US lawmaker sends letter demanding investigation into killing of US-Turkish activist
Democratic Congressman Adam Smith said he penned the letter, along with more than 100 lawmakers, to US President Joe Biden, urging him to launch an independent investigation into the Israeli military’s killing of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi earlier this month in the occupied West Bank.
“Today, I sent a letter, cosigned by 102 of my colleagues, to urge the US to investigate the fatal shooting of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi. Given the evidence, we believe the United States must independently investigate whether this was a homicide,” he wrote in a post on X.
“To walk away without asking further questions gives Israeli forces unacceptable license to act with impunity. There must be accountability for Ms. Eygi’s death,” he added.
Muslim body calls for Blinken’s resignation over Gaza aid report
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a US Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation, is calling on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to resign after it was revealed he ignored assessments by US government agencies and officials indicating that Israel blocked US aid to Gaza earlier this year.
Investigative news outlet ProPublica reported yesterday that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) told the State Department in April that Israel was subjecting US humanitarian aid destined for Gaza to “arbitrary denial, restriction and impediments”.
In May, Blinken delivered a State Department report to Congress stating the opposite.
“When a senior American official lies to Congress in the middle of genocide so that the government can keep funding that genocide, he is deliberately flouting the law and prolonging the suffering of millions of innocent people who desperately need our government to stop funding their slaughter,” CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a statement.
Amnesty chief says Israel closing Al Jazeera Ramallah office is ‘censorship’
Agnes Callamard, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, told Al Jazeera that the Israeli military raid on Al Jazeera’s bureau in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, “is an example of censorship”.
“It’s an example of violations of press freedom,” she added, and “of how Israel is preventing the entire world from accessing crucial information”. “It is coming on top of the attacks on journalists in Gaza,” she added, noting that more journalists had been killed there than in any other recent conflict.
UN chief calls for international community to ‘mobilize’ for ceasefire
Antonio Guterres said “nothing can justify” the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7 or the “collective punishment of the Palestinian people” by Israel that followed as he called for an end to hostilities.
“The international community must mobilize for an immediate ceasefire, the immediate & unconditional release of all hostages, and the beginning of an irreversible process towards a two-state solution,” he wrote on X.
On Tuesday, Guterres said at the UN General Assembly that Lebanon is close to becoming another Gaza, saying the crisis has “become a nonstop nightmare that threatens to take the whole region down”.
