entering Gaza. The U.N. says ongoing fighting, Israeli fire and chaotic security conditions have hindered delivery.

Under pressure from the U.S., Israel has in recent weeks opened a pair of crossings to deliver aid into hard-hit northern Gaza. It said a series of Hamas attacks on the main crossing, Kerem Shalom, have disrupted the flow of goods.

___

Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Tara Copp in Washington and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed.

US establishes Gaza pier to try to boost aid to hungry enclave

Reuters
Updated Thu, May 16, 2024 

Temporary floating pier anchored by the U.S. to boost aid deliveries to Gaza


(Reuters) - The United States anchored a temporary floating pier to a beach in Gaza on Thursday to boost aid deliveries. U.S. President Joe Biden announced the plan for the pier in March as aid officials implored Israel to improve access for relief supplies into Gaza over land routes.

By opening a route to deliver aid by sea, the U.S. hopes to combat the humanitarian crisis that has put hundreds of thousands of people at risk of famine. Below is a timeline of events leading to the arrival of the pier off Gaza.

March 7 - Biden says in his State of the Union speech the U.S. military will build a temporary port on Gaza's Mediterranean coast to receive humanitarian aid by sea. The announcement came as he seeks to cool anger among many in his Democratic Party over his support for Israel in its offensive in Gaza since Oct. 7, given the steep toll on civilians.

March 8 - The Pentagon says Biden's plan could take up to 60 days to become a reality and involve more than 1,000 American troops. Officials say a floating pier would be installed in place off Gaza and attached to land by a temporary causeway. Aid will be shipped to it from Cyprus where Israeli officials will inspect it, as they currently do at the land borders, to stop anything going into Gaza that they deem to have a possible military use.

April 3 - The U.S. State Department says an attack that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers on April 1 would not affect U.S. efforts to build the pier.

April 25 - A United Nations team in Gaza visiting the site for the pier and the staging area for maritime aid operations had to seek shelter in a bunker "for some time" after the area came under fire, a U.N. spokesperson says.

April 25 - The Pentagon says U.S. troops have begun construction of the pier off the coast of Gaza, as international officials warn of the risk of famine in northern Gaza. Concerns about the risk to American troops getting caught up in the Israel-Hamas war were underscored as news emerged of a mortar attack near the area where the pier will eventually touch ground. No U.S. forces were present, however, and Biden has ordered U.S. forces to not step foot on the Gaza shore.

April 29 - A U.S. defense official says cost estimate to build the pier has risen to $320 million, illustrating the massive scale of a construction effort.

May 1 - The Pentagon says the U.S. military has so far constructed over 50% of the pier, which has several different components. "The floating pier has been completely constructed and setup. The causeway is in progress," a spokesperson said.

May 2 - White House says the pier should be open within a matter of days, despite poor weather hampering preparations.

May 3 - The U.S. military said it was temporarily pausing the offshore construction of the pier because of weather conditions and instead would continue building it at the Israeli port of Ashdod.

May 9 - The U.S. flagged vessel Sagamore carrying aid to be unloaded at the pier sets sail from the port of Larnaca, Cyprus in the morning.

May 15 - A British shipment of nearly 100 tonnes of aid has left Cyprus bound for the temporary pier, the British Foreign Office says.

May 15 - The U.S. military starts moving the pier towards the Gaza coast, a U.S. official says.

May 16 - The pier is anchored to a beach in Gaza.

(This story has been refiled to correct 'Work Central Kitchen' to 'World Central Kitchen', in paragraph 5)

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Don Durfee, William Maclean)

US military anchors pier to Gaza; aid expected within days

Brad Dress
Thu, May 16, 2024 


The U.S. military has finally anchored its new pier to the coast of Gaza, and officials are expected to soon begin delivery of crucial humanitarian aid to the besieged region.

The pier was completed earlier this month, but its anchoring was delayed by bad weather.

Officials are expected to begin delivering around 500 tons of humanitarian aid in the coming days, offering much-needed relief for Palestinian civilians who lack access to basic necessities including food and water as Israel carries on a war against militant group Hamas in Gaza.

In a press call, Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, said the pier was successfully anchored to a beach in Gaza in the early morning hours on Thursday.

Cooper said there are “hundreds of tons of humanitarian assistance” immediately ready for distribution in the coming days.

“We’ve got thousands of tons in the pipeline,” he added.

Sonali Korde, assistant to the administrator at the United States Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, said the pier would help address a “gap” in humanitarian assistance for the people of Gaza.

“We’re at a point in time when we can’t spare any effort,” she said.

Aid distribution will begin at the island nation of Cyprus, where barges will bring in tons of assistance to a floating dock miles off the coast of Gaza. The aid will then be ferried to the pier on ships before being unloaded off the shore for distribution.

Around 1,000 U.S. troops are taking part in the humanitarian aid mission, but Washington has been firm there will be no boots on the ground. Instead, they will work closely with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the United Nations and humanitarian aid groups to get the aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Some Republicans have raised concerns about how the U.S. military can stay out of harm’s way, especially after the area near the port on the shore was attacked last month.

But Cooper said the U.S. military has worked closely with the IDF to come up with a security plan, and that Israel has been a supportive partner in the process.

“We worked very closely with the IDF to develop a series of protocols,” he said, saying they had a “high level of confidence” in the mission.

US military pier starts moving towards Gaza

Reuters
Wed, May 15, 2024 




US military pier starts moving towards Gaza
Construction of JLOTS Pier in Mediterranean

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military has started moving a pier towards the Gaza coast, a U.S. official said on Wednesday, one of the last steps before the launch of a maritime port promised by President Joe Biden to speed the flow of humanitarian aid to Palestinians.

The U.S. military opted to pre-assemble the maritime pier at Israeli port of Ashdod earlier this month due to weather conditions at the Gaza site where it will now be installed.

Officials hope the pier can be anchored to the coast of Gaza and aid can start flowing in the coming days.

"Earlier today, components of the temporary pier ... along with military vessels involved in its construction, began moving from the Port of Ashdod towards Gaza, where it will be anchored to the beach to assist in the delivery of international humanitarian aid," a U.S. official said.

A British shipment of nearly 100 tonnes of aid has left Cyprus bound for a new temporary pier in Gaza, the British Foreign Office said on Wednesday.

The U.S. military effort comes more than six months after Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and abducting 250 others, according to Israeli tallies.

In response, Israel has launched a relentless assault on Gaza, killing more than 35,000 Palestinians, local health authorities say, in a bombardment that has reduced much of the enclave to a wasteland and triggered U.N. warnings of looming famine.

Over time, the civilian toll from the Israeli offensive has triggered global protests and strained relations with Washington, Israel's biggest backer.

Israel has sought to demonstrate it is not blocking aid to Gaza. Although U.S. officials and aid groups say some progress has been made, they warn it is insufficient.

Dan Dieckhaus, the response director at the U.S. Agency for International Development, told reporters earlier on Wednesday Israel still has more work to do to address concerns about the killing of aid workers in Gaza.

"Overall we are still not satisfied. And we won't be satisfied as long as we continue to see aid worker deaths and injuries," Dieckhaus said.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart, Editing by William Maclean)

Python hunters must humanely kill snakes: How Florida has cracked down in contests through the years

Abigail Hasebroock, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Thu, May 16, 2024 




FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A hunter shooting a gun to kill a python? Forbidden.

What about freezing the snake to kill it? Prohibited.

A python run over by a car? Not allowed.

These types of killings have happened before, though rarely. So how is someone supposed to properly kill a snake in the Python Challenge, the state-led contest that sends hunters scouring the Everglades for them each year? Details about the deaths of nearly 1,000 hunted snakes come to light in records that document the state’s enforcement efforts.

The state records, reviewed by the South Florida Sun Sentinel, illustrate the many times snakes were properly captured and killed. And they also document the fraction of snakes that weren’t. The records, which date from 2013 to 2023, also show the agencies behind the tournament have kept adjusting the rules to stamp out fraud and keep any unethical snake slashing to a minimum.

There is vigilance to ensure snakes don’t suffer. And more rules could be on tap for the next upcoming challenge.

“We take the issue of humane treatment of all animals very, very seriously,” said Mike Kirkland, a senior invasive animal biologist with the South Florida Water Management District, which operates a python contractor program and assists with the state’s Python Challenge.

Here’s a closer look at the efforts.
A popular competition

The contest draws people from around the world to South Florida to kill Burmese pythons for sport. The state says the competition garners crucial awareness about the harm invasive pythons are causing to the Everglades. Last year, more than 1,000 hunters participated in the event.

Financial awards are in store for contest winners, including for the novice, professional and military competitors who catch the longest snakes.

A key concern always is if the snakes are humanely euthanized, which involves “pithing,” or the manual destruction of a python’s brain to limit any pain or suffering. Reptiles differ from mammals in how they express pain or suffering, in that reptiles do not respond to it much at all, at least not in obvious ways.

“A mammal might cry out, you know, if you have a dog or cat, it hurts its paw, it might limp or it might whimper,” Kirkland said. “Just like if I have a cold, I’ll complain to my wife all day long that I don’t feel well. But reptiles seem to be a little bit more stoic, and they don’t express themselves the same way.”

For a snake to be humanely euthanized, two critical steps must be taken.

The first is to render the reptile unconscious either through a shot to the head with a weapon such as a captive bolt or air gun.

The second step is where the pithing part comes in. A tool such as a screwdriver, pick or spike is jammed into the snake’s head to smash its brain, hardly an easy process.

Pythons “are very resilient animals,” Kirkland said. “Any connected brain tissue to the spinal column could mean that the animal is still conscious. So that’s why pithing as a secondary euthanasia method is required.”
Minding the rules

Hosting the contest has led to a team-up of many entities: The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and South Florida Water Management District get assistance from the University of Florida. UF was first contracted and paid by SFWMD in 2013 to “provide science support,” said Frank Mazzotti, a UF wildlife ecology professor.

That’s because UF has “the staff and facilities and experience necessary to be the objective third-party experts for these events,” Kirkland added.

UF handles the necropsy examinations — how the python died — which “eliminates any concerns of a bias for any of the challenge participants,” Kirkland said. UF also determines metrics, such as the length of each snake captured, and from that information, contest winners are selected.

Prize determinations are conducted by the Fish and Wildlife Foundation of Florida with the FWC and SFWMD, based on the data collected by UF, which informs of any potential issues, an FWC spokesperson wrote in an email.

Records from the FWC and UF — obtained by the Sun Sentinel in response to a public-records request — show that a system, often color coded, is employed to flag captured pythons for a range of actions that go against the rules, such as turning in snakes that haven’t been killed properly, snakes captured and killed outside of the contest boundaries, or snakes that are not pythons at all but rather native to the Everglades, such as a salt marsh snake. Some of these actions resulted in consequences, such as competitors being eliminated from the challenge, or pythons not counting toward the total contest sum.

Snakes may be flagged with various colors “based on the reason for potential elimination of the snakes or the contestant,” the records from 2021 state.

No one color-coded flagging system is the identical, though. Each year’s contest has seen a different iteration.

In 2021, three marks were given to three snakes that were killed by a firearm, which is prohibited.

In 2020, a hunter was eliminated from the challenge for freezing snakes, which is considered an inhumane method of euthanasia.

Pythons also cannot be hit by a car as a way to kill them, and in 2023, two marks were given to snakes that had been hit by a car — a “roadkill snake,” as the records note — and they were not included in the total python count.

“There’s been an evolution of the color schemes,” Mazzotti said. “There’s been an evolution of concerns over participant behavior. We’ve tried to get better every year.”
Documenting concerns

The state records highlight the scrutiny that dead snakes receive.

In one snake’s case in the 2023 contest, the level of its brain destruction was uncertain. Similar observations, some generating more gruesome imagery than others, were jotted down for other pythons, resulting in a range of marks, explaining why a competitor’s catch was flagged. “Skull destroyed beyond what would be expected. … Seemed a bit over the top,” one entry notes.

In 2023, of the 209 total pythons counted as being removed during the challenge, there were 40 snakes flagged, with 24 of the 40 receiving a mark for insufficient pithing.

In 2022, of the official 231 snakes removed for the challenge, about 40 of the nearly 100 that were flagged noted pithing issues.

And in 2021, of the 223 pythons counting toward the challenge, at least 40 of the more than 50 flagged snakes received notes about pithing issues or arriving to the check station still alive. Often, the observations about those pythons state they either were not pithed at all or if they were, the brain was not fully destroyed.

In 2020, a color-coded flagging system appears to exist, but it differs from the ones that succeed it. Marks were given for factors such as missing coordinates of a captured python and euthanasia by freezing.

Because the challenge did not become consecutive until 2020, the only two other challenges before then were in 2016 and 2013, when it does not appear to have color-coded systems to the same capacities as more recent years, but detailed notes about each submission and disqualifiers are still evident. And just because a snake was flagged did not mean it did not contribute to the challenge’s total python count; in most cases, it still counted toward the python tally.

The challenges’ rules, flagging systems and overall guidance have progressed throughout the years, Mazzotti said.

“There’s been a constant evolution, and as problems were recognized, we took steps to correct them,” he said.
Lessons learned

UF drafted summary reports at the conclusion of the competitions that offer a rundown on what happened and recommendations for the future.

For example, in the 2023 report, UF recommended “a detailed video demonstrating proper euthanasia techniques be made available to participants to provide a visual demonstration of humane euthanasia techniques, with particular focus on proper brain pithing.”

In 2021, UF recommended participants’ “vehicles be checked by the check station operator before entering and when exiting the approved search area to prevent snakes captured outside of the challenge time frame and hunt areas from being submitted.”

With the announcement of 2024’s challenge likely around the corner — last year’s was announced on May 24 — Mazzotti said UF and the other participating agencies will talk about the lessons learned from last year, if there are any new concerns and if regulations need to be more specific.

The goal is not to go on a disqualification spree. The challenge has been created with the intent of encouraging people to participate, Mazzotti said.

“We’re very flexible and very adaptive,” he said.

But disqualifications do still happen, especially if euthanasia standards are not met.

“It might have been in the past that individual snakes were disqualified but other entries were allowed by the same participant,” Kirkland said. “But if that was the case, it’s no longer the case. If one participant has a disqualified python because it didn’t meet the euthanasia standards as determined by the UF examiners, then that participant is disqualified from the entire event now.”

“Any disqualifications, though rare, just go to show how seriously we take the humane treatment of these invasive animals while simultaneously protecting our native wildlife.”
Serpent fraud?

Other marks throughout the years include incomplete data about where a snake was caught and when, turning in snakes still alive or turning in snakes that were captured and killed outside of the challenge.

“Say a month before the competition, you catch a 14-footer and you go, ‘Oh maybe I can win with this,’ ” Mazzotti said. “So you put it in the freezer.”

But for those potentially caught committing serpent fraud, the consequences could be grim. If a python contractor were to falsify information during the challenge, they could be kicked out of the challenge.

It’s unclear exactly how many python hunters or their catches have been eliminated. None of those behind the contest gave definitive figures on that aspect of enforcement.

If the hunters happen to be a part of the FWC or SFWMD’s python-elimination programs — which are efforts that run continually — they could be removed from those programs, too. SFWMD only has 50 contractor spots, and the agency gets 100 new applications every week, Kirkland said.

“If you’re going to try to cheat, per se, in any way, shape or form, that would be a very big risk to give up your privileges for one of the most coveted positions in the state,” Kirkland said.
‘I love pythons’

For those considering competing in the python challenges or a career in python hunting, SFWMD python elimination specialist Donna Kalil believes they should be free from common misconceptions about the activity.

People shouldn’t enter into this realm for money, if they think they’ll be slinging snakes every night or if they tend to be impatient. Poor vision might not be a great asset, either, she said.

Kalil, who has competed in all six python challenges and, as of last Wednesday, caught 863 pythons throughout her entire career as a hunter, said she lives a nearly nocturnal life hunting pythons four nights a week because she’s an environmentalist.

“If you don’t love being out there, you have no reason to be out looking for pythons because if you’re not finding them, you’re not going to enjoy your time,” she said.

Like many other python hunters and scientists, killing the animal is Kalil’s least favorite part.

“I love pythons. They’re beautiful,” she said. “Unfortunately they don’t belong there, through no fault of their own, but they don’t belong, and they’re causing so much havoc to our native species. … It’s one python to several 100 animals that it’s going to take out.”

“It’s not an easy thing to do,” she said.

Kenyan lawyers move to block police deployment to Haiti

Reuters
Updated Fri, May 17, 2024

NAIROBI (Reuters) -Kenyan lawyers have moved to block the country's planned deployment of police to Haiti, a court filing showed, days before officers are expected to arrive in the Caribbean nation to tackle spiralling violence there.

The High Court on Friday ordered the lawsuit be served to top government officials and that the case be heard on June 12, it said in a statement.

Responding to Haiti's appeal for assistance, Kenya offered last July to send 1,000 officers to Haiti to help tackle a worsening security crisis where escalating gang control has plunged millions into a humanitarian crisis.

However, Kenya's High Court ruled in January that the police officers could not be deployed to Haiti in the absence of a "reciprocal arrangement" with the host government.

Kenyan President William Ruto then signed a security deal with Haiti's then-prime minister Ariel Henry in March which Nairobi hoped would satisfy the court's objections and allow the deployment to go ahead.

Lawyers Ekuru Aukot and Miruru Waweru, who lead an opposition party in Kenya called Thirdway Alliance, said in their application to the High Court on Thursday that respondents including Ruto and the police had blatantly disobeyed the court order in signing the reciprocal instrument with Haiti.

They said the government would be in contempt of court if it pressed ahead with the deployment.

"The applicants are reliably informed that the impugned deployment may be done any time from now," the lawyers said in their application.

Ruto's spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the application.

Kenya's government said in March it was pausing the deployment following Henry's resignation. But Ruto said later that the swearing-in of a transition council in Haiti on April 25 had addressed concerns about a power vacuum there and that Kenya was now discussing how to proceed with its deployment.

Last week, the U.S. military's Southern Command said civilian contractors had arrived in Haiti to build living quarters for the Kenyan-led force.

Jamaica, the Bahamas, Barbados, Benin, Chad and Bangladesh have also pledged personnel to the force.

Foreign governments have been reluctant to take part in the mission. Many Haitians have also been wary of international interventions after previous U.N. missions left behind a devastating cholera epidemic and sex abuse scandals.

(Reporting by Humphrey Malalo; writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Hereward Holland, Clarence Fernandez and Gareth Jones)

‘The gangs are in charge’: Haiti’s outgunned police fight a desperate rear defence

Etienne Côté-Paluck in Port-au-Prince and Tom Phillips
Thu, May 16, 2024 

Haitian police patrol the capital, Port-au-Prince. The police union says 17 officers have been killed and ‘many’ wounded in the first four months of 2024.Photograph: Mentor David Lorens/EPA


Nine hours and countless bullets after gunmen began bombarding Stanley’s police station in Port-au-Prince, the twentysomething officer started fearing he would not make it out alive.

“If you don’t hear from me, it’s because I’m dead,” he wrote on a family WhatsApp group by way of goodbye.

The officer’s sister shivered as she read her sibling’s parting text and – when he didn’t answer her messages – rang one of his closest friends desperate for news. “I’m going out of my mind,” she sobbed.

Contrary to his prediction, Stanley* did survive the recent assault on his fortress-like base but was left badly shaken. “What scared me the most was the idea of a needless death – that I might die and it would change nothing,” the police officer said as heavily armed gangs continued to sow terror in Haiti’s capital despite the creation of a transitional government that is supposed to lead the country out of its latest crisis.

Other members of Haiti’s embattled national police force have not been so lucky in the face of a coordinated gang insurrection that began in late February and has plunged Port-au-Prince into anarchy and forced the prime minister to resign.

Lionel Lazarre, the spokesperson for Haiti’s police union Synapoha, said 17 officers had been killed and “many” wounded – mostly by gunshots – in the first four months of this year.

In the worst attack, five officers were killed when armed criminals stormed a police station in the city’s north on 29 February. Videos of the mutilated victims spread on social media, the newspaper Le Nouvelliste reported. In one, it wrote, “the corpse of a policeman is seen lying on a wheelbarrow, his uniform soaked in blood”. Another shows an officer being beheaded. In a brazen show of defiance, criminals later returned to the station to demolish it with a Chinese front-end loader.

“It’s clear the [previous] government failed in its security mission. Everyone says the police are overwhelmed by the recent events,” said Lazarre. “There are neighbourhoods we used to go into easily but no longer can.”

Related: Guns and weapons trafficked from US fueling Haiti gang violence

William O’Neill, the UN’s top expert on human rights in Haiti, voiced amazement that Haiti’s outgunned and under-resourced police force had avoided being completely overpowered by criminals boasting a military-grade arsenal, largely smuggled in from the US. “It’s a minor miracle they’re still hanging on. I don’t know how they do it,” said O’Neill, who believes Haiti needs a 5,000-strong international security force to help the police restore order.

A UN-backed “multinational security support mission”, reportedly led by 1,000 Kenyan troops, is expected to be deployed to Haiti in the coming weeks to bolster the fight against the gangs although questions remain over how the force will be funded.

Part of the answer to how Haitian police are clinging on lies in the mettle of officers such as Stanley who are on the frontline of a lopsided struggle against gangs that run about 80% of the capital. For their troubles such officers generally receive no more than $100 (£79) a week.

That measly salary earns them a front row seat to a security collapse that has seen more than 2,500 people killed or injured this year alone and forced the airport and seaport to close.

Last weekend, another 4,500 people were forced to flee their homes in the capital, according to the UN migration agency, taking the number of people displaced by the chaos to about 100,000.

“The gangs are in charge,” admitted one former senior security official who believed things were so dire combat drones should be imported to eliminate gang leaders from above, “like in Afghanistan”.

A spokesperson for another police union, SPNH-17, this week called for the head of Haiti’s national police, Frantz Elbé, to resign over the “critical and catastrophic” situation after another attack on a police station, accusing top police officials of being complicit with the gangs.

Peter, another Port-au-Prince cop in his mid-20s, recalled being ambushed during a recent patrol by fighters with assault rifles. “It seemed like bullets were coming from everywhere at the same time,” said the police officer, who fled his vehicle with three colleagues and took shelter beside walls and street lamps.

The officers managed to repel the assailants after a long shootout but one was injured and taken to hospital. After the gun battle, Peter returned to his bullet-riddled vehicle and continued patrolling but he spent the next fortnight off work, rattled by the near-death experience.

“I realised it could have been me who was injured or even killed,” he said. “Thank God it wasn’t me that day … I still haven’t told my mother.”

Lazarre admitted Haiti’s national police force was woefully ill-equipped for its battle against outlaws who flaunt their increasingly sophisticated arsenal in slick social media videos resembling those posted by Mexican cartels.

“If the police had more weapons they could respond better to the criminals,” said Lazarre. “The police is about to celebrate its 29th anniversary but they don’t even have one or two helicopters to fight the current battle.”

Peter said a lack of basic equipment meant some colleagues bought their own bulletproof vests or armour plates, shipping them to Haiti with the logistics company DHL. In the last three years, more than 3,000 officers have left their jobs as the security situation unravelled after the 2021 murder of President Jovenel Moïse. Many have abandoned the country altogether.

Haiti’s police have faced criticism for disappearing from the streets of Port-au-Prince since the rebellion began and abandoning citizens to their own fate. But the union spokesperson said officers were doing their best to fight back, “even though times are tough”.

Lazarre called for more “offensive action” to regain the initiative from armed groups. “When you’re in a football team, you can’t just defend. You have to attack too … You can’t play a 90-minute game just defending. Eventually, you’ll let in a goal.”

Stanley and Peter said they were determined to fight on and were proud to be part of Haiti’s police force, despite the dangers. “We are the armed arm of the citizens. We are their shield,” said Stanley.

But in a city now almost entirely controlled by criminals, the shadow of death was never far away, said Peter, who is his household’s sole breadwinner. “And when a policeman dies in service what’s left for the family?” he asked.

*Names have been changed to protect their identities


Haiti's crisis rises to the forefront of elections in neighboring Dominican Republic

MARTÍN ADAMES ALCÁNTARA and MEGAN JANETSKY
Thu, May 16, 2024

VERON, Dominican Republic (AP) — As soaring violence and political turmoil grip neighboring Haiti, the Dominican Republic will hold elections Sunday that have been defined by calls for more crackdowns on migrants and finishing a border wall dividing the countries.

Politics in the two Caribbean nations sharing the island of Hispaniola have long been intertwined. Haiti’s spiral into chaos in recent years has coincided with a harsh crackdown by its Dominican neighbor.

President Luis Abinader, a clear frontrunner race as he seeks reelection in the presidential race, has begun to build a Trump-like border wall along Haiti’s border and carried out mass deportations of 175,000 Haitians just last year. Dominicans also will be choosing members of Congress.

“We will continue to deport everyone who is illegal from any country,” Abinader said in a debate in late April. “A society that doesn’t do that is chaos and anarchy.”

Abinader, who has also pledged to strengthen the nation’s economy, said he would finish construction of the border wall with Haiti. His closest competitors – former President Leonel Fernández and Santiago Mayor Abel Martínez – have echoed his calls to ramp up the actions against migration.

The crackdown has marked an intensification of longtime policies by the Dominican government that human rights groups have alleged are discriminatory and put vulnerable people at risk.

Fernández, of the People’s Force party, said Dominicans were “afraid to go out into the streets" despite Abinader's policies. He also said he would continue crackdowns while respecting human rights.

Dominican voters seem to be rewarding Abinader for the crackdown, with the incumbent favored to get more than the 50% support needed to win in the first round of voting. If no candidate reaches the 50% mark a runoff between the top vote-getters would be held.

Ana Pagán, a 34-year-old supervisor at a communications company in the country's capital of Santo Domingo, said she approved of the border wall being built and the measures taken by the government.

“No foreigner who wants to stay here in the Dominican Republic should do so illegally, and that's what (the government) has said," she said.

However, Pagán said the wall doesn't solve all of the country's issues, and she referred to what have been the other key electoral issues for Dominicans: crime and endemic corruption. Pagán said many of the country's security problems come from corrupt officials allowing smuggling and other crimes.

While Dominican voters want continued a government crackdown on migrants, many of the hundreds of thousands of Haitians in the Dominican Republic live in fear.

Haiti, long stricken by tragedy, has been in a downward spiral since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021. Gangs have warred for power, injecting terror and turmoil into the lives of many in the Caribbean nation.

In recent weeks – following the prime minister's resignation – a transition council tasked with choosing Haiti's new leaders has offered a small dose of hope of easing some of the country's many woes.

The ongoing violence has forced many to flee their homes and seek refuge in places like the Dominican Republic and the United States. The Dominican government's policies have stirred concerns among both newly arrived migrants and Haitians that have long called the Dominican Republic home.

Yani Rimpel, a 35-year-old Haitian businesswoman in the eastern city of Veron, has lived in the country for 20 years. She told the AP she’s never seen such uncertainty among Haitian communities, something she attributes to Abinader’s migratory policy.

Two weeks ago, she said immigration agents broke into her house at dawn with heavily armed soldiers in tow. She said they searched the house and stole cash she saved up to buy and sell merchandise, leaving her without any means to support herself.

“If (Abinader) stays in power, I can’t live here. I’m going to have to move back to my house in Haiti. Because here I have no value. I’m not safe. I don’t have a way to live here if he continues” as president, she said.

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Megan Janetsky reported from Mexico City.

Dominican Republic Election
Friends and family fuss over a quinceañera in preparation for her photo session at Colon square in the Zona Colonial neighborhood of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Wednesday, May 15, 2024. Dominicans head to the polls on Sunday, May 19th to elect a new president and members of their Congress. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)