Author: Brett Wilkins

Israel Defense Forces officers brought Israeli civilians into detention centers and allowed them to watch and film Palestinian prisoners being tortured, according to survivor testimonies published this week by the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.

Prisoners held at detention centers in Zikim on the northern border of the Gaza Strip and at a site in southern Israel affiliated with Naqab Prison “told Euro-Med Monitor that the Israeli soldiers had purposefully presented them before Israeli civilians, falsely claiming that they were fighters affiliated with Palestinian armed factions and that they had taken part in the October 7 attack on Israeli towns,” the group said.

Continue reading “IDF Let Israeli Civilians Film Torture of Palestinian Detainees: Report”

Amnesty International on Tuesday renewed its call for the U.S. government to drop charges against jailed WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, whose final hearing before the United Kingdom’s High Court regarding his extradition to the United States is fast approaching.

Assange’s February 20-21 hearing before the High Court will determine whether the Australian journalist – who has been imprisoned in London’s Belmarsh Prison since April 2019 – has exhausted all of his U.K. appeals and will be extradited to the United States, where he has been charged with violating the 1917 Espionage Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for publishing classified U.S. military documents and files on WikiLeaks over a decade ago.

Continue reading “‘Drop the Charges,’ Says Amnesty Ahead of Key Julian Assange Hearing”

As U.S. forces on Friday launched intense airstrikes against Syria and Iraq in retaliation for this week’s deadly drone strike on an American outpost in Jordan, scores of advocacy groups urged President Joe Biden to avoid a wider Mideast war by pressing Israel for a cease-fire in Gaza.

According to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), American warplanes struck Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and “affiliated militia groups” in Syria and Iraq – countries that have suffered various degrees of U.S. bombardment since 2014 and 1991, respectively.

This, after U.S. and U.K.-led airstrikes last month targeted Houthi fighters in Yemen amid attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

Continue reading “As Biden Bombs Syria and Iraq, 80 Groups Push Gaza Cease-Fire to Avert Wider War”

Undaunted after spending nearly a month behind bars for his conscientious objection to Israel’s war on Gaza, 18-year-old refusenik Tal Mitnick on Tuesday reported for an additional 30 days of military detention.

As Common Dreams reported last month, Mitnick entered the Tel Hashomer enlistment center on December 27 with other members of the Mesarvot Network – a group of young conscientious objectors – and announced his refusal to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), citing the war on Gaza and Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine.

Continue reading “In ‘Solidarity With the Innocent in Gaza,’ Israeli Refusenik Gets 30 More Days in Prison”

UPDATE: On Tuesday night the Senate voted down the Sanders resolution by a vote of 72-11.

Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday that he will force a Senate floor vote this week on a resolution that would suspend aid to Israel if the U.S. State Department fails to report on how Israeli weapons – many of them supplied by the United States – are being used in Gaza.

Appearing on CNN‘s “State of the Union,” Sanders (I-Vt.) told host Jake Tapper that he will force a Tuesday evening vote on his resolution, which is based on Section 502B(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, legislation empowering Congress to “request information on a particular country’s human rights practices and to alter or terminate U.S. security assistance to that country in light of the information received.”

Continue reading “Sanders to Force Senate Vote on Probing Israeli War Crimes”