Palestinians - The African Mirror

Apr

2024

Good Jew, Bad Jew: new book explores why the West views brutality against Ukrainians and Palestinians differently

IN a recently published book Steven Friedman, who has written extensively on the political and social aspects of apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, explores the racist underpinnings of the West’s responses to Israel’s war in Gaza. This is an extract from the book, Good Jew, Bad Jew. Ugandan academic Mahmood Mamdani sees a link between the violence of the coloniser and the slaughter of Jews and Slavs by the Nazis. The racial theories of Houston Stewart Chamberlain and others who claimed the Aryan race was superior meant that Jews and Slavs, who were both regarded as not Aryan, could be…

Apr

2024

By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI and AHMED MOHAMED HASSAN

Gaza truce talks still deadlocked, Netanyahu sets date for offensive

WORLD

HAMAS rejected an Israeli ceasefire proposal made at talks in Cairo, a senior Hamas official sai, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a date was set for an invasion of Rafah, Gaza's last refuge for displaced Palestinians. Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday for talks that included Qatari and Egyptian mediators as well as CIA Director William Burns. Burn's presence underlined rising pressure from Israel's main ally the U.S. for a deal that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza and get aid to Palestinian civilians left destitute by six months of conflict. But senior Hamas official Ali…

Apr

2024

By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI and AHMED MOHAMED HASSAN

Hamas says Gaza truce talks still deadlocked despite reports of progress

WORLD

A Hamas official said that no progress had been made at a new round of talks in Cairo on a ceasefire in the Gaza war after the Egyptian hosts said headway had been achieved on the agenda. Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday after the arrival on Saturday of CIA Director William Burns, whose presence underlined rising U.S. pressure for a deal that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza and get aid to Palestinian civilians. Qatari representatives also attended. "There is no change in the position of the occupation (Israel) and therefore, there is nothing new in the…

Apr

2024

By DAN WILLIAMS and NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI

Israeli troops exit Gaza’s Shifa Hospital, leaving rubble and bodies

WORLD

ISRAELI forces left Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City after a two-week operation by special forces who detained hundreds of suspected Palestinian militants and left a wasteland of destroyed buildings. With access to Gaza's biggest hospital severely restricted, the Israeli and Palestinian versions differed sharply. Palestinian officials called the raid on a hospital treating severely wounded patients a war crime, while Israeli officials said special forces units conducted a targeted strike against a Hamas stronghold deliberately located among vulnerable civilians. Thousands of Palestinians - 6,200 according to the Israeli military - had been sheltering in the complex, one of few…

Mar

2024

By NAFISA ELTAHIR

Only effective way to ramp up Gaza aid is by road, Guterres says

WORLD

THE only effective and efficient way to deliver heavy goods to meet Gaza's humanitarian needs is by road and includes an exponential increase in commercial deliveries, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. Speaking after meeting Egypt's president and foreign minister in Cairo, Guterres also warned of the impact the war in Gaza was having around the globe. "The daily assault on the human dignity of Palestinians is creating a crisis of credibility for the international community," he said. Guterres is visiting Egypt and Jordan as part of an annual Ramadan solidarity tour to Muslim countries and travelled on Saturday to Egypt's…

Mar

2024

By HUMEYRA PAMUK and NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI

Gaza marks Ramadan in despair as Blinken holds truce talks in Cairo

WORLD

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Egypt's president for talks on securing a Gaza ceasefire, as Gaza's Palestinians despaired at observing Ramadan without relatives who had been killed or adequate food for their children. In Gaza, Israel's offensive focused on the Al Shifa hospital, the only partially working medical facility in the north of the Strip, for a fourth day, and local residents said they had seen buildings inside the complex in flames. With hunger spreading in the densely populated enclave, where five months of war have created critical food shortages, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said…

Mar

2024

By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI and ARI RABINOVITCH

Netanyahu says Israel to press on with Rafah assault plan

WORLD

ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would keep on with the military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, where aid agencies say famine is looming, while ceasefire talks were set to resume. Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting that Israel would push into Rafah, the last relatively safe place in the tiny, crowded Gaza enclave after more than five months of war, despite international pressure for Israel to avoid civilian casualties. "We will operate in Rafah. This will take several weeks, and it will happen," he said, without clarifying if he meant the assault would last for weeks or would begin…

Mar

2024

By The African Mirror

Morocco secures land route to deliver aid to Gaza

NEWS

A shipment of humanitarian aid from Morocco for Palestinians in Gaza began entering the besieged enclave via a land route, the first time the Kerem Shalom border crossing from Israel has been used for aid in five months of warfare, a Moroccan diplomatic source said. The 40 tonnes of aid was being delivered by truck into northern Gaza along a route that the Rabat government has been able to secure as it had established diplomatic relations with Israel, the source said. Morocco resumed diplomatic ties with Israel in 2020. "By securing a land route to deliver aid from within Israel,…

Mar

2024

By SINAN ABU MAYZER. NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI. BASSAM MASOUD

Palestinians prepare for Ramadan in the shadow of Gaza war

WORLD

PALESTINIANS prepared for Ramadan in a sombre mood with heightened security measures by Israeli police and the spectre of war and hunger in Gaza overshadowing the normally festive Muslim holy month as talks to secure a ceasefire stalled. Thousands of police have been deployed around the narrow streets of the Old City in Jerusalem, where tens of thousands of worshippers are expected every day at the Al Aqsa mosque compound, one of the holiest sites in Islam. The area considered the most sacred place by Jews who know it as Temple Mount, has been a longstanding flashpoint for trouble and was one…

Mar

2024

By The African Mirror

South Africa asks World Court for more measures against Israel

NEWS

SOUTH Africa has asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to order additional emergency measures against Israel, which it says is breaching the measures already in place, the U.N.'s top court said. In its application, South Africa warned that Palestinians in Gaza were facing starvation and asked the court to order that all parties cease hostilities and release all hostages and detainees. In a statement issued Wednesday the South African presidency warned that the people of Gaza cannot wait. "The threat of all-out famine has now materialised. The court needs to act now to stop the imminent tragedy by immediately and effectively…