Can the Global South stop genocide? Gandikota Nellutla and Ken Roth
Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla is the general coordinator for Progressive International, a think tank working to unite, organise and mobilise progressive forces around the world.
She's also one of the founders and the executive secretary of the Hague Group, a coalition of nations from the Global South formed in January 2025 to uphold the rulings of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court regarding Israel-Palestine, and 'stand together to defend the principles of justice, equality and human rights'.
Among the collective measures the group has taken is to close their ports to ships carrying weapons or fuel to Israel and commit to honour international arrest warrants.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Jazeera
4 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Hezbollah chief says won't disarm until Israel leaves southern Lebanon
The Hezbollah chief says the Lebanese group remains open to peace, but it will not disarm or back down from confronting Israel until it ends its air raids and withdraws from southern Lebanon. 'We cannot be asked to soften our stance or lay down arms while [Israeli] aggression continues,' Naim Qassem told thousands of supporters gathered in Beirut's southern suburbs on Sunday for Ashura, an important day in the Shia Muslim calendar. Ashura commemorates the 680 AD Battle of Karbala, in which Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Imam Hussein, was killed after he refused to pledge allegiance to the Umayyad caliphate. For Shia Muslims, the day symbolises resistance against tyranny and injustice. The Beirut area, a Hezbollah stronghold, was draped in yellow banners and echoed with chants of resistance as Qassem delivered his speech, flanked by portraits of his predecessor, Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by Israel in September last year. Israel launched a wide-scale assault on Lebanon on October 8, 2023 – a day after Palestinian group Hamas, which counts Hezbollah as an ally, stormed the Israeli territory, killing some 1,100 people and taking about 250 others captive. The Hamas attack was immediately followed by Israel's bombing of the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. The Israeli genocidal campaign was accompanied by a brutal blockade on entry of food and medical aid, bringing the enclave's 2.3 million residents to the brink of starvation. Israel's simultaneous attack on Lebanon escalated into a full-scale war by September 2024, killing more than 4,000 people, including much of Hezbollah's top leadership, and displacing nearly 1.4 million, according to official data. A United States-brokered ceasefire nominally ended the war in November. However, since the ceasefire, Israel has continued to occupy five strategic border points in southern Lebanon and has carried out near-daily air strikes that it says aim to prevent Hezbollah from rebuilding its capabilities. Those strikes have killed some 250 people and wounded 600 others since November, according to Lebanon's Ministry of Health. 'How can you expect us not to stand firm while the Israeli enemy continues its aggression, continues to occupy the five points, and continues to enter our territories and kill?' Qassem said in his video address. 'We will not be a part of legitimising the occupation in Lebanon and the region. We will not accept normalisation,' he added, in an apparent response to Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar saying his government was 'interested' in such a move. Qassem said Hezbollah's weapons would not be on the negotiating table unless Israel 'withdraws from the occupied territories, stops its aggression, releases the prisoners, and reconstruction begins'. 'Only then,' he said, 'will we be ready for the second stage, which is to discuss national security and defence strategy.' On Saturday, Israeli drones carried out four strikes on southern Lebanese towns, killing one person and wounding several others. Most of the Israeli attacks have targeted areas near the border, but Israeli warplanes have also hit residential neighbourhoods in Beirut's southern districts, causing panic and mass evacuations. Qassem's speech came as the US envoy to Turkiye and Syria, Tom Barrack, was expected in Beirut on Monday. Lebanese officials say the US has demanded that Hezbollah disarm by the end of the year. Israel has warned it will continue striking Lebanon until the group is disarmed. But Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun has repeatedly called on the US and its allies to rein in Israel's attacks, noting that disarming Hezbollah is a 'sensitive, delicate issue'.
Al Jazeera
4 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
What's in Trump's ceasefire proposal and can it end Israel's war on Gaza?
Discussions of a ceasefire in Gaza have picked up in recent days. United States President Donald Trump said last week that Israel agreed to the conditions for a 60-day ceasefire, and negotiators could meet to carve out a path to finally ending Israel's nearly 21-month-long war on Gaza. Hamas said it delivered a 'positive response' to mediators, with amendments, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the Palestinian group's asks 'unacceptable' but sent negotiators to the Qatari capital, Doha, for talks nonetheless. Netanyahu is set to visit Washington, DC, on Monday, where reports say Trump would like a deal. 'There could be a Gaza deal next week,' Trump told reporters on Saturday, adding that he had not been briefed yet about Hamas's counterproposal but that it was 'good' that they had responded. Here's all you need to know: What is Hamas asking for? According to reports, there are three main demands: At least 743 Palestinians have been killed seeking aid at GHF sites in Gaza in recent weeks. In late June, the Haaretz newspaper reported that Israeli soldiers were deliberately ordered to fire on unarmed people waiting for food. Humanitarians have repeatedly said they are able to distribute aid and food to Palestinians in Gaza and have criticised the GHF for furthering Israel's political agenda. 'It makes aid conditional on political and military aims,' Tom Fletcher, the United Nations chief humanitarian, said in May. 'It makes starvation a bargaining chip. It is a cynical sideshow … A fig leaf for further violence and displacement.' Hamas wants the Israeli military to withdraw to the positions it held before it violated the ceasefire in March of this year. In May, the Israeli military began extensive new ground operations in Gaza, killing hundreds of Palestinians, to take 'operational control' of large swaths of the Strip. The Israeli military had already created the Netzarim Corridor, which splits the Gaza Strip into northern and southern sectors, soon after launching the war, and in April, Netanyahu announced the creation of the Morag Corridor in the southern Gaza Strip. In March, Israel unilaterally broke a ceasefire that had been agreed in January, despite the conditions for the ceasefire being upheld by the Palestinian side. This time, Hamas and other Palestinian groups want international assurances that this will not be repeated. Hamas reportedly wants a US guarantee that Israeli air attacks and ground operations, which have killed thousands of Palestinians, will not resume even if the ceasefire ends without a permanent end to the war. What does the original US-backed proposal say? There is reportedly a key focus on the remaining Israeli captives in Gaza. The plan is to release 10 living Israeli captives held by Hamas and the bodies of 18 others in exchange for Palestinians lodged in Israeli prisons. The release would be staggered over a number of days. Fifty captives are still in Gaza, with about 20 reportedly alive. On the question of aid, the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross would contribute to distributing sufficient quantities to Palestinians. Lastly, it calls for phased pull-outs of Israeli troops from parts of Gaza. What is Israel saying? Netanyahu reportedly agreed to the original US proposal but has called Hamas's amendments 'unacceptable'. He has said he will not end the war until all captives are released and Hamas is 'destroyed'. The latter goal has been called impossible by many analysts and is believed to be an open-ended political objective for Netanyahu to continue the war as long as he believes it will serve his personal interests. Netanyahu is on trial for corruption and is still widely blamed in Israeli society for the security failures that led to Hamas's Al-Aqsa Flood operation on October 7, 2023, during which 1,139 people died in Israel and about 250 were taken captive. Analysts believe Netanyahu wants to continue the retaliatory war on Gaza until he can gain enough political leverage to dismiss the cases against him and build enough popular support to remain the leader of Israel. Netanyahu's war has been supported by his far-right ministers, particularly Itamar Ben Gvir, minister of national security, and Bezalel Smotrich, the minister of finance. They want Israel's military operations to be intensified to kill more Palestinians and to stop providing any aid to the besieged and starving people in Gaza. What is life like for Palestinians in the meantime? Israel is still launching deadly attacks on Gaza, with at least 138 Palestinians killed in the last 24 hours, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, bulldozers are demolishing homes, and Israel has killed more than 1,000 people since October 7, 2023. People in the West Bank are also suffering recurring attacks by Israeli soldiers and armed settlers from illegal settlements, as well as severe limitations on movement and access to livelihoods. What are the chances a deal will be reached? Trump appears keen on reaching one, and Palestinians in Gaza are desperate for the Israeli attacks to cease. However, one major roadblock remains. 'Israel and Netanyahu are not interested in reaching a ceasefire,' Adnan Hayajneh, professor of international relations at Qatar University, told Al Jazeera, adding that there is a 'very slim chance' of a ceasefire. 'What Israel wants is clear … a land without a people,' Hayajneh said. 'So Palestinians are given three choices … starve to death … get killed … [or] leave the land, but Palestinians have so far proven they will not leave the land, no matter what.'
Al Jazeera
6 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Iran tells millions of Afghans to leave or face arrest on day of deadline
Millions of Afghan migrants and refugees in Iran have been asked to leave or face arrest as a deadline set by the government comes to an end. Sunday's target date neared amid public concerns over security in the aftermath of the 12-day conflict with Israel, which the United States joined with air strikes on Iran's uranium-enrichment facilities. But humanitarian organisations warned that mass deportations could further destabilise Afghanistan, one of the world's most impoverished nations. Iran is home to an estimated 4 million Afghan migrants and refugees, and many have lived there for decades. In 2023, Tehran launched a campaign to expel foreigners it said were living in the country 'illegally'. In March, the Iranian government ordered that Afghans without the right to remain should leave voluntarily by Sunday or face expulsion. Since then, more than 700,000 Afghans have left, and hundreds of thousands of others face expulsion. More than 230,000 departed in June alone, the United Nations International Organization for Migration said. The government has denied targeting Afghans, who have fled their homeland to escape war, poverty and Taliban rule. Batoul Akbari, a restaurant owner, told Al Jazeera that Afghans living in Tehran were hurt by 'anti-Afghan sentiment', adding that it was heartbreaking to see 'people sent away from the only home they have ever known'. 'Being born in Iran gives us the feeling of having two homelands,' Akbari said. 'Our parents are from Afghanistan, but this is what we've always known as home.' Mohammad Nasim Mazaheri, a student whose family had to leave Iran, agreed: 'The deportations have torn families apart.' The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that Iran deported more than 30,000 Afghans on average each day during the war with Israel, up from about 2,000 earlier. 'We have always striven to be good hosts, but national security is a priority, and naturally, illegal nationals must return,' Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Tuesday. Late last month, the UNHCR said, of the 1.2 million returning Afghans, more than half had come from Iran after its government set its deadline on March 20. 'They are coming in buses, and sometimes, five buses arrive at one time with families and others, and the people are let out of the bus, and they are simply bewildered, disoriented and tired and hungry as well,' Arafat Jamal, the UNHCR representative in Afghanistan said as he described the scene at a border crossing. 'This has been exacerbated by the war, but I must say it has been part of an underlying trend that we have seen of returns from Iran, some of which are voluntary, but a large portion were also deportations.' Al Jazeera's Resul Serdar, reporting from Tehran, said Afghans have increasingly been blamed for economic hardships, shortages and social issues in Iran. 'These accusations have been fuelled by political rhetoric and social media campaigns following 12 days of conflict between Iran and Israel and claims that Israel has recruited Afghans as spies,' he said.
