Stephen Miller, Trump’s Deportation Man, Has More Power The New York Times Jan. 16, 2025, Updated Jan. 17, 2025   Stephen Miller was the architect of Donald J. Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda in his first term. Now he is back with fewer internal rivals and even more influence with the president. In less than a decade, Stephen Miller has risen from an anti-immigrant agitator on Capitol Hill to one of the most powerful unelected people in America.Credit ...Doug Mills/The New York Times   By  Jonathan Swan , Maggie Haberman , David A. Fahrenthold  and  Charlie Savage Reporting from Washington   When Stephen Miller met with Mark Zuckerberg at Mar-a-Lago late last year, the 39-year-old Trump adviser was in a position of power that would have been unimaginable a decade ago. Back then, Mr. Miller was a mere Senate staffer railing about the evils of immigration. Now he was holding forth on U.S. policy with the billionaire chief executive of Meta, a man he had vilified for years as a globalist bent on destroying the nation. The scale had flipped. Mr. Miller told Mr. Zuckerberg that he had an opportunity to help reform America, but it would be on President-elect Donald J. Trump’s terms. He made clear that Mr. Trump would crack down on immigration and go to war against the diversity, equity and inclusion, or D.E.I., culture that had been embraced by Meta and much of corporate America in recent years. Mr. Zuckerberg was amenable. He signaled to Mr. Miller and his colleagues, including other senior Trump advisers, that he would do nothing to obstruct the Trump agenda, according to three people with knowledge of the meeting, who asked for anonymity to discuss a private conversation. Mr. Zuckerberg said he would instead focus solely on building tech products. Mr. Zuckerberg blamed his former chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, for an inclusivity initiative at Facebook that encouraged employees’ self-expression in the workplace, according to one of the people with knowledge of the meeting. He said new guidelines and a series of layoffs amounted to a reset and that more changes were coming. Earlier this month, Mr. Zuckerberg’s political lieutenants previewed the changes to Mr. Miller in a private briefing. And on Jan. 10, Mr. Zuckerberg  made them official : Meta would abolish its D.E.I. policy. The meeting at Mar-a-Lago on Nov. 27 represented more than just another tech billionaire bending the knee to Mr. Trump. It vividly demonstrated the power and influence of Mr. Miller, who in less than a decade has risen from an anti-immigrant agitator on Capitol Hill to one of the most powerful unelected people in America. Officials from Meta declined to comment, as did Mr. Miller. A Trump transition spokeswoman declined to address a majority of the reporting.   Mr. Miller was influential in Mr. Trump’s first term but stands to be exponentially more so this time. He holds the positions of deputy chief of staff, with oversight of domestic policy, and homeland security adviser, which gives him range to coordinate among cabinet agencies. [Comment: Note that neither position requires Senate confirmation.] He will be a key legislative strategist and is expected to play an important role in crafting Mr. Trump’s speeches, as he has done since he joined the first Trump campaign in 2016. Mr. Miller stands to be exponentially more influential during President-elect Donald J. Trump’s second term than during his first.Credit ...Al Drago/The New York Times Most significantly, Mr. Miller will be in charge of Mr. Trump’s signature issue and the one that Mr. Miller has been fixated on since childhood: immigration. And he has been working, in secrecy, to oversee the team drafting the dozens of executive orders that Mr. Trump will sign after he takes office on Jan. 20. “I call Stephen ‘Trump’s brain,’” said Kevin McCarthy, the former House speaker who credited Mr. Miller — a private citizen at the time — with helping to rally Republican lawmakers to insert a sweeping border crackdown into a spending bill in 2023. In the four years since Mr. Trump has been out of office, Mr. Miller has spent more time than any close Trump adviser mapping out a second-term playbook. He expanded on the hard-line first-term immigration policies; he deepened his relationships with House members, senators and influential right-wing media figures; he built a nationwide donor network to fund a nonprofit that he used as an additional tool of influence; and he quietly cultivated a relationship with the richest man in the world, Elon Musk. Mr. Miller will re-enter government with even more trust and credibility with the president, fewer internal rivals and a more expansive team reporting to him. Those who dealt with — and often dismissed — Mr. Miller a decade ago when he was a young Senate staffer, emailing reporters late at night on behalf of Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, with lurid stories about immigrants committing crimes, can hardly believe the scope of his power. Mr. Miller, whose team will be more expansive, will re-enter government having cultivated a relationship with the richest man in the world, Elon Musk.Credit ...Andrew Harnik/Getty Images Taking Charge After Mr. Trump won the election in November, Mr. Miller moved his family down to Palm Beach, Fla., and took a major role in the transition. People briefed on the executive orders that his team is drafting say they include an attempt to end birthright citizenship; a designation of drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations; and a reinstatement of Title 42, which allows the United States to seal the border with Mexico if there is a public health threat. (Mr. Trump’s advisers have spent months trying to  identify a disease  that will help them build a case for Title 42, since there is no such emergency at the moment.) It will be up to Mr. Trump to decide which orders to issue, but Mr. Miller is focused on immigration. The homeland security adviser’s other responsibilities include dealing with natural disasters like the one raging in California, his home state. (The fires destroyed Mr. Miller’s parents’ home, people close to him said.) Mr. Miller is expected to shift some of his portfolio to the national security adviser. As he works out his priorities, Mr. Miller appears to have learned two key lessons from the first Trump term. The first is to flood the zone. He believes that those he regards as Mr. Trump’s enemies — Democrats, the media, groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and portions of the federal bureaucracy — are depleted and only have so much bandwidth for outrage and opposition. Mr. Miller has told people that the goal is to overwhelm them with a blitz of activity. The second lesson has been to operate with as much secrecy as possible to prevent anyone from finding ways to obstruct the Trump agenda. As a congressional staffer, Mr. Miller was freewheeling in his digital communications. But since working for Mr. Trump, who doesn’t use email and regards people who take notes with suspicion, he puts almost nothing in writing. Instead, he works through emissaries. The protectiveness around the executive orders is particularly notable. An incoming administration would usually send the drafts to the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, where a career lawyer — walled off from the outgoing administration’s political appointees — reviews them for form and legality and suggests improvements. For the most part, Mr. Trump’s first transition is said to have followed that practice. But Mr. Miller is using a team of lawyers from outside the Justice Department to vet the orders, a person with knowledge of the situation said — a sign of Trump aides’ general distrust of the Justice Department, which brought three special counsel investigations into Mr. Trump and twice indicted him. In the meantime, Mr. Miller is trying to eliminate any roadblocks to Mr. Trump’s immigration plans. Mass deportations will require arrangements with other countries to take in the migrants; to that end, Mr. Miller lobbied for his ally, the former ambassador to Mexico, Christopher Landau, to be chosen as deputy secretary of state under Marco Rubio, the Florida senator whom Mr. Trump has chosen to lead the agency. Knowing the White House will need billions in congressional appropriations for the biggest deportation operation in American history — which he’s previously said will include sweeping raids and use of the U.S. military to build  massive camps  to detain the migrants — Mr. Miller has spent the past four years building relationships with lawmakers. It appears to have paid off. When Mike Johnson addressed the House Republican conference after securing the speakership, he made a point of singling out Mr. Miller for praise. Senator Jim Banks of Indiana, a former House member, said he talked to Mr. Miller nearly every day for the four years that Mr. Trump was out of the White House. And Senator Mike Lee of Utah said there had been many times he pondered a new policy, when “all of a sudden a thought will occur to me: I wonder what Stephen Miller thinks of this one.” Mr. Miller helped Jeff Sessions, then a senator from Alabama, kill a bipartisan immigration reform bill in 2013 but made clear that his allegiance was to the president when Mr. Sessions became persona non grata with Mr. Trump after serving as his attorney general.Credit ...Scott J. Ferrell/CQ Roll Call, via Associated Press The Long Game The last time Mr. Miller participated in a Trump transition, after the surprise victory of 2016, he was fairly low in the Washington power structure. He had become a minor celebrity on the right in 2006 for vocally defending a group of Duke University lacrosse players who had been accused — falsely, it later became clear — of rape. But he was best known to insiders as the scrappy congressional staffer for Mr. Sessions. Much of Washington’s establishment regarded Mr. Miller as a racist , and as an irritant, mocking his over-the-top pronouncements and skinny ties. He joined the Trump campaign part time in late 2015 and full time in early 2016, one of a handful of original aides on a small team. He worked like a man possessed, staying up all night to write Mr. Trump’s speeches, a task assigned to him by Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. He channeled Mr. Trump’s voice better than any other adviser. But he entered the executive branch knowing little about how it worked, and it showed. The travel ban executive order against mostly Muslim-majority countries, crafted in secret by an ally of Mr. Miller’s amid concern some Trump appointees would try to stop it, was criticized as sloppily drafted and was initially blocked by the courts. Mr. Miller mostly stayed out of the factional warfare that defined the early years of Mr. Trump’s first term. He was friendly with the more moderate West Wing camp — people like Mr. Kushner and Hope Hicks — and with those on the sharp edge of Mr. Trump’s movement.   In the early years of Mr. Trump’s first term, Mr. Miller largely stayed out of its factional politics.Credit ...Stephen Crowley/The New York Times People who have worked closely with Mr. Miller say they cannot recall him ever expending his political capital on an ally who fell out of favor with Mr. Trump. When Mr. Sessions, his former boss who was now attorney general,  became persona non grata  with Mr. Trump over the Russia investigations, Mr. Miller made it clear that his allegiance was to the president. His strategy paid off. He survived. And his vision for immigration — including deeply restrictive and xenophobic policies — is now at the center of Mr. Trump’s economic and cultural agenda. Unlike many others, he stuck with Mr. Trump after the violence of Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. He remained a paid adviser and a frequent Fox News presence promoting the Trump agenda, and made an early public endorsement of Mr. Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign at a time when many Republicans wanted to move on. Mr. Miller, who comes from a wealthy family, did something else that Mr. Trump appreciated: He did not try to leverage his Trump ties into lucrative consulting contracts. The compensation he drew from his nonprofit, the America First Legal Foundation, in 2023 — $266,000 — was far less than what he could have earned working as a political gun for hire.   “Some people in Trump’s world have been there for career advantage or transactional reasons,” said Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist who is close to both Mr. Trump and Mr. Miller. “But Stephen believes in the president’s agenda deeply.” Unlike many others, Mr. Miller stuck with Mr. Trump after the violence of Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol.Credit ...Doug Mills/The New York Times He plays the long game on relationships, scouting people who may be influential several years in the future. He built a relationship with JD Vance ahead of his successful Ohio Senate primary, years before he would become Mr. Trump’s running mate. He also can be a political shape-shifter when it’s expedient for him. His long-term demonization of “radical Islam” went relatively quiet at moments during the 2024 presidential race, as he encouraged the Trump campaign to issue inviting statements to Muslims in Michigan — part of a strategy to exploit Muslims’ anger over the Biden administration’s support for Israel, according to three people with direct knowledge. Mr. Miller is generally well-liked on the Trump staff, though he is regarded as unusually intense and has been known to berate government officials he deemed obstructive. He has strongly held opinions about even minor matters, like men’s fashion. Specifically: fabrics, patterns, colors and collars. He never argues with Mr. Trump, certainly never in front of others. Once it’s clear to him that Mr. Trump is headed in a certain direction, he sets aside his reservations. In recent weeks, according to multiple people with direct knowledge, Mr. Miller has done little, if anything, to try to talk Mr. Trump out of his support for H-1B visas to import high-skilled foreign workers — despite the fact that Mr. Miller has spent much of his career condemning such visas. Another recent example: Mr. Miller was initially surprised that Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor, was chosen by Mr. Trump for secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Miller had wanted Thomas D. Homan, whom Mr. Trump had picked as his border czar, for the D.H.S. role, according to two people who spoke to him at the time. But when it was clear Mr. Trump was set on the idea, he did not try to dissuade him. “He has the president’s complete trust,” said Mr. McCarthy. “Trump’s complained about everyone. Never him.” Mr. Trump may not complain about Mr. Miller, but he does occasionally poke at his obsession with immigrants — a hostility that goes far beyond Mr. Trump’s . In one meeting during the 2024 campaign, Mr. Trump said that if it was up to Mr. Miller there would be only 100 million people in this country, and they would all look like Mr. Miller , according to a person with knowledge of the comment. Karoline Leavitt, Mr. Trump’s spokeswoman, denied the account. “He has the president’s complete trust,” said Kevin McCarthy, the former House speaker who had a close working relationship with Mr. Miller.Credit ...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times The Outside-In Strategy Since he was a high schooler in Santa Monica, Calif., obsessed with Rush Limbaugh, Mr. Miller has cultivated right-wing media personalities. He is close to Tucker Carlson and Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, but he also follows the new wave of podcasters and comedians. Mr. Miller has told friends how pleased he is that the Trump movement has shifted the cultural dial on his favored policies. Prominent Democrats have scrambled to rebrand themselves as tough on immigration, and officials such as New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, have welcomed tighter restrictions after an influx of migrants in their cities. Mr. Miller has spent much of the past four years figuring out how to build pressure from outside of government to help enact Mr. Trump’s agenda. Less than a month after Mr. Trump left office, he founded the America First Legal Foundation, a nonprofit “public interest law firm.” Mr. Miller, who is not a lawyer himself, cast the group as a conservative answer to the American Civil Liberties Union, helping the little guy fight big government or big tech. His group quickly became a fund-raising powerhouse, raising $44 million in 2022. Mr. Miller’s group used some of that money on legal work. It  filed  more than 100 lawsuits, legal briefs and other actions, and helped  block  a Biden administration plan to offer debt relief to Black farmers, which Mr. Miller’s group said was discriminatory. But it spent far more on advertising: $32 million, which was nearly 70 percent of its total spending. Some of those ads seemed designed to damage Democrats in the run-up to elections. In 2022, for instance, the group  paid for ads in swing states  that accused the Biden administration of “anti-white bigotry.” Now, as Mr. Trump returns to the White House, the America First Legal Foundation wants to serve as an attack dog for the Trump administration . In December, the group sent letters to 249 city and state officials in “sanctuary” jurisdictions that have said they will not cooperate with federal immigration authorities to help them arrest immigrants. If these officials do not participate in Mr. Trump’s crackdown, Mr. Miller’s group said, the local officials could be considered to be illegally “harboring” undocumented immigrants. Experts said it would be difficult for the group to actually sue local officials, but, as before, Mr. Miller’s group is contemplating a campaign outside the courtroom. It filed public-records requests with 17 states and cities, seeking evidence that they were preparing to defy Mr. Trump’s crackdown. And it set up a website called “ Sanctuary Strongholds ,” designed to direct public pressure against state and local officials. Key to some of those outside efforts will be one of the relationships Mr. Miller has established in the last few years — an alliance almost as valuable as his one with Mr. Trump. Mr. Miller found common cause with Mr. Musk, who had begun describing undocumented immigrants as a threat to Western civilization. Mr. Miller’s wife, Katie, is also working with Mr. Musk, at his so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Mr. Miller began advising Mr. Musk on his political donations, which were at the time a closely held secret, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. A nonprofit called Citizens for Sanity, which  tax filings show  is closely tied to Mr. Miller’s group, raised $94 million in 2022 and paid for ads that attacked Democrats’ policies on transgender youth. The Wall Street Journal  reported  that $50 million of the donations to Citizens for Sanity that year came from an outside group that Mr. Musk had been donating to. The America First Legal Foundation and Citizens for Sanity did not respond to questions sent by The New York Times. Mr. Miller is also secretive about his relationship with Mr. Musk. But one person willing to discuss it on condition of anonymity said Mr. Musk had once told him: “I want doers. And most of these people in government, that’s not how they are.” The person recalled that Mr. Musk allowed for one exception: “But Stephen Miller — I love Stephen Miller. He’s a doer.” Annie Karni contributed reporting from Washington. Jonathan Swan  is a White House reporter covering the administration of Donald J. Trump.  More about Jonathan Swan Maggie Haberman  is a White House correspondent, reporting on the second, nonconsecutive term of Donald J. Trump.  More about Maggie Haberman David A. Fahrenthold  is an investigative reporter writing about nonprofit organizations. He has been a reporter for two decades.  More about David A. Fahrenthold Charlie Savage  writes about national security and legal policy.  More about Charlie Savage A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 18, 2025, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Miller Built Clout With Trump. He’s Set to Use It..   Copyright 2025 The New York Times Company

Myanmar's junta chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who ousted the elected government in a coup on February 1, presides an army parade on Armed Forces Day in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, March 27, 2021 (REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo) BEIJING, Jan 20 (Reuters) - The Myanmar military and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) signed a formal agreement for a ceasefire that began on Saturday, China's foreign ministry said, halting fighting near the border of both countries. The two sides held talks in China's southwestern city of Kunming where they thanked Beijing for its efforts to promote peace, ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said during a regular news briefing on Monday. "Cooling down the situation in the north of Myanmar is in the common interest of all parties in Myanmar and all countries in the region, and contributes to the security, stability and development of the border areas between China and Myanmar," she said. China will continue to actively promote peace and dialogue and provide support and assistance to the peace process in northern Myanmar, Mao said. The MNDAA is one of several ethnic minority armed groups fighting to repel the military from what they consider their territories. It is part of the so-called Three Brotherhood Alliance, with the Ta'ang National Liberation Army and the Arakan Army, that launched an offensive against the military junta in late October 2023 seizing swathes of territory  near the border with China. The MNDAA, made up of ethnic Chinese, said last July it had taken control  of a major military base near the Chinese border. Analysts say China is worried about the advance of anti-junta forces which have pushed the military out of vital borderlands and started making inroads towards the central city of Mandalay. The military seized power from Myanmar's civilian government in February 2021, plunging the country into crisis. China fears chaos along its more than 2,000 kilometre long border with Myanmar would jeopardise investment and trade. Beijing previously brokered a ceasefire deal in the northern borderlands in January 2024, but the deal broke down a few months later. Copyright © 2025 Reuters. All rights reserved.

By Gabriella Jozwiak In this photo taken on 13 May 2024, Ashebu Haguzum sits with his wife and children in a camp for internally displaced people in Tigray, Ethiopia. (Gabriella Jozwiak) For four years Ashebu Haguzum, 45, has been waiting. When war broke out in the northernmost Ethiopian region of Tigray in 2020, he and his family fled 300 kilometres from their home in Mai Kadra, near the Sudanese border, to the Tigrayan capital of Mekelle. Ever since they have lived in a camp for internally displaced people (IDPs), despite the fact the war ended in 2022. They have survived on handouts in cramped and unsanitary conditions. They are desperate to go back home. “Before the war, I was rich,” says the father of four. He formerly employed 15 people on his farm, which was well equipped with machinery. “I had my own driver. I helped other people.” Ashebu’s family occupies a section of a classroom at the May Wenyi IDP camp, which used to be a high school. Some 3,600 people are currently residing here, with up to 40 people crammed into each room. There are no bathrooms. The beds are infested with bed bugs and fleas. Viruses spread easily. Ashebu saved his family by sending them to Mekelle in a lorry. He followed later on foot. “I saw 50 dead bodies on the way,” he recalls. “It’s something I will never forget.” His wife Letehewat, 32, sits to one side of him cradling their four-month-old son Ma’rk. Her father may be among the dead, Ashebu says. He has been missing since militia came to his house and took him away. Letehewat says little but looks out of the dirty window and tips her chin up, as if trying to stop the flow of tears down her cheeks. Meanwhile, another son, three-year-old Amanuel, lies on a bed almost motionless. His two older siblings are elsewhere in the school. Throughout our conversation, Amanuel barely moves – so unlike most tearaway toddlers. But he has been born into a situation of waiting, with little space for playfulness. “Living here – it is not something I can compare to my life before,” Ashebu tells Equal Times . “Now we live in a place where there is nothing. If the children ask for bread, we cannot provide it. To see my children in this situation makes me wish I had never been born.” "Wellsprings of Bitterness and Resentment" The war displaced 2.5 million Tigrayans from their homes; to date, only 1.5 million have returned. But the Western Zone, where Haguzum’s family used to live, remains occupied by forces from the neighbouring Ethiopian region of Amhara. The Tigray conflict was fought between the Ethiopian federal government and Tigray’s ruling political party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), but other countries and regions joined both sides. Troops from Eritrea and Somalia, as well as the regions of Amhara and Afar, backed the Ethiopian National Defence Force amongst other warring parties. These allied troops did not sign the November 2022 peace agreement. The reasons for the war differ depending on who you ask. In the 2023 book Understanding Ethiopia’s Tigray War , Martin Plaut and Sarah Vaughan describe the war’s causes as drawing “on wellsprings of bitterness and resentment deep in collective memories of the history and politics of the region”. A pro-federal government argument holds that the TPLF was looking to reinstate its power (from 1995 to 2012 Ethiopia had a TPLF prime minister, Meles Zenawi). But relations between the party and current non-TPLF Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed soured after he was elected in 2018. Meanwhile, a pro-Tigrayan argument claims the federal government launched a genocidal war against the region, intending to wipe out the ethnic group. Whatever the reasons, the violence that followed left an estimated 600,000 people dead. Since the ceasefire, Tigray has struggled to recover. Fighting damaged and destroyed infrastructure, including industries, health services and education settings. Ethiopia’s finance minister has estimated the cost of reconstruction to be US$20 billion. As a result, poverty levels have soared from 27 per cent in 2019 to 92 per cent of the population in 2022, according to the Tigray Statistical Agency (TSA). The total crop harvest for the region has reduced by almost three quarters, which has caused high inflation of food prices. Unemployment has more than quadrupled since the beginning of the war. Current levels are unknown as the TSA has not yet completed its assessment survey, but it sent Equal Times statistics showing the unemployment rate had risen from 17 per cent in 2019 to 74.1 per cent in 2022. To make matters worse, climate change in the Horn of Africa had caused the region’s worst drought for 40 years. Agriculture traditionally provides a living for 80 per cent of Ethiopia’s population. As well as farms, equipment and essentials such as seed and fertilizer being decimated by the war, the lack of rainwater has turned pastures to deserts. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network currently categorises almost all of Tigray as ‘emergency’ or ‘crisis’ for food insecurity. The regional government estimates that 4.5 million people are dependent on food aid. Factories Destroyed and Thousands of Jobs Lost In 2020, just before the start of the war, Ethiopia had one of the fastest growing economies in the world. At that time it published a national Plan of Action for Job Creation to deliver jobs to the more than two million youths entering the labour market each year. For over a decade there has been a lot of focus on Ethiopia’s burgeoning position as a hub for global textile and garment factories but the war has had an impact on the sector (which in 2021 represented over 45 per cent of all manufacturing earnings in the country), particularly in Tigray. Paule France Ndessomin, IndustriALL Global Union regional secretary for Sub Saharan Africa, tells Equal Times that the textile and garment factories in Tigray need investment and reconstruction. “The war in Tigray caused anguish amongst the workers as their factories were destroyed while others closed shop and thousands of jobs were lost,” she says. Angesom Gebreyohannes, president of the Industrial Federation of Textile Leather Garment Workers Trade Union, which is affiliated to IndustriALL, said some factories have begun to reopen, but that many workers were not returning to their jobs. He gave the example of the Almeda Garment factory in Adwa Town, which formerly employed more than 7,500 workers, but at the time of speaking to Equal Times in December 2024, only 1,200 had returned. “When production is low only 500 workers are asked to report for duty,” he says. “Further, at MAA Garment and Textiles Factory near Mekelle, workers are owed over 41 months in unpaid wages and the court has ordered that the workers be paid but the employer is appealing against the ruling.” Since the war ended, the federal government is providing little money for reconstruction or job creation, according to regional government officials in Tigray. One, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of damaging relations with the federal government, says his department had reported levels of needs to the capital Addis Ababa, but had not yet received a response. “At the national level, there are not enough resources,” he says. “The economic system has collapsed.” He adds that getting IDPs back to their homes and back to work is important, as is ending the occupation of previously productive areas of the region: “These productive people are still in camps so this is an additional burden for the region.” Humanitarian Support Tigray’s interim government is relying on humanitarian organisations for support, according to the anonymous official. At May Wenyi, the Catholic mission Daughters of Charity (DOC), has supported IDPs since 2020. It delivers psychological support to traumatised residents and tries to help them earn money. “Currently our biggest work is in rehabilitating and empowering vulnerable women – socially and economically,” says head of DOC Mekelle, Sister Medhin Tesfay. Many women have been left widowed by the war. “We have supported 300 women from IDP centres with basic business skills and entrepreneurship training, and provided them with seed capital to start small ventures that can help them earn liveable wages,” she says. Tesfay gives the example of one woman who is among an estimated 100,000 to have been raped during the conflict. After six months of intensive psychiatric treatment, DOC gave her training and funding to open a food vending business. But starting an enterprise in the current economic climate is challenging. “The businesses cannot handle even small shocks to the economy and the women are discouraged after months of hard work with little growth,” Tesfay says. “Now with rising inflation rates they find it hard to remain competitive.” Despite this, providing IDPs with livelihood skills is important. “Getting out of bed every morning and having something to work towards has a significant impact on their mental health,” says Tesfay. DOC has partnered with the British charity Mary’s Meals International (MMI) to provide school meals since 2017. When the war broke out, schools closed and MMI pivoted its food supply to IDPs. Director of programme affiliates and partners Alex Keay recently visited the camps and found limited economic opportunities. “Because there are so many displaced people in the camps, it’s a competitive market. There may be situations where people can find work, but it is based a long distance from the camp and so travel costs are prohibitive.” This situation has forced tens of thousands of young people to leave Ethiopia in search of work elsewhere. One survey by the Tigray’s Youth Affairs Bureau found that 29,600 15- to 35-year-olds had left since the war ended. But this assessment only covers just over half of Tigray’s districts. “Young people will leave the region and there won’t be anyone left to rebuild Tigray,” says its head Haish Subagadis. The migrants’ journeys are dangerous and often end in disaster, Subagadis explains. Traffickers lead them either to Yemen, with the goal of reaching Saudi Arabia, or through Sudan towards Libya and onto Europe (although this route is rarer now because of conflict in Sudan). The traffickers charge one million Ethiopian Birr (approximately US$8260) for the journey. “If they do not get the money, the traffickers make them stay in a camp,” Subagadis explains. “They are under their control unless they pay.” Fees rise over time. Migrants have reported inhumane living conditions, beatings and torture. Many simply disappear. Migration has grown so acutely that in June, the International Labour Organization held three days of training on mitigating the risks of irregular migration in Mekelle, in collaboration with the federal Ministry of Labour and Skills. Tackling Youth Unemployment Youth unemployment is an Ethiopia-wide problem. Its urban youth unemployment rate is 26 per cent, according to the NGO Amref Health Africa, which leads a scheme called Kefeta that has supported two million young people aged 15 to 29 in 18 cities across Ethiopia. But the challenges facing conflict-affected young people and IDPs are more complex, according to regional programme officer Kellali Tsegay Alemu. Amref has only operated in Mekelle in Tigray for a year, as a result of the conflict. A study conducted by the Tigray Youth Association found that 81 per cent of people aged 15 to 35 in the Tigray region are currently unemployed. There is a lack of access to financial opportunities and it is difficult to deliver support to young people as youth centres have been looted or damaged, Alemu says. His colleague, senior youth service advisor Hermon Amare Abay, has supported IDPs living in camps. She says resettlement issues are beyond the organisation’s control: “It lies with the government”. Meanwhile she has tried to respond to people’s basic needs: food, shelter and mental health. One screening of 100 individuals revealed 80 per cent suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. “It’s very complicated to solve mental health issues when one’s livelihood is still in question,” says Abay. Kefeta chief of party Chalachew Tiruneh Alemu says that more investment is needed to get young people back into economic activity. Factories need rebuilding and business enterprises need to be created. Many young people in Tigray and in the neighbouring region of Amhara, where conflict is still ongoing, want to start small businesses. But the organisation does not have the resources to provide them with the capital. “But what we can do is to try to change their mindset,” says Alemu. Credit: Equal Times

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, ICC Prosecutor Khan, and former Israeli Defense Minister Gallant... credit © Israel Hayom End Imperial Impunity In These Times 26 December 1999 By Dr. Gregory Stanton In Rome on July 17, 1998, 120 nations voted to create a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) to try war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Only seven nations opposed the measure, including Iraq, China, Israel and the United States. The ICC will be created when 60 nations ratify the Rome Statute, which is expected to occur in 2002. The ICC will be headquartered in The Hague, with 18 judges and its chief and deputy prosecutors elected by a majority of nations that have ratified the statute. Only nations that have signed and ratified may contribute judges and prosecutors. Eighty-nine nations have now signed the Rome Statute, including all of America's NATO allies. Five have ratified. The United States still refuses to sign. This year, representatives of more than 100 nations have met three times at the United Nations to settle the rules of procedure and evidence. The latest preparatory session was held from Nov. 29 to Dec. 17, 1999. The United States now acknowledges that the ICC will come into being with or without its signature. And it recognizes that the Rome Statute cannot be changed. Nevertheless, the United States used the August preparatory meetings to lobby for binding agreements that would alter the statute without formally amending it. The most dangerous of the U.S. demands is immunity for official acts of government officials. The so-called "like-minded states," which were in the majority, rejected this position as an obstacle to the ICC's effectiveness. It is outrageous that the United States is advocating it at all. The United States is concerned that the President or Secretary of Defense, or U.S. troops acting on their orders, could be charged with war crimes for future acts like the bombing of Cambodia, the mining of Nicaragua's harbors or the bombing of the Sudanese factory. The United States wants a binding agreement that official government acts will be immune from prosecution. The country accused of crimes would be the judge of whether the acts were official. Such immunity for government officials would be a giant step backward for international law. Saddam Hussein could claim that his genocidal chemical warfare against the Kurds was an official act to protect national security. Even the Nazis could have claimed that their crimes were official acts. Granting immunity to official acts would blast away the bedrock of international humanitarian law, the Nuremberg Principles, which hold that no person, whatever his rank, is immune from prosecution for crimes against humanity. The U.S. position would violate the Genocide Convention of 1948, the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and the Torture Convention, all international treaties that the United States has ratified. The U.S position would destroy the purpose of the ICC, which is to render justice when national courts cannot or will not punish leaders who commit genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. At a recent American Bar Association meeting, I pointed out the shortsightedness of the U.S. position to a State Department lawyer. He replied: "The president couldn't do his job very well from a jail in The Hague." But multiple safeguards built into the Rome Statute would prevent indictments of American officials. The statute gives national courts priority. If allegations are made against a U.S. official, the ICC first must refer them to the U.S. government, and if the United States conducts a good faith investigation and finds them groundless, the ICC would lack any jurisdiction. Further, war crimes must be intentional, providing a defense against prosecution for accidental bombings. Finally. a majority of the UN Security Council, where the United States wields great influence, can take jurisdiction over a case away from the ICC. The United States doesn't need "official acts" immunity to protect its servicemen or leaders from ICC prosecution. The situation is different for dictatorships. National courts have failed to punish leaders who commit massive crimes against their own people because those courts are controlled by the very same dictators who commit the crimes. Only an international court can bring tyrants such as Idi Amin and Pol Pot to justice. Does the United States want to create immunity from prosecution for the "official acts" of such dictators? Ad hoc tribunals like those for Yugoslavia and Rwanda are no deterrent to future killers. They are slow, costly to establish, and will create inconsistent international criminal law. It is time for the United States to reassert its international leadership in the enforcement of human rights by rejoining its allies and signing the Rome Statute. The United States should support justice for all; not justice for all except government officials; not justice for all except the United States. The era of impunity for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity is over. Update to 2025: At the urging of former President Jimmy Carter, President Clinton authorized Ambassador David Scheffer to sign the Rome Statute of the ICC in 1999. President George W. Bush withdrew the U.S. signature after taking office. [Whether such retractions are legal is still debated.] The U.S. Senate has never ratified the ICC treaty. Under Presidents Obama and Biden, the U.S. fully cooperated with and shared evidence with the ICC. Such cooperation ended under President Trump. The Republican Party, except for exceptions like former Senator Arlen Spector, remains opposed to U.S. ratification of the ICC Treaty.

New York Times January 9, 2025 Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, in Paris last year. Congressional Republicans have been trying to crack down on the court since May, when Mr. Khan announced he was seeking warrants for Israeli leaders.Credit ...Dimitar Dilkoff/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images House Passes Bill to Impose Sanctions on I.C.C. Officials for Israeli Prosecutions By Karoun Demirjian Reporting from Washington The House on Thursday passed legislation that would impose sanctions on officials at the International Criminal Court, making a frontal assault on the tribunal in a rebuke of its move to charge top Israeli leaders with war crimes for their offensive against Hamas in Gaza. The bill instructs the president to freeze property assets and deny visas to any foreigners who materially or financially contributed to the court’s efforts to “investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute a protected person.” Protected persons are defined as all current and former military and government officials of the United States and allies that have not consented to the court’s jurisdiction, such as Israel. The measure is one of several that were pushed through the House by Republicans last year but died in the Democratic-led Senate, and is now all but certain to be enacted now that Republicans control both chambers of Congress and Mr. Trump is taking office on Jan. 20. The action put the measure on track for likely enactment given strong support for it among Republicans, who now control the Senate, and President-elect Donald J. Trump. Last year, a similar measure drew some bipartisan support in the House but still faced resistance among many Democrats, who joined Republicans in criticizing the I.C.C.’s move to prosecute Israeli leaders but called the sanctions overly broad and ineffective. With Republicans now in charge, the barriers to the bill’s passage appear to have fallen away. “The I.C.C.’s rogue actions only enable the terrorists who seek to wipe Israel off the map, and they cannot be allowed to stand unchecked,” Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, said on the floor this week. “In November, I promised that if Leader Schumer wouldn’t bring the I.C.C. sanctions bill to the floor, Republicans would. And we’ll soon fulfill that promise and have a vote to support our ally Israel.” The 243-to-140 vote in the House, in which 45 Democrats joined all Republicans to support the bill, reflected the considerable bipartisan aggravation among lawmakers with the court’s decision to pursue Israeli officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity alongside the leaders of Hamas, whose deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, started a bloody backlash in the Gaza Strip. “America is passing this law because a kangaroo court is seeking to arrest the prime minister of our great ally,” Representative Brian Mast, Republican of Florida and the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on the floor. He accused the court of antisemitism, trying to prevent the Israeli military from being successful and of stymying efforts to release Israeli and American hostages being held by Hamas. “This bill sends an incredibly important message across the globe,” Mr. Mast added. “Do not get in the way of America or our allies trying to bring our people home. You will be given no quarter, and again, you will certainly not be welcome on American soil.” The United States has sent Israel shipments of weapons worth billions of dollars since the start of the armed conflict, despite international condemnation of its assault on Gaza and accusations from human rights groups that its actions there are tantamount to genocide. Efforts to broker a cease-fire have eluded the Biden administration. Mr. Trump said this week that if Hamas did not release Israeli hostages by his inauguration , “all hell will break out in the Middle East.” Congressional Republicans have been trying to crack down on the court since May, when its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced he was seeking warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and its defense minister at the time, Yoav Gallant, alongside Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza; Ismail Haniyeh, its Qatar-based chief; and Muhammad Deif, its top military commander. The House first passed a bill to impose sanctions on court officials and their associates just two weeks later . In November, the court issued warrants for Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Gallant and Mr. Deif for war crimes and crimes against humanity. By that point, Mr. Sinwar and Mr. Haniyeh had been confirmed as killed by Israeli forces. Israel has also claimed to have killed Mr. Deif . Proponents of the bill have argued that the sanctions are a necessary rebuke of the court’s move to equate Israel’s leaders with the top brass of a terrorist group like Hamas. They have also insisted that the measure is an important repudiation of what they see as overstepping by the court, since Israel, like the United States, has not consented to its jurisdiction. The bill is “critically important not just for our friendship with our ally Israel but for our own national security, the protection of our men and women in uniform,” Representative Chip Roy, Republican of Texas and the author of the bill, said on the floor. He argued that if the United States failed to impose sanctions on the court, U.S. service members could be targeted for their conduct in foreign conflicts. The I.C.C., Mr. Roy added, “should have no authority over our people, no authority over the prime minister of Israel.” Most Democrats objected to the legislation, arguing that it was trying to punish too wide a swath of people for the decision. “Republicans want to sanction the I.C.C. simply because they don’t want the rules to apply to everyone,” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts. “There is no international right to vengeance, and what we are seeing in Gaza is vengeance.” The International Criminal Court claims jurisdiction over alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide that are committed by citizens of states that have recognized the court or occur in countries that have recognized the court. The Palestinian Territories did so in 2015, a few years after the United Nations admitted Palestine as an observer state. The United States and Israel were among only seven countries that voted against the creation of the criminal court in 1998. Though both countries later became signatories to its founding document, the Rome Statute, neither country ratified it. Karoun Demirjian covers Congress with a focus on defense, foreign policy, intelligence, immigration, and trade and technology. More about Karoun Demirjian A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 10, 2025 , Section A, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: House Votes to Punish Court Over Gaza Case. Copyright 2025 The New York Times Company For Genocide Watch comment on US attempts to grant immunity for impunity see: https://thirdworldtraveler.com/International_War_Crimes/EndImperialImpunity.html

Push to enforce law against denials about KR genocidal era Khmer Times  January 9, 2025 By Ben Sokhean Tourists get an insight into the sufferings of the people during the Khmer Rouge era through exhibits at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. KT/Heng Chivoan   Senate President Hun Sen, leader of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), has called on relevant institutions to step up the enforcement of the “Law Against Non-Recognition of Crimes Committed During the Democratic Kampuchea Period,” sparking a heated public debate. This move comes as the law, aimed to strictly penalise those who deny the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge, had been passed over a decade ago in 2013. The law prescribes imprisonment of six months to two years and fines between one million and four million Riel ($250 to $1,000). The law was passed in the wake of contentions by some critics who refused to recognise the overthrow of the genocidal Khmer Rouge as a liberation. However, it was not enforced after such critics fell silent until recently. Speaking at the 46th Anniversary of the January 7 Victory Day at Koh Pich, Mr Hun Sen had emphasised the importance of peace as the foundation of national progress and called for action against those who threatened peace by refusing to acknowledge the facts about the Khmer Rouge rule. He requested competent institutions to pay attention to strengthening the implementation of the 2013 law against the non-recognition of crimes committed during the period of Democratic Kampuchea “in the strictest manner”. Mr Hun Sen also called for the establishment of new laws against individuals or groups attempting to overthrow the legitimate government, describing such actions as terrorism. He proposed defining any person or group conspiring to incite extremist movements, cause social instability, or provoke conflicts with other states as terrorists, to be brought to justice. Mr Hun Sen added that despite Cambodia’s 26 years of peace, extremist threats remain a concern. He highlighted the need for vigilance against those who seek to incite unrest and undermine the legitimate government. The Kingdom, he said, is striving to advance as a peaceful, democratic, and law-abiding nation, ensuring that the horrors of war and genocide never recur. “I believed that it is time to establish a law that will define any person or group who plans or conspires to create an extremist movement, causes chaos and insecurity in society, provokes conflicts with other states, and attempts to overthrow the legitimate government as terrorists, and that person or group must be brought to justice,” he said. Meanwhile the government announced in December that it plans to replace the 2013 law with a more comprehensive framework that aligns with Cambodia’s current socio-economic context. Additionally, a draft law concerning the interim disposal of seized assets in criminal cases is under review. This legislation outlines procedures for managing seized assets during investigations, balancing public and private interests while preserving the economic value of these items. However, this initiative has not received unanimous support. Critics, especially from opposition parties, view the proposed laws as politically motivated and allegedly targeting former officials and senior members of the court-dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP). Ou Chanrath, former CNRP lawmaker and current Vice-President of the opposition Cambodia Reform Party (CRP), yesterday expressed dissatisfaction with the plans. “In my perspective, I don’t think it is necessary to adopt such laws,” he said. He said he had rarely seen any countries that adopted such laws to criminalise opposition activists or opponents of the ruling party. “We already have a Criminal Code, and we have seen many people convicted over alleged incitement or causing social chaos, so it would not be good to label one group or individuals as terrorists,” he added. Chanrath also did not support convicting those who have different ideas regarding the Khmer Rouge’s genocidal regime. “For me, cracking down on them means an attempt to silence them.” In testimony the cruelty of the Pol Pot-led Democratic Kampuchea, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), also known as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, concluded its final criminal case on genocide committed by that regime in 2022. This brought to an end to a judicial process that spanned over 17 years. This tribunal leaves behind a significant legacy, documenting some of the gravest crimes against humanity in modern history while contributing to truth, reconciliation, and justice in Cambodia. CPP spokesman Sok Eysan explained yesterday that it is the right time to implement the law and label “illegal rebel group” as “terrorists.” Drafting the law to label the illegal rebel group as terrorists is necessary to ensure the preservation of peace for a long time. Declaring the law to label extremist rebel groups as terrorists is a measure to prevent terrorism, which is despised by the world,” he said. “Charging the activists of their group does not affect national interests. The rebel group is using personal interests to destroy national interests. If the court convicts them, they must accept the sentence without any excuses. Every individual must take responsibility for their actions,” he added. Chhang Youk, Executive Director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), founder of the Sleuk Rith Institute, and a survivor of the Khmer Rouge’s “killing fields,” expressed his belief yesterday that Cambodia needs a law to ensure the future prevention of genocide. Cambodia has enacted at least three laws related to genocide: (1) The Law on Outlawing the Group of Democratic Kampuchea (1994); (2) The Law on the Establishment of the Extraordinary Chambers (2001); and (3) The Law Against Non-Recognition of Crimes Committed During the Democratic Kampuchea Period (2013). “All three laws were focused on addressing either problems of the past or current generations. (The proposed new law) on the Teaching of Cambodian Military & Genocide History would be a natural complement and continuation of these laws as the law is oriented to mostly future generations who will no longer have any survivors to inform them about Cambodia’s military & genocide history,” he said. Youk added that he had submitted an opinion to international donors and the Cambodian government during the drafting and discussion of the Law Against Non-Recognition of Crimes Committed During the Democratic Kampuchea Period. “Cambodia has experienced a wide spectrum of challenges, atrocities, and tragedies – ranging from foreign intervention and civil war to genocide, starvation, and extreme deprivation. Many, if not most, of these extreme atrocities and tragedies were associated with military conflicts, violence, and instability, and therefore can be associated with the scholarly field of military and genocide history. Cambodia’s military & genocide history offers valuable lessons learned for individual Cambodians, military and civilian professionals, leaders in the Southeast Asian region, and the world,” he said in his file attached with the opinion. “In addition to providing valuable lessons learned on challenges, atrocities and tragedies, Cambodia’s military & genocide history is punctuated by valuable lessons learned and insights on successful strategies and leadership, particularly the Win-Win Strategy. Through the Win-Win Strategy, the country’s history stands out as a poignant example of how countries wracked by instability, genocide, and war can be transformed into models for peace, stability, and development. In sum, Cambodian military & genocide history is an important national resource for Cambodia,” Youk added. Copyright 2025 Khmer Times

Five former military policemen from the Bosnian Serb Army’s Zvornik and Bratunac Brigade were charged with genocide over the executions of hundreds of Bosniaks in a school gym in 1995. Lamija Grebo, January 8, 2025 Gravestones at the Srebrenica Memorial Centre, July 2023. Photo: EPA-EFE/FEHIM DEMIR. The Bosnian state prosecution announced on Wednesday that it has charged Rajko Milic, Miodrag ‘Mijo’ Pavlovic, Radenko Zaric, Vukasin Draskovic and Milan Tomic with participating in the capture and forcible detention of more than 829 Bosniak men and boys in a school gym in the village of Rocevic, near Zvornik, in July 1995. “Miodrag Pavlovic is charged with having deprived several detainees of their lives using knives, while the others participated in transporting and shooting detainees at a gravel factory on the banks of the River Drina in the village of Kozluk,” the prosecution said. The suspects were military policemen with the Bosnian Serb Army’s Zvornik and Bratunac Brigade during wartime, it is claimed. The crimes were part of the genocide of Bosniaks from Srebrenica by Bosnian Serb forces. Hague Tribunal verdicts have established that a large number of captured Srebrenica residents were brought by buses from Bratunac to the school building in Rocevic, where some were killed. Other captives were transported by trucks from the school building to the gravel factory in Kozluk on the banks of River Drina, where they were executed. At least 800 people were executed in total. Draskovic is currently serving a sentence for committing a crime against humanity committed in the village of Lokanj, near Zvornik, in 1992. The indictment has been filed to the state court for confirmation. Copyright BIRN 2015

Reflections on January 7 – Lessons from fall of Khmer Rouge Khmer Times January 7, 2025 By Chhang Youk File picture of DC-Cam director Chhang Youk with a bust of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. DC-Cam   As Cambodians commemorate the fall of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime on January 7, it is important that we reflect upon some of the questions that continue to arise in debating this history today. There is no question that even half a century after the regime was toppled, the effects of this period continue to reverberate throughout Cambodia. There is no Cambodian family, community, or institution that was not impacted by this regime and it would not be difficult to observe the subtle effects of this period in culture and institutions today. If there is any universal insight to be gleaned, it is that the effects of atrocity crimes do not disappear or even fade in any predictable timeframe. There are other insights from January 7 that warrant reflection, such as why was the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime on January 7, 1979, and not January 7, 1978, 1977, or 1976? Why were the Khmer Rouge even able to take over Cambodia and why did they persist as a force that challenged the government and people over a decade after their collapse? These questions are frequently asked, if not aloud, then silently, in nearly all public educational forums rganized by the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) staff. Unfortunately the answers are not reassuring. Humanity has been and remains divided on when violence, atrocity crimes and genocide warrant a committed response. In fact, atrocity crimes continue to be perpetrated even today in multiple countries and conflicts around the world. The single greatest question we need to ask is not whether and when to act, but why not and how? There are many reasons that have been articulated for why not, which range from economic costs and considerations to political, legal and military implications of engagements that put good people at risk and international concepts of sovereignty and order into question. These reasons are not misplaced, but they are inadequate. But these reasons are inadequate to a wife whose husband was arrested and tortured. They are inadequate to a father who watched his child starve to death. They are inadequate to a mother whose child was murdered. And they are inadequate to children today who ask why their parents and grandparents died for no reason. As we reflect on January 7, we should reflect not only on questions that start with what happened, why and what could have been, but also why not and how. Cambodia can lead the world in this debate, not only as victims and survivors of atrocity crimes but also victors. Chhang Youk is Director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) and a genocide survivor of the Khmer Rouge’s killing fields. Copyright 2025 Chhang Youk and Khmer Times                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     January 7, 2025 Reflections on January 7 – Lessons from fall of Khmer Rouge Chhang Youk / Khmer Times As Cambodians commemorate the fall of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime on January 7, it is important that we reflect upon some of the questions that continue to arise in debating this history today. There is no question that even half a century after the regime was toppled, the effects of this period continue to reverberate throughout Cambodia. There is no Cambodian family, community, or institution that was not impacted by this regime and it would not be difficult to observe the subtle effects of this period in culture and institutions today. If there is any universal insight to be gleaned, it is that the effects of atrocity crimes do not disappear or even fade in any predictable timeframe. There are other insights from January 7 that warrant reflection, such as why was the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime on January 7, 1979, and not January 7, 1978, 1977, or 1976? Why were the Khmer Rouge even able to take over Cambodia and why did they persist as a force that challenged the government and people over a decade after their collapse? These questions are frequently asked, if not aloud, then silently, in nearly all public educational forums organised by the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) staff. Unfortunately the answers are not reassuring. Humanity has been and remains divided on when violence, atrocity crimes and genocide warrant a committed response. In fact, atrocity crimes continue to be perpetrated even today in multiple countries and conflicts around the world. The single greatest question we need to ask is not whether and when to act, but why not and how? There are many reasons that have been articulated for why not, which range from economic costs and considerations to political, legal and military implications of engagements that put good people at risk and international concepts of sovereignty and order into question. These reasons are not misplaced, but they are inadequate. But these reasons are inadequate to a wife whose husband was arrested and tortured. They are inadequate to a father who watched his child starve to death. They are inadequate to a mother whose child was murdered. And they are inadequate to children today who ask why their parents and grandparents died for no reason. As we reflect on January 7, we should reflect not only on questions that start with what happened, why and what could have been, but also why not and how. Cambodia can lead the world in this debate, not only as victims and survivors of atrocity crimes but also victors. Chhang Youk is Director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) and a genocide survivor of the Khmer Rouge’s killing fields.

Israel Loosened Its Rules to Bomb Hamas Fighters, Killing Many More Civilian s The New York Times Dec. 26, 2024 By  Patrick Kingsley   Natan Odenheimer   Bilal Shbair   Ronen Bergman   John Ismay   Sheera Frenkel  and  Adam Sella  [ The reporters interviewed more than 100 soldiers and officials in Israel, dozens of victims of the strikes in Gaza, and experts on the rules of armed conflict.] Surprised by Oct. 7 and fearful of another attack, Israel weakened safeguards meant to protect noncombatants, allowing officers to endanger up to 20 people in each airstrike. One of the deadliest bombardments of the 21st century followed. One of the first buildings destroyed by an Israeli airstrike, in Gaza City, on Oct. 7, 2023.Credit ...Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times At exactly 1 p.m. on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s military leadership issued an order that unleashed one of the most intense bombing campaigns in contemporary warfare. Effective immediately, the order granted mid-ranking Israeli officers the authority to strike thousands of militants and military sites that had never been a priority in previous wars in Gaza. Officers could now pursue not only the senior Hamas commanders, arms depots and rocket launchers that were the focus of earlier campaigns, but also the lowest-ranking fighters. In each strike, the order said, officers had the authority to risk killing up to 20 civilians. The order, which has not previously been reported, had no precedent in Israeli military history. Mid-ranking officers had never been given so much leeway to attack so many targets, many of which had lower military significance, at such a high potential civilian cost. It meant, for example, that the military could target rank-and-file militants as they were at home surrounded by relatives and neighbors, instead of only when they were alone outside. In previous conflicts with Hamas, many Israeli strikes were approved only after officers concluded that no civilians would be hurt. Sometimes, officers could risk killing up to five civilians and only rarely did the limit rise to 10 or above, though the actual death toll was sometimes  much higher . On Oct. 7, the military leadership changed its rules of engagement because it believed that Israel faced an existential threat, according to a senior military officer who answered questions about the order on the condition of anonymity. Hours earlier, Hamas-led terrorists had  stormed into southern Israel , seizing towns and army bases,  committing   atrocities , firing thousands of rockets at civilian areas, killing up to 1,200 people and taking roughly 250  hostages . As Israelis battled Hamas fighters inside their borders, the officer said, Israel’s leaders also feared an invasion from the group’s allies in Lebanon and believed that they had to take drastic military action. Israeli soldiers carrying a body at a kibbutz after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack. Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times   “All of the places where Hamas was deployed, in this city of evil, all of the places where Hamas has been hiding and operating from — we will turn them into rubble,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in  a speech  on Oct. 7. An investigation by The New York Times found that Israel severely weakened its system of safeguards meant to protect civilians; adopted flawed methods to find targets and assess the risk of civilian casualties; routinely failed to conduct post-strike reviews of civilian harm or punish officers for wrongdoing; and ignored warnings from within its own ranks and from senior U.S. military officials about these failings. The Times reviewed dozens of military records and interviewed more than 100 soldiers and officials, including more than 25 people who helped vet, approve or strike targets. Collectively, their accounts provide an unparalleled understanding of how Israel mounted  one of the deadliest air wars  of this century. Most of the soldiers and officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were barred from speaking publicly on a subject of such sensitivity. The Times verified the military orders with officers familiar with their content.   The Gazan health ministry says that more than 45,000 people have been killed. Credit...Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times In its investigation, The Times found that: Israel vastly expanded the set of military targets it sought to hit in pre-emptive airstrikes, while simultaneously increasing the number of civilians that officers could endanger in each attack. That led Israel to fire nearly 30,000 munitions into Gaza in the war’s first seven weeks, more than in the next eight months combined. In addition, the military leadership removed a limit on the cumulative number of civilians that its strikes could endanger each day. On a few occasions, senior commanders approved strikes on Hamas leaders that they knew would each endanger more than 100 noncombatants — crossing an extraordinary threshold for a contemporary Western military. The military struck at a pace that made it harder to confirm it was hitting legitimate targets. It burned through much of a prewar database of vetted targets within days and adopted an unproven system for finding new targets that used artificial intelligence at a vast scale. The military often relied on a crude statistical model to assess the risk of civilian harm, and sometimes launched strikes on targets several hours after last locating them, increasing the risk of error. The model mainly depended on estimates of cellphone usage in a wider neighborhood, rather than extensive surveillance of a specific building, as was common in previous Israeli campaigns. From the first day of the war, Israel significantly reduced its use of so-called roof knocks, or warning shots that give civilians time to flee an imminent attack. And when it could have feasibly used smaller or more precise munitions to achieve the same military goal, it sometimes caused greater damage by dropping “dumb bombs,” as well as 2,000-pound bombs. The air campaign was at its most intense during the first two months of the war, when more than 15,000 Palestinians were killed — or roughly a third of the overall toll, according to the Gazan health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.   From November 2023 onward, amid a global outcry, Israel began to conserve ammunition and tighten some of its rules of engagement, including by halving the number of civilians who could be endangered when striking low-ranked militants who posed no imminent threat. But the rules remain far more permissive than before the war. Since those early weeks, more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, and while Israel disputes the ministry’s figures, the total continues to climb.   Israel vastly increased the number of military targets in Gaza, and increased the number of civilians who could be endangered in strikes. Credit...Yousef Masoud for The New York Times Provided a summary of The Times’s findings, the Israeli military acknowledged that its rules of engagement had changed after Oct. 7 but said in a 700-word statement that its forces have “consistently been employing means and methods that adhere to the rules of law.” The changes were made in the context of a conflict that is “unprecedented and hardly comparable to other theaters of hostilities worldwide,” the statement added, citing the scale of Hamas’s attack; efforts by militants to hide among civilians in Gaza; and Hamas’s extensive tunnel network. “Such key factors,” the statement said, “bear implications on the application of the rules, such as the choice of military objectives and the operational constraints that dictate the conduct of hostilities, including the ability to take feasible precautions in strikes.” The relatives of Shaldan al-Najjar, a senior commander in a militia allied with Hamas that joined the Oct. 7 attacks, were among the first casualties of Israel’s loosened standards. When the military struck his home in a war nine years earlier, it took several precautions to avoid civilian harm — and no one was killed, including Mr. al-Najjar. When it targeted him in this war, it killed not just him but also 20 members of his extended family, including a 2-month-old baby, according to his brother Suleiman, who lived in the home that was hit and witnessed the immediate aftermath. Some relatives were blown from the building. His niece’s severed hand was found in the rubble. “Blood was splattered all over the neighbor’s wall — as though some sheep had just been slaughtered,” the brother recalled. Israel, which has been  accused of genocide  in a case before the International Court of Justice, says it complies with international law by taking all feasible precautions to minimize civilian casualties, often by ordering evacuations of whole cities before strikes, and by dropping leaflets over neighborhoods and posting online maps about imminent operations. Israel says that Hamas’s  military strategy  makes bloodshed more likely. The group embeds itself in the civilian population, firing rockets from residential areas, hiding fighters and weapons inside homes and medical facilities, and operating from underground military installations and tunnels.   A photograph taken during an escorted tour of a tunnel the Israeli military said was built by Hamas underneath a school.Credit ...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times Unlike Hamas, which fires rockets indiscriminately at civilian areas, Israel and all Western armies operate under a multilayered oversight system that assesses the legality of planned strikes. Each attack plan is usually meant to be analyzed by a group of officers, which often includes a military lawyer who can advise on whether strikes might be unnecessary or unlawful. To comply with international law, officers overseeing airstrikes must conclude that the risk of civilian casualties is proportional to the target’s military value and take all feasible precautions to protect civilian life. But officers exercise significant discretion because the laws of armed conflict are vague about what counts as a feasible precaution or an excessive civilian toll. After the shock of the Oct. 7 attack, a dozen officers recalled, some Israeli officers involved in the counteroffensive became less stringent about adhering to military protocol. While some commanders tried hard to maintain standards, five senior officers used the same phrase to describe the prevalent mood inside the military: “harbu darbu.” It is an expression derived from Arabic and widely used in Hebrew to mean attacking an enemy without restraint. Why Civilians Were at Higher Risk The Israeli military first targeted Shaldan al-Najjar during the war in August 2014. He was a senior commander in Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which had conducted suicide bombings and rocket attacks against Israel for decades. Before that strike in Deir al Balah, central Gaza, the air force gave his neighbors three chances to escape, according to his brother Suleiman. Israeli officers called one neighbor, and then another, with warnings of an upcoming strike on a nearby target that the military did not identify. Then the military dropped a small projectile on the house, what it calls a “roof knock,” standard practice then before strikes on targets believed to hold ammunition or tunnel entrances. That was enough for everyone, including Shaldan al-Najjar, to escape unharmed.   The Najjars’ home after it was hit in Deir al Balah.Credit ...Bilal Shbair for The New York Times   But seven hours after Hamas attacked Israel last year, the order from Israel’s high command made roof knocks optional. In practice this meant the procedure was rarely used, officers said. There were no warnings before an Israeli fighter jet fired at Shaldan al-Najjar on the evening of Oct. 10, 2023, as he visited his siblings’ home. The explosion killed Mr. al-Najjar, along with his stepmother, four children, a younger brother, a sister-in-law, 13 nephews and nieces, including the 2-month-old baby boy, named Zein, and at least one neighbor, according to records compiled by Gaza’s health authorities. The Israeli military confirmed that it had been targeting a member of Islamic Jihad, but declined to release more information. Under Israeli military protocols, there are four categories of risk for civilian casualties: Level Zero, which forbids soldiers to put any civilians at risk; Level One, which allows up to five civilian deaths; Level Two, which allows up to 10; and Level Three, which allows up to 20 — and became the standard on Oct. 7.   Shaldan al-Najjar, a commander in Palestinian Islamic Jihad.Credit ...via Facebook   Fins from a guided bomb that the Najjar family said it had found in the rubble.Credit ...Bilal Shbair for The New York Times   Suddenly, officers could decide to drop one-ton bombs on a vast array of military infrastructure — including small ammunition stockpiles and rocket factories — as well as on all Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters. The definition of a military target included lookouts and money changers suspected of handling Hamas’s funds, as well as the entrances to the group’s underground tunnel network, which were often hidden in homes. Authorization from senior commanders was required only if the target was too close to a sensitive site, like a school or health facility, though such strikes were regularly approved too. The effect was swift. Airwars, a London-based conflict monitor, documented 136 strikes that each killed at least 15 people in October 2023 alone. That was almost five times the number the group has documented during any comparable period anywhere in the world since it was founded a decade ago.   A U.N.-run school that housed displaced Palestinians and was damaged by an Israeli bombardment. Credit...Bashar Taleb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Strikes that endangered more than 100 civilians were occasionally permitted to target a handful of Hamas leaders, as long as senior generals or sometimes the political leadership approved , according to four Israeli officers involved in target selection. Three of them said those targeted included Ibrahim Biari, a senior Hamas commander killed in northern Gaza in late October, in an attack that Airwars estimated killed at least 125 others. Another order, issued by the military high command at 10:50 p.m. on Oct. 8, provides a sense of the scale of civilian casualties deemed tolerable. Strikes on military targets in Gaza, it said, were permitted to cumulatively endanger up to 500 civilians each day. Military officials characterized the order as a precautionary measure intended to cap the number of strikes that could take place each day. A scholar at West Point consulted by The Times, Prof. Michael N. Schmitt, said it risked being construed by mid-ranking officers as a quota that they had to reach. In any case, the limit was removed two days later — allowing officers to sign off on as many strikes as they believed were legal. The Gazan authorities later reported  occasional daily tolls  of more than 500, but it was unclear how many were civilians or if their deaths had occurred over several days. The risk to civilians was also heightened by the Israeli military’s widespread use of 1,000- and 2,000-pound bombs,  many of them American-made , which  constituted 90 percent  of the munitions Israel dropped in the first two weeks of the war . By November, two officers said, the air force had dropped so many one-ton bombs that it was running low on the guidance kits that transform unguided weapons, or “dumb bombs,” into precision-guided munitions. Munitions fired by Israel into Gaza Around 30,000 munitions fired in first seven weeks   This forced pilots to rely on unguided and less accurate bombs, the officers said. They were also increasingly dependent on outdated Vietnam-era bombs that  can fail to detonate , according to two U.S. military officials briefed on Israel’s arsenal. The air force used the one-ton bomb to destroy whole office towers, two senior Israeli military officials said, even when a target could have been killed by  a smaller munition . While declining to comment on specific incidents, the Israeli military said that its “choice of munitions” was always governed by the rules of war. The senior military official said that heavy munitions were required to hit Hamas’s tunnels. The Najjar family was struck by a precision-guided one-ton bomb — an American-made  JDAM , according to a Times assessment of a guidance fin that the family said it had found in the rubble. The bomb completely destroyed their three-story building, flattening five apartments as well as a car workshop on the ground floor, according to the brother and two other surviving members of the family. “After the dust and smoke cleared, I looked at my building,” said Suleiman al-Najjar, who said he survived because he was on his way back from the hospital. “There was no building.” A Depleted Target Bank Throughout the war, hundreds of Israeli intelligence officers spread across several military bases scrambled to find and strike new targets, relying on an automated surveillance system that enabled them to work exponentially quicker. In earlier wars in Gaza, officers had typically worked their way through a “target bank” — a database of hundreds of militants and locations that already had been methodically researched and vetted. In this war, the air force raced through much of the list within days, 11 officers and officials said, putting intelligence officers under intense pressure to find new targets. Many were encouraged to propose a certain number of targets each day, according to five officers. Several elite intelligence units, officials said, were given more time to find small numbers of high-value targets, like senior Hamas political leaders and top military commanders. Other units focused on rocket launch sites and ammunition stores. One unit looked specifically for civilians who provided financial services to militant groups.   The remains of a vehicle in Rafah, southern Gaza, in January.Credit ...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images But most intelligence units, particularly those in infantry divisions preparing to invade Gaza, were given very little time to build a much longer list of targets, officials said. That mainly involved trying to locate tens of thousands of low-ranking militants. Israel has long maintained databases, one of which was code-named “Lavender,” that list phone numbers and home addresses of suspected militants, according to 16 soldiers and officials. Israel also controls Gaza’s telecom networks, allowing it to tap and track Palestinian phones. By listening to calls made by phones associated with the militants, intelligence officers tried to work out where they were, officials said. But the databases sometimes included outdated data, according to six officers, increasing the likelihood that officers would misidentify a civilian as a combatant. There were also too many calls for the officers to manually track. To speed up the process, officers used artificial intelligence. In recent years, the Israeli military had developed computing systems, one of which was known as “The Gospel,” that could automatically cross-reference information from several different sources, including phone conversations, satellite imagery and mobile phone signals.   Israel controls Gaza’s telecoms networks, allowing it to tap and track Palestinian phones.Credit ...Mahmud Hams/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images In the chaotic opening weeks of the war, different intelligence units harnessed these automated computing systems in varied ways to triangulate data and locate militants. One common method involved automatically cross-referencing the location of a phone with its owner’s home address. When a phone appeared to be in roughly the same place as an address linked to its owner, the system flagged and recorded the owner’s phone calls. Arabic-speaking soldiers then listened to these calls to determine whether a wanted militant had been found. Some units used speech-to-text software to translate the conversations automatically. The military said officers always verified the information provided by the automated systems and it denied that artificial intelligence was ever more than the starting point of a human-led verification process. But the amount of verification varied from unit to unit, according to at least eight officers. Some officers said they would only confirm someone as a militant if they overheard the person speaking about their involvement in Hamas’s military wing. In other units, three officers said, an individual was considered a confirmed militant if he was simply listed in Lavender. Details of that process were  previously reported  by +972, an Israeli-Palestinian news website; the Israeli military has  denied  that was military policy and said that any analyst who relied solely on Lavender would have been overruled by superiors. Once officers were satisfied that they had confirmed a legal target, they would begin planning an attack, such as a missile strike if the target seemed to be staying the night at home, the soldiers said.   The first step was to gauge the civilian risk.   Removing a body out of the rubble of a house in Khan Younis in December 2023.Credit ...Yousef Masoud for The New York Times In the most rigorous version of that assessment, officers sometimes hacked a target’s phone handset to listen to the conversations taking place nearby, in order to build a better picture of whom he was with, according to three officers familiar with the process. In some cases, the hacking allowed officers to pinpoint the target’s location as well as which way he was facing, how many floors he had climbed and how many steps he had recently taken. As an additional precaution, officers sometimes attempted to trace the phones of the buildings’ other known prewar residents — a laborious process that could take more than an hour. But the military was pursuing so many targets that officers often lacked the time or resources for such sophisticated surveillance, particularly when tracking low-ranking militants early in the war, according to seven officials and soldiers. Officers could still intercept calls and determine a phone’s rough location by checking which cellphone towers received its signals. That information was less precise — and it was more difficult to ascertain who was nearby. Overlooked Civilians In the absence of more accurate data, Israeli intelligence officers routinely used a simplistic model to estimate the number of civilians who might be killed in an airstrike, according to 17 soldiers and officials. The military divided Gaza into 620 sectors, most the size of a few city blocks, and  estimated  the number of working phones in each using the signals received by cellphone towers. After comparing phone and Wi-Fi usage with prewar levels, the military then estimated the proportion of residents who remained in each sector. To gauge the number of civilians inside a particular building, officers typically assumed that the building’s prewar residents had fled at the same rate as the surrounding neighborhood.   Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been injured since the war began, according to Gazan health officials.Credit ...Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times   Even at its best, the model provided information that might be out of date by the time of an airstrike. The volume of attacks meant that there was often an hours long gap between the assessment of civilian risk and the actual strike on the target, according to eight officers. When the air force tried to kill a money changer connected to Islamic Jihad in mid-November 2023, for example, seven hours had passed since intelligence officers last checked where he was and who he was with, according to an official familiar with the attack. The strike killed two women — but the target survived because he was no longer there, according to the official and a second person familiar with the incident. The model also suffered from fundamental flaws. It relied, for example, on people having enough electricity to power their phones — and a working phone network. But power and network  outages  in Gaza often made that impossible. The location of handsets also cannot be determined with complete accuracy based on phone signals; phones that seem to be in one neighborhood may be in an adjacent one. And the model also ignored how, during times of war, people often cluster together in large groups, three officers said. Starting in November, senior officers in the American Joint Special Operations Command repeatedly raised concerns about the model’s accuracy with their Israeli counterparts, warning that it was leading to catastrophically imprecise assessments, according to the two senior U.S. military officials familiar with the conversations. Some within the Israeli military also sounded the alarm. Throughout November and December, Israeli Air Force analysts urged colleagues to use more extensive drone surveillance to check for the presence of civilians, according to internal military assessments. Little to no action was taken, at least for several weeks, according to those assessments. The air force was supposed to recheck estimates of civilian presence but did not always do so. Even when conducting after-action reviews, the military rarely tried to count how many civilians had been killed, making it almost impossible for officers to assess the model’s accuracy, according to 11 officers involved in target selection. The Israeli military’s statement to The Times did not address questions about the model, but it said that in general the military’s methods “adhere to the rules of law, whether it be the choice of munitions or the use of digital technologies to support this effort.” Israel’s strike on a residential street on the edge of Gaza City on Nov. 16, 2023, exemplified how inaccurate the model could be. The military told The Times in a statement that it was trying to destroy one of the many tunnels used by Hamas’s military wing. In the process, it hit a large house. Before the war, 16 members of the extended Malaka family lived in the three-story building, according to two surviving brothers, Hazem and Nidal Malaka. After the war began, dozens of other relatives moved in, they said.   Nidal Malaka, left, and his brother Hazem.Credit ...Bilal Shbair for The New York Times At the moment of the strike, 52 people — including Hazem and Nidal Malaka — were crammed into the bottom two floors. The brothers drew a family tree for The Times that detailed their names and backgrounds, and provided photographs of many of them. The oldest was the 64-year-old family patriarch, Jamal, and the youngest was his 2-year-old granddaughter, Sham. By this point in the war, the surrounding neighborhood, Zeitoun, was largely depopulated. Israel’s formula for assessing the building’s occupancy, based on phone usage in the wider neighborhood, would have suggested there was only a handful of civilians left. And several hours before the strike, phone reception was lost across Gaza, service providers  announced  at the time. That meant that a manual attempt to track the handsets of the building’s prewar residents may have suggested there was no one there at all. The first reports of the strike emerged only after the network outage ended, three days later on Nov. 19.   The remains of the Malaka home in Gaza City.Credit ...via Malaka family By the brothers’ count, at least 42 people were killed and just 10 survived. Hazem Malaka said that most of them were not officially recorded as dead because the victims’ bodies were left trapped in the rubble instead of being taken to the nearest hospital where deaths are registered. Hazem Malaka, 40, lost his pregnant wife, son and daughter. To the best of his knowledge, he said, their bodies still lie crushed “under three floors of concrete.” Tightening the Reins About two months ago, Israel struck a hospital compound in central Gaza where thousands of displaced Palestinians were sheltering. Several  burned to death , including Shaaban al-Dalou, a 19-year-old university student, who was filmed flailing helplessly in his tent as the flames engulfed him.   Shaaban al-Dalou, 19, burned to death after Israel struck a hospital compound.Credit ...Al-Dalou family, via Associated Press   Israeli officials blamed Hamas for the blaze, saying it likely occurred after an Israeli missile, targeting a Hamas command center, hit munitions that the group had stored in the hospital compound. “All I wanted was for him to look at me one last time,” said Mr. al-Dalou’s father, Ahmed, as he recalled watching his son burn to death. The attack occurred about 500 yards south of where the militant commander Shaldan al-Najjar was killed a year and four days earlier. Still, the military has steadily used fewer munitions over the past 12 months, according to officers and records reviewed by The Times. The average number of munitions used by Israel each month in Gaza fell from a high of nearly 15,000 in October and November 2023 to less than 2,500 from February through May. (The Times was unable to verify the number of munitions fired since June.) In relative terms, Israel has also tightened its rules of engagement. On Nov. 5, 2023, the military leadership decreed that officers needed special permission to endanger more than 10 civilians in strikes on low-ranking militants who posed no imminent threat to Israeli infantry. By late January, officers needed special permission for nearly all such deadly strikes, except for those targeting the most senior Hamas commanders. But the rules were still far looser than they were before Oct. 7. Mid-ranking officers could still sign off on most strikes that endangered 10 civilians or less — a threshold far higher than the prewar norm.   The hospital complex where Mr. al-Dalou was killed. Israel said it had targeted a Hamas command center.Credit ...Ramadan Abed/Reuters And many strikes proved far deadlier. In July, Israel  fired several missiles at Hamas militants , including a top commander, Muhammad Deif, killing at least 57 people, according to Airwars. Israeli officers have also acted with near impunity. Only two officers are known to have been fired for their role in the air campaign, after they oversaw a drone strike that  killed  several foreign aid workers whom the officers had confused for militants. The military said that a panel appointed by the military chief of staff was investigating the circumstances of hundreds of strikes. No one has been charged.   Abu Bakr Bashir, Johnatan Reiss and Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting. Patrick Kingsley  is The Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief, leading coverage of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.  More about Patrick Kingsley Ronen Bergman  is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, based in Tel Aviv.  More about Ronen Bergman John Ismay  is a reporter covering the Pentagon for The Times. He served as an explosive ordnance disposal officer in the U.S. Navy.  More about John Ismay Sheera Frenkel  is a reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area, covering the ways technology impacts everyday lives with a focus on social media companies, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Telegram and WhatsApp.  More about Sheera Frenkel A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 27, 2024, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Israel Loosened Limits On Strikes, Multiplying Risks to Gaza Civilians https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-gaza-bombing.html?searchResultPosition=1   Copyright 2024 The New York Times Company

Ten former Bosnian Army officers and soldiers have been charged with committing crimes against Serb civilians and prisoners of war who were held in camps and detention facilities in the Hrasnica area. Selma Melez, January 3, 2025 Hrasnica. Photo: BIRN. The Bosnian state prosecution said on Friday that it has charged ten former officers and soldiers of the Bosnian Army with committing a series of war crimes against Serb detainees in Hrasnica in the Ilidza municipality, on the outskirts of the capital Sarajevo, during the 1992-95 war. “They are accused of crimes against approximately 100 Serb civilians, including women, elderly people and minors, who were unlawfully detained in camps and detention facilities in the Hrasnica area, as well as crimes against Serbian prisoners who were taken to perform forced labour in war zones, where they were subjected to injuries and wounds with fatal consequences or were killed by guards,”  the prosecution said in a press release. The indictees are Enes Zukanovic, Fikret Prevljak, Emir Redzovic, Vahid Aladjuz, Rasim Okeric, Mustafa Gegaj, Mujo Vatres, Vahid Muharemovic, Mirsad Tuzlak and Senahid Godinjak. The victims came from the settlements of Hrasnica, Butmir and Sokolovic-Kolonija, the prosecution said. In a separate development on Friday, the prosecution said it has filed an indictment charging Dragoljub Gligic, who is known as Gliga, with committing crimes against humanity in the Prijedor area in 1992. The prosecution said that Gligic is being charged with committing the crimes in his capacity as a police squad commander at the Public Security Station in Prijedor. “Together with other members of the army, police and the Ljubija Crisis Staff, he participated in the unlawful capture, torture and murder of around 120 male Bosniak civilians in the ​​Miska Glava and Ljubija areas,” the prosecution said. It also said that Gligic is charged with using torture and committing murders in the village of Brda and the city of Prijedor. NOTE: This article was updated on January 3, 2025 to add the indictment of Dragoljub Gligic. Copyright BIRN 2015

"There is nothing left." Middle East Eye, credit AFP Genocide Emergency: Gaza and the West Bank December 30, 2024 By the Gaza Team: Grace Condon, Frankie Condon, Grace Harris, and Gregory Stanton   A genocide of the Palestinian people by Israel is underway in Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister General Yoav Gallant have demonstrated their intent to destroy a substantial portion of the civilian population of Gaza. Israel is committing war crimes , crimes against humanity , and genocide in Gaza. It is also committing crimes against humanity against Palestinians in the West Bank.   On  October 7, 2023,  Hamas massacred over 1200 civilians in Israel and kidnapped over 250 hostages. The hostages have been tortured, beaten, or murdered.  62  remain hostage in Gaza.  117 hostages  have been rescued or released, and 72 died or were murdered by Hamas.   Hamas openly declares its  intent to destroy the nation of Israel and the Jewish people. Hamas is a genocidal terrorist organization that must be defeated. Israel’s response to the Hamas assault on its citizens is a military response to what Israelis see as an existential threat reminiscent of the Holocaust.   Defeating genocidal terrorists does not justify  committing genocide against Palestinian civilians.   Israeli leaders have led a  dehumanizing  campaign of anti-Palestinian propaganda that denies any distinction between Hamas combatants and Palestinian civilians. Netanyahu and Gallant claim that Hamas hides under hospitals and among Palestinian civilians, using them as human shields . It is an attempt to justify the bombing and starvation of Palestinian civilians. It is an excuse for war crimes.   Israel’s rules of engagement permit killing twenty civilians for each Hamas fighter killed, the highest “collateral damage” percentage in any modern war. These rules of engagement give Israeli Air Force and IDF troops a license to commit war crimes on the pretext of defeating Hamas.   Ignoring demands of Israelis to prioritize freeing Israeli hostages , Netanyahu portrays opposition to Israeli bombing in Gaza as a pro-Hamas campaign to destroy Israel itself. Netanyahu’s claims that the UN, ICC, and protests against Israel’s war crimes are “antisemitic,”  conflate opposition to Israel with antisemitism.   Genocide   The UN estimates that 45,000 Palestinians and 1500  Israelis have died since October 7, 2024. Over 14,500 of the dead were children. To deny these statistics, Israel uses two classic tactics of denial : attack the truth tellers and minimize the statistics. Israel claims Hamas and UN figures are unreliable exaggerations.   Israeli bombs intentionally target schools ,  homes ,  hospitals , and designated  humanitarian zones . Israel uses   2000-pound bombs  that level entire apartment buildings and throw shrapnel that  kills and maims people 360 meters away. Of 163,778 buildings in Gaza, 52,564 have been destroyed and 18,913 severely damaged.   Two-thirds of the dwellings in Gaza are uninhabitable.   2 million Palestinians in Gaza are on the brink of starvation . Israel has blocked over   eighty percent of food aid from entering Gaza since the start of the war. Israel claims it has permitted enough food aid, but it is stolen by Hamas. This LIE is propaganda to convince Israelis that Israel is obeying the laws of war. It is not. The truth is that Israel has allowed under twenty percent  of necessary food to be delivered to Gaza.   Starvation and killing members of an ethnic or national group violate Genocide Convention Article 2(a) and  Article 2(c) “Killing members of the group” and “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”     War crimes   All hospitals in Gaza have been bombed by Israel on the pretext that Hamas uses them as bases. Northern Gaza  has collapsed, with food aid  blocked  and thousands of residents facing famine. The UN reports that hospitals lack water, fuel, staff, and medical supplies.   Directing attacks against hospitals is a war crime that violates  ICC statute Article 8(2)(b)(ix).   The Israeli Defense Forces may be intentionally targeting  media  and  aid groups . Since 2023,  at least 341  aid workers have been killed by Israeli bombing or shelling. Israel has  refused  to lift restrictions on desperately needed goods and services entering Gaza and has failed to provide more aid crossings. Access by aid workers is  increasingly difficult . Israel only allows Palestinian journalists to report from Gaza. No foreign journalists have access except on IDF escorted tours. 55 prominent journalists have protested this ban. This policy allows Israel to claim that reports of its war crimes and crimes against humanity come from biased sources, a tactic of denial.   “Intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units, or vehicles involved in a humanitarian or peacekeeping mission” is a war crime under ICC statute Article 8(2)(b)(iii) .   Crimes against humanity   1.9 million Palestinians , most of the population of Gaza, have been forcibly displaced. Palestinians are ordered to evacuate from one “safe area” to another, then ordered to move again. Many were ordered to move south to escape bombing in the north. After the Israeli invasion of  Rafah , where many internally-displaced people took refuge, access to humanitarian aid was cut off, and the displaced fled north again.   The recent looting of 100 food trucks by Palestinian gangs, which Israeli propaganda highlights, is the exception, not the rule. In one incident, now known as the  “flour massacre,”  118 people were killed and over 700 were wounded when IDF soldiers shot at a crowd of people waiting to receive food aid in Gaza City.   Under international law, as an occupying power, Israel has a legal  obligation  to provide basic needs to Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. Not only has Israel failed to provide for basic needs, but Israel actively blocks aid into Gaza.   Starvation is the crime against humanity of Extermination under Article 7 (1)(b) of the ICC statute : “the intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population.”   Israeli Settlements in the West Bank   According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, 700,000 Israeli settlers currently live in settlements in the West Bank. Israel subsidizes  expansion of these settlements.   Violent conflicts between Israeli settlers and Palestinians are common. From October 2023 to August 2024,  660 Palestinians  were killed in the West Bank. Most settlers identify with Israeli political parties that support Netanyahu. Attacks by settlers against Palestinians reached a  high in 2022 . They were  extensively documented . Under one percent these attacks since 2017 have been prosecuted by Israeli authorities .   In August 2024, The IDF conducted a major operation   to target “terrorist infrastructure” in the West Bank. It included invasions of three Palestinian refugee camps. It resulted in the deaths of 16 Palestinians, and substantial damage to Palestinian homes, farms, and public services.   Palestinian civil rights have been nullified in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Israel has  rounded up and imprisoned  Palestinian boys and men without any charges  or access to legal aid.   Israeli settlements in the West Bank are war crimes under Article 8 (2)(b)(viii) of the ICC Statute,  which prohibits: “the transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”   The UN, the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court   The UN Security Council by a vote of 14 – 0 (Russia abstaining) adopted Resolution 2735 on June 10, 2024 calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of all hostages. A UNSC resolution in December 2024 was vetoed by the US because it failed to demand that Hamas release all hostages. A UN General Assembly resolution passed December 11, 2024 by 158 to 9 called for a ceasefire and release of all hostages.   On 29 December 2023 South Africa brought a case for violation of the Genocide Convention against Israel in the International Court of Justice . On 26 January 2024, the ICJ issued provisional measures  calling on Israel to prevent acts of genocide against Palestinians and do more to help civilians, but it did not order a ceasefire as requested by South Africa.   Netanyahu and Gallant are now charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court , along with Hamas’s Mohammed Deif, and the deceased Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh.   Hamas has demanded  total withdrawal  of Israeli forces as a condition for any hostage release. But on 12 December 2024 Hamas agreed to a temporary IDF presence  in Gaza. Hamas admits that 33 hostages have been killed, and others have “gone missing.”   Prime Minister Netanyahu states that there will be no end to the war until Hamas is totally destroyed . Such demands for total surrender make ending wars impossible without a total victory by one side.   This stalemate can be broken only when Hamas releases all hostages and Israel withdraws from Gaza. Meanwhile scores of Palestinian civilians are being killed daily by constant bombing while thousands are dying of starvation. Any hope for peace between Israel and Palestinians depends on ending this war.   Genocide Watch recommends: an immediate, permanent ceasefire with cessation of all bombing, missile attacks and shelling; release of all hostages held by Hamas, with surrender and disarmament of all Hamas fighters; lifting of the Israeli blockade of Gaza with free flow of food, medicine, water, and electricity to Gaza; deployment of thousands of United Nations peacekeeping troops in Gaza; Arab and Palestinian recognition of the legitimacy of the State of Israel; Israeli, Palestinian, Arab, UN, US, EU, and NATO support for a diplomatic resolution of the conflict.   We add the following recommendations:   To be paid for by Israel, Egypt, US, EU, UN, NATO, the World Bank, Arab League, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, neighboring Arab states, and international businesses: Massive resupply of food and medicine, hospitals, schools, water, and electricity in Gaza; Massive financing to rebuild Gaza so its residents can return to their homes and businesses; Elections for a democratic government in Gaza -- excluding Hamas -- supervised by the UN.     THE ONLY WAY TO STOP WAR CRIMES IS TO STOP WAR