The Up First newsletter: Israel tries to protect its citizens, but Netanyahu fails to suspend its military campaign against Gaza genocide and threatens to approve a Louisiana LNG LNG project
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The United Nations’ highest court said on Friday that Israel must take action to prevent acts of genocide by its forces in Gaza and must let more aid into the enclave. But the court did not call on Israel to immediately suspend its military campaign.
A bipartisan Senate deal to pair border enforcement measures with aid for Ukraine and Israel could be falling apart, largely thanks to former President Donald Trump. After months of negotiation, the deal was almost finalized.
The Biden administration is pausing a decision on approving a Louisiana liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project, that would be the country’s largest natural gas export project. This delay allows the Department of Energy to consider the impact of these plants on the climate, public health and the economy.
The War of Israel: A Case Against Israel in the Ten-Year War Between the United States and the United Arab Nation (Vlasov)
Housing is unaffordable for a record half of U.S. renters, according to a new report by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. The biggest jump in unaffordability since 2019 was for households making $30,000 to $74,999 a year, though researchers saw increases across every income category. The cooling housing market isn’t likely to help those who are struggling most, experts say, despite the fact that double-digit rent hikes may finally be easing. You can either read it or listen to it.
Movies: Origin, Ava DuVernay’s adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson’s best-selling book Caste: The Origins Of Our Discontents, is a “is a story of ideas, made deeply personal,” says NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour.
TV: The Amazon drama Expats follows several privileged, disconnected American women (including one played by Nicole Kidman) living in Hong Kong. There’s also a weird story about it.
Books: Time correspondent Simon Shuster, who spent months embedded with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Russia’s invasion unfolded, details the president’s transformation in his new book, The Showman: Inside the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky.
Games: If you’re wondering how to prepare for next month’s highly-anticipated release of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, NPR ranked the franchise’s best spinoff games, books and more.
Israel was ordered to take measures to prevent destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence relating to the charge of genocide. The court gave Israel 30 days to report back on measures taken.
The decision seems to many Israelis to be another example of bias against Israel. They say that Israel is held to a higher standard than most other countries. The war is one of necessity and survival to the Israeli mainstream, according to Israeli estimates.
Donoghue read from statements from Israeli officials, which she said made the case plausible for South Africa. She also gave a bleak assessment of the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza.
This is only the second time a state has tried to litigate a charge of genocide against another. In a case brought to the International Court of Justice in February of 2015, The Gambia accused countries of committing genocide against the Muslims. In that case, the court approved emergency measures to protect Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya minority, which Myanmar ignored.
The Israeli Campaign in Gaza is a Gravity for Children, and the South Africa Commission Against Israel’s Right to Defend itself
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 25,000 Gazans, according to Gazan officials, and damaged most of the buildings in the territory, according to the United Nations. More than four in five residents there have been displaced from their homes, the health system has collapsed, and the U.N. has repeatedly warned of a looming famine.
Hassim presented a list of “genocidal acts” that she accused Israel of perpetrating against Palestinians in Gaza. This included what she called the “mass” and indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians, food blockades and the wholesale destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system and infrastructure.
She said that over 1,400 families in Gaza have lost family members, and 85% of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to leave their homes.
“It is inflicted deliberately. No one is spared. Not even newborn babies. The scale of Palestinian child killings in Gaza is such that U.N. chiefs have described it as a ‘graveyard for children,'” Hassim said.
The lawyer for South Africa told the court that multi-Generational families would be obliterated. She warned that many more children would be orphans because of Israel’s assault on the Palestinian population in Gaza.
The South Africa delegation includes a lawyer who pointed out a comment from Netanyahu that urged Israeli soldiers to “remember” the actions of Amalek. Ngcukaitobi said that this was a reference to a biblical command calling for the destruction of an entire group.
Becker called South Africa’s application to the court to issue a provisional measure ordering a cease-fire an “unconscionable request” that “seeks to thwart Israel’s inherent right to defend itself.”
The Israeli War on Gaza: What the Israeli Foreign Ministry Can Say About Israel’s Past, and How the World Court Ordered the War to End
The United States temporarily halted aid to the agency after allegations of some of its workers being involved in the attack on Israel.
The Israeli military on Thursday ordered the evacuation of tens of thousands of Palestinians who had already been displaced and were sheltering in a United Nations vocational training center in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. Israel’s ground offensive has intensified in southern Gaza, where more than a million people have fled seeking safety.
The White House is sending William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, to Europe to meet with senior officials from Israel, Egypt and Qatar in an effort to advance negotiations over the release of hostages held in Gaza and a longer cease-fire. U.S. officials said that Mr. Burns was able to open up talks as Israel seemed willing to agree to a longer pause in fighting as part of any further hostage releases.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said the court had decided in favor of humanity and international law even though some people criticized the judges for not stopping the war.
The World Court did not order a halt to fighting in the Gaza Strip and made no attempt to rule on the merits of the case brought by South Africa, a process that will take months — if not years — to complete.
The court ruled that a state founded in the wake of the Holocaust was guilty of genocide, and Alon Pinkas, an Israeli political commentator and former ambassador, said it was a “one hell of a symbol” for many Israelis.
He said it was very uncomfortable that we were mentioned in the same sentence as genocide.
Yoav Gallant, the defense minister of Israel, called the court an antisemitic when the court cited his comments about the war in its ruling.
The state of Israel does not have to be lectured on morality, as it can distinguish between terrorists and the civilian population in Gaza.
Still, the court’s instructions might give momentum and political cover to Israeli officials who have been pushing internally to temper the military’s actions in Gaza and alleviate the humanitarian disaster in the territory, according to Janina Dill, an expert on international law at Oxford University.
“Any dissenting voices in the Israeli government and Israeli military who disagree with how the war has been conducted so far have now been given a really powerful strategic argument to ask for a change in course,” Professor Dill said.
For Professor Dill, the case also prompted reflection “about the human condition,” given how Israel was founded in part to prevent genocide against the Jewish people.
Barak voted against several measures that were passed by the court. But he joined his colleagues in calling on Israel to allow more aid into Gaza and to punish people who incite genocide — surprising observers who had expected him to side on every single point with Israel.
According to Mr. Barak, that course would have left Israel “defenseless in the face of a brutal assault, unable to fulfill its most basic duties vis-à-vis its citizens.”
“It talks like genocide & walks like genocide,” Muhammad Shehada, a rights activist from Gaza, wrote on social media. No need to stop the war! All good?”
The casualty figures were released by the Health Ministry six hours after the court ruling. An additional 200 Gazans had been killed in the past 24 hours, the ministry said on Friday evening.