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An infamous sign reading "Work Sets You Free" stands at the gate to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland.
"We do hope that Israeli authorities will react to such shameful abuse, as terrorism can never be a response to terrorism."
The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland on Sunday decried what critics called genocidal remarks by the mayor of an Israeli town who said all of Gaza should be ethnically cleansed of Palestinians and turned into a museum like the notorious Nazi death camp.
"The whole Gaza Strip needs to be empty. Flattened. Just like in Auschwitz," Metula Mayor David Azoulai said in a radio interview on Sunday, according toThe Times of Israel. "Let it be a museum for all the world to see what Israel can do. Let no one reside in the Gaza Strip for all the world to see, because October 7 was in a way a second Holocaust."
In response, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim, southern Poland wrote
on social media that "David Azoulai appears to wish to use the symbol
of the largest cemetery in the world as some sort of a sick, hateful,
pseudo-artistic, symbolic expression."
"Calling for acts that seem to transgress any civil, wartime, moral,
and human laws, that may sound as a call for murder of the scale akin to
Auschwitz, puts the whole honest world face-to-face with a madness that
must be confronted and firmly rejected," the museum added. "We do hope
that Israeli authorities will react to such shameful abuse, as terrorism
can never be a response to terrorism."
Last month, the museum posted a statement from the International Auschwitz Council—whose members include Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum director Piotr Cywiński—supporting Israel's war on Gaza, which according to Palestinian and United Nations officials has now killed, maimed, or left missing more than 70,000 people, mostly women and children.
Numerous Israeli political and military leaders—as well as journalists,
pundits, celebrities, and others—have made statements that critics have
called incitement to or supportive of genocide in response to the
Hamas-led attacks that killed more than 1,100 Israelis and others on
October 7.
In a televised October speech, far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked
Amalek, the ancient biblical enemy of the Israelites whom God commanded
the Jews to exterminate. Israeli President Isaac Herzog asserted that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, while Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowed to "eliminate everything" there.
Last month, Israeli Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter declared
that "we are now rolling out the Great Nakba," a reference to the
ethnic cleansing, sometimes by massacre and death march, of over 750,000
Arabs from Palestine during the establishment of the modern state of
Israel 75 years ago.
Members of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, have called for Gaza to be "wiped off the map," bombed with nuclear weapons, and burned to the ground.
Numerous U.S. politicians, including Republican presidential candidate and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, have echoed Israeli calls for genocidal violence against Palestinians.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland on Sunday decried what critics called genocidal remarks by the mayor of an Israeli town who said all of Gaza should be ethnically cleansed of Palestinians and turned into a museum like the notorious Nazi death camp.
"The whole Gaza Strip needs to be empty. Flattened. Just like in Auschwitz," Metula Mayor David Azoulai said in a radio interview on Sunday, according toThe Times of Israel. "Let it be a museum for all the world to see what Israel can do. Let no one reside in the Gaza Strip for all the world to see, because October 7 was in a way a second Holocaust."
In response, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim, southern Poland wrote
on social media that "David Azoulai appears to wish to use the symbol
of the largest cemetery in the world as some sort of a sick, hateful,
pseudo-artistic, symbolic expression."
"Calling for acts that seem to transgress any civil, wartime, moral,
and human laws, that may sound as a call for murder of the scale akin to
Auschwitz, puts the whole honest world face-to-face with a madness that
must be confronted and firmly rejected," the museum added. "We do hope
that Israeli authorities will react to such shameful abuse, as terrorism
can never be a response to terrorism."
Last month, the museum posted a statement from the International Auschwitz Council—whose members include Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum director Piotr Cywiński—supporting Israel's war on Gaza, which according to Palestinian and United Nations officials has now killed, maimed, or left missing more than 70,000 people, mostly women and children.
Numerous Israeli political and military leaders—as well as journalists,
pundits, celebrities, and others—have made statements that critics have
called incitement to or supportive of genocide in response to the
Hamas-led attacks that killed more than 1,100 Israelis and others on
October 7.
In a televised October speech, far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked
Amalek, the ancient biblical enemy of the Israelites whom God commanded
the Jews to exterminate. Israeli President Isaac Herzog asserted that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, while Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowed to "eliminate everything" there.
Last month, Israeli Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter declared
that "we are now rolling out the Great Nakba," a reference to the
ethnic cleansing, sometimes by massacre and death march, of over 750,000
Arabs from Palestine during the establishment of the modern state of
Israel 75 years ago.
Members of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, have called for Gaza to be "wiped off the map," bombed with nuclear weapons, and burned to the ground.
Numerous U.S. politicians, including Republican presidential candidate and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, have echoed Israeli calls for genocidal violence against Palestinians.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland on Sunday decried what critics called genocidal remarks by the mayor of an Israeli town who said all of Gaza should be ethnically cleansed of Palestinians and turned into a museum like the notorious Nazi death camp.
"The whole Gaza Strip needs to be empty. Flattened. Just like in Auschwitz," Metula Mayor David Azoulai said in a radio interview on Sunday, according toThe Times of Israel. "Let it be a museum for all the world to see what Israel can do. Let no one reside in the Gaza Strip for all the world to see, because October 7 was in a way a second Holocaust."
In response, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim, southern Poland wrote
on social media that "David Azoulai appears to wish to use the symbol
of the largest cemetery in the world as some sort of a sick, hateful,
pseudo-artistic, symbolic expression."
"Calling for acts that seem to transgress any civil, wartime, moral,
and human laws, that may sound as a call for murder of the scale akin to
Auschwitz, puts the whole honest world face-to-face with a madness that
must be confronted and firmly rejected," the museum added. "We do hope
that Israeli authorities will react to such shameful abuse, as terrorism
can never be a response to terrorism."
Last month, the museum posted a statement from the International Auschwitz Council—whose members include Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum director Piotr Cywiński—supporting Israel's war on Gaza, which according to Palestinian and United Nations officials has now killed, maimed, or left missing more than 70,000 people, mostly women and children.
Numerous Israeli political and military leaders—as well as journalists,
pundits, celebrities, and others—have made statements that critics have
called incitement to or supportive of genocide in response to the
Hamas-led attacks that killed more than 1,100 Israelis and others on
October 7.
In a televised October speech, far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked
Amalek, the ancient biblical enemy of the Israelites whom God commanded
the Jews to exterminate. Israeli President Isaac Herzog asserted that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, while Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowed to "eliminate everything" there.
Last month, Israeli Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter declared
that "we are now rolling out the Great Nakba," a reference to the
ethnic cleansing, sometimes by massacre and death march, of over 750,000
Arabs from Palestine during the establishment of the modern state of
Israel 75 years ago.
Members of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, have called for Gaza to be "wiped off the map," bombed with nuclear weapons, and burned to the ground.
Numerous U.S. politicians, including Republican presidential candidate and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, have echoed Israeli calls for genocidal violence against Palestinians.
"We stand together... to say no to more weapons for Israel's genocide in Gaza, no more money to imprison children and families seeking safety at our border, no more money to destroy lives," said one protest leader.
Activists from more than 80 advocacy groups took to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday to protest what they called the Israeli genocide in Palestine and "cruel" immigration policies here in the United States.
The demonstrators demanded a
permanent cease-fire in Gaza, an end to American military aid for
Israel, and protection for migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
"As the Biden administration and Senate Democrats indicate a willingness to advance cruel immigration proposals in order to pass a spending package that will send billions of dollars to Israel to continue its genocide in Gaza, we come together as a coalition of immigrant, Palestinian, and allied organizations dedicated to fighting for justice and liberation to categorically oppose all proposals fueling violence against our communities at home and abroad," a joint statement from the groups taking part in Tuesday's demonstration said.
Arrests were reported after hundreds of activists occupied the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, where they sang and chanted slogans including "not in our name" and held signs reading "stop arming Israel" and "protect immigrants and asylees."
"I am here because my government is using my taxpayer dollars to carry out a genocide against people who look just like me in Gaza and to keep immigrant families that look just like mine out of this country," explained Saqib Bhatti, co-executive director of the Action Center on Race and the Economy.
"We are here to stand up for innocent Palestinians, immigrants, and for the vast majority of the American people who are demanding an end to the bloodshed," Bhatti added. "We need a permanent cease-fire today and to begin the hard work of repairing the damage our billions of dollars in military aid has done to the Palestinian people."
Sandra Tamari, executive director of the Adalah Justice Project, said in a statement that "we stand together, linked arm and arm, to say no to more weapons for Israel's genocide in Gaza, no more money to imprison children and families seeking safety at our border, no more money to destroy lives."
"The Democratic leadership and the Biden administration are failing the people," Tamari added.
Audrey Sasson, executive director of Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, explained that "I am putting my body on the line to demand that Congress stop funding Israeli war crimes in Gaza, and that they reject any proposals for increased militarization on the U.S. border."
"That the war in Gaza is being waged in my name fills me with shame, grief, and rage," Sasson added. "As a Jewish leader watching the Palestinian death toll rise daily, I will not be silent."
The groups' statement decried President Joe Biden's $106 billion "so-called 'national security' supplemental spending package, which would send $14.3 billion in weapons and military funding to Israel to fund its genocidal attacks in Gaza, and nearly $8 billion for deadly enforcement and further militarization of the border."
The activists also noted that "over 8,000 children" are among the nearly 20,000 people killed by Israel's assault on Gaza.
"Palestinians are being killed en masse by the Israeli military and denied access to food, water, shelter, electricity, and medical care in Gaza—a place which has been described as the 'world's largest open-air prison,'" the groups said. "U.S. Border Patrol is holding migrants escaping the conditions created by U.S. imperialism in open-air detention centers at our southern border where they are being deprived food, water, shelter, and medical attention."
The groups' statement continues:
These parallels are not coincidental. We know that our struggle against genocide and militarism in Palestine is the same struggle against militarism here in the U.S. and at our southern border. We see the same technology used by the Israeli military against Palestinians used at our own borders; we see that the Israeli military trains our law enforcement, including [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents; we know that ethnic cleansing and mass displacement will always bring people in need face-to-face with our deadly immigration policies. The decisions to fund these systems are motivated by xenophobia, racism, anti-Blackness, and profit.
"If we allow elected officials to achieve a deal, billions of our taxpayer dollars will fuel war and genocide, and consequently mass displacement abroad, while simultaneously closing the door to asylum and increasing the scale of state violence against our Black, brown, Indigenous, and migrant communities at home," the groups asserted. "We will not allow our communities to be divided and conquered, or to be used as bargaining chips to push through deeply problematic and unpopular military aid."
Detainees at Israel's Sde Teman camp were "blindfolded and bound, with both their hands and feet handcuffed, and if they tried to ask for anything, were met with abuse and threats," said Euro-Med Monitor.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor on Monday demanded an independent investigation into Israel's alleged "torture and murder of Palestinian civilians" who have been captured and detained by the Israel Defense Forces—particularly those who have been held in the Sde Teman army camp, located between the Israeli city of Beersheba and Gaza.
Sde Teman has been turned into "a new Guantánamo-like prison," the monitor said, comparing it to the U.S. prison where inmates accused by the U.S. of being terrorists have been held indefinitely, many without being charged, and subjected to torture for more than two decades.
The monitor said it has gathered testimonies from former detainees who have been recently released from Sde Teman and who have reported severe mistreatment of prisoners—who are all male and range from young children to elderly people—as well as the executions of some detainees and the deaths of others under what one outlet called "unclear circumstances."
Israeli authorities have kept detainees in "open-air chicken coops" and withheld food and drink for long periods of time.
Detainees have also been blindfolded and had their hands tied while being subjected to harsh interrogations, during which "lights are turned on and intensely shone upon them at night, with the intention of exhausting and torturing them."
They have been barred from using phones to contact their families, meeting with lawyers, and receiving medical care from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Euro-Med Monitor said.
Released prisoners also told the Geneva-based group that they witnessed elderly prisoners enduring "cruel beatings and humiliating treatment."
"The detainees were blindfolded and bound, with both their hands and feet handcuffed, and if they tried to ask for anything, were met with abuse and threats," said the monitor.
The group's report and demand for an impartial and urgent investigation followed reporting in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Monday which revealed that several of the hundreds of Palestinians who have been detained at Sde Teman since Israel began its bombardment of Gaza in October have died while in Israeli custody.
Haaretz reported that Israel had detained the Palestinians under its so-called Unlawful Combatants Law of 2002, which released Israel's government "from the need to provide evidence justifying the internment and its continuation, thus switching the burden of proof onto the shoulders of the internee, who can never refute the allegations."
Israel-based human rights group B'tselem has frequently called on the government to stop detaining people under the law.
Haaretz reported on the deaths of two Palestinians at Sde Teman, which the IDF had not publicly acknowledged. Generally the Israeli military announces the deaths of prisoners in its custody. The monitor said that one of the men had requested medical attention before he died, "but the army ignored his request and kept him in appalling conditions, which ultimately caused his death."
A former detainee who spoke to the
Euro-Med Monitor also said he had witnessed "Israeli soldiers directly
shooting and killing five detainees in separate incidents."
The group had previously reported on Israel's arrest and detention of more than 1,200 Palestinian civilians across Gaza since beginning its assault on the blockaded enclave in retaliation for Hamas' attack on southern Israel on October 7.
In November, Amnesty International separately documented the detentions of more than 2,200 Palestinian men and women from the West Bank since October 7, and reported on testimony from released detainees and human rights lawyers, video evidence, and images showing "forms of torture and other ill treatment" prisoners have been subjected to by Israeli forces since the current escalation began.
Amnesty described "Israeli soldiers beating and humiliating Palestinians while detaining them blindfolded, stripped, with their hands tied, in a particularly chilling public display of torture and humiliation of Palestinian detainees."
Israel's use of "administrative detention," in which detainees are held without charges or a trial, often indefinitely, has also spiked significantly since October 7, said Amnesty, with the number of Palestinians arbitrarily imprisoned rising from 1,319 to 2,070 between October 1 and November 1.
The Euro-Med Monitor called on the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the ICRC to pressure Israeli officials to publicly disclose "the fate of all detainees from the Gaza Strip," release all civilians, and investigate the reported treatment of detainees at prisons including Sde Teman.
The group's call echoed that of Amnesty last month.
"Israeli authorities must immediately reverse the inhumane emergency measures imposed on Palestinian prisoners and grant them immediate access to their lawyers and families," said Heba Morayef, the group's regional director for the Middle East and North Africa. "Israeli judicial authorities must also impartially and independently investigate complaints of torture and other ill treatment and prosecute in fair trials those responsible for ordering and carrying out torture."
One campaigner said it is "a meaningful step towards averting climate catastrophe, safeguarding vulnerable ecosystems, and fulfilling President Biden's commitment to preserve old-growth and mature trees."
Conservationists on Tuesday applauded the Biden administration's first-of-its-kind proposal to conserve and restore old-growth trees across national forests and grasslands with limits on logging, "so nature can continue to be a key climate solution."
The plan would protect the nation's most ancient forests from commercial logging on approximately 25 million acres of public lands, though it would allow some cutting of trees under stricter conditions than currently exist.
The United States is a top contributor to planet-heating pollution, largely from fossil fuels. White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory noted in a statement that "our forests absorb carbon dioxide equivalent to more than 10% of our nation's annual greenhouse gas emissions."
The proposal to amend all 128 forest land management plans in line with an executive order issued last year by President Joe Biden comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that "climate change is presenting new threats like historic droughts and catastrophic wildfire. This clear direction will help our old-growth forests thrive across our shared landscape."
Many campaigners agreed—including Earthjustice's Blaine Miller-McFeeley, who praised the proposal "an important milestone," and Ellen Montgomery of Environment America, who called it "unprecedented."
"Protecting our old-growth trees from logging is an important first
step to ensure these giants continue to store vast amounts of carbon,
but other older forests also need protection."
Sierra Club forests campaign manager Alex Craven stressed that "our
ancient forests are some of the most powerful resources we have for
taking on the climate crisis and preserving ecosystems."
"We are pleased to see that the Biden administration continues to embrace forest conservation as the critical opportunity that it is," he added. "This amendment is a meaningful step towards averting climate catastrophe, safeguarding vulnerable ecosystems, and fulfilling President Biden's commitment to preserve old-growth and mature trees across federal lands."
Oregon Wild's Lauren Anderson declared that "President Biden is taking a major step forward in protecting these national treasures."
While welcoming the administration's plan, conservationists also pushed for further action from the USDA's Forest Service—which, along with the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management, manages approximately 32 million acres of old-growth forests and 80 million acres of mature forests nationwide.
"Protecting our old-growth trees from logging is an important first step to ensure these giants continue to store vast amounts of carbon, but other older forests also need protection," explained Randi Spivak of the Center for Biological Diversity. "To fulfill President Biden's executive order and address the magnitude of the climate crisis, the Forest Service also needs to protect our mature forests, which if allowed to grow will become the old growth of tomorrow."
Standing Trees executive director Zack Porter pointed out that "more than 99.9% of old-growth forests in New England have already been cut down."
"For the climate and biodiversity, the Forest Service must put an end to destructive mature forest logging that prevents the recovery and expansion of old-growth forests across the U.S.," he said. "We are buoyed by today's announcement, and remain optimistic that the Forest Service will take further action to secure protections for America's future old-growth forests."
The Washington Post reported that "some environmental advocates also questioned whether the policy will last, as a future administration could easily undo it," considering that the changes "won't be finalized until the agency has completed an environmental impact statement, which it expects to finish in early 2025."
Campaigners have also long argued that protecting the carbon storage capacity of U.S. forests cannot be considered a real climate solution unless paired with other key actions. As Food & Water Watch's Thomas Meyer put it last year, "Protecting forests without addressing the root cause of the climate crisis, namely the continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels, will do very little to slow global warming."
The global phaseout of fossil fuels was a primary focus of the recent United Nations climate talks, which wrapped up in Dubai earlier this month with a deal that scientists decried as "a tragedy for the planet" because it failed to explicitly demand ending the era of oil, gas, and coal. The United States was represented at COP28 by John Kerry, Biden's climate envoy, as the president skipped the summit.
Biden, who is seeking reelection next year, has been blasted by experts, frontline communities, and younger voters for refusing to declare a national climate emergency, continuing fossil fuel lease sales for public lands and waters, enabling the Willow oil project and Mountain Valley Pipeline, and supporting the expansion of liquefied natural gas exports.
For his part, former President Donald Trump, the leading contender for the Republican Party's nomination, has vowed to "drill, drill, drill" if he wins back the White House in 2024.