{"id":263399,"date":"2024-06-03T12:01:23","date_gmt":"2024-06-03T11:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=263399"},"modified":"2024-05-31T07:00:04","modified_gmt":"2024-05-31T06:00:04","slug":"the-global-demand-for-a-gaza-ceasefire-grows-leaving-biden-behind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/06\/the-global-demand-for-a-gaza-ceasefire-grows-leaving-biden-behind\/","title":{"rendered":"The Global Demand for a Gaza Ceasefire Grows, Leaving Biden Behind"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Democracy NOW!<\/p><\/div>\n

30 May 2024 <\/em>– Israel\u2019s ongoing bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza, now nearing its ninth month, has provoked unprecedented global outcry. On May 24th, the International Court of Justice, after an emergency hearing in South Africa\u2019s genocide case against Israel, ordered Israel to halt its attack on Rafah. In a statement published with the order, one of the court\u2019s presiding jurists, Judge Dire Tladi of South Africa, wrote,<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no more words to describe the horrors in Gaza. The words \u2018apocalyptic,\u2019 \u2018exceptionally grave,\u2019 \u2018disastrous\u2019 and \u2018catastrophic\u2019 have all been used to describe the current situation, and all seem to pale in comparison to what is unfolding before our very eyes. Almost daily we are confronted with gut-wrenching accounts of victims and survivors and images of unimaginable suffering.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rather than heeding the court\u2019s order, Israel bombed a refugee tent city outside Rafah, in what was designated as a \u201csafe zone.\u201d Independent journalist Shrouq Aila spoke to the Democracy Now! news hour<\/a> from Gaza, two days later, saying,<\/p>\n

\u201cThey launched at least two rockets on a displacement camp that is quite close to the UNRWA<\/span> logistic base\u2026people gathered around this space, considering it a safe area. After the bombing, the area is basically full of tents for displaced people, and the fire [spread] because the tents are basically made of nylon fabrics and wood\u2026the death toll was 45, and almost 200 injured.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A man who survived was recorded holding the charred, decapitated body of a child. CNN<\/span> is reporting the munitions used were made in the United States by Boeing.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, not far from the ICJ<\/span> in The Hague, at the International Criminal Court, ICC<\/span> Prosecutor Karim Khan petitioned for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as for three senior Hamas leaders, for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Khan wrote, \u201cNotwithstanding any military goals they may have,\u201d \u201cthe means Israel chose to achieve them in Gaza \u2013 namely, intentionally causing death, starvation, great suffering, and serious injury to body or health of the civilian population \u2013 are criminal.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a further challenge to Israel, three European nations formally recognized Palestine as a state. Ireland, Norway and Spain join over 140 other United Nations member states (as well as two UN-recognized non-states, Vatican City and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic) in recognizing Palestinian statehood.<\/p>\n

In announcing the decision, Ireland\u2019s Taoiseach, or Prime Minister, Simon Harris said,<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the 21st of January 1919 Ireland asked the world to recognise our right to be an independent State\u2026a plea for international recognition of our independence, emphasizing our distinct national identity, our historical struggle, and our right to self-determination and justice. Today we use the same language to support the recognition of Palestine as a State.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Harris added, \u201cI have spoken to a number of other Leaders, and I am confident that further countries will join us in taking this important step in coming weeks.\u201d Iceland and Sweden recognized Palestine years ago; Slovenia has indicated it will do so by mid-June.<\/p>\n

On May 10th, the United Nations General Assembly voted on Palestinian membership; 143 countries voted in favor, 25 abstained, and nine voted against, led by the United States. Membership requires approval by the Security Council, where the US holds veto power. In April, in advance of the General Assembly vote, the Security Council considered a resolution to recommend Palestine receive full UN membership. The US, as it almost always does on matters critical of Israel, vetoed it.<\/p>\n

President Joe Biden has publicly called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, but his actions speak far louder, and far more lethally, than his words. It seems the Biden administration has no \u201cred line\u201d that would force him to halt arms shipments to Israel, nor take any other significant punitive action to align the US government with almost every other nation on earth.<\/p>\n

At a White House press briefing on May 28th, CBS<\/span> News\u2019 Ed O\u2019Keefe asked National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby about the deadly strikes on the tent camp near Rafah:<\/p>\n

O\u2019Keefe: How does this not violate the red line the president laid out?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kirby: We don\u2019t want to see a major operation, we haven\u2019t seen one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

O\u2019Keefe: How many more charred corpses does he have to see before he considers a change in policy?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kirby: We don\u2019t want to see a single more innocent life taken, and I kind of take a little offense at the question.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

ICC<\/span> Prosecutor Karim Khan included in his Gaza war crimes petition that he \u201cwill not hesitate to submit further applications for warrants of arrest.\u201d President Biden and his enablers have the power to end Israel\u2019s war on Gaza and the slaughter of civilians there. Their decision not to is criminal.<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Amy Goodman is the host of \u201c<\/em>Democracy Now!\u201d a daily international TV\/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North America. She is the author of <\/em>Breaking the Sound Barrier, released in paperback and now a <\/em>New York Times best-seller.<\/em><\/p>\n

Denis Moynihan is the co-founder of <\/em>Democracy Now! Since 2002, he has participated in the organization\u2019s worldwide distribution, infrastructure development, and the coordination of complex live broadcasts from many continents. He lives in Denver where he is developing a new noncommercial community radio station.<\/em><\/p>\n

The original content of this program is licensed under a <\/em>Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 democracynow.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

30 May 2024 – Israel\u2019s ongoing bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza has provoked unprecedented global outcry. On 24 May, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to halt its attack on Rafah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":65754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[229,2197,1854,1199,87,865,1644,2395,88,715,427,3294,124,70,965],"class_list":["post-263399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide","tag-activism","tag-biden","tag-crimes-against-humanity","tag-ethnic-cleansing","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-international-court-of-justice-icj","tag-international-criminal-court-icc","tag-israel","tag-massacre","tag-palestine","tag-students-anti-genocide-gaza","tag-united-nations","tag-usa","tag-war-crimes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263401,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263399\/revisions\/263401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}