Pro-Palestinian demonstrators in London call on UK government to end complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza

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Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters attended the eighth national march for Palestine in London on Feb. 3, 2024. (AN Photo)
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Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters attended the eighth national march for Palestine in London on Feb. 3, 2024. (AN Photo)
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Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters attended the eighth national march for Palestine in London on Feb. 3, 2024. (AN Photo)
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Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters attended the eighth national march for Palestine in London on Feb. 3, 2024. (AN Photo)
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Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters attended the eighth national march for Palestine in London on Feb. 3, 2024. (AN Photo)
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Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters attended the eighth national march for Palestine in London on Feb. 3, 2024. (AN Photo)
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Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters attended the eighth national march for Palestine in London on Feb. 3, 2024. (AN Photo)
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Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters attended the eighth national march for Palestine in London on Feb. 3, 2024. (AN Photo)
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Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters attended the eighth national march for Palestine in London on Feb. 3, 2024. (AN Photo)
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Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters attended the eighth national march for Palestine in London on Feb. 3, 2024. (AN Photo)
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Updated 04 February 2024
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Pro-Palestinian demonstrators in London call on UK government to end complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza

  • The eighth such march comes in the wake of ICJ's interim ruling against Israel

LONDON: Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched through the streets of London on Saturday to “condemn UK government actions” in the war on Gaza and call for an immediate ceasefire, organizers said.

“This is the eighth such march and comes in the wake of the interim ruling against Israel by the International Court of Justice on Jan. 26,” the UK-based Palestinian Solidarity Campaign told Arab News.

“Not only did the ICJ find South Africa’s case — that ‘Israel …. is engaging in … genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in Gaza’ — to be plausible, it also found evidence of the risk of further acts of genocide to be sufficient for the court to order interim measures to prevent such acts,” PSC added.

“Israel has destroyed most health care services and education facilities. Far from obeying the ICJ orders, Israel continues its attacks in what constitutes an attempt at ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza,” PSC also said.

On Dec. 29, South Africa filed an application instituting proceedings against Israel concerning alleged violations in the Gaza Strip, calling on the government to “immediately suspend its military operations” in the besieged Palestinian territory.

“The ICJ found it plausible that Israel’s acts could amount to genocide and issued six provisional measures, ordering Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent genocidal acts, including preventing and punishing incitement to genocide, ensuring aid and services reach Palestinians under siege in Gaza, and preserving evidence of crimes committed in Gaza,” the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Wednesday.

Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7 has claimed the lives of more than 27,000 Palestinians, including more than 11,000 children, and wounded 66,452 others. Thousands more are missing or presumed dead, while almost all of Gaza’s population has been displaced.

The ICJ has ordered Israel and its military to stop killing Palestinians, punish incitement to genocide, enable emergency assistance and restore basic services to Gaza, and take steps to ensure that possible genocide does not continue.

“The UK government’s response to this ruling has been absolutely shameful, seeking to downplay its significance and urgency,” PSC said. “An immediate response should be to suspend UK arms exports to Israel but instead the government joined other nations in suspending funding to UNRWA, which plays a crucial role in providing essential services to Palestinian refugees in Gaza and elsewhere across the region. This is unconscionable in the context of a genocide.”

UNRWA, the UN Palestinian refugee agency, said on Thursday that it may have to stop operations in Gaza and the wider Middle East region by the end of the month if funding does not resume, after more than a dozen countries, including the US, Germany, Britain and Sweden, suspended funding over allegations that 12 staff members were involved in Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel ahead of the assault.

“Such a step by the UK government opens it to the charge of being in violation of its responsibilities, as a party to the Genocide Convention, to act to ensure it is not complicit in the commission of genocide. Cutting funding to UNRWA will undeniably increase the risk of irreparable harm to the people of Gaza,” PSC said.

Ben Jamal, PSC director, said: “Israel has been committing the gravest of crimes in Gaza — genocide. It has been brought before the International Court of Justice, which having assessed the substantial body of evidence provided by South Africa, found it to be credible.

“We have been marching and protesting in our hundreds of thousands for more than three months warning of exactly this — Israel’s actions demonstrate a genocidal intent ... How long will our political leaders continue to aid and provide cover for genocide?“

The protesters on Friday marched to Whitehall to send a message to Downing Street that “the UK must end its complicity in Israel’s genocide and demand a permanent ceasefire (which) must be the starting point to address the underlying causes, including Israeli military occupation and a system of oppression against the Palestinian people that is considered internationally to meet the legal definition of apartheid,” Jamal said.

The national march, which has been organized almost every Saturday for more than three months, was organized by a coalition including the Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War Coalition, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Muslim Association of Britain.

London’s Metropolitan Police said that the “events passed peacefully with disruption kept to a minimum” and would “always seek to work with protest organizers” to ensure disorder is prevented.

“A small number of arrests were made, two for public order offenses, one for obstructing police and one after a smoke bomb/flare was set off,” Deputy Assistant Commissioner Matt Ward from the Met Police said in a statement on X.

Ismail Patel, the chair of Friends of Al-Aqsa, said: “The ICJ findings are a warning to the British government and opposition leader Keir Starmer (that) if they continue with their unequivocal support of Israel, they will be complicit to the crimes of genocide.”

He added: “The British government must immediately stop the sale of military hardware to Israel that is charged with the crimes of genocide.

“Further, we need to continue with our campaign of calling an end to the genocide in Gaza and demand that British politicians stop supporting Israel in its genocide.”

 


Biden praises COP29 deal, vows US action despite Trump

Updated 18 sec ago
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Biden praises COP29 deal, vows US action despite Trump

  • Biden hailed the goal as “ambitious,” though poorer nations quickly decried it as inadequate
  • As agreed, developed nations will pay at least $300 billion a year by 2035 to help developing countries green their economies and prepare for worse disasters

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden praised the COP29 deal Saturday as a “significant step” to fighting global warming, and pledged continued action by America despite his incoming successor Donald Trump’s climate skepticism.
“While there is still substantial work ahead of us to achieve our climate goals, today’s outcome puts us one significant step closer,” Biden said in a statement.
After two exhausting weeks of negotiations in Azerbaijan, the pact hammered out commits developed nations to pay at least $300 billion a year by 2035 to help developing countries green their economies and prepare for worse disasters.
Biden hailed the goal as “ambitious,” though poorer nations quickly decried it as inadequate.
The Baku meeting kicked off shortly after Trump won a new term in the White House, potentially setting the stage for him to undo actions by Biden’s administration.
Biden, who leaves office on January 20, said he was “confident” the United States “will continue this work: through our states and cities, our businesses, and our citizens, supported by durable legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act.”
“While some may seek to deny or delay the clean energy revolution that’s underway in America and around the world, nobody can reverse it — nobody.”
 


A $300B a year deal for climate cash at UN summit sparks outrage for some and hope for others

Updated 24 November 2024
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A $300B a year deal for climate cash at UN summit sparks outrage for some and hope for others

BAKU, Azerbaijan: United Nations climate talks adopted a deal to inject at least $300 billion annually in humanity’s fight against climate change, aimed at helping developing nations cope with the ravages of global warming in tense negotiations.
The $300 billion will go to developing countries who need the cash to wean themselves off the coal, oil and gas that causes the globe to overheat, adapt to future warming and pay for the damage caused by climate change’s extreme weather. It’s not near the full amount of $1.3 trillion that developing countries were asking for, but it’s three times a deal of $100 billion a year from 2009 that is expiring. Some delegations said this deal is headed in the right direction, with hopes that more money flows in the future.
But it was not quite the agreement by consensus that these meetings usually operate with and some developing nations were livid about being ignored.
COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev gaveled the deal into acceptance before any nation had a chance to speak. When they did they blasted him for being unfair to them, the deal for not being enough and the world’s rich nations for being too stingy.

“It’s a paltry sum,” India negotiator Chandni Raina said, repeatedly saying how India objected to rousing cheers. “I’m sorry to say we cannot accept it.”
She told The Associated Press that she has lost faith in the United Nations system.
After a deal, nations express their discontent
A long line of nations agreed with India and piled on, with Nigeria’s Nkiruka Maduekwe, CEO of the National Council on Climate Change, calling the deal an insult and a joke.
“I’m disappointed. It’s definitely below the benchmark that we have been fighting for for so long,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey, of the Panama delegation. He noted that a few changes, including the inclusion of the words “at least” before the number $300 billion and an opportunity for revision by 2030, helped push them to the finish line.
“Our heart goes out to all those nations that feel like they were walked over,” he said.
The final package pushed through “does not speak or reflect or inspire confidence,” India’s Raina said.
“We absolutely object to the unfair means followed for adoption,” Raina said. “We are extremely hurt by this action by the president and the secretariat.”

Evans Njewa, an environmental officer at Malawi's Environmental Affairs Department, attends the COP29 United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Nov. 23, 2024. (REUTERS)

Speaking for nearly 50 of the poorest nations of the world, Evans Davie Njewa of Malawi was more mild, expressing what he called reservations with the deal. And the Alliance of Small Island States’ Cedric Schuster said he had more hope “that the process would protect the interests of the most vulnerable” but nevertheless expressed tempered support for the deal.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a post on X that he hoped for a “more ambitious outcome.” But he said the agreement “provides a base on which to build.”
Some see deal as relief following tough talks
There were somewhat satisfied parties, with European Union’s Wopke Hoekstra calling it a new era of climate funding, working hard to help the most vulnerable. But activists in the plenary hall could be heard coughing over Hoekstra’s speech in an attempt to disrupt it.
Eamon Ryan, Ireland’s environment minister, called the agreement “a huge relief.”
“It was not certain. This was tough,” he said. “Because it’s a time of division, of war, of (a) multilateral system having real difficulties, the fact that we could get it through in these difficult circumstances is really important.”
UN Climate Change’s Executive Secretary Simon Stiell called the deal an “insurance policy for humanity,” adding that like insurance, “it only works if the premiums are paid in full, and on time.”

Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of UNFCCC, speaks during a closing plenary meeting at the COP29 United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Nov. 24, 2024. (REUTERS)

The deal is seen as a step toward helping countries on the receiving end create more ambitious targets to limit or cut emissions of heat-trapping gases that are due early next year. It’s part of the plan to keep cutting pollution with new targets every five years, which the world agreed to at the UN talks in Paris in 2015.
The Paris agreement set the system of regular ratcheting up climate fighting ambition as away to keep warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. The world is already at 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) and carbon emissions keep rising.
Hopes that more climate cash will follow
Countries also anticipate that this deal will send signals that help drive funding from other sources, like multilateral development banks and private sources. That was always part of the discussion at these talks — rich countries didn’t think it was realistic to only rely on public funding sources — but poor countries worried that if the money came in loans instead of grants, it would send them sliding further backward into debt that they already struggle with.

Wopke Hoekstra, EU climate commissioner, speaks to members of the media at the COP29 UN Climate Summit,  on Nov. 24, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP)

“The $300 billion goal is not enough, but is an important down payment toward a safer, more equitable future,” said World Resources Institute President Ani Dasgupta. “This deal gets us off the starting block. Now the race is on to raise much more climate finance from a range of public and private sources, putting the whole financial system to work behind developing countries’ transitions.”
And even though it’s far from the needed $1.3 trillion, it’s more than the $250 billion that was on the table in an earlier draft of the text, which outraged many countries and led to a period of frustration and stalling over the final hours of the summit.
Other deals agreed at COP29
The several different texts adopted early Sunday morning included a vague but not specific reference to last year’s Global Stocktake approved in Dubai. Last year there was a battle about first-of-its-kind language on getting rid of the oil, coal and natural gas, but instead it called for a transition away from fossil fuels. The latest talks only referred to the Dubai deal, but did not explicitly repeat the call for a transition away from fossil fuels.
Countries also agreed on the adoption of Article 6, creating markets to trade carbon pollution rights, an idea that was set up as part of the Paris Agreement to help nations work together to reduce climate-causing pollution. Part of that was a system of carbon credits, allowing nations to put planet-warming gasses in the air if they offset emissions elsewhere. Backers said a UN-backed market could generate up to an additional $250 billion a year in climate financial aid.
Despite its approval, carbon markets remain a contentious plan because many experts say the new rules adopted don’t prevent misuse, don’t work and give big polluters an excuse to continue spewing emissions.
“What they’ve done essentially is undermine the mandate to try to reach 1.5,” said Tamara Gilbertson, climate justice program coordinator with the Indigenous Environmental Network. Greenpeace’s An Lambrechts, called it a “climate scam” with many loopholes.
With this deal wrapped up as crews dismantle the temporary venue, many have eyes on next year’s climate talks in Belem, Brazil.
 


Daesh group claims attack on Sufi shrine in Afghanistan

An Afghan policeman stands guard in Kabul. (AFP file photo)
Updated 24 November 2024
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Daesh group claims attack on Sufi shrine in Afghanistan

  • A local resident, who said he knew victims of the attack, said worshippers had gathered at the Sayed Pasha Agha shrine on Thursday evening

KABUL: Daesh (IS-K), the terrorist group’s branch in Afghanistan, on Saturday claimed responsibility for a gun attack that left 10 people dead at a Sufi shrine in northern Baghlan province.
Taliban authorities in Kabul have repeatedly said they have defeated IS-K, but the group regularly claims responsibility for attacks, notably against Sufi or Shiite minorities, targets they consider heretical.
On Friday, interior ministry spokesman Abdul Matin Qani told AFP that a gunman opened fire on Sufis “taking part in a weekly ritual” at a shrine in a remote area of Nahrin district, killing 10 people.
A local resident, who said he knew victims of the attack, said worshippers had gathered at the Sayed Pasha Agha shrine on Thursday evening.
They had begun a Sufi chant when “a man shot at the dozen worshippers,” he said on condition of anonymity.
“When people arrived for morning prayers, they discovered the bodies,” he added.
The UN special rapporteur for human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, wrote on X: “Religious minorities remain under grave threat. More prevention, protection & justice needed.”
The Daesh group accuses Sufis of worshipping more than one god because of their devotion to saints.
In mid-September, the group claimed responsibility for an attack in central Afghanistan that killed 14 people who had gathered to welcome pilgrims returning from Karbala in Iraq, one of the holiest sites for Shiites.

 


India opposes COP29 finance deal after it is adopted

Updated 24 November 2024
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India opposes COP29 finance deal after it is adopted

BAKU: India strongly objected to a climate finance deal agreed at the United Nations COP29 summit on Sunday, but their objection was raised after the deal was formally adopted by consensus.
“I regret to say that this document is nothing more than an optical illusion. This, in our opinion, will not address the enormity of the challenge we all face. Therefore, we oppose the adoption of this document,” Indian delegation representative Chandni Raina told the closing plenary session of the summit.

 

 


UN secretary general says more work needed on COP29 finance deal

Updated 24 November 2024
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UN secretary general says more work needed on COP29 finance deal

  • Final deal commits developed nations to pay at least $300 billion a year by 2035 to help developed countries green their economies and prepare for worse disasters
  • Climate chief Simon Stiell says it was “no time for victory laps”

UNITED NATIONS/BAKU, Azerbaijan: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed concern that the climate finance deal agreed early Sunday in Azerbaijan did not go far enough, as he urged nations to view it as a “foundation” on which to build.
“I had hoped for a more ambitious outcome — on both finance and mitigation — to meet the great challenge we face,” Guterres said in a statement, adding that he is appealing “to governments to see this agreement as a foundation — and build on it.”
After two exhaustive weeks of negotiations, the final deal commits developed nations to pay at least $300 billion a year by 2035 to help developed countries green their economies and prepare for worse disasters.
That is up from $100 billion now provided by wealthy countries under a commitment set to expire — and from the $250 billion proposed in an earlier draft Friday.
The deal “must be honored in full and on time,” Guterres said.
“Commitments must quickly become cash. All countries must come together to ensure the top-end of this new goal is met.”
He called on countries to deliver new economy-wide climate action plans “well ahead of COP30 — as promised.”
“The end of the fossil fuel age is an economic inevitability. New national plans must accelerate the shift, and help to ensure it comes with justice,” he said, closing with a message to activists pushing for more to “keep it up.”
“The United Nations is with you. Our fight continues. And we will never give up,” Guterres said.

‘No time for victory laps’

UN climate chief Simon Stiell on Sunday said it was “no time for victory laps” after nations at COP29 in Azerbaijan agreed a bitterly negotiated finance deal.

“No country got everything they wanted, and we leave Baku with a mountain of work still to do. So this is no time for victory laps,” Stiell said in a statement.