Gaza rescuers say Israel fire kills 36, six of them near aid centre
Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 36 Palestinians on Saturday, six of them in a shooting near a US-backed aid distribution centre.
The Israeli military told AFP that troops had fired "warning shots" at individuals that it said were "advancing in a way that endangered the troops".
The shooting deaths were the latest reported near the aid centre run by the Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF) in the southern district of Rafah and came after it resumed distributions following a brief suspension in the wake of similar deaths earlier this week.
Meanwhile, an aid boat with 12 activists on board, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, was nearing Gaza in a bid to highlight the plight of Palestinians in the face of an Israeli blockade that has only been partially eased.
Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that at around 7:00 am (0400 GMT), "six people were killed and several others wounded by the forces of the Israeli occupation near the Al-Alam roundabout", where they had gathered to seek humanitarian aid from the distribution centre around a kilometre (a little over half a mile) away.
Palestinians have congregated at the roundabout almost daily since late May.
AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls compiled by the civil defence agency or the circumstances of the deaths it reports.
Samir Abu Hadid, who was there early Saturday, told AFP that thousands of people had gathered near the roundabout.
"As soon as some people tried to advance towards the aid centre, the Israeli occupation forces opened fire from armoured vehicles stationed near the centre, firing into the air and then at civilians," Abu Hadid said.
- Activist boat nears Gaza -
The GHF, officially a private effort with opaque funding, began operations in late May as Israel partially eased a more than two-month-long aid blockade on the territory.
UN agencies and major aid groups have declined to work with it, citing concerns it serves Israeli military goals.
On Saturday, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said that the overall toll for the Gaza war had reached 54,772, the majority civilians. The UN considers these figures reliable.
The war was sparked by Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
Israel has come under increasing international criticism over the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, where the UN warned in May that the entire population was at risk of famine.
The aid boat Madleen, organised by an international activist coalition, was sailing towards Gaza on Saturday, aiming to breach Israel's naval blockade and deliver aid to the territory, organisers said.
"We are now sailing off the Egyptian coast," German human rights activist Yasemin Acar told AFP. "We are all good," she added.
In a statement from London, the International Committee for Breaking the Siege of Gaza -- a member organisation of the flotilla coalition -- said the ship had entered Egyptian waters.
The group said it remains in contact with international legal and human rights bodies and warned that any interception would constitute "a blatant violation of international humanitarian law".
The Palestinian territory was under Israeli naval blockade even before Hamas's October 2023 attack and the Israeli military has made clear it intends to enforce it.
"For this case as well, we are prepared," army spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin said on Tuesday.
- Body of Thai hostage recovered -
"We have gained experience in recent years, and we will act accordingly."
A 2010 commando raid on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was part of a similar attempt to breach Israel's naval blockade, left 10 civilians dead.
The Israeli military has stepped up its operations in Gaza in recent weeks in what it says is a renewed push to defeat Hamas, whose October 2023 attack sparked the war.
On Saturday, the military issued evacuation orders for neighbourhoods in northern Gaza, saying they had been used for rocket attacks.
Separately, in a special operation in the Rafah area on Friday, Israeli forces retrieved the body of Thai hostage Nattapong Pinta, Defence Minister Israel Katz said.
"Nattapong came to Israel from Thailand to work in agriculture, out of a desire to build a better future for himself and his family," Katz said.
He was "brutally murdered in captivity by the terrorist organisation Mujahideen Brigades", the minister charged.
The Mujahideen Brigades is an armed group close to Hamas ally Islamic Jihad that Israel has also accused over other deaths of hostages seized from Kibbutz Nir Oz near the border.
The military said Nattapong's family and Thai officials had been notified of the operation.
Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Nikorndej Balankura said the country was "deeply saddened" by his death.
During the October 2023 attack, militants abducted 251 hostages, 55 of whom remain in Gaza, including 31 the Israeli military says are dead.
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ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
Antoinette Lattouf's unlawful sacking exposed the power of lobbying on the Australian media
Last weekend, I wrote a piece about the news-gathering model and media literacy. It mentioned how governments, militaries, and lobby groups try to stop the media telling stories, and it wondered if news audiences would like major media outlets to talk about it more: "They might be shocked to learn about the orchestrated bullying that goes on, which is designed to discourage editors and journalists from reporting on certain topics and framing stories in certain ways, even speaking to certain people," the piece said. "Would it improve media literacy if the media wrote about these issues openly and regularly?" Then, three days later, we heard relevant news. On Wednesday, the Federal Cout ruled that the ABC had unlawfully sacked journalist Antoinette Lattouf, in December 2023, for reasons including that she held political opinions opposing the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. Justice Darryl Rangiah found external pressure from "pro-Israel lobbyists" had played a role in the ABC's decision. Ms Lattouf had been employed by the ABC on a small five-day contract, as a fill-in summer radio host. But Justice Rangiah found that soon after Ms Lattouf presented her first program that summer, the ABC began to receive complaints from members of the public. "The complaints asserted she had expressed antisemitic views, lacked impartiality and was unsuitable to present any program for the ABC," he wrote. "It became clear that the complaints were an orchestrated campaign by pro-Israel lobbyists to have Ms Lattouf taken off air." For journalism students, it's an important case study. Many of you would have discussed it in class last week. But everyone should read Justice Rangiah's judgement. It details what went on behind the scenes at the ABC when the email campaign against Ms Lattouf began, and how it contributed to a "state of panic" among some senior ABC managers (many of whom have since left the organisation). It also showed how such pressure campaigns work. Not only had pro-Israel lobbyists sent dozens of emails to the ABC calling for Ms Lattouf to be taken off air, but their complaints found their way to News Corp's The Australian newspaper, which then told the ABC it was planning to report on the fact that the ABC had received complaints (which fed the growing panic inside the ABC). That's how the game is played. After the Federal Court's ruling was published on Wednesday, the ABC's new managing director, Hugh Marks, said the ABC had let down its staff and audiences. "Any undue influence or pressure on ABC management or any of its employees must always be guarded against," he said. A large number of articles were also written about the court's ruling. Alan Sunderland, a former editorial director of the ABC, said the public broadcaster had lessons to learn from the saga. "The world these days is filled with those who seek to control, bully and pressure public interest journalism in all its forms," he wrote. "The role of senior managers is to stoutly resist that pressure, and protect journalists from it as much as possible." Paula Kruger, the chief executive of Media Diversity Australia (and a former ABC radio host), made other points. She said news audiences had to trust that news outlets were capable of telling truthful stories, but the impact that that orchestrated pressure campaign had on the ABC had "shaken trust internally and externally". "You break trust with the broader community when an interest group can go to the top of an organisation and get its way. Lobbyists skip the process that everyone else must follow," she wrote. She also raised the topic of media literacy and trust. She said we often talk about ways to improve the public's media literacy, but the decline in trust in the media should not be a problem for audiences to fix; it was the responsibility of news organisations. "Silencing one side of the story isn't success. Shutting down voices isn't 'social cohesion,'" she wrote. "But silencing and shutting down were the preferred responses of senior ABC management under pressure from pro-Israel lobbyists. We need a different approach to our most difficult conversations." That last point is worth thinking about. In last weekend's article, I made a reference to Hannah Arendt's famous 1971 essay on the Pentagon Papers. But she wrote another essay, in 1967, that deserves a reference today. In that earlier essay, Truth and Politics, Arendt famously argued that "objectivity" and "impartiality" were revolutionary concepts that helped to usher in the modern world. In fact, she left her readers with the impression that those concepts were pillars of so-called "western civilisation": "The disinterested pursuit of truth has a long history," she wrote. "I think it can be traced to the moment when Homer chose to sing the deeds of the Trojans no less than those of the Achaeans, and to praise the glory of Hector, the foe and the defeated man, no less than the glory of Achilles, the hero of his kinfolk [...] "Homeric impartiality echoes throughout Greek history, and it inspired the first great teller of factual truth, who became the father of history: Herodotus tells us in the very first sentences of his stories that he set out to prevent 'the great and wondrous deeds of the Greeks and the barbarians from losing their due meed of glory'. "This is the root of all so-called objectivity ... without it no science would ever have come into being." So, according to Arendt's logic, if we allow ourselves to be intimidated into privileging certain voices when reporting on major global conflicts, and silencing other voices, we'll be abandoning a pillar of "western civilisation". And that was the same essay in which Arendt wrote her famous line about the disorienting affect that relentless propaganda can have on the human brain. "It has frequently been noticed that the surest long-term result of brainwashing is a peculiar kind of cynicism — an absolute refusal to believe in the truth of anything, no matter how well this truth may be established," she wrote. "In other words, the result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lies will now be accepted as truth, and the truth be defamed as lies, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world – and the category of truth vs. falsehood is among the mental means to this end – is being destroyed," she said. Arendt said we could try to keep our bearings in the world — and combat such propaganda — by building and protecting "certain public institutions" that revered truth above politics. And she said an independent judiciary, the historical sciences and the humanities, and journalism were among them. But let's wrap things up. It's naive to think "the media" is always and everywhere obsessed with "the truth." There are plenty of players in the media that are motivated by other things. But consider the editors and journalists that really do try to tell the truth. As we discussed last week, there's a global multi-billion-dollar industry dedicated to capturing, controlling, and confusing the "trusted stories" the media tells every day: Different governments, militaries, multi-nationals, and lobby groups are always trying it on. The ABC was involved in a different controversy six years ago when concerns were raised internally about Adani's apparent ability to squash an ABC radio story about the economics of Adani's Carmichael mine. Readers say once they start noticing things like that about the media, it can damage their trust in the media's stories. If you spend any time on social media these days, you may have also noticed how millions of people are now teaching each other about the subtle ways in which media outlets use language and imagery to privilege certain perspectives and diminish others in their daily news reports. The type of critical media analyses you'll get in every journalism and communications degree at university has jumped out of the academy and onto peoples' phones. For example, consider the headlines below and see if you can spot the differences in language: Why is the language in the first headline so passive and vague? Why is the language in the second headline active and precise? Modern audiences are regularly engaging in that kind of media "decoding" in private now, while they're doom-scrolling, so it presents an opportunity for media outlets to start having deeper conversations with their audiences about the way things work, if they choose to. Those conversations could be uncomfortable for some. But they may lead to more truthful storytelling.
Sydney Morning Herald
3 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
How does the Lattouf judgment affect employees' freedom of speech?
Those hoping the Federal Court's findings in the Antoinette Lattouf case will go some way to answering a question surrounding the rights of workers to express their political opinion ‒ and the rights of employers to prevent them ‒ will probably be disappointed. Lattouf's case was mounted on the basis that her employment contract was unlawfully terminated, in breach of section 772 of the Fair Work Act, due to her expression of her political opinion, or, alternatively, her race and political opinion. A secondary but related issue was that the ABC breached the staff enterprise agreement. The ABC relied on the defence that it had terminated Lattouf's employment for reasons that did not include her political opinion, race or national extraction but because of her failure to follow a direction from her producer not to post anything about the Israel-Gaza war and because she had contravened the ABC's 'Personal use of social media - Guidelines'. The court found in Lattouf's favour, noting that Lattouf had not been given a direction, but simply general guidance. It also found that the ABC was ultimately unable to identify any breaches of the social media guidelines or editorial guidelines or policies. The decision is helpful in highlighting that employers are in general able to issue directions to employees about publicly expressing their views. The judgment refers to the established right of employers to issue 'lawful and reasonable' directions. It also suggests that these directions must be made clearly and, ideally, rely on established and accessible policies. Loading Doing so enables employers to point to a specific employee breach if they wish to take disciplinary action. If they can't, then they leave themselves open, as did the ABC, to accusations of discrimination under provisions such as section 772. The decision is helpful, but not groundbreaking, leaving one big question unanswered: the one we are still asking after a series of messy disputes ‒ think Folau, Khawaja, Gillham to name some recent examples. That is, how far can employers go in attempting to control employees' 'freedom of speech'? In the Lattouf case, the Federal Court was not required to make any finding on this. It was required only to consider whether a direction was issued or a policy in place, not when the making of such directions or policies itself impinges on an individual's freedom of political expression. In thinking about this question, we must consider the delicate balance between employers' rights to protect their reputation and their obligation to maintain a safe workplace and employees' rights to self-expression. Where is the line that can't be crossed? And what are the institutional protections that might come into play in deciding where to draw that line?
The Age
3 hours ago
- The Age
How does the Lattouf judgment affect employees' freedom of speech?
Those hoping the Federal Court's findings in the Antoinette Lattouf case will go some way to answering a question surrounding the rights of workers to express their political opinion ‒ and the rights of employers to prevent them ‒ will probably be disappointed. Lattouf's case was mounted on the basis that her employment contract was unlawfully terminated, in breach of section 772 of the Fair Work Act, due to her expression of her political opinion, or, alternatively, her race and political opinion. A secondary but related issue was that the ABC breached the staff enterprise agreement. The ABC relied on the defence that it had terminated Lattouf's employment for reasons that did not include her political opinion, race or national extraction but because of her failure to follow a direction from her producer not to post anything about the Israel-Gaza war and because she had contravened the ABC's 'Personal use of social media - Guidelines'. The court found in Lattouf's favour, noting that Lattouf had not been given a direction, but simply general guidance. It also found that the ABC was ultimately unable to identify any breaches of the social media guidelines or editorial guidelines or policies. The decision is helpful in highlighting that employers are in general able to issue directions to employees about publicly expressing their views. The judgment refers to the established right of employers to issue 'lawful and reasonable' directions. It also suggests that these directions must be made clearly and, ideally, rely on established and accessible policies. Loading Doing so enables employers to point to a specific employee breach if they wish to take disciplinary action. If they can't, then they leave themselves open, as did the ABC, to accusations of discrimination under provisions such as section 772. The decision is helpful, but not groundbreaking, leaving one big question unanswered: the one we are still asking after a series of messy disputes ‒ think Folau, Khawaja, Gillham to name some recent examples. That is, how far can employers go in attempting to control employees' 'freedom of speech'? In the Lattouf case, the Federal Court was not required to make any finding on this. It was required only to consider whether a direction was issued or a policy in place, not when the making of such directions or policies itself impinges on an individual's freedom of political expression. In thinking about this question, we must consider the delicate balance between employers' rights to protect their reputation and their obligation to maintain a safe workplace and employees' rights to self-expression. Where is the line that can't be crossed? And what are the institutional protections that might come into play in deciding where to draw that line?
