Israeli protesters clash with police over Gaza genocide
Israeli protesters holding pictures of starving Palestinian children and calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza clashed with police on Thursday in Tel Aviv.
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Al Jazeera
an hour ago
- Al Jazeera
Hamas denies it expressed willingness to disarm, slams Witkoff's Gaza trip
Hamas has denied claims it expressed a willingness to disarm during Gaza ceasefire negotiations with Israel, stressing that it has 'national and legal' rights to confront the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. In a statement on Saturday, the Palestinian group rejected recent remarks purportedly made by United States President Donald Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, during a meeting with relatives of Israeli captives held in Gaza. Citing a recording of the talks, Israeli news outlet Haaretz reported that the US envoy told the families that Hamas said it was 'prepared to be demilitarised'. But Hamas said in its statement that the group's right to resistance 'cannot be relinquished until our full national rights are restored, foremost among them the establishment of a fully sovereign, independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital'. Witkoff met the Israeli captives' families in Tel Aviv on Saturday, one day after he visited a US and Israeli-backed aid distribution site run by the controversial GHF in Gaza. More than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed trying to get food at GHF-run sites since the group began operating in the bombarded Palestinian enclave in May, the United Nations said earlier this week. Hamas had earlier slammed Witkoff's visit as a 'staged show' aimed at misleading the public about the situation in Gaza, where Israel's blockade has spurred a starvation crisis and fuelled global condemnation. But the Trump administration has stood firmly behind GHF despite the killings and growing global criticism of the group's operations in Gaza. In June, Washington announced that it approved $30m to support GHF. Witkoff's comments on disarmament come amid a widening international push to recognise a Palestinian state amid the scenes of starvation in Gaza. The United Kingdom announced at a two-day United Nations conference in New York this week that it may follow France in recognising a Palestinian state in September. Echoing an earlier statement by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Foreign Secretary David Lammy said London would proceed with recognition if Israel did not meet certain conditions, including implementing a ceasefire in Gaza. The UN meeting also saw 17 countries, plus the European Union and the Arab League, back a seven-page text on reviving a two-state solution to the conflict. The text called on Hamas to 'end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority, with international engagement and support, in line with the objective of a sovereign and independent Palestinian State'.
Al Jazeera
5 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
I may starve to death before I am able to graduate in Gaza
On July 27, the Palestinian Ministry of Education released the results of the secondary education certificate exams, also known as tawjihi. Like every year, families sat together, eyes fixed on phone screens, hearts pounding, everyone hoping to be the first to access the ministry's website and break the news with a jubilant shout. There were joyful tears and celebrations. Thousands of students, who had endured months of pressure, sleepless nights and fragile hope, had the exam results in their hands that would determine whether and where they could continue their education. But thousands of others – those in Gaza – were sitting in their tents and ruined homes in despair. I am one of them. This is the second year I, along with 31,000 other Palestinians born in 2006, was unable to take the tawjihi. For another year, we have been stripped of our right to continue our education and of the hope to build a future beyond the ruins. Now, we are joined by almost 40,000 students born in 2007, who are also stuck in this dreadful limbo. Last year, when the tawjihi results were announced, I was huddled in front of a crackling fire near a tattered tent, far too small to hold my big dreams. The deep frustration I felt didn't fade – it settled in my mind and stayed. All I could think about was how all my sacrifices, tears, and relentless effort during a full year of studying under difficult circumstances had been for nothing. This year, it feels even worse. Not only are my dreams of education crushed, now I struggle to keep myself and my family alive, as Gaza is starving to death. In these two years, I have watched our education system destroyed, classroom by classroom. My school, Shohada al-Nusierat, once a place of learning and dreams, first became a shelter housing displaced families and then a target for Israeli bombing. My schoolbag – once filled with notebooks and study materials – now carries essential documents and a change of clothes, always packed and ready in case we are forced to flee our home again. The academic calendar, with all its important dates, has been replaced by a grim schedule of air strikes, displacement, and loss of friends and loved ones. Amid this devastation, the Education Ministry has struggled to keep an educational process going. Wanting to give Gaza's children and youth hope, it has undertaken various initiatives to try to keep students motivated. Makeshift schools have been organised wherever possible, while some university students have been able to continue their education online. For us, the tawjihi students, efforts were repeatedly made to set up our exams. Last year, the ministry announced it would conduct the exams in February. I kept studying, despite the harsh reality and the collapse of everything around me, believing this was my chance to move forward. February passed, and nothing happened. The ministry then announced that the exams would be held in April. But once again, they were postponed due to the unsafe conditions. Then, in June, the ministry scheduled an online exam for July for students born in 2005 who had either failed their tawjihi or missed some of its exams; they were supposed to have done this exam in December 2023. Some 1,500 students were able to take the tests online. This gave me a bit of hope that my turn would also come, but that quickly faded. The Ministry of Education hasn't given us any updates on the process, and it feels like we've been completely forgotten in the shadow of war and starvation. Some readers may ask themselves, why amid a genocide are Palestinians so preoccupied with an exam? You have to understand, tawjihi is a milestone in every Palestinian's life – a decisive moment that shapes future paths for at least the next five years. It determines whether we can pursue our education in the field we desire and gain admission to top universities. But beyond academics, tawjihi carries a much deeper cultural and emotional weight. It is not just an educational phase – it is part of our identity, a symbol of perseverance. In a place where the occupation closes nearly every door, education is able to keep a few doors still open. That's why we celebrate it like a national holiday; the day tawjihi results are released feels like a third Eid for Palestinians. It gives families hope, brings pride to entire neighbourhoods, and keeps alive the dream of a better future. Over the many months I waited for the tawjihi, I held on to my dream to study medicine at a prestigious university abroad. I kept applying for scholarships and sending emails to universities across the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe, hoping for special consideration as a student affected by war. I pleaded with university administrators to waive the tawjihi certificate requirement. But the responses were painfully consistent: 'Unfortunately, we cannot consider your application unless you provide your final diploma.' Today, despair and helplessness are not the only unwanted visitors I have. Hunger is another one. The starvation has destroyed not only my body but also my mental health. Most days, we manage to have one meal. We survive mostly on canned beans, dry bread, or rice without any vegetables or protein. Our bodies are weak, our faces pale, and our energy almost nonexistent. The effects go beyond the physical. Hunger fogs the brain, dulls memory and crushes motivation. It becomes nearly impossible to focus, let alone study for a life-changing exam like the tawjihi. How can I prepare for the most important exam of my life when my stomach is empty and my mind clouded by fatigue and worry? It feels as though my youth has been stolen before my eyes, and I can do nothing but watch. While my peers around the world are building their futures, I remain stuck in a place of overwhelming pain and loss. As a tawjihi student trapped in a warzone, I urgently call on educational authorities and international institutions to step in and implement immediate solutions to ensure our right to education is not buried under the rubble of war. We are not asking for much. Giving us a chance to finish our secondary education in Gaza is not just a matter of logistics, but a matter of justice and future survival. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
Al Jazeera
12 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Nigeria kills her sun: Death and vindication for Ken Saro-Wiwa, Ogoni Nine
Lagos, Nigeria – 'Lord, take my soul, but the struggle continues,' the man said, before his body went limp. It swung gently from the makeshift gallows, hurriedly built a few days earlier. Before that morning, the prison had last enforced a death sentence 30 years earlier, during British rule. It was November 10, 1995. For weeks, local activists from the small Ogoniland settlement in Nigeria's lush Niger Delta region had been protesting against oil spills seeping into their farmland and the gas flares choking them. The Niger Delta, which produces the crude that earned Nigeria 80 percent of its foreign revenues, teemed with gun-carrying soldiers from the military dictatorship of the feared General Sani Abacha. They responded to the protests with force. That day, the loudest Ogoni voice – renowned playwright and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa – faced his fate. A week earlier, a military tribunal had declared his sentence. And just the day before, five executioners tasked with carrying it out had flown in from the northern city of Sokoto. At 5am that morning, Saro-Wiwa and the eight other Ogoni activists accused alongside him of murder were moved from the army camp where they had been held to the prison grounds in Port Harcourt, the regional hub a few hours drive from Ogoniland. There, they were herded into a room and shackled. Then, one after the other, they were led out to the gallows. Saro-Wiwa went first. It took five attempts to kill him. After one failed tug, the activist cried out in frustration: 'Why are you people treating me like this? What kind of country is this?' On the final attempt, the gallows finally functioned as they were supposed to. By 3:15pm, all nine men had been executed. Their bodies were placed in coffins, loaded into vehicles and escorted by armed guards to the public cemetery. On the streets, thousands of horrified people watched the procession as soldiers fired tear gas into the air to quell any thoughts of rebellion. No relatives of the nine men were allowed into the cemetery. There were no dignified burials, no parting words from loved ones. Thirty years later, on June 12 this year, Nigeria's Democracy Day, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu pardoned Saro-Wiwa and the others – the Ogoni Nine as they had become known. He went on to call them heroes and awarded them prestigious national titles. For Saro-Wiwa's daughter Noo Saro-Wiwa, who is now aged 49, and other relatives of the executed men, the pardons were moving but insufficient. In Ogoniland, it reopened old wounds that remained as deep as when they were first inflicted all those years ago. Saro Wiwa, accidental environmental activist Before his death at age 54, Saro-Wiwa wanted to be known as a great writer. A bundle of energy, he dabbled in many things, but books were his true love. More than two dozen books, poems and essays bore his name. His radio dramas and TV plays were wildly successful, particularly one that mocked the corrupt Nigerian elite, which took over after independence in 1960. In the short story Africa Kills Her Sun, Saro-Wiwa eerily warned of his killing: A man condemned to death pens a long letter to his lover, Zole, on the eve of his execution, telling her not to grieve. Saro-Wiwa's execution made him a martyr for the Ogoni people – the man whose death drew international attention to their plight. In 1958, when Nigeria discovered oil in the southern Niger Delta, of which Ogoniland is a part, a 17-year-old Saro-Wiwa wrote letters to the government and oil companies questioning how delta communities would benefit from oil dollars. Later on, his essays highlighted how Ogoniland still lacked infrastructure – roads, electricity, water – despite the oil. In October 1990, Saro-Wiwa led the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), which he cofounded, to present the Ogoni Bill of Rights to the Nigerian government. In it, the Ogoni people denounced the dominance of the majority tribes (Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo) and the sidelining of minorities like the Ogoni. They called for political autonomy and direct control of oil profits, saying: 'Thirty years of Nigerian independence has done no more than outline the wretched quality of the leadership of the Nigerian majority ethnic groups and their cruelty as they have plunged the nation into ethnic strife, carnage, war, dictatorship, retrogression and the greatest waste of national resources ever witnessed in world history, turning generations of Nigerians, born and unborn into perpetual debtors.' It marked Saro-Wiwa as a thorn in the side of the military dictators, and from 1992 to 1993, he was arrested without charge several times. Still, he continued to condemn the slow death he said Ogonis were sentenced to. 'I accuse the oil companies of practising genocide against the Ogoni,' he wrote in one article. The Nigerian government, he said, was complicit. Saro-Wiwa's fervour took hold in Ogoniland. About 300,000 Ogonis, out of a population of half a million, marched with him in January 1993 to peacefully protest against the Nigerian government and Shell, the oil company that they said bore particular responsibility for the oil spills in their part of the delta. It was one of the largest mass demonstrations Nigeria had ever seen at the time. Protesters carried signs with messages like: 'Assassins, go home.' The protests were so large that the world began to notice the Ogonis and the slight, articulate man speaking for them. Soon, he was speaking at the United Nations, presenting the Ogonis' case there. Environmental rights groups like Greenpeace noted and supported his activism. By the end of that year, riots were breaking out, and angry protesters had destroyed oil pipelines worth billions of dollars. Shell was forced to suspend operations. The government promptly deployed a special task force to suppress what is now known as the Ogoni Rebellion. Soldiers brutally put down protests, carried out extrajudicial killings, and raped and tortured scores of people, according to reports by Amnesty International. In-fighting and mob actions in Ogoniland By 1994 and with soldiers still in Ogoniland, tensions were running high. Splits within the MOSOP leadership were also emerging with one side, led by Saro-Wiwa, calling for a stronger stance against the government and another preaching pacifism. Edward Kobani was a childhood friend of Saro-Wiwa's. He was also a pacifist who opposed his friend's mobilisation of young people in rallies that rang with angry rhetoric. His stance against violence upturned their relationship. More broadly, the mood in the region was turning against the pacifists, who were increasingly seen as sellouts colluding with the military regime and Shell although there is no evidence they were working with either. On May 21, 1994, word spread that some MOSOP leaders had gathered for a meeting at the chief's palace in Ogoniland's Gokana district but soldiers had blocked Saro-Wiwa from entering the area. Incensed, rioters marched to the meeting point and attacked those they could lay their hands on. Four of them – Kobani, Alfred Badey, and the brothers Samuel and Theophilus Orage, who were Saro-Wiwa's in-laws – were clubbed with everything from broken bottles to sharpened rakes. Then they were set on fire. The Nigerian military immediately accused Saro-Wiwa of inciting the killings and arrested him the next day. At a news conference, the military administrator of Rivers State, which Ogoniland is part of, declared MOSOP a 'terror group' and Saro Wiwa, a 'dictator who has … no room for dissenting views'. Eight other MOSOP leaders were arrested: Nordu Eawo, Saturday Dobee, John Kpuine, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Daniel Gbooko, Barinem Kiobel and Baribor Bera. In detention, the men were reportedly chained, beaten and denied medication or visits. Amnesty International described their trial by military tribunal as a 'sham'. Civilian defence lawyers were assaulted and their evidence discarded. In protest, the lawyers boycotted the hearings. Reports at the time described how Saro-Wiwa, knowing he was already condemned, looked ahead blankly or flipped through a newspaper in court. Fighting for justice for the Ogoni Nine Noo Saro-Wiwa was 19 and in her second year of college when her father was executed. Born in Port Harcourt, she lived and studied in London. On the day of the execution, she had no inkling that her world had changed. It wasn't until late that night that her mother, Maria, managed to reach her on her landline. Her first reaction was shock. Noo, who is now a travel writer and author based in London, told Al Jazeera in a phone call that it was hard to imagine the man who would amble into her room while she idled on her bed and thrust a book in her face with a 'Read this!' could be killed in such a way. After all, powerful international voices had spoken up to pressure the Nigerian government to release him: Nelson Mandela was among them. Noo's brother, Ken, was in New Zealand to attend the opening of the annual Commonwealth of Nations meeting and press for Nigeria's suspension. The association of former British colonial states was an important aid avenue for Nigeria at the time. The world, too, reacted with shock. Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth, and the United States and several other countries severed diplomatic ties. Noo remembers wondering why United Kingdom news channels were repeatedly running the story. That's when it dawned on Noo how great her father's task had been. Her family was determined to get justice, but it was a long road, Noo explained. In 1996, her brother and uncle sued Shell, which the Ogoni Nine families accused of complicity by aiding the military. Shell denied the allegations. The case, filed in the US under a law that allows for jurisdiction in foreign matters, dragged on until 2009 when the company settled for $15.5m. Shell said it was 'humanitarian and legal fees'. It mostly went towards paying lawyers and establishing a trust fund that still provides scholarships to Ogoni students, Noo said. It's annoying, though, she added, that critics claim her family and the others got rich on the settlement. 'It was a tiny amount,' she said. 'And even if it weren't, who wants their parent killed for a $15m settlement?' For many years, Noo said, she couldn't bear to visit Nigeria or hear the name 'Shell' without feeling overwhelmed. The company was also taken to The Hague in 2017 by a group of Ogoni Nine widows with the support of Amnesty International; however, a judge ruled there was no evidence that Shell was complicit in the government executions. Meanwhile, Amnesty said in a 2017 report that it had found evidence that Shell executives had met with military officials and 'encouraged' them to suppress protests. The company, the report said, transported soldiers and in 'at least one instance paid a military commander notorious for human rights violations'. Shell denied the claims and said it pleaded with the government for clemency for the Ogoni Nine. Noo has since found the strength to visit Ogoniland. She first went back in 2005, 10 years after her father's execution. The region has become even more volatile as ethnic militias now patrol the creeks, attacking soldiers, controlling oil pipelines and kidnapping oil workers at sea. Noo said her next book will focus on the devastation in her homeland. Her brother and mother died in the past decade, leaving her and Zina, her US-based twin sister. The losses set her back, she said, but she now frequently travels back home to document the oil spills, which are still going on, although Shell never resumed operations after the 1993 protests. Life as a writer abroad contrasts jarringly with her life back home, Noo said. One week, she is walking down the streets of Paris, and the next, she is standing in oil-soaked farms in Ogoniland. But her work in Nigeria, she added, reminds her of her father's struggle. 'My father was a real kind of David vs Goliath,' Noo said. 'Most people back then had never even heard of Ogoni. As I get older, I'm just always more in awe of what he achieved. It was quite incredible.' Too little, too late? Shell's leaky pipes continue to pump oil into the earth all these years later, environmental groups say. The company, which plans to sell its onshore assets and exit the Niger Delta after so many years of controversy, has always claimed its pipes are being sabotaged. Calculated or accidental, the oily devastation is visible in the eerie stillness of Ogoniland's mangroves, which should be alive with the sounds of chirping insects and croaking frogs. In the murky rivers floating with oil, old, stooped fishermen cast nets that bring up air. Nubari Saatah, an Ogoni, has long advocated for Ogonis to control their oil wealth, just as activists before him did. The president of the Niger Delta Congress political movement said Ogonis have remained resentful since the rebellion, primarily because Nigeria has not repaired the ruptured relationship or rectified injustices by giving Ogonis control over their land. Saatah, author of the 2022 book What We Must Do: Towards a Niger Delta Revolution, regularly appears on radio and TV shows to comment on the Niger Delta crisis and often places the blame for the region's instability at the government's doorstep. 'The violent militancy that engulfed the Niger Delta was a direct reaction to the violence visited on the peaceful methods employed by Ogoni,' Saatah said. 'Unfortunately for the Ogoni, the executions brought about a leadership vacuum that has still not been filled till today,' he added. A UN Environmental Programme report in 2011 found that more than 50 years of oil extraction in Ogoniland had caused the water in much of the region to be contaminated with extremely high levels of toxic hydrocarbons like benzene. In one village, benzene in the groundwater was up to 900 times the accepted World Health Organization standard. Cleaning up the devastation and restoring the land would require the 'world's most wide-ranging and long-term oil clean-up exercise ever undertaken', the report said. Although Nigeria and Shell committed in 2012 to a clean-up through the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP), more than a decade later, progress has been slow and hard to measure, critics said. Saatah blamed the government for the lack of results. Abuja, he said, has not funded the programme as promised. To Ogonis, that feels like a message that the government does not care, he added. Shell, meanwhile, has contributed $270m to the project. Al Jazeera reached out to HYPREP for comment but did not receive a response. Still, there is some change, Saatah noted. When the clean-up started, government authorities installed a sign at the community well in Saatah's village of Bomu that read: 'Warning! Do not drink this water.' People hardly glanced at the post as they fetched their drinking water, largely because there were no alternative water sources. In the past five or so years, however, HYPREP has installed potable water tanks in Bomu. Saatah worries, though, about whether the government will maintain the costs in the long run and whether the burden will be put on his community. Some in Ogoniland see Abuja's renewed interest through the recent pardoning of the Ogoni Nine as suspicious, coming as it does at a time when Nigeria is in the throes of one of its worst financial declines and when the government is desperate to extract and sell more crude oil. Resuming active exploration in Ogoniland, which stopped in 1993, could yield up to 500,000 barrels of crude per day, a MOSOP official, which is still operating, told reporters last year. That would be on top of the current 1.7 million barrels per day produced from other parts of the delta. 'The lines are there to be connected between oil resumption and the pardon of the Ogoni Nine,' Saatah said. The pardons, he said, were to sweeten the Ogoni people and avoid any opposition. As things stand, though, Ogoni communities are unlikely to agree to renewed exploration, he added, first, because locals still cannot control oil profits and, second, because rather than make Ogonis happy, Tinubu's pardoning of the Ogoni Nine has only worsened tensions internally, Saatah said. Rifts that emerged during the 1994 crisis have not healed. The fact that the president's speech did not acknowledge the four murdered MOSOP members in the mob action that led to Saro-Wiwa's arrest has angered their families and supporters, some of whom fault the aggressive stance of Saro-Wiwa for what happened. Noo and the Ogoni Nine families are not completely satisfied with the government's move either. The national honour was a welcome surprise, Noo said, but the pardons were not enough. 'A pardon suggests that something, that a crime had been committed in the first place,' she said. 'But nothing's been committed.' What she wants, she added, is for the conviction of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni Nine to be thrown out of the country's history books.
