Palestinian filmmaker wins Peabody Award for Gaza coverage
Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda and AJ+ won a Peabody Award – one of the highest honours in journalism – for coverage of the devastating impact that Israel’s war on Gaza is having on local people.
The award was announced on Thursday for the first video in Owda’s series for AJ+ on daily life under Israel’s bombardment.
Owda sent a videotaped message from Rafah to the world on winning the award. “Acknowledging journalists’ efforts at this time is really important to me,” Owda said. “It shows the world what’s happening to us. At a time when the [Israeli] occupation is murdering us – journalists, doctors, medics and civilians – as if we were supporting terrorism,” she said.
“We rise to simply document the genocide happening to our people and we expose the oppression to the world,” she added. “A terrorist is one who commits genocide, supports genocide, stands by genocide, remains silent during genocide, and rejoices in genocide.”
People in Rafah ‘pawns’ in chess game between Israel and US
Ori Goldberg, an Israeli political commentator, told Al Jazeera that the fate of Rafah’s population is being used by Israel as a bargaining chip amid growing tension with the US over the conduct of its war on the Palestinian territory.
“I don’t think Israel is shrugging off American pressure. I think Israel is posturing,” Goldberg told Al Jazeera.
“This is not yet a ground operation. Israel is hedging its involvement in the situation in Rafah. It is a horrible thing to say, but right now the Palestinians in Rafah are pawns in a game that is mostly being played between Israel and the United States. It’s not with Hamas.
“If Netanyahu can deliver on a deal, which is the only achievement he can have as an offensive on Rafah is not considered an achievement, even in Israel. If he can deliver on a deal, he will seem like the prime minister who most definitely had his cake and ate it too.
“We’ve seen Israel when it isn’t in a negotiating mood. We’ve seen Israel attack, decimate, destroy mercilessly. The attacks now on Rafah, as sad as it is to say, are still more of a ploy than they are an offensive plan. Israel has nothing to accomplish in Rafah.
“Rafah and its inhabitants are now pawns in a game played, as I said before, between Israel and the United States.”
Blinken expected to say Israel not breaking law on use of US weapons: Report
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to submit a report to Congress today on whether Israel has violated international humanitarian law during its war on Gaza, news outlet Axios reports, citing three unnamed officials.
The report is expected to harshly criticise Israel’s conduct, but stop short of concluding that it has violated the terms of use for US weapons.
US President Joe Biden issued a National Security Memorandum (NSM-20) in February, requiring the State Department to report to Congress by May 8 over the credibility of Israeli assurances that its use of US weapons had not violated US or international law.
On Thursday, Biden admitted publicly that US weapons had been used to kill innocent civilians in Gaza while announcing the suspension of a shipment of bombs to Israel over its plans to invade Rafah.
Hamas active in north Gaza, expects to rebuild in south after Rafah invasion: Monitors
As Israel prepares to launch a full ground invasion of southern Gaza’s Rafah city, Israeli forces carried out their third “re-clearing” of Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood on Wednesday, “demonstrating that Hamas remains active beyond just Rafah”, war monitors said.
In their latest battlefield assessment, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP) – two US-based think tanks – note that despite Israel’s repeated “clearing efforts”, Hamas “remains active and combat effective in the northern Gaza Strip”.
As Hamas has rebuilt its capacity in northern Gaza, so too will it likely rebuild in Rafah after the planned ground operation, the ISW and CTP said.
“Hamas’ remaining presence throughout the Gaza Strip supports CTP-ISW’s assessment that Hamas expects that it would survive an Israeli clearing operation into Rafah,” the monitors said.
“Hamas likely calculates that it could rebuild itself in Rafah in the same way that it is currently in the northern Gaza Strip,” they said.
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