Letters to the Editor: elections, Gaza and flooding
The massive unchecked election spending by Dunedin mayoral candidate Andrew Simms and his Future Dunedin Party highlights how weak local body election spending controls have become.
Limitations on election spending for the October elections do not take effect until mid July and until then Mr Simms is having a field day with, amongst other things, many full page advertisements in this newspaper.
American democracy has been seriously flawed by money in politics and it is something we don't want to see here. In a sense, if you have enough money then politics becomes no longer an even playing field as the rich or their surrogates affectively buy their way into office.
[Bill Southworth is a former local body election candidate. Editor.] When it all started
The editorial ( ODT 21.5.25) quite rightly recognises the abhorrent genocide occurring in Gaza, with relentless bombing and intentional starvation through the blockade of aid.
However, we challenge the editor's misconception that this situation started on October 7th 2023 with the Hamas raids.
It started in 1948 when the state of Israel was created on 55% of historic Palestine, driving more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes (the "Nakba"/Catastrophe).
Since then the settler colonial state of Israel has continued expanding, forcing Palestinians into an ever-shrinking land area, in an apartheid state with few rights, despite many United Nations resolutions/reports condemning Israel's war crimes.
Since 2005, Gaza has become the world's largest open-air prison, with Israel restricting water/electricity/food/medicines.
Experts have long warned that conditions were unliveable.
In this context it is abhorrent to state that "Hamas started this".
This genocide must be stopped. We call on all institutions to BDS (Boycott/Divest/Sanction) Israel, and for countries to condemn this ongoing genocide. Otago University Staff for Palestine group Great courage, but
Shame on Netanyahu. It takes great courage to speak such words these days.
Yesterday's editorial (21.5.25) gave me hope ... such a rousing buildup would surely lead to a brave, unequivocal condemnation of Israel's genocide in Gaza, something very lacking in New Zealand today. I sincerely commend you for standing up for humanitarian principles and against Israel's outrageous actions over the last 18 months. It is very refreshing.
However, by then framing the "start" of this "latest dreadful conflict" as being on October 7th 2023, you completely ignore that day's context, within a conflict that has been incessant for 76 years (at least for the Palestinians).
While laying blame on Hamas for "starting it", you fail to mention that since 1948, Palestinians have faced a mixture of systematic government sanctioned displacements, ethnic cleansing, killings, settler violence, administrative detentions, illegal occupation and apartheid.
Your words simply empower Netanyahu's very false narrative, that Israel was attacked on October 7, for no reason at all.
[Similar letters received and noted, from R Robert, S Loader. Editor.] Flooding and the blind acceptance of piffle
In the absence of meaningful post publication comment on the full page ODT disclosure of plans for mitigation of South Dunedin's flooding issues, may I draw to your attention the lack of arithmetical eptitude in the proposed Dunedin City Council solutions.
The plan outlined four options ranging from $2.5 billion to $7.5b. A google search reveals that some 900 South Dunedin properties were flooded in the last event, which appears to have been exacerbated by the lack of maintenance on the stormwater mud tanks. Let's call it 1000 properties for the sake of numerical simplicity: it follows that the cheapest proposed remediative option is to cost $2.5 million per property, and the most expensive option would cost $7.5m per property.
A drive round South Dunedin fails to identify one property that would fetch $2.5m on an open market, with the owners of most of the 900 properties, at risk of an inability to gain insurance, being unable sell for more than half a million.
That councillors have not factored this analysis into their considerations demonstrates their alarming lack of understanding of number, and a blind acceptance of the piffle they are being fed by senior DCC staff.
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
5 hours ago
- RNZ News
Israel said Hamas was looting aid — then it armed the gangs who were actually stealing it
Mohammad Salman says the bandits who raid aid convoys call themselves "the ones who block the roads". Photo: ABC News By Eric Tlozek and Chérine Yazbeck, ABC Groups of men huddle around fires, waiting for aid trucks to roll through central Gaza. Some of them used to be teachers and other professionals. Now they have banded together to form gangs and raid aid convoys. The scene is like one from the Mad Max movies, a dystopian setting where there are no rules. "We are a group of men organised into crews - we call ourselves 'the ones who block the roads'," one of the men, Mohammad Salman, told the ABC . "If you want to get aid and secure food, you have to come through here; otherwise you won't eat. "Today, all these people have become gangsters. They seize food from trucks and anything they find on the road. They'll take food away from anyone. If someone grabs food from a truck and I don't get my share, I'll go after him. "That's how we have become. If someone gets something, I will take it from him to eat. "Some people here die from stabbings and attacks - all over food. We've all turned into mafias and road blockers." Some of the men say they have worked with a gang leader named Yasser Abu Shabab. Once a wanted criminal, it's now widely believed that Abu Shabab has been armed and protected by the Israeli government - to take control of the part of southern Gaza where his family holds sway. Abu Shabab is apparently an unlikely figure to lead a resistance against Hamas's rule in Gaza, Gazan analyst Muhammad Shehada, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in The New Arab . "Police in Gaza were perplexed when he emerged as a top gang leader. The security source told The New Arab that Abu Shabab is 35-years-old, thin, weak, short [around 150 centimetres tall], uncharismatic, illiterate, has strabismus in one eye, and has never received military training," he said. "To them, he didn't seem like someone with the leadership skills necessary to form a group of 300 armed militants, steal truckloads of aid, and store it under the radar." Israeli media have reported Abu Shabab escaped from jail with Israeli assistance early in the war. "He was in a Hamas prison until October 2023 for theft and drug offences, and his release came under the cover of an Israeli attack on security facilities in the Strip at the beginning of the war. From that moment on, his name emerged as someone who would fill the security vacuum in eastern Rafah," the Israeli newspaper Maariv wrote. The UN says Yasser Abu Shabab's gang has been raiding aid trucks with the apparent indifference or protection of the Israeli military. Photo: Supplied / Facebook The United Nations has identified Abu Shabab's gang as one of those raiding aid convoys when they entered Gaza, saying they were doing so with the apparent protection or indifference of the Israeli military. Former French diplomat Jean-Pierre Filliu, who spent one month in Gaza with Doctors Without Borders from December 2024 to January 2025, said he witnessed the gang being protected by the IDF while looting trucks. "The Israeli military recognised its inability to promote a clan-based alternative to Hamas and decided to rely more or less openly on organised crime," he wrote in Le Monde . "The key figure in this manoeuvre was a previously minor member of a Rafah family, Yasser Abu Shabab, whom Hamas had imprisoned in the past for his various trafficking activities. But Israeli protection allowed Abu Shabab to substantially expand its activities and poach, from other clans, some 100 loyalists ready for anything, often ex-convicts. "What could only be called a gang operated under the eyes of the Israeli army - and it was equipped with brand-new weapons, an irrefutable indication of its collaboration with the occupiers." A gang member confirmed to the ABC that Abu Shabab's group had been stealing and selling aid. "People would work normally with Yasser just like employees. He had two shifts. It was easy," the gang member said. "We used to stand by the roadside to wait for trucks from Gaza to Kerem Shalom. I would take whatever I could - flour, sugar, anything we needed." The man explained that much of the looted food was then sold to merchants, although he insisted aid groups were given some of it. "They would unload the goods, and traders would come to buy them. Half of the supplies were distributed to institutions like schools," he said. "The aid agency would arrive to collect its share and then distribute it to schools." Gangs waiting to loot aid trucks at the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza. Photo: ABC News The gang member alleged Hamas had previously been stealing some aid, something the group denies. "He [Yasser] was working in security when he saw the government and Hamas members stealing from the aid trucks as they passed through central Gaza and Nuseirat," he told the ABC . "That's when he decided to take action - stealing the trucks to distribute some of the aid himself, handing out money, flour - and that was it." Abu Shabab and his men, now calling themselves "the Anti-Terror Service" or the "Popular Forces", have been accused by many Gazans of working with the Israeli government. The Israeli government has said openly it has backed groups like the one Abu Shabab runs. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted in June that his government had "activated" clans in Gaza opposed to Hamas. That sparked concerns from the opposition that their weapons could eventually be turned on the IDF, or used to create unmanageable chaos. "In consultation with security officials, we made use of clans in Gaza that are opposed to Hamas," he said in a video on social media. "What's wrong with that? It saves the lives of IDF soldiers." The Times of Israel said Defence officials had confirmed Netanyahu was referring to the Abu Shabab gang. "The sources confirmed that Israel has been arming the gang with Kalashnikov rifles, including some that were seized from Hamas during the ongoing war," it wrote on 5 June. Former Israeli defence minister Avigdor Lieberman has alleged Abu Shabab had ties to the IS terrorist group. "The Israeli government is giving weapons to a group of criminals and felons, identified with Islamic State, at the direction of the prime minister," he told Israeli public radio. The Abu Shabab group was alleged to be providing security for the new, Israeli and US-backed food distribution operation, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Some of the gangs looting aid have reportedly been armed and protected by Israeli authorities. Photo: ABC News It denied any links with the gang. "GHF has no association with Yasser or the 'Anti-Terror Service'," it said in a statement sent to the ABC . Hamas fighters have attacked the group, but said Israeli forces came to its defence, Israeli media reported. The arrival of the new aid operation has changed conditions in the south of Gaza, but Hamas is still keen to kill or imprison Abu Shabab again. On 2 July, the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry in Gaza gave Abu Shabab 10 days to surrender himself and face trial for treason. The ABC called and sent messages to Yasser Abu Shabab but did not receive a response. Comment has also been sought from the Israeli government and the IDF. Meanwhile, the Israeli government and military continue to dismiss United Nations reports of a worsening hunger crisis in Gaza. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is only distributing food parcels at limited locations in southern and central Gaza. Israel's government last month stopped allowing food shipments into the north. The "men who block the roads" are still waiting by the aid routes, hoping for any chance to seize supplies and stay alive.
Otago Daily Times
6 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Israel blames 'malfunction' after children killed collecting water
At least eight Palestinians, most of them children, were killed and more than a dozen were wounded in central Gaza when they went to collect water on Sunday, local officials said, in an Israeli strike which the military said missed its target. The Israeli military said the missile had intended to hit an Islamic Jihad militant in the area but that a malfunction had caused it to fall "dozens of metres from the target". "The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians," it said in a statement, adding that the incident was under review. The strike hit a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, killing six children and injuring 17 others, said Ahmed Abu Saifan, an emergency physician at Al-Awda Hospital. Water shortages in Gaza have worsened sharply in recent weeks, with fuel shortages causing desalination and sanitation facilities to close, making people dependent on collection centres where they can fill up their plastic containers. Hours later, 12 people were killed by an Israeli strike on a market in Gaza City, including a prominent hospital consultant, Ahmad Qandil, Palestinian media reported. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the attack. Gaza's health ministry said on Sunday that more than 58,000 people had been killed since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023, with 139 people added to the death toll over the past 24 hours. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and fighters in its tally, but says over half of those killed are women and children. CEASEFIRE? US President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said on Sunday that he was "hopeful" on Gaza ceasefire negotiations underway in Qatar. He told reporters in Teterboro, New Jersey, that he planned to meet senior Qatari officials on the sidelines of the FIFA Club World Cup final. However, negotiations aimed at securing a ceasefire have been stalling, with the two sides divided over the extent of an eventual Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian enclave, Palestinian and Israeli sources said at the weekend. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to convene ministers late on Sunday to discuss the latest developments in the talks, an Israeli official said. The indirect talks over a US proposal for a 60-day ceasefire are being held in Doha, but optimism that surfaced last week of a looming deal has largely faded, with both sides accusing each other of intransigence. Netanyahu in a video he posted on Telegram on Sunday said Israel would not back down from its core demands - releasing all the hostages still in Gaza, destroying Hamas and ensuring Gaza will never again be a threat to Israel. The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages into Gaza. At least 20 of the remaining 50 hostages there are believed to still be alive. Families of hostages gathered outside Netanyahu's office in Jerusalem to call for a deal. "The overwhelming majority of the people of Israel have spoken loudly and clearly. We want to do a deal, even at the cost of ending this war, and we want to do it now," said Jon Polin, whose son Hersh Goldberg-Polin was held hostage by Hamas in a Gaza tunnel and slain by his captors in August 2024. Netanyahu and his ministers were also set to discuss a plan on Sunday to move hundreds of thousands of Gazans to the southern area of Rafah, in what Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has described as a new "humanitarian city" but which would be likely to draw international criticism for forced displacement. An Israeli source briefed on discussions in Israel said that the plan was to establish the complex in Rafah during the ceasefire, if it is reached. On Saturday, a Palestinian source familiar with the truce talks said that Hamas rejected withdrawal maps which Israel proposed, because they would leave around 40% of the territory under Israeli control, including all of Rafah. Israel's campaign against Hamas has displaced almost the entire population of more than 2 million people, but Gazans say nowhere is safe in the coastal enclave. Early on Sunday morning, a missile hit a house in Gaza City where a family had moved after receiving an evacuation order from their home in the southern outskirts. "My aunt, her husband and the children, are gone. What is the fault of the children who died in an ugly bloody massacre at dawn?" said Anas Matar, standing in the rubble of the building.
1News
6 hours ago
- 1News
Live stream: PM Luxon gives Cabinet meeting update
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is back from his holiday and is updating media after Cabinet met earlier today. Recent developments include: Labour on Sunday confirmed MP Peeni Henare will contest the by-election for the Tāmaki Makaurau seat, competing against Oriini Kaipara, who was named as Te Pāti Māori's candidate on Friday. Erica Stanford, both Minister of Education and of Immigration, unveiled an ambitious plan to double the economic contribution of New Zealand's international education sector to $7.2 billion by 2034, up from $3.6 billion last year. A group of industry bodies and independent energy retailers launched a campaign calling for an overhaul of the energy market. Energy Minister Simon Watts responded, saying a review into the market's affordability and reliability was underway and announcements would come "in due course". ADVERTISEMENT Founders of the Canterbury Charity Hospital, Dame Sue Bagshaw and Dr Phil Bagshaw, issued a warning that increasing reliance on private healthcare providers for elective surgeries will undermine patient outcomes and move New Zealand towards a American-style system.
