2024 Year in Review: How outrage at Israel’s actions in Gaza fueled global solidarity with Palestine

Special 2024 Year in Review: How outrage at Israel’s actions in Gaza fueled global solidarity with Palestine
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Updated 23 December 2024
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2024 Year in Review: How outrage at Israel’s actions in Gaza fueled global solidarity with Palestine

2024 Year in Review: How outrage at Israel’s actions in Gaza fueled global solidarity with Palestine
  • Mass protests took place in cities around the globe in 2024, with demonstrators accusing Israel of genocide
  • Several nations recognized Palestine as a sovereign state, challenging Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank

LONDON: When Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the world was appalled by the savagery of an assault that left more than 1,200 Israelis and people of other nationalities dead, and saw some 250 taken hostage.

At that moment, Israel had the unbridled sympathy of the Western world. But within days that sympathy had all but evaporated, swept away by rising disgust at the slaughter unleashed in Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces.

By Oct. 24, 2023, just 17 days after the Hamas-led attack, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was urging the UN Security Council to rein in Israel. He had “condemned unequivocally the horrifying and unprecedented acts of terror by Hamas in Israel.”

But now, he said, “those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people” being meted out by Israel in Gaza. “Even war has rules,” he added.




Thousands of people gather outside the White House during the National March on Washington for Palestine. (Getty Images/AFP/File)

By then, more than a million Palestinians had already been displaced and 5,000 had been killed, according to Gaza’s health authorities, including more than 1,100 women and 2,000 children, along with journalists, medics, and first responders.

Even before Guterres spoke out, thousands appalled by Israel’s behavior had already begun to take to the streets in Western capitals to express their horror and offer their moral support to the Palestinian people.

Some of the first protests took place in the UK, on Oct. 15, just a week after the Hamas-led attack. In London, thousands rallied in response to a plea by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and marched on Downing Street, home of the British prime minister.

Many carried Palestinian flags and banners with messages including “Free Palestine — end Israeli occupation” and “Stop bombing Gaza.”

The BBC’s headquarters in Portland Place, central London, was daubed in red paint, symbolising what activists called the broadcaster’s “complicity in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people through biased reporting.”

In Parliament and in some sections of the media, the protestors were immediately accused of antisemitism and of supporting Hamas. One protestor, interviewed in London by Reuters, made the purpose of the protests crystal clear.




Rockets are fired by Palestinian militants into Israel, in Gaza October 7, 2023. (Reuters/File)

“This is not about Hamas,” she said. “This is about protecting Palestinian lives.”

The protests spread like wildfire to other cities and campuses throughout the UK and then to Europe, the Middle East and Asia. By the end of October, demonstrations had erupted in Copenhagen, Rome, Stockholm, and Wellington.

In France, despite a ban on pro-Palestinian rallies, protests still braved arrest to make their voices heard in Paris and Marseille.

The protests were no flash in the pan, either. Into the new year and up until today, they have kept on coming.

As the death toll in Gaza mounted, reaching 30,000 by March 2024, it was not long before the outrage spread to the US, where on March 20 NBC reported that “in cities across the country, highways have been blocked, trains have been delayed and sections of college campuses have been shut down by hundreds of thousands of people who have taken to the streets … protesting Israel’s invasion of Gaza.”

A week later, on March 27, a Gallup poll found that a majority of Americans opposed Israel’s military action in Gaza.




Residents walk past burnt-out vehicles in Ashkelon following a rocket attack from the Gaza Strip into Israel on October 7, 2023. (AFP)

During a speech on the election campaign trail in North Carolina, President Joe Biden was interrupted by protesters demanding a US intervention to end the suffering of the Palestinians. Their shouts turned to cheers when the president heard them out and then said: “They have a point. We need to get a lot more care into Gaza.”

Dismay at the administration’s failure to rein in Israel, especially among the influential Arab American community in some key swing states, may well have cost Biden’s VP Kamala Harris the presidency.

Everywhere, alarmed by the strength of global feeling provoked by the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, the pro-Israel lobby rallied. Unable to defend Israel’s actions in Gaza, instead it went on the attack.

The protests, they said, were not pro-Palestinian or even anti-Israel, but antisemitic — an allegation that is frequently leveled at anyone who has criticised Israel’s behavior in Gaza and the West Bank.

In the UK, the lengths to which the pro-Israel lobby was prepared to go to distract attention away from the cause of the protests became evident after an extraordinary episode in April.




A man carries a wounded child into at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on October 10, 2023. (AFP/File)

The media rushed to report the claims of Gideon Falter, the chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, that he had accidentally stumbled into the path of a pro-Palestinian protest and had then been threatened with arrest because his “openly Jewish” appearance was antagonising the marchers.

The incident was filmed, and selectively edited, by the CAA. But when the full footage later emerged it became clear that Falter had deliberately tried to provoke demonstrators by pushing past police officers and walking in the path of the demonstration.

In the US, wealthy Jewish donors banded together to attack universities for allowing pro-Palestinian protests on their campuses. According to a report by CNBC, even as protests were taking off in the US in late October 2023, billionaire supporters of Ivy League schools including Harvard, Yale, and Penn threatened to withdraw funding.




Pro-Palestinian protesters stand with a large banner in during a demonstration for Palestine in central London. (AFP)


By January 2024, the wealthy donors had successfully hounded out of office two high-profile leaders, Harvard president Claudine Gay and Penn president Liz Magill, both of whom resigned.

In an op-ed published in the Guardian in January 2024, Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, wrote that “as a Jew, I also cannot help but worry that the actions of these donors — many of them Jewish, many from Wall Street — could fuel the very antisemitism they claim to oppose, based on the age-old stereotype of wealthy Jewish bankers controlling the world.”




An Israeli army soldier raises a fist while deploying along the border with the Gaza Strip on October 13, 2023. (AFP)

The determined assault on the defenders of Palestine by the Jewish lobby has continued unabated. In the UK last week, the head of the British Medical Association was accused by campaign group Labour Against Antisemitism of creating “a hostile environment” for Jewish doctors, and is now under investigation by her own organization.

Dr. Mary McCarthy’s “offense” was to have reposted a message on her X account that described the conflict in Gaza as “a holocaust.”

Over in Ireland, it was reported last week that Israel is to close its embassy in Dublin, accusing the Irish government of “extreme anti-Israel policies” and “crossing every red line.” In May, Ireland, followed quickly by Spain, Norway, and Slovenia, had recognized Palestine as an independent, sovereign state.

In July, the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe wrote of his alarm that “nine months into the Israeli genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip,” Israel’s “parallel attack on freedom of speech on Palestine is continuing with intensity, making it difficult for the general public to appreciate the reality in Palestine beyond the manipulated and distorted coverage offered by mainstream media.”




Columbia University students set up a pro-Palestinian encampment on their campus in New York City. (AFP)

All over the Global North, universities had “ousted students simply for being members of outfits such as Students for Justice in Palestine. They even disinvited academics or authors who dared to criticize Israel.

“Similar actions were taken against journalists and people in public services, even those who accompanied their criticism with a condemnation of the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023.”

It was, he added in an article published in the Palestine Chronicle, “clear that we are facing a coordinated campaign led by the pro-Israeli lobby and aimed at continuing the historical denial of the ongoing Nakba.”

That denial, however, appears to be falling on deaf ears.

In recent weeks, thousands have continued to protest on the streets of London and other Western capitals. The UK-based Palestine Solidarity Campaign has even announced plans for its first national demonstration of 2025.

On Jan. 18, it said, “we will march through London once again to demand an end to Israel’s genocide in Palestine.”




“Even war has rules”: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Oct. 24, 2023. (AP/File)

It added: “It is vital we continue to take to the streets in huge numbers to demand an end to British complicity in Israel’s genocide and apartheid, including through an end to all arms trade with Israel.”

As 2024 has seen an extraordinary outpouring of global outrage at the death and destruction being wrought by Israel in Gaza and Lebanon, so 2025 will see no let-up in the calls for Israel to be held to account.

 


Morocco to spend $670 million to replenish livestock up to 2026

Updated 26 sec ago
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Morocco to spend $670 million to replenish livestock up to 2026

Morocco to spend $670 million to replenish livestock up to 2026
Six years of drought reduced the cattle and sheep herds by 38 percent this year
The government also includes aid to farmers

RABAT: Morocco plans to spend 6.2 billion dirhams ($670 mln) on a 2025-2026 program to replenish its livestock herd, which has been reduced following years of prolonged drought, agriculture minister Ahmed El Bouari said on Thursday.

Six years of drought caused mass job losses in the farming sector and reduced the cattle and sheep herds by 38 percent this year, compared to the last census nine years ago.

Under the recovery program, 3 billion dirhams will be allocated in 2025 and 3.2 billion next year to measures including debt relief and restructuring for livestock farmers, as well as feed subsidies, Bouari told reporters.

The government also includes aid to farmers who retain breeding female livestock, along with veterinary campaigns, genetic improvement and artificial insemination, he said.

In February, authorities asked citizens to forgo the ritual of slaughtering sheep on the Eid Adha this year, to help restore the sheep herd.

In north Lebanon, Syrian Alawites shelter among graves

In north Lebanon, Syrian Alawites shelter among graves
Updated 42 min 20 sec ago
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In north Lebanon, Syrian Alawites shelter among graves

In north Lebanon, Syrian Alawites shelter among graves
  • “We each have our own horror story that drove us to this place,” said a man with sunken eyes
  • Around 600 people have sought shelter at the Hissa mosque

HISSA, Lebanon: Behind a ramshackle mosque in Hissa, north Lebanon, the living are making a home for themselves among the dead.

Beside mounds of garbage in the shade of towering trees, men, women and children from Syria’s minority Alawite community seek shelter among the graves surrounding the half-built mosque — grateful to have escaped the sectarian violence at home but fearing for their future.

“We each have our own horror story that drove us to this place,” said a man with sunken eyes.

One such story was of a mother who had been killed in front of her children by unknown militants as they crossed the border, said others staying at the mosque.

All of the refugees that spoke to Reuters requested anonymity for fear of retribution.

Around 600 people have sought shelter at the Hissa mosque. Hundreds sleep in the main hall, including a day-old baby.

On the building’s unfinished second story, plastic sheets stretched over wooden beams divide traumatized families.

Others sleep on the roof. One family has set up camp under the stairwell, another by the tomb of a local saint. Some sleep on the graves in the surrounding cemetery, others under trees with only thin blankets for warmth.

They are among the tens of thousands refugees who have fled Syria since March, when the country suffered its worst bloodshed since Bashar Assad was toppled from power by Islamist-led rebels in December.

Almost 40,000 people have fled Syria into north Lebanon since then, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said in a statement.

The outflow comes at a time when humanitarian funding is being squeezed after US President Donald Trump’s decision to freeze foreign aid and dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USAID) earlier this year.

NEEDS BUT NO RESOURCES

The recent violence in Syria, which has pitted the Islamist-led government’s security forces against fighters from the Alawite minority, the sect to which Assad’s family belongs, has killed more than 1,000 people since March.

For more than 50 years, Assad and his father before him crushed any opposition from Syria’s Sunni Muslims, who make up more than 70 percent of the population. Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, took many of the top positions in government and the military and ran big businesses.

Alawites now accuse the new government of President Ahmed Al-Sharaa of exacting revenge, but Sharaa says he will pursue inclusive policies to unite the country shattered by civil war and attract foreign investment.

Trump said last week he would lift sanctions on Syria, triggering hopes of economic renewal. But this has provided little comfort to the refugees in northern Lebanon, who are struggling to meet their basic needs.

“UNHCR, but also other agencies, are not now in a position to say you can count on us,” said Ivo Freijsen, UNHCR representative in Lebanon, in an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation in April.

“So, in response to new arrivals, yes, we will try, but it will be less (than before).”

More refugees come from Syria every day. Almost 50 people arrived over two days last week, said one camp representative, who asked not to be named for security reasons.

UNHCR is equipping new arrivals with essential items like mattresses, blankets and clothes, as well as providing medical help and mental health support, said a spokesperson.

“UNHCR is also conducting rehabilitation works in shelters to make sure families are protected,” the spokesperson added.

’FORGOTTEN’ REFUGEES

At the mosque, food is scarce and the portable toilets provided by an aid group have flooded. Garbage is piling up and is attracting vermin. Snakes have been killed in the camp, and one refugee spoke of the “biggest centipedes we have ever seen.”

The camp’s children have nowhere to go.

It can be difficult for refugee children to access Lebanon’s school system, Human Rights Watch has said, while the refugees at the mosque say private schools are too expensive and may not accept children enrolling mid-year.

“We are becoming a refugee camp without realizing it,” said another man, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

“We need schools, we need toilets, we need clinics.”

He said he fled his home in Damascus after being warned by his neighbor that militants were asking about him. He never expects to go back and is hoping to move abroad.

But in the meantime, he said he needs to create a life for his children.

“What’s his fault?” he asked, beckoning to his nine-year-old son. “He was a computer whiz and now he is not even going to school.”

The refugees sheltering in the mosque are among the millions of people affected by Trump’s decision to freeze US funding to humanitarian programs in February.

The UNHCR has been forced to reduce all aspects of its operations in Lebanon, Freijsen said, including support to Syrian refugees.

The UNHCR had enough money to cover only 14 percent of its planned operations in Lebanon and 17 percent of its global operations by the end of March, the UN agency said in a report.

“Our assistance is not what it is supposed to be,” Freijsen said. “In the past, we always had the resources, or we could easily mobilize the resources. These days are over, and that’s painful.”

The people in the mosque fear that they have been forgotten.

“Human rights are a lie,” a third man said, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. “It is just something (that the powerful) instrumentalize when they want.”


More than 70 UN member states demand protection of civilians amid mounting fears over Gaza

More than 70 UN member states demand protection of civilians amid mounting fears over Gaza
Updated 48 min 52 sec ago
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More than 70 UN member states demand protection of civilians amid mounting fears over Gaza

More than 70 UN member states demand protection of civilians amid mounting fears over Gaza
  • Joint statement ahead of UN debate on the issue highlights plight of Palestinians as Israel launches major offensive
  • ‘Today, we come with one clear message: The protection of civilians is not optional,’ the states say

NEW YORK CITY: More than 70 UN member states signed a joint statement calling for the urgent protection of civilians in armed conflicts, amid fears that thousands of Palestinians in Gaza could face starvation.

The statement preceded an annual open debate at the UN on the issue of protecting civilians, which included a briefing from the UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, who this week warned that 14,000 babies in Gaza were at risk of dying from hunger. Israel launched its latest major military offensive in the territory this week.

“Civilians in armed conflicts continue to live under unthinkable conditions of constant danger, insecurity and suffering,” the joint statement said.

At least 36,000 civilian deaths were recorded in 14 armed conflicts last year, and tens of thousands of people were injured as a result of explosive devices, it added.

It cited reports from the UN’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, that warned Gaza is facing the “worst humanitarian crisis” since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October 2023.

“This cannot continue,” the statement continued. “Today, we come with one clear message: The protection of civilians is not optional. It is a legal obligation under international humanitarian law, and a moral imperative we cannot afford to neglect.

“Civilian women and men, children, older persons, and persons with disabilities, all suffer. Health workers, farmers, teachers are killed, injured and forced to flee. Civilians are too often targeted or simply abandoned in the calculus of war.

“Their protection must not be a secondary consideration — it must be central to all military planning and political decisions.”

The UN debate on Thursday also included a briefing by Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The organization has repeatedly warned of imminent famine in Gaza, following Israel’s implementation in March of a blockade on humanitarian goods entering the territory.

Although the blockade was lifted this week, the UN has still struggled to transport desperately needed aid into the enclave. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Wednesday that the Israeli military has provided aid trucks with access to Gaza only via an unsafe road. Discussions between the international organization and Israel are ongoing, he added.

The joint statement said: “We commend the vital role of humanitarian actors, and we condemn all acts of violence and threats against them. Last year was the deadliest year on record for humanitarian personnel, when more than 360 humanitarians were killed in 20 countries.

“This has to stop. We reaffirm our determination to take concrete measures and use diplomatic means to ensure the safety and security of humanitarian personnel, and to enable them to carry out their activities and mandate in accordance with humanitarian principles.”

Several major countries were absent from the list of signatories, but those who did sign included the EU, China and France, as well as Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Arab world.

“Let us reiterate our collective responsibility to protect the most vulnerable, to uphold international law, to prioritize the safety, dignity and rights of civilians, and to ensure that their faces and voices — so often invisible and silenced behind statistics — remain central to our actions,” the statement added.

“Let us recommit not only to words, but to concrete steps — toward protection, toward accountability, and ultimately, toward peace.”


UAE calls for investigation after Israeli forces fire near visiting diplomats

UAE calls for investigation after Israeli forces fire near visiting diplomats
Updated 50 min 24 sec ago
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UAE calls for investigation after Israeli forces fire near visiting diplomats

UAE calls for investigation after Israeli forces fire near visiting diplomats
  • ‘Warning shots’ reported as envoys toured Jenin in West Bank
  • Action ‘clear violation of international laws,’ foreign ministry says

LONDON: The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs has called for an investigation into Israeli forces opening fire during a visit by foreign diplomats to the occupied West Bank on Wednesday.

The ministry on Thursday condemned the incident near the Jenin camp entrance which drew condemnation from more than 20 countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UK, Italy, China, Egypt, France, Jordan, Turkiye and Russia.

It said the Israeli action was a clear violation of international laws and norms that ensure the protection of diplomats and their missions and obstructed international efforts to achieve peace and stability, the Emirates News Agency reported.

It called for the violations to be investigated and the perpetrators punished.

On Wednesday, Israeli forces reported firing “warning shots” during a visit by foreign diplomats to Jenin. It said it “regrets the inconvenience caused” by the shooting, which resulted in no injuries.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas urged Israel to hold to account those responsible for the shootings.

The incident came as international pressure intensified over the war in Gaza, where Palestinians remain desperate for supplies despite the easing of a two-month aid blockade.


Gaza ambulance fleet down to a third, Palestinian Red Crescent says

The head of the Palestinian Red Crescent said its ambulance fleet was running at only a third of capacity due to fuel shortages.
The head of the Palestinian Red Crescent said its ambulance fleet was running at only a third of capacity due to fuel shortages.
Updated 50 min 11 sec ago
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Gaza ambulance fleet down to a third, Palestinian Red Crescent says

The head of the Palestinian Red Crescent said its ambulance fleet was running at only a third of capacity due to fuel shortages.
  • “We are running out of fuel. The capacity of ambulances we work with now is one third,” Al-Khatib said
  • Gasoline-powered ambulances had already halted but PRCS had some that were running on solar power provided by UN, he said

GENEVA: The head of the Palestinian Red Crescent said on Thursday its operations in Gaza may stop within days in the absence of fresh supplies and its ambulance fleet was running at only a third of capacity due to fuel shortages.
Flour and other aid began reaching some of Gaza’s most vulnerable areas on Thursday after Israel let some trucks through, but nowhere near enough to make up for shortages caused by an 11-week Israeli blockade, Palestinian officials said.
Israel said it let in 100 trucks carrying baby food and medical equipment on Wednesday, two days after announcing its first relaxation of the blockade under mounting international pressure amid warnings of starvation in Gaza.
Asked how long his organization could continue operating in Gaza, Palestine Red Crescent Society President Younis Al-Khatib told reporters in Geneva: “It’s a matter of time. It could be days.
“We are running out of fuel. The capacity of ambulances we work with now is one third,” he added, saying its gasoline-powered ambulances had already halted but it had some that were running on solar power provided by the United Nations.
The PRCS is part of the world’s largest humanitarian network, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and provides medical care in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Al-Khatib criticized the small amount of aid Israel has allowed into Gaza so far, warning of the risk of mob attacks.
“I think that is an invitation for killing. These people are starving,” he said.
Israel, at war with Gaza’s dominant militant group Hamas since October 2023, has repeatedly defended its controls on aid in the enclave, saying there is enough food there and denying accusations of causing starvation.
He added his voice to criticism of a US-backed organization that aims to start work in Gaza by the end of May overseeing a new model of aid distribution. “It’s not up for discussion. No, no, no,” he said.
“The world should not give up on the system as we know it.”
The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation intends to work with private US security and logistics firms to provide aid to 300,000 people from distribution hubs in Gaza’s south. Gaza’s total population is 2.3 million, most of it displaced.