By Rick Gladstone and Maggie Haberman A destroyed neighborhood in eastern Ghouta in March, days after Syrian government forces took it from rebels. Intense bombardment — mainly airstrikes by Russian and Syrian government planes — killed 1,100 people in the area in less than a month, a United Nations panel found.CreditAgence France-Presse — Getty Images At least twice this year, the Syrian military fired Iranian-made artillery shells filled with a chlorine-like substance that oozed poison slowly, giving victims just a few minutes to escape. In another attack, Syrian forces dropped a chemical bomb on the top-floor balcony of an apartment building, killing 49 people, including 11 children. Their skin turned blue. These details and others blaming Syria for atrocities in eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, were uncovered by a United Nations commission investigating and documenting possible war crimes in the seven-year-old conflict. But when the commission issued a report on Wednesday, the details were omitted. Seven pages that had been in an earlier draft, provided to The New York Times, were summarized in two paragraphs in the final document. The commission’s report examined how the government of President Bashar al-Assad recaptured eastern Ghouta, the rebel stronghold near the capital, in the first four months of 2018. Mr. Assad’s forces laid siege to the area, using bombardments, mass starvation and chemical weapons. The materials in the leaked draft paint a far more frightening picture of chemical weapons use in eastern Ghouta than had been previously reported. And they assert without qualification that Syrian forces and their allies were responsible, rebutting repeated denials by Mr. Assad’s government and his backers in Russia and Iran. A member of the commission explained the omissions, saying that many of the details in the early draft needed additional corroboration or clarification and might be included in another report, perhaps by September. There was no outside pressure to withhold the information, said the member, Hanny Megally, an Egyptian human rights lawyer. “We thought we need to do some more work on this, it’s an ongoing investigation,” Mr. Megally said. “So we thought, let’s keep it short.” But the conclusions in the omitted information seemed unambiguous. The leaked draft stated: “In one of the most grim patterns of attack documented during the period under review, Government forces and/or affiliated militias continued to use chemical weapons in densely populated civilian areas throughout eastern Ghouta.” In meticulous detail, the draft enumerated six chemical weapons assaults on civilians from January through April 7, the date of the deadliest assault. In what appeared to be a first, it implicated Iranian-supplied weaponry. In attacks on Jan. 13, Jan. 22 and Feb. 1, the draft said, government forces fired chemical agents, “most probably chlorine,” into a residential part of eastern Ghouta’s Douma neighborhood, near a sports stadium, roughly 800 yards from the front lines, between 5 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. Some witnesses described a “slow-acting agent” that smelled like chlorine, the draft said, and they had sufficient time “to rouse the victims, obtain wet cloths to serve as makeshift face masks, and evacuate the affected areas.” In the Jan. 22 and Feb. 1 attacks, the draft said, the commission had evidence identifying the bomb delivery devices as surface-to-surface industrially produced Iranian artillery rockets, “only known to have been used by Government forces and, rarely, affiliated militias.” “In relation to the munitions used on 22 January and 1 February, the Commission obtained and assessed material evidence including metadata analysis, and identified a surface-to-surface craft-produced rocket (IRAM). While IRAMs have been employed by a range of actors across Syria, the particular design of observed during these two attacks is only known to have been used by Government forces and rarely, affiliated militias. Specifically, IRAMs documented were built around industrially-produced Iranian artillery rockets known to have been supplied to Syrian Government forces.” The draft said that the eastern Ghouta attacks had followed “a pattern previously documented by the Commission concerning the use of chemical weapons by Government forces,” and that none of them had suggested “the involvement of armed groups.” Thirty-one people, including 11 children, were sickened in the first three attacks, but none died. Two other episodes of possible chlorine use, on Feb. 25 and March 7, caused more extensive casualties, killing two children, including an infant, and injuring 18 civilians. The worst was yet to come, following the collapse of negotiations between Russian military officials and an insurgent group, Jaish al-Islam, to evacuate the Douma neighborhood and end the siege. On April 7, the draft said, an improvised explosive delivered from the air hit a multistory residential building roughly 200 yards from the Rif Damascus Hospital, the last functioning hospital in Douma. The draft described the explosive as a “single industrial gas cylinder” with fins that struck the top-floor balcony and appeared to have “rapidly released large amounts of a substance into the interior space of the residential apartment building.” “Positions and physical symptoms displayed by victims of the attack support witness claims that the agent acted rapidly,” the draft stated, “and likely indicate that a high concentration of the chemical sank downwards.” Based on witness statements and “material evidence received and analyzed by the Commission,” the draft stated, the dead showed “an array of symptoms consistent with exposure to a choking agent, including signs of foaming at the mouth and nose, blue skin indicating impaired blood circulation, meiosis (constriction of the pupils), as well as some cases of dilated (wide open) pupils.” “Statements and material evidence received and analysed by the Commission in relation to the deceased within the apartment building revealed an array of symptoms consistent with exposure to a choking agent, including signs of foaming at the mouth and nose, blue skin indicating impaired blood circulation, meiosis (constriction of the pupils), as well as some cases of dilated (wide open) pupils. Numerous victims unable to flee the building collapsed shortly after exposure.” Mr. Megally declined to go into detail over why such information was withheld from the report published on Wednesday. But he said that with the April 7 attack in particular, more information was needed, including precisely what killed the 49 people. “If we’re not sure what the cause of death was, we may be looking in the wrong place,” he said. “It’s better we finish the investigation, rather than release it in dribs and drabs.” The official version of the report was far more cautious about the chemical weapons incidents in question. In two attacks, for example, the report said the commission was “unable to obtain sufficient material evidence to conclusively identify the weapons delivery systems.” While the circumstances in the April 7 attack were “largely consistent with the use of chlorine,” it said, the symptoms were more consistent with the use of “another chemical agent, most likely a nerve gas.” The official version also condemned rebel forces for indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas. The commission, which has been compiling evidence of atrocities in the Syria conflict since shortly after the war began in 2011, has developed an extensive array of ways to gather information, even though Mr. Assad has not allowed its investigators into the country. Led by Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, a Brazilian diplomat and rights activist, the commission has even compiled a confidential list of Syrian officials and others who may be held accountable in a court some day. The earlier draft of its report on eastern Ghouta was shared by a person close to the commission, who had been consulted on the report and who declined to be identified. The leak suggested some internal dissension in the commission about the strength of its evidence concerning the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons in eastern Ghouta. It was also possible that the commission wanted to exercise caution ahead of an expected report on the April 7 attack in Douma by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which sent investigators to the site. Chemical weapons are banned by an international treaty that Mr. Assad signed under pressure in 2013, when his government was first accused of having used chemical weapons in the conflict — also in eastern Ghouta. The April 7 attack in Douma caused widespread international fury, particularly because many victims appeared to have been children shown gagging and choking, based on videos disseminated by witnesses and activists. The attack drew retaliatory missile attacks and airstrikes by Britain, France and the United States. Mr. Assad’s government, backed by Russia and Iran, sought to cast doubt about the Douma attack, suggesting it had been faked or carried out by insurgents. The Syrian government and its allies took control of eastern Ghouta two months ago after imposing what the commission’s report described as “the longest siege in modern history,” displacing more than 140,000 people from their homes and unleashing bombardments that destroyed hospitals, markets and schools, and forced residents to live in cellars and basements. Those bombardments — mainly airstrikes by Syrian and Russian planes — killed 1,100 civilians and injured 4,000 others in a period of less than a month from Feb. 18, the commission said in its report, which is to be delivered to the United Nations Human Rights Council next week. Tens of thousands of those who fled are still being held unlawfully by the government, which pursued a policy of blanket internment that the panel called “reprehensible.” Sieges are permitted under international humanitarian law. But, in a departure from established practice, the panel said it considered the way pro-government forces had conducted the siege of eastern Ghouta unlawful. “Certain acts perpetrated by pro-government forces during the siege laid to eastern Ghouta, including the deliberate starvation of the civilian population as a method of warfare, amount to the crime against humanity of inhumane acts, causing serious mental and physical suffering,” the panel concluded. © 2018 | The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/world/middleeast/un-syria-eastern-ghouta.html?login=email&auth=login-email

By Abdul Malik Mujahid What has happened to the Rohingya in Burma is an open-and-shut case of genocide about which few can plead ignorance. It has become the most satellite-documented genocide in history with before, during and after images. This photographic evidence is an unmistakable, undeniable real-time record of atrocity. Momentously, on Dec. 13, 2018, the U.S. House voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bipartisan resolution that declares the Burmese military’s atrocities against the Rohingya Muslim minority to be genocide. The House now officially has adopted the position that the ongoing policies of mass violence and displacement against the Rohingya by the Myanmar government constitute genocide, bringing the U.S. closer to emerging international consensus on the issue. Now, the ball is in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s court. Will the State Department see the writing on the wall? One could expect it would, given its own appraisal of the situation. The State Department spent $1.4 million to develop its own report, based on the most scientifically accurate survey data available. It reports that 82 percent of survivors have witnessed rampant killing of civilians by the Myanmar military; 82 percent have witnessed the destruction of Rohingya homes and villages, again mostly by the military; and over 50 percent have personally witnessed the use of rape or sexual assault as a military weapon against innocent civilians. To quote the report: “The recent violence in northern Rakhine State was extreme, large-scale, widespread, and seemingly geared toward both terrorizing the population and driving out the Rohingya residents. The scope and scale of the military’s operations indicate they were well-planned and coordinated.” This report should guide the State Department to adopt a clear policy regarding Burma. For starters, it must recognize the situation as a deliberate policy of genocide, premeditated and planned for some time. For its part, the United Nations also has completed a fact-finding mission in Burma and produced a report documenting the heinous crimes of the Tatmadaw, the Burmese military. The mission’s report, one of the longest human rights inquiries ever produced by the organization, joins a growing body of evidence establishing beyond reasonable doubt that the Tatmadaw has indeed committed genocide against its people. National governments no longer can deny the obvious. In September, Canada became the first country to declare that the actions of the Burmese military constitute genocidal crimes against a largely defenseless, innocent population. With 149 signatories to the U.N. treaty on genocide — which clearly states that cases of genocide require an international response — the official declaration of genocide by the U.S. State Department would resonate around the world. The global community would be compelled to act on the behalf of the Rohingya under international law. The case of the Bosnian genocide, which took 25 years to successfully prosecute, demonstrates the need to shift from a stance of punishing genocide to preventing it. In this sense, the case of the Rohingya presents an opportunity to make a clear, forceful statement that such unconscionable crimes will not be countenanced. On a policy level, the declaration of genocide is required to bring the kind of pressure to bear on the Burmese regime that would tilt the scale in favor of the Rohingya. For example, it would open the way to comprehensive economic sanctions, excluding food and medicine. Up until late 2016, the existence of sanctions led to democratic reforms in Burma. Once lifted, their absence sent an unmistakable signal to the Burmese military that there would be few consequences for its brutal actions. Bipartisan leaders in Congress and human rights advocates across the globe agree that the decision to remove sanctions was a grave miscalculation. In the name of humanity, the State Department should follow the House to declare genocide in Burma, resolve to support full sanctions except on food and medicine, and thus provide leverage for the restoration of Rohingya citizenship — an essential condition that must be in place for a safe, dignified return for the refugees. Doing so will go a long way toward restoring the image of the United States as a force for moral order in the world, and will make sure that the horrors of genocide are relegated to history books, where they belong, rather than headlines. As the House recognized, we stand at a crossroads. Down one path lies escalating genocidal violence by authoritarian, ethnonationalist states who have been emboldened by an apathetic international community. Down the other is the clear path of moral integrity, strongly stating that genocide will not be tolerated. The choice is clear. Abdul Malik Mujahid is a producer, author and entrepreneur who chairs the Faith Coalition to Stop Genocide in Burma, a united group of American faith leaders from diverse religious backgrounds.

By Adam Taylor Burmese troops and villagers were behind the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslims whose bodies were found in a mass grave in Rakhine state's Inn Din village, the military's commander in chief, Min Aung Hlaing, said Wednesday in a statement on Facebook. The admission marks the first time that Burma's powerful military has acknowledged wrongdoing in the violence that gripped Rakhine last year. In just a few months, more than 650,000 members of the Rohingya minority fled across the border into Bangladesh. The crisis was labeled a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” by the United Nations' top human rights official. The military statement may also offer further hints to help address one of the most urgent questions in a crisis that is thought to have left thousands dead: Where are the bodies? Late last year, the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders estimated that at least 6,700 Rohingyahad died violently during the exodus last year, mostly from gunshot wounds. The government of Burma, which is also known as Myanmar, has blocked numerous attempts by outside groups to investigate on the ground. “It's not as though there are human remains lying around everywhere,” said John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “We have reason to suspect that authorities have disposed of human remains, whether maliciously to hide evidence or for other reasons.” With access to the area limited, proof of killings has been hard to establish. U.N. human rights investigators and others have been denied access to the areas hit hardest by violence, while two Reuters journalists who were reported to be investigating evidence of a mass grave at Inn Din are on trial in Rangoon. Prosecutors are seeking charges that could impose a maximum prison sentence of 14 years, according to the reporters' attorney. Matthew Smith, chief executive officer of the human rights group Fortify Rights, said it was noteworthy that the grave referenced on Wednesday was the same being investigated by the Reuters journalists. “The authorities appear to have arrested them in order to halt the investigation while also sending a chilling message to other journalists and would-be truth tellers,” Smith wrote in an email. After numerous accounts of massacres emerged from survivors, human rights groups resorted to using commercial satellite imagery to look for evidence of violence. Matt Wells, senior crisis adviser at Amnesty International, said that although it was difficult to find mass graves using that technique, images seen by Amnesty had made it clear that Rohingya homes in the Inn Din area were burned down in what appeared to be a coordinated campaign. “It is one of the most striking examples of how targeted the burning has been in the military's campaign,” Wells said in a phone call. “The Rohingya portion of the village has been completely burned to the ground, whereas non-Rohingya buildings very nearby have been completely untouched.” In Wednesday's military statement, the office of the Burmese military's commander in chief said that villagers and security forces had acknowledged that they killed “10 Bengali terrorists” — a reference to the Rohingya whose bodies were found in Inn Din last year. The statement went on to claim that the soldiers involved were responding to provocations but added that they would be dealt with. “The army will take charge of those who are responsible for the killings and who broke the rules of engagement,” the statement continued, according to an Associated Press translation. “This incident happened because ethnic Buddhist villagers were threatened and provoked by the terrorists.” The Rohingya have been established in Burma for generations, but the government refuses to recognize members of the minority community as citizens and refers to them as Bengalis, implying that they are immigrants from Bangladesh who live in Burma illegally. Though limited in scope, Wednesday's message appears to contradict previous denials of a Burmese military involvement in violence against the Rohingya. In a report released in November, the military exonerated itself of accusations involving several atrocities, including rape and killings. The government has strongly denied suggestions of “ethnic cleansing” in Rakhine. It has estimated that 400 Rohingya died last year but said that 376 of them were terrorists involved in an armed insurgency. Last year, a group of foreign journalists was flown into the country to see a mass grave in northern Rakhine that authorities said contained the bodies of Hindu villagers who had been killed by Rohingya insurgents. Rights groups said that Wednesday's acknowledgment of involvement showed the need for Burma to allow outside investigators into Rakhine. “This grisly admission is a sharp departure from the army’s policy of blanket denial of any wrongdoing,” James Gomez, Amnesty International’s regional director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said in a statement. “However, it is only the tip of the iceberg and warrants serious independent investigation into what other atrocities were committed amid the ethnic cleansing campaign.” Human Rights Watch's Sifton said of the Burmese military: “This is not an institution that has any credibility. That is precisely why you need international observers and investigators involved now.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/01/10/in-a-first-burmese-military-admits-soldiers-killed-rohingya-found-in-mass-grave/?utm_term=.dff1547916c6 (c) 2018 The Washington Post

By Arthur Clech April 24, 2018—Homosexuals in Chechnya are at greater risk than anywhere else in the Russian Federation, and face police surveillance, blackmail, murder, incarceration in secret prisons and torture. At federal level, a 2013 law banning ‘propaganda on non-traditional sexual relationships to minors’ has reduced access to public space for the few organisations defending LGBT rights. This repression is not new. The 1996 penal code of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria recriminalised sodomy (mujelojstvo); article 148, which borrowed the term from Soviet law, was inspired by sharia and prescribed corporal punishment and, for repeat offenders, the death penalty or life imprisonment. The Kadyrovs, father and son, have made the war on terror part of day-to-day government and, to undermine Islamists’ influence, preached a religious rigorism equally hostile to homosexuality (see Chechnya’s very long state of emergency). Using strategies tested in the fight against the Islamists, the authorities blacklist families, attacking clan solidarity. Some detainees accused of being gay are forced to confess publicly in ‘liberation ceremonies’, which other men in their family are required to attend (1). The government has harnessed existing methods of social control: in 2008 Ramzan Kadyrov took a favourable stance on honour crimes, which are on the rise in Chechnya as elsewhere in the Caucasus. By shaming whole families, the authorities seek, often successfully, to involve them in repression, forcing victims to flee their homes; some have to take refuge in a country where they can elude reprisals from the diaspora. Women are forced into exile if they wish to pursue a homosexual lifestyle rather than obey the familial injunction to marry. According to Elena Smirnova of the Paris-based Urgence Homophobie, which takes in Chechen refugees, more than 100 have fled the country because of their sexual orientation, with the help of friends and even some benevolent police officers. Exact numbers are hard to gauge as refugees often hide the reason for their departure. Chechnya’s permanent state of war forces men to conform to a martial norm of virility. This has strengthened the traditional bonds between men in Caucasian societies, and two wars and clandestine resistance in the mountains have brought men in combat units even closer, in romantic friendships that sometimes lead to homosexual relations they must hide. A gulf has opened up between the rigid models of sexuality that emerged in the 1990s, and reality. Chechnya, like the rest of the Russian Federation, has inherited the Soviet tradition of denial of homosexuality. After the Bolshevik interlude during which it was decriminalised (1917-33), Stalin reintroduced into the penal code in 1934 an article prohibiting sodomy, with sentences of up to five years in a gulag. Though not all the data for 1934-93 is available, during the 1970s an average of 1,254 men a year were convicted. Hate speech, like Maxim Gorky’s 1934 call to ‘exterminate homosexuals and fascism will disappear’, was relatively rare in the Soviet era. The authorities were reluctant to give homosexuality any publicity, even negative, and preferred discreet campaigns: doctors and police worked together to stop sexually transmitted diseases or to intern homosexuals in psychiatric hospitals for having a ‘deviant’ sexual orientation (2). Only in 1999, six years after decriminalisation, did the health ministry ceased to consider homosexuality a disease. Many Chechens targeted by persecution have a Soviet era view of homosexuality, as both as a disease and treachery towards the Chechen nation, and explicit and virulent homophobia, connected with anti-western rhetoric, is part of the political agendas that inspire Chechens and Russians. Russia’s information minister last year told the media it was ‘genetically impossible’ for Chechens to be homosexual, unlike Europeans, who were guilty of indulgence towards these ‘degenerates’ (3). Vitaly Milonov, a member of the St Petersburg legislative assembly who proposed the city’s first anti-homosexual law, cited Chechnya as a model to be emulated in the fight against homosexuality, which he compared to fascism. © 2018 | Le Monde diplomatique Image:- Linda Mason

By Adam Taylor A new report says that children as young as 11 were beheaded by militants in Mozambique’s troubled Cabo Delgado province, where a local Islamist insurgency is battling against the government forces. Save the Children, an aid group based in Britain, said in a short account released Tuesday that it had spoken to displaced families who gave details of their young children being killed by militants from the local group referred to as al-Shabab. “That night our village was attacked and houses were burned,” a woman referred to as Elsa, 28, told the organization . “When it all started, I was at home with my four children. We tried to escape to the woods, but they took my eldest son and beheaded him. “We couldn’t do anything because we would be killed too,” Elsa said. Her son was 12, according to Save the Children. A 29-year-old woman whose name was given as Amelia also told the group her son was beheaded in similar circumstances. Save the Children did not give the full identity of the witnesses or their real names to protect their identities. “After my 11-year-old son was killed, we understood that it was no longer safe to stay in my village,” Amelia told the organization, explaining that they did not have time to properly bury her child before fleeing. There have been numerous reports of beheading in the Cabo Delgado conflict, including of children . In November, Police Commander Bernardino Rafael told The Washington Post that at least 50 people had been decapitated in the first half of the month. Chance Briggs, Save the Children’s country director in Mozambique, said that the reports of violence against children in Cabo Delgado “sicken us to our core” and said that staff had been brought to tears when speaking to witnesses. “While the world was focused on covid-19, the Cabo Delgado crisis ballooned but has been grossly overlooked,” Briggs said. The conflict in Cabo Delgado, a region in the northeast corner of Mozambique that is rich in oil and gas, intensified significantly last year. Much of the worst violence has been attributed to al-Shabab, a local Islamist group that does not have known links to the better known Somali group with the same name. Security experts have voiced concern about the arrival of foreign fighters who used techniques similar to those found in conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. U.S. officials said last year that the core Islamic State militant group provides fighters in Mozambique with training and other resources after formally adopting al-Shabab as the Mozambican wing of its Central Africa Province in June. The Biden administration designated al-Shabab as a “foreign terrorist organization” last week and imposed sanctions on the group. The United States has also pledged to send military specialists to train the Mozambican army. Of the more than 2,600 people who have died in the conflict since it began in 2017, roughly half were civilians deliberately targeted, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project . It isn’t only al-Shabab that has been accused of war crimes. Earlier this month, Amnesty International accused not only the militant group of unlawful killings but also government forces and a private military force allied with them, the Dyck Advisory Group. Soldiers working with the South African contractor had broken international law by “firing indiscriminately into crowds, attacking civilian infrastructure, and failing to distinguish between military and civilian targets,” said Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s regional director. Briggs said that now much of the concern was not only about the violence, but the enormous risks being placed on people displaced by the conflict. “A major concern for us is that the needs of displaced children and their families in Cabo Delgado far outweigh the resources available to support them,” Briggs said, adding that nearly a million people were now facing severe hunger as a result of the conflict. © The Washington Post 2021

Hezbollah has huge arsenal if Israel invades Lebanon Washington Post By Mohamad El Chamaa and Samuel Granados July 10, 2024 The Lebanese militant group has guided and unguided rockets, antitank artillery, and ballistic and anti-ship missiles, as well as drones equipped with explosives. By  Mohamad El Chamaa  and Samuel Granados   After nine months of cross-border conflict with Hezbollah, Israel says it is preparing for a full-scale war in Lebanon, warning the time for diplomacy is running out.   Hezbollah, a militia and political party that grew out of Lebanon’s civil war to become one of the strongest non-state actors in the Middle East, has been preparing for this moment since 2006, when Israeli forces last invaded the country.   It has received large shipments of rockets and drones from Iran, its principal patron, and has more recently begun to produce its own weapons. The group also boasts air defense capabilities, which most militias don’t have. Attacks since Oct 7 Source: ACLED. Data as of June 28 The group’s arsenal includes guided and unguided rockets, antitank artillery, ballistic and anti-ship missiles, as well as explosives-laden drones — portending a complex, multi-front conflict that could reach far into Israeli territory.   Analysts estimate Hezbollah has between 130,000 and 150,000 rockets and missiles, more than four times as many as its ally Hamas was believed to have stockpiled before the  war in Gaza . And the Lebanese group says it commands more than 100,000 soldiers, well over double the high-end  estimates  of Hamas’s prewar fighting force.   Most of Hezbollah’s weapons are lower-grade, unguided munitions, which could threaten Israel’s aerial defense systems if unleashed in large numbers. Even more concerning for Israel are precision munitions the group has said it possesses.   Hezbollah keeps a tight lid on its arsenal, leaving weapons experts to guess about the full extent of its capabilities. Much of what is publicly known comes from statements by the group and its leader, Hasan Nasrallah, who says his fighters have only used “a portion of our weapons” in escalating attacks on northern Israel since Oct. 8.   Israel’s military has retaliated with intense strikes on Lebanon, mostly in the south, using fighter jets, tanks, Hermes drones and  white phosphorus  munitions.   Tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced on both sides of the border.   At least 94 civilians and more than 300 Hezbollah fighters have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon, according to figures compiled by The Washington Post. The attacks have caused $1.5 billion in damage and have destroyed about 1,700 buildings, the Lebanese government estimates.   Israeli officials say Hezbollah attacks have killed 20 soldiers and 12 civilians. They have also damaged hundreds of homes and ignited fires that burned more than 40,000 acres.   Smoke rises from a fire in northern Israel that started after a Hezbollah attack. (Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu/Getty Images)   Rockets and missiles   Hezbollah first started hitting northern Israel a day after Hamas-led militants stormed the country on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages. The group has said it will continue  fighting  until Israel agrees to a cease-fire in Gaza.   Hezbollah has used different short-range missiles and rockets, at first targeting tanks and other technical equipment near the border before progressing to attacks on military barracks and bases.   On Nov. 11, Nasrallah revealed Hezbollah was using Burkan rockets. An improvised rocket-assisted munition that can be easily assembled, the Burkan has become a “signature weapon of Iran-supported groups in the region,” according to Fabian Hinz, a defense and military analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.   Attacks reported since Oct. 7 Hezbollah IDF   The Alma Research and Education Center, an Israeli think tank, says the weapon can be fired from a ground launcher and can cause “extensive destruction” up to 500 feet from the point of impact.   Gen. Mounir Shehadeh, a former Lebanese government coordinator to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, said the Burkan was first used and tested by Hezbollah in Syria — where Nasrallah deployed fighters to prop up President Bashar al-Assad during the country’s civil war.   Nasrallah also revealed in November that the group was using Katyusha rockets. Originally made by the Soviet Union and copied by Iran, they can travel 12 to 24 miles and are fired in a series.   Although they are unguided, Hinz says Hezbollah “can fire lots of them because they are cheap and, until certain ranges, they work.”   In an interview with Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV in early July, an artillery officer, identified as Hajj Muhammad Ali, speaking with his face blurred and voice altered, said the group is capable of firing 100 Katyushas at a time from truck-mounted launchers.   Iranian-made Raad rockets were used by Hezbollah in a  deadly attack  on the Israeli port city of Haifa during the 2006 war, but have not been unleashed yet during this round of fighting. In January, after Israel killed  top commander  Wissam al-Tawil, Hezbollah started showcasing more sophisticated rockets, including the Iranian-made Falaq model. This was followed by camera-equipped Almas weapons, guided antitank missiles that can pierce heavy armor.   Larger guided ballistic missiles, like the Fateh 110, present a greater threat, with a range of up to 185 miles, potentially putting Tel Aviv, and even Jerusalem, in the crosshairs. Similar missiles were used by Iran in an unprecedented — but well-telegraphed —  aerial attack  against Israel earlier this year, giving the Israeli military time to intercept them. It’s unclear what impact they might have if launched from across the border in Lebanon, especially in large numbers.   Nasrallah said in 2018 that Hezbollah possesses precision-guided munitions (PGMs), but the group has never tested or showcased them in public. More recently, in 2022, he claimed Hezbollah has the ability to “transform our rockets ... into precision missiles” with the help of Iranian experts.   Analysts say he could be referring to something like the  Spice kits  the United States provides to Israel to retrofit “dumb bombs” into precision munitions.   PGMs are more effective because they “they’re equipped with active seekers,” said Shaan Shaikh, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and deputy director of its Missile Defense Project.   “Nasrallah has talked about it, the [Israel Defense Forces] has raised concerns. ... But it’s hard to say anything definitive without proof,” he added.   Hezbollah missiles and rockets Hezbollah is secretive about its arsenal, Hinz said. It took 13 years for the group to reveal that it used a C-802 missile to sink an Israeli ship in 2006.   Anti-ship missiles could also be used to hit offshore oil rigs, specifically in Israel’s Leviathan gas field — a target the group alluded to in a video last month.   Drones   Hezbollah has a large fleet of drones at its disposal, varying in size, shape and capability.   According to official statements, the group first started using explosives-laden drones on Nov. 2 in an attack on an Israeli army post in the Golan Heights, footage of which was later released on its Telegram account. The IDF said two soldiers were injured. Hinz says the type of drone used in that and other attacks was most likely modeled after the Iranian Ababil-T drone, which the Alma Research and Education Center says can travel about 75 miles with nearly 90 pounds of explosives.   In mid-May, after Israeli forces invaded Rafah, in southern Gaza, Hezbollah unleashed a more advanced version that can fire two rockets and explode upon impact. The unmanned aerial vehicle was first used in a May 16 attack on an Israeli army garrison near the border, which  injured  three soldiers, the IDF said.   Hezbollah drones Although Iran is Hezbollah’s main arms supplier, the group has become more self-reliant in recent years. “Today, we in Lebanon, and for a long time, have begun manufacturing drones,” Nasrallah said in 2022, a claim he reiterated in June.   Hezbollah has also used commercial drones for reconnaissance, and to test for gaps in Israel’s aerial defenses. In late June, a drone flew undetected over Haifa for hours, recording footage of strategic sites. Alma believes it was an Iranian-made Hudhud-1 UAV; Hezbollah has not confirmed the model.   Air defenses   It is unusual for non-state actors like Hezbollah to have air defense capabilities, signaling the extent of the group’s preparedness for war.   Hezbollah has used surface-to-air munitions, most notably the Iranian-made 358 antiaircraft missile, to shoot down Israeli drones, according to Hinz.   On at least two occasions, the group also claims to have used more sophisticated munitions — likely the Iranian Sayyad-2C, Hinz said, a radar-guided missile that can reach targets at nearly 90,000 feet — against Israeli fighter jets, forcing them to retreat.   Such capabilities could present a unique, and unusual, challenge to Israel’s air superiority. “Hezbollah is far better equipped than Hamas,” Shaikh said.   Rockets fired from southern Lebanon are intercepted on Monday by Israel's Iron Dome air defense system. (Jalaa Marey/AFP/Getty Images)   Volume over quality   In early June, in response to the killing of a senior commander, Hezbollah lobbed 150 rockets and 30 drones in a single barrage, the largest such attack on Israel from the north. On Thursday, after another Israeli airstrike on a Hezbollah commander, the group upped the ante again, firing more than 200 rockets. In an all-out war, these so-called “saturation attacks” — in which hundreds of small rockets are launched at the same time — could overwhelm Israel’s  Iron Dome .   “They’ve already spent a lot of Iron Dome interceptors during the war in Gaza,” Hinz said. “How many do they have left?”   The Fateh ballistic missiles could also be unleashed in salvos, experts say, raising other critical questions about Israel’s level of preparation.   “How effective are David’s Sling and Arrow interceptors against these missiles?” Shaikh wondered, referring to Israel’s defense systems for medium- and long-range missiles. “Can the IDF detect, track and fire on these missiles while they’re being prepped for launch?”   “There’s a lot we don’t know.”   Lior Soroka in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.   Copyright 2024 The Washington Post

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Genocide Watch has creatively adapted its work to predict, prevent, stop and punish genocide and other forms of mass murder while ensuring the safety of our staff and our Alliance Against Genocide member organizations. Genocide Watch staff must work virtually, rather than in person in an office. Rather than allowing the pandemic to handicap our work, Genocide Watch has thrived. Using the power of virtual communications, Genocide Watch has conducted hundreds of meetings with its ten person staff in the US, Canada, the UK, and Spain. Our three-person Management Team is located in Northern Virginia and Montreal, Canada. Genocide Watch has actively participated in international meetings to plan projects for genocide prevention, including meetings at the National Security Council, the State Department, and with Alliance partner organizations in Washington DC, Nigeria, and Iraq. Genocide Watch’s operational methodology to maintain timely and reliable information on threats of genocide has four pillars: Staff Development, Digital Education, Virtual Communication, and Revitalization of the Alliance Against Genocide. Staff Development: Genocide Watch has always relied on brilliant student interns to assist Dr. Gregory Stanton in developing reports and educational resources on genocidal processes that are communicated to policy makers to warn them when preventive action is needed. These student interns do not receive monetary compensation, but they receive course credit for their work. Guided by his mentorship, leadership, and breadth of experience, Dr. Stanton has created a highly sought after, formative internship program that has launched many interns’ careers in genocide prevention. Genocide Watch maintains a loyalty among its former interns that lasts for years. To ensure that COVID-19 did not impede Genocide Watch’s ability to report on threats of genocides, in March 2020, three former Genocide Watch interns currently working in law, anti-human trafficking and global public health organizations designed and developed a virtual internship program for the Summer of 2020. They recruited ten extraordinary summer interns from universities around the world. Several of the interns have Masters degrees in genocide studies, political science, and law, and others are continuing their studies in masters or doctoral programs. Our interns are students in subjects as diverse as mathematics, economics, journalism, public policy, and public health. Utilising the interactive communications platform, Microsoft Teams, Dr. Stanton and the threeperson Management Team trained the ten Summer Interns from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Spain. The Summer 2020 internship class has developed several new genocide prevention resources. Genocide Watch intends to continue the virtual internship program in Fall 2020. We will sponsor virtual internships even after the COVID crisis has ended. Virtual internships make it possible for Genocide Watch to benefit from the skills of students around the world, including those who cannot afford to move to Washington, DC, and students who are still engaged in taking courses or writing Masters or Ph.D, theses. Digital Education: Introduced by Genocide Watch’s Senior Program Manager, Deanna Wilken, staff members have produced interactive reports housed on the Timestream platform. Timestream is a platform originally developed by the Ntrepid Corporation to provide law enforcement and government policy agencies with software to organize the histories of crimes, conflicts, and other complex social processes. Ms. Wilken recognized that Timestream is ideally suited to organize the detailed histories of conflicts that have either resulted in or may lead to genocides. It is an educational tool that can be very helpful to teachers and students who are studying genocides. It is more powerful than PowerPoint because it permits one click access to supporting charts, photos, news articles, and reports that enrich the presentation of historical data. Click here to view Timestreams on Myanmar’s Genocide of the Rohingya, and India’s threats to Muslims in Assam. Co-created by interns Naveen Bhatia and Alexandra Sharp, Genocide Watch has launched a new Podcast Series: Conversations on Genocide. Genocide Watch has a Zoom licence to record the audio and video of interviews. We subscribed to SoundCloud to disseminate the podcasts to our listeners. Click here to listen to the first episode, featuring Dr. Gregory Stanton, the Founding President of Genocide Watch. Genocide Watch aims to publish a new episode once a month and will be featuring genocide experts and survivor testimonies. Virtual Communication: Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Stanton has been collaborating with key U.S. policy makers to plan U.S. government actions to assist Nigeria in stopping genocidal massacres against Christians in northeast and central Nigeria. In June, Dr. Stanton spoke at the National Security Council with former Congressman Frank Wolf. They argued for a U.S. Special Envoy to investigate the crimes against humanity in Nigeria. Dr. Stanton also spoke at press conferences on the genocide of Christians in Nigeria organized by In Defense of Christians and by the International Campaign on Nigeria, both Alliance Against Genocide members organizations. Led by intern, Eric Ross, Genocide Watch created an interactive map illustrating the increased frequency and intensity of Boko Haram, Fulani jihadist, and ISIS in West Africa attacks against Christian civilian populations. In June, Dr. Stanton’s statement on Turkey’s war crimes and crimes against humanity in northern Syria was included as evidence in the US Commission on International Religious Freedom’s virtual hearing on Safeguarding Religious Freedom in Northeast Syria. To commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the Srebrenica Genocide, Dr. Stanton spoke about the “Cost of Denial” in a special webinar event for the Post-Conflict Research Center in Sarajevo. Intern Linda Zheng published a country report on current genocide denial in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Genocide Alerts were published for Venezuela (written by Alexandra Sharp) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (written by Tom Shacklock). Intern Fiona Neibart published a report on Myanmar’s on-going genocide against the Rohingyas. Developed by intern Sarah Kane, Genocide Watch utilized its MailChimp license to send updates about its Genocide Alerts, its virtual projects, and its new educational resources via a new bi-weekly newsletter sent to member organizations in the Alliance Against Genocide, to key policy makers in the US, UK, Europe, and the UN, and disseminated to our subscribers. Revitalization of the Alliance Against Genocide: Genocide Watch has never tried to build an organizational empire. Our purpose is to be a catalyst to encourage the organization of anti-genocide organizations around the world, and to coordinate a network of those organizations, the Alliance Against Genocide. Chief Operating Officer, Vanessa Cardenas, worked with Alliance Coordinators Olivia Dudley and Julia Sierra to revitalize the Alliance Against Genocide by creating a new website to be launched this Fall. The Alliance has 68 active member organizations in 30 countries. The new Alliance website will be used to disseminate communications by Alliance members through direct links to their Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and other social media. In addition to the new Alliance website, intern Lauren Salim has created an Alliance newsletter disseminated to Alliance member organizations highlighting their most recent work. We are planning a virtual meeting of the leaders of all Alliance member organizations this Fall. With gratitude, Dr. Gregory H. Stanton Founding President

By Elias Biryabarema | August 13, 2024 Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) commander Thomas Kwoyelo, right, is pictured during a pre-trial session at the High Court in Kampala, Uganda in 2017 [File: Gael Grilhot/AFP] KAMPALA, Aug 13 (Reuters) - A Ugandan court on Tuesday found a commander in the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), Thomas Kwoyelo, guilty of dozens of war crimes, the first time a senior member of the group has been tried by Uganda's judiciary. Founded in the late 1980s with the aim of overthrowing the government, the LRA terrorised Ugandans under the leadership of Joseph Kony for nearly 20 years as it battled the military from bases in northern Uganda. The LRA was notorious for horrific brutality, including rapes, abductions, hacking off victims' limbs and lips and using crude instruments to bludgeon people to death. In around 2005 the LRA fled under military pressure to South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic, where it also unleashed waves of brutal attacks against civilians. Kwoyelo denied the more than 70 charges against him, which included murder, rape, enslavement, torture and kidnap. In the courtroom in the northern Ugandan city of Gulu on Tuesday, he shook his head as if disagreeing with the verdict as it was read out, his arms crossed and resting on a desk. "The verdict of this court is that the accused was found guilty," said Justice Michael Elubu, one of a panel of four high court judges. The Ugandan military captured Kwoyelo in 2009 in the jungles of northeastern Congo. He has been in pre-trial detention ever since, and his case has crept through the Ugandan court system. The court found Kwoyelo guilty on 44 charges, 31 were dismissed as duplications of others, and he was acquitted on three. The judges said next week they would begin conducting pre-sentencing hearings before setting a date for Kwoyelo's sentencing. LRA leader Kony is wanted by the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) but has not been caught despite several attempts to do so. In 2021 the ICC convicted Dominic Ongwen , another senior LRA commander, of war crimes including rape, sexual enslavement, child abduction, torture and murder. He was subsequently sentenced to 25 years in jail. © 2024 Reuters.

By EMANUEL FABIAN, TOI STAFF and AGENCIES 12 August 2024, 4:04 am People walk past a billboard showing a portrait of newly appointed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar (top) next to Palestine Square in Tehran on August 12, 2024. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP) Several reports Sunday evening indicated that Israel was expecting a major Iranian attack to be launched within days, though the military sought to downplay this by stressing that instructions to civilians were unchanged. The reports marked a reversal of the previous prevailing assumption, which had been that the Islamic Republic — under heavy international pressure — had given up its initial intention to launch an imminent large-scale attack in response to the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31, which Israel has not confirmed or denied carrying out. Instead, Iran had been expected to leave the response to Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group, whose top military commander Fuad Shukr was killed by Israel in an airstrike in Beirut several hours before Haniyeh’s assassination. Israel blamed Shukr for being behind many attacks on civilians, including a rocket strike last month that killed 12 children in a soccer field in Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights. Palestine Square in Tehran on August 12, 2024. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP) Several reports Sunday evening indicated that Israel was expecting a major Iranian attack to be launched within days, though the military sought to downplay this by stressing that instructions to civilians were unchanged. The reports marked a reversal of the previous prevailing assumption, which had been that the Islamic Republic — under heavy international pressure — had given up its initial intention to launch an imminent large-scale attack in response to the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31, which Israel has not confirmed or denied carrying out. Instead, Iran had been expected to leave the response to Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group, whose top military commander Fuad Shukr was killed by Israel in an airstrike in Beirut several hours before Haniyeh’s assassination. Israel blamed Shukr for being behind many attacks on civilians, including a rocket strike last month that killed 12 children in a soccer field in Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights. But the Axios news site, citing two unnamed sources familiar with the details, reported Sunday that Israel’s current assessment was that Iran would launch a direct attack on the country within days, possibly before renewed ceasefire-hostage deal talks are held on Thursday. The report said that the issue was divisive within Iran. President Masoud Pezeshkian wants to avoid a harsh response, while the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps wants to launch a larger attack than it did on April 13-14, when hundreds of drones and missile were launched in Iran’s first-ever direct attack on Israel. Almost all the projectiles and UAVs were intercepted during that attack. One of the sources cited in the report said the situation was “still fluid” due to the disagreements. The report said Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had spoken Sunday with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and told him Iran’s military preparations suggested Iran was getting ready for a large-scale attack on Israel. The Pentagon later confirmed that the call took place, adding that Austin had ordered the deployment of the USS Georgia guided missile submarine to the Middle East amid the escalating tensions. Announcing the movements of a submarine is rare for the US. In a statement, the Pentagon added that Austin had also ordered the Abraham Lincoln strike group to accelerate its deployment to the region. Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said Austin spoke with Gallant and reiterated America’s commitment “to take every possible step to defend Israel and noted the strengthening of US military force posture and capabilities throughout the Middle East in light of escalating regional tensions.” The Lincoln, which has been in the Asia Pacific, had already been ordered to the region to replace the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier strike group, which is scheduled to begin heading back to the US. Last week, Austin said the Lincoln would arrive in the Central Command area by the end of the month. It wasn’t clear Sunday what Austin’s latest order meant, or how much more quickly the Lincoln would steam to the Middle East. The carrier has F-35 fighter jets aboard, along with the F/A-18 fighter aircraft that are also on carriers. Ryder also did not say how quickly the USS Georgia guided-missile submarine would get to the region. Asked by reporters on Saturday “What’s your message to Iran?” US President Joe Biden mouthed “Don’t.” Meanwhile, the Kan public broadcaster and Channel 13 news also reported Sunday evening that Israel’s updated assessment was that Tehran intends to launch a major attack this week. Channel 13 reported, without citing sources, that there could be a combined attack by Iran and Hezbollah, whether simultaneously or successively. The network said one factor that had delayed the promised response to the assassinations of the terror chiefs was French pressure on Iran and Hezbollah not to launch a major attack during the Paris Olympics, which wrapped up on Sunday. Despite the growing talk of a looming large attack, IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Sunday evening that there were no changes to emergency guidelines for civilians. “Following the latest reports regarding Iran’s plans, we clarify that, at this stage, there are no changes to the Home Front Command guidelines,” Hagari said on X. “The IDF and the defense establishment monitor our enemies and the developments in the Middle East, with an emphasis on Iran and Hezbollah, and constantly assess the situation,” he said, adding that troops were “deployed and prepared with a high level of readiness.” “If it becomes necessary to change the instructions, we will update in an orderly message on the official channels,” Hagari added. The skyrocketing tensions have seen many major airlines cancel or delay their flights to Israel and to other countries in the region. Earlier on Sunday, Gallant told military combat recruits that Israel would operate in ways it has never operated before if it were to be attacked in an unprecedented way by Iran and Hezbollah. “We have significant capabilities. I hope they take this into account and don’t bring about a war on additional fronts,” he told the recruits at the Tel Hashomer military base. He added that Israel was fighting for its existence in a “hostile environment.” He emphasized to the recruits that they were enlisting at both a “challenging” and “significant” point in history. © 2024 THE TIMES OF ISRAEL, All Rights Reserved

By Nathan Thrall President Donald Trump makes a 26-hour visit to Israel on 22 May to discuss the “ultimate deal” — a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians — with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem. With his eyes on the big prize, Trump risks neglecting a critical element of any agreement: the Palestinian territory of Gaza, where a new bout of war is potentially brewing. Gaza’s 1.8 million Palestinians are administered by a third force, Hamas, labeled a terrorist organisation by the U.S. and others, and the isolation of the territory, imposed by Israel and Egypt, is pushing the population dangerously into dire straits. At the end of April, the inhabitants of the narrow coastal strip saw electricity supplies drop to only a few hours a day. The economic lifeline of government salaries has been sharply cut. Access to the internet is slow and irregular. Medicines are critically short. One reason for this is the policy of “closure” exercised by Gaza’s neighbours, Israel and Egypt, who are trying to make the other take responsibility for one of the planet’s most overpopulated, oppressed and traumatised places. This policy prevents the vast majority of the territory’s residents from leaving, and greatly increases their sense of entrapment and desperation. Tensions are being aggravated by an intra-Palestinian feud over taxes, salaries and legitimacy between Hamas, rulers of Gaza since 2007, and President Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, administrators of parts of the West Bank. This month’s change of leadership in Hamas, and its attempt to put a softer face on its armed struggle with Israel by publishing an ambiguous new political document, is unlikely to change its isolation. The general Palestinian mood is also turning rebellious, with West Bankers and Gazans united in overwhelming support of a hunger strike of over 1,500 Palestinian detainees for better conditions in Israeli prisons. It is unclear what President Trump can do to mitigate any of these inter-related conflicts. Both Netanyahu and Abbas have now visited Trump at the White House, and both are in discussions with the new U.S. administration about its still nascent plans to restart peace negotiations. Though Israelis and Palestinians are sceptical that anything can come of such negotiations, Abbas and Netanyahu feel obliged to show goodwill toward the new and highly unpredictable U.S. president. The perception that Trump is capricious offers him some leverage that other U.S. presidents might not have had. He is feared by leaders of both sides. Palestinians worry that he could radically alter, to their detriment, U.S. positions on the core issues of a peace settlement. Trump has been extraordinarily vague about his vision of what he calls “the ultimate deal”, has given the impression that he is not particularly concerned about the details of a would-be accord, and has gone so far as to state that he could “live with” either one state or two. Trump’s ambiguity concerns the Israelis too. They worry that if he approaches the Israeli-Palestinian conflict like a real-estate transaction, he may, in order to close the deal, apply pressure on them. After all, he has proclaimed political partiality to the Jewish state, but not demonstrated visceral affinity for it. Another concern, for both sides, is what Trump will do if and when he decides that one of them is the primary obstacle to his achievement of a deal that he has prioritised. Could he turn vindictive and isolate, even punish, one or both of the parties? The ticking time bomb of Gaza While Trump, Netanyahu and Abbas position themselves for the next round of discussions, a time bomb is ticking. A number of Israeli security analysts and former Israel Defence Forces generals are warning that Gaza’s misery is reaching intolerable levels, as was the case prior to the summer 2014 war that killed 2,139 Palestinians, 64 Israeli soldiers and six Israeli civilians. In fact, the situation in Gaza today is worse than it has been at any time since Israel conquered the territory in 1967, fifty years ago next month. In “normal” times, Gaza suffers electricity blackouts of roughly twelve hours per day. Its chronic power shortages have worsened considerably in recent months to 20 hours per day. In January, residents turned out in very large numbers to protest the blackouts and the horrible effects they had on hospitals, water, and sewage. To alleviate the crisis, Qatar and Turkey donated fuel to Gaza for a three-month period, which expired in April. There are three main sources of electricity for Gaza: about one-tenth comes from Egypt, on three power lines that have been repeatedly shut down in recent years; about one third from the local Gaza power plant, currently working at half its capacity (in part due to fuel shortages); and the rest from Israel. Together these add up to 207-212mw, which is less than half of the power Gaza needs. Gaza’s electricity supply is complicated by internal Palestinian feuding over who should pay for it and how, and the end result merely underlines how powerless the Palestinian sides are compared to Israel. Days before Abbas’s visit to Washington, the PA said it would stop paying for part of Gaza’s electricity. But the PA cannot actually carry out its threat to stop paying for electricity in Gaza without Israel’s permission. That’s because goods entering Palestinian territory — including fuel for the Gaza power plant — are taxed by Israel, on behalf of the PA, for a 3 per cent collection fee, which is then transferred to the PA. But before the transfer is made, Israel deducts what the Palestinians owe for electricity in both Gaza and the West Bank. In May, to the PA’s chagrin, Israel carried out its usual deductions for electricity from PA tax revenue and continued to supply Gaza with the same amount as in previous months. Israel does this not only because it is obliged to do so under existing agreements, but also because it has little incentive to see Gaza descend further into darkness. Israel recognises that the territory’s worsening humanitarian situation might drag it and Hamas toward a new war. Little help from the neighbours Keeping up basic services to Gaza’s population is further complicated by the way the territory’s two neighbours, Egypt and Israel, have engaged in a years-long struggle to foist responsibility for Gaza onto the other. Egypt has largely won. Almost all of the goods entering and exiting Gaza now go through Israel, as do most of the small number of Gaza’s residents whom Israel allows to leave (the majority of them are merchants, and the next largest category, which is much smaller, is medical patients). Egypt does not wish to revert to a situation in which it has relatively more responsibility for Gaza, and it is not interested in helping Hamas establish a successful, nearby model of Islamist rule by the Palestinian offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Israel’s Gaza policy is the outcome of several conflicting interests. First and foremost, it wants to keep Hamas weak so that it does not come to pose a greater military threat to Israel and, as importantly, does not grow in power in the West Bank at the expense of Fatah, which is the largest political faction in the PLO (the umbrella organisation for the Palestinian national movement) and the most influential force in the Palestinian government, known as the Palestinian Authority (PA). Israel fears that improving conditions in Gaza could strengthen Hamas and undermine the authority of the PA, by stabilising Hamas rule and making the PA appear less unattractive. Second, and in tension with the first, Israel wants to avoid a new war, which means ensuring that conditions do not become so dire that Hamas believes that violence is its only means of escaping from slow suffocation. Third, Israel wants to avoid reoccupying Gaza. Doing so is seen as too costly in blood and treasure, and there does not appear to be any viable exit strategy. None of the potential alternatives to Hamas appears strong enough to take and retain power in Gaza – not the PA or Fatah, and not Salafi-jihadist groups, which, even if they weren’t too weak, would be seen as too dangerous. Palestinian feuds The humanitarian crisis is not just aggravated by Israel and Egypt, but by the Palestinians’ own internal divisions. The latest move in the PA’s campaign to squeeze Gaza was a decision by the PA health ministry to stop supplying Gaza with medicines and baby formula. There is a severe shortage of medicine in Gaza, and over 90 per cent of cancer medicines are totally absent. The PA, which typically ships medicine to Gaza every two months, has not sent medicine in three months. The PA claims that whatever shortages exist in Gaza also exist in the West Bank, though there is no comparing the state of health in the two territories, and it says a new shipment will be sent in the coming days. The PA has consistently tried to leverage its relationship with the U.S. to sideline Hamas, partly by attempting to show itself to be a useful weapon against Hamas. Ahead of Abbas’s latest visit to Washington, this took a dangerous turn: the PA decided to drastically cut payments to its employees in Gaza. These were cuts of at least 30 per cent in each employee’s total compensation. Since Hamas’s takeover of Gaza in 2007, many of these employees have been paid to sit at home, as the PA hoped that it could topple the Gaza government by forcing civil servants, who are largely identified with Fatah, to refuse to work. Ten years on, this strategy has failed. Hamas hired its own employees, as well as some who had worked for the PA, and many of the PA employees took second jobs. Others sat at home, where their idleness and in some cases drug addiction often had destructive effects on their families. But though these people were not productive, their government salaries were critical to the functioning of the Gaza economy. The PA constituted Gaza’s single largest funding source, with far more “employees” than those hired by the actual, Hamas-run government or by the UN. When the largest employer in Gaza removes at least one-third of the compensation to its employees, the effects are disastrous, especially when the second-largest employer, the Hamas-led government, has been paying half-salaries for several years. Palestinians refer to the PA pay cuts as the “salaries massacre”. In Gaza, many protesters contend that Abbas’s primary motivation for the cut was simply to show Trump that he was doing what he could to weaken Hamas and bring Gaza to heel. The PA was also motivated by Hamas’s March 2017 decision to set up a formal, parallel administrative committee for overseeing Gaza. Doing so appeared to undermine the 2014 agreement between the PA and Hamas to form a “government of national consensus”, which has only been partially implemented. The PA justified the cuts by stating that donor aid to the PA had dropped, which is true. But it is also a rather partial and -in this context- misleading account of PA finances. Before President Sisi took power in Egypt in 2013 and shut nearly all the tunnels under the fences on the Gaza-Sinai border, goods that entered Gaza through the tunnels were taxed by the Hamas-run government. Now that the flow of goods entering Gaza has moved to routes through Israel, Hamas has lost its main source of revenue, while overall PA revenues have increased. Hamas struggles to evolve Hamas won general Palestinian elections in 2006, lost a struggle for control of the West Bank to the Western-backed Palestinians now running the PA, and then seized effective control of Gaza in 2007. It is now trying to present a new face to the world. It unveiled a long-expected, more moderate-looking new political document just before Khaled Mish‘al stepped down as leader of Hamas in early May. (Internal Hamas bylaws prevented him from running for another term.) The specific timing of the press conference to announce the new document does seem to have been influenced by Abbas’s meeting with Trump. Prior to heading to Washington, Abbas had threatened to take new and unspecified steps against Gaza, and, just like Abbas and Netanyahu, Hamas has every reason to fear what the new U.S. administration’s policy toward it might be. Most worrisome is the possibility that Abbas could further squeeze Gaza, with the approval of the U.S. and its Arab allies. The day after Abbas’s meeting with Trump, U.S. Special Representative Jason Greenblatt attended a meeting of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, a group that coordinates development aid to the Palestinians, and placed sole responsibility for Gaza’s electricity crisis on Hamas. Israeli security officials, by contrast, put much of the blame for the humanitarian situation in Gaza on the PA. The political document does not contain Hamas’s 1988 founding charter’s anti-Semitic or conspiratorial elements, it denounces ethnic and sectarian extremism and bigotry, and it places greater emphasis on Hamas’s nationalist, rather than Islamist, character. During his remarks at the launch press conference, Mish‘al clearly tried to suggest that the political document, and not the charter, now represents Hamas’s vision. But Hamas has not said it is a new charter, and nor does it abrogate or supplant the founding charter. Hamas had been trying for many years to downplay the significance of its charter and dissociate itself from it, but a full renunciation was apparently a bridge too far. Even so, the document contained no surprises. It is highly cautious, hinting at moderation while still adhering to Hamas’s hardline tenets. It clearly rejects the so-called Quartet principles, the three conditions on diplomatic and financial support to any PA government: recognising Israel; renouncing violence; and abiding by past agreements (the document explicitly rejects the Oslo agreements). At the same time, Hamas wanted the document to be interpreted as a sign of moderation and a potential opening for engagement with governments that have boycotted it. In attempting to please all, the document risks pleasing none. It hints at compromises in such a tepid manner that, on one hand, hardliners were not too angered, and, on the other, Western and Arab governments were not too impressed. The document fell short of expectations that the movement had itself helped set: dissociating Hamas from the Muslim Brotherhood (which would have been a positive signal to Egypt); accepting a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 lines without recognising Israel; and endorsing so-called “popular” or more-or-less unarmed resistance as a legitimate tool. The document’s ambiguous circumlocutions are open to many interpretations. Despite the lack of explicit dissociation from the Muslim Brotherhood, some see significance in the fact that the words Muslim Brotherhood do not appear in the document, or the vague affirmation that “Hamas stresses the necessity of maintaining the independence of Palestinian national decision-making. Outside forces should not be allowed to intervene”. The much-promised acceptance of a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 lines was not an acceptance but rather an assertion that “Hamas considers” the establishment of such a state, without recognising Israel, “to be a formula of national consensus.” The document emphasises continued armed resistance to Israel, and offers less than expected to those hoping Hamas might embrace nonviolent tactics and accept a two-state settlement. The text only makes a weak allusion to non-military methods: “Managing resistance, in terms of escalation or de-escalation, or in terms of diversifying the means and methods, is an integral part of the process of managing the conflict and should not be at the expense of the principle of resistance”. Senior Hamas leaders had publicly made far more explicit statements in support of compromise than the ones appearing in the document. More than five years ago, Mish‘al himself offered more clearly and strongly worded support for both popular resistance and a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders: “Now we have a common ground that we can work on … the popular resistance, which presents the power of people .... We have political differences [with Fatah and the PLO], but the common ground is the state on the ‘67 borders. Why don't we work in this common area?” For years, political forces seeking engagement with Hamas and those seeking its continued boycott and isolation have screamed past one another without changing many minds. Those in favor of engagement remain a minority, and the new political document is unlikely to boost them. They will point to the document’s clauses on the pre-1967 borders, but those upholding the boycott of Hamas will point to the clauses on liberating all of Palestine, from the river to the sea. Those in favor of engagement will point to the allusion to “diversifying the means and methods of resistance”; their opponents will point to the document’s emphasis on armed resistance. The debate will continue, and the document will now be cited by both sides. It’s hard to see what will change as a result of it. Trump’s trip The majority of observers expect that when President Trump eventually encounters serious difficulties, as he inevitably will, he will give up and turn to another issue. For now, though, it is deeply troubling to both the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships that unpredictable outcomes are even possible. What that means for the Trump administration is that he may have more coercive power than other U.S. presidents have had in getting the parties to agree to talks and accompanying confidence-building steps. In March, when Netanyahu threatened to dissolve the current government, the Israeli press was rife with speculation that one of his primary motivations in considering early elections was to buy time — from the moment an election is called until the next government is formed can take over half a year — in order to forestall a new Trump-led peace process. This might include demands on Israel that would be difficult for the present government to accept but also risky to reject, since Trump’s reaction to Israeli intransigence is wholly unknown. Elections could also potentially allow Netanyahu to form a governing coalition that would give him greater freedom to meet challenging U.S. requests. When Trump was first elected and during the early weeks of his administration, the PLO leadership (it is the PLO, not the PA, that engages in negotiations with Israel) appeared quite nervous because, as was widely reported, it had difficulty establishing contact with senior members of the new administration. Those fears subsided considerably after Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo’s visit to the West Bank in mid-February, the March visit to Israel and the West Bank by Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s Special Representative for International Negotiations, and, especially, the phone call in which Trump invited Abbas to the White House. The other important thing for the Palestinians is to show goodwill to the U.S., to assure this administration of the PA’s utility to the U.S., and to make sure that the PLO is not seen as the obstacle to Trump achieving a historic agreement. The Palestinian leadership is keenly aware that U.S. officials view the PA primarily through a security and counter-terrorism prism. The U.S. spends a large portion of its aid to the Palestinians on training, equipping and otherwise supporting its security forces in the West Bank, and the primary aim of this support is to thwart attacks against Israel and more generally minimise friction between Israelis and Palestinians. When talking to U.S. officials, PA leaders typically emphasise their close and ongoing coordination with Israeli security forces, as well as the fact that the Palestinian security forces are praised and valued by Israel. PA leaders also contrast the PA and PLO with Hamas and argue that support to the PA can strengthen self-identified Palestinian moderates and help the U.S. achieve its broader counter-terrorism aims in the region. For his part, Trump seems determined to start a new peace process and, for now, the parties seem determined not to openly upset him. On 9 May, Abbas said that he told Trump that the Palestinians “were ready to collaborate with him and meet the Israeli PM [Benjamin Netanyahu] under his auspices to build peace”. It took President Obama nearly two years to get Abbas and Netanyahu to launch a very short-lived set of direct negotiations. If Trump’s visit secures that alone, it will be a success for him. Whether Abbas and Netanyahu are any more likely to reach a peace agreement once they do start negotiations is another matter, as is the question of whether a new war over Gaza may overtake them all. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 International Crisis Group

By Nathan Thrall What happened last Friday? Friday was 30 March, Land Day, the annual commemoration of protests by Palestinian citizens of Israel against government appropriation of their lands in 1976. Tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza marched toward the border with Israel in what is to be the first of several weekly marches leading up to 15 May. On that day, Palestinians commemorate what they refer to as the nakba, the forced displacement of some 750,000 Palestinians during the 1948 war. Over two thirds of Gazans are refugees from villages in Israel, and this year organisers named the series of events – of which last Friday’s was the largest of its kind in several years – the “Great March of Return”, reflecting the marchers’ demand to return to their original homes. Seventeen Palestinians were killed (two of them near the border but not part of the protests) and over 1,400 were wounded by Israeli live fire, rubber-coated bullets and tear gas. On the 70th anniversary of the nakba this year, Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria plan to march on Israel’s borders and may try to cross them. Last Friday, marchers converged on the Gaza-Israel border fence in five locations. The two largest protests took place east of Gaza City and east of Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza. The other three were east of the Bureij refugee camp, in central Gaza, and east of Khan Younis and Rafah, both in southern Gaza. The majority of the protests were peaceful and remained at a distance of some seven hundred metres from the security fence, though several hundred younger men approached the fence at various points, including within the three hundred metres limit set by Israeli authorities, throwing stones or attempting to plant a Palestinian flag on it. In the days prior to the march, several Gazans, some of them armed, had penetrated the fence and entered Israel. Close to the end of the day, two armed Hamas gunmen, separate from the protesting crowds, tried to approach the fence and were killed by Israeli forces, which took their bodies into Israel. The number killed on Friday is large for a single day, but it follows numerous deaths during unarmed protests along Gaza’s border in recent years. In the three weeks following President Donald Trump’s December 2017 declaration extending U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and his intention to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, eight unarmed Palestinians, including a double amputee, were killed by Israeli forces during protests at the Gaza border, according to the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem; similar killings took place during protests last summer over Israel’s decision to place metal detectors at the gates of the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem. For the Israeli army – as opposed to the police – confronting unarmed protesters with military weapons rather than riot-control gear is a well-established pattern since the founding of the state seventy years ago. Who organised the protests? Participants of all ages and genders responded en masse to a call by the Higher National Commission for the March of Return and Breaking the Siege, an entity formed by an array of national and Islamist factions and organisations from the occupied territories and the diaspora. They seek to expose and confront Israel’s occupation and draw world attention to their plight. Hamas views the protests as a means to confront Israel’s blockade by peaceful means, without starting a new war. Preparations for the march began months ago. All major Palestinian factions agreed to participate and keep the demonstrations unarmed. Hamas instructed its followers and security forces to ensure that no arms were displayed among the protesters and no weapons were fired at Israeli forces. The organisers established several large tent encampments along the fence. They encouraged male Gaza residents to stay overnight, providing the camps with bathrooms, water, medical posts, prayer areas and Wi-Fi. In some areas, the organisers paved the ground and created soccer fields to encourage younger participants to stay. Hamas and other factions provided free transportation, with buses shuttling congregants from mosques all over Gaza to the borders just after Friday prayers. Hamas and Islamic Jihad asked imams affiliated with their organisations to deliver Friday sermons encouraging worshippers to participate, reminding them of their duties to the Palestinian struggle. Women were called upon to bring their entire families during the day, but leave their sons, husbands and brothers at the tent camps overnight. Why are these protests happening now? Protest organisers describe them as reflecting a shift in Palestinian national consciousness, stemming from Trump’s decision to, in his words, take “Jerusalem off the table”. They say that, to Palestinians, it is now indisputable that they cannot achieve their national aims through mediation by the U.S. or the international community. The march is an attempt by Palestinians to take matters into their own hands and shape their fate, as they attempted to do during the first and second intifadas. On 15 May, the national day of mourning for the flight and expulsion of three quarters of a million Palestinian refugees, Palestinians in Gaza plan to break through the border fence and march toward their erstwhile villages, destroyed since 1948. The protest will take place at a tense moment: the day after Israel will celebrate the 70th anniversary of its declaration of independence and the U.S. will hold a ceremony to open its embassy in Jerusalem. The march is taking place at a time of unprecedented suffering in Gaza.Gazans have endured a more than a decade-old closure, with severe restrictions on imports, exports and travel to and from Gaza, which has turned the territory into a virtual prison. Youth unemployment stands at roughly 60 per cent, and overall unemployment is over 40 per cent. In March 2017, conditions worsened considerably, when the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO)-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank began taking a series of punitive measures against Gaza, hoping to press Hamas to fully relinquish control of the territory. The PA cut salaries of its employees in Gaza, most of whom had been paid to stay home since Hamas won the elections and took over Gaza’s administration in 2007. It also prevented Gaza patients from obtaining the insurance needed for medical treatment outside of Gaza, held up the supply of medicine and reduced the electricity supply, causing worsening blackouts, increased flows of untreated sewage and the closure of several hospitals and clinics. Following several months of such pressure, Hamas and the PLO forged a new reconciliation agreement on 12 October 2017, but little progress has been made in implementing it. Israeli officials now complain openly of the PA seeking to drag Hamas into a new war with Israel as a way of crippling its political rival. Israeli officials interpret the current march as an attempt by Hamas to respond to PA pressure by directing the anger of Gaza residents toward Israel. But Gazans view it as a rare moment of unity following eleven years of conflict and stalemate among their political leaders. What can be done? There is a great deal that can and must be done for Gaza, regardless of the marches, not least by providing it with drinkable water, electricity and sewage treatment. The PA should rescind its punitive measures against Gaza. Egypt should open the Rafah crossing regularly. Israel should increase exports and exit permits from Gaza and use Gaza tax revenues to provide Gaza with additional electricity, regardless of any intended cuts by the PA. While such steps are urgently needed to alleviate a man-made humanitarian crisis, they are almost certainly insufficient to stop the marches that are set to take place from now until 15 May, or to restrain the protesters if they decide to push toward and across the fence. The issues driving the marchers are much larger than the collapsing Gaza infrastructure, and resolving them is not something Israel, the U.S. or the international community appear inclined to tackle in a serious way. Nevertheless, steps can be taken to reduce the risks of escalation, which will increase substantially if more protesters are killed and Hamas and other factions respond with violence. The protest organisers should do their utmost to keep the marches peaceful and Israel must cease responding to unarmed demonstrations with deadly and disproportionate force. And the EU and the international community should take two simultaneous steps: press Israel not to use disproportionate force, and engage Hamas in order to encourage it to eschew violence and continue to embrace peaceful protest. https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/eastern-mediterranean/israelpalestine/gaza-protests-mark-shift-palestinian-national-consciousness?utm_source=Sign+Up+to+Crisis+Group%27s+Email+Updates&utm_campaign=67a78fcf63-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_04_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1dab8c11ea-67a78fcf63-359909997 (c) 2018 International Crisis Group

By Nicholas Kulish Marco Coello, then a skinny 18-year-old high school student, was grabbed by plainclothes agents of the Venezuelan security services as he joined a 2014 demonstration against the government in Caracas. They put a gun to his head. They attacked him with their feet, a golf club, a fire extinguisher. They tortured him with electric shocks. Then Mr. Coello was jailed for several months, and shortly after his release, he fled to the United States. Human Rights Watch extensively documented his case in a report that year. The State Department included him in its own human rights report on Venezuela in 2015. With such an extensive paper trail of mistreatment in his home country, his lawyer, Elizabeth Blandon, expected a straightforward asylum interview when Mr. Coello appeared at an immigration office this April in Miami. “I had this very naïve idea that we were going to walk in there and the officer was going to say, ‘It’s an honor to meet you,’” said Ms. Blandon, an immigration law expert in Weston, Fla. Instead, he was arrested and taken to a detention facility on the edge of the Everglades. He was now a candidate for deportation. “Every time they would move me around, I would fear that they were going to take me to deport me,” said Mr. Coello, now 22. Mr. Coello’s case drew extensive media coverage in both Miami and Caracas and, eventually, the intervention of Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. The senator helped secure Mr. Coello’s release, though he could still be deported. The case may have been a sign of just how far the government is willing to go to carry out President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. “It’s very unusual — almost unprecedented — that ICE would arrest an asylum applicant who is at a U.S.C.I.S. office waiting for their asylum interview,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law professor at Cornell Law School. He was referring to two agencies that are part of the Department of Homeland Security but, as Mr. Coello discovered, have very different missions: United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, which handles citizenship and asylum cases, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which arrests people believed to be in the country without permission. In the first three months of the Trump administration, ICE agents arrested some 41,000 people, an increase of nearly 40 percent over the same period last year. At the same time, the administration has expressed a desire to be stricter about allowing people into the country with asylum claims, as most such claims are ultimately rejected. When Mr. Coello was taken to the Krome detention center, another asylum seeker was already there. Denis Davydov, who fled Russia as an H.I.V.-positive gay man, had been on his way back to San Jose, Calif., from a vacation in the United States Virgin Islands. Though it is an American territory, travelers heading to the mainland must pass through Customs and Border Protection — also part of Homeland Security — and when Mr. Davydov did so, he was arrested. Agents flew him to Miami and sent him to Krome, shackled and chained at the wrists and ankles. Despite his pending asylum case, Mr. Davydov still appeared in the system as having overstayed his original visa. “They would not let him go because he would still be found inadmissible to the United States,” said Jaime I. Ruiz, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection. Mr. Davydov, like Mr. Coello, has been released but still faces potential deportation. “My fear is that going forward this is business as usual,” said Aaron C. Morris, executive director at Immigration Equality, a nonprofit group that provides free legal representation to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The group is handling more than 650 open asylum cases. “We’re doing our best to advise the community about this new danger without scaring them all.” Mr. Coello’s case is all the more striking given that Mr. Trump has attacked Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, who has used antiterrorism laws and military tribunals to prosecute political rivals. Mr. Trump has even called for the release of the opposition leader Leopoldo López from prison. Mr. Coello said that his Venezuelan interrogators tried to coerce him into implicating Mr. López but that he refused. Mr. Coello’s problems in the United States most likely began when he became drowsy working as a driver for the ride-hailing service Lyft and pulled over to sleep in a parking lot. A police officer rapped on his window, telling him it was private property and writing him a ticket. He was convicted of misdemeanor trespassing and paid a fine of $100 and $92 in court costs, according to court records in Fairfax, Va. That conviction brought him to the attention of ICE. “Marco Coello has one misdemeanor criminal conviction and did not depart the country in accordance with his visa,” said Nestor Yglesias, an ICE spokesman, referring to the tourist visa he had arrived on. “As a result, he violated the terms of his nonimmigrant status in the United States.” Paul Wickham Schmidt, a retired immigration judge who is now an adjunct law professor at Georgetown University, said that ICE agents could legally arrest individuals in asylum proceedings. “Otherwise everyone could absolutely immunize themselves from removal just by filing with the asylum office,” he said. But arresting Mr. Coello was also indicative of the Trump administration’s new priorities, he said. “As Jeff Sessions keeps pointing out, anyone here illegally shouldn’t feel safe,” Mr. Schmidt said, referring to the attorney general under Mr. Trump. Mr. Coello was a high school student in El Hatillo in southeastern Caracas when he joined marches and demonstrations across Venezuela on Feb. 12, 2014, to protest Mr. Maduro, a close ally of Hugo Chávez who took office after Mr. Chávez’s death in 2013. The protests that day turned ugly, with violence between government forces and civilian protesters, who in some cases threw Molotov cocktails. Mr. Coello, who said he was not involved in the disturbance, was struck on the leg by a tear-gas canister and fell to the ground. Security personnel in plainclothes began to beat him and took him into custody. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, based on interviews with Mr. Coello and five others arrested, the security forces put a gun to his head and doused him in gasoline. “They wrapped a thin mat around his body, tied it with tape, and approximately 10 officers kicked him and beat him with sticks, a golf club, and a fire extinguisher on his ribs and upper body,” the report said. He was tortured with shocks and told to confess to burning the vehicles. He refused. Mr. Coello was accused of arson, among other charges related to an alleged attack on the Venezuelan attorney general’s office. After months in detention, he was released pending trial and fled to the United States with his father. His mother later joined them. Following his time in Virginia, where he was studying English, Mr. Coello moved to Miami and found a job as an assistant cameraman at a local studio associated with the Spanish-language station Telemundo. When he and his lawyer, Ms. Blandon, arrived at his asylum appointment in April, they were passed off to ICE. “We walk in, she didn’t even introduce herself,” Ms. Blandon said of the Citizenship and Immigration Services official who met them. “‘We can’t entertain your claim for asylum. These two gentlemen from ICE can explain.’” After articles appeared in the local and Spanish-language news media — “Joven torturado en Venezuela es arrestado en Miami por inmigración” was the headline of one article in El Nuevo Herald — Mr. Rubio, a Republican from the Miami area, contacted Reince Priebus, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff. The next day, Mr. Coello was released. Mr. Coello will still have the opportunity to plead for asylum in immigration court. His arrest was legal, but some experts question whether it was the best use of limited resources in an overburdened system. “In years of doing these, I’ve had probably only a few dozen cases where somebody can point to their name in a State Department human rights report and say, ‘That’s me,’” Mr. Schmidt, the former immigration judge, said of Mr. Coello. With a backlog of nearly 600,000 cases in the system, he asked, “Why clog an already clogged court docket with a case that looks like a slam dunk?” ©, 2017, The New York Times