‘Everyone in the World Needs to See This’: Footage Shows IDF Drone Killing Gazans

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Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). N.B. October 7 | Al Jazeera Investigations published.

Al Jazeera obtained footage of what it reported was an Israeli drone killing four Palestinians in Khan Younis, Gaza in February.  (Photo: Al Jazeera/screenshot)

“There is no way they could have been considered combatants,” said one writer and analyst. “This is unreal.”

Adding to the mountain of evidence that Israel is engaged in a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera on Thursday aired footage of what the news outlet reported was an Israeli drone targeting four Palestinians in Khan Younis last month.

Those killed by the unmanned aerial vehicle in the rubble of the southern Gaza city appear to be unarmed teenagers or young men. According to a translation of the coverage, they were not identified in the reporting.

While Al Jazeera deemed footage “too graphic” to be included on its daily live blog covering the war, a clip of it quickly spread on social media, where critics of the Israel Defense Forces operation expressed outrage.

“OUTRAGEOUS even after months of outrages,” declared Palestinian American political analyst Yousef Munayyer. “This video shows an Israeli military drone literally stalking four unarmed civilians posing no threat and eliminating them one after the other!!!”

Tariq Kenney-Shawa, Al-Shabaka’s U.S. policy fellow, said: “This is among the worst footage I’ve seen. Not only were these boys clearly unarmed and present no threat whatsoever, but they were struck multiple times even after stumbling/crawling away. There is no way they could have been considered combatants. This is unreal.”

Note: The following video contains graphic images.

Assal Rad, an author with a Ph.D. in Middle East history, said: “Have we ever seen so many war crimes take place right before our eyes? Any country still providing weapons and aid to Israel is complicit in these crimes.”

Exiled American whistleblower Edward Snowden asserted that “everyone in the world needs to see this. Note that this footage permits no room for ‘it was a mistake,’ showing repeated, specifically targeted strikes on the unarmed and even wounded.”

“The sort of behavior the ICJ explicitly forbid in the genocide ruling against Israel,” added Snowden, referencing the International Court of Justice’s preliminary order in January for an ongoing case led by South Africa.

Since the ruling, rights groups around the world have accused Israel of ignoring the ICJ order by continuing to bomb and starve people across Gaza. The mounting casualties—at least 31,988 killed and 74,188 wounded—have elevated demands for the U.S. government to end arms transfers to Israel.

The United States gives its Middle East ally $3.8 billion in annual military aid and since the Israeli assault was launched in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on October 7, the Biden administration has sought $14.3 billion more while bypassing Congress to send more weapons. U.S. President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin face a genocide complicity case in federal court.

While the Biden administration has repeatedly vetoed and opposed cease-fire resolutions at the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly, Nate Evans, a spokesperson for Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., confirmed Thursday that the United States plans to unveil a new one on Friday.

The resolution will “unequivocally support ongoing diplomatic efforts aimed at securing an immediate cease-fire in Gaza as part of a hostage deal, which would get hostages released and help enable a surge in humanitarian aid,” Evans told Al Jazeera. “This resolution is an opportunity for the council to speak with one voice to support the diplomacy happening on the ground and pressure Hamas to accept the deal on the table.”

Blinken said Thursday that “there’s a clear consensus around a number of shared priorities. First, the need for an immediate, sustained cease-fire, with the release of hostages. That would create space to surge more humanitarian assistance, to relieve the suffering of many people, and to build something more enduring.”

Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). N.B. October 7 | Al Jazeera Investigations published.

Continue Reading‘Everyone in the World Needs to See This’: Footage Shows IDF Drone Killing Gazans

Cameron, Clegg and Ed sneak in a snoopers’ charter by the back door

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A snoopers’ charter by the backdoor: One day until Drip is forced through

by Ian Dunt

Privacy campaigners are frantically trying to brief MPs about the implications of the data retention and investigatory powers bill (Drip), before it is forced through all of its Commons stages tomorrow.

The more experts look at the bill, the more convinced they’ve become that it provides authorities with the spine of the snoopers’ charter, but without any of the public debate or parliamentary scrutiny which were supposed to accompany it.

The charter – known as the draft communications bill before it was killed off – would have forced internet service providers and mobile operators to keep details of their customers’ behaviour for 12 months.

Analysis of Drip, which was supposed to only extend the government’s current powers for another two years, suggests it forces through many of those requirements on internet firms without any of the political outrage which derailed the earlier effort.

Clause four of the bill appears to extend Ripa – the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (basically Britain’s Patriot Act) – so that the UK government can impose severe penalties on companies overseas that refuse to comply with interception warrants. It also lays out situations in which they may be required to maintain permanent interception capacity.

Clause five then provides a new definition of “telecommunications service”, which includes companies offering internet-based services. That seems to drag services like Gmail and Hotmail into the law, and very probably social media sites like Facebook too.

The government insists the extraterritoriality clause merely makes explicit what was previously implicit. It’s tosh. As the explanatory notes for the legislation – released very quietly on Friday night – make clear, overseas telecommunications companies did not believe they were necessarily under Ripa’s jurisdiction.

“Regarding the amendments to Ripa, in view of the suggestion by overseas telecommunications service providers that the extra-territorial effect of Ripa is unclear, it is considered necessary to amend the legislation to put the issue beyond doubt,” it reads.

“This includes clarifying the definition of a ‘telecommunications service’ to ensure the full range of telecommunications services available to customers in the United Kingdom are included in the definition.”

David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband insist Drip merely extends their current powers for two years. That’s nonsense. These two clauses, which have nothing to do with the purported aim of the bill, provide the spine of the snoopers’ charter.

They also appear to provide a legal basis for programmes like Tempora, the project revealed by Edward Snowden to allow GCHQ to tap into transatlantic fibre-optic cables and stored data.

Notably, Privacy International, Liberty and others are taking the government to a tribunal this week on whether Tempora is legal, even though the government won’t even admit its existence. Drip could make the tribunal ruling irrelevant.

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UK politics news

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A selection of recent UK and international news articles

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UK politics news

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A small selection of recent UK politics news articles

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UK politics news

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Recent articles about UK politics, some about the Catholic Church policy of protecting paedos and some about Edward Snowden

Socialist Party :: Who’s robbing our NHS?

The National Health Service is under attack as never before. In this feature, a GP from north-west England looks at the effect of a huge government push for privatisation while nurse Claire Job looks at the predatory actions of the pharmaceutical industry.

NHS watchdog says Virgin Care-run clinic put patients at risk | Society | The Guardian

The NHS watchdog has accused a privately run urgent care centre of putting patients’ health at risk by using receptionists with minimal medical training to assess how unwell arrivals were.

A Care Quality Commission (CQC) report has criticised the operation of the urgent care centre at Croydon hospital in south London, which is run by Virgin Care. CQC inspectors found the centre was in breach of four basic standards of care and have told Virgin Care to outline by next week the remedial action it is taking.

The CQC’s report, based on inspections of the centre last July and September, concluded that “care and treatment was not planned and delivered in a way that was intended to ensure people’s safety and welfare”.

38 Degrees interview: Meet British politics’ spammer-in-chief

MPs have come to despise 38 Degrees for clogging up their inboxes with emails from constituents. They need to get used to it – because this model of campaigning-by-email-bombardment isn’t going away.

For an organisation only set up in 2009, 38 Degrees has notched up its fair share of victories. It forced the coalition government’s first big U-turn, on the forests sell-off. It called for more free school meals – and Nick Clegg duly announced they were being rolled out for all infants. It raised enough cash to pay for the judicial review which successfully challenged health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s plans to shut down key services at Lewisham hospital.

“It’s not often you can say ‘I took the government to court and won’, but that’s what thousands of 38 Degrees members could say last year,” its executive director David Babbs tells me. We’re seated at a meeting table in the middle of the 38 Degrees office in central London. From here, the small team of around 15 staff coordinate the activities of its 2.2 million members. Compare that to the 193,000 members of the Labour party – and the 130,000 Tory party members – and you get a sense of the scale of the operation.

Vatican ‘kept code of silence’ on paedophile priests, claims UN report – World Politics – World – The Independent

Snowden leak: GCHQ DDoSed chatrooms of Anonymous, LulzSec • The Register

Pulling power: Wendi Deng reportedly wrote a letter praising Tony Blair’s body – but she’d hardly be the first to go weak at the knees – UK Politics – UK – The Independent

Strangely written from the deluded and divorced from reality perspective of Tony Blair.

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