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Democracy Now!
Amy Goodman
There has never been a more urgent time for courageous, daily, independent news. Media is essential to the functioning of a democratic society. Today is Giving Tuesday, a day dedicated to supporting non-profits. Please make it Giving NewsDay by giving to this non-profit news organization. Thanks to a group of generous donors, all donations made today will be TRIPLED, which means your $15 gift is worth $45. With your contribution, we can continue to go to where the silence is, to bring you the voices of the silenced majority – those calling for peace in a time of war, demanding action on the climate catastrophe and advocating for racial and economic justice. Every dollar makes a difference. Thank you so much!
Democracy Now!
Amy Goodman
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Israeli forces killed at least 29 people in Gaza Thursday in two separate attacks as they waited for humanitarian aid. The latest massacre struck Palestinians in northern Gaza City and at the Al-Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.
Shadi Abu Abdo: “Today, with no warning, they attacked this warehouse, though this center is empty of militants or security guards or police even that may threaten Israel’s security. We got the aid, and we distribute to people. The people needed to come and get their Ramadan meals. Today they hit the warehouse and burned all the aid, including the dates. Also, the blood of the people who work here fills the place.”
Even before yesterday’s massacre, Gazan officials reported Israeli forces have killed more than 400 Palestinians as they wait for aid deliveries.
Hamas has reportedly proposed a ceasefire deal which includes the release of hostages in exchange for 700 to 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and the return of forcibly displaced Palestinians to their homes.
Elsewhere, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appointed longtime economic adviser Mohammad Mustafa as the Palestinian Authority’s new prime minister Thursday.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer offered his most scathing condemnation yet of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right government, calling for new elections in Israel. He spoke from the Senate floor.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer: “If President — Prime Minister Netanyahu’s current coalition remains in power after the war begins to wind down, and continues to pursue dangerous and inflammatory policies that test existing U.S. standards for assistance, then the United States will have no choice but to play a more active role in shaping Israeli policy by using our leverage to change the present course.”
Schumer is a staunch defender of Israel and the highest-ranking elected Jewish American lawmaker.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration imposed sanctions on two Israeli settler outposts and three individual settlers in the occupied West Bank who have harassed and attacked Palestinians.
In South Africa, Naledi Pandor, minister of international relations and cooperation, warned South African citizens they will face prosecution if they serve in the Israeli military as it commits war crimes in Gaza. “When you come home, we’re going to arrest you,” Pandor said.
Here in New York, some 100 activists were arrested Thursday after occupying the lobby of The New York Times in the latest protest against the paper’s coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza. One man was filmed harassing a group of the protesters and ripping away a banner that read “Lies.” This came just hours after a separate early-morning protest which blocked trucks from accessing and picking up newspapers at the Times’s printing facility in Queens. Some of the demonstrators laid out a pile of rubble on the road and placed a sign that read “Consent for genocide is manufactured here.”
In Canada, a growing list of over 1,000 alumni, faculty, staff and others from Montreal’s McGill University signed an open letter in solidarity with students on hunger strike to demand McGill divest from companies arming Israel and impose an academic boycott on Israel over its genocide in Gaza and occupation of Palestinian land. This is hunger striker Chadi, explaining why they joined the peaceful action despite facing personal health challenges.
Chadi: “I see and hear about all the people in Gaza who are disabled and chronically ill, and they don’t get to opt out of the starvation, of the bombs and of the genocide. I think of Yazan al-Kafarneh, who was starved by the IOF, right? And I think of Gaza’s deaf children center that got destroyed a few days ago. And I don’t think I can sit this one out.”
In more protest news, prominent writers including Naomi Klein, Michelle Alexander, Hisham Matar, Isabella Hammad and Zaina Arafat announced they will not participate in this year’s PEN World Voices Festival for failing to appropriately respond to Israel’s “cultural genocide” in Gaza. The authors write, “Israel has also killed nearly 100 academics and writers. If organizations like PEN America cling to the illusion of political neutrality in the face of a clear effort to destroy Palestinian lives and culture, one can only wonder whether there will be any writers left in Gaza to tell the story of their apocalypse, or to trust words and speech, when the killing finally ends. Or any record left of the history they have lived.”
At least 60 people, including children, are feared dead in the Mediterranean Sea after departing Libya on a migrant vessel that went adrift en route to Europe. The engine reportedly broke down, leaving the group lost at sea for days without food and water. Several others were rescued, many of them from Senegal, Mali and Gambia. The humanitarian aid group SOS Méditerranée said it had rescued another 200 migrants headed to Europe on a wooden boat and an overcrowded rubber dinghy. According to the International Organization for Migration, 2,500 migrants died or went missing in the Mediterranean last year as they attempted to reach Europe. Two hundred deaths have been recorded since the start of 2024.
In Washington state, the immigrant rights group La Resistencia is reporting over 300 people have joined a hunger strike following the recent death of Charles Leo Daniel, a 61-year-old from Trinidad and Tobago, and reports of several suicide attempts at the troubled Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma. Activists have set up an encampment outside the facility as they — and detained immigrants — participate in the peaceful action demanding Northwest be shut down. They’re also calling for an independent investigation into Daniel’s death, who was found unresponsive while being held in solitary confinement earlier this month. Northwest is run by the private company GEO Group. Click here to see our recent interview with La Resistencia’s Maru Mora Villalpando, who’s herself on hunger strike.
Vice President Kamala Harris visited a Planned Parenthood clinic in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on Thursday in the first such official visit by a president or vice president. The visit was part of Harris’s “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms” tour, as the Biden campaign seeks to capitalize on voter anger over the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. This is Vice President Harris.
Vice President Kamala Harris: “The stories abound. I have heard stories of and have met with women who had miscarriages in toilets, women who were being denied emergency care because the healthcare providers there, at an emergency room, were afraid that because of the laws in their state, that they could be criminalized, sent to prison for providing healthcare.”
We’ll have more on Kamala Harris’s historic visit, and other reproductive rights news, after headlines.
In Michigan, a jury found James Crumbley guilty of involuntary manslaughter for failing to prevent his teenage son from going on a shooting spree which killed four students at Oxford High School in 2021. James Crumbley’s wife, Jennifer Crumbley, was convicted on the same charges last month after prosecutors successfully argued the couple ignored obvious warning signs and bought the gun for their son. It’s the first time parents have been directly charged for deaths caused by their child in a mass shooting. They’ll both be sentenced next month.
In California, authorities have released body-camera footage showing the moments before deputies shot and killed 15-year-old Ryan Gainer. Gainer, a Black boy with autism, was holding a gardening tool at the time. Video of the second deputy to arrive shows just eight-and-a-half seconds passed from when he exited his vehicle to when he shot at the teen. Distraught family members can be heard asking, “Why did you shoot my baby?” and “Where is your Taser?” The family’s lawyer said at least two of the officers on the scene were familiar with Ryan Gainer and would have known he did not pose a threat.
Senator Bernie Sanders has introduced legislation calling for a 32-hour workweek. Bernie Sanders said the proposal is “not a radical idea” as countries and companies around the world increasingly adopt shorter workweeks and record the same — or, in many cases, higher — rates of productivity. Sanders said technological advances have benefited corporations and CEOs while leaving out workers, and that AI threatens to further deepen this inequality. On Thursday, a Senate panel held a hearing on the issue. This is UAW President Shawn Fain, who pushed for a 32-hour workweek in his union’s initial contract demands to the Big Three automakers last fall.
Shawn Fain: “But time, just like every precious resource in our society, is not freely given to the working class. Since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve seen productivity in our society skyrocket. With the advance of technology, one worker is now doing what 12 workers used to do. More profit is being squeezed out of every hour, every minute and every second. … Who’s going to act to fix this epidemic of lives dominated by work? Are the employers going to act? Will Congress act? You know, how can working-class peoples take back their lives and take back their time?”
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