It’s Time To Arrest Netanyahu for His Genocide of Palestinians
ICC issues arrest warrant for Netanyahu + bill targeting pro-Palestinian charities passed by House of Representatives, woman arrested for hate crime, & more.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif for war crimes and crimes against humanity on Thursday.
In a statement on Thursday, the Netherlands-based court said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that Netanyahu bears criminal responsibility for war crimes including “starvation as a method of warfare” and “the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”
Netanyahu condemned the ICC’s decision as “antisemitic”; Hamas said the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant had set an "important historical precedent."
A statement from the White House said the U.S. rejected the ICC decision.
Under the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC, 124 state parties across six continents are legally bound to enforce the arrest warrants. Meaning Netanyahu and Gallant could be detained in any one of those countries after the ICC decision.
CLICK HERE FOR THE LIST OF 124 COUNTRIES THAT WOULD ARREST NETANYAHU
⤵️ WEEKLY NEWS RE-CAP 🗞️💨
🚨 HOUSE PASSES BILL TARGETING PRO-PALESTINE GROUPS: The Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, HR 9495, was passed by the House by a vote of 219-184 on Thursday.
Introduced in two parts by a bipartisan group of Democrats and Republicans, this bill grants the Treasury Department the authority to strip the tax-exempt status of any non-profit it deems to be a "terrorist supporting organization," putting pro-Palestine groups at risk.
Fifteen Democrats voted in favor of the bill, one Republican voted against it.
While any group can appeal the label, the Treasury Department has the power to issue these designations without explaining its reasons for doing so.
According to the Associated Press, if made into law, the bill could apply to a range of nonprofits, including membership organizations, unions and private foundations.
Several lawmakers and civil rights organizations have condemned the legislation, warning the possibilities of abuse and use to target pro-Palestinian groups.
More than 300 civil liberties groups have signed a letter urging lawmakers against passing the bill. Per the letter the bill would "grant the executive branch extraordinary power to investigate, harass, and effectively dismantle any nonprofit organization—including news outlets, universities, and civil liberties organizations like ours."
HR 9495 has gone through several revisions. A version of the bill was first introduced after Oct. 7, 2023 and passed in the House in April, with the support of some Democrats. According to The Guardian, a revised version was also brought up for a vote last week but failed to garner a two-thirds majority.
The now-passed House bill will head to the Senate, where it could fail to pass under a thin Democratic majority. Should it fail, the bill could return in 2025 under Donald Trump's Republican presidency, with a Republican majority in the House and Senate.
🇵🇸 🇱🇧 THE PAST 24 HOURS: At least 88 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across Northern and Central Gaza in the past 24 hours, according to the enclave’s health ministry.
According to Al Jazeera, attacks on Lebanon have also continued with intense bombardment reported in Tyre and Lebanon’s eastern district of Baalbek, where more than 47 people were killed.
💔 OVER 44K: This week the death toll in Gaza surpassed 44k. Since October 7, 2023, 44,757 Palestinians have been killed and more than 104,008, wounded in Israeli attacks across Gaza, according to the enclave’s health ministry— several of them journalists and media workers. About 11,000 have been reported missing, thousands of others are still unaccounted for or lost in the rubble.
SEE THE UPDATED LIST OF JOURNALISTS KILLED HERE
🕊️ LEBANON AGREES TO CEASEFIRE: Lebanon and Hezbollah have agreed to a U.S. ceasefire proposal and made some comments on the content, a top Lebanese official told Reuters on Monday. The effort was described as the most serious one proposed yet, to end weeks of fighting and Israeli bombardments.
🇵🇸 FREE PALESTINE: A high school teacher in Oakland, California was fired for wearing a “Free Palestine” pin this summer.
Identified as Erin Donevan, the freshman English teacher was fired from Bishop O’Dowd High School after refraining from wearing the pin when administers told her to do so per a complaint made by a student’s parent.
“I wore it on my lanyard just as a way to kind of let students know that I was a safe person to talk to if they wanted to speak about it, because there really weren’t any other spaces where I felt like the conversation was welcome,” Donevan told NBC News.
She continued: “It feels weird to even just be talking about being fired…There are teachers in Palestine who have lost their jobs not because of a pin, but because their schools no longer exist, because their students are dead, because the teachers themselves have been experiencing unfathomable violence.”
🙏🏽 DOWN WITH NETFLIX: Calls for a boycott of Netflix’s new movie, “Mary,” have increased globally due to the film’s casting of several Israeli actors including the one playing Jesus’ mother.
Critics believe casting an Israeli erases the Palestinian roots of the story and ignores the suffering of Palestinian Christians.
📲 HATE SPEECH OR CENSORSHIP: Twitch announced an update to its “Hateful Conduct Policy” to include “Zionist” as a potential slur, following allegations of antisemitism and growing content critical of Israel.
“We prohibit the use of terms that may not be harmful or abusive in isolation, but can be used as a slur or to denigrate others in certain contexts,” the streaming service said in a blog post Friday.
The change came less than two weeks after a New York congressman accused the Amazon-owned platform of harboring antisemitic creators on the video game streaming service.
📵🇵🇰 PAKISTANI FATWA BANS VPNS The chairman of Pakistan’s Council of Islamic Ideology, Dr. Raghib Hussain Naeemi, issued a clarification Monday on a controversial fatwa regarding VPNs, or encrypted internet networks.
Speaking on Geo News morning show, "Geo Pakistan", on Monday, Naeemi said: "Using a VPN, whether registered or unregistered, for immoral content and false propaganda is un-Islamic.”
The comments follow a fatwa or declaration made by the council on Nov. 15, declaring the use of VPN as un-Islamic under the guise of blocking access to immoral or blasphemous content on the internet.
⚖️ TWO DECADES LATER A federal jury in Virginia has ordered the U.S. military contractor CACI Premier Technology to pay a total of $42 million to three Iraqi men who were tortured at the Abu Ghraib prison.
The landmark case, Al Shimari et al. v. CACI, marks the first time a U.S. jury heard claims brought by survivors of post-9/11 torture committed by U.S. military forces and security contractors.
🚔 PANERA KAREN ARRESTED: A 64-year-old woman from Chicago is facing hate crime charges after allegedly assaulting a Palestinian-American couple in a video that went viral.
Alexandra Szustakiewicz, 64, of Darien, Illinois, was charged with two felony hate crime counts and one count of misdemeanor disorderly conduct.
Police said Szustakiewicz confronted and yelled expletives at the Palestinian man "regarding his sweatshirt with 'Palestine' written on it” while in a suburban Panera Bread.
Officials noted she also attempted to hit a cell phone out of the hands of a pregnant woman—who was with the man— when she started recording the incident.
"According to the complaint filed against Szustakiewicz, she allegedly 'committed a hate crime by reason of perceived national origin' of the two victims," the DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office and Downers Grove police said Monday in a statement.
The man, Waseem Zahran, can be seen in surveillance video standing between his wife and Szustakiewicz.
"[She] kinda whispered to us or said quietly, 'F Palestine,’" the victim, identified as Waseem Zahran, said. "And at first I didn't know what she said because of her accent, so I smiled at her and thought she was saying something nice to us. I said, 'Oh, what was that?' And she was far away and said it again and came closer to my face and kept repeating it."
The video does not show the entire incident, but Zahran is seen repeatedly holding Szustakiewicz's arms and pushing her back in attempt to protect his wife.
Related: Israeli Football Fans Cause Chaos in Amsterdam, and are Now Claiming AntiSemitism
⤵️ THE WATCH LIST 🚨
Over 2 Million Children in South Sudan at Risk of Acute Malnutrition
Almost 2.1 million children in Sudan are at-risk of malnutrition, up from 1.65 million previously reported, according to UNICEF. Children are returning to nutrition centers several times throughout the year as they lack access to safe drinking water and sanitation. In addition to children, 1 million pregnant or lactating mothers in South Sudan are facing acute malnutrition.
Per UNICEF, illness is a major contributing factor to their malnutrition, almost half of all the children included in the data collected had been ill in the two weeks prior.
Data released from the Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) on Monday found that 85% of returnees fleeing Sudan will be acutely food insecure through the next lean season, starting April. Meaning 8 million of South Sudan’s 12 million people will face acute food insecurity during the 2025 lean season.
“The number of children and pregnant and breastfeeding women in need of urgent assistance has actually increased as expected. This is not only due to the current situation but a persistent issue of malnutrition affecting many counties,” said Hamida Lasseko, UNICEF representative in South Sudan.
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